ing a vagabond, but in using his powers to further his own happiness, not that of others.
Shall we infer, then, that liberty—meaning by liberty still unrestrainedness of action—is only possible for the civilized people, who can and do make intelligent choices, at least, between different aims and different codes of conduct?
The civilized man has won immense control over nature in certain senses and in certain ways; what to the savage man was a terror is to him a slave. All this has become commonplace; but what is vastly more important, but not so generally understood, is that we have won a diversity in our ways of meeting nature. If she threatens us or harms us in one way, we can avoid that way and meet her in another, where she serves our purpose. It is this above all which marks the position of the civilized man, as compared with the savage man, in dealing with nature. The latter stood face to face with nature on few and direct lines; he had little or no variety in his mode of life, little diversity in his lines of activity. Hence, if he was blocked on those to which he was accustomed, he suffered direct defeat. Furthermore, all were defeated at the same time, so that the society suffered a general disaster. In a highly organized society, with well-developed arts and sciences, such cannot be the case. On the contrary, what harms one exercise of human energy benefits another; what hurts one group in the society is an advantage to another; what proves a disaster to one region is a blessing to another. Calamities are common enough, but their scope is limited; they are offset by other things; their effect is alleviated by help from the uninjured parts of the society; it is localized and restricted, so that recovery is, for the society as a whole, quick and easy.
