Chapter IX: Part 9

I say whatever is forced within a border is more difficult than what is free. Shadows have in certain degrees their borders, and he who ignores them cannot obtain roundness, which roundness is the essence and soul of painting. Drawing is free, since, if you see countless faces, they will all be different--the one has a long, the other a short nose. Thus the painter may take this liberty, and where is liberty, is no rule.

_Precepts for Painting_

The painter should endeavour to be universal, because he is lacking in dignity if he do one thing well and another thing badly, like so many who only study the well-proportionate nude and not its variations, because a man may be proportionate and yet be short and stout, or long and thin. And he who does not bear in mind these variations will get his figures stereotyped, so that they all seem to be brothers and sisters, which deserves to be censured severely.

Let the sketching of histories be swift and the articulation not too perfect. Be satisfied with suggesting the position of the limbs, which you may afterwards carry to completion at your leisure and as you please.

Methinks it is no small grace in a painter if he give a pleasing air to his figures, a grace which, if it be not one's own by nature, may be acquired by study, as follows. Try to take the best parts from many beautiful faces, whose beauty is affirmed by public fame rather than by your own judgment, for you may deceive yourself by taking faces which resemble your own. For it would often seem that such similarities please us; and if you were ugly you would not select beautiful faces, and you would make ugly ones, like many painters whose types often resemble their master. Therefore, take beautiful features, as I tell you, and commit them to your memory.

Monstrous is he who has a very large head and short legs, and monstrous he who with rich garments has great poverty; therefore we shall call him well proportioned whose every part corresponds with his whole.

_On the Choice of Light_

If you had a courtyard, which you could cover at will with a canvas awning, this light would be good; or when you wish to paint somebody, paint him in bad weather, or at the hour of dusk, placing the sitter with his back to one of the walls of this courtyard.

Observe in the streets at the fall of the evening the faces of men and women when it is bad weather, what grace and sweetness then appear to be theirs.

Therefore, you should have a courtyard, prepared with walls painted in black, and with the roof projecting a little over the said wall. And it should be ten _braccia_ [ten fathoms] in width, and twenty in length and ten in height; and when the sun shines you should cover it over with the awning, or you should paint an hour before evening, when it is cloudy or misty. For this is the most perfect light.

_Of the Gesture of Figures_

You should give your figures such movement as will suffice to show what is passing in the mind of the figure; else your art would not be praiseworthy. A figure is not worthy of praise if it do not express by some gesture the passion of the soul. That figure is most worthy of praise which best expresses by its gesture the passion of its nature.

If you have to represent an honest man talking, see that his action be companion to his good words; and again, if you have to depict a bestial man, give him wild movements--his arms thrown towards the spectator, and his head pressed towards his chest, his legs apart.

_The Judgment of Painting_

We know well that mistakes are more easily detected in the works of others than in one's own, and often, while censuring the small faults of others, you do not recognise your own great faults. In order to escape such ignorance, have a care that you be, above all, sure of your perspective; then acquire full knowledge of the proportions of man and other animals. And, moreover, be a good architect; that is, in so far as it is necessary for the form of the buildings and other things that are upon the earth, and that are infinitely varied in form.

The more knowledge you have of these, the more worthy of praise will be your work. And for those things in which you have no practice, do not disdain to copy from nature. When you are painting, you should take a flat mirror and often look at your work within it. It will be seen in reverse, and will appear to be by some other master, and you will be better able to judge of its faults than in any other way. It is also a good plan every now and then to go away and have a little relaxation, for then, when you come back to the work, your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgment.

Surely, while one paints one should not reject any man's judgment; for we know very well that a man, even if he be no painter, has knowledge of the forms of another man, and will judge aright whether he is hump-backed, or has one shoulder too high or too low, or whether he has too large a mouth or nose, or other faults; and if we are able rightly to judge the work of nature in men, how much more is it fit to admit that they are able to judge our mistakes.

