On Liberty
John Stuart Mill
1859
Batoche Books
Kitchener
2001
Batoche Books Limited
52 Eby Street South
Kitchener, Ontario
N2G 3L1
Canada
email: batoche@gto.net
Contents
Chapter 1: Introductory ...................................................................... 6
Chapter 2: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion. .................... 18
Chapter 3: Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-being. . 52
Chapter 4: Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual. ........................................................................................ 69
Chapter 5: Applications. .................................................................. 86
Notes .............................................................................................. 106
Dedication
The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded
in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity.
Wilhelm von Humboldt: Sphere and Duties of Government.
To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
part the author, of all that is best in my writings- the friend and wife
whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and
whose approbation was my chief reward—I dedicate this volume. Like
all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to
me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the
inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which
they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are
buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it,
than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted
and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom.
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Chapter 1
Introductory
The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so
unfortunately opposed to the misnamed 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 general terms, but
which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its
latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised 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 civilised portions of the species
have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a
different and more fundamental 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 governed, 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 regarded as necessary, but also as highly
dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their
subjects, 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, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the
vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any of the
minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual 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
On Liberty/7
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 establishment
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 completely, 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
condition 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 interest 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 disadvantage. By degrees this new
demand for elective and temporary 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 importance 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 people.
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 tyrannising over itself. Let the rulers be effectually 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 exercise. This mode of thought, or rather perhaps
of feeling, was common among the last generation of European liberalism, in the Continental section of which it still apparently predominates.
8/John Stuart Mill
Those who admit any limit to what a government may do, except in the
case of such governments as they think ought not to exist, stand out as
brilliant exceptions 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 necessarily disturbed by such temporary aberrations as those of the French
Revolution, the worst of which were the work of a 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 surface, and made itself
felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of nations;
and elective and responsible 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 themselves accepted as the majority; the people,
consequently may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions 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 democracy 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
On Liberty/9
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 operating through the acts of the
public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is
itself the tyrant—society collectively over the separate individuals who
compose it—its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which
it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and
does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead
of right, or any mandates 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, penetrating much more
deeply into the details of life, and enslaving 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 development, and, if possible, prevent
the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and
compels all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with
individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against
encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs,
as protection 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 individual independence and social control—
is a subject on which nearly everything remains to be done. All that
makes existence 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 subjects 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 suspect any difficulty in it, than if it were a subject on which
mankind had always been agreed. The rules which obtain among them-
10/John Stuart Mill
selves 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 mistaken 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 necessary 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 subjects 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 sympathises, 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 interpretation even of that. Men’s opinions,
accordingly, on what is laudable or blamable, are affected by all the
multifarious 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. Sometimes their reason—at other
times their prejudices or superstitions: often their social affections, not
seldom their antisocial ones, their envy or jealousy, their arrogance or
contemptuousness: 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 members of the ascen-
On Liberty/11
dant class, in their relations among themselves. Where, on the other
hand, a class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendancy, or where its
ascendancy 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 supposed 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, under 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 questioning whether its likings or dislikings
should be a law to individuals. 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 instance 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 religious 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 al-
12/John Stuart Mill
ready occupied; minorities, seeing that they had no chance of becoming
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 asserted on broad grounds of principle, and the claim of society to
exercise authority over dissentients openly controverted. 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 religious
belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really
care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically
realised, 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 a Unitarian; another 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 interference, 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 opposite 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 individuals in things in which they have not hitherto
been accustomed 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 recognised principle by
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which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily 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 government 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 governmental
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 adhere, 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 of wrong as the other; the
interference of government is, with about equal frequency, improperly
invoked and improperly condemned.
