John stuart mill

in the existing state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of

the truth. When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to the

apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the

right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to

say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence.

It may be objected, "But some received principles, especially on the highest and

most vital subjects, are more than half-truths. The Christian morality, for

instance, is the whole truth on that subject and if any one teaches a morality

which varies from it, he is wholly in error." As this is of all cases the most

important in practice, none can be fitter to test the general maxim. But before

pronouncing what Christian morality is or is not, it would be desirable to

decide what is meant by Christian morality. If it means the morality of the New

Testament, I wonder that any one who derives his knowledge of this from the book

itself, can suppose that it was announced, or intended, as a complete doctrine

of morals. The Gospel always refers to a preexisting morality, and confines its

precepts to the particulars in which that morality was to be corrected, or

superseded by a wider and higher; expressing itself, moreover, in terms most

general, often impossible to be interpreted literally, and possessing rather the

impressiveness of poetry or eloquence than the precision of legislation. To

extract from it a body of ethical doctrine, has never been possible without

eking it out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed,

but in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people. St.

Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine and

filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a preexisting morality,

namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his advice to Christians is in a

great measure a system of accommodation to that; even to the extent of giving an

apparent sanction to slavery. What is called Christian, but should rather be

termed theological, morality, was not the work of Christ or the Apostles, but is

of much later origin, having been gradually built up by the Catholic Church of

the first five centuries, and though not implicitly adopted by moderns and

Protestants, has been much less modified by them than might have been expected.

For the most part, indeed, they have contented themselves with cutting off the

additions which had been made to it in the Middle Ages, each sect supplying the

place by fresh additions, adapted to its own character and tendencies. That

mankind owe a great debt to this morality, and to its early teachers, I should

be the last person to deny; but I do not scruple to say of it, that it is, in

many important points, incomplete and one-sided, and that unless ideas and

feelings, not sanctioned by it, had contributed to the formation of European

life and character, human affairs would have been in a worse condition than they

now are. Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it

is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than

positive; passive rather than active; Innocence rather than Nobleness;

Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as

has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt." In

its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been

gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven

and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous

life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in

it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting

each man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow-creatures, except

so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It

is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all

authorities found established; who indeed are not to be actively obeyed when

they command what religion forbids, but who are not to be resisted, far less

rebelled against, for any amount of wrong to ourselves. And while, in the

morality of the best Pagan nations, duty to the State holds even a

disproportionate place, infringing on the just liberty of the individual; in

purely Christian ethics that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed or

acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament, that we read the maxim

— "A ruler who appoints any man to an office, when there is in his dominions

another man better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State."

What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern

morality, is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even

in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity,

high-mindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor, is derived from the

purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have

grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly

recognized, is that of obedience.

I am as far as any one from pretending that these defects are necessarily

inherent in the Christian ethics, in every manner in which it can be conceived,

or that the many requisites of a complete moral doctrine which it does not

contain, do not admit of being reconciled with it. Far less would I insinuate

this of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings

of Christ are all, that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to

be; that they are irreconcilable with nothing which a comprehensive morality

requires; that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within

them, with no greater violence to their language than has been done to it by all

who have attempted to deduce from them any practical system of conduct whatever.

But it is quite consistent with this, to believe that they contain and were

meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the

highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended

to be provided for, in the recorded deliverances of the Founder of Christianity,

and which have been entirely thrown aside in the system of ethics erected on the

basis of those deliverances by the Christian Church. And this being so, I think

it a great error to persist in attempting to find in the Christian doctrine that

complete rule for our guidance, which its author intended it to sanction and

enforce, but only partially to provide. I believe, too, that this narrow theory

is becoming a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the value of the

moral training and instruction, which so many well-meaning persons are now at

length exerting themselves to promote. I much fear that by attempting to form

the mind and feelings on an exclusively religious type, and discarding those

secular standards (as for want of a better name they may be called) which

heretofore coexisted with and supplemented the Christian ethics, receiving some

of its spirit, and infusing into it some of theirs, there will result, and is

even now resulting, a low, abject, servile type of character, which, submit

itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme Will, is incapable of rising to or

sympathizing in the conception of Supreme Goodness. I believe that other ethics

than any one which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources, must exist

side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind;

and that the Christian system is no exception to the rule that in an imperfect

state of the human mind, the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions.

It is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the moral truths not contained in

Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it does contain. Such

prejudice, or oversight, when it occurs, is altogether an evil; but it is one

from which we cannot hope to be always exempt, and must be regarded as the price

paid for an inestimable good. The exclusive pretension made by a part of the

truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested against, and if a

reactionary impulse should make the protestors unjust in their turn, this

one-sidedness, like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If

Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should

themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact,

known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that

a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the

work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the

Christian faith.

