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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+Title: On Liberty
+
+Author: John Stuart Mill
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2011 [EBook #34901]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON LIBERTY ***
+
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+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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+
+
+
+On Liberty.
+
+By John Stuart Mill.
+
+With an Introduction by W. L. Courtney, LL.D.
+
+The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.
+London and Felling-on-Tyne
+New York and Melbourne
+
+
+
+
+_To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
+part the author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife
+whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
+whose approbation was my chief reward--I dedicate this volume. Like all
+that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me;
+but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the
+inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important
+portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which
+they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of
+interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings
+which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater
+benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can
+write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I.
+
+John Stuart Mill was born on 20th May 1806. He was a delicate child, and
+the extraordinary education designed by his father was not calculated to
+develop and improve his physical powers. "I never was a boy," he says;
+"never played cricket." His exercise was taken in the form of walks with
+his father, during which the elder Mill lectured his son and examined
+him on his work. It is idle to speculate on the possible results of a
+different treatment. Mill remained delicate throughout his life, but was
+endowed with that intense mental energy which is so often combined with
+physical weakness. His youth was sacrificed to an idea; he was designed
+by his father to carry on his work; the individuality of the boy was
+unimportant. A visit to the south of France at the age of fourteen, in
+company with the family of General Sir Samuel Bentham, was not without
+its influence. It was a glimpse of another atmosphere, though the
+studious habits of his home life were maintained. Moreover, he derived
+from it his interest in foreign politics, which remained one of his
+characteristics to the end of his life. In 1823 he was appointed junior
+clerk in the Examiners' Office at the India House.
+
+Mill's first essays were written in the _Traveller_ about a year before
+he entered the India House. From that time forward his literary work was
+uninterrupted save by attacks of illness. His industry was stupendous.
+He wrote articles on an infinite variety of subjects, political,
+metaphysical, philosophic, religious, poetical. He discovered Tennyson
+for his generation, he influenced the writing of Carlyle's _French
+Revolution_ as well as its success. And all the while he was engaged in
+studying and preparing for his more ambitious works, while he rose step
+by step at the India Office. His _Essays on Unsettled Questions in
+Political Economy_ were written in 1831, although they did not appear
+until thirteen years later. His _System of Logic_, the design of which
+was even then fashioning itself in his brain, took thirteen years to
+complete, and was actually published before the _Political Economy_. In
+1844 appeared the article on Michelet, which its author anticipated
+would cause some discussion, but which did not create the sensation he
+expected. Next year there were the "Claims of Labour" and "Guizot," and
+in 1847 his articles on Irish affairs in the _Morning Chronicle_. These
+years were very much influenced by his friendship and correspondence
+with Comte, a curious comradeship between men of such different
+temperament. In 1848 Mill published his _Political Economy_, to which he
+had given his serious study since the completion of his _Logic_. His
+articles and reviews, though they involved a good deal of work--as, for
+instance, the re-perusal of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ in the
+original before reviewing Grote's _Greece_--were recreation to the
+student. The year 1856 saw him head of the Examiners' Office in the
+India House, and another two years brought the end of his official work,
+owing to the transfer of India to the Crown. In the same year his wife
+died. _Liberty_ was published shortly after, as well as the _Thoughts on
+Parliamentary Reform_, and no year passed without Mill making important
+contributions on the political, philosophical, and ethical questions of
+the day.
+
+Seven years after the death of his wife, Mill was invited to contest
+Westminster. His feeling on the conduct of elections made him refuse to
+take any personal action in the matter, and he gave the frankest
+expression to his political views, but nevertheless he was elected by a
+large majority. He was not a conventional success in the House; as a
+speaker he lacked magnetism. But his influence was widely felt. "For the
+sake of the House of Commons at large," said Mr. Gladstone, "I rejoiced
+in his advent and deplored his disappearance. He did us all good." After
+only three years in Parliament, he was defeated at the next General
+Election by Mr. W. H. Smith. He retired to Avignon, to the pleasant
+little house where the happiest years of his life had been spent in the
+companionship of his wife, and continued his disinterested labours. He
+completed his edition of his father's _Analysis of the Mind_, and also
+produced, in addition to less important work, _The Subjection of Women_,
+in which he had the active co-operation of his step-daughter. A book on
+Socialism was under consideration, but, like an earlier study of
+Sociology, it never was written. He died in 1873, his last years being
+spent peacefully in the pleasant society of his step-daughter, from
+whose tender care and earnest intellectual sympathy he caught maybe a
+far-off reflection of the light which had irradiated his spiritual life.
+
+
+II.
+
+The circumstances under which John Stuart Mill wrote his _Liberty_ are
+largely connected with the influence which Mrs. Taylor wielded over his
+career. The dedication is well known. It contains the most extraordinary
+panegyric on a woman that any philosopher has ever penned. "Were I but
+capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and
+noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of
+a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that
+I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled
+wisdom." It is easy for the ordinary worldly cynicism to curl a
+sceptical lip over sentences like these. There may be exaggeration of
+sentiment, the necessary and inevitable reaction of a man who was
+trained according to the "dry light" of so unimpressionable a man as
+James Mill, the father; but the passage quoted is not the only one in
+which John Stuart Mill proclaims his unhesitating belief in the
+intellectual influence of his wife. The treatise on _Liberty_ was
+written especially under her authority and encouragement, but there are
+many earlier references to the power which she exercised over his mind.
+Mill was introduced to her as early as 1831, at a dinner-party at Mr.
+Taylor's house, where were present, amongst others, Roebuck, W. J. Fox,
+and Miss Harriet Martineau. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into
+intimacy and the intimacy into friendship, and Mill was never weary of
+expatiating on all the advantages of so singular a relationship. In some
+of the presentation copies of his work on _Political Economy_, he wrote
+the following dedication:--"To Mrs. John Taylor, who, of all persons
+known to the author, is the most highly qualified either to originate or
+to appreciate speculation on social advancement, this work is with the
+highest respect and esteem dedicated." An article on the enfranchisement
+of women was made the occasion for another encomium. We shall hardly be
+wrong in attributing a much later book, _The Subjection of Women_,
+published in 1869, to the influence wielded by Mrs. Taylor. Finally, the
+pages of the _Autobiography_ ring with the dithyrambic praise of his
+"almost infallible counsellor."
+
+The facts of this remarkable intimacy can easily be stated. The
+deductions are more difficult. There is no question that Mill's
+infatuation was the cause of considerable trouble to his acquaintances
+and friends. His father openly taxed him with being in love with another
+man's wife. Roebuck, Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Austin, Miss Harriet Martineau
+were amongst those who suffered because they made some allusion to a
+forbidden subject. Mrs. Taylor lived with her daughter in a lodging in
+the country; but in 1851 her husband died, and then Mill made her his
+wife. Opinions were widely divergent as to her merits; but every one
+agreed that up to the time of her death, in 1858, Mill was wholly lost
+to his friends. George Mill, one of Mill's younger brothers, gave it as
+his opinion that she was a clever and remarkable woman, but "nothing
+like what John took her to be." Carlyle, in his reminiscences, described
+her with ambiguous epithets. She was "vivid," "iridescent," "pale and
+passionate and sad-looking, a living-romance heroine of the royalist
+volition and questionable destiny." It is not possible to make much of a
+judgment like this, but we get on more certain ground when we discover
+that Mrs. Carlyle said on one occasion that "she is thought to be
+dangerous," and that Carlyle added that she was worse than dangerous,
+she was patronising. The occasion when Mill and his wife were brought
+into close contact with the Carlyles is well known. The manuscript of
+the first volume of the _French Revolution_ had been lent to Mill, and
+was accidentally burnt by Mrs. Mill's servant. Mill and his wife drove
+up to Carlyle's door, the wife speechless, the husband so full of
+conversation that he detained Carlyle with desperate attempts at
+loquacity for two hours. But Dr. Garnett tells us, in his _Life of
+Carlyle_, that Mill made a substantial reparation for the calamity for
+which he was responsible by inducing the aggrieved author to accept half
+of the £200 which he offered. Mrs. Mill, as I have said, died in 1858,
+after seven years of happy companionship with her husband, and was
+buried at Avignon. The inscription which Mill wrote for her grave is too
+characteristic to be omitted:--"Her great and loving heart, her noble
+soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect, made
+her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom and the example in
+goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight of those who had the
+happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was
+generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
+felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in
+those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like
+hers, this earth would already become the hoped-for Heaven." These lines
+prove the intensity of Mill's feeling, which is not afraid of abundant
+verbiage; but they also prove that he could not imagine what the effect
+would be on others, and, as Grote said, only Mill's reputation could
+survive these and similar displays.
+
+Every one will judge for himself of this romantic episode in Mill's
+career, according to such experience as he may possess of the
+philosophic mind and of the value of these curious but not infrequent
+relationships. It may have been a piece of infatuation, or, if we prefer
+to say so, it may have been the most gracious and the most human page in
+Mill's career. Mrs. Mill may have flattered her husband's vanity by
+echoing his opinions, or she may have indeed been an Egeria, full of
+inspiration and intellectual helpfulness. What usually happens in these
+cases,--although the philosopher himself, through his belief in the
+equality of the sexes, was debarred from thinking so,--is the extremely
+valuable action and reaction of two different classes and orders of
+mind. To any one whose thoughts have been occupied with the sphere of
+abstract speculation, the lively and vivid presentment of concrete fact
+comes as a delightful and agreeable shock. The instinct of the woman
+often enables her not only to apprehend but to illustrate a truth for
+which she would be totally unable to give the adequate philosophic
+reasoning. On the other hand, the man, with the more careful logical
+methods and the slow processes of formal reasoning, is apt to suppose
+that the happy intuition which leaps to the conclusion is really based
+on the intellectual processes of which he is conscious in his own case.
+Thus both parties to the happy contract are equally pleased. The
+abstract truth gets the concrete illustration; the concrete illustration
+finds its proper foundation in a series of abstract inquiries. Perhaps
+Carlyle's epithets of "iridescent" and "vivid" refer incidentally to
+Mrs. Mill's quick perceptiveness, and thus throw a useful light on the
+mutual advantages of the common work of husband and wife. But it savours
+almost of impertinence even to attempt to lift the veil on a mystery
+like this. It is enough to say, perhaps, that however much we may
+deplore the exaggeration of Mill's references to his wife, we recognise
+that, for whatever reason, the pair lived an ideally happy life.
+
+It still, however, remains to estimate the extent to which Mrs. Taylor,
+both before and after her marriage with Mill, made actual contributions
+to his thoughts and his public work. Here I may be perhaps permitted to
+avail myself of what I have already written in a previous work.[1] Mill
+gives us abundant help in this matter in the _Autobiography_. When first
+he knew her, his thoughts were turning to the subject of Logic. But his
+published work on the subject owed nothing to her, he tells us, in its
+doctrines. It was Mill's custom to write the whole of a book so as to
+get his general scheme complete, and then laboriously to re-write it in
+order to perfect the phrases and the composition. Doubtless Mrs. Taylor
+was of considerable help to him as a critic of style. But to be a critic
+of doctrine she was hardly qualified. Mill has made some clear
+admissions on this point. "The only actual revolution which has ever
+taken place in my modes of thinking was already complete,"[2] he says,
+before her influence became paramount. There is a curiously humble
+estimate of his own powers (to which Dr. Bain has called attention),
+which reads at first sight as if it contradicted this. "During the
+greater part of my literary life I have performed the office in relation
+to her, which, from a rather early period, I had considered as the most
+useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought, that
+of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and
+the public." So far it would seem that Mill had sat at the feet of his
+oracle; but observe the highly remarkable exception which is made in the
+following sentence:--"For I had always a humble opinion of my own powers
+as an original thinker, _except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics,
+and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics.)_"[3] If
+Mill then was an original thinker in logic, metaphysics, and the science
+of economy and politics, it is clear that he had not learnt these from
+her lips. And to most men logic and metaphysics may be safely taken as
+forming a domain in which originality of thought, if it can be honestly
+professed, is a sufficient title of distinction.
+
+Mrs. Taylor's assistance in the _Political Economy_ is confined to
+certain definite points. The purely scientific part was, we are assured,
+not learnt from her. "But it was chiefly her influence which gave to the
+book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous
+expositions of political economy that had any pretensions to be
+scientific, and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which
+those previous expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in
+making the proper distinction between the laws of the production of
+wealth, which are real laws of Nature, dependent on the properties of
+objects, and the modes of its distribution, which, subject to certain
+conditions, depend on human will.... _I had indeed partially learnt this
+view of things from the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of
+St. Simonians_; but it was made a living principle, pervading and
+animating the book, by my wife's promptings."[4] The part which is
+italicised is noticeable. Here, as elsewhere, Mill thinks out the matter
+by himself; the concrete form of the thoughts is suggested or prompted
+by the wife. Apart from this "general tone," Mill tells us that there
+was a specific contribution. "The chapter which has had a greater
+influence on opinion than all the rest, that on the Probable Future of
+the Labouring Classes, is entirely due to her. In the first draft of the
+book that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the need of such a
+chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book without it; she was
+the cause of my writing it." From this it would appear that she gave
+Mill that tendency to Socialism which, while it lends a progressive
+spirit to his speculations on politics, at the same time does not
+manifestly accord with his earlier advocacy of peasant proprietorships.
+Nor, again, is it, on the face of it, consistent with those doctrines of
+individual liberty which, aided by the intellectual companionship of his
+wife, he propounded in a later work. The ideal of individual freedom is
+not the ideal of Socialism, just as that invocation of governmental aid
+to which the Socialist resorts is not consistent with the theory of
+_laisser-faire_. Yet _Liberty_ was planned by Mill and his wife in
+concert. Perhaps a slight visionariness of speculation was no less the
+attribute of Mrs. Mill than an absence of rigid logical principles. Be
+this as it may, she undoubtedly checked the half-recognised leanings of
+her husband in the direction of Coleridge and Carlyle. Whether this was
+an instance of her steadying influence,[5] or whether it added one more
+unassimilated element to Mill's diverse intellectual sustenance, may be
+wisely left an open question. We cannot, however, be wrong in
+attributing to her the parentage of one book of Mill, _The Subjection of
+Women_. It is true that Mill had before learnt that men and women ought
+to be equal in legal, political, social, and domestic relations. This
+was a point on which he had already fallen foul of his father's essay on
+_Government_. But Mrs. Taylor had actually written on this very point,
+and the warmth and fervour of Mill's denunciations of women's servitude
+were unmistakably caught from his wife's view of the practical
+disabilities entailed by the feminine position.
+
+
+III.
+
+_Liberty_ was published in 1859, when the nineteenth century was half
+over, but in its general spirit and in some of its special tendencies
+the little tract belongs rather to the standpoint of the eighteenth
+century than to that which saw its birth. In many of his speculations
+John Stuart Mill forms a sort of connecting link between the doctrines
+of the earlier English empirical school and those which we associate
+with the name of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his _Logic_, for instance, he
+represents an advance on the theories of Hume, and yet does not see how
+profoundly the victories of Science modify the conclusions of the
+earlier thinker. Similarly, in his _Political Economy_, he desires to
+improve and to enlarge upon Ricardo, and yet does not advance so far as
+the modifications of political economy by Sociology, indicated by some
+later--and especially German--speculations on the subject. In the tract
+on _Liberty_, Mill is advocating the rights of the individual as against
+Society at the very opening of an era that was rapidly coming to the
+conclusion that the individual had no absolute rights against Society.
+The eighteenth century view is that individuals existed first, each with
+their own special claims and responsibilities; that they deliberately
+formed a Social State, either by a contract or otherwise; and that then
+finally they limited their own action out of regard for the interests of
+the social organism thus arbitrarily produced. This is hardly the view
+of the nineteenth century. It is possible that logically the individual
+is prior to the State; historically and in the order of Nature, the
+State is prior to the individual. In other words, such rights as every
+single personality possesses in a modern world do not belong to him by
+an original ordinance of Nature, but are slowly acquired in the growth
+and development of the social state. It is not the truth that individual
+liberties were forfeited by some deliberate act when men made themselves
+into a Commonwealth. It is more true to say, as Aristotle said long ago,
+that man is naturally a political animal, that he lived under strict
+social laws as a mere item, almost a nonentity, as compared with the
+Order, Society, or Community to which he belonged, and that such
+privileges as he subsequently acquired have been obtained in virtue of
+his growing importance as a member of a growing organisation. But if
+this is even approximately true, it seriously restricts that liberty of
+the individual for which Mill pleads. The individual has no chance,
+because he has no rights, against the social organism. Society can
+punish him for acts or even opinions which are anti-social in character.
+His virtue lies in recognising the intimate communion with his fellows.
+His sphere of activity is bounded by the common interest. Just as it is
+an absurd and exploded theory that all men are originally equal, so it
+is an ancient and false doctrine to protest that a man has an individual
+liberty to live and think as he chooses in any spirit of antagonism to
+that larger body of which he forms an insignificant part.
+
+Nowadays this view of Society and of its development, which we largely
+owe to the _Philosophie Positive_ of M. Auguste Comte, is so familiar
+and possibly so damaging to the individual initiative, that it becomes
+necessary to advance and proclaim the truth which resides in an opposite
+theory. All progress, as we are aware, depends on the joint process of
+integration and differentiation; synthesis, analysis, and then a larger
+synthesis seem to form the law of development. If it ever comes to pass
+that Society is tyrannical in its restrictions of the individual, if, as
+for instance in some forms of Socialism, based on deceptive analogies of
+Nature's dealings, the type is everything and the individual nothing, it
+must be confidently urged in answer that the fuller life of the future
+depends on the manifold activities, even though they may be
+antagonistic, of the individual. In England, at all events, we know that
+government in all its different forms, whether as King, or as a caste
+of nobles, or as an oligarchical plutocracy, or even as trades unions,
+is so dwarfing in its action that, for the sake of the future, the
+individual must revolt. Just as our former point of view limited the
+value of Mill's treatise on _Liberty_, so these considerations tend to
+show its eternal importance. The omnipotence of Society means a dead
+level of uniformity. The claim of the individual to be heard, to say
+what he likes, to do what he likes, to live as he likes, is absolutely
+necessary, not only for the variety of elements without which life is
+poor, but also for the hope of a future age. So long as individual
+initiative and effort are recognised as a vital element in English
+history, so long will Mill's _Liberty_, which he confesses was based on
+a suggestion derived from Von Humboldt, remain as an indispensable
+contribution to the speculations, and also to the health and sanity, of
+the world.
+
+
+What his wife really was to Mill, we shall, perhaps, never know. But
+that she was an actual and vivid force, which roused the latent
+enthusiasm of his nature, we have abundant evidence. And when she died
+at Avignon, though his friends may have regained an almost estranged
+companionship, Mill was, personally, the poorer. Into the sorrow of that
+bereavement we cannot enter: we have no right or power to draw the veil.
+It is enough to quote the simple words, so eloquent of an unspoken
+grief--"I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest
+manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would
+have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left,
+and to work for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be
+derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory."
+
+
+W. L. COURTNEY.
+
+LONDON, _July 5th, 1901_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Life of John Stuart Mill_, chapter vi. (Walter Scott.)
+
+[2] _Autobiography_, p. 190.
+
+[3] _Ibid._, p. 242.
+
+[4] _Autobiography_, pp. 246, 247.
+
+[5] Cf. an instructive page in the _Autobiography_, p. 252.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+                                            PAGE
+INTRODUCTORY                                   1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION      28
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS
+OF WELL-BEING                                103
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY
+OVER THE INDIVIDUAL                          140
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+APPLICATIONS                                 177
+
+
+
+
+The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument
+unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and
+essential importance of human development in its richest
+diversity.--WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT: _Sphere and Duties of
+Government_.
+
+
+
+
+ON LIBERTY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so
+unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical
+Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the
+power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the
+individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in
+general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical
+controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to
+make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is so far
+from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost
+from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more
+civilised portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself
+under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental
+treatment.
+
+The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous
+feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar,
+particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this
+contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the
+government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the
+political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the
+popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position
+to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a
+governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance
+or conquest, who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the
+governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not
+desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its
+oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as
+highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against
+their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the
+weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable
+vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey
+stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king
+of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any
+of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude
+of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots,
+was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to
+exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by
+liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition
+of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it
+was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and
+which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was
+held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was
+the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the
+community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its
+interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important
+acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation,
+the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or
+less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or
+when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely,
+became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so
+long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be
+ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less
+efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations
+beyond this point.
+
+A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased
+to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an
+independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to
+them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be
+their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way
+alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of
+government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this
+new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object
+of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed;
+and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit
+the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling
+power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons
+began to think that too much importance had been attached to the
+limitation of the power itself. _That_ (it might seem) was a resource
+against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the
+people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified
+with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and
+will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its
+own will. There was no fear of its tyrannising over itself. Let the
+rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and
+it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself
+dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power,
+concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of
+thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last
+generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which
+it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a
+government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think
+ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the
+political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might
+by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the
+circumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.
+
+But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons,
+success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have
+concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to
+limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular
+government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed
+at some distant period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily
+disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of the French
+Revolution, the worst of which were the work of a usurping few, and
+which, in any case, belonged, not to the permanent working of popular
+institutions, but to a sudden and convulsive outbreak against
+monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic
+republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made
+itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of
+nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the
+observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It
+was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and "the power
+of the people over themselves," do not express the true state of the
+case. The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people
+with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken
+of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the
+rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of
+the most numerous or the most active _part_ of the people; the majority,
+or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the
+people, consequently, _may_ desire to oppress a part of their number;
+and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other
+abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government
+over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power
+are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest
+party therein. This view of things, recommending itself equally to the
+intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important
+classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests
+democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and
+in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally
+included among the evils against which society requires to be on its
+guard.
+
+Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is
+still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of
+the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when
+society is itself the tyrant--society collectively, over the separate
+individuals who compose it--its means of tyrannising are not restricted
+to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries.
+Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong
+mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which
+it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable
+than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually
+upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape,
+penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the
+soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the
+magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the
+tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of
+society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas
+and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to
+fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any
+individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to
+fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the
+legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual
+independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against
+encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs,
+as protection against political despotism.
+
+But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general
+terms, the practical question, where to place the limit--how to make the
+fitting adjustment between individual independence and social
+control--is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All
+that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of
+restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct,
+therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on
+many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What
+these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but
+if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which
+least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any
+two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or
+country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and
+country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject
+on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among
+themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but
+universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of
+custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is
+continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing
+any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on
+one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on
+which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be
+given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are
+accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some
+who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on
+subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons
+unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions
+on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind
+that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he
+sympathises, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to
+himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion
+on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one
+person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal
+to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many
+people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own
+preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory
+reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of
+morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his
+religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that.
+Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are
+affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in
+regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those
+which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their
+reason--at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their
+social affections, not seldom their anti-social ones, their envy or
+jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their
+desires or fears for themselves--their legitimate or illegitimate
+self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of
+the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its
+feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots,
+between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between
+nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part
+the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments
+thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of
+the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the
+other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or
+where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments
+frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority.
+Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act
+and forbearance, which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been
+the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions
+of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility, though
+essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly
+genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and
+heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious
+interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in the
+direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason,
+and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and
+antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which
+had little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made
+themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great
+force.
+
+The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of
+it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules
+laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or
+opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in
+thought and feeling have left this condition of things unassailed in
+principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of
+its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what
+things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its
+likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred
+endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points
+on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause
+in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which
+the higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with
+consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that of
+religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as
+forming a most striking instance of the fallibility of what is called
+the moral sense: for the _odium theologicum_, in a sincere bigot, is one
+of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first broke
+the yoke of what called itself the Universal Church, were in general as
+little willing to permit difference of religious opinion as that church
+itself. But when the heat of the conflict was over, without giving a
+complete victory to any party, and each church or sect was reduced to
+limit its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already
+occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming
+majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they
+could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this
+battle-field, almost solely, that the rights of the individual against
+society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim
+of society to exercise authority over dissentients, openly controverted.
+The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it
+possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible
+right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others
+for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in
+whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly
+anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference,
+which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has
+added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious
+persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is
+admitted with tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in
+matters of church government, but not of dogma; another can tolerate
+everybody, short of a Papist or a Unitarian; another, every one who
+believes in revealed religion; a few extend their charity a little
+further, but stop at the belief in a God and in a future state. Wherever
+the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found
+to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.
+
+In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history,
+though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter,
+than in most other countries of Europe; and there is considerable
+jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative or the executive
+power, with private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the
+independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting habit of
+looking on the government as representing an opposite interest to the
+public. The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the
+government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so,
+individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the
+government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is
+a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any
+attempt of the law to control individuals in things in which they have
+not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it; and this with very
+little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the
+legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly
+salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as often misplaced as well
+grounded in the particular instances of its application. There is, in
+fact, no recognised principle by which the propriety or impropriety of
+government interference is customarily tested. People decide according
+to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be
+done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government
+to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount
+of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human
+interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on
+one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general
+direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest
+which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the
+government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the
+government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but
+very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere,
+as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And it seems to me
+that in consequence of this absence of rule or principle, one side is
+at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government
+is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly
+condemned.
+
+The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as
+entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the
+individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used
+be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion
+of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which
+mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with
+the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That
+the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
+member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
+others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
+warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
+will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
+because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even
+right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning
+with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling
+him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify
+that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be
+calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the
+conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which
+concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his
+independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and
+mind, the individual is sovereign.
+
+It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to
+apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are
+not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the
+law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a
+state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected
+against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the
+same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of
+society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The
+early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
+there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler
+full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any
+expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable.
+Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with
+barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means
+justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has
+no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind
+have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
+Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar
+or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon
+as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own
+improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in
+all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion,
+either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for
+non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good,
+and justifiable only for the security of others.
+
+It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived
+to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent
+of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical
+questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the
+permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I
+contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external
+control, only in respect to those actions of each, which concern the
+interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others,
+there is a _primâ facie_ case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal
+penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There
+are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
+rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court
+of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any
+other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he
+enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual
+beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to
+protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is
+obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to
+society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his
+actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable
+to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much
+more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one
+answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable
+for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet
+there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that
+exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the
+individual, he is _de jure_ amenable to those whose interests are
+concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are
+often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these
+reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either
+because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act
+better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way
+in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the
+attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than
+those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the
+enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself
+should step into the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests
+of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the
+more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made
+accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.
+
+But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from
+the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending
+all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only
+himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary,
+and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I
+mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself,
+may affect others _through_ himself; and the objection which may be
+grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel.
+This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises,
+first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of
+conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and
+feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects,
+practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty
+of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different
+principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual
+which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as
+the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same
+reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle
+requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life
+to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such
+consequences as may follow: without impediment from our
+fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though
+they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from
+this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same
+limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any
+purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being
+supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
+
+No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is
+free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely
+free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only
+freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our
+own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or
+impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his
+own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater
+gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves,
+than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
+
+Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have
+the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly
+opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice.
+Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to
+its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as
+of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought themselves
+entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the
+regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the
+ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental
+discipline of every one of its citizens; a mode of thinking which may
+have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies,
+in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal
+commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and
+self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not afford to
+wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world,
+the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation
+between spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of
+men's consciences in other hands than those which controlled their
+worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in the
+details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been
+wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in
+self-regarding, than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful
+of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling,
+having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a
+hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by
+the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have
+placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past,
+have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of
+the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social
+system, as unfolded in his _Traité de Politique Positive_, aims at
+establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism
+of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the
+political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient
+philosophers.
+
+Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in
+the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the
+powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and
+even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes
+taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the
+power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which
+tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and
+more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as
+fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule
+of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best
+and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is
+hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as
+the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of
+moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in
+the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
+
+It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once entering
+upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves in the first instance to a
+single branch of it, on which the principle here stated is, if not
+fully, yet to a certain point, recognised by the current opinions. This
+one branch is the Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to
+separate the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing. Although these
+liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of the political
+morality of all countries which profess religious toleration and free
+institutions, the grounds, both philosophical and practical, on which
+they rest, are perhaps not so familiar to the general mind, nor so
+thoroughly appreciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might
+have been expected. Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much
+wider application than to only one division of the subject, and a
+thorough consideration of this part of the question will be found the
+best introduction to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am
+about to say will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a
+subject which for now three centuries has been so often discussed, I
+venture on one discussion more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION.
+
+
+The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be
+necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against
+corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now
+be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not
+identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them,
+and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to
+hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so
+triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it need not be
+specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the
+subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of
+the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force
+against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when
+fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their
+propriety;[6] and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional
+countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely
+responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the
+expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ
+of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore,
+that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks
+of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it
+conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to
+exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The
+power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to
+it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in
+accordance with public opinion, than when in or opposition to it. If all
+mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the
+contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that
+one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in
+silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value
+except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were
+simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the
+injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar
+evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing
+the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who
+dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the
+opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging
+error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit,
+the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its
+collision with error.
+
+It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of
+which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can
+never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false
+opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
+
+
+First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may
+possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its
+truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the
+question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means
+of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure
+that it is false, is to assume that _their_ certainty is the same thing
+as _absolute_ certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption
+of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common
+argument, not the worse for being common.
+
+Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their
+fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment,
+which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows
+himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions
+against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any
+opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of
+the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute
+princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually
+feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all
+subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their
+opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they
+are wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their
+opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they
+habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his
+own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on
+the infallibility of "the world" in general. And the world, to each
+individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his
+party, his sect, his church, his class of society: the man may be
+called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-minded to whom it means
+anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his
+faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that
+other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have
+thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own
+world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissentient
+worlds of other people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has
+decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance,
+and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would
+have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet it is as evident
+in itself as any amount of argument can make it, that ages are no more
+infallible than individuals; every age having held many opinions which
+subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as
+certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future
+ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.
+
+The objection likely to be made to this argument, would probably take
+some such form as the following. There is no greater assumption of
+infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than in any other
+thing which is done by public authority on its own judgment and
+responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because
+it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to
+use it at all? To prohibit what they think pernicious, is not claiming
+exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them,
+although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction. If we
+were never to act on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong,
+we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties
+unperformed. An objection which applies to all conduct, can be no valid
+objection to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments,
+and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them
+carefully, and never impose them upon others unless they are quite sure
+of being right. But when they are sure (such reasoners may say), it is
+not conscientiousness but cowardice to shrink from acting on their
+opinions, and allow doctrines which they honestly think dangerous to the
+welfare of mankind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered
+abroad without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened
+times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take
+care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake: but governments and
+nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not denied to be
+fit subjects for the exercise of authority: they have laid on bad taxes,
+made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, and, under
+whatever provocation, make no wars? Men, and governments, must act to
+the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty,
+but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. We
+may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own
+conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to pervert
+society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and
+pernicious.
+
+I answer that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest
+difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every
+opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its
+truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty
+of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which
+justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no
+other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance
+of being right.
+
+When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary conduct
+of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one and the other
+are no worse than they are? Not certainly to the inherent force of the
+human understanding; for, on any matter not self-evident, there are
+ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it, for one who is
+capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative;
+for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many
+opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things
+which no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the
+whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational
+conduct? If there really is this preponderance--which there must be,
+unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost desperate
+state--it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of
+everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral
+being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of
+rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience
+alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be
+interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and
+argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind,
+must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own
+story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength
+and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that
+it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only
+when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the
+case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how
+has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his
+opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all
+that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just,
+and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what
+was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human
+being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by
+hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of
+opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every
+character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but
+this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any
+other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own
+opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt
+and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable
+foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognisant of all that
+can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his
+position against all gainsayers--knowing that he has sought for
+objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out
+no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter--he has a
+right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any
+multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.
+
+It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who
+are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant
+their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous
+collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the
+public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even
+at the canonisation of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a
+"devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted
+to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is
+known and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted
+to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance of its
+truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have
+no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to
+prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted
+and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we
+have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we
+have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching
+us: if the lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better
+truth, it will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it;
+and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to
+truth, as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty
+attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining it.
+
+Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for
+free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not
+seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are
+not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are
+not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be
+free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be _doubtful_, but
+think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to
+be questioned because it is _so certain_, that is, because _they are
+certain_ that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while
+there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is
+not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with
+us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other
+side.
+
+In the present age--which has been described as "destitute of faith, but
+terrified at scepticism"--in which people feel sure, not so much that
+their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without
+them--the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are
+rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There
+are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable
+to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold
+those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a
+case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty,
+something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and
+even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the
+general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener
+thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary
+beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining
+bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise.
+This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on
+discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their
+usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the
+responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But
+those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption
+of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The
+usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as
+open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion
+itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to
+decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the
+opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will
+not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or
+harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The
+truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or
+not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it
+possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In
+the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is
+contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men
+from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for
+denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they
+believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions,
+never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find
+_them_ handling the question of utility as if it could be completely
+abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all,
+because their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the belief
+of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of
+the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on
+one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public
+feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are
+just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they
+allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive
+guilt of rejecting it.
+
+In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hearing to
+opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them, it will
+be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete case; and I
+choose, by preference, the cases which are least favourable to me--in
+which the argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of
+truth and on that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the
+opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a future state, or any
+of the commonly received doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on
+such ground, gives a great advantage to an unfair antagonist; since he
+will be sure to say (and many who have no desire to be unfair will say
+it internally), Are these the doctrines which you do not deem
+sufficiently certain to be taken under the protection of law? Is the
+belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which, you hold to
+be assuming infallibility? But I must be permitted to observe, that it
+is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call
+an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that
+question _for others_, without allowing them to hear what can be said on
+the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the
+less, if put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However
+positive any one's persuasion may be, not only of the falsity, but of
+the pernicious consequences--not only of the pernicious consequences,
+but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and
+impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance of that private judgment,
+though backed by the public judgment of his country or his
+contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence,
+he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less
+objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or
+impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal. These
+are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit
+those dreadful mistakes, which excite the astonishment and horror of
+posterity. It is among such that we find the instances memorable in
+history, when the arm of the law has been employed to root out the best
+men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable success as to the men,
+though some of the doctrines have survived to be (as if in mockery)
+invoked, in defence of similar conduct towards those who dissent from
+_them_, or from their received interpretation.
+
+Mankind can hardly be too often reminded that there was once a man named
+Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of
+his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an age and
+country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been handed down
+to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous
+man in it; while _we_ know him as the head and prototype of all
+subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty
+inspiration of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, "_i
+maëstri di color che sanno_," the two headsprings of ethical as of all
+other philosophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers
+who have since lived--whose fame, still growing after more than two
+thousand years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which
+make his native city illustrious--was put to death by his countrymen,
+after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in
+denying the gods recognised by the State; indeed his accuser asserted
+(see the "Apologia") that he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in
+being, by his doctrines and instructions, a "corruptor of youth." Of
+these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing,
+honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all
+then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a
+criminal.
+
+To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial iniquity, the
+mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, would not be an
+anticlimax: the event which took place on Calvary rather more than
+eighteen hundred years ago. The man who left on the memory of those who
+witnessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his moral
+grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as
+the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what? As a
+blasphemer. Men did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook
+him for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as that
+prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now held to be, for their
+treatment of him. The feelings with which mankind now regard these
+lamentable transactions, especially the later of the two, render them
+extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to
+all appearance, not bad men--not worse than men commonly are, but rather
+the contrary; men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full
+measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and
+people: the very kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have
+every chance of passing through life blameless and respected. The
+high-priest who rent his garments when the words were pronounced, which,
+according to all the ideas of his country, constituted the blackest
+guilt, was in all probability quite as sincere in his horror and
+indignation, as the generality of respectable and pious men now are in
+the religious and moral sentiments they profess; and most of those who
+now shudder at his conduct, if they had lived in his time, and been born
+Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox Christians who are
+tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first martyrs must
+have been worse men than they themselves are, ought to remember that one
+of those persecutors was Saint Paul.
+
+Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the
+impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue of him
+who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had grounds for
+thinking himself the best and most enlightened among his cotemporaries,
+it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole
+civilised world, he preserved through life not only the most unblemished
+justice, but what was less to be expected from his Stoical breeding, the
+tenderest heart. The few failings which are attributed to him, were all
+on the side of indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical
+product of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ
+at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. This man, a
+better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word, than almost
+any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have since reigned,
+persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous
+attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a
+character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the
+Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good
+and not an evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply
+penetrated. Existing society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But
+such as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, that it was held together,
+and prevented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the received
+divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his duty not to suffer
+society to fall in pieces; and saw not how, if its existing ties were
+removed, any others could be formed which could again knit it together.
+The new religion openly aimed at dissolving these ties: unless,
+therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be his
+duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology of Christianity did
+not appear to him true or of divine origin; inasmuch as this strange
+history of a crucified God was not credible to him, and a system which
+purported to rest entirely upon a foundation to him so wholly
+unbelievable, could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating agency
+which, after all abatements, it has in fact proved to be; the gentlest
+and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under a solemn sense of
+duty, authorised the persecution of Christianity. To my mind this is one
+of the most tragical facts in all history. It is a bitter thought, how
+different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the
+Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the
+auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But it
+would be equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny, that no one
+plea which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian teaching, was
+wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propagation of
+Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that Atheism is false,
+and tends to the dissolution of society, than Marcus Aurelius believed
+the same things of Christianity; he who, of all men then living, might
+have been thought the most capable of appreciating it. Unless any one
+who approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters
+himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius--more
+deeply versed in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his intellect
+above it--more earnest in his search for truth, or more single-minded in
+his devotion to it when found;--let him abstain from that assumption of
+the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which the great
+Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.
+
+Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment for
+restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will not justify
+Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom, when hard pressed,
+occasionally accept this consequence, and say, with Dr. Johnson, that
+the persecutors of Christianity were in the right; that persecution is
+an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes
+successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against
+truth, though sometimes beneficially effective against mischievous
+errors. This is a form of the argument for religious intolerance,
+sufficiently remarkable not to be passed without notice.
+
+A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted
+because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, cannot be charged
+with being intentionally hostile to the reception of new truths; but we
+cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom
+mankind are indebted for them. To discover to the world something which
+deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to
+it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or
+spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can
+render to his fellow-creatures, and in certain cases, as in those of the
+early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think with Dr. Johnson
+believe it to have been the most precious gift which could be bestowed
+on mankind. That the authors of such splendid benefits should be
+requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as
+the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error
+and misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes,
+but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new
+truth, according to this doctrine, should stand, as stood, in the
+legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with a halter
+round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did
+not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition.
+People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed
+to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject
+is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may
+have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.
+
+But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is
+one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another
+till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
+History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not
+suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only
+of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out at least twenty times
+before Luther, and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra
+Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were put
+down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards were put down. The
+Hussites were put down. Even after the era of Luther, wherever
+persecution was persisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy,
+Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most
+likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen
+Elizabeth died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the
+heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No
+reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated
+in the Roman Empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the
+persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and
+separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a
+piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any
+inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and
+the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for
+error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties
+will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real
+advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is
+true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the
+course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it,
+until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable
+circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to
+withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
+
+It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of new
+opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we even
+build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to death;
+and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would probably
+tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to
+extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free
+from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at
+least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is
+not, even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible
+that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at
+the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man,[7]
+said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was
+sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment, for uttering, and writing
+on a gate, some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month
+of the same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate
+occasions,[8] were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted
+by the judge and by one of the counsel, because they honestly declared
+that they had no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner,[9] for
+the same reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of
+redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can
+be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess
+belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is
+equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the
+protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted
+with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions,
+be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity,
+if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on
+which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who
+does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much
+ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is historically
+true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons
+of distinguished integrity and honour); and would be maintained by no
+one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in greatest
+repute with the world, both for virtues and for attainments, are well
+known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule,
+besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence
+that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who
+are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of
+publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A
+rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed
+purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of
+persecution; a persecution, too, having the peculiarity, that the
+qualification for undergoing it, is the being clearly proved not to
+deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less
+insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who does not believe
+in a future state, necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe
+are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of
+hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of
+supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian
+virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.
+
+These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may be
+thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute, as an
+example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds, which makes
+them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion of a bad principle,
+when they are no longer bad enough to desire to carry it really into
+practice. But unhappily there is no security in the state of the public
+mind, that the suspension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has
+lasted for about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age
+the quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to
+resuscitate past evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of
+at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow
+and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and
+where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the
+feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of
+this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively
+persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of
+persecution.[10] For it is this--it is the opinions men entertain, and
+the feelings they cherish, respecting those who disown the beliefs they
+deem important, which makes this country not a place of mental freedom.
+For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that
+they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really
+effective, and so effective is it that the profession of opinions which
+are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in
+many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial
+punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary
+circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people,
+opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be
+imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those
+whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in
+power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear
+from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and
+ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to
+enable them to bear. There is no room for any appeal _ad misericordiam_
+in behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil
+on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to
+do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment
+of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose
+like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole
+intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the
+Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the
+older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our
+merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but
+induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for
+their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or
+even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far
+and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and
+studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the
+general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And
+thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds,
+because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning
+anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed,
+while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by
+dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for
+having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on
+therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort
+of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral
+courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of
+the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the
+genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own
+breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much
+as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have
+internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters,
+and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.
+The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere
+conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on
+all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which
+have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by
+narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of
+without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small
+practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the
+minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be
+made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and
+enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest
+subjects, is abandoned.
+
+Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil,
+should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is
+never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that
+such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be
+prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of
+heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry
+which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done
+is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is
+cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute
+what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined
+with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous,
+independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something
+which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among
+them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and
+subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating
+with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of
+ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience
+and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end
+succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise,
+that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to
+whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of
+one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the
+true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer
+themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great
+thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is
+as much, and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to
+attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been,
+and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of
+mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that
+atmosphere, an intellectually active people. Where any people has made a
+temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread
+of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a
+tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the
+discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is
+considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high
+scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so
+remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large
+and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people
+stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even
+persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of
+thinking beings. Of such we have had an example in the condition of
+Europe during the times immediately following the Reformation; another,
+though limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the
+speculative movement of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and a
+third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of
+Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods differed
+widely in the particular opinions which they developed; but were alike
+in this, that during all three the yoke of authority was broken. In
+each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off, and no new one had
+yet taken its place. The impulse given at these three periods has made
+Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place
+either in the human mind or in institutions, may be traced distinctly to
+one or other of them. Appearances have for some time indicated that all
+three impulses are well-nigh spent; and we can expect no fresh start,
+until we again assert our mental freedom.
+
+Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing
+the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false, let us
+assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner in
+which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and
+openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion
+may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be
+moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not
+fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead
+dogma, not a living truth.
+
+There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly)
+who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think
+true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion,
+and could not make a tenable defence of it against the most superficial
+objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from
+authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its
+being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they
+make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely
+and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and
+ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and
+when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give
+way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however,
+this possibility--assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but
+abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against,
+argument--this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a
+rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but
+one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which
+enunciate a truth.
+
+If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated, a thing
+which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these faculties be
+more appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things which
+concern him so much that it is considered necessary for him to hold
+opinions on them? If the cultivation of the understanding consists in
+one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of
+one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is
+of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to
+defend against at least the common objections. But, some one may say,
+"Let them be _taught_ the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow
+that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never heard
+controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the
+theorems to memory, but understand and learn likewise the
+demonstrations; and it would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant
+of the grounds of geometrical truths, because they never hear any one
+deny, and attempt to disprove them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching
+suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to
+be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the
+evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one
+side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on
+every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth
+depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting
+reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other
+explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead
+of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be
+shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is
+shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the
+grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more
+complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the
+business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed
+opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion
+different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left
+it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great,
+if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero
+practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by
+all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows
+only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be
+good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally
+unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so
+much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
+opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment,
+and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by
+authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to
+which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear
+the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they
+state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is
+not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real
+contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who
+actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very
+utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and
+persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which
+the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he
+will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets
+and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called
+educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently
+for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false
+for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the
+mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered
+what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any
+proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves
+profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify
+the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly
+conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two
+apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred.
+All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the
+judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it
+ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and
+impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in
+the strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real
+understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all
+important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and
+supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's
+advocate can conjure up.
+
+To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion
+may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in
+general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their
+opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for
+common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an
+ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody
+capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead
+uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been
+taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust
+to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither
+knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised,
+may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have
+been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.
+
+Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for
+it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of
+truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument
+for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine
+acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all
+objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be
+answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can
+the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no
+opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at
+least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the
+difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in
+their most puzzling form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they
+are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they
+admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of dealing with this
+embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between those who can
+be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must
+accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what
+they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided
+in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the
+arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore,
+read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard
+to be obtained. This discipline recognises a knowledge of the enemy's
+case as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with
+this, of denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the _élite_
+more mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to
+the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental
+superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without
+freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever _nisi
+prius_ advocate of a cause. But in countries professing Protestantism,
+this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory,
+that the responsibility for the choice of a religion must be borne by
+each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon teachers. Besides, in
+the present state of the world, it is practically impossible that
+writings which are read by the instructed can be kept from the
+uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be cognisant of all that
+they ought to know, everything must be free to be written and published
+without restraint.
+
+If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free
+discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined to
+leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might be
+thought that this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and does not
+affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their influence on the
+character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds of the
+opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the
+meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey it, cease to
+suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of those they were
+originally employed to communicate. Instead of a vivid conception and a
+living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if
+any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer
+essence being lost. The great chapter in human history which this fact
+occupies and fills, cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on.
+
+It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and
+religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who
+originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their
+meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps
+brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle
+lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds. At
+last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its
+progress stops; it keeps possession of the ground it has gained, but
+ceases to spread further. When either of these results has become
+apparent, controversy on the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The
+doctrine has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of
+the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have
+generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these
+doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little
+place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at
+first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the
+world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided into
+acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to arguments
+against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such) with
+arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the decline
+in the living power of the doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all
+creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers
+a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognise, so
+that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the
+conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still
+fighting for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and
+feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and other
+doctrines; and in that period of every creed's existence, not a few
+persons may be found, who have realised its fundamental principles in
+all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their
+important bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the
+character, which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind
+thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be a hereditary
+creed, and to be received passively, not actively--when the mind is no
+longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital
+powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a
+progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the
+formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it
+on trust dispensed with the necessity of realising it in consciousness,
+or testing it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect
+itself at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen the
+cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to form the
+majority, in which the creed remains as it were outside the mind,
+encrusting and petrifying it against all other influences addressed to
+the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering
+any fresh and living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for
+the mind or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them
+vacant.
+
+To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest
+impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without being
+ever realised in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is
+exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold the
+doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted
+such by all churches and sects--the maxims and precepts contained in the
+New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all
+professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one
+Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by
+reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it, is the
+custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. He has
+thus, on the one hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes
+to have been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his
+government; and on the other, a set of every-day judgments and
+practices, which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so
+great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and are,
+on the whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests
+and suggestions of worldly life. To the first of these standards he
+gives his homage; to the other his real allegiance. All Christians
+believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are
+ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass through the
+eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that
+they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should swear not
+at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves; that if one
+take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should
+take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect, they
+should sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are not
+insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe
+them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and never
+discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates
+conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it
+is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are
+serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are
+to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do
+that they think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims
+require an infinity of things which they never even think of doing,
+would gain nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular
+characters who affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have
+no hold on ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have
+a habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads
+from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take
+_them_ in, and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is
+concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go
+in obeying Christ.
+
+Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far
+otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity
+never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised Hebrews
+into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies said, "See how
+these Christians love one another" (a remark not likely to be made by
+anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier feeling of the meaning
+of their creed than they have ever had since. And to this cause,
+probably, it is chiefly owing that Christianity now makes so little
+progress in extending its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still
+nearly confined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with
+the strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines,
+and attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people in
+general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively
+active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or some
+such person much nearer in character to themselves. The sayings of
+Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect
+beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.
+There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of
+a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognised
+sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their meaning
+alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more
+questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers.
+Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there
+is no enemy in the field.
+
+The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional
+doctrines--those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of morals
+or religion. All languages and literatures are full of general
+observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself
+in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or
+hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which
+most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, generally of
+a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting
+under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call
+to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the
+meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would
+have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for this,
+other than the absence of discussion: there are many truths of which the
+full meaning _cannot_ be realised, until personal experience has brought
+it home. But much more of the meaning even of these would have been
+understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply
+impressed on the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued
+_pro_ and _con_ by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of
+mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer
+doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has
+well spoken of "the deep slumber of a decided opinion."
+
+But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an indispensable
+condition of true knowledge? Is it necessary that some part of mankind
+should persist in error, to enable any to realise the truth? Does a
+belief cease to be real and vital as soon as it is generally
+received--and is a proposition never thoroughly understood and felt
+unless some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have unanimously
+accepted a truth, does the truth perish within them? The highest aim and
+best result of improved intelligence, it has hitherto been thought, is
+to unite mankind more and more in the acknowledgment of all important
+truths: and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not
+achieved its object? Do the fruits of conquest perish by the very
+completeness of the victory?
+
+I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines
+which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the
+increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured by the
+number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being
+uncontested. The cessation, on one question after another, of serious
+controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of
+opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it
+is dangerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But though
+this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of opinion is
+necessary in both senses of the term, being at once inevitable and
+indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its
+consequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the
+intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the
+necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents,
+though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the
+benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can no longer
+be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind
+endeavouring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making
+the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's
+consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient
+champion, eager for his conversion.
+
+But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost
+those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently
+exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this
+description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the great
+questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate skill to the
+purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces of
+received opinion, that he did not understand the subject--that he as yet
+attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed; in order
+that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to
+attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the
+meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations of
+the middle ages had a somewhat similar object. They were intended to
+make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary
+correlation) the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of
+the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests
+had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to were
+taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline to the mind,
+they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which
+formed the intellects of the "Socratici viri": but the modern mind owes
+far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present
+modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies
+the place either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all
+his instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting
+temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to
+hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment,
+even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part of what
+everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends as a reply
+to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to disparage
+negative logic--that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in
+practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism
+would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to
+attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it
+cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically
+trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general
+average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical
+departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's opinions
+deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had
+forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental
+process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active
+controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so
+indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd is it
+to forego, when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons
+who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will
+let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them,
+and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought,
+if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our
+convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.
+
+
+It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which make
+diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do so until
+mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual advancement which at
+present seems at an incalculable distance. We have hitherto considered
+only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some
+other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being
+true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear
+apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner
+case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of
+being one true and the other false, share the truth between them; and
+the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the
+truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. Popular
+opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom
+or never the whole truth. They are a part of the truth; sometimes a
+greater, sometimes a smaller part, but exaggerated, distorted, and
+disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and
+limited. Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally some of
+these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds which kept
+them down, and either seeking reconciliation with the truth contained in
+the common opinion, or fronting it as enemies, and setting themselves
+up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth. The latter case is
+hitherto the most frequent, as, in the human mind, one-sidedness has
+always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in
+revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another
+rises. Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only
+substitutes one partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement
+consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more
+wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it
+displaces. Such being the partial character of prevailing opinions, even
+when resting on a true foundation; every opinion which embodies somewhat
+of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be
+considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that
+truth may be blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to
+be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we
+should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see.
+Rather, he will think that so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is
+more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth should have one-sided
+asserters too; such being usually the most energetic, and the most
+likely to compel reluctant attention to the fragment of wisdom which
+they proclaim as if it were the whole.
