JOHN STUART MILL. 315 



for John Mill to stand up for the removal of social restraints, but as 

 to imposing new ones I feel the greatest apprehensions." I instantly- 

 divined what the new restraints would be. The volume must have 

 been the chief occupation of his spare time during the last two years 

 of his official life. It is known that he set great store by the work, 

 and thought it would probably last longer than any of his writings, 

 except perhaps the "Logic." 



The old standing question of freedom of thought had been worked 

 up, in a series of striking expositions, by his father, in conjunction 

 with Bentham and the circle of the "Westminster Review" ; he him- 

 self, from his earliest youth, was embarked in the same cause, and his 

 essays were inferior to none in the power and freshness of the han- 

 dling. The first part of the " Liberty " is the condensation of all that 

 had been previously done ; and, for the present, stands as the chief 

 text-book of freedom of discussion. It works round a central thought, 

 which has had a growing prominence in later years, the necessity of 

 taking account of the negative to every positive affirmation ; of laying 

 down, side by side with every proposition, the counter-proposition. 

 Following this cue, Mill's first assumption is, that an opinion authori- 

 tatively suppressed may possibly be true ; and the thirty pages de- 

 voted to this position show a combination of reasoning and eloquence 

 that has never been surpassed, if equaled, in the cause of intellectual 

 freedom. The second assumption is that an opinion is false. Here his 

 argument takes the more exclusive form of showing the necessity of 

 keeping in the view the opposite of every opinion, in order to main- 

 tain the living force of the opinion itself. While there is much that 

 is effective here also, I think that he puts too great stress upon the 

 operation of negative criticism in keeping alive the understanding of 

 a doctrine. It is perfectly true that, when an opinion is actively op- 

 posed, its defenders are put on the qui vive in its defense, and have, 

 in consequence, a far more lively sense of its truth, as well as a juster 

 view of its meaning and import ; but the necessity of keeping up im- 

 aginary opponents to every truth in science may easily be exaggerated. 

 We need not conjure up opponents to gravitation so long as a hundred 

 observations and a hundred thousand ships are constantly at work 

 testing its consequences. This is the substitute that Mill desiderates 

 (page 80) for the disadvantage of the cessation of controversy in 

 truths of great magnitude. 



When he proceeds to illustrate the enlivening influence of negation 

 by the case of ethical and religious doctrines, I think he fails to make 

 out his case. It may be true enough that, when a creed is first fighting 

 for reception, it is at the height of its fervor, but the loss of power at a 

 later stage is due to other causes than the absence of opponents. Mill's 

 illustration from Christianity is hardly in point. Kever since the sup- 

 pression of pagan philosophy was Christianity more attacked than 

 now ; but we can not say that the attacks have led, or are likely to 