I do not pretend that the most unlimited use of the freedom of enunciating all

possible opinions would put an end to the evils of religious or philosophical

sectarianism. Every truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is

sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other

truth existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or qualify

the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian

is not cured by the freest discussion, but is often heightened and exacerbated

thereby; the truth which ought to have been, but was not, seen, being rejected

all the more violently because proclaimed by persons regarded as opponents. But

it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more

disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary

effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet

suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when

people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one

that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect

of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental

attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent

judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an

advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it,

every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds

advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to.

We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on

which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of

the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly

recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we

can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly

does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on

any object is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of

adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being

supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth;

unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly

contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a

prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not

only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger

of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character

and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for

good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and

heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.

Before quitting the subject of freedom of opinion, it is fit to take notice of

those who say, that the free expression of all opinions should be permitted, on

condition that the manner be temperate, and do not pass the bounds of fair

discussion. Much might be said on the impossibility of fixing where these

supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the test be offence to those whose

opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given

whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes

them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he

shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent. But this,

though an important consideration in a practical point of view, merges in a more

fundamental objection. Undoubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, even

though it be a true one, may be very objectionable, and may justly incur severe

censure. But the principal offences of the kind are such as it is mostly

impossible, unless by accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to conviction. The

gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to

misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all

this, even to the most aggravated degree, is so continually done in perfect good

faith, by persons who are not considered, and in many other respects may not

deserve to be considered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely possible on

adequate grounds conscientiously to stamp the misrepresentation as morally

culpable; and still less could law presume to interfere with this kind of

controversial misconduct. With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate

discussion, namely, invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the

denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever

proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to

restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the

unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be

likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous

indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they

are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair

advantage can be derived by any opinion from this mode of asserting it, accrues

almost exclusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which

can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary

opinion as bad and immoral men. To calumny of this sort, those who hold any

unpopular opinion are peculiarly exposed, because they are in general few and

uninfluential, and nobody but themselves feels much interest in seeing justice

done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who

attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves,

nor if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In

general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing

by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of

unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree

without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the

prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions,

and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of

truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of

vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to

choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on

infidelity, than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law and authority

have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every

instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case;

condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in

whose mode of advocacy either want of candor, or malignity, bigotry or

intolerance of feeling manifest themselves, but not inferring these vices from

the side which a person takes, though it be the contrary side of the question to

our own; and giving merited honor to every one, whatever opinion he may hold,

who has calmness to see and honesty to state what his opponents and their

opinions really are, exaggerating nothing to their discredit, keeping nothing

back which tells, or can be supposed to tell, in their favor. This is the real

morality of public discussion; and if often violated, I am happy to think that

there are many controversialists who to a great extent observe it, and a still

greater number who conscientiously strive towards it.

[1] These words had scarcely been written, when, as if to give them an emphatic

contradiction, occurred the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. That

illjudged 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 far

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.

[2] Thomas Pooley, Bodmin Assizes, July 31, 1857. In December following, he

received a free pardon from the Crown.

[3] George Jacob Holyoake, August 17, 1857; Edward Truelove, July, 1857.

[4] Baron de Gleichen, Marlborough Street Police Court, August 4, 1857.

[5] Ample warning may be drawn from the large infusion of the passions of a

persecutor, which mingled with the general display of the worst parts of our

national character on the occasion of the Sepoy insurrection. The ravings of

fanatics or charlatans from the pulpit may be unworthy of notice; but the heads

of the Evangelical party have announced as their principle, for the government

of Hindoos and Mahomedans, that no schools be supported by public money in which

the Bible is not taught, and by necessary consequence that no public employment

be given to any but real or pretended Christians. An Under-Secretary of State,

in a speech delivered to his constituents on the 12th of November, 1857, is

reported to have said: "Toleration of their faith" (the faith of a hundred

millions of British subjects), "the superstition which they called religion, by

the British Government, had had the effect of retarding the ascendency of the

British name, and preventing the salutary growth of Christianity.... Toleration

was the great corner-stone of the religious liberties of this country; but do

not let them abuse that precious word toleration. As he understood it, it meant

the complete liberty to all, freedom of worship, among Christians, who

worshipped upon the same foundation. It meant toleration of all sects and

denominations of Christians who believed in the one mediation." I desire to call

attention to the fact, that a man who has been deemed fit to fill a high office

in the government of this country, under a liberal Ministry, maintains the

doctrine that all who do not believe in the divinity of Christ are beyond the

pale of toleration. Who, after this imbecile display, can indulge the illusion

that religious persecution has passed away, never to return?

CHAPTER III

ON INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELLBEING

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