John stuart mill

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 common-place, 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 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 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 deterred, should be encouraged in

acting differently from the mass. In other times there was no advantage in their

doing so, unless they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the

mere example of 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 aesthetic

stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should tolerance, as far as

the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to tastes and modes of life which

extort acquiescence by the multitude of their adherents? Nowhere (except in some

monastic institutions) is diversity of taste entirely 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 in dulgence, 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.[3]

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 forefathers; every one must still dress like other people, but

the fashion may change once or twice a year. We thus take care that when there

is change, it shall be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or

convenience; for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the

world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at another

moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we continually make new

inventions in mechanical things, and keep them until they are again superseded

by better; we are eager for improvement in politics, in education, even in

morals, though in this last our idea of improvement chiefly consists in

persuading or forcing other people to be as good as ourselves. It is not

progress that we object to; on the contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are

the most progressive people who ever lived. It is individuality that we war

against: we should think we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike;

forgetting that the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first

thing which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type,

and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the advantages

of both, of producing something better than either. We have a warning example in

China — a nation of much talent, and, in some respects, even wisdom, owing to

the rare good fortune of having been provided at an early period with a

particularly good set of customs, the work, in some measure, of men to whom even

the most enlightened European must accord, under certain limitations, the title

of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their

apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they possess upon

every mind in the community, and securing that those who have appropriated most

of it shall occupy the posts of 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

regime 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 ascendancy 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

became 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