The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

So much will be readily conceded, but nevertheless it may be maintained that strong desires and passions are a peril and a snare. Yet it is desires and impulses which constitute character, and one with no desires and impulses of his own has no more character than a steam-engine. An energetic character implies strong, spontaneous impulses under the control of a strong will; and such characters are desirable, since the danger which threatens modern society is not excess but deficiency of personal impulses and preferences. Everyone nowadays asks: 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? The consequence is that, through failure to follow their own nature, they have no nature to follow; their human capacities are withered and starved, and are incapable of any strong pleasures or opinions properly their own.

It is not by pruning away the individual but by cultivating it wisely that human beings become valuable to themselves and to others, and that human life becomes rich, diversified, and interesting. Individuality is equivalent to development, and in proportion to the latitude given to individuality an age becomes noteworthy or the reverse.

Unfortunately, the general tendency of things is to render mediocrity the ascendant power. At present, individuals are lost in the crowd, and it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. And public opinion is the opinion of collective mediocrity, and is expressed by mediocre men. The initiation of all wise and noble opinions must come from individuals, and the individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought is necessary to correct the tendency that makes mankind acquiesce in customary and popular opinions.

III.—The Limits of the Authority of Society Over the Individual

Where, then, does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?

To individuality should belong that part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society.

Society, in return for the protection it affords its members, and as a condition of its existence, demands, firstly, that its members respect the rights of one another; and, secondly, that each person bear his share of the labours and sacrifices incurred in defending society for its members. Further, society may punish acts of an individual hurtful to others, even if not a violation of rights, by the force of public opinion.

But in all cases where a person's conduct affects or need only affect himself, society may not interfere. Society may help individuals in their personal affairs, but neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to any human creature that he may not use his own life, so far as it concerns himself, as he pleases. He himself is the final judge of his own concerns, and the inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which affects his own good, but which does not affect the interests of others.