+
+Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, and all
+those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost in admiration
+of what is called civilisation, and of the marvels of modern science,
+literature, and philosophy, and while greatly overrating the amount of
+unlikeness between the men of modern and those of ancient times,
+indulged the belief that the whole of the difference was in their own
+favour; with what a salutary shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode
+like bombshells in the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided
+opinion, and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with
+additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on the whole
+farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; on the contrary, they were
+nearer to it; they contained more of positive truth, and very much less
+of error. Nevertheless there lay in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated
+down the stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of
+exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and these are the
+deposit which was left behind when the flood subsided. The superior
+worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and demoralising effect of
+the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have
+never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote;
+and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present
+needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for
+words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their power.
+
+In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order
+or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary
+elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the
+other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally
+of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be
+preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of
+thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it
+is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within
+the limits of reason and sanity. Unless opinions favourable to democracy
+and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to
+competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and
+individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing
+antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and
+enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance
+of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go up and the
+other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a
+question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few
+have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment
+with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough
+process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile
+banners. On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either
+of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be
+tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which
+happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is
+the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected
+interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining
+less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this country, any
+intolerance of differences of opinion on most of these topics. They are
+adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality
+of the fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the
+existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair-play to all sides of
+the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to
+the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is
+in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something
+worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something
+by their silence.
+
+It may be objected, "But _some_ received principles, especially on the
+highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. The
+Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth on that subject,
+and if any one teaches a morality which varies from it, he is wholly in
+error." As this is of all cases the most important in practice, none can
+be fitter to test the general maxim. But before pronouncing what
+Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to decide what is
+meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New
+Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from
+the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a
+complete doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing
+morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that
+morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and higher;
+expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often impossible to
+be interpreted literally, and possessing rather the impressiveness of
+poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation. To extract from
+it a body of ethical doctrine, has ever been possible without eking it
+out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but
+in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people.
+St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the
+doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a
+pre-existing morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his
+advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to
+that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What
+is called Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality,
+was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin,
+having been gradually built up by the Catholic church of the first five
+centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns and Protestants,
+has been much less modified by them than might have been expected. For
+the most part, indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off
+the additions which had been made to it in the middle ages, each sect
+supplying the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and
+tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its
+early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but I do not
+scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete
+and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it,
+had contributed to the formation of European life and character, human
+affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are.
+Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it
+is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative
+rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than
+Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good:
+in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates
+unduly over "thou shalt." In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol
+of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of
+legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the
+appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling
+far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to
+human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each
+man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures,
+except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for
+consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it
+inculcates submission to all authorities found established; who indeed
+are not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids,
+but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for any
+amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best
+Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place,
+infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian
+ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or
+acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read
+the maxim--"A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in
+his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and
+against the State." What little recognition the idea of obligation to
+the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman
+sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life,
+whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even
+the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious
+part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of
+ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of
+obedience.
+
+I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are
+necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in which
+it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral
+doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit of being reconciled
+with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts
+of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, that I
+can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; that they are
+irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality requires;
+that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them,
+with no greater violence to their language than has been done to it by
+all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system of
+conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that
+they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that
+many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things
+which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the
+recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have
+been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis
+of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I
+think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian
+doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended
+it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe,
+too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil,
+detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction,
+which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves
+to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings
+on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those secular
+standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which
+heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics,
+receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there
+will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of
+character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme
+Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathising in the conception of
+Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than any which can be
+evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist side by side with
+Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that
+the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect
+state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of
+opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths
+not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it
+does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is
+altogether an evil; but it is one from which we cannot hope to be always
+exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for an inestimable good.
+The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole,
+must and ought to be protested against, and if a reactionary impulse
+should make the protestors unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness,
+like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians
+would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves
+be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact,
+known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary
+history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral
+teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men
+who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.
+
+I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of
+enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of
+religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow
+capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and
+in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world,
+or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I
+acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not
+cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated
+thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being
+rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded
+as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the
+calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of
+opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between
+parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the
+formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen
+to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden
+into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by
+being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental
+attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in
+intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one
+is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in
+proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any
+fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as
+to be listened to.
+
+
+We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind
+(on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and
+freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we
+will now briefly recapitulate.
+
+First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for
+aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own
+infallibility.
+
+Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very
+commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or
+prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it
+is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the
+truth has any chance of being supplied.
+
+Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole
+truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and
+earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held
+in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of
+its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of
+the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and
+deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma
+becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering
+the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt
+conviction, from reason or personal experience.
+
+Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take
+some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions
+should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do
+not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the
+impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed;
+for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think
+experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is
+telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and
+whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any
+strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though
+an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a
+more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an
+opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and
+may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind
+are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal,
+to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue
+sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements
+of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to
+the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good
+faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may
+not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely
+possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the
+misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume
+to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to
+what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective,
+sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons
+would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them
+equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment
+of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they
+may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to
+obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous
+indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest
+when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and
+whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode
+of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The
+worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to
+stigmatise those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.
+To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are
+peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential,
+and nobody but themselves feel much interest in seeing justice done
+them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those
+who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to
+themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their
+own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can
+only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most
+cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever
+deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured
+vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does
+deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to
+those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and
+justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of
+vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were
+necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage
+offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however,
+obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either,
+while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the
+circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever
+side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either
+want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling
+manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side which
+a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our
+own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may
+hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents
+and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit,
+keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their
+favour. This is the real morality of public discussion; and if often
+violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who
+to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who
+conscientiously strive towards it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give them an
+emphatic contradiction, occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of
+1858. That ill-judged interference with the liberty of public discussion
+has not, however, induced me to alter a single word in the text, nor has
+it at all weakened my conviction that, moments of panic excepted, the
+era of pains and penalties for political discussion has, in our own
+country, passed away. For, in the first place, the prosecutions were not
+persisted in; and, in the second, they were never, properly speaking,
+political prosecutions. The offence charged was not that of criticising
+institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but of circulating what
+was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Tyrannicide.
+
+If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought
+to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter
+of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be
+considered. It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of place to
+examine here, whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I
+shall content myself with saying, that the subject has been at all times
+one of the open questions of morals; that the act of a private citizen
+in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has
+placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, has been
+accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men,
+not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue; and that, right or wrong, it
+is not of the nature of assassination, but of civil war. As such, I hold
+that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may be a proper subject
+of punishment, but only if an overt act has followed, and at least a
+probable connection can be established between the act and the
+instigation. Even then, it is not a foreign government, but the very
+government assailed, which alone, in the exercise of self-defence, can
+legitimately punish attacks directed against its own existence.
+
+[7] Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, July 31, 1857. In December following,
+he received a free pardon from the Crown.
+
+[8] George Jacob Holyoake, August 17, 1857; Edward Truelove, July, 1857.
+
+[9] Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough-Street Police Court, August 4, 1857.
+
+[10] Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the passions
+of a persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the worst
+parts of our national character on the occasion of the Sepoy
+insurrection. The ravings of fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may
+be unworthy of notice; but the heads of the Evangelical party have
+announced as their principle, for the government of Hindoos and
+Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which the
+Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public
+employment be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An
+Under-Secretary of State, in a speech delivered to his constituents on
+the 12th of November, 1857, is reported to have said: "Toleration of
+their faith" (the faith of a hundred millions of British subjects), "the
+superstition which they called religion, by the British Government, had
+had the effect of retarding the ascendency of the British name, and
+preventing the salutary growth of Christianity.... Toleration was the
+great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do
+not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it,
+it meant the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, _among
+Christians, who worshipped upon the same foundation_. It meant
+toleration of all sects and denominations of _Christians who believed in
+the one mediation_." I desire to call attention to the fact, that a man
+who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in the government of this
+country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the doctrine that all who
+do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the pale of
+toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion
+that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING.
+
+
+Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should
+be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;
+and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that
+to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or
+asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same
+reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their
+opinions--to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either
+physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own
+risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one
+pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary,
+even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they
+are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive
+instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are
+starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be
+unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly
+incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled
+before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same
+mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without
+justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important
+cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable
+sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.
+The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make
+himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting
+others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own
+inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same
+reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he
+should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into
+practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their
+truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion,
+unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite
+opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good,
+until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all
+sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action,
+not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are
+imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should
+be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to
+varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of
+different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one
+thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which
+do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
+Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of
+other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
+principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient
+of individual and social progress.
+
+In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be encountered
+does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end,
+but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it
+were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the
+leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate
+element with all that is designated by the terms civilisation,
+instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and
+condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty
+should be under-valued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it
+and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. But the
+evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognised by the common
+modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any
+regard on its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the ways
+of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are),
+cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for
+everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of
+the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with
+jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the
+general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think
+would be best for mankind. Few persons, out of Germany, even comprehend
+the meaning of the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both
+as a _savant_ and as a politician, made the text of a treatise--that
+"the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable
+dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires,
+is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a
+complete and consistent whole;" that, therefore, the object "towards
+which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on
+which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must
+ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development;"
+that for this there are two requisites, "freedom, and a variety of
+situations;" and that from the union of these arise "individual vigour
+and manifold diversity," which combine themselves in "originality."[11]
+
+Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine like that of Von
+Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to them to find so high a value
+attached to individuality, the question, one must nevertheless think,
+can only be one of degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is
+that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one
+would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and
+into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own
+judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it
+would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing
+whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if
+experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of
+existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that
+people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit
+by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege
+and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his
+faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him
+to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to
+his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other
+people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has
+taught _them_; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his
+deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow;
+or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their
+interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him.
+Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters:
+and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly,
+though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to
+conform to custom, merely _as_ custom, does not educate or develop in
+him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human
+being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative
+feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only
+in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes
+no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what
+is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved
+only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a
+thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing
+only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not
+conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be
+strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if
+the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own
+feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are
+not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and
+character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.
+
+He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life
+for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of
+imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his
+faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to
+foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to
+decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to
+his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises
+exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines
+according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is
+possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of
+harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his
+comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only
+what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the
+works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and
+beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it
+were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes
+tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery--by
+automatons in human form--it would be a considerable loss to exchange
+for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the
+more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved
+specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a
+machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work
+prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop
+itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces
+which make it a living thing.
+
+It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise
+their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or
+even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a
+blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is
+admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the
+same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our
+own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any
+strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses
+are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints:
+and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when
+one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while
+others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It
+is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because
+their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between
+strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the
+other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger
+and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has
+more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable,
+perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are
+but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more
+good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and
+impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling, are always those
+whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong
+susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful,
+are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love
+of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation
+of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests:
+not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows
+not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his
+own--are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and
+modified by his own culture--is said to have a character. One whose
+desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a
+steam-engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his
+impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he
+has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that individuality of
+desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must
+maintain that society has no need of strong natures--is not the better
+for containing many persons who have much character--and that a high
+general average of energy is not desirable.
+
+In some early states of society, these forces might be, and were, too
+much ahead of the power which society then possessed of disciplining and
+controlling them. There has been a time when the element of spontaneity
+and individuality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard
+struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of strong
+bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which required them to
+control their impulses. To overcome this difficulty, law and discipline,
+like the Popes struggling against the Emperors, asserted a power over
+the whole man, claiming to control all his life in order to control his
+character--which society had not found any other sufficient means of
+binding. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and
+the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the
+deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly
+changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by
+personal endowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws
+and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to enable the
+persons within their reach to enjoy any particle of security. In our
+times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one
+lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in
+what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the
+individual, or the family, do not ask themselves--what do I prefer? or,
+what would suit my character and disposition? or, what would allow the
+best and highest in me to have fair-play, and enable it to grow and
+thrive? They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is
+usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or
+(worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and
+circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is
+customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does
+not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary.
+Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for
+pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds;
+they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of
+taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until
+by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to
+follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become
+incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally
+without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their
+own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable condition of human nature?
+
+It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, the one great
+offence of man is Self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable,
+is comprised in Obedience. You have no choice; thus you must do, and no
+otherwise: "whatever is not a duty, is a sin." Human nature being
+radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature
+is killed within him. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out
+any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no
+evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the
+will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose
+but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is better without
+them. That is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated
+form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation
+consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will
+of God; asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of
+their inclinations; of course not in the manner they themselves prefer,
+but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way prescribed to them by
+authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case, the
+same for all.
+
+In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to
+this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of
+human character which it patronises. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely
+think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker
+designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much
+finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of
+animals, than as nature made them. But if it be any part of religion to
+believe that man was made by a good being, it is more consistent with
+that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that
+they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and
+that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to
+the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their
+capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a
+different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of
+humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other purposes than
+merely to be abnegated. "Pagan self-assertion" is one of the elements of
+human worth, as well as "Christian self-denial."[12] There is a Greek
+ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of
+self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to
+be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles
+than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be
+without anything good which belonged to John Knox.
+
+It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in
+themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the
+limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings
+become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works
+partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human
+life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more
+abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and
+strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by
+making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to
+the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable
+to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.
+There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when
+there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is
+composed of them. As much compression as is necessary to prevent the
+stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of
+others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample
+compensation even in the point of view of human development. The means
+of development which the individual loses by being prevented from
+gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly
+obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to
+himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the
+social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon
+the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of
+others, develops the feelings and capacities which have the good of
+others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting
+their good, by their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable, except
+such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint.
+If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any
+fair-play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons
+should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as this
+latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to
+posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as
+Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is
+despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes
+to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
+
+Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and
+that it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can
+produce, well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument:
+for what more or better can be said of any condition of human affairs,
+than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing
+they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than
+that it prevents this? Doubtless, however, these considerations will not
+suffice to convince those who most need convincing; and it is necessary
+further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to
+the undeveloped--to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and
+would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible
+manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without
+hindrance.
+
+In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly
+learn something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that
+originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need
+of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were
+once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and
+set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense
+in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid by anybody who does not
+believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways
+and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being
+rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in comparison
+with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others,
+would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these
+few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a
+stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did
+not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already
+existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect
+cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old
+things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not
+like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the best
+beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless
+there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality
+prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely
+traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from
+anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilisation
+should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is
+true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order
+to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
+Genius can only breathe freely in an _atmosphere_ of freedom. Persons of
+genius are, _ex vi termini_, _more_ individual than any other
+people--less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without
+hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which
+society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming
+their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one
+of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot
+expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the
+better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break
+their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not
+succeeded in reducing them to commonplace, to point at with solemn
+warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should
+complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks
+like a Dutch canal.
+
+I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the
+necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in
+practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory,
+but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally
+indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man
+to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense,
+that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is
+not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do
+very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at.
+Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use
+of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they
+could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The
+first service which originality has to render them, is that of opening
+their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance of
+being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was ever
+yet done which some one was not the first to do, and that all good
+things which exist are the fruits of originality, let them be modest
+enough to believe that there is something still left for it to
+accomplish, and assure themselves that they are more in need of
+originality, the less they are conscious of the want.
+
+In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real
+or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things
+throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among
+mankind. In ancient history, in the middle ages, and in a diminishing
+degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time,
+the individual was a power in himself; and if he had either great
+talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. At
+present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a
+triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only
+power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while
+they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of
+masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private
+life as in public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the name of
+public opinion, are not always the same sort of public: in America they
+are the whole white population; in England, chiefly the middle class.
+But they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And
+what is a still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions
+from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from
+books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves,
+addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment,
+through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not
+assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the
+present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the
+government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government
+by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts
+or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever
+did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign
+Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they
+always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted
+and instructed One or Few. The initiation of all wise or noble things,
+comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one
+individual. The honour and glory of the average man is that he is
+capable of following that initiative; that he can respond internally to
+wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not
+countenancing the sort of "hero-worship" which applauds the strong man
+of genius for forcibly seizing on the government of the world and making
+it do his bidding in spite of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to
+point out the way. The power of compelling others into it, is not only
+inconsistent with the freedom and development of all the rest, but
+corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, however, that when
+the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or
+becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that
+tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those
+who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these
+circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of
+being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the
+mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless
+they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere
+example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom,
+is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as
+to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break
+through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has
+always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and
+the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional
+to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it
+contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger
+of the time.
+
+I have said that it is important to give the freest scope possible to
+uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these
+are fit to be converted into customs. But independence of action, and
+disregard of custom are not solely deserving of encouragement for the
+chance they afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy
+of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only persons of
+decided mental superiority who have a just claim to carry on their lives
+in their own way. There is no reason that all human existences should be
+constructed on some one, or some small number of patterns. If a person
+possesses any tolerable amount of common-sense and experience, his own
+mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best
+in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like
+sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get
+a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his
+measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier
+to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like
+one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in
+the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of
+taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after
+one model. But different persons also require different conditions for
+their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same
+moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical,
+atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person
+towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another.
+The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his
+faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another
+it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal
+life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of
+pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of
+different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a
+corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain
+their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and
+aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should
+tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to
+tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of
+their adherents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) is
+diversity of taste entirely unrecognised; a person may, without blame,
+either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic
+exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, because both those who like
+each of these things, and those who dislike them, are too numerous to be
+put down. But the man, and still more the woman, who can be accused
+either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody
+does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had
+committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a
+title, or some other badge of rank, or of the consideration of people of
+rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like
+without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat:
+for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence, incur the risk of
+something worse than disparaging speeches--they are in peril of a
+commission _de lunatico_, and of having their property taken from them
+and given to their relations.[13]
+
+There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion,
+peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration
+of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate
+in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or
+wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they
+consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with
+the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.
+Now, in addition to this fact which is general, we have only to suppose
+that a strong movement has set in towards the improvement of morals,
+and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days such a movement
+has set in; much has actually been effected in the way of increased
+regularity of conduct, and discouragement of excesses; and there is a
+philanthropic spirit abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more
+inviting field than the moral and prudential improvement of our
+fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the public to be
+more disposed than at most former periods to prescribe general rules of
+conduct, and endeavour to make every one conform to the approved
+standard. And that standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing
+strongly. Its ideal of character is to be without any marked character;
+to maim by compression, like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human
+nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make the person
+markedly dissimilar in outline to commonplace humanity.
+
+As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is
+desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior
+imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies guided by
+vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a
+conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which
+therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength
+either of will or of reason. Already energetic characters on any large
+scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet
+for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that
+may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that
+employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a
+philanthropic hobby, but is always some one thing, and generally a thing
+of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective:
+individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our
+habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious
+philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another
+stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another
+stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
+
+The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human
+advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at
+something better than customary, which is called, according to
+circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or
+improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of
+liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people;
+and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may
+ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement;
+but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty,
+since by it there are as many possible independent centres of
+improvement as there are individuals. The progressive principle,
+however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of
+improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least
+emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes
+the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the
+world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of
+Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is
+there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean
+conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant
+intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result.
+Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of
+the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life;
+they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most
+powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or
+dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when
+theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom
+custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A
+people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and
+then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.
+If a similar change should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be
+in exactly the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these
+nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It proscribes
+singularity, but it does not preclude change, provided all change
+together. We have discarded the fixed costumes of our forefathers; every
+one must still dress like other people, but the fashion may change once
+or twice a year. We thus take care that when there is change, it shall
+be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience;
+for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the
+world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at
+another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we
+continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them
+until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement
+in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea
+of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to
+be as good as ourselves. It is not progress that we object to; on the
+contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are the most progressive people
+who ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we should think
+we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that
+the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing
+which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type,
+and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the
+advantages of both, of producing something better than either. We have a
+warning example in China--a nation of much talent, and, in some
+respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been
+provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the
+work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European
+must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and
+philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their
+apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they
+possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who
+have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power.
+Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human
+progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of
+the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become
+stationary--have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are
+ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have
+succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so
+industriously working at--in making a people all alike, all governing
+their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are
+the fruits. The modern _régime_ of public opinion is, in an unorganised
+form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an
+organised; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert
+itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents
+and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.
+
+What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot? What has
+made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a
+stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them,
+which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their
+remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes,
+nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a
+great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; and although
+at every period those who travelled in different paths have been
+intolerant of one another, and each would have thought it an excellent
+thing if all the rest could have been compelled to travel his road,
+their attempts to thwart each other's development have rarely had any
+permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good
+which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, wholly
+indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided
+development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a
+considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese
+ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last
+important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day
+resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation. The
+same remark might be made of Englishmen in a far greater degree. In a
+passage already quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two
+things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary
+to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of
+situations. The second of these two conditions is in this country every
+day diminishing. The circumstances which surround different classes and
+individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more
+assimilated. Formerly, different ranks, different neighbourhoods,
+different trades and professions, lived in what might be called
+different worlds; at present, to a great degree in the same.
+Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the
+same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their
+hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the same rights and
+liberties, and the same means of asserting them. Great as are the
+differences of position which remain, they are nothing to those which
+have ceased. And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political
+changes of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low and
+to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because
+education brings people under common influences, and gives them access
+to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means
+of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant
+places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of
+residence between one place and another. The increase of commerce and
+manufactures promotes it, by diffusing more widely the advantages of
+easy circumstances, and opening all objects of ambition, even the
+highest, to general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes no
+longer the character of a particular class, but of all classes. A more
+powerful agency than even all these, in bringing about a general
+similarity among mankind, is the complete establishment, in this and
+other free countries, of the ascendency of public opinion in the State.
+As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them
+to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually become levelled; as
+the very idea of resisting the will of the public, when it is positively
+known that they have a will, disappears more and more from the minds of
+practical politicians; there ceases to be any social support for
+non-conformity--any substantive power in society, which, itself opposed
+to the ascendency of numbers, is interested in taking under its
+protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those of the public.
+
+The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences
+hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see how it can stand
+its ground. It will do so with increasing difficulty, unless the
+intelligent part of the public can be made to feel its value--to see
+that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the
+better, even though, as it may appear to them, some should be for the
+worse. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time
+is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced
+assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand can be
+successfully made against the encroachment. The demand that all other
+people shall resemble ourselves, grows by what it feeds on. If
+resistance waits till life is reduced _nearly_ to one uniform type, all
+deviations from that type will come to be considered impious, immoral,
+even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to
+conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to
+see it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] _The Sphere and Duties of Government_, from the German of Baron
+Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13.
+
+[12] Sterling's _Essays_.
+
+[13] There is something both contemptible and frightful in the sort of
+evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared
+unfit for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his
+disposal of his property can be set aside, if there is enough of it to
+pay the expenses of litigation--which are charged on the property
+itself. All the minute details of his daily life are pried into, and
+whatever is found which, seen through the medium of the perceiving and
+describing faculties of the lowest of the low, bears an appearance
+unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the jury as evidence of
+insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, if at all,
+less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with that
+extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which
+continually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead
+them. These trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion
+among the vulgar with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any
+value on individuality--so far from respecting the rights of each
+individual to act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own
+judgment and inclinations, judges and juries cannot even conceive that a
+person in a state of sanity can desire such freedom. In former days,
+when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest
+putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be nothing surprising
+nowadays were we to see this done, and the doers applauding themselves,
+because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had adopted so humane
+and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not without a
+silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+
+What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual
+over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of
+human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?
+
+Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more
+particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of
+life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to
+society, the part which chiefly interests society.
+
+Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose
+is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social
+obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society
+owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders
+it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of
+conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring
+the interests of one another; or rather certain interests which, either
+by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be
+considered as rights; and secondly, in each person's bearing his share
+(to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices
+incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and
+molestation. These conditions society is justified in enforcing, at all
+costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment. Nor is this all
+that society may do. The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others,
+or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the
+length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may
+then be justly punished by opinion though not by law. As soon as any
+part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of
+others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the
+general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it,
+becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any
+such question when a person's conduct affects the interests of no
+persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all
+the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary amount of
+understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal
+and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.
+
+It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to suppose that
+it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have
+no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not
+concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another,
+unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there
+is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the
+good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments
+to persuade people to their good, than whips and scourges, either of the
+literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the
+self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even
+second, to the social. It is equally the business of education to
+cultivate both. But even education works by conviction and persuasion as
+well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the
+period of education is past, the self-regarding virtues should be
+inculcated. Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the
+better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid
+the latter. They should be for ever stimulating each other to increased
+exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their
+feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of
+degrading, objects and contemplations. But neither one person, nor any
+number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of
+ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what
+he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own
+well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of
+strong personal attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with
+that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him
+individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and
+altogether indirect: while, with respect to his own feelings and
+circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge
+immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. The
+interference of society to overrule his judgment and purposes in what
+only regards himself, must be grounded on general presumptions; which
+may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be
+misapplied to individual cases, by persons no better acquainted with the
+circumstances of such cases than those are who look at them merely from
+without. In this department, therefore, of human affairs, Individuality
+has its proper field of action. In the conduct of human beings towards
+one another, it is necessary that general rules should for the most part
+be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but
+in each person's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to
+free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to
+strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by
+others; but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely
+to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of
+allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.
+
+I do not mean that the feelings with which a person is regarded by
+others, ought not to be in any way affected by his self-regarding
+qualities or deficiencies. This is neither possible nor desirable. If he
+is eminent in any of the qualities which conduce to his own good, he is,
+so far, a proper object of admiration. He is so much the nearer to the
+ideal perfection of human nature. If he is grossly deficient in those
+qualities, a sentiment the opposite of admiration will follow. There is
+a degree of folly, and a degree of what may be called (though the
+phrase is not unobjectionable) lowness or depravation of taste, which,
+though it cannot justify doing harm to the person who manifests it,
+renders him necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or, in
+extreme cases, even of contempt: a person could not have the opposite
+qualities in due strength without entertaining these feelings. Though
+doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge
+him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order: and
+since this judgment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to
+avoid, it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand, as of any
+other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes himself. It would be
+well, indeed, if this good office were much more freely rendered than
+the common notions of politeness at present permit, and if one person
+could honestly point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without
+being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a right, also, in
+various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to
+the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are
+not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it
+(though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the
+society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty,
+to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation
+likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We
+may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except
+those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may
+suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which
+directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so
+far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous
+consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely
+inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows
+rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit--who cannot live within moderate
+means--who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences--who pursues
+animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect--must
+expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share
+of their favourable sentiments; but of this he has no right to complain,
+unless he has merited their favour by special excellence in his social
+relations, and has thus established a title to their good offices, which
+is not affected by his demerits towards himself.
+
+What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are strictly
+inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others, are the only ones
+to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his
+conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not
+affect the interests of others in their relations with him. Acts
+injurious to others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment
+on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified
+by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair
+or ungenerous use of advantages over them; even selfish abstinence from
+defending them against injury--these are fit objects of moral
+reprobation, and, in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment.
+And not only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are
+properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to
+abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most
+anti-social and odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and
+insincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment
+disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering over others;
+the desire to engross more than one's share of advantages (the [Greek:
+pleonexia] of the Greeks); the pride which derives gratification from
+the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and its concerns
+more important than everything else, and decides all doubtful questions
+in its own favour;--these are moral vices, and constitute a bad and
+odious moral character: unlike the self-regarding faults previously
+mentioned, which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch
+they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They may be proofs of
+any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but
+they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach
+of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care
+for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially
+obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to
+others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than
+prudence, means self-respect or self-development; and for none of these
+is any one accountable to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them
+is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them.
+
+The distinction between the loss of consideration which a person may
+rightly incur by defect of prudence or of personal dignity, and the
+reprobation which is due to him for an offence against the rights of
+others, is not a merely nominal distinction. It makes a vast difference
+both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him, whether he
+displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control
+him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he displeases
+us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as
+well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel
+called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he
+already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he
+spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire
+to spoil it still further: instead of wishing to punish him, we shall
+rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may
+avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. He may be
+to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or
+resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst
+we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself,
+if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for
+him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the
+protection of his fellow-creatures, individually or collectively. The
+evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself, but on
+others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must retaliate
+on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punishment,
+and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case, he
+is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in
+judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own
+sentence: in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering
+on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same
+liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in
+his.
+
+The distinction here pointed out between the part of a person's life
+which concerns only himself, and that which concerns others, many
+persons will refuse to admit. How (it may be asked) can any part of the
+conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other
+members? No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a
+person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself,
+without mischief reaching at least to his near connections, and often
+far beyond them. If he injures his property, he does harm to those who
+directly or indirectly derived support from it, and usually diminishes,
+by a greater or less amount, the general resources of the community. If
+he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil
+upon all who depended on him for any portion of their happiness, but
+disqualifies himself for rendering the services which he owes to his
+fellow-creatures generally; perhaps becomes a burthen on their affection
+or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent, hardly any
+offence that is committed would detract more from the general sum of
+good. Finally, if by his vices or follies a person does no direct harm
+to others, he is nevertheless (it may be said) injurious by his example;
+and ought to be compelled to control himself, for the sake of those whom
+the sight or knowledge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead.
+
+And even (it will be added) if the consequences of misconduct could be
+confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, ought society to
+abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it? If
+protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons
+under age, is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of
+mature years who are equally incapable of self-government? If gambling,
+or drunkenness, or incontinence, or idleness, or uncleanliness, are as
+injurious to happiness, and as great a hindrance to improvement, as many
+or most of the acts prohibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not
+law, so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience,
+endeavour to repress these also? And as a supplement to the unavoidable
+imperfections of law, ought not opinion at least to organise a powerful
+police against these vices, and visit rigidly with social penalties
+those who are known to practise them? There is no question here (it may
+be said) about restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new
+and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to
+prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the
+beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not
+to be useful or suitable to any person's individuality. There must be
+some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or
+prudential truth may be regarded as established: and it is merely
+desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the
+same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors.
+
+I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself, may
+seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests,
+those nearly connected with him, and in a minor degree, society at
+large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a
+distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the
+case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to
+moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. If, for example,
+a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his
+debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family,
+becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them,
+he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for
+the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance.
+If the resources which ought to have been devoted to them, had been
+diverted from them for the most prudent investment, the moral
+culpability would have been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle
+to get money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set himself up
+in business, he would equally have been hanged. Again, in the frequent
+case of a man who causes grief to his family by addiction to bad habits,
+he deserves reproach for his unkindness or ingratitude; but so he may
+for cultivating habits not in themselves vicious, if they are painful to
+those with whom he passes his life, or who from personal ties are
+dependent on him for their comfort. Whoever fails in the consideration
+generally due to the interests and feelings of others, not being
+compelled by some more imperative duty, or justified by allowable
+self-preference, is a subject of moral disapprobation for that failure,
+but not for the cause of it, nor for the errors, merely personal to
+himself, which may have remotely led to it. In like manner, when a
+person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, from the
+performance of some definite duty incumbent on him to the public, he is
+guilty of a social offence. No person ought to be punished simply for
+being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being
+drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a
+definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the
+case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of
+morality or law.
+
+But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called,
+constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which
+neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions
+perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself; the
+inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of
+the greater good of human freedom. If grown persons are to be punished
+for not taking proper care of themselves, I would rather it were for
+their own sake, than under pretence of preventing them from impairing
+their capacity of rendering to society benefits which society does not
+pretend it has a right to exact. But I cannot consent to argue the
+point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to
+its ordinary standard of rational conduct, except waiting till they do
+something irrational, and then punishing them, legally or morally, for
+it. Society has had absolute power over them during all the early
+portion of their existence: it has had the whole period of childhood and
+nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational
+conduct in life. The existing generation is master both of the training
+and the entire circumstances of the generation to come; it cannot indeed
+make them perfectly wise and good, because it is itself so lamentably
+deficient in goodness and wisdom; and its best efforts are not always,
+in individual cases, its most successful ones; but it is perfectly well
+able to make the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little
+better than, itself. If society lets any considerable number of its
+members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational
+consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the
+consequences. Armed not only with all the powers of education, but with
+the ascendency which the authority of a received opinion always
+exercises over the minds who are least fitted to judge for themselves;
+and aided by the _natural_ penalties which cannot be prevented from
+falling on those who incur the distaste or the contempt of those who
+know them; let not society pretend that it needs, besides all this, the
+power to issue commands and enforce obedience in the personal concerns
+of individuals, in which, on all principles of justice and policy, the
+decision ought to rest with those who are to abide the consequences. Nor
+is there anything which tends more to discredit and frustrate the better
+means of influencing conduct, than a resort to the worse. If there be
+among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence or temperance,
+any of the material of which vigorous and independent characters are
+made, they will infallibly rebel against the yoke. No such person will
+ever feel that others have a right to control him in his concerns, such
+as they have to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; and it easily
+comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face
+of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation the exact opposite of
+what it enjoins; as in the fashion of grossness which succeeded, in the
+time of Charles II., to the fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans.
+With respect to what is said of the necessity of protecting society
+from the bad example set to others by the vicious or the
+self-indulgent; it is true that bad example may have a pernicious
+effect, especially the example of doing wrong to others with impunity to
+the wrong-doer. But we are now speaking of conduct which, while it does
+no wrong to others, is supposed to do great harm to the agent himself:
+and I do not see how those who believe this, can think otherwise than
+that the example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful,
+since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or
+degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be
+supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it.
+
+But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the
+public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the
+odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On
+questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the
+public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is
+likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are
+only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which
+some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect
+themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on
+the minority, on questions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as
+likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at
+the best, some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people;
+while very often it does not even mean that; the public, with the most
+perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those
+whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference.
+There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which
+they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings;
+as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious
+feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his
+feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there
+is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and
+the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than
+between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the
+right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar
+concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine
+an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in
+all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain
+from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But
+where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its
+censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal
+experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom
+thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently
+from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up
+to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of
+all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right
+because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to
+search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on
+ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these
+instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if
+they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?
+
+The evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in theory; and it
+may perhaps be expected that I should specify the instances in which the
+public of this age and country improperly invests its own preferences
+with the character of moral laws. I am not writing an essay on the
+aberrations of existing moral feeling. That is too weighty a subject to
+be discussed parenthetically, and by way of illustration. Yet examples
+are necessary, to show that the principle I maintain is of serious and
+practical moment, and that I am not endeavouring to erect a barrier
+against imaginary evils. And it is not difficult to show, by abundant
+instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police,
+until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the
+individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
+
+As a first instance, consider the antipathies which men cherish on no
+better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different
+from theirs, do not practise their religious observances, especially
+their religious abstinences. To cite a rather trivial example, nothing
+in the creed or practice of Christians does more to envenom the hatred
+of Mahomedans against them, than the fact of their eating pork. There
+are few acts which Christians and Europeans regard with more unaffected
+disgust, than Mussulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying
+hunger. It is, in the first place, an offence against their religion;
+but this circumstance by no means explains either the degree or the kind
+of their repugnance; for wine also is forbidden by their religion, and
+to partake of it is by all Mussulmans accounted wrong, but not
+disgusting. Their aversion to the flesh of the "unclean beast" is, on
+the contrary, of that peculiar character, resembling an instinctive
+antipathy, which the idea of uncleanness, when once it thoroughly sinks
+into the feelings, seems always to excite even in those whose personal
+habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly, and of which the sentiment
+of religious impurity, so intense in the Hindoos, is a remarkable
+example. Suppose now that in a people, of whom the majority were
+Mussulmans, that majority should insist upon not permitting pork to be
+eaten within the limits of the country. This would be nothing new in
+Mahomedan countries.[14] Would it be a legitimate exercise of the moral
+authority of public opinion? and if not, why not? The practice is really
+revolting to such a public. They also sincerely think that it is
+forbidden and abhorred by the Deity. Neither could the prohibition be
+censured as religious persecution. It might be religious in its origin,
+but it would not be persecution for religion, since nobody's religion
+makes it a duty to eat pork. The only tenable ground of condemnation
+would be, that with the personal tastes and self-regarding concerns of
+individuals the public has no business to interfere.
+
+To come somewhat nearer home: the majority of Spaniards consider it a
+gross impiety, offensive in the highest degree to the Supreme Being, to
+worship him in any other manner than the Roman Catholic; and no other
+public worship is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of all Southern
+Europe look upon a married clergy as not only irreligious, but unchaste,
+indecent, gross, disgusting. What do Protestants think of these
+perfectly sincere feelings, and of the attempt to enforce them against
+non-Catholics? Yet, if mankind are justified in interfering with each
+other's liberty in things which do not concern the interests of others,
+on what principle is it possible consistently to exclude these cases? or
+who can blame people for desiring to suppress what they regard as a
+scandal in the sight of God and man? No stronger case can be shown for
+prohibiting anything which is regarded as a personal immorality, than
+is made out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who
+regard them as impieties; and unless we are willing to adopt the logic
+of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute others because we are
+right, and that they must not persecute us because they are wrong, we
+must beware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a
+gross injustice the application to ourselves.
+
+The preceding instances may be objected to, although unreasonably, as
+drawn from contingencies impossible among us: opinion, in this country,
+not being likely to enforce abstinence from meats, or to interfere with
+people for worshipping, and for either marrying or not marrying,
+according to their creed or inclination. The next example, however,
+shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we have by no
+means passed all danger of. Wherever the Puritans have been sufficiently
+powerful, as in New England, and in Great Britain at the time of the
+Commonwealth, they have endeavoured, with considerable success, to put
+down all public, and nearly all private, amusements: especially music,
+dancing, public games, or other assemblages for purposes of diversion,
+and the theatre. There are still in this country large bodies of
+persons by whose notions of morality and religion these recreations are
+condemned; and those persons belonging chiefly to the middle class, who
+are the ascendant power in the present social and political condition of
+the kingdom, it is by no means impossible that persons of these
+sentiments may at some time or other command a majority in Parliament.
+How will the remaining portion of the community like to have the
+amusements that shall be permitted to them regulated by the religious
+and moral sentiments of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would
+they not, with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively
+pious members of society to mind their own business? This is precisely
+what should be said to every government and every public, who have the
+pretension that no person shall enjoy any pleasure which they think
+wrong. But if the principle of the pretension be admitted, no one can
+reasonably object to its being acted on in the sense of the majority, or
+other preponderating power in the country; and all persons must be ready
+to conform to the idea of a Christian commonwealth, as understood by the
+early settlers in New England, if a religious profession similar to
+theirs should ever succeed in regaining its lost ground, as religions
+supposed to be declining have so often been known to do.
+
+To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to be realised than
+the one last mentioned. There is confessedly a strong tendency in the
+modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied
+or not by popular political institutions. It is affirmed that in the
+country where this tendency is most completely realised--where both
+society and the government are most democratic--the United States--the
+feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or
+costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable,
+operates as a tolerably effectual sumptuary law, and that in many parts
+of the Union it is really difficult for a person possessing a very large
+income, to find any mode of spending it, which will not incur popular
+disapprobation. Though such statements as these are doubtless much
+exaggerated as a representation of existing facts, the state of things
+they describe is not only a conceivable and possible, but a probable
+result of democratic feeling, combined with the notion that the public
+has a right to a veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend
+their incomes. We have only further to suppose a considerable diffusion
+of Socialist opinions, and it may become infamous in the eyes of the
+majority to possess more property than some very small amount, or any
+income not earned by manual labour. Opinions similar in principle to
+these, already prevail widely among the artisan class, and weigh
+oppressively on those who are amenable to the opinion chiefly of that
+class, namely, its own members. It is known that the bad workmen who
+form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are
+decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as
+good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or
+otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can
+without it. And they employ a moral police, which occasionally becomes a
+physical one, to deter skilful workmen from receiving, and employers
+from giving, a larger remuneration for a more useful service. If the
+public have any jurisdiction over private concerns, I cannot see that
+these people are in fault, or that any individual's particular public
+can be blamed for asserting the same authority over his individual
+conduct, which the general public asserts over people in general.
+
+But, without dwelling upon supposititious cases, there are, in our own
+day, gross usurpations upon the liberty of private life actually
+practised, and still greater ones threatened with some expectation of
+success, and opinions proposed which assert an unlimited right in the
+public not only to prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong, but
+in order to get at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of
+things which it admits to be innocent.
+
+Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English
+colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by
+law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical
+purposes: for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to
+be, prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability of
+executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the States which
+had adopted it, including the one from which it derives its name, an
+attempt has notwithstanding been commenced, and is prosecuted with
+considerable zeal by many of the professed philanthropists, to agitate
+for a similar law in this country. The association, or "Alliance" as it
+terms itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some
+notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence between its
+Secretary and one of the very few English public men who hold that a
+politician's opinions ought to be founded on principles. Lord Stanley's
+share in this correspondence is calculated to strengthen the hopes
+already built on him, by those who know how rare such qualities as are
+manifested in some of his public appearances, unhappily are among those
+who figure in political life. The organ of the Alliance, who would
+"deeply deplore the recognition of any principle which could be wrested
+to justify bigotry and persecution," undertakes to point out the "broad
+and impassable barrier" which divides such principles from those of the
+association. "All matters relating to thought, opinion, conscience,
+appear to me," he says, "to be without the sphere of legislation; all
+pertaining to social act, habit, relation, subject only to a
+discretionary power vested in the State itself, and not in the
+individual, to be within it." No mention is made of a third class,
+different from either of these, viz. acts and habits which are not
+social, but individual; although it is to this class, surely, that the
+act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling fermented liquors,
+however, is trading, and trading is a social act. But the infringement
+complained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the
+buyer and consumer; since the State might just as well forbid him to
+drink wine, as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it. The
+Secretary, however, says, "I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate
+whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another." And
+now for the definition of these "social rights." "If anything invades my
+social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys
+my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating
+social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit
+from the creation of a misery, I am taxed to support. It impedes my
+right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path
+with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, from which I
+have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse." A theory of "social
+rights," the like of which probably never before found its way into
+distinct language--being nothing short of this--that it is the absolute
+social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act
+in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in
+the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to
+demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a
+principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with
+liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify;
+it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that
+of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them: for the
+moment an opinion which I consider noxious, passes any one's lips, it
+invades all the "social rights" attributed to me by the Alliance. The
+doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's
+moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each
+claimant according to his own standard.
+
+Another important example of illegitimate interference with the rightful
+liberty of the individual, not simply threatened, but long since carried
+into triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legislation. Without doubt,
+abstinence on one day in the week, so far as the exigencies of life
+permit, from the usual daily occupation, though in no respect
+religiously binding on any except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom.
+And inasmuch as this custom cannot be observed without a general consent
+to that effect among the industrious classes, therefore, in so far as
+some persons by working may impose the same necessity on others, it may
+be allowable and right that the law should guarantee to each, the
+observance by others of the custom, by suspending the greater operations
+of industry on a particular day. But this justification, grounded on the
+direct interest which others have in each individual's observance of
+the practice, does not apply to the self-chosen occupations in which a
+person may think fit to employ his leisure; nor does it hold good, in
+the smallest degree, for legal restrictions on amusements. It is true
+that the amusement of some is the day's work of others; but the
+pleasure, not to say the useful recreation, of many, is worth the labour
+of a few, provided the occupation is freely chosen, and can be freely
+resigned. The operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all
+worked on Sunday, seven days' work would have to be given for six days'
+wages: but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended, the
+small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, obtain a
+proportional increase of earnings; and they are not obliged to follow
+those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument. If a further
+remedy is sought, it might be found in the establishment by custom of a
+holiday on some other day of the week for those particular classes of
+persons. The only ground, therefore, on which restrictions on Sunday
+amusements can be defended, must be that they are religiously wrong; a
+motive of legislation which never can be too earnestly protested
+against. "Deorum injuriæ Diis curæ." It remains to be proved that
+society or any of its officers holds a commission from on high to
+avenge any supposed offence to Omnipotence, which is not also a wrong to
+our fellow-creatures. The notion that it is one man's duty that another
+should be religious, was the foundation of all the religious
+persecutions ever perpetrated, and if admitted, would fully justify
+them. Though the feeling which breaks out in the repeated attempts to
+stop railway travelling on Sunday, in the resistance to the opening of
+Museums, and the like, has not the cruelty of the old persecutors, the
+state of mind indicated by it is fundamentally the same. It is a
+determination not to tolerate others in doing what is permitted by their
+religion, because it is not permitted by the persecutor's religion. It
+is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but
+will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.
+
+I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account
+commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution
+which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels
+called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might
+be said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged new
+revelation, and a religion founded on it, the product of palpable
+imposture, not even supported by the _prestige_ of extraordinary
+qualities in its founder, is believed by hundreds of thousands, and has
+been made the foundation of a society, in the age of newspapers,
+railways, and the electric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that
+this religion, like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that
+its prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by a mob;
+that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless
+violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in a body, from the country
+in which they first grew up; while, now that they have been chased into
+a solitary recess in the midst of a desert, many in this country openly
+declare that it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send
+an expedition against them, and compel them by force to conform to the
+opinions of other people. The article of the Mormonite doctrine which is
+the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the
+ordinary restraints of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy;
+which, though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and Chinese, seems
+to excite unquenchable animosity when practised by persons who speak
+English, and profess to be a kind of Christians. No one has a deeper
+disapprobation than I have of this Mormon institution; both for other
+reasons, and because, far from being in any way countenanced by the
+principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being
+a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the community, and an
+emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them.
+Still, it must be remembered that this relation is as much voluntary on
+the part of the women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the
+sufferers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage
+institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it has its
+explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world, which teaching
+women to think marriage the one thing needful, make it intelligible that
+many a woman should prefer being one of several wives, to not being a
+wife at all. Other countries are not asked to recognise such unions, or
+release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws on the
+score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissentients have conceded to
+the hostile sentiments of others, far more than could justly be
+demanded; when they have left the countries to which their doctrines
+were unacceptable, and established themselves in a remote corner of the
+earth, which they have been the first to render habitable to human
+beings; it is difficult to see on what principles but those of tyranny
+they can be prevented from living there under what laws they please,
+provided they commit no aggression on other nations, and allow perfect
+freedom of departure to those who are dissatisfied with their ways. A
+recent writer, in some respects of considerable merit, proposes (to use
+his own words), not a crusade, but a _civilizade_, against this
+polygamous community, to put an end to what seems to him a retrograde
+step in civilisation. It also appears so to me, but I am not aware that
+any community has a right to force another to be civilised. So long as
+the sufferers by the bad law do not invoke assistance from other
+communities, I cannot admit that persons entirely unconnected with them
+ought to step in and require that a condition of things with which all
+who are directly interested appear to be satisfied, should be put an end
+to because it is a scandal to persons some thousands of miles distant,
+who have no part or concern in it. Let them send missionaries, if they
+please, to preach against it; and let them, by any fair means (of which
+silencing the teachers is not one), oppose the progress of similar
+doctrines among their own people. If civilisation has got the better of
+barbarism when barbarism had the world to itself, it is too much to
+profess to be afraid lest barbarism, after having been fairly got under,
+should revive and conquer civilisation. A civilisation that can thus
+succumb to its vanquished enemy, must first have become so degenerate,
+that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody else, has
+the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up for it. If this be
+so, the sooner such a civilisation receives notice to quit, the better.
+It can only go on from bad to worse, until destroyed and regenerated
+(like the Western Empire) by energetic barbarians.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious instance in point. When
+this industrious and enterprising tribe, the descendants of the Persian
+fire-worshippers, flying from their native country before the Caliphs,
+arrived in Western India, they were admitted to toleration by the Hindoo
+sovereigns, on condition of not eating beef. When those regions
+afterwards fell under the dominion of Mahomedan conquerors, the Parsees
+obtained from them a continuance of indulgence, on condition of
+refraining from pork. What was at first obedience to authority became a
+second nature, and the Parsees to this day abstain both from beef and
+pork. Though not required by their religion, the double abstinence has
+had time to grow into a custom of their tribe; and custom, in the East,
+is a religion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+APPLICATIONS.
+
+
+The principles asserted in these pages must be more generally admitted
+as the basis for discussion of details, before a consistent application
+of them to all the various departments of government and morals can be
+attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few observations I propose
+to make on questions of detail, are designed to illustrate the
+principles, rather than to follow them out to their consequences. I
+offer, not so much applications, as specimens of application; which may
+serve to bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two
+maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this Essay, and to
+assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases
+where it appears doubtful which of them is applicable to the case.
+
+The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society
+for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person
+but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other
+people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only
+measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or
+disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are
+prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable
+and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishments, if
+society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its
+protection.
+
+In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, because damage, or
+probability of damage, to the interests of others, can alone justify the
+interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such
+interference. In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate
+object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to
+others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of
+obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between individuals often arise
+from bad social institutions, but are unavoidable while those
+institutions last; and some would be unavoidable under any institutions.
+Whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive
+examination; whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an
+object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from
+their wasted exertion and their disappointment. But it is, by common
+admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons
+should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences. In
+other words, society admits no rights, either legal or moral, in the
+disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and
+feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been
+employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit--namely,
+fraud or treachery, and force.
+
+Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description
+of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons,
+and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes
+within the jurisdiction of society: accordingly, it was once held to be
+the duty of governments, in all cases which were considered of
+importance, to fix prices, and regulate the processes of manufacture.
+But it is now recognised, though not till after a long struggle, that
+both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most
+effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly
+free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying
+themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade,
+which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the
+principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay. Restrictions on
+trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints;
+and all restraint, _quâ_ restraint, is an evil: but the restraints in
+question affect only that part of conduct which society is competent to
+restrain, and are wrong solely because they do not really produce the
+results which it is desired to produce by them. As the principle of
+individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, so
+neither is it in most of the questions which arise respecting the limits
+of that doctrine: as for example, what amount of public control is
+admissible for the prevention of fraud by adulteration; how far sanitary
+precautions, or arrangements to protect work-people employed in
+dangerous occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such questions
+involve considerations of liberty, only in so far as leaving people to
+themselves is always better, _cæteris paribus_, than controlling them:
+but that they may be legitimately controlled for these ends, is in
+principle undeniable. On the other hand, there are questions relating to
+interference with trade, which are essentially questions of liberty;
+such as the Maine Law, already touched upon; the prohibition of the
+importation of opium into China; the restriction of the sale of poisons;
+all cases, in short, where the object of the interference is to make it
+impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. These
+interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of
+the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer.
+
+One of these examples, that of the sale of poisons, opens a new
+question; the proper limits of what may be called the functions of
+police; how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention
+of crime, or of accident. It is one of the undisputed functions of
+government to take precautions against crime before it has been
+committed, as well as to detect and punish it afterwards. The preventive
+function of government, however, is far more liable to be abused, to the
+prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for there is hardly
+any part of the legitimate freedom of action of a human being which
+would not admit of being represented, and fairly too, as increasing the
+facilities for some form or other of delinquency. Nevertheless, if a
+public authority, or even a private person, sees any one evidently
+preparing to commit a crime, they are not bound to look on inactive
+until the crime is committed, but may interfere to prevent it. If
+poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission
+of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale.
+They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful
+purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without
+operating in the other. Again, it is a proper office of public authority
+to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or any one else
+saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to
+be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might
+seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his
+liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not
+desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a
+certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself
+can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur
+the risk: in this case, therefore (unless he is a child, or delirious,
+or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full
+use of the reflecting faculty), he ought, I conceive, to be only warned
+of the danger; not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it.
+Similar considerations, applied to such a question as the sale of
+poisons, may enable us to decide which among the possible modes of
+regulation are or are not contrary to principle. Such a precaution, for
+example, as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive of its
+dangerous character, may be enforced without violation of liberty: the
+buyer cannot wish not to know that the thing he possesses has poisonous
+qualities. But to require in all cases the certificate of a medical
+practitioner, would make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to
+obtain the article for legitimate uses. The only mode apparent to me, in
+which difficulties may be thrown in the way of crime committed through
+this means, without any infringement, worth taking into account, upon
+the liberty of those who desire the poisonous substance for other
+purposes, consists in providing what, in the apt language of Bentham, is
+called "preappointed evidence." This provision is familiar to every one
+in the case of contracts. It is usual and right that the law, when a
+contract is entered into, should require as the condition of its
+enforcing performance, that certain formalities should be observed, such
+as signatures, attestation of witnesses, and the like, in order that in
+case of subsequent dispute, there may be evidence to prove that the
+contract was really entered into, and that there was nothing in the
+circumstances to render it legally invalid: the effect being, to throw
+great obstacles in the way of fictitious contracts, or contracts made in
+circumstances which, if known, would destroy their validity. Precautions
+of a similar nature might be enforced in the sale of articles adapted to
+be instruments of crime. The seller, for example, might be required to
+enter into a register the exact time of the transaction, the name and
+address of the buyer, the precise quality and quantity sold; to ask the
+purpose for which it was wanted, and record the answer he received. When
+there was no medical prescription, the presence of some third person
+might be required, to bring home the fact to the purchaser, in case
+there should afterwards be reason to believe that the article had been
+applied to criminal purposes. Such regulations would in general be no
+material impediment to obtaining the article, but a very considerable
+one to making an improper use of it without detection.