You know how much man may be deceived about his own works, and if you do not know it of yourself, observe it in others, and you will derive benefit from other people's mistakes. Therefore, you should be eager to listen patiently to the views of other men and consider and reflect carefully whether he who finds fault is right or not in blaming you. If you find that he is right, correct your work; but if not, pretend not to have understood him; or show him, if he be a man whom you respect, by sound argument, why it is that he is mistaken in finding fault.

_Do Not Disdain to Work from Nature_

A master who let it be understood that his mind could retain all the forms and effects of nature, I should certainly hold to be endowed with great ignorance, since the said effects are infinite, and our memory is not of such capacity as to suffice thereto. Therefore, O painter, see that the greed for gain do not outweigh within you the honour of art, for to gain in honour is a far greater thing than to be honoured for wealth.

For these and other reasons that might be adduced, you should endeavour first to demonstrate to the eye, by means of drawing, a suggestion of the intention and of the invention originated first by your imagination. Then proceed, taking from it or adding to it, until you are satisfied with it. Then have men arranged as models, draped or nude, in the manner in which they are disposed in your work, and make the proportions and size in accordance with perspective, so that no part of the work remains that is not counselled by reason as well as by nature.

And this will be the way to make you honoured through your art. First of all, copy drawings by a good master made by his art from nature, and not as exercises; then from a relief, keeping by you a drawing done from the same relief; then from a good model, and of this you ought to make a general practice.

_Of the Painter's Life in His Study_

The painter or draughtsman should be solitary, so that physical comfort may not injure the thriving of the mind, especially when he is occupied with the observations and considerations which ever offer themselves to his eye and provide material to be treasured up by the memory. If you are alone, you belong wholly to yourself; and if you are accompanied even by one companion, you belong only half to yourself; and if you are with several of them, you will be even more subject to such inconveniences.

And if you should say, "I shall take my own course, I shall keep apart, so that I may be the better able to contemplate the forms of natural objects," then I reply, this cannot well be, because you cannot help frequently lending your ear to their gossip; and since nobody can serve two masters at once, you will badly fulfil your duties as companion, and you will have worse success in artistic contemplation. And if you should say, "I shall keep so far apart that their words cannot reach me or disturb me," then I reply in this case that you will be looked upon as mad. And do you not perceive that, in acting thus, you would really be solitary?

_Of Ways to Represent Various Scenes_

A man in despair you should make turning his knife against himself. He should have rent his garments, and he should be in the act of tearing open his wound with one hand. And you should make him with his feet apart and his legs somewhat bent, and the whole figure likewise bending to the ground, with dishevelled and untidy hair.

As a rule, he whom you wish to represent talking to many people will consider the subject of which he has to treat, and will fit his gestures to this subject--that is to say, if the subject is persuasion, the gestures should serve this intention; if the subject is explanation by various reasons, he who speaks should take a finger of his left hand between two fingers of his right, keeping the two smaller ones pressed together; his face should be animated and turned towards the people, his mouth slightly opened, so that he seems to be talking. And if he is seated, let him seem to be in the act of slightly raising himself, with his head forward; and if he is standing, make him lean forward a little, with his head towards the people, whom you should represent silent and attentive, all watching, with gestures of admiration, the orator's face. Some old men should have their mouths drawn down at the corners in astonishment at what they hear, drawing back the cheeks in many furrows, and raising their eyebrows where they meet, so as to produce many wrinkles on their foreheads. Some who are seated should hold their tired knees between the interlaced fingers of their hands, and others should cross one knee over the other, and place upon it one hand, so that its hollow supports the other elbow, whose hand again supports the bearded chin.

