OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING.
Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should
be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;
and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that
to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or
asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same
reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their
opinions--to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either
physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own
risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one
pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary,
even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they
are expressed are such as to constitute their expression a positive
instigation to some mischievous act. An opinion that corn-dealers are
starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be
unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly
incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled
before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same
mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without
justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important
cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable
sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make
himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting
others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own
inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same
reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he
should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into
practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their
truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion,
unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite
opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good,
until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all
sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action,
not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are
imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should
be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to
varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of
different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one
thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which
do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of
other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient
of individual and social progress.
In maintaining this principle, the greatest difficulty to be encountered
does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end,
but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it
were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the
leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate
element with all that is designated by the terms civilisation,
instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and
condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty
should be under-valued, and the adjustment of the boundaries between it
and social control would present no extraordinary difficulty. But the
evil is, that individual spontaneity is hardly recognised by the common
modes of thinking, as having any intrinsic worth, or deserving any
regard on its own account. The majority, being satisfied with the ways
of mankind as they now are (for it is they who make them what they are),
cannot comprehend why those ways should not be good enough for
everybody; and what is more, spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of
the majority of moral and social reformers, but is rather looked on with
jealousy, as a troublesome and perhaps rebellious obstruction to the
general acceptance of what these reformers, in their own judgment, think
would be best for mankind. Few persons, out of Germany, even comprehend
the meaning of the doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so eminent both
as a _savant_ and as a politician, made the text of a treatise--that
"the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable
dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires,
is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a
complete and consistent whole;" that, therefore, the object "towards
which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on
which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must
ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development;"
that for this there are two requisites, "freedom, and a variety of
situations;" and that from the union of these arise "individual vigour
and manifold diversity," which combine themselves in "originality."[11]
Little, however, as people are accustomed to a doctrine like that of Von
Humboldt, and surprising as it may be to them to find so high a value
attached to individuality, the question, one must nevertheless think,
can only be one of degree. No one's idea of excellence in conduct is
that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. No one
would assert that people ought not to put into their mode of life, and
into the conduct of their concerns, any impress whatever of their own
judgment, or of their own individual character. On the other hand, it
would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if nothing
whatever had been known in the world before they came into it; as if
experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of
existence, or of conduct, is preferable to another. Nobody denies that
people should be so taught and trained in youth, as to know and benefit
by the ascertained results of human experience. But it is the privilege
and proper condition of a human being, arrived at the maturity of his
faculties, to use and interpret experience in his own way. It is for him
to find out what part of recorded experience is properly applicable to
his own circumstances and character. The traditions and customs of other
people are, to a certain extent, evidence of what their experience has
taught _them_; presumptive evidence, and as such, have a claim to his
deference: but, in the first place, their experience may be too narrow;
or they may not have interpreted it rightly. Secondly, their
interpretation of experience may be correct, but unsuitable to him.
Customs are made for customary circumstances, and customary characters:
and his circumstances or his character may be uncustomary. Thirdly,
though the customs be both good as customs, and suitable to him, yet to
conform to custom, merely _as_ custom, does not educate or develop in
him any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human
being. The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative
feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only
in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes
no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what
is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved
only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a
thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing
only because others believe it. If the grounds of an opinion are not
conclusive to the person's own reason, his reason cannot be
strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if
the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own
feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others, are
not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and
character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life
for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of
imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his
faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to
foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to
decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to
his deliberate decision. And these qualities he requires and exercises
exactly in proportion as the part of his conduct which he determines
according to his own judgment and feelings is a large one. It is
possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of
harm's way, without any of these things. But what will be his
comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only
what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the
works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and
beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. Supposing it
were possible to get houses built, corn grown, battles fought, causes
tried, and even churches erected and prayers said, by machinery--by
automatons in human form--it would be a considerable loss to exchange
for these automatons even the men and women who at present inhabit the
more civilised parts of the world, and who assuredly are but starved
specimens of what nature can and will produce. Human nature is not a
machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work
prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop
itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces
which make it a living thing.