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 mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering 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 civilised
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good,
either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. 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 persuading 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
14/John Stuart Mill
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 injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of consideration those backward states of society
in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. The early
difficulties 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, perhaps 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 mankind 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 concern 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 a man as a progressive being. Those interests, I
contend, authorise 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 evidence 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 fel-
On Liberty/15
low creature’s life, or interposing to protect the defenceless against illusage, 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
either 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, comparatively speaking, the exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough
and grave enough to justify that exception. 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 produce 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 interests 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 distinguished
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 consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean
directly, and in the first instance; for whatever affects himself, 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 domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience in the
most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative,
scientific, moral, or theological. 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
16/John Stuart Mill
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 follow: 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 absolute 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 guardian of his own
health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. 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 conduct 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 powerful 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
salutary permanent effects of freedom. In the modern world, the greater
size of political communities, and, above all, the separation between
spiritual and temporal authority (which placed the direction of men’s
consciences in other hands than those which controlled their worldly
On Liberty/17
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 matters; 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 opposition 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 Système de Politique Positive, aims at establishing
(though by moral more than by legal appliances) 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, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can
be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances 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, recognised 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 religious toleration and free institutions, the grounds, both
philosophical and practical, on which they rest, are perhaps not so fa-
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miliar to the general mind, nor so thoroughly appreciated by many even
of the leaders of opinion, as might have been expected. Those grounds,
when rightly understood, 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 2.
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 executive, not
identified in interest with the people, to prescribe 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 of and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially
insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, 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 insurrection 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 control 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 exerting 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 person
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
On Liberty/19
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 expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the
human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent 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 corresponding 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 suppress it, of course deny its
truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the
question for all mankind, 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 situated, 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
20/John Stuart Mill
society; the man may be called, by comparison, almost liberal and largeminded to whom it means anything so comprehensive as his own country or his own age. Nor is his faith in this collective 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 devolves 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 London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in
Pekin. Yet it is as evident in itself, as any amount of argument can make
it, that ages are no more infallible than individuals; every age having
held many opinions which subsequent 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 responsibility. Judgment is given to men that they may use it. Because 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 fulfilling the duty incumbent on them, although fallible,
of acting 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
particular. It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the
truest opinions they can; to form them carefully, 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 mankind, 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 mistake: 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 Liberty/21
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
contradicting 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 persons totally incapable of judging of it for one who is
capable; and the capacity of the hundredth person is only comparative;
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 preponderance 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 produce 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
22/John Stuart Mill
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 criticism 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 fallacious.
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 persons 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 cognisant 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 judgment 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 judgment, 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 canonisation of a saint, admits, and listens patiently to, a “devil’s
advocate.” The holiest of men, it appears, cannot be admitted to posthumous honours, 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 standing invitation to the whole world to
prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted
and the attempt 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 mean-
On Liberty/23
time 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 reasons 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 doctrine 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 permitted, 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 indispensable, to
well-being that it is as much the duty of governments 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 infallibility 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 opinions.
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 discussion, and requiring discussion as much as the opinion
itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to decide
24/John Stuart Mill
an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the opinion
condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will not do to
say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness 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 permitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a
doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. 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
On Liberty/25
reprobate this pretension 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 consequences—not only of the
pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether
condemn) the immorality and impiety of an opinion; yet if, in pursuance
of that private judgment, though backed by the public judgment of his
country or his contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard
in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption
being less objectionable 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 history, 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 abounding 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
mastri di color che sanno,” the two headsprings of ethical as of all other
philosophy. 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 conviction, for impiety and immorality. Impiety, in denying the gods recognised 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 “corruptor 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
26/John Stuart Mill
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 witnessed 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 ignominiously 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 later of the two, render them extremely unjust in their judgment of the unhappy actors. These were, to
all appearance, not bad men—not worse than men 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 persecutors 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, possessed of power, had grounds for thinking himself the best and most enlightened among his contemporaries, it
was the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute monarch of the whole
civilised 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 indulgence: 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 ostensi-
On Liberty/27
bly 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 prevented 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 religion openly aimed at dissolving
these ties: unless, therefore, 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 entirely 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, authorised the persecution of Christianity.
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 Christian 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 Marcus 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.
28/John Stuart Mill
Aware of the impossibility of defending the use of punishment 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 persecutors 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, powerless 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
mankind are indebted for them. To discover to the world something which
deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously 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 cannot 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 commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only of
On Liberty/29
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 persisted 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, because the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and separated by
long intervals of almost undisturbed 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 favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts
to suppress it.
