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LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.
vesiesy GOOIe
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
L
Il.
Il.
Iv.
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER .
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN ITS APPLI-
CATION TO MORALS
EQUALITY . . . . : . FRATERNITY . . . . . CONCLUSION. . : . . NOTE ON UTILITARIANISM . : . :
PAGR
1-32
33-104
+ 105-122
+ 123-188
189-255
» 256-318
+ 319-334
335-359
vesiesy GOOIe
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
BY
JAMES FITZJAMES STEPHEN, Q.C.
488 re Oapoadtaug rov paspdy reivew Blov Aaloy gavaig Oupdv dddaivovoar dv edpporsvaic, gpiaow 8 ae Depropeva pupiore w5xOo1e dtaxvaudpevors iva yap ob rpopwv by idig yvepy ofBee Gvarode Kyary Tpopn Oe. sre eee Prom, Viner, 535-542.
NEW YORK WOLT & WILLIAMS 1873.
vesiesy GOOIe
TO SIR JOHN STRACHEY, K.C.S.1
My pear Srracuey,
I dedicate this book to you for three reasons: First, as an expression of strong personal regard, and of deep gratitude for great kindness, all the more valuable because it resembled that which I received from everyone with whom I had any relations in India.
Secondly, in recollection of the month, after the arrival at Calcutta of the news of Lord Mayo’s murder, when you acted as Governor-General. The sorrow which we both felt for a man whom each of us had so many grounds, both public and private, to love and honour, and the anxiety and responsibility
which we shared during a very trying time, formed
a tie between us which I am sure you feel as strongly
as I do.
Thirdly, because you are one of the most dis- tinguished of Indian civilians, and my Indian expe- rience strongly confirmed the reflections which the book contains, and which had been takitig: shape gradually in my mind for many years. The com- monplaces and the vein of sentiment at which it is levelled appeared peculiarly false and poor as I read the European newspapers of 1870-1 at the head-
quarters of the Government of India.
The book was planned in India, and partly
written on my voyage home.
Iam, my dear STRACHEY,
Your sincere friend and late colleague,
James Frrzjames STEPHEN,
24 CORNWALL GARDENS, SOUTH KENSINGTON :
March 31, 1873.
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
CHAPTER I. ‘THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL
Tue opjecr of this work is to examine the doctrines which are rather hinted at than expressed by the phrase ‘ Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.’ This phrase has been the motto of more than one Republic. It is indeed something more than a motto. It is the creed of a religion, less definite than any one of the forms of Christianity, which are in part its rivals, in part its antagonists, and in part its associates, but not on that account the less powerful. It is, on the contrary, one of the most penetrating influences of the day. It shows itself now and then in definite forms, of which Positivism is the one best known to our generation, but its special manifesta- tions give no adequate measure of its depth or width. It penetrates other creeds. It has often transformed Christianity into a system of optimism, which has in some cases retained and in others B
2 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
rejected Christian phraseology. It deeply influences
politics and legislation. It has its solemn festivals,
its
sober adherents, its enthusiasts, its Anabaptists
and Antinomians. The Religion of Humanity is
perhaps as good a name as could be found if the expression is used in a wider sense t narrow and technical one associated with Comte. It is one of the commonest beliefs
for it, han the it by of the
day that the human race collectively has before it
splendid destinies of various kinds, and that t
e road
to them is to be found in the removal of all restraints
on human conduct, in the recognition of stantial equality between all human creatures,
a sub- and in
fraternity or general love. These doctrines are in
very many cases held as a religious faith.
regarded not merely as truths, but as truths fo those who believe in them are ready to do
Chey are
r which battle,
and for the establishment of which they are prepared
to sacrifice all merely personal ends.
Such, stated of course in the most general terms, is the religion of which I take ‘ Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’ to be the creed. I do not believe it
for the following, amongst other reasons. I am not the advocate of Slavery, Cas
te, and
Hatred, nor do I deny that a sense may be given
to the words, Liberty, Equality, and Fra
ternity,
in which they may be regarded as good. I wish to
assert with respect to them two propositions.
First, that in the present day even those who use
those words most rationally—that is to say,
as the
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 3
names of elements of social life which, like others, have their advantages and disadvantages according to time, place, and circumstance—have a great dis- position to exaggerate their advantages and to deny the existence, or at any rate to underrate the im- portance, of their disadvantages.
Next, that whatever signification be attached to them, these words are ill-adapted to be the creed ofa religion, that the things which they denote are not ends in themselves, and that when used collectively the words do not typify, however vaguely, any state of society which a reasonable man ought to regard with enthusiasm or self-devotion.
The truth of the first proposition as a mere general observation will not, in all probability, be dis- puted ; but I attach to ita very much more specific meaning than is conveyed by a mere commonplace. I mean to assert that the most accredited current theories upon this subject, and those which ‘have been elaborated with the greatest care, are unsound ; and to give point to this, I say more specifically that the theories advanced upon the subject by Mr. John Mill in most of his later works are unsound. I have several reasons for referring specifically to him. In the first place, no writer of the present day has ex- pressed himself upon these subjects with anything like the same amount either of system or of ability. In the second place, he is the only living author who has handled the subject, with whom I agree suffi-
ciently to differ from him profitably. Up to a cer- Be
4 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
tain point I should be proud to describe myself as his disciple, but there is a side of his teaching which is as repugnant as the rest of it is attractive to me, and this side has of late years become by far the most prominent. I do not say that the teaching of his works on Liberty, on Utilitarianism, and on the Sub- jection of Women is inconsistent with the teaching of his works on Logic and Political Economy; but I wish to show the grounds on which it is possible to agree with the greater part of the contents of the two works last mentioned, and even to maintain prin- ciples which they rather imply than assert, and at the same time to dissent in the strongest way from the view of human nature and human affairs which per- vades the works first mentioned.
No better statement of the popular view—I might, perhaps, say of the religious dogma of liberty—is to be found than that which is contained in Mr. Mill’s essay on the subject. His works on Utilitarianism and the Subjection of Women afford excellent illus- trations of the forms of the doctrines of equality and fraternity to which I object. Nothing is further from my wishes than to make a captious attack upon the writings of a great man to whom I am in every way deeply indebted ; but in stating the grounds of one’s dissent from wide-spread and influential opinions it is absolutely necessary to take some definite state- ment of those opinions as a starting point, and it is natural to take the ablest, the most reasonable, and the clearest.
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 5
To proceed, then. The following is, I think, a fair abridgment of the introductory chapter of the Essay on Liberty, which is much the most important part of that work.
7. Civil or social liberty as distinguished from ‘the so-called liberty of the will’ is its subject. The ex- pression, Mr. Mill tells us, meant originally pro- tection against the tyranny of political rulers. Their power was recognized as a necessary evil, and its limitation either by privilege or by constitutional checks was what was meant by liberty. People came in time to regard their rulers rather as their own agents and the depositaries of their own power than as antagonistic powers to be kept in check, and it did not occur to them that their own power exer- cised through their own agents might be just as oppressive as the power of their rulers confine within closer or wider limits. By degrees, however, experience showed that the whole might, and was by no means disinclined to, tyrannize over the part, an hence came the phrase ‘ tyranny of the majority.’ This tyranny of the majority has its root in ‘the feeling in each person’s mind that everybody shoul be required to act as he and those with whom he sympathizes would like them to act.’ After having illustrated this Mr. Mill proceed have been in advance of society in thought an feeling have left this condition of things unassaile
‘Those who
in principle, however they may have come into con- flict with it in some of its details. They have occu-
6 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
pied themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like and dislike, than in question- ing whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. He then enunciates his own view in the following passage :—
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 or 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 wiil make him happier, because in the opinions of others to de 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.
He points out that ‘this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their facul-
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL
ties,’ and that ‘we may leave out of account those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage. He then dis- claims any advantage which could be derived to his ‘argument from the idea of abstract right as a thing independent of utility.” He adds: ‘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.’ He concludes by specifying ‘ the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the in- ward 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 ex- pressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under ‘a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people, but being almost of as much impor- tance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically insepar- able from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits, of framing our plan of life to
suit our own character, of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impedi- ment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we de does not harm them—even though they should think our conduct foolish, pervers Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual follows
or wrong.
8 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
the liberty within the same limits of combination among individuals.’
This, I think, is the substance of the doctrine of the introductory chapter. It is the whole doctrine of the essay, and it is remarkable that, having thus fully and carefully enunciated his doctrine, Mr. Mill never attempts to prove it, as a whole. Probably the second, third, and fourth chapters are intended as separate proofs of distinct parts of it. Chapter II. may thus be regarded as an argument meant to prove that absolute liberty of thought and discussion is good. Chapter III. in the same way is an argument to show that individuality is an element of well-being, but it assumes instead of proving that liberty is a condition of individuality; a point on which much might be said. Chapter IV. is entitled, ‘Of the Limits of the Authority of Society over the Individual.’ It is little more than a restatement in detail of the general principles stated in the introductory chapter. It adds nothing to the argument, except this remark, which, no doubt, is entitled to great weight : ‘ The strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct is that when it does interfere the odds are that it interferes wrongly and in the wrong place.’ Finally, Chapter V., en- titled ‘Applications,’ consists, as might be expected
from its title, of the application of the general prin- ciple to a certain number of specific cases.
There is hardly anything in the whole essay which can properly be called proof as distinguished
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 9
from enunciation or assertion of the general prin- ciples quoted. I think, however, that it will not be difficult to show that the principle stands in much anced of proof. In order to make this clear it will be desirable in the first place to point out the meaning of the word liberty according to principles which I think are common to Mr. Mill and to myself. I do not think Mr. Mill would dispute the following statement of the theory of human actions. All voluntary acts are caused by motives. All motives may be placed in one of two categories—hope and fear, pleasure and pain. Voluntary acts of which hope is the motive are said to be free. Voluntary acts of which fear is the motive are said to be done under compulsion, or omitted under restraint. A woman marries. This in every case is a voluntary action. If she regards the marriage with the ordinary feelings and acts from the ordinary motives, she is said to act freely. If she regards it as a necessity, to which she submits in order to avoid greater evil, she is said to act under compulsion and not freely. If this is the true theory of liberty—and, though many persons would deny this, I do not think Mr. Mill would—the propositions already stated will in a condensed form amount to this: ‘No one is ever justified in trying to affect any one’s conduct by ex- citing his fears, except for the sake of self-protection ; or, making another substitution which he would
O
approve— It can never promote the general happi- ness of mankind that the conduct of any persons
10 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
should be affected by an appeal to their fears, except in the cases excepted.”
Surely these are not assertions which can be re- garded as self-evident, or even as otherwise than paradoxical. What is all morality, and what are all existing religions in so far as they aim at affecting human conduct, except an appeal either to hope or fear, and to fear far more commonly and far more emphatically than to hope? Criminal legislation proper may be regarded as unimportant as an engine of prohibition in comparison with morals and the forms of morality sanctioned by theology. For one act from which one person is restrained by the fear of the law of the land, many persons are restrained from innumerable acts by the fear of the disapproba- tion of their neighbours, which is the moral sanction ; or by the fear of punishment in a future state of ex- istence, which is the religious sanction; or by the fear of their own disapprobation, which may be called the conscientious sanction, and may be regarded as a compound case of the other two. Now, in the innumerable majority of cases, disapprobation, or the moral sanction, has nothing whatever to do with self- protection. The religious sanction is by its nature independent of it. Whatever special forms it may assume, the fundamental condition of it is a being
intolerant of evil in the highest degree, and inexorably determined to punish it wherever it exists, except upon certain terms. I do not say that this doctrine is true, but I do say that no one is entitled to assume
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL It
it without proof to be essentially immoral and mis- chievous. Mr. Mill does not draw this inference, but I think his theory involves it, for I know not what can bea greater infringement of his theory of liberty, a more complete and formal contradiction to it, than the doctrine that there isa court and a judge in which, and before whom, every man must give an account of every work done in the body, whether self-regard- ing or not. According to Mr. Mill’s theory, it ought to be a good plea in the day of judgment to say ‘I pleased myself and hurt nobody else.’ Whether or not there will ever be a day of judgment is not the question, but upon his principles the conception of a day of judgment is fundamentally immoral. A God who punished any one at all, except for the purpose of protecting others, would, upon his principles, be a tyrant trampling on liberty.
The application of the principle in question to the moral sanction would be just as subversive of all that people commonly regard as morality. The only moral system which would comply with the principle stated by Mr, Mill would be one capable of being summed up as follows:—t Let every man please himself without hurting his neighbour ;" and every
moral system which aimed at more than this, cither to obtain benefits for society at large other than pro- tection against injury or to do good to the persons affected, would be wrong in principle. This would condemn every existing system of morals. Positive
morality is nothing but a body of principles and
12 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
rules more or less vaguely expressed, and more or less left to be understood, by which certain lines of conduct are forbidden under the penalty of general disapprobation, and that quite irrespectively of self- protection. Mr. Mill himself admits this to a certain extent. In the early part of his fourth chapter he says that a man grossly deficient in the qualities which conduce to his own good is ‘necessarily and properly a subject of distaste, or in extreme cases even of contempt,’ and he enumerates various incon- veniences to which this would expose such a person, He adds, however: ‘The inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judg ment of others are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion ef his con-
duct and character which concerns his own good, but which does not affect the interests of others in their relation with him.’ This no doubt weakens the effect of the admission; but be this how it may, the fact still remains that morality is and must be a prohibitive system, one of the main objects of which is to impose upon every one a standard of conduct and of sentiment to which few persons would conform if it were not for the constraint thus put upon them. In nearly every instance the effects of such a system reach far beyond anything that can be described as the purposes of self-protection.
Mr. Mill's system is violated not only by every system of theology which cencerns itself with morals, and by every known system of positive morality, but
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 13
by the constitution of human nature itself. There is hardly a habit which men in general regard as good which is not acquired by a series of more or less painful and laborious acts. The condition of human life is such that we must of necessity be restrained and compelled by circumstances in nearly every action of our lives. Why, then, is liberty, defined , as Mr. Mill defines it, to be regarded as so precious ? What, after all, is done by the legislator or by the person who sets public opinion in motion to con- trol conduct of which he disapproves—or, if the expression is preferred, which he dislikes—which is not done for us all at every instant of our lives by
circumstances ? The laws which punish murder or theft are substitutes for private vengeance, which, in the absence of law, would punish those crimes more severely, though in a less regular manner. If there were laws which punished incontinence, gluttony, or drunkenness, the same might be said of them. Mr. Mill admits in so many words that there are ‘incon- veniences which are strictly inseparable from the un- favourable judgment of others.’ What is the dis: tinction in principle between such inconveniences and similar ones organized, defined, and _ inflicted upon proof that the circumstances which call for their infliction exist? This organization, definition, and procedure make all the difference between the restraints which Mr, Mill would permit and the restraints to which he objects. I cannot see on what the distinction rests. I cannot understand why it
14 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
must always be wrong to punish habitual drunkenness by fine, imprisonment, or deprivation of civil rights, and always be right to punish it by the infliction of those consequences which are ‘strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others.’ It may be said that these consequences follow, not because we think them desirable, but in the common order of nature. This answer only suggests the further question, whether nature is in this instance to be regarded as a friend or asan enemy ? Every reason- able man would answer that the restraint which the fear of the disapprobation of others imposes on our conduct is the part of the constitution of nature which we could least afford to dispense with. But if this is so, why draw the line where Mr. Mill draws it ? Why treat the penal consequences of disapprobation as things to be minimized and restrained within the narrowest limits ? What ‘inconvenience,’ after all, is ‘strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others’? If society at large adopted fully Mr. Mill’s theory of liberty, it would be easy to diminish very greatly the inconveniences in question. Strenu- ously preach and rigorously practise the doctrine that our neighbour's private character is nothing to us, and the number of unfavourable judgments formed, and therefore the number of inconveniences inflicted by them, can be reduced as much as we please, and the province of liberty can be enlarged in a corre- sponding ratio. Does any reasonable man wish for this? Could any one desire gross licentiousness,
TIE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GE
ERAL 15
monstrous extravagance; ridiculous vanity, or the like, to be unnoticed, or, being known, to inflict no inconveniences ?
If, however, the restraints on immorality are the main safeguards of society against influences which might be fatal to it, why treat them as if they were bad ? Why draw so strongly marked a line between social and legal penalties ? Mr. Mill asserts the ex- istence of the distinction in every form of speech. He makes his meaning perfectly clear. Yet from one end of his essay to the other I find no proof and no attempt to give the proper and appropriate proof of it. His doctrine could have been proved if it had been true. ° It was not proved because it was not true.
Each of these propositions may, I think, be esta- blished by referring to the commonest and most important cases of coercion for other purposes than those of self-protection. The most important of them are :— .
1. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and maintaining religions.
2. Coercion for the purpose of establishing and practically maintaining morality.
3. Coercion for the purpose of making alterations in existing forms of government or social institutions.
None of these can in the common use of language be described as cases of self-protection or of the prevention of harm to persons other than those coerced. Each is a case of coercion, for the sake of
16 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
what the persons who exercise coercive power regard as the attainment of a good object, and each is accordingly condemned, and the first and second were no doubt intended to be condemned, by Mr. Mill's principle. Indeed, as he states it, the prin- ciple would go very much further. It would con- demn, for instance, all taxation to which the party taxed did not consent, unless the money produced by it was laid out either upon military or upon police purposes or in the administration of justice; for these purposes only can be described as self-pro- tective. To force an unwilling person to contribute to the support of the British Museum is as distinct a violation of Mr. Mill's principle as religious perse- cution. He does not, however, notice or insist upon this point, and I shall say no more of it than that it proves that his principle requires further limitations than he has thought it necessary to express.