Whatever is wholly deprived of light is complete darkness. Night being in this condition, if you wish to represent a scene therein, you must contrive to have a great fire in this night, and everything that is in closer proximity to this fire will assume more of its colour, because the nearer a thing is to another object, the more it partakes of its nature. And since you will make the fire incline towards a red colour, you will have to give a reddish tinge to all things lighted by it, and those which are farther away from the fire will have to hold more of the black colour of night. The figures which are between you and the fire appear dark against the brightness of the flame, for that part of the object which you perceive is coloured by the darkness of night, and not by the brightness of the fire; and those which flank the fire will be half dark and half reddish. Those which are behind the flames will be altogether illuminated by a reddish light against the black background.

If you wish to represent a tempest properly, observe and set down the effects of the wind blowing over the face of the sea and of the land, raising and carrying away everything that is not firmly rooted in the general mass. And in order properly to represent this tempest, you should first of all show the riven and torn clouds swept along by the wind, together with the sandy dust blown up from the seashore, and with branches and leaves caught up and scattered through the air, together with many other light objects, by the power of the furious wind. The trees and shrubs, bent to the ground, seem to desire to follow the direction of the wind, with branches twisted out of their natural growth, and their foliage tossed and inverted.

Of the men who are present, some who are thrown down and entangled with their garments and covered with dust should be almost unrecognisable; and those who are left standing may be behind some tree which they embrace, so that the storm should not carry them off. Others, bent down, their garments and hair streaming in the wind, should hold their hands before their eyes because of the dust.

Let the turbulent and tempestuous sea be covered with eddying foam between the rising waves, and let the wind carry fine spray into the stormy air to resemble a thick and all-enveloping mist. Of the ships that are there, show some with rent sails, whose shreds should flap in the air, together with some broken halyards; masts splintered, tumbled, with the ship itself broken by the fury of the waves; some human beings, shrieking, and clinging to the wreckage of the vessel. You should show the clouds, chased by the impetuous wind, hurled against the high tops of the mountains, wreathing and eddying like waves that beat against the cliffs. The air should strike terror through the murky darkness caused by the dust, the mist, and the heavy clouds.

_To Learn to Work from Memory_

If you want properly to commit to your memory something that you have learnt, proceed in this manner--namely, when you have drawn one object so often that you believe you can remember it, try to draw it without the model, after having traced your model on a thin sheet of glass. This glass you will then lay upon the drawing which you have made without model. Observe well where the tracing does not tally with your drawing, and wherever you find that you have gone wrong, you must remember not to go wrong again. You should even return to the model, in order again to draw the wrong passage until it shall be fixed in your memory. And if you have no level sheet of glass for tracing, take a very thin sheet of goat-parchment, well oiled, and then dried. And after the tracing has done service for your drawing, you can efface it with a sponge and use it again for another tracing.

_On Studying in Bed_

I have experienced upon myself that it is of no small benefit if, when you are in bed, you apply your imagination to repeating the superficial lines of the forms which you have been studying, or to other remarkable things which are comprehensible to a fine intellect. This is a praiseworthy and useful action which will help you to fix things in your memory.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING

Laocoon

In 1766, while acting as secretary to the governor of Breslau,
Lessing wrote his celebrated "Laocoon," a critical treatise
defining the limits of poetry and the plastic arts. The epitome
given here has been prepared from the German text. A short
biographical sketch of Lessing appears in the introduction to his
play, "Nathan the Wise," appearing in Volume XVII of THE WORLD'S
GREATEST BOOKS.

_I.--On the Limits of Painting and Poetry_

Winkelman has pronounced a noble simplicity and quiet grandeur, displayed in the posture no less than in the expression, to be the characteristic feature common to all the Greek masterpieces of painting and sculpture. "As," says he, "the depths of the sea always remain calm, however violently the surface may rage, so the expression in the figures of the Greeks, under every form of passion, shows a great and self-collected soul.