+
+The right inherent in society, to ward off crimes against itself by
+antecedent precautions, suggests the obvious limitations to the maxim,
+that purely self-regarding misconduct cannot properly be meddled with
+in the way of prevention or punishment. Drunkenness, for example, in
+ordinary cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I
+should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had once been
+convicted of any act of violence to others under the influence of drink,
+should be placed under a special legal restriction, personal to himself;
+that if he were afterwards found drunk, he should be liable to a
+penalty, and that if when in that state he committed another offence,
+the punishment to which he would be liable for that other offence should
+be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, in a person whom
+drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. So,
+again, idleness, except in a person receiving support from the public,
+or except when it constitutes a breach of contract, cannot without
+tyranny be made a subject of legal punishment; but if either from
+idleness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his
+legal duties to others, as for instance to support his children, it is
+no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obligation, by compulsory labour,
+if no other means are available.
+
+Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the
+agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if
+done publicly, are a violation of good manners and coming thus within
+the category of offences against others may rightfully be prohibited. Of
+this kind are offences against decency; on which it is unnecessary to
+dwell, the rather as they are only connected indirectly with our
+subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong in the case of
+many actions not in themselves condemnable, nor supposed to be so.
+
+There is another question to which an answer must be found, consistent
+with the principles which have been laid down. In cases of personal
+conduct supposed to be blamable, but which respect for liberty precludes
+society from preventing or punishing, because the evil directly
+resulting falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, ought
+other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate? This question
+is not free from difficulty. The case of a person who solicits another
+to do an act, is not strictly a case of self-regarding conduct. To give
+advice or offer inducements to any one, is a social act, and may
+therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed
+amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects the first
+impression, by showing that if the case is not strictly within the
+definition of individual liberty, yet the reasons on which the
+principle of individual liberty is grounded, are applicable to it. If
+people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as
+seems best to themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free
+to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange
+opinions, and give and receive suggestions. Whatever it is permitted to
+do, it must be permitted to advise to do. The question is doubtful, only
+when the instigator derives a personal benefit from his advice; when he
+makes it his occupation, for subsistence or pecuniary gain, to promote
+what society and the state consider to be an evil. Then, indeed, a new
+element of complication is introduced; namely, the existence of classes
+of persons with an interest opposed to what is considered as the public
+weal, and whose mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it.
+Ought this to be interfered with, or not? Fornication, for example, must
+be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a
+pimp, or to keep a gambling-house? The case is one of those which lie on
+the exact boundary line between two principles, and it is not at once
+apparent to which of the two it properly belongs. There are arguments on
+both sides. On the side of toleration it may be said, that the fact of
+following anything as an occupation, and living or profiting by the
+practice of it, cannot make that criminal which would otherwise be
+admissible; that the act should either be consistently permitted or
+consistently prohibited; that if the principles which we have hitherto
+defended are true, society has no business, _as_ society, to decide
+anything to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it cannot
+go beyond dissuasion, and that one person should be as free to persuade,
+as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it may be contended, that
+although the public, or the State, are not warranted in authoritatively
+deciding, for purposes of repression or punishment, that such or such
+conduct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad,
+they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad, that its
+being so or not is at least a disputable question: That, this being
+supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the
+influence of solicitations which are not disinterested, of instigators
+who cannot possibly be impartial--who have a direct personal interest on
+one side, and that side the one which the State believes to be wrong,
+and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only. There can
+surely, it may be urged, be nothing lost, no sacrifice of good, by so
+ordering matters that persons shall make their election, either wisely
+or foolishly, on their own prompting, as free as possible from the arts
+of persons who stimulate their inclinations for interested purposes of
+their own. Thus (it may be said) though the statutes respecting unlawful
+games are utterly indefensible--though all persons should be free to
+gamble in their own or each other's houses, or in any place of meeting
+established by their own subscriptions, and open only to the members and
+their visitors--yet public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It
+is true that the prohibition is never effectual, and that whatever
+amount of tyrannical power is given to the police, gambling-houses can
+always be maintained under other pretences; but they may be compelled to
+conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy and mystery,
+so that nobody knows anything about them but those who seek them; and
+more than this, society ought not to aim at. There is considerable force
+in these arguments; I will not venture to decide whether they are
+sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of punishing the accessary, when
+the principal is (and must be) allowed to go free; or fining or
+imprisoning the procurer, but not the fornicator, the gambling-house
+keeper, but not the gambler. Still less ought the common operations of
+buying and selling to be interfered with on analogous grounds. Almost
+every article which is bought and sold may be used in excess, and the
+sellers have a pecuniary interest in encouraging that excess; but no
+argument can be founded on this, in favour, for instance, of the Maine
+Law; because the class of dealers in strong drinks, though interested in
+their abuse, are indispensably required for the sake of their legitimate
+use. The interest, however, of these dealers in promoting intemperance
+is a real evil, and justifies the State in imposing restrictions and
+requiring guarantees, which but for that justification would be
+infringements of legitimate liberty.
+
+A further question is, whether the State, while it permits, should
+nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it deems contrary to
+the best interests of the agent; whether, for example, it should take
+measures to render the means of drunkenness more costly, or add to the
+difficulty of procuring them, by limiting the number of the places of
+sale. On this as on most other practical questions, many distinctions
+require to be made. To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making
+them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure differing only in
+degree from their entire prohibition; and would be justifiable only if
+that were justifiable. Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those
+whose means do not come up to the augmented price; and to those who do,
+it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste. Their
+choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after
+satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State and to
+individuals, are their own concern, and must rest with their own
+judgment. These considerations may seem at first sight to condemn the
+selection of stimulants as special subjects of taxation for purposes of
+revenue. But it must be remembered that taxation for fiscal purposes is
+absolutely inevitable; that in most countries it is necessary that a
+considerable part of that taxation should be indirect; that the State,
+therefore, cannot help imposing penalties, which to some persons may be
+prohibitory, on the use of some articles of consumption. It is hence the
+duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of taxes, what
+commodities the consumers can best spare; and _à fortiori_, to select in
+preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very moderate
+quantity, to be positively injurious. Taxation, therefore, of
+stimulants, up to the point which produces the largest amount of revenue
+(supposing that the State needs all the revenue which it yields) is not
+only admissible, but to be approved of.
+
+The question of making the sale of these commodities a more or less
+exclusive privilege, must be answered differently, according to the
+purposes to which the restriction is intended to be subservient. All
+places of public resort require the restraint of a police, and places of
+this kind peculiarly, because offences against society are especially
+apt to originate there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the power of
+selling these commodities (at least for consumption on the spot) to
+persons of known or vouched-for respectability of conduct; to make such
+regulations respecting hours of opening and closing as may be requisite
+for public surveillance, and to withdraw the licence if breaches of the
+peace repeatedly take place through the connivance or incapacity of the
+keeper of the house, or if it becomes a rendezvous for concocting and
+preparing offences against the law. Any further restriction I do not
+conceive to be, in principle, justifiable. The limitation in number, for
+instance, of beer and spirit-houses, for the express purpose of
+rendering them more difficult of access, and diminishing the occasions
+of temptation, not only exposes all to an inconvenience because there
+are some by whom the facility would be abused, but is suited only to a
+state of society in which the labouring classes are avowedly treated as
+children or savages, and placed under an education of restraint, to fit
+them for future admission to the privileges of freedom. This is not the
+principle on which the labouring classes are professedly governed in any
+free country; and no person who sets due value on freedom will give his
+adhesion to their being so governed, unless after all efforts have been
+exhausted to educate them for freedom and govern them as freemen, and it
+has been definitively proved that they can only be governed as children.
+The bare statement of the alternative shows the absurdity of supposing
+that such efforts have been made in any case which needs be considered
+here. It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of
+inconsistencies, that things find admittance into our practice which
+belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal,
+government, while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the
+exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the restraint of
+any real efficacy as a moral education.
+
+It was pointed out in an early part of this Essay, that the liberty of
+the individual, in things wherein the individual is alone concerned,
+implies a corresponding liberty in any number of individuals to regulate
+by mutual agreement such things as regard them jointly, and regard no
+persons but themselves. This question presents no difficulty, so long as
+the will of all the persons implicated remains unaltered; but since that
+will may change, it is often necessary, even in things in which they
+alone are concerned, that they should enter into engagements with one
+another; and when they do, it is fit, as a general rule, that those
+engagements should be kept. Yet in the laws, probably, of every country,
+this general rule has some exceptions. Not only persons are not held to
+engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is
+sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an
+engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other
+civilised countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should
+sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and
+void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus
+limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is
+apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for
+not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's
+voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice
+is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least
+endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by
+allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling
+himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future
+use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own
+case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to
+dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a
+position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would
+be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom
+cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom,
+to be allowed to alienate his freedom. These reasons, the force of which
+is so conspicuous in this peculiar case, are evidently of far wider
+application; yet a limit is everywhere set to them by the necessities of
+life, which continually require, not indeed that we should resign our
+freedom, but that we should consent to this and the other limitation of
+it. The principle, however, which demands uncontrolled freedom of action
+in all that concerns only the agents themselves, requires that those who
+have become bound to one another, in things which concern no third
+party, should be able to release one another from the engagement: and
+even without such voluntary release, there are perhaps no contracts or
+engagements, except those that relate to money or money's worth, of
+which one can venture to say that there ought to be no liberty whatever
+of retractation. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the excellent essay from
+which I have already quoted, states it as his conviction, that
+engagements which involve personal relations or services, should never
+be legally binding beyond a limited duration of time; and that the most
+important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that
+its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both the parties are
+in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will
+of either party to dissolve it. This subject is too important, and too
+complicated, to be discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch on it only so
+far as is necessary for purposes of illustration. If the conciseness and
+generality of Baron Humboldt's dissertation had not obliged him in this
+instance to content himself with enunciating his conclusion without
+discussing the premises, he would doubtless have recognised that the
+question cannot be decided on grounds so simple as those to which he
+confines himself. When a person, either by express promise or by
+conduct, has encouraged another to rely upon his continuing to act in a
+certain way--to build expectations and calculations, and stake any part
+of his plan of life upon that supposition, a new series of moral
+obligations arises on his part towards that person, which may possibly
+be overruled, but cannot be ignored. And again, if the relation between
+two contracting parties has been followed by consequences to others; if
+it has placed third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case
+of marriage, has even called third parties into existence, obligations
+arise on the part of both the contracting parties towards those third
+persons, the fulfilment of which, or at all events the mode of
+fulfilment, must be greatly affected by the continuance or disruption of
+the relation between the original parties to the contract. It does not
+follow, nor can I admit, that these obligations extend to requiring the
+fulfilment of the contract at all costs to the happiness of the
+reluctant party; but they are a necessary element in the question; and
+even if, as Von Humboldt maintains, they ought to make no difference in
+the _legal_ freedom of the parties to release themselves from the
+engagement (and I also hold that they ought not to make _much_
+difference), they necessarily make a great difference in the _moral_
+freedom. A person is bound to take all these circumstances into account,
+before resolving on a step which may affect such important interests of
+others; and if he does not allow proper weight to those interests, he is
+morally responsible for the wrong. I have made these obvious remarks for
+the better illustration of the general principle of liberty, and not
+because they are at all needed on the particular question, which, on the
+contrary, is usually discussed as if the interest of children was
+everything, and that of grown persons nothing.
+
+I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any recognised
+general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be
+withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; and one of the
+cases in which, in the modern European world, the sentiment of liberty
+is the strongest, is a case where, in my view, it is altogether
+misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own
+concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for
+another, under the pretext that the affairs of another are his own
+affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of each in what
+specially regards himself, is bound to maintain a vigilant control over
+his exercise of any power which it allows him to possess over others.
+This obligation is almost entirely disregarded in the case of the
+family relations, a case, in its direct influence on human happiness,
+more important than all others taken together. The almost despotic power
+of husbands over wives need not be enlarged upon here because nothing
+more is needed for the complete removal of the evil, than that wives
+should have the same rights, and should receive the protection of law in
+the same manner, as all other persons; and because, on this subject, the
+defenders of established injustice do not avail themselves of the plea
+of liberty, but stand forth openly as the champions of power. It is in
+the case of children, that misapplied notions of liberty are a real
+obstacle to the fulfilment by the State of its duties. One would almost
+think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not
+metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest
+interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them;
+more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of
+action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than
+power. Consider, for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a
+self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the
+education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born
+its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognise and
+assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the
+most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the
+father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that
+being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards
+others and towards himself. But while this is unanimously declared to be
+the father's duty, scarcely anybody, in this country, will bear to hear
+of obliging him to perform it. Instead of his being required to make any
+exertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is left to
+his choice to accept it or not when it is provided gratis! It still
+remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a
+fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but
+instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against
+the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent
+does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at
+the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.
+
+Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there
+would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach,
+and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere
+battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which
+should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about
+education. If the government would make up its mind to _require_ for
+every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of
+_providing_ one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where
+and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school
+fees of the poorer class of children, and defraying the entire school
+expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections
+which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the
+enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon
+itself to direct that education; which is a totally different thing.
+That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should
+be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has
+been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity
+in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable
+importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere
+contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as
+the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant
+power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an
+aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion
+as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the
+mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education
+established and controlled by the State, should only exist, if it exist
+at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the
+purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain
+standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so
+backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any
+proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the
+task; then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils,
+take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may
+that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape
+fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the
+country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of
+persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the
+same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education
+on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded
+by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to
+those unable to defray the expense.
+
+The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public
+examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early age.
+An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to
+ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable, the
+father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be
+subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his
+labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in
+every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually extending
+range of subjects, so as to make the universal acquisition, and what is
+more, retention, of a certain minimum of general knowledge, virtually
+compulsory. Beyond that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations
+on all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard of
+proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the State from
+exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over
+opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the
+merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use)
+should, even in the higher class of examinations, be confined to facts
+and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion,
+politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or
+falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an
+opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or
+churches. Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off
+in regard to all disputed truths, than they are at present; they would
+be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the state
+merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen, or
+instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from being
+taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools where they
+were taught other things. All attempts by the state to bias the
+conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may
+very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the
+knowledge, requisite to make his conclusions, on any given subject,
+worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be the better for
+being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever
+of the two he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no
+reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences of
+Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a belief in them.
+The examinations, however, in the higher branches of knowledge should, I
+conceive, be entirely voluntary. It would be giving too dangerous a
+power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from
+professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency
+of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees,
+or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements,
+should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand
+the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over
+competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their
+testimony by public opinion.
+
+It is not in the matter of education only, that misplaced notions of
+liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of parents from being
+recognised, and legal obligations from being imposed, where there are
+the strongest grounds for the former always, and in many cases for the
+latter also. The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being,
+is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To
+undertake this responsibility--to bestow a life which may be either a
+curse or a blessing--unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will
+have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime
+against that being. And in a country either over-peopled, or threatened
+with being so, to produce children, beyond a very small number, with
+the effect of reducing the reward of labour by their competition, is a
+serious offence against all who live by the remuneration of their
+labour. The laws which, in many countries on the Continent, forbid
+marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of
+supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the state:
+and whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly dependent
+on local circumstances and feelings), they are not objectionable as
+violations of liberty. Such laws are interferences of the state to
+prohibit a mischievous act--an act injurious to others, which ought to
+be a subject of reprobation, and social stigma, even when it is not
+deemed expedient to superadd legal punishment. Yet the current ideas of
+liberty, which bend so easily to real infringements of the freedom of
+the individual, in things which concern only himself, would repel the
+attempt to put any restraint upon his inclinations when the consequence
+of their indulgence is a life, or lives, of wretchedness and depravity
+to the offspring, with manifold evils to those sufficiently within reach
+to be in any way affected by their actions. When we compare the strange
+respect of mankind for liberty, with their strange want of respect for
+it, we might imagine that a man had an indispensable right to do harm
+to others, and no right at all to please himself without giving pain to
+any one.
+
+I have reserved for the last place a large class of questions respecting
+the limits of government interference, which, though closely connected
+with the subject of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong to it.
+These are cases in which the reasons against interference do not turn
+upon the principle of liberty: the question is not about restraining the
+actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked whether the
+government should do, or cause to be done, something for their benefit,
+instead of leaving it to be done by themselves, individually, or in
+voluntary combination.
+
+The objections to government interference, when it is not such as to
+involve infringement of liberty, may be of three kinds.
+
+The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better done by
+individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one
+so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall
+be conducted, as those who are personally interested in it. This
+principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the
+legislature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes
+of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently enlarged
+upon by political economists, and is not particularly related to the
+principles of this Essay.
+
+The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. In many
+cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on
+the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable
+that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a
+means to their own mental education--a mode of strengthening their
+active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar
+knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This is
+a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial (in cases
+not political); of free and popular local and municipal institutions; of
+the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary
+associations. These are not questions of liberty, and are connected with
+that subject only by remote tendencies; but they are questions of
+development. It belongs to a different occasion from the present to
+dwell on these things as parts of national education; as being, in
+truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the
+political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow
+circle of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them to the
+comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint
+concerns--habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives,
+and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them
+from one another. Without these habits and powers, a free constitution
+can neither be worked nor preserved, as is exemplified by the too-often
+transitory nature of political freedom in countries where it does not
+rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The management of
+purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of
+industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuniary
+means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set
+forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and
+diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend to be
+everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the
+contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of
+experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central
+depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience
+resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each
+experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others, instead of
+tolerating no experiments but its own.
+
+The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of
+government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
+Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government,
+causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused,
+and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public
+into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at
+becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the
+insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities,
+and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government;
+if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all
+that now devolves on them, became departments of the central
+administration; if the employés of all these different enterprises were
+appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for
+every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular
+constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country
+free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more
+efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was
+constructed--the more skilful the arrangements for obtaining the best
+qualified hands and heads with which to work it. In England it has of
+late been proposed that all the members of the civil service of
+government should be selected by competitive examination, to obtain for
+those employments the most intelligent and instructed persons
+procurable; and much has been said and written for and against this
+proposal. One of the arguments most insisted on by its opponents, is
+that the occupation of a permanent official servant of the State does
+not hold out sufficient prospects of emolument and importance to attract
+the highest talents, which will always be able to find a more inviting
+career in the professions, or in the service of companies and other
+public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this argument had
+been used by the friends of the proposition, as an answer to its
+principal difficulty. Coming from the opponents it is strange enough.
+What is urged as an objection is the safety-valve of the proposed
+system. If indeed all the high talent of the country _could_ be drawn
+into the service of the government, a proposal tending to bring about
+that result might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business
+of society which required organised concert, or large and comprehensive
+views, were in the hands of the government, and if government offices
+were universally filled by the ablest men, all the enlarged culture and
+practised intelligence in the country, except the purely speculative,
+would be concentrated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest
+of the community would look for all things: the multitude for direction
+and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for personal
+advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when
+admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under
+this régime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified, for want of
+practical experience, to criticise or check the mode of operation of the
+bureaucracy, but even if the accidents of despotic or the natural
+working of popular institutions occasionally raise to the summit a ruler
+or rulers of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected which is
+contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy
+condition of the Russian empire, as is shown in the accounts of those
+who have had sufficient opportunity of observation. The Czar himself is
+powerless against the bureaucratic body; he can send any one of them to
+Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On
+every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from
+carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced civilisation and
+of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect
+everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing
+for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it,
+but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for
+all evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of
+patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a
+revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate
+authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to
+the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the
+bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking
+their place.
+
+A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to
+transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people
+having been engaged in military service, many of whom have held at least
+the rank of non-commissioned officers, there are in every popular
+insurrection several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise
+some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs,
+the Americans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left
+without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one,
+and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient
+amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what every free
+people ought to be: and a people capable of this is certain to be free;
+it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because
+these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central
+administration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do
+or undergo anything that they do not like. But where everything is done
+through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really
+adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an
+organisation of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into
+a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more
+perfect that organisation is in itself, the more successful in drawing
+to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from
+all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the
+members of the bureaucracy included. For the governors are as much the
+slaves of their organisation and discipline, as the governed are of the
+governors. A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a
+despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the
+utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order
+itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members.
+
+It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the
+principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal,
+sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body
+itself. Banded together as they are--working a system which, like all
+systems, necessarily proceeds in a great measure by fixed rules--the
+official body are under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent
+routine, or, if they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of
+rushing into some half-examined crudity which has struck the fancy of
+some leading member of the corps: and the sole check to these closely
+allied, though seemingly opposite, tendencies, the only stimulus which
+can keep the ability of the body itself up to a high standard, is
+liability to the watchful criticism of equal ability outside the body.
+It is indispensable, therefore, that the means should exist,
+independently of the government, of forming such ability, and furnishing
+it with the opportunities and experience necessary for a correct
+judgment of great practical affairs. If we would possess permanently a
+skilful and efficient body of functionaries--above all, a body able to
+originate and willing to adopt improvements; if we would not have our
+bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross
+all the occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required for
+the government of mankind.
+
+To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to human freedom
+and advancement, begin, or rather at which they begin to predominate
+over the benefits attending the collective application of the force of
+society, under its recognised chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles
+which stand in the way of its well-being; to secure as much of the
+advantages of centralised power and intelligence, as can be had without
+turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general
+activity, is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the
+art of government. It is, in a great measure, a question of detail, in
+which many and various considerations must be kept in view, and no
+absolute rule can be laid down. But I believe that the practical
+principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the
+standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the
+difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination
+of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible
+centralisation of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.
+Thus, in municipal administration, there would be, as in the New England
+States, a very minute division among separate officers, chosen by the
+localities, of all business which is not better left to the persons
+directly interested; but besides this, there would be, in each
+department of local affairs, a central superintendence, forming a branch
+of the general government. The organ of this superintendence would
+concentrate, as in a focus, the variety of information and experience
+derived from the conduct of that branch of public business in all the
+localities, from everything analogous which is done in foreign
+countries, and from the general principles of political science. This
+central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its
+special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one
+place available for others. Emancipated from the petty prejudices and
+narrow views of a locality by its elevated position and comprehensive
+sphere of observation, its advice would naturally carry much authority;
+but its actual power, as a permanent institution, should, I conceive, be
+limited to compelling the local officers to obey the laws laid down for
+their guidance. In all things not provided for by general rules, those
+officers should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to
+their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be
+responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid down by the
+legislature; the central administrative authority only watching over
+their execution, and if they were not properly carried into effect,
+appealing, according to the nature of the case, to the tribunal to
+enforce the law, or to the constituencies to dismiss the functionaries
+who had not executed it according to its spirit. Such, in its general
+conception, is the central superintendence which the Poor Law Board is
+intended to exercise over the administrators of the Poor Rate throughout
+the country. Whatever powers the Board exercises beyond this limit, were
+right and necessary in that peculiar case, for the cure of rooted habits
+of maladministration in matters deeply affecting not the localities
+merely, but the whole community; since no locality has a moral right to
+make itself by mismanagement a nest of pauperism, necessarily
+overflowing into other localities, and impairing the moral and physical
+condition of the whole labouring community. The powers of administrative
+coercion and subordinate legislation possessed by the Poor Law Board
+(but which, owing to the state of opinion on the subject, are very
+scantily exercised by them), though perfectly justifiable in a case of
+first-rate national interest, would be wholly out of place in the
+superintendence of interests purely local. But a central organ of
+information and instruction for all the localities, would be equally
+valuable in all departments of administration. A government cannot have
+too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and
+stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins
+when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals
+and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of
+informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work
+in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of
+them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
+individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of
+_their_ mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of
+administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives,
+in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that
+they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial
+purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be
+accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has
+sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the
+vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly,
+it has preferred to banish.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
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+Title: On Liberty
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+Author: John Stuart Mill
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+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h1><span>On Liberty.</span> <span id="id1">By</span> <span>John Stuart Mill.</span></h1>
+
+<p class="bold">With an Introduction by<br />W. L. Courtney, LL.D.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.<br />
+London and Felling-on-Tyne<br />New York and Melbourne</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p><p><i>To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
+part the author, of all that is best in my writings&mdash;the friend and wife
+whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
+whose approbation was my chief reward&mdash;I dedicate this volume. Like all
+that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me;
+but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the
+inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important
+portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which
+they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of
+interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings
+which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater
+benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can
+write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>INTRODUCTION.</span> <span class="smaller">I.</span></h2>
+
+<p>John Stuart Mill was born on 20th May 1806. He was a delicate child, and
+the extraordinary education designed by his father was not calculated to
+develop and improve his physical powers. "I never was a boy," he says;
+"never played cricket." His exercise was taken in the form of walks with
+his father, during which the elder Mill lectured his son and examined
+him on his work. It is idle to speculate on the possible results of a
+different treatment. Mill remained delicate throughout his life, but was
+endowed with that intense mental energy which is so often combined with
+physical weakness. His youth was sacrificed to an idea; he was designed
+by his father to carry on his work; the individuality of the boy was
+unimportant. A visit to the south of France at the age of fourteen, in
+company with the family of General Sir Samuel Bentham, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> not without
+its influence. It was a glimpse of another atmosphere, though the
+studious habits of his home life were maintained. Moreover, he derived
+from it his interest in foreign politics, which remained one of his
+characteristics to the end of his life. In 1823 he was appointed junior
+clerk in the Examiners' Office at the India House.</p>
+
+<p>Mill's first essays were written in the <i>Traveller</i> about a year before
+he entered the India House. From that time forward his literary work was
+uninterrupted save by attacks of illness. His industry was stupendous.
+He wrote articles on an infinite variety of subjects, political,
+metaphysical, philosophic, religious, poetical. He discovered Tennyson
+for his generation, he influenced the writing of Carlyle's <i>French
+Revolution</i> as well as its success. And all the while he was engaged in
+studying and preparing for his more ambitious works, while he rose step
+by step at the India Office. His <i>Essays on Unsettled Questions in
+Political Economy</i> were written in 1831, although they did not appear
+until thirteen years later. His <i>System of Logic</i>, the design of which
+was even then fashioning itself in his brain, took thirteen years to
+complete, and was actually published<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> before the <i>Political Economy</i>. In
+1844 appeared the article on Michelet, which its author anticipated
+would cause some discussion, but which did not create the sensation he
+expected. Next year there were the "Claims of Labour" and "Guizot," and
+in 1847 his articles on Irish affairs in the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>. These
+years were very much influenced by his friendship and correspondence
+with Comte, a curious comradeship between men of such different
+temperament. In 1848 Mill published his <i>Political Economy</i>, to which he
+had given his serious study since the completion of his <i>Logic</i>. His
+articles and reviews, though they involved a good deal of work&mdash;as, for
+instance, the re-perusal of the <i>Iliad</i> and the <i>Odyssey</i> in the
+original before reviewing Grote's <i>Greece</i>&mdash;were recreation to the
+student. The year 1856 saw him head of the Examiners' Office in the
+India House, and another two years brought the end of his official work,
+owing to the transfer of India to the Crown. In the same year his wife
+died. <i>Liberty</i> was published shortly after, as well as the <i>Thoughts on
+Parliamentary Reform</i>, and no year passed without Mill making important
+contributions on the political, philosophical, and ethical questions of
+the day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p><p>Seven years after the death of his wife, Mill was invited to contest
+Westminster. His feeling on the conduct of elections made him refuse to
+take any personal action in the matter, and he gave the frankest
+expression to his political views, but nevertheless he was elected by a
+large majority. He was not a conventional success in the House; as a
+speaker he lacked magnetism. But his influence was widely felt. "For the
+sake of the House of Commons at large," said Mr. Gladstone, "I rejoiced
+in his advent and deplored his disappearance. He did us all good." After
+only three years in Parliament, he was defeated at the next General
+Election by Mr. W. H. Smith. He retired to Avignon, to the pleasant
+little house where the happiest years of his life had been spent in the
+companionship of his wife, and continued his disinterested labours. He
+completed his edition of his father's <i>Analysis of the Mind</i>, and also
+produced, in addition to less important work, <i>The Subjection of Women</i>,
+in which he had the active co-operation of his step-daughter. A book on
+Socialism was under consideration, but, like an earlier study of
+Sociology, it never was written. He died in 1873, his last years being
+spent peacefully in the pleasant society of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> step-daughter, from
+whose tender care and earnest intellectual sympathy he caught maybe a
+far-off reflection of the light which had irradiated his spiritual life.</p>
+
+<h2><span class="smaller">II.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The circumstances under which John Stuart Mill wrote his <i>Liberty</i> are
+largely connected with the influence which Mrs. Taylor wielded over his
+career. The dedication is well known. It contains the most extraordinary
+panegyric on a woman that any philosopher has ever penned. "Were I but
+capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and
+noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of
+a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that
+I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled
+wisdom." It is easy for the ordinary worldly cynicism to curl a
+sceptical lip over sentences like these. There may be exaggeration of
+sentiment, the necessary and inevitable reaction of a man who was
+trained according to the "dry light" of so unimpressionable a man as
+James Mill, the father; but the passage quoted is not the only one in
+which John Stuart Mill proclaims his unhesitating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> belief in the
+intellectual influence of his wife. The treatise on <i>Liberty</i> was
+written especially under her authority and encouragement, but there are
+many earlier references to the power which she exercised over his mind.
+Mill was introduced to her as early as 1831, at a dinner-party at Mr.
+Taylor's house, where were present, amongst others, Roebuck, W. J. Fox,
+and Miss Harriet Martineau. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into
+intimacy and the intimacy into friendship, and Mill was never weary of
+expatiating on all the advantages of so singular a relationship. In some
+of the presentation copies of his work on <i>Political Economy</i>, he wrote
+the following dedication:&mdash;"To Mrs. John Taylor, who, of all persons
+known to the author, is the most highly qualified either to originate or
+to appreciate speculation on social advancement, this work is with the
+highest respect and esteem dedicated." An article on the enfranchisement
+of women was made the occasion for another encomium. We shall hardly be
+wrong in attributing a much later book, <i>The Subjection of Women</i>,
+published in 1869, to the influence wielded by Mrs. Taylor. Finally, the
+pages of the <i>Autobiography</i> ring with the dithyrambic praise of his
+"almost infallible counsellor."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p><p>The facts of this remarkable intimacy can easily be stated. The
+deductions are more difficult. There is no question that Mill's
+infatuation was the cause of considerable trouble to his acquaintances
+and friends. His father openly taxed him with being in love with another
+man's wife. Roebuck, Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Austin, Miss Harriet Martineau
+were amongst those who suffered because they made some allusion to a
+forbidden subject. Mrs. Taylor lived with her daughter in a lodging in
+the country; but in 1851 her husband died, and then Mill made her his
+wife. Opinions were widely divergent as to her merits; but every one
+agreed that up to the time of her death, in 1858, Mill was wholly lost
+to his friends. George Mill, one of Mill's younger brothers, gave it as
+his opinion that she was a clever and remarkable woman, but "nothing
+like what John took her to be." Carlyle, in his reminiscences, described
+her with ambiguous epithets. She was "vivid," "iridescent," "pale and
+passionate and sad-looking, a living-romance heroine of the royalist
+volition and questionable destiny." It is not possible to make much of a
+judgment like this, but we get on more certain ground when we discover
+that Mrs. Carlyle said on one occasion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> that "she is thought to be
+dangerous," and that Carlyle added that she was worse than dangerous,
+she was patronising. The occasion when Mill and his wife were brought
+into close contact with the Carlyles is well known. The manuscript of
+the first volume of the <i>French Revolution</i> had been lent to Mill, and
+was accidentally burnt by Mrs. Mill's servant. Mill and his wife drove
+up to Carlyle's door, the wife speechless, the husband so full of
+conversation that he detained Carlyle with desperate attempts at
+loquacity for two hours. But Dr. Garnett tells us, in his <i>Life of
+Carlyle</i>, that Mill made a substantial reparation for the calamity for
+which he was responsible by inducing the aggrieved author to accept half
+of the &pound;200 which he offered. Mrs. Mill, as I have said, died in 1858,
+after seven years of happy companionship with her husband, and was
+buried at Avignon. The inscription which Mill wrote for her grave is too
+characteristic to be omitted:&mdash;"Her great and loving heart, her noble
+soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect, made
+her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom and the example in
+goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight of those who had the
+happiness to belong to her. As earnest for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> all public good as she was
+generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
+felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in
+those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like
+hers, this earth would already become the hoped-for Heaven." These lines
+prove the intensity of Mill's feeling, which is not afraid of abundant
+verbiage; but they also prove that he could not imagine what the effect
+would be on others, and, as Grote said, only Mill's reputation could
+survive these and similar displays.</p>
+
+<p>Every one will judge for himself of this romantic episode in Mill's
+career, according to such experience as he may possess of the
+philosophic mind and of the value of these curious but not infrequent
+relationships. It may have been a piece of infatuation, or, if we prefer
+to say so, it may have been the most gracious and the most human page in
+Mill's career. Mrs. Mill may have flattered her husband's vanity by
+echoing his opinions, or she may have indeed been an Egeria, full of
+inspiration and intellectual helpfulness. What usually happens in these
+cases,&mdash;although the philosopher himself, through his belief in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>
+equality of the sexes, was debarred from thinking so,&mdash;is the extremely
+valuable action and reaction of two different classes and orders of
+mind. To any one whose thoughts have been occupied with the sphere of
+abstract speculation, the lively and vivid presentment of concrete fact
+comes as a delightful and agreeable shock. The instinct of the woman
+often enables her not only to apprehend but to illustrate a truth for
+which she would be totally unable to give the adequate philosophic
+reasoning. On the other hand, the man, with the more careful logical
+methods and the slow processes of formal reasoning, is apt to suppose
+that the happy intuition which leaps to the conclusion is really based
+on the intellectual processes of which he is conscious in his own case.
+Thus both parties to the happy contract are equally pleased. The
+abstract truth gets the concrete illustration; the concrete illustration
+finds its proper foundation in a series of abstract inquiries. Perhaps
+Carlyle's epithets of "iridescent" and "vivid" refer incidentally to
+Mrs. Mill's quick perceptiveness, and thus throw a useful light on the
+mutual advantages of the common work of husband and wife. But it savours
+almost of impertinence even to attempt to lift the veil on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> a mystery
+like this. It is enough to say, perhaps, that however much we may
+deplore the exaggeration of Mill's references to his wife, we recognise
+that, for whatever reason, the pair lived an ideally happy life.</p>
+
+<p>It still, however, remains to estimate the extent to which Mrs. Taylor,
+both before and after her marriage with Mill, made actual contributions
+to his thoughts and his public work. Here I may be perhaps permitted to
+avail myself of what I have already written in a previous work.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Mill
+gives us abundant help in this matter in the <i>Autobiography</i>. When first
+he knew her, his thoughts were turning to the subject of Logic. But his
+published work on the subject owed nothing to her, he tells us, in its
+doctrines. It was Mill's custom to write the whole of a book so as to
+get his general scheme complete, and then laboriously to re-write it in
+order to perfect the phrases and the composition. Doubtless Mrs. Taylor
+was of considerable help to him as a critic of style. But to be a critic
+of doctrine she was hardly qualified. Mill has made some clear
+admissions on this point. "The only actual revolution which has ever
+taken place in my modes of thinking was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> already complete,"<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> he says,
+before her influence became paramount. There is a curiously humble
+estimate of his own powers (to which Dr. Bain has called attention),
+which reads at first sight as if it contradicted this. "During the
+greater part of my literary life I have performed the office in relation
+to her, which, from a rather early period, I had considered as the most
+useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought, that
+of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and
+the public." So far it would seem that Mill had sat at the feet of his
+oracle; but observe the highly remarkable exception which is made in the
+following sentence:&mdash;"For I had always a humble opinion of my own powers
+as an original thinker, <i>except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics,
+and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics.)</i>"<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> If
+Mill then was an original thinker in logic, metaphysics, and the science
+of economy and politics, it is clear that he had not learnt these from
+her lips. And to most men logic and metaphysics may be safely taken as
+forming a domain in which originality of thought, if it can be honestly
+professed, is a sufficient title of distinction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></p><p>Mrs. Taylor's assistance in the <i>Political Economy</i> is confined to
+certain definite points. The purely scientific part was, we are assured,
+not learnt from her. "But it was chiefly her influence which gave to the
+book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous
+expositions of political economy that had any pretensions to be
+scientific, and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which
+those previous expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in
+making the proper distinction between the laws of the production of
+wealth, which are real laws of Nature, dependent on the properties of
+objects, and the modes of its distribution, which, subject to certain
+conditions, depend on human will.... <i>I had indeed partially learnt this
+view of things from the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of
+St. Simonians</i>; but it was made a living principle, pervading and
+animating the book, by my wife's promptings."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The part which is
+italicised is noticeable. Here, as elsewhere, Mill thinks out the matter
+by himself; the concrete form of the thoughts is suggested or prompted
+by the wife. Apart from this "general tone," Mill tells us that there
+was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span> specific contribution. "The chapter which has had a greater
+influence on opinion than all the rest, that on the Probable Future of
+the Labouring Classes, is entirely due to her. In the first draft of the
+book that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the need of such a
+chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book without it; she was
+the cause of my writing it." From this it would appear that she gave
+Mill that tendency to Socialism which, while it lends a progressive
+spirit to his speculations on politics, at the same time does not
+manifestly accord with his earlier advocacy of peasant proprietorships.
+Nor, again, is it, on the face of it, consistent with those doctrines of
+individual liberty which, aided by the intellectual companionship of his
+wife, he propounded in a later work. The ideal of individual freedom is
+not the ideal of Socialism, just as that invocation of governmental aid
+to which the Socialist resorts is not consistent with the theory of
+<i>laisser-faire</i>. Yet <i>Liberty</i> was planned by Mill and his wife in
+concert. Perhaps a slight visionariness of speculation was no less the
+attribute of Mrs. Mill than an absence of rigid logical principles. Be
+this as it may, she undoubtedly checked the half-recognised leanings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span> of
+her husband in the direction of Coleridge and Carlyle. Whether this was
+an instance of her steadying influence,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> or whether it added one more
+unassimilated element to Mill's diverse intellectual sustenance, may be
+wisely left an open question. We cannot, however, be wrong in
+attributing to her the parentage of one book of Mill, <i>The Subjection of
+Women</i>. It is true that Mill had before learnt that men and women ought
+to be equal in legal, political, social, and domestic relations. This
+was a point on which he had already fallen foul of his father's essay on
+<i>Government</i>. But Mrs. Taylor had actually written on this very point,
+and the warmth and fervour of Mill's denunciations of women's servitude
+were unmistakably caught from his wife's view of the practical
+disabilities entailed by the feminine position.</p>
+
+<h2><span class="smaller">III.</span></h2>
+
+<p><i>Liberty</i> was published in 1859, when the nineteenth century was half
+over, but in its general spirit and in some of its special tendencies
+the little tract belongs rather to the standpoint of the eighteenth
+century than to that which saw its birth. In many of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span> speculations
+John Stuart Mill forms a sort of connecting link between the doctrines
+of the earlier English empirical school and those which we associate
+with the name of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his <i>Logic</i>, for instance, he
+represents an advance on the theories of Hume, and yet does not see how
+profoundly the victories of Science modify the conclusions of the
+earlier thinker. Similarly, in his <i>Political Economy</i>, he desires to
+improve and to enlarge upon Ricardo, and yet does not advance so far as
+the modifications of political economy by Sociology, indicated by some
+later&mdash;and especially German&mdash;speculations on the subject. In the tract
+on <i>Liberty</i>, Mill is advocating the rights of the individual as against
+Society at the very opening of an era that was rapidly coming to the
+conclusion that the individual had no absolute rights against Society.
+The eighteenth century view is that individuals existed first, each with
+their own special claims and responsibilities; that they deliberately
+formed a Social State, either by a contract or otherwise; and that then
+finally they limited their own action out of regard for the interests of
+the social organism thus arbitrarily produced. This is hardly the view
+of the nineteenth century. It is possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span> that logically the individual
+is prior to the State; historically and in the order of Nature, the
+State is prior to the individual. In other words, such rights as every
+single personality possesses in a modern world do not belong to him by
+an original ordinance of Nature, but are slowly acquired in the growth
+and development of the social state. It is not the truth that individual
+liberties were forfeited by some deliberate act when men made themselves
+into a Commonwealth. It is more true to say, as Aristotle said long ago,
+that man is naturally a political animal, that he lived under strict
+social laws as a mere item, almost a nonentity, as compared with the
+Order, Society, or Community to which he belonged, and that such
+privileges as he subsequently acquired have been obtained in virtue of
+his growing importance as a member of a growing organisation. But if
+this is even approximately true, it seriously restricts that liberty of
+the individual for which Mill pleads. The individual has no chance,
+because he has no rights, against the social organism. Society can
+punish him for acts or even opinions which are anti-social in character.
+His virtue lies in recognising the intimate communion with his fellows.
+His sphere of activity is bounded by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span> the common interest. Just as it is
+an absurd and exploded theory that all men are originally equal, so it
+is an ancient and false doctrine to protest that a man has an individual
+liberty to live and think as he chooses in any spirit of antagonism to
+that larger body of which he forms an insignificant part.</p>
+
+<p>Nowadays this view of Society and of its development, which we largely
+owe to the <i>Philosophie Positive</i> of M. Auguste Comte, is so familiar
+and possibly so damaging to the individual initiative, that it becomes
+necessary to advance and proclaim the truth which resides in an opposite
+theory. All progress, as we are aware, depends on the joint process of
+integration and differentiation; synthesis, analysis, and then a larger
+synthesis seem to form the law of development. If it ever comes to pass
+that Society is tyrannical in its restrictions of the individual, if, as
+for instance in some forms of Socialism, based on deceptive analogies of
+Nature's dealings, the type is everything and the individual nothing, it
+must be confidently urged in answer that the fuller life of the future
+depends on the manifold activities, even though they may be
+antagonistic, of the individual. In England, at all events, we know that
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span>government in all its different forms, whether as King, or as a caste
+of nobles, or as an oligarchical plutocracy, or even as trades unions,
+is so dwarfing in its action that, for the sake of the future, the
+individual must revolt. Just as our former point of view limited the
+value of Mill's treatise on <i>Liberty</i>, so these considerations tend to
+show its eternal importance. The omnipotence of Society means a dead
+level of uniformity. The claim of the individual to be heard, to say
+what he likes, to do what he likes, to live as he likes, is absolutely
+necessary, not only for the variety of elements without which life is
+poor, but also for the hope of a future age. So long as individual
+initiative and effort are recognised as a vital element in English
+history, so long will Mill's <i>Liberty</i>, which he confesses was based on
+a suggestion derived from Von Humboldt, remain as an indispensable
+contribution to the speculations, and also to the health and sanity, of the world.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>What his wife really was to Mill, we shall, perhaps, never know. But
+that she was an actual and vivid force, which roused the latent
+enthusiasm of his nature, we have abundant evidence. And when she died
+at Avignon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span> though his friends may have regained an almost estranged
+companionship, Mill was, personally, the poorer. Into the sorrow of that
+bereavement we cannot enter: we have no right or power to draw the veil.
+It is enough to quote the simple words, so eloquent of an unspoken
+grief&mdash;"I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest
+manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would
+have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left,
+and to work for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be
+derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory."</p>
+
+<p class="right">W. L. COURTNEY.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>July 5th, 1901</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Life of John Stuart Mill</i>, chapter vi. (Walter Scott.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 190.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 242.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Autobiography</i>, pp. 246, 247.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Cf. an instructive page in the <i>Autobiography</i>, p. 252.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bold2">CONTENTS.</p>
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER I.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="left">INTRODUCTORY</td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER II.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="left">OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION</td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER III.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="left">OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING</td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER IV.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="left">OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL</td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2">&nbsp;</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th colspan="2" class="center">CHAPTER V.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="left">APPLICATIONS</td>
+    <td><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">[Pg xxviii]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument
+unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and
+essential importance of human development in its richest
+diversity.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Wilhelm Von Humboldt</span>: <i>Sphere and Duties of Government</i>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="bold2">ON LIBERTY.</p>
+
+<hr class="smler" />
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER I.</span> <span class="smaller">INTRODUCTORY.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so
+unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical
+Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the
+power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the
+individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in
+general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical
+controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to
+make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is so far
+from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost
+from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more
+civilised portions of the species have now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> entered, it presents itself
+under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous
+feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar,
+particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this
+contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the
+government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the
+political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the
+popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position
+to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a
+governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance
+or conquest, who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the
+governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not
+desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its
+oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as
+highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against
+their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the
+weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable
+vultures, it was needful that there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> should be an animal of prey
+stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king
+of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any
+of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude
+of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots,
+was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to
+exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by
+liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition
+of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it
+was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and
+which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was
+held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was
+the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the
+community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its
+interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important
+acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation,
+the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or
+less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or
+when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely,
+became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so
+long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be
+ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less
+efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations
+beyond this point.</p>
+
+<p>A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased
+to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an
+independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to
+them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be
+their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way
+alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of
+government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this
+new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object
+of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed;
+and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit
+the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling
+power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons
+began to think that too much importance had been attached to the
+limitation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> of the power itself. <i>That</i> (it might seem) was a resource
+against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the
+people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified
+with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and
+will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its
+own will. There was no fear of its tyrannising over itself. Let the
+rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and
+it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself
+dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power,
+concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of
+thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last
+generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which
+it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a
+government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think
+ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the
+political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might
+by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the
+circumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.</p>
+
+<p>But, in political and philosophical theories, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> well as in persons,
+success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have
+concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to
+limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular
+government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed
+at some distant period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily
+disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of the French
+Revolution, the worst of which were the work of a usurping few, and
+which, in any case, belonged, not to the permanent working of popular
+institutions, but to a sudden and convulsive outbreak against
+monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic
+republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made
+itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of
+nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the
+observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It
+was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and "the power
+of the people over themselves," do not express the true state of the
+case. The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people
+with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the
+rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of
+the most numerous or the most active <i>part</i> of the people; the majority,
+or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the
+people, consequently, <i>may</i> desire to oppress a part of their number;
+and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other
+abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government
+over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power
+are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest
+party therein. This view of things, recommending itself equally to the
+intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important
+classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests
+democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and
+in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally
+included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.</p>
+
+<p>Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is
+still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of
+the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when
+society is itself the tyrant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>&mdash;society collectively, over the separate
+individuals who compose it&mdash;its means of tyrannising are not restricted
+to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries.
+Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong
+mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which
+it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable
+than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually
+upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape,
+penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the
+soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the
+magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the
+tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of
+society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas
+and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to
+fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any
+individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to
+fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the
+legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual
+independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against
+encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> human affairs,
+as protection against political despotism.</p>
+
+<p>But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general
+terms, the practical question, where to place the limit&mdash;how to make the
+fitting adjustment between individual independence and social
+control&mdash;is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All
+that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of
+restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct,
+therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on
+many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What
+these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but
+if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which
+least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any
+two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or
+country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and
+country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject
+on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among
+themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but
+universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of
+custom,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is
+continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing
+any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on
+one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on
+which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be
+given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are
+accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some
+who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on
+subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons
+unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions
+on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind
+that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he
+sympathises, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to
+himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion
+on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one
+person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal
+to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many
+people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own
+preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of
+morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his
+religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that.
+Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are
+affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in
+regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those
+which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their
+reason&mdash;at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their
+social affections, not seldom their anti-social ones, their envy or
+jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their
+desires or fears for themselves&mdash;their legitimate or illegitimate
+self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of
+the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its
+feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots,
+between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between
+nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part
+the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments
+thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of
+the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the
+other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or
+where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments
+frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority.
+Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act
+and forbearance, which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been
+the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions
+of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility, though
+essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly
+genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and
+heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious
+interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in the
+direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason,
+and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and
+antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which
+had little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made
+themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.</p>
+
+<p>The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of
+it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules
+laid down for general observance, under the penalties<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> of law or
+opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in
+thought and feeling have left this condition of things unassailed in
+principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of
+its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what
+things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its
+likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred
+endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points
+on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause
+in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which
+the higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with
+consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that of
+religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as
+forming a most striking instance of the fallibility of what is called
+the moral sense: for the <i>odium theologicum</i>, in a sincere bigot, is one
+of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first broke
+the yoke of what called itself the Universal Church, were in general as
+little willing to permit difference of religious opinion as that church
+itself. But when the heat of the conflict was over, without giving a
+complete victory to any party, and each church or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> sect was reduced to
+limit its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already
+occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming
+majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they
+could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this
+battle-field, almost solely, that the rights of the individual against
+society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim
+of society to exercise authority over dissentients, openly controverted.
+The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it
+possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible
+right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others
+for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in
+whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly
+anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference,
+which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has
+added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious
+persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is
+admitted with tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in
+matters of church government, but not of dogma; another can tolerate
+everybody, short of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> a Papist or a Unitarian; another, every one who
+believes in revealed religion; a few extend their charity a little
+further, but stop at the belief in a God and in a future state. Wherever
+the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found
+to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history,
+though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter,
+than in most other countries of Europe; and there is considerable
+jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative or the executive
+power, with private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the
+independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting habit of
+looking on the government as representing an opposite interest to the
+public. The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the
+government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so,
+individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the
+government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is
+a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any
+attempt of the law to control individuals in things in which they have
+not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> and this with very
+little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the
+legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly
+salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as often misplaced as well
+grounded in the particular instances of its application. There is, in
+fact, no recognised principle by which the propriety or impropriety of
+government interference is customarily tested. People decide according
+to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be
+done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government
+to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount
+of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human
+interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on
+one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general
+direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest
+which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the
+government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the
+government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but
+very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere,
+as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And it seems to me
+that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> consequence of this absence of rule or principle, one side is
+at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government
+is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned.</p>
+
+<p>The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as
+entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the
+individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used
+be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion
+of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which
+mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with
+the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That
+the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
+member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
+others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
+warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
+will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
+because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even
+right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning
+with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling
+him, or visiting him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify
+that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be
+calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the
+conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which
+concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his
+independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and
+mind, the individual is sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to
+apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are
+not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the
+law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a
+state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected
+against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the
+same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of
+society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The
+early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
+there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler
+full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any
+expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable.
+Despotism is a legitimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> mode of government in dealing with
+barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means
+justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has
+no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind
+have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
+Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar
+or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon
+as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own
+improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in
+all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion,
+either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for
+non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good,
+and justifiable only for the security of others.</p>
+
+<p>It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived
+to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent
+of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical
+questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the
+permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I
+contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external
+control, only in respect to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> those actions of each, which concern the
+interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others,
+there is a <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal
+penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There
+are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
+rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court
+of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any
+other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he
+enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual
+beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to
+protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is
+obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to
+society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his
+actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable
+to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much
+more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one
+answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable
+for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet
+there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that
+exception. In all things which regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> the external relations of the
+individual, he is <i>de jure</i> amenable to those whose interests are
+concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are
+often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these
+reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either
+because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act
+better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way
+in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the
+attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than
+those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the
+enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself
+should step into the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests
+of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the
+more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made
+accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from
+the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending
+all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only
+himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary,
+and undeceived consent and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> participation. When I say only himself, I
+mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself,
+may affect others <i>through</i> himself; and the objection which may be
+grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel.