Returning, then, to the three kinds of coercion mentioned, I say that it was Mr. Mill’s business to show not merely that they had had bad effects—it
would be as superfluous to show that surgical ope- rations have bad effects—but that the bad effects arose from the coercion itself, irrespectively of the objects for which it was employed, and of the mistakes and excesses of those who employed it. He had to show not that surgery is painful, or that the loss of a limb is a calamity, or that surgeons are often unskilful or rash, but that surgery is an art bad in itself which ought to be suppressed. This, I say
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 17
he has never attempted to show from the beginning of the book to the end of it. If he had, he would have found his task an impossible one.
As regards coercion for the purpose of establish- ing and maintaining religions and systems of morality, it would be waste of time to insist upon the prin- ciple that both religion and morals are good on the whole, notwithstanding the evils of various kinds which have been connected with them. Nor need I repeat what I have already said on the point that both religion and morality are and always must be essentially coercive systems. Taking these matters for granted, however, it will be desirable to consider somewhat more fully the nature of moral and reli-
gious coercion, and the manner in which they operate. If Mr. Mill's view of liberty had always been adopted and acted upon to its full extent—if it had been the view of the first Christians or of the first Mahommedans—every one can see that there would have been no such thing as organised Chris- tianity or Mahommedanism in the world. Even after such success as these and other religions have obtained, the morality of the vast mass of mankind is simply to do what they please up to the point at which custom puts a restraint upon them, arising from the fear of disapprobation. The custom of looking upon certain courses of conduct with aver- sion is the essence of morality, and the fact that this aversion may be felt by the very person whose
conduct occasions it, and may be described as arising c
18 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
from the action of his own conscience, makes no difference which need be considered here. The im- portant point is that such disapprobation could never have become customary unless it had been imposed upon mankind at large by persons who themselves felt it with exceptional energy, and who were in a posi- tion which enabled them to make other people adopt their principles and even their tastes and feelings. Religion and morals, in a word, bear, even when they are at their calmest, the traces of having been established, as we know that in fact they were, by word of command. We have seen enough of the foundation of religious to know pretty well what is their usual course. A religion is first preached by a single person or a small body of persons. A certain number of disciples adopt it enthusiastically, and proceed to force their views upon the world by preaching, by persuasion, by the force of sympathy, until the new creed has become sufficiently influential and sufficiently well organised to exercise power both over its own members and beyond its own sphere. This power, in the case of a vigorous creed, assumes many forms. It may be military power, if the early converts are fighting men ; it may be power derived from threats as to a future state—and this is the commonest and most distinctive form of religious power of which we have practical experience. It may be power derived from mere superior energy of will, or from organi- sations which those who possess that energy are
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 19
able to set on foot by means of it. But, be the special form of religious power what it will, the principle is universally true that the growth of religions is in the nature of a conquest made by a small number of ardent believers over the luke- warmness, the indifference, and the conscious igno- rance of the mass of mankind. The life of the great mass of men, to a great extent the life of all men, is like a watercourse guided this way or that by a system of dams, sluices, weirs, and embank- ments. The volume and the quality of the different streams differ, and so do the plans of the works by which their flow is regulated, but it is by these works—that is to say, by their various customs and institutions—that men’s lives are regulated. Now these customs are not only in their very nature restraints, but they are restraints imposed by the will of an exceedingly small numerical minority and contentedly accepted by a majority to which they have become so natural that they do not recognise them as restraints.
As for the third set of cases in which coercion is habitually employed—I mean coercion for the pur-
pose of making alterations in existing forms of government and social institutions—it surely needs no argument to show that, all the great political changes which have been the principal subject of
European history for the last three centuries have been cases of coercion in the most severe form,
although a large proportion of them have been c2
20 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
described as struggles for liberty by those who were, in fact, the most vigorous wielders of power.
Mr. Mill and his disciples would be the last persons in the world to say that the political and social changes which have taken place in the world since the sixteenth century have not on the whole been eminently beneficial to mankind; but nothing can be clearer than that they were brought about by force, and in many instances by the force of a minority numerically small, applied to the conduct of an ignorant or very partially informed and for the most part indifferent majority. It would surely be as absurd to say that the Refor- mation or the French Revolution was brought about freely and not by coercion as to say that Charles I. walked freely to the block. Each of these and many other cases which might be men- tioned were struggles for political power, efforts to bring about a change in the existing state of things, which for various reasons appeared desirable to people who were able to carry out their designs more or less successfully.
To say that force was justifiable in none of these cases would be a paradox which Mr. Mill would probably be the last person to maintain. To say that it was justifiable only in so far as it was neces-
sary for self-protection would not explain the facts. Take such a case as the establishment of a new religion and the reduction of an old one to the position of a permitted form of private opinion.
‘THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 2r
Life has gone on for ages upon the supposition of the truth of the old religion. Laws and institutions of various kinds are founded upon it. The great mass of the population of a country have no par- ticular wish to disturb the existing state of things even though they may be ceasing to believe in the creed which it implies. Innovators arise who attack corruptions and preach new doctrines. They are punished. They resist, sides are formed, and the
results follow with which history is filled. In what sense can it be said that the acts of violence which take place on such occasions are acts done in self- defence and in order to prevent harm? They are acts of aggression upon an established system which is regarded as bad, and with a view to the substitu- tion of a different system which it is supposed will be better. If any one supposes that in regard to such transactions it is possible to draw a line be- tween what ought to be done and what ought not ; if any one will undertake to say how the French Revolution or the Reformation ought to have been conducted so as to avoid all violence on both
sides and yet to have arrived at the desired con- clusion, he will be able to give us a universal political constitution and a universal code of laws. People in such positions as those of Charles V., Philip I1., Henry VIIL, Queen Elizabeth, Louis XVI, and many others, must take a side, and must back it vigorously against its antagonists, unless they mean to be devoured themselves. The only
22 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
way by which this can be reconciled with Mr. Mill’s principle is by describing such violence as a case of self-protection, and if this is done it will follow that if men happen to be living under a political or social system with the principles or with the working of which they are not satisfied, they may fight out their difference, and the conqueror may determine the matter in dispute according to his own will. In other words, the principle cannot be applied to the very cases in which it is most needed. Mr. Mill’s principle throughout assumes the existence of an ideal state of things in which everyone has precisely the position which, with a view to the general happiness of the world, he ought to hold. If such a state of things existed there would be some plausi- bility in saying that no one ought to interfere with anyone else except for the sake of protecting himself against attack, by maintaining the existing state of things. But as no such state of things exists or ever yet existed in any age or country, the principle has at present no locus stand?.
Not only is an appeal to facts and experience opposed to Mr. Mill's principle, but his essay con- tains exceptions and qualifications which are really
inconsistent with it. He says that his principle ‘is meant to apply to human beings only in the maturity of their faculties,’ and, he adds, ‘we may Jeave out of account those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered in its nonage’ Despotism, he says, ‘is a legitimate mode of govern- ment in dealing with barbarians, provided the end
THE DOCTRINE OF L
be their improvement, an
IBERTY IN GENERAL 23
id the means justified by
actually effecting that end. Liberty as a principle
has no application to any the time when mankind being improved by free an then there is nothing for t to an Akbar or a Charlem But attained the capacity of
improvement by convictio1 long since reached in al
nate as to find one.
n or persuasion (a period
state of things anterior to have become capable of d equal discussion. Until
hem but implicit obedience
agne if they are so fortu- as soon as mankind have eing guided to their own
1 nations with whom we
need here concern ourselves), compulsion is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and
is justifiable only for the se
It seems to me that tl duces the doctrine qualifi -place which no one would
an incredible assertion al society. theory or in practice that
curity of others.’
is qualification either re- ed to an empty common- care to dispute, or makes bout the state of human
No one, I suppose, ever denied either in
there is a sphere within
which the tastes of people of mature age ought not to be interfered with, and within which differences must be regarded as natural and inevitable—in which better or worse means that which the indi-
vidual prefers or dislikes.
On the other hand, no
one ever suggested that it was or could be good for anyone to be compelled to do what he did not like,
unless the person compelli
but wiser than the person
reference to the matter t
applied.
ing was not only stronger compelled, at all events in o which the compulsion
24 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
Either, then, the exception means only that superior wisdom is not in every case a reason why one man should control another—which is a mere commonplace,—or else it means that in all the countries which we are accustomed to call civilised the mass of adults are so well acquainted with their own interests and so much disposed to pursue them that no compulsion or restraint put upon any of them by any others for the purpose of promoting their in- terests can really promote them.
No one can doubt the importance of this asser- tion, but where is the proof of it? Let us consider how it ought to have and would have been proved if it had been capable of proof. Mr. Mill might have specified the different classes of which some considerable nation—our own, for instance—is com- posed. Then he might have stated what are the objects which, if attained, would constitute the happiness of each of those classes. Then he might have shown that a knowledge of those interests, a knowledge of the means by which they must be attained, and a disposition to make use of the means proper to obtain them, was so generally dif-
fused among each class that no compulsion put by the other classes upon any one class as a whole, or by any part of any class upon any other part of it, could increase the happiness of the persons compelled
to such an extent as to overbalance the pain of the compulsion itself. Before he affirmed that in Western Europe and America the compulsion of adults for
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 25
their own good is unjustifiable, Mr. Mill ought to have proved that there are among us no consi- derable differences in point of wisdom, or that if there are, the wiser part of the community does not wish for the welfare of the less wise.
It seems to me quite impossible to stop short of this principle if compulsion in the case of children and ‘backward’ races is admitted to be justifiable ; for, after all, maturity and civilisation are matters of degree. One person may be more mature at fifteen than another at thirty. A nation or a particular part of a nation may make such an advance in the arts of life in half a century that other nations, or other parts of the same nation, which were equally civilised at the beginning of the period, may be relatively barbarous at the end of it.
I do not overlook the qualification contained in the passages quoted above. It fixes the limit up to which compulsion is justifiable at the ‘time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.’ This expression may imply that compulsion is always or never justifiable, according to the manner in which it is construed. I am not quite sure that I know what Mr. Mill means by ‘equal’ discussion, but was there ever a time or place at which no men could be improved on any point by free discussion ? The wildest savages, the most immature youths, capable ofany sort of education, are capable of being improved by free discussion upon a great variety of subjects. Compulsion, therefore,
26
in their own interests wou
these subjects, be unjustifia boys in a school can be con’
of industry, you must never Such an interpretation of t exclude compu
A narrower interpretati
sion together.
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
d, at least in relation to If vinced of thesimportance punish them for idleness.
he rule would practically Tr.
ble as regards them.
on would be as follows.
There is a period, now generally reached all over
Europe and America, at w
place of compulsion, and in
know what is good for them generally do it.
ich discussion takes the which people when they When
this period is reached, compulsion may be laid aside.
To this I shou been reached anywhere, an of its being reac time.
Where, in the very mos: communities, will you find a: views or whose conduct on s
say that no such period has as yet
that there is no prospect
hed anywhere within any assignable
t advanced and civilised ny class of persons w
ubjects on which they are
hose
interested are regulated even in the main by the results
of free discussion ? conduct in any department i and what to wic
sand people who get drunk
say with truth that he did so because he had
brought to thin discussion that it was wise not every one of ‘the ten
What proportion of human
kedness or weakness ?
mis- in life is due to ignorance, Of ten t k, is there one who c
nou- ‘ould
een
k on full deliberation and after free
to get drunk? Would thousand, if he told the
real truth, say in some dialect or other—‘I got drunk because I was weak and a fool, because I
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 27
could not resist the immediate pleasure for the sake of future and indefinite advantage’? If we look at the conduct of bodies of men as expressed in their laws and institutions, we shall find that, though compulsion and persuasion go hand in hand, from the most immature and the roughest ages and societies up to the most civilised, the lion's share of the results obtained is due to compulsion, and that discussion is at most an appeal to the motives by which the strong man is likely to be actuated in using his strength. Look at our own time and country, and mention any single great change which has been effected by mere discussion. Can a single case be mentioned in which the passions of men were interested where the change was not carried by force—that is to say, ultimately by the fear of revolution? Is it in any degree true that when the brains are out a question dies? Look at small matters which involve more or less of a principle, but do not affect many men’s passions, and see how much reasoning has to do with their settle- ment. Such questions as the admission of Jews into Parliament and the legalisation of marriage between brothers and sisters-in-law drag on and on after the argument has been exhausted, till in course of time those who take one view or the other grow into a decided majority, and settle the matter their own way. Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking
28 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
heads, but the principle is exactly the same. It is not the wisest side which wins, but the one which for the time being shows its superior strength (of which no doubt wisdom is one element) by enlisting the largest amount of active sympathy in its support. The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority.
This again suggests an observation on a different part of the passage quoted from Mr. Mill. In rough states of society he admits of Charlemagnes. and Akbars, if the world is so fortunate as to have them at hand. What reason is there to suppose that Charlemagnes or Akbars owe their power to en- lightenment superior to that of the persons whom they coerce? They owe it to greater force of character and to the possession of power. What they did was to suppress anarchy—to substitute the vigorous rule of one Sovereign for the jarring pre- tensions of a crowd of petty rulers. No doubt powerful men are generally comparatively enlightened men, as were both Charlemagne and Akbar, for
knowledge is a high form of power, as light implies intense force. But power in whatever form is the essential thing. Anarchy may be mischievous in civilised as well as in uncivilised life, and the only way out of it is by coercive power. To direct that power aright is, I think, the principal object of political argument. The difference be- between a rough and a civilised society is not that
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 29
force is used in the one case and persuasion in the other, but that force is (or ought to be) guided with greater care in the second case than in the first. President Lincoln attained his objects by the use of a degree of force which would have crushed Charle- magne and his paladins and peers like so many eggshells.
The correctness of the assertion that ‘in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves,’ the period at which ‘mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion has long since arrived,’ may be estimated by reference to two familiar points :—
1. Upon all the subjects which mainly interest men as men—religion, morals, government—man- kind at large are in a state of ignorance which in favourable cases is just beginning to be conscious that it is ignorance. How far will free discussion carry such knowledge as we have on these subjects ? The very most that can be hoped for—men being what they are—is to popularise, more or less, a certain set of commonplaces, which, by the condition of their existence, cannot possibly be more than half-truths. Discussion produces plenty of effects, no doubt. People hunger and thirst after theories to such a degree that whatever puts ‘their own wishes into a compact and intelligible form will obtain from them a degree of allegiance which may be called either touching or terrible. Look at the great popular movements which discussion has pro-
30 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
veked, and consider what approach any one of them made to the real truth. Innumerable creeds, reli- gious and political, have swept across the world, arguing, preaching, gesticulating, and fighting. Compare the amount of recognition which the worst of them has obtained and the devotion which it has called forth with the degree of really intelligent appreciation which has been awarded to science. Millions upon millions of men, women, and children believe in Mahommed to the point of regulating their whole life by his law. How many people have understood Adam Smith? Did anybody, except perhaps Mr. Buckle, ever feel any enthu- siasm about him? If we wish to test the capacity of mankind at large for any sort of abstract discus- sion, we ought to consider the case of the minor branches of human knowledge which have been invested with some approach to a systematic cha- racter. How many people are capable of under- standing the fundamental principles of either political economy or jurisprudence? How many people can understand the distinction between making the fundamental assumptions of political economy for the purpose of calculating the results of the un- restrained action of the desire to get rich, and regarding those assumptions as being true in fact and capable of serving as the foundations of human society ?. One would have thought that it was easy to distinguish between the proposition, ‘If your only object in trade is to make the largest possible
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN GENERAL 3r
profit, you ought always to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,’ and the proposition, ‘All men ought, under all circumstances, to buy all things in the cheapest and sell them in the dearest market.’ Yet how many people do in fact distin- guish them? How many recognise in the faintest degree the importance of the distinction ?
2. Men are so constructed that whatever theory as to goodness and badness we choose to adopt, there are and always will be in the world an enor- mous mass of bad and indifferent people—people who deliberately do all sorts of things which they ought not to do, and leave undone all sorts of things which they ought to do. Estimate the proportion of men and women who are selfish, sensual, frivolous, idle, absolutely commonplace and wrapped up in the smallest of petty routines, and consider how far the freest of free discussion is likely to improve them. The only way by which it is practically possible to act upon them at all is by compulsion or restraint. Whether it is worth while to apply to them both or either I do not now inquire; I confine myself to saying that the utmost conceivable liberty which could be bestowed upon them would not in the least degree tend to improve them. It would be as wise to say to the water of a stagnant marsh, ‘Why in the world do not you run into the sea? you are perfectly free. There is not a single hydraulic work within a mile of you. There are no pumps to suck you up, no defined channel down which you are com-
32 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
pelled to run, no harsh banks and mounds to confine you to any particular course, no dams and no flood- gates ; and yet there you lie, putrefying and breeding fever, frogs, and gnats, just as if you were a mere slave!’ The water might probably answer, if it knew how, ‘If you want me to turn mills and carry boats, you must dig proper channels and provide proper water-works for me.’
33
CHAPTER IL ON THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION,
Tuoven, as I pointed out in my last chapter, Mr. Mill rather asserts than proves his doctrines about liberty, the second chapter of his essay on the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, and the third chapter on Individuality as one of the Elements of Well-being—may be regarded as arguments to prove certain parts or applications of the general principle asserted in his introduction; and as such I will consider them. I object rather to Mr. Mill’s theory than to his practical conclusions. I hope to show hereafter how far the practical difference between us extends, The objection which I make to most
of his statements on the subject is, that in order to justify in practice what might be justified on narrow and special grounds, he lays down a theory incorrect in itself and tending to confirm views which might become practically mischievous.
The result of his letter on Liberty of Thought and Discussion is summed up, with characteristic point and brevity, by himself in the following words :—
D
34 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion and freedom of the expres- sion of opinion on four distinct grounds.
