Background Image

...

The Reasons For Legal Intervention In Favour Of Children Apply Not Less Strongly To The Case Of Those Unfortunate Slaves And Victims Of The Most Brutal Part Of Mankind - The Lower Animals.

-John Stuart Mill

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Reasons For Legal

John Stuart Mill

...

The Reasons For Legal Intervention In Favour Of Children Apply Not Less Strongly To The Case Of Those Unfortunate Slaves And Victims Of The Most Brutal Part Of Mankind - The Lower Animals.

Views: 5

Topic

More From John Stuart Mill

In The Human Mind, One-sidedness Has Always Been The Rule, And Many-sidedness The Exception. Hence, Even In Revolutions Of Opinion, One Part Of The Truth Usually Sets While Another Rises.

To Do As One Would Be Done By, And To Love One's Neighbour As Oneself, Constitute The Ideal Perfection Of Utilitarian Morality

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 Character.

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.

The Concessions Of The Privileged To The Unprivileged Are Seldom Brought About By Any Better Motive Than The Power Of The Unprivileged To Extort Them.

The Successful Conduct Of An Industrial Enterprise Requires Two Quite Distinct Qualifications: Fidelity And Zeal.

Christian Morality (so Called) Has All The Characters Of A Reaction; It Is, In Great Part, A Protest Against Paganism. Its Ideal Is Negative Rather Than Positive; Passive Rather Than Action; Innocence Rather Than Nobleness; Abstinence From Evil, Rather Than Energetic Pursuit Of Good: In Its Precepts (as Has Been Well Said) "thou Shalt Not" Predominates Unduly Over "thou Shalt.

The Great Creative Individual . . . Is Capable Of More Wisdom And Virtue Than Collective Man Ever Can Be.

A Person Should Be Free To Do As He Likes In His Own Concerns; But He Ought Not To Be Free To Do As He Likes In Acting For Another, Under The Pretext That The Affairs Of The Other Are His Own Affairs.

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.

It's Hardly Possible To Overstate The Value, In The Present State Of Human Improvement, Of Placing Human Beings In Contact With Other Persons Dissimilar To Themselves, And With Modes Of Thought And Action Unlike Those With Which They Are Familiar. Such Communication Has Always Been... One Of The Primary Sources Of Progress.

... What Is Really Inspiriting And Ennobling In The Doctrine Of Freewill, Is The Conviction That We Have Real Power Over The Formation Of Our Own Character; That Our Will, By Influencing Some Of Our Circumstances, Can Modify Our Future Habits Or Capabilities Of Willing.

Since The General Or Prevailing Opinion On Any Subject Is Rarely Or Never The Whole Truth, It Is Only By The Collision Of Adverse Opinion That The Remainder Of The Truth Has Any Chance Of Being Supplied.

Solitude In The Presence Of Natural Beauty And Grandeur Is The Cradle Of Thought And Aspirations Which Are Not Only Good For The Individual, But Which Society Can Ill Do Without.

Language Is The Light Of The Mind

Human Beings Are Not Like Sheep; And Even Sheep Are Not Undistinguishably Alike. A Man Cannot Get A Coat Or A Pair Oboots 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.

To Discover To The World Something Which Deeply Concerns It, And Of Which It Was Previously Ignorant; To Prove To It That It Had Been Mistaken On Some Vital Point Of Temporal Or Spiritual Interest, Is As Important A Service As A Human Being Can Render To His Fellow Creatures.

That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric, Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

The Most Important Thing Women Have To Do Is To Stir Up The Zeal Of Women Themselves.

Instead Of The Function Of Governing, For Which It Is Radically Unfit, The Proper Office Of A Representative Assembly Is To Watch And Control The Government.

All Women Are Brought Up From The Very Earliest Years In The Belief That Their Ideal Of Character Is The Very Opposite To That Of Men; Not Self-will, And Government By Self-control, But Submission And Yielding To The Control Of Others. All The Moralities Tell Them That It Is Their Nature To Live For Others; To Make Complete Abnegation Of Themselves, And To Have No Life But In Their Affections.

The Great Majority Of Those Who Speak Of Perfectibility As A Dream, Do So Because They Feel That It Is One Which Would Afford Them No Pleasure If It Were Realized.

The Love Of Power And The Love Of Liberty Are In Eternal Antagonism.

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. . . .

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy And You Cease To Be So. The Only Chance Is To Treat Not Happiness, But Some End External To It, As The Purpose Of Life.

Complete Liberty Of Contradicting And Disproving Our Opinion, Is The Very Condition Which Justifies Us In Assuming Its Truth For Purposes Of Action.

...to Bring A Child Into Existence Without A Fair Prospect Of Being Able, Not Only To Provide Food For Its Body, But Instruction And Training For Its Mind Is A Moral Crime, Both Against The Unfortunate Offspring And Against Society

The Maxim Is, That Whatever Can Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of A Class, May Be Affirmed (or Denied) Of Everything Included In The Class. This Axiom, Supposed To Be The Basis Of The Syllogistic Theory, Is Termed By Logicians The Dictum De Omni Et Nullo.

