On Liberty

Barnes & Noble

Chapter One

The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunatelyopposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; butCivil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can belegitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldomstated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundlyinfluences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and islikely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It isso far from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almostfrom the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the morecivilized portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself undernew conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuousfeature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularlyin that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contestwas between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. Byliberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers.The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments ofGreece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom theyruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, whoderived their authority from inheritance or conquest, who, at all events, didnot hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men didnot venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions mightbe taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary,but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attemptto use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. Toprevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon byinnumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of preystronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king ofthe vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock, than any of theminor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defenceagainst his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limitsto the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community;and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. It was attempted intwo ways. First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, calledpolitical liberties or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty inthe ruler to infringe, and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, orgeneral rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally a laterexpedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks; by which theconsent of the community, or of a body of some sort, supposed to representits interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more importantacts of the governing power. To the first of these modes of limitation, theruling power, in most European countries, was compelled, more or less, tosubmit. It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or when already insome degree possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywherethe principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind werecontent to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, oncondition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against his tyranny,they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.

A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when menceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should be anindependent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It appeared to themmuch better that the various magistrates of the State should be their tenantsor delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, couldthey have complete security that the powers of government would never beabused to their disadvantage. By degrees, this new demand for elective andtemporary rules became the prominent object of the exertions of the popularparty, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a considerableextent, the previous efforts to limit the power of rulers. As the struggleproceeded for making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choiceof the ruled, some persons began to think that too much importance hadbeen attached to the limitation of the power itself. That (it might seem) wasa resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to thoseof the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest andwill of the nation. The nation did not need to be protected against its ownwill. There was no fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers beeffectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it could afford totrust them with power of which it could itself dictate the use to be made.Their power was but the nation's own power, concentrated, and in a formconvenient for exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling,was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in theContinental section of which, it still apparently predominates. Those whoadmit any limit to what a government may do, except in the case of suchgovernments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant exceptionsamong the political thinkers of the Continent. A similar tone of sentimentmight by this time have been prevalent in our own country, if thecircumstances which for a time encouraged it, had continued unaltered.

But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, successdiscloses faults and infirmities which failure might have concealed fromobservation. The notion, that the people have no need to limit their powerover themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular government was athing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some distantperiod of the past. Neither was that notion necessarily disturbed by suchtemporary aberrations as those of the French Revolution, the worst ofwhich were the work of an usurping few, and which, in any case, belonged,not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a sudden andconvulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic despotism. Intime, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large portion of theearth's surface, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful members ofthe community of nations; and elective and responsible government becamesubject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a greatexisting fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government,"and "the power of the people over themselves," do not express the true stateof the case. The "people" who exercise the power, are not always the samepeople with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government"spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all therest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means, the will of themost numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or thosewho succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people,consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautionsare as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power. Thelimitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals, losesnone of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountableto the community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view of things,recommending itself equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclinationof those important classes in European society to whose real orsupposed interests democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishingitself; and in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority" is nowgenerally included among the evils against which society requires to be onits guard.

Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is stillvulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the publicauthorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself thetyrant - society collectively, over the separate individuals who composeit - its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do bythe hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its ownmandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandatesat all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a socialtyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since,though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer meansof escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslavingthe soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrateis not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of theprevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose,by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules ofconduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, ifpossible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with itsways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of itsown. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinionwith individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it againstencroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, asprotection against political despotism.

But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms,the practical question, where to place the limit - how to make the fittingadjustment between individual independence and social control - is a subjecton which nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes existencevaluable to any one, depends on the enforcement of restraints uponthe actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must beimposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which arenot fit subjects for the operation of law. What these rules should be, is theprincipal question in human affairs; but if we except a few of the mostobvious cases, it is one of those which least progress has been made inresolving. No two ages, and scarcely any two countries, have decided italike; and the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another. Yet thepeople of any given age and country no more suspect any difficulty in it,than if it were a subject on which mankind had always been agreed. Therules which obtain among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-justifying.This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of themagical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, asecond nature, but is continually mistaken for the first. The effect of custom,in preventing any misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankindimpose on one another, is all the more complete because the subject is oneon which it is not generally considered necessary that reasons should begiven, either by one person to others, or by each to himself. People areaccustomed to believe, and have been encouraged in the belief by somewho aspire to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on subjectsof this nature, are better than reasons, and render reasons unnecessary. Thepractical principle which guides them to their opinions on the regulation ofhuman conduct, is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody shouldbe required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would likethem to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his standard ofjudgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point of conduct, notsupported by reasons, can only count as one person's preference; and if thereasons, when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt by otherpeople, it is still only many people's liking instead of one. To an ordinaryman, however, his own preference, thus supported, is not only a perfectlysatisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has for any of his notionsof morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written in his religiouscreed; and his chief guide in the interpretation even of that. Men'sopinions, accordingly, on what is laudable or blameable, are affected by allthe multifarious causes which influence their wishes in regard to the conductof others, and which are as numerous as those which determine theirwishes on any other subject. Sometimes their reason - at other times theirprejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not seldom theirantisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or contemptuousness:but most commonly, their desires or fears for themselves - their legitimateor illegitimate self-interest. Wherever there is an ascendant class, alarge portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests,and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between Spartans andHelots, between planters and negroes, between princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between men and women, has been for themost part the creation of these class interests and feelings: and the sentimentsthus generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the membersof the ascendant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on theother hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where itsascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bearthe impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another grand determiningprinciple of the rules of conduct, both in act and forbearance, whichhave been enforced by law or opinion, has been the servility of mankindtowards the supposed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters, orof their gods. This servility, though essentially selfish, is not hypocrisy; itgives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments of abhorrence; it made men burnmagicians and heretics. Among so many baser influences, the general andobvious interests of society have of course had a share, and a large one, inthe direction of the moral sentiments: less, however, as a matter of reason,and on their own account, than as a consequence of the sympathies andantipathies which grew out of them: and sympathies and antipathies whichhad little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have made themselvesfelt in the establishment of moralities with quite as great force.

Continues...

Excerpted from On Libertyby John Stuart Mill Copyright © 2004 by John Stuart Mill. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.