First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth ; and since the general or prevailing opinion is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth, unless it is suffered to be and actually is vigorously and earnestly contested, it will by most of those who receive it be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
Fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost or enfeebled and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct; the dogma becom- ing a mere formal profession inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction from reason or personal experience.
The chapter in question is, I think, one of the most eloquent to be found in its author's writings, and it contains, as is not unfreqnently the case with him, illustrations which are even more valuable for what they suggest than for what they say.
These illustrations are no doubt the part of this chapter which made the deepest impression when it was first published, and which have been most vividly remembered by its readers. I think that for
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 35
the sake of them most readers forget the logical framework in which they were set, and read the chapter as a plea for greater freedom of discussion on theological subjects. If Mr. Mill had limited himself to the proposition that in our own time and country it is highly important that the great questions of theology should be discussed openly and with complete freedom from all legal restraints, I should agree with him. But the impression which the whole chapter leaves upon me is that for the sake of establishing this limited practical conse- quence, Mr. Mill has stated a theory which is very far indeed from the truth, and which, if generally accepted, might hereafter become a serious em- barrassment to rational legislation.
His first reason in favour of unlimited freedom
of opinion on all subjects is this : ‘If any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly tell, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.’
He states fairly and fully the obvious objection to this—that ‘there is no greater presumption of infallibility in forbidding the propagation of error than in any other thing which is done by public ty’ In other words, the assumption is not that the
authority on its own judgment and responsi
persecutor is infallible, but that in this particular case he is right. To this cbjection he replies as follows :—‘ There is the greatest difference between
presuming an opinion to be true because, with every D2
36 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not per- mitting its refutation, Complete liberty of contra- dicting 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.’
This reply does not appear to be satisfactory. Tt is not very easy to disentangle the argument on which it rests, and to put it into a perfectly distinct shape, but I think it will be found on examination to involve the following propositions :—
1. No one can have a rational assurance of the truth of any opinion whatever, unless he is infallible, or unless all persons are absolutely free to contra- dict it.
2. Whoever prevents the expression of any opinion asserts by that act that he has a rational assurance of the falsehood of that opinion.
3. At the same time he destroys one of the
conditions of a rational assurance of the truth of the assertions which he makes, namely, the freedom of others to contradict him.
4. Therefore he claims infallibility, which is, the only other ground on which such an assurance of the truth of those assertions can rest.
The first and second of these propositions appear to me to be incorrect,
As to the first, I think that there are innumerable
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 37
propositions on which a man may have a rational assurance that he is right whether others are or are not at liberty to contradict him, and that although he does not claim infallibility. Every proposition of which we are assured by our own senses, or by evidence which for all practical purposes is as strong as that of our own senses, falls under this head. There are plenty of reasons for not forbidding people to deny the existence of London Bridge and the river Thames, but the fear that the proof of those propositions would be weakened or that the person making the law would claim infallibility is not among the number.
A asserts the opinion that B is a thief. B sues A for libel. A justifies. The jury give a verdict for the plaintiff, with £1,000 damages. This is nearly equivalent to a law forbidding every one, under the penalty of a heavy fine, to express the opinion that in respect of the matters discussed B is a thief. Does this weaken the belief of the world at large in the opinion that in respect of those matters B is not a thief? According to Mr. Mill, no one can have a rational assurance upon the subject unless every one is absolutely free to contra- dict the orthodox opinion. Surely this cannot be so,
The solution seems to be this. The fact that
people are forbidden to deny a proposition weakens the force of the inference in its favour to be drawn from their acquiescence in it ; but the value of their acquiescence considered as evidence may be very
38 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
small, and the weight of other evidence, independent of public opinion, may not only be overwhelming, but the circumstances of the case may be such as to be inconsistent with the supposition that any further evidence will ever be forthcoming.
Again, an opinion may be silenced without any assertion on the part of the person who silences it that it is false. It may be suppresse because it is true, or because it is doubtful whether it is true or false, and because it is not considere desirable that it should be discussed. In these cases there is obviously no assumption of infallibility in suppressing it. The old maxim, ‘the greater the truth the greater the libel,’ has a true side to it, and when it applies it is obvious that an opinion is silenced without any assumption of infallibility. The opinion that a respectable man of mature years le an immoral life in his youth may be perfectly true, and yet the expression of that opinion may be a crime, if it is not for the public good that it should
--be expressed.
In cases in which it is obvious that no con- clusion at all can be established beyond the reach of doubt, and that men must be contented with pro- babilities, it may be foolish to prevent discussion an prohibit the expression of any opinion but one, but no assumption of infallibility is involved in so doing. When Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth silence: to a certain extent both Catholics and Puritans, and sought to confine religious controversy within limits
c fixed
infal
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 39
by law, they did not assume themselves to be ible. What they thought—and it is by no
means clear that they were wrong—was that unless religious controversy was kept within bounds there
wou puta
as it
apply-
on t ont
d be a civil war, and they muzzled the dis- nts accordingly.
There are, in short, two classes of cases to which,
appears to me, Mr. Mill’s argument does not cases in which moral certainty is attainable e evidence, and cases in which it is not attainable e evidence.
Where moral certainty is attainable on the evi- dence the suppression of opinion involves no claim to infallibility, but at most a claim to be right in the
particular case,
Where moral certainty is not attainable on the
evidence the suppression of opinion involves no claim to infallibility, because it does not assert the false- hood of the opinion suppressed.
The three remaining arguments in favour of unlimited liberty of thought and discussion are: 1. That the silenced opinion may be partially true
and
that this partial truth can be brought out by dis-
cussion only. 2. Thata true opinion when established is not believed to be true unless it is vigorously
and
held
earnestly contested. 3. That it comes to be ina dead conventional way unless it is discussed,
These arguments go to show, not that the sup- pression of opinion can never be right, but that it
may
sometimes be wrong, which no one denies.
40 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
None of them show—as the first argument would if it were well founded—that persecution in all cases proceeds on a process involving distinct intellectual error. As to the first argument, it is obvious that if people are prepared to take the chance of persecut- ing a proposition which may be wholly true as if it were wholly false, they will be prepared to treat it in the same manner though it is only partially true. The second and third arguments, to which I shall have to return hereafter, apply exclusively to that small class of persons whose opinions depend prin- cipally upon the consciousness that they have reached them by intellectual processes correctly performed. The incalculable majority of mankind form their opinions in quite a different way, and are attached to them because they suit their temper and meet their wishes, and not because and in so far as they think themselves warranted by evidence in believing them to be true. The notorious result of unlimited freedom of thought and discussion is to produce general scepticism on many subjects in the vast majority of minds. If you want zealous belief, set people to fight. Few things give men such a keen perception of the importance of their own opinions and the vileness of the opinions of others as the fact that they have inflicted and suffered persecution for them. Unlimited freedom of opinion may be a very good thing, but it does not tend to zeal, or even to a distinct appreciation of the bearings of the opinions which are entertained. Nothing will give either but
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 41
adeep interest in the subject to which those opinions relate, and this is so personal and deeply seated a matter that it is scarcely capable of being affected by external restraints, unless, indeed, it is irritated and so stimulated by them.
I pass over for the present the illustrations of this chapter, which, as I have already said, are by far the most important part of it; and I proceed to the chapter on Individuality as one of the Elements of Well-being.) —_ , /%. O77 a
The substance of the doctrine eloquently ex- pounded in it is that freedom ‘is essential to origi- nality and individuality of: character. It consists, however, almost entirely of eulogies upon individu- ality, to which Mr. Mill thinks the world is indifferent. He accordingly sets forth at length the advantage of having vigorous impulses and plenty of them, of try-
ing experiments in life, of leaving every man of genius free, not indeed ‘to seize on the government of the world and make it do his bidding in spite of itself,’ but to ‘point out the way.’ This individuality and energy of character, he thinks, is dying out under various depressing influences. ‘The Calvinistic theory’ regards ‘the crushing out the human facul- ties, capacities, and susceptibilities, as ‘no evil,’ inas- much as ‘man needs no capacity but that of sur- rendering himself to the will of God, and if he uses any of his faculties for any other purpose but to do that supposed will more effectually he is better without them.’ Apart, however, from this, ‘society
42 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
has now fairly got the better of individuality.” ATI of us are enslaved to custom. ‘ Energetic characters on any large scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet for energy in this country except business.’ ‘The only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is Liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals” Indivi- duality, however, is at a discount with us, and we are on the way to a Chinese uniformity.
Much of what I had to say on this subject has
been anticipated by an article lately published in ‘Fraser’s Magazine’ * It expands and illustrates with great vigour the following propositions, which appear to me to be unanswerable :— 1. The growth of liberty in the sense of democracy tends to diminish not to increase originality and individuality. ‘Make all men equal so far as laws can make them equal, and what does that mean but that each unit is to be rendered hopelessly feeble in presence of an overwhelming majority?’ The existence of such a state of society reduces indi- viduals to impotence, and to tell them to be power- ful, original, and independent is to mock them. It is like plucking a bird’s feathers in order to put it on a level with beasts, and then telling it to fly.
2, ‘The hope that people are to be rendered more vigorous by simply removing restrictions
* On ‘Social Macadamisation, by L. S., in Fraser's Magazine for August, 1872.
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 43
seems to be as fallacious as the hope that a bush planted in an open field would naturally develope into a forest tree. It is the intrinsic force which requires strengthening, and it may even happen in some cases that force will produce all the more effect for not being allowed to scatter itself.’
3. Though goodness is various, variety is not in itself good. ‘A nation in which everybody was sober would be a happier, betterand more progressive, though a less diversified, nation than one of which half the members were sober and the other half habitual drunkards.’
I might borrow many other points from the ex- cellent essay in question, but I prefer to deal with the matter in my own way, and I will therefore add some remarks in confirmation and illustration of the points for which I am indebted to the writer.
The great defect of Mr. Mill’s later writings seems to me to be that he has formed too favour- ible an estimate of human nature. This displays itself in the chapter now under consideration by the tacit
assumption which pervades every part of it that the removal of restraints usually tends to invigorate cha- racter. Surely the very opposite of this is the truth. Habitual exertion is the greatest of all invigorators
of character, and restraint and coercion in one form or another is the great stimulus to exertion. If you wish to destroy originality and vigour of character, no way to do so is so sure as to put a high level of comfort easily within the reach of moderate and
44 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FR.
common-place exertion. A life made up of danger, vicissitude, and exposure is the sort of life which produces originality and resource. A soldier or sailor on active service lives in an atmosphere of coercion by the elements, by enemies, by disease, by the discipline to which he is subjected. Is he usually a tamer and less original person than a com- fortable London shopkeeper or a man with just such an income as enables him to do exactly as he likes ? A young man who is educated and so kept under close and continuous discipline till he is twenty-two “or twenty-three years of age will generally have a much more vigorous and more original character than one who is left entirely to his own devices at an age when his mind and his tastes are unformed. Almost every human being requires more or less coercion and restraint as astringents to give him the maximum of power which he is capable of attaining. The maximum attainable in particular cases depends upon something altogether independent of social arrangements—namely, the nature of the human being himself who is subjected to them; and what
this is or how it is to be affected are questions which no one has yet answered.
This leads me to say a few words on Mr. Mill’s criticism on ‘the Calvinistic theory’ He says: ‘ According to that the one great offence of man is self-will. All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience. You have no choice ; thus you must do and no otherwise.” ‘Whatever
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 45
is not a duty is a sin” ‘Human nature being radically corrupt, there is no redemption for any one until human nature is killed within him.’
do not profess to have a very deep acquaint- ance with Calvin’s works, but from what I do know of them I should say that Mr. Mill uses the word Calvinistic almost at random. Calvin’s general doctrine, as delivered in the first and second books of the ‘Institutes, is something like this. The one great offence of man lies in the fact that, having before him good and evil, his weaker and worse appetites lead him to choose evil. The best thing- for him is to obey a divine call to choose good. Man has a fearful disease, but his original con-
stitution is excellent. Redemption consists not in killing but in curing his nature. Calvin describes original sin as ‘the inheritably descending per- verseness and corruption (Book 2, ch. 1, s. 8) of our nature poured abroad into all the parts of the soul,’ bringing forth ‘the works of the flesh,’ or, in other words, vice in all its forms. The result is (ch. 2) that ‘man is now spoiled of the freedom of his will and made subject to miserable bondage’ to his own vices. It is from this bondage, this pre-
ference of evil to good, that God rescues the elect. I think that if Calvin were translated into modern language it would be hard to deny this. Speak or fail to speak of God as you think right, but the fact that men are deeply moved by ideas about power, wisdom, and goodness, on a superhuman
46 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
scale which they rather apprehend than comprehend, is certain. Speak of original sin or not as you lease, but the fact that all men are in some respects and at some times both weak and wicked, that they do the ill they would not do, and shun the good they would pursue, is no less certain. To describe this state of things as a ‘miserable ondage’ is, to say the least, an intelligible way of speaking. Calvin’s theory was that in order to escape from this bondage men must be true to the etter part its baser e
of their nature, keep in proper subjection lements, and look up to God as the source y valuable kind of freedom—freedom to be good and wise. To describe this doctrine as a depressing influence leading to the crushing out of the human facu tibilities, is to show an theologica’
of the on
ties, capacities, and suscep- incapacity to separate from and scholastic husks the grain on which
the bravest, hardiest, men that ever trod t nourished. requires us to believe tl was a poor heartbroke own.
‘There is one more I must notice i Mill's ent
which exceed Mr. ness. collective mediocrity.
never rise above med
No theory
and most vigorous race of e face of this earth were can possibly be right which at such aman as John Knox
n creature with no will of his
point in this curious chapter Nothing can husiasm for individual great-
in conclusion.
The mass, he says, in all countries constitute
They never think at all, and iocrity, ‘except in so far as
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 47
the sovereign many have let themselves be guided and influenced (which in their best times they always have done) by the counsels and influence of amore highly gifted or instructed one or few. The initiation of all wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals; generally at first from some one individual.’ The natural inference would be that these individuals are the born rulers of the world, and that the world should acl knowledge and obey them as such. Mr. Mill will not admit this. All that the man of genius can claim is ‘freedom to point out the way. The power of compelling others into it is not only inconsistent
with the freedom and development of all the rest, but corrupting to the strong man himself’ This would be perfectly true if the compulsion consisted in a simple exertion of blind force, like striking a nail with a hammer; but who ever acted so on others to any extent worth mentioning ? The way in which the man of genius rules is by persuading an efficient minority to coerce an indifferent and self-indulgent majority, which is quite a different process.
The odd manner in which Mr. Mill worships mere variety, and confounds the proposition that variety is good with the proposition that good- ness is various, is well illustrated by the lines which follow this passage :—‘ Exceptional indi- viduals . . . should be encouraged in acting dif- ferently from the mass’—in order that there may be
48 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
enough of them to ‘point out the way.’ Eccen- tricity is much required in these days. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded, and the amount o1 eccentricity in a society has generally been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric makes the chief danger of the time.
If this advice were followed, we should have as many little oddities in manner and behaviour as we have people who wish to pass for men of genius. Eccentricity is far more often a mark of weakness than a mark of strength. Weakness wishes, as a rule, to attract attention by trifling distinctions, and strength wishes to avoid it. Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people.
Thus much as to Mr. Mill’s view of this subject. I will now attempt to explain my own views on liberty in general, and in particular on liberty of thought.
To me the question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing? It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circum- stance, and a complete answer to the question, In
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 49
what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad ? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer. 1 do not believe that the state of our knowledge is such as to enable us to enunciate any ‘very simple principle as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control.’ We must proceed in a far more cautious way, and confine ourselves to such remarks as experience suggests about the advantages and disadvantages of compulsion and liberty respectively in particular cases.
The following way of stating the matter is not ard does not pretend to be a solution of the ques- tion, In what cases is liberty good ? but it will serve to show how the question ought to be discussed when it arises. I do not see how Mr. Mill could deny its correctness consistently with the general principles of the ethical theory which is to a certain extent common to us both.
Compulsion is bad—
1. When the object aimed at is bad.
2. When the object aimed at is good, but the compulsion employed is not calculated to obtain it.
3. When the object aimed at is good, and the compulsion employed is calculated to obtain it, but at too great an expense.
Thus to compel a man to commit murder is bad, because the object is bad.
E
50 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
To inflict a punishment sufficient to irritate but not sufficient to deter or to destroy for holding particular religious opinions is bad, because such compulsion is not calculated to effect its purpose, assuming it to be good.
To compel people not to trespass by shooting them with spring-guns is bad, because the harm done is out of all proportion to the harm avoided.
If, however, the object aimed at is good, if the compulsion employed such as to attain it, and if the good obtained overbalances the inconvenience of the compulsion itself, I do not understand how, upon utilitarian principles, the compulsion can be bad. I may add that this way of stating the case shows that Mr. Mill's ‘simple principle’ is really a paradox. it can be justified only by showing as a fact that, self-protection apart, no good object can be attained by any compulsion which is not in itself a greater evil than the absence of the object which the compulsion obtains.
I will now proceed to apply the principles stated to the case of compulsion applied to thought and discussion. This Mr. Mill condemns in all cases. I should condemn it in those cases only in which the object itself is bad, or in which the means used are not suited to its attainment, or in which, though
suited to its attainment, they involve too great an expense. Compare the results of these two ways of thinking. Few persons would be found, I suppose, in these days to deny the paramount expediency,
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 51
the utility in the highest sense, of having true opinions ; and by true I mean not merely honest, but correct, opinions. To believe true statements, to disbelieve false statements, to give to probable or improbable statements a degree of credit propor- tioned to their apparent probability or improbability, would be the greatest of intellectual blessings. Such a state of mind is the ideal state which a perfectly reasonable human being would regard as the one at which he ought to aim, as we aim at all ideals—that is to say, with a consciousness that we can never fully attain them. The most active-minded, the most sagacious, and those who are most favourably situated for the purpose, are in practice altogether unable to make more than an approximation to such a result, in regard to some few of the in- numerable subjects which interest them. I am, of course, aware that this view is not universally ad- mitted, but I need not argue at present with those who deny it.
