The Internet Wiretap online edition of

                 ON LIBERTY
                     by
               JOHN STUART MILL

          Harvard Classics Volume 25
      Copyright 1909 P.F. Collier & Son

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

  THE subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty
of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the mis-
named doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil,
or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which
can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.
A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in gen-
eral terms, but which profoundly influences the practical
controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely
soon to make itself recognized as the vital question of the
future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense,
it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but
in the stage of progress into which the more civilized por-
tions of the species have now entered, it presents itself
under new conditions, and requires a different and more fun-
damental treatment.

  The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most
conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which
we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome,
and England. But in old times this contest was between
subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government.
By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the
political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some
of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily
antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They
consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste,
who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest;
who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the gov-
erned, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps
did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be
taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was re-
garded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a
weapon which they would attempt to use against their sub-
jects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent
the weaker members of the community from being preyed
upon by innumerable vultures, it was needful that there
should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commis-
sioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures
would be no less bent upon preying upon the flock than any
of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a per-
petual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The
aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to 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 in two ways. First, by obtaining
a recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties
or rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty
in the ruler to infringe, and which, if he did infringe, specific
resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A
second, and generally a later expedient, was the establish-
ment of constitutional checks; by which the consent of the
community, or of a body of some sort supposed to represent
its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the
more important acts of the governing power. To the first
of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most
European countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit.
It was not so with the second; and to attain this, or when
already in some degree possessed, to attain it more com-
pletely, became everywhere the principal object of the lovers
of liberty. And so long as mankind were content to combat
one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master, on con-
dition 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 men ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their
governors should be an independent power, opposed in in-
terest to themselves. It appeared to them much better that
the various magistrates of the State should be their tenants
or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that way alone,
it seemed, could they have complete security that the powers
of government would never be abused to their disadvan-
tage. By degrees, this new demand for elective and tem-
porary rulers became the prominent object of the exertions
of the popular party, wherever any such party existed; and
superseded, to a considerable extent, the previous efforts to
limit the power of rulers. As the struggle proceeded for
making the ruling power emanate from the periodical choice
of the ruled, some persons began to think that too much im-
portance had been attached to the limitation of the power
itself. That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers
whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the peo-
ple. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be
identified with the people; that their interest and will should
be the interest and will of the nation. The nation did not
need to be protected against its own will. There was no
fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let the rulers be ef-
fectually responsible to it, promptly removable by it, and it
could afford to trust 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 form convenient for ex-
ercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps of feeling,
was common among the last generation of European liberal-
ism, in the Continental section of which, it still apparently
predominates. Those who admit any limit to what a gov-
ernment may do, except in the case of such governments
as they think ought not to exist, stand out as brilliant ex-
ceptions among the political thinkers of the Continent. A
similar tone of sentiment might by this time have been
prevalent in our own country, if the circumstances which
for a time encouraged it had continued unaltered.

  But, in political and philosophical theories, as well as in
persons, success discloses faults and infirmities which failure
might have concealed from observation. The notion, that
the people have no need to limit their power over themselves,
might seem axiomatic, when popular government was a thing
only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some
distant period of the past. Neither was that notion neces-
sarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of
the French Revolution, the worst of which 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 and convulsive outbreak against monarchical and
aristocratic despotism. In time, however, a democratic
republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's sur-
face, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful mem-
bers of the community of nations; and elective and respon-
sible government became subject to the observations and
criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It was
now perceived that such phrases as "self-government," and
"the power of the people over themselves," do not express
the true state of the case. The "people" who exercise the
power, are not always the same people 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 the
rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means,
the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the
people; the majority, or those who succeed in making them-
selves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently,
may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precau-
tions are as much needed against this, as against any other
abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of
government over individuals, loses none of its importance
when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the
community, that is, to the strongest party therein. This view
of things, recommending itself equally to the intelligence
of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes
in European society to whose real or supposed interests de-
mocracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself;
and in political speculations "the tyranny of the majority"
is now generally included among the evils against which
society requires to be on its guard.

  Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at
first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operat-
ing through the acts of the public authorities. But reflect-
ing persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant
--society collectively, over the separate individuals who
compose it--its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the
acts which it may do by the hands of its political function-
aries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and
if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any man-
dates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it
practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds
of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by
such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, pen-
etrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslav-
ing the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny
of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also
against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling;
against the tendency of society to impose, by other means
than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of
conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the de-
velopment, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any in-
dividuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all
characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its
own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of col-
lective opinion with individual independence; and to find
that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as in-
dispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protec-
tion 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 fitting adjustment between individ-
ual independence and social control--is a subject on which
nearly everything remains to be done. All that makes exist-
ence valuable to any one, depends on the enforcement of
restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of
conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first
place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit sub-
jects for the operation of law. What these rules should be,
is the principal question in human affairs; but if we except
a few of the most obvious cases, it is one of those which
least progress has been made in resolving. No two ages,
and scarcely any two countries, have decided it alike; and
the decision of one age or country is a wonder to another.
Yet the people of any given age and country no more sus-
pect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which
mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain
among themselves appear to them self-evident and self-
justifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the
examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only,
as the proverb says a second nature, but is continually mis-
taken for the first. The effect of custom, in preventing any
misgiving respecting the rules of conduct which mankind
impose on one another, is all the more complete because the
subJect is one on which it is not generally considered neces-
sary that reasons should be given, either by one person to
others, or by each to himself. People are accustomed to believe
and have been encouraged in the belief by some who aspire
to the character of philosophers, that their feelings, on sub-
jects of this nature, are better than reasons, and render
reasons unnecessary. The practical principle which guides
them to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct,
is the feeling in each person's mind that everybody should
be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes,
would like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to
himself that his standard of judgment is his own liking; but
an opinion on a point of conduct, not supported by reasons,
can only count as one person's preference; and if the reasons,
when given, are a mere appeal to a similar preference felt
by other people, it is still only many people's liking instead
of one. To an ordinary man, however, his own preference,
thus supported, is not only a perfectly satisfactory reason,
but the only one he generally has for any of his notions of
morality, taste, or propriety, which are not expressly written
in his religious creed; and his chief guide in the inter-
pretation even of that. Men's opinions, accordingly, on what
is laudable or blamable, are affected by all the multifari-
ous causes which influence their wishes in regard to the
conduct of others, and which are as numerous as those
which determine their wishes on any other subject. Some-
times their reason--at other times their prejudices or super-
stitions: often their social affections, not seldom their anti-
social ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or con-
temptuousness: but most commonly, their desires or fears
for themselves--their legitimate or illegitimate self-interest.
Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of
the morality of the country emanates from its class interests,
and its feelings of class superiority. The morality between
Spartans and Helots, between planters and negroes, between
princes and subjects, between nobles and roturiers, between
men and women, has been for the most part the creation of
these class interests and feelings: and the sentiments thus
generated, react in turn upon the moral feelings of the mem-
bers of the ascendant class, in their relations among them-
selves. Where, on the other hand, a class, formerly as-
cendant, has lost its ascendency, or where its ascendency is
unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently bear
the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another
grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both
in act and forbearance which have been enforced by law or
opinion, has been the servility of mankind towards the sup-
posed preferences or aversions of their temporal masters,
or of their gods. This servility though essentially selfish, is
not hypocrisy; it gives rise to perfectly genuine sentiments
of abhorrence; it made men burn magicians and heretics.
Among so many baser influences, the general and obvious
interests of society have of course had a share, and a large
one, in the direction of the moral sentiments: less, however,
as a matter of reason, and on their own account, than as a
consequence of the sympathies and antipathies which grew
out of them: and sympathies and antipathies which had
little or nothing to do with the interests of society, have
made themselves felt in the establishment of moralities with
quite as great force.

  The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful
portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically
determined the rules laid down for general observance, un-
der the penalties of law or opinion. And in general, those
who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling,
have left this condition of things unassailed in principle,
however they may have come into conflict with it in some of
its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring
what things society ought to like or dislike, than in question-
ing whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to in-
dividuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings
of mankind on the particular points on which they were
themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in
defence of freedom, with heretics generally. The only case
in which the higher ground has been taken on principle and
maintained with consistency, by any but an individual here
and there, is that of religious belief: a case instructive in
many ways, and not least so as forming a most striking in-
stance of the fallibility of what is called the moral sense:
for the odium theologicum, in a sincere bigot, is one of the
most unequivocal cases of moral feeling. Those who first
broke the yoke of what called itself the Universal Church,
were in general as little willing to permit difference of relig-
ious opinion as that church itself. But when the heat of
the conflict was over, without giving a complete victory to
any party, and each church or sect was reduced to limit its
hopes to retaining possession of the ground it already oc-
cupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of be-
coming majorities, were under the necessity of pleading to
those whom they could not convert, for permission to
differ. It is accordingly on this battle-field, almost solely,
that the rights of the individual against society have been as-
serted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim of
society to exercise authority over dissentients openly con-
troverted. The great writers to whom the world owes what
religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom
of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely
that a human being is accountable to others for his relig-
ious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in what-
ever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly
anywhere been practically realized, except where religious
indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by
theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.
In the minds of almost all religious persons, even in the most
tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is admitted with
tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in matters
of church government, but not of dogma; another can
tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an Unitarian; an-
other, every one who believes in revealed religion; a few
extend their charity a little further, but stop at the belief
in a God and in a future state. Wherever the sentiment of
the majority is still genuine and intense, it is found to have
abated little of its claim to be obeyed.