+This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises,
+first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of
+conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and
+feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects,
+practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty
+of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different
+principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual
+which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as
+the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same
+reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle
+requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life
+to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such
+consequences as may follow: without impediment from our
+fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though
+they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from
+this liberty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> each individual, follows the liberty, within the same
+limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any
+purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being
+supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.</p>
+
+<p>No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is
+free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely
+free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only
+freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our
+own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or
+impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his
+own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater
+gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves,
+than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have
+the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly
+opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice.
+Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to
+its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> of personal, as
+of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought themselves
+entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the
+regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the
+ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental
+discipline of every one of its citizens; a mode of thinking which may
+have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies,
+in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal
+commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and
+self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not afford to
+wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world,
+the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation
+between spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of
+men's consciences in other hands than those which controlled their
+worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in the
+details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been
+wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in
+self-regarding, than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful
+of the elements which have entered into the formation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> of moral feeling,
+having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a
+hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by
+the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have
+placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past,
+have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of
+the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social
+system, as unfolded in his <i>Trait&eacute; de Politique Positive</i>, aims at
+establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism
+of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the
+political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in
+the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the
+powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and
+even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes
+taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the
+power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which
+tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and
+more formidable. The disposition of mankind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> whether as rulers or as
+fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule
+of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best
+and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is
+hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as
+the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of
+moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in
+the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.</p>
+
+<p>It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once entering
+upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves in the first instance to a
+single branch of it, on which the principle here stated is, if not
+fully, yet to a certain point, recognised by the current opinions. This
+one branch is the Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to
+separate the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing. Although these
+liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of the political
+morality of all countries which profess religious toleration and free
+institutions, the grounds, both philosophical and practical, on which
+they rest, are perhaps not so familiar to the general mind, nor so
+thoroughly appreciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+have been expected. Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much
+wider application than to only one division of the subject, and a
+thorough consideration of this part of the question will be found the
+best introduction to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am
+about to say will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a
+subject which for now three centuries has been so often discussed, I
+venture on one discussion more.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER II.</span> <span class="smaller">OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be
+necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against
+corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now
+be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not
+identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them,
+and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to
+hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so
+triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it need not be
+specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the
+subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of
+the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force
+against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when
+fear of insurrection drives ministers and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> judges from their
+propriety;<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional
+countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely
+responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the
+expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ
+of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore,
+that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks
+of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it
+conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to
+exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The
+power itself is illegitimate. The best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> government has no more title to
+it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in
+accordance with public opinion, than when in or opposition to it. If all
+mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the
+contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that
+one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in
+silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value
+except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were
+simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the
+injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> many. But the peculiar
+evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing
+the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who
+dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the
+opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging
+error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit,
+the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its
+collision with error.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of
+which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can
+never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false
+opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may
+possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its
+truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the
+question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means
+of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure
+that it is false, is to assume that <i>their</i> certainty is the same thing
+as <i>absolute</i> certainty. All silencing of discussion is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> an assumption
+of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common
+argument, not the worse for being common.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their
+fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment,
+which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows
+himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions
+against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any
+opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of
+the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute
+princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually
+feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all
+subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their
+opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they
+are wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their
+opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they
+habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his
+own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on
+the infallibility of "the world" in general. And the world, to each
+individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his
+party,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> his sect, his church, his class of society: the man may be
+called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-minded to whom it means
+anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his
+faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that
+other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have
+thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own
+world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissentient
+worlds of other people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has
+decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance,
+and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would
+have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet it is as evident
+in itself as any amount of argument can make it, that ages are no more
+infallible than individuals; every age having held many opinions which
+subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as
+certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future
+ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.</p>
+
+<p>The objection likely to be made to this argument, would probably take
+some such form as the following. There is no greater assumption of
+infallibility in forbidding the propagation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> error, than in any other
+thing which is done by public authority on its own judgment and
+responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because
+it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to
+use it at all? To prohibit what they think pernicious, is not claiming
+exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them,
+although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction. If we
+were never to act on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong,
+we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties
+unperformed. An objection which applies to all conduct, can be no valid
+objection to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments,
+and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them
+carefully, and never impose them upon others unless they are quite sure
+of being right. But when they are sure (such reasoners may say), it is
+not conscientiousness but cowardice to shrink from acting on their
+opinions, and allow doctrines which they honestly think dangerous to the
+welfare of mankind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered
+abroad without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened
+times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake: but governments and
+nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not denied to be
+fit subjects for the exercise of authority: they have laid on bad taxes,
+made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, and, under
+whatever provocation, make no wars? Men, and governments, must act to
+the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty,
+but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. We
+may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own
+conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to pervert
+society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and pernicious.</p>
+
+<p>I answer that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest
+difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every
+opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its
+truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty
+of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which
+justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no
+other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance
+of being right.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p><p>When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary conduct
+of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one and the other
+are no worse than they are? Not certainly to the inherent force of the
+human understanding; for, on any matter not self-evident, there are
+ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it, for one who is
+capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative;
+for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many
+opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things
+which no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the
+whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational
+conduct? If there really is this preponderance&mdash;which there must be,
+unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost desperate
+state&mdash;it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of
+everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral
+being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of
+rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience
+alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be
+interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and
+argument: but facts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind,
+must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own
+story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength
+and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that
+it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only
+when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the
+case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how
+has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his
+opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all
+that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just,
+and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what
+was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human
+being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by
+hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of
+opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every
+character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but
+this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any
+other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own
+opinion by collating it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> with those of others, so far from causing doubt
+and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable
+foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognisant of all that
+can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his
+position against all gainsayers&mdash;knowing that he has sought for
+objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out
+no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter&mdash;he has a
+right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any
+multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.</p>
+
+<p>It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who
+are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant
+their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous
+collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the
+public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even
+at the canonisation of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a
+"devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted
+to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is
+known and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted
+to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance of its
+truth as they now do. The beliefs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> which we have most warrant for, have
+no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to
+prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted
+and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we
+have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we
+have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching
+us: if the lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better
+truth, it will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it;
+and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to
+truth, as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty
+attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining it.</p>
+
+<p>Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for
+free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not
+seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are
+not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are
+not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be
+free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be <i>doubtful</i>, but
+think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to
+be questioned because it is <i>so certain</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> that is, because <i>they are
+certain</i> that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while
+there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is
+not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with
+us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.</p>
+
+<p>In the present age&mdash;which has been described as "destitute of faith, but
+terrified at scepticism"&mdash;in which people feel sure, not so much that
+their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without
+them&mdash;the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are
+rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There
+are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable
+to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold
+those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a
+case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty,
+something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and
+even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the
+general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener
+thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary
+beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining
+bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise.
+This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on
+discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their
+usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the
+responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But
+those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption
+of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The
+usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as
+open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion
+itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to
+decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the
+opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will
+not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or
+harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The
+truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or
+not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it
+possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In
+the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is
+contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for
+denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they
+believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions,
+never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find
+<i>them</i> handling the question of utility as if it could be completely
+abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all,
+because their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the belief
+of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of
+the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on
+one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public
+feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are
+just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they
+allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive
+guilt of rejecting it.</p>
+
+<p>In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hearing to
+opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them, it will
+be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete case; and I
+choose, by preference, the cases which are least favourable to me&mdash;in
+which the argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of
+truth and on that of utility, is considered the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> strongest. Let the
+opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a future state, or any
+of the commonly received doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on
+such ground, gives a great advantage to an unfair antagonist; since he
+will be sure to say (and many who have no desire to be unfair will say
+it internally), Are these the doctrines which you do not deem
+sufficiently certain to be taken under the protection of law? Is the
+belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which, you hold to
+be assuming infallibility? But I must be permitted to observe, that it
+is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call
+an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that
+question <i>for others</i>, without allowing them to hear what can be said on
+the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the
+less, if put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However
+positive any one's persuasion may be, not only of the falsity, but of
+the pernicious consequences&mdash;not only of the pernicious consequences,
+but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and
+impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance of that private judgment,
+though backed by the public judgment of his country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> or his
+contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence,
+he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less
+objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or
+impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal. These
+are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit
+those dreadful mistakes, which excite the astonishment and horror of
+posterity. It is among such that we find the instances memorable in
+history, when the arm of the law has been employed to root out the best
+men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable success as to the men,
+though some of the doctrines have survived to be (as if in mockery)
+invoked, in defence of similar conduct towards those who dissent from
+<i>them</i>, or from their received interpretation.</p>
+
+<p>Mankind can hardly be too often reminded that there was once a man named
+Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of
+his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an age and
+country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been handed down
+to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous
+man in it; while <i>we</i> know him as the head and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> prototype of all
+subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty
+inspiration of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, "<i>i
+ma&euml;stri di color che sanno</i>," the two headsprings of ethical as of all
+other philosophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers
+who have since lived&mdash;whose fame, still growing after more than two
+thousand years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which
+make his native city illustrious&mdash;was put to death by his countrymen,
+after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in
+denying the gods recognised by the State; indeed his accuser asserted
+(see the "Apologia") that he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in
+being, by his doctrines and instructions, a "corruptor of youth." Of
+these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing,
+honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all
+then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial iniquity, the
+mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, would not be an
+anticlimax: the event which took place on Calvary rather more than
+eighteen hundred years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> ago. The man who left on the memory of those who
+witnessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his moral
+grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as
+the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what? As a
+blasphemer. Men did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook
+him for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as that
+prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now held to be, for their
+treatment of him. The feelings with which mankind now regard these
+lamentable transactions, especially the later of the two, render them
+extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to
+all appearance, not bad men&mdash;not worse than men commonly are, but rather
+the contrary; men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full
+measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and
+people: the very kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have
+every chance of passing through life blameless and respected. The
+high-priest who rent his garments when the words were pronounced, which,
+according to all the ideas of his country, constituted the blackest
+guilt, was in all probability quite as sincere in his horror and
+indignation, as the generality of respectable and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> pious men now are in
+the religious and moral sentiments they profess; and most of those who
+now shudder at his conduct, if they had lived in his time, and been born
+Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox Christians who are
+tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first martyrs must
+have been worse men than they themselves are, ought to remember that one
+of those persecutors was Saint Paul.</p>
+
+<p>Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the
+impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue of him
+who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had grounds for
+thinking himself the best and most enlightened among his cotemporaries,
+it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole
+civilised world, he preserved through life not only the most unblemished
+justice, but what was less to be expected from his Stoical breeding, the
+tenderest heart. The few failings which are attributed to him, were all
+on the side of indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical
+product of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ
+at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. This man, a
+better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word, than almost
+any of the ostensibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Christian sovereigns who have since reigned,
+persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous
+attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a
+character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the
+Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good
+and not an evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply
+penetrated. Existing society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But
+such as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, that it was held together,
+and prevented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the received
+divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his duty not to suffer
+society to fall in pieces; and saw not how, if its existing ties were
+removed, any others could be formed which could again knit it together.
+The new religion openly aimed at dissolving these ties: unless,
+therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be his
+duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology of Christianity did
+not appear to him true or of divine origin; inasmuch as this strange
+history of a crucified God was not credible to him, and a system which
+purported to rest entirely upon a foundation to him so wholly
+unbelievable, could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating agency
+which, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> all abatements, it has in fact proved to be; the gentlest
+and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under a solemn sense of
+duty, authorised the persecution of Christianity. To my mind this is one
+of the most tragical facts in all history. It is a bitter thought, how
+different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the
+Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the
+auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But it
+would be equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny, that no one
+plea which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian teaching, was
+wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propagation of
+Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that Atheism is false,
+and tends to the dissolution of society, than Marcus Aurelius believed
+the same things of Christianity; he who, of all men then living, might
+have been thought the most capable of appreciating it. Unless any one
+who approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters
+himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius&mdash;more
+deeply versed in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his intellect
+above it&mdash;more earnest in his search for truth, or more single-minded in
+his devotion to it when found;&mdash;let him abstain from that assumption of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which the great
+Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.</p>
+
+<p>Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment for
+restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will not justify
+Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom, when hard pressed,
+occasionally accept this consequence, and say, with Dr. Johnson, that
+the persecutors of Christianity were in the right; that persecution is
+an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes
+successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against
+truth, though sometimes beneficially effective against mischievous
+errors. This is a form of the argument for religious intolerance,
+sufficiently remarkable not to be passed without notice.</p>
+
+<p>A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted
+because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, cannot be charged
+with being intentionally hostile to the reception of new truths; but we
+cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom
+mankind are indebted for them. To discover to the world something which
+deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to
+it that it had been mistaken on some vital point<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of temporal or
+spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can
+render to his fellow-creatures, and in certain cases, as in those of the
+early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think with Dr. Johnson
+believe it to have been the most precious gift which could be bestowed
+on mankind. That the authors of such splendid benefits should be
+requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as
+the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error
+and misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes,
+but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new
+truth, according to this doctrine, should stand, as stood, in the
+legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with a halter
+round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did
+not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition.
+People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed
+to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject
+is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may
+have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.</p>
+
+<p>But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is
+one of those pleasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> falsehoods which men repeat after one another
+till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
+History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not
+suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only
+of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out at least twenty times
+before Luther, and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra
+Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were put
+down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards were put down. The
+Hussites were put down. Even after the era of Luther, wherever
+persecution was persisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy,
+Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most
+likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen
+Elizabeth died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the
+heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No
+reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated
+in the Roman Empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the
+persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and
+separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a
+piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> has any
+inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and
+the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for
+error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties
+will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real
+advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is
+true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the
+course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it,
+until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable
+circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to
+withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.</p>
+
+<p>It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of new
+opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we even
+build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to death;
+and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would probably
+tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to
+extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free
+from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at
+least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is
+not, even in these times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> so unexampled as to make it at all incredible
+that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at
+the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was
+sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment, for uttering, and writing
+on a gate, some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month
+of the same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate
+occasions,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted
+by the judge and by one of the counsel, because they honestly declared
+that they had no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> for
+the same reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of
+redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can
+be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess
+belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is
+equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted
+with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions,
+be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity,
+if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on
+which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who
+does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much
+ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is historically
+true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons
+of distinguished integrity and honour); and would be maintained by no
+one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in greatest
+repute with the world, both for virtues and for attainments, are well
+known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule,
+besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence
+that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who
+are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of
+publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A
+rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed
+purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of
+persecution; a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> persecution, too, having the peculiarity, that the
+qualification for undergoing it, is the being clearly proved not to
+deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less
+insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who does not believe
+in a future state, necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe
+are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of
+hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of
+supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian
+virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may be
+thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute, as an
+example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds, which makes
+them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion of a bad principle,
+when they are no longer bad enough to desire to carry it really into
+practice. But unhappily there is no security in the state of the public
+mind, that the suspension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has
+lasted for about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age
+the quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to
+resuscitate past evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of
+at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow
+and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and
+where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the
+feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of
+this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively
+persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of
+persecution.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> For it is this&mdash;it is the opinions men entertain, and
+the feelings they cherish, respecting those who disown the beliefs they
+deem important, which makes this country not a place of mental freedom.
+For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that
+they strengthen the social stigma.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> It is that stigma which is really
+effective, and so effective is it that the profession of opinions which
+are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in
+many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial
+punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary
+circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people,
+opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be
+imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those
+whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in
+power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear
+from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> of and
+ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to
+enable them to bear. There is no room for any appeal <i>ad misericordiam</i>
+in behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil
+on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to
+do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment
+of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose
+like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole
+intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the
+Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the
+older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our
+merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but
+induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for
+their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or
+even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far
+and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and
+studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the
+general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And
+thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds,
+because,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning
+anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed,
+while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by
+dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for
+having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on
+therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort
+of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral
+courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of
+the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the
+genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own
+breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much
+as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have
+internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters,
+and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.
+The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere
+conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on
+all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which
+have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by
+narrowing their thoughts and interest to things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> which can be spoken of
+without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small
+practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the
+minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be
+made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and
+enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest
+subjects, is abandoned.</p>
+
+<p>Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil,
+should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is
+never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that
+such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be
+prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of
+heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry
+which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done
+is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is
+cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute
+what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined
+with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous,
+independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something
+which would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among
+them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and
+subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating
+with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of
+ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience
+and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end
+succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise,
+that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to
+whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of
+one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the
+true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer
+themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great
+thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is
+as much, and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to
+attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been,
+and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of
+mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that
+atmosphere, an intellectually active people. Where any people has made a
+temporary approach to such a character, it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> been because the dread
+of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a
+tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the
+discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is
+considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high
+scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so
+remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large
+and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people
+stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even
+persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of
+thinking beings. Of such we have had an example in the condition of
+Europe during the times immediately following the Reformation; another,
+though limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the
+speculative movement of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and a
+third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of
+Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods differed
+widely in the particular opinions which they developed; but were alike
+in this, that during all three the yoke of authority was broken. In
+each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off, and no new one had
+yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> taken its place. The impulse given at these three periods has made
+Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place
+either in the human mind or in institutions, may be traced distinctly to
+one or other of them. Appearances have for some time indicated that all
+three impulses are well-nigh spent; and we can expect no fresh start,
+until we again assert our mental freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing
+the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false, let us
+assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner in
+which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and
+openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion
+may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be
+moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not
+fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead
+dogma, not a living truth.</p>
+
+<p>There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly)
+who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think
+true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion,
+and could not make a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> tenable defence of it against the most superficial
+objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from
+authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its
+being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they
+make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely
+and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and
+ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and
+when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give
+way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however,
+this possibility&mdash;assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but
+abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against,
+argument&mdash;this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a
+rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but
+one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which
+enunciate a truth.</p>
+
+<p>If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated, a thing
+which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these faculties be
+more appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things which
+concern him so much that it is considered necessary for him to hold
+opinions on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> them? If the cultivation of the understanding consists in
+one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of
+one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is
+of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to
+defend against at least the common objections. But, some one may say,
+"Let them be <i>taught</i> the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow
+that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never heard
+controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the
+theorems to memory, but understand and learn likewise the
+demonstrations; and it would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant
+of the grounds of geometrical truths, because they never hear any one
+deny, and attempt to disprove them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching
+suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to
+be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the
+evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one
+side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on
+every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth
+depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting
+reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> other
+explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead
+of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be
+shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is
+shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the
+grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more
+complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the
+business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed
+opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion
+different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left
+it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great,
+if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero
+practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by
+all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows
+only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be
+good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally
+unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so
+much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
+opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment,
+and unless he contents himself with that, he is either<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> led by
+authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to
+which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear
+the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they
+state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is
+not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real
+contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who
+actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very
+utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and
+persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which
+the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he
+will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets
+and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called
+educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently
+for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false
+for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the
+mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered
+what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any
+proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves
+profess. They do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> not know those parts of it which explain and justify
+the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly
+conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two
+apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred.
+All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the
+judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it
+ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and
+impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in
+the strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real
+understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all
+important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and
+supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's
+advocate can conjure up.</p>
+
+<p>To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion
+may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in
+general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their
+opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for
+common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an
+ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody
+capable of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead
+uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been
+taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust
+to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither
+knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised,
+may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have
+been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.</p>
+
+<p>Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for
+it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of
+truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument
+for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine
+acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all
+objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be
+answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can
+the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no
+opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at
+least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the
+difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in
+their most puzzling form; and this cannot be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>accomplished unless they
+are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they
+admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of dealing with this
+embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between those who can
+be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must
+accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what
+they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided
+in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the
+arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore,
+read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard
+to be obtained. This discipline recognises a knowledge of the enemy's
+case as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with
+this, of denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the <i>&eacute;lite</i>
+more mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to
+the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental
+superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without
+freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever <i>nisi
+prius</i> advocate of a cause. But in countries professing Protestantism,
+this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory,
+that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> responsibility for the choice of a religion must be borne by
+each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon teachers. Besides, in
+the present state of the world, it is practically impossible that
+writings which are read by the instructed can be kept from the
+uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be cognisant of all that
+they ought to know, everything must be free to be written and published
+without restraint.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free
+discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined to
+leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might be
+thought that this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and does not
+affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their influence on the
+character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds of the
+opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the
+meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey it, cease to
+suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of those they were
+originally employed to communicate. Instead of a vivid conception and a
+living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if
+any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer
+essence being lost. The great chapter in human history which this fact
+occupies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> and fills, cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on.</p>
+
+<p>It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and
+religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who
+originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their
+meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps
+brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle
+lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds. At
+last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its
+progress stops; it keeps possession of the ground it has gained, but
+ceases to spread further. When either of these results has become
+apparent, controversy on the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The
+doctrine has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of
+the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have
+generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these
+doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little
+place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at
+first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the
+world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided into
+acquiescence, and neither listen, when they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> can help it, to arguments
+against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such) with
+arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the decline
+in the living power of the doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all
+creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers
+a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognise, so
+that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the
+conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still
+fighting for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and
+feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and other
+doctrines; and in that period of every creed's existence, not a few
+persons may be found, who have realised its fundamental principles in
+all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their
+important bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the
+character, which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind
+thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be a hereditary
+creed, and to be received passively, not actively&mdash;when the mind is no
+longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital
+powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a
+progressive tendency to forget all of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> belief except the
+formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it
+on trust dispensed with the necessity of realising it in consciousness,
+or testing it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect
+itself at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen the
+cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to form the
+majority, in which the creed remains as it were outside the mind,
+encrusting and petrifying it against all other influences addressed to
+the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering
+any fresh and living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for
+the mind or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them vacant.</p>
+
+<p>To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest
+impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without being
+ever realised in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is
+exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold the
+doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted
+such by all churches and sects&mdash;the maxims and precepts contained in the
+New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all
+professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by
+reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it, is the
+custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. He has
+thus, on the one hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes
+to have been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his
+government; and on the other, a set of every-day judgments and
+practices, which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so
+great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and are,
+on the whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests
+and suggestions of worldly life. To the first of these standards he
+gives his homage; to the other his real allegiance. All Christians
+believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are
+ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass through the
+eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that
+they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should swear not
+at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves; that if one
+take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should
+take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect, they
+should sell all that they have and give it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> the poor. They are not
+insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe
+them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and never
+discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates
+conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it
+is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are
+serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are
+to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do
+that they think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims
+require an infinity of things which they never even think of doing,
+would gain nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular
+characters who affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have
+no hold on ordinary believers&mdash;are not a power in their minds. They have
+a habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads
+from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take
+<i>them</i> in, and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is
+concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go
+in obeying Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far
+otherwise, with the early<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity
+never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised Hebrews
+into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies said, "See how
+these Christians love one another" (a remark not likely to be made by
+anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier feeling of the meaning
+of their creed than they have ever had since. And to this cause,
+probably, it is chiefly owing that Christianity now makes so little
+progress in extending its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still
+nearly confined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with
+the strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines,
+and attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people in
+general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively
+active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or some
+such person much nearer in character to themselves. The sayings of
+Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect
+beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.
+There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of
+a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognised
+sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> meaning
+alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more
+questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers.
+Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there
+is no enemy in the field.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional
+doctrines&mdash;those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of morals
+or religion. All languages and literatures are full of general
+observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself
+in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or
+hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which
+most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, generally of
+a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting
+under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call
+to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the
+meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would
+have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for this,
+other than the absence of discussion: there are many truths of which the
+full meaning <i>cannot</i> be realised, until personal experience has brought
+it home. But much more of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> the meaning even of these would have been
+understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply
+impressed on the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued
+<i>pro</i> and <i>con</i> by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of
+mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer
+doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has
+well spoken of "the deep slumber of a decided opinion."</p>
+
+<p>But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an indispensable
+condition of true knowledge? Is it necessary that some part of mankind
+should persist in error, to enable any to realise the truth? Does a
+belief cease to be real and vital as soon as it is generally
+received&mdash;and is a proposition never thoroughly understood and felt
+unless some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have unanimously
+accepted a truth, does the truth perish within them? The highest aim and
+best result of improved intelligence, it has hitherto been thought, is
+to unite mankind more and more in the acknowledgment of all important
+truths: and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not
+achieved its object? Do the fruits of conquest perish by the very
+completeness of the victory?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines
+which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the
+increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured by the
+number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being
+uncontested. The cessation, on one question after another, of serious
+controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of
+opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it
+is dangerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But though
+this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of opinion is
+necessary in both senses of the term, being at once inevitable and
+indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its
+consequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the
+intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the
+necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents,
+though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the
+benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can no longer
+be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind
+endeavouring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making
+the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's
+consciousness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient
+champion, eager for his conversion.</p>
+
+<p>But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost
+those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently
+exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this
+description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the great
+questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate skill to the
+purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces of
+received opinion, that he did not understand the subject&mdash;that he as yet
+attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed; in order
+that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to
+attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the
+meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations of
+the middle ages had a somewhat similar object. They were intended to
+make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary
+correlation) the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of
+the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests
+had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to were
+taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline to the mind,
+they were in every respect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> inferior to the powerful dialectics which
+formed the intellects of the "Socratici viri": but the modern mind owes
+far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present
+modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies
+the place either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all
+his instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting
+temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to
+hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment,
+even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part of what
+everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends as a reply
+to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to disparage
+negative logic&mdash;that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in
+practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism
+would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to
+attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it
+cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically
+trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general
+average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical
+departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's opinions
+deserve the name<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> of knowledge, except so far as he has either had
+forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental
+process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active
+controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so
+indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd is it
+to forego, when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons
+who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will
+let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them,
+and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought,
+if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our
+convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which make
+diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do so until
+mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual advancement which at
+present seems at an incalculable distance. We have hitherto considered
+only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some
+other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being
+true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear
+apprehension<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner
+case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of
+being one true and the other false, share the truth between them; and
+the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the
+truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. Popular
+opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom
+or never the whole truth. They are a part of the truth; sometimes a
+greater, sometimes a smaller part, but exaggerated, distorted, and
+disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and
+limited. Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally some of
+these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds which kept
+them down, and either seeking reconciliation with the truth contained in
+the common opinion, or fronting it as enemies, and setting themselves
+up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth. The latter case is
+hitherto the most frequent, as, in the human mind, one-sidedness has
+always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in
+revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another
+rises. Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only
+substitutes one partial and incomplete truth for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> another; improvement
+consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more
+wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it
+displaces. Such being the partial character of prevailing opinions, even
+when resting on a true foundation; every opinion which embodies somewhat
+of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be
+considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that
+truth may be blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to
+be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we
+should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see.
+Rather, he will think that so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is
+more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth should have one-sided
+asserters too; such being usually the most energetic, and the most
+likely to compel reluctant attention to the fragment of wisdom which
+they proclaim as if it were the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, and all
+those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost in admiration
+of what is called civilisation, and of the marvels of modern science,
+literature, and philosophy, and while greatly overrating the amount of
+unlikeness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> between the men of modern and those of ancient times,
+indulged the belief that the whole of the difference was in their own
+favour; with what a salutary shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode
+like bombshells in the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided
+opinion, and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with
+additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on the whole
+farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; on the contrary, they were
+nearer to it; they contained more of positive truth, and very much less
+of error. Nevertheless there lay in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated
+down the stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of
+exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and these are the
+deposit which was left behind when the flood subsided. The superior
+worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and demoralising effect of
+the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have
+never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote;
+and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present
+needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for
+words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their power.</p>
+
+<p>In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> that a party of order
+or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary
+elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the
+other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally
+of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be
+preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of
+thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it
+is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within
+the limits of reason and sanity. Unless opinions favourable to democracy
+and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to
+competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and
+individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing
+antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and
+enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance
+of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go up and the
+other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a
+question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few
+have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment
+with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough
+process of a struggle between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> combatants fighting under hostile
+banners. On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either
+of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be
+tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which
+happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is
+the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected
+interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining
+less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this country, any
+intolerance of differences of opinion on most of these topics. They are
+adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality
+of the fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the
+existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair-play to all sides of
+the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to
+the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is
+in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something
+worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something
+by their silence.</p>
+
+<p>It may be objected, "But <i>some</i> received principles, especially on the
+highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. The
+Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> on that subject,
+and if any one teaches a morality which varies from it, he is wholly in
+error." As this is of all cases the most important in practice, none can
+be fitter to test the general maxim. But before pronouncing what
+Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to decide what is
+meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New
+Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from
+the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a
+complete doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing
+morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that
+morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and higher;
+expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often impossible to
+be interpreted literally, and possessing rather the impressiveness of
+poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation. To extract from
+it a body of ethical doctrine, has ever been possible without eking it
+out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but
+in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people.
+St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the
+doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a
+pre-existing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his
+advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to
+that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What
+is called Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality,
+was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin,
+having been gradually built up by the Catholic church of the first five
+centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns and Protestants,
+has been much less modified by them than might have been expected. For
+the most part, indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off
+the additions which had been made to it in the middle ages, each sect
+supplying the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and
+tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its
+early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but I do not
+scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete
+and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it,
+had contributed to the formation of European life and character, human
+affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are.
+Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it
+is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> ideal is negative
+rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than
+Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good:
+in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates
+unduly over "thou shalt." In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol
+of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of
+legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the
+appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling
+far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to
+human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each
+man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures,
+except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for
+consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it
+inculcates submission to all authorities found established; who indeed
+are not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids,
+but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for any
+amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best
+Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place,
+infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian
+ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> noticed or
+acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read
+the maxim&mdash;"A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in
+his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and
+against the State." What little recognition the idea of obligation to
+the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman
+sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life,
+whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even
+the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious
+part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of
+ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of obedience.</p>
+
+<p>I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are
+necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in which
+it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral
+doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit of being reconciled
+with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts
+of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, that I
+can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; that they are
+irreconcilable with nothing which a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> comprehensive morality requires;
+that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them,
+with no greater violence to their language than has been done to it by
+all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system of
+conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that
+they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that
+many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things
+which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the
+recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have
+been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis
+of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I
+think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian
+doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended
+it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe,
+too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil,
+detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction,
+which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves
+to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings
+on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> secular
+standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which
+heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics,
+receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there
+will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of
+character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme
+Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathising in the conception of
+Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than any which can be
+evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist side by side with
+Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that
+the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect
+state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of
+opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths
+not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it
+does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is
+altogether an evil; but it is one from which we cannot hope to be always
+exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for an inestimable good.
+The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole,
+must and ought to be protested against, and if a reactionary impulse
+should make the protestors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness,
+like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians
+would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves
+be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact,
+known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary
+history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral
+teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men
+who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.</p>
+
+<p>I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of
+enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of
+religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow
+capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and
+in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world,
+or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I
+acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not
+cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated
+thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being
+rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded
+as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the
+calmer and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> disinterested bystander, that this collision of
+opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between
+parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the
+formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen
+to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden
+into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by
+being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental
+attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in
+intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one
+is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in
+proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any
+fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as
+to be listened to.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind
+(on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and
+freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we
+will now briefly recapitulate.</p>
+
+<p>First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for
+aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p><p>Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very
+commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or
+prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it
+is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the
+truth has any chance of being supplied.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole
+truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and
+earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held
+in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of
+its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of
+the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and
+deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma
+becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering
+the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt
+conviction, from reason or personal experience.</p>
+
+<p>Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take
+some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions
+should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do
+not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed;
+for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think
+experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is
+telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and
+whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any
+strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though
+an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a
+more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an
+opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and
+may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind
+are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal,
+to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue
+sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements
+of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to
+the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good
+faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may
+not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely
+possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the
+misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> less could law presume
+to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to
+what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective,
+sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons
+would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them
+equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment
+of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they
+may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to
+obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous
+indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest
+when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and
+whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode
+of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The
+worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to
+stigmatise those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.
+To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are
+peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential,
+and nobody but themselves feel much interest in seeing justice done
+them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those
+who attack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to
+themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their
+own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can
+only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most
+cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever
+deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured
+vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does
+deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to
+those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and
+justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of
+vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were
+necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage
+offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however,
+obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either,
+while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the
+circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever
+side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either
+want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling
+manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> which
+a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our
+own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may
+hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents
+and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit,
+keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their
+favour. This is the real morality of public discussion; and if often
+violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who
+to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who
+conscientiously strive towards it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give
+them an emphatic contradiction, occurred the Government Press
+Prosecutions of 1858. That ill-judged interference with the liberty of
+public discussion has not, however, induced me to alter a single word in
+the text, nor has it at all weakened my conviction that, moments of
+panic excepted, the era of pains and penalties for political discussion
+has, in our own country, passed away. For, in the first place, the
+prosecutions were not persisted in; and, in the second, they were never,
+properly speaking, political prosecutions. The offence charged was not
+that of criticising institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but
+of circulating what was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of
+Tyrannicide.
+</p><p>
+If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought
+to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter
+of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be
+considered. It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of place to
+examine here, whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I
+shall content myself with saying, that the subject has been at all times
+one of the open questions of morals; that the act of a private citizen
+in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has
+placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, has been
+accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men,
+not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue; and that, right or wrong, it
+is not of the nature of assassination, but of civil war. As such, I hold
+that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may be a proper subject
+of punishment, but only if an overt act has followed, and at least a
+probable connection can be established between the act and the
+instigation. Even then, it is not a foreign government, but the very
+government assailed, which alone, in the exercise of self-defence, can
+legitimately punish attacks directed against its own existence.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, July 31, 1857. In December
+following, he received a free pardon from the Crown.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> George Jacob Holyoake, August 17, 1857; Edward Truelove,
+July, 1857.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough-Street Police Court, August
+4, 1857.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the
+passions of a persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the
+worst parts of our national character on the occasion of the Sepoy
+insurrection. The ravings of fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may
+be unworthy of notice; but the heads of the Evangelical party have
+announced as their principle, for the government of Hindoos and
+Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which the
+Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public
+employment be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An
+Under-Secretary of State, in a speech delivered to his constituents on
+the 12th of November, 1857, is reported to have said: "Toleration of
+their faith" (the faith of a hundred millions of British subjects), "the
+superstition which they called religion, by the British Government, had
+had the effect of retarding the ascendency of the British name, and
+preventing the salutary growth of Christianity.... Toleration was the
+great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do
+not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it,
+it meant the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, <i>among
+Christians, who worshipped upon the same foundation</i>. It meant
+toleration of all sects and denominations of <i>Christians who believed in
+the one mediation</i>." I desire to call attention to the fact, that a man
+who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in the government of this
+country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the doctrine that all who
+do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the pale of
+toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion
+that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?</p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER III.</span> <span class="smaller">OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING.</span></h2>
+
+<p>Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should
+be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;
+and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that
+to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or
+asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same
+reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their
+opinions&mdash;to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either
+physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own
+risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one
+pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary,
+even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they
+are expressed are such as to constitute their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> expression a positive
+instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are
+starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be
+unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly
+incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled
+before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same
+mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without
+justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important
+cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable
+sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.
+The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make
+himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting
+others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own
+inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same
+reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he
+should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into
+practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their
+truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion,
+unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite
+opinions, is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good,
+until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all
+sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action,
+not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are
+imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should
+be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to
+varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of
+different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one
+thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which
+do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
+Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of
+other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
+principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient
+of individual and social progress.</p>
+
+<p>In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be encountered
+does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end,
+but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it
+were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the
+leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate
+element with all that is designated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> by the terms civilisation,
+instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and
+condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty
+should be under-valued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it
+and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. But the
+evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognised by the common
+modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any
+regard on its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the ways
+of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are),
+cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for
+everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of
+the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with
+jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the
+general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think
+would be best for mankind. Few persons, out of Germany, even comprehend
+the meaning of the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both
+as a <i>savant</i> and as a politician, made the text of a treatise&mdash;that
+"the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable
+dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> desires,
+is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a
+complete and consistent whole;" that, therefore, the object "towards
+which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on
+which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must
+ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development;"
+that for this there are two requisites, "freedom, and a variety of
+situations;" and that from the union of these arise "individual vigour
+and manifold diversity," which combine themselves in "originality."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine like that of Von
+Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to them to find so high a value
+attached to individuality, the question, one must nevertheless think,
+can only be one of degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is
+that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one
+would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and
+into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own
+judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it
+would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if
+experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of
+existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that
+people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit
+by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege
+and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his
+faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him
+to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to
+his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other
+people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has
+taught <i>them</i>; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his
+deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow;
+or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their
+interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him.
+Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters:
+and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly,
+though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to
+conform to custom, merely <i>as</i> custom, does not educate or develop in
+him any of the qualities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> which are the distinctive endowment of a human
+being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative
+feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only
+in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes
+no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what
+is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved
+only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a
+thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing
+only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not
+conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be
+strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if
+the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own
+feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are
+not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and
+character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.</p>
+
+<p>He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life
+for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of
+imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his
+faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to
+foresee, activity to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> gather materials for decision, discrimination to
+decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to
+his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises
+exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines
+according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is
+possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of
+harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his
+comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only
+what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the
+works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and
+beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it
+were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes
+tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery&mdash;by
+automatons in human form&mdash;it would be a considerable loss to exchange
+for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the
+more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved
+specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a
+machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work
+prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> develop
+itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces
+which make it a living thing.</p>
+
+<p>It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise
+their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or
+even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a
+blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is
+admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the
+same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our
+own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any
+strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses
+are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints:
+and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when
+one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while
+others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It
+is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because
+their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between
+strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the
+other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger
+and more various than those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> of another, is merely to say that he has
+more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable,
+perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are
+but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more
+good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and
+impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling, are always those
+whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong
+susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful,
+are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love
+of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation
+of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests:
+not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows
+not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his
+own&mdash;are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and
+modified by his own culture&mdash;is said to have a character. One whose
+desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a
+steam-engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his
+impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he
+has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>individuality of
+desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must
+maintain that society has no need of strong natures&mdash;is not the better
+for containing many persons who have much character&mdash;and that a high
+general average of energy is not desirable.</p>
+
+<p>In some early states of society, these forces might be, and were, too
+much ahead of the power which society then possessed of disciplining and
+controlling them. There has been a time when the element of spontaneity
+and individuality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard
+struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of strong
+bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which required them to
+control their impulses. To overcome this difficulty, law and discipline,
+like the Popes struggling against the Emperors, asserted a power over
+the whole man, claiming to control all his life in order to control his
+character&mdash;which society had not found any other sufficient means of
+binding. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and
+the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the
+deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly
+changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by
+personal endowment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws
+and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to enable the
+persons within their reach to enjoy any particle of security. In our
+times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one
+lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in
+what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the
+individual, or the family, do not ask themselves&mdash;what do I prefer? or,
+what would suit my character and disposition? or, what would allow the
+best and highest in me to have fair-play, and enable it to grow and
+thrive? They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is
+usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or
+(worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and
+circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is
+customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does
+not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary.
+Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for
+pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds;
+they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of
+taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> crimes: until
+by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to
+follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become
+incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally
+without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their
+own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable condition of human nature?</p>
+
+<p>It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, the one great
+offence of man is Self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable,
+is comprised in Obedience. You have no choice; thus you must do, and no
+otherwise: "whatever is not a duty, is a sin." Human nature being
+radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature
+is killed within him. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out
+any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no
+evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the
+will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose
+but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is better without
+them. That is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated
+form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation
+consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will
+of God; asserting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of
+their inclinations; of course not in the manner they themselves prefer,
+but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way prescribed to them by
+authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case, the
+same for all.</p>
+
+<p>In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to
+this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of
+human character which it patronises. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely
+think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker
+designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much
+finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of
+animals, than as nature made them. But if it be any part of religion to
+believe that man was made by a good being, it is more consistent with
+that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that
+they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and
+that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to
+the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their
+capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a
+different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of
+humanity as having its nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> bestowed on it for other purposes than
+merely to be abnegated. "Pagan self-assertion" is one of the elements of
+human worth, as well as "Christian self-denial."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> There is a Greek
+ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of
+self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to
+be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles
+than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be
+without anything good which belonged to John Knox.</p>
+
+<p>It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in
+themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the
+limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings
+become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works
+partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human
+life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more
+abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and
+strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by
+making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to
+the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable
+to himself, and is therefore capable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> of being more valuable to others.
+There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when
+there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is
+composed of them. As much compression as is necessary to prevent the
+stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of
+others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample
+compensation even in the point of view of human development. The means
+of development which the individual loses by being prevented from
+gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly
+obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to
+himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the
+social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon
+the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of
+others, develops the feelings and capacities which have the good of
+others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting
+their good, by their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable, except
+such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint.
+If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any
+fair-play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons
+should be allowed to lead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> different lives. In proportion as this
+latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to
+posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as
+Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is
+despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes
+to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.</p>
+
+<p>Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and
+that it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can
+produce, well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument:
+for what more or better can be said of any condition of human affairs,
+than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing
+they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than
+that it prevents this? Doubtless, however, these considerations will not
+suffice to convince those who most need convincing; and it is necessary
+further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to
+the undeveloped&mdash;to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and
+would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible
+manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without hindrance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly
+learn something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that
+originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need
+of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were
+once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and
+set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense
+in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid by anybody who does not
+believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways
+and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being
+rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in comparison
+with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others,
+would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these
+few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a
+stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did
+not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already
+existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect
+cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old
+things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not
+like human beings? There is only too great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> a tendency in the best
+beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless
+there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality
+prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely
+traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from
+anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilisation
+should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is
+true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order
+to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
+Genius can only breathe freely in an <i>atmosphere</i> of freedom. Persons of
+genius are, <i>ex vi termini</i>, <i>more</i> individual than any other
+people&mdash;less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without
+hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which
+society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming
+their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one
+of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot
+expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the
+better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break
+their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not
+succeeded in reducing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> them to commonplace, to point at with solemn
+warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should
+complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks
+like a Dutch canal.</p>
+
+<p>I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the
+necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in
+practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory,
+but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally
+indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man
+to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense,
+that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is
+not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do
+very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at.
+Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use
+of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they
+could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The
+first service which originality has to render them, is that of opening
+their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance of
+being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was ever
+yet done which some one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> was not the first to do, and that all good
+things which exist are the fruits of originality, let them be modest
+enough to believe that there is something still left for it to
+accomplish, and assure themselves that they are more in need of
+originality, the less they are conscious of the want.</p>
+
+<p>In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real
+or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things
+throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among
+mankind. In ancient history, in the middle ages, and in a diminishing
+degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time,
+the individual was a power in himself; and if he had either great
+talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. At
+present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a
+triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only
+power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while
+they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of
+masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private
+life as in public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the name of
+public opinion, are not always the same sort of public: in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> America they
+are the whole white population; in England, chiefly the middle class.
+But they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And
+what is a still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions
+from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from
+books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves,
+addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment,
+through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not
+assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the
+present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the
+government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government
+by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts
+or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever
+did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign
+Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they
+always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted
+and instructed One or Few. The initiation of all wise or noble things,
+comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one
+individual. The honour and glory of the average man is that he is
+capable of following that initiative; that he can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> respond internally to
+wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not
+countenancing the sort of "hero-worship" which applauds the strong man
+of genius for forcibly seizing on the government of the world and making
+it do his bidding in spite of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to
+point out the way. The power of compelling others into it, is not only
+inconsistent with the freedom and development of all the rest, but
+corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, however, that when
+the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or
+becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that
+tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those
+who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these
+circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of
+being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the
+mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless
+they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere
+example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom,
+is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as
+to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break
+through that tyranny,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has
+always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and
+the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional
+to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it
+contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger
+of the time.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that it is important to give the freest scope possible to
+uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these
+are fit to be converted into customs. But independence of action, and
+disregard of custom are not solely deserving of encouragement for the
+chance they afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy
+of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only persons of
+decided mental superiority who have a just claim to carry on their lives
+in their own way. There is no reason that all human existences should be
+constructed on some one, or some small number of patterns. If a person
+possesses any tolerable amount of common-sense and experience, his own
+mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best
+in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like
+sheep; and even sheep are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get
+a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his
+measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier
+to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like
+one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in
+the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of
+taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after
+one model. But different persons also require different conditions for
+their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same
+moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical,
+atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person
+towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another.
+The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his
+faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another
+it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal
+life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of
+pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of
+different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a
+corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and
+aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should
+tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to
+tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of
+their adherents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) is
+diversity of taste entirely unrecognised; a person may, without blame,
+either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic
+exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, because both those who like
+each of these things, and those who dislike them, are too numerous to be
+put down. But the man, and still more the woman, who can be accused
+either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody
+does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had
+committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a
+title, or some other badge of rank, or of the consideration of people of
+rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like
+without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat:
+for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence, incur the risk of
+something worse than disparaging speeches&mdash;they are in peril of a
+commission <i>de lunatico</i>, and of having their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> property taken from them
+and given to their relations.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion,
+peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration
+of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate
+in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or
+wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they
+consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with
+the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.
+Now, in addition to this fact which is general, we have only to suppose
+that a strong movement has set in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> towards the improvement of morals,
+and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days such a movement
+has set in; much has actually been effected in the way of increased
+regularity of conduct, and discouragement of excesses; and there is a
+philanthropic spirit abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more
+inviting field than the moral and prudential improvement of our
+fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the public to be
+more disposed than at most former periods to prescribe general rules of
+conduct, and endeavour to make every one conform to the approved
+standard. And that standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing
+strongly. Its ideal of character is to be without any marked character;
+to maim by compression,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human
+nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make the person
+markedly dissimilar in outline to commonplace humanity.</p>
+
+<p>As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is
+desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior
+imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies guided by
+vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a
+conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which
+therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength
+either of will or of reason. Already energetic characters on any large
+scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet
+for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that
+may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that
+employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a
+philanthropic hobby, but is always some one thing, and generally a thing
+of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective:
+individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our
+habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious
+philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> another
+stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another
+stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.</p>
+
+<p>The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human
+advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at
+something better than customary, which is called, according to
+circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or
+improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of
+liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people;
+and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may
+ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement;
+but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty,
+since by it there are as many possible independent centres of
+improvement as there are individuals. The progressive principle,
+however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of
+improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least
+emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes
+the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the
+world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of
+Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Custom is
+there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean
+conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant
+intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result.
+Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of
+the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life;
+they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most
+powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or
+dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when
+theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom
+custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A
+people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and
+then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.
+If a similar change should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be
+in exactly the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these
+nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It proscribes
+singularity, but it does not preclude change, provided all change
+together. We have discarded the fixed costumes of our forefathers; every
+one must still dress like other people, but the fashion may change once
+or twice a year. We thus take care that when there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> is change, it shall
+be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience;
+for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the
+world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at
+another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we
+continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them
+until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement
+in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea
+of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to
+be as good as ourselves. It is not progress that we object to; on the
+contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are the most progressive people
+who ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we should think
+we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that
+the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing
+which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type,
+and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the
+advantages of both, of producing something better than either. We have a
+warning example in China&mdash;a nation of much talent, and, in some
+respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the
+work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European
+must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and
+philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their
+apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they
+possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who
+have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power.
+Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human
+progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of
+the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become
+stationary&mdash;have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are
+ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have
+succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so
+industriously working at&mdash;in making a people all alike, all governing
+their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are
+the fruits. The modern <i>r&eacute;gime</i> of public opinion is, in an unorganised
+form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an
+organised; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert
+itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> its noble antecedents
+and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.</p>
+
+<p>What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot? What has
+made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a
+stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them,
+which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their
+remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes,
+nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a
+great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; and although
+at every period those who travelled in different paths have been
+intolerant of one another, and each would have thought it an excellent
+thing if all the rest could have been compelled to travel his road,
+their attempts to thwart each other's development have rarely had any
+permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good
+which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, wholly
+indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided
+development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a
+considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese
+ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last
+important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day
+resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation. The
+same remark might be made of Englishmen in a far greater degree. In a
+passage already quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two
+things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary
+to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of
+situations. The second of these two conditions is in this country every
+day diminishing. The circumstances which surround different classes and
+individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more
+assimilated. Formerly, different ranks, different neighbourhoods,
+different trades and professions, lived in what might be called
+different worlds; at present, to a great degree in the same.
+Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the
+same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their
+hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the same rights and
+liberties, and the same means of asserting them. Great as are the
+differences of position which remain, they are nothing to those which
+have ceased. And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political
+changes of the age promote it, since they all tend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> to raise the low and
+to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because
+education brings people under common influences, and gives them access
+to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means
+of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant
+places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of
+residence between one place and another. The increase of commerce and
+manufactures promotes it, by diffusing more widely the advantages of
+easy circumstances, and opening all objects of ambition, even the
+highest, to general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes no
+longer the character of a particular class, but of all classes. A more
+powerful agency than even all these, in bringing about a general
+similarity among mankind, is the complete establishment, in this and
+other free countries, of the ascendency of public opinion in the State.
