again decree by some system of morals, that all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful What is essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a long constraint. In order to understand Stoicism, or Port Royal, or Puritanism, one should remember the constraint under which every language has attained to strength and freedom — the metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and orators of every nation given themselves! — not excepting some of the prose writers of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable conscientiousness — ”for the sake of a folly,” as utilitarian bunglers say, and thereby deem themselves wise — ”from submission to arbitrary laws,” as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves “free,” even free-spirited.