  In England, from the peculiar circumstances of our
political history, though the yoke of opinion is perhaps
heavier, that of law is lighter, than in most other countries
of Europe; and there is considerable jealousy of direct in-
terference, by the legislative or the executive power with
private conduct; not so much from any just regard for the
independence of the individual, as from the still subsisting
habit of looking on the government as representing an op-
posite interest to the public. The majority have not yet
learnt to feel the power of the government their power, or
its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual
liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from
the government, as it already is from public opinion. But,
as yet, there is a considerable amount of feeling ready to be
called forth against any attempt of the law to control indi-
viduals in things in which they have not hitherto been ac-
customed to be controlled by it; and this with very little
discrimination as to whether the matter is, or is not, within
the legitimate sphere of legal control; insomuch that the
feeling, highly salutary on the whole, is perhaps quite as
often misplaced as well grounded in the particular instances
of its application.

  There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the
propriety or impropriety of government interference is cus-
tomarily tested. People decide according to their personal
preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be done,
or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the govern-
ment to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear
almost any amount of social evil, rather than add one to
the departments of human interests amenable to govern-
mental control. And men range themselves on one or the
other side in any particular case, according to this general
direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree
of interest which they feel in the particular thing which it is
proposed that the government should do; or according to
the belief they entertain that the government would, or
would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very rarely
on account of any opinion to which they consistently ad-
here, as to what things are fit to be done by a government.
And it seems to me that, in consequence of this absence of
rule or principle, one side is at present as often wrong as
the other; the interference of government is, with about
equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly con-
demned.

  The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple
principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of
society with the individual in the way of compulsion and
control, whether the means used be physical force in the
form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public
opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which man-
kind are warranted, individually or collectively in interfer-
ing with the liberty of action of any of their number, is
self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can
be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized com-
munity, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient war-
rant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear
because it will be better for him to do so, because it will
make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do
so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons
for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or per-
suading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him,
or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To
justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter
him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else.
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is
amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the
part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of
right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind,
the individual is sovereign.

  It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine
is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of
their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of
young persons below the age which the law may fix as that
of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state
to require being taken care of by others, must be protected
against their own actions as well as against external in-
jury. For the same reason, we may leave out of considera-
tion those backward states of society in which the race
itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early diffi-
culties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great, that
there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them;
and a ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted
in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, per-
haps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate
mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided
the end be their improvement, and the means justified by
actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no
application to any state of things anterior to the time when
mankind have become capable of being improved by free
and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them
but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if
they are so fortunate as to find one. But as soon as man-
kind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own
improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long
since reached in all nations with whom we need here con-
cern ourselves), compulsion, either in the direct form or in
that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer
admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only
for the security of others.

  It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which
could be derived to my argument from the idea of abstract
right as a thing independent of utility. I regard utility as
the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be
utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent
interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I
contend, authorize the subjection of individual spontaneity
to external control, only in respect to those actions of each,
which concern the interest of other people. If any one
does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for
punishing him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not
safely applicable, by general disapprobation. There are also
many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may
rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evi-
dence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the
common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to
the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection;
and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such
as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect
the defenceless against ill-usage, things which whenever it
is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made
responsible to society for not doing. A person may cause
evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction,
and in neither case he is justly accountable to them for the
injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more
cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make
any one answerable for doing evil to others, is the rule; to
make him answerable for not preventing evil, is, com-
paratively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many
cases clear enough and grave enough to justify that ex-
ception. In all things which regard the external relations
of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose
interests are concerned, and if need be, to society as their
protector. There are often good reasons for not holding
him to the responsibility; but these reasons must arise from
the special expediencies of the case: either because it is a
kind of case in which he is on the whole likely to act better,
when left to his own discretion, than when controlled in
any way in which society have it in their power to control
him; or because the attempt to exercise control would pro-
duce other evils, greater than those which it would prevent.
When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of
responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself should
step into the vacant judgment-seat, and protect those inter-
ests of others which have no external protection; judging
himself all the more rigidly, because the case does not admit
of his being made accountable to the judgment of his fellow-
creatures.

