' See Chapter IV. above.
freedom from reatraint on any other preacriptive ground than that afforded by the rights of ownerihip. In its economic bearing the system of natural liberty meant a system of free pecuniary contract. " Liberty does not mean license ; " which in economic terms would be transcribed, " The natural freedom of the individual must not traverse the prescriptive rights of property." Property rights being included among natural rights, they had the indefeasibility which attaches to natural rights. Natural liberty prescribes freedom to buy and sell, limited only by the equal freedom of others to buy and sell ; with the obvious corollary that there must be no interference with others' buying and selling, except by means of buying and selling.
This principle of natural (pecuniary) liberty has found its most unmitigated acceptance in America, and has here taken the firmest hold on the 1< mind. Nowhere else has the aacredness of pecuniary obligations so permeated the common sense of the community, and nowhere does pecuniary obligation come so near being the only form of obligation that has the unqualified sanction of current common sense. Here, as nowhere else, do obligar tiona and claims of the most diverse kinds, domestic, Bocial, and civil, tend to take the pecuniary form and admit of being fully discharged on a monetary valuation. To a greater extent than else-
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where public esteem U awarded to artists, actors, preachers, writers, scientists, officials, in some rough proportion to the suras paid for their