A Third Concept of LibertyProfessor Quentin Skinner FBA delivered the illallgllral Isaiall Berlill Lectllre at the Acadell/Y 011 2 INovell/bel' 2001. The title of his lectllre IIlas 'A Third COllcept if Liberty', r~ferrillg to Isaiah Berlill~ fa 1/10115essayproPOlllldillg tll'O COllcepts of liberty, positive alld Ilegative. III the edited extract be/Olll III' illllstrates the 101l,~history ~fa third cOllcept, that Iivillg ill sllbjectiol/ to the IFill of others places Iill/its Oil 0111'liberty.

When Berlin first introduces his view ofnegative liberty, he rightly observes that

'this is what the classical English politicalphilosophers meant' by freedom, and he specific-ally refers to Hobbes's definition of a free man inLeviathal/: 'a free man' is someone who 'ill thoseIllil/gs, 1I'IIich by his slrellgth alld wit lie is alJle 10 do, isI/ot Ililldred to doe what he has a IFill to.' What hemisses, however, is the fiercely polemical characterof Hobbes's analysis. When Hobbes announces, inwords that Berlin echoes closely, that our libertyconsists of nothing more than 'absence of externallImpediments' to the exercise of our powers, heis attempting at the same time to discreditand supersede a rival and strongly contrastingunderstanding of negative liberty that had risen toprominence in English public debate in the earlydecades of the seventeenth century, and thatseemed to Hobbes to be extremely dangerous aswell as confused. What prompted Hobbes toarticulate it was his sense of the need to respond tothe 'Democratical Gentlemen', as he called them,who had deployed their very different theory topromote the cause of Parliament against the crownand to legitimise the execution of King Charles I.

It was the view of these critics of the prerogativethat, to the extent that they were obliged to live independence on the power of the king, and obligedin consequence to rely on his goodwill for thecontinuation of their rights and liberties, they wereliving in a state of servitude. The basic contention ofthese critics, in other words, is that freedom. isrestricted not merely by actual intelference or thethreat of it, but also by our awareness of the merefact that we are living in dependence on thegoodwill of others. These writers are not makingthe obvious point that the possibility of sucharbitrary interference renders our liberty less robustor secure. They are claiming that the mere existenceof an arbitrary power capable of interfering in ouractivities, without having to consider our interests,serves in itself to limit and undermine our liberty.Knowing that we are fi-ee to do or forbear onlybecause someone else has chosen not to stop us iswhat reduces us to servitude.

The immediate inspiration for this way of thinkingappears to have stemmed from a number of

medieval common-law texts, above all those ofDracton and Littleton. These were the authoritiesthat Sir Edward Coke and his followers in the earlyStuart Parliaments loved to invoke, and proceededto quote with so much reverence that theyacquired an authority they had never beforeenjoyed and have never subsequently lost. Henryde Dracton in his De Legiblls et COllslletlldillibllSAI/gliae of c. ] 260 distinguishes in his openingchapter between free persons and slaves, andproceeds to define as a slave anyone who 'lives insubjection to the dominion of someone else'. SirThomas Littleton's fifteenth-century treatise, Ull

Iyver de exposicioll de parcell de les tell IIres, draws avery similar set of distinctions between fi-eemen,villeins and slaves, and repeats that a slave issomeone whose lack of liberty is such that hisperson - and not merely, as with a villein, hisproperty - is slIb potestate, within the power or atthe mercy of someone else.

The most striking feature of these definitions(although the common lawyers did their best toignore the fact) is that they owe their phraseologyentirely to the analysis of freedom and slavery atthe outset of the Digest of Koman law. There weare first informed that 'the fundamental divisionwithin the law of persons is that all men andwomen are either fi-ee or are slaves'. Then we aregiven a formal definition of slavery_ 'Slavery is aninstitution of the illS gelltillll/ by which someone is,contrary to nature, subjected to the dominion ofsomeone else' _ This in turn is held to yield adefinition of individual liberty_ If everyone in acivil association is either bond or free, then a civisor free subject must be someone who is not underthe dominion of anyone else, but is slli illris,capable of acting in their own right. It likewisefollows that what it means for someone to lack thestatus of a free subject must be for that person notto be slli illris but instead to be sllb patestate, underthe power or subject to the will of someone else.

While these distinctions are definitivelysummarised in Justinian's Codex, they had by thattime been the common coin of Roman politicaltheory for generations, having been propagated in

particular by such leading historians of theconstitution as Sallust, Livy and Tacitus_ This being

so, it is a fact of singular importance that it was inthe generation immediately prior to the disputesbetween crown and Parliament in the earlyseventeenth century that these works were alltranslated into English for the first time. HenrySavile's version of Tacitus's Histories and Agricolaappeared in J 591, with Richard Greneway'srendering of the All/lals and GenllGllia following in1598. Two years later Philemon Holland issued hisenormous folio containing the whole of the extantsections of Livy's History, while in 1608 ThomasHeywood published his translations of Sallust'sBel/1I11l Catilillae and Bel/1I111 [ugllrthilllllli.