+As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them
+to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually become levelled; as
+the very idea of resisting the will of the public, when it is positively
+known that they have a will, disappears more and more from the minds of
+practical politicians; there ceases to be any social support for
+non-conformity&mdash;any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>substantive power in society, which, itself opposed
+to the ascendency of numbers, is interested in taking under its
+protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those of the public.</p>
+
+<p>The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences
+hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see how it can stand
+its ground. It will do so with increasing difficulty, unless the
+intelligent part of the public can be made to feel its value&mdash;to see
+that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the
+better, even though, as it may appear to them, some should be for the
+worse. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time
+is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced
+assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand can be
+successfully made against the encroachment. The demand that all other
+people shall resemble ourselves, grows by what it feeds on. If
+resistance waits till life is reduced <i>nearly</i> to one uniform type, all
+deviations from that type will come to be considered impious, immoral,
+even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to
+conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to see it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>The Sphere and Duties of Government</i>, from the German of
+Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Sterling's <i>Essays</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> There is something both contemptible and frightful in the
+sort of evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially
+declared unfit for the management of his affairs; and after his death,
+his disposal of his property can be set aside, if there is enough of it
+to pay the expenses of litigation&mdash;which are charged on the property
+itself. All the minute details of his daily life are pried into, and
+whatever is found which, seen through the medium of the perceiving and
+describing faculties of the lowest of the low, bears an appearance
+unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the jury as evidence of
+insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, if at all,
+less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with that
+extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which
+continually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead
+them. These trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion
+among the vulgar with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any
+value on individuality&mdash;so far from respecting the rights of each
+individual to act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own
+judgment and inclinations, judges and juries cannot even conceive that a
+person in a state of sanity can desire such freedom. In former days,
+when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest
+putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be nothing surprising
+nowadays were we to see this done, and the doers applauding themselves,
+because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had adopted so humane
+and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not without a
+silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER IV.</span> <span class="smaller">OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL.</span></h2>
+
+<p>What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual
+over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of
+human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?</p>
+
+<p>Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more
+particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of
+life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to
+society, the part which chiefly interests society.</p>
+
+<p>Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose
+is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social
+obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society
+owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders
+it indispensable that each should be bound to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> observe a certain line of
+conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring
+the interests of one another; or rather certain interests which, either
+by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be
+considered as rights; and secondly, in each person's bearing his share
+(to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices
+incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and
+molestation. These conditions society is justified in enforcing, at all
+costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment. Nor is this all
+that society may do. The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others,
+or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the
+length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may
+then be justly punished by opinion though not by law. As soon as any
+part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of
+others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the
+general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it,
+becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any
+such question when a person's conduct affects the interests of no
+persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all
+the persons concerned being of full age, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the ordinary amount of
+understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal
+and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to suppose that
+it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have
+no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not
+concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another,
+unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there
+is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the
+good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments
+to persuade people to their good, than whips and scourges, either of the
+literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the
+self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even
+second, to the social. It is equally the business of education to
+cultivate both. But even education works by conviction and persuasion as
+well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the
+period of education is past, the self-regarding virtues should be
+inculcated. Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the
+better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> former and avoid
+the latter. They should be for ever stimulating each other to increased
+exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their
+feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of
+degrading, objects and contemplations. But neither one person, nor any
+number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of
+ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what
+he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own
+well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of
+strong personal attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with
+that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him
+individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and
+altogether indirect: while, with respect to his own feelings and
+circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge
+immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. The
+interference of society to overrule his judgment and purposes in what
+only regards himself, must be grounded on general presumptions; which
+may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be
+misapplied to individual cases, by persons no better acquainted with the
+circumstances of such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> cases than those are who look at them merely from
+without. In this department, therefore, of human affairs, Individuality
+has its proper field of action. In the conduct of human beings towards
+one another, it is necessary that general rules should for the most part
+be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but
+in each person's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to
+free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to
+strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by
+others; but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely
+to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of
+allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean that the feelings with which a person is regarded by
+others, ought not to be in any way affected by his self-regarding
+qualities or deficiencies. This is neither possible nor desirable. If he
+is eminent in any of the qualities which conduce to his own good, he is,
+so far, a proper object of admiration. He is so much the nearer to the
+ideal perfection of human nature. If he is grossly deficient in those
+qualities, a sentiment the opposite of admiration will follow. There is
+a degree of folly, and a degree of what may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> called (though the
+phrase is not unobjectionable) lowness or depravation of taste, which,
+though it cannot justify doing harm to the person who manifests it,
+renders him necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or, in
+extreme cases, even of contempt: a person could not have the opposite
+qualities in due strength without entertaining these feelings. Though
+doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge
+him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order: and
+since this judgment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to
+avoid, it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand, as of any
+other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes himself. It would be
+well, indeed, if this good office were much more freely rendered than
+the common notions of politeness at present permit, and if one person
+could honestly point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without
+being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a right, also, in
+various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to
+the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are
+not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it
+(though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the
+society most acceptable to us. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> have a right, and it may be our duty,
+to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation
+likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We
+may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except
+those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may
+suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which
+directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so
+far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous
+consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely
+inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows
+rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit&mdash;who cannot live within moderate
+means&mdash;who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences&mdash;who pursues
+animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect&mdash;must
+expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share
+of their favourable sentiments; but of this he has no right to complain,
+unless he has merited their favour by special excellence in his social
+relations, and has thus established a title to their good offices, which
+is not affected by his demerits towards himself.</p>
+
+<p>What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are strictly
+inseparable from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>unfavourable judgment of others, are the only ones
+to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his
+conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not
+affect the interests of others in their relations with him. Acts
+injurious to others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment
+on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified
+by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair
+or ungenerous use of advantages over them; even selfish abstinence from
+defending them against injury&mdash;these are fit objects of moral
+reprobation, and, in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment.
+And not only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are
+properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to
+abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most
+anti-social and odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and
+insincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment
+disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering over others;
+the desire to engross more than one's share of advantages (the &#960;&#955;&#949;&#959;&#957;&#949;&#958;&#7985;&#945; [Greek:
+pleonexia] of the Greeks); the pride which derives gratification from
+the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and its concerns
+more important than <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>everything else, and decides all doubtful questions
+in its own favour;&mdash;these are moral vices, and constitute a bad and
+odious moral character: unlike the self-regarding faults previously
+mentioned, which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch
+they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They may be proofs of
+any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but
+they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach
+of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care
+for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially
+obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to
+others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than
+prudence, means self-respect or self-development; and for none of these
+is any one accountable to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them
+is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction between the loss of consideration which a person may
+rightly incur by defect of prudence or of personal dignity, and the
+reprobation which is due to him for an offence against the rights of
+others, is not a merely nominal distinction. It makes a vast difference
+both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> whether he
+displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control
+him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he displeases
+us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as
+well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel
+called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he
+already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he
+spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire
+to spoil it still further: instead of wishing to punish him, we shall
+rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may
+avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. He may be
+to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or
+resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst
+we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself,
+if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for
+him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the
+protection of his fellow-creatures, individually or collectively. The
+evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself, but on
+others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must retaliate
+on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> of punishment,
+and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case, he
+is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in
+judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own
+sentence: in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering
+on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same
+liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in his.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction here pointed out between the part of a person's life
+which concerns only himself, and that which concerns others, many
+persons will refuse to admit. How (it may be asked) can any part of the
+conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other
+members? No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a
+person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself,
+without mischief reaching at least to his near connections, and often
+far beyond them. If he injures his property, he does harm to those who
+directly or indirectly derived support from it, and usually diminishes,
+by a greater or less amount, the general resources of the community. If
+he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil
+upon all who depended on him for any portion of their happiness, but
+disqualifies himself for rendering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> the services which he owes to his
+fellow-creatures generally; perhaps becomes a burthen on their affection
+or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent, hardly any
+offence that is committed would detract more from the general sum of
+good. Finally, if by his vices or follies a person does no direct harm
+to others, he is nevertheless (it may be said) injurious by his example;
+and ought to be compelled to control himself, for the sake of those whom
+the sight or knowledge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead.</p>
+
+<p>And even (it will be added) if the consequences of misconduct could be
+confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, ought society to
+abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it? If
+protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons
+under age, is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of
+mature years who are equally incapable of self-government? If gambling,
+or drunkenness, or incontinence, or idleness, or uncleanliness, are as
+injurious to happiness, and as great a hindrance to improvement, as many
+or most of the acts prohibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not
+law, so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience,
+endeavour to repress these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> also? And as a supplement to the unavoidable
+imperfections of law, ought not opinion at least to organise a powerful
+police against these vices, and visit rigidly with social penalties
+those who are known to practise them? There is no question here (it may
+be said) about restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new
+and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to
+prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the
+beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not
+to be useful or suitable to any person's individuality. There must be
+some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or
+prudential truth may be regarded as established: and it is merely
+desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the
+same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself, may
+seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests,
+those nearly connected with him, and in a minor degree, society at
+large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a
+distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the
+case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to
+moral disapprobation in the proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> sense of the term. If, for example,
+a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his
+debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family,
+becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them,
+he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for
+the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance.
+If the resources which ought to have been devoted to them, had been
+diverted from them for the most prudent investment, the moral
+culpability would have been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle
+to get money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set himself up
+in business, he would equally have been hanged. Again, in the frequent
+case of a man who causes grief to his family by addiction to bad habits,
+he deserves reproach for his unkindness or ingratitude; but so he may
+for cultivating habits not in themselves vicious, if they are painful to
+those with whom he passes his life, or who from personal ties are
+dependent on him for their comfort. Whoever fails in the consideration
+generally due to the interests and feelings of others, not being
+compelled by some more imperative duty, or justified by allowable
+self-preference, is a subject of moral disapprobation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> for that failure,
+but not for the cause of it, nor for the errors, merely personal to
+himself, which may have remotely led to it. In like manner, when a
+person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, from the
+performance of some definite duty incumbent on him to the public, he is
+guilty of a social offence. No person ought to be punished simply for
+being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being
+drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a
+definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the
+case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of
+morality or law.</p>
+
+<p>But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called,
+constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which
+neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions
+perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself; the
+inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of
+the greater good of human freedom. If grown persons are to be punished
+for not taking proper care of themselves, I would rather it were for
+their own sake, than under pretence of preventing them from impairing
+their capacity of rendering to society benefits which society does not
+pretend it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> has a right to exact. But I cannot consent to argue the
+point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to
+its ordinary standard of rational conduct, except waiting till they do
+something irrational, and then punishing them, legally or morally, for
+it. Society has had absolute power over them during all the early
+portion of their existence: it has had the whole period of childhood and
+nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational
+conduct in life. The existing generation is master both of the training
+and the entire circumstances of the generation to come; it cannot indeed
+make them perfectly wise and good, because it is itself so lamentably
+deficient in goodness and wisdom; and its best efforts are not always,
+in individual cases, its most successful ones; but it is perfectly well
+able to make the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little
+better than, itself. If society lets any considerable number of its
+members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational
+consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the
+consequences. Armed not only with all the powers of education, but with
+the ascendency which the authority of a received opinion always
+exercises over the minds who are least fitted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> judge for themselves;
+and aided by the <i>natural</i> penalties which cannot be prevented from
+falling on those who incur the distaste or the contempt of those who
+know them; let not society pretend that it needs, besides all this, the
+power to issue commands and enforce obedience in the personal concerns
+of individuals, in which, on all principles of justice and policy, the
+decision ought to rest with those who are to abide the consequences. Nor
+is there anything which tends more to discredit and frustrate the better
+means of influencing conduct, than a resort to the worse. If there be
+among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence or temperance,
+any of the material of which vigorous and independent characters are
+made, they will infallibly rebel against the yoke. No such person will
+ever feel that others have a right to control him in his concerns, such
+as they have to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; and it easily
+comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face
+of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation the exact opposite of
+what it enjoins; as in the fashion of grossness which succeeded, in the
+time of Charles II., to the fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans.
+With respect to what is said of the necessity of protecting society
+from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the bad example set to others by the vicious or the
+self-indulgent; it is true that bad example may have a pernicious
+effect, especially the example of doing wrong to others with impunity to
+the wrong-doer. But we are now speaking of conduct which, while it does
+no wrong to others, is supposed to do great harm to the agent himself:
+and I do not see how those who believe this, can think otherwise than
+that the example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful,
+since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or
+degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be
+supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it.</p>
+
+<p>But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the
+public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the
+odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On
+questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the
+public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is
+likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are
+only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which
+some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect
+themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on
+the minority, on questions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> self-regarding conduct, is quite as
+likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at
+the best, some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people;
+while very often it does not even mean that; the public, with the most
+perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those
+whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference.
+There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which
+they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings;
+as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious
+feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his
+feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there
+is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and
+the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than
+between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the
+right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar
+concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine
+an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in
+all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain
+from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But
+where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its
+censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal
+experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom
+thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently
+from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up
+to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of
+all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right
+because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to
+search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on
+ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these
+instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if
+they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?</p>
+
+<p>The evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in theory; and it
+may perhaps be expected that I should specify the instances in which the
+public of this age and country improperly invests its own preferences
+with the character of moral laws. I am not writing an essay on the
+aberrations of existing moral feeling. That is too weighty a subject to
+be discussed parenthetically, and by way of illustration. Yet examples
+are necessary, to show that the principle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> I maintain is of serious and
+practical moment, and that I am not endeavouring to erect a barrier
+against imaginary evils. And it is not difficult to show, by abundant
+instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police,
+until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the
+individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.</p>
+
+<p>As a first instance, consider the antipathies which men cherish on no
+better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different
+from theirs, do not practise their religious observances, especially
+their religious abstinences. To cite a rather trivial example, nothing
+in the creed or practice of Christians does more to envenom the hatred
+of Mahomedans against them, than the fact of their eating pork. There
+are few acts which Christians and Europeans regard with more unaffected
+disgust, than Mussulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying
+hunger. It is, in the first place, an offence against their religion;
+but this circumstance by no means explains either the degree or the kind
+of their repugnance; for wine also is forbidden by their religion, and
+to partake of it is by all Mussulmans accounted wrong, but not
+disgusting. Their aversion to the flesh of the "unclean beast" is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> on
+the contrary, of that peculiar character, resembling an instinctive
+antipathy, which the idea of uncleanness, when once it thoroughly sinks
+into the feelings, seems always to excite even in those whose personal
+habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly, and of which the sentiment
+of religious impurity, so intense in the Hindoos, is a remarkable
+example. Suppose now that in a people, of whom the majority were
+Mussulmans, that majority should insist upon not permitting pork to be
+eaten within the limits of the country. This would be nothing new in
+Mahomedan countries.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Would it be a legitimate exercise of the moral
+authority of public opinion? and if not, why not? The practice is really
+revolting to such a public. They also sincerely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> think that it is
+forbidden and abhorred by the Deity. Neither could the prohibition be
+censured as religious persecution. It might be religious in its origin,
+but it would not be persecution for religion, since nobody's religion
+makes it a duty to eat pork. The only tenable ground of condemnation
+would be, that with the personal tastes and self-regarding concerns of
+individuals the public has no business to interfere.</p>
+
+<p>To come somewhat nearer home: the majority of Spaniards consider it a
+gross impiety, offensive in the highest degree to the Supreme Being, to
+worship him in any other manner than the Roman Catholic; and no other
+public worship is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of all Southern
+Europe look upon a married clergy as not only irreligious, but unchaste,
+indecent, gross, disgusting. What do Protestants think of these
+perfectly sincere feelings, and of the attempt to enforce them against
+non-Catholics? Yet, if mankind are justified in interfering with each
+other's liberty in things which do not concern the interests of others,
+on what principle is it possible consistently to exclude these cases? or
+who can blame people for desiring to suppress what they regard as a
+scandal in the sight of God and man? No stronger case can be shown for
+prohibiting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> anything which is regarded as a personal immorality, than
+is made out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who
+regard them as impieties; and unless we are willing to adopt the logic
+of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute others because we are
+right, and that they must not persecute us because they are wrong, we
+must beware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a
+gross injustice the application to ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The preceding instances may be objected to, although unreasonably, as
+drawn from contingencies impossible among us: opinion, in this country,
+not being likely to enforce abstinence from meats, or to interfere with
+people for worshipping, and for either marrying or not marrying,
+according to their creed or inclination. The next example, however,
+shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we have by no
+means passed all danger of. Wherever the Puritans have been sufficiently
+powerful, as in New England, and in Great Britain at the time of the
+Commonwealth, they have endeavoured, with considerable success, to put
+down all public, and nearly all private, amusements: especially music,
+dancing, public games, or other assemblages for purposes of diversion,
+and the theatre. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> are still in this country large bodies of
+persons by whose notions of morality and religion these recreations are
+condemned; and those persons belonging chiefly to the middle class, who
+are the ascendant power in the present social and political condition of
+the kingdom, it is by no means impossible that persons of these
+sentiments may at some time or other command a majority in Parliament.
+How will the remaining portion of the community like to have the
+amusements that shall be permitted to them regulated by the religious
+and moral sentiments of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would
+they not, with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively
+pious members of society to mind their own business? This is precisely
+what should be said to every government and every public, who have the
+pretension that no person shall enjoy any pleasure which they think
+wrong. But if the principle of the pretension be admitted, no one can
+reasonably object to its being acted on in the sense of the majority, or
+other preponderating power in the country; and all persons must be ready
+to conform to the idea of a Christian commonwealth, as understood by the
+early settlers in New England, if a religious profession similar to
+theirs should ever succeed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> regaining its lost ground, as religions
+supposed to be declining have so often been known to do.</p>
+
+<p>To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to be realised than
+the one last mentioned. There is confessedly a strong tendency in the
+modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied
+or not by popular political institutions. It is affirmed that in the
+country where this tendency is most completely realised&mdash;where both
+society and the government are most democratic&mdash;the United States&mdash;the
+feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or
+costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable,
+operates as a tolerably effectual sumptuary law, and that in many parts
+of the Union it is really difficult for a person possessing a very large
+income, to find any mode of spending it, which will not incur popular
+disapprobation. Though such statements as these are doubtless much
+exaggerated as a representation of existing facts, the state of things
+they describe is not only a conceivable and possible, but a probable
+result of democratic feeling, combined with the notion that the public
+has a right to a veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend
+their incomes. We have only further to suppose a considerable diffusion
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> Socialist opinions, and it may become infamous in the eyes of the
+majority to possess more property than some very small amount, or any
+income not earned by manual labour. Opinions similar in principle to
+these, already prevail widely among the artisan class, and weigh
+oppressively on those who are amenable to the opinion chiefly of that
+class, namely, its own members. It is known that the bad workmen who
+form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are
+decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as
+good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or
+otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can
+without it. And they employ a moral police, which occasionally becomes a
+physical one, to deter skilful workmen from receiving, and employers
+from giving, a larger remuneration for a more useful service. If the
+public have any jurisdiction over private concerns, I cannot see that
+these people are in fault, or that any individual's particular public
+can be blamed for asserting the same authority over his individual
+conduct, which the general public asserts over people in general.</p>
+
+<p>But, without dwelling upon supposititious cases, there are, in our own
+day, gross usurpations upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the liberty of private life actually
+practised, and still greater ones threatened with some expectation of
+success, and opinions proposed which assert an unlimited right in the
+public not only to prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong, but
+in order to get at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of
+things which it admits to be innocent.</p>
+
+<p>Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English
+colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by
+law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical
+purposes: for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to
+be, prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability of
+executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the States which
+had adopted it, including the one from which it derives its name, an
+attempt has notwithstanding been commenced, and is prosecuted with
+considerable zeal by many of the professed philanthropists, to agitate
+for a similar law in this country. The association, or "Alliance" as it
+terms itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some
+notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence between its
+Secretary and one of the very few English public men who hold that a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+politician's opinions ought to be founded on principles. Lord Stanley's
+share in this correspondence is calculated to strengthen the hopes
+already built on him, by those who know how rare such qualities as are
+manifested in some of his public appearances, unhappily are among those
+who figure in political life. The organ of the Alliance, who would
+"deeply deplore the recognition of any principle which could be wrested
+to justify bigotry and persecution," undertakes to point out the "broad
+and impassable barrier" which divides such principles from those of the
+association. "All matters relating to thought, opinion, conscience,
+appear to me," he says, "to be without the sphere of legislation; all
+pertaining to social act, habit, relation, subject only to a
+discretionary power vested in the State itself, and not in the
+individual, to be within it." No mention is made of a third class,
+different from either of these, viz. acts and habits which are not
+social, but individual; although it is to this class, surely, that the
+act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling fermented liquors,
+however, is trading, and trading is a social act. But the infringement
+complained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the
+buyer and consumer; since the State might just as well forbid him to
+drink wine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it. The
+Secretary, however, says, "I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate
+whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another." And
+now for the definition of these "social rights." "If anything invades my
+social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys
+my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating
+social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit
+from the creation of a misery, I am taxed to support. It impedes my
+right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path
+with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, from which I
+have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse." A theory of "social
+rights," the like of which probably never before found its way into
+distinct language&mdash;being nothing short of this&mdash;that it is the absolute
+social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act
+in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in
+the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to
+demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a
+principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with
+liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> would not justify;
+it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that
+of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them: for the
+moment an opinion which I consider noxious, passes any one's lips, it
+invades all the "social rights" attributed to me by the Alliance. The
+doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's
+moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each
+claimant according to his own standard.</p>
+
+<p>Another important example of illegitimate interference with the rightful
+liberty of the individual, not simply threatened, but long since carried
+into triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legislation. Without doubt,
+abstinence on one day in the week, so far as the exigencies of life
+permit, from the usual daily occupation, though in no respect
+religiously binding on any except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom.
+And inasmuch as this custom cannot be observed without a general consent
+to that effect among the industrious classes, therefore, in so far as
+some persons by working may impose the same necessity on others, it may
+be allowable and right that the law should guarantee to each, the
+observance by others of the custom, by suspending the greater operations
+of industry on a particular day. But this justification, grounded on the
+direct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> interest which others have in each individual's observance of
+the practice, does not apply to the self-chosen occupations in which a
+person may think fit to employ his leisure; nor does it hold good, in
+the smallest degree, for legal restrictions on amusements. It is true
+that the amusement of some is the day's work of others; but the
+pleasure, not to say the useful recreation, of many, is worth the labour
+of a few, provided the occupation is freely chosen, and can be freely
+resigned. The operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all
+worked on Sunday, seven days' work would have to be given for six days'
+wages: but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended, the
+small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, obtain a
+proportional increase of earnings; and they are not obliged to follow
+those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument. If a further
+remedy is sought, it might be found in the establishment by custom of a
+holiday on some other day of the week for those particular classes of
+persons. The only ground, therefore, on which restrictions on Sunday
+amusements can be defended, must be that they are religiously wrong; a
+motive of legislation which never can be too earnestly protested
+against. "Deorum injuri&aelig; Diis cur&aelig;." It remains to be proved that
+society<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> or any of its officers holds a commission from on high to
+avenge any supposed offence to Omnipotence, which is not also a wrong to
+our fellow-creatures. The notion that it is one man's duty that another
+should be religious, was the foundation of all the religious
+persecutions ever perpetrated, and if admitted, would fully justify
+them. Though the feeling which breaks out in the repeated attempts to
+stop railway travelling on Sunday, in the resistance to the opening of
+Museums, and the like, has not the cruelty of the old persecutors, the
+state of mind indicated by it is fundamentally the same. It is a
+determination not to tolerate others in doing what is permitted by their
+religion, because it is not permitted by the persecutor's religion. It
+is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but
+will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account
+commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution
+which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels
+called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might
+be said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged new
+revelation, and a religion founded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> on it, the product of palpable
+imposture, not even supported by the <i>prestige</i> of extraordinary
+qualities in its founder, is believed by hundreds of thousands, and has
+been made the foundation of a society, in the age of newspapers,
+railways, and the electric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that
+this religion, like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that
+its prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by a mob;
+that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless
+violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in a body, from the country
+in which they first grew up; while, now that they have been chased into
+a solitary recess in the midst of a desert, many in this country openly
+declare that it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send
+an expedition against them, and compel them by force to conform to the
+opinions of other people. The article of the Mormonite doctrine which is
+the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the
+ordinary restraints of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy;
+which, though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and Chinese, seems
+to excite unquenchable animosity when practised by persons who speak
+English, and profess to be a kind of Christians. No one has a deeper
+disapprobation than I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> of this Mormon institution; both for other
+reasons, and because, far from being in any way countenanced by the
+principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being
+a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the community, and an
+emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them.
+Still, it must be remembered that this relation is as much voluntary on
+the part of the women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the
+sufferers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage
+institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it has its
+explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world, which teaching
+women to think marriage the one thing needful, make it intelligible that
+many a woman should prefer being one of several wives, to not being a
+wife at all. Other countries are not asked to recognise such unions, or
+release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws on the
+score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissentients have conceded to
+the hostile sentiments of others, far more than could justly be
+demanded; when they have left the countries to which their doctrines
+were unacceptable, and established themselves in a remote corner of the
+earth, which they have been the first to render habitable to human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+beings; it is difficult to see on what principles but those of tyranny
+they can be prevented from living there under what laws they please,
+provided they commit no aggression on other nations, and allow perfect
+freedom of departure to those who are dissatisfied with their ways. A
+recent writer, in some respects of considerable merit, proposes (to use
+his own words), not a crusade, but a <i>civilizade</i>, against this
+polygamous community, to put an end to what seems to him a retrograde
+step in civilisation. It also appears so to me, but I am not aware that
+any community has a right to force another to be civilised. So long as
+the sufferers by the bad law do not invoke assistance from other
+communities, I cannot admit that persons entirely unconnected with them
+ought to step in and require that a condition of things with which all
+who are directly interested appear to be satisfied, should be put an end
+to because it is a scandal to persons some thousands of miles distant,
+who have no part or concern in it. Let them send missionaries, if they
+please, to preach against it; and let them, by any fair means (of which
+silencing the teachers is not one), oppose the progress of similar
+doctrines among their own people. If civilisation has got the better of
+barbarism when barbarism had the world to itself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> it is too much to
+profess to be afraid lest barbarism, after having been fairly got under,
+should revive and conquer civilisation. A civilisation that can thus
+succumb to its vanquished enemy, must first have become so degenerate,
+that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody else, has
+the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up for it. If this be
+so, the sooner such a civilisation receives notice to quit, the better.
+It can only go on from bad to worse, until destroyed and regenerated
+(like the Western Empire) by energetic barbarians.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious instance in
+point. When this industrious and enterprising tribe, the descendants of
+the Persian fire-worshippers, flying from their native country before
+the Caliphs, arrived in Western India, they were admitted to toleration
+by the Hindoo sovereigns, on condition of not eating beef. When those
+regions afterwards fell under the dominion of Mahomedan conquerors, the
+Parsees obtained from them a continuance of indulgence, on condition of
+refraining from pork. What was at first obedience to authority became a
+second nature, and the Parsees to this day abstain both from beef and
+pork. Though not required by their religion, the double abstinence has
+had time to grow into a custom of their tribe; and custom, in the East,
+is a religion.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><span>CHAPTER V.</span> <span class="smaller">APPLICATIONS.</span></h2>
+
+<p>The principles asserted in these pages must be more generally admitted
+as the basis for discussion of details, before a consistent application
+of them to all the various departments of government and morals can be
+attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few observations I propose
+to make on questions of detail, are designed to illustrate the
+principles, rather than to follow them out to their consequences. I
+offer, not so much applications, as specimens of application; which may
+serve to bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two
+maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this Essay, and to
+assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases
+where it appears doubtful which of them is applicable to the case.</p>
+
+<p>The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society
+for his actions, in so far as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> these concern the interests of no person
+but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other
+people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only
+measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or
+disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are
+prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable
+and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishments, if
+society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its
+protection.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, because damage, or
+probability of damage, to the interests of others, can alone justify the
+interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such
+interference. In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate
+object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to
+others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of
+obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between individuals often arise
+from bad social institutions, but are unavoidable while those
+institutions last; and some would be unavoidable under any institutions.
+Whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive
+examination; whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an
+object<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from
+their wasted exertion and their disappointment. But it is, by common
+admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons
+should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences. In
+other words, society admits no rights, either legal or moral, in the
+disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and
+feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been
+employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit&mdash;namely,
+fraud or treachery, and force.</p>
+
+<p>Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description
+of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons,
+and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes
+within the jurisdiction of society: accordingly, it was once held to be
+the duty of governments, in all cases which were considered of
+importance, to fix prices, and regulate the processes of manufacture.
+But it is now recognised, though not till after a long struggle, that
+both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most
+effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly
+free, under the sole check of equal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> freedom to the buyers for supplying
+themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade,
+which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the
+principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay. Restrictions on
+trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints;
+and all restraint, <i>qu&acirc;</i> restraint, is an evil: but the restraints in
+question affect only that part of conduct which society is competent to
+restrain, and are wrong solely because they do not really produce the
+results which it is desired to produce by them. As the principle of
+individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, so
+neither is it in most of the questions which arise respecting the limits
+of that doctrine: as for example, what amount of public control is
+admissible for the prevention of fraud by adulteration; how far sanitary
+precautions, or arrangements to protect work-people employed in
+dangerous occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such questions
+involve considerations of liberty, only in so far as leaving people to
+themselves is always better, <i>c&aelig;teris paribus</i>, than controlling them:
+but that they may be legitimately controlled for these ends, is in
+principle undeniable. On the other hand, there are questions relating to
+interference with trade,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> which are essentially questions of liberty;
+such as the Maine Law, already touched upon; the prohibition of the
+importation of opium into China; the restriction of the sale of poisons;
+all cases, in short, where the object of the interference is to make it
+impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. These
+interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of
+the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer.</p>
+
+<p>One of these examples, that of the sale of poisons, opens a new
+question; the proper limits of what may be called the functions of
+police; how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention
+of crime, or of accident. It is one of the undisputed functions of
+government to take precautions against crime before it has been
+committed, as well as to detect and punish it afterwards. The preventive
+function of government, however, is far more liable to be abused, to the
+prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for there is hardly
+any part of the legitimate freedom of action of a human being which
+would not admit of being represented, and fairly too, as increasing the
+facilities for some form or other of delinquency. Nevertheless, if a
+public authority, or even a private person, sees any one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> evidently
+preparing to commit a crime, they are not bound to look on inactive
+until the crime is committed, but may interfere to prevent it. If
+poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission
+of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale.
+They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful
+purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without
+operating in the other. Again, it is a proper office of public authority
+to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or any one else
+saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to
+be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might
+seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his
+liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not
+desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a
+certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself
+can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur
+the risk: in this case, therefore (unless he is a child, or delirious,
+or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full
+use of the reflecting faculty), he ought, I conceive, to be only warned
+of the danger; not forcibly prevented from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> exposing himself to it.
+Similar considerations, applied to such a question as the sale of
+poisons, may enable us to decide which among the possible modes of
+regulation are or are not contrary to principle. Such a precaution, for
+example, as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive of its
+dangerous character, may be enforced without violation of liberty: the
+buyer cannot wish not to know that the thing he possesses has poisonous
+qualities. But to require in all cases the certificate of a medical
+practitioner, would make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to
+obtain the article for legitimate uses. The only mode apparent to me, in
+which difficulties may be thrown in the way of crime committed through
+this means, without any infringement, worth taking into account, upon
+the liberty of those who desire the poisonous substance for other
+purposes, consists in providing what, in the apt language of Bentham, is
+called "preappointed evidence." This provision is familiar to every one
+in the case of contracts. It is usual and right that the law, when a
+contract is entered into, should require as the condition of its
+enforcing performance, that certain formalities should be observed, such
+as signatures, attestation of witnesses, and the like, in order that in
+case of subsequent dispute, there may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> evidence to prove that the
+contract was really entered into, and that there was nothing in the
+circumstances to render it legally invalid: the effect being, to throw
+great obstacles in the way of fictitious contracts, or contracts made in
+circumstances which, if known, would destroy their validity. Precautions
+of a similar nature might be enforced in the sale of articles adapted to
+be instruments of crime. The seller, for example, might be required to
+enter into a register the exact time of the transaction, the name and
+address of the buyer, the precise quality and quantity sold; to ask the
+purpose for which it was wanted, and record the answer he received. When
+there was no medical prescription, the presence of some third person
+might be required, to bring home the fact to the purchaser, in case
+there should afterwards be reason to believe that the article had been
+applied to criminal purposes. Such regulations would in general be no
+material impediment to obtaining the article, but a very considerable
+one to making an improper use of it without detection.</p>
+
+<p>The right inherent in society, to ward off crimes against itself by
+antecedent precautions, suggests the obvious limitations to the maxim,
+that purely self-regarding misconduct cannot properly be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> meddled with
+in the way of prevention or punishment. Drunkenness, for example, in
+ordinary cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I
+should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had once been
+convicted of any act of violence to others under the influence of drink,
+should be placed under a special legal restriction, personal to himself;
+that if he were afterwards found drunk, he should be liable to a
+penalty, and that if when in that state he committed another offence,
+the punishment to which he would be liable for that other offence should
+be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, in a person whom
+drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. So,
+again, idleness, except in a person receiving support from the public,
+or except when it constitutes a breach of contract, cannot without
+tyranny be made a subject of legal punishment; but if either from
+idleness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his
+legal duties to others, as for instance to support his children, it is
+no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obligation, by compulsory labour,
+if no other means are available.</p>
+
+<p>Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the
+agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if
+done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> publicly, are a violation of good manners and coming thus within
+the category of offences against others may rightfully be prohibited. Of
+this kind are offences against decency; on which it is unnecessary to
+dwell, the rather as they are only connected indirectly with our
+subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong in the case of
+many actions not in themselves condemnable, nor supposed to be so.</p>
+
+<p>There is another question to which an answer must be found, consistent
+with the principles which have been laid down. In cases of personal
+conduct supposed to be blamable, but which respect for liberty precludes
+society from preventing or punishing, because the evil directly
+resulting falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, ought
+other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate? This question
+is not free from difficulty. The case of a person who solicits another
+to do an act, is not strictly a case of self-regarding conduct. To give
+advice or offer inducements to any one, is a social act, and may
+therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed
+amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects the first
+impression, by showing that if the case is not strictly within the
+definition of individual liberty, yet the reasons<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> on which the
+principle of individual liberty is grounded, are applicable to it. If
+people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as
+seems best to themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free
+to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange
+opinions, and give and receive suggestions. Whatever it is permitted to
+do, it must be permitted to advise to do. The question is doubtful, only
+when the instigator derives a personal benefit from his advice; when he
+makes it his occupation, for subsistence or pecuniary gain, to promote
+what society and the state consider to be an evil. Then, indeed, a new
+element of complication is introduced; namely, the existence of classes
+of persons with an interest opposed to what is considered as the public
+weal, and whose mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it.
+Ought this to be interfered with, or not? Fornication, for example, must
+be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a
+pimp, or to keep a gambling-house? The case is one of those which lie on
+the exact boundary line between two principles, and it is not at once
+apparent to which of the two it properly belongs. There are arguments on
+both sides. On the side of toleration it may be said, that the fact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> of
+following anything as an occupation, and living or profiting by the
+practice of it, cannot make that criminal which would otherwise be
+admissible; that the act should either be consistently permitted or
+consistently prohibited; that if the principles which we have hitherto
+defended are true, society has no business, <i>as</i> society, to decide
+anything to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it cannot
+go beyond dissuasion, and that one person should be as free to persuade,
+as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it may be contended, that
+although the public, or the State, are not warranted in authoritatively
+deciding, for purposes of repression or punishment, that such or such
+conduct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad,
+they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad, that its
+being so or not is at least a disputable question: That, this being
+supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the
+influence of solicitations which are not disinterested, of instigators
+who cannot possibly be impartial&mdash;who have a direct personal interest on
+one side, and that side the one which the State believes to be wrong,
+and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only. There can
+surely, it may be urged, be nothing lost, no sacrifice of good, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> so
+ordering matters that persons shall make their election, either wisely
+or foolishly, on their own prompting, as free as possible from the arts
+of persons who stimulate their inclinations for interested purposes of
+their own. Thus (it may be said) though the statutes respecting unlawful
+games are utterly indefensible&mdash;though all persons should be free to
+gamble in their own or each other's houses, or in any place of meeting
+established by their own subscriptions, and open only to the members and
+their visitors&mdash;yet public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It
+is true that the prohibition is never effectual, and that whatever
+amount of tyrannical power is given to the police, gambling-houses can
+always be maintained under other pretences; but they may be compelled to
+conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy and mystery,
+so that nobody knows anything about them but those who seek them; and
+more than this, society ought not to aim at. There is considerable force
+in these arguments; I will not venture to decide whether they are
+sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of punishing the accessary, when
+the principal is (and must be) allowed to go free; or fining or
+imprisoning the procurer, but not the fornicator, the gambling-house
+keeper, but not the gambler.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Still less ought the common operations of
+buying and selling to be interfered with on analogous grounds. Almost
+every article which is bought and sold may be used in excess, and the
+sellers have a pecuniary interest in encouraging that excess; but no
+argument can be founded on this, in favour, for instance, of the Maine
+Law; because the class of dealers in strong drinks, though interested in
+their abuse, are indispensably required for the sake of their legitimate
+use. The interest, however, of these dealers in promoting intemperance
+is a real evil, and justifies the State in imposing restrictions and
+requiring guarantees, which but for that justification would be
+infringements of legitimate liberty.</p>
+
+<p>A further question is, whether the State, while it permits, should
+nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it deems contrary to
+the best interests of the agent; whether, for example, it should take
+measures to render the means of drunkenness more costly, or add to the
+difficulty of procuring them, by limiting the number of the places of
+sale. On this as on most other practical questions, many distinctions
+require to be made. To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making
+them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure differing only in
+degree from their entire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>prohibition; and would be justifiable only if
+that were justifiable. Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those
+whose means do not come up to the augmented price; and to those who do,
+it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste. Their
+choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after
+satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State and to
+individuals, are their own concern, and must rest with their own
+judgment. These considerations may seem at first sight to condemn the
+selection of stimulants as special subjects of taxation for purposes of
+revenue. But it must be remembered that taxation for fiscal purposes is
+absolutely inevitable; that in most countries it is necessary that a
+considerable part of that taxation should be indirect; that the State,
+therefore, cannot help imposing penalties, which to some persons may be
+prohibitory, on the use of some articles of consumption. It is hence the
+duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of taxes, what
+commodities the consumers can best spare; and <i>&agrave; fortiori</i>, to select in
+preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very moderate
+quantity, to be positively injurious. Taxation, therefore, of
+stimulants, up to the point which produces the largest amount of revenue
+(supposing that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> State needs all the revenue which it yields) is not
+only admissible, but to be approved of.</p>
+
+<p>The question of making the sale of these commodities a more or less
+exclusive privilege, must be answered differently, according to the
+purposes to which the restriction is intended to be subservient. All
+places of public resort require the restraint of a police, and places of
+this kind peculiarly, because offences against society are especially
+apt to originate there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the power of
+selling these commodities (at least for consumption on the spot) to
+persons of known or vouched-for respectability of conduct; to make such
+regulations respecting hours of opening and closing as may be requisite
+for public surveillance, and to withdraw the licence if breaches of the
+peace repeatedly take place through the connivance or incapacity of the
+keeper of the house, or if it becomes a rendezvous for concocting and
+preparing offences against the law. Any further restriction I do not
+conceive to be, in principle, justifiable. The limitation in number, for
+instance, of beer and spirit-houses, for the express purpose of
+rendering them more difficult of access, and diminishing the occasions
+of temptation, not only exposes all to an inconvenience because there
+are some by whom the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> facility would be abused, but is suited only to a
+state of society in which the labouring classes are avowedly treated as
+children or savages, and placed under an education of restraint, to fit
+them for future admission to the privileges of freedom. This is not the
+principle on which the labouring classes are professedly governed in any
+free country; and no person who sets due value on freedom will give his
+adhesion to their being so governed, unless after all efforts have been
+exhausted to educate them for freedom and govern them as freemen, and it
+has been definitively proved that they can only be governed as children.
+The bare statement of the alternative shows the absurdity of supposing
+that such efforts have been made in any case which needs be considered
+here. It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of
+inconsistencies, that things find admittance into our practice which
+belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal,
+government, while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the
+exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the restraint of
+any real efficacy as a moral education.</p>
+
+<p>It was pointed out in an early part of this Essay, that the liberty of
+the individual, in things wherein the individual is alone concerned,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+implies a corresponding liberty in any number of individuals to regulate
+by mutual agreement such things as regard them jointly, and regard no
+persons but themselves. This question presents no difficulty, so long as
+the will of all the persons implicated remains unaltered; but since that
+will may change, it is often necessary, even in things in which they
+alone are concerned, that they should enter into engagements with one
+another; and when they do, it is fit, as a general rule, that those
+engagements should be kept. Yet in the laws, probably, of every country,
+this general rule has some exceptions. Not only persons are not held to
+engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is
+sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an
+engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other
+civilised countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should
+sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and
+void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus
+limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is
+apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for
+not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's
+voluntary acts, is consideration for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> liberty. His voluntary choice
+is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least
+endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by
+allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling
+himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future
+use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own
+case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to
+dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a
+position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would
+be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom
+cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom,
+to be allowed to alienate his freedom. These reasons, the force of which
+is so conspicuous in this peculiar case, are evidently of far wider
+application; yet a limit is everywhere set to them by the necessities of
+life, which continually require, not indeed that we should resign our
+freedom, but that we should consent to this and the other limitation of
+it. The principle, however, which demands uncontrolled freedom of action
+in all that concerns only the agents themselves, requires that those who
+have become bound to one another, in things which concern no third
+party, should be able to release<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> one another from the engagement: and
+even without such voluntary release, there are perhaps no contracts or
+engagements, except those that relate to money or money's worth, of
+which one can venture to say that there ought to be no liberty whatever
+of retractation. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the excellent essay from
+which I have already quoted, states it as his conviction, that
+engagements which involve personal relations or services, should never
+be legally binding beyond a limited duration of time; and that the most
+important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that
+its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both the parties are
+in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will
+of either party to dissolve it. This subject is too important, and too
+complicated, to be discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch on it only so
+far as is necessary for purposes of illustration. If the conciseness and
+generality of Baron Humboldt's dissertation had not obliged him in this
+instance to content himself with enunciating his conclusion without
+discussing the premises, he would doubtless have recognised that the
+question cannot be decided on grounds so simple as those to which he
+confines himself. When a person, either by express promise or by
+conduct, has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> encouraged another to rely upon his continuing to act in a
+certain way&mdash;to build expectations and calculations, and stake any part
+of his plan of life upon that supposition, a new series of moral
+obligations arises on his part towards that person, which may possibly
+be overruled, but cannot be ignored. And again, if the relation between
+two contracting parties has been followed by consequences to others; if
+it has placed third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case
+of marriage, has even called third parties into existence, obligations
+arise on the part of both the contracting parties towards those third
+persons, the fulfilment of which, or at all events the mode of
+fulfilment, must be greatly affected by the continuance or disruption of
+the relation between the original parties to the contract. It does not
+follow, nor can I admit, that these obligations extend to requiring the
+fulfilment of the contract at all costs to the happiness of the
+reluctant party; but they are a necessary element in the question; and
+even if, as Von Humboldt maintains, they ought to make no difference in
+the <i>legal</i> freedom of the parties to release themselves from the
+engagement (and I also hold that they ought not to make <i>much</i>
+difference), they necessarily make a great difference in the <i>moral</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+freedom. A person is bound to take all these circumstances into account,
+before resolving on a step which may affect such important interests of
+others; and if he does not allow proper weight to those interests, he is
+morally responsible for the wrong. I have made these obvious remarks for
+the better illustration of the general principle of liberty, and not
+because they are at all needed on the particular question, which, on the
+contrary, is usually discussed as if the interest of children was
+everything, and that of grown persons nothing.</p>
+
+<p>I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any recognised
+general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be
+withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; and one of the
+cases in which, in the modern European world, the sentiment of liberty
+is the strongest, is a case where, in my view, it is altogether
+misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own
+concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for
+another, under the pretext that the affairs of another are his own
+affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of each in what
+specially regards himself, is bound to maintain a vigilant control over
+his exercise of any power which it allows him to possess over others.
+This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> obligation is almost entirely disregarded in the case of the
+family relations, a case, in its direct influence on human happiness,
+more important than all others taken together. The almost despotic power
+of husbands over wives need not be enlarged upon here because nothing
+more is needed for the complete removal of the evil, than that wives
+should have the same rights, and should receive the protection of law in
+the same manner, as all other persons; and because, on this subject, the
+defenders of established injustice do not avail themselves of the plea
+of liberty, but stand forth openly as the champions of power. It is in
+the case of children, that misapplied notions of liberty are a real
+obstacle to the fulfilment by the State of its duties. One would almost
+think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not
+metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest
+interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them;
+more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of
+action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than
+power. Consider, for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a
+self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the
+education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born
+its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognise and
+assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the
+most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the
+father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that
+being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards
+others and towards himself. But while this is unanimously declared to be
+the father's duty, scarcely anybody, in this country, will bear to hear
+of obliging him to perform it. Instead of his being required to make any
+exertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is left to
+his choice to accept it or not when it is provided gratis! It still
+remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a
+fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but
+instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against
+the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent
+does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at
+the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.</p>
+
+<p>Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there
+would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach,
+and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere
+battle-field for sects and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> parties, causing the time and labour which
+should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about
+education. If the government would make up its mind to <i>require</i> for
+every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of
+<i>providing</i> one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where
+and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school
+fees of the poorer class of children, and defraying the entire school
+expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections
+which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the
+enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon
+itself to direct that education; which is a totally different thing.
+That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should
+be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has
+been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity
+in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable
+importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere
+contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as
+the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant
+power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an
+aristocracy, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> majority of the existing generation, in proportion
+as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the
+mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education
+established and controlled by the State, should only exist, if it exist
+at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the
+purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain
+standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so
+backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any
+proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the
+task; then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils,
+take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may
+that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape
+fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the
+country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of
+persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the
+same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education
+on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded
+by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to
+those unable to defray the expense.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public
+examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early age.
+An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to
+ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable, the
+father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be
+subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his
+labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in
+every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually extending
+range of subjects, so as to make the universal acquisition, and what is
+more, retention, of a certain minimum of general knowledge, virtually
+compulsory. Beyond that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations
+on all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard of
+proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the State from
+exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over
+opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the
+merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use)
+should, even in the higher class of examinations, be confined to facts
+and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion,
+politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> truth or
+falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an
+opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or
+churches. Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off
+in regard to all disputed truths, than they are at present; they would
+be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the state
+merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen, or
+instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from being
+taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools where they
+were taught other things. All attempts by the state to bias the
+conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may
+very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the
+knowledge, requisite to make his conclusions, on any given subject,
+worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be the better for
+being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever
+of the two he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no
+reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences of
+Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a belief in them.
+The examinations, however, in the higher branches of knowledge should, I
+conceive, be entirely voluntary. It would be giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> too dangerous a
+power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from
+professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency
+of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees,
+or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements,
+should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand
+the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over
+competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their
+testimony by public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>It is not in the matter of education only, that misplaced notions of
+liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of parents from being
+recognised, and legal obligations from being imposed, where there are
+the strongest grounds for the former always, and in many cases for the
+latter also. The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being,
+is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To
+undertake this responsibility&mdash;to bestow a life which may be either a
+curse or a blessing&mdash;unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will
+have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime
+against that being. And in a country either over-peopled, or threatened
+with being so, to produce children, beyond a very small number,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> with
+the effect of reducing the reward of labour by their competition, is a
+serious offence against all who live by the remuneration of their
+labour. The laws which, in many countries on the Continent, forbid
+marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of
+supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the state:
+and whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly dependent
+on local circumstances and feelings), they are not objectionable as
+violations of liberty. Such laws are interferences of the state to
+prohibit a mischievous act&mdash;an act injurious to others, which ought to
+be a subject of reprobation, and social stigma, even when it is not
+deemed expedient to superadd legal punishment. Yet the current ideas of
+liberty, which bend so easily to real infringements of the freedom of
+the individual, in things which concern only himself, would repel the
+attempt to put any restraint upon his inclinations when the consequence
+of their indulgence is a life, or lives, of wretchedness and depravity
+to the offspring, with manifold evils to those sufficiently within reach
+to be in any way affected by their actions. When we compare the strange
+respect of mankind for liberty, with their strange want of respect for
+it, we might imagine that a man had an indispensable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> right to do harm
+to others, and no right at all to please himself without giving pain to
+any one.</p>
+
+<p>I have reserved for the last place a large class of questions respecting
+the limits of government interference, which, though closely connected
+with the subject of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong to it.
+These are cases in which the reasons against interference do not turn
+upon the principle of liberty: the question is not about restraining the
+actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked whether the
+government should do, or cause to be done, something for their benefit,
+instead of leaving it to be done by themselves, individually, or in
+voluntary combination.</p>
+
+<p>The objections to government interference, when it is not such as to
+involve infringement of liberty, may be of three kinds.</p>
+
+<p>The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better done by
+individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one
+so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall
+be conducted, as those who are personally interested in it. This
+principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the
+legislature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes
+of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently enlarged
+upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> by political economists, and is not particularly related to the
+principles of this Essay.</p>
+
+<p>The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. In many
+cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on
+the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable
+that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a
+means to their own mental education&mdash;a mode of strengthening their
+active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar
+knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This is
+a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial (in cases
+not political); of free and popular local and municipal institutions; of
+the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary
+associations. These are not questions of liberty, and are connected with
+that subject only by remote tendencies; but they are questions of
+development. It belongs to a different occasion from the present to
+dwell on these things as parts of national education; as being, in
+truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the
+political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow
+circle of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them to the
+comprehension of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> joint interests, the management of joint
+concerns&mdash;habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives,
+and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them
+from one another. Without these habits and powers, a free constitution
+can neither be worked nor preserved, as is exemplified by the too-often
+transitory nature of political freedom in countries where it does not
+rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The management of
+purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of
+industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuniary
+means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set
+forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and
+diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend to be
+everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the
+contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of
+experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central
+depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience
+resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each
+experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others, instead of
+tolerating no experiments but its own.</p>
+
+<p>The third, and most cogent reason for restricting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> the interference of
+government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
+Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government,
+causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused,
+and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public
+into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at
+becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the
+insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities,
+and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government;
+if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all
+that now devolves on them, became departments of the central
+administration; if the employ&eacute;s of all these different enterprises were
+appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for
+every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular
+constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country
+free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more
+efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was
+constructed&mdash;the more skilful the arrangements for obtaining the best
+qualified hands and heads with which to work it. In England it has of
+late been proposed that all the members of the civil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> service of
+government should be selected by competitive examination, to obtain for
+those employments the most intelligent and instructed persons
+procurable; and much has been said and written for and against this
+proposal. One of the arguments most insisted on by its opponents, is
+that the occupation of a permanent official servant of the State does
+not hold out sufficient prospects of emolument and importance to attract
+the highest talents, which will always be able to find a more inviting
+career in the professions, or in the service of companies and other
+public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this argument had
+been used by the friends of the proposition, as an answer to its
+principal difficulty. Coming from the opponents it is strange enough.
+What is urged as an objection is the safety-valve of the proposed
+system. If indeed all the high talent of the country <i>could</i> be drawn
+into the service of the government, a proposal tending to bring about
+that result might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business
+of society which required organised concert, or large and comprehensive
+views, were in the hands of the government, and if government offices
+were universally filled by the ablest men, all the enlarged culture and
+practised intelligence in the country, except the purely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> speculative,
+would be concentrated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest
+of the community would look for all things: the multitude for direction
+and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for personal
+advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when
+admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under
+this r&eacute;gime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified, for want of
+practical experience, to criticise or check the mode of operation of the
+bureaucracy, but even if the accidents of despotic or the natural
+working of popular institutions occasionally raise to the summit a ruler
+or rulers of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected which is
+contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy
+condition of the Russian empire, as is shown in the accounts of those
+who have had sufficient opportunity of observation. The Czar himself is
+powerless against the bureaucratic body; he can send any one of them to
+Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On
+every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from
+carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced civilisation and
+of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect
+everything to be done for them by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> State, or at least to do nothing
+for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it,
+but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for
+all evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of
+patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a
+revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate
+authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to
+the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the
+bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking
+their place.</p>
+
+<p>A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to
+transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people
+having been engaged in military service, many of whom have held at least
+the rank of non-commissioned officers, there are in every popular
+insurrection several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise
+some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs,
+the Americans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left
+without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one,
+and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient
+amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> free
+people ought to be: and a people capable of this is certain to be free;
+it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because
+these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central
+administration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do
+or undergo anything that they do not like. But where everything is done
+through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really
+adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an
+organisation of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into
+a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more
+perfect that organisation is in itself, the more successful in drawing
+to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from
+all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the
+members of the bureaucracy included. For the governors are as much the
+slaves of their organisation and discipline, as the governed are of the
+governors. A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a
+despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the
+utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order
+itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the
+principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal,
+sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body
+itself. Banded together as they are&mdash;working a system which, like all
+systems, necessarily proceeds in a great measure by fixed rules&mdash;the
+official body are under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent
+routine, or, if they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of
+rushing into some half-examined crudity which has struck the fancy of
+some leading member of the corps: and the sole check to these closely
+allied, though seemingly opposite, tendencies, the only stimulus which
+can keep the ability of the body itself up to a high standard, is
+liability to the watchful criticism of equal ability outside the body.
+It is indispensable, therefore, that the means should exist,
+independently of the government, of forming such ability, and furnishing
+it with the opportunities and experience necessary for a correct
+judgment of great practical affairs. If we would possess permanently a
+skilful and efficient body of functionaries&mdash;above all, a body able to
+originate and willing to adopt improvements; if we would not have our
+bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross
+all the occupations which form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> and cultivate the faculties required for
+the government of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to human freedom
+and advancement, begin, or rather at which they begin to predominate
+over the benefits attending the collective application of the force of
+society, under its recognised chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles
+which stand in the way of its well-being; to secure as much of the
+advantages of centralised power and intelligence, as can be had without
+turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general
+activity, is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the
+art of government. It is, in a great measure, a question of detail, in
+which many and various considerations must be kept in view, and no
+absolute rule can be laid down. But I believe that the practical
+principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the
+standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the
+difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination
+of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible
+centralisation of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.
