Granted that there are some things that must be willed necessarily by a man, it is quite clear that not everything he chooses has been willed necessarily.  In other words, man, in regard to some things, enjoys a gift unique in the physical world--the gift of freedom.  Let it be well understood, however, that freedom here is not used in the same way in which it is proudly displayed today in such modern catchwords as "freedoom of speeech," "freedom of the press" or "freedom of conscience."  Freedom does not mean the ability to do anything, say anything, believe anything: that is not freedom but freedom's abuse.  That this is an abuse and not freedom itself is readly recognized when the thing is brought down to the concrete; it is not freedom that allows an orator to harangue a crowd into committing adultry with this man's wife; nor iis it freedom in whose name newspaper advertisements and full powered propaganda urge men into an abuse of love and a flouting of nature; neither is it freedom's privilege to undermine the very social structure without which men cannot live. Freedom does not mean that a man has been turned loose on the world, released from all order, all direction, from all purpose; that is not a privilege, it is a condemnation to a beastiality far surpassing the animality of the brutes.
    To apostles of license, every law is an insult to every individual citizen; every restriction is a cause for rebellion and men can live only so long as they have physical force to maintain that life against all their fellows.  Freedom, rightly understood, means no more than the right to choose between means to an end.  There is no question of freedom relative to the end of man's activities, just as there is no question of freedom relative to that end once it has been attained in heaven.  Freedom's is man badge of responsibility; it is a consecration to obligations rather than an exemption from all that demands courage and sweat and tears in its accomplishment. Freedom revolves entirely around the  means to an end. Consequently the things that are not means, the things that lead a man away from his end rather than to it, have no place in the description of its degradation and abuse.  It is true that a man commits murder, but that does not mean that he is free to murder; in committing his crime he is not exercising his liberty, he is abusing it.
    For free will, like every other faculty of man, was given him that he might attain his full stature, his full perfection; that is, that by it he might attain his end.  A deliberate aversion from that end is as revolting a perversion as the Epecureans' resort to the vomitorium after a full meal.  This faculty of will was not created to make a mockery of order but to make order's perfect accomplishment a personal achievement.
    Nevertheless it is true that freedom does denote the abscence of necessity.  Is it necessary that we have a choice between two objects?  Does, for instance, the fact of my town possessing only one newspaper destroy my liberty relative to newspapers; if there is only one theatre in town, is my liberty done away with?  Evidently if there are more than one newspaper or theatre, I am free to choose between the competing purveyors of news and amusement.  But I am no less free even when there is only one; I can read or refuse to read, I can go to the theatre or stay at home; in other words, the fundamental liberty of acting or not acting remains.  The Theologians call this the liberty of exercise, in contrast to the liberty of specification which involves two or more objects; it is this liberty of exercise which is absolutely essential to freedom.  This is the freedom that we enjoy before every act and even during that act; for always we have the power to stop willing.  It is, then, not at all necessary that the choice between good and evil be offered a man if he is to retain his freedom; indeed, there is much more opportunity for freedom's exercise when evil does not enter into the picture all, much less chance for it when evil is rampant.
    As an immediate consequence of this we are driven to a sane view of law.  For in this light, law is not an infringement of liberty but rather a guarantee and protector of it; the Ten Commandments, for example, ruling out the things that draw us away from our end, do not destroy the material of liberty but concentrate our attention upon it.  A political force which effectively operates against crime, protects liberty.  License, unrestricted action in whatever field, be it liecense of the press, of the radio, of speech, of morals, is the most serious menace liberty has to face; for license not merely abuses the freedom of the one guilty of it, it directly and immediately interfers with the freedom of others, preventing their steady progress to their end by their free choice.
    If this freedom of men were being attacked by some jealous race that did not possess the gift itself, such an attack might be understandable.  But when men themselves are eager to deny this faculty, when they battle with all the energy of fanatic strength, with all the ingenuity that can be commanded by wealth, education advantages and institutions to champion the abuse with this gift, then we are facing a perversion that outdoes the excesses of paganism. Today it is extremely necessary to defend the freedom of man from a vast army of intellectuals in America.  What proof have we of freedom?
    The immdeiate source of man's freedom is to be found in the intellectual character of his knowledge.  By this knowledge, man is the only spectator on earth of the drama of the universe; he can enter into the inmost nature of everything else and he can step outside of himself, his is not the provincial view of the animals, but the cosmopolitan outlook that knows values and their limitations because it has the material for comparison.  All appetite follows in the steps of knowledge and is proportionate to it, for appetite of itself is necessarily blind.  All the universe moves to a goal; some of its creatures with slow, plodding steps in the dark, guided by the knowledge of the governor of the universe; other move from object to object as the flashlight of sense knowledge lights up the beauty of this sensible thing and leaves the rest clothed in the darkness of mystery; but men, with the floodlight of intelligence lighting up the whole scene see clearly the obstacles of evil, the helps of particular goods, but over and above they see the goal to which they race.  The appetite proportioned to this intellectual knowledge can be satisfied with none of the attractions of the roadside stands; it drives to the goal of all, The universal good that only man can know. (Taken from "A Companion To The Summa," by Father Walter Farrell, Volume I, page 309-312.These books are the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, reduced to popular language by Father Farrell.)

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