The Principles Which Men Profess On Any Controverted Subject Are Usually A Very Incomplete Exponent Of The Opinions They Really Hold.

I Well Knew That To Propose Something Which Would Be Called Extreme, Was The True Way Not To Impede But To Facilitate A More Moderate Experiment.

The Pupil Who Is Never Required To Do What He Cannot Do, Never Does What He Can Do.

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.

Every Man Who Says Frankly And Fully What He Thinks Is So Far Doing A Public Service. We Should Be Grateful To Him For Attacking Most Unsparingly Our Most Cherished Opinions.

In This Age, The Mere Example Of Non-conformity, 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.

The Spirit Of Improvement Is Not Always A Spirit Of Liberty, For It May Aim At Forcing Improvements On An Unwilling People.

The Perpetual Obstacle To Human Advancement Is Custom.

[my Father] Impressed Upon Me From The First, That The Manner In Which The World Came Into Existence Was A Subject On Which Nothing Was Known: That The Question, "who Made Me?" Cannot Be Answered, Because We Have No Experience Or Authentic Information From Which To Answer It; And That Any Answer Only Throws The Difficulty A Step Further Back, Since The Question Immediately Presents Itself, "who Made God?

Since The State Must Necessarily Provide Subsistence For The Criminal Poor While Undergoing Punishment, Not To Do The Same For The Poor Who Have Not Offended Is To Give A Premium On Crime.

Society Can And Does Execute Its Own Mandates: And If It Issues Wrong Mandates Instead Of Right, Or Any Mandates At All In Things With It Ought Not To Meddle, It Practices A Social Tyranny More Formidable Than Many Kinds Of Political Oppression, Since, Though Not Usually Upheld By Such Extreme Penalties, It Leaves Fewer Means Of Escape, Penetrating Much More Deeply Into The Details Of Life, And Enslaving The Soul Itself.

Details Of Life

There Is Always Hope When People Are Forced To Listen To Both Sides.

Since Reasoning , Or Inference, The Principal Subject Of Logic, Is An Operation Which Usually Takes Place By Means Of Words , And In Complicated Cases Can Take Place In No Other Way: Those Who Have Not A Thorough Insight Into Both The Signification And Purpose Of Words, Will Be Under Chances, Amounting Almost To Certainty, Of Reasoning Or Inferring Incorrectly.

Truths Are Known To Us In Two Ways: Some Are Known Directly, And Of Themselves; Some Through The Medium Of Other Truths. The Former Are The Subject Of Intuition, Or Consciousness; The Latter, Of Inference; The Latter Of Inference. The Truths Known By Intuition Are The Original Premisses, From Which All Others Are Inferred.

Though It Is Only In A Very Imperfect State Of The World's Arrangements That Anyone Can Best Serve The Happiness Of Others By The Absolute Sacrifice Of His Own, Yet, So Long As The World Is In That Imperfect State, I Fully Acknowledge That The Readiness To Make Such A Sacrifice Is The Highest Virtue Which Can Be Found In Man.

It Must Be Granted That In Every Syllogism, Considered As An Argument To Prove The Conclusion, There Is A Petitio Principii. When We Say, All Men Are Mortal Socrates Is A Man Therefore Socrates Is Mortal; It Is Unanswerably Urged By The Adversaries Of The Syllogistic Theory, That The Proposition, Socrates Is Mortal.

All Action Is For The Sake Of Some End; And Rules Of Action, It Seems Natural To Suppose, Must Take Their Whole Character And Color From The End To Which They Are Subservient.

The United States Is No More A Christian Nation Because Most Of Its Citizens Are Christians Than It Is A 'white' Nation Because Most Of Its Citizens Are White. We Are Americans Because We Practice Democracy And Believe In Republican Government, Not Because We Practice Revealed Religion And Believe In Bible-based Government.

I Have Observed That Not The Man Who Hopes When Others Despair, But The Man Who Despairs When Others Hope, Is Admired By A Large Class Of Persons As A Sage.

If All Mankind Minus One Were Of One Opinion, Mankind Would Be No More Justified In Silencing That One Person Than He, If He Had The Power, Would Be Justified In Silencing Mankind.

The Art Of Music Is Good, For The Reason, Among Others, That It Produces Pleasure; But What Proof Is It Possible To Give That Pleasure Is Good? If, Then, It Is Asserted That There Is A Comprehensive Formula, Including All Things Which Are In Themselves Good, And That Whatever Else Is Good, Is Not So As An End, But As A Mean, The Formula May Be Accepted Or Rejected, But Is Not A Subject Of What Is Commonly Understood By Proof.

I Know Tolerably Well What Ireland Was, But Have A Very Imperfect Idea Of What Ireland Is.

