English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
What is the meaning of the following sentence:
One of the most difficult things to make up our minds about is in what freedom consists.
Does it mean "One of the most difficult things to make up our mind about is in a thing that freedom consists" ?
If so, What does "One of the most diffiult things to make up our mind about is in a thing that freedom consists" mean?
It means pretty much the same as:
One of the most difficult things to make up our minds about is what freedom consists of.
Your version differs in two ways.
First, “consists of” has become the slightly less common, “consists in”. There can be a (small) difference in meaning between the two, but I’ve never seen it actually matter.
Second, the proposition “in” (formerly, “of”) has been pulled back to just after the “is”, perhaps to obey the old quasi-rule of not ending a sentence in a preposition (despite that being the kind of errant nonsense up with which we should not put.)
It might be easier to understand as:
One of the most difficult things to make up our minds about is the answer to the question: "In what does freedom consist?"
It is more common to use the phrase "of what does X consist" but "in what does X consist" is just as valid.