  But there is a sphere of action in which society, as dis-
tinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect
interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life
and conduct which affects only himself, or, if it also affects
others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived con-
sent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean
directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects him-
self, may affect others through himself; and the objection
which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive
consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate
region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward do-
main of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in
the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feel-
ing; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all
subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theo-
logical. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions
may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs
to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns
other people; but, being almost of as much importance as
the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the
same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly,
the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of
framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of
doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may fol-
low; without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long
as what we do does not harm them even though they should
think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly,
from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty,
within the same limits, of combination among individuals;
freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to
others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full
age, and not forced or deceived.

  No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole,
respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government;
and none is completely free in which they do not exist abso-
lute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the
name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so
long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or
impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guard-
ian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spirit-
ual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other
to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each
to live as seems good to the rest.

  Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some
persons, may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine
which stands more directly opposed to the general tendency
of existing opinion and practice. Society has expended
fully as much effort in the attempt (according to its lights)
to compel people to conform to its notions of personal, as
of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought
themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers
countenanced, the regulation of every part of private con-
duct by public authority, on the ground that the State had
a deep interest in the whole bodily and mental discipline of
every one of its citizens, a mode of thinking which may
have been admissible in small republics surrounded by pow-
erful enemies, in constant peril of being subverted by
foreign attack or internal commotion, and to which even a
short interval of relaxed energy and self-command might so
easily be fatal, that they could not afford to wait for the salu-
tary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world, the
greater size of political communities, and above all, the
separation between the spiritual and temporal authority
(which placed the direction of men's consciences in other
hands than those which controlled their worldly affairs),
prevented so great an interference by law in the details of
private life; but the engines of moral repression have been
wielded more strenuously against divergence from the
reigning opinion in self-regarding, than even in social mat-
ters; religion, the most powerful of the elements which have
entered into the formation of moral feeling, having almost
always been governed either by the ambition of a hierarchy,
seeking control over every department of human conduct,
or by the spirit of Puritanism. And some of those modern
reformers who have placed themselves in strongest opposi-
tion to the religions of the past, have been noway behind
either churches or sects in their assertion of the right of
spiritual domination: M. Comte, in particular, whose social
system, as unfolded in his Traite de Politique Positive, aims
at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appli-
ances) a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing
anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most
rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers.

  Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers,
there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination
to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual,
both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation:
and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the
world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of
the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils
which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary,
to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of
mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose
their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on
others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and
by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that
it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of
power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, un-
less a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised
against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circum-
stances of the world, to see it increase.

  It will be convenient for the argument, if, instead of at
once entering upon the general thesis, we confine ourselves
in the first instance to a single branch of it, on which the
principle here stated is, if not fully, yet to a certain point,
recognized by the current opinions. This one branch is the
Liberty of Thought: from which it is impossible to separate
the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing. Although
these liberties, to some considerable amount, form part of
the political morality of all countries which profess re-
ligious toleration and free institutions, the grounds, both
philosophical and practical, on which they rest, are perhaps
not so familiar to the general mind, nor so thoroughly ap-
preciated by many even of the leaders of opinion, as might
have been expected. Those grounds, when rightly under-
stood, are of much wider application than to only one
division of the subject, and a thorough consideration of this
part of the question will be found the best introduction to
the remainder. Those to whom nothing which I am about
to say will be new, may therefore, I hope, excuse me, if on
a subject which for now three centuries has been so often
discussed, I venture on one discussion more.


