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 unfavorable
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 recognizing 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 coördinate element
with all that is designated by the
terms
civilization, instruction, education,
culture,
but is itself a necessary part and
condition
of all those things; there would be
no danger
that liberty should be undervalued,
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 recognized 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 vigor
and
manifold diversity,” which combine
themselves
in “originality.”*
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
civilized 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 coexist
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 like 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
pressent a strong tendency to this
narrow
theory of life, and to the pinched
and hidebound
type of human character which it patronizes.
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.”* 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,
developes
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 civilization
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 honor 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
detered, 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 non-conformity,
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 vigor,
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 burden,
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 æsthetic 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 unrecognized; 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 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.*
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
endeavor 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
dependents 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 fore-fathers;
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 flatten
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 honor
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 unorganized
form,
what the Chinese educational and political
systems are in an organized; 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 neighborhoods, 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
ascendancy
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 labors 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 endeavor 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 forever 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 warm 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 unfavorable 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 favorable
sentiments, but of this he has no right
to
complain, unless he has merited their
favor
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 unfavorable
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 p? e??
e??
a 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 his
own
favor; — 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 endeavor 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 burden 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,
endeavor to repress these also? And
as a
supplement to the unavoidable imperfections
of law, ought not opinion at least
to organize
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 wrongdoer. 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 endeavoring 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.*
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 endeavored, 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 realized 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 realized — 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
labor. 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 demoralizing 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 labor 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 martys; 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 recognize
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 civilization.
It also appears so to me, but I am
not aware
that any community has a right to force
another
to be civilized. 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 civilization 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 civilization.
A
civilization 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 cizilization
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 right, 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 recognized, 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
workpeople
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
in
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
labor,
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 blameable, 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 endeavoring
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; of 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 used in excess, and the sellers
have a pecuniary interest in encouraging
that excess; but no argument can be
founded
on this, in favor, 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 license 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 laboring
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 laboring 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 civilized 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 favor,
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
recognized
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 recognized 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 needs 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 recognize
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 unrecognized, 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
labor 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 classes 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 labor, 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 recognized, 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 east 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 labor by
their
competition, is a serious offence against
all who live by the remuneration of
their
labor. 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 (incases 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
organized 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
criticize
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 civilization
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 organization 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 organization
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 organization 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 recognized chiefs, for the removal
of
the obstacles which stand in the way
of its
well-being, to secure as much of the
advantages
of centralized 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 centralization
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 mal-administration 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
laboring
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 a 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
that semblance of it which practice
gives,
it 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnotes [*] 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 criticizing 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.
[*] Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes,
July
31, 1857. In December following, he
received
a free pardon from the Crown.
[†] George Jacob Holyoake, August 17,
1857;
Edward Truelove, July, 1857.
[‡] Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough
Street
Police Court, August 4, 1857.
[*] 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?
[*] The Sphere and Duties of Government,
from the German of Baron Wilhelm von
Humboldt,
pp. 11-13.
[*] Sterling’s Essays.
[*] 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
now-a-days
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.
[*] 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.
END
|
Evans Experientialism 
