If it is allowable to conceive of human reason, in its origin, as
a lucid and reflecting atom, capable of some day representing the
universe, but at first giving no image at all, we may likewise
consider liberty, at the birth of conscience, as a living point,
punctum saliens, a vague, blind, or, rather, indifferent
spontaneity, capable of receiving all possible impressions,
dispositions, and inclinations. Liberty is the faculty of acting
and of not acting, which, through any choice or determination
whatever (I use the word determination here both passively and
actively), abandons its indifference and becomes WILL.
I say, then, that liberty, like intelligence, is naturally an
undetermined, unformed faculty, which gets its value and
character later from external impressions,--a faculty, therefore,
which is negative at the beginning, but which gradually defines
and outlines itself by exercise,--I mean, by education.
The etymology of the word liberty, at least as I understand it,
will serve still better to explain my thought.
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