LIBERTY
Either I am very much mistaken, or Locke the definer has very well defined liberty as "power." I am mistaken again, or Collins, celebrated London magistrate, is the only philosopher who has really sifted this idea, and Clark's answer to him was merely that of a theologian. But of all that has been written in France on liberty, the following little dialogue seems to me the most clear.
A: There is a battery of guns firing in your ears, have you the liberty to hear them or not to hear them?
B: Without doubt, I cannot stop myself hearing them.
A: Do you want this gun to carry off your head and the heads of your wife and daughter, who are walking with you?
B: What are you talking about? as long as I am of sound mind, I cannot want such a thing; it is impossible.
A: Good; you hear this gun necessarily, and you wish necessarily that neither you nor your family shall die from a cannon shot while you are out for a walk; you have not the power either of not hearing or of wishing to remain here?
B: Clearly.
A: You have consequently taken some thirty steps in order to be sheltered from the gun, you have had the power to walk these few steps with me?
B: Again very clearly.