others; and so energising can ever increase. But all this presupposes the active existence of a more or less developed Personality, and of those qualities and abilities essential to it. For a Personality which was a mere potentiality, undeveloped and unrealised at all, would have no use for Freedom, and indeed would probably be better without it.

It is only when the individual begins to realise the transcendental element in his own being, and a similar element in the being of others, that some beginnings of personal Liberty become a necessity.

It will be observed that we do not here inquire as to what is the actual cause of Personality itself, but as to what are the active causes of its realisation and development.

That the Family on the one hand, and the Political Nation on the other, are the two causes in question, that these constitute the active environment of character, and spiritual life, has been consciously and unconsciously accepted by mankind at large since the dawn of history. Among the great majority of the learned also, as, e.g., among historians, sociologists, and ecclesiastics of all religions, the Family and the Political Nation are regarded as the twin pillars supporting human Society;-that conscious, deliberate social life unknown to animals, peculiar to Man.

First, then, let us consider the relation of the Family to the Person and so to Society.

THE RELATION OF THE FAMILY TO
PERSONALITY

It will not be necessary to speak at length of the Family in this connection, seeing that it is in theory at any rate almost universally recognised, both by the various schools of thought commonly known as Individualistic, and also on the other hand, by the more advanced and consistent Socialists, that the family is one of the most important of the forces making for Individualism, meaning by Individualism all that is not Socialism. This aspect of the case has already been dealt with when we were considering the ethic of the inheritance of wealth.

It is surely impossible that any person who is disinterested and unprejudiced could seriously believe that the right way to promote social views of life, is to commence by destroying what are obviously and unquestionably social institutions. That the institutions of the Family and the Nation are natural and spontaneous does not detract from, but obviously adds to, their power as social forces; for independent of forms of Government, political parties, forms of religion and academic reasoning, these spring living from the great human heart.

The Family, and that which is descended from it, and is equally necessary to the existence of a State and a Government, viz., the Nation, are the foundations upon which the State rests. They are in a sense anterior to the State and to Law; so that if we would have Law, we must see that the foundations thereof are secure. For though the Law had ceased to regard the Family

as the unit, it still finds and must for ever find, its ultimate human foundation in that primal human relation.

What is the statement of the Personalist that the prime function of the State is to protect man from man, to protect Personality in general in so far as this is invaded by others, but an assertion of the truth that we are morally bound to esteem others as we esteem ourselves. As we have seen, if we have a low ideal of our own personality we shall have a yet lower conception of the personality of others. Again, since it is not only true that we judge, or rather estimate, others by ourselves, but that we also estimate ourselves by others, we shall discover that if we have a low conception of the personality of others, the sense of our own personality will be impaired. Society, State, Law, are based upon our willing recognition of the equal personality of others, and without this recognition, this altruism, if we would so call it, Society must inevitably crumble into ruins. But whence are we to obtain a lofty conception of personality which shall be lasting and indelible? We would reply that the Family is the first element in the creation and developing of this conception. At that period of life when alone impressions can be made which shall be vivid and effective, at once sober, strong, living and enduring, the person finds himself embosomed in a family. Willing sacrifices in his behalf, prompted in the first instance by nature herself, give him a sense of his value, his value as a man. The response on his part, which nature also prompts, gives him his first insight into the value and import of the personality of others; and these two feelings will react upon each other to their mutual strengthening. It is in the Family, in this all

important atmosphere of affection, permanence and continuity, that a man is first enabled to learn something of the meaning of the "solidarity" of the human race. This is his first natural lesson in brotherhood and fellowship, and that strenuous reaching out to others which will one day ripen and expand into patriotism. Men are finite, and it is not possible for them to have an affection for their fellow-men at large, which shall be at once strong and real and yet equally distributed. The Infinite Being can undoubtedly entertain an equal affection for an indefinite number of beings, but not so Man. As it is with rings on a pond, when a stone falls into its midst, so is it with Man's affection. It advances from a centre in waves, which lessen in intensity as they increase in radius, while both the intensity and the radius of all the waves depend upon the force of that nearest the centre. This wave must be stirred by the kindly forceful hand of Nature, or it will in all likelihood be never stirred at all. No artificial conditions can ever produce the same results as Nature. The State or Municipal Body cannot take the place of the home. The inevitably rigid and uniform regulations of the State; officials (more or less in the nature of female policemen) to take the place of mothers; and "comrades" to take the place of brothers and sisters; the inevitable defined curriculum of education and amusement; religious teaching (if it could exist at all) given with no 'atmosphere," with no parental love, anxiety, sacrifice and example, but administered as a series of facts and propositions; the total absence of natural, unconscious and spontaneous affection, and the general hopeless externalism and impersonalism of civic methods;

such conditions cannot call forth the individuality of a young child; they might in some measure suffice for an older child, whose character was already more or less developed; but being the exact antithesis of the home they could not otherwise succeed. In the Family each child is as if there were no other; that is to say "individual distinctness" cannot be carried further than it is in the Family. But the civic method is the exact opposite of this, and tends to the complete mergence of the individual child in a homogeneous herd of others.

The Family then evokes Personality, Individuality, Character. The Individual here learns his value and the value of others. He learns that he is a Person, and that all others are Persons and so ends in themselves. The transcendental origin of Personality makes him responsible not for his own alone, but for personality in general, that of all men, especially of his fellow citizens. In brief, it is in the Family that the Individual learns citizenship—not that of the unconscious, slavish kind, known to the ant or the bee, but the deliberate citizenship characteristic of developed Persons, proper to free Men.

This being so, the State is justified in making laws for the protection of the Family. These laws undoubtedly limit the freedom of the individual, but they tend by preserving the Family to preserve also Personality and the Personal view of the individual, and so to secure the foundations of Liberty.

But while the Laws regulating the Family do prima facie limit the freedom of the Person, they do but constitute a limitation which must in any case exist in one manner or another under any conceivable system of Government. It is the duty of the State, acting