Question:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows: A stout lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a street in Petrograd, to the great confusion of the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the pavement was the place for foot passengers, but she replied, “I'm going to walk where I like. We have got liberty now.” It did not occur to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the foot-passenger to walk down the middle of the road, it also entitled the cab driver to drive on the pavement, and that the end of such liberty would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in everybody else's way and nobody would get anywhere. Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.
c) Why do you think that she was wrong about individual liberty?
Read the following passage carefully and answer the question that follows: A stout lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a street in Petrograd, to the great confusion of the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the pavement was the place for foot passengers, but she replied, “I'm going to walk where I like. We have got liberty now.” It did not occur to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the foot-passenger to walk down the middle of the road, it also entitled the cab driver to drive on the pavement, and that the end of such liberty would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in everybody else's way and nobody would get anywhere. Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.
c) Why do you think that she was wrong about individual liberty?
c) Why do you think that she was wrong about individual liberty?
Updated On: Sep 24, 2026
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She was wrong because liberty is never absolute — it is always balanced against the equal liberty of others. If her “liberty” entitled her to walk on the road, the same logic would entitle a cab driver to drive on the pavement, which would be dangerous and unjust to pedestrians. True liberty operates within limits that protect everyone's safety and rights, not as licence to do whatever one wishes.
She was wrong because liberty is never absolute — it is always balanced against the equal liberty of others. If her “liberty” entitled her to walk on the road, the same logic would entitle a cab driver to drive on the pavement, which would be dangerous and unjust to pedestrians. True liberty operates within limits that protect everyone's safety and rights, not as licence to do whatever one wishes.
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It is clear that language is used for more than one purpose. The man who hits his thumb nails with a hammer and utters a string of curses is using language to relieve his feeling and needs no audience but himself. But when a philosopher uses language to clarify his ideas on a subject, he is using it as an instrument of thought. When two women gossip over the fence or two men exchange greetings as they pass in the street, language is being used to strengthen the bonds between the members of society. Language, it seems, is a multipurpose instrument. One function, however, seems to be basic — language enables us to influence people's behaviour and thereby makes human co-operation possible. Some animals co-operate especially the social animals like bees and ants, but human co-operation is more thorough, more detailed, more effective than that found anywhere in the animal kingdom. The human co-operation would be unthinkable without language.
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It is clear that language is used for more than one purpose. The man who hits his thumb nails with a hammer and utters a string of curses is using language to relieve his feeling and needs no audience but himself. But when a philosopher uses language to clarify his ideas on a subject, he is using it as an instrument of thought. When two women gossip over the fence or two men exchange greetings as they pass in the street, language is being used to strengthen the bonds between the members of society. Language, it seems, is a multipurpose instrument. One function, however, seems to be basic — language enables us to influence people's behaviour and thereby makes human co-operation possible. Some animals co-operate especially the social animals like bees and ants, but human co-operation is more thorough, more detailed, more effective than that found anywhere in the animal kingdom. The human co-operation would be unthinkable without language.
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