 For Mexican positivists the challenge was to reconcile freedom and order, both moral and natural. In his essay “De la educación moral” (1863), Barreda sustained that freedom does not amount to the freedom to do whatever one wants (i.e., freedom from constraint). True freedom is always constrained by the law, just as a free falling object falls according to the laws of nature. Likewise, moral freedom and progress is constrained by the moral law and must be consistent with the laws of science.