Chapter 1 & 3 Individuality as One of the Elements of Well Being Paper In this essay, your textual analysis must be rigorous. Rather than illustration as a

Chapter 1 & 3 Individuality as One of the Elements of Well Being Paper In
this essay, your textual analysis must be rigorous. Rather than
illustration as a means of grappling with the argument, you are expected to critically analyze
a position. CHAPTER I
Introductory
The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but
Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be
legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom
stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly
in?uences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is
likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is
so far from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost
from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more
civilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under
new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous
feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest
was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By
liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers.
The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of
Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they
ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who
derived their authority from inheritance or conquest, who, at all events, did
not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did
not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might
be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt
to use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To
prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by
innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey
stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of
the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the ?ock, than any of the
minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence
against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits
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On Liberty
to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted in
two ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called
political liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in
the ruler to infringe, and which if he did infringe, speci?c resistance, or
general rebellion, was held to be justi?able. A second, and generally a later
expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks; by which the
consent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to represent
its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more important
acts of the governing power. To the ?rst of these modes of limitation, the
ruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, to
submit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or when already in
some degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere
the principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind were
content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on
condition of being guaranteed more or less ef?caciously against his tyranny,
they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.
A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men
ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be an
independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to them
much better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants
or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, could
they have complete security that the powers of government would never be
abused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and
temporary rules became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular
party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerable
extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggle
proceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice
of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance had
been attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) was
a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those
of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identi?ed with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and
will of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its own
will. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be
effectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford to
trust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made.
Their power was but the nation’s own power, concentrated, and in a form
convenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling,
was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the
Introductory
75
Continental section of which, it still apparently predominates. Those who
admit any limit to what a government may do, except in the case of such
governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentiment might by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if the
circumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.
But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, success
discloses faults and in?rmities which failure might have concealed from
observation. The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power
over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular government was a
thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some distant
period of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily disturbed by such
temporary aberrations as those of the French Revolution, the worst of
which were the work of an usurping few,1 and which, in any case, belonged,
not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden and
convulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic despotism. In
time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large portion of the
earth’s surface, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful members of
the community of nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great
existing fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as ‘‘self-government,’’
and ‘‘the power of the people over themselves,’’ do not express the true state
of the case. The ‘‘people’’ who exercise the power, are not always the same
people with those over whom it is exercised; and the ‘‘self-government’’
spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the
rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of the
most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those
who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people,
consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions
1. Mill grants the essential justice of the French Revolution and its consistency with
the progress of liberty. He reserves his objection for the ‘‘aberrations’’ of the revolution:
that is, those of its episodes that tended toward the consolidation of state power at the
sacri?ce of personal liberty. A conspicuous instance of such a reversal was the assumption of unrestricted control over public life by the Committee of Public Safety from June
1793 through July 1794, a period sometimes referred to by historians as the Reign of
Terror. Mill would have been aware that the way was opened to such abuses by antilibertarian legislation—for example, the Law of Suspects, passed in September 1793,
which meted out severe punishments not only for treason against the revolution but for
insuf?cient zeal in its service.
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On Liberty
are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power. The
limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals, loses
none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable
to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view of things,
recommending itself equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes in European society to whose real or
supposed interests democracy is adverse, has had no dif?culty in establishing itself; and in political speculations ‘‘the tyranny of the majority’’ is now
generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on
its guard.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at ?rst, and is still
vulgarly, held in dread, chie?y as operating through the acts of the public
authorities. But re?ecting persons perceived that when society is itself the
tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose
it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by
the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own
mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates
at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social
tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since,
though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means
of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the
prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose,
by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of
conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if
possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its
ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its
own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion
with individual independence: and to ?nd that limit, and maintain it against
encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as
protection against political despotism.
But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms,
the practical question, where to place the limit—how to make the ?tting
adjustment between individual independence and social control—is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints upon
the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be
imposed, by law in the ?rst place, and by opinion on many things which are
not ?t subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is the
Introductory
77
principal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the most
obvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made in
resolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided it
alike; and the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet the
people of any given age and country no more suspect any dif?culty in it,
than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. The
rules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and selfjustifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the
magical in?uence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a
second nature, but is continually mistaken for the ?rst. The effect of custom,
in preventing any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind
impose on one another, is all the more complete because the subject is one
on which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should be
given, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People are
accustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by some
who aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjects
of this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. The
practical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation of
human conduct, is the feeling in each person’s mind that everybody should
be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like
them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard of
judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, not
supported by reasons, can only count as one person’s preference; and if the
reasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by other
people, it is still only many people’s liking instead of one. To an ordinary
man, however, his own preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectly
satisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notions
of morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religious creed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that. Men’s
opinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blameable, are affected by all
the multifarious causes which in?uence their wishes in regard to the conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those which determine their
wishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason—at other times their
prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom their
antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves—their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, a
large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans and
Helots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, be-
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On Liberty
tween nobles and roturiers,2 between men and women, has been for the
most part the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the members
of the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the
other hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where its
ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bear
the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance, which
have been enforced by law or opinion, has been the servility of mankind
towards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters, or
of their gods. This servility, though essentially sel?sh, is not hypocrisy; it
gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burn
magicians and heretics. Among so many baser in?uences, the general and
obvious interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, in
the direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason,
and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies and
antipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which
had little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.
The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it,
are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid
down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion. And in
general, those who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling,
have left this condition of things unassailed in principle, however they may
have come into con?ict with it in some of its details. They have occupied
themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike,
than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to
individuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind
on the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather
than make common cause in defence of freedom, with heretics generally.
The only case in which the higher ground has been taken on principle and
maintained with consistency, by any but an individual here and there, is that
of religious belief: a case instructive in many ways, and not least so as
forming a most striking instance of the fallibility of what is called the moral
sense: for the odium theologicum,3 in a sincere bigot, is one of the most
unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who ?rst broke the yoke of what
2. Commoners.
3. Theological hatred.
Introductory
79
called itself the Universal Church,4 were in general as little willing to
permit difference of religious opinion as that church itself. But when the
heat of the con?ict was over, without giving a complete victory to any party,
and each church or sect was reduced to limit its hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no
chance of becoming majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to
those whom they could not convert, for permission to differ. It is accordingly on this battle ?eld, almost solely, that the rights of the individual
against society have been asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the
claim of society to exercise authority over dissentients, openly controverted. The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it
possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible
right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for
his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever
they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been
practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to
have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the
scale. In the minds of almost all religious persons, even in the most tolerant
countries, the duty of toleration is admitted with tacit reserves. One person
will bear with dissent in matters of church government, but not of dogma;
another can tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an Unitarian; another,
every one who believes in revealed religion; a few extend their charity a
little further, but stop at the belief in a God and in a future state. Wherever
the sentiment of the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have
abated little of its claim to be obeyed.
In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our political history,
though the yoke of opinion is perhaps heavier, that of law is lighter, than in
most other countries of Europe; and there is considerable jealousy of direct
interference, by the legislative or the executive power, with private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting habit of looking on the government as
representing an opposite interest to the public. The majority have not yet
learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or its opinions their
opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much
exposed to invasion from the government, as it already is from public
opinion. But, as yet, there is a considerable amount of feeling ready to be
4. Followers of Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–64), and John Knox
(1505–72) who demanded a thoroughgoing reformation of the Catholic Church.
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On Liberty
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