CHAPTER II
OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION

  THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by when any
defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the
press" as one of the securities against corrupt or
tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can
now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an ex-
ecutive, not identified in interest with the people, to pre-
scribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or
what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect
of the question, besides, has been so often and so trium-
phantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be
specially insisted on in this place. Though the law of Eng-
land, on the subject of the press, is as servile to this day
as it was in the time of the Tudors, there is little danger of
its being actually put in force against political discussion,
except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrec-
tion drives ministers and judges from their propriety;[1]
and, speaking generally, it is not, in constitutional countries,
to be apprehended that the government, whether completely
responsible to the people or not, will often attempt to con-
trol the expression of opinion, except when in doing so it
makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the
public. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is
entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exert-
ing any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it
conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the
people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or
by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The
best government has no more title to it than the worst. It
is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance
with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all
mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one per-
son were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no
more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he
had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except
to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it
were simply a private injury, it would make some difference
whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons
or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expres-
sion of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race;
posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dis-
sent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.
If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity
of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what
is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier
impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

  It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses,
each of which has a distinct branch of the argument cor-
responding to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we
are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were
sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

  First: the opinion which it is attempted to suppress by
authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to sup-
press it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible.
They have no authority to decide the question for all man-
kind, and exclude every other person from the means of
judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they
are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty
is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of
discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation
may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the
worse for being common.

  Unfortunately for the good sense of mankind, the fact
of their fallibility is far from carrying the weight in their
practical judgment, which is always allowed to it in theory;
for while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few
think it necessary to take any precautions against their own
fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion of
which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of
the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable.
Absolute princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited
deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own
opinions on nearly all subjects. People more happily situ-
ated, who sometimes hear their opinions disputed, and are
not wholly unused to be set right when they are wrong,
place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their
opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to
whom they habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's
want of confidence in his own solitary judgment, does he
usually repose, with implicit trust, on the infallibility of
"the world" in general. And the world, to each individual,
means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his
party, his sect, his church, his class of society: the man
may be called, by comparison, almost liberal and large-
minded to whom it means anything so comprehensive as his
own country or his own age. Nor is his faith in this col-
lective authority at all shaken by his being aware that other
ages, countries, sects, churches, classes, and parties have
thought, and even now think, the exact reverse. He de-
volves upon his own world the responsibility of being in the
right against the dissentient worlds of other people; and it
never troubles him that mere accident has decided which
of these numerous worlds is the object of his reliance, and
that the same causes which make him a Churchman in Lon-
don, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in
Pekin. Yet it is as evident in itself as any amount of argu-
ment can make it, that ages are no more infallible than in-
dividuals; every age having held many opinions which subse-
quent ages have deemed not only false but absurd; and it is
as certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected
by future ages, as it is that many, once general, are rejected
by the present.

  The objection likely to be made to this argument, would
probably take some such form as the following. There is
no greater assumption of infallibility in forbidding the
propagation of error, than in any other thing which is
done by public authority on its own judgment and responsi-
bility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Be-
cause it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that
they ought not to use it at all? To prohibit what they think
pernicious, is not claiming exemption from error, but ful-
filling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible, of act-
ing on their conscientious conviction. If we were never
to act on our opinions, because those opinions may be wrong,
we should leave all our interests uncared for, and all our
duties unperformed. An objection which applies to all
conduct can be no valid objection to any conduct in par-
ticular.

  It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to
form the truest opinions they can; to form them care-
fully, and never impose them upon others unless they are
quite sure of being right. But when they are sure (such
reasoners may say), it is not conscientiousness but cowardice
to shrink from acting on their opinions, and allow doctrines
which they honestly think dangerous to the welfare of man-
kind, either in this life or in another, to be scattered abroad
without restraint, because other people, in less enlightened
times, have persecuted opinions now believed to be true.
Let us take care, it may be said, not to make the same mis-
take: but governments and nations have made mistakes in
other things, which are not denied to be fit subjects for the
exercise of authority: they have laid on bad taxes, made
unjust wars. Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, and,
under whatever provocation, make no wars? Men, and
governments, must act to the best of their ability. There
is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance
sufficient for the purposes of human life. We may, and
must, assume our opinion to be true for the guidance of our
own conduct: and it is assuming no more when we forbid
bad men to pervert society by the propagation of opinions
which we regard as false and pernicious.

  I answer, that it is assuming very much more. There is
the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be
true, because, with every opportunity for contesting it, it
has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose
of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of con-
tradicting and disproving our opinion, is the very condition
which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of
action; and on no other terms can a being with human
faculties have any rational assurance of being right.

  When we consider either the history of opinion, or the
ordinary conduct of human life, to what is it to be ascribed
that the one and the other are no worse than they are? Not
certainly to the inherent force of the human understanding;
for, on any matter not self-evident, there are ninety-nine per-
sons totally incapable of judging of it, for one who is capable;
and the capacity of the hundredth person is only compara-
tive; for the majority of the eminent men of every past
generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous,
and did or approved numerous things which no one will now
justify. Why is it, then, that there is on the whole a pre-
ponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational
conduct? If there really is this preponderance--which there
must be, unless human affairs are, and have always been,
in an almost desperate state--it is owing to a quality of the
human mind, the source of everything respectable in man,
either as an intellectual or as a moral being, namely, that
his errors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his
mistakes by discussion and experience. Not by experience
alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is
to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually
yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to pro-
duce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.
Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without
comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength
and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one
property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance
can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right
are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person
whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has
it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criti-
cism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his
practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to
profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself,
and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was falla-
cious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a
human being can make some approach to knowing the whole
of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by per-
sons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in
which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No
wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this;
nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in
any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and
completing his own opinion by collating it with those of
others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying
it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just
reliance on it: for, being cognizant of all that can, at least
obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his
position against all gainsayers knowing that he has sought
for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them,
and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the
subject from any quarter--he has a right to think his judg-
ment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who
have not gone through a similar process.

  It is not too much to require that what the wisest of
mankind, those who are best entitled to trust their own judg-
ment, find necessary to warrant their relying on it, should
be submitted to by that miscellaneous collection of a few
wise and many foolish individuals, called the public. The
most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church,
even at the canonization of a saint, admits, and listens
patiently to, a "devil's advocate." The holiest of men, it
appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honors, until all
that the devil could say against him is known and weighed.
If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted to be
questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance
of its truth as they now do. The beliefs which we have
most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a stand-
ing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.
If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the at-
tempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we
have done the best that the existing state of human reason
admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the
truth a chance of reaching us: if the lists are kept open, we
may hope that if there be a better truth, it will be found
when the human mind is capable of receiving it; and in
the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach
to truth, as is possible in our own day. This is the amount
of certainty attainable by a fallible being, and this the
sole way of attaining it.

  Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the
arguments for free discussion, but object to their being
"pushed to an extreme;" not seeing that unless the rea-
sons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for
any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are
not assuming infallibility when they acknowledge that there
should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly
be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doc-
trine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is
so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain.
To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who
would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not per-
mitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree
with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without
hearing the other side.

  In the present age--which has been described as "destitute
of faith, but terrified at scepticism,"--in which people feel
sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they
should not know what to do without them--the claims of an
opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not
so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There
are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indis-
pensable to well-being, that it is as much the duty of govern-
ments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the
interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so
directly in the line of their duty, something less than in-
fallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind,
governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the
general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and
still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire
to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing
wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting
what only such men would wish to practise. This mode of
thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion
not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their
usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the
responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opin-
ions. But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive
that the assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from
one point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is
itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to dis-
cussion and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion
itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of
opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it
to be false, unless the opinion condemned has full oppor-
tunity of defending itself. And it will not do to say that the
heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmless-
ness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth.
The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would
know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should
be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of
whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men,
but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can
be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging
that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying
some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they
believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received
opinions, never fail to take all possible advantage of this
plea; you do not find them handling the question of utility
as if it could be completely abstracted from that of truth:
on the contrary, it is, above all, because their doctrine is
"the truth," that the knowledge or the belief of it is held
to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion
of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital
may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And
in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit
the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little
tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they
allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity or of the
positive guilt of rejecting it.

  In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of denying
a hearing to opinions because we, in our own judgment,
have condemned them, it will be desirable to fix down the
discussion to a concrete case; and I choose, by preference,
the cases which are least favourable to me--in which the
argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of
truth and on that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let
the opinions impugned be the belief in a God and in a future
state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality.
To fight the battle on such ground, gives a great advantage
to an unfair antagonist; since he will be sure to say (and
many who have no desire to be unfair will say it internally),
Are these the doctrines which you do not deem sufficiently
certain to be taken under the protection of law? Is the
belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which,
you hold to be assuming infallibility? But I must be per-
mitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine
(be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infalli-
bility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for
others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on
the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pre-
tension not the less, if put forth on the side of my most
solemn convictions. However positive any one's persuasion
may be, not only of the falsity, but of the pernicious conse-
quences--not only of the pernicious consequences, but (to
adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the im-
morality and impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance of
that private judgment, though backed by the public judg-
ment of his country or his cotemporaries, he prevents the
opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infalli-
bility. And so far from the assumption being less objec-
tionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called
immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which
it is most fatal. These are exactly the occasions on which
the men of one generation commit those dreadful mistakes
which excite the astonishment and horror of posterity. It
is among such that we find the instances memorable in his-
tory, when the arm of the law has been employed to root
out the best men and the noblest doctrines; with deplorable
success as to the men, though some of the doctrines have
survived to be (as if in mockery) invoked, in defence of
similar conduct towards those who dissent from them, or
from their received interpretation.

  Mankind can hardly be too often reminded, that there was
once a man named Socrates, between whom and the legal
authorities and public opinion of his time, there took place
a memorable collision. Born in an age and country abound-
ing in individual greatness, this man has been handed down
to us by those who best knew both him and the age, as the
most virtuous man in it; while we know him as the head
and prototype of all subsequent teachers of virtue, the
source equally of the lofty inspiration of Plato and the
judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle, "i maestri di color che
sanno," the two headsprings of ethical as of all other philos-
ophy. This acknowledged master of all the eminent thinkers
who have since lived--whose fame, still growing after
more than two thousand years, all but outweighs the whole
remainder of the names which make his native city illustrious
--was put to death by his countrymen, after a judicial con-
viction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying
the gods recognized by the State; indeed his accuser asserted
(see the "Apologia") that he believed in no gods at all.
Immorality, in being, by his doctrines and instructions, a
"corrupter of youth." Of these charges the tribunal, there
is every ground for believing, honestly found him guilty,
and condemned the man who probably of all then born had
deserved best of mankind, to be put to death as a criminal.

  To pass from this to the only other instance of judicial
iniquity, the mention of which, after the condemnation of
Socrates, would not be an anti-climax: the event which took
place on Calvary rather more than eighteen hundred years
ago. The man who left on the memory of those who wit-
nessed his life and conversation, such an impression of his
moral grandeur, that eighteen subsequent centuries have
done homage to him as the Almighty in person, was igno-
miniously put to death, as what? As a blasphemer. Men
did not merely mistake their benefactor; they mistook him
for the exact contrary of what he was, and treated him as
that prodigy of impiety, which they themselves are now held
to be, for their treatment of him. The feelings with which
mankind now regard these lamentable transactions, especially
the latter of the two, render them extremely unjust in their
judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to all ap-
pearance, not bad men--not worse than men most commonly
are, but rather the contrary; men who possessed in a full, or
somewhat more than a full measure, the religious, moral,
and patriotic feelings of their time and people: the very
kind of men who, in all times, our own included, have every
chance of passing through life blameless and respected.
The high-priest who rent his garments when the words were
pronounced, which, according to all the ideas of his country,
constituted the blackest guilt, was in all probability quite as
sincere in his horror and indignation, as the generality of
respectable and pious men now are in the religious and moral
sentiments they profess; and most of those who now shudder
at his conduct, if they had lived in his time and been born
Jews, would have acted precisely as he did. Orthodox
Christians who are tempted to think that those who stoned
to death the first martyrs must have been worse men than
they themselves are, ought to remember that one of those per-
secutors was Saint Paul.

  Let us add one more example, the most striking of all, if
the impressiveness of an error is measured by the wisdom
and virtue of him who falls into it. If ever any one, pos-
sessed of power, had grounds for thinking himself the best
and most enlightened among his cotemporaries, it was the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole
civilized world, he preserved through life not only the most
unblemished justice, but what was less to be expected from
his Stoical breeding, the tenderest heart. The few failings
which are attributed to him, were all on the side of in-
dulgence: while his writings, the highest ethical product
of the ancient mind, differ scarcely perceptibly, if they
differ at all, from the most characteristic teachings of Christ.
This man, a better Christian in all but the dogmatic sense
of the word, than almost any of the ostensibly Christian
sovereigns who have since reigned, persecuted Christianity.
Placed at the summit of all the previous attainments of
humanity, with an open, unfettered intellect, and a character
which led him of himself to embody in his moral writings the
Christian ideal, he yet failed to see that Christianity was
to be a good and not an evil to the world, with his duties
to which he was so deeply penetrated. Existing society he
knew to be in a deplorable state. But such as it was, he
saw or thought he saw, that it was held together and pre-
vented from being worse, by belief and reverence of the
received divinities. As a ruler of mankind, he deemed it
his duty not to suffer society to fall in pieces; and saw not
how, if its existing ties were removed, any others could be
formed which could again knit it together. The new re-
ligion openly aimed at dissolving these ties: unless, there-
fore, it was his duty to adopt that religion, it seemed to be
his duty to put it down. Inasmuch then as the theology of
Christianity did not appear to him true or of divine origin;
inasmuch as this strange history of a crucified God was not
credible to him, and a system which purported to rest en-
tirely upon a foundation to him so wholly unbelievable,
could not be foreseen by him to be that renovating agency
which, after all abatements, it has in fact proved to be; the
gentlest and most amiable of philosophers and rulers, under
a solemn sense of duty, authorized the persecution of Chris-
tianity. To my mind this is one of the most tragical facts
in all history. It is a bitter thought, how different a thing
the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Chris-
tian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire
under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of
Constantine. But it would be equally unjust to him and
false to truth, to deny, that no one plea which can be urged
for punishing anti-Christian teaching, was wanting to Mar-
cus Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the propagation of
Christianity. No Christian more firmly believes that Atheism
is false, and tends to the dissolution of society, than Marcus
Aurelius believed the same things of Christianity; he who,
of all men then living, might have been thought the most
capable of appreciating it. Unless any one who approves
of punishment for the promulgation of opinions, flatters
himself that he is a wiser and better man than Marcus
Aurelius--more deeply versed in the wisdom of his time,
more elevated in his intellect above it--more earnest in his
search for truth, or more single-minded in his devotion to
it when found;--let him abstain from that assumption of
the joint infallibility of himself and the multitude, which
the great Antoninus made with so unfortunate a result.

  Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of pun-
ishment for restraining irreligious opinions, by any argument
which will not justify Marcus Antoninus, the enemies of
religious freedom, when hard pressed, occasionally accept
this consequence, and say, with Dr. Johnson, that the per-
secutors of Christianity were in the right; that persecution
is an ordeal through which truth ought to pass, and always
passes successfully, legal penalties being, in the end, power-
less against truth, though sometimes beneficially effective
against mischievous errors. This is a form of the argument
for religious intolerance, sufficiently remarkable not to be
passed without notice.

  A theory which maintains that truth may justifiably be
persecuted because persecution cannot possibly do it any
harm, cannot be charged with being intentionally hostile to
the reception of new truths; but we cannot commend the
generosity of its dealing with the persons to whom man-
kind are indebted for them. To discover to the world some-
thing which deeply concerns it, and of which it was pre-
viously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken
on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as
important a service as a human being can render to his
fellow-creatures, and in certain cases, as in those of the
early Christians and of the Reformers, those who think
with Dr. Johnson believe it to have been the most precious
gift which could be bestowed on mankind. That the authors
of such splendid benefits should be requited by martyrdom;
that their reward should be to be dealt with as the vilest of
criminals, is not, upon this theory, a deplorable error and
misfortune, for which humanity should mourn in sackcloth
and ashes, but the normal and justifiable state of things.
The propounder of a new truth, according to this doctrine,
should stand, as stood, in the legislation of the Locrians,
the proposer of a new law, with a halter round his neck,
to be instantly tightened if the public assembly did not, on
hearing his reasons, then and there adopt his proposition.
People who defend this mode of treating benefactors, can
not be supposed to set much value on the benefit; and I
believe this view of the subject is mostly confined to the
sort of persons who think that new truths may have been
desirable once, but that we have had enough of them now.

  But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs
over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which
men repeat after one another till they pass into common-
places, but which all experience refutes. History teems with
instances of truth put down by persecution. If not sup-
pressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To
speak only of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out
at least twenty times before Luther, and was put down.
Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra Dolcino was put
down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were
put down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards
were put down. The Hussites were put down. Even
after the era of Luther, wherever persecution was per-
sisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy, Flanders,
the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and,
most likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary
lived, or Queen Elizabeth died. Persecution has always
succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party
to be effectually persecuted. No reasonable person can
doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in the
Roman empire. It spread, and became predominant, be-
cause the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a
short time, and separated by long intervals of almost un-
disturbed propagandism. It is a piece of idle sentimentality
that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied
to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake.
Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for
error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social
penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation
of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in
this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished
once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there
will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some
one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favou