It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of
new opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we
even build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to
death; and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would
probably tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet
free from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at
least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is not,
even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible that
they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at the
summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man,2 said to
be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was sentenced to
twenty-one months’ imprisonment, for uttering, and writing on a gate,
some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month of the
30/John Stuart Mill
same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate occasions,3
were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted by the judge
and by one of the counsel, because they honestly declared that they had
no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner,4 for the same reason, was
denied justice against a thief.
This refusal of redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that
no person can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice who does
not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state;
which is equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded
from the protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or
assaulted with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar
opinions, be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with
impunity, if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on which this is grounded is that the oath is worthless of a
person who does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is
historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been
persons of distinguished integrity and honour); and would be maintained
by no one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in
greatest repute with the world, both for virtues and attainments, are well
known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is
suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence that atheists
must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are willing to
lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of publicly confessing
a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed purpose, can be kept
in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of persecution; a persecution,
too, having the peculiarity that the qualification for undergoing it is the
being clearly proved not to deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who
does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, it follows that they
who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by
the fear of hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the
injury of supposing that the conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.
These, indeed, are but rags and remnants of persecution, and may
be thought to be not so much an indication of the wish to persecute, as
an example of that very frequent infirmity of English minds, which makes
them take a preposterous pleasure in the assertion of a bad principle,
On Liberty/31
when they are no longer bad enough to desire to carry it really into
practice. But unhappily there is no security in the state of the public
mind that the suspension of worse forms of legal persecution, which has
lasted for about the space of a generation, will continue. In this age the
quiet surface of routine is as often ruffled by attempts to resuscitate past
evils, as to introduce new benefits. What is boasted of at the present
time as the revival of religion, is always, in narrow and uncultivated
minds, at least as much the revival of bigotry; and where there is the
strong permanent leaven of intolerance in the feelings of a people, which
at all times abides in the middle classes of this country, it needs but little
to provoke them into actively persecuting those whom they have never
ceased to think proper objects of persecution.5 For it is this—it is the
opinions men entertain, and the feelings they cherish, respecting those
who disown the beliefs they deem important, which makes this country
not a place of mental freedom.
For a long time past, the chief mischief of the legal penalties is that
they strengthen the social stigma. It is that stigma which is really effective, and so effective is it, that the profession of opinions which are
under the ban of society is much less common in England than is, in
many other countries, the avowal of those which incur risk of judicial
punishment. In respect to all persons but those whose pecuniary circumstances make them independent of the good will of other people,
opinion, on this subject, is as efficacious as law; men might as well be
imprisoned, as excluded from the means of earning their bread. Those
whose bread is already secured, and who desire no favours from men in
power, or from bodies of men, or from the public, have nothing to fear
from the open avowal of any opinions, but to be ill-thought of and illspoken of, and this it ought not to require a very heroic mould to enable
them to bear. There is no room for any appeal ad misericordiam in
behalf of such persons. But though we do not now inflict so much evil
on those who think differently from us as it was formerly our custom to
do, it may be that we do ourselves as much evil as ever by our treatment
of them. Socrates was put to death, but the Socratic philosophy rose like
the sun in heaven, and spread its illumination over the whole intellectual
firmament. Christians were cast to the lions, but the Christian church
grew up a stately and spreading tree, overtopping the older and less
vigorous growths, and stifling them by its shade. Our merely social
intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With
32/John Stuart Mill
us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in
each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons
among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs
of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light.
And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds,
because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while
it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients
afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace
in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very
much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual
pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human
mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and
inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and
grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in
what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own
conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot
send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be
looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or
time-servers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant
for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves.
Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and
interests to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the
region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would
come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until
then: while that which would strengthen and enlarge men’s minds, free
and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.
Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil
should consider, in the first place, that in consequence of it there is never
any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that such of
them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most by the ban placed on all inquiry which
does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to
those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is
cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can com-
On Liberty/33
pute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something
which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among
them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and
subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating
with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of
ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience
and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end
succeed in doing.
