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 INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 
 
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 FRANCIS C. MONTAGUE 
 
 FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND 
 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXV 
 
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 of 
 
 ARNOLD TOYNBEE
 
 PRE FA TOR Y NOTE. 
 
 Individual freedom and the function of tlie State 
 have recently been topics of mncli controversy, not 
 only among those who speculate upon politics, but 
 among practical politicians in Parliament and in 
 the newspapers. In these discussions all parties 
 necessarily make many assumptions which require 
 no small pains to define and verify. Every solution 
 of a particular problem must imply general prin- 
 ciples, and every general principle must have its 
 place in a theory. A complete theory of individual 
 liberty and the function of the State is a complete 
 political philosophy; and a philosophy of politics 
 involves a philosophy of things in general. The 
 following essay does not pretend to be complete 
 or to be philosophic. It merely aims at carrying 
 political reflection one or two stages beyond the 
 point reached by those whose sole interest is in 
 party politics. It cannot assist the scientific in- 
 quirer ; but it may interest some of those who 
 like to criticize their own opinions. Such persons 
 there are even in our own country ; and if they find 
 anything suggestive in this volume, it will have 
 fulfilled the wishes of its author. 
 
 F. C. M. 
 
 OCTOBEK, 1884.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The political and social endeavour of the past age an endeavour ^"^^^ 
 to obtain individual freedom— The success of this en- 
 deavour foUowed by disappointment— The literary re- 
 action—The Socialist reaction— The practical reaction 
 consequent upon the transfer of political supremacy from 
 the upper and middle to the labouring classes— Legis- 
 lative interference with the distribution of wealth— wlth 
 freedom of contract— With education— The Liberal 
 party has changed its policy, but kept its phrases— The 
 time arrived for a criticism of the old formulas about 
 liberty— Plan of this essay i 
 
 IL 
 
 HISTORY OP ENGLISH IDEAS OP INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 Theory of individual freedom usually accepted by English 
 publicists— This theory foreign to the mind of antiquity 
 —Of the Middle Ages— Of many modern nations— How 
 far the result of our national character— Of our political 
 history— How far of Catholicism— Of the Reformation— 
 Of the Baconian philosophy— English political philosophy 
 —Three schools— Of Hobbes and Locke— Of Bentham 
 —Of Herbert Spencer— All substantiaUy agree in taking 
 a physical view of society— Effect of such a view upon
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 theory of individual freedom-Conclusions of the philo- 
 sophers popularized by the political economists . . ^1 
 
 III. 
 
 SOCIETY AND ITS MEMBERS. 
 
 Society even upon physical principles determines the indm- 
 dual a^ much as the individual determines society— The 
 individual in popular thought-The individual in scien- 
 tific thought-Illustrations— Application to social science 
 —Contributions to social science of comparative inquiry 
 —In physiology-In philology— In politics- In jnris- 
 prudence— In religion- National and class types of 
 moraUty— Of education— Of life— ImpossibUity of con- 
 ceiving an individual not determined by, yet determining 
 society— The knowledge of the individual and of society 
 to be obtained by studpng social relations— These can 
 be studied only in history— The historical method the 
 true method of social science '^'^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Society not merely a physical, but also a moral organism— Its 
 members rational and conscious— A twofold development 
 of each member, as a whole in himself and as part of a 
 greater whole— The social evolution thus different from 
 any mode of physical evolution— Conscious beings alone 
 capable of infinite desires— Of unselfish desires— Morality, 
 science, religion, and art, possible only to conscious beings 
 
 Co-operation rather than competition the true law of 
 
 social evolution— The instinct for unity seen in prose- 
 lytism and public worship— AU society a communion in 
 the spirit— The relation of the State to progress — Difficulty 
 of reconciling individual perfection with specialization of 
 functions — How far actually surmounted — How far pos- 
 sible to be surmounted hereafter 87
 
 Contents. xi 
 
 V. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Individuality an ambiguous term, equivalent sometimes to 
 eccentricity, sometimes to character — Great individuals 
 — Moral individuality — Scientific individuality — Artistic 
 individuality — Individuality, how affected by education 
 — By social pressure — How far lacking at the present 
 day — Keasons for this deficiency — Industrial energy — 
 Spiritual exhaustion — The pursuit of luxury — Depressing 
 influence of education and public opinion — Individual 
 weakness the result of social disorganization — Great 
 individuals and a great society really correlatives . .---Ill 
 
 VI 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE, 
 
 State and citizen correlative terms — A State a self-conscious 
 society, a society composed of self-conscious individuals, 
 of citizens — Duties of the State towards its citizens — As 
 regards national defence and pubhc order— As regards 
 production and distribution of wealth — As regards educa- 
 tion, recreation, the fine arts — As regards religion — State 
 interference not an obsolete instrument of progress — Nor 
 necessarily unfavourable to individual perfection . .145 
 
 VII. 
 
 LIBERTY OF ACTION AND DISCUSSION. 
 
 A willing conformity with laws which he cannnot alter, the 
 only possible freedom for man — Freedom of action and 
 discussion valuable only in so far as contributing to 
 this — I. Freedom of action — On what grounds com- 
 monly defended — Distinction between barbarous and 
 civilized societies— Distinction between acts self-regard-
 
 xii Contents, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ing and social— Argument that the individual is the best 
 judge of his own happiness— Argument that freedom is 
 indispensable to the development of character — Practical 
 considerations which limit interference with freedom of 
 action by the legislature or by public opinion — II. Free- 
 dom of discussion— The publishing of opinion an act not 
 essentially differing from other acts— The publishing of 
 opinion upon any one subject no more privileged than 
 the publishing of opinion upon any other subject — All 
 published opinion helps to modify practice — How far 
 true that entirely free discussion always furthers the 
 cause of truth — Practical considerations which limit 
 mterference with freedom of discussion by the legislature 
 or by public opinion — Persecution of new opinion — How 
 far inevitable — How far modified by the progress of 
 thought 179 
 
 VIII. 
 
 BUREAUCRACY AND COMMUNISM. 
 
 Biu'eaucracy and communism not the necessary consequences of 
 enlarging the functions of the State — I. Bureaucracy — 
 Where it exists is the result of historical conditions un- 
 known in England — Bureaucracy may be kept in check 
 by vigorous local institutions — The possibilities of fede- 
 ralism — 11. Communism — The limits of taxation — In- 
 direct taxation not necessarily bad when imposed upon 
 luxuries — Direct taxation must be proportioned to the 
 strength of the spirit of accumulation — Injustice of an 
 inquisition into the sources of private wealth — Confisca- 
 tion of unearned increment incompatible with the institu- 
 tion of private property — Social improvement possible 
 only to nations which recognize continuity of social life 
 — Such recognition does not exclude faith in an ideal . 217
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION.
 
 I. 
 
 I NT ROD UC TION. 
 
 For many years past, in our own as well as in other 
 European countries, political energy has been chiefly directed 
 to the attainment of individual freedom. The most cele- 
 brated reformers have been those who abridged the exorbi- 
 tant power of classes, corporations, and sects ; who liberated 
 trade, liberated education, liberated religion ; who very 
 nearly secured to all men the enjoyment of equal civil and 
 political rights. Many of these great men believed that 
 when we had finally abolished all needless restraint and all 
 unmeaning privilege we should have attained to a condition 
 of society in which statesmen would have nothing more to 
 do. They thought as nobly of their fellows as they thought 
 meanly of institutions. In a more sober form they repro- 
 duced the brilliant paradox of the French Revolution : that 
 the individual is very good, that society is very bad. Leave 
 man, they said, to the monitions of his own unprejudiced 
 reason, of his own warm and kindly instincts. These will 
 guide him aright, whilst states and churches can only lead 
 him astray. The only proper function of the state is to 
 secure that order within and without which is indispensable 
 if every man is to have an equal chance of doing what he 
 likes. Society exists in order to make the individual free. 
 Once the individual finds himself free, he will develope 
 
 B 2
 
 Limits 0/ Individual Liberty. 
 
 everything which civilization requires. His unsatisfied 
 desires will constrain to industry ; the multitude of workers 
 will involve competition ; and competition will stimulate to 
 their richest growth all the virtues and all the faculties of 
 man. This doctrine may be called the doctrine of negative 
 freedom. Few speculative doctrines have had so fair a trial 
 
 in practice. 
 
 At the present day political and social perfection seem 
 nearly as remote as ever ; the ideal which we were about to 
 clasp has melted in our embrace ; and we begin to doubt 
 whether the way of seeking after it, once so universally 
 approved, was the only way or the best. For a century of 
 enlarged individual freedom has done for human greatness 
 or human happiness only a very small part of what its 
 noblest advocates expected. They were convinced that by 
 merely aboHshing artificial restraints they could make a rich 
 and vigorous type of character as common in the future as it 
 had been rare in the past. They thought that individuality 
 varies with the power to do and to say as we please. But 
 here and in the United States of America, in our colonies, 
 and in one or two continental countries, men enjoy almost as 
 much of this power as can consist with any permanent 
 social union. Yet those most inclined to take cheerful views 
 may doubt whether our own age can count more illustrious 
 individuals than might have been found in any one of the 
 three preceding centuries. Such individuality as does exist 
 is not most plentiful in the freest countries. GTermany can 
 still boast of two or three extraordinary individuals ; the 
 United States cannot show one. De Tocqueville and Mill 
 were so mournfully impressed by the lack of character in 
 their contemporaries that they almost despaired of the
 
 Introduction. 
 
 fertility of the future. They seemed to resign themselves 
 to the final disappearance of genius and heroism. 
 
 If individual freedom has not made greatness more 
 common, neither has it made contentment more general. 
 Were any candid critic asked to fix upon the most universal 
 attribute of our generation, I think that he would name 
 discontent, discontent in every form from the noblest to the 
 meanest, from greed to aspiration. Restless and insatiable 
 above all other ages is the age in which we live. This, too, 
 in spite of means for the satisfaction of curiosity and appe- 
 tite more abundant than men have enjoyed at any former 
 period. Judged by any common-sense standard, Europe 
 now possesses a happiness unparalleled in former times. 
 Perhaps one of the numerous faction of common sense will 
 have the courage of his convictions and say that Europe is 
 as happy as she ought to be. If so, let him reflect one 
 instant upon the complexion of the philosophic theories 
 at present in favour, upon the tone of the best and most im- 
 pressive art, and upon the feeling with which many citizens 
 regard the constitution of their society. 
 
 Prosperous our contemporaries are beyond all precedent j 
 yet a formal pessimism finds to-day more adherents than 
 such a creed ever found before, and an informal pessimism 
 is so diffused as to infect many of the strongest minds. 
 The most characteristic art of our age is penetrate^ with a 
 melancholy which would be bitter were it not enervating. 
 We are become enamoured of the literature of weakness and 
 failure. We most relish the poetry and the painting which 
 express an acquiescence at once mournful and voluptuous. 
 And as for the temper which men cherish towards their 
 society, this temper has been mellowed in England by the
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty 
 
 habit of emigration, and by a legislation which habitually 
 transgresses the principle of laissez-faire; but elsewhere 
 people hitherto seem to have grown more and more dis- 
 contented as they have attained to more and more freedom , 
 
 Discontent is just as often a good thing as a bad thing, 
 and of the right sort of discontent we can never have too 
 much. But our discontent may lead us to think that 
 emancipation from restraint marks rather the beginning 
 than the end of a great revolution in human affairs. Our 
 disappointment justifies not the fooHsh and hopeless regret 
 that society should continue to move, but a doubt as to 
 whether we have rightly stated the law of social movement. 
 
 Our disappointment and our discontent were foretold. 
 The struggle for freedom inspired some wise men with very 
 mixed feelings. Unqualified freedom necessarily implies 
 unlimited competition; and unlimited competition is not 
 altogether pleasant or beautiful. Men of practical common 
 sense enjoy it. But the poet and the saint are troubled 
 with a yearning for unity, for peace, for a noble calm, and 
 a fruitful endeavour. Enormous power spent in securing 
 mean objects, energy cancelled by conflicting energy, weak- 
 ness trampled under the feet of strength, and strength 
 dissolved in the riot of its victory ; all these things are of 
 the very essence of unqualified competition ; and these are 
 the very things which most revolt the lover of the ideal : 
 so that in his eyes much of our vaunted progress seems 
 altogether futile. Oar civilization has revolted many of our 
 worthiest contemporaries. Some have utterly disavowed 
 the idea of improvement, and have sought rest in the tomb 
 of a dogmatic church. Others have found relief in con- 
 structing social Utopias, admirable in many respects, but
 
 Introduction. 7 
 
 more hopeless than the Kepublic of Plato. And others have 
 neither accepted nor created a world of phantoms^ but have 
 turned fiercely upon the world in which they were con- 
 demned to live, and have denounced its works with a 
 prophetic power which made even worldlings tremble. 
 
 Had the men of an eminently devout or poetic nature 
 stood alone in their protest against the negative freedom so 
 much prized by their age, the age would have prevailed 
 over their dissatisfaction. The poet or the saint was never 
 yet so tempered as to have much pleasure in things as they 
 are ; nor has the existing world been moulded to suit the 
 demands of their conscience or imagination. The practical 
 life of man has ever been the roughest of compromises. 
 Only too fortunate are we if it prove a compromise at all, 
 and do not ruthlessly exclude all that can reconcile us to its 
 burthens. But the state of affairs growing out of unlimited 
 freedom and unlimited competition did not merely offend 
 the taste or morality of a few. It made the many suffer 
 until they doubted whether it must really endure for ever. 
 Our jnodern Socialism.jex:pressea the practic.aLi^e-YQlt against 
 the doctrine of negative freedom. 
 
 Socialism indeed means many things. Some socialists 
 would not ask for more than a gradual development of the 
 principles asserted in our own recent legislation. Other 
 socialists are said to place their sole hope of social improve- 
 ment in the immediate and forcible overthrow of all social 
 institutions. Between these extremes, politicians and 
 philanthropists of every imaginable quality are confounded 
 under the general epithet of socialist. But for our present 
 purpose it is enough to touch on the article of faith common 
 to them all ; that co-opei-ation, not competition, is the true
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 principle of social life. The bearing of this doctrine upon 
 the theory of political freedom is self-evident. For if the 
 true freedom consist in leaving every man as much as 
 possible to himself, then it is clear that the keenest com- 
 petition is a wholesome state of things. But if co-operation 
 is the law of progress, then co-operation involves <:)Xgaiiiza- 
 tion^ audit is not possible to organize men without making 
 them do many things which they would not have done of 
 their own free will. 
 
 Whether or no we like Socialism, we cannot help seeing that 
 Socialism and freedom, as generally understood in England, 
 rest on irreconcilable postulates. According to his tempera- 
 ment, to his knowledge of the actual condition of mankind, 
 and to his power of severing the possible from the impossi- 
 ble, the socialist will vary in the extent of his demands for 
 immediate improvement. But in all cases his ideal society is 
 not one in which everybody is allowed to do what he likes so 
 long as he inflicts no unquestionable injury upon his neigh- 
 bours. Eather it is one in which each individual is expected 
 by his private exertion to advance as well as he is able 
 the positive welfare of his community. The conflict of these 
 ideals has already affected our political life, as it must soon 
 agitate the political life of the United States and of our 
 colonies. 
 
 The preponderating political influence which formerly 
 resided in the middle class, has been by degrees trans- 
 ferred to the labouring class. Reform Bills in England 
 have a significance quite other than attaches to the grant 
 of universal suffrage elsewhere. For the English labouring 
 man, in working out his own emancipation, has undergone a 
 political training. The continental labouring man has not
 
 Introduction. 
 
 had the discipline of combination and discussion. He has 
 the franchise, but he has not exerted a steady influence upon 
 politics. Passive in times of prosperity, in hard times 
 furious_, he has not developed a habit of political energy. 
 The English v/orkman has some rough notion of what he 
 really wants, what he really can get, and how he will best 
 get it. With his advent to power, not only the political 
 programme of the hour, but also the tone of society is 
 sensibly modified. For our new practical maxims we shall 
 find a new theoretical justification ; since in English politics, 
 theory always lags behind practice. 
 
 When we look back upon the condition of England at 
 the beginning of this century, we find that almost all effec- 
 tive political power and social influence were divided in 
 unequal shares between the landowner and the capitalist. 
 The landowner might not be in himself a greater force than 
 the capitalist ; but the constitution of England had been 
 shaped in ages when very great consequence attached to 
 land, and very little consequence attached to capital. The 
 capitalist thus found himself subordinated to the landowner 
 by a body of artificial regulations which did not correspond 
 with the balance of true political strength. Feeling that he 
 was powerful, the capitalist wanted freely to use his power. 
 He wanted liberty, individual liberty; above all, liberty to 
 carry on his business in whatever way he thought proper. 
 
 But the owner of capital resembled the owner of land at 
 least in his individual strength. Whatever the form of 
 his riches, the rich man in every law-abiding society will 
 be able to take care of himself. So long as the aristocracy 
 would consent to wield power in accordance with the ideas 
 of men of business, so long as trade was free and taxation
 
 I o L im its of Individual Liberty. 
 
 light, so long as we remained at peace with the strong, and 
 at the sword's point constrained the weak to buy oar wares, 
 so long the men of capital had little more to ask. Wealth 
 was their object of desire, and wealth beyond the wildest 
 dreams of avarice was theirs. Most of them had a merely 
 personal ambition. They wished less to exalt their own 
 class than to be admitted into the class above. They 
 naturally embraced the politics of self-help and laissez-faire. 
 The most earnest among them were often Nonconformists ; 
 and the peculiar spirit of Nonconformity, no less than the 
 intolerance of the Established Church, tended rather to 
 strengthen than to subdue in them an exaggerated sense of 
 personal independence, as well as an undue admiration for 
 individual energy. 
 
 But at the beginning of this century the relation of capi- 
 talist to landowner was just the reverse of the relation 
 between labourer and capitalist when the century was half 
 spent. In the one instance the strength of the antagonists 
 was equal, the working of the law unequal ; in the other 
 instance the law was professedly impartial, but the com- 
 batants were not fairly matched. Collectively, no doubts 
 the workmen have greater bodily strength than all other 
 sorts and conditions of people united. But each several 
 workman is less powerful than his employer. As between 
 rich and poor, an equal law gives free play to unequal force. 
 Therefore, apart from any considerations of prudence or 
 justice making this way or that, the natural impulse of the 
 workman is to protect himself by legislation. 
 
 I have said that unlimited freedom implies unlimited com- 
 petition. The advocates of freedom reposed so full a faith 
 in the discipline of competition, that they were willing to
 
 Introduction. 1 1 
 
 reuew in all its primitive intensity^ although under forms of 
 modern civilization, the original struggle for existence. But 
 they never could have convinced anybody who did not feel 
 a tolerable assurance of victory. Men who cannot trust, 
 each to his own right arm, men whose only hope of better- 
 ing their condition lies in mutual help, have no wish to 
 make more bitter the conflict for life. They will do every- 
 thing in their power to mitigate it, and if they can mitigate 
 it by interfering with the individual will, they are the very 
 last persons in the world to respectjndividual freedom. 
 
 Moreover, the social life of the capitalist is strongly 
 distinguished from the social life of the workman. In- 
 dividually weak, collectively irresistible, the workmen have 
 long been accustomed to act in large masses, to submit 
 to a severe discipline, which takes no account of personal 
 tastes or inclinations, to place hardly any limit upon the 
 will of the majoi^ty. The workman is ambitious rather 
 for his class than for himself. Few workmen cherish any 
 very strong desire to leave the condition of life into which 
 they were born ; but all workmen are determined to make 
 that condition of life as easy and prosperous as circumstances 
 will allow. As their ambition takes a social turn, so do 
 their Hghter inclinations. They care less for privacy, for 
 quiet, for a select circle of intimates, than do the members 
 of any other class. Probably they enjoy life as much as 
 any other great body of human beings; but it is in a great 
 body that they enjoy. Thus their amusements, their work, 
 all the conditions of their life have somewhat abated the 
 intensity of English reserve. 
 
 In the old world the nobles formed a corporation. The 
 workmen aspire to form a corporation in the new. In the
 
 1 2 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 old society all gentlemen were peers ; for all were united 
 by a similarity of education, of tastes, of recreations, and 
 pursuits. All had the leisure to enjoy and the capacity for 
 enjoyment. In such a society wealth did not, could not 
 claim the exorbitant preponderance which it assumes in the 
 mercantile world ; for the poor and the weak were sustained 
 by the riches and power of their order. The pride of class 
 was stronger than individual pride. The life of the class 
 was the life of all its members. Such was the ideal, more 
 or less, realized by the nobles of the Middle Age; and some 
 such ideal floats before the imagination of our more ambitious 
 workmen. 
 
 Since the statesmen of a free nation are the courtiers of 
 the people, it is not surprising that with the spirit of the 
 constituencies, the spirit of their representatives should be 
 transformed too. Whereas the reformers of the last genera- 
 tion sought to contract, the reformers of our own time are 
 busy in enlarging the activity of the state. They have 
 silently abandoned the principles of laissez-faire and indi- 
 vidual freedom to espouse the principle of common action 
 for the public good. One or two illustrations of their new 
 policy may be permitted here. 
 
 In the first place, the state has recently interfered enor- 
 mously with the natural distribution of wealth. Within the 
 lifetime of the present generation the imperial revenue has 
 increased by more than one-half, and the local revenue has 
 more than doubled. Public money has been profusely spent 
 in doing for our less prosperous citizens what they could 
 not have done for themselves ; not only by supporting the 
 poorest out of the rates, but by providing for all the means of 
 education and of health. At the same time the assessment
 
 Introduction. 1 3 
 
 of taxation lias been very much altered, and usually in such 
 a way as to relieve small incomes at the expense of large. 
 These departures from the policy of former times, although 
 regretted by many, are held by almost all to have been 
 inevitable. Nobody doubts that they will be followed by 
 innovations of the same kind, but upon a scale heretofore 
 unknown. Nobody can justify them upon old-fashioned 
 principles of liberty. 
 
 In the second place, the state has interfered with the 
 freedom of contract. It will be said by mauy Liberals that 
 we have interfered with the freedom of contract only in 
 cases in which one of the contracting parties was not really 
 free. This fact, indeed, may justify our interference j but 
 it is not enough to harmonize our new-fashioned practice 
 with our old-fashioned theory. Such an apology as I have 
 quoted admits the protection of individuals by the state. 
 Those who make such an apology may think one sort of pro- 
 tection bad because unreasonable or unfair, another sort 
 of protection good because just and reasonable, but they 
 have debarred themselves from saying that protection merely 
 as protection is mischievous. Whether the state, as in the 
 Irish Land Act of 1881, establishes a public tribunal to 
 determine for the contracting parties the terms of their 
 contract, or, as in the Ground Game Act, declares that cer- 
 tain terms shall be inserted in every contract of a certain 
 kind, or, as in the Factory Acts, forbids some contracts to 
 be made at all ; in every case it equally asserts its right to 
 interfere with freedom of contract whenever such inter- 
 ference is likely to subserve the peace, the health, or the 
 morals of the citizens. 
 
 Lastly we have interfered to educate those who cannot be
 
 '4 
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 educated otherwise. Elementary education is now com- 
 pulsory. It may yet come to be given gratis. Here we 
 have a triple violation of the rules of social quietism. The 
 state says to the parent, You shall not be free to let your 
 child grow up ignorant and immoral. It then educates the 
 unfortunate infant to the great prejudice of his natural 
 individuality. Finally it constrains the ratepayer to pay 
 for the%ducation of other men^s children, although he may 
 honestly think that nobody should be educated without his 
 parents' consent, or although he may regard the education 
 given by the state as an infringement of spiritual freedom. 
 Deaf to all murmurs, inexorable to all objections, the state 
 educates its citizens wholesale. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the state has ever confined 
 itself within the limits marked out in Mr. Mill's book on 
 Liberty, or in many of the writings of Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 Until the beginning of the century its interference with 
 individual life was based on obsolete theories. At present 
 its interference with individual life is a partial acceptance of 
 principles which have all the gloss of novelty. But interfere 
 in what fashion it will, interfere it must. And its recent en- 
 croachments upon individual liberty have been accomplished 
 in the face of intense and honest prejudice. On the Continent 
 of Europe we see state control combined with democracy. 
 But nearly all the states of the Continent owe their state 
 control to the bureaucracy elaborated by ancient dynasties. 
 "We might therefore regard the restless activity of the state 
 in foreign countries as a relic of that barbarism, whence they 
 have scarcely yet emerged by a distant and blundering 
 imitation of ourselves. But we cannot thus easily explain 
 the course of events at home. The Hanoverian kings
 
 Introduction. 1 5 
 
 wound us in no bureaucratic fetters. The Tory squires are 
 not guilty in this matter. I£ we are indeed enslaved, we 
 have been enslaved of our own free will. 
 
 The prime occasion of our encroachment upon individual 
 freedom lay in the necessity of organizing some mode of 
 civilized life for the artisans and labourers crowded together 
 in great multitudes, which made all voluntary action fruitless, 
 and under circumstances which rendered their subsistence 
 more than usually precarious. The first measures of our 
 new legislation were directed to assuage severe bodily 
 suffering, and to avert grave political danger. But recent 
 measures have gone much farther. Public opinion inclines to 
 go farther still. All thoughtful men are more and more 
 oppressed by the sense of waste in modern life. Why is 
 it that, with all our wealth and all our science, we are not 
 able to reach a life more satisfying than the life which most 
 of us now lead ? Is it not because we are bewildered by our 
 own resources, and hampered by our own members ; because 
 we have not yet organized our new society ; because nearly 
 all the energy we can spare from business is wasted for 
 want of intelligence to direct it ? Sentiments such as these 
 are friendly to every form of interference with the natural • 
 course of things. 
 
 But the party of progress are still embarrassed " by ex- 
 hausted traditions and obsolete watchwords. They are 
 Liberals ; Liberals are friends of liberty ; and liberty means 
 that everybody should do as he likes. Such freedom we may 
 allow to be in some degree a requisite of all intelligent or 
 moral life ; but just now, and in England, it is not the thing 
 most wanted, or the thing which rational Liberals should 
 most strenuously endeavour to supply.
 
 1 6 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 The recoustruction of society, not the liberation of in- 
 dividuals, is now their most pressing task. Most Liberals 
 will not plead guilty to so heinous a fact. It answers much 
 better to revise our practice and preserve our theory. 
 Practical evils we do see after they have grown to be so 
 enormous that we cannot overlook them ; but in speculative 
 imperfections there can be no serious mischief. Accept the 
 new practice without the new idea; for those who con- 
 stantly confess to admitting new ideas make a poor figure 
 on the hustings. Consistency is the commonest and 
 cheapest of the intellectual virtues ; but men of the W9rld 
 invariably affect it most, because it is the only one which 
 the vulgar can appreciate. Therefore we pay no attention 
 to the spiteful Conservatives who twit us with a vile incon- 
 stancy. AVe profess to be successors of Bright and Cobden, 
 to be disciples of Pdcardo and Mill ; but we conform our 
 action to the urgent necessities of the age, nor does the 
 great reputation of Mr. Herbert Spencer shame us out of 
 constraining all children to go to school. 
 
 A change of policy which was necessary must have been 
 rational. If fifty years ago it was rational to abridge, and 
 it is now rational to enlarge the functions of the state, there 
 must be some principle in the philosophy of politics by 
 which both of these contrary endeavours are justified. If a 
 philosophical maxim differ in any respect from an election 
 battle-cry, it differs in being more comprehensive. A 
 scientific theory, in so far as it is a true theory, can never 
 wholly wear out. Therefore an idler unable to take part in 
 the exhilarating game of practical politics may be excused 
 for asking whether the merely negative conception of civil 
 freedom is complete or fragmentary. If it be fragmentary.
 
 hitrodudion. 
 
 can we form any theory of freedom more scientific, that 
 is, capable of explaining with accuracy a wider range of 
 facts ? 
 
 This question has some bearing upon political practice. 
 Practical men, indeed, follow their instinct when they 
 imagine themselves to be following their formula. They 
 have to act at once ; to revise formulas takes time ; and 
 the children of the world may say that if you can pass your 
 measures, it matters very little whether you give any 
 reasons or no reasons. Nevertheless, the practical man is 
 not wholly irrational. If he cannot reconcile the truth of 
 his formula with the dictates of his instinct, he will not 
 therefore cease to act, but his action will be hesitating, 
 puzzled, and incoherent. He will not be clear and strong 
 until he can formulate his sagacity. Even to him, therefore, 
 the criticism of received ideas is helpful. 
 
 The present writer proposes in the first instance to state 
 the theory of political and social freedom accepted by the 
 most eminent English publicists, to investigate its scien- 
 tific value, and to gauge its permanent usefulness. In 
 order to do this it will be necessary to show how that 
 theory is related to the peculiarities of the English 
 character, the circumstances of Euglish history, and the 
 development of English thought. In short, we must 
 extract a chapter from the history of philosophy. I 
 know that the practical mind of our nation is apt to 
 say. Surely a doctrine is true or false in itself, and should 
 be taken upon its own merits. Englishmen do not like 
 to hear that every doctrine is both true and false ; that 
 the merits of every doctrine are to be determined by its 
 place in the history of ideas. We are familiar with at least 
 
 G
 
 1 8 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 the name of evolution as applied to the course of physical 
 life. We are prompt enough to assume that the spiritual 
 evolution is a process exactly the same in kind as the 
 physical evolution; but we seldom try to realize the 
 development of an idea. 
 
 My next endeavour will be to trace the bearing upon any 
 scientific conception of political and social freedom, of the 
 vast stock of fresh scientific knowledge amassed in our 
 own age. The theory of freedom is the theory of the 
 relation subsisting between the individual and society. It 
 is impossible to understand a relation except by knowing the 
 things related. Thus all our knowledge of the individual or 
 of society helps us to a clear and precise idea of freedom. In 
 this way physiology, philology, comparative politics, theories 
 of Eesthetic, of logic, of religion, of all human activities, con- 
 tribute to our theory of freedom. And it appears to me 
 that the only scientific way of dealing with the problem of 
 political freedom is to take nothing for granted; not to assume 
 at first a perfect understanding as to what the individual 
 and the society respectively are ; but fi'om the total of our 
 knowledge relating to each, to deduce what their relation 
 has been and must be. 
 
 When we have determined as well as we can the relation 
 of the individual to society, we shall be able to determine 
 the precise meaning of individuality. For the present I 
 shall assume that individuality is a good thing, and that 
 the development of individuality is no bad way of ex- 
 pressing the end sought by all social life. By comparing 
 our conclusions as to individuality with the most popular 
 ideas on the same subject, we shall be able to test both and 
 bring them into the clearest light.
 
 Introduction. 1 9 
 
 Finally^ having determined what we mean by an indi- 
 vidual and what we mean by society, as well as the mode of 
 developing individuality, we shall be able to define the 
 function of society. We shall be able to express the 
 relation of the state to society as a whole. We shall then 
 see what are the duties of the state in the ordinary sense of 
 the word. We shall see how far it is bound to remain 
 passive ; how far it should restrain ; how far it should 
 assist. We shall also see how far public opinion should go 
 in supporting and completing the action of the laws. And 
 we shall conclude this essay with an examination into the 
 justice of those charges of bureaucracy and communism so 
 often brought against a policy of state interference and state 
 regulation. 
 
 c 2
 
 II. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH IDEAS OF 
 INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.
 
 II. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLISH IDEAS OF 
 INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 It is always dangerous to attempt to condense a theory 
 into a formula ; for the details which a formula must needs 
 leave unexpressed include nearly everything that gives 
 substance, life^ and colour to the whole. It is still more 
 dangerous to attempt to sum up in such a formula a theory 
 with which one is not in accord j for then the formula is 
 apt to be not only abstract, but also unfair. Attempts to 
 express so much in a few words can be of use only when 
 they are made and received in the same spirit of candour. 
 
 Thus much it seemed necessary to premise before attempt- 
 ing to define the doctrine of civil freedom expounded by 
 the most popular and influential of English writers upon 
 politics. I say advisedly the doctrine ; for in spite of great 
 variety in natural ability, in tone of feeling, in historical 
 environment, and in scientific culture, all of these celebrated 
 writers, from John Locke down to Herbert Spencer, have 
 expressed on this subject ideas essentially similar. More- 
 over, the resemblance of their conclusions grows out of 
 certain peculiarities of method common to them all. They 
 all in one way or another assume the individual as a 
 simple primary fact. From him they endeavour to deduce 
 society. Society as distinct from the state is not very
 
 24 
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 prominent to tlie minds of our earlier English philosophers. 
 The relation of the state to society is not very clearly 
 expressed by their successors. This habit of supposing 
 that the individual explains society, and this vague way 
 of thinking about the state are as favourable to easy and 
 popular modes of expression as to knottiness and confusion 
 
 of ideas. 
 
 To any man who is under the necessity of trying to think 
 accurately, nothing can be more perplexing than the various 
 theories of human society published in England within the 
 last two hundred and fifty years. To the general pubHc 
 few things seem more obvious than the maxims regarding 
 civil liberty which have been derived from these theories. 
 The maxims may be expressed in brief ; but the theories 
 must be examined in detail. As the purpose of this essay 
 is practical, I shall in the first instance attempt a rough state- 
 ment of the practical conclusions, and in the second instance 
 try to trace the mode in which they were originally drawn. 
 
 Summarily stated, these conclusions would seem to be as 
 follows. The state acts upon the citizen only by way of 
 restraint. All restraint, qua resti*aint, is an evil. The 
 action of the state upon the individual therefore is an evil 
 which must be endured because it is necessary, but which, 
 as an evil, should be reduced within the smallest possible 
 compass. Thus confined, the state will act only to insure 
 each citizen against the fraud or violence of his fellows, and 
 the whole body of citizens against the fraud or violence of 
 other communities. Overwhelming necessity may justify the 
 state in adding others to these its only proper functions. 
 An enlightened government entrusted with the care of an 
 ignorant people, may constrain them to do or to forbear from
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Libej'ty. 25 
 
 doing things whose wholesome or hurtful nature the people 
 cannot discern. The government of a poor people may, by- 
 taxation, raise capital for the purpose of carrying out indis- 
 pensable undertakings of public utility which exceed the 
 measure of private wealth. But whenever the state does 
 assume such extraordinary functions, its conduct is matter 
 for the severest and most unfriendly scrutiny. In all such 
 cases the presumption is invariably against the state. The 
 state is always to be charged with the burthen of justifying 
 its own activity. 
 
 Moreover, this theory regards the sphere of state action 
 and the sphere of individual life as in every instance mutually 
 exclusive. Whatever is taken from the one is given to the 
 other. To the realm of individual life belongs everything 
 intellectual, moral, spiritual, in a word, everything distinc- 
 tively human. To the realm of state action appertains 
 merely the balancing of physical forces. The individual is 
 expansive, organic, living ; the state is rigid, mechanical, 
 lifeless. The state is only the iron frame within whose 
 compartments each of these living organisms is at once pro- 
 tected and confined. As the individual grows in power and 
 fulness of life, the state shrinks into something slight and 
 meagre. The end of all government is to make government 
 superfluous. At every step in our progress we are better 
 able to dispense with the help afforded by the community. 
 When war and crime shall have disappeared, the state will 
 disappear also. When the social feeling shall have become 
 all powerful, the social authority will no more be wanted. 
 
 As this theory opposes the action of the state to the 
 action of the individual, so likewise it opposes the rights of 
 the individual conscience to the sway of public opinion. The
 
 26 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 power of public opinion is indeed more subtle than the power 
 of law ; but for that very reason it is more penetrating, 
 more persistent, more intense, and ought to excite a more 
 sensitive, restless, determined jealousy. Like the state, pub- 
 lic opinion operates by way of restraint. The state restrains 
 in the interest and on the principles of those who possess 
 political power; public opinion restrains in the interest and 
 on the principles of the majority. Since the majority are 
 essentially commonplace, the opinion of the majority can 
 only consecrate their common nature. Thus public opinion 
 is a check quite as much upon excellence as upon inferiority. 
 It can be of use only as an instrument of police. It should 
 interfere only to prevent one man from directly injuring 
 another. Logically, therefore, public opinion will become 
 less and less powerful as men become more and more civi- 
 lized ; public opinion will dwindle as social sympathy grows, 
 and will finally disappear when every man shall be deeply 
 interested in what his neighbours do, and sincerely anxious 
 to do what will please them. 
 
 I know full well how inadequate a statement of the current 
 theory of freedom I have been able to give, and I know that 
 no two thinking men hold any theory in precisely the same 
 form. But some such theory as this for a long time past has 
 found favour with philosophers and statesmen alike. It is 
 far from discarded even now. To many it may appear self- 
 evident. Yet self-evident it certainly is not. A citizen of 
 one of the famous states of antiquity would not have denied 
 such a theory, for he would not have been able to understand 
 it. Neither Pericles nor Fabius, neither Plato nor Cicero 
 would have realized the antithesis between the state and the 
 citizen. To them the life of the citizen and the life of the
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty, 2; 
 
 state were one. In their eyes a state was a corporation, 
 citizenship a privilege, personal freedom the right to dis- 
 charge pubHc duty. The body politic secured to its members 
 everything which made life worth living ; and in return its 
 members held their lives only for the service of the body 
 politic. Neither could these great men have done justice 
 to the antithesis between the body politic and the govern- 
 ment. To the practical man of antiquity such an antithesis 
 would have sounded very much like nonsense ; to the philo- 
 sopher of antiquity it would have expressed the last stage of 
 social corruption and disintegration. In short, the antique 
 republican would have subscribed to the declaration of the 
 French king, '' L'etat c'est moi.'' 
 
 And as both the men of practice and the men of theory 
 agreed in thinking that the strength of the state was the 
 strength of society, and the strength of society the strength 
 of the individual, so they agreed in regarding a vigorous 
 public opinion as the basis of a vigorous society. Plato 
 laments indeed the mischief done by a vicious public opinion; 
 he writhes under the tyranny of the majority ; but he does 
 not assume that the majority must always give the tone to 
 thought; he does not exclude from his ideal society the 
 influence of public opinion ; rather, he acknowledges that 
 influence, and endeavours to give it a lasting bias in favour 
 of his ideal institutions. 
 
 Of course it may with some truth be said that the 
 ancients ignored an idea which permeates the whole of 
 our social philosophy : the idea of progress. It may be 
 said that the legislators and philosophers of antiquity 
 erred, as the founders of the great religious orders erred, 
 in trying to substitute uniformity for variety, tradition
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 for invention, stability for movement. Nor do I deny 
 that in these respects we have outgrown the wisdom 
 of Greece and the sagacity of Eome. But we may find 
 matter for thought in the reflection that the freest and most 
 enHghtened nations of antiquity, the nations rich beyond all 
 others in the vigour and originality of the individual, under- 
 stood by freedom something quite different from that which 
 the term conveys to English ears. 
 
 The men of the Middle Age would have had at once more 
 and less difficulty in understanding our modern theory of 
 freedom ; less difficulty because they were almost wholly 
 unfamiliar with the conception of a state ; more difficulty 
 because they were bound in organizations peculiar to their 
 time, and even more elaborate than the ancient civic organi- 
 zation. The countryfolk found in their territorial status 
 the burghers found in their system of guilds, and all men 
 alike found in the universal church an organization which 
 could scarcely be said to restrain individual life, since it 
 determined in every detail what the individual life should be. 
 True, there was revolt in medigeval, as there was faction in 
 classical antiquity ; and the spirit of revolt in the Middle 
 Age, like the spirit of faction in Hellas, was a strong and 
 conquering spirit. Yet neither in the literature nor in the 
 history of the Middle Age do we find any clear feeling of 
 opposition between the state, or the substitute for a state, on 
 the one hand, and the individual on the other. Men yet 
 lived in public opinion, in the creed, and in the institutions 
 of their age ; these were yet the atmosphere whose pressure 
 bearing upon every point was felt at none. 
 
 Coming down to generations nearer our own, we find that 
 our notion of freedom is not the notion of freedom most widely
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 29 
 
 diffused on the Continent. The middle-class republican, the 
 working-class socialist, demand, not that the state and public 
 opinion should do as little as possible, but rather that they 
 should do what republican or socialist thinks right. The ideal 
 dreamer and the practical statesman of modern France or 
 Germany have not departed very far from their antique pro- 
 totypes. If any striking exception to this rule can be found, 
 it will be found among those enthusiasts who include in their 
 anathema not only all existing governments, but all exist- 
 ing institutions whatsoever. Such enthusiasts have indeed 
 developed with austerest logic and accepted with most 
 praiseworthy frankness all the consequences of a negative 
 doctrine of freedom ; but they have transformed freedom 
 into something which temporizing thinkers would scarcely 
 care to recognize. 
 
 The theory of freedom most in favour among our country- 
 men bears a very close affinity to one side of their character. 
 Not only is the Englishman fond of liberty, but he often 
 seems to value liberty most when she is most unsocial. 
 Local self-government, domestic privacy, and personal 
 reserve are natural and pleasant to us. We and our kinsmen 
 have founded all the great federal states known to modern 
 history. The Swiss, the Dutch, and the North American 
 Kepublics are all Teutonic. We have always claimed for 
 every town and for every district the right to manage its 
 own affairs. We have asserted the inviolability of the homes 
 even of the humblest. We have carried our individual self, 
 assertion to a degree which cramps and chills the free and 
 genial intercourse so much prized by southern nations. 
 