It will probably be conceded that it is desirable people should exercise
their understandings, and that an intelligent following of custom, or
even occasionally an intelligent deviation from custom, is better than a
blind and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a certain extent it is
admitted, that our understanding should be our own: but there is not the
same willingness to admit that our desires and impulses should be our
own likewise; or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any
strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses
are as much a part of a perfect human being, as beliefs and restraints:
and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced; when
one set of aims and inclinations is developed into strength, while
others, which ought to co-exist with them, remain weak and inactive. It
is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because
their consciences are weak. There is no natural connection between
strong impulses and a weak conscience. The natural connection is the
other way. To say that one person's desires and feelings are stronger
and more various than those of another, is merely to say that he has
more of the raw material of human nature, and is therefore capable,
perhaps of more evil, but certainly of more good. Strong impulses are
but another name for energy. Energy may be turned to bad uses; but more
good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent and
impassive one. Those who have most natural feeling, are always those
whose cultivated feelings may be made the strongest. The same strong
susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful,
are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love
of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation
of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests:
not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows
not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his
own--are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and
modified by his own culture--is said to have a character. One whose
desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a
steam-engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his
impulses are strong, and are under the government of a strong will, he
has an energetic character. Whoever thinks that individuality of
desires and impulses should not be encouraged to unfold itself, must
maintain that society has no need of strong natures--is not the better
for containing many persons who have much character--and that a high
general average of energy is not desirable.
In some early states of society, these forces might be, and were, too
much ahead of the power which society then possessed of disciplining and
controlling them. There has been a time when the element of spontaneity
and individuality was in excess, and the social principle had a hard
struggle with it. The difficulty then was, to induce men of strong
bodies or minds to pay obedience to any rules which required them to
control their impulses. To overcome this difficulty, law and discipline,
like the Popes struggling against the Emperors, asserted a power over
the whole man, claiming to control all his life in order to control his
character--which society had not found any other sufficient means of
binding. But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and
the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the
deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences. Things are vastly
changed, since the passions of those who were strong by station or by
personal endowment were in a state of habitual rebellion against laws
and ordinances, and required to be rigorously chained up to enable the
persons within their reach to enjoy any particle of security. In our
times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one
lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in
what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the
individual, or the family, do not ask themselves--what do I prefer? or,
what would suit my character and disposition? or, what would allow the
best and highest in me to have fair-play, and enable it to grow and
thrive? They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is
usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or
(worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and
circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is
customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does
not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary.
Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for
pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds;
they exercise choice only among things commonly done: peculiarity of
taste, eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes: until
by dint of not following their own nature, they have no nature to
follow: their human capacities are withered and starved: they become
incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally
without either opinions or feelings of home growth, or properly their
own. Now is this, or is it not, the desirable condition of human nature?
It is so, on the Calvinistic theory. 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 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. To one holding this theory of life, crushing out
any of the human faculties, capacities, and susceptibilities, is no
evil: man needs no capacity, but that of surrendering 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. That is the theory of Calvinism; and it is held, in a mitigated
form, by many who do not consider themselves Calvinists; the mitigation
consisting in giving a less ascetic interpretation to the alleged will
of God; asserting it to be his will that mankind should gratify some of
their inclinations; of course not in the manner they themselves prefer,
but in the way of obedience, that is, in a way prescribed to them by
authority; and, therefore, by the necessary conditions of the case, the
same for all.