The Best State For Human Nature Is That In Which, While No One Is Poor, No One Desires To Be Richer, Nor Has Any Reason To Fear From Thrust Back, By The Efforts Of Others To Push Themselves Forward.

Photography Is A Brief Complicity Between Foresight And Luck.

The Habit Of Analysis Has A Tendency To Wear Away The Feelings.

If Religious Belief Be Indeed So Necessary To Mankind, As We Are Continually Assured That It Is, There Is Great Reason To Lament, That The Intellectual Grounds Of It Should Require To Be Backed By Moral Bribery Or Subornation Of The Understanding.

Every Great Movement Must Experience Three Stages: Ridicule, Discussion, Adoption.

As Often As A Study Is Cultivated By Narrow Minds, They Will Draw From It Narrow Conclusions.

Few Human Creatures Would Consent To Be Changed Into Any Of The Lower Animals For A Promise Of The Fullest Allowance Of A Beast's Pleasures; No Intelligent Human Being Would Consent To Be A Fool, No Instructed Person Would Be An Ignoramus, No Person Of Feeling And Conscience Would Be Selfish And Base, Even Though They Should Be Persuaded That The Fool, The Dunce, Or The Rascal Is Better Satisfied With His Lot Than They Are With Theirs.

To Think That Because Those Who Wield Power In Society Wield In The End That Of Government, Therefore It Is Of No Use To Attempt To Influence The Constitution Of The Government By Acting On Opinion, Is To Forget That Opinion Is Itself One Of The Greatest Active Social Forces. One Person With A Belief Is A Social Power Equal To Ninety-nine Who Have Only Interests.

He Who Knows Only His Own Side Of The Case (argument) Knows Little Of That. His Reasons May Be Good, And No One May Have Been Able To Refute Them. But If He Is Equally Unable To Refute The Reasons On The Opposite Side, If He Does Not So Much As Know What They Are, He Has No Ground For Preferring Either Opinion

Customs Are Made For Customary Circumstances, And Customary Characters.

God Is A Word To Express, Not Our Ideas, But The Want Of Them.

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 Varieties Of Plants Can In The Same Physical, Atmosphere And Climate.

Political Economy, In Truth, Has Never Pretended To Give Advice To Mankind With No Lights But Its Own; Though People Who Knew Nothing But Political Economy (and Therefore Knew It Ill) Have Taken Upon Themselves To Advise, And Could Only Do So By Such Lights As They Had.

The True Virtue Of Human Beings Is Fitness To Live Together As Equals; Claiming Nothing For Themselves But What They As Freely Concede To Everyone Else; Regarding Command Of Any Kind As An Exceptional Neccessity, And In All Cases A Temporary One.

A Being Who Can Create A Race Of Men Devoid Of Real Freedom And Inevitably Foredoomed To Be Sinners, And Then Punish Them For Being What He Has Made Them, May Be Omnipotent And Various Other Things, But He Is Not What The English Language Has Always Intended By The Adjective Holy.

The Validity Of All The Inductive Methods Depends On The Assumption That Every Event, Or The Beginning Of Every Phenomenon, Must Have Some Cause; Some Antecedent, Upon The Existence Of Which It Is Invariably And Unconditionally Consequent.

All Silencing Of Discussion Is An Assumption Of Infallibility.

Absolute Certainty

My Father Never Permitted Anything Which I Learnt To Degenerate Into A Mere Exercise Of Memory. He Strove To Make The Understanding Not Only Go Along With Every Step Of The Teaching But...precede It.

Induction Is A Process Of Inference; It Proceeds From The Known To The Unknown.

In All The More Advanced Communities The Great Majority Of Things Are Worse Done By The Intervention Of Government Than The Individuals Most Interested In The Matter Would Do Them, Or Cause Them To Be Done, If Left To Themselves.

A State Which Dwarfs Its Men, In Order That They May Be More Docile Instruments In Its Hands Even For Beneficial Purposes--will Find That With Small Men No Great Thing Can Really Be Accomplished.

The Principle Itself Of Dogmatic Religion, Dogmatic Morality, Dogmatic Philosophy, Is What Requires To Be Rooted Out; Not Any Particular Manifestation Of That Principle. The Very Corner-stone Of An Education Intended To Form Great Minds, Must Be The Recognition Of The Principle, That The Object Is To Call Forth The Greatest Possible Quantity Of Intellectual Power, And To Inspire The Intensest Love Of Truth.

I Had Learnt From Experience That Many False Opinions May Be Exchanged For True Ones, Without In The Least Altering The Habits Of Mind Of Which False Opinions Are Made.

A Profound Conviction Raises A Man Above The Feeling Of Ridicule.

The Laws And Conditions Of The Production Of Wealth Partake Of The Character Of Physical Truths. There Is Nothing Optional Or Arbitrary In Them ... It Is Not So With The Distribution Of Wealth. That Is A Matter Of Human Institution Solely. The Things Once There, Mankind, Individually Or Collectively, Can Do With Them As They Like.

