Love of Freedom

The fourth pre-condition is a desire for individuality—a love of freedom that is born of reason. Variety is an essential fact of nature. Each individual has a vested interest in this variation—in people being different. If every person were cast in the image of any one person, mankind would perish just as certainly as though all the elements were to take on the properties of chlorine. It is error to want all others to be like one’s self. Desire only that others leave one free to be one’s self, and wish them free to be themselves so that all may voluntarily join their differing aptitudes and abilities into that harmony which makes for progress. Such a desire is consistent with the interest—indeed, with the preservation—of all.