"This spirit is portrayed in the countenance of Laocoon, but not in the countenance alone. Even under the most violent suffering the pain discovers itself in every muscle and sinew of his body, and the beholder, while looking at the agonised conditions of the stomach, without viewing the face and other parts, believes that he almost feels the pain himself. The pain expresses itself without any violence, both in the features and in the whole posture. Laocoon suffers, but he suffers as the Philoctetes of Sophocles. His misery pierces us to the very soul, but inspires us with a wish that we could endure misery like that great man.

"The expressing of so great a soul is far higher than the painting of beautiful nature. The artist must feel within himself that strength of spirit which he would imprint on his marble. Greece had philosophers and artists in one person. Philosophy gave her hand to art, and inspired its figures with no ordinary souls."

The above remarks are founded on the argument that "the pain in the face of Laocoon does not show itself with that force which its intensity would have led us to expect." This is correct. But I confess I differ from Winkelman as to what, in his opinion, is the basis of this wisdom, and as to the universality of the rule which he deduces from it. I acknowledge I was startled, first by the glances of disapproval which he casts on Virgil, and, secondly, by the comparison with Philoctetes. From this point I shall begin, writing down my thoughts as they were developed in me.

"Laocoon suffers as does the Philoctetes of Sophocles." But how does this last suffer? It is curious that his sufferings should leave such a different impression behind them. The cries and mild imprecations with which he filled the camp and interrupted the sacrifices echoed through the desolate island. The same sounds of despair fill the theatre in the poet's imitation.

A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer's wounded heroes frequently fall to the ground with cries. They are in their actions beings of higher order; in their feelings, true men.

We more civilised and refined Europeans of a wiser and later age are forbidden to cry and weep, and even our ancestors were taught to suppress lamentation at loss, and to die laughing under the bites of adders. Not so the Greeks. They felt and feared, and gave utterance to pain and sorrow, only nothing must hold them back from duty.

Now for my inference. If it be true that, a cry at the sensation of bodily pain, according to the old Greek way of thinking, is quite compatible with greatness of soul, it cannot have been for the sake of expressing such greatness that the artist avoided imitating his shriek in marble. Another reason must be found for his deviation from his rival, the poet, who has expressed it with the happiest results.

Be it fable or history, it is love that made the first essay in the plastic arts, and never wearied of guiding the hands of the masters of old. Painting now may be defined generally as "the imitation of bodies of matter on a level surface"; but the wise Greek allotted for it narrower limits, and confined it to imitations of the beautiful only; his artists painted nothing else. It was the perfection of their work that absorbed them. Among the ancients beauty was the highest law of the plastic arts. To beauty everything was subordinated. There are passions by which all beautiful physical lines are lost through the distortion of the body, but from all such emotions the ancient masters abstained entirely. Rage and despair disgrace none of their productions, and I dare maintain that they never painted a fury.

Indignation was softened down to seriousness. Grief was lessened into mournfulness. All know how Timanthes in his painting of the sacrifice of Iphigenia shows the sorrow of the bystanders, but has concealed the face of the father, who should show it more than all. He left to conjecture what he might not paint. This concealment is a sacrifice to beauty by the artist, and it shows how art's first law is the law of beauty.

Now apply this to Laocoon. The master aimed at the highest beauty compatible with the adopted circumstances of bodily pain. He must soften shrieks into sighs. For only imagine the mouth of Laocoon to be forced open, and then judge.

But art in modern times has been allowed a far wider sphere. It has been affirmed that its limitations extend over the whole of visible nature, of which the beautiful is but a small part. And as nature is ever ready to sacrifice beauty to higher aims, so should the artist render it subordinate to his general design. But are there not other considerations which compel the artist to put certain limits to expression, and prevent him from ever drawing it at its highest intensity?

I believe that the fact that it is to a single moment that the material limits of art confine all its limitations, will lead us to similar views.

