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 recognized as the vital question of
the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense,
it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages, but in the
stage of progress into which the more civilized 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 upon 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 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
tyrannizing 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. 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 an usurping few, and which, in any case, belonged,
not to the permanent working of popular institutions, but to a
sudden and convulsive outbreak against monarchical and aristocratic
despotism. In time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a
large portion of the earth's 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 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 tyrannizing 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 compel 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 themselves appear to them self-evident and
selfjustifying. 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 sympathizes, would
like them to act. No one, indeed, acknowledges to himself that his
standard of judgment is his own liking; but an opinion on a point
of conduct, not supported by reasons, can only count as one
person's preference; and if the reasons, when given, are a mere
appeal to a similar preference felt by other people, it is still
only many people's liking instead of one. To an ordinary man,
however, his own preference, thus supported, is not only a
perfectly satisfactory reason, but the only one he generally has
for any of his notions of morality, taste, or propriety, which are
not expressly written in his religious creed; and his chief guide
in the 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 ascendant class,
in their relations among themselves. Where, on the other hand, a
class, formerly ascendant, has lost its ascendency, or where its
ascendency is unpopular, the prevailing moral sentiments frequently
bear the impress of an impatient dislike of superiority. Another
grand determining principle of the rules of conduct, both in act
and forbearance which have been enforced by law or opinion, has
been the servility of mankind towards the 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 already 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
realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to
have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its
weight to the scale. In the minds of almost all religious persons,
even in the most tolerant countries, the duty of toleration is
admitted with tacit reserves. One person will bear with dissent in
matters of church government, but not of dogma; another can
tolerate everybody, short of a Papist or an Unitarian; 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 recognized principle by 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 often
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 civilized 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.