Assuming it to be true, it will follow that all coercion which has the effect of falsifying the opinions of those who are coerced is coercion for an object bad in itself; and this at once condemns all cases of direct coercion in favour of opinions which are not, to say the least, so probable that a reason- able man would act upon the supposition of their truth. The second condition—namely, that coer-
cion must be effective—and the third condition, that E2
52 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
it must not inflict greater evils than it avoids, con- demn, when taken together, many other cases of coercion, even when the object aimed at is good. For instance, they condemn all coercion applied directly to thought and unexpressed opinion, and all coercion which must be carried to the point of extermination or general paralysis of the thinking powers in order to be effective. In the first case the end is not attained. In the second it is attained at too great an expense. These two considerations are sufficient to condemn all the coarser forms of per- secution. I have nothing to add to the well-known commonplaces which bear upon this part of the subject.
This being allowed, let us turn to the considera- tion of the other side of the question, and enquire whether there are no cases in which a degree of coercion, affecting, though not directly applied to, thought and the expression of opinion, and not in itself involving an evil greater than the evil avoided, may attain desirable ends. I think that such cases exist and are highly important. In general terms I think that the legal establishment and disestablish- ment of various forms of opinion, religious, political, and moral, their encouragement and recognition by law and public opinion as being true and useful, or their discouragement by law and public opinion as being false and mischievous, fall within this prin- ciple. I think, that is, that they are cases of coercion of which the object is or mav be good, and
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 53
in which the coercion is likely to be effective, and is not an evil great enough to counterbalance the evil which is avoided or the good which is attained. I think, in short, that Governments ought to take the responsibility of acting upon such principles, reli- gious, political, and moral, as they may from time to time regard as most likely to be true, and this they cannot do without exercising a very considerable degree of coercion. The difference between, I do not say keeping up an Established Church at the public expense, but between paying a single shilling of public money to a single school in which any opinion is taught of which any single taxpayer
disapproves, and the maintenance of the Spanish Inquisition, is a question of degree. As the first cannot be justified without infringing the principle of liberty as stated by Mr. Mill, so the last can be condemned on my principles only by showing that the doctrines favoured by the Inquisition were not true, that the means used to promote them were ineffective, or that their employment was too high a price to pay for the object gained; issues which I should be quite ready to accept.
In order to show more distinctly what I mean by coercion in favour of religious opinions, it is necessary to point out that I include under the head of religious opinions all opinions about religion, and in particular the opinion that a given religious creed is false, and the opinion that no religious creed is absolutely true, as well as the opinions which col-
54 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
lectively form any one of the many confessions of faith adopted by religious bodies.
There are many subjects of legislation which directly and vitally interest all the members of religious bodies as such. Of these marriage, educa- tion, and the laws relating to religious endowments are the most prominent. Suppose, now, that the rulers of a nation were opposed to all religion, and were prepared to and did consistently legislate upon the principle that all religions are false. Suppose that in harmony with this view they insisted in every case on a civil marriage, and regarded it as the only one legally binding, although the addition of religious ceremonies was not forbidden; suppose that they confiscated all endowments for religious purposes, making provision for the life interests of the actual incumbents. _ Suppose that they legislated in such a way as to forbid all such endowments for the future, so as to render the maintenance of religious services entirely dependent on the temper of the existing generation. Suppose that, in addi- tion to this, they were to organize a system of national education, complete in all its parts, from universities and special colleges for particular pro- fessions down to village day schools. Suppose that in all of these the education was absolutely secular, and ‘that not a single shilling was allowed to be appropriated out of the public purse to the teaching of religion in any form whatever, or to the education of persons intended to be its ministers.
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 55
No one, I think, will deny either that this would be coercion, or that it would be coercion likely to effect its purpose to a greater or less extent by means not
in themselves productive of any other evil than the suppression of religion which the adoption of these means assumes to be a good. Here, then, is a case in which coercion, likely to be effective at a not inadequate price, is directed towards an end the goodness or badness of which depends upon the question whether religion is true or false. Is _ this coercion good or bad? I say good if and in so far as religion is false; bad if and in so far as religion is true. Mr. Mill ought, I think, to say that in every case it is bad, irrespectively of the truth or falschood of religion, for it is coercion, and it is not self-protective.
That this is not an impossible case is proved by the action of the British Empire in India, which governs, not indeed on the principle that no religion is true, but distinctly on the principle that no native religion is true. The English have done, and are doing, the following things in that country :—
1. They have forced upon the people, utterly against the will of many of them, the principle that people of different religions are to live at peace with each other, that there is to be no fighting and no oppression as between Mahommedans and Hincloos, or between different sects of Mahommedans.
2. They have also forced upon the people the principle that change of religion is not to involve
56 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
civil disabilities. The Act* by which this rule was laid down utterly changed the legal position of one of the oldest and most widespread religions in the world. It deprived Brahminism of its coercive sanction.
3. They have set up a system of education all over the country which assumes the falsehood of the creed of the Hindoos and—less pointedly, but not less effectually—-of the Mahommedans.
4. Whenever religious practices violate European ideas of public morality up to a certain point, they have, as in the cases of Suttee and human sacrifices, been punished as crimes.
5. They compel the natives to permit the pre- sence among them of missionaries whose one object it is to substitute their own for the native religions, and who do, in fact, greatly weaken the native religions.
In these and in some other ways the English Government keeps up a steady and powerful pressure upon their Indian subjects in the direction of those moral and religious changes which are incidental to, and form a part of what we understand by, civilisation. It is remarkable that this pressure is exerted, as it were, involuntarily. No act which can in the ordinary use of language be described as remotely resembling persecution can be laid to the charge of the Government of India. The most
* Act xxi. of 1850. Commonly, though not very correctly, called the ‘Lex Loci Act.’
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 57
solemn pledges to maintain complete impartiality between different religious persuasions have been given on the most solemn occasions, and they have been observed with the most scrupulous fidelity. Every civilian, every: person of influence and authority, is full of a sincere wish to treat the native religions with respect. It would be difficult to find a body of men less disposed on the whole to proselytize, or more keenly aware of the weak side of the proselytizing spirit. Whatever faults the English in India have committed, the fault of being too ecclesiastically minded, of being too much led by missionaries, is certainly not one of them. For many years the bare presence of missionaries in British India was not tolerated by the Indian Government. The force of circumstances, however, was too strong for them, and has put them, against their will, at the head of a revolution. Little by little they were forced to become the direct rulers of
the whole country, and to provide it with a set of laws and institutions. They found, as every one who has to do with legislation must find, that laws must be based upon principles, and that it is im- possible to lay down any principles of legislation at
all unless you are prepared to say, I am right, and you are wrong, and your view shall give way to mine, quietly, gradually, and peaceably ; but one of us two must rule and the other must obey, and I mean to rule,
I might multiply to any conceivable extent illus-
58 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
trations of the propositions that all government has and must of necessity have a moral basis, and that the connection between morals and religion is so in- timate that this implies a religious basis as well. 1 do not mean by a religious basis a complete agree- ment in religious opinion among either the gover- nors or the persons governed, but such an amount of agreement as is sufficient to determine the at- titude of legislation towards religion. I think if these illustrations were fully stated and properly studied they would establish some such general in- ference as this :—
There are three relations and no more in which legislation can stand towards religion in general, and towards each particular religious opinion or form of religion :—
1. It may proceed on the assumption that some one religion is true and all others false.
2. It may proceed on the assumption that more than one religion is, so to speak, respectable, and it may favour them in the same or different degrees.
3. It may proceed on the assumption that all religions or that some religions are false.
I believe it to be simply impossible that legis- lation should be really neutral as to any religion which is professed by any large number of the persons legis- lated for. He that is not for such a religion is against it. Real neutrality is possible only with regard to forms of religion which are not professed at all by the subjects of legislation, or which are professed by so
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 59
few of them that their opinions can be regarded as unimportant by the rest. English legislation in England is neutral as to Mahommedanism and Brahminism. English legislation in India proceeds on the assumption that both are false. If it did not, it would have to be founded on the Koran or the Insti- tutes of Menu. ' If this is so, it is practically certain that coercion will be exercised in favour of some reli- gious opinions and against others, and the question whether such coercion is good or bad will depend upon the view of religion which is taken by different’ people.
The real opinion of most legislators in the present day, the opinion in favour of which they do, in fact, exercise coercion, is the opinion that no reli- gion is absolutely true, but that all contain a mixture of truth and falsehood, and that the same is the case with ethical and political systems. One inference from this is that direct legislation against any reli- gion as a whole is wrong, and this is one great objection to persecution. When you persecute a religion as a whole, you must generally persecute truth and goodness as well as falsehood. Coercion as to religion will therefore chiefly occur in the in- direct form, in the shape of treating certain parts— vital parts, it may be—of particular systems as mischievous and possibly even as criminal falsehoods when they come in the legislator’s way. When priests, of whatever creed, claim to hold the keys of heaven and hell and to work invisible miracles, it
60 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
will practically become necessary for many purpcses to decide whether they really are the representatives of God upon earth, or whether they are mere im- postors, for there is no way of avoiding the question, and it admits of no other solution.
Many, perhaps most, of the extravagant theories which have been and are maintained about liberty, and in particular about the division between the tem- poral and spiritual powers, have been devised by persons who, holding this view and not choosing to avow it, wished to discover some means of leaving uncontested the claims to divine authority of various religious systems, and of showing that an admission of the truth of those claims would not involve the con- sequences which those who believed in them wished to draw fromit. It is for immediate practical pur- poses highly convenient to say, Your creed is, no doubt, divine, and you are the agents of God for the purpose of teaching it, but liberty of opinion is also more or less -divine, and the civil ruler has his own rights and duties as well as the successors of the Apostles. But, convenient as this is, itis a mere compromise. The theory is untrue, and no one really believes more than that half of it which suits him. If spiritual means that which relates to thought and feeling, every act of life is spiritual, for in every act there is a mental element which gives it its moral character. If temporal means outward and visible, then every act is temporal, for every thought and feel- ing tends towards and is embodied inaction. In fact,
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 61
every human action is both temporal and spiritual. The attempt to distinguish between temporal and spiritual, between Church and State, is like the attempt to distinguish between substance and form. Formless matter or unsubstantial form are ex- g, and in the same
S>
pressions which have no meanin, way things temporal and things spiritual presuppose and run into each other at every point. Human ife is one and indivisible, and is or ought to be regu- ated by one set of principles and not by a multi- tude. This subject, however, is too large and important to be disposed of parenthetically. I pro- pose to discuss it separately.* With these pre- iminary observations, I proceed to say a few words on each of the three relations in which legislation may stand to religion. It will be found that the consideration of them will throw a strong light upon many of the illustrations of this subject discussed by Ar. Mill and others.
First, legislation may proceed on the assumption
that one religion is true and all others false. This is the assumption which pervades nearly all early Christian legislation. It is made so unconsciously by Mahommedans and Hindoos that their law and their religion are to a great extent one and the same thing. Our own minds have become so much sophisticated by commonplaces about liberty and toleration, and about the division between the tem- poral and spiritual power, that we have almost
* See chap. iil. p. 105.
62 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.
ceased to think of the attainment of truth in religion as desirable if it were possible. It appears to me that, if it were possible, the attainment of religious truth and its recognition as such by legislation would be of all conceivable blessings the greatest. If we were all of one mind, and that upon reasonable grounds, about the nature of men and their relation to the world or worlds in which they live, we should be able at once with but little difficulty to solve all the great moral and political questions which at pre- sent distract and divide the world, and cause us to waste in unfruitful though inevitable contests the strength which might make life happy.
Even when a religion is only partially true, the effect of a general and perfectly sincere belief in it is to give unity and vigour and a distinct and original turn to the life of those who really believe it. Such a belief is the root out of which grow laws, insti- tutions, moral principles, tastes, and arts innumer- able. The phrases about our common Christianity are vague enough, but it was in religious beliefs common to great masses of people that the foundations of all that we most justly prize were laid. If from the fall
of the Roman Empire to the revival of learning there had been no moral and spiritual unity in the world, we should still, in all probability, have been little better than barbarians. If the divided forces of mankind could now be based upon one foundation of moral and spiritual truth, and directed towards a set of ends forming one harmonious whole, our de-
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 63
scendants would probably surpass us quite as de- cisively as we surpass the contemporaries of Alfred or Gregory the Great. Progress has its drawbacks, and they are great and serious; but whatever its value may be, unity in religious belief would further it. The question how such a state of things is to be produced is one which it is impossible not to ask and equally impossible to answer, except by the words, ‘the wind bloweth where it listeth, and ye know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. The sources of religion lie hid from us. All that we know is that now and again in the course of ages some one sets to music the tune which is haunting millions of ears. It is caught up here and there, and repeated till the chorus is thundered out by a body of singers able to drown all discords and to force the vast unmusical mass to listen. to them. Such results as these come not by observation, but when they do come they carry away as with a flood and hurry in their own direction all the laws and customs of those whom they affect. ‘To oppose Mr. Mill's ‘simple principle’ about liberty to such powers as these is like blowing against a hurricane with a pair of bellows. To take any such principle as a rule by which such powers may be measured and may be declared to be good or bad is like valuing a painting by adding together the price of the colours, the canvas, and so much a day calculated on his ave- rage earnings for the value of the artist’s labour. When the hearts of men are deeply stirred by
64 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
what they regard as a gospel or new revelation, they do as a fact not only believe it themselves, but com- pel others to accept it, and this compulsion for ages to come determines the belief and practice of enor- mous multitudes of people who care very little about the matter. Earth resembles heaven in one respect at least. Its kingdom suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. That such violence is or under circumstances may be highly beneficial to the world is, I think, abundantly proved by history. The evil and good done by it must in all cases be measured by the principles laid down above. Was the object good? Did the means conduce to it? Did they conduce to it at an excessive price ? Apply this to the case of the establishment of Christianity as a State religion first in the Roman Empire and afterwards in modern Europe. It is obvious that we have before us the most intricate of
all conceivable problems, a problem which no single and simple principle can possibly solve. Its so- lution would require answers to the following, amongst other questions :—1. What is Christianity ? 2. How far is it true and useful? 3. How far was it and how far was each part of it promoted by coercion? 4. What kinds of coercion promoted the different parts of it? 5. What was the comparative importance of the coercion applied and the results obtained ? Most of these questions are obviously insoluble.
The second case is that in which the Legislature
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 65
regards various creeds as respectable, and favours them more or less according to circumstances, and either equally or unequally. This is the present state of things throughout the greater part of the civilised world. It is carried out to its fullest development in this country and in the United States, though in this country two State Churches are specially favoured, while in America all Churches stand upon the same footing as lawful associations based upon voluntary contracts. The way in which this arrangement is accepted as a final result which is to last indefinitely has always seemed to me to afford a strong illustration of the manner in which people are disposed to accept as final the temporary solutions of great questions which are in fashion in their own days. The fatal
defect in the arrangement, which must sooner or later break it up, is that it tends to emasculate both Church and State. Itcuts human life in two. It cuts off religion from active life, and it reduces the State to a matter of police. Moreover, it is but a temporary and not a very honest device. To turn Churches into mere voluntary associations, and to sever the connection between them and the State, is on the part of the State an act not of neutrality but of covert unbelief. On the part of the Churches which accept it it is a tacit admis: of failure, a tacit admission that they have no distinct
sion
authoritative message from God to man, and that they do not venture to expect to be recognised as F
66 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
institutions to which such a message has been con- fided. But if this is not their character, there is no other character for them to hold than that of human institutions, like the old schools of philosophy, based upon various theories as to the nature, the destiny, and the duties of men.
If this is the light in which Churches are to be regarded, the division between Church and State, the maxim of a free Church in a free State, will mean that men in their political capacity are to have
no opinions upon the topics which interest them most deeply; and, on the other hand, that men of a speculative turn are never to try to reduce their speculations to practice on a large scale, by making or attempting to make them the basis of legislation. If this principle is adopted and adhered to, one of two results must sooner or later inevitably follow. In so far as the principle is accepted and acted upon with real good faith, the State will be degraded, and reduced to mere police functions. Associations of various kinds will take its place and push it on one side, and completely new forms of society may be the result. Mormonism is one illustration of this, but the strong tendency which has shown itself on many occasions both in France and America on the part of enthusiastic persons to ‘try experiments in
living,’ by erecting some entirely new form of society, has supplied many minor illustrations of the same principle. St. Simonianism, families of love by whatever name they are called, are straws showing
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 67
the set of a wind which some day or other might take rank among the fiercest of storms. Such ex- periments as these have nothing whatever to do with liberty. They are embryo governments, little States which in course of time may well come to be dangerous antagonists of the old one.
Another possible result is that the State, finding itself confronted by Churches at all sorts of points, may at last renounce the notion that it is debarred from forming an opinion upon moral and religious problems, and from legislating in accordance with the opinions so formed. If and in so far as the
State—that is to say, a number of influential people sufficient to dispose of the public force— arrives at distinct views upon these points, it must of necessity revert from the provisional and neutral attitude to a belligerent attitude. It must assume the truth of some religious opinions, and as a necessary consequence the falsehood of others, and as to these last it will take up a position of hostility. Cases may occur, as the state of our own time shows, in which it is extremely difficult to say what is true, but comparatively easy to say what is false, and I do not see why conscious ignorance upon some points should interfere with or excuse people from acting upon a distinct negative conviction upon others.
