The need of expansion is as genuine an instinct in man as the need in a plant for the light, or the need in man himself for going upright. The love of liberty is simply the instinct in man for expansion.

He was the son of Thomas Arnold the famed headmaster of Rugby School and brother to both Tom Arnold literary professor and William Delafield Arnold novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools.