John stuart mill

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 of

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 coordinate 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."[1]

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

this 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 present 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."[2] There is a

Greek ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of

self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to be a

John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either; nor

would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be without anything good which

belonged to John Knox.

It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves,

but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the

rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful

object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do

them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and

animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating

feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by

making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to the

development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself,

and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater

fulness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the

units there is more in the mass which is composed of them. As much compression

as is necessary to prevent the stronger specimens of human nature from

encroaching on the rights of others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this

there is ample compensation even in the point of view of human development. The

means of development which the individual loses by being prevented from

gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly obtained at the

expense of the development of other people. And even to himself there is a full

equivalent in the better development of the social part of his nature, rendered

possible by the restraint put upon the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules

of justice for the sake of others, develops the feelings and capacities which

have the good of others for their object. But to be restrained in things not

affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable,

except such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint.

If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair play to

the nature of each, it is essential that different persons should be allowed to

lead different lives. In proportion as this latitude has been exercised in any

age, has that age been noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism does not produce

its worst effects, so long as Individuality exists under it; and whatever

crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and

whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and that it

is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce,

well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument: for what more or

better can be said of any condition of human affairs, than that it brings human

beings themselves nearer to the best thing they can be? or what worse can be

said of any obstruction to good, than that it prevents this? Doubtless, however,

these considerations will not suffice to convince those who most need

convincing; and it is necessary further to show, that these developed human

beings are of some use to the undeveloped — to point out to those who do not

desire liberty, and would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some

intelligible manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without

hindrance.

In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly learn

something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that originality is a

valuable element in human affairs. There is always need of persons not only to

discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no

longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more

enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life. This cannot well

be gainsaid by anybody who does not believe that the world has already attained

perfection in all its ways and practices. It is true that this benefit is not

capable of being rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in

comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others,

would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these few are

the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool.

Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist; it is

they who keep the life in those which already existed. If there were nothing new

to be done, would human intellect cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason

why those who do the old things should forget why they are done, and do them

like cattle, not like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the

best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless there

were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality prevents the

grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely traditional, such

dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from anything really alive, and

there would be no reason why 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