In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to
this narrow theory of life, and to the pinched and hidebound type of
human character which it patronises. Many persons, no doubt, sincerely
think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker
designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much
finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of
animals, than as nature made them. But if it be any part of religion to
believe that man was made by a good being, it is more consistent with
that faith to believe, that this Being gave all human faculties that
they might be cultivated and unfolded, not rooted out and consumed, and
that he takes delight in every nearer approach made by his creatures to
the ideal conception embodied in them, every increase in any of their
capabilities of comprehension, of action, or of enjoyment. There is a
different type of human excellence from the Calvinistic; a conception of
humanity as having its nature bestowed on it for other purposes than
merely to be abnegated. "Pagan self-assertion" is one of the elements of
human worth, as well as "Christian self-denial."[12] There is a Greek
ideal of self-development, which the Platonic and Christian ideal of
self-government blends with, but does not supersede. It may be better to
be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles
than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be
without anything good which belonged to John Knox.
It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in
themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the
limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings
become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works
partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human
life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more
abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and
strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by
making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to
the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable
to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others.
There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when
there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is
composed of them. As much compression as is necessary to prevent the
stronger specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights of
others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is ample
compensation even in the point of view of human development. The means
of development which the individual loses by being prevented from
gratifying his inclinations to the injury of others, are chiefly
obtained at the expense of the development of other people. And even to
himself there is a full equivalent in the better development of the
social part of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon
the selfish part. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the sake of
others, develops the feelings and capacities which have the good of
others for their object. But to be restrained in things not affecting
their good, by their mere displeasure, develops nothing valuable, except
such force of character as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint.
If acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any
fair-play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons
should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as this
latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been noteworthy to
posterity. Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as
Individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is
despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes
to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
Having said that Individuality is the same thing with development, and
that it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can
produce, well-developed human beings, I might here close the argument:
for what more or better can be said of any condition of human affairs,
than that it brings human beings themselves nearer to the best thing
they can be? or what worse can be said of any obstruction to good, than
that it prevents this? Doubtless, however, these considerations will not
suffice to convince those who most need convincing; and it is necessary
further to show, that these developed human beings are of some use to
the undeveloped--to point out to those who do not desire liberty, and
would not avail themselves of it, that they may be in some intelligible
manner rewarded for allowing other people to make use of it without
hindrance.
In the first place, then, I would suggest that they might possibly
learn something from them. It will not be denied by anybody, that
originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need
of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were
once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and
set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense
in human life. This cannot well be gainsaid by anybody who does not
believe that the world has already attained perfection in all its ways
and practices. It is true that this benefit is not capable of being
rendered by everybody alike: there are but few persons, in comparison
with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others,
would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these
few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a
stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did
not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already
existed. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect
cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old
things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not
like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the best
beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless
there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality
prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely
traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from
anything really alive, and there would be no reason why civilisation
should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, it is
true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order
to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
Genius can only breathe freely in an _atmosphere_ of freedom. Persons of
genius are, _ex vi termini_, _more_ individual than any other
people--less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without
hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which
society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming
their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one
of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot
expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the
better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break
their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not
succeeded in reducing them to commonplace, to point at with solemn
warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should
complain of the Niagara river for not flowing smoothly between its banks
like a Dutch canal.
I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the
necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in
practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory,
but knowing also that almost every one, in reality, is totally
indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man
to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense,
that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is
not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think that they can do
very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at.
Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use
of. They cannot see what it is to do for them: how should they? If they
could see what it would do for them, it would not be originality. The
first service which originality has to render them, is that of opening
their eyes: which being once fully done, they would have a chance of
being themselves original. Meanwhile, recollecting that nothing was ever
yet done which some one was not the first to do, and that all good
things which exist are the fruits of originality, let them be modest
enough to believe that there is something still left for it to
accomplish, and assure themselves that they are more in need of
originality, the less they are conscious of the want.
In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real
or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things
throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among
mankind. In ancient history, in the middle ages, and in a diminishing
degree through the long transition from feudality to the present time,
the individual was a power in himself; and if he had either great
talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. At
present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics it is almost a
triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. The only
power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while
they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of
masses. This is as true in the moral and social relations of private
life as in public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the name of
public opinion, are not always the same sort of public: in America they
are the whole white population; in England, chiefly the middle class.