 Yet the love of having one's own way may not so overmaster 
 all other feelings in the English breast as we sometimes sup-
 
 3 o L im its of Individtm I L iberty . 
 
 pose. Throughout the course of our history a strong sense 
 of pubUc duty has done much to temper a strong self-will. 
 Our power of combining for public purposes involves power 
 of submitting to discipline; and the spirit of discipline is 
 entirely opposed to the feeling that all restraint as such is an 
 evil. In fact^ we have been able to subsist with so little 
 formal^ because we have had so much informal government. 
 The sway of public opinion is strong among us, in the judg- 
 ment of many far too strong ; so also is the authority of the 
 various sects and parties over their own adherents ; and so 
 is the cohesion of our numberless municipal and private 
 corporations. These various powers have done a great deal 
 which in other communities is done by the sovereign. But 
 they represent an element in our living society which our 
 social theory does not fully express. It is not, therefore, 
 to the overruling bent of our national character that this 
 theory owes its general acceptance. Indeed, speculative 
 thought, if more than speculative in name, is an honest 
 endeavour to overpass the boundaries of local circumstance 
 and tribal prejudice ; to attain to a statement of what is 
 essentially human, rational, and universal. 
 
 Neither would it be just to say that this theory had its 
 root in the political conditions of a bygone period. Althouo-h 
 it exerted most force at a time when England was passing 
 from the feudal to the industrial type of civilization, when 
 the old organization of life had become so decrepit that 
 impatient reformers often took all organization to be some- 
 thing baneful ; yet the theory which denounced all restraint 
 as in its proper nature pure evil, was something more than 
 the scientific expression of popular discontent. It was not 
 merely because the England of eighty years ago groaned
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 31 
 
 under the yoke of antiquated custom and irrational law, of 
 institutions which corrupted those whom they favoured,, or 
 favoured only the corrupt, that the speculative reformers of 
 that day, economists, jurists, and poets, all joined to celebrate 
 the advent of universal liberty. States of society such as 
 then existed, states of society far more oppressive, have in 
 other ages aroused no spirit of innovation, or have aroused 
 a spirit of Puritanic discipline which abrogates the old law 
 only to put a sterner law in its place. Nothing in. the 
 condition of England at that period will explain why her 
 most ethereal poet hoped to reform domestic life by abolishing 
 marriage, or why her shrewdest publicists hoped to reform 
 social life by working out the rule of enlightened selfishness 
 and universal competition. 
 
 Our modern ideas of liberty have sources far more remote 
 than we commonly suppose. Oar principal source of such 
 ideas has been the distinction between things spiritual and 
 things temporal. This distinction we owe to the religious 
 history of the modern world. 
 
 The primitive Christian church, viewed from without, 
 was a feeble association of a few poor men surrounded 
 on every side by a hostile world. The Roman state was 
 coextensive with that world. Thus church and state 
 were antagonists from the beginning. Within the church 
 was spiritual freedom ; without the church was cor- 
 poreal tyranny. The primitive Christian in relation to 
 his brother Christians was the happy partaker in a common 
 life ; in relation to his pagan fellow-citizens he was a 
 solitary yet persecuted individual trying, amid general 
 blindness and hardness of heart, to save his own soul alive. 
 The opposition of church and state involved an opposition
 
 22 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 between the ruler and the subject ; between public insti- 
 tutions and private life ; between the traditions of the past 
 and the feelings of the present ; in short, between the world 
 and the soul, between the inner and the outer life. Thus 
 Christianity may be said to have shattered the social unity ; 
 to have divided men's allegiance ; to have brought freedom, 
 and with freedom discord. 
 
 With the lapse of years the relations of the church to 
 the Empire underwent a change. The church became 
 more powerful than the Empire and not less pagan. The 
 spiritual authority asserted itself with all the vehemence 
 of the world, the temporal authority submitted itself with 
 all the fervour of a neophyte. Sometimes stubborn, 
 oftener complying, almost always yielding obedience in 
 the last resort, the successors of Caesar governed accord- 
 in o- to the word of the successors of Peter. Yet the state 
 always remained something external to the church. Hostile 
 it had been, it was now inferior. 
 
 When the nations of modern Europe came to feel how 
 strong they were, and to hunger after independence, political 
 and social, the state as distinct from the church recovered 
 something of its former consequence. But it was only after 
 a struggle of unparalleled severity that the civil organization 
 of each several people could assert itself against the theo- 
 cratic organization of Christendom. The conflict between 
 Popes and sovereigns was prolonged until hostility between 
 the spiritual and the temporal powers had become a tradition, 
 a principle, a law. When the mutual ire of ecclesiastical 
 and secular powers had subsided into a dull jealousy, men's 
 ideas about life and society had been modified far more 
 than they understood. The distinction between things
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. '}^'^ 
 
 spiritual and things temporal was indeed a pretext for 
 dropping the quarrel in which neither side could prevail and 
 of which both sides were weary. But the distinction has 
 hardened into a profound prejudice which leavens all pri- 
 vate and all political life. It is this prejudice which assists 
 people to make money and pursue pleasure for six days in 
 the week, and on the seventh day to devote to the worship of 
 God all the soul which has not been exhausted in the one 
 task or dissipated in the other. It is this prejudice which 
 makes religious life sterile and political life immoral, which 
 sees in a church only the repository of legends which nobody 
 can believe, and in a state, only the repository of power 
 which nobody can revere. 
 
 Another principal source of our peculiar conception of 
 freedom is to be found in the Protestant doctrine of private 
 judgment. The Reformer did not, indeed, pretend to absolute 
 spiritual freedom. He would not himself question, nor 
 would he allow any one else to question the authority of the 
 Woi^d of God. But if its authority was undisputed, its 
 interpretation was free. The Bible contained the classical 
 literature of a people most remote from him in time and 
 place, the most dissimilar from him in the whole form and 
 fashion of their lives, endowed with a genius the most unique 
 and the most profound. In consulting it he was prone to 
 reject the aids not only of uncritical tradition, but also of 
 critical learning. Nor did his presumption want a plausible 
 excuse. If every human soul is beyond price, if every man 
 must work out his own salvation, if only those who believe 
 in the Word of God can be saved, then each man must judge 
 for himself what is the true interpretation thereof, and the 
 Word of God must be intelligible to the natural reason of 
 
 D
 
 34 L im its of hidividual L iberty. 
 
 all men. To this conclusion the Reformer was logically 
 driven. This conclusion the most devout among the 
 Eeformed communions have agreed in accepting. Humanly 
 speaking, it is the most absurd conclusion ever reached in 
 religious controversy. In the first place, it threw back the 
 most energetic minds in Europe to find their spiritual sus- 
 tenance in the literature of a people who had only the barest 
 riuliiiients of political life. In the second place, it condemned 
 them to study this hterature in the most unintelligent way, 
 which ensured results the most incongruous with everything 
 actual or possible in their own living world. And finally, it 
 referred men in every occurrence of practical life to a 
 private judgment which had really been moulded by an 
 infinite series of historic events, but which seemed to them 
 the direct, immediate, unimpeachable and irresistible voice 
 of God. 
 
 Thus the Reformation, whilst emancipating each man's 
 spirit, left him ignorant how much his spirit owed to society. 
 In asserting against an arbitrary and impure power the 
 independence of the nation and the individual, it rendered 
 to genuine liberty an inestimable service. But in failing 
 to recognize the real continuity of religion and of general 
 culture, it prepared the way for eccentricity, division, and 
 weakness. Nay, it prepared the way for a tyranny less 
 powerful but more vexatious than the tyranny of Rome. 
 It is hard enough to be cramped within the limits of an 
 oecumenical church, within the barriers erected by many 
 councils, and by the long succession of Fathers, within a 
 polity inherited from the Ctesars, within a tradition to 
 which Plato and Aristotle as well as Isaiah and St. Paul 
 have contributed. But it is still worse to gasp within the
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual liberty. 35 
 
 stitliug prison of a few fanatics whose ideas have never tran- 
 scended their own district or their own generation, fanatics 
 to whom their own ignorance and roughness serve for an 
 added assurance of Divine favour and protection. Such 
 masters in terms confess but in acts renounce all freedom 
 of private judgment for anybody but themselves. And 
 so inseparable is the union of thought with action/ and so 
 potent the practical impulse of Protestantism, that the very 
 pietists who are most hostile to every form of outward control 
 are also most careful to conform all their political actions 
 to their religious ideas. Thus they are always apt to 
 make legislation the instrument of intolerance. Like the 
 Puritans of the seventeenth, the Puritans of the nineteenth 
 century are eager to press the whole nation into their mould. 
 After destroying the union of church and state, they would 
 remodel the state on the lines of their church. Nor should 
 any one impute this as a fault. The Puritan is blameworthy, 
 not for loving and honouring his ideal, not for trying to 
 realize his ideal, but for that uncritical, unhistorical, 
 unsympathetic temper which snatches at an ideal without 
 duly considering whether it be sufficiently large and human 
 for the needs of so large a thing as humanity. 
 
 That which had been a feeling in the Lutheran Eeformation 
 became a system in the Baconian philosophy. 
 
 It is well known that the individual is the hinge of all 
 our English speculation. In the works of our English 
 philosophers everything is admirably lucid and easy so long 
 as we take the individual for granted. Under their analysis 
 the intellectual life is reduced to a series of sensations, the 
 moral life to a series of impulses, and society to a collec- 
 tion of individuals. What a sensation would be, or how it 
 
 d2
 
 . 5 L imits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 could be described out of relation to other sensations, and 
 to the double world of knowledge and reality into which all 
 sensations enter; what an impulse would amount to, or 
 what could be said about it, once disconnected from the 
 other impulses which with it arc woven into our moral life, 
 and with it result in our moral character -, or what would be 
 the nature of an individual prior to and apart from society ; 
 all these are questions which our philosophy has never fully 
 answered, perhaps because our philosophers have never 
 fully felt their importance. 
 
 Nevertheless, these atoms could not be framed into their 
 several worlds without the help of some connecting principle. 
 In logic the laws of association, and in ethics the instinct 
 which drives every man to pursue his greatest pleasure have 
 supplied to sensations and to impulses their respective bonds 
 of union. With these we have no concern here. But the 
 political bond of union as conceived by our most celebrated 
 thinkers, demands a fuller consideration. For their ideas 
 upon this subject afford a key to the popular ideas about 
 freedom. 
 
 Throughout the whole development of political theory in 
 England there runs a very marked consistency. In what- 
 ever mode the social tie may be conceived of, it is always 
 regarded as merely a tie. The individuals whom it binds 
 together are the really interesting objects. Society is deter- 
 mined by the individuals of whom it is composed and whose 
 purposes it subserves. Such is the doctrine expressed by 
 Hobbes and Locke; such also is the doctrine of Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer. But this first axiom of our political 
 philosophy has been elaborated into various systems, which 
 have issued from three schools most remarkable for their
 
 History of English Ideas of I 7idividual Liberty. 2)7 
 
 scientific interest and for the influence which they have 
 exercised. 
 
 The student of political philosophy will easily distinguish 
 these three schools. There is the school of Hobbes and 
 Locke, who deduce the social system from an original con- 
 tract ; there is the school of Bentham, who deduce it from 
 the principle of utility; and there is the school of Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, who deduce it from a law similar to that 
 which rules the development of animal and of vegetable life. 
 The first of these schools associated itself with the Revo- 
 lution of the seventeenth century; the second with the 
 humane and democratic movement of recent generations ; 
 and the third with that extraordinary improvement and 
 diffusion of physical science which distinguishes our own 
 time. Let us take them one by one. 
 
 The theory of the social contract has long since been 
 proved by history to be false, and by philosophy to be 
 absurd; and at the present day can find no professed 
 adherents. But it had its origin in a way of considering 
 these subjects which is just as prevalent in our own 
 day as in the days of Locke, and it has contributed 
 very much to mould not only our constitutional theories, 
 but our current doctrine of freedom. We are not now 
 concerned to distinguish the various circumstances with 
 which the fancy of philosophers has adorned the ratifi- 
 cation of this airy compact ; or the ingenious political 
 inferences which their logic deduced from its imagined 
 terms. In these respects the social contract of Locke differs 
 much from the social contract of Hobbes. But here we 
 need only state so much of the theory as was common to all 
 its teachers.
 
 ^8 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 Originally, therefore, men lived either alone or in constant 
 enmity with one another. Their lives were short, uncertain, 
 and unpleasant. When they became sensible of the incon- 
 veniences attaching to their unsocial habits, they gathered 
 together and agreed to form themselves into political 
 societies, and with that object to surrender those natural 
 rio-hts whose exercise was incompatible with social life. 
 What rights were thus surrendered, to whom the surrender 
 was made, and whether or no the surrender was irrevocable, 
 were points decided by the philosophers according as their 
 personal sentiments were of a Whig or of a Tory com- 
 plexion. Hobbes argued with great plausibility that the 
 sovereign created by the social compact must be an absolute 
 sovereign. Locke held no less firmly that rational men 
 agreeing to create a government would necessarily invest it 
 with such attributes as attached to the constitutional 
 monarchy of England. 
 
 But whether or no the primitive savage had bargained for 
 the privileges of a subject of the Grand Monarch or for the 
 liberties of a subject of Dutch William ; on one thing all 
 reflecting men were well agreed, that he had resolved to 
 constitute society. Society had been constituted for the 
 only purpose which primitive man could conceive : for the 
 purpose of self-preservation. In order to obtain the benefits 
 of political association, individuals had consented to sacrifice 
 some of their natural and indefeasible rights. But inasmuch 
 as society was merely a contrivance of police, it followed 
 that the less each citizen was obliged to sacrifice to society, 
 the better it was for him. Association was merely a less 
 evil than isolation. Not only did society exist for the sake 
 of each social unit ; but it served to supply merely the first.
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 39 
 
 the rudest, the meanest necessities of his nature. Social life 
 upon this showing was a kind of after- thought ; and the 
 social affection was filed down to an enlightened selfishness. 
 Self-seeking and competition had made up the natural con- 
 dition of men ; and within the bounds imposed by the social 
 contract men remained self-seeking and competitive still. 
 
 Such a conception of society had nothing to shock an age 
 weary of civil discord and sick of religious controversy, 
 abounding in the good things of this world, yet poor in 
 spiritual riches. But it could not have been accepted by 
 any one equipped with even moderate historical knowledge 
 or in the least degree tinctured with the historical spirit. 
 In this respect, however, it is scarcely more hopeless than 
 many later theories of society. English philosophers, whilst 
 repeating by rote the old Baconians saws about the fruitful- 
 ness of experience and the sovereign virtue of facts, have 
 seldom troubled themselves about the facts recorded in 
 history, or about that experience which is embodied in the 
 law, the literature, the art and the religion of men. Each 
 of their successive explanations of society has served to 
 explain little or nothing, because they never troubled them- 
 selves to make a critical and exhaustive study of social life. 
 And in this respect Bentham is little in advance of 
 Locke. 
 
 Bentham was rather a jurist and a philanthropist than a 
 philosopher. Whilst he discarded the doctrine of the social 
 contract, he retained the theory of human nature pro- 
 pounded by Locke and his school. Bentham held that 
 society had its origin, not in a contract, but in a feeling of 
 utility. Utility he understood to mean the enjoyment of 
 pleasure and the avoiding of paiu. Society exists for pur-
 
 .Q Limits of Individtial Liberty. 
 
 poses of general utility, of tlie greatest happiness for the 
 greatest number; the greatest total of pleasure and the 
 smallest total of pain. Bentham, too, is a logical epicurean ; 
 he does not regard any one sort of pleasure as essentially 
 different from any other sort of pleasure. Pleasures, ac- 
 cording to him, are discriminated only by difference of 
 degree. In society man secures the gratification of the 
 social instinct ; and since the social instinct is part of our 
 nature, society on Bentham's theory is something more 
 to the individual than a mere makeshift. Nevertheless, the 
 individual plays just as great a part in the political theory of 
 Bentham as in the political theory of Hobbes or of Locke. 
 Neither the one theory nor the other takes account of any- 
 thing but the natural man. Happiness to Bentham is the 
 same as happiness to his predecessors. It is something, too, 
 whereof every one may claim an equal share and nobody 
 more. It is something which can be measured out and 
 distributed. It is the object of all institutions. 
 
 Thus Bentham recognizes no organic incorporation of the 
 individual with the society. He looks upon society as an 
 aggregate of individuals. Each of these individuals may 
 and must have his own idea of the most agreeable life for 
 himself. Society is to act solely for the purpose of securing 
 to every man as much fulfilment of his own ideal as is 
 compatible with other men^s fulfilment of their ideals. A 
 spiritual nature in man, a moral purpose in the state are 
 scarcely dreamt of in Bentham^s philosophy. A state such 
 as he conceives can have very little call to interfere with 
 any of its members; a citizen such as he conceives will be 
 capable of very little devotion for any state. 
 
 In Bentham the practical reformer was too strong for the
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 41 
 
 political theorist. He and his school were polemics firstly^ 
 and secondly philosophers. The Benthamite system has 
 ceased to exist as a system. It has become at once obscure 
 and powerful. But the social theory now most in vogue 
 with professed students of society is the theory expounded 
 by M. Comte in France and by Mr. Herbert Spencer in 
 England^ the theory commonly known by the barbarous and 
 unmeaning epithet^ sociological. The sociologist applies to 
 the interpretation of political and social facts the supposed 
 metliods of physical science. He explains the aggregate by 
 deducing it from the individual. He bases the science of 
 society upon the sciences of biology and psychology. He 
 looks upon society as a natural organism ; upon history as a 
 natural evolution. How does this theory modify our ideas 
 as to the relation subsisting between society and the 
 individual ? How does it affect our ideas of liberty ? 
 
 The sociologist interprets history by applying the doctrine 
 of evolution. By the term evolution he understands that 
 sort of evolution which goes on in the animal and vegetable 
 kinardoms, and which the late Mr. Darwin did so much to 
 define and illustrate. Reduced to its most general terms, 
 this evolution is the net result of natural forces working 
 together through an indefinite lapse of time. I need not 
 say that under the appellation of natural forces I include 
 not only chemical, mechanical, and suchlike forces, but also 
 the instincts of animal nature, such as hunger, thirst, and 
 the desire of reproducing one^s kind. Not only these, but 
 also the finer instincts, love of power, love of beauty, 
 love of renown, and the very talents and virtues themselves 
 may be merely natural powers, if they operate without 
 reflection and without an object, merely as appetites de-
 
 42 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 manding appeasement or faculties demanding exercise. In 
 short, all unconscious force is natural force. In the animal 
 world some, and in the human world all of these forces in 
 their joint action have produced that which we call the 
 struggle for existence, the interminable labour of every 
 hving thing to maintain itself against the stress of nature 
 and the hostility of its fellow-creatures. From this struggle 
 for existence has come all the progress of which the physical 
 world admits, the progress which consists in the destruction 
 of the unfit, and the survival of the fit, the progress which 
 we know as evolution. 
 
 Applying these ideas to the treatment of his own subject, 
 the sociologist conceives of society as an organism whose 
 component parts are individuals. From the primary quali- 
 ties of these individuals he deduces the primary qualities of 
 society. The primary qualities of individuals are either 
 physical and determined by biology, or mental and deter- 
 mined by psychology. In either case they equally belong 
 to the sphere of natural science, and as they combine to 
 make up an individual who is merely natural, so the indi- 
 viduals combine to make up a purely natural social organism. 
 As between the several social organisms, and between the 
 members of each social organism, there goes on an unceas- 
 ing struggle for existence. The struggle for existence, here 
 as elsewhere, is the sole means of progress. But it operates 
 upon the society and upon the individual in different ways. 
 For in the process of evolution the society is ever develop- 
 ing new organs, and attains to a richer life ; but the indi- 
 vidual is ever developing a more specific character, and is 
 narrowed down to a poorer life. 
 
 A merely natural organism has no idea of the type
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty, 43 
 
 towards wliicli it tends. A vegetable or an animal developes 
 the qualities wliich enable it to live : if it cannot develope 
 them, it dies. So it will be with the state. Again, the 
 same law applies to every member of a society. Like the 
 organ of a vegetable or animal^ he must make himself useful 
 or die of atrophy. He developes, therefore, without knowing 
 anything about it. He developes and his state developes ia 
 virtue simply of an irresistible instinct to live. All life is 
 a battle, and all living things are results of conflict. That 
 is to say, sociology finds in competition the principle of 
 progress for the individual and for the society. No other 
 principle of progress is compatible with its postulates. The 
 individual sociologist may be too tender to expatiate upon 
 this hard law ; he may be too refined to admire its results, 
 but he cannot help owning its validity. And if competition 
 be the life of progress, the problem of the statesman is so 
 to deal with society as to make competition most general 
 and most intense. In no way can he attain this end so well 
 as by leaving the members of society to settle accounts with 
 one another. Order, indeed, is needful to methodized 
 conflict. Even a duel or a prize-fight is impossible without 
 the enforcement of rules which hamper the discretion of the 
 combatants ; much more, therefore, must the war of all 
 against all be regulated, to the end that it may be lasting 
 and universal. But with such regulations as at% adequate 
 to this end the legislator should be content. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer protests in very forcible terms 
 against the habit of burthening the strong in order to relieve 
 the weak. He tempers this censure with no very hearty praise 
 of the virtue known as altruism. But in so doiner he 
 compromises the cause of progress. For in social, as in the
 
 44 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 animal life, all development comes of the struggle for exist- 
 ence. In this struggle, it is true, animals are the more for- 
 tunate, inasmuch as they prey upon other sorts of animals, 
 whilst we prey on our own flesh and blood. That kindly 
 feeling which we share with seals and rats will sometimes 
 force us against our wiser will to relieve the agony of a 
 weak or disabled combatant. But a propensity to benevo- 
 lence, like a propensity to wine, although pleasant and 
 within bounds almost innocent, is yet a propensity whose 
 freedom would be our ruin. We should cultivate altruism 
 as we should cultivate a taste for rare china; because 
 sympathy, no less than a love of the beautiful, is a source of 
 pleasure. But in either case we divert power and wealth 
 from useful purposes to purposes of lighter enjoyment. If 
 we really wish to hasten the progress of our kind, we should 
 develop our own power of maintaining life, for even if we do 
 not gain our private ends we shall benefit mankind by giving 
 others more trouble in crushing us, and so constraining them 
 to a severer discipline and a more thorough specialization. 
 
 Comte, indeed, shrank from following out into its practical 
 conclusions the physical theory of society. He tried to 
 base Ultramontane institutions upon sociological principles. 
 He endeavoured to unite the feelings of St. Francis with 
 the thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer. But, although his 
 attempt was full of interest, as showing how strong and 
 attractive social and religious habits of mind will always 
 continue to be, it was inevitably a failure. All spiritual 
 influences tend to subdue aiid regulate the fierce instincts 
 of self-preservation and self-assertion. Why should we wish 
 to subdue the only forces which make for progress ? Why 
 should we trouble ourselves to regulate powers that find their
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 45 
 
 own goal as surely as water finds its own level ? If the only 
 possible progress is by natural evolution, tlie only possible 
 policy is complete laissez-faire. Mr. Herbert Spencer in 
 this instance deserves the praise of a rigorous consistency. 
 His maxims are the normal product of his philosophy. If 
 his speculative premisses are sound, his practical conclusions 
 are certainly true. 
 
 The practical conclusions of the sociologist cannot differ 
 much from those of the utilitarian or of the believer in a 
 primary social compact. For the school of Locke, the school 
 of Bentham, and the school of Spencer, all agree in holding 
 that the individual determines the society. The last-named 
 school have indeed engaged themselves in a train of thought 
 which must end by showing that the individual receives 
 from society at least as much as society receives from the 
 individual. But at present they have not yet shaken them- 
 selves free from the obsolete method of their predecessors. 
 They still postulate the individual as though he were in social 
 science the primary unit. Locke or Bentham would have 
 interpreted the individual by the aid of psychology alone. 
 Herbert Spencer has recourse to biology as well. But for 
 our own present purpose this circumstance matters little. 
 Biology must regard man as a physical agent solely. 
 English psychology from first to last has never regarded 
 him in any other light. It takes account only of the 
 natural and unconscious. 
 
 In our English psychology the good, the true, the 
 beautiful are simply what each man takes them to be. He 
 does pursue, he must pursue what seems pleasant to him ; 
 for that vrhich seems pleasant to him is to him really 
 pleasant ; and he has no aim except to please himself.
 
 46 Limits of I ndividital Liberty. 
 
 Therefore he lives, if not very well, at least as well as he 
 possibly can. By no standard essentially higher than his 
 own can he be judged. No other man, no other aggregate 
 of men can say to him that he ought to do otherwise than 
 he is doing. They no doubt have equally strong appetites 
 and an equally good right to follow them. Therefore it is 
 prudent, it is oven moral, if we can use the word in such a 
 context, to give every one a fair start in the race for 
 pleasui'e, and to restrain each so far as is necessary for doing 
 thus much. But further than this to interfere is superfluous, 
 is harmful. These children of nature, so keen and so 
 hungry, will themselves invent the best machinery for 
 fulfilling their natural appetites, and society need do no 
 more than gently withhold any one child of nature from 
 devouring all the rest. 
 
 Upon this point our greatest and most consistent thinkers 
 have expressed themselves with the utmost clearness. 
 Locke could resolve the ethical problem only by assuming 
 that the Bible is inspired. Did we not know by the help of 
 revelation that an almighty being will reward certain acts 
 with infinite pleasure, and punish certain acts with infinite 
 pain, we could say of any man who pursued a course 
 commonly esteemed base, inhuman, or vicious, this, and this 
 only, that we deem his taste peculiar. Locke very candidly 
 compares the preference for a particular course of action 
 to the preference for a particular diet. Hume, indeed, 
 observes that we approve such qualities as tend to further 
 our own happiness, or by furthering the happiness of others, 
 afford us agreeable matter of i-eflection. But with candour 
 surpassing Locke's, Hume illustrates his theory by the 
 pleasure we feel no less in the amorous adventures than in
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 47 
 
 the martial and politic achievements of the great Henry the 
 Fourth. Morality as understood by Locke had no place in 
 Locke's philosophy ; morality as explained by Hume is not 
 anything which we can call moral. This failing in their 
 system their successors have tried to remedy, some by 
 dwelling upon the pleasures of a gratified social instinct, 
 some by tracing out the nervous development which brings 
 us at last to take pleasure only in such pleasant things as 
 our society deems respectable. But in every <,-ase, if only 
 we go deep enough, we come back to the simply sentient 
 being, whose moral ideal is a gratified sensibility. 
 
 Fi'om this point of view the Epicureanism which aims at 
 the greatest happiness of the greatest number does not 
 differ much from the Epicureanism of Locke or Hume. 
 The philanthropic Epicurean assumes that man will get 
 most pleasure by gratifying the social instinct. This happy 
 phrase must not lead us to identify the pleasant pastime of 
 conversing with our friends and the dry task of trying to 
 improve our kind. If that task be of all others the most 
 agreeable to the natural man, we certainly need no state 
 interference, for we have attained to the communion of 
 saints. If it be the most agreeable only to the man who 
 has been educated to find it such, then there may be room 
 for state interference. But since pleasure is the supreme 
 good to which every man has an indefeasible right, it seems 
 dangerous to educate a man in a way which may blunt all 
 his keenest susceptibilities and give him in return a very 
 dull relish for benevolence and heroism. Society has no 
 right to sacrifice one man to any number of other men. It 
 can never be certain that it is not doing him a wrong when 
 it trains him to refuse everything that once pleased him
 
 48 L iin its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 most and to choose everything whicli I'ormerly he most 
 abhorred. The final law is to gratify one's own instinct, 
 and nobody can tell in the case of any other man whicli 
 instinct is most pressing. 
 
 It is also immaterial whether or no every man be a new 
 creation, or the result of an endless evolution. It does not 
 matter that every man's sensibility is inherited, or that men 
 of diSerent ancestry come to take pleasure in very different 
 things. In every case pleasure i« equally to be wished for, 
 and each person is equally able to decide what most pleases 
 him. In every case it is the business of society to ensure 
 that each shall be pleased as much as is consistent with 
 every one else's equal right to pleasure. That society is the 
 creature, not of contract, but of evolution, affects but little 
 the end which we conceive that it ought to pursue, or the 
 limits which we would impose upon its interference. It is 
 the result of our weakness and the instrument of our appe- 
 tites. The social bond is a grievous yoke only less galling 
 than the impotence of isolation. Without the help of our 
 fetters we could not stand, but we do not therefore feel our 
 fetters less. Like the life of labour, the social life springs 
 from the primaeval curse. The only rational motive of loyalty 
 to any state is the belief that worse would come of rebellion 
 than can come of submission. Patriotism as a mode of 
 prudence is conceivable, is praiseworthy ; but patriotism as 
 a romance, a passion, or a duty, disappears altogether. 
 
 This, no doubt, is a thoroughly secular view of society. 
 But the man who thinks for himself may free himself from 
 all other bonds ; the bond of logic he cannot break. As is 
 the unity of a philosophy, so is its power. It was by no mere 
 accident that our greatest thinkers have combined with a
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 49 
 
 sceptical theory of logic, an Epicurean theory of morals. It 
 was by no mere accident that in politics they magnified the 
 individual life and curtailed the action of the state. For 
 the doctrine of negative freedom, the doctrine that it is of 
 sovereign virtue for every man, so far as is possible, to do what 
 he likes, the doctrine that we form character by following 
 inclination, rests on a deep-seated doubt as to whether truth 
 and certainty exist at all, and on a deep-seated conviction 
 that the surest good is pleasure, which everybody is likely to 
 pursue of his own accord. Carlyle was consistent when in 
 his denunciation of modern society he embraced at once its 
 doubts as to truth, its belief in pleasure, and its political 
 laissez-faire. 
 
 For its extraordinary popularity and power the social 
 philosophy which we have just sketched is indebted to 
 modern political economy. In the eighteenth century for 
 the first time scientific men seriously interested themselves 
 in the laws which govern the production and distribution of 
 wealth. In the eighteenth century also these processes of 
 production and distribution were transformed by a series of 
 wonderful inventions. At once antiquated by a new indus- 
 trial life, and tested by a severe analysis, the regulations 
 theretofore imposed upon commerce were found to be absurd 
 and mischievous. Hence a general and enthusiastic belief 
 that if only the money-making energies of every individual 
 had free play, every individual would be rich. The state had 
 only to let the citizen alone. It would be idle for the state 
 to attempt anything better. Not that the great economists 
 indulged in these extravagancies ; but many of their disciples 
 wrote as if men were not merely disposed of their own free 
 will, but constrained at once by natural necessity and moral 
 
 E
 
 ^o Limits of Individual Liberty 
 
 law to grow ricli as fast as possible. They seem to have 
 thought that the forces which produce and distribute wealth 
 could as little as the forces which raise the mist and pour 
 down the rain be controlled by law or opinion, or honour 
 or conscience. 
 
 Many Liberals of that time wished to apply the fashionable 
 economic principles to the whole of life. The maxim of 
 leaving every man to do for himself the best he can^ coin- 
 cided so happily with their particular aspirations that they 
 magnified it into a universal and immutable law of pro- 
 gresSj embracing education, art, literature, and science. A 
 magic potency was ascribed to supply and demand. Men 
 forgot that the supply of any good thing is proportioned, 
 not to our real, but to our conscious need of it. The more 
 ignorant any man, the less his demand for knowledge. The 
 less refined any man is, the greater his satisfaction in a gross 
 life. The less he is in truth, beauty, and goodness, the less 
 he will feel his poverty. Thus the law of supply and demand, 
 whatever its truth in regard to the sustenance of animal, is 
 altogether untrue in regard to the sustenance of spiritual life. 
 In everything intellectual, moral, and religious the true rule is 
 rather that the demand varies directly as the supply. 
 
 Mere individual energy may make a nation rich, but can 
 never make a nation civilized. Men must unite if they 
 would compass any great object. Men will unite to compass 
 any object dear to them. If men are more willing to combine 
 for the purpose of making money than for purposes religious 
 or moral, artistic or scientific, it is not because any of these 
 purposes is too ethereal to be followed save in solitude, but 
 because they are purposes for which men do not really care. 
 Only those who set no serious value on the higher life would
 
 History of English Ideas of Individual Liberty. 5 f 
 
 reject for themselves or deny to others the sympathy, advice, 
 or aid afforded by any kind of association. The much-admired 
 individual, self-centred and self-contained, is not so very far 
 from the strong and solitary wild beast. Both are well 
 equipped to seize things whose use or pleasure ends with 
 themselves ; but for securing anything 'more they are weak 
 as a blind kitten or an Indian of Paraguay. 
 
 Let us now briefly sum up this very imperfect retrospect. 
 
 To the Middle Age we are indebted for the distinction 
 
 between things temporal and things spiritual, and for the 
 
 conception of the state which limits its action to the domain 
 
 of the temporal. To the Reformation we are indebted for 
 
 the doctrine of private judgment, which in its abuse has 
 
 hindered men fi'om recognizing the spiritual continuity of 
 
 the race, the spiritual unity of society, and the Hmits of 
 
 wise or profitable originality. To the English school of 
 
 philosophy we owe an explanation of civil society as purely 
 
 secular and as the product of primary individuals. To the 
 
 old school of political economists we must ascribe the 
 
 popularizing of English political philosophy. And from all 
 
 these sources commingled we draw everything that is most 
 
 characteristic of our speculations concerning individual 
 
 liberty and the function of society. 
 
 E 2
 
 III. 
 
 SOCIETY AND ITS MEMBERS.
 
 III. 
 
 SOCIETY AND ITS MEMBERS. 
 
 Op all the tlieories touched upon in the preceding chapter, 
 the sociological is the only one accepted by many enlightened 
 men at the present day. This theory supposes that the 
 character of the individual determines the character of the 
 society. As the individual is a natural unit, so is the society 
 a natural organism. Its evolution resembles the physical 
 evolution. On this hypothesis the individual is prior to the 
 society ; and the development of society is an unconscious 
 natural process which we need not trouble ourselves to regu- 
 late, because, by means which we cannot control, it tends to a 
 result which we cannot modify, and by unavailing interference 
 we only prolong and embitter the suffering and degradation 
 which it may involve. Therefore the practical conclusion is 
 obvious, that government, law, and public opinion should as 
 nearly as possible do nothing at all, or if they do anything 
 they should only do that which will hasten the necessary 
 evolution. 
 
 Hereafter I hope to inquire whether or no society is merely 
 a natural organism developing in a merely natural manner 
 In the present chapter I shall confine myself to examining 
 the statement that the qualities of the individual determine 
 the qualities of the society. Can we really deduce society 
 from the individual as described by biology and psychology ?
 
 56 Limits of Individual Liberty 
 
 What individual is the subject of these sciences ? Is it the 
 individual as he exists in any living society ? Is it the indi- 
 vidual as he might exist out of all society ? Are we able to 
 form a clear and precise conception of such an individual ? 
 Or when we picture to ourselves an individual existing out 
 of all society, from whose attributes the attributes of society 
 may be deduced, do we not unknowingly restore to our 
 imaginary individual the endowment of an actual individual, 
 so as to deduce society from the individual whom society has 
 made ? May it not be that the individual as social can be 
 studied only in society ? May it not be that society and the 
 social unit so involve each other that neither can be deduced 
 from the other, or at least that either can equally well be 
 deduced from either? 
 
 I think that even if we look upon society as a merely 
 physical organism, we shall find that the attributes of the 
 society as much determine the attributes of the individual as 
 the attributes of the individual determine the attributes 
 of the society. Let us dwell upon this point a little more 
 fully. 
 
 To the bodily eye the individual appears something dis- 
 tinct from and independent of all other individuals. I can 
 picture to myself a last man, the individual animal sur- 
 viving in a world whence all his fellow-creatures have 
 departed ; I can even imagine such a being, after heaven and 
 earth have passed away, freely suspended in pure ether to 
 enjoy a few moments of precarious life. So likewise I can 
 picture to myself primitive men in mind and body not very 
 dissimilar to myself, but not united in any form of social 
 organization. Thus I am quite prepared to hear that society 
 is composed of individual men and women, and that I can
 
 Society and its Members. 5 7 
 
 understand society by studying the individual^ and in no 
 other way. I study the individual life in all its phases from 
 the animal to the ideal . I collect all that has been discovered 
 and recorded concerning the individual. I endeavour to 
 bring before my imagination all the attributes with which 
 the individual is furnished, all the actions which the individual 
 performs. These actions and these attributes are the indi- 
 vidual; at least they are all in the individual which I can 
 know or which I can express, and therefore they include every- 
 thing in the individual which has any interest or any conse- 
 quence for me ; they make up all that I understand by the 
 word individual. For if the philosophy of experience comes 
 to anything, it comes to this, that reality is something which 
 we can understand and express, not a thin, ghostly, meta- 
 physical figment. 
 
 Coming to look at the attributes and the actions of an 
 individual, I find that these attributes are nothing more or 
 less than the relations of the individual to other things, and 
 that these actions are merely the particular instances of 
 general relations. Since the individual is but a concise for- 
 mula for the total of actions and attributes, it follows that 
 the individual, out of relation to other things, is literally 
 nothing. I will not hurt his feelings by calling him a bundle 
 of relations, but I cannot allow him to be anything more than 
 a system of relations. If this be so, I shall understand the 
 individual only when I understand the relations existing 
 between him and everything else. The individual as moral 
 and political I shall know only in knowing his relations with 
 other moral and political individuals. These are what we 
 call his social relations. In order to know these relations, 
 however, I must know the structure of society. Thus I find
 
 5 8 L imits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 it impossible to understand the individual without under- 
 standing that which the individual is supposed to explain. 
 The plump and solid individual whom I thought such a 
 familiar object, who promised such a solid basis of social 
 speculation, the individual, I say, has shamefully disappointed 
 me ; and, instead of serving to explain society, sends me 
 round to society to explain him. 
 
 Man may be studied from many points of view; as 
 a body occupying space, as a mechanical power, as a 
 chemical compound, as a living animal, as a spiritual 
 nature. The student of politics studies man as social, as 
 developing society, and by society developed. If he 
 attempts to deduce the nature of society from the nature 
 of man, he must deduce it from the nature of man as 
 social. But this social nature can be known only by know- 
 ing its product or its cause ; by knowing society. If the 
 social science can be deduced from the sciences of biology 
 and psychology, it is only because these sciences have dealt 
 with man as social. Concerning man abstracted from 
 society these sciences can tell us as much as they can 
 about any other animal. That is to say, they will explain 
 everything save and except the particular fact which we want 
 explained. Of man in isolation, as of the vegetable or animal 
 unit in isolation, we may learn a great deal. We can ascertain 
 the mechanical and chemical properties of the unit. We can 
 ascertain the mechanical, chemical, and physiological proper- 
 ties of the man. We can even ascertain to some extent his 
 mental faculties. But we cannot ascertain the power of pro- 
 ducing, in the one instance, the vegetable or animal, in the 
 other the social organism. For powers are known only in 
 their working ; tendencies are known only by knowing what
 
 Society andits Members. 59 
 
 they tend to. Knowing that men produce societies, and 
 what societies are, we may make abstraction of the individual 
 and deduce from the individual the community. The pro- 
 cess may be instructive, but it is merely a circle. Every- 
 thing that is in the conclusion was in the premisses. Of the 
 citizen you only know what you know of the society ; of the 
 man who is not a citizen you know for purposes of political 
 science, nothing. 
 
 I am well aware that all our common forms of speech and 
 all our inbred prejudices are opposed to this proposition. 
 The individual is a simple sensible object, apparently com- 
 plete within himself. The society is a complex invisible 
 object, existing only in its members. When we are told 
 that the laws of individual life determine the laws of social 
 life, we seem to hear only the scientific statement of a 
 familiar fact. For even in our own time we have seem nml- 
 titudes of individuals settle in vacant regions and form 
 states and societies. We have seen the members of great 
 and ancient societies,- as it were, take them to pieces and put 
 them together again upon a new plan. Moreover, society 
 works upon the individual with so much power, yet with so 
 much subtlety, so constantly, in such various ways, and so 
 silently, that the individual cannot retrace many steps in the 
 process by which he has been made, but, content with 
 recalling one or two of the latest, he merges all the rest in 
 his own nature, and sees always a little way behind himself 
 that mirage of an abstract social unit from which he may 
 deduce the concrete social organism. 
 
 Nevertheless, the doctrine that the society determines the 
 individual, just as much as the individual determines the 
 society, lies at the root of all political science.
 
 6o L im its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 Let me endeavour to illustrate my meaning. A cannon- 
 ball in a heap is not strictly the same thing as a cannon-ball 
 by itself. That a cannon-ball at certain points of its surface 
 touches other cannon-balls, sustaining some of them and 
 sustained by others, is a very unimportant fact in the de- 
 scription of the cannon-ball, although a very important fact 
 in the description of the heap. Even in the cannon-ball it 
 makes a difference. It may be said that taken out of the 
 heap the cannon-ball remains a cannon-ball still. This 
 merely means that we continue to call it by the same name 
 as before. We do so because all its more important attri- 
 butes remain unaltered. But it has suffered a change. Its 
 identity is really impaired. 
 
 We shall see this more clearly if we take an attribute 
 more important than the attribute of position. We do say 
 that the cannon-ball is a coloured object ; that one of its 
 attributes is colour. Yet the cannon-ball which looked in 
 strong sunlight a dull grey will look black in the twilight, 
 and will be invisible in thick darkness. Here something 
 which we own to be an attribute of the cannon-ball has 
 changed with the change in external objects. It would be 
 very unscientific to take this something as a primary fact 
 which, itself inexplicable, explains other facts. 
 