No Great Improvements In The Lot Of Mankind Are Possible Until A Great Change Takes Place In The Fundamental Constitution Of Their Modes Of Thought.

To Tax The Larger Incomes At A Higher Percentage Than The Smaller, Is To Lay A Tax On Industry And Economy; To Impose A Penalty On People For Having Worked Harder And Saved More Than Their Neighbors.

Men Do Not Desire To Be Rich, But To Be Richer Than Other Men.

No One Can Be A Great Thinker Who Does Not Recognize That As A Thinker It Is His First Duty To Follow His Intellect To Whatever Conclusions It May Lead.

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.

Of Two Pleasures, If There Be One Which All Or Almost All Who Have Experience Of Both Give A Decided Preference, Irrespective Of Any Feeling Of Moral Obligation To Prefer It, That Is The More Desirable Pleasure.

The Industrial Economy Which Divides Society Absolutely Into Two Portions, The Payers Of Wages And The Receivers Of Them, The First Counted By Thousands And The Last By Millions, Is Neither Fit For, Nor Capable Of, Indefinite Duration: And The Possibility Of Changing This System For One Of Combination Without Dependence, And Unity Of Interest Instead Of Organized Hostility, Depends Altogether Upon The Future Developments Of The Partnership Principle.

Genius Can Only Breathe Freely In An Atmosphere Of Freedom.

When The Land Is Cultivated Entirely By The Spade And No Horses Are Kept, A Cow Is Kept For Every Three Acres Of Land.

The Dictum That Truth Always Triumphs Over Persecution Is One Of The Pleasant Falsehoods Which Men Repeat After One Another Till They Pass Into Commonplaces, But Which All Experience Refutes.

The Amount Of Eccentricity In A Society Has Generally Been Proportional To The Amount Of Genius, Mental Vigor, And Moral Courage It Contained. That So Few Now Dare To Be Eccentric Marks The Chief Danger Of The Time.

Let Not Any One Pacify His Conscience By The Delusion That He Can Do No Harm If He Takes No Part, And Forms No Opinion. Bad Men Need Nothing More To Compass Their Ends, Than That Good Men Should Look On And Do Nothing.

The Strongest Of All 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.

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.

There Are Many Truths Of Which The Full Meaning Cannot Be Realized Until Personal Experience Has Brought It Home.

Hitherto It Is Questionable If All The Mechanical Inventions Yet Made Have Lightened The Day's Toil Of Any Human Being. They Have Enabled A Greater Population To Live The Same Life Of Drudgery And Imprisonment, And An Increased Number Of Manufacturers And Others To Make Fortunes. They Have Increased The Comforts Of The Middle Classes. But They Have Not Yet Begun To Effect Those Great Changes In Human Destiny, Which It Is In Their Nature And In Their Futurity To Accomplish.

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.

It Is Part Of The Irony Of Life That The Strongest Feelings Of Devoted Gratitude Of Which Human Nature Seems To Be Susceptible, Are Called Forth In Human Beings Towards Those Who, Having The Power Entirely To Crush Their Earthly Existence, Voluntarily Refrain From Using That Power.

Life Has A Certain Flavor For Those Who Have Fought And Risked All That The Sheltered And Protected Can Never Experience.

[a] 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.

There Is The Greatest Difference Between Presuming An Opinion To Be True, Because, With Every Opportunity For Contesting It, It Has Not Been Refuted, And Assuming Its Truth For The Purpose Of Not Permitting Its Refutation.

The Liberty Of The Individual Must Be Thus Far Limited; He Must Not Make Himself A Nuisance To Other People.

The Application Of Algebra To Geometry ... Has Immortalized The Name Of Descartes, And Constitutes The Greatest Single Step Ever Made In The Progress Of The Exact Sciences.

There Should Be Perfect Freedom, Legal And Social, To Do The Action And Stand The Consequences. It Would Be A Great Misunderstanding Of This Doctrine To Suppose That It Is One Of Selfish Indifference, Which Pretends That Human Beings Have No Business With Each Other's Conduct In Life, And That They Should Not Concern Themselves About The Well-doing Or Well-being Of One Another, Unless Their Own Interest Is Involved.

To Say That Secular Means Irreligious Implies That All The Arts And Sciences Are Irreligious, And Is Very Like Saying That All Professions Except That Of The Law Are Illegal.

If I Have Accomplished Anything, I Owe It, Among Other Fortunate Circumstances, To The Fact That Through The Early Training Bestowed On Me By My Father, I Started, I May Fairly Say, With An Advantage Of A Quarter Of A Century Over My Contemporaries.

‎a General State Education Is A Mere Contrivance For Moulding People To Be Exactly Like One Another; And As The Mould In Which It Casts Them Is That Which Pleases The Dominant Power In The Government, Whether This Be A Monarch, An Aristocracy, Or A Majority Of The Existing Generation; In Proportion As It Is Efficient And Successful, It Establishes A Despotism Over The Mind, Leading By A Natural Tendency To One Over The Body.