But they are always a mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And
what is a still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions
from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from
books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves,
addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment,
through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not
assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule, with the
present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the
government of mediocrity from being mediocre government. No government
by a democracy or a numerous aristocracy, either in its political acts
or in the opinions, qualities, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever
did or could rise above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign
Many have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they
always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more highly gifted
and 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 honour and glory of the average man is that he is
capable of following that initiative; that he can respond internally to
wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. I am not
countenancing the sort of "hero-worship" which applauds the strong man
of genius for forcibly seizing on the government of the world and making
it do his bidding in spite of itself. All he 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. It does seem, however, that when
the opinions of masses of merely average men are everywhere become or
becoming the dominant power, the counterpoise and corrective to that
tendency would be, the more and more pronounced individuality of those
who stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these
circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, instead of
being deterred, should be encouraged in acting differently from the
mass. In other times there was no advantage in their doing so, unless
they acted not only differently, but better. In this age the mere
example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom,
is itself a service. 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 of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional
to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it
contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger
of the time.
I have said that it is important to give the freest scope possible to
uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these
are fit to be converted into customs. But independence of action, and
disregard of custom are not solely deserving of encouragement for the
chance they afford that better modes of action, and customs more worthy
of general adoption, may be struck out; nor is it only persons of
decided mental superiority who have a just claim to carry on their lives
in their own way. There is no reason that all human existences should be
constructed on some one, or some small number of patterns. If a person
possesses any tolerable amount of common-sense and experience, his own
mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best
in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like
sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. A man cannot get
a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, unless they are either made to his
measure, or he has a whole warehouseful to choose from: and is it easier
to fit him with a life than with a coat, or are human beings more like
one another in their whole physical and spiritual conformation than in
the shape of their feet? If it were only that people have diversities of
taste, that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after
one model. But different persons also require different conditions for
their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same
moral, than all the variety of plants can in the same physical,
atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one person
towards the cultivation of his higher nature, are hindrances to another.
The same mode of life is a healthy excitement to one, keeping all his
faculties of action and enjoyment in their best order, while to another
it is a distracting burthen, which suspends or crushes all internal
life. Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of
pleasure, their susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of
different physical and moral agencies, that unless there is a
corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain
their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and
aesthetic stature of which their nature is capable. Why then should
tolerance, as far as the public sentiment is concerned, extend only to
tastes and modes of life which extort acquiescence by the multitude of
their adherents? Nowhere (except in some monastic institutions) is
diversity of taste entirely unrecognised; a person may, without blame,
either like or dislike rowing, or smoking, or music, or athletic
exercises, or chess, or cards, or study, because both those who like
each of these things, and those who dislike them, are too numerous to be
put down. But the man, and still more the woman, who can be accused
either of doing "what nobody does," or of not doing "what everybody
does," is the subject of as much depreciatory remark as if he or she had
committed some grave moral delinquency. Persons require to possess a
title, or some other badge of rank, or of the consideration of people of
rank, to be able to indulge somewhat in the luxury of doing as they like
without detriment to their estimation. To indulge somewhat, I repeat:
for whoever allow themselves much of that indulgence, incur the risk of
something worse than disparaging speeches--they are in peril of a
commission _de lunatico_, and of having their property taken from them
and given to their relations.[13]
There is one characteristic of the present direction of public opinion,
peculiarly calculated to make it intolerant of any marked demonstration
of individuality. The general average of mankind are not only moderate
in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations: they have no tastes or
wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything unusual, and they
consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with
the wild and intemperate whom they are accustomed to look down upon.
Now, in addition to this fact which is general, we have only to suppose
that a strong movement has set in towards the improvement of morals,
and it is evident what we have to expect. In these days such a movement
has set in; much has actually been effected in the way of increased
regularity of conduct, and discouragement of excesses; and there is a
philanthropic spirit abroad, for the exercise of which there is no more
inviting field than the moral and prudential improvement of our
fellow-creatures. These tendencies of the times cause the public to be
more disposed than at most former periods to prescribe general rules of
conduct, and endeavour to make every one conform to the approved
standard. And that standard, express or tacit, is to desire nothing
strongly. Its ideal of character is to be without any marked character;
to maim by compression, like a Chinese lady's foot, every part of human
nature which stands out prominently, and tends to make the person
markedly dissimilar in outline to commonplace humanity.