 Take a step further. We are accustomed to see colour 
 change, but we usually find weight constant. We should 
 hardly call the cannon-ball the same if it suddenly became 
 as light as a feather. But in itself the ball has no weight. 
 Were it the only solid object m space it would be weightless. 
 The weight of the cannon-ball implies the existence of our 
 globe, implies through that how many other things ! 
 
 Let us ascend from a mere collection to an organism,
 
 Society and its Members. 6i 
 
 from a heap of cannon-balls to a plant. Suppose a part 
 of the plant such that^ whilst itself developed by the 
 organism^ the organism can be reproduced by it. Which 
 attribute of such a part has most interest for the botanist ? 
 Is it the weight, size, shape, texture, colour ? A material 
 object might be framed having all these, yet of no more 
 concern to the botanist than to any other man. He is 
 interested in this quantity of matter solely because it is part 
 of the plant, because it has been developed from the 
 organism, because another organism of the same kind can 
 be developed from it. For him this is the fundamental, the 
 all-important attribute. And how does ho know this attri- 
 bute ? By knowing the plant of which his subject is part. 
 He knows the unit in knowing the organism. Suppose that 
 he had a specimen of the subject, but no specimen of the 
 organism to which it belongs. By what processes of experi- 
 ment or computation could he reconstruct the whole from 
 the part ? He would have some trouble in reaching by 
 methods purely mathematical, mechanical, or chemical his 
 purely botanical result. 
 
 Returning to the proposition that society determines the 
 individual quite as much as the individual determines the 
 society, we may enforce it by illustrations drawn from the 
 entire range of modern science. For in the growth of lan- 
 guage, of institutions, of belief, in the customs and conven- 
 tions of civilized life, there is a great deal which is uncon- 
 scious and in that sense natural. But only in these later 
 ages has this natural development inspired any serious 
 interest. At the present day it fixes the exclusive atten- 
 tion of many students of social science. They are bent 
 to find in history only the record of a natural evolution. I
 
 62 L im its of Individua I L ibe7dy . 
 
 cannot agree with them. Growing out of the unconscious, 
 there is the conscious development; growing out of the 
 natural; there is the moral life. The conscious and moral 
 growth of society will hereafter claim our attention. But 
 everything which modern science has determined respecting 
 the natural and unconscious evolution of society tends to 
 show that society does quite as much in making the indi- 
 vidual as the individual does in making the society. Num- 
 berless instances will suggest themselves to the reader. 
 Here we must be content with selecting one or two_. 
 
 Consider first of all the results of modern physiology. It 
 had been known for ages that men and beasts inherit 
 the bodily qualities of their race. Every attempt to im- 
 prove the breed of horses, cattle, or dogs involves the 
 beHef that size of bone and quality of muscle, as well as 
 the animal virtues of endurance and spirit, are trans- 
 mitted from generation to generation. Every intelli- 
 o-ent observer of human affairs had noticed how an ill- 
 
 to 
 
 fed race dwindles and a well-fed race waxes in stature and 
 strength ; how a luxurious race gradually becomes sterile 
 and dies out, whilst a hardy race multiplies and fills the 
 earth. But modern physiology has shown us how to 
 measure with unparalleled accuracy the effect produced by 
 the conditions of our bodily life. It has brought into view 
 many such conditions previously unknown. In former times 
 men knew next to nothing about the brain and nervous 
 system. To civilized man these are the most important 
 elements in his physical constitution. There is not one 
 trivial fact in the history of his ancestors which has not left its 
 trace upon these. His present nervous constitution furnishes 
 a complete record of the entire course of civilization. His
 
 Society and its Members. 6 
 
 J 
 
 special power to do a given kind of work^ his special sus- 
 ceptibility to a given kind of pleasure are alike inherited. He 
 comes into the world with half his education accomplished. 
 
 Nor is this all. His brain and nervous system have been 
 developed at the expense of his whole body. His bodily 
 capacities and sensibilities are altogether different from 
 those of a savage. His bodily functions and appetites are 
 very different from those of any remote ancestor. Having 
 quite other feelings and faculties, he will have quite another 
 life. And this life, reacting upon his constitution, will 
 heighten all its peculiar qualities. So that even if we regard 
 them as mere animals, a civilized man and a barbarian are 
 animals diff'ering very widely from one another. And the 
 key to this difference is found in the history of society. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has illustrated this truth in a 
 manner so ingenious and fertile as to leave little to be said 
 by those who come after him. We may not admit his con- 
 clusions. Indeed all physiological explanations of spiritual 
 phenomena assume in their explanation the very thing which 
 has to be explained. It is a mistake to identify the man 
 with the nervous system. Knowledge is not a state of the 
 nerves, but the state of the nerves does limit our power of 
 acquiring knowledge. Art is not a state of the nerves, but 
 art is impossible without a fine nervous susceptibility to 
 form, colour, and sound. Those who reject a physiological 
 explanation of the soul need not underrate the influence of 
 physical conditions upon spiritual life. They do not deny 
 the fact because they reject its popular interpretation. 
 
 If, therefore, every man is born with a constitution which 
 is the result of human development in general and of the 
 development of his own society in particular, it should seem
 
 64 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 that thus far we need not hope to find in him a something 
 which determines society without being determined by it. 
 In order to know why he is so constituted we have to 
 retrace an endless series of actions and events whose conse- 
 quences he inherits, but in which he bore no part. Instead 
 of explaining society by reference to him, we have to explain 
 him by reference to society. 
 
 Next to our bodily constitution our native language is 
 the most momentous condition of our life. Formerly men 
 thought that articulate speech must be either an immediate 
 gift of God to man, or else a set of sonorous symbols agreed 
 on by men among themselves. Philology has proved to us 
 that language is neither the one nor the other. Philology 
 teaches that language has a growth of its own ; a growth of 
 whose later stages only we are conscious ; a growth which 
 we can do little to hasten, retard, or divert. This, again, does 
 not imply that language is something irrational. If we had 
 no ideas we should not have names which recall ideas. But 
 what these names shall be and how they shall be modified de- 
 pends far less on our own will than on our physical structure 
 and on our surroundings. Moreover, since language has 
 been growing for thousands of years, it must needs act upon 
 any one individual far more forcibly than'that individual can 
 react on it. 
 
 Language is the record of accumulated thought. At any 
 period in the history of a nation the state of its language 
 affords a most delicate and sensitive index to the state of its 
 mind. Language indeed is as much inferior to thought as 
 our execution is inferior to our ideal. Men are constrained 
 to utter their thoughts in words which fail to express all 
 that they would say, which, in expi-essing, distort their
 
 Society and its Members. 65 
 
 sense. As tlie word which stands for an idea passes through 
 the several stages of its history, the idea likewise undergoes 
 successive transformations. As the terra grows familiar its 
 import becomes thin. At length the once pregnant word 
 becomes like the Sibyl, a mere voice, an empty sound. 
 
 Language is also the mould of all new thought. Unless 
 we are students of some abstruse science, we cannot coin 
 new names for new ideas. Perforce we must use old words, 
 and if we are so fortunate as not to be misled by their old 
 associations, we cannot hope an equal good fortune for all 
 whom we address. Thus metaphysicians have been involved 
 in hopeless contradiction by an unguarded use of terms such 
 as mind and matter, God and the world, which they had 
 adopted from the vulgar tongue without purging them of 
 vulgar vagueness and incoherence. Even when they have 
 used a proper accuracy in language they have appeared 
 triflers or heretics, because the same term meant one thing 
 to them, another to their hearers. The few who tried to 
 create an artificial language have found it imperfect, rigid, 
 and unpopular. 
 
 Thus, in learning the language of his people, a man receives 
 their intellectual inheritance, and erects his own intellectual 
 barriers. His national speech is all the more potent over 
 him because it works upon him when a child. When he 
 has attained to manhood, the ideas which it embodies seem 
 to him either the discoveries of his own unaided reason or 
 the direct lessons of nature. Oftenest he would reject as 
 quibbling impertinence any suggestion that the idea, like 
 the word, has had a history of its own. He does not suspect 
 bow many of his beliefs, how much of his scepticism has 
 no other foundation than an inconsiderate acceptance of 
 
 F
 
 66 Limits of Individual Liberty 
 
 thouD-Ms, which seem clear because the sounds represent- 
 ing them are familiar. Philology demonstrates in respect 
 of the content of thought the same truth which physiology 
 demonstrates in respect of its physical instrument : that 
 previous ages have accumulated the one as they have shaped 
 the other. Everybody, indeed, does something, a few 
 persons do a great deal, to enlarge and to recast thought ; 
 but in considering men as members of an organism merely 
 natural we have to overlook for a moment a truth which we 
 must on no account let out of sight. 
 
 Let us pass to other aspects of life, in which unconscious 
 growth so blends with conscious effort that anything we can 
 at present say must be even more inadequate to their 
 subtlety. The individual on entering into life, enters into 
 the fellowship of a political community, marshalled on cer- 
 tain principles, making use of certain institutions, and ex- 
 pressing itself by means of certain organs. Long before he 
 was born, his parents and teachers, his friends and neigh- 
 bours, everything that he is destined to see, everything 
 that he is destined to hear has felt the pervasive force of 
 social organization. Long before he has himself become a 
 fully qualified citizen, he has been stamped with the impress 
 of his state. Institutions have done more than prescribe 
 the education which he shall receive. They are in them- 
 selves an education. 
 
 In its origin the organization of society is almost as 
 natural as the organization of an animal or a plant. Civil 
 society began in the instinctive effort to satisfy the most 
 imperious wants of animal nature ; in the effort to preserve 
 oneself and to continue one^s kind. Everything higher 
 than this, the state as we know it, the individual as we are
 
 Society audits Members. 67 
 
 familiar with him, the notions of universal law and of per- 
 sonal freedom, all has been slowly worked out in an immense 
 lapse of time. For researches into the early history of insti- 
 tutions have brought home to us two great political truths ; 
 firstly, that the social union is ever growing in compass 
 as well as in closeness ; secondly, that freedom both of body 
 and mind has grown with the growth of the social union. 
 The sphere of law and the sphere of liberty are really one. 
 
 In the patriarchal grade of social development, man is 
 not wholly the creature of instinct ; but he is the creature 
 of status. Usage has gained what impulse has lost. In 
 this grade each man is born into a condition which can be 
 modified only by the destruction of his community. Per- 
 haps he is born a slave ; perhaps he is born a chief ; in 
 either case he is born to do and say certain set deeds and 
 words his whole life through. The poverty of his social is 
 as the poverty of his private life. Society has not extended 
 beyond the bounds of the family. Every one, as a great 
 scholar tells us, is either a kinsman, a slave, or an enemy. 
 Yet the family life, the only social life, appears hard and 
 inflexible. Custom and humanity limit the despotism exer- 
 cised by husband and father ; but he remains a despot 
 nevertheless. At a time when the family affords the only 
 social life, grace, sweetness, and sentiment are not to bo 
 looked for in the family. 
 
 By slow degrees the family expands into a village or a 
 tribe ; next, the half-fictitious tie of kindred binds together 
 an evei'-growing multitude ; at length the civic tie unites in 
 a hundred noble and beautiful relations those who claim no 
 bond of kinship. In its turn the civic spirit expands into a 
 national patriotism, and finally religion and philosophy carry 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 man beyond the bounds even of bis nation to feel a brother- 
 hood with all men. But in becoming the member of a 
 larger, he does not cease to be the member of a smaller 
 society ; he does not exchange one social bond for another ; 
 he adds tie to tie, and each tie strengthens all the rest. 
 In the concentric growth of sympathy, the inner rings 
 grow firm as the outer rings widen. Patriotism does not 
 impoverish family affection, nor does philanthropy exclude 
 patriotism. It is through the lesser that we become mem- 
 bers of the greater society. It is by caring for those who 
 are near that we become able to care for those who are re- 
 mote. Even Rousseau bids us beware of that cosmopolitan 
 humanity which loves the Tartars that it may be excused 
 from loving its neighbours. But infinite is the capacity of 
 true kindly feeling ; infinite the number and variety of 
 associations to which it gives life. Every new association 
 is not an inroad upon our individual life, but a new develop- 
 ment thereof. He who is enlisted in all the graduated divisions 
 of social life, from the little circle which surrounds his 
 hearth to the mighty circle which embraces the whole world, 
 him we call free, and not the unhappy, naked, houseless 
 soul that owns no membership in any brotherhood. 
 
 Until we realize how much institutions may vary, we 
 cannot realize how much every one owes to the institutions 
 of his society. It makes a great difference whether a man 
 be born in France or in Britain ; it makes a far greater dif- 
 ference whether he be born in the Britain of our day, in the 
 Rome of the Emperors, in the Athens of Pericles, or in the 
 India of the Vedas. And in this difference, the difference of 
 institutions is no small part. Institutions are to the prac- 
 tical what language is to the speculative life, the record
 
 Society and its Membei's. 69 
 
 and the sum of man's inlierited wealtli. Like language, 
 institutions furnish a point of departure, define a method 
 of action, supply a material for production. Like language, 
 they have a growth historical only in its later stages. Like 
 language, they embody ideas always a trifle obsolete ; are 
 never accurately conformed either to the circumstances or 
 the wishes of the present generation ; and link us to a past 
 which at once limits and makes possible our own achieve- 
 ments. According to our ability we criticize what we 
 inherit; we add, we take away, we modify, we protest, we 
 rebel, and after all we bring far less than we receive. As 
 purely natural and unconscious beings who make not, but 
 are made, we owe so much to the institutions which we 
 possess that it is idle to speculate on what we might have 
 been without them. 
 
 In undertaking social duties men have a certain freedom 
 of choice. In the first instance, it rests with each of us to 
 decide whether or no he will marry and bring up children ; 
 whether he will accept trusts, enter into contracts, make his 
 will, commit civil or criminal injuries. But probably he never 
 does realize the full significance of any such act. Moved by 
 the interest or the inclination, perhaps, of a day, of an hour, 
 he does an act whose consequences fill the whole of his life, 
 whose consequences are determined neither by chance nor 
 by his own free will. All the rights and duties arising out 
 of our most important dealings with our fellow-men have 
 been defined by law; law is the result of an immense 
 political growth ; law in its highest form is one of the most 
 artificial products of civilized society. The very idea of 
 inflexible general rules of conduct imposed upon each man 
 by the will of all, is an idea foreign to the mind of primitive
 
 70 Limits of Individital Liberty. 
 
 nations. The simplest legal conceptions, the conceptions 
 of a crime, a tort, a contract, a trust, a will, conceptions 
 now easy and familiar to all educated men, conceptions 
 which have helped to furnish out our speculative life, which 
 have done so much to fashion morals and politics, these 
 conceptions have been developed to their present fulness 
 and precision by numberless forgotten practitioners of a 
 dull and abstruse science. The modern refinements of 
 jurisprudence are unknown to nearly all who either make or 
 obey the law; but to these refinements we owe a great deal 
 which we ascribe to the workings of plain common sense. 
 
 Moreover, law developes so slowly, and i-n its growth 
 comes to touch upon so many interests that it becomes a 
 record of the whole course of human affairs. Law has felt 
 every revolution, not in politics alone, but in religion, in 
 philosophy, in commerce, and in the useful arts. These 
 numberless revolutions have all contributed to the legal 
 definition of every one of our rights and duties. With the 
 definition of rights and duties goes the stress of public 
 opinion in maintaining the one and in enforcing the other. 
 That which law and public opinion decide proper to do we 
 find right and agreeable to do. Since our character is made 
 by our actions, the rule of action at last becomes the prin- 
 ciple of character. We are made vicious or virtuous by Act 
 of Parliament. 
 
 Ascending into a higher region, we still find that the 
 rehgion of the society becomes the religion of the individual. 
 Like language and like political institutions, religion has for 
 the modern inquirer a significance which it could not have 
 for the learned of other ages. This in two ways. For in 
 the first place the extended research and the scientific criti-
 
 Society and its Members. j r 
 
 cism of modern times have enabled us to trace the unity and 
 development of religious life. And in the second place a 
 deeper insight has led many to see more distinctly what in 
 former ages men have blindly felt, that as the whole prac- 
 tical life of man is but the manifestation of his spiritual life, 
 so his whole spiritual life centres round religious ideas. It 
 is easy to see how this new way of looking at religion bears 
 upon our present subject, the relation of the individual to 
 the society. 
 
 The accepted theory of religion was formerly very simple. 
 One religion was saving and true; all other religions were 
 false and futile. The doctrines of the true religion were 
 contained in certain books and interpreted by certain rules. 
 These books were read without any feeling for the life of the 
 society which had produced them. These rules were laid 
 down in order to support a preconceived theory as to the 
 meaning of the books. The true religion was something 
 complete and rigid. It had no past and it had no future. 
 Its lessons were lessons of pure, abstract, lifeless truth. 
 Between religion and life, as between the Deity and the 
 world, the orthodox drew a line which none might presume 
 to cross. How differently have modern scholars taught us 
 to think about religion ! They have enabled us to see the 
 continuity which underlies all religious revolutions, and the 
 unity which branches into all religious variations. They 
 have accustomed us to the idea of one always progressive, 
 always imperfect revelation. They have elaborated into 
 a law of history the old theological notion of successive 
 dispensations and of many preachers each greater than 
 the last. They have shed a strong light upon the subtle 
 action and reaction of the religious and the practical life.
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 They have explained how religion, art, philosophy, indepen- 
 dent and conflicting as they so often seem, are yet but ema- 
 nations of the same mind and fruits of the same endeavour. 
 Those who are most hostile to what they esteem super- 
 stition tell us that religion began in the emotion of pri- 
 mitive men. Visions and omens excited wonder; the sun's 
 warmth and light, gratitude ; pestilence, tempest, and earth- 
 quake, terror, and out of these blind feelings religion arose. 
 Be it so. Primitive man felt that in the universe there was 
 something greater and stronger than himself. Yet he also 
 felt that this something was, if not himself, at least a 
 partaker of his own nature. In short, he felt at once the 
 insignificance of man and man's kinship with that which 
 makes him insignificant. This may well have been the first 
 religion ; for is it not the latest ? Out of this emotion have 
 sprung all kinds of worship ; the worship of fetishes, the 
 worship of Zeus and Apollo, the worship of an incarnate 
 God, the worship of the universe as a universe of law and 
 order. The mystery and the terror, the hope and faith that 
 were with men in the beginning have not departed from men 
 in our day. The doctrines, the discipline, the ceremonies of 
 any national religion have a history wide as the surface of 
 the earth, and far extended as man's course thereon. 
 
 Men speak of rejecting the religion of their country, of 
 rejecting all religion. The symbols and formulas of religion 
 they may indeed reject ; but they cannot efface the impres- 
 sion which religion has made upon their inmost life. Reli- 
 gion consisting not in certain propositions, but rather in a 
 mode of construing all propositions, is not a part of the 
 furniture of the mind, is not a set of movables, a collection 
 of ideas, or anything else which can be stored up or cleared
 
 Society and its Members. 73 
 
 out. It is a life, a way of thinking, a tone of mind. For 
 men of all persuasions tlie national religion constitutes the 
 starting-point of all spiritual life. It has informed with 
 its spirit philosophy, literature, law, all institutions and all 
 practical energies. It does more to shape the character of 
 those who seriously revolt than of those who thoughtlessly 
 acquiesce. Between the freethiukers of the Catholic and 
 the Protestant worlds are drawn lines of severance far more 
 sharp and clear than those which part the correct, formal, 
 and indifferent orthodox of either of these communions. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the individual owes his 
 religion to society. I do not mean to ignore the personal 
 nature of all the best religion, or the inward experience 
 which precedes all true religious life. The awakening of a 
 sense of religion has been figured by the religious mind as 
 a comina: out of bouda^e. But this enfranchisement of the 
 soul more properly belongs to a phase of social life on which 
 we must touch hereafter. For the present we may point 
 out that the idea of a new birth is of moment only in the 
 highest religions, and represents the spiritual experience of 
 very few professors. Besides, the most intense spiritual 
 fervour can never wholly fuse, the highest spiritual intelli- 
 gence can never wholly recast the doctrine and discipline of 
 any great communion. In religion that which men inherit is 
 often the whole, is always a great part of that which they 
 possess. 
 
 Thus far we have spoken of formative powers, which 
 aflfect almost equally every member of a society. We have 
 only mentioned a few. Other forces there are which act 
 very variously on various classes in the same society ; the 
 forces of rank, education, profession, associates, and amuse-
 
 74 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 ments. As forces of the one kind produce a national type, 
 so forces of the other kind produce diversity ^f types within 
 the nation. Long ago Adam Smith contrasted the two 
 codes of morality received, the one among the rich, the other 
 among the poor, and pointed out how in either case men 
 unconsciously adapt their morality to their conditions of life. 
 He showed how the wealthy for the most part are lenient to 
 pleasant, the poor for the most part severe against expensive 
 vices. Since pleasant vice is usually expensive, it follows 
 that the poor regard with most harshness those vices which 
 obtain most indulgence from the rich. When Adam Smith 
 wrote, an aristocracy still dictated the fashions ; and there- 
 fore the moral standard which they accepted was in some 
 measure the moral standard accepted by the whole com- 
 munity. 
 
 De Tocqueville, writing about the middle of the interval 
 which separates us from Adam Smith, saw everywhere pre- 
 dominant the spirit of the middle class. He noted as their 
 distinguishing characteristic the blending of a little philan- 
 thropy with a great deal of business. Their ideal was a life 
 of diffused material enjoyment which should by turns gratify 
 every sense and every vanity without offending against any 
 of the decorums, and, whilst worldly to the inmost fibre, 
 should not trouble the conscience with the impression of any 
 distinct sin. What De Tocqueville described in America 
 and France everybody may now see at home. Political 
 power has passed from the middle to the working class. 
 But as yet the middle class continues to give the moral 
 standard. 
 
 It is these changes in moral fashions consequent upon 
 social revolutions which in ages like our own impart
 
 Society and its Members. J 5 
 
 the flattering conviction of easy and rapid moral pro- 
 gress. Eacli age has its own customary morahty. One 
 sort of virtue is of more avail in a martial, another in 
 an industrial age. Among a nation of wari-iors a stout 
 heart, an open hand, a truthful tongue are almost the 
 only qualities held in high esteem. Among a nation of 
 traders, sobriety, industry, and frugality are of much 
 more accovmt. And the virtues which are most liberally 
 rewarded, which attract most good-will, procure most 
 influence, and kindle best the genial glow of self-appro- 
 bation are the only virtues which common-place people will 
 desire to possess or to seem to possess. We reckon our 
 own age the most virtuous ever known. That is to say, in 
 our own age we find a great deal of that kind of goodness 
 which the age appreciates. The roystering vices are dis- 
 credited and the decent vices are not conspicuous. Even 
 selfishness has acquired the reverend air of painful duty. 
 Sensuality itself has become serious, methodic, complex, 
 dull. Pleasure has become a task, and excess a fine art. 
 We may not be as virtuous as we suppose, but we are more 
 respectable than men ever were before. 
 
 In every age society demands that the citizen shall be 
 respectable. What respectability implies will be some- 
 thing different in every age, and in every rank of life. 
 But it is always through our perception of the uses and 
 pleasures of respectability, finally passing into the instinc- 
 tive love of respectability, that our souls absorb at every 
 pore the cuiTent morality of our nation, our class, or our 
 calling. Nor need we much regret that nature will 
 have it so. For the great mass of men can attain no 
 higher life than the life of decorous custom. Of course
 
 ; 6 L im its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 he who thinks and wills for himself is alone moral or 
 immoral in the deepest sense. His character is his own. 
 The good man of this type, the man of reasoned and 
 heroic virtue, is indeed above affection and above re- 
 verence. But in so far as men of celestial purity and 
 sweetness fulfil their task, they fulfil it by raising insti- 
 tutions and public opinion to a higher level, by lifting cus- 
 tomary morality above itself, by softening the caricature 
 of excellence called respectability. Thus regarding civil 
 society in its merely natural aspect, we are justified in saying 
 that the moral life of every man is rooted in respectability ; 
 that it is based upon feelings and habits, which he had 
 absorbed before he could judge them ; that he has the 
 morals of his community and of his class. 
 
 For the vast majority of men the rank into which they 
 are born determines their education and their profession. 
 The power of education has passed into the stalest of trite 
 proverbs. In shaping a man's character, which is his des- 
 tiny, a bad education counts for quite as much as a good 
 one. When we say that a man has had no education we 
 do not mean what we say. If he has learnt to be idle and 
 incapable, he has learnt a great deal. If he has learnt doc- 
 trines which he will discard as soon as he reaches maturity, 
 he may have learnt a more momentous lesson than if he had 
 enriched himself with the whole body of demonstrated truth. 
 All receive an education ; the street-arab no less than the 
 peer, the pass-man who takes orders no less than the senior 
 wrangler. If that which we call education should seem 
 less powerful than other influences, such as the influence of 
 a profession, we must remember that it comes first, and 
 works upon us when yet fresh and plastic.
 
 Society and its Members. 7 7 
 
 No man gets an original education. The accepted method 
 of training the intelligence has a history quite as long as the 
 history of the accepted method of administering justice. And 
 all new methods are defined by the degree in which they pre- 
 serve or reject what is ancient. Thus Rousseau's Emilius is 
 educated on the principle of excluding from his culture every- 
 thing which could make him either a pedant or a iwtit- 
 maitre. Had not the petU-maUre and the pedant flourished 
 in Rousseau's time, Rousseau's pupil had received quite 
 another training. For this is the subtlety of social infl uences, 
 that when we spurn them most we feel them most. And 
 again, very few receive an education so ideal and so free as 
 to be limited only by the measure of contemporary wisdom. 
 We are all educated to do something ; and most of us are 
 educated to no other end. 
 
 In guiding the energies wliich it has trained, society does 
 something through the direct action of government, but more 
 through the indirect action of public opinion. A govern- 
 ment employs more labour than any private individual or 
 collection of individuals can do. The public esteem in which 
 a calling is held more than anything else makes it alluring 
 or repulsive. It is idle to say that men will choose or ought 
 to choose their own profession. They seldom have any 
 choice whatever. Few men have any true vocation for any 
 particular work ; and men who feel a call feel hunger too. 
 Chance, family prejudice, or worldly emolument determine 
 almost everybody in choosing his means of earning a liveli- 
 hood. Each of these motives derives much of its weight 
 from law and public opinion. Wise institutions and a 
 healthy public opinion insure the best of all economies, an 
 economy of individual talent and energy.
 
 7 8 L imits of Individual L iberty . 
 
 As but one illustration of tlie influence exercised by society 
 upon the individual's choice of a pursuit, contrast the bar of 
 England with the Continental bureaucracy. On the Conti- 
 nent the administration is all-pervading and restless, and to 
 serve in the administration is accounted highly honourable. 
 Under these circumstances a very great proportion of the 
 ability of a Continental nation is enlisted in the service of 
 its government. In England the administration is neither 
 so powerful nor so much considered. But political power 
 has for many generations been wielded by an aristocracy, 
 and the profession of the law has afforded to the common 
 people the readiest entrance into the ranks of the aristo- 
 cracy, and the most convenient avenue to political power. 
 Accordingly it has been invested with something of the 
 vao-ue magnificence which in other countries or at other 
 times attaches to the military or to the clerical calling. 
 During many years it has been crowded to a degree which 
 neither its inherent attractions nor the gains of its prac- 
 titioners could justify. Man's appetite for wealth can be 
 satisfied, but his appetite for fame and power is insatiable. 
 Power and fame are in the gift of society, so that society 
 can always determine the object of individual ambition and 
 the channel of individual effort. 
 
 A man's calling continues the work which his education has 
 begun, gives him his final character as an organ of the social 
 body, and subdues to the purposes of this organ all his 
 natural energies and aptitudes. It is not merely that the 
 members of each profession do one particular kind of work. 
 Their whole life is fashioned to its requirements. No doubt 
 we do submit to a barbarous prejudice when we demand from 
 those who follow the various walks of life a merely profes-
 
 Society and its Members. 79 
 
 sional virtue, a merely professional intelligence; yet this 
 prejudice is too strong for most of us. Neither the opinion 
 of the public nor the opinion of his brethren requires a 
 soldier to be as temperate and chaste as a divine ; a man of 
 business to be as frank and generous as a soldier ; a barrister 
 to be as modest as a scholar or as sentimental as an artist ; 
 or a politician to be as truthful in public as every gentleman 
 must be in private life. On the other hand we do presume 
 a soldier to be brave and loyal; a man of business to be 
 thrifty and laborious ; a barrister to be true to his client; a 
 politician to be faithful, always to his party, and as often as 
 circumstances allow to the state. 
 
 Again, as every kind of handicraft developes some special 
 kind of bodily skill and strength, whilst it also induces some 
 peculiar disease or deformity, so does each of the more 
 liberal professions at once stimulate and blight the intellec- 
 tual powers. The learning requisite for any one of these 
 professions can be mastered only by prolonged and vigorous 
 exertion. A professional education is therefore a severe 
 gymnastic. But it is often arbitrary in its scope and 
 method. It must not be carried beyond a certain stage by 
 those who would turn it to good account. For public 
 opinion is the first and greatest of those natural forces which 
 we can rule only by obeying. To convince others that we 
 are fit to do our work is just as hard and just as indispensable 
 as to be really fit to do it. This conviction we impart to 
 our neighbours by doing as other men who pursued our 
 calling have been known to do. In a profession dulness may 
 now and then succeed ; originality never can. And the 
 constant endeavour to comply with the opinion of the public 
 at large, creates within every profession a secondary public
 
 8o L imits of Individual L tberty . 
 
 opinion, whicli is more intense and more searching, because 
 it is concentrated in a few persons who live and work 
 
 together. 
 
 Enforced by this double public opinion, the discipline 
 of a profession comes to resemble the discipline of a 
 monastic order. The sanction of involuntary poverty operates 
 quite as terribly as the sanction of foot-gyves and limbo, or 
 even the sanction of hell-fire. And no head of a religious body 
 is more inquisitive, more rigid, more confined in his views 
 than public opinion. Nature determines the conditions 
 under which we must work if we are to work well; conven- 
 tion determines the forms which we must observe if our work 
 is to fetch a good price ; convention and nature alike make 
 a liberal payment indispensable to us. We think ourselves 
 free to do what we please, to do it as we please, and when 
 we have done it to be what we please. Alas ! we flatter 
 ourselves in vain ; our work is chosen for us, our way of 
 doing it was fixed before we were born, and we are what the 
 labours of our life have made us. Few there are who elude 
 this hard necessity of things. 
 
 But why should we any further pursue a train of reflection 
 as obvious as it is endless ? Setting aside, for the moment, 
 all problems of moral freedom and responsibility, looking at 
 ourselves and our fellows merely as children of nature, can 
 we claim anything as our own, can we say of one feature, 
 one look, one accent, one emotion, one thought, one fancy, 
 that for it we are indebted only to ourselves ? Where shall 
 we find in ourselves anything self-centred or self-created ? 
 What can the most acute inquiry detect in any man, great or 
 little, wise or foolish, learned or unlearned, beyond an infinite 
 susceptibility, a measureless possibility, a capacity of learn-
 
 Society and its Members. 
 
 ing which is never satisfied^ a pliancy to circumstance which 
 is never exhausted ? In the individual what is there which 
 is truly individual ? Is he anything more than an often- 
 scrawledj much-blurred record of the lives that have been, 
 and prophecy of the lives that are to be ? Yes, he is some- 
 thing more than this. But this something more is nothing 
 known to natural science. It is something which the 
 methods of natural science can never seize. It must evade 
 philosophers who carry into the study of politics only the 
 conceptions of physics. In discussion with these philo- 
 sophers, therefore, we are justified in supposing for an 
 instant that this something is merely nothing. 
 
 The individual apart from history is something which 
 we cannot really comprehend. We cannot understand a con- 
 temporary Irishman or a Frenchman of the last century. 
 How could we so much as form the thinnest idea of an 
 individual not the child of any society whatever ? Shall we 
 try to deduct from a living concrete individual all that he 
 owes to society in order that the residuum may supply data 
 for social calculation ? Shall we try to add to the common 
 nature of all the higher animals something found only in 
 man ? We are not fit to perform either operation, for we 
 ourselves are not fixed or determinate, but are ever moving 
 and changing with the change and movement of the world. 
 Human nature is not fit to undergo either operation, for it is 
 the result, not of addition, but of growth. Man is an organ- 
 ism. As such, his organization infers a special character in 
 every part. Change but one iota in his constitution, and he 
 is another creature. You cannot take him to pieces ; you can 
 study him only as a whole. As a whole he is found only in 
 society, and there he must be studied by the social inquirer. 
 
 G
 
 Limits of Individiial Liberty. 
 
 What difference would it make in the proportion and the 
 charm of the Apollo Belridere if he were an inch shorter ? 
 A consummate mathematician could not find formulas to 
 express the change made in any of the divine curves ; nor 
 could a consummate critic express the change of a beholder's 
 feeling in words delicate enough to express just the exact 
 shade of emotion. But if the shape of a carved stone be a 
 thing so subtle^ how much more subtle are the body and 
 soul of a living man ! How hopeless to find the first 
 elements of society in an ideal man made by eliminating 
 from the actual man everything that gives substance or life 
 to our conception of humanity ! 
 
 Abstracting from the individual all the relations with 
 other individuals which become possible at birth and actual 
 during life, we find at the end of the process no individual 
 remaining. Abstracting from society these very relations, 
 we reduce society to an unsocial crowd. Therefore in order 
 to understand either society or the individual, the state or 
 the citizen, we must know, not one person, nor a multitude 
 of persons, but those persons in their mutual relations. 
 That is to say, we must investigate their religion, their art, 
 their literature, their science, their laws, and their govern- 
 ment, their methods of producing and principles of distri- 
 buting wealth, their language, customs, conventions, fashions, 
 opinions, and amusements. These, indeed, make up the 
 society; these are its attributes, its character, its life, its 
 substance. Everything else is only the sensuous embodi- 
 ment of these. 
 
 In the science of politics, as in all other sciences, we must 
 begin with that which is familiar to us : the visible state, 
 and the visible citizen. But as we go on these refine them-
 
 Society and its Members. 83 
 
 selves into a system of relations which constitute social life ; 
 in knowing which we know society and man. These rela- 
 tions we have to discover, to define, to connect, to classify ; 
 and how shall we succeed in doing this ? We can succeed 
 only by prolonged study of living societies. 
 
 The true method of social science appears then to be the 
 historical method. Historians may have been often untrue 
 to that method. They may have been shallow, credulous, 
 rhetorical. But history alone can supply the material for 
 a science of society. If we would understand the social 
 organism, we must study the organism itself instead of 
 attempting to compute its character from the character of 
 its parts. For in this attempt we are endeavouring to find 
 a primary and a secondary where they do not exist. Some- 
 body may object that in other sciences, such as physiology, 
 the method arraigned here has proved sound and fruitful. 
 The physiologist does indeed separate for the purpose of study 
 cells and tissues which can never live apart from the frame 
 which they complete. But the physiologist does not imagine 
 that by studying these cells and tissues in their isolation he 
 can understand their functions or the life of the whole body. 
 It is because he is acquainted with the whole that he can 
 profitably inquire concerning the parts. 
 
 Bones, muscles, sinews, nerves, and veins do not so much 
 as seem to live apart. The men and women who make up 
 society do seem to have a life of their own. Thus the sociolo- 
 gist falls into a snare easily avoided by the physiologist. His 
 method is as if a physiologist should first cut up the subject 
 into brain, heart, stomach, liver, and so forth, and should 
 then deduce from properties found to be common to all these 
 mangled parts the law of life for the living animal. Of course 
 
 G 2
 
 84 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 the parts looked at in that discomiection, dull and spiritless, 
 have no properties in common, save certain properties 
 chemical and mechanical. Bat pazzle yo'irself as long 
 as you will, and out of laws merely mechanical and che- 
 mical you will extract nothing but chemical and mechanical 
 laws. 
 
 The sociologist says, "By studying individuals as they are 
 I shall arrive at a knowledge of their common nature. This 
 nature I will formulate in laws biological and psychological; 
 and by the help of these laws I will explain everything that 
 can be explained in living societies.^' To this one might 
 reply, " In order to study individuals as they are, you must 
 study society as it is. Individuals as they are cannot be 
 understood unless we understand society. Society modifies 
 even their bodily structure. Their mental constitution is 
 very much what society has made it. In short, knowledge 
 of the individual is knowledge of the society. But if you 
 study the individual in the fashion which you propose to 
 adopt, your knowledge of the individual will be neither com- 
 plete nor precise. You will not know the individual as social, 
 and therefore you will not derive from your acquaintance 
 with him any aids to your theory of society. 
 
 In postulating the constituent part the sociologist forgets 
 that he is postulating its most essential attribute, the one 
 attribute which gives a meaning to all the rest the attri- 
 bute of being a constituent part. And thus between the 
 parts of society he can establish a merely mechanical union. 
 Even that union he estabKshes only by restoring to the parts 
 a very little of their organic character. An aggregate is 
 made up of units, but an organism lives in its members. 
 Separate the members from the organism, reduce the mem-
 
 Society audits Members. 85 
 
 bers to mere inorganic qualities of matter, the citizen to an 
 individual, the individual to a bundle of attributes, each 
 attribute to a bundle of sensations or emotions, and when 
 you have crumbled the warm, palpitating creature into a 
 dust as fine, as dry, as destitute of life as the dust of 
 Egyptian kings, then sift it, weigh it, drop pinches of it into 
 test tubes, vex it with all the tortures of the laboi-atory, and 
 it will endure all this in patient and contemptuous silence; 
 it will not surrender to such child-like inquirers the fine 
 secret of its impalpable life ; but it will tell them all that 
 they are open to learn ; and that is precisely as much as 
 they would have learned from any other handful of common 
 clay.
 
 IV. 
 PROGRESS,
 
 IV. 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered society as though it were an 
 organism of the same type with physical organisms. For 
 the sake of simplicity, it seemed best so to do. But this 
 way of considering society is always apt to mislead, for 
 society is something more than a physical organism. It is 
 composed of individuals who are something more than 
 physical. As in the individual, so in the society the natural 
 and unconscious is but the basis of the conscious and 
 rational. In so far as the individual and the society remain 
 natural, they are related to each other somewhat as in an 
 animal a limb to the whole bod}-. The animal tends to 
 develope a multiplicity of useful organs, which become more 
 mutually dependent as they become more numerous, so that 
 the animal organism grows at once in complexity and in 
 unity. The society tends to develope in just the same way. 
 Those who regard it as a merely natural organism would 
 say that it can only develope thus, that only this kind of 
 social improvement is possible. 
 
 But in the conscious and reasoning life, the society and 
 the individual are related to one another in a way unknown 
 to natural science. In this life the individual seeks to be not 
 merely a part, but a whole. He is not content to be a mere
 
 go Limits of Individzial Liberty. 
 
 pinion in the great machine. He cannot work without 
 Laving an object in wliich he finds satisfaction. Feeling 
 this to be necessary for himself, he also feels it to be neces- 
 sary for other men. And as each individual becomes aware 
 that he and his fellows have, every one, a value and a mean- 
 ing in themselves, the social development changes character. 
 Society continues to develope as before new organs of 
 life ; but each organ now developes as a whole. Its own 
 complete and self-centred perfection has to be reconciled 
 with its perfection as a member and an accessory. Neither 
 perfection can be had by itself; but the two perfections 
 often seem irreconcilable. Hence moral conflicts, loss of 
 energy, waste of happiness, and sometimes total destruction 
 for the individual and for the society. Yet this discord 
 is the condition of a finer harmony. For the develop- 
 ment of individuals is the condition of all sympathy ; 
 sympathy is the basis of all common action ; and it is 
 by the common endeavour of all to attain ends which 
 all desire, that society comes to feel its own unity, to 
 have a soul as well as a body, to be capable of a reason- 
 ing progress, and to pass out of the sphere of natural into 
 that of moral science. 
 
 The dawn of conscious life in the society, as in the man, 
 is the beginning of a new era. To some societies, as to 
 some men, this dawn never comes. Continuing to be merely 
 physical organisms, they develope passively and blindly. 
 In some societies, as in some men, conscious life seems never 
 to pass certain bounds. Of the one class, we have examples 
 in nations which have never become civilized ; of the othei", 
 in those Oriental nations whose brilliant civilization has 
 never emerged from childhood. But in no instance does
 
 Progress. 9 1 
 
 either the man or the society become fully conscious. In 
 every instance many actions remain unconscious, instinctive, 
 automatic. The merely physical life of society is never 
 annihilated. The most refined type of social union derives 
 much of its strength from its usefulness to individuals in 
 pursuit of sensual or selfish ends. It does not exclude the 
 struggle for existence, or the survival of the fittest ; but it 
 includes the pursuit of perfection aud the alleviation of 
 misery. It strengthens, and is strengthened by the nobler 
 nature of man. It is cemented by love as well as by 
 appetite, and lives rather by intelligence than by instinct. 
 