Such a course necessarily encounters the most virulent and passionate resistance. Unwelcome,
however, and thorny as this path is, I believe that F2
68 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
it ought, when necessary, to be taken; that it is desirable that legislators and their advisers should not legislate on the supposition that all sorts of conflicting creeds have an equal chance of being true, but should consider the question of the truth and falsehood of religious opinions; that legislation should when necessary proceed on distinct principles in this matter, and that such a degree of coercion as is necessary to obtain its end should be applied. What I have already said shows that in fact this is always done, though people are not always aware of it.
As I have observed more than once, Mr. Mill’s illustrations of his principles are in some respects the most attractive and effective parts of his book. By far the most important passage of his ‘Essay on Liberty’ is the well-known one in which he argues
+.
hat people should be at perfect liberty to express any opinions whatever about the existence of God and a future state, and that for doing so they should neither be punished by law nor censured by public opinion. In the practical result 1 agree nearly, though not quite, but in order to set in as clear a light as possible the difference between his way of treating the subject and my own, I will deal with it in my own way, noticing his arguments in what I take to be their proper places.
. The object of forbidding men to deny the existence of God and a future life would be to cause those doctrines to be universally believed, and upon
TH LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 69
my principles this raises three questions—1. Is the object good? 2. Are the means proposed likely to be effective? 3. What is the comparative im- portance of the object secured and of the means by which it
secured? That the object is good if the doctrines are true, admits, in my opinion, of no doubt whatever. I entirely agree with the common- places about the importance of these doctrines. If these beliefs are mere dreams, life is a very much poorer and pettier thing; men are beings of much less importance ; trouble, danger, and physical pain are much greater evils, and the prudence of virtue is much more questionable than has hitherto been sup- posed to be the case. If men follow the advice so often pressed upon them, to cease to think of these subjects otherwise than as insoluble ri dies, all the existing conceptions of morality will have to be changed, all social tendencies will be weakened. Merely personal inclinations will be greatly strength-
ened. Men who say ‘to-morrow we die,’ will add ‘let us eat and drink.’ It would be not merely diffi-' cult but impossible in such a state of society to address any argument save that of criminal law (which Mr. Mill's doctrine about liberty would re- duce to a minimum) to a man who had avowed to himself that he was consistently bad. . A few people love virtue for its own sake. Many have no par- ticular objection to a mild but useful form of it if they are trained to believe that it will answer in the long run; but many, probably most of them, would
70 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
like it dashed with a liberal allowance of vice if they thought that no risk would be run by making the mixture. A strong minority, again, are so viciously disposed that all the considerations which can be drawn from any world, present or future, certain or possible, do not avail to hold them in. Many a man too stupid for speculative doubt or for thought of any kind says, ‘I’ve no doubt at all I shall be damned for it, but I must, and I will.’ In short, al experience shows that almost all men require at times both the spur of hope and the bridle of fear, and that religious hope and fear are an effective spur and bridle, though some people are too hard-mouthed and thick-skinned to care much for either, and though others will now and then take the bit in their teeth and rush where passion carries them, notwithstand-
ing both. If, then, virtue is good, it seems to me clear that to promote the belief of the fundamenta doctrines of religion is good also, for I am convinced that in Europe at least the two must stand or fa together.
It is sometimes argued that these beliefs are rather unimportant than either good or bad. It is said that great masses of the human race have done without any or with negative beliefs on these subjects. Interesting sketches are given of the creeds or no
creeds of savage tribes, of educated men in classical times, of Buddhists, and others. Here, it is said, are cases of people living without reference to a God or a future state. Why cannot you do the
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 71
same? A strong social impulse, a religion of hu- manity will fill your sails as well as the old wind which is dying away; and you will then think of these questions which now seem to you all-important as of insoluble riddles, mere exercises of ingenuity with which you have nothing to do.
This argument falls wide of the mark at which it seems to be aimed. Its object is to prove that the fundamental problems of religion may and ought to be laid aside as insoluble riddles on which it is waste of time to think. The evidence to prove this is that solutions of these problems, widely differing from those which are established in this part of the world, have been accepted in other countries and by other races of men. No doubt this is true, but what does it prove? Taken in connection with other facts equally notorious, it proves that as a man’s re- ligion is, so will his morals be. The Buddhists have a religion and a morality which closely correspond. How does this show that European morality is not founded on Christianity, and that you can destroy the one without affecting the other? It proves the reverse. If Buddhists became Christians or Chris- tians became Buddhists, a corresponding moral change would soon make itself felt. The difference between Hindoo and Mahommedan morals closely follows the difference between their creeds. Whether Christianity is true or false, and whether European morality is good or bad, European morality is in fact founded upon religion, and the destruction of
72 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
the one must of necessity involve the reconstruction of the other. ‘Many persons in these days wish to retain the morality which they like, after getting rid of the religion which they disbelieve. Whether they are right or wrong in disturbing the foundation, they are inconsistent in wishing to save the super- structure. If we are to think as Cesar thought of God and a future state, we cannot avoid considering the question whether Czesar’s morals and principles of action were not superior to the common moral standards. Jesus Christ believed in God and a future state, and preached the Sermon on the Mount. Julius Cesar believed the questions about God and a future state to be mere idle curiosities. He also preached impressive sermons by example and otherwise. Many persons in these days appear to me to think that they can reconcile the morals of Jesus Christ with the theology of Julius Caesar by masquerading in the Pope’s old clothes and asking the world at large to take their word of honour that all is well.
To return to Mr. Mill. One of his arguments tends to show that the object of promoting these beliefs is bad. He considers that rulers ought not to decide religious questions for others without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. I am not, I own, much moved by this argument. It is what everyone does and must
of necessity be continually doing in nearly every department of life. What is all education except a
strenuous and systematic effort to give the whole
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 73
character a certain turn and bias which appears on the whole desirable to the person who gives it? A man who did not, as far as he could, ‘undertake to decide’ for his children the questions whether they should be truthful, industrious, sober, respectful, and chaste, and that ‘without allowing them to h what was to be said on the contrary side,’ would be a contemptible pedant. Legislators and the founders of great institutions must to a very considerable extent perform precisely the same task for the world at large. Surely it is an idle dream to say that one man in a thousand really exercises much individual chcice as to his religious or moral principles, and I
doubt whether it is not an exaggeration to say that one man ina million is capable of making any very material addition to what is already known or plausibly conjectured on these matters. I repeat, then, that the object of causing these doctrines to be believed appears to me to be clearly good if and in so far as the doctrines themselves are true.
It may perhaps be suggested, on the other hand, that the object is good whether the doctrines are true or false, and no doubt the necessity for compulsion is greater if they are false; but the suggestion itself may be disposed of very shortly. It is a suggestion which it is childish to discuss in public, because no one could avow it without contradicting himself, and so defeating his own object. No one can publicly and avowedly ask people to believe a lic on the ground of its being good for them. Such a request is like
‘4.
7
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
asking a man to lift himself off the ground by pulling at his knees with his hands. The harder he tries to raise his feet with his hands, the harder he has to press his feet on the ground to get a purchase. The more you try to believe a lie because it will do
you good, the more you impress on your mind the
fact that it is a lie an A man who wishes to believe a lie must lie to lie is true ; and practical
that you cannot believe it. persuade his neighbours to them—he must say that the ly he must lie to himself in
the first instance, or he will not have the heart to go on with his lie. There are ways of doing this so very far below the surface that an ingenious person may manage it with little or, perhaps, no conscious- ness of the fact that he is lying. The favourite way of doing it is by weaving metaphysical webs by which it may be made to appear that the common tests of truth, falsehood, and probability do not apply to matters of this sort. But I need not pursue this subject. We are brought back, then, to the question, Are these doctrines true ?
This is the vital question of all. It is the true centre, not only of Mr. Mill’s book upon liberty, but of all the great discussions of our day and genera- tion. Upon this hang all religion, all morals, all politics, all legislation—everything which interests men as men. Is there or not a God and a future state? Is this world all?
I do not pretend to have anything to add to this tremendous controversy. It is a matter on
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 75
which very few human beings have a right to be heard.
I confine myself to asserting that the attitude of the law and of public authority generally towards the discussion of this question will and ought to depend upon the nature of the view which happens to be dominant for the time being on the question itself, modified in its practical application by con- siderations drawn from the other two points above stated—namely, the adaptation of themeans employed to the object in view, and the comparative importance of the measure of success which can be reasonably expected, and of the expense of the means necessary to its attainment. This, I say, is the only principle which can either serve as a guide in reference to any practical question, or enable us to do anything like justice to the historical problems of which Mr. Mill refers to one or two, and to which I propose to return immediately ; and so much for the goodness
of the object.
The next questions are as to the effectiveness and expense of the means, and these I will consider together. It is needless to discuss the question of legal prosecution in reference to these opinions.*
* There is a statute, 9 Will. III. c. 35, which inflicts severe penalties on persons ‘ who assert, or maintain, that there are more Gods than one, or deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority ;’ and blasphemy is an offence at common law; but I believe the statute has never been enforced in modern times, and it ought to be repealed. It is singular that the statute does not punish the profession of Atheism.
76 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
Everyone must admit that it is quite out of the question. In the first place, it is impossible ; and in the next place, to be effective, it would have to be absolutely destructive and paralysing, and it would produce at last no result for which anyone really wishes. I need not insist upon this point.
The real question is as to social intolerance. Has a man who believes in God and a future state a moral right to disapprove of those who do not, and to try by the expression of that disapproval to deter them from publishing, and to deter others from adopting, their views? I think that he has if and in so far as his opinions are true. Mr. Mill thinks otherwise. He draws a picture of social intolerance and of its effects which nothing but considerations of space prevent me from extracting in full. It is one of the most eloquent and power- ful passages he ever wrote. The following is its key-note :—
Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active efforts for their diffusion. With 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
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 77
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.
The heretics, says Mr. Mill, are grievously injured by this, and are much to be pitied, but ‘ the greatest harm is done to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped and their reason cowed by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid charac- ters, 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 ?”
On this point I am utterly unable to agree with Mr. Mill. It seems to me that to publish opinions upon morals, politics, and religion is an act as important as any which any man can possibly do; that to attack opinions on which the frame- work of society rests is a proceeding which both is and ought to be dangerous. I do not say that it ought not to be done in many cases, but it should be done sword in hand, and a man who does it has no more right to be surprised at being fiercely resisted than a soldier who attacks a breach. Mr.
Mill’s whole charge against social intolerance is that it makes timid people afraid to express unpopular
78 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
opinions. An old ballad tells how a man, losing his way on a hill-side, strayed into a chamber full of enchanted knights, each lying motionless in complete armour, with his war-horse standing motionless beside him. On a rock lay a sword and a horn, and the intruder was told that if he wanted to lead the army, he must choose between them. He chose the horn and blew a loud blast, upon which the knights and their horses vanished in a whirlwind and their visitor was blown back into common life,
these words sounding after him on the wind :—
Cursed be the coward that ever he was born Who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn.
No man has a right to give the signal for such a battle by blowing the horn, unless he has first drawn the sword and knows how to make his hands guard his head with it. Then let him blow as loud and long as he likes, and if his tune is worth hearing he will not want followers. Till a man has carefully formed his opinions on these subjects, thought them out, assured himself of their value, and decided to take the risk of proclaiming them, the strong proba- bility is that they are not much worth having. Speculation on government, morals, and religion is a matter of vital practical importance, and not mere food for curiosity. Curiosity, no doubt, is generally the motive which leads a man to study them; but till he has formed opinions on them for which he is prepared to fight, there is no hardship in his being
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 79
compelled by social intolerance to keep them to himself and to those who sympathise with him. It should never be forgotten that opinions have a moral side to them. The opinions of a bad and a good man, the opinions of an honest and a dishonest man, upon these subjects are very unlikely to be the same.
It is the secret consciousness of this which gives its strange bitterness to controversies which might at first sight appear as unlikely to interest the passions as questions of mathematics or philology. What question can appear to be more purely scien- tific than the question whether people have or have not innate ideas? Yet it is constantly debated with a persistent consciousness on the part of the dis- putants that their argument is like a trumpery dispute made the pretext for a deadly duel, the real grounds of which are too delicate to be stated. The advocate of innate ideas often says in his heart,
more or less distinctly, that his antagonist's real object is to get all the mysteries of religion sub- mitted to the common processes of the understand- ing. The advocate of experience often says in his heart of his antagonist, ‘You are a liar; and the object of your lie is to protect from exposure what you ought to know to be nonsense.’ As opinions become better marked and more distinctly connected with action, the truth that decided dissent from them implies more or less of a reproach upon those who hold them decidedly becomes so obvious that everyone perceives it. The fact is that we all more
80 LIBERTY, EQUALITY FRATERNITY
or less condemn and blame each other, and this truth is so unpleasant that oceans of sophistry have been poured out for the purpose of evading or concealing it. It is true, nevertheless. I cannot understand how a man who is not a Roman Catholic can regard a real Roman Catholic with absolute neutrality. A man who really thinks that a wafer is God Almighty, and who really believes that rational men owe any sort of allegiance to any kind of priest, is either right—in which case the man who differs from him ought to repent in sackcloth and ashes—or else he is wrong, in which case he is the partizan of a monstrous imposture. How the ques- tion whether he is right or wrong can be regarded as one indifferent to his general character and to the moral estimate which persons of a different way of thinking must form of him is to me quite incon- ceivable. ‘The converse is equally true. I do not see how a man who deliberately rejects the Roman Catholic religion can, in the eyes of those who earnestly believe it, be other than a rebel against God. Plaster them over as thick as you will, controversies of this sort go to the very core and root of life, and as long as they express the deepest convictions of men, those who really differ are and must be enemies to a certain extent, though they may keep their enmity within bounds. When religious differences come to be and are regarded as mere differences of opinion, it is because the
controversy is really decided in the sceptical sense,
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 81
though people may not like to acknowledge it formally.
Let any one who doubts this try to frame an argument which could have been addressed with any chance of success to Philip II. against the persecution of the Protestants, or to Robespierre and Danton against the persecution of Catholicism and the French aristocracy and Monarchy. Concede the first principle that unfeigned belief in the Roman Catholic creed is indispensably necessary to salva- tion, or the first principle that the whole Roman Catholic system is a pernicious falsehood and fraud, and it will be found impossible to stop short of the practical conclusions of the Inquisition and the Reign of Terror. Every real argument against these practical conclusions is an argument to show either that we cannot be sure as to the conditions of salvation, or that the Roman Catholic religion has redeeming points about it. A man who cannot be brought to see this will persecute, and ought to persecute—in the same sense of the word ought in which we say that a man who believes that twice two make five ough to believe that two and three make six. The attainment or approximate attain- ment of truth, and particularly the attainment of a true conception of the amount and nature of our own ignorance on religious subjects, is indispen- sable to the settlement of religious disputes. You can no more evade in politics the question, What is true in religion? than you can do sums right
G
82 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
without prejudice to a difference of opinion upon the multiplication table. The only road to peace leads through truth, and when a powerful and energetic minority, sufficiently vigorous to impose their will on their neighbours, have made up their minds as to what is true, they will no more tolerate error for the sake of abstract principles about freedom than any one of us tolerates a nest of wasps in his garden.
Upon the question of the expense of persecution Mr. Mill argues at great lenguh, that perfect freedom of discussion is essential to give a person a iving interest in an opinion and a full appreciation of its various bearings. This, I think, is an excellent illustration of the manner in which the most acute intellect may be deceived by generalising upon its own peculiar experience. That Mr. Mill should feel what he describes is not, perhaps, unnatural, but it is not every one whose intellect is so enor- mously developed in proportion to his other faculties. I should say that doctrines come home to people in general, not if and in so far as they are free to discuss all their applications, but if and in so far as they hap- pen to interest them and appear to illustrate and inter- pret their own experience. One remarkable proof of this is taken from the whole history of religious controversy, and can hardly be better exemplified than by Mr. Mill's own words. He remarks that ‘all ethical doctrines and religious creeds .. . . are full of meaning to those who originate them and to the direct disciples of their originators ; their mean- ing continues to be felt in undiminished strength,
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGIIT AND DISCUSSION 83
and is perhaps brought out with even fuller con- sciousness so long as the struggle lasts to give the doctrine or creed an ascendency over other creeds,’ When the struggle is over the doctrine takes its place as a received opinion; ‘from this time may usually be dated the decline in its living power.’
I do not agree with this. A doctrine which really goes to the hearts of men never loses its power if true, and never even if it is false until it is sus-
pected or known to be false.
innumerable persons to w!
There are in this day hom the worship of the
Virgin Mary and all the doctrines connected with it
have as much life and fres any one—a life and freshni
hness as they ever had to ess from which the freest
and fullest discussion would rub off all the gloss,
even if it left the doctrine men hold with the most
Millions of living perception of their
unimpaired,
truth the doctrine that honesty is the best policy, and
the doctrine, Speak trutl Experience and not discus: these. If a dear friend, a man wl
h,
and shame the devil. sion enforces maxims like
Every racy popular proverb is a proof of it.
hom you have loved and
honoured, and who is a well-wisher and benefactor
to a large section of mankind, is stabbed to the
heart by an assassin, it wil
Il give a very keen edge
and profound truth to the maxim that murder is onc
of the most detestable of know that it admits of muc!
crimes, though I do not h discussion.
