this morality, and to its early teachers, I these defects are necessarily inherent in the should be the last person to deny; but I do Christian ethics, in every manner in which it not scruple to say of it that it is, in many im- can be conceived, or that the many requisites portant points, incomplete and one-sided, and of a complete moral doctrine which it does not that unless ideas and feelings, not sanctioned contain, do not admit of being reconciled with by it, had contributed to the formation of it. Far less would I insinuate this of the docEuropean life and character, human affairs trines and precepts of Christ himself. I bewould have been in a worse condition than lieve that the sayings of Christ are all, that I they now are. can see any evidence of their having been inChristian morality (so called) has all the tended to be; that they are irreconcilable with characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a nothing which a comprehensive morality reprotest against Paganism. Its ideal is nega-quires; that everything which is excellent in tive rather than positive; passive rather than ethics may be brought within them, with no active; Innocence rather than Nobleness; Ab-greater violence to their language than has stinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pur-been done to it by all who have attempted to suit of Good; in its precepts (as has been well deduce from them any practical system of said) 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly conduct whatever. But it is quite consistent over thou shalt.' In its horror of sensual- with this, to believe that they contain, and ity, it made an idol of asceticism, which were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; has been gradually compromised away into that many essential elements of the highest one of legality. It holds out the hope of morality are among the things which are not heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed provided for, nor intended to be provided for, and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in in the recorded deliverances of the Founder this falling far below the best of the ancients, of Christianity, and which have been entirely and doing what lies in it to give to human thrown aside in the system of ethics erected morality an essentially selfish character, by on the basis of those deliverances by the disconnecting each man's feelings of duty Christian Church. And this being so, I think from the interests of his fellow-creatures, ex-it a great error to persist in attempting to cept so far as a self-interested inducement is of- find in the Christian doctrine that complete fered to him for consulting them. It is essen- rule for our guidance, which its author intially a doctrine of passive obedience; it in- tended it to sanction and enforce, but only culcates submission to all authorities found partially to provide. I believe, too, that this established; who indeed are not to be actively narrow theory is becoming a grave practical obeyed when they command what religion evil, detracting greatly from the moral trainforbids, but who are not to be resisted, far ing and instruction, which so many wellless rebelled against, for any amount of wrong meaning persons are now at length exerting to ourselves. And while, in the morality of themselves to promote. I much fear that by the best Pagan nations, duty to the State attempting to form the mind and feelings on holds even a disproportionate place, infring- an exclusively religious type, and discarding ing on the just liberty of the individual; in those secular standards (as for want of a betpurely Christian ethics, that grand depart- ter name they may be called) which heretoment of duty is scarcely noticed or acknowl- fore co-existed with and supplemented the edged. It is in the Koran, not the New Tes- Christian ethics, receiving some of its spirit, tament, that we read the maxim-' A ruler and infusing into it some of theirs, there will who appoints any man to an office, when result, and is even now resulting, a low, abthere is in his dominions another man better ject, servile type of character, which, submit qualified for it, sins against God and against itself as it may to what it deems the Supreme the State.' What little recognition the idea Will, is incapable of rising to or sympathizof obligation to the public obtains in modern ing in the conception of Supreme Goodness. morality, is derived from Greek and Roman I believe that other ethics than any which sources, not from Christian; as, even in the can be evolved from exclusively Christian morality of private life, whatever exists of sources, must exist side by side with Chrismagnanimity, highmindedness, personal dig- tian ethics to produce the moral regeneranity, even the sense of honor, is derived from tion of mankind; and that the Christian systhe purely human, not the religious part of tem is no exception to the rule, that in an imour education, and never could have grown perfect state of the human mind, the interests out of a standard of ethics in which the only of truth require a diversity of opinions. It worth, professedly recognized, is that of obe- is not necessary that in ceasing to ignore the lience. moral truths not contained in Christianity, men should ignore any of those which it

I am as far as any one from pretending that

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.

does contain. Such prejudice, or oversight, | all their other well-being depends) of freedom when it occurs, is altogether an evil; but it of opinion, and freedom of the expression of is one from which we cannot hope to be al- opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we ways exempt, and must be regarded as the will now briefly recapitulate. price paid for an inestimable good. The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole, must and ought to be protested against; and if a reactionary impulse should make the protesters unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, like the other, may be lamented, but must be tolerated. If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith.

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 on any subject 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.

the character and conduct: the dogma becoming 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.

