Chapter 3: Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-Being
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-         carrying out lives without hindrance (moral or physical) from others, ‘so long as it is at their own risk and peril.’  Proviso indispensable because: ‘No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions…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 to the poor… ought to be unmolested when simply circulated to the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer’. 

-         Such acts do harm to others without justifiable cause, & so man can physically (or ‘unfavourable sentiments’) intervene.  Man must’nt ‘make himself a nuisance to other people’, but if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, & ‘merely acts according to his own inclination and judgement in things which concern himself…[for same reasons as opinions] he should be… free to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost’. 

-         ‘As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it should be that there should be different experiments of living… short of injury to others; desirable… that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.’ 

-         Laments fact 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’.

-         OK that people should be so 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.’ 

-         Views on Human Nature:  ‘It is not because men’s desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak… 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’.  Soc should cultivate these to protect its interests, rather than ‘rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made’.   Sure, in past, forces too much ahead of forces which soc had to control them, ‘But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is… the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences’.

-         Contemporary Society: In some such insidious form at present a strong tendency to this narrow (Calvinistic*) theory of life.  *’The one great offence of man is self-will.  All the good of which humanity is capable, is comprised in obedience’.  In this way ‘their human capacities are withered and starved: they become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are generally without either opinion or feelings… of their own’. 

-         Mill prefers ‘cultivating it & calling it forth’ (within others rights & interests) so that humans can become ‘a noble & beautiful object of contemplation’ & human life would be rich/ diversified/ animating, ‘furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings’. 

-         ‘Individuality is the same thing with development… it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings.’

-         Undeveloped (unoriginal) can learn from the developed (original – developed individuality) and would also thus have a chance of being themselves original

-         ‘At present individuals are lost in the crowd… public opinion now rules the world.  The only power deserving the name is that of the masses’ which he calls ‘collective mediocrity’. 

-         Mill on Eccentricity: precisely cos the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, people should be eccentric to break this tyranny.  ‘Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; & the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, & moral courage which it contained.  That so few dare to be eccentric marks the danger of the time’. 

-         Cos people diff, they ‘require different conditions for their spiritual development’.  ‘The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement’.

-         Mentions ‘whole East’ where conformity to custom absolute: no-one, save for ‘some tyrant intoxicated with power’ thinks of resisting it – links this to decline of civilisations.  (Gives China as e.g.). ‘remarkable diversity of character and culture’ have stopped Europe from becoming like this.  Communications, extension of education (which brings people under the same influence), increase of commerce & manufactures, &, above all ‘the ascendancy of public opinion in the State’ promote greater uniformity in Euro, ‘the very idea of resisting the will of the public… disappears more &  more from the minds of practical politicians; there ceases to be any public support for nonconformity’.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Chapter 1: Introductory
2. Chapter 2: On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
3. Chapter 3: Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well-Being
4. Chapter 4: Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual
5. Chapter 5: Applications

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