But whatever may be t Miil’s statement, its logic
ought of the truth of Mr, is defective. The facts
G2
84 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
that whilst a doctrine is struggling for ascendency it is full of meaning, and that when it has become a re- ceived opinion its living power begins to decline, surely prove that coercion and not liberty is favour- able to its appreciation. A ‘struggle for ascendency’ does not mean mere argument. It means reiterated and varied assertion persisted in, in the face of the wheel, the stake, and the gallows, as well as in the face of contradiction. If the Protestants and Cath- olics or the Christians and the Pagans had con- fined themselves to argument, they might have argued for ever, and the world at large would not have cared. It was when it came to preaching and fighting, to ‘Believe, and be saved,’ ‘ Disbelieve, and be damned,’ ‘Be silent, or be burned alive,” ‘1 would rather be burned than be silent,’ that the world at large listened, sympathized, and took one side or the other. The discussion became free just in proportion as the subjects discussed lost their interest.
Upon the whole, it appears to me quite certain that if our notions of moral good and evil are substantially true, and if the doctrines of God and a future state are true, the object of causing people to believe in them is good, and that social intole- rance on the behalf of those who do towards those who do not believe in them cannot be regarded as involving evils of any great importance in comparison with the results at which it aims.. Iam quite aware that this is not a pleasant doctrine, and that it is liable to great abuse. The only way of
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 85
guarding against its abuse is by pointing out that people should not talk about what they do not understand. No one has a right to be morally intolerant of doctrines which he has not carefully studied, It is one thing to say, as I do, that after careful consideration and mature study a man has a right to say such and such opinions are dishonest, cowardly, feeble, ferocious, or absurd, and the person who holds them deserves censure for having shown dishonesty or cowardice in adopting them, and quite another thing to say that every one has a right to throw stones at everybody who differs from himself on religious questions. |The true ground of moral tolerance in the common sense of the words appears to me to lie in this—that most people have no right to any opinions whatever upon these questions, except in so far as they are necessary for the regulation of their own affairs. When some wretched little curate calls his betters atheists and the like, his fault is not intolerance, but impudence and rudeness. If this
principle were properly carried out, it would leave little room for moral intolerance in most cases ; but I think it highly important that men who really study these matters should feel themselves at liberty not merely to dissent from but to disapprove of opinions which appear to them to require it, and should ex- press that disapprobation.
I will now proceed to compare Mr. Mill
s prin- ciples and my own by contrasting the ways in which our respective methods apply to the appreciation of
86 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
the celebrated passages of history. He, as 1 under- stand him, condemns absolutely all interference with the expression of opinion. The judges of Socrates, Pontius Pilate, Marcus Aurelius, Philip IL, and the rest are, when tried by his standard, simple wrong- doers. Allowances may be made for them in con- sideration of the temper of the times, but the verdict is guilty, with or without, and generally without, a recommendation to mercy. Their guilt and shame is necessary in order to condemn the principle on which they acted. They interfered with liberty otherwise than for purposes of self-protection, and they thus incurred such penalties as can be in- flicted on the memory of the dead, however honest they may have been, and whatever may have been the plausibility of their opinions at the time. The law must be vindicated, and the law—Mr. Mill’s law— is that nothing but self-protection can ever justify coercion.
Once give up this, and where will you stop? Mr. Mill says, ‘Aware of the impossibility of de- fending the use of punishment for restraining irre- ligious opinions by any arguments which will not justify Marcus Aurelius, 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.’ This argu- ment, says Mr. Mill, is ungenerous, but it also in-
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 87
volves distinct error. That ‘ truth always triumphs over persecution is’ a ‘pleasant falsehood.’ Truth does not triumph ; on the contrary, a very little very gentle persecution is often quite enough to put it out. Choose, says Mr. Mill in substance, between a prin- ciple which will condemn Aurelius and a principle which will justify Pontius Pilate. I will try to meet this challenge.
Was Pilate right in crucifying Christ? I reply, Pilate’s paramount duty was to preserve the peace in Palestine, to form the best judgment he could as to the means required for that purpose, and to act upon it when it was formed. Therefore, if and in so far as he believed in good faith and on reasonable grounds that what he did was necessary for the pre- servation of the peace of Palestine, he was right. It was his duty to run the risk of being mistaken, notwithstanding Mr. Mill’s principle as to liberty. He was in the position of a judge whose duty it is to try persons duly brought before him for trial at the risk of error.
In order to justify this view I must first con- sider the question, In what sense can such words as ‘right’ and ‘ought’ be applied to questions of politics and government? If in criticising human history we are to proceed on the assumption that every act and every course of policy was wrong which would not have been chosen by an omnipo- tent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent man, if such a being is conceivable, I suppose no course of
88 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FR
PERNITY
olicy and no action of importance and on a large scale can be said to have been right ; but, in order to take a step towards the application of this method, it is necessary to know what the history of mankind ought to have been from the earliest ages to the present time. Even this is not enough. We ought to know what it ought to have been after each successive deviation from the highest possible stan- dard. We ought to know not only what would have happened if Eve had not eaten the apple, but what would have happened if, Eve having eaten the apple, Adam had refused to eat, or had eaten of the tree of ife; how it would have been if, when Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, Cain had not illed Abel, and soon. To take such a standard of right and wrong is obviously absurd.
The words ‘ought’ and ‘right’ must then be applied on a far more limited scale, and must in all cases be interpreted with reference to the fact that men inevitably are and always will be weak and ignorant, and that their apparent and possibly their real interests clash. If ‘ought’ and ‘right’ are con- strued with reference to this consideration, it will follow that duty will frequently bring individuals, nations, and creeds into conflict with each other. There is no absurdity in the conclusion that it may be my duty to kill you if I can and your duty to kill me if you can, that the persecutors and the Chris- tians, Luther and Charles V., Philip II. and William of Orange, may each have been right, or may
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 89
each have been partly right and partly wrong. When Hobbes taught that the state of nature is a state of war, he threw an unpopular truth into a shape liable to be misunderstood; but can any one se- riously doubt that war and conflict are inevitable so long as men are what they are, except at the price of evils which are even worse than war and conflict ? —that is to say, at the price of absolute submission to all existing institutions, good or bad, or absolute want of resistance to all proposed changes, wise or foolish. Struggles there must and always will be, un- less men stick like limpets or spin like weathercocks.
I proceed to consider the case of the Romans
and the Christians, and more particularly the case of Pilate.
It is for obvious reasons unnecessary to develope the Christian side of the question. No one in these days will deny that, taking the only view which it is fitting to take here, the purely human view of the subject, Christ and his disciples were right in preach- ing their religion at all risk Apart from its super- natural claims, its history is their justification; no rational man can doubt that Christianity, taken as a whole and speaking broadly, has been a blessing to
men. From it not all, but most of, the things which we value most highly have been derived.
Upon this it is needless to dwell. The Roman view of the subject from the time of Pontius Pilate to that of Diocletian requires more illustration. The substance of what the Romans did was to treat
90 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
Christianity by fits and starts as a crime. As to the brutality of the punishments inflicted—cruci- fixion, burning, and judicial tortures—all that need be said is that it was the habit of the day. There does not seem to have been any particular difference made between the treatment of the three persons who were crucified on Calvary. What, then, was the position of the Roman authorities when they had to consider whether Christianity should be treated as a crime ? Ithasbeen often and truly pointed out that, humanly eaking, the establishment of the Roman Empire endered Christianity possible, and brought about he ‘fulness of time’ at which it occurred. The Pax Romana gave to all the nations which surrounded e Mediterranean and to those which are bounded y the Rhine and the Danube benefits closely re-
ane
ws
oe.
embling those which British rule has conferred upon enormous quadrangle which lies between the mountains on the north-east and north-west, and the Indian Ocean on the south-east and south-west. Peace reigned in the days of Pilate from York to Jerusalem, which are about as far from each other as Peshawur and Point de Galle, and from Alexandria to Antwerp, which are about the same distance as Kurrachee and the extreme east of Assam. This peace actually was, and the more highly educated Romans must have seen that it was about to become, the mother of laws, arts, institutions of all kinds,
ae
under which our own characters have been moulded.
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION QI
The Roman law, at that period as clumsy as English law is at present, but nearly as rich, saga- cious, and vigorous, was taking root in ali parts of the world under the protection of Roman armed force, and all the arts of life, literature, philosophy, and art were growing by its side. An Englishman must have a cold heart and a dull imagination who cannot understand how the consciousness of this nust have affected a Roman governor. I do not envy the Englishman whose heart does not beat high as he looks at the scarred and shattered walls of Delhi or at the union jack flying from the fort at Lahore. Such sights irresistibly recall lines which no familiarity can vulgarize :—
‘Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento:
Hee tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. Think how such words, when as new and fresh as the best of Mr. Tennyson’s poems to us, must have come home to a Roman as he saw his sentries keep- ing guard on the Temple. The position of Pilate was not very unlike that of an English Lieutenant- Governor of the Punjab. The resemblance would be still closer if for a lieutenant-governor we substi- tute a Resident with a strong armed force under his orders and Runjeet Singh by his side. At all events Pilate, more or less closely associated with a native ruler, was answerable for the peace probably of the most dangerous and important province of the empire. The history of the Jews shows what a
g2 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
nation they were. ‘A people terrible from the beginning,’ and most terrible of all in matters of re- ligion. It would not be difficult, nor would it be altogether fanciful, to trace a resemblance between the manner in which they would strike Pilate and the manner in which the Afghans or the Sikhs strike us ; and it may help us to appreciate Pilate’s position if we remember that, as we now look back upon the Indian mutiny, he, if he was observant and well informed, must have looked forward to that awful episode in Roman history which closed with the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the last vestiges of Jewish national independence. We may be very sure that the predictions that not one stone of the Temple should be left upon another, that the eagles should be gathered together, that
there should be fire and blood and vapour of smoke, were not isolated. Pilate and his successors must have known that they sat ona volcano long before the explosion came.
It was in such a state of things that Pilate earned that a prophet who for some years had been reaching in various parts of the province had entered Jerusalem with some of the circumstances which denote a powerful popular movement. Fur- ther he received from the priests, from the head of the established religion, complaints against the new re- igious reformer curiously like those which orthodox
Mahommedans make against Wahabee preachers, or orthodox Sikhs against Kookas. As to the de-
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 93
tail of the conduct which he pursued under these circumstances, we have not, I think, the materials for criticism. We know only one side of the story, and that side is told by men whose view of their position obviously is that they ought to submit with patient resignation to the deepest of all con- ceivable wrongs. Pilate’s reports to his superiors and copies of the information on which he acted, with descriptions by impartial observers of the state of feeling in Palestine at the time, would be absolutely essential to anything like a real judgment on what he did. It may be true that he sacrificed one whom he believed to be an innocent man to pacify the priests. It may be that he was perfectly convinced that the step taken was necessary to the peace of the country, and he may have formed that opinion more or less rashly. On these points we are and shall for ever continue to be as much in the dark as on the merits of the quarrel which he is said to have made up with Herod. We know nothing whatever about it, nor is it material to the present subject.
The point to which I wish to direct attention is that Pilate’s duty was to maintain peace and order in Judea and to maintain the Roman power. It is surely impossible to contend seriously that it was his duty, or that it could be the duty of any one in his position, to recognize in the person brought to his judgment seat, I do not say God Incarnate, but the teacher and preacher of a higher form of morals and
94 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
a more enduring form of social order than that of which he was himself the representative. To aman in Pilate’s position the morals and the social order which he represents are for all practical purposes final and absolute standards. If, in order to evade the obvious inference from this, it is said that Pilate ought to have respected the principle of religious liberty as propounded by Mr. Mill, the answer is that if he had done so he would have run the risk of setting the whole province in a blaze. It is only in very modern times, and under the influence of modern
sophisms, that belief and action have come to be so much separated in these parts of the world that the distinction between the temporal and spiritual de- partment of affairs even appears to be tenable; but this is a point for future discussion.
If this should appear harsh, I would appeal again to Indian experience. Suppose that some
great religious reformer—say, for instance, some one claiming to be the Guru of the Sikhs, or the Imam in whose advent many Mahommedans devoutly believe—were to make his appearance in the Punjab or the North-West Provinces. Suppose that there was good reason to believe—and nothing is more
probable—that whatever might be the preacher’s own personal intentions, his preaching was calculated to disturb the public peace and produce mutiny and re- bellion : and suppose further (though the supposition is one which it is hardly possible to make even in imagination), that a British officer, instead of doing
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 95
whatever might be necessary, or executing whatever orders he might receive, for the maintenance of British authority, were to consider whether he ought not to become a disciple of the Guru or Imam. What course would be taken towards hin? He would be instantly dismissed with ignominy from the service which he would disgrace, and if he acted up to his convictions, and preferred his religion to his Queen and country, he would be hanged as a rebel and a traitor.
But let us pass from Pilate to his successors, the various persecutors who at intervals opposed the progress of Christianity during the first three centuries of its history. The charge against them is that they interfered with liberty, that they exercised coercion otherwise than for the purpose of self- protection, that they ought to have acted with absolute indifference and complete toleration. That is certainly not the lesson which I should be in- clined to draw from the history in question. It is, I think, altogether unjust to blame them for maintain- ing and defending their own view. The true charge is, that they acted as if they had no such view to maintain; that, instead of offering an_ intelligent opposition to Christianity in so far as they delibe- rately thought it wrong, they inflicted on it occa- sional brutalities, proceeding from a blind instinct of fear and hatred, and unaccompanied by any sort of appreciation of the existence of the problems which Christianity was trying to solve. I should say that
96 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
they were to blame quite as much for what they left undone as for what they did. Neither Marcus Aurelius nor his successors were wrong in seeing that the Christian and the Roman ideas of life differed widely, that there was not room for both, and that the two systems must of necessity struggle. Their faults were these among others. In the first place, their treatment of Christianity was, as far as we can now judge, brutal and clumsy. They persecuted just enough to irritate their antagonists, to give them a series of moral victories, and not enough to crush and exterminate. Atrocious as an exterminating policy would have been, it would probably have succeeded, in the same miserable sense in which the Spanish Inquisition succeeded, but it would at all events have been intelligible. The guilt incurred would not have been incurred for nothing. It would not have defeated itself.
In the second place, they are to blame for not having recognized the patent fact that Christianity
had an intensely strong hold on men, and for being debarred by their pride and other evil tempers from trying to discover its source. I do not say that the Roman emperors and governors ought all to have become Christians, but men worthy to be regarded as rulers of men ought tohave studied Chris- tianity with deep attention. If it appeared to them to be false, or to be true in part only, they ought to have treated it as false, or partially true, and to have made public and put.on record the grounds on
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 97
which they regarded other parts of it as false. It may sometimes be necessary for Governments to legislate directly against religions. It may often be necessary for them to adopt a policy indirectly un- favourable to them, but it never can be right or wise to trust in such matters to sheer brute force produc- ing bodily fear. Governments ought not only to threaten, but to persuade and to instruct. The Romans ought to have had a great deal more faith in themselves and in their own principles of conduct than they ever showed. They ought not to have left the whole management of the human heart and soul in the hands of devotional passion. They should have stood forward as competitors with Christianity in the task of improving the world which they had conquered. They should have admitted fully and at once the truth of one most important side of the Christian religion, a side which has been far too much forgotten—I mean its negative side. They should have owned that idolatry had had its day, that the Gods of their Pantheon, whatever they might once have represented, were mere dead idols, lies in marble and gold. They should have dethroned Jupiter and his fellows, and stood forward frankly and honourably to meet the new creed upon its
merits, resolved to learn, and no less resolved to
teach, for they had much to teach. If they had
met as enemies in this spirit, would they not have
been generous enemies? If there had been strife,
would it not have been a noble strife? Would the H
98 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
Christian priests and bishops, full of religious emotions, and ready, as the event showed, to degrade the human race by wild asceticism and to bewilder it with metaphysical dreams, have had nothing to learn from the greatest masters of every form of organised human effort, of law, of government, of war, and of morals that the world has ever seen ? In point of fact we know that the Church did learn much from ancient Rome. It might have learned much more, it might have unlearned much, if the two great powers of the world had stood to each other in the attitude of generous opponents, each working its way to the truth from a different side, and not in the attitudes of a touching though slightly hysterical victim mauled from time to time by a sleepy tyrant in his intervals of fury. In short, the indifference of the Empire to the whole subject of religion, which had grown out of its plethora of wealth and power, was its real reproach This illustration of the way in which I look at the history of religious struggles is enough for my purpose. If it were thrown, as it easily might be,
into a logical shape, it would show that the merits of the attitude of the Empire towards Christianity
depend upon our estimate of the object in view, and the efficiency and expense of the means adopted to obtain it; but this is of littke importance. The main fact to bear in mind is that there are and there must be struggles between creeds and political systems, just as there are struggles between different
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSIGN 99
nations and classes if and in so far as their interests do not coincide. If Roman and Christian, Trinita- rian and Arian, Catholic and Protestant, Church and State, both want the allegiance of mankind, they must fight for it. No peace is possible for men except upon one of two conditions. You may purchase absolute freedom by the destruction of all power, or you may measure the relative powers of the opposing forces by which men are acted upon, and conduct yourself accordingly. The first of these courses is death. The second is harmonious and well-regulated life; but the essence of life is force, and force is the negation of liberty.
It may very naturally be asked upon this, Do you then oppose yourself to the whole current of civilised opinion for three hundred years at least ? Do you wish to go back to the Inquisition and the war which desolated the Netherlands and Germany for about eighty years? Is the whole theory and practice of English Liberalism a com- plete mistake, and are writers like De Maistre and his modern disciples and imitators our true guides ?