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 feelI do not pretend that the most unlimited ing of its rational grounds. And not only use of the freedom of enunciating all possible this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the docopinions would put an end to the evils of re-trine itself will be in danger of being lost, or ligious or philosophical sectarianism. Every enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on truth which men of narrow capacity are in earnest about, is sure to be asserted, inculcated, and in many ways even acted on, as if no other truth existed in the world, or at all events none that could limit or qualify the first. I acknowledge that the tendency of all opinions to become sectarian is not cured by Before quitting the subject of freedom of the freest discussion, but is often heightened opinion, it is fit to take some notice of those and exacerbated thereby; the truth which who say, that the free expression of all opinought to have been, but was not, seen, being ions should be permitted, on condition that rejected all the more violently because pro- the manner be temperate, and do not pass the claimed by persons regarded as opponents. bounds of fair discussion. Much might be But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is said on the impossibility of fixing where these on the calmer and more disinterested by- supposed bounds are to be placed; for if the stander, that this collision of opinions works test be offence to those opinions are attacked, its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict I think experience testifies that this offence is between parts of the truth, but the quiet sup-given whenever the attack is telling and pression of half of it, is the formidable evil; powerful, and that every opponent who there is always hope when people are forced pushes them hard, and whom they find it difto listen to both sides; it is when they attend ficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows only to one that errors harden into prejudices, any strong feeling on the subject, an intemand truth itself ceases to have the effect of perate opponent. But this, though an impor truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. tant consideration in a practical point of view, And since there are few mental attributes merges in a more fundamental objection. Unmore rare than that judicial faculty which doubtedly the manner of asserting an opinion, can sit in intelligent judgment between two even though it be a true one, may be very obsides of a question, of which only one is rep-jectionable, and may justly incur severe cenresented by an advocate before it, truth has sure, But the principal offences of the kind no chance but in proportion as every side of are such as it is mostly impossible, unless by it, every opinion which embodies any frac-accidental self-betrayal, to bring home to contion of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to.

We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which

viction. The gravest of them is, to argue sophistically, to suppress facts or arguments, to misstate the elements of the case, or misrepresent the opposite opinion. But all this, even to the most aggravated degree, is

so continually done in perfect good faith, by | demning every one, on whichever side of the persons who are not considered, and in many argument he places himself, in whose mode of other respects may not deserve to be consid-advocacy either want of candor, or malignity, ered, ignorant or incompetent, that it is rarely bigotry, or intolerance of feeling manifest possible, on adequate grounds, conscientiously themselves; but not inferring these vices to stamp the misrepresentation as morally from the side which a person takes, though it culpable; and still less could law presume to be the contrary side of the question to our interfere with this kind of controversial mis-own: and giving merited honor to every one, conduct. With regard to what is commonly whatever opinion he may hold, who has calmmeant by intemperate discussion, namely, in-ness to see and honesty to state what his opvective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, ponents and their opinions really are, exagthe denunciation of these weapons would de-gerating nothing to their discredit, keeping serve more sympathy if it were ever proposed nothing back which tells, or can be supto interdict them equally to both sides; but it posed to tell, in their favor. This is the real is only desired to restrain the employment of morality of public discussion: and if often them against the prevailing opinion: against violated, I am happy to think that there are the unprevailing they may not only be used many controversialists who to a great extent without general disapproval, but will be likely observe it, and a still greater number who to obtain for him who uses them the praise of conscientiously strive towards it. honest zeal and righteous indignation. Yet whatever mischief arises from their use, is greatest when they are employed against the comparatively defenceless; and whatever unfair advantage can be derived by any opinion

CHAPTER III.

from this mode of asserting it, accrues al- OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS

most exclusively to received opinions. The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral

men.

OF WELL-BEING.

SUCH being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should be free to To calumny of this sort, those who form opinions, and to express their opinions hold any unpopular opinion are peculiarly ex-without reserve; and such the baneful conseposed, because they are in general few and un-quences to the intellectual, and through that to influential, and nobody but themselves feels much interested in seeing justice done them; but this weapon is, from the nature of the case, denied to those who attack a prevailing opinion: they can neither use it with safety to themselves, nor, if they could, would it do anything but recoil on their own cause. In general, opinions contrary to those commonly received can only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language, and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from which they hardly ever deviate even in a slight degree without losing ground: while unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who profess them. For the interest, therefore, of truth and justice, it is far more important to restrain this employment of vituperative language than the other; and, for example, if it were necessary to choose, there would be much more need to discourage offensive attacks on infidelity than on religion. It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; con

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 unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.