 Although we never cease to be animals, we soon cease to 
 be mere animals. The association of men is something more 
 than the association of ants or bees. To deal with the 
 human and the animal associations, as though they were 
 variations of a common type, to treat politics as a branch of 
 natural history, is to overlook the distinguishing feature of 
 all civil society, — the fact that it is a society of thinking 
 creatures. Only as conscious do men enter into political 
 life. Only as spiritual are men social. In the evolution of 
 a true society, men are not only instruments, but also agents. 
 Instead of being developed, they develope themselves. 
 This conscious evolution of society, this conscious develop- 
 ment of the individual, are the subjects of history in the 
 more restricted sense of that term. 
 
 If when men became conscious they merely pursued in a 
 reflective and deliberate manner such objects as alone 
 attract the animal nature, the awakening of conscious 
 thought might seem an event of no great moment in their 
 lives. But it implies much more than this. Conscious 
 beings occupy in relation to one another, and to the uni-
 
 92 Liynits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 verse, a position altogether peculiar. For, in the first place, 
 consciousness transforms all the old objects of desire. The 
 appetites of the animal creation are limited. Their in- 
 stinctive wants admit of satisfaction. A beast of prey 
 once gorged, remains at rest until the pangs of hunger 
 return ; but the desires of conscious beings have no limit. 
 Conscious beings are for ever drawing ideals from their 
 experience. From their experience of an activity pleasant 
 to them they derive the idea of pleasure, prolonged and 
 heightened indefinitely. Pleasure had been the consequence ; 
 it becomes the object of action. In this way the pursuit of 
 pleasure, unknown to the animal, is natural to the man. 
 And from this difference between men and beasts flow many 
 consequences very important in human history. 
 
 The struggle for existence between creatures of appetite, 
 and the struggle for existence between creatures of desire, 
 differ greatly in character. Competition among animals is 
 much less keen than competition among men. At the same 
 time, fellow-feeling is more vivid in the nobler creature. 
 He must suff'er in the suffering of others ; and yet he must 
 prey upon his kind. Whence come, even in very early times, 
 a profound sorrow, a tragic sense of all that man has to 
 do and bear, a doubting whether human life be worth the 
 trouble needed to make it tolerable, a longing for rest even 
 though rest can be found only in annihilation, emotions un- 
 known in the bright world of nature, whose children feel 
 only such impulses as they can appease, seldom feel more 
 than one impulse at a time, know neither fear nor shame in 
 taking what they want, and ha\nug taken it, are vexed with 
 no voluptuous longings, no acrid remorse, no presentiment 
 that they will never taste it again.
 
 Progress. 93 
 
 In the second place, new objects of desire spring out of 
 the perplexities of conscious life. Animals need no morality. 
 But conscious beings cannot dispense with it. For the 
 problem of conduct is incessantly thrust upon them by the 
 contradiction between their infinite longings and finite 
 circumstances. They very soon find that of pleasant sensa- 
 tions they shall never have their fill. They also find that 
 pleasant sensations are not all that they want. Pleasure 
 is theirs whilst it lasts, and when the pleasure departs 
 they have the effect and the remembrance thereof; but 
 the effect is sometimes good, sometimes bad, and the 
 remembrance is a very little thing, rather bitter than 
 sweet. Even whilst their pleasure lasts it is at the mercy 
 of every trifle. For there is no annoyance so petty or 
 so mean but it can defeat the deepest and the purest 
 pleasure. The least chill is enough to dull our enjoyment 
 of the loveliest sunset. The thought of an unpaid bill 
 suffices to spoil the raptures of a poet. And long before 
 men die, long before their noblest powers decay, they begin 
 to lose their first fresh sensibility to pleasure. Thus, finding 
 a life of impulse fail them at every step, they are forced to 
 seek a principle of action. Their success in finding such a 
 principle, and in acting upon it when found, is a prime 
 element in their progress. 
 
 Nor is it only a rule of conduct which is necessary to the 
 conscious as distinct from the unconscious creature. He 
 further feels the need of knowledge. To him the universe 
 presents a speculative as well as a practical problem. The 
 development of science is another prime factor in progress. 
 And in groping their way toward a conception of the uni- 
 verse, and a law to guide their own life in it, men come to
 
 94 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 have a sense of religion. To define religion is hard ; nor 
 shall we add another to the many bad definitions already in 
 print. But if few can define the term, everybody knows its 
 reference. Religion certainly has been, and in the opinion 
 of many will continue to be, the central fact of human 
 history. All the lines of special development in morals, 
 politics, science, literature, and art, from time to time con- 
 verge into and radiate out of great religious revolutions. In 
 religion we find a motive power totally unlike anything to 
 be found in nature. The aims, the struggles, the joys and 
 sorrows of the religious life are only for conscious beings. 
 And a theory of progress which should ignore the develop- 
 ment of religion would be a theory not worth considering. 
 
 Lastly, in conscious creatures the desire of beauty gives 
 rise to art. Perhaps nothing in human nature is more 
 mysterious than the delight which artistic production 
 aSbrds to the artist and his public. Nothing in human 
 history is harder to explain than the artistic evolution. But 
 it remains a feature of all progress ; a feature so important 
 that without it the progress of any people is rightly con- 
 sidered imperfect. And it is the net result of impulses 
 possible only to reflecting minds. 
 
 The impulse to virtue, the impulse to science, the impulse 
 to holiness, and the impulse to beauty, all have this much 
 in common— that they are, in a certain sense, impersonal and 
 unselfish. In this they dilfer from, say, the impulse to 
 accumulate wealth. It is true that the industrial activity 
 arising from my love of gain enriches other men as well as 
 myself. But this result was not what I contemplated, nor 
 does it necessarily give me any satisfaction. On the other 
 hand, the good citizen, the man of science, the saint, and
 
 Progress. 95 
 
 the artist fulfil their own vocation in helping- other men 
 to fulfil theirs. The object of a good or holy life is^ iu 
 making oneself better or holier, to make others so too. The 
 object of an artist or a man of science is, through the 
 exercise of his own talent, to give at once a stimulus and 
 a satisfaction to the same talent in other men. And the 
 artist or man of science, as well as the good citizen or the 
 saint, finds his own energy heightened in proportion to the 
 number of those who can understand him, feel with him, 
 and in any way act with him. The intrinsic value of taste 
 or knowledge to any one of us varies directly with the 
 number of those who know or appreciate. Every man's 
 goodness and piety grow with the goodness and piety of 
 all around him. Thus through science and art, through 
 morality and religion, a disinterested life becomes possible. 
 Through their operation men are bound together more 
 firmly than by instinct. Through their operation a new, a 
 spiritual evolution is set up. This spiritual evolution is 
 progress in the historical and human sense, progress in 
 human perfection. But its principle is not to be found in 
 the struggle for existence. Its principle is one of mutual 
 helpfulness, and the spring of this helpfulness is a generous 
 love of excellence and of our fellow-men. 
 
 Even in the state of nature co-operation is a necessity, 
 and sympathy is a pleasure. But in that state men co- 
 operate for the most part merely in order to secure the 
 means of sustaining animal life. Since life multiplies much 
 faster than the means of life, conflict more than co-opera- 
 tion distinguishes the state of nature. All the hordes 
 occupying the same country cannot consume the same 
 cattle, shelter in the same huts, or deck themselves with the
 
 96 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 same ornaments. What one has the other cannot have. 
 Sympathy, again, is but the feeling of a common nature. 
 But until men become conscious, they do not become aware 
 of their true nature ; they do not know what they have in 
 common. They see that they have something in common 
 with those of their own family or their own tribe, perhaps 
 with those of their own language or their own traditions : 
 beyond this they are not yet able to go. 
 
 In a fully conscious aud rational society the animal life 
 would have been absorbed aud assimilated by a human life. 
 There are as many ways of describing this human life as there 
 have been sects in philosophy aud religion. But everybody is 
 agreed that all men are capable of it, and are bound to seek 
 after it ; that men secure it for themselves by securing it 
 for others ; that in it every man's perfection is an object 
 to all his fellows, as their perfection is an object to him. 
 No man acts invariably upon this maxim. Most men 
 violate it every day of their lives ; but they confess its 
 power. They feel its rebuke. It peuetrates into their laws 
 and institutions. Its final acceptance would render conflict 
 obsolete and absurd, co-operation co-extensive with life. 
 For men would live so much in one another that the pain 
 or dishonour of one would be the pain and dishonour of 
 all. Where all had one object, all would unite. Where all 
 were aiding, all would wish one another well. 
 
 The ideal in every form teuds to unite men. Even when 
 it raises discord it is still a principle of union. Heligious 
 warfare is hateful ; but it is the opposite of the struggle 
 for existence. Men make war upon each other for a dogma, 
 because the beliefs of any one set of men are so interesting 
 to all others, because they hunger after sympathy and can-
 
 Prop'vess. 97 
 
 not live without unity. It is true that the sympathy and 
 the unity which content the barbarian do not content his 
 civiKzed posterity. They are more^ not less exacting ; they 
 persecute less, but they proselytize more. 
 
 And as men's desire to communicate truth is pro- 
 portioned to the value they set upon it, so is their joy 
 in professing truth proportioned to the number of those 
 who profess it with them. A single believer may hold 
 fast to his creed; but he will have very little joy in 
 it. Indeed almost all our pleasure in our ideas is a re- 
 flected pleasure. If we are happy in them, although they 
 do not prevail now, it is because we believe that they will 
 prevail hereafter. 
 
 Any one who felt sure that he was possessed of 
 precious truths, and that these truths could never find 
 acceptance, would be a very miserable man. For only 
 men who are sceptical to the core can find a real and 
 solid satisfaction in the boundless diversity of opinions. 
 Such diversity a sincere believer may accept as the necessary 
 result of our imperfect vision ; but it is in acknowledging 
 his unity with other believers that he finds strength and 
 joy. All who find their energies renewed and their per- 
 severance confirmed by meeting for purposes of religious 
 worship or political agitation, all these bear witness to 
 the pleasure men have in making a public profession 
 of faith. Symbols, formularies, creeds; all are ex- 
 pedients of a like nature. All show how indispensable 
 and how attractive to men in their spiritual life is any 
 rallying-point. So long as sects and parties exist upon the 
 earth, so long wo have a testimony to the force of spiritual 
 attraction. 
 
 11
 
 98 Limits of Individttal Liberty. 
 
 The sense of eesthetic or of scientific communion is less 
 widely spread, but is certainly not less genuine. The 
 solitary thinker and the solitary artist are as incomplete 
 and unhappy as the solitary saint. The exponents of a new 
 scientific theory, the founders of a new school of art, are 
 inspired by an apostolic spirit akin to that which animates' 
 the teachers of a new faith. In all three instances the more 
 difi'used spiritual satisfaction is the more intense spiritual 
 satisfaction. Thus in the spiritual life we lose sight of all 
 distinctions between mine and thine. What one man has 
 every man has. He is rich not only in virtue of that_ which 
 he can keep to himself, but much more in virtue of that 
 which he shares with others. There is no competition, 
 since there is nothing to compete for. But there must 
 be co-operation, since with our best united efforts we can 
 scarcely make any way worth considering. 
 
 All men have, in the first place, one common function, to 
 live : and, in the second place, a variety of special functions 
 subservient thereto. The real progress which men have 
 made is to be judged solely by their success in fulfilling 
 their common function. But they are ever prone to lose 
 sif»'ht of this common function, apart from which their special 
 functions have no meaning whatever. For to be absorbed 
 in a merely industrial function is to resign one's humanity. 
 A healthy, handsome savage is immeasurably the superior 
 of a deformed and diseased spinner, however skilful, who 
 lives only in spinning. And as it is by subdividing 
 industrial functions and by making men diligent, each 
 in his own function, that industrial competition furthers pro- 
 gress, we may see how little for any true progress industrial
 
 Progress. 99 
 
 competition can do. It can hardly carry men any way towards 
 perfection. It has been known to carry them a long way 
 in the opposite dii'ection. It is, indeed, a necessary dis- 
 cipline for all but very strong characters. But it is nut a 
 discipline which can form pure or generous minds, develope 
 anything beautiful, or in any respect ennoble social life. 
 
 The spirit of industrial competition we are to regard as an 
 unruly natural force, useful only when enslaved to intelli- 
 gence. Even for the higher special functions, such as lite- 
 rature and art, it supplies nothing like an adequate motive. 
 And for the supreme function of living, it supplies no motive 
 at all. Much confusion of thought would be saved by re- 
 membering that the spirit of competition is simply the love 
 of money, and competition the struggle to make money. 
 So that the life of free competition is neither more nor less 
 than a life of subjection to very gross instincts ; instincts 
 which grow upon their slave much faster than he can satisfy 
 them ; instincts whose unqualified dominion is fatal to 
 everything good or generous, or lovely, or spiritual in 
 man. 
 
 So distinct is spiritual progress from physical evolution, 
 that those who do most to further the one are often crushed 
 by the other. It is thus with nations. The Greek states 
 were politically enfeebled by the diversion of the Greek 
 intelligence to literature, art, and philosophy. Whilst 
 Italian scholars, painters^ and poets were renewing European 
 culture, the Italian republics were writhing under the bar- 
 barian conqueror's heel. The Jews as a nation of prophets 
 were much less prosperous than the Jews as a nation of 
 stock-brokers. And it is thus with individuals. A saint 
 
 H 2
 
 I oo Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 spends in communing with God the hours which other men 
 spend on Change. A lover of his kind spends life and 
 energy and money in the effort to extinguish a great abuse, 
 or to civilize his more miserable fellow-creatures. A man 
 of science devotes himself to the discovery of new truth, 
 rather than to the application of truth already known, and 
 earns hundreds where he might have earned thousands of 
 pounds. An artist amid neglect not unmingled with derision 
 remains faithful to his own sense of beauty, and multiplies 
 pictures or poems which hardly find a market in his genera- 
 tion. Men of this stamp are assuredly rare, but they are 
 the heroes of human progress. Yet they are disastrously 
 beaten in the race of life. That perfection is the only 
 object of wise desire is not more certain than that perfec- 
 tion does not pay. How crude and childish, then, a theory 
 which dei-ives every advance towards perfection from indus- 
 trial conflict ! How poor an explanation of progress is that 
 which would infer the captains of progress to be weaklings 
 and fools ! 
 
 The moral ideal is indeed remote from anything 
 existing on our earth. But, although nowhere fulfilled, 
 it is not therefore weak. It is the greatest of the powers 
 which make for real progress. Our civilization is the 
 result not only of appetite, but also of asceticism ; not only 
 of self-assertion, but also of self-abnegation ; not only of the 
 instinctive desire to live, but also of the reasoned contempt 
 of life ; not only of the impulse to crush 'those who stand 
 in our way, clash with us in our pursuits, and hinder us of 
 our profit or pleasure, but also of the longing to lift up 
 those that are fallen, to soothe pain, to assuage grief, to 
 heal remorse, to give light to the blind, health to the sick.
 
 Progress. ' i o i 
 
 and consolation to those who aro oppressed and have none 
 to comfort them. But for these benign influences mankind 
 would long ago have flung off the too-galling load of 
 • existence. These make the true social bond ; and these are 
 not natural. There is nothing like them in the evolution 
 which has produced the infinite variety of animal and 
 vegetable life. 
 
 Inasmuch as social life, ceasing to be a life of mere com- 
 petition, becomes by degrees a life of mutual helpfulness ; 
 inasmuch as men gradually awaken to the change which 
 has taken place in their circumstances- and in their own 
 minds, to their own new ideas of happiness and nobleness ; 
 inasmuch as they come to love and revere the society which 
 gave them birth, and to find in its opinions and beliefs, its 
 laws and customs, less a mere network of restraints than 
 the embodiment of their own thoughts ; inasmuch as this 
 society is not only an industrial association, but in 
 some sort a spiritual communion, — it follows that we must 
 discard many current theories' as to the relation sub- 
 sisting between civil society 'and its members. That 
 relation cannot be adequately expressed in terms drawn 
 from physical science. The individual is no longer a 
 mere fraction of the society; he is its epitome. His 
 happiness is social, not merely secured by society. A 
 more or less disinterested patriotism has become possible 
 to him. 
 
 Patriotism is to be regarded, not as a generous folly, but 
 as the highest wisdom. Patriotism is to be justified, not 
 upon any calculation of averages which tends to show that 
 where the citizens are ready to serve their country they 
 are usually better housed, better clothed, and better fed than
 
 I02 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 in countries where uo citizen cares for anything which 
 lies beyond his own threshold. Patriotism is to be justified 
 on the ground tliat it is the vocation of every freeman, 
 and that men are happy in their vocation. Who would 
 think of exhorting a poet to write on the ground that 
 making verses tends to calm the mind and facilitate digestion, 
 or even on tlie ground of the mild titillation which various 
 prosy persons might derive from reading that which he 
 had written ? The poet writes because it is his mission 
 to write, and writing is a necessity to him. The brave 
 man serves his country for the same reason. Love is 
 something more than the will to render certain good offices 
 which can be enumerated and valued upon paper. It is 
 life, and like life need not be justified and cannot be 
 measured. 
 
 And again, since progress is not merely economic pro- 
 gress, the action of society is not to be regulated by eco- 
 nomic principles solely. Progress means simply progress in 
 human perfection ; and to this progress all progress in the 
 division of labour, or in the rate of production, is altogether 
 subsidiary. Even Avore it always true that for the creation of 
 wealth society can do no more than protect the individual in 
 his industry, this truth would throw very little light upon 
 political science. Whatever may be the intelligence of the 
 individual, he usually has the most sincere desire to be well 
 off; and in so far as singleness of aim and earnest aspiration 
 can go, he is better fitted than any other man to choose the 
 shortest and easiest path to his own opulence. But as to his 
 own perfection, that is quite another matter. The great 
 majority of men never stop to consider how far they are per- 
 f(^ct or imperfect ; and there are very few men indeed whose
 
 Progress. 1 03 
 
 own ignorance or weakness Las given them one lioni- of 
 serious or fruitful regret. Even with the best intentions, an 
 average man has but a very limited power of forming in- 
 tellectual or moral standards for himself; and even if he 
 could form them, he is usually ill- provided with material 
 means of living up to them. To society, therefore, he must 
 be indebted for the right standard, for an adequate impulse, 
 and instruments of improvement. And wherever society in 
 its unconscious operation fails to supply these, they must be 
 supplied by society acting consciously and upon plan, in 
 other words by the state. 
 
 Thus the function of the state is education in the lai'gest 
 sense. As Aristotle said so many hundred years ago, civil 
 society has its origin in the impulse to live, but finds its 
 continuance in the impulse to live well. Nature within and 
 without us for ever strives to take her own course ; and we 
 have to master her as best we can. We can do so only by 
 opposing to her prodigious resources the organized force of 
 our collective intelligence and will. These, when organized, 
 constitute the state. The state, then, is not a passive 
 spectator of progress. It is not superseded by progress. 
 On the contrary, progress multiplies its burthens, for the 
 ideal recedes much faster than the actual advances. And 
 every advance which men make entangles them in fresh 
 perplexities. Every great gain is accompanied by losses 
 almost as great. Every new truth has its retinue of errors ; 
 every new virtue seems to dilute character. As with our 
 bodies so with our souls ; our growth is a perpetual wasting, 
 and our very life is on the other side death. So that the 
 centuries as they pass leave the individual always less and 
 less self-sufficing than he was before.
 
 104 ^ "''^ ^'^^ ^f Individual Liberty . 
 
 Thus it may well be asked liow we cau reconcile the progress 
 of society as a spiritual communion with the progress of society 
 as a natural organism. In the natural evolution of society 
 every function is specialized. Every industry is perfected 
 by the division of labour. Does not the division of labour 
 imply the cramping of each individual life, an exhausting 
 strain upon some faculties, a deadening atrophy of all 
 the rest ? Does it not seem as though the law of specific 
 functions sacrificed each man's perfection of body and mind 
 to the refinement of mechanic art. And if the conditions ot 
 life become more and more unfavourable to great charac- 
 ters, if the members of society gradually become stunted 
 and misshapen, what hope can we cherish for the lasting 
 progress of society itself ? A community altogether made 
 up of men skilful in nothing but the repetition of some 
 paltry operation might for many years continue to grow 
 in numbers and in wealth ; but it could hardly grow 
 in anything else ; and even in numbers and in wealth it 
 would cease to grow when the parcelling out of functions 
 had degraded its citizens below a certain limit of 
 debasement. 
 
 Such a prospect as this might well alarm those who could 
 conceive no industrial organization other than that which 
 prevailed in the early part of this century. But now that 
 we have had time to breathe from the passions inflamed 
 by boundless possibilities of gathering riches, we begin 
 to see that men may make their riches serve human 
 wants. We begin to see that subdivision of labour may 
 be made to further the very good which it threatened 
 to destroy. For without subdivision of labour we 
 cannot have industrial efficiency, and without industrial
 
 Progress. 105 
 
 efficiency we cannot have wealth. But wealth is the con- 
 dition of Irisure, nnd leisure affords the opportunity of 
 culture. When I speak of leisure, I do not refer merely to 
 the handful of people who have all their time at their own 
 disposal. Beside these, the producers of wealtli find that 
 industrial development shortens their hours of labour. 
 The labour of women and children is in many industries 
 restricted, in some prohibited. Holidays are more nume- 
 rous than of old. Something has been done towards 
 securing the labourer's development ; but all that has been 
 done is a very small part of that which our wealth makes 
 possible. If only we grew in wisdom and virtue as we 
 grow in riches, we should be able to dispense, not indeed 
 with hard work, but with such work as crushes and bru- 
 talizes its victims, and all men might enjoy leisure and 
 strength of body and mind sufficient for the purposes of a 
 rational self-improvement. We should have conquered by 
 obeying nature. 
 
 Two very different tendencies visible in our own time may 
 sei've to illustrate the way in which the human longing for a 
 healthy, complete, and joyous existence subdues and utilizes 
 the economic impulse towards specialization. One of these 
 tendencies leads us to value more than ever bodily health, 
 strength, and beauty, to esteem them worthy of a disinterested 
 culture. The other tendency is towards a juster apprecia- 
 tion of art, not only in the form of pictures, poems, and 
 music, but as a pervading social and domestic influence. 
 Men have often followed these tendencies in a blind, irrational 
 temper, altogether losing sight of the end to which they 
 converge, and which alone makes either respectable. The 
 one tendency has produced many brutes, the other ten-
 
 1 06 L im its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 dency many fops. And yet tliey testify to the elasticity of 
 human nature. Life was becoming- hideous and unwhole- 
 some. Had we no conscious need of perfection we should 
 have silently dropped those powers and graces which 
 were no longer of economic value. But we had the 
 will, the intelligence, and the wealth to preserve and 
 improve these powers and graces as indispensable to the 
 fulness of life. By the side of special skill in the produc- 
 tion of wealth wo tried to develope general capacity for its 
 enjoyment. 
 
 As every individual comes to be treated more and more as an 
 end in himself, less and less as a means to the profit of others, 
 a steadily increasing number are admitted to the highest 
 functions. The Protestant Reformation made every head of 
 a family a priest ; the revolution in the art of war has in 
 many countries made every adult a soldier ; the democratic 
 revolution has made most citizens to partake in the govern- 
 ment of the state. Each of these functions had in previous 
 times been entrusted to a particular class. Thus the 
 subdivision of labour which applies to the industrial 
 arts does not necessarily apply to all human activities. 
 Another principle, the principle of unity, controls all the 
 higher life of man. All men who have the capacity have the 
 right to partake in the higher life, and the business of society 
 is to augment the number of those who are capable. A 
 liberal education is the process of qualifying a man to be a 
 citizen. A liberal education counteracts the subdivision of 
 labour, in respect of each individual by developing all his 
 faculties, and in respect of the entire community by giving 
 to all its members one culture, one standard of action, one 
 ideal of truth and beauty.
 
 Progress. 107 
 
 In this way society may enjoy a gro\vin<^ spiritual unity 
 along with a growing subdivision of labour. The wealth 
 which we accuraulate by becoming pieces in the great in- 
 dustrial machine we may spend in making ourselves accom- 
 plished men and women. Whilst each citizen earns his 
 livelihood by concentrating his faculties upon a narrower 
 and yet narrower span of technical work, he may employ 
 his leisure in gaining broader and yet broader views of 
 life and nature ; he may see more clearly than did his 
 forefathers in a simple age the meaning and the in- 
 terest of his place in our complex society ; he may avail 
 himself of multiplied opportunities for study, for travel, 
 for artistic or athletic recreation, and may attain to a 
 character not only subtle and intricate, but also strong and 
 symmetrical. 
 
 Somebody will say that in theory all this may be very fine, 
 but that social life does in fact stunt some powers and desires 
 in order to stimulate others into a monstrous and unhealthy 
 growth. Admitting the truth of this complaint, we should 
 blame, not society, but the disorganization of society. The 
 complaint holds good of all classes in a disorganized society, 
 or rather in a society organized only for the purpose of 
 making wealth ; and it holds good especially of the 
 poor now huddled together in huge confused masses, which 
 cannot be called social. But it least applies to those 
 classes which have a social life of their own, to members of 
 the liberal professions, to artists, men of letters, or men of 
 science. 
 
 In so far as we think about our lives we can improve them.' 
 If we will not improve, the fault is our own. If we persist in 
 acting upon the principle that riches must increase faster than
 
 1 08 L ill I its of Individnal L iberty. 
 
 population^ if we take no pains to regulate the distribution 
 of wealth, if we squander our money upon all sorts of 
 unwholesome or useless luxuries, if we scamp our work, and 
 shirk our political duties, then indeed we become the slaves 
 of our industrial conditions, and must live in order to pro- 
 duce. But in this case we have chosen to die rather than to 
 live. Such a choice means death, not to us only, but to our 
 society as well ; for society lives in the individual, and de • 
 velops by the individual. Culture in the best sense is the 
 object of all association. When the culture of a community 
 ceases to grow, the community has not long to live; for 
 there is no such thing as a progress in which the in- 
 dividual withers while the world is more and more. The 
 world and the individual must wither or must grow 
 together. 
 
 We inherit nearly everything which lifts us above the 
 animals. We inherit, but not the inheritance of aliens. 
 All that we possess in social and civilized life had its 
 birth in minds like our own. Even when we adopt blindly, 
 without question or criticism, that which is given to us, 
 it is as when we adopt the unconscious working of our 
 own minds. We do not explain this process by calling 
 it a development. To the public development suggests 
 a series of changes following each other in unaccount- 
 able succession ; to the student of physical science it sug- 
 gests a series of changes, connected indeed by an intelli- 
 gible law, but not realized by the individual subjects of 
 change; to the student of civilization it suggests a series 
 of changes not only intelligible to him, but the work of 
 an intelligence akin to his own, an intelligence constantly 
 opening to wider and richer knowledge, an intelligence
 
 Progress. 109 
 
 becoming' more and more its own master, an intelligence 
 which finds in the immovable order of the universe its 
 own truest and happiest fulfilment. Such a development 
 is progress, and the record of such u development is 
 history.
 
 V. 
 INDIVIDUALITY.
 
 V. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 Thus far we have been employed in examining current ideas 
 of progress, and of the influence exerted by progress upon 
 each member of a progressive society. We must now ask 
 what individuality means. Is individuality a good thing, and 
 if so, why ? Under what conditions is it most likely to be 
 plentiful ? Does civilization kill out individuality ? Does 
 modern European civilization kill out individuality ? Or 
 does the best civilization nurture the strongest individual ? Is 
 it only an arrested or a decaying civilization in which great 
 individuals cannot be found ? All these are questions which 
 we must try to answei", for the common civilization is precisely 
 that which every citizen receives from his community. His 
 community imparts it in many ways, but above all by means 
 of law and of public opinion. To what extent and by what 
 means should it attempt to civilize him ? In other words, 
 how far and by what means should society limit the freedom 
 of the individual ? We cannot solve this problem without 
 trying to attain some clear and distinct notion of indi- 
 viduality. 
 
 Like most words which are in constant and popular use, 
 individuality is a term of somewhat vague signification. It 
 generally implies strength, originality, character. It also 
 
 I
 
 1 1 4. Li mils of fiidividn il Liberty. 
 
 implies pccuiiariuos by which strengbh, originality, and 
 character iriake their presence known. These men value, not 
 for thcniBolvcs, but as proofs of a sturdy nature. The sturdy 
 iiatnro ilicy value l'(jr itself, thoy value as all important; 
 and they are quite right in doing so. If natural force be 
 neither wisdom nor virtue, still it is the only raw material out 
 of which these can be made. There is no occasion to waste 
 words in proving that a process of manufacture which destroys 
 the stuff whilst working it up, is an absurd and mischievous 
 process. If civilization tends to mar character, to unnerve 
 will, to lower the standard of greatness, then most assuredly 
 civilization is pernicious and hateful. If progress be after 
 all progress in weakness and littleness, it is merely a progress 
 in disease and death. In this case civilization is something 
 to be extirpated, and progress something to be arrested. 
 
 Ultimately there is for man no good except his own great- 
 ness. Pleasures and refinements, inventions and discoveries, 
 are to the impoverished and exhausted nature, useless. 
 With all our science there remains so nmch mystery, in spite 
 of all our comfort we have to endure so nmch paiu, that wo 
 can find peace and rest, if anywhere, only in our own power 
 to act and endure. But before we confess that our most 
 cai-ncist endeavours must needs carry us farther jind farther 
 from our truest good, let us see if there be no other conclu- 
 sion possible. Perhaps those who set progress against 
 individuality speak hastily and unworthily, meaning by pro- 
 gress nothing more thaii the extension of the franchise or the 
 multiplication (jf perscnis just able to read and write ; and 
 l)y individuality something not inward and essential, but 
 outwiird and accidental. 
 
 Individuality is not eccentricity. The individual is the
 
 Individuality . i i 
 
 man who joias uaity of cliaracber with, a full and harmonious 
 development of talent. The eccentric is the man who tries 
 to make it oloar to all raun tliat he is unlike evuryljody else. 
 A true individual may have some of the weakness of an 
 eccentric; or he maybe distinguished from others by tlie 
 fact that he is full-grown, whilst they are stunted. ]3ut he 
 is not anxious to parade his individuality; his individuality 
 may never come to the surface. If he be a great individual, 
 his pity for the multitude will raise him above the desire of 
 astonishing or provoking it. On the other hand, the eccen- 
 tric lives in his eccentricity ; he would be miserable if the 
 neighbours ceased to talk of him, to wonder at hiui, to be 
 shocked by him. Of all men he is the most a parasite. Thus 
 where there are most eccentrics there are fewest individuals^ 
 For the impulse which leads men to be eccentric, leads 
 them also to be fashionable ; vanity is in both cases the 
 motive, and a man's vanity is the surest measure of his 
 weakness. 
 
 Between inward unity and outward oddity there is no 
 inevitable connection. A perfect unity belongs to any- 
 thing which is perfectly fitted to serve one purpose 
 or to lead one life. If there were a thousand siuular 
 things of this sort, every one of them would have a perfect 
 unity, every one of them would be a true individual. 
 Again, there might very well be a thousand things, 
 every one designed to serve the same use, or to lead 
 the same life, and every one constructed in a manner 
 peculiar to itself, yet all unfitted to fulfil their proper end. 
 Each of these would be an individual in the sense that 
 it did not closely i-esemble anything else of the sanKJ kind, 
 but it would not have any inward unity, for it would not be 
 
 1 2
 
 1 1 6 L imits of Individual L iberty . 
 
 nicely fitted to answer any single purpose. It would not be 
 a true individual : something truly indivisible. 
 
 Thus all would admit that the higher animals are more 
 truly individual than the lower ; a tiger is more an individual 
 than a sea-anemone. His structure and his life are each 
 more subtly elaborated, so that every part of the one, every 
 event of the other has a closer dependence upon all the rest, 
 and needs for its interpretation a more constant reference to 
 the whole; yet in size, in colour, and in many other particulars 
 tio-ers vary less among themselves than do sea-anemones. 
 The type of organization in becoming more complex has 
 also become more stable. Ascending in the scale of life 
 we find a narrower range of variety ; such individuality as 
 can be found among animals combines in an inverse pro- 
 portion the two elements which individuality is commonly 
 used to signify. 
 
 Let us pass from beings below to beings above man. We 
 can imagine no differences between perfect beings. Beings 
 that are under no limitation must needs all be alike ; we 
 may push this farther, and say that of such beings there can 
 be only one. Indeed, the religious history of mankind proves 
 that all ages and nations capable of forming the idea of such 
 a being have held that only one such being could exist, and 
 common sense leads to the same conclusion; for if there 
 were two or moi-e perfect beings, each must in some way ex- 
 clude all the rest ; each would be finite, and thus each would 
 be imperfect. Or if this be a doubtful and metaphysical 
 proposition, at least these perfect natures must be related in 
 modes surpassing our conception, and their distinguishing 
 peculiarities can nowise resemble those which distinguish one 
 man from another.
 
 Individuality. 1 1 7 
 
 We find something in human individuality similar to that 
 which we found in the individualitj' of animals and of gods. 
 If we ask for the most marked individuals of any age or 
 country, we should certainly be referred to its greatest men. 
 These then are the true individuals ; yet great men are the 
 very men who have most in common with one another and 
 with their inferiors. In the first place, they are generally 
 educated men, they have a common stock of methods and 
 ideas. In the second place, they are men of wide and deli- 
 cate sympathy; they have the gift for euteriuginto the lives, 
 for interpreting the thoughts and actions of other men; and 
 this gift no man can have who has not much in common with 
 his kind. In the third place, they are men who understand 
 what their age requires, and how to provide it ; they above all 
 other men have aims common to one another, and common 
 also, although it be unwittingly, to all their contemporaries. 
 
 Along with all this which they share with their fellows, men 
 of genius have no doubt something which makes it all their 
 own, something quite incommensurable and incommunicable. 
 But if they have much which is peculiar, they have also much 
 which is public property. And the two elements in their life 
 and character do not exist side by side. These elements are 
 reciprocally cause and effect. Few men have been so truly 
 individual as the greatest of all poets. Yet Shakespeare was 
 so universal that from all his writings all the commentators 
 have not been able to wring one indisputable personal fact. 
 Thus individuality and universality are only two aspects of 
 the same thing. And popular sentiment confesses as much. 
 Of men endowed with great genius we say that they live 
 and die alone; but we also say that such men are 
 most truly human. At all times men of genius have found
 
 1 1 8 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 sympathy to be the one thing without which they could 
 not be happy and which they could not get. 
 
 What is the distinctive quality which makes an eminent 
 moral individual ? Is it a quality of self-assertion ? Or a 
 quality of self-abnegation? Or is it really a blending of 
 the two ? How far is it developed by freedom, and how far 
 by discipline ? Does it owe more to tradition or to scepticism ? 
 Does it flourish most amid immovable surroundings, or 
 amid surroundings which vary their aspect every hour ? In 
 talking about men of extraordinary moral character we 
 every moment assume this or that answer to one or more of 
 these questions. Every one has his own notions respecting 
 the appearance of such individuals. But what it is which 
 makes them what they are, is hard, if not impossible to 
 
 tell. 
 
 In our time we have seen so many revolutions, political 
 and rehgious ; we have cared so little about any and have 
 talked so much about all ; we have so debauched our minds 
 with the endless Baratarian feast of controversy afforded 
 by reviews and magazines ; we have so blended intellectual 
 restlessness with intellectual indolence ; we have wrought 
 ourselves into such a feverish dulness, into such a polemic 
 indifference ; that we are apt to mistake our own spiritual 
 nightmare for the normal spiritual life and to think that 
 men who do not for ever canvass and question their first 
 principles of action must be very poor creatures indeed. We 
 ' rather incline to conjecture that there is no certainty, no 
 continuity in anything which we still remit to human thought 
 or will. Morals, we say, have ever been a subject of the 
 greatest uncertainty. Only in these enlightened times have 
 men made any serious effort to place them upon a rational
 
 htdividuality. i t 9 
 
 footing. But every now and then ingenious persons have 
 struck out rules of life altogether original ; and have had 
 the resolution to suflFer anything rather than acknowledge 
 the vanity of that which they had invented. Such have 
 been the great moral teachers of mankind. 
 
 But the great moral teachers have seldom yet been great 
 discoverers. They have seldom announced new principles of 
 action. They have seldom brought to light any new reason 
 for doing what we ought to do. They have seldom told 
 us to do anything which we did not already know to be 
 right. That which distinguished them from all other 
 men, which gave them an incomparable powci', which 
 made them memorable individuals, was the fervour with 
 which they appropriated, the insight with which they applied 
 the rule of life acknowledged by all, and by almost all dis- 
 obeyed. They spoke as men having authority, and not as 
 the scribes. They lived as if they really believed what they 
 said. Their inspiration was their own ; but everything else 
 they inherited. It was this for which they were so deeply 
 loved and hated. Their first premises were accepted by 
 everybody, and their conclusions were as delightful to the 
 disciple ambitions of perfection as outrageous to the sensible 
 person who wanted to get on. For they forced the world 
 to think ; they would not let anybody rest in contradiction; 
 they would not allow him to pray twice a day for the coming 
 of that kingdom of God which he hindered throughout the 
 rest of his waking hours. But in thus bringing life to the 
 test of conscience, they were moral conservatives; they 
 continued, they did not break off the work of their nation 
 and their kind. By the help of its own ideal they have 
 recast society. They were able to accomplish this because
 
 1 2 o L imits of hidividual Liberty. 
 
 they were free from the prejudices, the preoccupations, the 
 usage, the traditions, the personal interests which, for most 
 men, wither up that ideal into a formula. They shattered 
 the formula for the sake of that which the formula ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 Much ingenuity has been spent in proving and in 
 refuting the assertion that the Christian ethics really 
 contain nothing new ; that the rule of doing to others 
 as you would have them do to you had been already 
 given by Greek philosophers or Eastern saints. Whether 
 or no the rule was original is of merely historical con- 
 sequence. What is of practical consequence is that the 
 life and words of Christ have helped many men to obey 
 the rule better than men did before Christ lived and 
 spoke. In a later age Luther introduced no new moral law, 
 but put to the proof of an accepted law the conduct of those 
 who professed themselves its teachers. The revolution 
 which began in the last century, has filled our own and 
 promises to extend through many more, endeavours to apply 
 on a great scale moral ideas acknowledged, not merely by 
 Christians and Europeans, but by all civilized men. In one 
 word, all primary moral truths are platitudes and have 
 been such for many centuries. 
 
 Moralists who make entirely uoav discoveries in morals, 
 reformers who enact rules altogether new, are either fools or 
 charlatans or noble young men in the first heat of inconsi- 
 derate enthusiasm. If Shelley is now regarded as more than 
 half a saint, it is not because of his fantastic theories about 
 love and marriage; but because he tried to fulfil a law of im- 
 memorial sanctity; because,like Homer's hero, he was a friend 
 to all men ; because, conformably to the Gospel teaching, he
 
 Individuality. 1 2 i 
 
 took DO tliouglit for the morrow, Shelley^s mistakes were 
 the mistakes of a boy. But mature men who try to eliminate 
 from human nature any of its primary feeliDgs_, or from social 
 life any one of its fundamental institutions, are less pardon- 
 able. Generally they pass away without effecting anything. 
 Sometimes they have made anarchy supreme for a few 
 moments. But anarchy is the only thing which cannot 
 last. It disappears as soon as it has swallowed up its own 
 authors. It disappears after dishonouring the most salutary 
 revolutions, after discrediting the most upright friends of 
 progress. And this discredit, this dishonour, are the only 
 lasting fruits of a brilliant originality in ethics. 
 
 An old principle is transformed by a new application. In 
 politics and in morals, especially, to apply what you know is 
 the only way of learning more. In this sense the great re- 
 former is a great innovator. But he innovates with a certain 
 reluctance. For he feels most deeply our common nature ; he 
 holds most staunchly by our common experience. He finds 
 innovation, not a pleasure, but a necessity. He innovates 
 upon a great scale because he would attain a great end. He 
 would not for a little matter harass his fellow-men. Neither 
 would he harass them by useless half-measures. He submits 
 to go to the full extent of change demanded by circumstances, 
 but he is resolute against going any farther. And thus the 
 true moral individual is both energetic and ascetic. He at 
 once asserts and denies himself. He seems to be eccentric, 
 because he acts on principles admitted by all. He seems 
 self willed, because no whim diverts him from obeying the 
 general conscience. 
 
 Again, what is it that makes a great individual in science ? 
 As regards science, not only the practice but also the theory
 
 12 2 L iniits of Individtial L iberty. 
 
 of most men is foolishness. Beyond the vague feeling that 
 there prevails some order in nature^ and the vague confidence 
 that of this order something can be known, our race has no 
 common scientific inheritance. But in science, as in morals, 
 the great individual is not the man who gives himself up to 
 his peculiar fancies. The student of science has to free 
 himself from all the prepossessions arising from familiar 
 habits of thought. He must learn to question every 
 prejudice. He must become perfoctly open and perfectly 
 flexible in mind. He must attain to the point of view, he 
 must acquire the method, he must devote himself to the 
 objects which are really scientific. To do all this is not easy. 
 It is not agreeable. Men were very slow to discover and 
 very reluctant to confess that the way of studying nature 
 which first occurred to them was not the best way. When 
 we compare the scientific men of the Middle Age with the 
 scientific men of our own time, we are apt to say that the 
 scientific intelligence was once enslaved and is now free. 
 And there is no harm in saying so. But we must not 
 forget that the old slavery was natural and that the new 
 freedom has been purchased by obedience. 
 
