Such being the reasons which make it imperative that human beings should
be free to form opinions, and to express their opinions without reserve;
and such the baneful consequences to the intellectual, and through that
to the moral nature of man, unless this liberty is either conceded, or
asserted in spite of prohibition; let us next examine whether the same
reasons do not require that men should be free to act upon their
opinions--to carry these out in their lives, without hindrance, either
physical or moral, from their fellow-men, so long as it is at their own
risk and peril. This last proviso is of course indispensable. No one
pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary,
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 of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be
unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly
incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled
before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed about among the same
mob in the form of a placard. Acts, of whatever kind, which, without
justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important
cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable
sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind.
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make
himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting
others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own
inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same
reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he
should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into
practice at his own cost. That mankind are not infallible; that their
truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion,
unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite
opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good,
until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all
sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action,
not less than to their opinions. As 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; and that the worth of
different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one
thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which
do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself.
Where, not the person's own character, but the traditions or customs of
other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the
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