ANYTHING FOR A QUIET LIFE
Another doubt: would a Committee of the Privy Council really face
the risks that must be taken by all communities as the price of
our freedom to evolve? Would it not rather take the popular
English view that freedom and virtue generally are sweet and
desirable only when they cost nothing? Nothing worth having is to
be had without risk. A mother risks her child's life every time
she lets it ramble through the countryside, or cross the street,
or clamber over the rocks on the shore by itself. A father risks
his son's morals when he gives him a latchkey. The members of the
Joint Select Committee risked my producing a revolver and
shooting them when they admitted me to the room without having me
handcuffed. And these risks are no unreal ones. Every day some
child is maimed or drowned and some young man infected with
disease; and political assassinations have been appallingly
frequent of late years. Railway travelling has its risks;
motoring has its risks; aeroplaning has its risks; every advance
we make costs us a risk of some sort. And though these are only
risks to the individual, to the community they are certainties.
It is not certain that I will be killed this year in a railway
accident; but it is certain that somebody will. The invention
of printing and the freedom of the press have brought upon us,
not merely risks of their abuse, but the establishment as part of
our social routine of some of the worst evils a community can
suffer from.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98