To this I should answer most emphatically, No. I do not object to the practice of modern Liberals. Under great difficulties they have contrived to bring about highly satisfactory and creditable results, but their theories have presented those defects which are inseparable from the theories of a weak
and unpopular party making its way towards power. H2
100 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
They could persuade those whom they had to persuade only by discovering arguments to show how toleration could be reconciled with the admis- sion of the absolute truth of religious dogmas. They had to disconnect religious liberty from scepti- cism, and it is pretty clear that they were not aware of the degree in which they reafly are connected. At all events, they avoided the admission of the fact by resting their case principally on the three following points, each of which would have its due weight upon the theory which I have stated :—
The first point was that, though persecution silences, it does not convince, and that what is
wanted is conviction and not acquiescence. This is an argument to show that persecution does not effect its purpose, and is answered, or at least greatly dimi- nished in weight, by the consideration that, though by silencing A you do not convince A, you make it very much easier to convince B, and you protect B's existing convictions against A’s influence.
The second point was that people will not be damned for dond-fide errors of opinion. This is an argument to show that a severe and bloody persecu- tion is too high a price to pay for the absence of religious error.
The third point, which I am inclined to think was in practice the most powerful of all with the class who feel more than they think, was that to
support religion by persecution is alien to the senti- ment of most religions, and especially to that of the
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 101
Christian religion, which is regarded as peculiarly humane. In so far as Christianity recognises and is founded on hell, this has always appeared to me to be an inconsistency, not in all cases unamiable when genuine, but weak and often hypocritical. Whatever its value may be, it falls under the same head as the second point. It is an argument to show that persecution is an excessive price to pay for religious uniformity.
The true inference from the commonplaces about the doubtfulness of religious theories, and the ineffi- cacy of persecution as a means of obtaining the object desired except at a ruinous price, is to mode- rate the passions of the combatants, not to put an end to the fight. Make people understand that there are other objects in life than the attainment of religious truth; that they are so ignorant and so likely to be mistaken in their religious opinions that if they persecute at all they are as likely to persecute truth as falsehood; that in order to be effectual a persecution must be so powerful, so systematic, and so vigorously sustained as to crush, paralyse, and destroy ; and that the result when obtained will probably be of exceedingly small importance, and perhaps mischievous as far as it goes, and you teach people not to live at peace, but to strive with moderation, and with a better appreciation of the character and importance of the contest, its intricacy, its uncertainty, and the difficulty of distinguishing friends from enemies, than is possible in simpler
102 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
times. Sceptical arguments in favour of moderation about religion are the only conclusive ones.
If it should be supposed that moderation would render controversy uninteresting or ineffective, it should be remembered that there is a confusion in common thought and language between brutality and efficiency. There is a notion that the severest, the most effectual contest is that in which the greatest amount of bodily injury is done by the side which wins to the side which loses; but this is not the case. When you want a fair and full trial of strength, elaborate precautions are taken to make the test real and to let the best man win. If prize- fighters were allowed to give foul blows and hit or kick a man when he is down, they would hurt each other much more than they do, but their relative
strength and endurance would be far less effectually tested. So with religions ; what is wanted is not peace, but fair play.
De Maistre somewhere says that the perse- cution which the Church had suffered from the syllogism was infinitely worse than all that racks and crosses could inflict; and the remark, though odd, is perfectly true. Modern religious struggles —conducted by discussion, by legislation, by social intolerance—are to the religious persecutions of earlier times what modern war is to ancient war. Ancient war meant to the defeated at best death, at worst slavery, exile, and personal degradation. Modern war is far more effective, though the pro-
THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION 103
cedure is infinitely less brutal and degrading. Either the German or the French army in 1870-1 would have crushed the hordes which fought at Chalons or Tours as a steam-engine cracks a nut. The French armies were just as effectually defeated and disabled by the Germans as if the prisoners had been sold for slaves.
It is the same with controversy. Civil war, legal persecution, the Inquisition, with all their train of horrors, form a far less searching and effective conflict than that intellectual warfare from which no institution, no family, no individual man is free when discussion is free from legal punishment. Argument, ridicule, the expression of contempt for cherished feelings, the exposure of cherished fallacies, chilled or wounded affection, injury to prospects public or private, have their terrors as well as more material weapons and more definite wounds. The result of such a warfare is that the weaker opinion —the less robust and deeply seated feeling—is rooted out to the last fibre, the place where it grew being seared as with a hot iron; whereas the prison, the
stake, and the sword only strike it down, and leave it to grow again in better circumstances. A blow bruises, and discolours for a time. Nitrate of silver
does not bruise, but it changes the colour of the whole body for its whole life, It is impossible to draw any definite line at which the sensation of pressure becomes painful. It may be a touch just sufficient to attract attention. It may inflict the
104 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
most agonising pain in many different ways. It is the same with respect to the pain occasioned by treating a man’s opinions as false. The disagreement may be pleasant, it may be of trifling importance, it may cause intense pain, and this may be of many different kinds, the immediate causes of which are very various. Every mode of differing from a man which causes him pain infringes his liberty of thought to some extent. It makes it artifici- ally painful for him to think in a certain way, and so violates Mr. Mill’s canon about liberty, unless it is done for self-protection, which is seldom the case. Mr, Mill’s doctrines about liberty of opinion and discussion appear to.me to be a kind of Quaker- ‘ism. They are like teaching that all revenge what- ever, even in its mildest form, is wrong, because revenge carried to an extreme is destructive of society.
CHAPTER III.
ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER.
In the last chapter I more than once had to refer to the question of the distinction between the spiri- tual and the temporal power, or the spiritual and temporal order. It plays so large a part in discus- sions on this subject, that it will be worth while to examine it with some degree of attention.
1 think it would not be unfair to state the com- mon view upon the subject somewhat as follows :— Life may be divided into two provinces, the temporal and the spiritual. In the temporal pro- vince are included all common affairs—war, com- merce, inheritance; all that relates toa man’s body
and goods. Thought, feeling, opinion, religion, and the like form the spiritual province. These two provinces have usually been placed under separate governments. Kings, parliaments, lawyers, soldiers bear rule in the one; some sort of priests bear rule in the other. The recognition of this distinction and the practice of attaching great importance to it is one
106 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
of the curious bonds of union between Positivists and Roman Catholics. It is also one of the favourite commonplaces of a large number of French political writers, and in particular it is the very foundation of the theories of Liberal Catholics, of those who try to reconcile the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church with modern notions about liberty.
If I understand them rightly, the Ultramontane party do not adopt this view, but take what to me at least appears a far more rational one. It might, I think, be expressed as follows :—The spiri-
tual and temporal power differ not in the province which they rule, but in the sanctions by which they rule it. Spiritual power means the power ot the keys; power to open and shut ; power in heaven, purgatory, and hell; possibly in some cases power to interfere in a supernatural manner with the com- mon course of nature. Temporal power means power to deal with life and limb, goods, liberty, and reputation—all the hopes and fears of this visible world. Each of these may be so used as to affect both opinions and actions. A man may be ex- communicated or may be imprisoned, either for theft or for heresy. The two powers exercise a concurrent jurisdiction over men’s conduct. In a healthy state of things they ought to act in the same direction. In an unhealthy state of things, they will come into collision, and when they do so the stronger of the two forces will overcome the other. They pro-
ceed to say that the penalties which the spiritual
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 107
power can inflict are infinitely heavier than those which the temporal power can inflict, which, if they are real, is obviously true. The final inference is that the Pope and his clergy are the rightful king and rulers of the whole world.
This argument is surely altogether unanswerable if its fundamental assumption is true; and the at- tempts of the Liberal Catholics to evade it by draw- ing a line, not between the sanctions of which the two powers dispose, but between the provinces over which they reign, are excusable only on the ground of their practical utility in the case of people who want an excuse for civilly ousting the priests from their position, and have not the moral courage to look them straight in the face and tell them the plain truth in plain words that their claims are unfounded.
That this is so is obvious from the following con- siderations. In the first place, human life forms a whole. Thought, motive, wish, intention each run into, and cannot be distinguished from, each other. Whatever the spirit or soul may be, it is not only one, but the ultimate type of unity from which we get the idea. It is the man himself as distinguished from his organs through which it acts; and the stream (so to speak) of its operations is uninterrupted from the first conception of a thought down to the outward act in which it culminates. Every act is spiritual. Every power is spiritual. Whether a man is saying his prayers or buying an estate, it is he
108 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
the spirit or soul, whatever that may be, which prays or buys. Whether he hopes for heaven or for sensual pleasure, whether he fears hell hereafter or bodily pain here, it is he the spirit or soul which hopes or fears, and it is thus impossible to find either centre or circumference for the two spheres of which his life is said to consist, though it is easy to imagine any number of classes of hopes and fears by which the whole of it may be acted upon.
If we approach the matter from the other end and examine the attempts which have been made to raw the line between the two provinces, we are led back to the same result. No one has ever been able to draw the line upon any intelligible principle, or to decide who ought to draw it. To take prominent concrete cases, who can say whether laws about marriage, education, and ecclesiastical property be- long to the spiritual or to the temporal province ?
They obviously belong to each. They go down to the very depths of the human soul, They affect the most important outward actions of every-day life. Again, if the two provinces exist, and if the temporal and spiritual powers are independent, it is obvious that the line between their territories must either be drawn by one of them, or must be settled by agree- ment between them. If either has the power of
drawing it, that one is the superior of the other, and the other has only to take what its superior leaves to it. The result of this will be either that the Church will be the ruler of the world, and the State depen-
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 109
dent on and subordinate to it, or that the State will be the ruler and the Church a voluntary association bound together by contracts dependent upon the laws of the State. In other words, the powers cannot be independent if either of them is to define its own limits. If the limits are settled by agree- ment (which has never yet been done in any part of the world), you have no longer two provinces divided by a natural boundary, but two conflicting powers making a bargain. You have not a Church and a State each with a province naturally its own, but two States or two Churches — call them which you please —of rather different cha- racters coming into collision and making a treaty. This is a merely conventional and accidental ar- rangement, and does not answer, as according to the theory it ought, to a distinction founded on the nature of things.
For these reasons it appears to me that the Ultramontane view of the relation between Church and State is the true one; that the distinction is one of sanctions and not of provinces. If this is so, it is obvious that the distinction will not affect the question whether opinion is to be subject to coercion, but only the question as to the sort of coercion to which it is to be subject. The object, or one of the principal objects, for which the distinction between the temporal and spiritual province is attempted to be set up, is to secure a region for liberty. In the spiritual province it is argued there should be no
110 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
temporal coercion. But opinion is in the spiritual province. Therefore, there should be no temporal coercion of opinion. If the whole of human life falls within each province, it is obvious that this argument cannot be applied.
The distinction of which I have thus denied the existence has a very prominent place in the writ- ings of Positivists, and the attention which they have attracted in this country makes it desirable to examine their views on the subject. I ought to say that my notions as to their opinions are derived mainly from the writings of the English members of that body. I have read, I think, most of their writ- ings, and have found in them, among other things, many statements about Comte’s views on this and other matters. They have never persuaded me to go very deep into Comte himself. More reasons than I can even glance at here have led me to the conclusion that it would be an unprofitable invest- ment of time to study his writings.* What the value of his speculations on natural science may have been I do not pretend to guess, but the writings
* I will give one reason asa specimen. In Comte’s ‘Gene- ral View of Positivism’ (translated by Dr. Bridges) there occurs the following cardinal statement: ‘The great problem, then, is to raise social feeling by artificial effort to the position which in the natural condition is held by selfish feeling’ (‘Gen. View,’ p. 98). To me this is like saying, The great object of mechanics is to alter the laws of gravitation. The following passages in the work quoted bear on the relation of the spiritual and teraporal powers, but I find no definition of the words spiritual and tem- poral—pp. 81-4, 122-7, 144-8, 378-85.
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER III
of his disciples, still more the exposition given by them of his opinions, and perhaps, above all, their accounts of his life, give me a strong impression that his social and moral speculations will not ulti- mately turn out to be of much real value. I mention this because it is very possible that in discussing his views to a great extent at second hand I may not do them justice.
The writings, then, of his English disciples are full of discourse on the relations of the spiritual and the temporal power, which, as far as my experience goes, tend in every case to lower the importance of the latter and exalt the importance of the former. I think, too, that the distinction is used for the purpose of enforcing the universal duty of toleration on the grounds just stated. These views coming from Positivists are embarrassed by a difficulty, which to me makes them unintelligible. I cannot understand what, thinking as they think, is the nature of the distinction.
What a believer in a future state of existence means by a spiritual power as distinguished from the temporal power is, as I have already shown, per- fectly plain. The difficulty arises when we find the distinction insisted on by people whose leading doc- trines are; that there is no future state at all, or that,
if there is, we know nothing about it and have nothing to do with it; that such words as ‘spirit,’ ‘soul, and the like are the names of figments proper to what they describe as the metaphysical
112 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FR.
SRNITY
stage of thought. To find persons who think thus insisting on the distinction between spiritual and temporal power as inherent in the nature of things, is as if an atheist were to make the love of God the foundation of a system of morals, or as if a disciple of Locke were to found his philosophy upon a set of principles which he de- clared to be innate.
The nearest approach to a meaning which I can put upon the words as used by them is one which would make spiritual and temporal power correspond respectively to persuasion and force. The spiritual power is the power of those who appeal to and regulate public opinion. The tem- poral power is the power of those who make laws by which people are punished in body, goods, and reputation. If my knowledge of Comte is correct as far as it goes, his theory as to the spiritual power was that a certain class of spe- cially well-instructed persons were to speak with the same sort of authority upon all the great ques- tions of morals and politics as scientific bodies now speak with as to such subjects as astronomy, and that legislation and government, as we at present un- derstand them, were to be carried on by an inferior class of persons in obedience to the principles so laid down for their guidance. I believe that he called these two classes respectively the spiritual and temporal powers, and justified his use of the ex- pression by asserting that the real power of the
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 113
clergy over men’s minds when at its highest lay in the fact that they appealed to and represented public opinion as it then was, and not in the fact that they were supposed to have power over the future pro- spects of mankind, and even some degree of super- natural influence over their ordinary concerns.
I do not think this was true in fact, but, however that may be, the distinction thus expressed seems to me to be altogether groundless and misleading. To set up the temporal and spiritual powers thus understood as two distinct agents by which mankind are to be governed, each of which is to have its own sphere of action, and is entitled to be respected by the other so long as it keeps within that sphere, in- volves several errors, each of which separately is fatal to anything like an accurate view of the sub- ject.
The first error is that the theory entirely miscon- ceives the relation to each other of persuasion and force. They are neither opposed to nor really altogether distinct from each other. They are alternative means of influencing mankind, which may be, constantly are, and obviously ought to be exercised by and upon the very same persons in
respect of the very same matter. To confine any
one who has to influence others in any capacity to
the use of one of them to the exclusion of the
other would be equivalent to destroying his in-
fluence. The old proverb which forbids the spurring
of willing horses is of universal application. No I
114 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
one applies force when persuasion will do, and no sensible person applies force till persuasion has failed. Persuasion, indeed, is an indispensable con- dition to the application of force on any large scale. It is essential to the direction of force; nor is it possible for any practical purpose to separate the two. Whatever our spiritual power may be, nobody would deny that Parliament is in these islands the temporal power. It is only by and with the consent of Parliament that anybody can apply force in the ultimate form of legal punishment to any one else for any purpose. How much persuasion of every kind has to be em- ployed before that consent can be obtained it is needless to say. Foree, therefore, is dependent
upon persuasion, and cannot move without it. Under a system of parliamentary government this is a little more obvious than under other systems, but the same is true in all cases. No one ever yet ruled his fellow-men unless he had first, by some means or other, persuaded others to put their force at his disposal. No one ever yet used his force for any considerable time, or on any considerable scale, without more or less consultation as to the direction in which and the purposes for which it should be used.
Force thus implies persuasion acting in immediate conjunction with it. Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the con- sequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 115
applied through the mind. Force, on the other hand, is a kind of persuasion. When a man is compelled to act in a particular way by the fear of legal punish- ment, he is persuaded by the argument, ‘If you do not act thus, you will be punished.’ The argument is extremely simple, and can be made intelligible by gestures even to some animals; but still it is an argument, On the other hand, when a priest says, ‘Vote as I tell you or you will be damned,’ he employs force just as much as if he held a pistol to his parishioner’s head, though the arguments through which the force is applied are more elaborate than in the other case. A surgeon tells a patient that he will die unless he submits to a painful operation. Is this persuasion or force? No man would lose a limb if he were not forced to do so by the fear of losing what he values even more, but the surgeon would usually be said to persuade his patient, and not to compel him.
