JOHN STUART MILL. 317 



concerns itself. One might sixppose that this "svould have passed as an 

 axiom, instead of being caviled at on all hands. Why should society, 

 more than any other entity, interfere with what does not concern it ? 

 Even accepting the axiom, we may yet work it in society's favor by 

 those numerous pretexts whereby individual action is alleged to have 

 social bearings ; but to refuse the axiom itself argues some defect of 

 intelligent comprehension. 



As a piece of vigorous composition, this chapter is not inferior to 

 any in the book ; it is admirable as an exposition in practical ethics, 

 and might be enshrined as a standing homily in the moral instruction 

 of mankind. It does what homilies rarely do, namely, endeavor to 

 draw precise lines between social duty and individual liberty ; and 

 reviews the more notable instances where society still tyrannizes over 

 minorities. Still, the instances adduced seem scarcely to justify the 

 denunciations of the author ; they are the remains of past ages of in- 

 tolerance, and are gradually losing their hold. 



It is in his subsequent chapter of " Applications " that we seem to 

 approach his strongest case — but it is little more than hinted at — I 

 mean the relationship of the sexes. It hardly admits of question that 

 any great augmentation of human happiness that may be achieved in 

 the future must proceed first upon a better standard of worldly cir- 

 cumstances, and next upon the harmonizing and adjusting of the social 

 relations. After people are fed, clothed, and housed, at a reasonable 

 expenditure of labor, their next thing is to seek scope for their affec- 

 tions ; it is at this point that there occur the greatest successes and 

 the greatest failures in happy living. The marriage relation is the 

 most critical of any ; and we have now a class of thinkers that main- 

 tain that this is enforced with too great stringency and monotony. To 

 attain some additional latitude in this respect is an object that Mill, in 

 common with his father, considered very desirable. Both were strong- 

 ly averse to encouraging mere sensuality ; they were not prepared 

 with any definite scheme of sexual reform ; they merely urged that 

 personal freedom should be extended in this respect, with a view to 

 such social experiments as might lead to the better fulfillment of the 

 great ideal that the sexual relation has in view. 



The " Liberty " was exposed to a good deal of carping in conse- 

 quence of Mill's admitting unequivocally that a certain amount of dis- 

 approval was proper and inevitable toward persons that behaved badly 

 to themselves. It was said, What is this, after all, but a milder form 

 of punishing them for what does not concern either us or society at 

 large ? He fully anticipated such a remark, and I think amply dis- 

 posed of it, by drawing the very wide distinction between mere low- 

 ered estimation and the treatment proper to offenders against society. 

 He might have gone further, and drawn up a sliding scale or graduated 

 table of modes of behavior, from the most intense individual prefer- 

 ence at the one end to the severest reprobation at the other. At least 