Landlords Grow Rich In Their Sleep Without Working, Risking Or Economising

Investing In Real Estate

Those Only Are Happy Who Have Their Minds Fixed On Some Object Other Than Their Own Happiness; On The Happiness Of Others, On The Improvement Of Mankind, Even On Some Art Or Pursuit, Followed Not As A Means, But As Itself An Ideal End. Aiming Thus At Something Else, They Find Happiness By The Way.

In Proportion To The Development Of His Individuality, Each Person Becomes More Valuable To Others. There Is A Greater Fullness 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.

Fullness Of Life

I Confess That I Am Not Charmed With The Ideal Of Life Held Out By Those Who Think That The Normal State Of Human Beings Is That Of Struggling To Get On; That The Trampling, Crushing, Elbowing, And Treading On Each Other's Heels, Which Form The Existing Type Of Social Life, Are The Most Desirable Lot Of Human Beings

The Study Of Science Teaches Young Men To Think, While Study Of The Classics Teaches Them To Express Thought.

History Shows That Great Economic And Social Forces Flow Like A Tide Over Communities Only Half Conscious Of That Which Is Befalling Them. Wise Statesmen Foresee What Time Is Thus Bringing, And Try To Shape Institutions And Mold Men's Thoughts And Purposes In Accordance With The Change That Is Silently Coming On. The Unwise Are Those Who Bring Nothing Constructive To The Process, And Who Greatly Imperil The Future Of Mankind By Leaving Great Questions To Be Fought Out Between Ignorant Change On One Hand And Ignorant Opposition To Change On The Other.

A Man Of Clear Ideas Errs Grievously If He Imagines That Whatever Is Seen Confusedly Does Not Exist; It Belongs To Him, When He Meets With Such A Thing, To Dispel The Midst, And Fix The Outlines Of The Vague Form Which Is Looming Through It.

There Is One Plain Rule Of Life. Try Thyself Unweariedly Till Thou Findest The Highest Thing Thou Art Capable Of Doing, Faculties And Outward Circumstances Being Both Duly Considered, And Then Do It.

All Political Revolutions, Not Affected By Foreign Conquest, Originate In Moral Revolutions. The Subversion Of Established Institutions Is Merely One Consequence Of The Previous Subversion Of Established Opinions.

Political Revolution

Liberty Consists In Doing What One Desires.

It Can Do Truth No Service To Blind 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.

The Natural Tendency Of Representative Government, As Of Modern Civilisation, Is Towards Collective Mediocrity: And This Tendency Is Increased By All Reductions And Extensions Of The Franchise, Their Effect Being To Place The Principal Power In The Hands Of Classes More And More Below The Highest Level Of Instruction In The Community.

Pleasure And Freedom From Pain, Are The Only Things Desirable As Ends.

It Is A Law, That Every Event Depends On Some Law.

So Long As We Do Not Harm Others We Should Be Free To Think, Speak, Act, & Live As We See Fit, Without Molestation From Individuals, Law, Or Gov't.

Co-operation, Like Other Difficult Things, Can Be Learned Only By Practice: And To Be Capable Of It In Great Things, A People Must Be Gradually Trained To It In Small. Now The Whole Course Of Advancing Civilization Is A Series Of Such Training.

The Sole Evidence It Is Possible To Produce That Anything Is Desirable, Is That People Do Actually Desire It.

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

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.

The Peculiarity Of The Evidence Of Mathematical Truths Is That All The Argument Is On One Side.

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.

Most Boys Or Youths Who Have Had Much Knowledge Drilled Into Them, Have Their Mental Capacities Not Strengthened, But Overlaid By It. They Are Crammed With Mere Facts, And With The Opinions And Phrases Of Other People, And These Are Accepted As A Substitute For The Power To Form Opinions Of Their Own. And Thus, The Sons Of Eminent Fathers, Who Have Spared No Pains In Their Education, So Often Grow Up Mere Parroters Of What They Have Learnt, Incapable Of Using Their Minds Except In The Furrows Traced For Them.

I Did Not Mean That Conservatives Are Generally Stupid; I Meant, That Stupid Persons Are Generally Conservative. I Believe That To Be So Obvious And Undeniable A Fact That I Hardly Think Any Hon. Gentleman Will Question It.

Liberty Lies In The Rights Of That Person Whose Views You Find Most Odious.

A Great Statesman Is He Who Knows When To Depart From Traditions, As Well As When To Adhere To Them.

A Stationary Condition Of Capital And Population Implies No Stationary State Of Human Improvement. There Could Be As Much Scope As Ever For All Kinds Of Mental Culture, And Moral And Social Progress.