 In the sphere of science the attempt to liberate our 
 intelligence corresponds to the attempt to liberate our wills 
 in the sphere of action. In either case we obtain freedom 
 only through an arduous discipline. The freedom which 
 we desire is not freedom to do whatever we like, nor freedom 
 to think as we like; but rather freedom from instinct, 
 freedom from our thoughtless natural propensities. This 
 freedom is not freedom to be eccentric. Nor can it be 
 acquired by giving the rein to our eccentricities. Eccen- 
 tricity is the very thing from which we would be free ; what
 
 Individuality. 123 
 
 we above all tilings desire is to be at the centre. We feel 
 sure that if we can possess ourselves of tlie right spirit and 
 the right method we shall be individual enough. And as in 
 the moral, so in the scientific sphere we develope by denying 
 ourselves. Self-abnegation becomes the inseparable coun- 
 terpart of energy. 
 
 So also is it in art. A great individual in art will be a 
 great artist, and a great artist is an artist who produces 
 beautiful things. In what way does an artist produce his 
 most beautiful work ? Certainly not by yielding to the 
 temptation of great wealth or immediate applause. He 
 must disregard his public if he is to raise them. He must 
 pay no attention to their whimsies. But neither must he 
 consider his own. He has to work himself free of his own 
 weakness, his own affectation, his own caprice, his own 
 numberless odd tricks. He has to sacrifice those effects 
 which are most delightful to his own immature judgment. 
 He has to remember Dr. Johnson's precept, to strike out 
 everything which appears to him particularly fine. Very 
 few artists are able to do all this. Even the great artist 
 often retains a mannerism, a trick of style, which his 
 admirers reproduce, which is the capital of his admirers. 
 But in the greatest we can no longer detect the trick, the 
 mannerism ; we find no individuality except the rarest 
 individuality of all, the individuality of perfection. 
 
 In order to make their works possible what a travail have 
 they and their race undergone ! By a long process of doing 
 what they did not themselves like, they end iu producing 
 that which everybody likes. In the creative mind a vague 
 ideal has been struggling with a thousand other forces ; not 
 only with the love of ease, or gain, or popularity, but with tho
 
 124 L imits of Individtial L iberty. 
 
 desire to do things which cannot well be done in the material 
 appropriate to that particular art, or to do things which are 
 beyond the sphere of any art whatsoever. The historian 
 wishes to be as vivid as the painter ; the painter would fain 
 be as suggestive as the musician ; the sculptor would like 
 his works to be dramatic as well as statuesque ; or perhaps 
 historian, painter, and sculptor all wish not only to render 
 with truth their object, but in the rendering to convey some 
 doctrine of theology, morality, or political economy. Most 
 men yield to these impulses and create something which 
 pleases a season or a class. The few deny themselves this 
 freedom and are true artists. But in trying simply to 
 express the beautiful, in producing that which will satisfy 
 the taste of all cultivated persons in proportion as they are 
 cultivated, the artist has done in his own walk the very same 
 thing which the scholar and the saint have done in their 
 own; he has renounced all personal gratification, he has 
 abjured all personal ends in order to possess himself of some- 
 thing eternal, infinite, and true. 
 
 To be a genuine individual means, therefore, to have a 
 talent, to have trained it without stint of time or trouble ; 
 to exercise it simply for its own sake, suppressing every- 
 thing which might run counter to its free expansion. A 
 genuine individual is the man who never cares a straw about 
 being like or unlike to other men ; who never indulges his 
 own laziness, his own longing for change, his own cowardice, 
 or his own impatience ; who can harden himself to do and 
 suffer great things. He may not be what the vulgar call a 
 moral man. He may have gross vices. He may be rough, 
 overbearing, and thoroughly unamiable. But he is a man 
 who makes his own life instead of allowing circumstance and
 
 Individuality . i 2 ; 
 
 passion to make it for him. His energy carries him out of 
 the animal life. And thus far he is in the true sense of the 
 word moral, self-denying, and austere. 
 
 In what classes do we find individuality strongest and 
 most plentiful ? Is there not most individuality among the 
 most highly educated ? I doubt not that many will chal- 
 lenge their individuality. Hitherto the uneducated have 
 been so much more numerous than the educated, every un- 
 educated genius has excited so much astonishment, and so 
 many educated persons have received a meagre mechanical 
 education, that there exists a prejudice in favour of talent run 
 wild, and a scepticism as to the effect of training talent. 
 
 But in an age of compulsory education we may assume 
 that education is a good thing. We may suppose that the 
 best educated man is most likely to be a real individual. 
 
 The educated man is the creature of his society. He has 
 been moulded by its influences, has imbibed its ideas, and is 
 controlled by its opinion. Unable to recall the true image 
 of his unalloyed, unadulterated self, he is for ever deprived 
 of the hope of casting away the habits and the prejudices 
 engrained by his early teachers. His individuality has been 
 enslaved before his very birth. He has not created the 
 culture which he receives. He does not elect whether or no 
 he will receive it. His belief in certain truths, his observance 
 of certain rules is as constant and almost as unconscious as 
 any natural function. Many things there are which he can- 
 not help doing; many which he could not possibly do. A re- 
 fined man cannot be brutal even if he wished it. Worse still, 
 an educated man can think only in certain ways. However 
 hard it may struggle, a scientific mind can seldom be wholly 
 absurd. And what is the result ? Is it among the educated
 
 126 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 or among the uneducated that we find the fullest expan- 
 sion and the richest variety of character ? Is it among the 
 educated or among the uneducated that we find men most 
 sensible, how much yet remains to do and to learn ? Surely 
 as the prosperous man is the most discontented, so the 
 enlightened man is the most aspiring. And observation 
 daily shows that of all vices a pert self-confide Qce or a greasy 
 self-satisfaction are the least likely to attach to an educated 
 man. No humility is so profound or so sincere as the 
 humility of the artist, the scholar, or the saint. If these are 
 truly what they profess to be, they need no outward induce- 
 ment to improve. Without improvement life would have 
 no relish for them. On the other hand, those who have no 
 life worth living are best content with life as it is. Those 
 who have tried to civilize the most ignorant and vicious 
 of mankind have been repeatedly baffled by their sottish 
 indifi'erence. Prejudice, convention, and fashion, although 
 they may wear another garb, although they may speak 
 another dialect, are as lusty in squalid villages and crowded 
 courts as in rectories and manor houses and the luxurious 
 quarters of great cities. 
 
 It is just because the educated are more likely to have a 
 high standard of what men ought to be, that they are more 
 likely to have a rational and genial tolerance for men as 
 they are. Intolerance comes seldomer of earnestness than 
 of self-conceit. The educated, it is true, may not be tolerant 
 of ignorance, of vice, or of the misery which these produce. 
 Of these, as of everything ugly and chaotic, the educated 
 man will be intolerant in the degree of his education. The 
 educated man is quite right in detesting these. Mankind 
 at large do not enough detest these or many other things.
 
 Individ2iality. 1 2 7 
 
 But tlie educated man is not intolerant of any class or 
 denomination. He sees that within the very wide limits 
 marked out by common-sense^ men may go right in many 
 various ways. He feels that most of the differences which 
 divide honest men are too petty and childish for anger or 
 indignation^ and he is quite ready to see good in something 
 new or unusual, to appreciate characters unlike his own. to 
 enjoy the multiplicity of life, and to hear everybody's 
 opinion. And in so far as toleration is requisite for the 
 growth of iudividualityj toleration must be secured, not by 
 laying down an abstract rule of non-interference, but by 
 the temperance of an eulightened public. The essential 
 matter is to be tolerant and intolerant of the right things 
 respectively. It is this state of mind, and neither a general 
 bigotry nor a general indifference, which fosters individuality 
 and stimulates progress. 
 
 Those who love to enforce the antithesis between culture 
 and originality delight to dwell upon the religious, moral, 
 and political reformations so often opposed by the educated 
 and carried out by the ignorant. But we may observe that 
 those who have received the most fashionable education are 
 not always the best educated. Moreover, the highest educa- 
 tion has always been expensive, and therefore the peculiar 
 privilege of a class. The educated have often taken the 
 wrong side, not so much because of their culture as on 
 account of prejudices which would not let them profit by 
 it. Lastly, besides the education given in schools and col- 
 leges there is the education of life. Suffering may save 
 the ill-educated from accepting the fallacies which mauy 
 enlightened persons find so pleasant and profitable. But 
 because the unlearned take the right side in political
 
 1 28 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 controversies in whicli right happens to coincide with their 
 interests, are they therefore more likely than anybody else 
 to take the right side in all political debates whatsoever ? 
 Although privilege has hardened the hearts and sealed 
 the eyes of many cultivated men, yet the ignorant and 
 untrained could have done nothing, could not even have 
 overthrown privilege, but for the counsel and command of 
 chiefs drawn from the ranks of their oppressors. Indeed, 
 the paradox based on the errors of the educated would 
 never find an intelligent person to utter it with even the 
 semblance of gravity had it not proved a useful, although 
 double-edged instrument, in the hands of those who desire 
 to substitute one intellectual discipline for another. Except 
 when we are engaged in some enterprise of this kind, we do 
 not narrow the terpa education to express a merely logical 
 training, nor do we imagine that any peculiar logical training 
 exerts an unqualified sway over life. 
 
 I think that mauy at the present day expect from edu- 
 cation effects which it cannot produce. They are apt to 
 assume that a nation is happy in proportion as it is en- 
 lio-htened. Yet the intelligent are usually less contented 
 than the ignorant. Why should we expect to find content- 
 ment in an educated nation. Culture in former ages was 
 fur the rich and powerful alone ; and it helped them to a 
 more human enjoyment of their good fortune. But culture 
 can only add another pang to the pain of poverty and 
 humiliation. Besides culture implies a more constant 
 thoughtfulness and a more alert sympathy. But life is 
 pleasant because we do not think, and tolerable because we 
 do not feel. It seems to me, therefore, that the worthy 
 people who hope to make everybody happy by means of 
 education ai-e altogether mistaken.
 
 Individuality. 1 2 9 
 
 Whether or no education will make any man more or 
 less happy is an affair of temperament and circumstance. 
 Probably it will make him more unhappy than he was 
 before ; but in making him unhappy it will also make him 
 strong to do without happiness. It will bring out any 
 natural faculty which he may possess ; it will awaken his 
 imagination, enlarge his feeling, sharpen his logic, fill him 
 with ideas, hopes, and ambitions ; in short, transform him 
 from an animal to an individual. That education fosters 
 individuality we need not doubt. But in order to do this, 
 it must become something more than the art of teaching 
 young people to pretend a knowledge of things concerning 
 which they are profoundly ignorant. 
 
 In what societies and at what epochs have the noblest men 
 achieved most ? It is a common observation that small, well- 
 knit states have done the best service to mankind. And 
 the reason of this appears to be that their narrow limits 
 favour a more thorough political unity and a more developed 
 social organization. Far from destroying freedom, this unity 
 and this organization alone make freedom possible. The 
 little republics of ancient Greece and modern Italy were free 
 indeed, but not especially tolerant of personal caprice or self- 
 indulgence. Not one of these states could have existed for a 
 single lifetime without the sternest subordination of the 
 individual to the community. So long as they continued to 
 flourish in their meridian splendour, their governments 
 never hesitated to demand^ their citizens never hesitated to 
 make such sacrifices of private ease and freedom as could 
 not be enforced, as might not even be proposed in any 
 democratic state of modern times. Circumstances made this 
 self-devotion indispensable ; but it is not therefore the less
 
 1 30 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 instructive. In those famous communities tlie individual 
 was expected to do and to suffer much for the public ; and 
 the strength of the individual grew with the growing 
 exorbitance of the requirements which he had to meet. 
 
 Great nations, again, have done their greatest work under 
 the stress of some intense emotion, gathering all citizens 
 into the closest unity. Sometimes a struggle for existence; 
 sometimes the effort to secure political freedom or to defend 
 religious truth lately won ; sometimes the discovery of a new 
 world of art and science ; in short, everything which exalts 
 public spirit, multiplies illustrious men. Rare, indeed, and 
 brief are those moments of national life in which overpower- 
 ino- necessity constrains every man to forget his miserable 
 private concerns ; in which a high inspiration swells his 
 soul with, large thoughts and generous passions. Yet sucli 
 moments have given to Greece, to Italy, and to England, 
 their noblest men and their noblest achievements. And 
 when we lay aside our dull mechanical way of computing 
 happiness, then we find that the heroic ages are also the 
 happy ages. In judging of felicity, sympathy helps us quite 
 as much as statistics, and poetry is no less useful than 
 blue-books. Compare the literature of Greece at the epoch 
 of tbe Persian wars with the literature of Greece under the 
 Cffisars ; or the literature of England contending for very 
 life against Spain with the literature of rich and pacific 
 England in the nineteenth century ; and then say in which 
 epoch the finest minds of Greece or of England were most 
 healthy and most bappy. The more each citizen can merge 
 his life in the life of his people, the more will be his felicity 
 as well as his strength. 
 
 It should seem, therefore, that a man is individual in
 
 Individuality. 1 3 1 
 
 proportion as he is social. What he has of hia own is 
 measured by that which he has in common with others. 
 This common stock is not to be confused with the fashion- 
 able passions and prejudices of the day. It is made up of 
 all the wisdom and goodness, of all the knowledge and 
 skill of our race. This the individual must appropriate if 
 he would develope his individuality. And in order to exert 
 that individuality he must feel with his community. For 
 without emotion a finished individuality of thought is but a 
 painted window without sunlight. And whether emotion 
 makes itself felt as a catching enthusiasm for some great 
 public good ; or as disgust and scorn for perverse folly and 
 incorrigible vice ; or as a deep pity for the miserable estate of 
 men; or as a generous ambition to extend the empire of 
 science, literature, or art ; howsoever it may arise, whatever 
 form it may take, emotion always is and must be social. 
 Thus individual character owes to society alike its discipline 
 and its inspiration. And our chance of being great indivi- 
 duals is exactly proportioned to our power of profiting by 
 this discipline and absorbing this inspiration, to our power 
 of ignoring in ourselves everything that is merely personal 
 and peculiar. 
 
 We otten hear it said that as society grows stronger, the 
 individual grows weaker; and that this will continue until at 
 last all human beings merge in one dismal uniformity, and 
 the whole of human life is congealed into a hopeless rigidity. 
 Outward conditions, it is said, become more and more 
 alike as time goes on. Every political and every social 
 change furthers this assimilation. And if the conditions of 
 life tend to become everywhere the same, men must every- 
 where come to resemble each other more closely. Since 
 
 K 2
 
 132 L imi ts of Individual L iberty. 
 
 greatness and goodness are ever in the minority, it follows, 
 that in becoming alike men will become ordinary. The 
 public opinion of a commonplace multitude will be as 
 omnipotent as ignoble. Objects of desire proportioned to 
 the vulgar imagination and rules of life accommodated to 
 the vulgar intelligence will then be rules and objects for 
 everybody. The higher life will no longer find coun- 
 tenance or support ; and the higher minds will be cowed 
 and crushed. So that the slender rivulet of ideal wisdom 
 and goodness which has hitherto refreshed the desert of 
 life will finally cease to flow. No longer fed by their 
 secret source, our conventional morality will become an 
 unmeaning usage and our current knowledge a stiff formula. 
 In one word, progress tends slowly but surely to defeat 
 itself. Every expansion of social life finally impoverishes 
 the community by dwarfing the individual. When such a 
 theory finds pretty frequent acceptance it is worthy of serious 
 consideration. 
 
 If we compare the civilized world of to-day with the 
 civilized world of the Middle Age or of classical antiquity 
 we can understand, even if we do not share, this apprehension. 
 In those old times there might be more robust individuality; 
 there certainly was more palpable variety. Before Rome had 
 erected her universal empire almost every tribe and every city 
 displayed a peculiar culture and a peculiar type of character. 
 And in the Middle Age every province and every order 
 of men had its own customs, its own organization, its own 
 life ; and could express its own individuality in a dialect, in 
 a dress, in arts and amusements peculiar to itself. Nowa- 
 days all is outwardly much alike. The differences that 
 remain are to most men subjects, not of pride, but of regret.
 
 Individuality. 
 
 00 
 
 No district or profession hedges itself around with tradition 
 or usage. lu so far as their means will allow, all men 
 inhabit houses of the same sti-ucture, wear clothes of the 
 same cut, seek the same amusements and the same luxuries. 
 All classes enjoy equal civil and aspire to equal political 
 rights; speak much the same language, receive the same 
 elementary education, read the same hooks, and cherish the 
 same ambitions. Although the vast inequality of fortunes 
 may not diminish, it daily excites more and more discontent, 
 for the rich and the poor daily grow more alike in all essen- 
 tial attributes. Wealth can still command much luxury, a 
 certain political influence, some mean admiration, and a 
 great deal of mean envy ; but it no longer implies a special 
 culture or special functions. In short, all appearances favour 
 the belief that men everywhere are coming to be much 
 alike. 
 
 But we may follow appearances too far. Perhaps indi- 
 viduality has not ceased to exist, perhaps it has merely 
 shrunk inwards. We are disposed to think that indivi- 
 duality will continue to grow with the growth of real 
 civilization. Beneath the varied and gorgeous pageant of 
 the Middle Age an acute observer might liave detected 
 a widespread monotony. Peasant, burgher, and knight 
 differed much more in garb and bearing than in their inner 
 life. Perhaps not one of the three could read; perhaps 
 not one of the three had travelled, save on a pilgrimage to 
 some popular shrine ; their minds were imprisoned within the 
 narrow limits of their generation and of their neighbourhood ; 
 a haze of ignorance and prejudice veiled from their eyes the 
 immense fulness of their own and the majestic procession of 
 former ages. Modern civilization is so vast as to furnish an
 
 134 ^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^f ^>^dividiia I L 2 berty . 
 
 infinite variety of pursuits. Every one of these, if earnestly 
 pursued, will develope a distinct habit of thought and feeling. 
 Such differences are not the less real and indelible because 
 they are very subtle, or because they may never find 
 expression in practical life. A metaphysician, a biologist, a 
 poet, an historian, a politician, and a lawyer differ more 
 profoundly than ignorant men separated by the most im- 
 passable barriers of class. Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of 
 Wellington, Lord Westbury, Carlyle, and Darwin were 
 not less strongly marked individuals because they all 
 wore broadcloth and conversed in the dialect of good 
 society. 
 
 Indeed, those who complain that everybody has come to 
 be like everybody else are not more earnest or more 
 numerous than those who complain that everybody is 
 narrowed down to a mere specialist. A critic who took 
 pleasure in hair-splitting might interpose and say that 
 men cannot at once be all specialists and all alike. He 
 would not silence the murmurers. They might retort that 
 men are all alike in narrowness and weakness. They 
 might allege that all are alike in being singly very insigni- 
 ficant. But they would have to allow that the monotony of 
 which they complain does not exclude a wondei'ful variety. 
 If, after all, strong characters or well-developed individuals 
 are less common than we might fairly expect, the reason 
 must lie deeper than is generally supposed. Variety in 
 conditions of life, and still more, variety in subjects and habits 
 of thought, will make men various ; but apparently it will 
 not make them individuals. We have already seen that 
 most people use individuality as a name for two distinct 
 things ; for that full and healthy development which does
 
 Individuality . 
 
 v)0 
 
 issue in variety and for a variety whicli may or may not be 
 the symptom of such development. Our age certainly does 
 not lack variety of character ; but perhaps it lacks develop- 
 ment of character. And if so, why ? Does the fault lie with 
 civilization in general or with the vices of our particular 
 civilization ? 
 
 Our age is not an age remarkable for great characters. 
 Intelligence not genius, decency not heroism, are its most 
 conspicuous attributes. But it should seem that the prin- 
 cipal cause of the prevailing mediocrity is to be found in 
 our unconscious materialism. Our age is an age of severe 
 and incessant labour for the attainment of low objects. For 
 it so happens that every one of the great changes of recent 
 years has tended in the first instance to fix the minds of 
 men solely upon material well-being. The political and 
 social revolution has broken down the impassable barriers 
 of rank. Eeformers hoped that when this had been done 
 rank would no longer be an object of worship. But for the 
 present at least rank or position is more valued than ever; 
 and the ambition of rising in the social scale daily animates 
 men to undergo the most fatiguing and disgusting labours. 
 Again, the great mechanical inventions, the extended com- 
 merce and the reckless speculation of our time have created 
 the utmost variety of conditions, whilst holding out to 
 everybody the possibility of enormous wealth. And whilst 
 man's prurience for riches and honours has thus been in- 
 flamed into a melancholy madness, his spiritual aspirations 
 have been chilled and thwarted by the great intellectual 
 revolution of the age. Historical criticism and physical 
 science have shattered the mythology in which the religion 
 of former times had clothed itself. They have crushed the
 
 136 L imits of Individna I L ibe^'ty . 
 
 husk; but this could not be done without bruising the 
 kernel. The lukewarm and indififerent, ever the great 
 majority, are pleased to imagine that they can dismiss 
 religion from their minds ; the greedy and the sensual are 
 glad to find that all old-fashioned moral ideas rest on mere 
 fables ; and many of the nobler sort, dispirited by having to 
 forsake all that they held most precious, or inflamed by the 
 desire of extirpating what seems to them a baleful illusion, no 
 longer draw from religion the comfort and support which of 
 old it afforded to such men. Thus from the highest to the 
 lowest men are more strongly tempted to greed and irreligion 
 than at any period since the first centuries of our era. Those 
 centuries, like our own, were centuries of cosmopolitan refine- 
 ment and individual paltriness. Then as now, it seemed as if 
 everything which most ennobles and transfigures the life of 
 man had for ever departed. But a better time was coming 
 then ; and a better time may be coming now. 
 
 A change in the fashion of our outward life has co- 
 operated with the change in our ideas. Living in enormous 
 cities and perpetually shifting our residence we form no ties, 
 we nowhere take root ; we have no dependents and few 
 friends; nothing that we can really call a society and 
 scarcely anything that we can call a home. Such is the 
 loss of time and trouble and money involved in social 
 intercourse that it has become a luxury for the rich. Other 
 men first learn to do without it; and then cease to care for 
 it. We lose our relish for the finest and sweetest of human 
 enjoyments ; but we do not thereby become more austere or 
 more self-denying. On the contrary, we try to relieve our 
 lonely and laborious life by accumulating within our own 
 four walls all the delicate luxuries and all the elegant trifles
 
 Individua lity . 137 
 
 that can beguile tlie ennui which fills up every interval 
 of leisure. We cherish a decent selfishness and a quiet 
 sensuality. In a word, we resolve to be comfortable at all 
 
 costs. 
 
 De Tocqueville has shown us that comfort is not more 
 innocent, but rather more insidious than luxury. It be- 
 numbs the conscience as orthodoxy benumbs the intelligence. 
 We do not feel that there is anything wrong in trying to 
 have as much comfort as possible ; and with less than the 
 greatest possible comfort we do not know how to live. Yet 
 with the growth of comfort, dissatisfaction grows too. The 
 man who desires to be comfortable tries to creep out of a 
 world full of pain into a corner where only pleasure finds 
 room. But no such corner can be found. Unable to live 
 without comfort, unable to get as much comfort as he would 
 like, he wavers between a dull satiety and a pettish discontent. 
 The business of providing for the comfort of a modern 
 English family is so minute, so tedious, and so absorbing, 
 that the modern Englishman has no time to think seriously 
 about anything else. His mind for ever runs upon food, 
 dress, furniture, and house. His happiness is entwined 
 with these, and these are all expensive. With such 
 preoccupations, how few can be high-spirited, generous, or 
 
 free ! 
 
 The gifted man who takes his own way should never 
 expect to be rich, for he should not expect men to buy what 
 they do not want. But he may fairly reproach society for 
 not having given him that education which would have 
 strengthened him to do his best without encouragement 
 and without reward. Our modern education, instead of re- 
 pressing, stimulates all those appetites which make us the
 
 138 L imits of Individual L iberty . 
 
 slaves of vulgar opinion. It awakens an insatiable thirst 
 for amusement, for elegance, for luxury. It appeals to no 
 motives of effort save the lowest, emulation, cupidity, vanity, 
 and the desire to get on. It strangles in its competitive 
 routine all disinterested curiosity. It sacrifices to the show 
 of universal knowledge all calm, deliberate, painstaking, and 
 sincere study. It teaches the young that seeming is every- 
 thing, and being nothing. It trains them to work, and to 
 hate and despise their work. It turns into the world men 
 willing to labour at anything which pays, and unwilling to 
 labour at anything else. 
 
 Public opinion receives the victims of education and 
 reinforces the old lessons. For society does not look 
 upon genius as public property. It regards genius as 
 the means of earning certain advantages for its possessor. 
 It says to the man of genius. You have a fair field and 
 no favour ; you know the inclinations of an untutored 
 public ; and surely your genius is not good for much 
 if it does not help ycu to tickle their inclinations with 
 eminent pleasure to them and profit to yourself. Write a 
 certain sort of novel ; paint a certain class of picture ; or, 
 better still, drop this creative humbug and go into a paying 
 profession. All will be well with you. There never yet was 
 an age in which talent found a better market. What more 
 can talent desire than to sell dear ? In the name of Heaven 
 why have we not more talent and finer talent now than of 
 old? 
 
 The influence of society might be, has at times been, a 
 bracing influence. We know that the communities which 
 have achieved most glory have often been fierce and intolerant 
 or worse. This was the failing annexed to their virtues.
 
 Individuality. 139 
 
 That a man who in good faith proposes to surrender a 
 besieged city should be stoned to death is hard, or, if you 
 willj brutal ; but it shows that the townspeople value some- 
 thing remote and unseen, more than they value their ease, 
 their property, or their lives. A nation struug to the highest 
 pitch of enthusiasm feels about invisible things, about ideas 
 political and religious, as we feel about money and pleasure ; 
 that is to say, its numbers are willing to devote to these their 
 ownlivesand the lives of others. Where there is muchpassion, 
 there will be some madness ; where there is a great deal of 
 earnestness, there will be some intolerance. It would cer- 
 tainly be much better if we could have the spirit which 
 willingly sufiers, but shrinks from inflicting martyrdom. 
 Yet the fierce spiritual life which breaks out into persecution 
 breeds also the men whom no persecution can tame; for out 
 of the general eagerness to determine great questions comes 
 the spirit of heroes and martyrs ; and intolerance itself is 
 far less depressing, far less stunting, than indifference. In- 
 tolerance is but the zeal of coarse minds ; indifference is 
 mere blank nothing. One is fire, the other vacuum. 
 
 John Stuart Mill has expressed in very striking terms the 
 truth that times of weak conviction and decorous hypocrisy 
 are less favourable to unpopular truth than times of fana- 
 ticism and persecution. The man of weak faith is always the 
 slave of his senses. Truth old or new is to him a luxury, and 
 one of the luxuries easiest to be foregone. If very strange 
 or very new, it may amuse or excite, but never can possess 
 him. To all spiritual attacks materialism presents a pile 
 of sand-bags, bigotry a wall of granite ; and against 
 artillery granite does not make so sure a bulwark as 
 sand.
 
 140 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 Thus the spread of truth in a free country is never propor- 
 tioned to the advantages which freedom offers. One is apt to 
 think that because truth has triumphed over persecution, 
 therefore truth, no longer assailed by persecution, must 
 spread Kke an epidemic. But it was persecution which gave 
 to the teachers their spell, to their doctrine its charm, and 
 to the public their curiosity. Men who tolerate difference of 
 opinion because all opinions are much the same to them, men 
 whose only serious interest is practical in the low sense, have 
 always been numerous in society ; and in the society of the 
 present day, a society in which every one is as much as 
 possible disengaged from all his fellows, men of this stamp 
 are the masters and give the tone. Men such as these must 
 needs fall back on the most obvious good in life, and regulate 
 their course by the fundamental maxim that pleasure is 
 pleasant. 
 
 Between merely sensitive beings each struggling to secure 
 to himself the largest share of the very small stock of pleasant 
 sensations, what else save a furious competition can ensue ? 
 The endeavour to get on, to better oneself, as the ironical 
 phrase is, must then be the universal endeavour. And this 
 endeavour is nothing more or less than a return to primitive 
 life in a more polite form, to the war of all against all. 
 Laws, indeed, constrain this war to take forms in which, 
 unknown to the combatants, it promotes the general good. 
 But it remains the antithesis to all true society. It 
 effaces from the soul of our modern myriads the last 
 vestige of public spirit. Their sole function is to make 
 money, and in our age the making of money assumes the 
 dignity, almost the painfulness, of a great moral effort.
 
 Individuality . 141 
 
 Pursued with a tension of mind which leaves no room for 
 frivolous mirth ; pursued in a disinterested spirit which takes 
 no care of faculties conducing to a rational enjoyment of 
 riches ; pursued with a mechanical gravity which relaxes as 
 little amid the overflow of heaped-up plenty as under the 
 pressure of penury^ this grand occupation of becoming rich 
 lifts us far above the level of the beaver, and places us almost 
 upon a par with the turnspit dog. 
 
 In a society given up to competition for private ends, 
 public opinion is not more powerful than elsewhere, but its 
 power serves to depress and intimidate. The public opinion 
 of a competitive differs from the public opinion of a patriotic 
 or devout age, as the public opinion of a mob differs from 
 the public opinion of an army. A mob is more cowardly 
 than any individual rough ; an army is braver than its bravest 
 soldier. Sympathy makes all the difference in both cases ; 
 but in the one case it is the sympathy of weakness and 
 ignorance ; in the other case it is the sympathy of skill and 
 courage. The public opinion of the Spartans at Thermopylse 
 was in favour of fighting and dying; and each of them 
 feared death less because his comrades did not fear it. The 
 public opinion of the Egyptians at Tel-el-Kebir was in 
 favour of running away ; and each man ran faster because 
 he saw all his friends running too. 
 
 Not that society is so thoroughly organized as to allow no 
 scope to the individual will, but that society organized to 
 make money is for every other purpose disorganized ; not 
 that education and public opinion thwart, but rather that 
 they inflame the natural and unreflecting impulses of the 
 individual ; not that men are enslaved, but rather that they
 
 142 L imits of Individual Liberty . 
 
 are under no discipline ; these seem to me the reasons why 
 we have so few great men. In its great man the whole 
 society finds expression. If the great man is born into a 
 sodden, and earthy society, the chances are that he will be 
 stifled in its thick, unwholesome steams. If he lives on, 
 he lives alone and with a life half- suppressed ; not ex- 
 panding, not mellowing with time, but with each pass- 
 ing year becoming more acrid, more hopeless, and more 
 unreasonable. For he is always a man among children ; but 
 too often he is a man among children prematurely decrepit 
 and old. 
 
 Our own age has seen the dissolution of society and the 
 triumph of materialism. It has felt their consequence in the 
 degradation of the individual. But a new social order grows 
 by the very necessity of man's nature. And by that same 
 necessity, materialism cannot be our lasting creed. It is as 
 ill-suited to the practical as to the speculative requirements 
 of man. Chaos inward or outward is too painful to be 
 enduring. We cannot do without fixity, unity, consistency. 
 Soon or late we shall find them again. One pervading prin- 
 ciple will determine the character of our institutions and 
 our ideas. A rational education will then become possible. 
 Education will then provide men with a point of view, with 
 methods, and with principles. At present it only stuffs the 
 mind with a medley of undigested notions, contradictory 
 propositions, conflicting feelings, fragments of literature, 
 scraps of science, and smatterings of art. At present it merely 
 sows the seeds of intellectual dyspepsia and spiritual liver 
 complaint. But hereafter it will be a regulated and healthy 
 gymnastic, developing a sure foot, a firm hand, and a clear
 
 Individuality. 143 
 
 eye. Now it makes a dilettante; hereafter it will make a 
 man. And a society of men will present manly careers. Its 
 opinion will be a tonic. The individual will be carried along 
 by wind and tide instead of struggling amid cross currents 
 until he gets the cramp. And then he will be able to do great 
 things ; he will be a great individual ; and society, once more 
 abounding in such, will be an exhilarating, a glorious 
 society.
 
 VI. 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE STATE.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE ST A TE. 
 
 If the line of thought followed in the preceding pages be 
 not altogether misleading, every civilized man owes his 
 character to his society. When his society is most com- 
 plex, his character is most developed. When his society 
 is most closely knit, his character is strongest. When his 
 society demands most from him, his character is noblest. 
 And since development, energy, and elevation of character 
 make up all that we mean by individuality when we use 
 individuality in a good sense, it follows that the most 
 perfect individual owes most to his society. If society 
 may be charged with fostering our petty passions, 
 and countenancing our vulgar ambitions, society must bo 
 allowed to supply the only possible discipline of our best 
 faculties and the only possible inspiration of our highest 
 efforts. It is by the help of society that the individual 
 rises superior to social prejudice. It is not therefore by 
 reducing to the lowest degree the influence of society 
 upon its members that we shall do most to multiply 
 vigorous, accomplished, and harmonious characters. The 
 great individual, be he statesman, poet, or philosopher, 
 is original because he is receptive, strong because he is 
 
 L 2
 
 1 48 L imits of Individual Libe7'ty. 
 
 susceptible ; whilst the eccentric is commonplace because 
 exclusive, and weak because for ever afraid of being in debt 
 to other men. 
 
 Society acts not so much to restrain as to emancipate. 
 Association instead of cramping multiplies our several 
 strengths. For many of the subordinate purposes of life, the 
 spontaneous association of a few is sufficient. But smce 
 life without a conscious unity is not human, and since all 
 modes of action are irrational, save in so far as they are 
 combined into the supreme effort to attain one satisfying 
 object of desire, it follows that the more we multiply the 
 lower forms of energy, and the more we perfect the 
 mechanism through which they work, the more do we 
 need some idea which shall concentrate all these energies, 
 some institution which shall bind all these cunning con- 
 trivances into one symmetrical whole. As partial asso- 
 ciations for partial ends increase in number and in power, 
 we come to need more than ever the association of all 
 men for the purpose which interests all. As the social 
 body grows more complex, the social life must grow more 
 intense. Intensity involves unity. The unity of social life 
 finds expression in the State. 
 
 The blind, unconscious individual is the product of the 
 blind, unconscious society. The conscious and reflecting 
 individual is the child of the conscious and reflecting 
 society. Such an individual is a citizen ; and such a society 
 is a State. For such a society has an intelligence and a 
 will. It has a national character. It has an organ to 
 express these : the organ known as government. Such a 
 society has a moral as well as a physical life. It partakes
 
 The Function of the State. 149 
 
 in progress as well as in evolution. In the state of nature^ 
 society determined the individual, and was determined by 
 him. The individual and the social development were inse- 
 parable. This mutual dependence and this intimate union 
 survive, but are transformed in the age of reflection. The 
 moral and rational society, the State, is aware that it is 
 what its citizens are. It acknowledges the duty of doiug 
 what it can for their welfare. And the thinking aud 
 responsible individual finds not only that society has made 
 him what he is, but also that he can improve himself only 
 by improving his society. In place of an individual and a 
 community linked by a mere physical necessity, acting and 
 reacting without will or conscience, and evolving one 
 another by mere force of appetite, we have a citizen and a 
 State united by ties of love and duty, conscious of the way 
 in which the one affects the other, and each attaining to a 
 better life by endeavouring to better the other. 
 
 It follows that the interest of the citizen and the interest 
 of the State are merely two names for one thing. The 
 State lives only in the life of the citizen, developes only 
 in developing him. The true function of the State is to 
 make the most of the citizen. This is its only inexhaustible 
 function. This function includes, ex])laiiis, and justifies all 
 the rest. 
 
 How is the State to improve the citizen ? In every age 
 men recognize a certain ideal of health, of strength, of 
 morals, of intelligence, of accomplishments, and good 
 manners. Everybody tries more or less to conform himself 
 to this. But nobody quite succeeds in realizing it. Ho 
 lacks the opportunity, the means, or the will. The State is
 
 150 L iniits of Individual L iberty . 
 
 justified in doing for him that which he is really unable to 
 do for himself But inability is just as vague a term as 
 improvement. Inabihty may exist in any degree. It 
 admits of no general definition precise enough to be of use 
 in practice. In every particular case, the degree of 
 personal impotence which calls for public aid must be 
 determined by experience and good sense. All that a 
 theoretical writer can do is to suggest the ways in which 
 practical men are most apt to err when they try to measure 
 this impotence. Too strictly to construe it is to nari'ow the 
 beneficial action of society. Too liberally to construe it is 
 to refuse the individual any life of his own. We may lay 
 down the general rule that when the State seeks to supply 
 the wants of the citizen, its aim should be, not so much to 
 satisfy his present desires, as to excite in him the desire of 
 better things. The State should so assist the citizen as 
 always to raise his ideas more than it raises his condition. 
 The State should interfere, not to supersede his energies, 
 but to divert them into nobler courses. In order to be 
 more exact we must enumerate the several functions which 
 upon this view of the matter the State ought to discharge. 
 For this purpose we need not distinguish between the func- 
 tions of the supreme and those of subordinate authorities. 
 Of this distinction we shall speak hereafter. It highly 
 concerns the effiiciency of administration. But it does not 
 affect the solution of our present problem. Acts done by 
 the imperial and acts done by the municipal government are 
 equally acts of the State. 
 
 The first and most indispensable function of the State is 
 that of providing for the public defence. This function is 
 imposed upon the State at once by a physical necessity and
 
 The Function of the State. 151 
 
 by a moral law. Next, and not less indispensable, is the 
 duty of keeping order within its own dominions. And this 
 also is a moral obligation. It is the first step in the edu- 
 cation of the citizen. But because these functions are 
 essential to the existence of every State, they have been 
 construed as mere matters of expediency. Because they 
 absorb nearly all the energy of most civilized governments, 
 many have thought them to be the only functions of a 
 State. And thus the function of the State has often been 
 reduced to the duties of coastguard and policeman. 
 
 Security of life and property is tlie first condition of 
 progress. The second condition is the production of wealth. 
 In countries in which individuals have neither the capital 
 nor the qualities requisite for a plentiful production of 
 wealth, the State has to undertake many industrial enter- 
 prises which are absolutely indispensable to this production. 
 In all countries it retains possession of such instruments of 
 production as are too important to be entrusted to private 
 persons, or can be more effectually worked by its own 
 servants. Of the first, all high-roads in Europe ; of the 
 second, our own postal and telegraphic systems afford an 
 instance. Some think that railways should be owued by the 
 State. A much larger number would allow that in Euo-land 
 the State should have done more than it did to determine 
 both their construction and their regulation. 
 
 But in countries like modern England or the United 
 States, it is less the production than the distribution of 
 wealth which demands the attention of the State. I know 
 that many still regard the distribution of wealth as determined 
 by natural laws over which we can exercise no control. 
 But the best contemporary economists have rejected this
 
 152 L i?nits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 fatalism as unscientific. Experience of what can be done by- 
 legislation and by the union of labourers has justified them 
 in so doing. It is the interest of society to increase the 
 number of persons fairly well to do. It is the interest 
 of society to discourage the accumulation of such enormous 
 fortunes as tend to corrupt their possessors, to set up a 
 standard of indolence, luxury, and extravagance, and in the 
 last resort to make private property insecure by making it 
 hateful. Therefore in countries like our own the State 
 should endeavour, by a cautiously graduated taxation and by 
 judicious rules of inheritance, to mitigate the inequality of 
 fortunes. In doing all this it must be careful not to pro- 
 scribe classes, nor to drive wealth out of the community. 
 It must remember the delicacy and complexity of economic 
 problems. It cannot therefore do all which good men might 
 wish that it were able to do. But it may effect something, 
 and it may assert a sound principle. 
 
 With the question of the distribution of wealth the 
 question of pauperism has an inseparable connection. Is 
 the State justified in relieving distress as it is relieved in 
 England under the Poor Law ? Sincere and enlightened 
 friends of the people have maintained that the relief of dis- 
 tress should be left entirely to private charity. They say 
 that the relief afforded by the State can be afforded only 
 in such a way as to prolong and deepen distress by cherish- 
 ing those weaknesses which hinder men from making them- 
 selves independent. But even in flourishing communities 
 a certain number of fairly upright, industrious, and careful 
 persons always are on the verge of starvation. To preserve 
 them from that fate appears to be the clear duty of the State.
 
 The Function of the State. i 5 3 
 
 For in the last resort no man must be allowed to die an 
 untimely death, unless he has been convicted of a capital 
 oflfence. Something like our workhouse system, only 
 administered with more care and intelligence, seems 
 necessary in every commercial country subject to great 
 fluctuations of prosperity. As regards out-door relief, the 
 pensioning of the miserably indigent, those most compe- 
 tent to form an opinion are agreed that it should be very 
 frugally dispensed, and as soon as possible suppressed. 
 To deal strictly with paupers is indeed a necessity of demo- 
 cratic socialism. Industry, self-respect, and the desire 
 of improvement among the people are conditions absolutely 
 essential to the success of any great and methodic 
 effort to advance their welfare by Acts of Parliament and 
 grants of public money. Without the help of indi- 
 vidual aspirations, measures intended to spread civiliza- 
 tion will only spread beggary. And it is now clear that 
 these aspirations die out wherever the relief of the poor is 
 laxly administered. It is also clear that the public purse 
 cannot meet the double expense of educating everybody 
 and of maintaining a crowd of idle persons. A wise policy 
 leaves to every man the business of keeping himself alive ; 
 but lavishly supplies the means of making his life worth 
 living. 
 