As is usually the case with ideals which exclude one-half of what is
desirable, the present standard of approbation produces only an inferior
imitation of the other half. Instead of great energies guided by
vigorous reason, and strong feelings strongly controlled by a
conscientious will, its result is weak feelings and weak energies, which
therefore can be kept in outward conformity to rule without any strength
either of will or of reason. Already energetic characters on any large
scale are becoming merely traditional. There is now scarcely any outlet
for energy in this country except business. The energy expended in that
may still be regarded as considerable. What little is left from that
employment, is expended on some hobby; which may be a useful, even a
philanthropic hobby, but is always some one thing, and generally a thing
of small dimensions. The greatness of England is now all collective:
individually small, we only appear capable of anything great by our
habit of combining; and with this our moral and religious
philanthropists are perfectly contented. But it was men of another
stamp than this that made England what it has been; and men of another
stamp will be needed to prevent its decline.
The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human
advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at
something better than customary, which is called, according to
circumstances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progress or
improvement. The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of
liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people;
and the spirit of liberty, in so far as it resists such attempts, may
ally itself locally and temporarily with the opponents of improvement;
but 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. The progressive principle,
however, in either shape, whether as the love of liberty or of
improvement, is antagonistic to the sway of Custom, involving at least
emancipation from that yoke; and the contest between the two constitutes
the chief interest of the history of mankind. The greater part of the
world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of
Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is
there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean
conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant
intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result.
Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of
the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life;
they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most
powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or
dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when
theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom
custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. A
people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and
then stop: when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.
If a similar change should befall the nations of Europe, it will not be
in exactly the same shape: the despotism of custom with which these
nations are threatened is not precisely stationariness. It proscribes
singularity, but it does not preclude change, provided all change
together. We have discarded the fixed costumes of our forefathers; every
one must still dress like other people, but the fashion may change once
or twice a year. We thus take care that when there is change, it shall
be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience;
for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the
world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at
another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we
continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them
until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement
in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea
of improvement chiefly consists in persuading or forcing other people to
be as good as ourselves. It is not progress that we object to; on the
contrary, we flatter ourselves that we are the most progressive people
who ever lived. It is individuality that we war against: we should think
we had done wonders if we had made ourselves all alike; forgetting that
the unlikeness of one person to another is generally the first thing
which draws the attention of either to the imperfection of his own type,
and the superiority of another, or the possibility, by combining the
advantages of both, of producing something better than either. We have a
warning example in China--a nation of much talent, and, in some
respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been
provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the
work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European
must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and
philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their
apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they
possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who
have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power.
Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human
progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of
the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become
stationary--have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are
ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have
succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so
industriously working at--in making a people all alike, all governing
their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are
the fruits. The modern _régime_ of public opinion is, in an unorganised
form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an
organised; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert
itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents
and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China.
What is it that has hitherto preserved Europe from this lot? What has
made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a
stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them,
which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their
remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes,
nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a
great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable; and although
at every period those who travelled in different paths have been
intolerant of one another, and each would have thought it an excellent
thing if all the rest could have been compelled to travel his road,
their attempts to thwart each other's development have rarely had any
permanent success, and each has in time endured to receive the good
which the others have offered. Europe is, in my judgment, wholly
indebted to this plurality of paths for its progressive and many-sided
development. But it already begins to possess this benefit in a
considerably less degree. It is decidedly advancing towards the Chinese
ideal of making all people alike. M. de Tocqueville, in his last
important work, remarks how much more the Frenchmen of the present day
resemble one another, than did those even of the last generation. The
same remark might be made of Englishmen in a far greater degree. In a
passage already quoted from Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out two
things as necessary conditions of human development, because necessary
to render people unlike one another; namely, freedom, and variety of
situations. The second of these two conditions is in this country every
day diminishing. The circumstances which surround different classes and
individuals, and shape their characters, are daily becoming more
assimilated. Formerly, different ranks, different neighbourhoods,
different trades and professions, lived in what might be called
different worlds; at present, to a great degree in the same.