On Religion In Particular The Time Appears To Me To Have Come When It Is The Duty Of All Who, Being Qualified In Point Of Knowledge, Have On Mature Consideration Satisfied Themselves That The Current Opinions Are Not Only False But Hurtful, To Make Their Dissent Known.

The Beliefs Which We Have Most Warrant For, Have No Safeguard To Rest On, But A Standing Invitation To The Whole World To Prove Them Unfounded.

There Is A Very Real Evil Consequent On Ascribing Supernatural Origin To The Received Maxilms Of Morality. That Origin Consecrates The Whole Of Them And Protects Them From Being Discussed Or Criticized.

Despotism Is A Legitimate Mode Of Government In Dealing With Barbarians, Provided The End Be Their Improvement.

I Have A Hundred Times Heard Him Say, That All Ages And Nations Have Represented Their Gods As Wicked, In A Constantly Increasing Progression; That Mankind Have Gone On Adding Trait After Trait Till They Reached The Most Perfect Conception Of Wickedness Which The Human Mind Could Devise, And Have Called This God, And Prostrated Themselves Before It.

The Object Of Universities Is Not To Make Skillful Lawyers, Physicians Or Engineers. It Is To Make Capable And Cultivated Human Beings

What Is Contrary To Women's Nature To Do, They Never Will Be Made To Do By Simply Giving Their Nature Free Play.

A People Among Whom There Is No Habit Of Spontaneous Action For A Collective Interest - Who Look Habitually To Their Government To Command Or Prompt Them In All Matters Of Joint Concern - Who Expect To Have Everything Done For Them, Except What Can Be Made An Affair Of Mere Habit And Routine - Have Their Faculties Only Half Developed; Their Education Is Defective In One Of Its Most Important Branches.

The Despotism Of Custom Is On The Wane. We Are Not Content To Know That Things Are; We Ask Whether They Ought To Be.

Experience Has Taught Me That Those Who Give Their Time To The Absorbing Claims Of What Is Called Society, Not Having Leisure To Keep Up A Large Acquaintance With The Organs Of Opinion, Remain Much More Ignorant Of The General State Either Of The Public Mind, Or Of The Active And Instructed Part Of It, Than A Recluse Who Reads The Newspapers Need Be.

Whatever Crushes Individuality Is Despotism.

The Guesses Which Serve To Give Mental Unity And Wholeness To A Chaos Of Scattered Particulars, Are Accidents Which Rarely Occur To Any Minds But Those Abounding In Knowledge And Disciplined In Intellectual Combinations.

A Person May Cause Evil To Others Not Only By His Actions But By His Inaction, And In Either Case He Is Justly Accountable To Them For The Injury.

We Have A Right, Also, In Various Ways, To Act Upon Our Unfavorable Opinion Of Anyone, Not To The Oppression Of His Individuality, But In The Exercise Of Ours.

In A World In Which There Is So Much To Interest, So Much To Enjoy, And So Much Also To Correct And Improve, Everyone Who Has This Moderate Amount Of Moral And Intellectual Requisites Is Capable Of An Existence Which May Be Called Enviable; And Unless Such A Person, Through Bad Laws, Or Subjection To The Will Of Others, Is Denied The Liberty To Use The Sources Of Happiness Within His Reach, He Will Not Fail To Find The Enviable Existence

There Is No 'one-size-fits-all' Way To Build An Audience.

All Errors Which A Man Is Likely To Commit Against Advice Are Far Outweighed By The Evil Of Allowing Others To Constrain Him For His Good.

The Prevailing Tendency To Regard All The Marked Distinctions Of Human Character As Innate, And In The Main Indelible, And To Ignore The Irresistible Proofs That By Far The Greater Part Of Those Differences, Whether Between Individuals, Races, Or Sexes Are Such As Not Only Might But Naturally Would Be Produced By Differences In Circumstances, Is One Of The Chief Hinderances To The Rational Treatment Of Great Social Questions, And One Of The Greatest Stumbling Blocks To Human Improvement.

The Test Of Real And Vigorous Thinking, The Thinking Which Ascertains Truths Instead Of Dreaming Dreams, Is Successful Application To Practice.

[i] Put The Question Directly To Myself: "suppose That All Your Objects In Life Were Realized; That All The Changes In Institutions And Opinions Which You Are Looking Forward To, Could Be Completely Effected At This Very Instant: Would This Be A Great Joy And Happiness To You?" And An Irrepressible Self-consciousness Distinctly Answered, "no!

If Two Or More Instances Of The Phenomenon Under Investigation Have Only One Circumstance In Common, The Circumstance In Which Alone All The Instances Agree Is The Cause (or Effect) Of The Given Phenomenon.

The Fatal Tendency Of Mankind To Leave Off Thinking About A Thing When It Is No Longer Doubtful Is The Cause Of Half Their Errors.

There Is Never Any Fair And Thorough Discussion Of Heretical Opinions... The Greatest Harm Done Is To Those Who Are Not Heretics, And Whose Whole Mental Development Is Cramped And Their Reason Cowed, By The Fear Of Heresy.

