The greatest minds now insist an individual will more freely act, not only for the furtherance of personal interests, but also for collective interests, without being constrained thereto by an external power. Whenever room is to be made, they say, for the advance of society, public authority must retire within its narrowest jurisdiction; yielding, because of its impracticability, all control over concerns purely personal. “Who remembers having done anything, or having refrained from doing anything, on account of the statutes? If we could realize how little civil law contributes to the good conduct and well-being of society, our interest in legislators would be greatly lessened. Of the millions upon millions of acts of kindness and justice which go to make up civilized life, I take it that nine in ten would not be performed at all, if they were required by law. John Stuart Mill has clearly defined the limit of individual “sovereignty”--as it is termed--and where the authority of society should begin. “Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong the part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society. “The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the length of violating their constituted rights. The offender may then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law. As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes an open one. But there is no room for entertaining any such question, when a person’s conduct affects the interest of no person besides himself, or need not affect them unless they like, all the persons concerned being of full age, and with the ordinary amount of understanding. In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.”