 No less important than the system of Poor-Law relief is 
 the practice of alleviating the unequal distribution of wealth 
 by expending public money upon various improvements in 
 the condition of the poor, or by lending it to joint-stock 
 companies or philanthropic associations formed in order 
 to carry out such improvements. Should the imperial or
 
 1 54 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 local government assist emigration ? Should they lay out 
 large sums in building houses to be let at low rents, or 
 in buying land to be sold to the tenants under the 
 most favourable conditions possible? Should they ad- 
 vance capital to such bodies as the Peabody Trustees 
 or the Artisans' Dwellings Company? It seems to me 
 that free gifts of public money to emigrants or to anybody 
 else are only to be excused by the severest pressure of 
 necessity. There are so many to receive ; it is so pleasant 
 to give away what is not one's own ; the check of pubhc 
 opinion is so tardy and feeble, that ministers are constantly 
 tempted to practise a liberality beyond the resources of the 
 State. In principle there can be no objection to investing 
 public money in land or houses to be let or sold at low rates. 
 Only these transactions should be so carried out as at the 
 end to leave the State free from all embarrassment. The 
 State should buy land to sell to the tenants only when it 
 has a strong assurance of finally getting back every penny 
 which it has laid out. The State, if it build houses for the 
 poor, should let them at such a rate as will, in the first place, 
 provide for keeping the houses in proper repair; in the 
 second place, make good the annual interest upon the money 
 borrowed for their erection ; and in the third place, provide 
 a sinking fund for repayment of the principal so borrowed. 
 In lending money for philanthropic purposes, it should be 
 guided by similar considerations. And it should be satisfied 
 with nothing less than the best security. 
 
 The imperial or local government should in no instance 
 endeavour to be a general landlord. In the vicissitudes 
 of trade and manufactures a great city may lose a large 
 part of its artisan population. And in providing houses
 
 The Function of the State. 155 
 
 for tlie poor the State should consider not only times of 
 prosperity, but also times of depression. It should confine 
 itse'lf to such undertakings as will be solvent through all 
 turns of public and private fortune. Thus, if it own one- 
 third of the dwellings in such a city, and let these, 
 although eminently wholesome and comfortable, at un- 
 usually low rents ; then throughout all changes short of a 
 general catastrophe, these dwellings will continue to be 
 tenanted by persons capable of paying the stipulated rent. 
 A government cannot possess the talents of a speculator. 
 It cannot snatch a large profit fi*om the jaws of chance. 
 Since it cannot make brilliant strokes, it should attempt 
 only such as are sure. As universal landlord, universal 
 carrier, universal manufacturer, it would expose to adverse 
 fortune a frontier longer than it could possibly defend. 
 
 Self-defence, internal order, a large production, and a 
 tolerable distribution of wealth are the elementary necessities 
 of national progress. A necessity more refined but equally 
 pressing is the necessity of the best possible education, for 
 every citizen. In terms so full and eloquent as to leave 
 nothing to be said by those who come after him, Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold has convincingly shown that not merely 
 the best possible elementary education, but the best pos- 
 sible education in every kind is essential to a nation's great- 
 ness. Where the rudiments of knowledge are universal, 
 you will find an intelligent class of artisans and labourers. 
 Where a good liberal education can be had at a great cost, 
 you will find a polished class of rich men. But neither 
 the intelligent peasant nor the polished man of fortune 
 is enough to constitute a truly enlightened nation. The 
 lai'gest enlightenment is of a nation, not of a class. There-
 
 156 L units of Individual L iberty. 
 
 fore if we would have citizens in the gi-and style, if we are 
 ambitious of belonging to a nation glorious in the annals 
 of civilization, we must perfect culture in all its degrees. 
 We must have a good primary, a good intermediate, and a 
 good academic system. We must bring them into inter- 
 dependence and harmony. We must so contrive that the 
 universities shall supply to all inferior educating institutions 
 a high standard of excellence and a staff of competent 
 teachers. We must recruit the universities with all the 
 genius and application of every class. We must at once 
 train our highest intelligence upon the best methods, and 
 provide it with a public which can understand and inspire 
 its exertions. And in order to accomplish all this we must 
 in every stage of education employ the resources of the 
 State ; although in each those resources must be employed 
 in a different way. 
 
 Many may object that the lower and the higher culture 
 have very different claims upon the State. That in a 
 democratic society every citizen should attain a certain 
 average of morals and knowledge they admit to be indis- 
 pensable for the public safety. Therefore they say the 
 State may wisely interfere to secure to every child this 
 indispensable minimum. But the higher culture, they 
 would argue, is a luxury for individuals, not a strength to 
 the State. And then come all the old familiar arguments, 
 which seem so unanswerable because they so adroitly flat- 
 ter the indolence and self-conceit of a half- educated people. 
 That our middle class has done very well without a good 
 education; that in the countries where they have settled 
 they do still better than at home ; that in spite of a good edu- 
 cation the French middle class is immoral and the German
 
 The Function of the State. 1 5 7 
 
 middle class eats witli a knife ; that the education of our 
 middle class is so excellent that it cannot be improved ; that 
 their political wisdom as recently as 1867 was unrivalled, that 
 in religion they are so earnest, in business so strenuous, in 
 social intercourse so delightful, in taste so delicate, in all 
 domains of speculation so eminent for curiosity and pene- 
 tration; that if by any chance their education could in any 
 way be bettered, it will be so bettered by the racy wisdom 
 of those who have already done so much for themselves and 
 for mankind ; and so on ad infinUam. These arguments 
 cannot to the ordinary Englishman be in any way refuted. 
 To anybody else they refute themselves. Although we dare 
 not say so, we know that our middle class is not a brilliant 
 success; that all its political bustle does very little for 
 political progress ; that all its wealth has not yet helped it 
 to a noble and refined enjoyment of existence. We know 
 too that of itself it will never perfect its own education. 
 We know that for its education the State might do a great 
 deal. 
 
 We have committed ourselves to the principle of public 
 interference with every grade of education. We have re- 
 formed the universities ; we have made grants in aid of in- 
 termediate education in Ireland and Wales ; we have made 
 elementary education compulsory, and, where needful, gratui- 
 tous. At first even elementary education by the State was 
 recommended chiefly as a measure of police. It was recom- 
 mended on the ground that men who can read and write are 
 less likely to become paupers or criminals. But wo are 
 transcending this sublime theory of culture. We lengthen 
 the period during which children must attend school ; we 
 enlaro-e the course and improve the quality of instruction.
 
 158 L wiits of Indiv idual L iberiy. 
 
 We see that the only true limit to popular education is the 
 limit imposed by expense. We feel that society should 
 educate its poorest offspring, not merely to bo a submissive 
 drudge, but much rather to bo a healthy, intelligent, and 
 patriotic citizen. 
 
 Should the State provide for all children an elementary 
 education free of cost ? The weightiest argument in favour 
 of so doing is that it would occasion a great intermingling 
 of young people of all classes. The free school might 
 thus become a useful means of softening manners and 
 of uniting all conditions of men. Not only the rudiments 
 of knowledge, but also good will and good breeding 
 should be universal in a democratic age. On the 
 other hand, it is well known that the elementary schools 
 arc ill-provided with teachers, and that the teachers are 
 not always competent. To provide a great number of 
 masterships at such salaries as might attract really able and 
 well-educated men, would probably be much wiser than to 
 grant everybody free entrance to elementary schools in 
 their present imperfect condition. Since we can devote 
 to primary education only a limited revenue, it seems best 
 to employ that revenue in raising the standard rather 
 than in lowering the cost. It is better that the working 
 man should pay a little for a good education, than that he 
 should pay nothing for a bad one. 
 
 Should the State insist upon having a monopoly of 
 elementary schools ? The State is bound to see that every 
 child receives such an education as it can approve. If it can 
 ensure this result by simply providing for the inspection of 
 schools vested in private individuals, then a good deal may 
 be alleged in favour of these schools. ]3ut inspection can
 
 The Function of the State. 159 
 
 afford only an imperfect guarantee of excellence. It proceeds 
 by way of examination, and examinations are very uncer- 
 tain tests. They are not tlio real means of perfectiug 
 education. A system of education is perfected by training 
 the teachers, by making the teacher's profession attractive, 
 by limiting the number of his pupils and the number of 
 subjects which ho has to teach, by prolonging the term of 
 school life, and by enforcing the regular attendance of 
 scholai's. These are the positive means of improving educa- 
 tion ; whereas examinations at best are nothing more than a 
 check. Thus a system of inspection is merely an auxiliary 
 to any national school system. On these grounds it is 
 desirable that all elementary schools should be public 
 schools. For it is not easy to see how voluntary effort can 
 provide the best elementary education which it is possible 
 to give. And with less than the very best no great and 
 opulent community should be content. 
 
 I do not attach very much value to the argument that 
 voluntary schools ai'e to be prized as experiments in elemen- 
 tary education. In the first place, the experience which 
 we have already acquired is enough to determine all doubts 
 of importance. In the second place, the number of experi- 
 ments is always of less consequence than the capacity of 
 those who make them. Voluntary schools are often esta- 
 blished by persons or by societies who have not the wealth 
 or perhaps the culture requisite for conducting the experi- 
 ment to the greatest advantage. It is certain that the world 
 has not learned more from our numberless private experi- 
 ments in education than from the State systems of Germany. 
 It is also said that a great deal of benevolence and public 
 spirit finds scope in the maintenance of voluntary schools.
 
 i6o Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 But if voluntary schools are less efficient than State schools, 
 it would be unfair to sacrifice the intellectual interest of the 
 poor to the moral interest of the wealthy. Besides, the rich 
 and generous have many other ways of doing good to their 
 country and credit to themselves. It would, however, be 
 wrong to suppress voluntary schools by Act of Parliament. 
 We ought to make the State schools so good as to draw 
 from all other schools their scholars. 
 
 In trying to improve the intermediate, the State must 
 vary the mode of action applicable to the primary schools. 
 It need not make intermediate education compulsory. It 
 should not make intermediate education gratuitous. Nor 
 in a country like our own should it seek to control every 
 intermediate school. Schools we have among us whose high 
 pre-eminence and long renown offer for their usefulness a 
 guarantee stronger than any inspection or supervision could 
 afford. But these schools are few, and for the most part ac- 
 cessible only to the rich. The rest of our intermediate schools 
 are generally dear and bad. To make them good and cheap 
 is a proper object of national action. This object can be 
 attained partly by making it unlawful for those who have 
 not qualified themselves in certain prescribed ways to keep 
 or teach in any school whatsoever, and partly by founding 
 a great number of intermediate schools where the scale of 
 charges, the salaries of the teachers, the system of instruc- 
 tion, and the testing of the pupils shall be regulated by the 
 imperial or by the municipal authorities. When we have 
 once secured such schools we need no longer require the 
 elementary schools to undertake work for which they are 
 not adapted. They fulfil their end in making every boy and 
 girl thoroughly familiar with the rudiments of knowledge.
 
 The Fiindion of the State, 1 6 1 
 
 AH boys and girls fit for more than these rudiments should 
 be drafted into schools of a higher type^ there to be in- 
 structed by specially trained teachers. As good schools 
 always end by drawing pupils from bad schools, either the 
 private schools would be forced into efficiency, or the 
 state schools would come by degrees to receive most of the 
 children of the middle class. There, in company with the 
 chosen children of the poor, they would find a real educa- 
 tion. And from the intermediate schools the most pro- 
 mising pupils would in due course pass on to the univer- 
 sities. So that there would then be established a perfect 
 circulation of intelligence ; and every one might be sure 
 of all the schooling that could profit him. 
 
 As with the intermediate schools, so with the universities. 
 In both instances it is unnecessaiy that the State should 
 undertake the sole charge of education. But in both 
 instances the State will interfere more than it has hitherto 
 done. It is true that the State has achieved less for uni- 
 versity than for elementary education. A certain timidity 
 in dealing with venerable institutions, a conscious de- 
 ficiency in the culture needed by reformers of liberal edu- 
 cation, and that sordid view of knowledge and of life 
 so generally difi"used among us, have combined to make 
 our policy in respect of the universities weak, waverino- 
 and uncertain. Thus universities are founded to further 
 especially the highest studies. The highest studies are 
 those which most intimately touch upon the highest in- 
 terests of man. Yet we have seen a Liberal Government 
 so much afraid of Dissenters on the one hand, and of Ultra- 
 montanes on the other, as to propose to found a university 
 in which these subjects should not be taught at all. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 Li7nits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 And it may be fairly questioned whether the average 
 member of Parliament has any other ideas concerning 
 university reform than that dons are too well paid, that the 
 vacations are too long, that young men spend too many 
 years at college, and devote too much time to literary and 
 liberal studies. Under these circumstances we might well 
 deprecate all further reform of Oxford and Cambridge, not 
 because they are absolutely efficient, but because Parliament 
 is absolutely unreasonable. Should the love of knowledge 
 ever develope among us, should ministers ever find it prudent 
 to consult the interests of science, as well as those of party, 
 we might see a thorough yet judicious reform of those 
 universities. In making them more useful as high schools, 
 state interference has already proved beneficial. It would 
 have been beneficial in many other respects bad the in- 
 telligence of our rulers borne any considerable ratio to 
 their power. 
 
 When the schoolboy or the undergraduate becomes a man 
 and a citizen, his education by the State does not end. Even 
 now the State acknowledges a duty to care for his health 
 and intelligence. It punishes the adulteration of food and 
 drugs. It undertakes the inspection of ships and houses, 
 of factories and mines. It has already limited, and will 
 hereafter limit more strictly, the hours of labour for women 
 and children. It provides public parks and gardens. 
 At no distant date it will provide baths and gymnasiums, 
 schools of art and science. Libraries and museums it has 
 begun to establish. A time may be near when the State 
 will furnish all the appliances of wholesome I'ecreation 
 and of intellectual discipline. These means are much less 
 expensive than we suppose. The modern printing-press
 
 The Function of tJie Stale. 163 
 
 multiplies books at such a small cost, and the conditions 
 of modern life allow a single copy to be perused by so 
 many persons, that libraries sufficient for a reading public 
 of thirty-six millions can be set on foot and maintained 
 at a small expense to the community. Open spaces 
 are indeed dear luxuries. But in stimulating energy and 
 prolonging life, in promoting sobriety, cheerfulness, and 
 innocent gaiety, they make returns which justify the largest 
 expenditure of public money. 
 
 It is by means of the fine arts that the State can do most 
 to refine manners, to blend classes, and to create a national 
 culture. In the first place, works of art afford a very real, 
 although a very various pleasure to men in all stages of 
 refinement. One appreciates the story told, another the 
 sentiment, a third the technical skill. In the second place, 
 a familiar eujoyment of works of art more than almost any 
 other pleasure developes those sensibilities which are most 
 cruelly repressed in the struggle for existence. And lastly, 
 all artistic enjoyment is social. It is to be perfected by 
 communion, and a communion grows out of it. A master- 
 piece of architecture, painting, or sculpture keeps its first 
 charm for myriads of beholders. Music and the drama 
 act with a force proportioned to the number of their 
 audience. The pleasure of beauty has in its nature 
 nothing private, personal, or selfish. It can be multiplied 
 indefinitely, and so to^ multiply it is the duty of the 
 State. 
 
 Of late years we have begun to erect public buildings, 
 which, if not beautiful, at least strive not to be ugly. Here 
 and there in the capital and in one or two enormous cities 
 we have founded galleries of painting and sculpture. Wo 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 L imits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 are, lioweverj hampered by prejudices dating from the 
 time when all civilization centred round a court. Our best 
 public collections are all in the capital, and in one quarter 
 of the capital. Yet good public collections ought to be 
 within easy reach of every inhabitant of every large town. 
 Such collections cannot and need not be all enriched with 
 works of the very highest excellence. Artists infinitely 
 inferior to the greatest, artists whose names are hardly 
 known out of England can teach a good deal to every- 
 body. A variety of beautiful objects arranged in some 
 clear and harmonious order, would have no trifling power 
 to refine hundreds of thousands of intelligent men and 
 women who now never see anything beautiful the whole 
 year through. If merely disposed to form a pleasant 
 promenade they would be of great service. But they can 
 be disposed to do much more. 
 
 A national theatre in the capital, and in the chief provincial 
 cities, theatres assisted by the municipal authorities, are 
 indispensable instruments of any real education of the whole 
 people. The drama is the highest form of art ; and the 
 English the greatest drama in any living language. But 
 our actors are mostly bad, and will long continue to be so, 
 because our public does not know what good acting is like. 
 Our acted plays are bad because our public has but a very 
 slight acquaintance with our classical literature. In order 
 to have good actors we must have a good system of 
 dramatic instruction. We must have public schools for 
 actors as we have public schools for painters. In order 
 to have good plays we must establish a national theatre 
 devoted for the greater part of the year to the presentation
 
 The Function of the State. i6i 
 
 of our classic drama, and enabled by a subsidy from the 
 public purse to open its doors at low rates, and to wait for 
 an honourable success. Such a theatre would improve 
 acting and renovate the plays acted by ennobling the 
 public taste. With the help of similar theatres in the 
 great provincial towns it would develope actors who could 
 interpret, and audiences who could appreciate a modern 
 and really national drama. 
 
 What has been said of the drama may also be said of 
 music. In one word, all forms of art, but especially music 
 and the drama, are interests of the community. For so 
 long as man continues to be civilized, will all forms of 
 art, and these forms particularly, be puissant creators of 
 character. But with our groT^'th of opulence, with the 
 unsettling of all old ideas, with the preponderance of im- 
 mense undisciplined masses of opinion, the artist finds 
 himself exposed to all sorts of dangers, temptations, and 
 perplexities. Let, therefore, the serious and intelligent 
 public come to his succour ; let them organize the educa- 
 tion of the popular taste; and, again to refer to Mr. 
 Matthew Arnold, let them begin by organizing the theatre. 
 Imagination inured to our dreary actual England, fails to 
 conceive the brilliance of an age when all classes shall 
 contribute to the class of cultivated men ; w'hen artists 
 ■will labour for the adornment of the State as well as for 
 the luxury of private persons, and will have their reward in 
 the applause, not of a coterie, but of a nation. 
 
 Admitting that the State is justified in assisting all other 
 influences that make for progress, is it justified in en- 
 dowing religion ? Many would make an exception here.
 
 1 66 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 They would make this exception upon one or both of two 
 grounds : firstly, that all religious endowment infringes 
 liberty of couscience ; and secondly, that a church is dis- 
 honoured by receiviug assistance from the State. 
 
 Those who argue that the endowment of religion is 
 contrary to freedom of couscience, say that it is unfair to 
 make any men contribute to the maintenance of a religion 
 which he regards as impure, nonsensical, or absolutely 
 vicious, and that it is equally unfair to attract men within 
 the precincts of any one church by means of the bait of 
 position, pi-eferments, and worldly splendour. Stripped of 
 their rhetorical ornaments both the above propositions 
 amount to this, that it is unjust to make any citizen contri- 
 bute to any kind of education which he sincerely thinks 
 useless or liurtiul. Now let us see whether the Liberal 
 party have accepted this principle in other departments of 
 education. Elementary education is enforced by law, and 
 every citizen has to contribute to its cost, including the cost 
 of gratuitous education for those who can afford nothing. 
 The Dissenters think it hard that they should thus have to 
 contribute to the maintenance of State schools which are 
 not altogether secular. But the Roman Catholics protest 
 that schools altogether secular are an utter infamy, and that 
 it is against their conscience to contribute to the expenses 
 of such schools. How, then, can freedom of conscience 
 be safe so long as the State contributes anything to edu- 
 cation ? Yet no class of Liberals is inclined to repeal the 
 Education Acts. Perhaps a majority of Liberals would be 
 willing to make the State schools secular ; but since they 
 would thus relieve Dissenting at the expense of Catholic 
 consciences, they could not pretend freedom of conscience
 
 The Function of the State. i6j 
 
 as their motive, but must allege public expediency or their 
 need of the Dissenting vote. 
 
 Take another example. Many austere sectaries regard 
 the fine arts as a trivial and corrupting waste of human 
 energies. They look upon the study of the nude in art 
 schools and the representation of the nude in art galleries 
 as a filthy abomination. Yet the State provides schools in ' 
 which pupils learn to draw from the uude, and galleries in 
 which Academicians exhibit nude pictures. What the State 
 provides is provided out of the pocket of every tax-payer, 
 out of the pocket of these rigidly virtuous people. Yet 
 nobody offers to come to their relief. Nobody therefore 
 thinks them wronged. For surely the great Liberal party 
 does not disregard the pangs of one sincere conscience. I 
 should be loath to believe that the great Liberal party 
 invokes freedom of conscience only at times when freedom 
 of conscience can influence an election. 
 
 He who does not believe in any religion and he who 
 does not believe in a religion supported by the State 
 are in circumstances exactly similar to those of men who 
 honestly disapprove of the Board Schools or of the Art 
 Schools. The feeling of dislike may be more intense in 
 the one case than in the other; but it is essentially 
 of the same nature. The hardship in both cases is the 
 same. Each has to contribute towards a form of educa- 
 tion which the majority thinks useful, and which he thinks 
 pernicious. So long as either is in a minority he must 
 submit, and in submitting suffers no injustice. As soon 
 as either is in the majority, he will make short work of 
 his grievance. In either case freedom of conscience has 
 nothing to do with the matter. To insist on regulating
 
 1 6 8 L im its of Iiidividiial L iberty. 
 
 the distribution of the public revenue in such a manner 
 as to satisfy every individual conscience is to advance pre- 
 tensions which would put an end to all government and 
 to all society. The Roman Catholic has to pay for the 
 machinery of civil marriage, which he regards as an instru- 
 ment of fornication ; and the Quaker has to pay for the 
 machinery of war, which he regards as an instrument of 
 murder. And it is quite right that the Quaker and the 
 Catholic should submit to this constraint; for abstract 
 freedom is concrete anarchy. 
 
 Let us next consider the argument that the Church is 
 dishonoured by receiving assistance from the State. What 
 is a State and what is a Church, that the liberality of the 
 State should pollute the Church ? A Church and a State are 
 simply the most comprehensive forms of association. Their 
 object, because it is the highest, is also the object aimed at 
 by all rational beings. Some of us are interested in com- 
 merce, some in manufactures, some in art, some in science, 
 some in enjoyiug themselves, but all are interested in lead- 
 ing the best possible life. All men are spiritual beings 
 working under physical conditions. All men seek emanci- 
 pation from the forces of nature within and without. A 
 Church and a State exist solely in order to secure this public 
 interest of all men ; a full, a free, a rational, a human 
 existence. A Church is not properly an organization for 
 defending certain dogmas from criticism, or certain classes 
 from equality. It is not even a mere expedient for securing 
 future happiness to the mass of men who here upon the 
 earth go in quest of immediate pleasure or immediate profit. 
 A State is not merely a police contrivance to secure order, 
 nor yet an Epicurean engine to manufacture general comfort.
 
 The Fjtnction of the State. 169 
 
 A State is more than a brutal drill-sergeant caning and 
 cursing his squad into mechanical obedience ; and a Church 
 is something more than a sentimental dreamer bowiug 
 before an empty shrine or writing sonnets to an imaginary 
 mistress. 
 
 The distinction between Church and State, we take it, is 
 not that the one operates by spiritual, the other by corporeal 
 means ; nor that the one secures our happiness in this, the 
 other in a future life ; nor that the one aims at chimerical, 
 the other at rational objects; but simply this, that the 
 Church is an association for the advancement of the ideal 
 life ; the State an association for transforming the practical 
 into the likeness of the ideal life. Both work into each 
 other. Both are indispensable. Men must always strive 
 to carry out their ideal, and for this struggle they must 
 organize themselves in a commonwealth. But men are 
 always doomed to fail in their attempt, and therefore they 
 need a Church. In Greece man had not yet broken with 
 nature. He was still in harmony with the visible world. 
 And thus the State alone was enough to satisfy him. To 
 him it was both Church and commonwealth. For beings 
 purely spiritual, both Church and commonwealth might be 
 absorbed in the communion of saints. But we need a State 
 to realize as far as possible that to which we aspire ; and 
 a Church to keep living those aspirations which can never 
 be realized in full. We can neither lose ourselves in 
 the real nor fulfil the ideal. As little can we separate the 
 one from the other. Neither the Church nor the State can 
 fulfil its true function whilst things spiritual and things 
 temporal remain parted by an unfathomable gulf. 
 
 If, therefore, we think it right and proper for the State
 
 I/O 
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 to endow religion, how should we wish the State to act 
 at the present day ? When one form of religion pre- 
 vails in any country, that religion is sure to be endowed. 
 When there are several forms of religion almost equally 
 current in the same country, and the partisans of any one 
 think the partisans of all the rest victims of a damning 
 error, there can be no exclusive endowment of any one, nor 
 yet any concurrent endowment of them all. Logically and 
 conscientiously they must come to blows, and in all proba- 
 bility civil government will be suspended by their conflict. 
 But where there are many sects who regard themselves as 
 common possessors of an inestimable truth, it becomes 
 possible to endow them all. Thus in our own country 
 it would be possible to endow all the great Protestant 
 sects, although perhaps not the Catholic or the Jewish 
 Church. 
 
 Under such circumstances as ours, a Parliament and a 
 Ministry might very well say, " We think that religion is of 
 the utmost possible consequence to the whole community ; 
 in its normal state a great blessing, and in its perversion a 
 great curse. We think that all the existing religious bodies 
 in this country have in them the essence of true religion, 
 or at least so much thereof as can be hoped for in our 
 present very imperfect condition. As for the difi'erences 
 which divide them, we own ourselves no judges of these ; 
 many we suspect to have only an historical interest, to have 
 had their origin in tyranny on the one side or eccentricity 
 on the other ; and all we think to be innocent and some- 
 what trivial, not in the least going down to the substance 
 of religion. Seeing, then, that the people of this country
 
 The Function of the State. 
 
 have accepted these several types of doctrine and dis- 
 cipline, we are well content that they should be religious 
 each in his own way, and we only desire that the peculiar 
 religion of each may be as rational and refined as possible. 
 Therefore we are ready to endow equally the ministers 
 of every definite and recognized sect, to ensure to them 
 a modest but certain livelihood, in order that they may 
 be men of character, men of high intelligence, men 
 superior to the temptation of exciting a bitter or a blind 
 fanaticism in their congregations. We do not think 
 riches necessary to the vigour of a Church. But we 
 know that the men most fit for a profession will seldom 
 enter it, if there they cannot find a competence. And 
 although there be many congregations so wealthy that the 
 free contributions of their piety and love are more than 
 enough to provide all that a minister of Gud should desire, 
 yet there are many more congregations where this is not 
 so ; where riches are unknown, where extreme poverty is 
 all but universal ; and where all the resources of private 
 liberality are not sufficient to eke out the smallest income 
 that can support a scholar and a gentleman. We do not 
 wish that the poor should have no spiritual teachers, or 
 teachers who are ignorant and wrong-headed. Nor do we 
 wish that where his people are better off the minister should 
 find himself placed in ignominious dependence upon the 
 crotchets of a few of the richest among them. In short, we 
 wish the clergy of every district and of every denomination 
 to be able to claim the respect of all sorts and conditions of 
 men ; for we are fully persuaded that in our time pastors 
 who are not held in respect by the intelligent will soon be
 
 172 L ini its of Individual L iberty . 
 
 a laughing-stock to the whole community. We wish to 
 create in every small area^ however poor, however unlovely, 
 however remote from the great current of life, of energy, of 
 excitement, at least one centre of the highest and purest 
 civilization. We wish to make religion enlightened and 
 powerful, not by asserting the peculiar tenets of any one 
 denomination, but by securing to all denominations a really 
 qualified ministry.^' 
 
 I am well aware how little we could look for such a 
 declaration of policy. I am well aware that of the few 
 public men who ever bestow one serious thought upon 
 religion, almost all contemplate religion in that sectarian 
 spirit which leads us to prize our own creed because it is 
 our own and not the creed of anybody else. I am well 
 aware that what such men really desire is not so much the 
 amelioration and elevation of their own, as the pleasure of 
 crushing and degrading every other Chui'ch. I am well 
 aware that the ablest, sincerest, and most consistent ene- 
 mies of religious endowments hope to reduce the power of 
 all creeds and of all Churches by depriving them of every- 
 thing which tends to soften antiquated prejudice, to break 
 down antiquated barriers ; to bring religion into harmony 
 with the social and scientific ideas of the present day, and 
 to renew her strength by making her wise, generous, and 
 humane. These acute thinkers clearly see that religion of 
 the kind preached by the Salvation Army can have no 
 enduring power in the modern world. They know that 
 the triumph of such religion is also the triumph of indif- 
 ference. Believing that all religion belongs to an obsolete 
 phase of thought, they do well in trying to do away with 
 religion. But to see them standing on the same platform and
 
 The Function of the State. 173 
 
 talking the same verbiage with men whom they despise and 
 who distrust them is a sight more ludicrous than edifying. 
 
 The endowment of religion by the State is in no sense 
 absurd. For some time longer the movement towards a 
 separation of Church and State will grow and spread^ and 
 will probably disendow every Church in Europe. But the 
 free impulse of the spirit can be fettered as little by Liberal 
 as by Conservative formulas. That free impulse makes for 
 a recognition of the unity of every mode of spiritual 
 life, and for a reconciliation of the spiritual with the 
 practical. When this unity is once perceived, when this 
 reconciliation is once perfected, the old jargon about eccle- 
 siastical and secular, temporal and spiritual, sacred and 
 profane, will no longer be heard or understood. Religion 
 harmonized with science and common sense will no longer 
 be a source of weakness and discord in the mind of each 
 man and in the policy of every nation. The practical and 
 speculative energies will again become religious. The State 
 will endow religion as it endows art and learning. Like 
 art and learning, religion will express the mind of the people, 
 without becoming the tool of the minister. 
 
 Meantime, the principle of State interference, as it is 
 foolishly called, gains ground with practical men because 
 it affords the only solution of practical difficulties. In 
 carrying out this principle we have to adapt ourselves to 
 the facts of the present and to the burthens bequeathed by 
 the past. We have to maintain an army and navy; we have 
 to pay the interest and reduce the principal of our national 
 debt ; and we should be fools were we diverted by dema- 
 gogues from securing either the national existence or the 
 national honour. We have formidable rivals in mauufactures
 
 1 74 L I mils of Individual L iberty. 
 
 and commerce ; we must not therefore put our industries at 
 a disadvantage. And again in carrying out this principle 
 we have to remember the limit set by the limited faculties of 
 man, by the divided attention of ministers, by the indolence 
 of civil servants, by the routine of office, by the diffi- 
 culty of thorough and independent criticism, by the oppor- 
 tunities of peculation and jobbery ; in short, by all those 
 weaknesses of the state, which are not less real because so 
 often magnified by the partial rhe':oric of political quietists. 
 But in our legislation we have acknowledged that the State 
 can do more for its citizens than merely prevent them from 
 robbing and inurdering one another. How much more 
 depends upon its resources and its intelligence. 
 
 The philosophers who hold that in our day all grown-up 
 men and women can attain their normal development without 
 any other assistance than is afforded by unlimited competition 
 and unrestrained discussion, must have either a very narrow 
 experience or a very weak imagination. Free competition 
 may brace the nerves of the sti-ong ; the weak it leaves in 
 hopeless impotence. Free competition means to the strong 
 victory, but to the weak death. It is in the course of free 
 competition that the eagle pounces on the lamb and the 
 wolf devours the ewe. Free competition is the struggle 
 for existence, the law of the animal creation. And as for 
 discussion, of what avail is the most lively discussion to 
 those who have neither intelligence to follow its com'se nor 
 means to verify its results ? Can the most lucid exposition 
 of the population theory be expected to touch the miserable 
 wretches who breed in the courts and alleys of a great 
 city ? Of what idea save the idea of a little immediate 
 gratification can minds like theirs be susceptible ? Can
 
 The Function of the State. 175 
 
 they estimate their future sufferings ? Can they balance 
 their duties to men far away and to generations yet unborn ? 
 What can they do but follow the craving which pains them 
 here and now ? If life must be a burthen so long as they 
 are sober^ is eloquence likely to save them from getting 
 drunk ? 
 
 But take such people in hand without too nicely sparing 
 their precious individuality. Drill them without remorse 
 in the routine of elementaiy schools ; provide them at 
 moderate rents with houses fit for men and women ; give 
 them a chance of growing up healthy and intelligent. Then 
 competition may do them some good. They are armed for 
 the struggle. It is no longer a butchery, but a fair fight. 
 They have corae within the range of discussion. They are 
 able to draw an inference and to act upon it. They have 
 the beginnings of hope, of ambition, of public spirit, of 
 curiosity and of taste. 
 
 We begin to be dimly aware of all this. We confess the 
 duty of turning street-arabs into shoeblacks ; the duty' of 
 opening to those who cannot force it for themselves a career 
 of honest labour. But we need much more than universal 
 elementary education ; we need a great body of trained in- 
 telligence and enlightened opinion. Political power, once 
 in the exclusive possession of the educated, will soon belong 
 to all men. Those who bear sway in our time are no 
 longer men who can devote all their time to government, but 
 men whose chief care is to keep themselves alive. Society, 
 once organized for self-defence, is now organized for pi'oduc- 
 tion. Thus so far as we can look forward into the future, 
 all civilized societies will be industrial and democratic. It 
 would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that in such
 
 J 76 L im its of Individual Liberty. 
 
 societies the culture of the classes which enjoy leisure and 
 a competence is at all less important than it was in states 
 of the feudal type. These classes have lost much of their 
 political, but little of their social, power. For many, many 
 centuries, if not for ever, they will continue to give the 
 standard and to set the tone. It is therefore of the very 
 greatest consequence that their standard should be high 
 and their tone exquisite ; for civilization works downwards 
 from class to class, each class absorbing as well as it can 
 the civilization of the class above. And thus the culture 
 of the well-to-do is of the deepest interest to every en- 
 lightened state. It is not, as we fondly imagine, a matter 
 which may be left to chance, or fate, or quackery to supply. 
 Democracies such as unfriendly observers have so often 
 portrayed, vast clouds of human dust, congregations of 
 restless, greedy individuals ; all working hastily, and there- 
 foi-e dishonestly ; democracies in which piety is narrow and 
 sterile, culture pretty and finical, social life dreary, political 
 life impure, and civilization generally stunted and meagre, 
 democracies like these are not the only democracies possible. 
 The fanatic, the wire-puller, the adventurer who has struck 
 oil, or the peasant trying to live upon five barren acres, 
 are not the last and highest types which the history of man 
 can produce. 
 
 No it is not so much modern facts as modern theories 
 that are disheartening. The theory of life which regards a 
 scramble for the means, first, of subsistence and afterwards 
 of luxury, as the proper business of man ; the theory of 
 politics which allows to the State only the task of keeping 
 order among such high-spirited competitors ; these theories 
 dismay us by confounding the conditions of social with the
 
 TJie Fwictwn of the State. 177 
 
 conditions of animal growth ; for the doctrine of self-help 
 suffices our animal nature. Hunger, lust, and vanity are 
 strong enough to satisfy themselves, aud the work of trying 
 to do it for them would be endless ; but with our social 
 perfection it is otherwise. There mutual assistance, not self- 
 help, is the law ; there we are all members of one another ; 
 there each finds his well-being in the well-being of all. 
 
 Without annulling personal freedom, or abolishing private 
 property, without any petty, vexatious tyranny, the legis- 
 lator can do much. Legislation may always transcend by a 
 little the average morals of the time, and then the moral 
 average will rise to the level of the laws. Measures which 
 to all men of sense once seemed the monstrous births of a 
 distempered philanthropy, are now by all men of sense 
 approved. Men are always capable of sacrificing for the 
 public good some tiny portion of their private ease and 
 superfluity; and every such sacrifice enables them to relish 
 more keenly the pleasure of belonging to a civilized society. 
 For with his society each must rise or fall. He may shun 
 evil ior himself, but he cannot escape the consequences 
 of evil in others. Moulded by society, he is and must be ; 
 then let society mould him deliberately to a grand exis- 
 tence, not blindly to a mean one. To be overruled by 
 the pitiless forces of chance and passion, this is slavery, 
 this is the extinction of individuality ; to be educated by 
 the best intelligence and the best morality of our age, this is 
 freedom, this is life. Life is so brief, yet life might be so 
 full.
 
 VII. 
 
 LIBERTY OF ACTION AND 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 N 2
 
 VII. 
 
 LIBERTY OF ACTION AND 
 DISCUSSION. 
 
 In determining the function of society we implicitly deter- 
 mine the freedom of the individual. We might indeed adopt 
 the opposite course^ and by determining the freedom of the 
 individual determine the function of society. But we were 
 ])recluded from following this method because we looked 
 upon society as something logically prior to its members. 
 At least we looked upon society as the embodiment of indi- 
 vidual character, and thought that the way to explain the 
 individual was to study society ; so that we naturally came to 
 consider the function of society before the function of the 
 individual. His function and his freedom are the same thing, 
 for the sphere of individual freedom is simply the sphere 
 within which the individual ought to act. Even in this 
 sphere he is not an independent agent, for the history of his 
 society defines the outward conditions as well as the inward 
 endowment which combine to make up his life. The con- 
 stitution of his society decides what course he must follow in 
 order to obtain anything which lies in the good-will of his 
 fellows ; that is, any of the good things of this life. So long 
 as he remains a child of nature, society plays upon him at 
 every step, making him most obsequious when he flatters
 
 1 8 2 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 himself that he is most wilful ; and when he becomes reflec- 
 tive, he only exchanges the physical magnetism of appetite 
 for the spiritual magnetism of sympathy. The peasant and 
 the poet are equally bound to their native hills. The Philis- 
 tine and the philosopher are alike resultants of their society. 
 
 Fi^eedom as the complete emancipation of the individual 
 from all social influence is thus an utter impossibility. 
 Happily it is also quite undesirable ; the only freedom worth 
 having is the freedom of him who can either control 
 or satisfy all his desires. Complete fruition of such free- 
 dom is not granted to any man here below, but it is only 
 in society that it can be enjoyed at all ; and freedom, in the 
 common sense of that term, freedom from the bonds of law 
 or of public opinion, is good only in so far as it helps man to 
 attain that other freedom which is an end in itself, the end 
 of all social organization. 
 
 Society exists only in a tempered mixture of constraint 
 and licence. Where the individual has no choice in his 
 actions^ there will bo no society ; for where there is no indi- 
 vidual willj there is no joint will ; where the individual is 
 free to do whatever he pleases, there is no society, for there 
 can be no organization. The society best organized for the 
 highest purposes is the freest society, and since the best 
 organization is always relative to the character and circum- 
 stances of the persons organized, the desirable quantity of 
 freedom from restraint is always relative to that character 
 and to those circumstances. Any one who asks how much 
 freedom is good for men, really asks how much freedom is 
 good for his contemporaries and countrymen, and this ques- 
 tion the statesman, rather than the philosopher, is bound to 
 answer.
 
 - Liberty of Action and Discussion. 
 
 Thus much all -would nowadays admit. Publicists no 
 longer talk of man^s natural freedom, no longer attempt to 
 establish an absolute measure of freedom for all times, 
 countries, and peoples. They do not assume any abstract 
 right to freedom. Allowing that no man has a right to any- 
 thing save to that which is really good for him, they content 
 themselves with trying to ascertain those principles which 
 underlie all beneficial freedom and make it beneficial. This 
 was the course adopted by Mr. Mill in his celebrated essay 
 on Liberty. But it seems to me that he and many other 
 authors of less ability and reputation occasionally lost sight 
 of their admitted first premiss, and, whilst they advocated 
 freedom on the ground of expediency, were not unbiassed by 
 the doctrine of a former generation which asserted freedom 
 as man's natural and indefeasible right. 
 
 In this chapter, therefore, I propose to resume briefly the 
 discussion on the principle of beneficial freedom. We have 
 already come to the conclusion that the State has a positive 
 duty to its citizens. Is this duty reconcilable with the 
 formula that every individual should enjoy as much freedom 
 as is consistent with the equal freedom of everybody else ? 
 Or may not the individual sometimes be better for coercion 
 not justified by this formula ? May there not be constraints 
 which on the whole operate to enlarge every man's capacity 
 for action and enjoyment? May not the individual life 
 be cramped by this exaggerated respect for a mere nega- 
 tion? In giving an answer to these questions it has been 
 usual to deal separately with freedom of action and freedom 
 of discussion. Although this distinction seems to me to 
 have no root in the nature of things, to be verbal and pos- 
 sibly misleading, yet as it is familiar, it has a practical cou-
 
 184 L im its of Individita I L iberty . 
 
 venience. Let us therefore accept it here. And firstly let us 
 resume and criticize the arguments adduced respecting the 
 true principle of freedom of action. 
 
 Many will allow that barbarous nations are better and 
 happier for a good deal of constraint applied by a govern- 
 ment more civilized than its subjects. But they assert that 
 among enlightened people like ourselves force should be 
 employed solely to maintain order ; that argument and per- 
 suasion are the only proper instruments of reform. Surely 
 they forget that, far as we are removed from the savage 
 state, we are yet nearer to it than to such a state of perfection 
 as even we can conceive, to say nothing of the perfection 
 imaginable by some better and wiser generation. The really 
 important thing is to compare, not ourselves with savages, 
 but our own practice with our own ideal. The vital question 
 is this : shall we best attain our ideal by granting to every in- 
 dividual the utmost freedom compatible with the existence 
 of civil society ? If not, we ought not to scruple at coercion, 
 used of course with a full knowledge of the responsibility 
 which it imposes, and of the circumstances of its exercise. 
 
