For example...

For example, we picture a bird inside the cage, a person whose hands and feet are chained, or a person who is detained and imprisoned, and we say that freedom means to be not in such a state and to have no such fetters—the bird shall be free from the cage, the hands and feet of the person shall be unfettered, or the person shall be set free from prison and allowed to go wherever he wants, and thus we say, “He is free.” The attractiveness of the concept of freedom for man is exactly on account of this contrast with captivity and bondage; for nobody wants to be in captivity, bondage and entanglement.

Nobody wants to confine himself in a room and not allow himself to go out. Nobody wants to enchain his own hands and feet such that they could not move. Everyone wants to freely and willfully go wherever he wants and to behave the way he likes. Without anyone teaching him so, man naturally and innately likes freedom and liberty, and abhors captivity and bondage.

It can even be said that every sensible being is such that he wants freedom of action, and limitation and restriction are against his nature. Because of this appeal that the concept of freedom has for us, anyone who would also talk about it and praise it will catch our attention, and anything over which freedom is applied is attractive and desirable for us. At this juncture, we are most of the time negligent of these facts: does freedom have only one meaning?

Or, are there diverse meanings for it? Is freedom, in whatever sense, concordant with the nature of man, and desirable? Does freedom have only a single type, and that is when the bird is freed from the cage? Or, are there various types of freedom, some of which are not only not beneficial but even destructive and harmful? As what is stated in the science of logic, one of the fallacies, which is relatively so rampant, is the fallacy of common word, i.e. a word having more than one meaning.

The feature and attribute related to one meaning of the word is erroneously proved for the other meaning. As an instance, the word “ shir ”[^1] can be cited. Mawlawi[^2] says: باديه اندر است شير دگر وان باديه اندر است شير يكى آن می خورد آدم است شير دگر وان می‌خورد آدم است شير يكى آن That one is shir [milk, or lion] in the badiyeh [cup, or jungle]. And the other one is shir in the badiyeh.

That one is shir*, which devours human (or, which human eats).* And the other one is shir, which devours human (or, which human drinks).