If the artist out of ever-varying nature can only make use of a single moment, while his works are meant to stand the test not only of a passing glance, but of a long and repeated contemplation, it is clear that this moment cannot be chosen too happily. Now that only is a happy choice which allows the imagination free scope. In the whole course of a feeling there is no moment which possesses this advantage so little as its highest stage. There is nothing beyond this, and the presentation of extremes to the eye clips the wings of fancy, prevents her from soaring beyond the impression of the senses, and compels her to occupy herself with weaker images. Thus if Laocoon sighs, the imagination can hear him shriek; but if he shrieks, it can neither rise above nor descend below this representation without seeing him in a condition which, as it will be more endurable, becomes less interesting. It either hears him merely moaning, or sees him already dead.

Of the frenzied Ajax of Timomachus we can form some judgment from the account of Philoctetes. Ajax does not appear raging among herds and slaughtering cattle instead of men; but the master exhibits him sitting wearied with these deeds of insanity, and that is really the raging Ajax. We can form the most lively idea of the extremity of his frenzy from the shame and despair which he himself feels at the thought of it. We see the storm in the wrecks and corpses which it had strewn on the beach.

_II.--The Poet_

Perhaps hardly any of the above remarks concerning the necessary limits of the artist would be found equally applicable to poetry. It is undeniable that the whole realm of the perfectly excellent lies open to the imitation of the poet, that excellence of outward form which we call beauty being only one of the least of the means by which he can interest us in his characters.

Moreover, the poet is not compelled to concentrate his picture into a single moment. He can take up every action of his hero at its source, and pursue it to its issue through all possible variations. Each of these, which would cost the artist a separate work, costs the poet but a single trait. What wonderful skill has Sophocles shown in strengthening and enlarging, in his tragedy of Philoctetes, the idea of bodily pain! He chose a wound, and not an internal malady, because the former admits of a more lively representation than the latter. This wound was, moreover, a punishment divinely decreed. But to the Greeks a wound from a poisoned arrow was but an ordinary incident. Why, then, in the case of Philoctetes only was it followed by such dreadful consequences?

Sophocles felt full well that, however great he made the bodily pain to his hero, it would not have sufficed of itself to excite any remarkable degree of sympathy. He therefore combined it with other evils--the complete lack of society, hunger, and all the hardships to which such a man under terrible privations is exposed when cast on a wild, deserted isle of the Cyclades.

Imagine, now, a man in these conditions, but give him health and strength and industry, and he becomes a Crusoe, whose lot, though not indifferent to us, has no great claim on our sympathy. On the other hand, imagine a man afflicted by a painful and incurable disease, but at the same time surrounded by kind friends. For him we should feel sympathy, yet this would not endure throughout. Only when both cases are combined do we see nothing but despair, which excites our amazement and horror. Typical beauty arises from the harmonious effect of numerous parts, all of which the sight is capable of comprehending at the same time. It requires, therefore, that these parts should lie near each other; and since things whose parts lie near each other are the peculiar objects of plastic beauty, these it is, and these only, which can imitate typical beauty. The poet, since he can only exhibit in succession its component parts, entirely abstains from the description of typical beauty. He feels that these parts, ranged one after the other, cannot possibly have the effect they produce when closely arranged together.

In this respect Homer is a pattern of patterns. He says Nireus was beautiful, Achilles still more so, Helen was endowed with divine beauty. But nowhere does he enter on a detailed sketch of these beauties, and yet the whole Iliad is based on the loveliness of Helen.

In this point, in which he can imitate Homer by merely doing nothing, Virgil is also tolerably happy. His heroine Dido, too, is never anything more than _pulcherrima_ Dido (loveliest Dido). When he wishes to be more circumstantial, he is so in the description of her rich dress and apparel.

Lucian, also, was too acute to convey any idea of the body of Panthea otherwise than by reference to the most lovely female statues of the old artists.

Yet what is this but the acknowledgment that language by itself is here without power; that poetry falters and eloquence grows speechless unless art in some measure serve them as an interpreter?