 Persons who make this distinction between barbarous 
 and civilized communities forget that they judge those by 
 their diffused barbarism, and these by their concentrated 
 civilization. But among barbarous nations whatever culture 
 exists is more or less common property, whereas among 
 civilized nations culture is more unequal in distribution than 
 riches. Among barbai'ians we find no contrast like those 
 which sever Goethe, or Hegel, or Napoleon, or Darwin, from 
 a day-labourer or a domestic servant. Nay, in the midst of 
 our civilized society thousands lead a life worse than the 
 life of almost any savage, a life of want aggravated by the
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 185 
 
 neighbourhood of opulence and of igiiorauce which looks 
 darker in the presence of science. The savage leads a life 
 not wholly without variety or without repose ; he is a hunter, 
 n, shepherd, something of a politician, perhaps a great 
 warrior. But the drudges of civilization are only too happy 
 if they can stave off the pangs of hunger by repeating some 
 mechanical operation until their strength is exhausted and 
 their day is done. Even if we avert our eyes from this most 
 miserable class to the class next above them, we behold a mul- 
 titude whose life is nearly as monotonous, as narrow, as un- 
 meaning as the life of the barbarian. Classes like these have 
 obtained political power, and must be considered in deter- 
 mining the principles of legislation. In other ages they gave 
 the legislator no trouble, because they were confounded in 
 the promiscuous herd of slaves or serfs. Thus the modern 
 statesman has to deal with a society in some respects not 
 more but less civilized than the most renowned Oriental or 
 antique societies. He has to deal with myriads on whom 
 eloquence spoken or written can make no deep or durable 
 impression. These myriads need a little restraint and a great 
 deal of assistance before they obtain a position in which they 
 can really help themselves or be improved by mere per- 
 suasion. 
 
 Again it has been said that thei-e are deeds which affect 
 only the doer and others which affect the community as 
 well ; that there are self-regarding acts and social acts. 
 Let us consider the value of this distinction upon which Mr. 
 Mill in his book upon liberty laid so much stress. Even 
 Mr. Mill allows that nobody can perform a single act which 
 does not exert a certain influence upon society. Thus a 
 drunkard harms the community in various indirect ways.
 
 1 86 Limits of hidividtml Liberty. 
 
 He often injures it in some direct way also. Then, and not 
 till then, says Mr. Mill, the community may fairly punish him. 
 
 A confirmed drunkard weakens his community for every 
 useful purpose, for national defence, for the production of 
 wealth, for political progress, for joint moral and intellectual 
 improvement. He does something worse than all this. He 
 transmits to his children a bad constitution and a powerful 
 impulse to vice. In each of the se respects a drunkard 
 offends, and offends most heinously, against the public 
 welfare. Yet he is not to be punished because in making 
 himself drunk he does what is merely a self-regarding act, 
 merely injures his own body and his own mind. But suppose 
 that the drunkard becomes unable to pay his debts or to 
 maintain his children. Then he may be punished, because 
 his failure in these respects is a failure to discharge social 
 duty. He directly injures other men. 
 
 I do not see how this distinction can for a moment be 
 maintained. Every act may be resolved into a phase of the 
 will followed by sensible consequences. The sensible con- 
 sequences distinguish an act from a thought. The phase of 
 will makes an act something more than an affection of the 
 nerves. No human power can punish anybody for his 
 thoughts, or should punish anybody for that which could not 
 be in his thought. But whenever thought translates itself 
 into action, there is something which must affect other men 
 beside the agent, something of which other men may and 
 should take cognizance ; something which lies in their dis- 
 cretion to reward or punish. Every action, although in its 
 origin self-regarding, is social in its result. According as 
 a man's action affects his neighbours more or less directly 
 and powerfully, it may be termed social or self-regarding ;
 
 L iberty of A ction and Discussion . 187 
 
 but the distinction can be only a distinction of degree ; and 
 liowever important in practice cannot be ultimate in theory. 
 
 Even were the law to confine itself within tlio limits 
 marked out by Mr. Mill, it would still punish drunkenness, 
 although casually and indirectly. When it punished the 
 drunkard for failing to pay his debts, or to maintain his 
 children, it would punish him not f(^r the simple failui'o, but 
 for a failure involving in the one instance a fraud upon his 
 creditors and in the other instance a fraud upon the State. 
 It would punish him because his failure was culpable, because 
 in its excuse he could allege nothing better than a vicious 
 habit. It would not punish an honest man disabled by a 
 general commercial depression from satisfying his creditors 
 or supporting his family. Thus indirectly the law would 
 punish drunkenness ; and if indirectly, why not directly ? 
 Here again we can allege considerations of expediency only, 
 not of principle. We may conclude, therefore, that the 
 proper object of criminal law and of public censure is an 
 immoral act which injures society; in other words, any 
 immoral act. But for practical reasons many immoral 
 actions are exempted from the correction of criminal law, 
 and some elude even public opinion. 
 
 So acute a thinker as Mr. Mill could hardly have accepted 
 the distinction between self-regarding and social acts, had 
 it not grown naturally out of the social theory current 
 among his predecessors. The distinction between self- 
 regarding and social acts appears to be an offshoot of the 
 doctrine of the social contract. Before the making of the 
 social contract man had but one sphere of action, the selfish 
 or personal. After the making of the social contract, he 
 had two spheres of action ; in the one sphere he acted under
 
 1 88 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 the terms of the social contract, in the other sphere he 
 acted under the laws of his nature. From this point of 
 view we can^ we must distinguish between social and self- 
 regarding actions. From any other point of view we cannot 
 so distinguish without a gross fallacy. The distinction is 
 impossible to those who look upon man as receiving from 
 society his whole character and his whole endowment, and 
 as reacting upon society at every moment of his life. 
 Those who have once appreciated the infinite subtlety of 
 relation between the individual and his society will no more 
 attempt in politics to divorce the individual from the social 
 life than they would attempt in physiology to divorce the 
 life of the brain or of the stomach from the life of the body. 
 Distinctions like these have their source in the first crude 
 conceptions with which a philosophic school begins its 
 survey of the world. The conceptions it may afterwards 
 drop ; but their deductions it usually retains. 
 
 Again, it is said that the individual is the best judge of his 
 own happiness. Even if we take happiness to mean the 
 greatest possible amount of pleasure, this proposition is by 
 no means accurate. Taking pleasure in its lowest sense, 
 pleasure without regard to its source or quality, it is very 
 certain that men are constantly missing the greater pleasure 
 in their eagerness to seize the less. All that we can say of 
 their fitness to judge what will most please themselves is this, 
 that they are better critics of their own pleasure than other 
 men who have some strong personal bias. But even if men 
 are really competent to determine what would be most 
 pleasant for themselves, the fact is of very little consequence 
 to those who hold that the end of action is something quite 
 different from pleasure. If happiness mean anything else
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 189 
 
 than the greatest amount of pleasure, it is still more certaiu 
 that the individual is often a very bad judge of his own 
 happiness. 
 
 In the first place, a great number of individuals have 
 never been trained, so that their moral judgment is as the 
 moral judgment of a child. Nobody pretends that a child 
 is better qualified than any one else to determine what will 
 make it happy. If it is said that everybody ought to have 
 been trained in youth to know what was for his own good, 
 I welcome the admission that the State is bound to provide 
 for the moral education of all its citizens, and that the 
 citizen is most likely to be happy when he has imbibed 
 the moral ideas of his society. But after the State has 
 done all that can be done to educate its citizens, the edu- 
 cation of most of them is limited to a very meagre course, 
 lasting but a few years, and pui'sued under every conceiv- 
 able disadvantage. To say that such a training is sufficient 
 to mature the moral faculty is merely to indulge in a play 
 upon words. It is because men refuse to recognize the 
 necessary limits of elementary education that they are so 
 augry when it fails to yield the glorious results which have 
 so often been foretold. 
 
 Again, the individual very often knows what will make 
 him happy, but does not act upon his knowledge. Surely 
 it is a truism that every man has two selves ; the one self 
 looking only to the most intense immediate pleasure, the 
 other self to a good commensurate with the whole of life. It 
 is a truism that men the most acute, men the most refined 
 are for ever yielding to their meaner self. They see what 
 is right; they would fain do what is right; they would often 
 be glad of some slight external influence which would con-
 
 190 Limits of IndividtLal Liberty 
 
 strain them to act in accordance witli their own better nature. 
 But for want of strength they actually choose to do wrong. 
 All of us on many occasions, many on almost every occasion 
 make this unhappy choice. Many men have grown up 
 under such circumstances that one knows not whether or 
 no to call them free in making it. 
 
 But it will be said that the individual can never master 
 his worse self except he have full and constant freedom 
 to comply with it. Temptation, men say, is necessary to 
 strengthen character. Who proposes, who hopes to abolish 
 temptation ? Every one of us is tempted at every moment 
 of his life. If we are imperfect, certainly it is not for 
 want of opportunities to exercise our will. Those who are 
 so much afraid of leaving temptation with the things that 
 were, with the Corn Laws and the Established Church of 
 Ireland, foi-get that all moral questions are questions of 
 degree. An ill-disciplined man living under constant 
 and vehement temptation to do the baser thing does not 
 lead a life which strengthens his character or developes his 
 sense of responsibility. He is certain to yield pretty 
 often. At every fresh temptation he struggles less fiercely 
 than before. At last he sinks to the level of his surround- 
 ings, identifies himself with them, and becomes as unlovely 
 as they. 
 
 Suppose the same man somewhat better educated, 
 suppose him freed from a few of those grosser enticements 
 which benumb our reason by inflaming our senses ; would 
 this man be a weaker man ? would his feelings of responsi- 
 bility be less ? Not at all. He has still abundant matter 
 whereon to exercise his moral strength. He has still to 
 choose between the lower and the higher life. Only he
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 191 
 
 now makes his choice between a low life which is not so 
 low, and a high life which is a great deal higher. An end 
 has been put to the most elementary moral conflicts, 
 conflicts rarely experienced by any healthy, comfortable, 
 and well-educated man, conflicts in which victory is but the 
 beginning of any spiritual life and in which defeat is harder 
 to escape, as well as more fatal when it comes than in any 
 others. But conflicts succeed not less inevitable or loss 
 serious, although more subtle and more delicate. Just as the 
 cessation of war would only refine without abating the 
 struggle for existence, so the cessation of bestial allurements 
 would only refine without relaxing the moral conflict. No 
 State regulation, no State system of repression or encourage- 
 ment can ever release man from the terrible option to do good 
 or to do evil. Responsibility is too much our nature to be 
 extinguished even by checks upon drunkenness or upon 
 prostitution. 
 
 Without the sense of responsibility, it is true, there 
 can be no moral life. Even children in their moral 
 training must be left in great measure free, because a 
 strong sense of responsibility is not too dearly bought 
 by a few small lapses from what is absolutely right 
 But it is a first principle in education to keep children 
 out of harm's way. The sins left possible to them are 
 very small sins. The wisest parents do not try to produce 
 heroic men and women by giving their little boys and girls 
 an early acquaintance with the pothouse or the stews. In 
 later years all sensible persons exert for themselves the 
 same moral prudence. The man who is in his right mind 
 does not court inducements to vice. The pious man prays 
 to be delivered from temptation. However devout, the
 
 192 LiniJs of IndividtLal Liberty. 
 
 African virgins immortalized by Gibbon displayed rather 
 the weakness than the streugtli of human nature. In every 
 case in which we are familiar with all the circumstances^ and 
 in which we are really anxious about our own virtue or the 
 virtue of somebody else, we regard temptation to coarse and 
 brutal vice as something to be, not sought, but shunned. 
 We do not then fear lest our caution should enervate our will. 
 We are too well aware how hard it is to be even passably 
 good. We know too well how far off perfection are the 
 very best of men. 
 
 If these considerations possess any weight, the individual 
 has no claim to a firedom which he uses for immoral 
 purposes. Neither any theory of abstract right nor any 
 principle of concrete utility can guarantee immunity to 
 certain modes of action irrespective of their being moral 
 or immoral. The State has a right to punish all moral 
 delinquency, and to punish it in proportion to its shade of 
 guilt. Why, then, does the State punish some vices and 
 restrain others, leaving the rest untouched ? Why does it 
 often direct its vigilance and severity against the lesser 
 rather than the greater vices ? This seeming inconsis- 
 tency is easily explained by practical considerations. 
 
 Some offences the law singles out for the severest 
 retribution, not because they are infallible proofs of a 
 thoroughly corrupt or hardened disposition, but because 
 they most directly threaten the order of society. Many a 
 murder is less detestable than many a seduction ; but then 
 murder more than any other crime tends to annihilate social 
 life. Again, the State can operate in the repression of 
 vice only on the principles of the criminal law and through 
 the courts of justice. In his admirable book, " Liberty and
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 193 
 
 Fraternity and Equality/' Sir James Stephen has pointed 
 out with the precision of a lawyer and the clearness of a 
 literary man, that the machinery of criminal law and the 
 rules for setting it in motion can never be suitable for the 
 repression of any but the most palpable and obvious 
 immorality. Even in respect of acknowledged crimes it is 
 difficult to prove their commission, more difficult to estimate 
 the offender's moral guilt, most difficult to punish in such a 
 way as will reform and not harden. But in respect of vices 
 not considered criminal, these difficulties usually amount to 
 impossibilities. They could be detected only by a system of 
 espionage which would revolt all honourable men, make all 
 vile men formidable, and poison all the innocent pleasures of 
 existence. They could be proved only by methods which 
 must elicit an amount of false witness infinitely and incalcu- 
 lably surpassing the habitual perjury committed in our 
 extant coui-ts of law. They could not be punished with 
 even a slight approach to judicial accuracy, and their punish- 
 ment would place in the hands of fi'ail and corruptible men 
 an unlimited power over the life, the honour, and the fortunes 
 of all other men. 
 
 Such were the mischiefs which turned into an intolerable 
 tyranny the spiritual jurisdiction of the mediaeval Church. 
 That jurisdiction ended by fostering every vice which it had 
 been designed to repress. Men flung it off, and men will 
 never endure it again. But we should remember that the 
 spiritual jurisdiction was not vicious in principle, although 
 harmful in practice. That every moral offence should meet 
 with just so much retribution as it deserves, is half the 
 political ideal of every healthy mind. Could the spiritual 
 jurisdiction have been exercised with the wisdom and purity 
 
 o
 
 194 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 requisite, that is to say, with the wisdom and purity of God, 
 it would have been as beneficent as it was pernicious. In 
 so far as society can exercise it without incurring its evils, 
 in so far society has a right to exercise such jurisdiction. 
 
 Over and above those considerations which in all ages 
 and countries are equally forcible to limit the scope of 
 criminal justice, there are other considerations whose force 
 varies from time to time, and from place to place. Where 
 men are crowded together in great masses, as in armies or 
 in the poor quarters of large cities, order and decency 
 require a much more constant interference of authority. 
 The rich live so much apart from one another that they 
 need not witness each other's sins. If a rich man ofi'end 
 against good morals, public opinion requires him to hide 
 his transgressions, and his wealth affords him the means 
 of doing so. He can be placed in moral quarantine. But 
 the poor must live where their means will permit. The 
 sober, thrifty, and laborious must rub against the dissolute, 
 the reckless, and the idle. They must bring up their 
 children among sights and sounds of all others the most 
 carefully screened off from the children of the rich. Thus 
 the situation of the poor demands, and the opinion of the 
 most estimable poor supports, a stringent system of police. 
 Their freedom is really infringed by the vices of other 
 people. Accordingly they value very little the freedom of 
 other people to be vicious. 
 
 On the other hand, the State always errs in attempting 
 to punish offences which the public opinion or private 
 conscience of the age does not seriously condemn. A 
 Greek legislator could not have punished certain vices as 
 they are punished by modern codes. Instead of purify-
 
 Liberty of Action and DisciLssion. 195 
 
 ing morals, he would have revolted his contemporaries. 
 Again, the condition of things may be such as to 
 make it certain that vast numbers will commit oflFences 
 severely censured by conscience and by opinion. It is, 
 then, useless to attempt by extreme severity the extir- 
 pation of the offenders. Their number, their own feeling 
 that they are not worse than most other men, and the 
 commiseration inspired by their sufferings, would all 
 combine to make penal laws inoperative. Thus criminal 
 law cannot do very much for the radical reforma- 
 tion of society. If society is corrupt, the law must be 
 lax. 
 
 Finally, some vices are punished in full without any inter- 
 ference of the law. Offences which cause the offender to be 
 regarded as utterly unworthy of any trust, entail upon him 
 sufficiently heavy loss and humiliation. Thus lying in 
 men, apart from the necessities of trade or of politics, 
 and unchastity in women, are already punished with an 
 indiscriminating rigour. In respect to them, further severity 
 is not desirable. Often public opinion punishes them more 
 heavily than justice requires. 
 
 Public opinion supplements public justice. It cannot help 
 dealing with the lives and actions of individuals. It can- 
 not help censuring immorality even where self-regarding. 
 That public opinion should be blind, and that public 
 opinion should be weak are equal evils. As an instru- 
 ment of moral education it is finer than criminal law. 
 There are limits to its operation, however ; limits set by 
 circumstances, and not by any principle forbidding men 
 to judge or to act upon their judgment of the conduct 
 of any individual. 
 
 2
 
 196 L im its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 Like the criminal law, public opinion can only lay down 
 general maxims. Men will not agree on more than a few 
 broad rules of conduct ; or if they agree on more, they will 
 not feel deeply about it. These broad rules take very little 
 account of the complexity of life. Therefore all rational men 
 are cautious in applying them to estimate the actions of any 
 particular person. Again, public opinion can as little as law 
 ascertain the spii'itual process which results in an action. 
 Law, indeed, excludes, and public opinion admits of, sym- 
 pathy. But, on the other hand, a judge pronounces only 
 after the most careful investigation of the facts ; whilst the 
 public has neither the time, nor means, nor wish to ascertain 
 any one circumstance with precision. So that the judg- 
 ments of public opinion are oftentimes rougher than the 
 judgments of criminal justice. 
 
 Moreover, a public opinion which did not respect the 
 privacies of life would make life intolerable to all men with 
 any tincture of delicacy or spirit. It would poison all 
 domestic or social enjoyments. More than the worst 
 system of law, it would encourage those basest of all vices, 
 prying and false witness. It would turn every man and 
 woman into a common informer. It would stimulate to 
 their rankest excess all the malignity and mendacity in the 
 world, and it would end by producing a state of things 
 such as exists in many religious orders, where human nature 
 is degraded to the lowest by the necessity of always seeming 
 to stand on the highest level. 
 
 Public opinion, although the work of all, is determined 
 by a very few. Those who write and speak, those who rule 
 in churches, or preside in society, influence public opinion out 
 of all proportion to their own numbers or their own merits ;
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 197 
 
 and they would become tyrants of the most terrible kind 
 if public opinion were fierce^ restless, and indefatigable. 
 Sometimes fanaticism makes it such, and then its accredited 
 mouthpiece becomes absolute. Whenever this happens, a 
 period of hypocrisy is usually succeeded by a period of 
 abandonment. After one of these abnormal efforts, public 
 opinion sinks into such a languor as the most shameless 
 flaunting of gross vice or impudent selfishness can hardly 
 break. 
 
 The power of public opinion is a power least useful where 
 it is most wanted. It is partial, since men will not judge 
 hardly the very vices to which they are most generally 
 addicted, and which call most loudly for censure. It is 
 spasmodic, because most men are for ever oscillating be- 
 tween a worldly indifference and a fanatic severity ; so that 
 they will for many years condone the practice of some 
 notorious sin, and then suddenly fix upon some unhappy 
 sinner. They blast his reputation, wreck his life, and 
 flatter themselves with the thought of having executed 
 rigorous, but needful justice. It is ill-natured, because 
 men are ill-natured, because they are always pleased 
 when they can report and half-believe evil of one another. 
 Thus public opinion does not repress what most needs 
 to be repressed ; does not repress steadily or fairly ; but 
 rather represses in such a way as stirs up an untameable 
 spirit of defiance in many of the offenders who are best 
 worth reclaiming. It works badly even within its narrow 
 bounds ; but it remains indispensable. We cannot break, 
 but we may direct its strength. 
 
 Thus far concerning freedom of action. Do the same 
 considerations apply to freedom of discussion ?
 
 198 L Wilts of Individual L iberty . 
 
 The act of expressing one^s thoughts is not an act essen- 
 tially different from all others. It is one of the gravest 
 because it touches upon the most weighty interests of 
 society. Therefore^ to say that society may fairly control 
 the actions of men^ but must give full licence to their speech 
 is to commit a complicated fallacy. If men may say any- 
 thing, it follows that they may encourage one another to do 
 anything. But many things are not lawful to be done. 
 Society will punish those who do such things. And if they are 
 punished, it would be unfair alike to them and to the public 
 not to punish those who abetted them in doing ill. No 
 practical man will dispute the right of the State to punish 
 those who encourage others to break the law. But should 
 the State in any case go further ? Should it attempt to 
 coerce those who encourage others not to break the law, 
 but to violate the current morality of the age ? We think 
 that in certain cases it should. 
 
 Having already come to the conclusion that the State 
 may justly set in motion against those who actually trans- 
 gress received moral rules the engine of criminal justice, 
 we think that it may employ the same engine against specu- 
 lative assailants of accepted morality. Obviously the State 
 can only enforce and protect such moral principles as have 
 already found general acceptance. And when it cannot 
 punish those who violate, it can still punish those who 
 impugn these principles. For they may be violated in 
 private, but they must be impugned in public. Thus 
 the State cannot punish a lie, but it could punish a 
 writer who seriously recommended consistent lying. In 
 punishing him it would be supported by the conscience 
 of mankind. The possibility that a moral innovator
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 199 
 
 may have conscientious motives is a reason for ti'eating 
 bim with all lenity ; and the possibility that he may teach 
 a much better and purer morality than already pre- 
 vails is a reason for allowing a very wide latitude of dis- 
 cussion upon morals ; but neither of these possibilities 
 affects the principle above laid down. On principle, the 
 State is the guardian of the prevailing morality. 
 
 We cannot shrink from the logical consequences of this 
 principle, and we must see how far they extend. All dis- 
 cussion of political or religious questions may lead men 
 to practical moral conclusions. If it be serious it certainly 
 will do so. These conclusions may be of the most momen- 
 tous character. Thus an economic controversy may lead 
 able men to suppose that private property in land is an 
 enormous iniquity. Thereupon they will naturally agitate 
 against private property in land. Again, a sect may 
 believe that certain persons have authority to mediate 
 between the rest of their kind and God. As these per- 
 sons are never quite inaccessible to private inducements, 
 a belief like this may affect, and always does affect, 
 popular morality. Another sect may believe in justifica- 
 tion by faith alone. The enthusiasts of such sects have 
 often been persuaded that they were released from all 
 restraint of moral law, and they have sometimes acted 
 upon that persuasion. If, then, it should appear that a 
 conscientious objection to private property in land— a con- 
 scientious belief in the efficacy of indulgences or in the 
 doctrine of justification — tends to subvert accepted moral 
 ideas, the conclusion follows that in the abstract the State 
 is justified in forbidding anybody to preach such doctrine. 
 What prudence requires it to do is quite another thing.
 
 200 Limits of hidividual Liberty. 
 
 But the same principle applies to discussion of a more 
 speculative kind. For serious opinion upon any great 
 subject modifies serious opinion upon all great subjects. 
 Political, and religious tbougbt bear most directly upon prac- 
 tice ; but every new idea bears upon them. Everybody knows 
 that the system of Copernicus has influenced the religion of 
 all thinking men. The doctrine of evolution has trans- 
 formed our ideas of politics as well as of religion. Science 
 every day exerts a greater pressure upon life. E^'ery day 
 each science is brought into closer connection with all the 
 rest. As we become more civilized, we become more critical. 
 We are constrained to piece together the scattered frag- 
 ments of our thought. We must amend practice by means of 
 theory, and verify theory by means of practice. Consis- 
 tency is to us indispensable. Whether or not men knew it, 
 there was always unity in their thought ; but we want to feel 
 the unity of ours. Thus every new idea exerts a more and 
 more instant influence upon all other ideas. And all ideas 
 demand more and more imperiously that we shall act 
 upon them. In a word, men grow more and more sensitive 
 to ideas. Ideas more and more mould practical life. So 
 that the preacher of new ideas is more powerful than ever 
 before. What he says is more than at any former time a 
 matter of supreme interest to society. 
 
 He who earnestly adopts an idea must attempt to realize 
 it. If two men attempt to realize contrary ideas, they must 
 come in conflict. If they have embraced these ideas with 
 the fervour which great ideas naturally inspire, their conflict 
 will become a death-struggle. The wars and persecutions 
 formerly inspired by religious animosity were really inevit- 
 able. Their brutality was the accident of their age. Wars
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 201 
 
 not less terrible and persecutions equally unrelenting may 
 be occasioned by anything which interests men as strongly 
 as theology interested our forefathers of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. That such wars and persecutions are no longer 
 frequent is due much more to the lassitude and indifference 
 than to the self-control and intelligence of the multitude. 
 
 At the present day, although everybody has opinions, 
 few have beliefs. But wherever you can find enthusiasm, 
 there you will also find the resolution to remodel society. 
 The Ultramontanes in the Latin States, the Nonconformists 
 among ourselves, and the Socialists everywhere would 
 legislate for everybody upon their own peculiar principles. 
 We may wish now and then that each of these great parties 
 had canvassed its principles a little more thoroughly. But 
 to complaiu of any one for acting upon its own principles 
 is weak and womanish. On what else should it act ? Or 
 should it not act at all ? 
 
 Every great revolution in practice has grown out of a great 
 revolution in belief. Revolutions in belief in the first 
 instance are brought about by means of persuasion; but 
 revolutions in practice are very largely the result of pressure 
 applied by those who beheve in something to those who 
 believe in nothing. The minority of believers has never 
 shrunk from coercing the majority of sceptics. Indeed, 
 they had no alternative; for the greater part of mankind, 
 deaf to argument and eloquence, are always enslaved to 
 the powers of impulse, imitation, or interest. Thus did 
 a Christian minority force a world into the religion of 
 charity. Thus did a handful of martial Independents force 
 England into republicanism. These men, their leaders, 
 atid their teachers constrained society to obey their hiw.
 
 2 o 2 L ini t ts of Individual L iberty. 
 
 Society opposed them in arms. They conquered society 
 because they alone had a clear conception of what they 
 wanted, and were fully resolved to secure it. They had 
 power over the real because they were possessed by the 
 ideal. HoWj then, can we say that he who preaches an 
 ideal has nothing to do with the State, the State no business 
 to interfere with him ? 
 
 Yes, it may be said, the expression of thought must forcibly 
 react upon society, but the expression of thought is always 
 favourable to our thinking aright. Without unlimited free- 
 dom of discussion we cannot acquire new truths. Even 
 among beliefs which may be called true, few are adequate to 
 the whole truth, and those which are most true come in 
 process of time to lose more and more of their meaning, so 
 that the truths most universally acknowledged and most 
 often repeated are those which influence men least. There- 
 fore we must continue to call in question old certainties as 
 well as new probabilities; otherwise we shall relax our 
 grasp of the old truths whilst we are seizing upon new. 
 
 A theory something like this was enforced by Mr. Mill in 
 his book on Liberty. It contains a truth which we must 
 not undervalue, but it is very far from containing the 
 whole truth. In particular it overlooks, I think, the impor- 
 tance of the following considerations. 
 
 In the first place, the body of clear, well-ascertained, and 
 demonstrable truth is ever growing. Truth of this kind, 
 scientific truth, neither loses nor gains by discussion. It 
 does not lose by discussion, for it remains the same, however 
 long discussed ; it does not gain by discussion because its 
 proof is complete. Each successive generation of students 
 retraces Euclid^s demonstrations of geometric truth, and
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 203 
 
 finds them as fresh and as convincing as they were to their 
 first discoverer. Here conviction rests on the completeness 
 of the proof in itself, not upon a comparison of the proof 
 with other arguments leading to other conclusions. Men, 
 .therefore, cease to discuss truths like these ; discussion in 
 such cases would be a solemn absurdity. 
 
 In the second place, the body of truth which is clear and 
 well- ascertained, but not demonstrable, the body of practical 
 truth, grows also, although it grows slowly. This seems to 
 have been the kind of truth most present to Mr. MilFs mind 
 when he formed his theory of liberty. And in so far as 
 affected by discussion, practical maxims and scientific prin- 
 ciples do stand upon quite a different footing. No length of 
 repetition can dull the brightness, no acid of discussion can 
 eat away the substance of speculative truth. But practical 
 truth, at first possessed as insight, may come to be worn as 
 a habit or muttered as a formula. Men may inherit the 
 body of such truth, but they themselves must make it live. 
 Discussion, serious, honest, and unshrinking discussion may 
 well be one means of imparting this life, and deserves to be 
 valued almost as highly as it was valued by Mr. Mill. But 
 practical truth, as compared with scientific truth. Las not 
 only more to gain, but also more to lose by discussion. 
 
 If we were purely rational beings, it would be enough for 
 us to see that a practical maxim is true. But since we are 
 half-rational, half-irrational, another and a harder task 
 remains, to impose the practical maxim upon our irrational 
 nature. And since our irrational nature, like the nature of 
 animals and plants, can be modified only by circumstance, 
 we must by use and wont subject it to the sway of truth. 
 Before a maxim can control our life, it must cease to be a
 
 204 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 maxim merely, it must become a truism, a liabit, a prejudice. 
 Before it can gain sufficient strength, it must lose something 
 of abstract purity. No doubt a time often comes when the 
 habit is broken up by harsh experience and the prejudice 
 can no longer withstand the stress of new facts. That is the 
 time of moral and social revolution, when the naked, shivering 
 conscience is turned out of its old home to find elsewhere 
 raiment and shelter. But the habit and the prejudice which 
 have made the revolution necessary have also made the revo- 
 lution possible. Men, since they are not gods, must rise on 
 stepping-stones of their dead selves. 
 
 From the very fact that all practical truths are fruitful 
 only in so far as they are worked out in the refractory 
 material of nature, of our passions and our circumstances, 
 and that they can be worked out only by a process, long, 
 laborious, and painful, it results that there is a real danger 
 in the altogether unlimited canvassing of such truth. Even a 
 sound principle suffers by such canvassing. If we discuss 
 it too long, we make familiar to our impulses the thought of 
 gratification to be had by disregarding it. When we have 
 once poised our reason in impartial balance between several 
 courses of life, we are pretty sure to pursue the course which 
 to our instincts promises to be most agreeable. Or if we 
 disdain to live merely for enjoyment, if we see clearly Avhat 
 is good and true, yet oftentimes benumbed by repeated 
 shocks, we lose a firm grasp upon the principle which we 
 discern, and wearily accept one after another the ignoble 
 maxims of the world, growing more enslaved to convention 
 or to caprice than if we had never questioned our first and 
 crudest prejudice. 
 
 Our best chance of improving ourselves or others lies not
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 205 
 
 so mucli in discovering maxims altogether new as in raising 
 practice to the level of maxims which we already know. 
 The first principles of a good life have been possessed for a 
 much longer space of time and by far more persons than the 
 first principles of mechanics or of chemistry ; but men act 
 always upon known principles of mechanics or chemistry, 
 and seldom upon known principles of morality. The prin- 
 ciples of right action are developed, tested, and defined 
 by actions. To mere logical discussion they owe little. 
 It is quite true that even if we honestly follow the best light 
 which we can get we shall not avoid errors or be secure 
 asrainst doiner a s-reat deal of harm, but we shall do less 
 harm than if we gave way to a bottomless moral scepticism, 
 and we shall be more likely to amend our errors than if we 
 wavered to and fro or sat down and did nothing. 
 
 The complex nature of practical truth makes it at once 
 more easy and more difiicult than scientific truth. How far 
 morality is advanced by a constant canvassing of moral 
 questions is a problem which can be solved only by mature 
 good sense. Some limit good sense has always imposed upon 
 such canvassing. Children cannot be educated without 
 learning to obey many moral laws which they do not 
 criticize and cannot appreciate. Nor is this necessity 
 created merely by their want of reason. Children develope 
 an abstract logical faculty at a very early age. Aristotle has 
 said that the young are capable of mathematics long before 
 they are capable of morality, because mathematics and 
 morality demand very different degrees of experience. But 
 children have no chance of exercising their impartial 
 judgment upon moral questions unless prejudice be artfully 
 employed to counterpoise passion. Convinced as we are
 
 2 o6 L wilts of Individual L iberty. 
 
 that virtue alone is reasonable, we use every means to bias 
 the child in favour of virtue. We assume that we must form 
 the character before we explain the principle. I need not 
 observe how all this differs from our modes of teaching 
 chemistry or mathematics. 
 
 Again, the judicious man freely submits himself to the 
 law which the teacher imposes on the child. Satisfied that 
 the practice approved by his fellows embodies a great deal 
 of wisdom, he puts a certain curb on his own dialectic. He 
 does this not merely out of a selfishness which apes the 
 habits of the majority, or a timidity which shrinks from the 
 use of its own reason. He does not doubt his reason, but 
 he dreads his inclinations. He plays off the spirit of routine 
 against the spirit of lawlessness. His reflection upon life 
 and conduct finds full scope in the ever widening field of duty 
 which opens upon every one who really tries to be good. 
 He has neither time nor inclination to ask whether the 
 family and the State, honesty and public spirit are not after 
 all illusions. 
 
 Until we have done with questioning we cannot act. 
 When we have begun to act we feel little disposed to question. 
 If our principle of action is altogether wrong, experience 
 soon pi'ovcs it to be such. If our principle is in the main 
 right, it is too valuable to be easily let go. In either case 
 action ends doubt. Practical maxims can be verified or 
 refuted by action only. They are not indeed irrational, but 
 their subject matter is so complex that in order to be 
 correct they must condense within their brief terms a thou- 
 sand unexpressed considerations. Only a master of ethics 
 can state them in really precise and explicit language. He 
 alone can put them into a demonstrable form. And after
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion, 207 
 
 all he does little more than clothe in scieutific garb the 
 vulgar experience -of mankind. 
 
 Law and public opinion may often err, have often erred, 
 in forbidding the public questioning of certain moral rules. 
 But cases may arise in which their interference would be 
 approved by the sincerest friends of liberty and of reason. 
 Suppose it were honestly proposed to abolish marriage and 
 replace it by general prostitution. Proposals hardly less 
 surprising have been made in good faith by very clever 
 men. If men agreed in forbidding the discussion of such a 
 proposal, it would not be because they were sceptical of the 
 benefits of chastity, nor yet because they thought the 
 proposal likely to be accepted. They would simply say that 
 they had every reason to think it absurd, and every reason 
 to believe that its investigation would quicken into livelier 
 ferment all the incalculable pruriency of the general public. 
 They would be quite right in saying so. Discussions of this 
 kind do reason no good and moralit}' much harm. A great 
 deal of idle and mischievous talk we must tolerate in the 
 interest of free thought, but we cannot forget that there are 
 other interests equally sacred. 
 
 A reader may here interrupt and say, " After all, what 
 is the use of suggesting these vague restraints upon freedom 
 of discussion ? To all intents and purposes discussion is now 
 free and always will remain free. The few attempts recently 
 made to suppress publications deemed offensive or immoral 
 have had no other effect than to circulate more widely the 
 very writings which they were directed to extinguish. The 
 printing-press will always frustrate the vigilance and severity 
 of the most powerful government." 
 
 I fully admit the force of this objection. But although
 
 2 o8 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 the politician may be content with knowing what ought to 
 be done, the student of politics will always want to know 
 why it ought to be done. I accept the practical conclusion 
 that the State cannot really do much in this matter. The 
 speculative reasons for this conclusion seera to me often 
 vague and unsound. Moreover_, a great deal which law can- 
 not do may be done by public opinion. And although the 
 State cannot effectually suppress error, it may, by education 
 form such a character and such an intelligence as seem most 
 desirable. In this way society can influence thought. But 
 the argument so often adduced in favour of the largest 
 licence of discussion would serve to show that the State has 
 no concern with education. 
 
 Those who refuse to coerce the teachers of any doctrine 
 whatsoever on the grounds that all coercion is bad for indi- 
 vidual character, ought to bear in mind that when we train 
 a child to act upon a certain rule of conduct we impair 
 individual freedom no less than when we punish those who 
 would impress the opposite rule of conduct upon the man. 
 And indeed Mr. Mill and Mr. Herbert Spencer are quite 
 consistent in this matter. Mr. Mill disliked, and Mr. 
 Spencer abominates all education by the State. But those 
 who think that all functions of the State may ultimately 
 be resolved into the function of educating the citizen are 
 bound to say why the State leaves discussion to take its own 
 course. 
 
 For our actual licence of speech there are many sufficient 
 reasons ; some drawn from the present posture of affairs, 
 some from circumstances of universal occurrence. The 
 adherents of conflicting beliefs may be so balanced in power 
 that none can persecute the rest. Or in respect of all
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 209 
 
 questions that profoundly concern the estate of man, there 
 may be such a pervading scepticism that the last sign of 
 conviction, the wish to torment those who differ from you, 
 is almost dead. Modern Europe will supply many instances 
 in both kinds. Or it may be found wise to let men talk, 
 because much passion is exhausted by the simple process of 
 talking. Every time we utter a belief it loses its strength. 
 Or it may be that the majority can find no device subtle 
 enough to prevent the minority from saying what they 
 think. 
 
 But the consideration which has the most enduring 
 weight is the weakness of our capacity for truth. So 
 much is doubtful, so much is altogether unknown ; so 
 indolent, so timid, so careless of truth, are the mass of 
 men ; so ill-situated and so ill-provided for knowing what 
 is true are the rulers of every state, that the public can- 
 not be too wary in committing to a government, a govern- 
 ment cannot be too lenient in exercising, any control 
 over the expression and diffusion of ideas. And what 
 holds good of governments, holds good also, although in a 
 less degree, of public opinion. 
 
 Again, society, whether operating through law or through 
 public opinion, can employ against ideas deemed pernicious 
 only a coercion more or less refined. In the sphere of 
 thought, coercion, even if employed on the right side, is 
 usually subject to the vice of defeating its own purpose. 
 The object of all who wish well to their kind is to promote 
 serious thought ; and serious thought is always a vital pro- 
 cess. It is a growth, not an acquisition. What we believe is 
 not more important than the way in which we came to believe 
 it. They are only two aspects of the same thing. As is the 
 
 p
 
 2 1 o Lijnits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 process, so is the product. It is practically impossible to 
 coerce thought without making a people either frivolous or 
 fanatical, that is to say, thoughtless. So that even if govern- 
 ments were ideally wise, they would still do most wisely 
 never to punish or reward the expression of thought, save 
 under the most urgent pressure of public order or of 
 public decency. 
 
 In every case we must balance the advantages against 
 the disadvantages of unlimited freedom of speech. The 
 general presumption is against meddling with such freedom j 
 but innumerable circumstances may affect the strength of this 
 presumption. The general of au army in imminent peril may 
 be justified in visiting with heavy penalties all who criticize 
 his dispositions. The sovereign of a kingdom torn by the 
 fury of contending creeds, may fairly forbid to any one sect 
 such public ceremonies as would inflame the madness of 
 the rest. He may fairly prohibit all public discussion of 
 exciting topics. If the rulers of India in the nineteenth, or 
 of England in the sixteenth century had left fanatics free 
 to express their opinions as they pleased, all peace and 
 security would have been at an end. And in all ages and 
 countries, discourse which directly incites men to violate 
 either the law, or those moral rules which are as definite, as 
 well established, and as necessary to the cohesion of civil 
 society as the rules of law itself, may be a very proper 
 object of severe correction. 
 
 In this, even more than in other spheres of social life, 
 the true check upon abstractions is the opinion of a very 
 enlightened public. Au enlightened public will always love 
 thought too well to tolerate unreasonable restraints upon 
 thinking. And our natural scorn for the petty average of
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 2 1 1 
 
 intelligence should not blind us to the fact that the inter- 
 ference of society with discussion may be not unfriendly to 
 the interests of conduct. For the standard adopted by the 
 conscience of the community is very different from the rule 
 embodied in the practice of each of its members. 
 
 Instances, no doubt, occur in which the ideas of the in- 
 dividual are nobler than the ideas of the society. In such 
 cases must society incur the risk and guilt of trying to ex- 
 tinguish what is good. Must the individual suffer for trying 
 to confer upon mankind the greatest of blessings ? This is 
 a hard question ; but we must face it fairly. It has pre- 
 sented itself before ; it will present itself again. In all such 
 cases I think that the issue mast be tragical. If men are 
 attached to no system of beliefs or of institutions, they are 
 sure to be flabby and nerveless. If they are attached to some 
 such system, they must feel alarm and indignation when it is 
 assailed ; and they must needs dislike its assailant. Feelings 
 like these need not overpower reason ; but they must em- 
 bitter the life of their object. He, if he is good for any- 
 thing, will not be content to rest in a speculative difference. 
 He will make war upon that which exists, and it will defend 
 itself against him. 
 
