Page:The Hero in History.djvu/180

180 that trade unions, co-operatives, courts. Press, Churches, and certain institutions of higher education be organized in permanent independence of the State. But whether what is written into a constitution will be enforced in fact again depends upon us. No safeguard can be automatic. That is why freedom is never safe, and intelligence should never slumber.

The illustrations considered indicate how we regard the interplay of law and human freedom in social and historical affairs. At any period there are no realistic alternatives to certain paths of development because of the number and cumulative weight of “the laws” that stand in the way of our striking out in a new direction. We may explore theoretically the ideal alternatives to this path and lament that we cannot follow them without risking destruction. But in a world where we choose to continue to live, it Is wiser to explore the alternatives on this path, since it is before these alternatives that we have not only the power to wish but the power to act. No matter what alternative we take, in time we will come to other alternatives, perhaps, less ambitious in scope than those we left behind but not necessarily less poignant or meaningful. History and politics, not to speak of personal life, confront us daily with alternatives, in which we forge part of our own destiny and for which we therefore assume some responsibility. Every man knows he will die: yet in how many different ways can a man live!

There is no complete catalogue of the mistakes men commit when they make history. But in the light of the past we can list the most common among them. They are the failure to see alternatives when they are present; the limitation of alternatives to an oversimplified either-or where more than two are present; false estimates of their relative likelihoods; and, as a special case of this last, a disregard of the effects of our own activity in striving for one rather than another. What these mistakes amount to is a systematic underestimation of man’s power to control his future.

The development of societies as well as of individuals along certain lines is sometimes the result of cosmic or earthly accidents. A drought or a tidal wave may undo the planned labour of generations; madness may cloud over the well-cultivated