“THE name of liberty … seems condemned to be ill understood in all its applications. In the religious, moral, social, and political order, it is enveloped in such obscurity, that we can perceive the many efforts which have been made to darken and misrepresent it. Cicero gives an admirable definition of liberty when he says, that it consists in being the slave of law. In the same way it may be said, that the liberty of the intellect consists in being the slave of truth; and the liberty of the will in being the slave of virtue; if you change this, you destroy liberty. If you take away the law, you admit force; if you take away the truth, you admit error; if you take away virtue, you admit vice. If you venture to exempt the world from the external law, from that law which embraces man and society, which extends to all orders, which is the divine wisdom applied to reasonable creatures; if you venture to seek for an imaginary liberty out of that immense circle, you destroy all; there remains in society nothing but the empire of brute force, and in man that of the passions; with tyranny, and consequently slavery.

— Jaime Luciano Balmes, Protestantism and Catholicity: Compared in Their Effects on the Civilization of Europe (Library of Alexandria. Kindle Edition; Location 6071)

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