Corrections to Liberty

Corrections to the latest impression

This regularly reprinted book has been cumulatively corrected over its many impressions. Translations should be made from the latest impression (2024), with the additional corrections in the first list below, except that corrections marked * should be made only in translations, and the correction marked † only in the English-language edition.

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i last 2 lines https://isaiah-berlin.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/
http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/		 <bit.ly/ib-vl>
<bit.ly/iberlin-o>
ix note 2, 3–4 on line at http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/, under ‘Writing about Berlin’. online at <bit.ly/thes1997>.
xxxiii 12–1 up [lower to bottom of text panel]
10 up <http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/tcl/> <bit.ly/twoconcepts>
* 4–3 up additions […] were inserted on pp. […] in 2023 additions were made on pp. […] in 2024
3 up 2023 2024
† last omit- [take over]
xxxiv 7 <http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/onib/after-berlin.pdf> <bit.ly/afterberlin>
* 15–28 There was […] for peace. [omit]
23–4 <http://web.mit.edu/fjk/www/Trotsky/sochineniia/1933/19330310.html> <bit.ly/donebadly>
[signature and date] [move up one line]
55 * note 2 [replace with new note] ² A typical Berlinian ‘improvement’ of ‘Any contemporary of ours who wants peace and comfort before anything has chosen a bad time to be born’, from Leon Trotsky, ‘Hitler’s Victory’, Manchester Guardian, 22 March 1933, pp. 11–12 at p. 11, reprinted in Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932–33), ed. George Breitman and Sarah Lovell (New York, 1972), pp. 133–6 at p. 134; for the Russian original, ‘German Fascism in Power: Origins and Perspectives’ (10 March 1933), see e.g. <bit.ly/donebadly>.
127 * 19 up pardonner pardonner¹
* [bottom of page] [insert new note 1] ¹ See <bit.ly/toutcom>.
206 * 5 up perfect freedom’ perfect freedom’¹
* [bottom of page] [insert new note 1] ¹ The Book of Common Prayer, the Order for Morning Prayer, the second collect, for peace.
208 * 10–13 just […] contrary. just: but they do not allow for the variety of human wishes, for the different, quite incompatible, kinds of life for which men are ready to fight and, if need be, die. Nor do such good and rational men allow for the terrible ingenuity with which men can prove to their own satisfaction that the road to one ideal also leads somehow to its contrary. Men want too much: they want what is logically impossible. That is why such sacred symbols as ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ and self-governmental ‘rights’ cover such a multitude of ideals which conflict with one another. It is as well to realise this. Things are what they are: status is one thing, liberty another; recognition is not the same as non-interference. In the end we all pay too dearly for our wish to avert our gaze from such truths, for ignoring such distinctions in our attempts to coin words to cover all that we long for, in short for our desire to be deceived.
209 * 7 ³ He pointed In his celebrated essay on the conception of liberty by the ‘ancients’ and the ‘moderns’³ he declares that for modern man liberty means the right not to be arrested, detained, killed, maltreated by the arbitrary will of one or several individuals; the right to express one’s opinion, choose one’s profession and exercise it; to dispose of one’s property, even to abuse it as one pleases; to go and come without having to account for one’s motives or moods, or having to ask permission beforehand; the right to unite with others in the pursuit of one’s interests, to profess whatever faith one wishes with one’s associates, to fill one’s days and hours in accordance with one’s own inclinations, one’s own fancies; finally the right to influence administration by nominating officials, by presenting petitions and demands of which the authorities are obliged more or less to take notice. Liberty in this sense is the security of the enjoyment of the function of private life, and liberty in this sense is something which is guaranteed by institutions which exist for this purpose. This is what modern men mean by liberty and it is not primarily political in content.
   For the ancient world, on the other hand, liberty meant the exercise, collectively but directly, of a large portion of sovereignty. It meant the right to deliberate publicly, to decide upon war and peace, and treaties with foreign powers, to vote laws, sit in judgement, scrutinise the accounts and acts of public officials, the right to force them to present themselves before the sovereign assembly, to accuse them, condemn them, acquit them. But each man in this system is totally subject to authority. All private acts are in principle to be open to the surveillance of public officials. Nothing is to be left to the independent judgement of individuals, above all the choice of religion – to invent or practise a private religion would have appeared blasphemous. Terpander could not add a string to his lyre without offending the State. A young Spartiate could not visit his wife freely. In Rome, censors could enquire into the most intimate details of private life. Morals were controlled by the law, and since everything is affected by morals, everything was subject to law. The individual, sovereign in public affairs, was a slave in his private life; the all-powerful judge, inquisitor, legislator who condemned men to death and sent them into exile was wholly repressed in private. Liberty meant the sharing of public power.
   The danger to the modern conception of liberty is that, while absorbed in private life, we let our political rights – without which our private liberties may slip away – go too cheaply and be captured by adventurers. The danger to the liberty of the ancients is that in pursuit of political control they allowed their private freedom to go almost completely. The two types of freedom are plainly not compatible with each other, and if I barter my private freedom for the right to take part in collective decisions which may interfere vastly with my private desires, am I more or less free? The ambiguity of the word ‘freedom’ – or one of its many ambiguities – could hardly be brought out more vividly.
   Constant pointed
* note 3 ³ See pp. 279–80. ³ De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes (Paris, 1819): ‘The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns’, in Benjamin Constant, Political Writings, trans. and ed. Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge, 1988).
344 note 1, 3–4 https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC076_c00049 <bit.ly/kennanletter>
369 note 9 <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1723387> <philpapers.org/archive/BLATPS-4.pdf>
372 note 5, 2 http https
373 5 up http https