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise, that as a
thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions
it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due
study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of
those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of
thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indispensable to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature
which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be, great
individual thinkers in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there
never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere an intellectually
active people. Where any people has made a temporary approach to
such a character, it has been because the dread of heterodox speculation
was for a time suspended. Where there is a tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed; where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is considered to be closed, we cannot
hope to find that generally high scale of mental activity which has made
some periods of history so remarkable. Never when controversy avoided
the subjects which are large and important enough to kindle enthusiasm,
was the mind of a people stirred up from its foundations, and the impulse given which raised even persons of the most ordinary intellect to
something of the dignity of thinking beings. Of such we have had an
example in the condition of Europe during the times immediately following the Reformation; another, though limited to the Continent and to
a more cultivated class, in the speculative movement of the latter half of
the eighteenth century; and a third, of still briefer duration, in the intellectual fermentation of Germany during the Goethian and Fichtean period. These periods differed widely in the particular opinions which they
developed; but were alike in this, that during all three the yoke of au-
34/John Stuart Mill
thority was broken. In each, an old mental despotism had been thrown
off, and no new one had yet taken its place. The impulse given at these
three periods has made Europe what it now is. Every single improvement which has taken place either in the human mind or in institutions,
may be traced distinctly to one or other of them. Appearances have for
some time indicated that all three impulses are well nigh spent; and we
can expect no fresh start until we again assert our mental freedom.
Let us now pass to the second division of the argument, and dismissing the supposition that any of the received opinions may be false,
let us assume them to be true, and examine into the worth of the manner
in which they are likely to be held, when their truth is not freely and
openly canvassed. However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to
be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not
fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma,
not a living truth.
There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what
they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of
the opinion, and could not make a tenable defence of it against the most
superficial objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed
taught from authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm,
comes of its being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly
and ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible,
and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to
give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however, this possibility—assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind,
but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against,
argument—this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a
rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one
superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.
If the intellect and judgment of mankind ought to be cultivated, a
thing which Protestants at least do not deny, on what can these faculties
be more appropriately exercised by any one, than on the things which
concern him so much that it is considered necessary for him to hold
opinions on them? If the cultivation of the understanding consists in one
On Liberty/35
thing more than in another, it is surely in learning the grounds of one’s
own opinions. Whatever people believe, on subjects on which it is of the
first importance to believe rightly, they ought to be able to defend against
at least the common objections. But, some one may say, “Let them be
taught the grounds of their opinions. It does not follow that opinions
must be merely parroted because they are never heard controverted.
Persons who learn geometry do not simply commit the theorems to
memory, but understand and learn likewise the demonstrations; and it
would be absurd to say that they remain ignorant of the grounds of
geometrical truths, because they never hear any one deny, and attempt
to disprove them.” Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a subject
like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong
side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical
truths is that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections,
and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference
of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there
is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one:
and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not
understand the grounds of our opinion.
But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, threefourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling
the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. The greatest orator, save one, of antiquity, has left it on record that he always
studied his adversary’s case with as great, if not still greater, intensity
than even his own. What Cicero practised as the means of forensic success requires to be imitated by all who study any subject in order to
arrive at the truth. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows
little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able
to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the
opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no
ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would
be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he
is either led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the
side to which he feels most inclination. Nor is it enough that he should
hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as
36/John Stuart Mill
they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations.
That is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into
real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from
persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do
their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible
and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which
the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of; else he will
never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and
removes that difficulty.
Ninety-nine in a hundred of what are called educated men are in this
condition; even of those who can argue fluently for their opinions. Their
conclusion may be true, but it might be false for anything they know:
they have never thrown themselves into the mental position of those
who think differently from them, and considered what such persons may
have to say; and consequently they do not, in any proper sense of the
word, know the doctrine which they themselves profess. They do not
know those parts of it which explain and justify the remainder; the considerations which show that a fact which seemingly conflicts with another is reconcilable with it, or that, of two apparently strong reasons,
one and not the other ought to be preferred. All that part of the truth
which turns the scale, and decides the judgment of a completely informed mind, they are strangers to; nor is it ever really known, but to
those who have attended equally and impartially to both sides, and endeavoured to see the reasons of both in the strongest light. So essential
is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects,
that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable
to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which
the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up.
