sonal vices being left to take their own course, he proceeds 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 connections, 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 suppression 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.

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' (i.e. selfregarding 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 unable to pay his debts,

becomes

he is deservedly

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-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 contingent, 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 individual 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 understands 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

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 personal 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 misunderstood or understated it. If so, I have done so unconsciously. 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 punishment 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 deserves attention in considering the question whether a given act should be punished by law, but he

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 natural leaders of the society of large districts, pass their whole time and employ all their means in gross debauchery. Such people are far more injurious to 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 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 elope with Mrs. G at 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.

on

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.