Corrections to earlier impressions

The corrections in this list (all needed in the first impression except for errors made in the course of correction) have been cumulatively made in subsequent impressions, and should be included in translations, which should therefore be made from the latest impression (2024). Corrections to pp. i and iv, which have been extensively changed on more than one occasion, are not exhaustively listed. Most corrections to Ian Harris’s essay and to the index, both of which have been revised throughout, are not listed either, except for the most recent ones, made since the revisions. Corrections marked † have been made only in the English edition.

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i 11 held the Presidency served as President
12 Marx, Marx, The Age of Enlightenment, [roman commas]
5–3 up several […] remaining two volumes. many other books by Berlin, including all those listed above, and a four-volume edition of his letters.

Ian Harris is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Leicester. His ‘Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty’ appeared in Murray Forsyth and Maurice Keens-Soper (eds), The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin (1996).
8 up letters. letters. He is co-editor of The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin (2007), editor of The Book of Isaiah: Personal Impressions of Isaiah Berlin (2009), and author of In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure (2018).
2 up [insert below] https://isaiah-berlin.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/
iv 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25 The Isaiah The Trustees of the Isaiah
23 [Editorial matter] 2016 2016, 2023
31 2022 2024
vi note 1, 1 London and Princeton, 2002, pp. 103– 4. Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 2014: Princeton University Press), p. 112.
vii † 9 [add new entry below] Two additions to ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’   279
2 up 367 375
last 371 379
viii 5 xxxiv 2
xi note 4, 1 in in my preface to
note 4, 3 , pp. vii–viii [delete]
xv 11 ever since ever since it was published
xvi 12 Knapheis Knapheis (from 1967 Tolkien):
13 […] I should I should
xvii 12 […] . …
xix 3 reproduced on page 2 see page xxxiv below
9 you […] It you. … it
xx 8 […] ….
xxii 2–8 break off quotation as at bottom of page: if this takes up more space, absorb this by reducing leading through page  
  16 were was
xxv 7 page numbers pages
9 up (1978) (1978; 2nd ed., 2019)
6 up (1978) (1978; 2nd ed., 2008)
last is being published by Chatto and Windus was published
xxvi 1 and by Princeton University Press [delete]
2 Liberty. Liberty (and in a second edition in 2014).
note 1, 2 (1990) (1990; 2nd ed., 2013)
xxvii 17 up (1979) (1979, 2nd ed., 2013)
15 up (1996) (1996, 2nd ed., 2019)
14 up (1999) (1999, 2nd ed., 2013)
xxviii 2 before him before him (see page 282 below)
10 (2000) (2000; 2nd ed., 2013)
10 (2000) (2000; 2nd ed., 2013)
xxx 19 warmly appreciative long and thoughtful
  note 1 London, 1946 New York, 1945; London, 1946
    p. 226. chapter 23, 2nd paragraph.
xxxiii 4 individual other
note [now note 2], 2 Political Political
xxxiii–xxxiv Postscript [replace with new text:] A series of revealing early drafts of ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ were published in 2014. Some of these are online at <bit.ly/twoconcepts>, and others constitute an appendix to the second edition of Berlin’s Freedom and Its Betrayal (Princeton, 2014). The much shorter text that Berlin delivered in Oxford in 1958 is an appendix to the second edition of Political Ideas in the Romantic Age (Princeton, 2014).
   The postscript to Ian Harris’s essay was updated in 2016 to include, among other recent publications, the new editions of eleven of Berlin’s books published by Princeton University Press in 2013–14,¹ and the last two volumes of Berlin’s selected letters. For a more detailed survey of recent literature, readers may consult George Crowder’s ‘After Berlin: The Literature since 2002’ at <http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/onib/after-berlin.pdf>.
   Two additions to the text of ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ were inserted on pp. 279–80 in 2024: a new conclusion to section VI added for a radio broadcast, and a passage on Benjamin Constant’s two concepts of liberty that seems to have been inadvertently omitted from section VII in the 1958 text.¹
    The fourth impression of Liberty gave me the opportunity to add the source of the quotation ascribed by Berlin in ‘Historical Inevitability’ (on p. 125), in a somewhat inaccurate form (now corrected), to ‘a French writer’. I am very grateful to Anders Smith for telling me the origin of this elusive remark, for which I had been searching for many years.
   There was insufficient room in situ for three further missing references. The epigraph from Trotsky on p. 55 is a typical Berlinian ‘improvement’ of ‘Any contemporary of ours who wants peace and comfort before anything has chosen a bad time to be born’, from Leon Trotsky, ‘Hitler’s Victory’, Manchester Guardian, 22 March 1933, pp. 11–12 at p. 11, reprinted in Writings of Leon Trotsky (1932–33), ed. George Breitman and Sarah Lovell (New York, 1972), pp. 133–6 at p. 134; for the Russian original, ‘German Fascism in Power: Origins and Perspectives’ (10 March 1933), see e.g. <bit.ly/donebadly>. For Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner (p. 127) see <bit.ly/toutcom>, s.v. ‘anon.’. And ‘whose service is perfect freedom’ (p. 206) is from The Book of Common Prayer, the Order for Morning Prayer, the second collect, for peace.
H.H.
January 2024

