This is the doctrine of those who regard the refinement and elevation of the human person as the supreme objective.

It is a moral philosophy, independent of the contingencies of time and place.

The truly free individual is one who, rather than renounce his convictions before a tyrant, accepts imprisonment, and who, rather than entreat the tyrant for release, remains steadfast in his confinement.

A free man is exemplified by Spinoza, who declined the chair at Heidelberg [sic] offered by Charles Louis—despite the prince’s assurance of philosophandi libertatem amplissimam—because it was accompanied by the request to treat the established religion with deference. Instead, Spinoza chose to preserve his intellectual independence, earning his livelihood by polishing diamonds.

Politically, liberalism upholds the principle that the minority must respect the will of the majority, on the basis that all human beings possess equal dignity.

It would not object to preferring the melior pars over the major pars if the better part could be reliably identified.

However, in order to determine superior quality in individuals, it would require splitting heads, liberalism instead prefers counting heads.

Yet it urges the majority to refrain from actions that gravely affront the minority, for political life cannot flourish unless the laws enacted by the majority secure the active assent of the minority.

When, after open debate in which all have been permitted to challenge one another’s reasoning, the major pars succeeds in securing the consent of the minority, it demonstrates by that very fact that it is also the melior pars—for it has resisted the temptation to wield tyranny, which is at its most pernicious when exercised by a majority against their equals.

Liberalism is, therefore, a doctrine of restraint; and democracy attains a liberal character only when the majority voluntarily abstains from coercing individuals in spheres that the moral order dictates as inviolable—the sacred domain of personal autonomy.

A democracy is liberal when, despite possessing the power to do otherwise, it respects certain inviolable principles—freedom of religion, conscience, speech, the press, and assembly—imposing upon these freedoms only those external and formal limitations necessitated by peaceful coexistence.

A political society is liberal when every individual can assert: "My home is my castle, and none may remove me from it save by the order of a magistrate, who is, in turn, bound to release me should the public prosecutor fail, within a prescribed time, to establish my guilt.""

A political society is liberal when no person may be deprived of his property except through a lawful process conducted under an established legal framework.

Yet these and other fundamental principles—without which a truly liberal society cannot exist—are not universally upheld across all forms of social organisation.

There is, indeed, no necessary connection between liberalism and economic structure; for the morally free individual defies the tyrant from the depths of the galley or strides resolutely towards the stake where he shall be burned alive for refusing to renounce his convictions.

However, because men exist in society, it must be acknowledged that those principles sacrosanct to the free man are in grave, and indeed certain, peril in any system where: – All individuals are wholly dependent upon a central authority—be it a single ruler, an emperor, a duke, a council of the elect, or a self-appointed body—for sustenance, career, advancement, and recognition. – No one possesses an income independent of that dispensed by, or derived from, the centre—not even the modest earnings from polishing diamonds, which afforded Spinoza the absolute freedom of thought he so ardently cherished. – No individual can establish, or even deceive himself into believing he can establish, a family, an institution, or a moral entity with perpetual life, independent from the centre. – No independent moral entities, municipalities, neighbourhoods, regions, churches, or associations exist to cultivate a life of their own, free from the dominance of the centre. – The centre presumes to wield absolute authority, unaccountable not only to the individuals, institutions, municipalities, churches, and associations within its dominion but also to other external centres or states.

Such a society is not liberal but conformist.

The “ami des hommes”, the father of the great Mirabeau, foretold as early as 1750 that a society in which life, advancement, career, honour and recognition are all contingent upon a central authority would crumble at the first blow, whether from within or without.

History has borne out this prophecy: monarchical France collapsed, having centralised all power in Versailles, just as the Roman Empire had fallen before it, its fate sealed by its absolute reliance on Caesar. Likewise, all societies that surrender themselves entirely to a single ruler or a singular idol will, in time, inevitably succumb.