But, it will be said, does not poetry lose too much if we deprive her of all objects of typical beauty? Who would deprive her of them? Because we would debar her from wandering among the footsteps of her sister art, without ever reaching the same goal as she, do we exclude her from every other, where art in her turn must gaze after her steps with fruitless longings?

Even Homer, who so pointedly abstains from all detailed descriptions of typical beauties, from whom we but just learn that Helen had white arms and lovely hair, even he, with all this, knew how to convey to us an idea of her beauty which far exceeds anything that art is able to accomplish.

_III.--Beauty and Charm_

Again, another means which poetry possesses of rivalling art in the description of typical beauty is the change of beauty into charm. Charm is beauty in motion, and is for this very reason less suitable to the painter than to the poet. The painter can only leave motion to conjecture, while in fact his figures are motionless. Consequently, with him charm becomes grimace.

But in poetry it remains what it is, a transitory beauty which we would gladly see repeated. It comes and goes, and since we can generally recall to our minds a movement more easily and vividly than forms or colours, charm necessarily in the same circumstances produces a stronger effect than beauty.

Zeuxis painted a Helen, and had the courage to write below the picture those renowned lines of Homer in which the enraptured elders confess their sensations. Never had painting and poetry been engaged in such contest. The contest remained undecided, and both deserved the crown.

For just as a wise poet showed us the beauty which he felt he could not paint according to its constituent parts, but merely in its effect, so the no less wise painter showed us that beauty by nothing but those parts, deeming it unbecoming for his art to resort to any other means for aid. His picture consisted of a single figure, undraped, of Helen, probably the one painted for the people of Crotona.

In beauty a single unbecoming part may disturb the harmonious effect of many, without the object necessarily becoming ugly. For ugliness, too, requires several unbecoming parts, all of which we must be able to comprehend at the same view before we experience sensations the opposite of those which beauty produces.

According to this, therefore, ugliness in its essence could be no subject of poetry; yet Homer has painted extreme ugliness in Thersites, and this ugliness is described according to its parts near each other. Why in the case of ugliness did he allow himself the license from which he had abstained in that of beauty? A successive enumeration of the elements of beauty will annihilate its effects. Will not a similar cause produce a similar effect in the case of ugliness?

Undoubtedly it will; but it is in this very fact that the justification of Homer lies. The poet can only take advantage of ugliness so far as it is reduced in his description into the less repugnant appearance of bodily imperfection, and ceases, as it were, in point of effect, to be ugliness. Thus, what he cannot make use of by itself he can use as the ingredient for the purpose of producing and strengthening certain mixed sensations.

These mixed feelings are the ridiculous and the horrible. Homer makes Thersites ugly in order to make him ridiculous. He is not made so, however, merely by his ugliness, for ugliness is an imperfection, and the contrast of perfection with imperfections is required to produce the ridiculous. To this I may add that the contrast must not be too sharp and glaring, and that the contrasts must blend into each other.

The wise and virtuous Æsop does not become ridiculous because of ugliness attributed to him. For his misshapen body and beautiful mind are as oil and vinegar; however much you shake them together, they always remain distinct to the taste. They will not amalgamate to produce a third quality. The body produces annoyance; the soul, pleasure; each has its own effect.

It is only when the deformed body is also fragile and, sickly, when it impedes the soul, that the annoyance and pleasure melt into each other.

For, let us suppose that the instigations of the malicious and snarling Thersites had resulted in mutiny, that the people had forsaken their leaders and departed in the ships, and that these leaders had been massacred by a revengeful foe. How would the ugliness of Thersites appear then? If ugliness, when harmless, may be ridiculous, when hurtful it is always horrible. In Shakespeare's "King Lear," Edmund, the bastard Count of Gloucester, is no less a villain than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in "King Richard III." How is it, then, that the first excites our loathing so much less than the second? It is because when I hear the former, I listen to a devil, but see him as an angel of light; but in listening to Richard I hear a devil and see a devil.