   ¹ These passages may be seen in their original context in ‘The Search for Status’, in The Power of Ideas, 2nd ed., p. 242; and in Freedom and Its Betrayal, 2nd ed., pp. 231–2.
   ² These books are listed in note 3 to p. 365 below. The new editions all appeared in 2013, apart from the second editions of Freedom and Its Betrayal and Political Ideas in the Romantic Age, and the third edition of Personal Impressions, which appeared in 2014. Since then, in 2019, Princeton has published a new edition of The Sense of Reality, with a new foreword by Timothy Snyder.
xxxiv [new error in third impression] [move caption down to fall below illustration as in previous impressions]  
2 [insert image and caption from p. xxxiv]
5–53 headline add letter-spacing between the ‘F’ and the ‘I’ in ‘FIVE’  
6 note 1, 3 logic and logic and the
7 counsel) counsel) once more
9 16 concept concepts
  17 has have
10 10 determinists, determinists
11 step, step
note 2, 2 Sydney Sidney
19 2–3 childish, or at any rate childlike, ‘childish, or at any rate childlike’, [and add note cue 1 after the second comma]
  12 12 [save line]
  [bottom of page] [insert new note 1] op. cit. (p. 11 above, note 1), p. 39 (45).
20 4 [move note cue in line 4 to follow ‘interesting.’ in line 6]  
  2 up us’, us’;
  note 1 [replace with] ‘If the truth should be complex and somewhat disillusioning, it would still not be a merit to substitute for it some more dramatic and comforting simplicity.’ C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World-Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (New York, 1929), p. 339.
21 6 nor or
28 note 1 below]. below, pp. 252–79].
31 note 2, 3 Warner Werner
33 note 1 below. below, pp. 287–321.
35 4 up both in in both
36 note 1, 3 jr Jr
39 6 up first second
  4 up second first
51 7 nichts – nichts,
note 1, 1–4 [replace whole note with] Torquato Tasso in Ernst Raupach, Tasso’s Tod: Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen (Hamburg, 1835), act 1, scene 3, p. 56.
note 3, 2 up comple`tes complètes
53 last that much power that too much power
55 4 correct double-struck ‘g’ in ‘Hegelian’  
note 1 [replace with] See p. xxxiv above.
67 1 Leontiev Leont'ev
70 continuation of note, 4 party’ (Cries […] person?) ‘Yes party [Cries […] person?] Yes
75 8 ideas, ideas
82 10 up has have
92 8 ‘out ‘Out
12 up point pas trop
note 2 [replace with] ‘Above all, gentlemen, not too much zeal.’ This maxim is attributed to Talleyrand in various forms. The earliest published citation of this version known to me is ‘Surtout pas trop de zèle’ (‘Above all, not too much zeal’) in ‘Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais’ (by ‘Marcant’), Revue de Marseille et de Provence 5 no. 7 (July 1839), 335. An earlier version is ‘N’ayez pas de zèle’ (‘Don’t be zealous’), in [C.-A.] Sainte-Beuve, ‘Madame de Staël’, part 2, Revue des deux mondes 1835 ii no. 4 (15 May), 421; ‘point de zèle’ (‘no zeal at all’) is also found, e.g. in ‘Notes et nouvelles’, La revue indépendante 6 (1843), 127; as is ‘Pas de zèle!’ (‘No zeal!’). Ed.
