This almost epigrammatic formulation conveys, I will argue, the essence of Benjamin Constant’s liberal philosophy. Even as a formula it is not simple. Although its basic terms - “happiness,” “self-development,” and “political liberty,” - may have to the contemporary ear the ring of ordinary language, they were for Constant terms of art, with their own historical contexts, problematic interrelations, and, not least, polemical thrust.

Perhaps the first thing to note about Constant’s claim is the relationship it proposes between a definition of the self and a theory of politics. Political liberty, for Constant, is not an end in itself but a means. He defends it here on the instrumental ground of its effectiveness in promoting the good of the self. Although the ostensible concern of the famous address is to reconcile ancient liberty, the ideal of political participation on behalf of the common good, with modern liberty’s celebration of individual freedom in the private sphere, Constant’s highest value is the individual self.