The liberty of the individual must be thus far | spontaneity forms no part of the ideal of the limited; he must not make himself a nuisance majority of moral and social reformers, but is to other people. But if he refrains from mo- rather looked on with jealousy, as a troublelesting others in what concerns them, and some and perhaps rebellious obstruction to merely acts according to his own inclination the general acceptance of what these reformand judgment in things which concern him-ers, in their own judgment, think would be self, the same reasons which show that opin-best for mankind. Few persons, out of Gerion should be free, prove also that he should many, even comprehend the meaning of the be allowed, without molestation, to carry his doctrine which Wilhelm von Humboldt, so opinions into practice at his own cost. That eminent both as a savant and as a politician, mankind are not infallible; that their truths, made the text of a treatise that the end of for the most part, are only half-truths; that man, or that which is prescribed by the eterunity of opinion, unless resulting from the nal or immutable dictates of reason, and not fullest and freest comparison of opposite opin- suggested by vague and transient desires, is ions, is not desirable, and diversity not an the highest and most harmonious development evil, but a good, until mankind are much of his powers to a complete and consistent more capable than at present of recognizing whole;' that, therefore, the object 'towards 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 it is 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 civilization, 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 recognized 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,

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 variety of situations;' and that from the union of these arise individual vigor and manifold diversity,' which combine themselves in originality.'*

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 preferabl 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 të 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,

*The Sphere and Duties of Government, from the German of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, pp. 11-15.

have a claim to his deference: but, in the first | even churches erected and prayers said, by place, their experience may be too narrow; or machinery-by automatons in human formthey may not have interpreted it rightly. it would be a considerable loss to exchange for Secondly, their interpretation of experience these automatoms even the men and women may be correct, but unsuitable to him. Cus- who at present inhabit the more civilized parts toms are made for customary circumstances, of the world, and who assuredly are but and customary characters; and his circum- starved specimens of what nature can and will stances or his character may be uncustom- produce. Human nature is not a machine to ary. Thirdly, though the customs be both be built after a model, and set to do exactly good as customs, and suitable to him yet to the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which conform to custom, merely as custom, does requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, not educate or develop in him any of the qual- according to the tendency of the inward forces ities which are the distinctive endowment of which make it a living thing. a human being. The human faculties of per- It will probably be conceded that it is deception, judgment, discriminative feeling, sirable people should exercise their undermental activity, and even moral preference, standings, and that an intelligent following of are exercised only in making a choice. He custom, or even occasionally an intelligent dewho does anything because it is the custom, viation from custom, is better than a blind makes no choice. He gains no practice either and simply mechanical adhesion to it. To a in discerning or in desiring what is best. The certain extent it is admitted, that our undermental and moral, like the muscular powers, standing should be our own: but there is not are improved only by being used. The facul- the same willingness to admit that our desires tles are called into no exercise by doing a thing and impulses should be our own likewise; or merely because others do it, no more than by that to possess impulses of our own, and of any believing a thing only because others believe strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. it. If the grounds of an opinion are not con- Yet desires and impulses are as much a part clusive to the person's own reason, his reason of a perfect human being, as beliefs and recannot be strengthened, but is likely to be straints: and strong impulses are only perilweakened, by his adopting it: and if the in-ous when not properly balanced; when one ducements to an act are not such as are con- set of aims and inclinations is developed into sentaneous to his own feelings and character strength, while others, which ought to co-exist (where affection, or the rights of others, are with them, remain weak and inactive. It is not concerned) it is so much done towards not because men's desires are strong that they rendering his feelings and character inert and act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. torpid, instead of active and energetic. There is no natural connection between strong He who lets the world, or his own portion impulses and a weak conscience. The natof it, choose his plan of life for him, has no ural connection is the other way. To say that need of any other faculty than the ape-like one one person's desires and feelings are stronger of imitation. He who chooses his plan for and more various than those of another, is himself, employs all his faculties. He must merely to say that he has more of the raw use observation to see, reasoning and judg- material of human nature, and is therefore ment to foresee, activity to gather materials capable, perhaps of more evil, but certainly for decision, discrimination to decide, and of more good. Strong impulses are but when he has decided, firmness and self-control another name for energy. Energy may be to hold to his deliberate decision. And these turned to bad uses; but more good may qualities he requires and exercises exactly in always be made of an energetic nature, than proportion as the part of his conduct which of an indolent and impassive one. Those who he determines according to his own judgment have most natural feeling, are always those and feelings is a large one. It is possible that whose cultivated feelings may be made the he might be guided in some good path, and strongest. The same strong susceptibilities kept out of harm's way, without any of these which make the personal impulses vivid`and things. But what will be his comparative powerful, are also the source from whence are worth as a human being? It really is of im. generated the most passionate love of virtue, portance, not only what men do, but also what and the sternest self-control. It is through manner of men they are that do it. Among the cultivation of these, that society both the works of man, which human life is rightly does its duty and protects its interests: not 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

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