To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in
general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their
opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an
ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed
persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been taught the
obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority
for the rest, and being aware that they have neither knowledge nor talent
to resolve every difficulty which can be raised, may repose in the assur-
On Liberty/37
ance that all those which have been raised have been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.
Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed
for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of
truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument
for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can
the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at least the
philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the difficulties, must
make themselves familiar with those difficulties in their most puzzling
form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and
placed in the most advantageous light which they admit of. The Catholic Church has its own way of dealing with this embarrassing problem.
It makes a broad separation between those who can be permitted to
receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must accept them on
trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided in, may
admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore,
read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard to
be obtained. This discipline recognises a knowledge of the enemy’s case
as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of
denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the elite more mental
culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to the mass. By
this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental superiority which
its purposes require; for though culture without freedom never made a
large and liberal mind, it can make a clever nisi prius advocate of a
cause. But in countries professing Protestantism, this resource is denied; since Protestants hold, at least in theory, that the responsibility for
the choice of a religion must be borne by each for himself, and cannot be
thrown off upon teachers. Besides, in the present state of the world, it is
practically impossible that writings which are read by the instructed can
be kept from the uninstructed. If the teachers of mankind are to be
cognisant of all that they ought to know, everything must be free to be
written and published without restraint.
If, however, the mischievous operation of the absence of free dis-
38/John Stuart Mill
cussion, when the received opinions are true, were confined to leaving
men ignorant of the grounds of those opinions, it might be thought that
this, if an intellectual, is no moral evil, and does not affect the worth of
the opinions, regarded in their influence on the character. The fact, however, is, that not only the grounds of the opinion are forgotten in the
absence of discussion, but too often the meaning of the opinion itself.
The words which convey it cease to suggest ideas, or suggest only a
small portion of those they were originally employed to communicate.
Instead of a vivid conception and a living belief, there remain only a few
phrases retained by rote; or, if any part, the shell and husk only of the
meaning is retained, the finer essence being lost. The great chapter in
human history which this fact occupies and fills, cannot be too earnestly
studied and meditated on.
It is illustrated in the experience of almost all ethical doctrines and
religious creeds. They are all full of meaning and vitality to those who
originate them, and to the direct disciples of the originators. Their meaning
continues to be felt in undiminished strength, and is perhaps brought out
into even fuller consciousness, so long as the struggle lasts to give the
doctrine or creed an ascendancy over other creeds. At last it either prevails, and becomes the general opinion, or its progress stops; it keeps
possession of the ground it has gained, but ceases to spread further.
When either of these results has become apparent, controversy on the
subject flags, and gradually dies away. The doctrine has taken its place,
if not as a received opinion, as one of the admitted sects or divisions of
opinion: those who hold it have generally inherited, not adopted it; and
conversion from one of these doctrines to another, being now an exceptional fact, occupies little place in the thoughts of their professors. Instead of being, as at first, constantly on the alert either to defend themselves against the world, or to bring the world over to them, they have
subsided into acquiescence, and neither listen, when they can help it, to
arguments against their creed, nor trouble dissentients (if there be such)
with arguments in its favour. From this time may usually be dated the
decline in the living power of the doctrine.
We often hear the teachers of all creeds lamenting the difficulty of
keeping up in the minds of believers a lively apprehension of the truth
which they nominally recognise, so that it may penetrate the feelings,
and acquire a real mastery over the conduct. No such difficulty is complained of while the creed is still fighting for its existence: even the
weaker combatants then know and feel what they are fighting for, and
On Liberty/39
the difference between it and other doctrines; and in that period of every
creed’s existence, not a few persons may be found, who have realised its
fundamental principles in all the forms of thought, have weighed and
considered them in all their important bearings, and have experienced
the full effect on the character which belief in that creed ought to produce in a mind thoroughly imbued with it. But when it has come to be an
hereditary creed, and to be received passively, not actively—when the
mind is no longer compelled, in the same degree as at first, to exercise
its vital powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a
progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, or
to give it a dull and torpid assent, as if accepting it on trust dispensed
with the necessity of realising it in consciousness, or testing it by personal experience, until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the
inner life of the human being. Then are seen the cases, so frequent in this
age of the world as almost to form the majority, in which the creed
remains as it were outside the mind, incrusting and petrifying it against
all other influences addressed to the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering any fresh and living conviction to get
in, but itself doing nothing for the mind or heart, except standing sentinel over them to keep them vacant.