95 8 teaching and his influence. teaching.
98 12 the motives motives
107 1 the pattern, the the pattern, the
19 whole whole,
13 up time-honoured view time-honoured, view,
111 note 1, 1 progres progrès
114 21 only be grasped be grasped only
116 note 1, 3 voluntary voluntary and involuntary
118 11 casual causal
121 3 up [begin new paragraph at ‘We may’]
122 4–5 [run on: no new paragraph]
125 19–20 ‘Je ne propose rien […] writer proudly,¹ ‘[J]e n’impose rien, je ne propose même rien: j’expose,’ said a French writer proudly,¹
19 me^me même
20 exposition exposition
note 1 See p. xxxiii above. ‘I insist on nothing; I assert nothing: I explain.’ Charles Dunoyer, De la liberté du travail, ou, Simple exposé des conditions dans lequelles les forces humaines s’exercent avec le plus de puissance (Paris, 1845), vol. 1, p. 18. [omit subtitle in the English edition]
127 11 , but not by them, by – not by them, but by
129 note 1 pp. 183–4. p. 227.
153 8 so, objective,
166 note 1, 2 1957. 1957. Ed.
note 2 83 85
170 12 due not due
173 note 1 1: p. 318 in op. cit. (p. 1, ‘De la souveraineté du peuple’: p. 318 in Écrits politiques (see p.
181 15 fact, and fact,
182 note 1, 4 §24 § 24
183 4 up despotism despotism
184 5 up conditioning,² is conditioning² are
185 1 heart of heart of the
18 slave owner slave-owner
187 17 concept of it concept of freedom
196 7–6 up [run on: no new paragraph]
6 up optimism, and optimism and,
197 23 August Auguste
203 7 despotism despotism
207 10 a the
15 up for in
208 21 up for for the
19 up Frenchmen Frenchmen,
209 † 7 Constant. Constant.³
† notes [insert new note 3] ³ See pp. 279–80.
[renumber old notes 3 and 4 as 4 and 5 in text and notes]
3 up more mere
note 3 p. 3 p. 173
210 note 1 ibid., op. cit. (p. 173 above, note 1),
7 up by being by
214 4 assurance an assurance
219 14 The On the
19 essay, essay
223 2 up apostates, the apostates and
224 10 speech: speech;
227 19 up worship) worship),
228 note 3, 7 (on p. 229) Marx) appears Marx) – appears
229 14 for without conviction, for
230 note 1, 7–8 1978: Oxford University Press) 1978)
note 1, 7 up 7.125 7. 125
233 15 towards it towards truth
note 1, 1 Aereopagita Areopagita
235 7 it is truth is
note 1 ‘a contemporary […] Robson. [Arthur Helps], Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd ([London], 1835), p. 2, where it is italicised.
236 note 2 233–4. 223–4.
241 11 can alone alone can
242 12 lecture in this series, own essay on toleration,
244 13 up or Condorcet of Condorcet
251 note 1, 4 not merely in view in view not merely
252 14 denied defined
268 5 freewill free will
279–80 † [insert new matter after 3-line space]
Two Additions to ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’
(see pp. xxxiii–xxxiv)