Take again this consideration. In almost every instance in which force and persuasion are employed, some persons are persuaded and others are forced to the very same line of conduct by the very same act. A father has two sons who will not learn their lessons. He points out to both the importance of industry, and tells both that if they are idle he will punish them. One works and is not punished, the other is idle and is punished. Each has been ex- posed to the same motives, and they may be said to
have persuaded the one and forced the other. 12
116 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
his is only an example ina single instance of the
tion of civil society upon individuals. It presents On the one
e, health, wealth, honour, all the enjoyment:
every one a series of alternatives.
fe; on the other, poverty, disgrace, and, in extreme
cases, legal punishment extending to death itself. This is the net result of the whole working of social institutions. They persuade in some directions, and they threaten in others. a li
is
Some of those who are
dressed listen to the persuasions ; others do not
have to take the conse- But every man society is both persuaded and _threat- ty in every action of his life.
he spiritual power is the power which
isten to the threats, an
quences in their various degrees.
who lives in ened by socie Now, if tl
works by persuasion, an power which works by for society in the world is bo in other words, it will fol
the temporal power the ce, it will follow that every th spiritual and temporal ; low that the distinction is
unfounded. Every law and every institution in the world will serve as an illustration of this. Take, for in- stance, the great institution of private property. Per- suasion and force upon this matter cannot be divorced from each other. The laws by which property is secured both persuade and threaten, They enable the owner of the property to enjoy it, and so per- suade people to acquire property. They threaten those who infringe the rights of property, and
operate against them in the shape of force ; but they are persuasion or force, they appeal to hope or to
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 117
fear, according to the point of view from which they are regarded,
If the attempt to make the spiritual and the temporal power correspond with persuasion and force breaks down, the only other common distinction to which it can be assimilated is the distinction between theory and practice. There is no particular -reason why this familiar distinction should not be called by its own name; but if the common dis- tinction between matter and spirit is to be given up as exploded and unmeaning, there is no other mean- ing which can be assigned to the words temporal and spiritual. There is no doubt a certain sort of uniformity with common usage in speaking of general principles as spiritual and of their practical application to details as temporal, and if it giv people who do not believe in the distinction between spirit and matter great pleasure to use the words spiritual power and temporal power, this is, perhaps, the least fallacious way of doing it. The objection to such a mode of using language is that it is peculiarly likely to be misunderstood. To speak of theoretical and practical men as two powers opposed to, or at all events independent of, each other, is to revive all the old fallacies which are written in Ben- tham’s book of fallacies about the opposition between theory and practice. The construction of theories and their application to practice ought to go hand in hand; they ought to check and correct each other, and ought never on any account to be permitted to
i18 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
be long or widely separated. The result of doing so is that practical men construct for themselves crude, shallow, and false theories which react on their prac- tice, and that theoretical men construct theories which are very slightly connected with facts. A society in which the two classes should form distinct castes, the one being subordinated to the other, looks like nothing better than a pedantic dream. The general result is that the distinction between spiritual and temporal power becomes unmeaning as soon as we explode the distinction between spirit and matter, time and eternity, the Church which has its sanctions in the one, and the State which has its sanctions in the other. Why, then, it may be asked, do Positivists attach such importance to this distinction ? If itarises out of a mere confusion of ideas, why has it such attractions for them? The passages referred to above* have led me to doubt whether Comte really meant much more than that his followers would do well under existing circumstances to stand aloof from practical politics, and to confine themselves to teaching the theory of their creed. Speculative men constantly throw very obvious remarks of this kind into the form of enor- mously wide general assertions, as our own expe- rience shows : but however this may be, all religious reformers like to pour new wine into old bottles. In- stances are to be found in abundance in the history
* See note, p. 110,
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 119
of speculation, and especially in the history of re- ligious speculation, in which people have tried to show that all previous writers and thinkers were merely their precursors, and that these precursors were groping blindly after great truths, certain aspects of which they dimly recognized, though the full knowledge of them was reserved for the re- formers themselves. ‘See how my theory reconciles and gives symmetry to all the great doctrines which you, my predecessors, who were all very well
,
in your way, did not succeed in grasping,’ is the
remark more or less emphatically made by many a
reformer when he looks on his work and, behold, it is very good, This taste was strongly developed in Comte, and as on the one hand he had a deep ad- miration for certain sides of Catholicism, and on the other a conviction that the doctrine of a future state and of the distinctions between spirit and matter as usually understood were unfounded, he was obliged either to invent some new meaning for the distinction between spirit and matter and spiritual and temporal power, or to admit that the Roman Catholic Church was based upon a delusion. He preferred the first branch of the alternative, and attempted to give a theory about spirit and matter, spiritual and tem- poral, which should replace and complete the old one.
Of this theory his disciples, so far as I know (for I write under correction), have never given any dis- tinct account, and the want of such an account is closely connected with the objection to their
120 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
system, which has been continually made, and, so far as I am aware, has never been answered. The objection is the familiar one that they expect the clock to go when the weights are cut off. They would like to have a priesthood and a spiritual rule after they have denied the existence of the conditions which make these things possible. The subject is so important that it will bear a little remark.
All religions whatever, the professors of which aspire to rule mankind, have the same problem to grapple with. Each hasan ideal of human nature to which its professors wish mankind in general to con-
form, or which they wish them, at all events, to admit to be entitled to reverence, whether they con- form to it or not. Each of these religions finds a number of earnest and disinterested supporters, who are so much struck with its moral beauty and its inherent essential attractions that they become con- verts to it, as a lawyer would say, ‘upon the view. Christ would have many disciples and worshippers if all notion of individual profit or loss hereafter from
his worship were at an end. The earliest Buddhists looked, and the purest Buddhists still look, for nothing better for themselves than final absorption or annihilation. The loving, trusting, believing spirit wants neither reward nor punishment. He falls in love with his creed as a man might fall in
love with a woman, without hope, but beyond the possibility of recovery. Persons like these are the core and heart of every great religion.
TEMPORAL AND SPIRITUAL POWER 12
They, form, however, a very small minority of the human race. The great mass of men is not capable of this kind of disinterested passion for anything whatever. On the other hand, they are open to offers. They can be threatened or bribed into a more or less nominal adherence to almost any creed which does not demand too much of them. Indeed, they like it rather than not; but some degree of con- sideration is essential, The real leading motives of the mass of mankind are personal prudence and passion. Their centre is self; and every religion which means to govern men must recognize this fact and appeal to personal motives. It does not become a spiritual power in the true sense of the word power—
t cannot, that is to say, impose itself 2 zzvifos until it has practically solved this problem. How Christianity, Mahommedanism, and Brahmanism solved it we all
know. Even Buddhism had, after a time, to set up its hell ; but to the worldly, the selfish, the indifferent, Positivism has nothing whatever to say. Considered as an organized religion, it is superfluous to those who
like it, and impotent as against those who like it not, and its attempts to attach new meanings to the word ‘spiritual,’ to arrogate to its professors spiritual power, to sit in the seats of the priests whom it helps
to dethrone, are mere fictions meant to conceal its fundamental impotence. No Positivist has ever yet been able to answer the question, How do you pro- pose to deal with a person who either thinks in his
heart or says boldly with his lps, ‘Tried by your
122
LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
standard, Iam a bad and selfish man. I mean to
be set
ad and selfish, and as for your spiritual power, I it and you at defiance, and I shall take my own
course in despite of you. All that the Positivist
can you sha
like
and
you Rel
efi
say to such a person is, ‘ For the present, take 1 own course. Our tastes differ. In time we I be a majority, and then we shall persuade others
to coerce you.’ The answer to this is, ‘I and people
me form the incalculable majority of mankind, you will never persuade the mass of men or any
mass of men till you can threaten them. Here and there a horse may be disposed to go by himself, but
cannot drive a coach without reins and a whip. igious teachers who have no, hold on the selfish
must renounce the notion of being a power at all, either spiritual or temporal; for a power which can be
ed with impunity is no power, and as for you, you
will
never be anything more than a Ritualistic Social
Science Association.’
123
CHAPTER IV.
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY IN ITS APPLICATION TO MORALS.
So far I have considered the theoretical grounds of Mr. Mill’s principle and its practical application to liberty of thought and discussion. I now proceed to consider its application to morals. It may be well to restate it for fear that I may appear to be arguing with an imaginary opponent. ‘The object of this essay is to assert one very simple principle as entitled to govern absolutely all the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force cr 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.’ A little further on we are told that ‘from the 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 following consequences would flow legiti-
124 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
mately from this principle. A number of persons form themselves into an association for the purpose of countenancing each other in the practice of seducing women, and giving the widest possible extension to the theory that adultery is a good thing. They carry out these objects by organizing a system for the publication and circulation of las civious novels and pamphlets calculated to inflame the passions of the young and inexperienced. The aw of England would treat this as a crime. It would call such books obscene libels, and a combina tion for such a purpose a conspiracy. Mr. Mill apparently, would not only regard this as wrong, but he would regard it as an act of persecution if the newspapers were to excite public indignation against the parties concerned by language going one step eyond the calmest discussion of the expediency of such an ‘experiment in living.’ Such an association would be impossible in this country, because if the aw of the land did not deal with it, lynch law infallibly would. This Mr. Mill ought in consistency to regard asa lamentable proof of our bigotry and want of acquaintance with the true principles of iberty.
The manner in which he discusses an illus tration closely analogous to this, and in which he attempts to answer an objection which must suggest itself to every one, throws the strongest possible ight on the value of his own theory. His illustra tion is as follows :—‘ Fornication must be tolerated
LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 125
and so must gambling; but should a person be free to be a pimp or to keep a gambling house?’ He puts the arguments on each side without drawing any conclusion, and the strongest of them are as follows :—
On the side of toleration it may be said that if the principles which we have hitherto defended are true, society has no business as society to decide anything to be wrong which concerns only the individual; that it cannot go beyond persuasion, and that one person should be as free to persuade as another to dissuade. In opposition to this it may be contended that, although the public or the State are not warranted in authoritatively deciding for purposes of repression or punishment that such or such conduct affecting only the interests of the individual is good or bad, they are fully justified in assuming, if they regard it as bad, that its being so or not is at least a disputable question ; that this being supposed they cannot be acting wrongly in endeavouring to exclude the influence of solicitations which are not disinterested, of instigators who cannot possibly be impartial, who have a direct personal interest on one side, and that the side which the State believes to be wrong, and who confessedly promote it for personal objects only.
There is a kind of ingenuity which carries its own refutation on its face. How can the State or the public be competent to determine any question what- ever if it is not competent to decide that gross vice isa bad thing? I do not think the State ought to stand bandying compliments with pimps.‘ Without offence to your better judgment, dear sir, and with- out presuming to set up my opinion against yours, I beg to observe that I am entitled for certain pur-
126 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
poses to treat the question whether your views of life are right as one which admits of two opinions. Iam far from expressing absolute condemnation of an experiment in living from which I dissent (I am sure that mere dissent will not offend a person of your liberality of sentiment), but still I am compelled to observe that you are not altogether unbiassed by personal considerations in the choice of the course of life which you have adopted (no doubt for reasons which appear to you satisfactory, though they do not convince me). I venture, accordingly, though with the greatest deference, to call upon you not to exer- cise your profession ; at least I am not indisposed to think that I may, upon full consideration, feel myself compelled to do so.’ My feeling is that if society gets its grip on the collar of such a fellow it should say to him, ‘You dirty rascal, it may be a question whether you should be suffered to remain in your native filth untouched, or whether my opinion about you should be printed by the lash on your bare back. That question will be determined without the small- est reference to your wishes or feelings; but as to the nature of my opinion about you, there can be no question at all.’
Most people, I think, would feel that the latter form of address is at all events the more natural. Which is the more proper I shall try to show further on, but by way of preface it will be as well to quote the other passage from Mr. Mill to which I have referred. After setting forth his theory as to per-
LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 127
sonal vices being left to take their own course, he preceeds as follows :—
The distinction here pointed out between the part of a person’s life which concerns only himself and that which concerns others many persons will refuse to admit. How (it may be asked) can any part of the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other members? No person is an entirely isolated being ; it is impossible for a person to do anything seriously or permanently hurtful to himself without mischief reaching at least to his near con- nections, and often far beyond them.
He proceeds to enforce this by highly appropriate illustrations, which I need not quote. Further on he quotes a passage from an advocate of the sup- pression of intemperance, of which the following is a sample :—‘ If anything invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It invades my primary right of security by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder.’ Upon this Mr. Mill observes :—
A theory of ‘social rights, the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language, being nothing short of this, that it is the absolute social right of every individual that every other individual should act in every respect precisely as he ought, that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest violates my social right and entitles me to demand from the Legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single violation of liberty... . The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each according to his own standard.
128 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
At the risk of appearing paradoxical, I own that the theory which appears to Mr. Mill so monstrous appears to me defective only in its language about rights and legislation, upon which I shall have more to say hereafter. It is surely a simple matter of fact that every human creature is deeply interested not only in the conduct, but in the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of millions of persons who stand in no other assignable relation to him than that of being his fellow-creatures. A great writer who makes a mistake in his speculations may mislead multitudes whom he has never seen. The strong metaphor that we are all members one of another is little more than the expression of a fact. A man would no more be a man if he was alone in the world than a hand would be a hand without the rest of the body.
I will now turn to the manner in which Mr. Mill deals with the objection just stated, and I must observe by the way that nothing proves his candour and honesty so clearly as the force with which he states objections to which he has no, or very weak, answers to make. His answer is twofold. He first admits that where ‘by conduct of this sort’ (z.e. self- regarding vices) ‘a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or
persons, the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation
in the proper sense of the term. If, for example, a man through intemperance . . . . becomes unable to pay his debts, . . . . he is deservedly
LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 129
reprobated, and might be justly punished, but it is for the breach of duty . . . . to his creditors, not for his extravagance.’ A party of people get drunk together at a public-house. Public opinion ought to stigmatize those only who could not afford it. The rest are ‘trying an experiment in living’ which happens to suit their taste, and no one else has anything to say to it.
So far Mr, Mill's plea is a qualified admission. He admits that when one man’s misconduct injures other definite persons in a definite way he may be punished. ‘But with regard to the merely con- tingent, or, as it may be called, constructive injury which a person causes to society by conduct which neither violates any specific duty to the public, nor occasions perceptible hurt to any assignable indi- vidual except himself, the inconvenience is one which society can afford to bear for the sake of the greater good of human freedom.’ It is natural to ask why? especially as the question is whether ‘human freedom,’ understood as Mr. Mill under-
stands it, is good or bad? The answer to the inquiry is twofold. First, ‘Society has had absolute power over all the early portion of their existence. It has had the whole period of childhood and nonage in which to try whether it could make them capable of rational conduct in life” The existing generation being itself imperfect cannot indeed make its pupils ‘perfectly wise and good, but it is well able to make the rising generation as a whole as good as K
130 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
and a little better than itself. If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up as mere children incapable of being acted upon by rational considerations of distant motives, society has itself to blame for the consequences.’ Secondly, by issuing commands to grown-up people it will make people rebel, and ‘the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely per- sonal conduct is that when it does interfere the odds are that it interferes wrongly and in the wrong place.’
This is Mr. Mill’s whole case, and it appears to me so weak that I fear that I may have misunder- stood or understated it. If so, I have done so tn- consciously. As it stands it seems to involve the following errors.
First, there is no principle on which the cases in which Mr. Mill admits the justice of legal punish- ment can be distinguished from those in which he denies it. The principle is that private vices which are injurious to others may justly be punished, if the injury be specific and the persons injured distinctly assignable, but not otherwise. If the question were as to the possibility in most cases of drawing an indictment against such persons I should agree with him. Criminal law is an extremely rough engine, and must be worked with great caution; but it is one thing to point out a practical difficulty which limits the application of a principle and quite another to refute the principle itself. Mr. Mill's proviso de- serves attention in considering the question whether a given act should be punished by law, but he
LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 131
applies it to ‘the moral coercion of public opinion, as well as to legal coercion, and to this the practical difficulty which he points out does not apply. A set of young noblemen of great fortune and hereditary influence, the representatives of ancient names, the
g
natural leaders of the society of large districts, pass their whole time and employ all their means in gross d society than common pickpockets, but Mr. Mill says that if any one having the opportunity of making them ashamed of themselves uses it in order to
auchery. Such people are far more injurious to
@
coerce them into decency, he sins against liberty, unless their example does assignable harm to specific people. It might be right to say, ‘You, the Duke of A, by extravagantly keeping four mistresses—to wit, B and C in London, and D and E in Paris—set an example which induced your friend F to clope with Mrs. G at on ——, and you are a great blackguard for your pains, and all the more because you are a duke.’ It could never be right to say, “You, the Duke of A, are scandalously immoral and ought to be made to smart for it, though the law cannot touch you.’ The distinction is more likely to be overlooked than to be misunderstood.
Secondly, the arguments against legal interference
in the cases not admitted to be properly subject to it are all open to obvious answers.
Mr. Mill says that if grown-up people are grossly vicious it is the fault of society, which therefore
ought not to punish them. K2
132 LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
This argument proves too much, for the same may be said with even greater force of gross crimes, and it is admitted that they may be punished.
It is illogical, for it does not follow that because society caused a fault it is not to punish it. A man who breaks his arm when he is drunk may have to have it cut off when he is sober.
It admits the whole principle of interference, for it assumes that the power of society over people in their minority is and ought to be absolute, and minority and majority are questions of degree, and the line which separates them is arbitrary.
Lastly, it proceeds upon an exaggerated estimate of the power of education. Society cannot make silk purses out of sows’ ears, and there are plenty of ears in the world which no tanning can turn even into serviceable pigskin.
Mr. Mills other arguments are, that compulsion in such cases will make people rebel, and, above all, that the moral persecutor himself may very probably be mistaken.
This is true and important, but it goes to show not that compulsion should not be used at all, but that its employment is a delicate operation.
The Brahmins, it is said, being impressed with the importance of cattle to agriculture, taught people to regard the bull as a holy beast. He must never be thwarted, even if he put his nose into a shop and ate the shopkeeper's grain. He must never be killed, even in mercy to himself. If he slips over a
LIBERTY IN RELATION TO MORALS 133
cliff and breaks his bones and the vultures are pick- ing out his eyes and boring holes between his ribs, he must be left to die. In several Indian towns the British Government has sent half the holy bulls to Mahommedan butchers, and the other half to draw commissariat wagons. Many matters go better in consequence of this arrangement, and agriculture in particular goes no worse. Liberty is Mr. Mill's Brahminee bull.
I find it difficult to understand how Mr. Mill's doctrine about individual liberty is to be reconciled with another of his theories to which I shall have occasion to refer more fully farther on. This is the theory about justice which is put forward in his essay on Utilitarianism. After a long and in-
teresting discussion of the different senses in which the word justice is used, he at last works out a conclusion which is expressed as follows :—‘ We do not call anything wrong unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow-creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This seems the real turning point of the distinction be- tween morality and simple expediency. It is part of the notion of duty in every one of its forms that a person may rightfully be compelled to do it’— (P. 72.) In other passages he says, ‘ The sentiment of justice in that