Sir Isaiah l3erlin FllA(1909~ 1997) by Sir Lnll'rel1(f

CO/ping By COllrtesy <!( the1,raricHlal Portrait Callery, London

If you turn to any of these authorities, you willfind it argued once more that what it means topossess your liberty is, as Livy puts it, not to besubject to the power of anyone else. When, forexample, Livy describes the surrender of theCollatines to the people of Rome, he stresses thatthey were able to take this decision because (asHolland's translation of 1600 puts it) they were 'intheir owne power', and hence 'at libertie to doewhat they will'. The same view emerges still moreclearly from the later passage in which Livy

discusses the efforts of the Greek cities to restoretheir good relations with Rome. To be able toenter into such negotiations, one of theirspokesmen is made to say, presupposes thepossession of 'true libertie', that condition inwhich a people 'is able to stand alone and maintainitselfe, and dependeth not upon the will andpleasure of others.'

It was this understanding of political liberty that anumber of spokesmen in Parliament began todeploy in criticism of the crown in the earlydecades of the seventeenth century. We first findthem drawing on these assumptions in theirdefence of a number of specific liberties againstwhat they took to be encroachments by the royalprerogative. One aspect of this campaign has ofcourse been extensively discussed, and forms thecornerstone of the traditional 'whig' explanationfor the outbreak of the English civil war in 1642.The government was repeatedly accused, mostconspicuously in the Petition of Right of 1628, offorcibly interfering with a number of fundamentalrights and liberties. Charles I was charged withcompelling and requiring his people to make loansto him, and with imprisoning and even executingsubjects without due cause being shown. Theseactions were taken to constitute an obviousviolation of rights and liberties, since they involved(in the words of the Petition) molesting largenum.bers of subjects contrary to the laws andfranchise of the land.

As the Democratical Gentlemen make clear,however, what troubles them even more is the viewof rights lying behind this understanding of theprerogative. To maintain that our basic liberties aresubject to being taken away with impunity is todeclare that they do not have the status of rights; it isto say that they are mere licenses or privileges. Thisis the insight that prompts these critics to reach fortheir 13racton - and indeed their Livy and Tacitus.To accept, they retort, that we hold our rights andliberties at discretion is to accept that we are livingin a state of subjection to the will of the king. Butto admit that we are living in such a condition ofdependence is to admit that we are living not as freecitizens but as slaves. It is our awareness of the mereexistence of such prerogatives that undermines ourliberty and leaves us in servitude.

The exploration of this argument had been one ofthe leading preoccupations of the classical writersI have singled Ollt. We encounter the argumentabove all in the Roman historians who focusedon the transition fi'om the alleged freedom ofthe republican constitution to the servitude of the

principate. If we turn to Sallust, and above all toTacitus, we find them offering an agonised analysisof the psychological impact of slipping into a stateof subjection to arbitrary power. It was this analysisthat in turn exercised perhaps the most formativeinfluence on the Democratical Gentlemen whowent on to challenge the government of Charles Iand to institute the first and only English republic.So far.

As the classical writers stress, there are twocontrasting ways in which you will be constrainedby your knowledge that you are living independence on the goodwill of an arbitrary prince.You will find in the first place that there are certainthings you are not free to say and do. As Sallust andTacitus both emphasise, you will need above all tomake sure that you avoid saying or doing anythingthat might be construed by your ruler as an act ofemulation or reproach. SaUust explains the need forthis caution in a passage fi'olll the Bel/lIlIl Catilillae

that the English republican writers of theseventeenth century loved to cite. In the words ofHeywood's translation of 1608, 'absolute Princesare alwaies more jealous of the good, then of thebad de, because another mans Vertue (as they takeit) is a diminution of their respectivenesse, andtherefore dangerous.' The moral is that, if you are aperson of great talent or virtue living under such aprince, you will have no option but to keep thosequalities hidden from view as much as possible. Youwill otherwise be only too likely to discover that, asSavile puts it in translating Tacitus's description ofthe reign of Nero, such qualities can be 'the readiebroade way to most assured destruction'. Sallustand Tacitus are even more concerned about thelong-term psychological impact of this form ofself-constraint. When a whole nation is inhibitedfi'0111exercising its highest talents and virtues, thesequalities will begin to atrophy and the people will

gradually sink into an abject condition of torporand sluggishness. Tacitus draws the moral whenspeaking about the German tribe of the Tencteriand their failed uprising against Rome. As Savile'stranslation expresses it, 'even wilde beasts shut upforget their accustomed valour and vertue'.

The other way in which you will find yourselfconstrained by your awareness that you are livingunder absolute power is that you will lack thefreedom to abstain from saying and doing certainthings. When confronted by an absolute ruler andrequired to offer counsel and advice, you willfind yourself constrained to agree with whateverhe says and to endorse whatever policies hemay choose to pursue. Tacitus dramatises thepredicament in his Allllais when describing theconduct of the political classes under Tiberius, andhis tone of withering contempt is finely caught inGrenewey's translation of 1598:

13ut those times were so corrupted with filthieflatterie: that not only the chiefest of the citiewere forced in that servile maner to keepetheir reputation; but all such as had beeneConsuls; the greatest part of such as had bin[Jretors; & also many pedary Senators rose up& strove, who should propound things mostbase and abject. It is written, that as Tiuerills

went out of the Curia, he was woont to saie inGreeke. 0 men ready to servitude! as thoughhe, who could of all things least suffer publickeIibertie; did yet abhorre such base and servilesubmission: falling by little and little fromunseemely flatteries, to lewder practises

As Tacitus makes clear, the senators were not actingunder any direct or coercive threat; the mereawareness of their dependence was enough to makethem do whatever they felt was expected of them.

Professor Skinner is RegiusProfessor of ModernHistory at the University ofCambridge.