1. When Berlin delivered a version of section VI of his inaugural lecture as a radio talk in 1959, he replaced its last three sentences (p. 208 above) with the following passage:

Their plea is clear, their cause is just: but they do not allow for the variety of human wishes, for the different, quite incompatible, kinds of life for which men are ready to fight and, if need be, die. Nor do such good and rational men allow for the terrible ingenuity with which men can prove to their own satisfaction that the road to one ideal also leads somehow to its contrary. Men want too much: they want what is logically impossible. That is why such sacred symbols as ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ and self-governmental ‘rights’ cover such a multitude of ideals which conflict with one another. It is as well to realise this. Things are what they are: status is one thing, liberty another; recognition is not the same as non-interference. In the end we all pay too dearly for our wish to avert our gaze from such truths, for ignoring such distinctions in our attempts to coin words to cover all that we long for, in short for our desire to be deceived.¹

2. The following passage on Benjamin Constant’s two concepts of liberty was intended to appear at the point indicated on p. 209 above:

In his celebrated essay on the conception of liberty by the ‘ancients’ and the ‘moderns’² he declares that for modern man liberty means the right not to be arrested, detained, killed, maltreated by the arbitrary will of one or several individuals; the right to express one’s opinion, choose one’s profession and exercise it; to dispose of one’s property, even to abuse it as one pleases; to go and come without having to account for one’s motives or moods, or having to ask permission beforehand; the right to unite with others in the pursuit of one’s interests, to profess whatever faith one wishes with one’s associates, to fill one’s days and hours in accordance with one’s own inclinations, one’s own fancies; finally the right to influence administration by nominating officials, by presenting petitions and demands of which the authorities are obliged more or less to take notice. Liberty in this sense is the security of the enjoyment of the function of private life, and liberty in this sense is something which is guaranteed by institutions which exist for this purpose. This is what modern men mean by liberty and it is not primarily political in content.
   For the ancient world, on the other hand, liberty meant the exercise, collectively but directly, of a large portion of sovereignty. It meant the right to deliberate publicly, to decide upon war and peace, and treaties with foreign powers, to vote laws, sit in judgement, scrutinise the accounts and acts of public officials, the right to force them to present themselves before the sovereign assembly, to accuse them, condemn them, acquit them. But each man in this system is totally subject to authority. All private acts are in principle to be open to the surveillance of public officials. Nothing is to be left to the independent judgement of individuals, above all the choice of religion – to invent or practise a private religion would have appeared blasphemous. Terpander could not add a string to his lyre without offending the State. A young Spartiate could not visit his wife freely. In Rome, censors could enquire into the most intimate details of private life. Morals were controlled by the law, and since everything is affected by morals, everything was subject to law. The individual, sovereign in public affairs, was a slave in his private life; the all-powerful judge, inquisitor, legislator who condemned men to death and sent them into exile was wholly repressed in private. Liberty meant the sharing of public power.