Comparatively speaking, they now read the same things, listen to the
same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their
hopes and fears directed to the same objects, have the same rights and
liberties, and the same means of asserting them. Great as are the
differences of position which remain, they are nothing to those which
have ceased. And the assimilation is still proceeding. All the political
changes of the age promote it, since they all tend to raise the low and
to lower the high. Every extension of education promotes it, because
education brings people under common influences, and gives them access
to the general stock of facts and sentiments. Improvements in the means
of communication promote it, by bringing the inhabitants of distant
places into personal contact, and keeping up a rapid flow of changes of
residence between one place and another. The increase of commerce and
manufactures promotes it, by diffusing more widely the advantages of
easy circumstances, and opening all objects of ambition, even the
highest, to general competition, whereby the desire of rising becomes no
longer the character of a particular class, but of all classes. A more
powerful agency than even all these, in bringing about a general
similarity among mankind, is the complete establishment, in this and
other free countries, of the ascendency of public opinion in the State.
As the various social eminences which enabled persons entrenched on them
to disregard the opinion of the multitude, gradually become levelled; as
the very idea of resisting the will of the public, when it is positively
known that they have a will, disappears more and more from the minds of
practical politicians; there ceases to be any social support for
non-conformity--any substantive power in society, which, itself opposed
to the ascendency of numbers, is interested in taking under its
protection opinions and tendencies at variance with those of the public.
The combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences
hostile to Individuality, that it is not easy to see how it can stand
its ground. It will do so with increasing difficulty, unless the
intelligent part of the public can be made to feel its value--to see
that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the
better, even though, as it may appear to them, some should be for the
worse. If the claims of Individuality are ever to be asserted, the time
is now, while much is still wanting to complete the enforced
assimilation. It is only in the earlier stages that any stand can be
successfully made against the encroachment. The demand that all other
people shall resemble ourselves, grows by what it feeds on. If
resistance waits till life is reduced _nearly_ to one uniform type, all
deviations from that type will come to be considered impious, immoral,
even monstrous and contrary to nature. Mankind speedily become unable to
conceive diversity, when they have been for some time unaccustomed to
see it.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] _The Sphere and Duties of Government_, from the German of Baron
Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-13.
[12] Sterling's _Essays_.
[13] There is something both contemptible and frightful in the sort of
evidence on which, of late years, any person can be judicially declared
unfit for the management of his affairs; and after his death, his
disposal of his property can be set aside, if there is enough of it to
pay the expenses of litigation--which are charged on the property
itself. All the minute details of his daily life are pried into, and
whatever is found which, seen through the medium of the perceiving and
describing faculties of the lowest of the low, bears an appearance
unlike absolute commonplace, is laid before the jury as evidence of
insanity, and often with success; the jurors being little, if at all,
less vulgar and ignorant than the witnesses; while the judges, with that
extraordinary want of knowledge of human nature and life which
continually astonishes us in English lawyers, often help to mislead
them. These trials speak volumes as to the state of feeling and opinion
among the vulgar with regard to human liberty. So far from setting any
value on individuality--so far from respecting the rights of each
individual to act, in things indifferent, as seems good to his own
judgment and inclinations, judges and juries cannot even conceive that a
person in a state of sanity can desire such freedom. In former days,
when it was proposed to burn atheists, charitable people used to suggest
putting them in a madhouse instead: it would be nothing surprising
nowadays were we to see this done, and the doers applauding themselves,
because, instead of persecuting for religion, they had adopted so humane
and Christian a mode of treating these unfortunates, not without a
silent satisfaction at their having thereby obtained their deserts.