The rigid enforcement of uniformity is hostile not only to freedom of action but also to independence of thought. The laws against teaching or holding doctrines displeasing to the majority are particularly severe in America. Immigrants, for example, are not allowed to land in America until they have first expressed their disbelief in Communism, atheism, and free love. Many people are put in prison for holding unpopular views, although these views do no apparent harm to anybody. Advocacy of birth-control, possession of irreverent and disreputable books such as _Jurgen_, expression of subversive opinions with regard to the relationship of capital and labour, and disbelief in God are among the offences so punished. Not only is it necessary not to profess unpopular views――it is sometimes necessary to profess popular ones. In order to placate herd opinion it is found necessary to enforce by law the propagation of deliberate falsehood. This happens especially in those cases, unfortunately only too numerous, in which the truth is less gratifying to human conceit than we could wish, so that its adoption involves the abandonment of cherished beliefs. Such, for instance, is the belief that man is a degenerate angel, which is thought to be more flattering than the truth that he is a promoted ape. Thus the State of Tennessee has recently officially repudiated the “monkey ancestry” of its citizens. A law has been passed under which it is illegal for any teacher in a university or other public school to teach anything denying the story of creation given in the Bible, or that man has descended from the lower order of animals, and men have already been imprisoned for teaching evolution. It is not, so far as I know, maintained even in America that the doctrine of evolution is untrue. It is sufficient that it incurs the disapproval of the stronger. Thus truth herself is liable to be stigmatized as immoral if she is inconsiderate enough to flout the wishes of respectable citizens. Where individuality is to a large extent obliterated, and citizens are cut according to approved specification by the social machine, nothing is so much valued as personality. I have said that every American wishes to be like every other American, and so he does――but with a difference. He wants to have a personality of his own. He wishes to have a something about him that will convey an impression of uniqueness and cause him to be talked about among his fellows. Nothing is so much discussed in America as personality. Men try to cultivate it as they try to cultivate biceps; agencies exist in order to tell you how to be unique, and psycho-analysts flourish by the simple process of telling you that you are unique. But this is just what the conditions upon which herd morality depends will not let you be. Depart one hair’s-breadth from the standard habits of thought and accepted codes of conduct, and the herd will make your existence intolerable until you consent to toe the line.