+Thus, in municipal administration, there would be, as in the New England
+States, a very minute <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>division among separate officers, chosen by the
+localities, of all business which is not better left to the persons
+directly interested; but besides this, there would be, in each
+department of local affairs, a central superintendence, forming a branch
+of the general government. The organ of this superintendence would
+concentrate, as in a focus, the variety of information and experience
+derived from the conduct of that branch of public business in all the
+localities, from everything analogous which is done in foreign
+countries, and from the general principles of political science. This
+central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its
+special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one
+place available for others. Emancipated from the petty prejudices and
+narrow views of a locality by its elevated position and comprehensive
+sphere of observation, its advice would naturally carry much authority;
+but its actual power, as a permanent institution, should, I conceive, be
+limited to compelling the local officers to obey the laws laid down for
+their guidance. In all things not provided for by general rules, those
+officers should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to
+their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be
+responsible to law, and the rules<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> themselves should be laid down by the
+legislature; the central administrative authority only watching over
+their execution, and if they were not properly carried into effect,
+appealing, according to the nature of the case, to the tribunal to
+enforce the law, or to the constituencies to dismiss the functionaries
+who had not executed it according to its spirit. Such, in its general
+conception, is the central superintendence which the Poor Law Board is
+intended to exercise over the administrators of the Poor Rate throughout
+the country. Whatever powers the Board exercises beyond this limit, were
+right and necessary in that peculiar case, for the cure of rooted habits
+of maladministration in matters deeply affecting not the localities
+merely, but the whole community; since no locality has a moral right to
+make itself by mismanagement a nest of pauperism, necessarily
+overflowing into other localities, and impairing the moral and physical
+condition of the whole labouring community. The powers of administrative
+coercion and subordinate legislation possessed by the Poor Law Board
+(but which, owing to the state of opinion on the subject, are very
+scantily exercised by them), though perfectly justifiable in a case of
+first-rate national interest, would be wholly out of place in the
+superintendence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> of interests purely local. But a central organ of
+information and instruction for all the localities, would be equally
+valuable in all departments of administration. A government cannot have
+too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and
+stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins
+when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals
+and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of
+informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work
+in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of
+them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
+individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of
+<i>their</i> mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of
+administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives,
+in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that
+they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial
+purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be
+accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has
+sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the
+vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly,
+it has preferred to banish.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+Title: On Liberty
+
+Author: John Stuart Mill
+
+Release Date: January 10, 2011 [EBook #34901]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON LIBERTY ***
+
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+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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+
+
+
+On Liberty.
+
+By John Stuart Mill.
+
+With an Introduction by W. L. Courtney, LL.D.
+
+The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.
+London and Felling-on-Tyne
+New York and Melbourne
+
+
+
+
+_To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
+part the author, of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife
+whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
+whose approbation was my chief reward--I dedicate this volume. Like all
+that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me;
+but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the
+inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important
+portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which
+they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of
+interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and noble feelings
+which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater
+benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can
+write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I.
+
+John Stuart Mill was born on 20th May 1806. He was a delicate child, and
+the extraordinary education designed by his father was not calculated to
+develop and improve his physical powers. "I never was a boy," he says;
+"never played cricket." His exercise was taken in the form of walks with
+his father, during which the elder Mill lectured his son and examined
+him on his work. It is idle to speculate on the possible results of a
+different treatment. Mill remained delicate throughout his life, but was
+endowed with that intense mental energy which is so often combined with
+physical weakness. His youth was sacrificed to an idea; he was designed
+by his father to carry on his work; the individuality of the boy was
+unimportant. A visit to the south of France at the age of fourteen, in
+company with the family of General Sir Samuel Bentham, was not without
+its influence. It was a glimpse of another atmosphere, though the
+studious habits of his home life were maintained. Moreover, he derived
+from it his interest in foreign politics, which remained one of his
+characteristics to the end of his life. In 1823 he was appointed junior
+clerk in the Examiners' Office at the India House.
+
+Mill's first essays were written in the _Traveller_ about a year before
+he entered the India House. From that time forward his literary work was
+uninterrupted save by attacks of illness. His industry was stupendous.
+He wrote articles on an infinite variety of subjects, political,
+metaphysical, philosophic, religious, poetical. He discovered Tennyson
+for his generation, he influenced the writing of Carlyle's _French
+Revolution_ as well as its success. And all the while he was engaged in
+studying and preparing for his more ambitious works, while he rose step
+by step at the India Office. His _Essays on Unsettled Questions in
+Political Economy_ were written in 1831, although they did not appear
+until thirteen years later. His _System of Logic_, the design of which
+was even then fashioning itself in his brain, took thirteen years to
+complete, and was actually published before the _Political Economy_. In
+1844 appeared the article on Michelet, which its author anticipated
+would cause some discussion, but which did not create the sensation he
+expected. Next year there were the "Claims of Labour" and "Guizot," and
+in 1847 his articles on Irish affairs in the _Morning Chronicle_. These
+years were very much influenced by his friendship and correspondence
+with Comte, a curious comradeship between men of such different
+temperament. In 1848 Mill published his _Political Economy_, to which he
+had given his serious study since the completion of his _Logic_. His
+articles and reviews, though they involved a good deal of work--as, for
+instance, the re-perusal of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ in the
+original before reviewing Grote's _Greece_--were recreation to the
+student. The year 1856 saw him head of the Examiners' Office in the
+India House, and another two years brought the end of his official work,
+owing to the transfer of India to the Crown. In the same year his wife
+died. _Liberty_ was published shortly after, as well as the _Thoughts on
+Parliamentary Reform_, and no year passed without Mill making important
+contributions on the political, philosophical, and ethical questions of
+the day.
+
+Seven years after the death of his wife, Mill was invited to contest
+Westminster. His feeling on the conduct of elections made him refuse to
+take any personal action in the matter, and he gave the frankest
+expression to his political views, but nevertheless he was elected by a
+large majority. He was not a conventional success in the House; as a
+speaker he lacked magnetism. But his influence was widely felt. "For the
+sake of the House of Commons at large," said Mr. Gladstone, "I rejoiced
+in his advent and deplored his disappearance. He did us all good." After
+only three years in Parliament, he was defeated at the next General
+Election by Mr. W. H. Smith. He retired to Avignon, to the pleasant
+little house where the happiest years of his life had been spent in the
+companionship of his wife, and continued his disinterested labours. He
+completed his edition of his father's _Analysis of the Mind_, and also
+produced, in addition to less important work, _The Subjection of Women_,
+in which he had the active co-operation of his step-daughter. A book on
+Socialism was under consideration, but, like an earlier study of
+Sociology, it never was written. He died in 1873, his last years being
+spent peacefully in the pleasant society of his step-daughter, from
+whose tender care and earnest intellectual sympathy he caught maybe a
+far-off reflection of the light which had irradiated his spiritual life.
+
+
+II.
+
+The circumstances under which John Stuart Mill wrote his _Liberty_ are
+largely connected with the influence which Mrs. Taylor wielded over his
+career. The dedication is well known. It contains the most extraordinary
+panegyric on a woman that any philosopher has ever penned. "Were I but
+capable of interpreting to the world one-half the great thoughts and
+noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of
+a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from anything that
+I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled
+wisdom." It is easy for the ordinary worldly cynicism to curl a
+sceptical lip over sentences like these. There may be exaggeration of
+sentiment, the necessary and inevitable reaction of a man who was
+trained according to the "dry light" of so unimpressionable a man as
+James Mill, the father; but the passage quoted is not the only one in
+which John Stuart Mill proclaims his unhesitating belief in the
+intellectual influence of his wife. The treatise on _Liberty_ was
+written especially under her authority and encouragement, but there are
+many earlier references to the power which she exercised over his mind.
+Mill was introduced to her as early as 1831, at a dinner-party at Mr.
+Taylor's house, where were present, amongst others, Roebuck, W. J. Fox,
+and Miss Harriet Martineau. The acquaintance rapidly ripened into
+intimacy and the intimacy into friendship, and Mill was never weary of
+expatiating on all the advantages of so singular a relationship. In some
+of the presentation copies of his work on _Political Economy_, he wrote
+the following dedication:--"To Mrs. John Taylor, who, of all persons
+known to the author, is the most highly qualified either to originate or
+to appreciate speculation on social advancement, this work is with the
+highest respect and esteem dedicated." An article on the enfranchisement
+of women was made the occasion for another encomium. We shall hardly be
+wrong in attributing a much later book, _The Subjection of Women_,
+published in 1869, to the influence wielded by Mrs. Taylor. Finally, the
+pages of the _Autobiography_ ring with the dithyrambic praise of his
+"almost infallible counsellor."
+
+The facts of this remarkable intimacy can easily be stated. The
+deductions are more difficult. There is no question that Mill's
+infatuation was the cause of considerable trouble to his acquaintances
+and friends. His father openly taxed him with being in love with another
+man's wife. Roebuck, Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Austin, Miss Harriet Martineau
+were amongst those who suffered because they made some allusion to a
+forbidden subject. Mrs. Taylor lived with her daughter in a lodging in
+the country; but in 1851 her husband died, and then Mill made her his
+wife. Opinions were widely divergent as to her merits; but every one
+agreed that up to the time of her death, in 1858, Mill was wholly lost
+to his friends. George Mill, one of Mill's younger brothers, gave it as
+his opinion that she was a clever and remarkable woman, but "nothing
+like what John took her to be." Carlyle, in his reminiscences, described
+her with ambiguous epithets. She was "vivid," "iridescent," "pale and
+passionate and sad-looking, a living-romance heroine of the royalist
+volition and questionable destiny." It is not possible to make much of a
+judgment like this, but we get on more certain ground when we discover
+that Mrs. Carlyle said on one occasion that "she is thought to be
+dangerous," and that Carlyle added that she was worse than dangerous,
+she was patronising. The occasion when Mill and his wife were brought
+into close contact with the Carlyles is well known. The manuscript of
+the first volume of the _French Revolution_ had been lent to Mill, and
+was accidentally burnt by Mrs. Mill's servant. Mill and his wife drove
+up to Carlyle's door, the wife speechless, the husband so full of
+conversation that he detained Carlyle with desperate attempts at
+loquacity for two hours. But Dr. Garnett tells us, in his _Life of
+Carlyle_, that Mill made a substantial reparation for the calamity for
+which he was responsible by inducing the aggrieved author to accept half
+of the L200 which he offered. Mrs. Mill, as I have said, died in 1858,
+after seven years of happy companionship with her husband, and was
+buried at Avignon. The inscription which Mill wrote for her grave is too
+characteristic to be omitted:--"Her great and loving heart, her noble
+soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect, made
+her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom and the example in
+goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight of those who had the
+happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was
+generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
+felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in
+those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like
+hers, this earth would already become the hoped-for Heaven." These lines
+prove the intensity of Mill's feeling, which is not afraid of abundant
+verbiage; but they also prove that he could not imagine what the effect
+would be on others, and, as Grote said, only Mill's reputation could
+survive these and similar displays.
+
+Every one will judge for himself of this romantic episode in Mill's
+career, according to such experience as he may possess of the
+philosophic mind and of the value of these curious but not infrequent
+relationships. It may have been a piece of infatuation, or, if we prefer
+to say so, it may have been the most gracious and the most human page in
+Mill's career. Mrs. Mill may have flattered her husband's vanity by
+echoing his opinions, or she may have indeed been an Egeria, full of
+inspiration and intellectual helpfulness. What usually happens in these
+cases,--although the philosopher himself, through his belief in the
+equality of the sexes, was debarred from thinking so,--is the extremely
+valuable action and reaction of two different classes and orders of
+mind. To any one whose thoughts have been occupied with the sphere of
+abstract speculation, the lively and vivid presentment of concrete fact
+comes as a delightful and agreeable shock. The instinct of the woman
+often enables her not only to apprehend but to illustrate a truth for
+which she would be totally unable to give the adequate philosophic
+reasoning. On the other hand, the man, with the more careful logical
+methods and the slow processes of formal reasoning, is apt to suppose
+that the happy intuition which leaps to the conclusion is really based
+on the intellectual processes of which he is conscious in his own case.
+Thus both parties to the happy contract are equally pleased. The
+abstract truth gets the concrete illustration; the concrete illustration
+finds its proper foundation in a series of abstract inquiries. Perhaps
+Carlyle's epithets of "iridescent" and "vivid" refer incidentally to
+Mrs. Mill's quick perceptiveness, and thus throw a useful light on the
+mutual advantages of the common work of husband and wife. But it savours
+almost of impertinence even to attempt to lift the veil on a mystery
+like this. It is enough to say, perhaps, that however much we may
+deplore the exaggeration of Mill's references to his wife, we recognise
+that, for whatever reason, the pair lived an ideally happy life.
+
+It still, however, remains to estimate the extent to which Mrs. Taylor,
+both before and after her marriage with Mill, made actual contributions
+to his thoughts and his public work. Here I may be perhaps permitted to
+avail myself of what I have already written in a previous work.[1] Mill
+gives us abundant help in this matter in the _Autobiography_. When first
+he knew her, his thoughts were turning to the subject of Logic. But his
+published work on the subject owed nothing to her, he tells us, in its
+doctrines. It was Mill's custom to write the whole of a book so as to
+get his general scheme complete, and then laboriously to re-write it in
+order to perfect the phrases and the composition. Doubtless Mrs. Taylor
+was of considerable help to him as a critic of style. But to be a critic
+of doctrine she was hardly qualified. Mill has made some clear
+admissions on this point. "The only actual revolution which has ever
+taken place in my modes of thinking was already complete,"[2] he says,
+before her influence became paramount. There is a curiously humble
+estimate of his own powers (to which Dr. Bain has called attention),
+which reads at first sight as if it contradicted this. "During the
+greater part of my literary life I have performed the office in relation
+to her, which, from a rather early period, I had considered as the most
+useful part that I was qualified to take in the domain of thought, that
+of an interpreter of original thinkers, and mediator between them and
+the public." So far it would seem that Mill had sat at the feet of his
+oracle; but observe the highly remarkable exception which is made in the
+following sentence:--"For I had always a humble opinion of my own powers
+as an original thinker, _except in abstract science (logic, metaphysics,
+and the theoretic principles of political economy and politics.)_"[3] If
+Mill then was an original thinker in logic, metaphysics, and the science
+of economy and politics, it is clear that he had not learnt these from
+her lips. And to most men logic and metaphysics may be safely taken as
+forming a domain in which originality of thought, if it can be honestly
+professed, is a sufficient title of distinction.
+
+Mrs. Taylor's assistance in the _Political Economy_ is confined to
+certain definite points. The purely scientific part was, we are assured,
+not learnt from her. "But it was chiefly her influence which gave to the
+book that general tone by which it is distinguished from all previous
+expositions of political economy that had any pretensions to be
+scientific, and which has made it so useful in conciliating minds which
+those previous expositions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in
+making the proper distinction between the laws of the production of
+wealth, which are real laws of Nature, dependent on the properties of
+objects, and the modes of its distribution, which, subject to certain
+conditions, depend on human will.... _I had indeed partially learnt this
+view of things from the thoughts awakened in me by the speculations of
+St. Simonians_; but it was made a living principle, pervading and
+animating the book, by my wife's promptings."[4] The part which is
+italicised is noticeable. Here, as elsewhere, Mill thinks out the matter
+by himself; the concrete form of the thoughts is suggested or prompted
+by the wife. Apart from this "general tone," Mill tells us that there
+was a specific contribution. "The chapter which has had a greater
+influence on opinion than all the rest, that on the Probable Future of
+the Labouring Classes, is entirely due to her. In the first draft of the
+book that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the need of such a
+chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book without it; she was
+the cause of my writing it." From this it would appear that she gave
+Mill that tendency to Socialism which, while it lends a progressive
+spirit to his speculations on politics, at the same time does not
+manifestly accord with his earlier advocacy of peasant proprietorships.
+Nor, again, is it, on the face of it, consistent with those doctrines of
+individual liberty which, aided by the intellectual companionship of his
+wife, he propounded in a later work. The ideal of individual freedom is
+not the ideal of Socialism, just as that invocation of governmental aid
+to which the Socialist resorts is not consistent with the theory of
+_laisser-faire_. Yet _Liberty_ was planned by Mill and his wife in
+concert. Perhaps a slight visionariness of speculation was no less the
+attribute of Mrs. Mill than an absence of rigid logical principles. Be
+this as it may, she undoubtedly checked the half-recognised leanings of
+her husband in the direction of Coleridge and Carlyle. Whether this was
+an instance of her steadying influence,[5] or whether it added one more
+unassimilated element to Mill's diverse intellectual sustenance, may be
+wisely left an open question. We cannot, however, be wrong in
+attributing to her the parentage of one book of Mill, _The Subjection of
+Women_. It is true that Mill had before learnt that men and women ought
+to be equal in legal, political, social, and domestic relations. This
+was a point on which he had already fallen foul of his father's essay on
+_Government_. But Mrs. Taylor had actually written on this very point,
+and the warmth and fervour of Mill's denunciations of women's servitude
+were unmistakably caught from his wife's view of the practical
+disabilities entailed by the feminine position.
+
+
+III.
+
+_Liberty_ was published in 1859, when the nineteenth century was half
+over, but in its general spirit and in some of its special tendencies
+the little tract belongs rather to the standpoint of the eighteenth
+century than to that which saw its birth. In many of his speculations
+John Stuart Mill forms a sort of connecting link between the doctrines
+of the earlier English empirical school and those which we associate
+with the name of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In his _Logic_, for instance, he
+represents an advance on the theories of Hume, and yet does not see how
+profoundly the victories of Science modify the conclusions of the
+earlier thinker. Similarly, in his _Political Economy_, he desires to
+improve and to enlarge upon Ricardo, and yet does not advance so far as
+the modifications of political economy by Sociology, indicated by some
+later--and especially German--speculations on the subject. In the tract
+on _Liberty_, Mill is advocating the rights of the individual as against
+Society at the very opening of an era that was rapidly coming to the
+conclusion that the individual had no absolute rights against Society.
+The eighteenth century view is that individuals existed first, each with
+their own special claims and responsibilities; that they deliberately
+formed a Social State, either by a contract or otherwise; and that then
+finally they limited their own action out of regard for the interests of
+the social organism thus arbitrarily produced. This is hardly the view
+of the nineteenth century. It is possible that logically the individual
+is prior to the State; historically and in the order of Nature, the
+State is prior to the individual. In other words, such rights as every
+single personality possesses in a modern world do not belong to him by
+an original ordinance of Nature, but are slowly acquired in the growth
+and development of the social state. It is not the truth that individual
+liberties were forfeited by some deliberate act when men made themselves
+into a Commonwealth. It is more true to say, as Aristotle said long ago,
+that man is naturally a political animal, that he lived under strict
+social laws as a mere item, almost a nonentity, as compared with the
+Order, Society, or Community to which he belonged, and that such
+privileges as he subsequently acquired have been obtained in virtue of
+his growing importance as a member of a growing organisation. But if
+this is even approximately true, it seriously restricts that liberty of
+the individual for which Mill pleads. The individual has no chance,
+because he has no rights, against the social organism. Society can
+punish him for acts or even opinions which are anti-social in character.
+His virtue lies in recognising the intimate communion with his fellows.
+His sphere of activity is bounded by the common interest. Just as it is
+an absurd and exploded theory that all men are originally equal, so it
+is an ancient and false doctrine to protest that a man has an individual
+liberty to live and think as he chooses in any spirit of antagonism to
+that larger body of which he forms an insignificant part.
+
+Nowadays this view of Society and of its development, which we largely
+owe to the _Philosophie Positive_ of M. Auguste Comte, is so familiar
+and possibly so damaging to the individual initiative, that it becomes
+necessary to advance and proclaim the truth which resides in an opposite
+theory. All progress, as we are aware, depends on the joint process of
+integration and differentiation; synthesis, analysis, and then a larger
+synthesis seem to form the law of development. If it ever comes to pass
+that Society is tyrannical in its restrictions of the individual, if, as
+for instance in some forms of Socialism, based on deceptive analogies of
+Nature's dealings, the type is everything and the individual nothing, it
+must be confidently urged in answer that the fuller life of the future
+depends on the manifold activities, even though they may be
+antagonistic, of the individual. In England, at all events, we know that
+government in all its different forms, whether as King, or as a caste
+of nobles, or as an oligarchical plutocracy, or even as trades unions,
+is so dwarfing in its action that, for the sake of the future, the
+individual must revolt. Just as our former point of view limited the
+value of Mill's treatise on _Liberty_, so these considerations tend to
+show its eternal importance. The omnipotence of Society means a dead
+level of uniformity. The claim of the individual to be heard, to say
+what he likes, to do what he likes, to live as he likes, is absolutely
+necessary, not only for the variety of elements without which life is
+poor, but also for the hope of a future age. So long as individual
+initiative and effort are recognised as a vital element in English
+history, so long will Mill's _Liberty_, which he confesses was based on
+a suggestion derived from Von Humboldt, remain as an indispensable
+contribution to the speculations, and also to the health and sanity, of
+the world.
+
+
+What his wife really was to Mill, we shall, perhaps, never know. But
+that she was an actual and vivid force, which roused the latent
+enthusiasm of his nature, we have abundant evidence. And when she died
+at Avignon, though his friends may have regained an almost estranged
+companionship, Mill was, personally, the poorer. Into the sorrow of that
+bereavement we cannot enter: we have no right or power to draw the veil.
+It is enough to quote the simple words, so eloquent of an unspoken
+grief--"I can say nothing which could describe, even in the faintest
+manner, what that loss was and is. But because I know that she would
+have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left,
+and to work for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be
+derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory."
+
+
+W. L. COURTNEY.
+
+LONDON, _July 5th, 1901_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Life of John Stuart Mill_, chapter vi. (Walter Scott.)
+
+[2] _Autobiography_, p. 190.
+
+[3] _Ibid._, p. 242.
+
+[4] _Autobiography_, pp. 246, 247.
+
+[5] Cf. an instructive page in the _Autobiography_, p. 252.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+                                            PAGE
+INTRODUCTORY                                   1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION      28
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS
+OF WELL-BEING                                103
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY
+OVER THE INDIVIDUAL                          140
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+APPLICATIONS                                 177
+
+
+
+
+The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument
+unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and
+essential importance of human development in its richest
+diversity.--WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT: _Sphere and Duties of
+Government_.
+
+
+
+
+ON LIBERTY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so
+unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical
+Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the
+power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the
+individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in
+general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical
+controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to
+make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is so far
+from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost
+from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more
+civilised portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself
+under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental
+treatment.
+
+The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous
+feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar,
+particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this
+contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the
+government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the
+political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the
+popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position
+to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a
+governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance
+or conquest, who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the
+governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not
+desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its
+oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as
+highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against
+their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the
+weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable
+vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey
+stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king
+of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any
+of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude
+of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots,
+was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to
+exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by
+liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition
+of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights, which it
+was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler to infringe, and
+which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was
+held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a later expedient, was
+the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the
+community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent its
+interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important
+acts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation,
+the ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or
+less, to submit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or
+when already in some degree possessed, to attain it more completely,
+became everywhere the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so
+long as mankind were content to combat one enemy by another, and to be
+ruled by a master, on condition of being guaranteed more or less
+efficaciously against his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations
+beyond this point.
+
+A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men ceased
+to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an
+independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to
+them much better that the various magistrates of the State should be
+their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way
+alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers of
+government would never be abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this
+new demand for elective and temporary rulers became the prominent object
+of the exertions of the popular party, wherever any such party existed;
+and superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit
+the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling
+power emanate from the periodical choice of the ruled, some persons
+began to think that too much importance had been attached to the
+limitation of the power itself. _That_ (it might seem) was a resource
+against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the
+people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified
+with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and
+will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its
+own will. There was no fear of its tyrannising over itself. Let the
+rulers be effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and
+it could afford to trust them with power of which it could itself
+dictate the use to be made. Their power was but the nation's own power,
+concentrated, and in a form convenient for exercise. This mode of
+thought, or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last
+generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which
+it still apparently predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a
+government may do, except in the case of such governments as they think
+ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the
+political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might
+by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the
+circumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.
+
+But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons,
+success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have
+concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to
+limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular
+government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed
+at some distant period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily
+disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of the French
+Revolution, the worst of which were the work of a usurping few, and
+which, in any case, belonged, not to the permanent working of popular
+institutions, but to a sudden and convulsive outbreak against
+monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic
+republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made
+itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of
+nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the
+observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It
+was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and "the power
+of the people over themselves," do not express the true state of the
+case. The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people
+with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken
+of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the
+rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of
+the most numerous or the most active _part_ of the people; the majority,
+or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the
+people, consequently, _may_ desire to oppress a part of their number;
+and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other
+abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government
+over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power
+are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest
+party therein. This view of things, recommending itself equally to the
+intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important
+classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests
+democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and
+in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is now generally
+included among the evils against which society requires to be on its
+guard.
+
+Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is
+still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of
+the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when
+society is itself the tyrant--society collectively, over the separate
+individuals who compose it--its means of tyrannising are not restricted
+to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries.
+Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong
+mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which
+it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable
+than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually
+upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape,
+penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the
+soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the
+magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the
+tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of
+society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas
+and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to
+fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any
+individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to
+fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the
+legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual
+independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against
+encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs,
+as protection against political despotism.
+
+But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general
+terms, the practical question, where to place the limit--how to make the
+fitting adjustment between individual independence and social
+control--is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All
+that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of
+restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct,
+therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on
+many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law. What
+these rules should be, is the principal question in human affairs; but
+if we except a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which
+least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any
+two countries, have decided it alike; and the decision of one age or
+country is a wonder to another. Yet the people of any given age and
+country no more suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject
+on which mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among
+themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but
+universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of
+custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature, but is
+continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing
+any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind impose on
+one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one on
+which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be
+given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are
+accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some
+who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on
+subjects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons
+unnecessary. The practical principle which guides them to their opinions
+on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind
+that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he
+sympathises, would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to
+himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion
+on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one
+person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere appeal
+to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still only many
+people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own
+preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory
+reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of
+morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his
+religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that.
+Men's opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are
+affected by all the multifarious causes which influence their wishes in
+regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those
+which determine their wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their
+reason--at other times their prejudices or superstitions: often their
+social affections, not seldom their anti-social ones, their envy or
+jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their
+desires or fears for themselves--their legitimate or illegitimate
+self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of
+the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its
+feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and Helots,
+between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between
+nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for the most part
+the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments
+thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members of
+the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the
+other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or
+where its ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments
+frequently bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority.
+Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act
+and forbearance, which have been enforced by law or opinion, has been
+the servility of mankind towards the supposed preferences or aversions
+of their temporal masters, or of their gods. This servility, though
+essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly
+genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and
+heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious
+interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in the
+direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason,
+and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and
+antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which
+had little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made
+themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great
+force.
+
+The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of
+it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules
+laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or
+opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in
+thought and feeling have left this condition of things unassailed in
+principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of
+its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what
+things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its
+likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred
+endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points
+on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause
+in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case in which
+the higher ground has been taken on principle and maintained with
+consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that of
+religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as
+forming a most striking instance of the fallibility of what is called
+the moral sense: for the _odium theologicum_, in a sincere bigot, is one
+of the most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first broke
+the yoke of what called itself the Universal Church, were in general as
+little willing to permit difference of religious opinion as that church
+itself. But when the heat of the conflict was over, without giving a
+complete victory to any party, and each church or sect was reduced to
+limit its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already
+occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming
+majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to those whom they
+could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this
+battle-field, almost solely, that the rights of the individual against
+society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim
+of society to exercise authority over dissentients, openly controverted.
+The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it
+possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible
+right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others
+for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in
+whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly
+anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference,
+which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has
+added its weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious
+persons, even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is
+admitted with tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in
+matters of church government, but not of dogma; another can tolerate
+everybody, short of a Papist or a Unitarian; another, every one who
+believes in revealed religion; a few extend their charity a little
+further, but stop at the belief in a God and in a future state. Wherever
+the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found
+to have abated little of its claim to be obeyed.
+
+In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history,
+though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter,
+than in most other countries of Europe; and there is considerable
+jealousy of direct interference, by the legislative or the executive
+power, with private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the
+independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting habit of
+looking on the government as representing an opposite interest to the
+public. The majority have not yet learnt to feel the power of the
+government their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so,
+individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the
+government, as it already is from public opinion. But, as yet, there is
+a considerable amount of feeling ready to be called forth against any
+attempt of the law to control individuals in things in which they have
+not hitherto been accustomed to be controlled by it; and this with very
+little discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within the
+legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the feeling, highly
+salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as often misplaced as well
+grounded in the particular instances of its application. There is, in
+fact, no recognised principle by which the propriety or impropriety of
+government interference is customarily tested. People decide according
+to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be
+done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government
+to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount
+of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human
+interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on
+one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general
+direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest
+which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the
+government should do, or according to the belief they entertain that the
+government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but
+very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere,
+as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And it seems to me
+that in consequence of this absence of rule or principle, one side is
+at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government
+is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly
+condemned.
+
+The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as
+entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the
+individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used
+be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion
+of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which
+mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with
+the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That
+the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
+member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
+others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
+warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
+will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
+because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even
+right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning
+with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling
+him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify
+that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be
+calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the
+conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which
+concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his
+independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and
+mind, the individual is sovereign.
+
+It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to
+apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are
+not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the
+law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a
+state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected
+against their own actions as well as against external injury. For the
+same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of
+society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The
+early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
+there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler
+full of the spirit of improvement is warranted in the use of any
+expedients that will attain an end, perhaps otherwise unattainable.
+Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with
+barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means
+justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has
+no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind
+have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.
+Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar
+or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon
+as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own
+improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in
+all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), compulsion,
+either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for
+non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good,
+and justifiable only for the security of others.
+
+It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be derived
+to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent
+of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical
+questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the
+permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I
+contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external
+control, only in respect to those actions of each, which concern the
+interest of other people. If any one does an act hurtful to others,
+there is a _prima facie_ case for punishing him, by law, or, where legal
+penalties are not safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There
+are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
+rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court
+of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defence, or in any
+other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he
+enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual
+beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to
+protect the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is
+obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to
+society for not doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his
+actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable
+to them for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much
+more cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one
+answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to make him answerable
+for not preventing evil, is, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet
+there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that
+exception. In all things which regard the external relations of the
+individual, he is _de jure_ amenable to those whose interests are
+concerned, and if need be, to society as their protector. There are
+often good reasons for not holding him to the responsibility; but these
+reasons must arise from the special expediencies of the case: either
+because it is a kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act
+better, when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in any way
+in which society have it in their power to control him; or because the
+attempt to exercise control would produce other evils, greater than
+those which it would prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the
+enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself
+should step into the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests
+of others which have no external protection; judging himself all the
+more rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made
+accountable to the judgment of his fellow-creatures.
+
+But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from
+the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending
+all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only
+himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary,
+and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I
+mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself,
+may affect others _through_ himself; and the objection which may be
+grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel.
+This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises,
+first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of
+conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and
+feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects,
+practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty
+of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different
+principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual
+which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as
+the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same
+reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle
+requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life
+to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such
+consequences as may follow: without impediment from our
+fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though
+they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from
+this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same
+limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any
+purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being
+supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
+
+No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is
+free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely
+free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only
+freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our
+own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or
+impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his
+own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater
+gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves,
+than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
+
+Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons, may have
+the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more directly
+opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and practice.
+Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt (according to
+its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as
+of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought themselves
+entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers countenanced, the
+regulation of every part of private conduct by public authority, on the
+ground that the State had a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental
+discipline of every one of its citizens; a mode of thinking which may
+have been admissible in small republics surrounded by powerful enemies,
+in constant peril of being subverted by foreign attack or internal
+commotion, and to which even a short interval of relaxed energy and
+self-command might so easily be fatal, that they could not afford to
+wait for the salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world,
+the greater size of political communities, and above all, the separation
+between spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of
+men's consciences in other hands than those which controlled their
+worldly affairs), prevented so great an interference by law in the
+details of private life; but the engines of moral repression have been
+wielded more strenuously against divergence from the reigning opinion in
+self-regarding, than even in social matters; religion, the most powerful
+of the elements which have entered into the formation of moral feeling,
+having almost always been governed either by the ambition of a
+hierarchy, seeking control over every department of human conduct, or by
+the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern reformers who have
+placed themselves in strongest opposition to the religions of the past,
+have been noway behind either churches or sects in their assertion of
+the right of spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social
+system, as unfolded in his _Traite de Politique Positive_, aims at
+establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a despotism
+of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the
+political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient
+philosophers.
+
+Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in
+the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the
+powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and
+even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes
+taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the
+power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which
+tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and
+more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as
+fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule
+of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best
+and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is
+hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as
+the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of
+moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in
+the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.
+
+It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at once entering
+upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves in the first instance to a
+single branch of it, on which the principle here stated is, if not
+fully, yet to a certain point, recognised by the current opinions. This
+one branch is the Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to
+separate the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing. Although these
+liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of the political
+morality of all countries which profess religious toleration and free
+institutions, the grounds, both philosophical and practical, on which
+they rest, are perhaps not so familiar to the general mind, nor so
+thoroughly appreciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might
+have been expected. Those grounds, when rightly understood, are of much
+wider application than to only one division of the subject, and a
+thorough consideration of this part of the question will be found the
+best introduction to the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am
+about to say will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on a
+subject which for now three centuries has been so often discussed, I
+venture on one discussion more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION.
+
+
+The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be
+necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against
+corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now
+be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not
+identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them,
+and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to
+hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so
+triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it need not be
+specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the
+subject of the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of
+the Tudors, there is little danger of its being actually put in force
+against political discussion, except during some temporary panic, when
+fear of insurrection drives ministers and judges from their
+propriety;[6] and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional
+countries, to be apprehended that the government, whether completely
+responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to control the
+expression of opinion, except when in doing so it makes itself the organ
+of the general intolerance of the public. Let us suppose, therefore,
+that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks
+of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it
+conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to
+exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The
+power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to
+it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in
+accordance with public opinion, than when in or opposition to it. If all
+mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the
+contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that
+one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in
+silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value
+except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were
+simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the
+injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar
+evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing
+the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who
+dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the
+opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging
+error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit,
+the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its
+collision with error.
+
+It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of
+which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can
+never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false
+opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
+
+
+First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may
+possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its
+truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the
+question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means
+of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure
+that it is false, is to assume that _their_ certainty is the same thing
+as _absolute_ certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption
+of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common
+argument, not the worse for being common.
+
+Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact of their
+fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their practical judgment,
+which is always allowed to it in theory; for while every one well knows
+himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions
+against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any
+opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of
+the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute
+princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually
+feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all
+subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their
+opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they
+are wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their
+opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they
+habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his
+own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on
+the infallibility of "the world" in general. And the world, to each
+individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his
+party, his sect, his church, his class of society: the man may be
+called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-minded to whom it means
+anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his
+faith in this collective authority at all shaken by his being aware that
+other ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have
+thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He devolves upon his own
+world the responsibility of being in the right against the dissentient
+worlds of other people; and it never troubles him that mere accident has
+decided which of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance,
+and that the same causes which make him a Churchman in London, would
+have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin. Yet it is as evident
+in itself as any amount of argument can make it, that ages are no more
+infallible than individuals; every age having held many opinions which
+subsequent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is as
+certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future
+ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected by the present.
+
+The objection likely to be made to this argument, would probably take
+some such form as the following. There is no greater assumption of
+infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error, than in any other
+thing which is done by public authority on its own judgment and
+responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because
+it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to
+use it at all? To prohibit what they think pernicious, is not claiming
+exemption from error, but fulfilling the duty incumbent on them,
+although fallible, of acting on their conscientious conviction. If we
+were never to act on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong,
+we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our duties
+unperformed. An objection which applies to all conduct, can be no valid
+objection to any conduct in particular. It is the duty of governments,
+and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them
+carefully, and never impose them upon others unless they are quite sure
+of being right. But when they are sure (such reasoners may say), it is
+not conscientiousness but cowardice to shrink from acting on their
+opinions, and allow doctrines which they honestly think dangerous to the
+welfare of mankind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered
+abroad without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened
+times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true. Let us take
+care, it may be said, not to make the same mistake: but governments and
+nations have made mistakes in other things, which are not denied to be
+fit subjects for the exercise of authority: they have laid on bad taxes,
+made unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, and, under
+whatever provocation, make no wars? Men, and governments, must act to
+the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty,
+but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life. We
+may, and must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our own
+conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid bad men to pervert
+society by the propagation of opinions which we regard as false and
+pernicious.
+
+I answer that it is assuming very much more. There is the greatest
+difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because, with every
+opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its
+truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty
+of contradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition which
+justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no
+other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance
+of being right.
+
+When we consider either the history of opinion, or the ordinary conduct
+of human life, to what is it to be ascribed that the one and the other
+are no worse than they are? Not certainly to the inherent force of the
+human understanding; for, on any matter not self-evident, there are
+ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it, for one who is
+capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative;
+for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many
+opinions now known to be erroneous, and did or approved numerous things
+which no one will now justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the
+whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational
+conduct? If there really is this preponderance--which there must be,
+unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost desperate
+state--it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of
+everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral
+being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of
+rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience
+alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be
+interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and
+argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind,
+must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own
+story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength
+and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that
+it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only
+when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the
+case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how
+has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his
+opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all
+that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just,
+and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what
+was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human
+being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by
+hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of
+opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every
+character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but
+this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any
+other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own
+opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt
+and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable
+foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognisant of all that
+can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his
+position against all gainsayers--knowing that he has sought for
+objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out
+no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter--he has a
+right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any
+multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.
+
+It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who
+are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant
+their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous
+collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the
+public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even
+at the canonisation of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a
+"devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted
+to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is
+known and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted
+to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance of its
+truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have most warrant for, have
+no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to
+prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted
+and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we
+have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we
+have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching
+us: if the lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better
+truth, it will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it;
+and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to
+truth, as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty
+attainable by a fallible being, and this the sole way of attaining it.
+
+Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for
+free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not
+seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are
+not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are
+not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be
+free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be _doubtful_, but
+think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to
+be questioned because it is _so certain_, that is, because _they are
+certain_ that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while
+there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is
+not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with
+us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other
+side.
+
+In the present age--which has been described as "destitute of faith, but
+terrified at scepticism"--in which people feel sure, not so much that
+their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without
+them--the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are
+rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There
+are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable
+to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold
+those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a
+case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty,
+something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and
+even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the
+general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener
+thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary
+beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining
+bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise.
+This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on
+discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their
+usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the
+responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But
+those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption
+of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The
+usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as
+open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion
+itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to
+decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the
+opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will
+not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or
+harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The
+truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or
+not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it
+possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In
+the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is
+contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men
+from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for
+denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they
+believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions,
+never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find
+_them_ handling the question of utility as if it could be completely
+abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all,
+because their doctrine is "the truth," that the knowledge or the belief
+of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of
+the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on
+one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public
+feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are
+just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they
+allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive
+guilt of rejecting it.
+
+In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying a hearing to
+opinions because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them, it will
+be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete case; and I
+choose, by preference, the cases which are least favourable to me--in
+which the argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of
+truth and on that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the
+opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a future state, or any
+of the commonly received doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on
+such ground, gives a great advantage to an unfair antagonist; since he
+will be sure to say (and many who have no desire to be unfair will say
+it internally), Are these the doctrines which you do not deem
+sufficiently certain to be taken under the protection of law? Is the
+belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which, you hold to
+be assuming infallibility? But I must be permitted to observe, that it
+is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call
+an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that
+question _for others_, without allowing them to hear what can be said on
+the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the
+less, if put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However
+positive any one's persuasion may be, not only of the falsity, but of
+the pernicious consequences--not only of the pernicious consequences,
+but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and
+impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance of that private judgment,
+though backed by the public judgment of his country or his
+contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence,
+he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less
+objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or
+impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal. These
+are exactly the occasions on which the men of one generation commit
+those dreadful mistakes, which excite the astonishment and horror of
+posterity. It is among such that we find the instances memorable in
+history, when the arm of the law has been employed to root out the best
+men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable success as to the men,
+though some of the doctrines have survived to be (as if in mockery)
+invoked, in defence of similar conduct towards those who dissent from
+_them_, or from their received interpretation.
+
+Mankind can hardly be too often reminded that there was once a man named
+Socrates, between whom and the legal authorities and public opinion of
+his time, there took place a memorable collision. Born in an age and
+country abounding in individual greatness, this man has been handed down
+to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the most virtuous
+man in it; while _we_ know him as the head and prototype of all
+subsequent teachers of virtue, the source equally of the lofty
+inspiration of Plato and the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, "_i
+maestri di color che sanno_," the two headsprings of ethical as of all
+other philosophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers
+who have since lived--whose fame, still growing after more than two
+thousand years, all but outweighs the whole remainder of the names which
+make his native city illustrious--was put to death by his countrymen,
+after a judicial conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in
+denying the gods recognised by the State; indeed his accuser asserted
+(see the "Apologia") that he believed in no gods at all. Immorality, in
+being, by his doctrines and instructions, a "corruptor of youth." Of
+these charges the tribunal, there is every ground for believing,
+honestly found him guilty, and condemned the man who probably of all
+then born had deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a
+criminal.
+
+To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial iniquity, the
+mention of which, after the condemnation of Socrates, would not be an
+anticlimax: the event which took place on Calvary rather more than
+eighteen hundred years ago. The man who left on the memory of those who
+witnessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his moral
+grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have done homage to him as
+the Almighty in person, was ignominiously put to death, as what? As a
+blasphemer. Men did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook
+him for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as that
+prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now held to be, for their
+treatment of him. The feelings with which mankind now regard these
+lamentable transactions, especially the later of the two, render them
+extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to
+all appearance, not bad men--not worse than men commonly are, but rather
+the contrary; men who possessed in a full, or somewhat more than a full
+measure, the religious, moral, and patriotic feelings of their time and
+people: the very kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have
+every chance of passing through life blameless and respected. The
+high-priest who rent his garments when the words were pronounced, which,
+according to all the ideas of his country, constituted the blackest
+guilt, was in all probability quite as sincere in his horror and
+indignation, as the generality of respectable and pious men now are in
+the religious and moral sentiments they profess; and most of those who
+now shudder at his conduct, if they had lived in his time, and been born
+Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox Christians who are
+tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first martyrs must
+have been worse men than they themselves are, ought to remember that one
+of those persecutors was Saint Paul.
+
+Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if the
+impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom and virtue of him
+who falls into it. If ever any one, possessed of power, had grounds for
+thinking himself the best and most enlightened among his cotemporaries,
+it was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole
+civilised world, he preserved through life not only the most unblemished
+justice, but what was less to be expected from his Stoical breeding, the
+tenderest heart. The few failings which are attributed to him, were all
+on the side of indulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical
+product of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they differ
+at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ. This man, a
+better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense of the word, than almost
+any of the ostensibly Christian sovereigns who have since reigned,
+persecuted Christianity. Placed at the summit of all the previous
+attainments of humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a
+character which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the
+Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was to be a good
+and not an evil to the world, with his duties to which he was so deeply
+penetrated. Existing society he knew to be in a deplorable state. But
+such as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, that it was held together,
+and prevented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the received
+divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it his duty not to suffer
+society to fall in pieces; and saw not how, if its existing ties were
+removed, any others could be formed which could again knit it together.
+The new religion openly aimed at dissolving these ties: unless,
+therefore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be his
+duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology of Christianity did
+not appear to him true or of divine origin; inasmuch as this strange
+history of a crucified God was not credible to him, and a system which
+purported to rest entirely upon a foundation to him so wholly
+unbelievable, could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating agency
+which, after all abatements, it has in fact proved to be; the gentlest
+and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under a solemn sense of
+duty, authorised the persecution of Christianity. To my mind this is one
+of the most tragical facts in all history. It is a bitter thought, how
+different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the
+Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the
+auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. But it
+would be equally unjust to him and false to truth, to deny, that no one
+plea which can be urged for punishing anti-Christian teaching, was
+wanting to Marcus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propagation of
+Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that Atheism is false,
+and tends to the dissolution of society, than Marcus Aurelius believed
+the same things of Christianity; he who, of all men then living, might
+have been thought the most capable of appreciating it. Unless any one
+who approves of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters
+himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus Aurelius--more
+deeply versed in the wisdom of his time, more elevated in his intellect
+above it--more earnest in his search for truth, or more single-minded in
+his devotion to it when found;--let him abstain from that assumption of
+the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which the great
+Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.
+
+Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment for
+restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument which will not justify
+Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of religious freedom, when hard pressed,
+occasionally accept this consequence, and say, with Dr. Johnson, that
+the persecutors of Christianity were in the right; that persecution is
+an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always passes
+successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, powerless against
+truth, though sometimes beneficially effective against mischievous
+errors. This is a form of the argument for religious intolerance,
+sufficiently remarkable not to be passed without notice.
+
+A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be persecuted
+because persecution cannot possibly do it any harm, cannot be charged
+with being intentionally hostile to the reception of new truths; but we
+cannot commend the generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom
+mankind are indebted for them. To discover to the world something which
+deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to
+it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or
+spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can
+render to his fellow-creatures, and in certain cases, as in those of the
+early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think with Dr. Johnson
+believe it to have been the most precious gift which could be bestowed
+on mankind. That the authors of such splendid benefits should be
+requited by martyrdom; that their reward should be to be dealt with as
+the vilest of criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error
+and misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth and ashes,
+but the normal and justifiable state of things. The propounder of a new
+truth, according to this doctrine, should stand, as stood, in the
+legislation of the Locrians, the proposer of a new law, with a halter
+round his neck, to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did
+not, on hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition.
+People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, cannot be supposed
+to set much value on the benefit; and I believe this view of the subject
+is mostly confined to the sort of persons who think that new truths may
+have been desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.
+
+But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is
+one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another
+till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
+History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not
+suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only
+of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out at least twenty times
+before Luther, and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra
+Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were put
+down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards were put down. The
+Hussites were put down. Even after the era of Luther, wherever
+persecution was persisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy,
+Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most
+likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen
+Elizabeth died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the
+heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No
+reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated
+in the Roman Empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the
+persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and
+separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a
+piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any
+inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and
+the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for
+error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties
+will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real
+advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is
+true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the
+course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it,
+until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable
+circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to
+withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.
+
+It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of new
+opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we even
+build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to death;
+and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would probably
+tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to
+extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free
+from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at
+least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is
+not, even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible
+that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at
+the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man,[7]
+said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was
+sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment, for uttering, and writing
+on a gate, some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month
+of the same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate
+occasions,[8] were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted
+by the judge and by one of the counsel, because they honestly declared
+that they had no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner,[9] for
+the same reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of
+redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can
+be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess
+belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is
+equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the
+protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted
+with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions,
+be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity,
+if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on
+which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who
+does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much
+ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is historically
+true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons
+of distinguished integrity and honour); and would be maintained by no
+one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in greatest
+repute with the world, both for virtues and for attainments, are well
+known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule,
+besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence
+that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who
+are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of
+publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A
+rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed
+purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of
+persecution; a persecution, too, having the peculiarity, that the
+qualification for undergoing it, is the being clearly proved not to
+deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less
+insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who does not believe
+in a future state, necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe
+are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of
+hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of
+supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian
+virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.
+
+These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may be
+thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute, as an
+example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds, which makes
+them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion of a bad principle,
+when they are no longer bad enough to desire to carry it really into
+practice. But unhappily there is no security in the state of the public
+mind, that the suspension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has
+lasted for about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age
+the quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to
+resuscitate past evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of
+at the present time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow
+and uncultivated minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and
+where there is the strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the
+feelings of a people, which at all times abides in the middle classes of
+this country, it needs but little to provoke them into actively
+persecuting those whom they have never ceased to think proper objects of
+persecution.[10] For it is this--it is the opinions men entertain, and
+the feelings they cherish, respecting those who disown the beliefs they
+deem important, which makes this country not a place of mental freedom.
+For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that
+they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really
+effective, and so effective is it that the profession of opinions which
+are under the ban of society is much less common in England, than is, in
+many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial
+punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary
+circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people,
+opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be
+imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those
+whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in
+power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear
+from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and
+ill-spoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to
+enable them to bear. There is no room for any appeal _ad misericordiam_
+in behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil
+on those who think differently from us, as it was formerly our custom to
+do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment
+of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose
+like the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole
+intellectual firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the
+Christian church grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the
+older and less vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our
+merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but
+induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for
+their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or
+even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far
+and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and
+studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the
+general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And
+thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds,
+because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning
+anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed,
+while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by
+dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for
+having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on
+therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort
+of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral
+courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of
+the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the
+genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own
+breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much
+as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have
+internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters,
+and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.
+The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere
+conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on
+all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which
+have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by
+narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of
+without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small
+practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the
+minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be
+made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and
+enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest
+subjects, is abandoned.
+
+Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil,
+should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is
+never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that
+such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be
+prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of
+heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry
+which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done
+is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is
+cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute
+what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined
+with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous,
+independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something
+which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among
+them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and
+subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating
+with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of
+ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience
+and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end
+succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise,
+that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to
+whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of
+one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the
+true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer
+themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great
+thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is
+as much, and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to
+attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been,
+and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of
+mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that
+atmosphere, an intellectually active people. Where any people has made a
+temporary approach to such a character, it has been because the dread
+of heterodox speculation was for a time suspended. Where there is a
+tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the
+discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is
+considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high
+scale of mental activity which has made some periods of history so
+remarkable. Never when controversy avoided the subjects which are large
+and important enough to kindle enthusiasm, was the mind of a people
+stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even
+persons of the most ordinary intellect to something of the dignity of
+thinking beings. Of such we have had an example in the condition of
+Europe during the times immediately following the Reformation; another,
+though limited to the Continent and to a more cultivated class, in the
+speculative movement of the latter half of the eighteenth century; and a
+third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of
+Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods differed
+widely in the particular opinions which they developed; but were alike
+in this, that during all three the yoke of authority was broken. In
+each, an old mental despotism had been thrown off, and no new one had
+yet taken its place. The impulse given at these three periods has made
+Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place
+either in the human mind or in institutions, may be traced distinctly to
+one or other of them. Appearances have for some time indicated that all
+three impulses are well-nigh spent; and we can expect no fresh start,
+until we again assert our mental freedom.
+
+Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing
+the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false, let us
+assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner in
+which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and
+openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion
+may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be
+moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not
+fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead
+dogma, not a living truth.
+
+There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly)
+who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think
+true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion,
+and could not make a tenable defence of it against the most superficial
+objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from
+authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its
+being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they
+make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely
+and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and
+ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and
+when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give
+way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however,
+this possibility--assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but
+abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against,
+argument--this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a
+rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but
+one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which
+enunciate a truth.
+
+If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated, a thing
+which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these faculties be
+more appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things which
+concern him so much that it is considered necessary for him to hold
+opinions on them? If the cultivation of the understanding consists in
+one thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of
+one's own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is
+of the first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to
+defend against at least the common objections. But, some one may say,
+"Let them be _taught_ the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow
+that opinions must be merely parroted because they are never heard
+controverted. Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the
+theorems to memory, but understand and learn likewise the
+demonstrations; and it would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant
+of the grounds of geometrical truths, because they never hear any one
+deny, and attempt to disprove them." Undoubtedly: and such teaching
+suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to
+be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the
+evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one
+side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on
+every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth
+depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting
+reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other
+explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead
+of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be
+shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is
+shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the
+grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more
+complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the
+business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed
+opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion
+different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left
+it on record that he always studied his adversary's case with as great,
+if not with still greater, intensity than even his own. What Cicero
+practised as the means of forensic success, requires to be imitated by
+all who study any subject in order to arrive at the truth. He who knows
+only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be
+good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally
+unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so
+much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
+opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment,
+and unless he contents himself with that, he is either led by
+authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to
+which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should hear
+the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they
+state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is
+not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real
+contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who
+actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very
+utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and
+persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which
+the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he
+will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets
+and removes that difficulty. Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called
+educated men are in this condition; even of those who can argue fluently
+for their opinions. Their conclusion may be true, but it might be false
+for anything they know: they have never thrown themselves into the
+mental position of those who think differently from them, and considered
+what such persons may have to say; and consequently they do not, in any
+proper sense of the word, know the doctrine which they themselves
+profess. They do not know those parts of it which explain and justify
+the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly
+conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two
+apparently strong reasons, one and not the other ought to be preferred.
