And as near as it may be formulated, when reduced to the irreducible minimum of concrete proviso, this is the final substance of things which neither shame nor honour will permit the modern civilised man to yield.

To no arrangement for the abrogation of this minimum of free initiative and self-direction will he consent to be a party, whether it touches the conditions of life for his own people who are to come after, or as touches the fortunes of such aliens as are of a like mind on this head and are unable to make head against invasion of these human rights from outside.
As has just been remarked, the negative form so often taken by these demands is something of an historical accident, due to the fact that these modern peoples came into their highly esteemed system of Natural Liberty out of an earlier system of positive checks on self-direction and initiative; a system, in effect, very much after the fashion of that Imperial jurisdiction that still prevails in the dynastic States--as, e.g., Germany or Japan--whose projected dominion is now the immediate object of apprehension and repugnance.

How naively the negative formulation gained acceptance, and at the same time how intrinsic to the new dispensation was the aspiration for free initiative, appears in the confident assertion of its most genial spokesman, that when these positive checks are taken away, "The simple and obvious system of Natural Liberty establishes itself of its own accord." The common man, in these modern communities, shows a brittle temper when any overt move is made against this heritage of civil liberty.

He may not be altogether well advised in respect of what liberties he will defend and what he will submit to; but the fact is to be counted with in any projected peace, that there is always this refractory residue of terms not open to negotiation or compromise.

Now it also happens, also by historical accident, that these residual principles of civil liberty have come to blend and coalesce with a stubborn preconception of national integrity and national prestige.