So whether from a base lust for power or from a noble solicitude for the common good, every State by its very nature will draw the iron band as tightly around the staves as the crimp of those staves allows. Ultimately, therefore, it depends on the life-spheres themselves whether they will flourish in freedom or groan under State coercion. With more tensile strength they cannot be pushed in, they will not permit themselves to be cramped. But servility, once it's become shackled, has lost even the right to complain. Right here is the sore spot.
Sin threatens freedom within each sphere just as strongly as State-power does at the boundary.
So it is with our liberties. At the heart of every sphere there smolders and smokes the flame of passion, whence the sparks of sin fly upward. That unholy blaze undermines the moral vitality of life, weakens resiliency, and finally bends the strongest stave. In any successful attack on freedom the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the citizen who forgets his duty, wastes away his strength in the sleep of sin and sensual pleasure, and so loses the power of his own initiative.