 It matters not in principle whether it is by law or by 
 public opinion that this armed resistance is offered to the 
 reformer. In either case he suffers for fulfilling his most 
 sacred duty ; and those who make him suffer may be doing 
 their duty too. Without accepting the cynical doctrine that 
 persecution is the test of truth, we cannot help seeing that 
 persecution is the sure reward of those who love the truth 
 above all things. The sure reward not merely because men 
 are blind and rancorous, but because men cannot dissociate 
 
 p 2
 
 2 1 2 Limits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 thouglit from life. That the best men should be called upon 
 to suffer most, is a riddle which may perplex those philo- 
 sophers who still hold that the path of exalted virtue is a 
 path of flowers. I do not know why it should perplex any- 
 body else. The whole o£ life is filled with conflict ; with 
 conflict which in our sadder, wiser hours seems a conflict 
 about the veriest trifles. The whole of life is a misunder- 
 standing; a misunderstanding of ourselves and of our cir- 
 cumstances ; of our neighbours and of the world. "Why 
 should we wonder that the greatest men, the men most truly 
 human, have rather more than their share of misunderstand- 
 ing and conflict ? Eather let us think them blessed in that 
 they struggle for a reality, and, not like the rest of us, for a 
 shadow; blessed in that they are misunderstood because 
 they are too noble and too pure for the utmost stretch of 
 vulgar conception. 
 
 It is not easy to see how the life of great teachers can 
 ever be a happy life. Nevertheless, we have attained to the 
 understandiug of a principle which does in some sort miti- 
 gate the internecine war between old and new ideas of morals 
 and society. This principle we may describe as the principle 
 of the evolution of thought. Whatever our ancestors held 
 to be true, they held to contain the whole truth and nothing 
 but the truth. "Whatever they rejected, they rejected as 
 altogether false, wantonly, wilfully and damnably false. 
 We no longer look upon our truth as perfect truth. 
 Perfect truth we regard as something beyond the reach of 
 any generation. The beliefs which we do not accept we 
 regard as but partially false. They are approximations, 
 ruder, we think, than our own, but approximations still. 
 And we have come to see that ideas which we esteem mon-
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 2 1 3 
 
 strous and incredible have been our point of departure in 
 the pursuit of ideas which we now prize very highly, although 
 we know that our posterity will lay them aside as we have 
 laid aside the ideas of our forefathers. This frame of mind 
 is not scepticism. It is the very opposite of scepticism ; for 
 it respects all manifestations of reason. It sees a growth in 
 that which seemed to be repetition. It finds a unity in that 
 which seemed to be confusion. It lends a meaning to the 
 first endeavours, it sobers the latest triumphs of intelli- 
 gence. It shows that every failure of thought is no more 
 a failure than it is a victory. It reconciles progress with 
 continuity, tradition with revolution, the authority of society 
 with the independence of private judgment. It applies to 
 our inward spiritual as to our outward visible life the idea 
 of evolution. 
 
 The modern reformer if serious will be the first to confess 
 that he owes to the past the very principles which he hopes to 
 develope in the future. He looks upon himself as continuing 
 the labours of his ancestors as he hopes that posterity will 
 continue his own. As against those who oppose all change 
 he will assert that he has appropriated the experience, not 
 of one age or country, but of all. He will say that he has 
 interpreted history in the spirit, not of a partizan, but of 
 a thinker. He will maintain that he continues the evolution 
 of history. And from this new conception of his work he 
 will derive a new spirit of forbeai-ance and moderation. He 
 sees better than any of his predecessors how little the 
 highest intelligence and the most heroic will can effect; and 
 he is conscious that they have been formed and matured by 
 that very society which in their light appears disorganized 
 and vicious. He esteems his private judgment, not an
 
 2 14 ^ imits of Individua I L iberty . 
 
 inspired and infallible guide, but an epitome of the wisdom 
 of former ages. Instead of overbearing his fellows by a 
 rule of action which they do not recognize, he shames them 
 by an appeal to their own conscience. 
 
 And as it is with the reformer, so is it with the public 
 whom he addresses. They may dislike his projects, they may 
 suspect his motives, but they must debate the case upon its 
 merits. For they too must confess that out of the number- 
 less heresies of the past their present orthodoxy has arisen. 
 They see that their own orthodoxy was once an innovation 
 and may come to be a relic. It is but a relative orthodoxy. 
 It too will pass, and they cannot say for certain what will 
 succeed it. Thus forced to abandon dogmatism, they must 
 be content to cling to honesty of purpose and scientific 
 method. They must appeal to general historic principles. 
 As the reformer claims that his reforms are but a further 
 development of such principles, it is by reference to such 
 principles that the public must test them. 
 
 Even then the matter is not easy. The controversy is 
 not without bitterness. But it is no longer hopeless. For 
 the combatants have something in common. They have a 
 canon of truth, accepted by both parties. They can appeal 
 to an authority which all enlightened men regard as final. 
 And thus they always have a chance of reaching a compo- 
 sition. Their warfare is not to the knife ; it is an honourable 
 conflict which may be concluded by an honourable peace. 
 Formerly earnest men had no such resource. Men assured 
 that a moral, political, or religious principle was of infinite 
 consequence must needs come to deadly conflict with men 
 who held the very same principle to be an invention of the 
 devil.
 
 Liberty of Action and Discussion. 215 
 
 If the progress of civilization has abated the bitterness 
 of factious strife and blunted the edge of remorseless perse- 
 cution, it has effected this happy result, not by weakening 
 the hold of truth upon the mind of man, not by divorcing 
 thought from action, not by rendering indifferent to society 
 the beliefs and feelings of the individual, or by narrowing the 
 action of the State to the control of bodies as distinguished 
 from souls. No, it has mitigated the warfare of opinion by 
 making it possible for men to understand one another. 
 We hate only that which we cannot understand. A lasting 
 tolerance is based, not on scepticism, but on faith. Faith in 
 reason, reverence for reason enable us to maintain what we 
 deem the cause of truth, without forgetting the duty of 
 charity. They support us when our good cause is for the 
 moment overborne by force or chance ; and they prepare us 
 to acquiesce in the final defeat of that cause if it be not 
 really good.
 
 s
 
 VIII. 
 
 BUREAUCRACY AND 
 COMMUNISM.
 
 VIII. 
 
 BUREAUCRACY AND COMMUNISM. 
 
 Nothing more augments our national jealousy of an 
 enlarged State action than the very general belief that such 
 action conducts us through bureaucracy to communism. 
 Bureaucracy and communism are^ perhaps, terms more fre- 
 quent in use than exact in definition. All government is a 
 substitute for self-help, and all taxation is an invasion of 
 private property. But for practical purposes we may term 
 that a bureaucratic administration which undertakes tasks 
 capable of being as well or better performed by private 
 individuals. And we may call that a communistic adminis- 
 tration which taxes individuals in order to raise the means 
 wherewith to perform such tasks. In this sense communism 
 is the counterpart of bureaucracy ; and indeed we find that 
 in many countries the communistic zeal of reformers is 
 measured by the bureaucratic energy of the government. 
 
 Thus if we conceive the State to have functions of real 
 dignity and importance, we are bound to show that our 
 doctrine does not involve bureaucracy or communism as a 
 practical corollary. We ought to show that the bureaucracy 
 and the communism of modern Europe have received from 
 special historical causes their present peculiar character. 
 We ought to show that society can act in its corporate 
 character without becomiug bureaucratic. And we ought
 
 2 2 o Lim its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 to indicate as well as we can tlie limit to the demands 
 which the State may wisely and fairly make upon the purse 
 of the citizen. 
 
 Bureaucratic government as it exists in France or 
 Germany is not perhaps the intense and unmixed evil which 
 we sometimes take it to be. The administration of those 
 countries can show some great public benefits to counter- 
 poise great public burthens. The discontented of those 
 countries, it has been well said, whilst often expressing 
 esteem for particular English ideas or institutions, never 
 own to a preference for English life as a whole. Much 
 of the narrowness, the monotony and the dreariness of 
 English life comes of our inveterate individuahsm. Much 
 of the fulness, the variety, and the excitement of Con- 
 tinental life is due to a restless paternal government. 
 But let as take Continental bureaucracy at the estimate 
 of its accusers. Let us allow that it blights individual 
 energy, withers the power of voluntary combination, dif- 
 fuses throughout whole nations a senile temper at once 
 helpless and exacting; still we may insist that it is the 
 special result of special conditions, not a logical result of 
 our political theory, nor a probable result of the present 
 course of politics in our own country. 
 
 In the first place, then, the administrative system of the 
 nations of the Continent was created, not by the people, but 
 by dynasties. It was directed to secure, firstly, the power 
 of the government, and, secondly, the welfare of the subject. 
 The people usually acquiesced in bureaucracy and sometimes 
 favoured it because the bureaucratic was much more tole- 
 rable than the feudal tyranny. Under the feudal, as under 
 the bureaucratic system, the peasant had been oppressed.
 
 Bureaucracy and Co7?wiunis7?t. 221 
 
 To fight and to pay taxes ; tliese had been and these 
 remained his most important rights. But the bureaucratic 
 system, if it did not lighten his burthens, gave him some 
 compensation, gave him at least a well-regulated servitude, 
 gave him security against everybody except his rulers, 
 gave him a sense of national unity and opened up to 
 him a larger sphere of thought and action than he had 
 ever known before. Thus bureaucracy became popular 
 in all the great states of Eui'ope, and survived shocks 
 under which almost every other institution had perished. 
 For the people, W'hilst they wished to be well governed, 
 had long lost the power and even the inclination to 
 
 govern. 
 
 Having grown up in this manner, the bureaucracy 
 
 shared the sanctity of the sovereign. It was not at all 
 
 subject to popular control, and hardly at all exposed to 
 
 popular criticism. It was centralized to the last degree. 
 
 For it had grown with the growing absorption of 
 
 all inferior and intermediate powers by the monarchy. 
 
 In the despotic States of modern Europe the centml 
 
 authority tended to become the only authority. And the 
 
 bureaucracy of such States as France or Austria grew 
 
 up under a martial despotism. In their struggle with 
 
 feudalism, sovereigns had developed standing armies side 
 
 by side with bureaucracies. Under the Bourbons, the 
 
 Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Romanoffs, the 
 
 military was the most honourable of all professions, and 
 
 military ideas had penetrated into every department of 
 
 administration. The civil took the complexion of the 
 
 military service, and borrowed thence the principle of a 
 
 blind, unquestioning obedience to one distant and irrespon-
 
 2 2 2 L imits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 sible authority whose approval implied power and wealth, 
 whilst its censure carried disgrace and ruin. 
 
 Bureaucracies thus developed by despots for the purposes 
 of despotism, and under the inspiration of the mihtary spirit, 
 could not fail to display the vices sometimes imputed to all 
 skilled administrations. By a logical and necessary process 
 those who had been the instruments of tyranny became the 
 tyrants. Modern society is so vast and so complex as to, 
 elude the grasp of a single master. Its daily regulation is 
 too irksome and mtmotonous a task for the most active 
 and skilful man of business. But emperors and kings are 
 seldom endowed with much administrative skill or much 
 administrative activity. For the most part their youth is 
 consumed in pleasure, their maturer years are frittered 
 away in formality. They serve many purposes of sentiment 
 and imagination ; they are living, visible, and splendid objects 
 of love and hate ; they serve for historic memorials and for 
 national symbols ; but whenever they employ a bureaucracy, 
 a bureaucracy governs them. In all the great monarchies 
 of the Continent the administrative corporation rules ; but 
 it rules without responsibility and without glory. 
 
 Corporations of this kind tend to become as narrow as 
 they are powerful. Their members, great in the greatness 
 of the corporation, are in themselves nothing. Each 
 individual can operate, not in his own character, but only as 
 a portion of the huge machine. Thus in a bureaucracy 
 patriotism too often gives way to the spirit of the corps. 
 A bureaucracy almost invariably lacks flexibility, sympathy, 
 large views, the power of pursuing the same end with every 
 variety of means. It always is unable to leave well alone. 
 Fond of power, yet enslaved by routine, it breaks down
 
 Bureaucracy and Co7nmunism. 223 
 
 in the attempt to regulate and methodize even in the least 
 particular the mobiloj varying, and expanding life of a 
 modern nation. A modern nation can be governed only by 
 the nation itself. 
 
 Such I take to be the failings commonly imputed to 
 bureaucratic government. I have endeavoured to state 
 them in the strongest possible way. It is manifest that 
 these failings come of the peculiar history of Continental 
 bureaucracy, rather than of anything innate in administra- 
 tion by experts. And the historical conditions of Con- 
 tinental bureaucracy cannot bo found in our own country. 
 If we create an administrative machine, we shall create it 
 to supply wants of our own, wants which we clearly under- 
 stand. It will not resemble the administrative machine 
 created by a dynasty in order to fortify and enlarge its own 
 power. And we shall take care to keep in our own hands 
 such checking and controlling powers as no despot on the 
 Continent can retain. A bureaucracy accountable only to 
 the sovereign or to a minister, differs altogether from a 
 public service controlled at every turn by the Imperial 
 Parliament, by the courts of justice and by the public 
 press. For reputation all our higher pubhc servants look 
 to the public press, and for reward to the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. They are on all occasions liable to appear before 
 judges who are neither civil servants nor ministers of State, 
 whose tradition is one of equal justice, and whose bias is to 
 enlarge their own jurisdiction. All these circumstances are 
 peculiar to our own country, and all afford guarantees against 
 bureaucratic tyranny. 
 
 In the second place, we have ancient and effective munici- 
 pal liberties. In most parts of the Continent of Europe all
 
 2 24 L imits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 such have long since withered away. In mediaeval France 
 the peasants had scarcely known, and the burghers were not 
 strong enough to guard, local independence and self-govern- 
 ment. The civic liberties of Germany were weakened in the 
 Thirty Years' War, and annihilated by the crushing military 
 force of her sovereigns. The Russian village community is 
 too primitive an organization, the Eussian peasant is too 
 little removed from barbarism, not to be easily overborne by 
 a systematic central administration. But here in England 
 it is otherwise. Unequally developed and ill-organized as 
 our local institutions may be, they are still a reality. And 
 in strengthening and perfecting these we shall find a 
 counterpoise to the weight of an immense civil service. 
 
 When a great number of citizens partake in the business 
 of government, when these citizens live in a constant com- 
 merce of ideas with the rest, are chosen by them, act in 
 their eye, and after rendering an account to them return to 
 mingle in their ranks, then you have an administration too 
 much in unity with the people to tyrannize over it. As a 
 military despotism may be made impossible by identifying 
 the army with the nation, so a bureaucratic despotism may 
 be made impossible by identifying the administration with 
 the community. Such an administration makes up in free- 
 dom from routine what it wants in technical dexterity. 
 What it wants in perseverance it compensates in energy. 
 The close and intimate connection created by it between 
 those who administer and those whose affairs are adminis- 
 tered, ensures that stability which so often underlies the 
 turbulent surface of republican society. For by the alter- 
 nate experience of ruling and being ruled men best learn 
 how much governments can do for them and how much
 
 Bureaucracy and Communism. 
 
 -^-'D 
 
 they must do for themselves. They acqaire that habit of 
 temperate criticism which at once preserves and renews 
 institutions. A term of office is commonly the best sedative 
 for the revolutionary fever. 
 
 Elective and responsible municipal bodies, it is true, are 
 quite capable of corruption. They may become as corrupt 
 as the worst bureaucracy. In point of administrative 
 impurity some parts of the United States could challenge 
 comparison with Russia. Only an intelligent and inquisitive 
 public opinion can ensure administrative purity, and this 
 public opinion can operate only upon something conspicuous 
 and interesting. Administrative bodies, therefore, should 
 not be more numerous than their duties really require. In 
 England at the present day they are so many, their con- 
 stitutions are so various, their powers are so fragmentary 
 and conflicting, that not one citizen in ten can accurately 
 enumerate the several authorities which administer his muni- 
 cipal business, and not one citizen in a hundred can say 
 whether they administer it well or ill. Public opinion, 
 all powerful upon the Imperial Parliament, exercises no in- 
 fluence upon subordinate assemblies. A Board of Guar- 
 dians, or a Local Board is virtually as irresponsible as any 
 servant of a centralized bureaucracy. For its members 
 there is neither praise nor blame, neither gratitude or 
 unpopularity. Able and ambitious men will seldom serve 
 upon such a board. But indifi'erenco, incompetence, jobbery, 
 and extravagance are veiy likely to sit there. 
 
 If we would ensure the honesty, industry, aud public 
 spirit of elective and unpaid officers, we must make their 
 station honourable, their duties important, their present 
 power and their prospect of promotion considerabk'. Within
 
 2 2 6 L iinits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 eacli of tlie areas now comprised in a single Poor Law 
 Union there should be one local authority and no more. 
 This authority should discharge all the functions now par- 
 celled out among the six or seven authorities who divide the 
 administration of such an area. Within each county there 
 should be a real county authority, entrusted not only with 
 the control of county roads, county prisons and asylums, 
 but also with a large share of the supervising, admonishing, 
 and controlling power now centred in Whitehall, and of the 
 power of private legislation now centred in the Houses of 
 Parliament. Immense would be the relief thus given to the 
 imperial executive and legislature. But more momentous 
 still would be the impulse given to provincial public life. 
 Local politics, once more important, would once more be 
 interesting; men of talent would once more be willing to 
 serve upon local bodies ; local bodies would once more be 
 braced by local criticism; and a wave of administrative 
 energy and pubhc spirit would pass over the whole 
 kingdom. 
 
 But the renovation of municipal institutions will not alone 
 meet the administrative demands of modern society. Federal 
 government seems destined to play in the future a part 
 which it has never filled in the past. Centralized mon- 
 archies have nearly done their work. The great nations 
 have been fully consolidated. The joint European civiHza- 
 tion has become palpable. Whilst each society continues to 
 expand, each individual claims more and more attention. 
 One legislature and one executive are not equal to the 
 wants of thirty or forty millions. In our own country the 
 House of Commons is bewildered by its own power. Not 
 content with legislating, it undertakes to control in every
 
 Biireaiicracy and Comumiiisin. 227 
 
 petty detail the administration of the law. If a steamer 
 runs down a fishing-boat, if a schoolboy is flog-ged unduly, 
 if a justice of the peace makes use of some strong expression, 
 half a dozen honourable members are eager to put questions 
 and to raise a debate. And as it is with the House of 
 Commons here, so it is with the sovereign power in France, 
 in Germany, in almost all modern States. In each the 
 sovereign power, having absorbed all miuor powers, is 
 breaking down under its own omnipotence. 
 
 Modern States are on the one hand too large, on the other 
 too small. They are too large for good internal administra- 
 tion, and too small to ensure a general peace. On the one 
 hand a federation of all civilized peoples ; on the other a 
 federation of the constituent members of each people ; this 
 would seem the happiest goal of political development. 
 But federation can succeed only where the confederate 
 States are parts of a thoroughly homogeneous people. 
 Federation only supplies organization and arms to distinct 
 and unfriendly communities hitherto subjected to one 
 sovereignty. 
 
 If the people have knowledge and public spirit, the more 
 powerful the administration, the more it can do good it will 
 do. The more a citizen can do for himself, the more a public 
 authority can do for him. For the administration and the 
 people are not two naturally hostile powers, the one gaining 
 only that which is lost to the other. The administrative 
 system is merely the organization of the people for certain 
 purposes of public good, and the more complete each citizen 
 becomes, the more complete will be the organization. If 
 the people are so ignorant and incapable that they cannot, 
 or so selfish and indolent that they will not control the 
 
 Q 2
 
 2 28 Limits of Individual L iberty. 
 
 administration of their own affairs, then the administration will 
 better the example of their weakness or their baseness. So 
 exactly is the worth of a nation measured by the worth of 
 its servants. So completely does the improvement of insti- 
 tutions run upon a circle with the improvement of men. So 
 helpless apart from human life is the machine which multi- 
 plies human strength. No cunning contrivance of boards 
 and inspectors, no artful balancing of checks and powers, 
 no system of elections primary and secondary, no freedom of 
 unlicenced printing and speaking can ever replace that first 
 requisite of a good government — character and intelligence, 
 real sterling worth in those who are to be governed. 
 Because it is so hard to get a nation of real men, it is so hard 
 to get a really useful administrative system. But we must 
 not accept as natural and necessary the vices of any existing 
 administration. Only weak politicians acquiesce in the 
 alternative of evils. The true statesman, in the face of dis- 
 couragement and defeat, persists in believing that all good 
 things tend to aid and to foster one another. He knows 
 how inherently deceitful is abstract perfection ; how delusive 
 is abstract regularity, or abstract strength or abstract 
 freedom ; he does not imagine freedom, strength, or regu- 
 larity can be achieved by caring for any one of them apart 
 from all the rest; but rather feels that he can secure any 
 one of them only in so far as he has secured the others. 
 He will not confess that municipal independence must 
 exclude national unity, or that the liberty of the individual 
 is hostile to the efficiency of the government. 
 
 Again, those who advocate a large conception of the 
 duties of the State are said to advocate, not only bureaucracy,
 
 Bttreaucracy and Com^minisiii. 229 
 
 but communism as well. Bureaucratic government does in- 
 deed stimulate all tendencies to communism ; and this in two 
 ways, firstly by entailing immense expenditure and heavy 
 taxation, and secondly by accustoming people to rely for 
 the satisfaction of all their wants, not upon their own efforts, 
 but upon the paternal care of their government. But as we 
 have tried to show that an active and enterprising adminis- 
 tration need not involve anything known as bureaucracy, so 
 we shall now try to distinguish from communism a large 
 public expenditure upon the education of the individual. 
 We shall try to fix the limit at which, upon our theory, 
 taxation passes into confiscation. At the present day it is 
 of the utmost consequence that this limit should be clearly 
 and certainly defined. Towards fixing it we can here only 
 offer one or two considerations. 
 
 In principle there is no limit to the proportion of private 
 wealth which may be diverted to public purposes. In 
 practice, cases may arise in which society must enforce this 
 extreme right to dispose of individual resources. There 
 need not be anything harsh or unreasonable in such a policy. 
 The life of every citizen is more sacred than his property, 
 yet every citizen holds his life subject to the exigencies of 
 public defence and of public justice. But whilst ail sensible 
 men acknowledge this primary and indefeasible lien of the 
 community upon each member's purse, they differ very 
 widely as to the best way of enforcing it, or the degree in 
 which it ought to be enforced at all. 
 
 Thus political economists, in their zeal against indirect 
 taxation, have sometimes forgotten that certain indirect 
 taxes may be commended upon moral or social ground?;.
 
 230 L imits of IndividMal L iberty 
 
 A heavy customs or excise duty imposed upon totacco or 
 spirituous liquors does not really interfere with their mo- 
 derate use, although it imposes a penalty upon their gross 
 abuse. Such taxation acts as a sumptuary law without the 
 attending evils of petty tyranny and ceaseless interference. 
 On this ground it seems preferable to a direct taxation, 
 which must always divert a certain amount of wealth from 
 reproductive uses. Again, carriages, male domestic servants, 
 and plate are for the most part luxuries, contrivances for 
 consuming food or for locking up capital. Heavy taxes 
 upon such articles, without impoverishing any one, would 
 conduce to simplicity of life. Aud everything which con- 
 duces to simplicity of life is to be prized in a country 
 like our own, where every class is^in its own degree rich 
 and improvident. It is our singular fortune, good or bad, 
 that we can raise an immense revenue out of impositions 
 upon articles which owe all their value to the coarser 
 appetites. Why should any man trouble himself to transfer 
 this revenue from the coffers of the State into the pockets of 
 the purveyors of luxury ? 
 
 Again, the earlier economists were prone to treat with 
 too much tenderness, whilst recent philanthropists have 
 been prone to deal too harshly with the spirit of accumu- 
 lation. The impulse to accumulate is neither a moral nor 
 an immoral, but a purely natural impulse. As such it 
 deserves neither absolute reverence nor absolute contempt. 
 It would be very unreasonable to speak of the desire for 
 accumulation as if it were in itself a precious or a beautiful 
 thing, as if it must always and in all degrees be a good thing, 
 as if, under any circumstances whatsoever, we could never 
 have too much of it. Yet the instinct for accumulation is a
 
 Bureauc7'acy and ComntMnism. 
 
 2-?! 
 
 motive superior in some ways to other unthinking instincts. 
 It is a far-sighted desire which enables men to master their 
 passing fancies and to form the habit of self-control. The 
 great majority of men are, and always will be non-moral. 
 That is to say, reason will be able to sway their actions 
 only by playing off one unreasoning appetite against another. 
 Our friends the Socialists are apt to overlook this unpleasant 
 truth, and so to undervalue the desire of accumulation. For 
 this desire is but the artificial form of the natural passion 
 for life. It is simply the civilized instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. In the present posture of human affairs, with the 
 present dispositions of men's minds, to hope that the State 
 can be rich if the citizen does not care for riches, is merely 
 to affirm the truth of two contradictories. 
 
 Moreover, the impulse to accumulate is of very variable 
 strength. There is great reason to think that we are 
 entering upon an epoch in which the desire of accumulation 
 will become little less than a frenzy. It grows vsdth the last- 
 ing tendency of civilization to make men more prudent, and 
 with the present tendency of civilization to make men more 
 selfish. Life daily becomes more difficult to maintain. The 
 means of making it more easy, a limiting of our numbers and 
 a reform in our manners, will not be tried until every other 
 remedy has been tried in vain. So long as it is difficult 
 to live, there will be a struggle for the means of living. So 
 Ion o- as men are insatiable of pleasure, they will be insatiable 
 of the means of pleasing themselves. Thus it is quite con- 
 ceivable that the spirit of accumulation, elsewhere all too 
 weak, may in our crowded Western Europe become so 
 unruly as to need repression rather than encouragement. 
 In these countries, where accumulation has become a habit,
 
 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 a necessity, a fanaticism, the government may appropriate 
 a very considerable share of private fortunes without any 
 fear of destroying the appetite for wealth. 
 
 Upon the same principle we may justify a scheme of 
 graduated taxation. As the poor need a long time to 
 make even small savings, and can hardly hope to make such 
 savings as will give them ease, the poor are generally prone 
 to present pleasure and little disposed to save. But as the 
 rich can save a large sum in a short time, can save it without 
 pain, and can see the social effect of their saving, they are 
 inclined to think, not less of the present, but more of the 
 future. Thus the spirit of accumulation is stronger in tlie 
 rich than in the poor, and therefore it is safe to tax the rich 
 in a heavier proportion. For rich men devoid of this spirit, 
 there are so many opportunities and temptations to spend, 
 that much of their Avealth would in any case be wasted, 
 and they can meet a heavier taxation by a stricter 
 prudence. 
 
 I can discover no valid objection to a graduated succession 
 duty or to a graduated income-tax. But it seems to me 
 that in imposing taxes we should consider only the neces- 
 sities of the State and the abilities of the citizen. Let us 
 beware how we lose sight of the landmarks of justice in a 
 fog of sophistry, yield up our ears to the jargon of unearned 
 increments, or surrender our understandings to the meta- 
 physic of proscription, of spoliation, and of nationalization. 
 We have seen clever men propose, and a great part of 
 the populace accept a plan for confiscating all the landed 
 property of the United Kingdom. Many circumstances 
 doubtless have helped to make this project plausible. The 
 preposterous absurdities of the law relatiug to real property.
 
 Bureaucracy and Communism. 233 
 
 tlie coiifusiou of mind whicli is always trying to fix some 
 abstract natural rights, a widespread half -knowledge of the 
 history of England^ and a sense of the miseries produced in 
 town and country by a policy of laissez-faire, have all 
 contributed to feed this agitation. But its main strength 
 lies in the prospect which nationalization affords of crushing 
 a political party by the imposition of a new tax, of placing 
 an enormous revenue in the hands of those who can gain 
 the ear of the labouring man, and of rescuing everybody 
 from the hard necessity of prudence, diligence, temperance, 
 and self-control. 
 
 What is an unearned increment ? Who can compute how 
 much of the present value of the land of England is due to 
 improvements made by those who have held it, or in what 
 degree the charge of those improvements was defrayed 
 out of earlier unearned increments, out of real or personal 
 estate ? Shall we fix a date, after which all increase in the 
 value of land shall be transferred to the public treasury ? 
 At what point of time shall we fix this date ? What is the 
 amount of the real and genuine increase in the value of 
 land? Landed property may rise in price, it may yield 
 a larger income ; but during the same period the value of 
 gold may be much depreciated; the standard of living, not 
 only among the class of proscribed owners, but throughout 
 the nation, may have risen ; new circumstances may bring 
 new necessities and new ideas ; so that in the nineteenth 
 century men may not be able to live in comfort and decency 
 upon a revenue which in the fifteenth century would have 
 afforded a surplus to luxury and ostentation. Moreover, 
 landed property may fall as well as rise in value ; it may so 
 rise and fall ten times within the life of one generation.
 
 2 34 ^ ^^''^ ^^^ ^f Individual L iberty . 
 
 With each rise or fall the capital laid out in developing such 
 property may yield more or less than the average return. 
 If the owner is not to enjoy the benefit, why should he be 
 oppressed with the burthen of chance ? His land has in the 
 one case gained, in the other lost value beyond his expecta- 
 tion. If we do not guarantee him against the loss, why 
 should we grudge him the gain ? 
 
 Why should we talk of unearned increments only in 
 respect of the income accruing from land ? If the funds of 
 a foreign State or the shares of a railway at home rise twenty 
 per cent, in one year, is not that an unearned increment ? 
 If the pictures of Sandro Botticelli or Cecil Lawson are 
 doubled in market value by the writings of an eloquent and 
 fashionable critic, do not their possessors obtain an unearned 
 increment ? If a new canal through the Isthmus of Suez 
 substitutes steamers for sailing-vessels in the Oriental trade, 
 does there not result to the owners of steam- ships an unearned 
 increment ? Is there a single act of virtue, a single gleam 
 of intelligence, a siiigle lucky discovery which does not 
 bring unearned increment to many people ? 
 
 The proscription Avhich overtakes one class of owners 
 must soon overtake all. In England landowners are the 
 most exposed. But on the Continent of Europe, where land- 
 owners are strong and numerous, capitalists he most open 
 to attack. Nobody can doubt that on the Continent the 
 people are much more likely to confiscate capital than to 
 confiscate laud. And in every country every owner of 
 property must feel that under the law of unearned increment, 
 chance alone determines whether or no the sort of property 
 held by him shall be confiscated next. So that the proposal 
 to relieve the taxpayer by intercepting the unearned incre-
 
 Bureaucracy and Communism. 235 
 
 meut of laud would entail all the practical consequences of 
 general confiscation. For the doctinne of the unearned in- 
 crement involves the idea of property in hopeless confusion. 
 Property has no otlier guarantee than the public conscience, 
 and the public conscience cannot act forcibly in defence of 
 an object which it cannot apprehend. We have seen in our 
 own time how the doctrine of unearned increments slips 
 into the doctrine of nationalization ; and either doctrine 
 applied to any one species of private property, will speedily 
 be applied to all. 
 
 It may be alleged that all taxation is really confiscation, 
 that they differ only in degree, and that they can be separated 
 by no impassable line. I answer that difierences of degree, 
 although they may be of no account in mathematical, are of 
 the utmost importance in moral science ; that the line which 
 divides taxation from confiscation, however invisible to theme- 
 taphysic eye, is palpable enough to common sense. It is con- 
 fiscation to take away the property of one man upon grounds 
 which apply equally to other men whom you leave unmolested. 
 It is confiscation to take away the property of any man, not 
 as a punishment, nor yet in order to make good an over- 
 whelming public necessity, but simply upon the strength of a 
 distinction vague, wavering, and unfixed, a distinction which 
 could be verified only by revising every economic transaction 
 in the long history of a great people, a distinction which 
 could be enforced only by committing uumbei'less acts of 
 injustice, reducing many thousand families to destitution, and 
 introducing an inveterate, incurable, and mortal perplexity 
 into the whole course of business and conduct of life. All 
 this is confiscation, because it is inequitable, because it is 
 irrational, because it defeats every attempt to define rights
 
 236 L ii)i its of Individual L iberty. 
 
 or to measure liabilities, because it nips the root of that 
 confidence, in its origin, if you like illogical, but in its effect 
 the principle of whatever prosperity men now enjoy. 
 
 No doubt any acknowledged right when urged to its 
 abstract consequences becomes a concrete abuse. No doubt 
 it is only in books of jurisprudence that the right of private 
 property can be stretched into an unlimited right of use and 
 abuse. As laud is the most important form of property, so 
 do the powers of landowners call for a temperate use on 
 their part and a careful control on the part of the legislator. 
 Men who abuse the rights of property, and governments 
 who connive at such abuse, end by briuging about a condi- 
 tion of afiairs in which all laws must bend to the law of 
 self-preservation. Society will not and should not commit 
 suicide even in defence of the most sacred rights. When 
 law can be enforced only by the general destruction of the 
 subject, then surely it would be folly and guilt to assert the 
 law. In such a case the statesman's task is to arbitrate 
 between factions which cannot be quelled, and to obtain for 
 the vanquished a favourable capitulation. When he has 
 done his best, the beaten party will have much to suffer. 
 But they cannot blame the rulers of the people, to whom 
 the safety of the people must ever be the paramount law. 
 
 Such a crisis, however, constitutes a revolution. Revolu- 
 tions have no rule but necessity, and admit of no justification 
 but success. From the precedents of revolution no wise 
 man will draw maxims for the guidance of society in quiet 
 times. It is the first duty of the statesman to render the 
 methods of revolution obsolete by making thera unnecessary. 
 Among these methods confiscation holds the foremost place. 
 As a source of wealth to regular governments, it does not
 
 Bureaucracy and CommMnism. 237 
 
 deserve to be named. As an instrument of social reform, ifc 
 corrupts the majority by ruining a minority no more guilty 
 than themselves. 
 
 In dealing with the problem of taxation we must adopt 
 one of two alternatives. Either we must agree to treat 
 that which every man now possesses as lawfully his own, 
 subject always to the calls which the State may make upon 
 all citizens in proportion to their means, or we must boldly 
 declare that no man has any claim to anything which is not 
 the work of his own hands. The one is the principle upon 
 which all great statesmen have hitherto acted ; the other 
 is the principle of pure communism. As compared with 
 all schemes for the partial or total confiscation of private 
 property in land, the theory of communism has the advantage 
 at least in ideal simplicity, and beauty. 
 
 If we are to relinquish the principle upon which reposes 
 the whole of our actual civilization, if we are to leave the 
 track of historic development for regions of imagination ^ 
 it is better to give our imagination full scope and not to lose 
 the pleasures of the ideal whilst forfeiting the advantages of 
 the real. The institution of private property, like every other 
 human institution, cannot but awake very mingled emotions 
 in all reflecting minds. No feeling person can think without 
 grief and shame and indignation of the monotonous, degrad- 
 ing, hopeless, almost unrequited labour to which we owe 
 so much of our wealth, or of the senseless, shameless, per- 
 nicious luxury and waste in which so much of that wealth is 
 squandered. But our civilization, with all its vices, is some- 
 thing which few are really prepared to cast away ; and our 
 civilization is menaced by every proposal, direct or indirect, 
 to confiscate private property.
 
 238 Lnn its of Individua I L ibcrty . 
 
 In an age of movement and enthusiasm, many upright men 
 are apt to forget that the reformer does not begin to write 
 upon a clean slate. He has to complete the half -written 
 sentence. He has to produce the ideal out of the actual 
 and by the help of the actual. We must admit the con- 
 tinuous life of our society. We must accept as valid the 
 public acts which were valid in the past and on the prin- 
 ciples of the past. We may not elude our obligations by 
 saying that the sovereign power of the present time is not 
 constituted in the same way as the sovereign power which 
 created a tenure in the eleventh, or a public debt in the 
 eighteenth century. For political evolution is incessant, 
 and men can have no political life if they will restrict it to 
 the type of the hour. A society which upon every extension 
 of the franchise, every redistribution of seats, every formal 
 or substantial variation in the interdependence of King, 
 Lords, and Commons, every change in the relation of 
 members to their constituents, should claim to be a new 
 society, to remodel rights and duties and make a fresh 
 division of property, might indeed be a society of unpreju- 
 diced philosophers, but would return under philosophic 
 forms to the substance of barbaric despotism, in which the 
 sovereign power is the mere embodiment of passionate 
 caprice. 
 
 Those who imagine that a change in the political centre 
 of gravity justifies a nation in wiping out history, forget 
 that under the most immovable constitution both sub- 
 jects and rulers are for ever changing. Our place is 
 appointed for us without our consent. We live by making 
 the best of a lot which we did not choose. We are members 
 of a body which has lived and will go on living through un-
 
 Bureaucracy and Communism. 239 
 
 told ages. Did we not accept the burtlieu of this destiny, did 
 we not ratify the acts of men whom we could not control, and 
 with whom we could have but few thoughts in commonj did 
 we not trust that what we have done in respect to them others 
 will do in respect to us, the spiritual tie would be broken, 
 mankind would be reduced to a mob, progress would be 
 impossible, and civilization, happiness, and life itself would 
 come to a speedy end. Nor has any generation the right to 
 murmur against these responsibilities. Each successive 
 generation owes its strength and its glory to this sacred 
 confidence. This unspoken, unwritten, but fundamental 
 understanding secui^es every man's place in the history of 
 mankind. The affection and the duty which bind us to the 
 past and the future are as strong, as sweet, as much beyond 
 price as the duty and affection which bind us to our kindred 
 and our friends. Rights which our society has long 
 acknowledged and loug enforced may find no place in the 
 ideal society ; but when they must be extinguishetl, our 
 humanity, our honour, and our conscience are all interested 
 in making sure that every citizen contributes to indemnify 
 those who have offended merely in acting upon the moral 
 ideas and in obedience to the positive laws of their 
 country. 
 
 In a cei'tain sense it may be said that we have to be even 
 more cautious in dealing with property than in dealing with 
 life. Few even of the most depraved have any keen or 
 unmixed delight in spilling blood. Rarely in modern times 
 can the death of an innocent man further the ambition of a 
 minister, gratify the revenge of a priest, or add a new 
 sensation to the pleasures of the people. But in modern 
 times a thousand uuconfessed motives urge us to increase
 
 240 Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
 taxation and to tax individuals or classes. An enlarged 
 revenue promises to the minister patronage and influence ; 
 to the civil servant an ampler remuneration ; to the upper 
 and middle classes a wider range of appointments ; to the 
 working man increased employment ; to all who suSer, and 
 to all who pity suffering, the means of vast social amelio- 
 ration. And when men come to feel that an enlarged 
 revenue means heavier contributions, they are likely to cast 
 about for criminals to fine. It is so pleasant at once to save 
 your money, to punish the scourges of society, and without 
 any labour or self-denial of your own to enjoy all the luxuries 
 of a gratified social sensibility. 
 
 That the age in which democracy has triumphed should 
 also be the age of enormous public burthens need cause no 
 surprise. In our age taxation must increase. The execu- 
 tion of great public improvements demands a great public 
 expenditure. The intelligent will do better service by 
 trying to direct than by trying to suppress the costly 
 energy of imperial and municipal authorities. But it 
 behoves us all to be cautious, circumspect, and critical in 
 approving any new imposition. We should remember how 
 little any government can be trusted with superfluous 
 wealth; the certainty of waste and the probability of corrup- 
 tion. We should remember that the benevolence of our 
 intentions does not relieve us from the ungracious duty of 
 economy. The mechanical improvements of the nineteenth 
 century have suddenly multiplied our resources. But the 
 only perennial fountain of riches, public or private, is 
 frugality. Wind as we may, we always come back to the 
 necessity of self-command. If we do not understand that 
 necessity, we are the poorer for all our wealtli. We are but
 
 Bureaucracy and Communism. 241 
 
 playing with doubled stakes a game that must end in 
 ruin and dishonour. Most fatally shall we err if we try to 
 remedy the effects of national profusion, or even the deep- 
 seated maladies of our social system by toying with methods 
 which must enslave all who adopt them. Let us not 
 surrender our common sense and common justice to any 
 impulse either of mean envy or of noble indignation. So 
 long as we intend to respect private property at all, let us 
 respect it in every shape. Or if, indeed, the distinctions 
 between various kinds of private property are so deep as some 
 suppose, let us not use those distinctions merely to colour 
 our political passions, and to destroy in the name of political 
 justice whole classes and categories of our fellow-countrymen. 
 
 We need not and we should not accept as final the 
 economic conditions of our own time. Far from rejecting 
 the ideal of a fair day^s work for a fair day's wages, we may 
 well regai'd it as the acme of all social arrangements. It is 
 quite true that those who preach this ideal sometimes forget 
 the very different value of different kinds of work. Work 
 which directly produces wealth may be ten thousand times 
 less valuable than the work of those who can really govern 
 or teach. But upon this understanding that service is to be 
 justly appraised, there can be no objection to paying every 
 man in proportion to his services. 
 
 Nor, if we believe in this ideal, need we sit still with folded 
 hands, waiting for evil to evolve good. Only we must 
 understand the complexity of our problem. We must not 
 think by any single measure to establish a perfectly just 
 society. Least of all may we hope to do so by any arbitrary 
 transfer of property. A society in which every man is 
 valued at his true worth, and all worthy men are brothers, is 
 
 R
 
 242 L Wilts of Individual L iberty. 
 
 not so easy to be established. Before such a society can 
 come into beings men must put forth an intelligence^ a 
 temperance, an industry, and a public spirit which have 
 never been witnessed in past history. For it is folly to 
 think that a moral transformation of the whole can be 
 eflfected without a moral transformation of the parts. 
 Ignorant, coarse, and selfish as nearly all men have always 
 been, no mere mechanical readjustment of wealth or power 
 can order them into a wise, refined, and disinterested society. 
 All that the highest political wisdom can effect is to supply 
 conditions under which this individual transformation may 
 become possible to all men. The rest is the task of morality 
 and religion.
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE, ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
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