i. Mill’s idea of Individuality is plainly biassed by the Benthamite tradition that law is an evil. It is to be remembered that Anarchism of a speculative kind, the inevitable complement of a hide-bound Conservatism, was current in the beginning of this century, as in Godwin and Shelley. Thus we find concentrated in a few pages of the “Liberty” [1] all those ideas on the nature of Individuality, Originality, and Eccentricity, which are most opposed to the teaching derived by later generations in England from the revival of philosophy and criticism. It is worth while, after reading Mill’s observations upon the relation of individuality to the Calvinistic theory of life, [2] to turn to the estimate expressed by Mark Pattison [3] of the force of individual character generated by {61} the rule of Calvin at Geneva. That the individuality, or genius, the fulness of life and completeness of development which Mill so justly appreciates, is not nourished and evoked by the varied play of relations and obligations in society, but lies in a sort of inner self, to be cherished by enclosing it, as it were, in an impervious globe, is a notion which neither modern logic [4] nor modern art criticism will admit. In the same way, the connection of originality and eccentricity, on which Mill insists, appears to us to-day to be a fallacious track of thought; and in general, in all these matters, we tend to accept the principle that, in order to go beyond a point of progress, it is necessary to have reached it; and in order to destroy a law, it is necessary to have fulfilled it. Here, however, is the heart of the point on which we are insisting. If individuality and originality mean or depend upon the absence of law and of obligation; if eccentricity is the type of the fully developed self, and if the community, penetrated by a sense of universal relations, is therefore a prey to monotony and uniformity, then it needs no further words to show that law is a curtailment of human nature, the necessity of which remains inexplicable, so that self-government is a contradiction in terms. [1] pp. 35-9. [2] _Ib._, p. 35. [3] _Essays_, vol. I., “Calvin.” [4] See below, p. 79. ii. How then does Mill bring the two terms into relation? How does he represent the phenomenon that, in the life of every society, the factors of self and of government have to be reconciled, or at anyrate to coexist? To find the answer to this question, the whole {62} of the chapter, “Of the limits of the authority of society over the individual,” [1] should be carefully studied. A few characteristic sentences may be quoted here. [1] _On Liberty_, ch. iv. “What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?