   The danger to the modern conception of liberty is that, while absorbed in private life, we let our political rights – without which our private liberties may slip away – go too cheaply and be captured by adventurers. The danger to the liberty of the ancients is that in pursuit of political control they allowed their private freedom to go almost completely. The two types of freedom are plainly not compatible with each other, and if I barter my private freedom for the right to take part in collective decisions which may interfere vastly with my private desires, am I more or less free? The ambiguity of the word ‘freedom’ – or one of its many ambiguities – could hardly be brought out more vividly.³

   ¹ De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes (Paris, 1819): ‘On the Liberty of the Ancients Compared to that of the Moderns’, in Benjamin Constant, Political Writings, trans. and ed. Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge, 1988).
293 13 up century century BC
315 15 up fatal fatal,
331 2 Russia Russia,
338 12 Leontiev Leont'ev
340 4 son [previously ‘Son’] son,
341 8 would could
343 7 up Deutschtom Deutschtum
344 11 [Isaiah] Isaiah Berlin
note 1, 2–3 a carbon […] top copy. the original, held in the George F. Kennan Papers, Princeton University Library, which may be viewed at https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC076_c00049, folios 149–55.
345 note 1, 2 puissons puissions
351 note 6 See pp. See
352 note 1 p. 345 above. 345.
353 note 12 Journal Review
355 4 Jr. Jr
357 10 Kukuthas Kukathas
358 2 Sandra Sondra
359 note 4 See p. See
note 5 [replace with new note] 2nd ed., Princeton, 2013: Princeton University Press, xxix–xxxix.
360 note 11 See p.  See
364 5 up form (see opposite) on form on
    [delete last line of main text]  
note 14, 2 [add at end] [It does not appear in the second edition.]
365 ff.   [substitute revised postscript from the current impression]  
367 [now 375] 6 subheadings headings
  5–7 move parenthesis to follow ‘opening words’  
368 note 10, 1 4 8
371 ff. [now 379 ff.] [replace index with thoroughly revised version in the current impression]
374 note 5 [add below existing text with layout to match p. xxxiii]

Editorial addendum 2023

In 2017 The Age of Enlightenment: The Eighteenth-Century Philosophers was reissued in a second edition, edited by Henry Hardy with a new preface on the history of the book’s genesis (bit.ly/IB-AE2). In 2018 Pimlico published the third edition of Personal Impressions, adding the subtitle Twentieth-Century Portraits. In 2019 Princeton published a second edition of The Sense of Reality, with a foreword by Timothy Snyder. In 2023 a second edition of Michael Ignatieff’s biography of Berlin appeared from Pushkin Press, London.
380 after line 4 [insert new entry] Beard, Charles Austin, 58
[*] Chasles [delete entry; in English edition take over ‘138’ in Belloc entry]
385 liberty (freedom), 22 socio- economic socio-economic
[*] 386 Manent [insert new entry below; in English edition take back ‘350’ in Maistre entry] ‘Marcant’, 92n
*388 Plekhanov [in English edition take back ‘130’]
Protagoras [insert new entry above] proportional representation, 224
representation 3 63
democracy democracy; proportional representation

Last updated 18 August 2024