+All that part of the truth which turns the scale, and decides the
+judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it
+ever really known, but to those who have attended equally and
+impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in
+the strongest light. So essential is this discipline to a real
+understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all
+important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and
+supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil's
+advocate can conjure up.
+
+To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion
+may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in
+general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their
+opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for
+common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an
+ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody
+capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead
+uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been
+taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust
+to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither
+knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised,
+may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have
+been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.
+
+Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for
+it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of
+truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument
+for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine
+acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all
+objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be
+answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can
+the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no
+opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at
+least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the
+difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in
+their most puzzling form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they
+are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they
+admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of dealing with this
+embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between those who can
+be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must
+accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what
+they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided
+in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the
+arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore,
+read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard
+to be obtained. This discipline recognises a knowledge of the enemy's
+case as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with
+this, of denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the _elite_
+more mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to
+the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental
+superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without
+freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever _nisi
+prius_ advocate of a cause. But in countries professing Protestantism,
+this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory,
+that the responsibility for the choice of a religion must be borne by
+each for himself, and cannot be thrown off upon teachers. Besides, in
+the present state of the world, it is practically impossible that
+writings which are read by the instructed can be kept from the
+uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be cognisant of all that
+they ought to know, everything must be free to be written and published
+without restraint.
+
+If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free
+discussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined to
+leaving men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might be
+thought that this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and does not
+affect the worth of the opinions, regarded in their influence on the
+character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds of the
+opinion are forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the
+meaning of the opinion itself. The words which convey it, cease to
+suggest ideas, or suggest only a small portion of those they were
+originally employed to communicate. Instead of a vivid conception and a
+living belief, there remain only a few phrases retained by rote; or, if
+any part, the shell and husk only of the meaning is retained, the finer
+essence being lost. The great chapter in human history which this fact
+occupies and fills, cannot be too earnestly studied and meditated on.
+
+It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and
+religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who
+originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their
+meaning continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps
+brought out into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle
+lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds. At
+last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its
+progress stops; it keeps possession of the ground it has gained, but
+ceases to spread further. When either of these results has become
+apparent, controversy on the subject flags, and gradually dies away. The
+doctrine has taken its place, if not as a received opinion, as one of
+the admitted sects or divisions of opinion: those who hold it have
+generally inherited, not adopted it; and conversion from one of these
+doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little
+place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at
+first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the
+world, or to bring the world over to them, they have subsided into
+acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to arguments
+against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such) with
+arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the decline
+in the living power of the doctrine. We often hear the teachers of all
+creeds lamenting the difficulty of keeping up in the minds of believers
+a lively apprehension of the truth which they nominally recognise, so
+that it may penetrate the feelings, and acquire a real mastery over the
+conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still
+fighting for its existence: even the weaker combatants then know and
+feel what they are fighting for, and the difference between it and other
+doctrines; and in that period of every creed's existence, not a few
+persons may be found, who have realised its fundamental principles in
+all the forms of thought, have weighed and considered them in all their
+important bearings, and have experienced the full effect on the
+character, which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind
+thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be a hereditary
+creed, and to be received passively, not actively--when the mind is no
+longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise its vital
+powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a
+progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the
+formularies, or to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it
+on trust dispensed with the necessity of realising it in consciousness,
+or testing it by personal experience; until it almost ceases to connect
+itself at all with the inner life of the human being. Then are seen the
+cases, so frequent in this age of the world as almost to form the
+majority, in which the creed remains as it were outside the mind,
+encrusting and petrifying it against all other influences addressed to
+the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering
+any fresh and living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for
+the mind or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them
+vacant.
+
+To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest
+impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without being
+ever realised in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is
+exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold the
+doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted
+such by all churches and sects--the maxims and precepts contained in the
+New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted as laws, by all
+professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say that not one
+Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by
+reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it, is the
+custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. He has
+thus, on the one hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes
+to have been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his
+government; and on the other, a set of every-day judgments and
+practices, which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so
+great a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and are,
+on the whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests
+and suggestions of worldly life. To the first of these standards he
+gives his homage; to the other his real allegiance. All Christians
+believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and those who are
+ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass through the
+eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; that
+they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should swear not
+at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves; that if one
+take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that they should
+take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect, they
+should sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are not
+insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe
+them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and never
+discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates
+conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it
+is usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are
+serviceable to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are
+to be put forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do
+that they think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims
+require an infinity of things which they never even think of doing,
+would gain nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular
+characters who affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have
+no hold on ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have
+a habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads
+from the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take
+_them_ in, and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is
+concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go
+in obeying Christ.
+
+Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far
+otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity
+never would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised Hebrews
+into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies said, "See how
+these Christians love one another" (a remark not likely to be made by
+anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier feeling of the meaning
+of their creed than they have ever had since. And to this cause,
+probably, it is chiefly owing that Christianity now makes so little
+progress in extending its domain, and after eighteen centuries, is still
+nearly confined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with
+the strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines,
+and attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people in
+general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively
+active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or some
+such person much nearer in character to themselves. The sayings of
+Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect
+beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.
+There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge of
+a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognised
+sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their meaning
+alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more
+questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers.
+Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there
+is no enemy in the field.
+
+The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional
+doctrines--those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of morals
+or religion. All languages and literatures are full of general
+observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself
+in it; observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or
+hears with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which
+most people first truly learn the meaning, when experience, generally of
+a painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting
+under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person call
+to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his life, the
+meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now, would
+have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for this,
+other than the absence of discussion: there are many truths of which the
+full meaning _cannot_ be realised, until personal experience has brought
+it home. But much more of the meaning even of these would have been
+understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply
+impressed on the mind, if the man had been accustomed to hear it argued
+_pro_ and _con_ by people who did understand it. The fatal tendency of
+mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer
+doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has
+well spoken of "the deep slumber of a decided opinion."
+
+But what! (it may be asked) Is the absence of unanimity an indispensable
+condition of true knowledge? Is it necessary that some part of mankind
+should persist in error, to enable any to realise the truth? Does a
+belief cease to be real and vital as soon as it is generally
+received--and is a proposition never thoroughly understood and felt
+unless some doubt of it remains? As soon as mankind have unanimously
+accepted a truth, does the truth perish within them? The highest aim and
+best result of improved intelligence, it has hitherto been thought, is
+to unite mankind more and more in the acknowledgment of all important
+truths: and does the intelligence only last as long as it has not
+achieved its object? Do the fruits of conquest perish by the very
+completeness of the victory?
+
+I affirm no such thing. As mankind improve, the number of doctrines
+which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the
+increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured by the
+number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being
+uncontested. The cessation, on one question after another, of serious
+controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of
+opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it
+is dangerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But though
+this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of opinion is
+necessary in both senses of the term, being at once inevitable and
+indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its
+consequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the
+intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the
+necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents,
+though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the
+benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can no longer
+be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind
+endeavouring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making
+the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's
+consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient
+champion, eager for his conversion.
+
+But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost
+those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently
+exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this
+description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the great
+questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate skill to the
+purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces of
+received opinion, that he did not understand the subject--that he as yet
+attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed; in order
+that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to
+attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the
+meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations of
+the middle ages had a somewhat similar object. They were intended to
+make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary
+correlation) the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of
+the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests
+had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to were
+taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline to the mind,
+they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which
+formed the intellects of the "Socratici viri": but the modern mind owes
+far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present
+modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies
+the place either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all
+his instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting
+temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to
+hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment,
+even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part of what
+everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends as a reply
+to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to disparage
+negative logic--that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in
+practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism
+would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to
+attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it
+cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically
+trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general
+average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical
+departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's opinions
+deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had
+forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental
+process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active
+controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so
+indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd is it
+to forego, when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons
+who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will
+let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them,
+and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought,
+if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our
+convictions, to do with much greater labour for ourselves.
+
+
+It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes which make
+diversity of opinion advantageous, and will continue to do so until
+mankind shall have entered a stage of intellectual advancement which at
+present seems at an incalculable distance. We have hitherto considered
+only two possibilities: that the received opinion may be false, and some
+other opinion, consequently, true; or that, the received opinion being
+true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear
+apprehension and deep feeling of its truth. But there is a commoner
+case than either of these; when the conflicting doctrines, instead of
+being one true and the other false, share the truth between them; and
+the nonconforming opinion is needed to supply the remainder of the
+truth, of which the received doctrine embodies only a part. Popular
+opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom
+or never the whole truth. They are a part of the truth; sometimes a
+greater, sometimes a smaller part, but exaggerated, distorted, and
+disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and
+limited. Heretical opinions, on the other hand, are generally some of
+these suppressed and neglected truths, bursting the bonds which kept
+them down, and either seeking reconciliation with the truth contained in
+the common opinion, or fronting it as enemies, and setting themselves
+up, with similar exclusiveness, as the whole truth. The latter case is
+hitherto the most frequent, as, in the human mind, one-sidedness has
+always been the rule, and many-sidedness the exception. Hence, even in
+revolutions of opinion, one part of the truth usually sets while another
+rises. Even progress, which ought to superadd, for the most part only
+substitutes one partial and incomplete truth for another; improvement
+consisting chiefly in this, that the new fragment of truth is more
+wanted, more adapted to the needs of the time, than that which it
+displaces. Such being the partial character of prevailing opinions, even
+when resting on a true foundation; every opinion which embodies somewhat
+of the portion of truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be
+considered precious, with whatever amount of error and confusion that
+truth may be blended. No sober judge of human affairs will feel bound to
+be indignant because those who force on our notice truths which we
+should otherwise have overlooked, overlook some of those which we see.
+Rather, he will think that so long as popular truth is one-sided, it is
+more desirable than otherwise that unpopular truth should have one-sided
+asserters too; such being usually the most energetic, and the most
+likely to compel reluctant attention to the fragment of wisdom which
+they proclaim as if it were the whole.
+
+Thus, in the eighteenth century, when nearly all the instructed, and all
+those of the uninstructed who were led by them, were lost in admiration
+of what is called civilisation, and of the marvels of modern science,
+literature, and philosophy, and while greatly overrating the amount of
+unlikeness between the men of modern and those of ancient times,
+indulged the belief that the whole of the difference was in their own
+favour; with what a salutary shock did the paradoxes of Rousseau explode
+like bombshells in the midst, dislocating the compact mass of one-sided
+opinion, and forcing its elements to recombine in a better form and with
+additional ingredients. Not that the current opinions were on the whole
+farther from the truth than Rousseau's were; on the contrary, they were
+nearer to it; they contained more of positive truth, and very much less
+of error. Nevertheless there lay in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated
+down the stream of opinion along with it, a considerable amount of
+exactly those truths which the popular opinion wanted; and these are the
+deposit which was left behind when the flood subsided. The superior
+worth of simplicity of life, the enervating and demoralising effect of
+the trammels and hypocrisies of artificial society, are ideas which have
+never been entirely absent from cultivated minds since Rousseau wrote;
+and they will in time produce their due effect, though at present
+needing to be asserted as much as ever, and to be asserted by deeds, for
+words, on this subject, have nearly exhausted their power.
+
+In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order
+or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary
+elements of a healthy state of political life; until the one or the
+other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally
+of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be
+preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of
+thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it
+is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within
+the limits of reason and sanity. Unless opinions favourable to democracy
+and to aristocracy, to property and to equality, to co-operation and to
+competition, to luxury and to abstinence, to sociality and
+individuality, to liberty and discipline, and all the other standing
+antagonisms of practical life, are expressed with equal freedom, and
+enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance
+of both elements obtaining their due; one scale is sure to go up and the
+other down. Truth, in the great practical concerns of life, is so much a
+question of the reconciling and combining of opposites, that very few
+have minds sufficiently capacious and impartial to make the adjustment
+with an approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough
+process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile
+banners. On any of the great open questions just enumerated, if either
+of the two opinions has a better claim than the other, not merely to be
+tolerated, but to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which
+happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority. That is
+the opinion which, for the time being, represents the neglected
+interests, the side of human well-being which is in danger of obtaining
+less than its share. I am aware that there is not, in this country, any
+intolerance of differences of opinion on most of these topics. They are
+adduced to show, by admitted and multiplied examples, the universality
+of the fact, that only through diversity of opinion is there, in the
+existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair-play to all sides of
+the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to
+the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is
+in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something
+worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something
+by their silence.
+
+It may be objected, "But _some_ received principles, especially on the
+highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. The
+Christian morality, for instance, is the whole truth on that subject,
+and if any one teaches a morality which varies from it, he is wholly in
+error." As this is of all cases the most important in practice, none can
+be fitter to test the general maxim. But before pronouncing what
+Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to decide what is
+meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New
+Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from
+the book itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a
+complete doctrine of morals. The Gospel always refers to a pre-existing
+morality, and confines its precepts to the particulars in which that
+morality was to be corrected, or superseded by a wider and higher;
+expressing itself, moreover, in terms most general, often impossible to
+be interpreted literally, and possessing rather the impressiveness of
+poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation. To extract from
+it a body of ethical doctrine, has ever been possible without eking it
+out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but
+in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people.
+St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the
+doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a
+pre-existing morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his
+advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to
+that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery. What
+is called Christian, but should rather be termed theological, morality,
+was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is of much later origin,
+having been gradually built up by the Catholic church of the first five
+centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns and Protestants,
+has been much less modified by them than might have been expected. For
+the most part, indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off
+the additions which had been made to it in the middle ages, each sect
+supplying the place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and
+tendencies. That mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its
+early teachers, I should be the last person to deny; but I do not
+scruple to say of it, that it is, in many important points, incomplete
+and one-sided, and that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned by it,
+had contributed to the formation of European life and character, human
+affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are.
+Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it
+is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative
+rather than positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than
+Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good:
+in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates
+unduly over "thou shalt." In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol
+of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of
+legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the
+appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling
+far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to
+human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each
+man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures,
+except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for
+consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it
+inculcates submission to all authorities found established; who indeed
+are not to be actively obeyed when they command what religion forbids,
+but who are not to be resisted, far less rebelled against, for any
+amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the morality of the best
+Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place,
+infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in purely Christian
+ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or
+acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read
+the maxim--"A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in
+his dominions another man better qualified for it, sins against God and
+against the State." What little recognition the idea of obligation to
+the public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek and Roman
+sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life,
+whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindedness, personal dignity, even
+the sense of honour, is derived from the purely human, not the religious
+part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of
+ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is that of
+obedience.
+
+I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are
+necessarily inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in which
+it can be conceived, or that the many requisites of a complete moral
+doctrine which it does not contain, do not admit of being reconciled
+with it. Far less would I insinuate this of the doctrines and precepts
+of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all, that I
+can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; that they are
+irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality requires;
+that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them,
+with no greater violence to their language than has been done to it by
+all who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system of
+conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that
+they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that
+many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things
+which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for, in the
+recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity, and which have
+been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the basis
+of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I
+think it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian
+doctrine that complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended
+it to sanction and enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe,
+too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil,
+detracting greatly from the value of the moral training and instruction,
+which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves
+to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form the mind and feelings
+on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those secular
+standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which
+heretofore co-existed with and supplemented the Christian ethics,
+receiving some of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there
+will result, and is even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of
+character, which, submit itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme
+Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathising in the conception of
+Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics than any which can be
+evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist side by side with
+Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that
+the Christian system is no exception to the rule, that in an imperfect
+state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of
+opinions. It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths
+not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it
+does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is
+altogether an evil; but it is one from which we cannot hope to be always
+exempt, and must be regarded as the price paid for an inestimable good.
+The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole,
+must and ought to be protested against, and if a reactionary impulse
+should make the protestors unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness,
+like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians
+would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves
+be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact,
+known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary
+history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral
+teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men
+who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.
+
+I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of
+enunciating all possible opinions would put an end to the evils of
+religious or philosophical sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow
+capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and
+in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world,
+or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I
+acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not
+cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated
+thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being
+rejected all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded
+as opponents. But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the
+calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of
+opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between
+parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the
+formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen
+to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden
+into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by
+being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental
+attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in
+intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one
+is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in
+proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any
+fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as
+to be listened to.
+
+
+We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind
+(on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and
+freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we
+will now briefly recapitulate.
+
+First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for
+aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own
+infallibility.
+
+Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very
+commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or
+prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it
+is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the
+truth has any chance of being supplied.
+
+Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole
+truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and
+earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held
+in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of
+its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of
+the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and
+deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma
+becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering
+the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt
+conviction, from reason or personal experience.
+
+Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take
+some notice of those who say, that the free expression of all opinions
+should be permitted, on condition that the manner be temperate, and do
+not pass the bounds of fair discussion. Much might be said on the
+impossibility of fixing where these supposed bounds are to be placed;
+for if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think
+experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is
+telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and
+whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any
+strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this, though
+an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a
+more fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an
+opinion, even though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and
+may justly incur severe censure. But the principal offences of the kind
+are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal,
+to bring home to conviction. The gravest of them is, to argue
+sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements
+of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to
+the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good
+faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may
+not deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely
+possible on adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the
+misrepresentation as morally culpable; and still less could law presume
+to interfere with this kind of controversial misconduct. With regard to
+what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective,
+sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons
+would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them
+equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment
+of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they
+may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to
+obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous
+indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest
+when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and
+whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode
+of asserting it, accrues almost exclusively to received opinions. The
+worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to
+stigmatise those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.
+To calumny of this sort, those who hold any unpopular opinion are
+peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and uninfluential,
+and nobody but themselves feel much interest in seeing justice done
+them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those
+who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to
+themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their
+own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can
+only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most
+cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever
+deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured
+vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does
+deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to
+those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and
+justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of
+vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were
+necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage
+offensive attacks on infidelity, than on religion. It is, however,
+obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either,
+while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the
+circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever
+side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either
+want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling
+manifest themselves; but not inferring these vices from the side which
+a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to our
+own: and giving merited honour to every one, whatever opinion he may
+hold, who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents
+and their opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit,
+keeping nothing back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their
+favour. This is the real morality of public discussion; and if often
+violated, I am happy to think that there are many controversialists who
+to a great extent observe it, and a still greater number who
+conscientiously strive towards it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give them an
+emphatic contradiction, occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of
+1858. That ill-judged interference with the liberty of public discussion
+has not, however, induced me to alter a single word in the text, nor has
+it at all weakened my conviction that, moments of panic excepted, the
+era of pains and penalties for political discussion has, in our own
+country, passed away. For, in the first place, the prosecutions were not
+persisted in; and, in the second, they were never, properly speaking,
+political prosecutions. The offence charged was not that of criticising
+institutions, or the acts or persons of rulers, but of circulating what
+was deemed an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Tyrannicide.
+
+If the arguments of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought
+to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter
+of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be
+considered. It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of place to
+examine here, whether the doctrine of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I
+shall content myself with saying, that the subject has been at all times
+one of the open questions of morals; that the act of a private citizen
+in striking down a criminal, who, by raising himself above the law, has
+placed himself beyond the reach of legal punishment or control, has been
+accounted by whole nations, and by some of the best and wisest of men,
+not a crime, but an act of exalted virtue; and that, right or wrong, it
+is not of the nature of assassination, but of civil war. As such, I hold
+that the instigation to it, in a specific case, may be a proper subject
+of punishment, but only if an overt act has followed, and at least a
+probable connection can be established between the act and the
+instigation. Even then, it is not a foreign government, but the very
+government assailed, which alone, in the exercise of self-defence, can
+legitimately punish attacks directed against its own existence.
+
+[7] Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, July 31, 1857. In December following,
+he received a free pardon from the Crown.
+
+[8] George Jacob Holyoake, August 17, 1857; Edward Truelove, July, 1857.
+
+[9] Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough-Street Police Court, August 4, 1857.
+
+[10] Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the passions
+of a persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the worst
+parts of our national character on the occasion of the Sepoy
+insurrection. The ravings of fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may
+be unworthy of notice; but the heads of the Evangelical party have
+announced as their principle, for the government of Hindoos and
+Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which the
+Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public
+employment be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An
+Under-Secretary of State, in a speech delivered to his constituents on
+the 12th of November, 1857, is reported to have said: "Toleration of
+their faith" (the faith of a hundred millions of British subjects), "the
+superstition which they called religion, by the British Government, had
+had the effect of retarding the ascendency of the British name, and
+preventing the salutary growth of Christianity.... Toleration was the
+great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do
+not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it,
+it meant the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, _among
+Christians, who worshipped upon the same foundation_. It meant
+toleration of all sects and denominations of _Christians who believed in
+the one mediation_." I desire to call attention to the fact, that a man
+who has been deemed fit to fill a high office in the government of this
+country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the doctrine that all who
+do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the pale of
+toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion
+that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING.
+
+
+Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should
+be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;
+and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that
+to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or
+asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same
+reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their
+opinions--to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either
+physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own
+risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one
+pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary,
+even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they
+are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive
+instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are
+starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be
+unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly
+incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled
+before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same
+mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without
+justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important
+cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable
+sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.
+The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make
+himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting
+others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own
+inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same
+reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he
+should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into
+practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their
+truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion,
+unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite
+opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good,
+until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all
+sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action,
+not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are
+imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should
+be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to
+varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of
+different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one
+thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which
+do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
+Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of
+other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
+principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient
+of individual and social progress.
+
+In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be encountered
+does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end,
+but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it
+were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the
+leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate
+element with all that is designated by the terms civilisation,
+instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and
+condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty
+should be under-valued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it
+and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. But the
+evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognised by the common
+modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any
+regard on its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the ways
+of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are),
+cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for
+everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of
+the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with
+jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the
+general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think
+would be best for mankind. Few persons, out of Germany, even comprehend
+the meaning of the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both
+as a _savant_ and as a politician, made the text of a treatise--that
+"the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable
+dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires,
+is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a
+complete and consistent whole;" that, therefore, the object "towards
+which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on
+which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must
+ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development;"
+that for this there are two requisites, "freedom, and a variety of
+situations;" and that from the union of these arise "individual vigour
+and manifold diversity," which combine themselves in "originality."[11]
+
+Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine like that of Von
+Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to them to find so high a value
+attached to individuality, the question, one must nevertheless think,
+can only be one of degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is
+that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one
+would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and
+into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own
+judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it
+would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing
+whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if
+experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of
+existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that
+people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit
+by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege
+and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his
+faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him
+to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to
+his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other
+people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has
+taught _them_; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his
+deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow;
+or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their
+interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him.
+Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters:
+and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly,
+though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to
+conform to custom, merely _as_ custom, does not educate or develop in
+him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human
+being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative
+feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only
+in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes
+no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what
+is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved
+only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a
+thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing
+only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not
+conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be
+strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if
+the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own
+feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are
+not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and
+character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.
+
+He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life
+for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of
+imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his
+faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to
+foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to
+decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to
+his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises
+exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines
+according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is
+possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of
+harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his
+comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only
+what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the
+works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and
+beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it
+were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes
+tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery--by
+automatons in human form--it would be a considerable loss to exchange
+for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the
+more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved
+specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a
+machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work
+prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop
+itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces
+which make it a living thing.
+
+It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise
+their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or
+even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a
+blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is
+admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the
+same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our
+own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any
+strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses
+are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints:
+and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when
+one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while
+others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It
+is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because
+their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between
+strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the
+other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger
+and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has
+more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable,
+perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are
+but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more
+good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and
+impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling, are always those
+whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong
+susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful,
+are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love
+of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation
+of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests:
+not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows
+not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his
+own--are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and
+modified by his own culture--is said to have a character. One whose
+desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a
+steam-engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his
+impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he
+has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that individuality of
+desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must
+maintain that society has no need of strong natures--is not the better
+for containing many persons who have much character--and that a high
+general average of energy is not desirable.
+
+In some early states of society, these forces might be, and were, too
+much ahead of the power which society then possessed of disciplining and
+controlling them. There has been a time when the element of spontaneity
+and individuality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard
+struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of strong
+bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which required them to
+control their impulses. To overcome this difficulty, law and discipline,
+like the Popes struggling against the Emperors, asserted a power over
+the whole man, claiming to control all his life in order to control his
+character--which society had not found any other sufficient means of
+binding. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and
+the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the
+deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly
+changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by
+personal endowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws
+and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to enable the
+persons within their reach to enjoy any particle of security. In our
+times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one
+lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in
+what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the
+individual, or the family, do not ask themselves--what do I prefer? or,
+what would suit my character and disposition? or, what would allow the
+best and highest in me to have fair-play, and enable it to grow and
+thrive? They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is
+usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or
+(worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and
+circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is
+customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does
+not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary.
+Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for
+pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds;
+they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of
+taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until
+by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to
+follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become
+incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally
+without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their
+own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable condition of human nature?
+
+It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. According to that, the one great
+offence of man is Self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable,
+is comprised in Obedience. You have no choice; thus you must do, and no
+otherwise: "whatever is not a duty, is a sin." Human nature being
+radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature
+is killed within him. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out
+any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no
+evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering himself to the
+will of God: and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose
+but to do that supposed will more effectually, he is better without
+them. That is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated
+form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation
+consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will
+of God; asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of
+their inclinations; of course not in the manner they themselves prefer,
+but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way prescribed to them by
+authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case, the
+same for all.
+
+In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to
+this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of
+human character which it patronises. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely
+think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker
+designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much
+finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of
+animals, than as nature made them. But if it be any part of religion to
+believe that man was made by a good being, it is more consistent with
+that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that
+they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and
+that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to
+the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their
+capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a
+different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of
+humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other purposes than
+merely to be abnegated. "Pagan self-assertion" is one of the elements of
+human worth, as well as "Christian self-denial."[12] There is a Greek
+ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of
+self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to
+be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles
+than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be
+without anything good which belonged to John Knox.
+
+It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in
+themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the
+limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings
+become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works
+partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human
+life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more
+abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and
+strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by
+making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to
+the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable
+to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.
+There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when
+there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is
+composed of them. As much compression as is necessary to prevent the
+stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of
+others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample
+compensation even in the point of view of human development. The means
+of development which the individual loses by being prevented from
+gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly
+obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to
+himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the
+social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon
+the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of
+others, develops the feelings and capacities which have the good of
+others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting
+their good, by their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable, except
+such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint.
+If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any
+fair-play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons
+should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as this
+latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to
+posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as
+Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is
+despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes
+to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
+
+Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and
+that it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can
+produce, well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument:
+for what more or better can be said of any condition of human affairs,
+than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing
+they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than
+that it prevents this? Doubtless, however, these considerations will not
+suffice to convince those who most need convincing; and it is necessary
+further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to
+the undeveloped--to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and
+would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible
+manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without
+hindrance.
+
+In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly
+learn something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that
+originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need
+of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were
+once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and
+set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense
+in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid by anybody who does not
+believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways
+and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being
+rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in comparison
+with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others,
+would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these
+few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a
+stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did
+not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already
+existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect
+cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old
+things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not
+like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the best
+beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless
+there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality
+prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely
+traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from
+anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilisation
+should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is
+true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order
+to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
+Genius can only breathe freely in an _atmosphere_ of freedom. Persons of
+genius are, _ex vi termini_, _more_ individual than any other
+people--less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without
+hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which
+society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming
+their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one
+of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot
+expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the
+better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break
+their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not
+succeeded in reducing them to commonplace, to point at with solemn
+warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should
+complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks
+like a Dutch canal.
+
+I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the
+necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in
+practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory,
+but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally
+indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man
+to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense,
+that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is
+not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do
+very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at.
+Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use
+of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they
+could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The
+first service which originality has to render them, is that of opening
+their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance of
+being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was ever
+yet done which some one was not the first to do, and that all good
+things which exist are the fruits of originality, let them be modest
+enough to believe that there is something still left for it to
+accomplish, and assure themselves that they are more in need of
+originality, the less they are conscious of the want.
+
+In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real
+or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things
+throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among
+mankind. In ancient history, in the middle ages, and in a diminishing
+degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time,
+the individual was a power in himself; and if he had either great
+talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. At
+present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a
+triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only
+power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while
+they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of
+masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private
+life as in public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the name of
+public opinion, are not always the same sort of public: in America they
+are the whole white population; in England, chiefly the middle class.
+But they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And
+what is a still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions
+from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from
+books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves,
+addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment,
+through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not
+assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the
+present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the
+government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government
+by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts
+or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever
+did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign
+Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they
+always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted
+and instructed One or Few. The initiation of all wise or noble things,
+comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one
+individual. The honour and glory of the average man is that he is
+capable of following that initiative; that he can respond internally to
+wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not
+countenancing the sort of "hero-worship" which applauds the strong man
+of genius for forcibly seizing on the government of the world and making
+it do his bidding in spite of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to
+point out the way. The power of compelling others into it, is not only
+inconsistent with the freedom and development of all the rest, but
+corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, however, that when
+the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or
+becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that
+tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those
+who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these
+circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of
+being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the
+mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless
+they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere
+example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom,
+is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as
+to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break
+through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has
+always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and
+the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional
+to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it
+contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger
+of the time.
+
+I have said that it is important to give the freest scope possible to
+uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these
+are fit to be converted into customs. But independence of action, and
+disregard of custom are not solely deserving of encouragement for the
+chance they afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy
+of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only persons of
+decided mental superiority who have a just claim to carry on their lives
+in their own way. There is no reason that all human existences should be
+constructed on some one, or some small number of patterns. If a person
+possesses any tolerable amount of common-sense and experience, his own
+mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best
+in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like
+sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get
+a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his
+measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier
+to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like
+one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in
+the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of
+taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after
+one model. But different persons also require different conditions for
+their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same
+moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical,
+atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person
+towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another.
+The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his
+faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another
+it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal
+life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of
+pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of
+different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a
+corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain
+their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and
+aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should
+tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to
+tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of
+their adherents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) is
+diversity of taste entirely unrecognised; a person may, without blame,
+either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic
+exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, because both those who like
+each of these things, and those who dislike them, are too numerous to be
+put down. But the man, and still more the woman, who can be accused
+either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody
+does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had
+committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a
+title, or some other badge of rank, or of the consideration of people of
+rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like
+without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat:
+for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence, incur the risk of
+something worse than disparaging speeches--they are in peril of a
+commission _de lunatico_, and of having their property taken from them
+and given to their relations.[13]
+
+There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion,
+peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration
+of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate
+in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or
+wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they
+consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with
+the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.
+Now, in addition to this fact which is general, we have only to suppose
+that a strong movement has set in towards the improvement of morals,
+and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days such a movement
+has set in; much has actually been effected in the way of increased
+regularity of conduct, and discouragement of excesses; and there is a
+philanthropic spirit abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more
+inviting field than the moral and prudential improvement of our
+fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the public to be
+more disposed than at most former periods to prescribe general rules of
+conduct, and endeavour to make every one conform to the approved
+standard. And that standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing
+strongly. Its ideal of character is to be without any marked character;
+to maim by compression, like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human
+nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make the person
+markedly dissimilar in outline to commonplace humanity.
+
+As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is
+desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior
+imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies guided by
+vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a
+conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which
+therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength
+either of will or of reason. Already energetic characters on any large
+scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet
+for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that
+may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that
+employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a
+philanthropic hobby, but is always some one thing, and generally a thing
+of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective:
+individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our
+habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious
+philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another
+stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another
+stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
+
+The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human
+advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at
+something better than customary, which is called, according to
+circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or
+improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of
+liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people;
+and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may
+ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement;
+but the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty,
+since by it there are as many possible independent centres of
+improvement as there are individuals. The progressive principle,
+however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of
+improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least
+emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes
+the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the
+world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of
+Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is
+there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean
+conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant
+intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result.
+Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of
+the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life;
+they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most
+powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or
+dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when
+theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom
+custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A
+people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and
+then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.
+If a similar change should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be
+in exactly the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these
+nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It proscribes
+singularity, but it does not preclude change, provided all change
+together. We have discarded the fixed costumes of our forefathers; every
+one must still dress like other people, but the fashion may change once
+or twice a year. We thus take care that when there is change, it shall
+be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience;
+for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the
+world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at
+another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we
+continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them
+until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement
+in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea
+of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to
+be as good as ourselves. It is not progress that we object to; on the
+contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are the most progressive people
+who ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we should think
+we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that
+the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing
+which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type,
+and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the
+advantages of both, of producing something better than either. We have a
+warning example in China--a nation of much talent, and, in some
+respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been
+provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the
+work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European
+must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and
+philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their
+apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they
+possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who
+have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power.
+Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human
+progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of
+the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become
+stationary--have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are
+ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have
+succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so
+industriously working at--in making a people all alike, all governing
+their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are
+the fruits. The modern _regime_ of public opinion is, in an unorganised
+form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an
+organised; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert
+itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents
+and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.
+
+What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot? What has
+made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a
+stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them,
+which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their
+remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes,
+nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a
+great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; and although
+at every period those who travelled in different paths have been
+intolerant of one another, and each would have thought it an excellent
+thing if all the rest could have been compelled to travel his road,
+their attempts to thwart each other's development have rarely had any
+permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good
+which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, wholly
+indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided
+development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a
+considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese
+ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last
+important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day
+resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation. The
+same remark might be made of Englishmen in a far greater degree. In a
+passage already quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two
+things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary
+to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of
+situations. The second of these two conditions is in this country every
+day diminishing. The circumstances which surround different classes and
+individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more
+assimilated. Formerly, different ranks, different neighbourhoods,
+different trades and professions, lived in what might be called
+different worlds; at present, to a great degree in the same.
+Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the
+same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their
+hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the same rights and
+liberties, and the same means of asserting them. Great as are the
+differences of position which remain, they are nothing to those which
+have ceased. And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political
+changes of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low and
+to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because
+education brings people under common influences, and gives them access
+to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means
+of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant
+places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of
+residence between one place and another. The increase of commerce and
+manufactures promotes it, by diffusing more widely the advantages of
+easy circumstances, and opening all objects of ambition, even the
+highest, to general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes no
+longer the character of a particular class, but of all classes. A more
+powerful agency than even all these, in bringing about a general
+similarity among mankind, is the complete establishment, in this and
+other free countries, of the ascendency of public opinion in the State.
+As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them
+to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually become levelled; as
+the very idea of resisting the will of the public, when it is positively
+known that they have a will, disappears more and more from the minds of
+practical politicians; there ceases to be any social support for
+non-conformity--any substantive power in society, which, itself opposed
+to the ascendency of numbers, is interested in taking under its
+protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those of the public.
+
+The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences
+hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see how it can stand
+its ground. It will do so with increasing difficulty, unless the
+intelligent part of the public can be made to feel its value--to see
+that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the
+better, even though, as it may appear to them, some should be for the
+worse. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time
+is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced
+assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand can be
+successfully made against the encroachment. The demand that all other
+people shall resemble ourselves, grows by what it feeds on. If
+resistance waits till life is reduced _nearly_ to one uniform type, all
+deviations from that type will come to be considered impious, immoral,
+even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to
+conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to
+see it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] _The Sphere and Duties of Government_, from the German of Baron
+Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13.
+
+[12] Sterling's _Essays_.
+
+[13] There is something both contemptible and frightful in the sort of
+evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared
+unfit for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his
+disposal of his property can be set aside, if there is enough of it to
+pay the expenses of litigation--which are charged on the property
+itself. All the minute details of his daily life are pried into, and
+whatever is found which, seen through the medium of the perceiving and
+describing faculties of the lowest of the low, bears an appearance
+unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the jury as evidence of
+insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, if at all,
+less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with that
+extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which
+continually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead
+them. These trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion
+among the vulgar with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any
+value on individuality--so far from respecting the rights of each
+individual to act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own
+judgment and inclinations, judges and juries cannot even conceive that a
+person in a state of sanity can desire such freedom. In former days,
+when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest
+putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be nothing surprising
+nowadays were we to see this done, and the doers applauding themselves,
+because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had adopted so humane
+and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not without a
+silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL.
+
+
+What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual
+over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of
+human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?
+
+Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more
+particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of
+life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to
+society, the part which chiefly interests society.
+
+Though society is not founded on a contract, and though no good purpose
+is answered by inventing a contract in order to deduce social
+obligations from it, every one who receives the protection of society
+owes a return for the benefit, and the fact of living in society renders
+it indispensable that each should be bound to observe a certain line of
+conduct towards the rest. This conduct consists, first, in not injuring
+the interests of one another; or rather certain interests which, either
+by express legal provision or by tacit understanding, ought to be
+considered as rights; and secondly, in each person's bearing his share
+(to be fixed on some equitable principle) of the labours and sacrifices
+incurred for defending the society or its members from injury and
+molestation. These conditions society is justified in enforcing, at all
+costs to those who endeavour to withhold fulfilment. Nor is this all
+that society may do. The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others,
+or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the
+length of violating any of their constituted rights. The offender may
+then be justly punished by opinion though not by law. As soon as any
+part of a person's conduct affects prejudicially the interests of
+others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the
+general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it,
+becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any
+such question when a person's conduct affects the interests of no
+persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all
+the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary amount of
+understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal
+and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.
+
+It would be a great misunderstanding of this doctrine, to suppose that
+it is one of selfish indifference, which pretends that human beings have
+no business with each other's conduct in life, and that they should not
+concern themselves about the well-doing or well-being of one another,
+unless their own interest is involved. Instead of any diminution, there
+is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the
+good of others. But disinterested benevolence can find other instruments
+to persuade people to their good, than whips and scourges, either of the
+literal or the metaphorical sort. I am the last person to undervalue the
+self-regarding virtues; they are only second in importance, if even
+second, to the social. It is equally the business of education to
+cultivate both. But even education works by conviction and persuasion as
+well as by compulsion, and it is by the former only that, when the
+period of education is past, the self-regarding virtues should be
+inculcated. Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the
+better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid
+the latter. They should be for ever stimulating each other to increased
+exercise of their higher faculties, and increased direction of their
+feelings and aims towards wise instead of foolish, elevating instead of
+degrading, objects and contemplations. But neither one person, nor any
+number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of
+ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what
+he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own
+well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of
+strong personal attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with
+that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him
+individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and
+altogether indirect: while, with respect to his own feelings and
+circumstances, the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge
+immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. The
+interference of society to overrule his judgment and purposes in what
+only regards himself, must be grounded on general presumptions; which
+may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be
+misapplied to individual cases, by persons no better acquainted with the
+circumstances of such cases than those are who look at them merely from
+without. In this department, therefore, of human affairs, Individuality
+has its proper field of action. In the conduct of human beings towards
+one another, it is necessary that general rules should for the most part
+be observed, in order that people may know what they have to expect; but
+in each person's own concerns, his individual spontaneity is entitled to
+free exercise. Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to
+strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by
+others; but he himself is the final judge. All errors which he is likely
+to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of
+allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.
+
+I do not mean that the feelings with which a person is regarded by
+others, ought not to be in any way affected by his self-regarding
+qualities or deficiencies. This is neither possible nor desirable. If he
+is eminent in any of the qualities which conduce to his own good, he is,
+so far, a proper object of admiration. He is so much the nearer to the
+ideal perfection of human nature. If he is grossly deficient in those
+qualities, a sentiment the opposite of admiration will follow. There is
+a degree of folly, and a degree of what may be called (though the
+phrase is not unobjectionable) lowness or depravation of taste, which,
+though it cannot justify doing harm to the person who manifests it,
+renders him necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or, in
+extreme cases, even of contempt: a person could not have the opposite
+qualities in due strength without entertaining these feelings. Though
+doing no wrong to any one, a person may so act as to compel us to judge
+him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a being of an inferior order: and
+since this judgment and feeling are a fact which he would prefer to
+avoid, it is doing him a service to warn him of it beforehand, as of any
+other disagreeable consequence to which he exposes himself. It would be
+well, indeed, if this good office were much more freely rendered than
+the common notions of politeness at present permit, and if one person
+could honestly point out to another that he thinks him in fault, without
+being considered unmannerly or presuming. We have a right, also, in
+various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to
+the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are
+not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it
+(though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the
+society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty,
+to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation
+likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We
+may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except
+those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may
+suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which
+directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so
+far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous
+consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely
+inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. A person who shows
+rashness, obstinacy, self-conceit--who cannot live within moderate
+means--who cannot restrain himself from hurtful indulgences--who pursues
+animal pleasures at the expense of those of feeling and intellect--must
+expect to be lowered in the opinion of others, and to have a less share
+of their favourable sentiments; but of this he has no right to complain,
+unless he has merited their favour by special excellence in his social
+relations, and has thus established a title to their good offices, which
+is not affected by his demerits towards himself.
+
+What I contend for is, that the inconveniences which are strictly
+inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others, are the only ones
+to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his
+conduct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not
+affect the interests of others in their relations with him. Acts
+injurious to others require a totally different treatment. Encroachment
+on their rights; infliction on them of any loss or damage not justified
+by his own rights; falsehood or duplicity in dealing with them; unfair
+or ungenerous use of advantages over them; even selfish abstinence from
+defending them against injury--these are fit objects of moral
+reprobation, and, in grave cases, of moral retribution and punishment.
+And not only these acts, but the dispositions which lead to them, are
+properly immoral, and fit subjects of disapprobation which may rise to
+abhorrence. Cruelty of disposition; malice and ill-nature; that most
+anti-social and odious of all passions, envy; dissimulation and
+insincerity; irascibility on insufficient cause, and resentment
+disproportioned to the provocation; the love of domineering over others;
+the desire to engross more than one's share of advantages (the [Greek:
+pleonexia] of the Greeks); the pride which derives gratification from
+the abasement of others; the egotism which thinks self and its concerns
+more important than everything else, and decides all doubtful questions
+in its own favour;--these are moral vices, and constitute a bad and
+odious moral character: unlike the self-regarding faults previously
+mentioned, which are not properly immoralities, and to whatever pitch
+they may be carried, do not constitute wickedness. They may be proofs of
+any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but
+they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach
+of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care
+for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially
+obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to
+others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than
+prudence, means self-respect or self-development; and for none of these
+is any one accountable to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them
+is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them.
+
+The distinction between the loss of consideration which a person may
+rightly incur by defect of prudence or of personal dignity, and the
+reprobation which is due to him for an offence against the rights of
+others, is not a merely nominal distinction. It makes a vast difference
+both in our feelings and in our conduct towards him, whether he
+displeases us in things in which we think we have a right to control
+him, or in things in which we know that we have not. If he displeases
+us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as
+well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel
+called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he
+already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he
+spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire
+to spoil it still further: instead of wishing to punish him, we shall
+rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may
+avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. He may be
+to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or
+resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst
+we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself,
+if we do not interfere benevolently by showing interest or concern for
+him. It is far otherwise if he has infringed the rules necessary for the
+protection of his fellow-creatures, individually or collectively. The
+evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on himself, but on
+others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must retaliate
+on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of punishment,
+and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case, he
+is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in
+judgment on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own
+sentence: in the other case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering
+on him, except what may incidentally follow from our using the same
+liberty in the regulation of our own affairs, which we allow to him in
+his.
+
+The distinction here pointed out between the part of a person's life
+which concerns only himself, and that which concerns others, many
+persons will refuse to admit. How (it may be asked) can any part of the
+conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other
+members? No person is an entirely isolated being; it is impossible for a
+person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself,
+without mischief reaching at least to his near connections, and often
+far beyond them. If he injures his property, he does harm to those who
+directly or indirectly derived support from it, and usually diminishes,
+by a greater or less amount, the general resources of the community. If
+he deteriorates his bodily or mental faculties, he not only brings evil
+upon all who depended on him for any portion of their happiness, but
+disqualifies himself for rendering the services which he owes to his
+fellow-creatures generally; perhaps becomes a burthen on their affection
+or benevolence; and if such conduct were very frequent, hardly any
+offence that is committed would detract more from the general sum of
+good. Finally, if by his vices or follies a person does no direct harm
+to others, he is nevertheless (it may be said) injurious by his example;
+and ought to be compelled to control himself, for the sake of those whom
+the sight or knowledge of his conduct might corrupt or mislead.
+
+And even (it will be added) if the consequences of misconduct could be
+confined to the vicious or thoughtless individual, ought society to
+abandon to their own guidance those who are manifestly unfit for it? If
+protection against themselves is confessedly due to children and persons
+under age, is not society equally bound to afford it to persons of
+mature years who are equally incapable of self-government? If gambling,
+or drunkenness, or incontinence, or idleness, or uncleanliness, are as
+injurious to happiness, and as great a hindrance to improvement, as many
+or most of the acts prohibited by law, why (it may be asked) should not
+law, so far as is consistent with practicability and social convenience,
+endeavour to repress these also? And as a supplement to the unavoidable
+imperfections of law, ought not opinion at least to organise a powerful
+police against these vices, and visit rigidly with social penalties
+those who are known to practise them? There is no question here (it may
+be said) about restricting individuality, or impeding the trial of new
+and original experiments in living. The only things it is sought to
+prevent are things which have been tried and condemned from the
+beginning of the world until now; things which experience has shown not
+to be useful or suitable to any person's individuality. There must be
+some length of time and amount of experience, after which a moral or
+prudential truth may be regarded as established: and it is merely
+desired to prevent generation after generation from falling over the
+same precipice which has been fatal to their predecessors.
+
+I fully admit that the mischief which a person does to himself, may
+seriously affect, both through their sympathies and their interests,
+those nearly connected with him, and in a minor degree, society at
+large. When, by conduct of this sort, a person is led to violate a
+distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or persons, the
+case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to
+moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term. If, for example,
+a man, through intemperance or extravagance, becomes unable to pay his
+debts, or, having undertaken the moral responsibility of a family,
+becomes from the same cause incapable of supporting or educating them,
+he is deservedly reprobated, and might be justly punished; but it is for
+the breach of duty to his family or creditors, not for the extravagance.
+If the resources which ought to have been devoted to them, had been
+diverted from them for the most prudent investment, the moral
+culpability would have been the same. George Barnwell murdered his uncle
+to get money for his mistress, but if he had done it to set himself up
+in business, he would equally have been hanged. Again, in the frequent
+case of a man who causes grief to his family by addiction to bad habits,
+he deserves reproach for his unkindness or ingratitude; but so he may
+for cultivating habits not in themselves vicious, if they are painful to
+those with whom he passes his life, or who from personal ties are
+dependent on him for their comfort. Whoever fails in the consideration
+generally due to the interests and feelings of others, not being
+compelled by some more imperative duty, or justified by allowable
+self-preference, is a subject of moral disapprobation for that failure,
+but not for the cause of it, nor for the errors, merely personal to
+himself, which may have remotely led to it. In like manner, when a
+person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, from the
+performance of some definite duty incumbent on him to the public, he is
+guilty of a social offence. No person ought to be punished simply for
+being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being
+drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a
+definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the
+case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of
+morality or law.
+
+But with regard to the merely contingent, or, as it may be called,
+constructive injury which a person causes to society, by conduct which
+neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions
+perceptible hurt to any assignable individual except himself; the
+inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear, for the sake of
+the greater good of human freedom. If grown persons are to be punished
+for not taking proper care of themselves, I would rather it were for
+their own sake, than under pretence of preventing them from impairing
+their capacity of rendering to society benefits which society does not
+pretend it has a right to exact. But I cannot consent to argue the
+point as if society had no means of bringing its weaker members up to
+its ordinary standard of rational conduct, except waiting till they do
+something irrational, and then punishing them, legally or morally, for
+it. Society has had absolute power over them during all the early
+portion of their existence: it has had the whole period of childhood and
+nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational
+conduct in life. The existing generation is master both of the training
+and the entire circumstances of the generation to come; it cannot indeed
+make them perfectly wise and good, because it is itself so lamentably
+deficient in goodness and wisdom; and its best efforts are not always,
+in individual cases, its most successful ones; but it is perfectly well
+able to make the rising generation, as a whole, as good as, and a little
+better than, itself. If society lets any considerable number of its
+members grow up mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational
+consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the
+consequences. Armed not only with all the powers of education, but with
+the ascendency which the authority of a received opinion always
+exercises over the minds who are least fitted to judge for themselves;
+and aided by the _natural_ penalties which cannot be prevented from
+falling on those who incur the distaste or the contempt of those who
+know them; let not society pretend that it needs, besides all this, the
+power to issue commands and enforce obedience in the personal concerns
+of individuals, in which, on all principles of justice and policy, the
+decision ought to rest with those who are to abide the consequences. Nor
+is there anything which tends more to discredit and frustrate the better
+means of influencing conduct, than a resort to the worse. If there be
+among those whom it is attempted to coerce into prudence or temperance,
+any of the material of which vigorous and independent characters are
+made, they will infallibly rebel against the yoke. No such person will
+ever feel that others have a right to control him in his concerns, such
+as they have to prevent him from injuring them in theirs; and it easily
+comes to be considered a mark of spirit and courage to fly in the face
+of such usurped authority, and do with ostentation the exact opposite of
+what it enjoins; as in the fashion of grossness which succeeded, in the
+time of Charles II., to the fanatical moral intolerance of the Puritans.
+With respect to what is said of the necessity of protecting society
+from the bad example set to others by the vicious or the
+self-indulgent; it is true that bad example may have a pernicious
+effect, especially the example of doing wrong to others with impunity to
+the wrong-doer. But we are now speaking of conduct which, while it does
+no wrong to others, is supposed to do great harm to the agent himself:
+and I do not see how those who believe this, can think otherwise than
+that the example, on the whole, must be more salutary than hurtful,
+since, if it displays the misconduct, it displays also the painful or
+degrading consequences which, if the conduct is justly censured, must be
+supposed to be in all or most cases attendant on it.
+
+But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the
+public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the
+odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On
+questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the
+public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is
+likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are
+only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which
+some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect
+themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on
+the minority, on questions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as
+likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at
+the best, some people's opinion of what is good or bad for other people;
+while very often it does not even mean that; the public, with the most
+perfect indifference, passing over the pleasure or convenience of those
+whose conduct they censure, and considering only their own preference.
+There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which
+they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings;
+as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious
+feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his
+feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there
+is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and
+the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than
+between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the
+right owner to keep it. And a person's taste is as much his own peculiar
+concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine
+an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in
+all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain
+from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But
+where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its
+censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal
+experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom
+thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently
+from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up
+to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of
+all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right
+because they are right; because we feel them to be so. They tell us to
+search in our own minds and hearts for laws of conduct binding on
+ourselves and on all others. What can the poor public do but apply these
+instructions, and make their own personal feelings of good and evil, if
+they are tolerably unanimous in them, obligatory on all the world?
+
+The evil here pointed out is not one which exists only in theory; and it
+may perhaps be expected that I should specify the instances in which the
+public of this age and country improperly invests its own preferences
+with the character of moral laws. I am not writing an essay on the
+aberrations of existing moral feeling. That is too weighty a subject to
+be discussed parenthetically, and by way of illustration. Yet examples
+are necessary, to show that the principle I maintain is of serious and
+practical moment, and that I am not endeavouring to erect a barrier
+against imaginary evils. And it is not difficult to show, by abundant
+instances, that to extend the bounds of what may be called moral police,
+until it encroaches on the most unquestionably legitimate liberty of the
+individual, is one of the most universal of all human propensities.