To what an extent doctrines intrinsically fitted to make the deepest
impression upon the mind may remain in it as dead beliefs, without
being ever realised in the imagination, the feelings, or the understanding, is exemplified by the manner in which the majority of believers hold
the doctrines of Christianity. By Christianity I here mean what is accounted such by all churches and sects—the maxims and precepts contained in the New Testament. These are considered sacred, and accepted
as laws, by all professing Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much to say
that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it,
is the custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. He has
thus, on the one hand, a collection of ethical maxims, which he believes
to have been vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom as rules for his
government; and on the other a set of every-day judgments and practices, which go a certain length with some of those maxims, not so great
a length with others, stand in direct opposition to some, and are, on the
whole, a compromise between the Christian creed and the interests and
suggestions of worldly life. To the first of these standards he gives his
homage; to the other his real allegiance.
40/John Stuart Mill
All Christians believe that the blessed are the poor and humble, and
those who are ill-used by the world; that it is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
heaven; that they should judge not, lest they be judged; that they should
swear not at all; that they should love their neighbour as themselves;
that if one take their cloak, they should give him their coat also; that
they should take no thought for the morrow; that if they would be perfect they should sell all that they have and give it to the poor. They are
not insincere when they say that they believe these things. They do believe them, as people believe what they have always heard lauded and
never discussed. But in the sense of that living belief which regulates
conduct, they believe these doctrines just up to the point to which it is
usual to act upon them. The doctrines in their integrity are serviceable
to pelt adversaries with; and it is understood that they are to be put
forward (when possible) as the reasons for whatever people do that they
think laudable. But any one who reminded them that the maxims require
an infinity of things which they never even think of doing, would gain
nothing but to be classed among those very unpopular characters who
affect to be better than other people. The doctrines have no hold on
ordinary believers—are not a power in their minds. They have an habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from
the words to the things signified, and forces the mind to take them in,
and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is concerned,
they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go in obeying
Christ.
Now we may be well assured that the case was not thus, but far
otherwise, with the early Christians. Had it been thus, Christianity never
would have expanded from an obscure sect of the despised Hebrews
into the religion of the Roman empire. When their enemies said, “See
how these Christians love one another” (a remark not likely to be made
by anybody now), they assuredly had a much livelier feeling of the meaning of their creed than they have ever had since. And to this cause,
probably, it is chiefly owing that Christianity now makes so little progress
in extending its domain, and after eighteen centuries is still nearly confined to Europeans and the descendants of Europeans. Even with the
strictly religious, who are much in earnest about their doctrines, and
attach a greater amount of meaning to many of them than people in
general, it commonly happens that the part which is thus comparatively
active in their minds is that which was made by Calvin, or Knox, or
On Liberty/41
some such person much nearer in character to themselves. The sayings
of Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect
beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland.
There are many reasons, doubtless, why doctrines which are the badge
of a sect retain more of their vitality than those common to all recognised
sects, and why more pains are taken by teachers to keep their meaning
alive; but one reason certainly is, that the peculiar doctrines are more
questioned, and have to be oftener defended against open gainsayers.
Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post, as soon as there is
no enemy in the field.
The same thing holds true, generally speaking, of all traditional
doctrines—those of prudence and knowledge of life, as well as of morals or religion. All languages and literatures are full of general observations on life, both as to what it is, and how to conduct oneself in it;
observations which everybody knows, which everybody repeats, or hears
with acquiescence, which are received as truisms, yet of which most
people first truly learn the meaning when experience, generally of a
painful kind, has made it a reality to them. How often, when smarting
under some unforeseen misfortune or disappointment, does a person
call to mind some proverb or common saying, familiar to him all his
life, the meaning of which, if he had ever before felt it as he does now,
would have saved him from the calamity. There are indeed reasons for
this, other than the absence of discussion; there are many truths of which
the full meaning cannot be realised until personal experience has brought
it home. But much more of the meaning even of these would have been
understood, and what was understood would have been far more deeply
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