They Who Know How To Employ Opportunities Will Often Find That They Can Create Them; And What We Can Achieve Depends Less On The Amount Of Time We Possess Than On The Use We Make Of Our Time.

What Little Recognition The Idea Of Obligation To The Public Obtains In Modern Morality, Is Derived From Greek And Roman Sources, Not From Christian; As, Even In The Morality Of Private Life, Whatever Exists Of Magnanimity, High-mindeness, Personal Dignity, Even The Sense Of Honour, Is Derived From The Purely Human, Not The Religious Part Of Our Education, And Never Could Have Grown Out Of A Standard Of Ethics In Which The Only Worth, Professedly Recognized, Is That Of Obedience.

That A Thing Is Peculiar; Is No Argument For Its Being Blamable; Since The Most Criminal Actions Are To A Being Like Man Not More Unnatural Than Most Of The Virtues.

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.

A Man Who Has Nothing For Which He Is Willing To Fight, Nothing Which Is More Important Than His Own Personal Safety, Is A Miserable Creature And Has No Chance Of Being Free Unless Made And Kept So By The Exertions Of Better Men Than Himself.

Truth Emerges From The Clash Of Adverse Ideas.

It Is Conceivable That Religion May Be Morally Useful Without Being Intellectually Sustainable.

Positive Atheism

He Who Lets The World Choose His Plan Of Life For Him Has Need Of No Other Faculty Than That Of Ape-like Imitation.

The Triumph Of The Confederacy... Would Be A Victory For The Powers Of Evil Which Would Give Courage To The Enemies Of Progress And Damp The Sprits Of Its Friends All Over The Civilized World... [the American Civil War] Is Destined To Be A Turning Point, For Good Or Evil, Of The Course Of Human Affairs.

Enemy Of Progress

The Principle Itself Of Dogmatic Religion, Dogmatic Morality, Dogmatic Philosophy, Is What Requires To Be Booted Out; Not Any Particular Manifestation Of That Principle.

...it Is Not Only The General Principles Of Justice That Are Infringed, Or At Least Set Aside, By The Exclusion Of Women, Merely As Women, From Any Share In The Representation; That Exclusion Is Also Repugnant To The Particular Principles Of The British Constitution. It Violates One Of The Oldest Of Our Constitutional Maxims...that Taxation And Representation Should Be Co-extensive. Do Not Women Pay Taxes?

Words Of Wisdom

War Is An Ugly Thing, But Not The Ugliest Of Things. The Decayed And Degraded State Of Moral And Patriotic Feeling Which Thinks That Nothing Is Worth War Is Much Worse.

War Is An Ugly Thing, But Not The Ugliest Of Things: The Decayed And Degraded State Of Moral And Patriotic Feeling Which Thinks Nothing Worth A War, Is Worse. A War To Protect Other Human Beings Against Tyrannical Injustice; A War To Give Victory To Their Own Ideas Of Right And Good, And Which Is Their Own War, Carried On For An Honest Purpose By Their Own Free Choice - Is Often The Means Of Their Regeneration.

Mechanizing Man's Work Had Changed But Not Lighted His Toil.

With Equality Of Experience And Of General Faculties, A Woman Usually Sees Much More Than A Man Of What Is Immediately Before Her.

Among The Works Of Man, Which Human Life Is Rightly Employed In Perfecting, The First In Importance Surely Is Man Himself.

Trade Is A Social Act. Whoever Undertakes To Sell Any Description Of Any Goods To The Public, Does What Affects The Interest Of Other Persons, And Of Society In General; And Thus His Conduct, In Principal, Comes Within The Jurisdiction Of Society.

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 Sufficient Warrant.

Libertarian Party

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.

Different Opinions

All The Good Of Which Humanity Is Capable Is Comprised In Obedience.

The Idea Is Essentially Repulsive, Of A Society Held Together Only By The Relations And Feelings Arising Out Of Pecuniary Interest.

Although It Is Not True That All Conservatives Are Stupid People, It Is True That Most Stupid People Are Conservative.

It Often Happens That The Universal Belief Of One Age Of Mankind — A Belief From Which No One Was, Nor Without An Extraordinary Effort Of Genius And Courage, Could At That Time Be Free — Becomes To A Subsequent Age So Palpable An Absurdity, That The Only Difficulty Then Is To Imagine How Such A Thing Can Ever Have Appeared Credible.

The Worth Of The State, In The Long Run, Is The Worth Of The Individuals Composing It.

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy, And You Cease To Be So.

Education Is One Of The Subjects Which Most Essentially Require To Be Considered By Various Minds, And From A Variety Of Points Of View. For, Of All Many-sided Subjects, It Is The One Which Has The Greatest Number Of Sides.

All Free Communities Have Both Been More Exempt From Social Injustice And Crime, And Have Attained More Brilliant Prosperity, Than Any Others, Or Than They Themselves After They Have Lost Their Freedom.