+
+As a first instance, consider the antipathies which men cherish on no
+better grounds than that persons whose religious opinions are different
+from theirs, do not practise their religious observances, especially
+their religious abstinences. To cite a rather trivial example, nothing
+in the creed or practice of Christians does more to envenom the hatred
+of Mahomedans against them, than the fact of their eating pork. There
+are few acts which Christians and Europeans regard with more unaffected
+disgust, than Mussulmans regard this particular mode of satisfying
+hunger. It is, in the first place, an offence against their religion;
+but this circumstance by no means explains either the degree or the kind
+of their repugnance; for wine also is forbidden by their religion, and
+to partake of it is by all Mussulmans accounted wrong, but not
+disgusting. Their aversion to the flesh of the "unclean beast" is, on
+the contrary, of that peculiar character, resembling an instinctive
+antipathy, which the idea of uncleanness, when once it thoroughly sinks
+into the feelings, seems always to excite even in those whose personal
+habits are anything but scrupulously cleanly, and of which the sentiment
+of religious impurity, so intense in the Hindoos, is a remarkable
+example. Suppose now that in a people, of whom the majority were
+Mussulmans, that majority should insist upon not permitting pork to be
+eaten within the limits of the country. This would be nothing new in
+Mahomedan countries.[14] Would it be a legitimate exercise of the moral
+authority of public opinion? and if not, why not? The practice is really
+revolting to such a public. They also sincerely think that it is
+forbidden and abhorred by the Deity. Neither could the prohibition be
+censured as religious persecution. It might be religious in its origin,
+but it would not be persecution for religion, since nobody's religion
+makes it a duty to eat pork. The only tenable ground of condemnation
+would be, that with the personal tastes and self-regarding concerns of
+individuals the public has no business to interfere.
+
+To come somewhat nearer home: the majority of Spaniards consider it a
+gross impiety, offensive in the highest degree to the Supreme Being, to
+worship him in any other manner than the Roman Catholic; and no other
+public worship is lawful on Spanish soil. The people of all Southern
+Europe look upon a married clergy as not only irreligious, but unchaste,
+indecent, gross, disgusting. What do Protestants think of these
+perfectly sincere feelings, and of the attempt to enforce them against
+non-Catholics? Yet, if mankind are justified in interfering with each
+other's liberty in things which do not concern the interests of others,
+on what principle is it possible consistently to exclude these cases? or
+who can blame people for desiring to suppress what they regard as a
+scandal in the sight of God and man? No stronger case can be shown for
+prohibiting anything which is regarded as a personal immorality, than
+is made out for suppressing these practices in the eyes of those who
+regard them as impieties; and unless we are willing to adopt the logic
+of persecutors, and to say that we may persecute others because we are
+right, and that they must not persecute us because they are wrong, we
+must beware of admitting a principle of which we should resent as a
+gross injustice the application to ourselves.
+
+The preceding instances may be objected to, although unreasonably, as
+drawn from contingencies impossible among us: opinion, in this country,
+not being likely to enforce abstinence from meats, or to interfere with
+people for worshipping, and for either marrying or not marrying,
+according to their creed or inclination. The next example, however,
+shall be taken from an interference with liberty which we have by no
+means passed all danger of. Wherever the Puritans have been sufficiently
+powerful, as in New England, and in Great Britain at the time of the
+Commonwealth, they have endeavoured, with considerable success, to put
+down all public, and nearly all private, amusements: especially music,
+dancing, public games, or other assemblages for purposes of diversion,
+and the theatre. There are still in this country large bodies of
+persons by whose notions of morality and religion these recreations are
+condemned; and those persons belonging chiefly to the middle class, who
+are the ascendant power in the present social and political condition of
+the kingdom, it is by no means impossible that persons of these
+sentiments may at some time or other command a majority in Parliament.
+How will the remaining portion of the community like to have the
+amusements that shall be permitted to them regulated by the religious
+and moral sentiments of the stricter Calvinists and Methodists? Would
+they not, with considerable peremptoriness, desire these intrusively
+pious members of society to mind their own business? This is precisely
+what should be said to every government and every public, who have the
+pretension that no person shall enjoy any pleasure which they think
+wrong. But if the principle of the pretension be admitted, no one can
+reasonably object to its being acted on in the sense of the majority, or
+other preponderating power in the country; and all persons must be ready
+to conform to the idea of a Christian commonwealth, as understood by the
+early settlers in New England, if a religious profession similar to
+theirs should ever succeed in regaining its lost ground, as religions
+supposed to be declining have so often been known to do.
+
+To imagine another contingency, perhaps more likely to be realised than
+the one last mentioned. There is confessedly a strong tendency in the
+modern world towards a democratic constitution of society, accompanied
+or not by popular political institutions. It is affirmed that in the
+country where this tendency is most completely realised--where both
+society and the government are most democratic--the United States--the
+feeling of the majority, to whom any appearance of a more showy or
+costly style of living than they can hope to rival is disagreeable,
+operates as a tolerably effectual sumptuary law, and that in many parts
+of the Union it is really difficult for a person possessing a very large
+income, to find any mode of spending it, which will not incur popular
+disapprobation. Though such statements as these are doubtless much
+exaggerated as a representation of existing facts, the state of things
+they describe is not only a conceivable and possible, but a probable
+result of democratic feeling, combined with the notion that the public
+has a right to a veto on the manner in which individuals shall spend
+their incomes. We have only further to suppose a considerable diffusion
+of Socialist opinions, and it may become infamous in the eyes of the
+majority to possess more property than some very small amount, or any
+income not earned by manual labour. Opinions similar in principle to
+these, already prevail widely among the artisan class, and weigh
+oppressively on those who are amenable to the opinion chiefly of that
+class, namely, its own members. It is known that the bad workmen who
+form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are
+decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as
+good, and that no one ought to be allowed, through piecework or
+otherwise, to earn by superior skill or industry more than others can
+without it. And they employ a moral police, which occasionally becomes a
+physical one, to deter skilful workmen from receiving, and employers
+from giving, a larger remuneration for a more useful service. If the
+public have any jurisdiction over private concerns, I cannot see that
+these people are in fault, or that any individual's particular public
+can be blamed for asserting the same authority over his individual
+conduct, which the general public asserts over people in general.
+
+But, without dwelling upon supposititious cases, there are, in our own
+day, gross usurpations upon the liberty of private life actually
+practised, and still greater ones threatened with some expectation of
+success, and opinions proposed which assert an unlimited right in the
+public not only to prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong, but
+in order to get at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of
+things which it admits to be innocent.
+
+Under the name of preventing intemperance, the people of one English
+colony, and of nearly half the United States, have been interdicted by
+law from making any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical
+purposes: for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended to
+be, prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability of
+executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the States which
+had adopted it, including the one from which it derives its name, an
+attempt has notwithstanding been commenced, and is prosecuted with
+considerable zeal by many of the professed philanthropists, to agitate
+for a similar law in this country. The association, or "Alliance" as it
+terms itself, which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some
+notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence between its
+Secretary and one of the very few English public men who hold that a
+politician's opinions ought to be founded on principles. Lord Stanley's
+share in this correspondence is calculated to strengthen the hopes
+already built on him, by those who know how rare such qualities as are
+manifested in some of his public appearances, unhappily are among those
+who figure in political life. The organ of the Alliance, who would
+"deeply deplore the recognition of any principle which could be wrested
+to justify bigotry and persecution," undertakes to point out the "broad
+and impassable barrier" which divides such principles from those of the
+association. "All matters relating to thought, opinion, conscience,
+appear to me," he says, "to be without the sphere of legislation; all
+pertaining to social act, habit, relation, subject only to a
+discretionary power vested in the State itself, and not in the
+individual, to be within it." No mention is made of a third class,
+different from either of these, viz. acts and habits which are not
+social, but individual; although it is to this class, surely, that the
+act of drinking fermented liquors belongs. Selling fermented liquors,
+however, is trading, and trading is a social act. But the infringement
+complained of is not on the liberty of the seller, but on that of the
+buyer and consumer; since the State might just as well forbid him to
+drink wine, as purposely make it impossible for him to obtain it. The
+Secretary, however, says, "I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate
+whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another." And
+now for the definition of these "social rights." "If anything invades my
+social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys
+my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating
+social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit
+from the creation of a misery, I am taxed to support. It impedes my
+right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path
+with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, from which I
+have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse." A theory of "social
+rights," the like of which probably never before found its way into
+distinct language--being nothing short of this--that it is the absolute
+social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act
+in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in
+the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to
+demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a
+principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with
+liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify;
+it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that
+of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them: for the
+moment an opinion which I consider noxious, passes any one's lips, it
+invades all the "social rights" attributed to me by the Alliance. The
+doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's
+moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each
+claimant according to his own standard.
+
+Another important example of illegitimate interference with the rightful
+liberty of the individual, not simply threatened, but long since carried
+into triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legislation. Without doubt,
+abstinence on one day in the week, so far as the exigencies of life
+permit, from the usual daily occupation, though in no respect
+religiously binding on any except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom.
+And inasmuch as this custom cannot be observed without a general consent
+to that effect among the industrious classes, therefore, in so far as
+some persons by working may impose the same necessity on others, it may
+be allowable and right that the law should guarantee to each, the
+observance by others of the custom, by suspending the greater operations
+of industry on a particular day. But this justification, grounded on the
+direct interest which others have in each individual's observance of
+the practice, does not apply to the self-chosen occupations in which a
+person may think fit to employ his leisure; nor does it hold good, in
+the smallest degree, for legal restrictions on amusements. It is true
+that the amusement of some is the day's work of others; but the
+pleasure, not to say the useful recreation, of many, is worth the labour
+of a few, provided the occupation is freely chosen, and can be freely
+resigned. The operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all
+worked on Sunday, seven days' work would have to be given for six days'
+wages: but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended, the
+small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, obtain a
+proportional increase of earnings; and they are not obliged to follow
+those occupations, if they prefer leisure to emolument. If a further
+remedy is sought, it might be found in the establishment by custom of a
+holiday on some other day of the week for those particular classes of
+persons. The only ground, therefore, on which restrictions on Sunday
+amusements can be defended, must be that they are religiously wrong; a
+motive of legislation which never can be too earnestly protested
+against. "Deorum injuriae Diis curae." It remains to be proved that
+society or any of its officers holds a commission from on high to
+avenge any supposed offence to Omnipotence, which is not also a wrong to
+our fellow-creatures. The notion that it is one man's duty that another
+should be religious, was the foundation of all the religious
+persecutions ever perpetrated, and if admitted, would fully justify
+them. Though the feeling which breaks out in the repeated attempts to
+stop railway travelling on Sunday, in the resistance to the opening of
+Museums, and the like, has not the cruelty of the old persecutors, the
+state of mind indicated by it is fundamentally the same. It is a
+determination not to tolerate others in doing what is permitted by their
+religion, because it is not permitted by the persecutor's religion. It
+is a belief that God not only abominates the act of the misbeliever, but
+will not hold us guiltless if we leave him unmolested.
+
+I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account
+commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution
+which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels
+called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism. Much might
+be said on the unexpected and instructive fact, that an alleged new
+revelation, and a religion founded on it, the product of palpable
+imposture, not even supported by the _prestige_ of extraordinary
+qualities in its founder, is believed by hundreds of thousands, and has
+been made the foundation of a society, in the age of newspapers,
+railways, and the electric telegraph. What here concerns us is, that
+this religion, like other and better religions, has its martyrs; that
+its prophet and founder was, for his teaching, put to death by a mob;
+that others of its adherents lost their lives by the same lawless
+violence; that they were forcibly expelled, in a body, from the country
+in which they first grew up; while, now that they have been chased into
+a solitary recess in the midst of a desert, many in this country openly
+declare that it would be right (only that it is not convenient) to send
+an expedition against them, and compel them by force to conform to the
+opinions of other people. The article of the Mormonite doctrine which is
+the chief provocative to the antipathy which thus breaks through the
+ordinary restraints of religious tolerance, is its sanction of polygamy;
+which, though permitted to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, and Chinese, seems
+to excite unquenchable animosity when practised by persons who speak
+English, and profess to be a kind of Christians. No one has a deeper
+disapprobation than I have of this Mormon institution; both for other
+reasons, and because, far from being in any way countenanced by the
+principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being
+a mere riveting of the chains of one half of the community, and an
+emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them.
+Still, it must be remembered that this relation is as much voluntary on
+the part of the women concerned in it, and who may be deemed the
+sufferers by it, as is the case with any other form of the marriage
+institution; and however surprising this fact may appear, it has its
+explanation in the common ideas and customs of the world, which teaching
+women to think marriage the one thing needful, make it intelligible that
+many a woman should prefer being one of several wives, to not being a
+wife at all. Other countries are not asked to recognise such unions, or
+release any portion of their inhabitants from their own laws on the
+score of Mormonite opinions. But when the dissentients have conceded to
+the hostile sentiments of others, far more than could justly be
+demanded; when they have left the countries to which their doctrines
+were unacceptable, and established themselves in a remote corner of the
+earth, which they have been the first to render habitable to human
+beings; it is difficult to see on what principles but those of tyranny
+they can be prevented from living there under what laws they please,
+provided they commit no aggression on other nations, and allow perfect
+freedom of departure to those who are dissatisfied with their ways. A
+recent writer, in some respects of considerable merit, proposes (to use
+his own words), not a crusade, but a _civilizade_, against this
+polygamous community, to put an end to what seems to him a retrograde
+step in civilisation. It also appears so to me, but I am not aware that
+any community has a right to force another to be civilised. So long as
+the sufferers by the bad law do not invoke assistance from other
+communities, I cannot admit that persons entirely unconnected with them
+ought to step in and require that a condition of things with which all
+who are directly interested appear to be satisfied, should be put an end
+to because it is a scandal to persons some thousands of miles distant,
+who have no part or concern in it. Let them send missionaries, if they
+please, to preach against it; and let them, by any fair means (of which
+silencing the teachers is not one), oppose the progress of similar
+doctrines among their own people. If civilisation has got the better of
+barbarism when barbarism had the world to itself, it is too much to
+profess to be afraid lest barbarism, after having been fairly got under,
+should revive and conquer civilisation. A civilisation that can thus
+succumb to its vanquished enemy, must first have become so degenerate,
+that neither its appointed priests and teachers, nor anybody else, has
+the capacity, or will take the trouble, to stand up for it. If this be
+so, the sooner such a civilisation receives notice to quit, the better.
+It can only go on from bad to worse, until destroyed and regenerated
+(like the Western Empire) by energetic barbarians.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] The case of the Bombay Parsees is a curious instance in point. When
+this industrious and enterprising tribe, the descendants of the Persian
+fire-worshippers, flying from their native country before the Caliphs,
+arrived in Western India, they were admitted to toleration by the Hindoo
+sovereigns, on condition of not eating beef. When those regions
+afterwards fell under the dominion of Mahomedan conquerors, the Parsees
+obtained from them a continuance of indulgence, on condition of
+refraining from pork. What was at first obedience to authority became a
+second nature, and the Parsees to this day abstain both from beef and
+pork. Though not required by their religion, the double abstinence has
+had time to grow into a custom of their tribe; and custom, in the East,
+is a religion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+APPLICATIONS.
+
+
+The principles asserted in these pages must be more generally admitted
+as the basis for discussion of details, before a consistent application
+of them to all the various departments of government and morals can be
+attempted with any prospect of advantage. The few observations I propose
+to make on questions of detail, are designed to illustrate the
+principles, rather than to follow them out to their consequences. I
+offer, not so much applications, as specimens of application; which may
+serve to bring into greater clearness the meaning and limits of the two
+maxims which together form the entire doctrine of this Essay, and to
+assist the judgment in holding the balance between them, in the cases
+where it appears doubtful which of them is applicable to the case.
+
+The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society
+for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person
+but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other
+people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only
+measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or
+disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are
+prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable
+and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishments, if
+society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its
+protection.
+
+In the first place, it must by no means be supposed, because damage, or
+probability of damage, to the interests of others, can alone justify the
+interference of society, that therefore it always does justify such
+interference. In many cases, an individual, in pursuing a legitimate
+object, necessarily and therefore legitimately causes pain or loss to
+others, or intercepts a good which they had a reasonable hope of
+obtaining. Such oppositions of interest between individuals often arise
+from bad social institutions, but are unavoidable while those
+institutions last; and some would be unavoidable under any institutions.
+Whoever succeeds in an overcrowded profession, or in a competitive
+examination; whoever is preferred to another in any contest for an
+object which both desire, reaps benefit from the loss of others, from
+their wasted exertion and their disappointment. But it is, by common
+admission, better for the general interest of mankind, that persons
+should pursue their objects undeterred by this sort of consequences. In
+other words, society admits no rights, either legal or moral, in the
+disappointed competitors, to immunity from this kind of suffering; and
+feels called on to interfere, only when means of success have been
+employed which it is contrary to the general interest to permit--namely,
+fraud or treachery, and force.
+
+Again, trade is a social act. Whoever undertakes to sell any description
+of goods to the public, does what affects the interest of other persons,
+and of society in general; and thus his conduct, in principle, comes
+within the jurisdiction of society: accordingly, it was once held to be
+the duty of governments, in all cases which were considered of
+importance, to fix prices, and regulate the processes of manufacture.
+But it is now recognised, though not till after a long struggle, that
+both the cheapness and the good quality of commodities are most
+effectually provided for by leaving the producers and sellers perfectly
+free, under the sole check of equal freedom to the buyers for supplying
+themselves elsewhere. This is the so-called doctrine of Free Trade,
+which rests on grounds different from, though equally solid with, the
+principle of individual liberty asserted in this Essay. Restrictions on
+trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints;
+and all restraint, _qua_ restraint, is an evil: but the restraints in
+question affect only that part of conduct which society is competent to
+restrain, and are wrong solely because they do not really produce the
+results which it is desired to produce by them. As the principle of
+individual liberty is not involved in the doctrine of Free Trade, so
+neither is it in most of the questions which arise respecting the limits
+of that doctrine: as for example, what amount of public control is
+admissible for the prevention of fraud by adulteration; how far sanitary
+precautions, or arrangements to protect work-people employed in
+dangerous occupations, should be enforced on employers. Such questions
+involve considerations of liberty, only in so far as leaving people to
+themselves is always better, _caeteris paribus_, than controlling them:
+but that they may be legitimately controlled for these ends, is in
+principle undeniable. On the other hand, there are questions relating to
+interference with trade, which are essentially questions of liberty;
+such as the Maine Law, already touched upon; the prohibition of the
+importation of opium into China; the restriction of the sale of poisons;
+all cases, in short, where the object of the interference is to make it
+impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. These
+interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of
+the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer.
+
+One of these examples, that of the sale of poisons, opens a new
+question; the proper limits of what may be called the functions of
+police; how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention
+of crime, or of accident. It is one of the undisputed functions of
+government to take precautions against crime before it has been
+committed, as well as to detect and punish it afterwards. The preventive
+function of government, however, is far more liable to be abused, to the
+prejudice of liberty, than the punitory function; for there is hardly
+any part of the legitimate freedom of action of a human being which
+would not admit of being represented, and fairly too, as increasing the
+facilities for some form or other of delinquency. Nevertheless, if a
+public authority, or even a private person, sees any one evidently
+preparing to commit a crime, they are not bound to look on inactive
+until the crime is committed, but may interfere to prevent it. If
+poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission
+of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale.
+They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful
+purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without
+operating in the other. Again, it is a proper office of public authority
+to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or any one else
+saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to
+be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might
+seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his
+liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not
+desire to fall into the river. Nevertheless, when there is not a
+certainty, but only a danger of mischief, no one but the person himself
+can judge of the sufficiency of the motive which may prompt him to incur
+the risk: in this case, therefore (unless he is a child, or delirious,
+or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full
+use of the reflecting faculty), he ought, I conceive, to be only warned
+of the danger; not forcibly prevented from exposing himself to it.
+Similar considerations, applied to such a question as the sale of
+poisons, may enable us to decide which among the possible modes of
+regulation are or are not contrary to principle. Such a precaution, for
+example, as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive of its
+dangerous character, may be enforced without violation of liberty: the
+buyer cannot wish not to know that the thing he possesses has poisonous
+qualities. But to require in all cases the certificate of a medical
+practitioner, would make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to
+obtain the article for legitimate uses. The only mode apparent to me, in
+which difficulties may be thrown in the way of crime committed through
+this means, without any infringement, worth taking into account, upon
+the liberty of those who desire the poisonous substance for other
+purposes, consists in providing what, in the apt language of Bentham, is
+called "preappointed evidence." This provision is familiar to every one
+in the case of contracts. It is usual and right that the law, when a
+contract is entered into, should require as the condition of its
+enforcing performance, that certain formalities should be observed, such
+as signatures, attestation of witnesses, and the like, in order that in
+case of subsequent dispute, there may be evidence to prove that the
+contract was really entered into, and that there was nothing in the
+circumstances to render it legally invalid: the effect being, to throw
+great obstacles in the way of fictitious contracts, or contracts made in
+circumstances which, if known, would destroy their validity. Precautions
+of a similar nature might be enforced in the sale of articles adapted to
+be instruments of crime. The seller, for example, might be required to
+enter into a register the exact time of the transaction, the name and
+address of the buyer, the precise quality and quantity sold; to ask the
+purpose for which it was wanted, and record the answer he received. When
+there was no medical prescription, the presence of some third person
+might be required, to bring home the fact to the purchaser, in case
+there should afterwards be reason to believe that the article had been
+applied to criminal purposes. Such regulations would in general be no
+material impediment to obtaining the article, but a very considerable
+one to making an improper use of it without detection.
+
+The right inherent in society, to ward off crimes against itself by
+antecedent precautions, suggests the obvious limitations to the maxim,
+that purely self-regarding misconduct cannot properly be meddled with
+in the way of prevention or punishment. Drunkenness, for example, in
+ordinary cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I
+should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had once been
+convicted of any act of violence to others under the influence of drink,
+should be placed under a special legal restriction, personal to himself;
+that if he were afterwards found drunk, he should be liable to a
+penalty, and that if when in that state he committed another offence,
+the punishment to which he would be liable for that other offence should
+be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, in a person whom
+drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. So,
+again, idleness, except in a person receiving support from the public,
+or except when it constitutes a breach of contract, cannot without
+tyranny be made a subject of legal punishment; but if either from
+idleness or from any other avoidable cause, a man fails to perform his
+legal duties to others, as for instance to support his children, it is
+no tyranny to force him to fulfil that obligation, by compulsory labour,
+if no other means are available.
+
+Again, there are many acts which, being directly injurious only to the
+agents themselves, ought not to be legally interdicted, but which, if
+done publicly, are a violation of good manners and coming thus within
+the category of offences against others may rightfully be prohibited. Of
+this kind are offences against decency; on which it is unnecessary to
+dwell, the rather as they are only connected indirectly with our
+subject, the objection to publicity being equally strong in the case of
+many actions not in themselves condemnable, nor supposed to be so.
+
+There is another question to which an answer must be found, consistent
+with the principles which have been laid down. In cases of personal
+conduct supposed to be blamable, but which respect for liberty precludes
+society from preventing or punishing, because the evil directly
+resulting falls wholly on the agent; what the agent is free to do, ought
+other persons to be equally free to counsel or instigate? This question
+is not free from difficulty. The case of a person who solicits another
+to do an act, is not strictly a case of self-regarding conduct. To give
+advice or offer inducements to any one, is a social act, and may
+therefore, like actions in general which affect others, be supposed
+amenable to social control. But a little reflection corrects the first
+impression, by showing that if the case is not strictly within the
+definition of individual liberty, yet the reasons on which the
+principle of individual liberty is grounded, are applicable to it. If
+people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as
+seems best to themselves at their own peril, they must equally be free
+to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange
+opinions, and give and receive suggestions. Whatever it is permitted to
+do, it must be permitted to advise to do. The question is doubtful, only
+when the instigator derives a personal benefit from his advice; when he
+makes it his occupation, for subsistence or pecuniary gain, to promote
+what society and the state consider to be an evil. Then, indeed, a new
+element of complication is introduced; namely, the existence of classes
+of persons with an interest opposed to what is considered as the public
+weal, and whose mode of living is grounded on the counteraction of it.
+Ought this to be interfered with, or not? Fornication, for example, must
+be tolerated, and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a
+pimp, or to keep a gambling-house? The case is one of those which lie on
+the exact boundary line between two principles, and it is not at once
+apparent to which of the two it properly belongs. There are arguments on
+both sides. On the side of toleration it may be said, that the fact of
+following anything as an occupation, and living or profiting by the
+practice of it, cannot make that criminal which would otherwise be
+admissible; that the act should either be consistently permitted or
+consistently prohibited; that if the principles which we have hitherto
+defended are true, society has no business, _as_ society, to decide
+anything to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it cannot
+go beyond dissuasion, and that one person should be as free to persuade,
+as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it may be contended, that
+although the public, or the State, are not warranted in authoritatively
+deciding, for purposes of repression or punishment, that such or such
+conduct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad,
+they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad, that its
+being so or not is at least a disputable question: That, this being
+supposed, they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the
+influence of solicitations which are not disinterested, of instigators
+who cannot possibly be impartial--who have a direct personal interest on
+one side, and that side the one which the State believes to be wrong,
+and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only. There can
+surely, it may be urged, be nothing lost, no sacrifice of good, by so
+ordering matters that persons shall make their election, either wisely
+or foolishly, on their own prompting, as free as possible from the arts
+of persons who stimulate their inclinations for interested purposes of
+their own. Thus (it may be said) though the statutes respecting unlawful
+games are utterly indefensible--though all persons should be free to
+gamble in their own or each other's houses, or in any place of meeting
+established by their own subscriptions, and open only to the members and
+their visitors--yet public gambling-houses should not be permitted. It
+is true that the prohibition is never effectual, and that whatever
+amount of tyrannical power is given to the police, gambling-houses can
+always be maintained under other pretences; but they may be compelled to
+conduct their operations with a certain degree of secrecy and mystery,
+so that nobody knows anything about them but those who seek them; and
+more than this, society ought not to aim at. There is considerable force
+in these arguments; I will not venture to decide whether they are
+sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of punishing the accessary, when
+the principal is (and must be) allowed to go free; or fining or
+imprisoning the procurer, but not the fornicator, the gambling-house
+keeper, but not the gambler. Still less ought the common operations of
+buying and selling to be interfered with on analogous grounds. Almost
+every article which is bought and sold may be used in excess, and the
+sellers have a pecuniary interest in encouraging that excess; but no
+argument can be founded on this, in favour, for instance, of the Maine
+Law; because the class of dealers in strong drinks, though interested in
+their abuse, are indispensably required for the sake of their legitimate
+use. The interest, however, of these dealers in promoting intemperance
+is a real evil, and justifies the State in imposing restrictions and
+requiring guarantees, which but for that justification would be
+infringements of legitimate liberty.
+
+A further question is, whether the State, while it permits, should
+nevertheless indirectly discourage conduct which it deems contrary to
+the best interests of the agent; whether, for example, it should take
+measures to render the means of drunkenness more costly, or add to the
+difficulty of procuring them, by limiting the number of the places of
+sale. On this as on most other practical questions, many distinctions
+require to be made. To tax stimulants for the sole purpose of making
+them more difficult to be obtained, is a measure differing only in
+degree from their entire prohibition; and would be justifiable only if
+that were justifiable. Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those
+whose means do not come up to the augmented price; and to those who do,
+it is a penalty laid on them for gratifying a particular taste. Their
+choice of pleasures, and their mode of expending their income, after
+satisfying their legal and moral obligations to the State and to
+individuals, are their own concern, and must rest with their own
+judgment. These considerations may seem at first sight to condemn the
+selection of stimulants as special subjects of taxation for purposes of
+revenue. But it must be remembered that taxation for fiscal purposes is
+absolutely inevitable; that in most countries it is necessary that a
+considerable part of that taxation should be indirect; that the State,
+therefore, cannot help imposing penalties, which to some persons may be
+prohibitory, on the use of some articles of consumption. It is hence the
+duty of the State to consider, in the imposition of taxes, what
+commodities the consumers can best spare; and _a fortiori_, to select in
+preference those of which it deems the use, beyond a very moderate
+quantity, to be positively injurious. Taxation, therefore, of
+stimulants, up to the point which produces the largest amount of revenue
+(supposing that the State needs all the revenue which it yields) is not
+only admissible, but to be approved of.
+
+The question of making the sale of these commodities a more or less
+exclusive privilege, must be answered differently, according to the
+purposes to which the restriction is intended to be subservient. All
+places of public resort require the restraint of a police, and places of
+this kind peculiarly, because offences against society are especially
+apt to originate there. It is, therefore, fit to confine the power of
+selling these commodities (at least for consumption on the spot) to
+persons of known or vouched-for respectability of conduct; to make such
+regulations respecting hours of opening and closing as may be requisite
+for public surveillance, and to withdraw the licence if breaches of the
+peace repeatedly take place through the connivance or incapacity of the
+keeper of the house, or if it becomes a rendezvous for concocting and
+preparing offences against the law. Any further restriction I do not
+conceive to be, in principle, justifiable. The limitation in number, for
+instance, of beer and spirit-houses, for the express purpose of
+rendering them more difficult of access, and diminishing the occasions
+of temptation, not only exposes all to an inconvenience because there
+are some by whom the facility would be abused, but is suited only to a
+state of society in which the labouring classes are avowedly treated as
+children or savages, and placed under an education of restraint, to fit
+them for future admission to the privileges of freedom. This is not the
+principle on which the labouring classes are professedly governed in any
+free country; and no person who sets due value on freedom will give his
+adhesion to their being so governed, unless after all efforts have been
+exhausted to educate them for freedom and govern them as freemen, and it
+has been definitively proved that they can only be governed as children.
+The bare statement of the alternative shows the absurdity of supposing
+that such efforts have been made in any case which needs be considered
+here. It is only because the institutions of this country are a mass of
+inconsistencies, that things find admittance into our practice which
+belong to the system of despotic, or what is called paternal,
+government, while the general freedom of our institutions precludes the
+exercise of the amount of control necessary to render the restraint of
+any real efficacy as a moral education.
+
+It was pointed out in an early part of this Essay, that the liberty of
+the individual, in things wherein the individual is alone concerned,
+implies a corresponding liberty in any number of individuals to regulate
+by mutual agreement such things as regard them jointly, and regard no
+persons but themselves. This question presents no difficulty, so long as
+the will of all the persons implicated remains unaltered; but since that
+will may change, it is often necessary, even in things in which they
+alone are concerned, that they should enter into engagements with one
+another; and when they do, it is fit, as a general rule, that those
+engagements should be kept. Yet in the laws, probably, of every country,
+this general rule has some exceptions. Not only persons are not held to
+engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is
+sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an
+engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other
+civilised countries, for example, an engagement by which a person should
+sell himself, or allow himself to be sold, as a slave, would be null and
+void; neither enforced by law nor by opinion. The ground for thus
+limiting his power of voluntarily disposing of his own lot in life, is
+apparent, and is very clearly seen in this extreme case. The reason for
+not interfering, unless for the sake of others, with a person's
+voluntary acts, is consideration for his liberty. His voluntary choice
+is evidence that what he so chooses is desirable, or at the least
+endurable, to him, and his good is on the whole best provided for by
+allowing him to take his own means of pursuing it. But by selling
+himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future
+use of it, beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own
+case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to
+dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is thenceforth in a
+position which has no longer the presumption in its favour, that would
+be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom
+cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom,
+to be allowed to alienate his freedom. These reasons, the force of which
+is so conspicuous in this peculiar case, are evidently of far wider
+application; yet a limit is everywhere set to them by the necessities of
+life, which continually require, not indeed that we should resign our
+freedom, but that we should consent to this and the other limitation of
+it. The principle, however, which demands uncontrolled freedom of action
+in all that concerns only the agents themselves, requires that those who
+have become bound to one another, in things which concern no third
+party, should be able to release one another from the engagement: and
+even without such voluntary release, there are perhaps no contracts or
+engagements, except those that relate to money or money's worth, of
+which one can venture to say that there ought to be no liberty whatever
+of retractation. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, in the excellent essay from
+which I have already quoted, states it as his conviction, that
+engagements which involve personal relations or services, should never
+be legally binding beyond a limited duration of time; and that the most
+important of these engagements, marriage, having the peculiarity that
+its objects are frustrated unless the feelings of both the parties are
+in harmony with it, should require nothing more than the declared will
+of either party to dissolve it. This subject is too important, and too
+complicated, to be discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch on it only so
+far as is necessary for purposes of illustration. If the conciseness and
+generality of Baron Humboldt's dissertation had not obliged him in this
+instance to content himself with enunciating his conclusion without
+discussing the premises, he would doubtless have recognised that the
+question cannot be decided on grounds so simple as those to which he
+confines himself. When a person, either by express promise or by
+conduct, has encouraged another to rely upon his continuing to act in a
+certain way--to build expectations and calculations, and stake any part
+of his plan of life upon that supposition, a new series of moral
+obligations arises on his part towards that person, which may possibly
+be overruled, but cannot be ignored. And again, if the relation between
+two contracting parties has been followed by consequences to others; if
+it has placed third parties in any peculiar position, or, as in the case
+of marriage, has even called third parties into existence, obligations
+arise on the part of both the contracting parties towards those third
+persons, the fulfilment of which, or at all events the mode of
+fulfilment, must be greatly affected by the continuance or disruption of
+the relation between the original parties to the contract. It does not
+follow, nor can I admit, that these obligations extend to requiring the
+fulfilment of the contract at all costs to the happiness of the
+reluctant party; but they are a necessary element in the question; and
+even if, as Von Humboldt maintains, they ought to make no difference in
+the _legal_ freedom of the parties to release themselves from the
+engagement (and I also hold that they ought not to make _much_
+difference), they necessarily make a great difference in the _moral_
+freedom. A person is bound to take all these circumstances into account,
+before resolving on a step which may affect such important interests of
+others; and if he does not allow proper weight to those interests, he is
+morally responsible for the wrong. I have made these obvious remarks for
+the better illustration of the general principle of liberty, and not
+because they are at all needed on the particular question, which, on the
+contrary, is usually discussed as if the interest of children was
+everything, and that of grown persons nothing.
+
+I have already observed that, owing to the absence of any recognised
+general principles, liberty is often granted where it should be
+withheld, as well as withheld where it should be granted; and one of the
+cases in which, in the modern European world, the sentiment of liberty
+is the strongest, is a case where, in my view, it is altogether
+misplaced. A person should be free to do as he likes in his own
+concerns; but he ought not to be free to do as he likes in acting for
+another, under the pretext that the affairs of another are his own
+affairs. The State, while it respects the liberty of each in what
+specially regards himself, is bound to maintain a vigilant control over
+his exercise of any power which it allows him to possess over others.
+This obligation is almost entirely disregarded in the case of the
+family relations, a case, in its direct influence on human happiness,
+more important than all others taken together. The almost despotic power
+of husbands over wives need not be enlarged upon here because nothing
+more is needed for the complete removal of the evil, than that wives
+should have the same rights, and should receive the protection of law in
+the same manner, as all other persons; and because, on this subject, the
+defenders of established injustice do not avail themselves of the plea
+of liberty, but stand forth openly as the champions of power. It is in
+the case of children, that misapplied notions of liberty are a real
+obstacle to the fulfilment by the State of its duties. One would almost
+think that a man's children were supposed to be literally, and not
+metaphorically, a part of himself, so jealous is opinion of the smallest
+interference of law with his absolute and exclusive control over them;
+more jealous than of almost any interference with his own freedom of
+action: so much less do the generality of mankind value liberty than
+power. Consider, for example, the case of education. Is it not almost a
+self-evident axiom, that the State should require and compel the
+education, up to a certain standard, of every human being who is born
+its citizen? Yet who is there that is not afraid to recognise and
+assert this truth? Hardly any one indeed will deny that it is one of the
+most sacred duties of the parents (or, as law and usage now stand, the
+father), after summoning a human being into the world, to give to that
+being an education fitting him to perform his part well in life towards
+others and towards himself. But while this is unanimously declared to be
+the father's duty, scarcely anybody, in this country, will bear to hear
+of obliging him to perform it. Instead of his being required to make any
+exertion or sacrifice for securing education to the child, it is left to
+his choice to accept it or not when it is provided gratis! It still
+remains unrecognised, that to bring a child into existence without a
+fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but
+instruction and training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against
+the unfortunate offspring and against society; and that if the parent
+does not fulfil this obligation, the State ought to see it fulfilled, at
+the charge, as far as possible, of the parent.
+
+Were the duty of enforcing universal education once admitted, there
+would be an end to the difficulties about what the State should teach,
+and how it should teach, which now convert the subject into a mere
+battle-field for sects and parties, causing the time and labour which
+should have been spent in educating, to be wasted in quarrelling about
+education. If the government would make up its mind to _require_ for
+every child a good education, it might save itself the trouble of
+_providing_ one. It might leave to parents to obtain the education where
+and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school
+fees of the poorer class of children, and defraying the entire school
+expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them. The objections
+which are urged with reason against State education, do not apply to the
+enforcement of education by the State, but to the State's taking upon
+itself to direct that education; which is a totally different thing.
+That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should
+be in State hands, I go as far as any one in deprecating. All that has
+been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity
+in opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable
+importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere
+contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as
+the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant
+power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an
+aristocracy, or the majority of the existing generation, in proportion
+as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the
+mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education
+established and controlled by the State, should only exist, if it exist
+at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the
+purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain
+standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is in so
+backward a state that it could not or would not provide for itself any
+proper institutions of education, unless the government undertook the
+task; then, indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils,
+take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it may
+that of joint stock companies, when private enterprise, in a shape
+fitted for undertaking great works of industry, does not exist in the
+country. But in general, if the country contains a sufficient number of
+persons qualified to provide education under government auspices, the
+same persons would be able and willing to give an equally good education
+on the voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration afforded
+by a law rendering education compulsory, combined with State aid to
+those unable to defray the expense.
+
+The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public
+examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early age.
+An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to
+ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable, the
+father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be
+subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his
+labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in
+every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually extending
+range of subjects, so as to make the universal acquisition, and what is
+more, retention, of a certain minimum of general knowledge, virtually
+compulsory. Beyond that minimum, there should be voluntary examinations
+on all subjects, at which all who come up to a certain standard of
+proficiency might claim a certificate. To prevent the State from
+exercising, through these arrangements, an improper influence over
+opinion, the knowledge required for passing an examination (beyond the
+merely instrumental parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use)
+should, even in the higher class of examinations, be confined to facts
+and positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion,
+politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or
+falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an
+opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or
+churches. Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off
+in regard to all disputed truths, than they are at present; they would
+be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the state
+merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen, or
+instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from being
+taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools where they
+were taught other things. All attempts by the state to bias the
+conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil; but it may
+very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the
+knowledge, requisite to make his conclusions, on any given subject,
+worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be the better for
+being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in Kant, whichever
+of the two he takes up with, or even if with neither: and there is no
+reasonable objection to examining an atheist in the evidences of
+Christianity, provided he is not required to profess a belief in them.
+The examinations, however, in the higher branches of knowledge should, I
+conceive, be entirely voluntary. It would be giving too dangerous a
+power to governments, were they allowed to exclude any one from
+professions, even from the profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency
+of qualifications: and I think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees,
+or other public certificates of scientific or professional acquirements,
+should be given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand
+the test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over
+competitors, other than the weight which may be attached to their
+testimony by public opinion.
+
+It is not in the matter of education only, that misplaced notions of
+liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of parents from being
+recognised, and legal obligations from being imposed, where there are
+the strongest grounds for the former always, and in many cases for the
+latter also. The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being,
+is one of the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To
+undertake this responsibility--to bestow a life which may be either a
+curse or a blessing--unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will
+have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime
+against that being. And in a country either over-peopled, or threatened
+with being so, to produce children, beyond a very small number, with
+the effect of reducing the reward of labour by their competition, is a
+serious offence against all who live by the remuneration of their
+labour. The laws which, in many countries on the Continent, forbid
+marriage unless the parties can show that they have the means of
+supporting a family, do not exceed the legitimate powers of the state:
+and whether such laws be expedient or not (a question mainly dependent
+on local circumstances and feelings), they are not objectionable as
+violations of liberty. Such laws are interferences of the state to
+prohibit a mischievous act--an act injurious to others, which ought to
+be a subject of reprobation, and social stigma, even when it is not
+deemed expedient to superadd legal punishment. Yet the current ideas of
+liberty, which bend so easily to real infringements of the freedom of
+the individual, in things which concern only himself, would repel the
+attempt to put any restraint upon his inclinations when the consequence
+of their indulgence is a life, or lives, of wretchedness and depravity
+to the offspring, with manifold evils to those sufficiently within reach
+to be in any way affected by their actions. When we compare the strange
+respect of mankind for liberty, with their strange want of respect for
+it, we might imagine that a man had an indispensable right to do harm
+to others, and no right at all to please himself without giving pain to
+any one.
+
+I have reserved for the last place a large class of questions respecting
+the limits of government interference, which, though closely connected
+with the subject of this Essay, do not, in strictness, belong to it.
+These are cases in which the reasons against interference do not turn
+upon the principle of liberty: the question is not about restraining the
+actions of individuals, but about helping them: it is asked whether the
+government should do, or cause to be done, something for their benefit,
+instead of leaving it to be done by themselves, individually, or in
+voluntary combination.
+
+The objections to government interference, when it is not such as to
+involve infringement of liberty, may be of three kinds.
+
+The first is, when the thing to be done is likely to be better done by
+individuals than by the government. Speaking generally, there is no one
+so fit to conduct any business, or to determine how or by whom it shall
+be conducted, as those who are personally interested in it. This
+principle condemns the interferences, once so common, of the
+legislature, or the officers of government, with the ordinary processes
+of industry. But this part of the subject has been sufficiently enlarged
+upon by political economists, and is not particularly related to the
+principles of this Essay.
+
+The second objection is more nearly allied to our subject. In many
+cases, though individuals may not do the particular thing so well, on
+the average, as the officers of government, it is nevertheless desirable
+that it should be done by them, rather than by the government, as a
+means to their own mental education--a mode of strengthening their
+active faculties, exercising their judgment, and giving them a familiar
+knowledge of the subjects with which they are thus left to deal. This is
+a principal, though not the sole, recommendation of jury trial (in cases
+not political); of free and popular local and municipal institutions; of
+the conduct of industrial and philanthropic enterprises by voluntary
+associations. These are not questions of liberty, and are connected with
+that subject only by remote tendencies; but they are questions of
+development. It belongs to a different occasion from the present to
+dwell on these things as parts of national education; as being, in
+truth, the peculiar training of a citizen, the practical part of the
+political education of a free people, taking them out of the narrow
+circle of personal and family selfishness, and accustoming them to the
+comprehension of joint interests, the management of joint
+concerns--habituating them to act from public or semi-public motives,
+and guide their conduct by aims which unite instead of isolating them
+from one another. Without these habits and powers, a free constitution
+can neither be worked nor preserved, as is exemplified by the too-often
+transitory nature of political freedom in countries where it does not
+rest upon a sufficient basis of local liberties. The management of
+purely local business by the localities, and of the great enterprises of
+industry by the union of those who voluntarily supply the pecuniary
+means, is further recommended by all the advantages which have been set
+forth in this Essay as belonging to individuality of development, and
+diversity of modes of action. Government operations tend to be
+everywhere alike. With individuals and voluntary associations, on the
+contrary, there are varied experiments, and endless diversity of
+experience. What the State can usefully do, is to make itself a central
+depository, and active circulator and diffuser, of the experience
+resulting from many trials. Its business is to enable each
+experimentalist to benefit by the experiments of others, instead of
+tolerating no experiments but its own.
+
+The third, and most cogent reason for restricting the interference of
+government, is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power.
+Every function superadded to those already exercised by the government,
+causes its influence over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused,
+and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public
+into hangers-on of the government, or of some party which aims at
+becoming the government. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the
+insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities,
+and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government;
+if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all
+that now devolves on them, became departments of the central
+administration; if the employes of all these different enterprises were
+appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for
+every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular
+constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country
+free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more
+efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was
+constructed--the more skilful the arrangements for obtaining the best
+qualified hands and heads with which to work it. In England it has of
+late been proposed that all the members of the civil service of
+government should be selected by competitive examination, to obtain for
+those employments the most intelligent and instructed persons
+procurable; and much has been said and written for and against this
+proposal. One of the arguments most insisted on by its opponents, is
+that the occupation of a permanent official servant of the State does
+not hold out sufficient prospects of emolument and importance to attract
+the highest talents, which will always be able to find a more inviting
+career in the professions, or in the service of companies and other
+public bodies. One would not have been surprised if this argument had
+been used by the friends of the proposition, as an answer to its
+principal difficulty. Coming from the opponents it is strange enough.
+What is urged as an objection is the safety-valve of the proposed
+system. If indeed all the high talent of the country _could_ be drawn
+into the service of the government, a proposal tending to bring about
+that result might well inspire uneasiness. If every part of the business
+of society which required organised concert, or large and comprehensive
+views, were in the hands of the government, and if government offices
+were universally filled by the ablest men, all the enlarged culture and
+practised intelligence in the country, except the purely speculative,
+would be concentrated in a numerous bureaucracy, to whom alone the rest
+of the community would look for all things: the multitude for direction
+and dictation in all they had to do; the able and aspiring for personal
+advancement. To be admitted into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and when
+admitted, to rise therein, would be the sole objects of ambition. Under
+this regime, not only is the outside public ill-qualified, for want of
+practical experience, to criticise or check the mode of operation of the
+bureaucracy, but even if the accidents of despotic or the natural
+working of popular institutions occasionally raise to the summit a ruler
+or rulers of reforming inclinations, no reform can be effected which is
+contrary to the interest of the bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy
+condition of the Russian empire, as is shown in the accounts of those
+who have had sufficient opportunity of observation. The Czar himself is
+powerless against the bureaucratic body; he can send any one of them to
+Siberia, but he cannot govern without them, or against their will. On
+every decree of his they have a tacit veto, by merely refraining from
+carrying it into effect. In countries of more advanced civilisation and
+of a more insurrectionary spirit, the public, accustomed to expect
+everything to be done for them by the State, or at least to do nothing
+for themselves without asking from the State not only leave to do it,
+but even how it is to be done, naturally hold the State responsible for
+all evil which befalls them, and when the evil exceeds their amount of
+patience, they rise against the government and make what is called a
+revolution; whereupon somebody else, with or without legitimate
+authority from the nation, vaults into the seat, issues his orders to
+the bureaucracy, and everything goes on much as it did before; the
+bureaucracy being unchanged, and nobody else being capable of taking
+their place.
+
+A very different spectacle is exhibited among a people accustomed to
+transact their own business. In France, a large part of the people
+having been engaged in military service, many of whom have held at least
+the rank of non-commissioned officers, there are in every popular
+insurrection several persons competent to take the lead, and improvise
+some tolerable plan of action. What the French are in military affairs,
+the Americans are in every kind of civil business; let them be left
+without a government, every body of Americans is able to improvise one,
+and to carry on that or any other public business with a sufficient
+amount of intelligence, order, and decision. This is what every free
+people ought to be: and a people capable of this is certain to be free;
+it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because
+these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central
+administration. No bureaucracy can hope to make such a people as this do
+or undergo anything that they do not like. But where everything is done
+through the bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is really
+adverse can be done at all. The constitution of such countries is an
+organisation of the experience and practical ability of the nation, into
+a disciplined body for the purpose of governing the rest; and the more
+perfect that organisation is in itself, the more successful in drawing
+to itself and educating for itself the persons of greatest capacity from
+all ranks of the community, the more complete is the bondage of all, the
+members of the bureaucracy included. For the governors are as much the
+slaves of their organisation and discipline, as the governed are of the
+governors. A Chinese mandarin is as much the tool and creature of a
+despotism as the humblest cultivator. An individual Jesuit is to the
+utmost degree of abasement the slave of his order, though the order
+itself exists for the collective power and importance of its members.
+
+It is not, also, to be forgotten, that the absorption of all the
+principal ability of the country into the governing body is fatal,
+sooner or later, to the mental activity and progressiveness of the body
+itself. Banded together as they are--working a system which, like all
+systems, necessarily proceeds in a great measure by fixed rules--the
+official body are under the constant temptation of sinking into indolent
+routine, or, if they now and then desert that mill-horse round, of
+rushing into some half-examined crudity which has struck the fancy of
+some leading member of the corps: and the sole check to these closely
+allied, though seemingly opposite, tendencies, the only stimulus which
+can keep the ability of the body itself up to a high standard, is
+liability to the watchful criticism of equal ability outside the body.
+It is indispensable, therefore, that the means should exist,
+independently of the government, of forming such ability, and furnishing
+it with the opportunities and experience necessary for a correct
+judgment of great practical affairs. If we would possess permanently a
+skilful and efficient body of functionaries--above all, a body able to
+originate and willing to adopt improvements; if we would not have our
+bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross
+all the occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required for
+the government of mankind.
+
+To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to human freedom
+and advancement, begin, or rather at which they begin to predominate
+over the benefits attending the collective application of the force of
+society, under its recognised chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles
+which stand in the way of its well-being; to secure as much of the
+advantages of centralised power and intelligence, as can be had without
+turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general
+activity, is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the
+art of government. It is, in a great measure, a question of detail, in
+which many and various considerations must be kept in view, and no
+absolute rule can be laid down. But I believe that the practical
+principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the
+standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the
+difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination
+of power consistent with efficiency; but the greatest possible
+centralisation of information, and diffusion of it from the centre.
+Thus, in municipal administration, there would be, as in the New England
+States, a very minute division among separate officers, chosen by the
+localities, of all business which is not better left to the persons
+directly interested; but besides this, there would be, in each
+department of local affairs, a central superintendence, forming a branch
+of the general government. The organ of this superintendence would
+concentrate, as in a focus, the variety of information and experience
+derived from the conduct of that branch of public business in all the
+localities, from everything analogous which is done in foreign
+countries, and from the general principles of political science. This
+central organ should have a right to know all that is done, and its
+special duty should be that of making the knowledge acquired in one
+place available for others. Emancipated from the petty prejudices and
+narrow views of a locality by its elevated position and comprehensive
+sphere of observation, its advice would naturally carry much authority;
+but its actual power, as a permanent institution, should, I conceive, be
+limited to compelling the local officers to obey the laws laid down for
+their guidance. In all things not provided for by general rules, those
+officers should be left to their own judgment, under responsibility to
+their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be
+responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid down by the
+legislature; the central administrative authority only watching over
+their execution, and if they were not properly carried into effect,
+appealing, according to the nature of the case, to the tribunal to
+enforce the law, or to the constituencies to dismiss the functionaries
+who had not executed it according to its spirit. Such, in its general
+conception, is the central superintendence which the Poor Law Board is
+intended to exercise over the administrators of the Poor Rate throughout
+the country. Whatever powers the Board exercises beyond this limit, were
+right and necessary in that peculiar case, for the cure of rooted habits
+of maladministration in matters deeply affecting not the localities
+merely, but the whole community; since no locality has a moral right to
+make itself by mismanagement a nest of pauperism, necessarily
+overflowing into other localities, and impairing the moral and physical
+condition of the whole labouring community. The powers of administrative
+coercion and subordinate legislation possessed by the Poor Law Board
+(but which, owing to the state of opinion on the subject, are very
+scantily exercised by them), though perfectly justifiable in a case of
+first-rate national interest, would be wholly out of place in the
+superintendence of interests purely local. But a central organ of
+information and instruction for all the localities, would be equally
+valuable in all departments of administration. A government cannot have
+too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and
+stimulates, individual exertion and development. The mischief begins
+when, instead of calling forth the activity and powers of individuals
+and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of
+informing, advising, and, upon occasion, denouncing, it makes them work
+in fetters, or bids them stand aside and does their work instead of
+them. The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
+individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of
+_their_ mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of
+administrative skill, or of that semblance of it which practice gives,
+in the details of business; a State which dwarfs its men, in order that
+they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial
+purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be
+accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has
+sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the
+vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly,
+it has preferred to banish.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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