The European background of American freedom.

To reach the real sources of the American concept of freedom it would be necessary to explore the annals of antiquity. The search would lead at least as far back as the civilizations of the Hebrews and Greeks, from which came the social and spiritual roots of modern Western life. Though freedom in the contemporary sense cannot be found as a concept in the thought life of these civilizations, it is implicit in both the Judeo-Christian religion and Greek philosophy. In the former, the conviction that man was created in the image of God" and the priceless value placed upon personality b Jesus led inevitably to ideas of human dignity and freedom. In the latter, the high estimate placed on human creativeness and the emphasis on the ability of the human mind to reach perfection also led in the direction of the modern idea of freedom. Somewhat later, the democratic organization of the barbarian German tribes produced a society of free individuals who, when brought to England-in the early centuries of the Christian era, led to the concept of the "rights of free Englishmen," an expression which is found in the Magna Charta. (1)

These early sources of the idea of freedom, however, are not seen explicitly in the concept of freedom as it has developed in America during the past three and a half centuries. The immediate background of American freedom is to be found rather in the birth of modern society in the West at the time of the Renaissance and Reformation, a time which saw the disintegration of feudalism and the emergence of a new social, political, economic, and religious orientation. It was within this new society that a philosophy of freedom arose which was soon transplanted to the American colonies and became an essential part of the infant American culture.

Preliminary to an examination of the emergence of the idea of freedom in modern society, however, one must analyze briefly the structure and psychology of medieval society, the soil from which the new culture sprang, and to note especially the relationship of medieval life to the question of freedom. The fundamental quality of medieval civilization was the harmony between the individual and the society which was a hierarchy of ascending orders in which each man had his God-appointed function and recognized obligations, and at the same time his rights and privileges. (2) Each individual was an essential organ of the whole, discharging a function peculiar to himself and necessary to the full life of Christendom. On v through his participation in this group life could the individual attain his own ends and, conversely, only with the aid of every individual and every grow could society afford the appropriate setting for the full life of its individual members. All men existed in and for each other in an intricate network of mutual obligations. The characteristic of medieval life which contrasts most strikingly with the modern World is its rigidly hierarchical character. From the lowest serf bound for life to the soil up through the free yeomanry and the rising grades of nobility to the monarch, social status and function were determined at birth.

In such a rigidly hierarchical society, it was natural that there was little which could be called personal freedom. Everyone was chained to his role in the social order, and for the peasant there was no hope. The medieval church stressed the dignity of man and the freedom of his will, but did little to remedy the situation. In fact, the church and the social system tended toward mutual support. It did condemn arbitrary tillages and urged that the serf be treated humanely. It sometimes described the manumission of the serf as an act of piety, like gifts to the poor. (3) But to set free the individual was not to condemn the institution. As a matter of fact, the church, in its habitual stand through the centuries against any expression of religious freedom consciously or unconsciously aligned itself alongside all those forces in the social order which resisted the rise of freedom in European social and economic life. (4) However, it is true that, although medieval man was not free in the modern sense, neither was he alone and isolated. In having a distinct, unchangeable and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place for doubt. (5) The breakdown of medieval society had a two-fold result in the realm of personality. Man was deprived of the security he enjoyed, and he was turned loose from the world which had satisfied his quest for security both economically and spiritually. But he was free to think and act independently, to become his own master and do with his life as he could, not as he was told.

There was a complex pattern of interacting social forces which brought about the disintegration of medieval society and the birth of a new age in 'Western history. (6) The rising commercial and financial interests in the cities pried loose the cement of the feudalistic economic structure. The peasants sloughed off their hereditary serfdom. Individuals within and without the church hammered away at its excessive authority and abuses. The rising nobility supported the Reformers in order that they might be free of ecclesiastical control. Out of this ferment of forces came a new society, and within this society a new concept of individual freedom emerged. To define all the elements which contributed to the emergence of this new idea of freedom would be an impossible task, but there were two movements, ...