A Cultivated Mind Is One To Which The Fountains Of Knowledge Have Been Opened, And Which Has Been Taught, In Any Tolerable Degree, To Exercise Its Faculties.

Men Do Not Want Solely The Obedience Of Women, They Want Their Sentiments.

Men Might As Well Be Imprisoned, As Excluded From The Means Of Earning Their Bread.

How Can Great Minds Be Produced In A Country Where The Test Of Great Minds Is Agreeing In The Opinion Of Small Minds?

... The Besetting Danger Is Not So Much Of Embracing Falsehood For Truth, As Of Mistaking A Part Of The Truth For The Whole.

All Social Inequalities Which Have Ceased To Be Considered Expedient, Assume The Character Not Of Simple Inexpediency, But Of Injustice, And Appear So Tyrannical, That People Are Apt To Wonder How They Ever Could Have. Been Tolerated; Forgetful That They Themselves Perhaps Tolerate Other Inequalities Under An Equally Mistaken Notion Of Expediency, The Correction Of Which Would Make That Which They Approve Seem Quite As Monstrous As What They Have At Last Learnt To Condemn.

Christian Morality (so Called) Has All The Characters Of A Reaction.... In Its Horror Of Sensuality, It Made An Idol Of Asceticism, Which Has Been Gradually Compromised Away Into One Of Legality. It Holds Out The Hope Of Heaven And The Threat Of Hell, As The Appointed And Appropriate Motives To A Virtuous Life - In This Falling Far Below The Best Of The Ancients, And Doing What Lies In It To Give To Human Morality An Essentially Selfish Character.... It Is Essentially A Doctrine Of Passive Obedience; It Inculcates Submission To All Authorities Found Established.

My Father Taught Me That The Question Who Made Me? Cannot Be Answered, Since It Immediately Suggests The Further Question, Who Made God?

What Citizens Of A Free Country Would Listen To Any Offers Of Good And Skillful Administration In Return For The Abdication Of Freedom?

I Am Not Aware That Any Community Has A Right To Force Another To Be Civilized.

In Proportion As The People Are Accustomed To Manage Their Affairs By Their Own Active Intervention, Instead Of Leaving Them To The Government, Their Desires Will Turn To Repelling Tyranny, Rather Than To Tyrannizing: While In Proportion As All Ready Initiative And Direction Resides In The Government, And Individuals Habitually Feel And Act As Under Its Perpetual Tutelage, Popular Institutions Develop In Them Not The Desire Of Freedom, But An Unmeasured Appetite For Place And Power.

Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, And His School Of Negative Thinkers, And England (or Rather Scotland) Had The Profoundest Negative Thinker On Record, David Hume: A Man, The Peculiarities Of Whose Mind Qualified Him To Detect Failure Of Proof, And Want Of Logical Consistency, At A Depth Which French Skeptics, With Their Comparatively Feeble Powers Of Analysis And Abstractions Stop Far Short Of, And Which German Subtlety Alone Could Thoroughly Appreciate, Or Hope To Rival.

A General State Education Is A Mere Contrivance For Moulding People To Be Exactly Like One Another, And As The Mould In Which It Casts Them Is That Which Pleases The Dominant Power In The Government.

School Education

Education And Freedom

The Only Way In Which A Human Being Can Make Some Approach To Knowing The Whole Of A Subject, Is By Hearing What Can Be Said About It By Persons Of Every Variety Of Opinion, And Studying All Modes In Which It Can Be Looked At By Every Character Of Mind. No Wise Man Ever Acquired His Wisdom In Any Mode But This; Nor Is It In The Nature Of Human Intellect To Become Wise In Any Other Manner.

In This Age, The Man Who Dares To Think For Himself And To Act Independently Does A Service To His Race.

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.

The English, Of All Ranks And Classes, Are At Bottom, In All Their Feelings, Aristocrats. They Have Some Concept Of Liberty, And Set Some Value On It, But The Very Idea Of Equality Is Strange And Offensive To Them. They Do Not Dislike To Have Many People Above Them As Long As They Have Some Below Them.

Marriage Is The Only Actual Bondage Known To Our Law. There Remain No Legal Slaves, Except The Mistress Of Every House.

It Appears, Then, To Be A Condition Of A Genuinely Scientific Hypothesis, That It Be Not Destined Always To Remain An Hypothesis, But Be Certain To Be Either Proved Or Disproved By.. .comparison With Observed Facts.

The Reasons For Legal Intervention In Favour Of Children Apply Not Less Strongly To The Case Of Those Unfortunate Slaves And Victims Of The Most Brutal Part Of Mankind - The Lower Animals.

Each Undervalues That Part Of The Materials Of Thought With Which He Is Not Familiar.

The Disease Which Inflicts Bureaucracy And What They Usually Die From Is Routine.

Trending Author

Category