accorded to its members."[6]

That sounds very simple. We should all like to agree with it. But under
that apparently innocent sentence one of the most perplexing of human
problems lies hidden: what are the rights of liberty, what are the
limits of revolt? Only in a State of ideal anarchy can liberty be
complete and revolt universal, because there would be nothing to revolt
against. And anarchy, though it is the goal of every man's desire, seems
still far away, being, indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven, which that God
rules whose service is perfect freedom and which only angels are
qualified to inhabit. For though the law of the indwelling spirit is the
only law that ought to count, not many of us are so little lower than
the angels as to be a law unto ourselves.

In a really democratic State, where the whole people had equal voices
in the government and all could exercise free power of persuasion,
active rebellion, I think, would be very rare and seldom justified. But
there are, I believe, only four democratic States in the world. All four
are small, and of these Finland is overshadowed by despotism, and
Australia and New Zealand have their foreign relations controlled and
protected by the mother country. Hitherto the experiment of a really
democratic government has never been tried on this planet, except since
1909 in Norway, and even there with some limitations; and though
democracy might possibly avert the necessity of rebellion, I rather
doubt whether it can be called advantageous to any State to accord to
its members the right of revolt. The State that allows revolt--that
takes no notice of it--has abdicated; it has ceased to exist. But
whether advantageous or not, no State has ever accorded that right in
matters of government; nor does mankind accord it, without a prolonged
struggle, even in religious doctrine and ordinary life. Every revolt is