JOHN STUART MILL

Essay on Liberty

Ten years elapsed between the publication of "Political Economy"
(see Vol. XIV, p. 294) and the "Essay on Liberty," Mill in the
meantime (1851) having married Mrs. John Taylor, a lady who
exercised no small influence on his philosophical position.
The seven years of his married life saw little or nothing from
his pen. The "Essay on Liberty," in many respects the most
carefully prepared of all his books, appeared in 1859, the
year following the death of his wife, in collaboration with
whom it was thought out and partly written. The treatise goes
naturally with that on "Utilitarianism." Both are succinct and
incisive in their reasoning, and both are grounded on similar
sociological principles. Perhaps the primary problem of politics
in all ages has been the reconciliation of individual and social
interests; and at the present day, when the problem appears to
be particularly troublesome, Mill's view of the situation is
of especial value. In recent time, legislation has certainly
tended to become more socialistic, and the doctrine of individual
liberty promulgated in this "Essay" has a most interesting
relevancy to modern social movements.

_I.--Liberty of Thought and Discussion_

Protection against popular government is as indispensable as protection against political despotism. The people may desire to oppress a part of their number, and precautions are needed against this as against any other abuse of power. So much will be readily granted by most, and yet no attempt has been made to find the fitting adjustment between individual independence and social control.

The object of this essay is to assert the simple principle that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection--that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others, either by his action or inaction. The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

This principle requires, firstly, liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological--the liberty even of publishing and expressing opinions. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, so long as we do not harm our fellow-creatures. Thirdly, the principle requires liberty of combination among individuals for any purpose not involving harm to others, provided the persons are of full age and not forced or deceived.

The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Mankind gains more by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

Coercion in matters of thought and discussion must always be illegitimate. If all mankind save one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing the solitary individual than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of opinion is that it is robbing the whole human race, present and future--those who dissent from the opinion even more than those who hold it. For if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; and if wrong, they lose the clear and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error.

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility, and, as all history teaches, neither communities nor individuals are infallible. Men cannot be too often reminded of the condemnation of Socrates and of Christ, and of the persecution of the Christians by the noble-minded Marcus Aurelius.

Enemies of religious freedom maintain that persecution is a good thing, for, even though it makes mistakes, it will root out error while it cannot extirpate truth. But history shows that even if truth cannot be finally extirpated, it may at least be put back centuries.

We no longer put heretics to death; but we punish heresies with a social stigma almost as effective, since it may debar men from earning their bread. Social intolerance does not actually eradicate heresies, but it induces men to hide unpopular opinions. The result is that new and heretical opinions smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons who originate them, and never light up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or deceptive light. The price paid for intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human race. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects too timid to follow out any bold, independent train of thought lest it might be considered irreligious or immoral? No one can be a great thinker who does not follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. In a general atmosphere of mental slavery a few great thinkers may survive, but in such an atmosphere there never has been, and never will be, an intellectually active people; and all progress in the human mind and in human institutions may be traced to periods of mental emancipation.

Even if an opinion be indubitably true and undoubtingly believed, it will be a dead dogma, and not a living truth, if it be not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed. If the cultivation of the understanding consists of one thing more than another, it is surely in learning the grounds of one's own opinions, and these can only be fully learned by facing the arguments that favour the opposite opinions. He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. Unless he knows the difficulties which his truth has to encounter and conquer, he knows little of the force of his truth. Not only are the grounds of an opinion unformed or forgotten in the absence of discussion, but too often the very meaning of the opinion. When the mind is not compelled to exercise its powers on the questions which its belief presents to it, there is a progressive tendency to forget all of the belief except the formularies, until it almost ceases to connect itself at all with the inner life of the human being. In such cases a creed merely stands sentinel at the entrance of the mind and heart to keep them empty, as is so often seen in the case of the Christian creed as at present professed.

So far we have considered only two possibilities--that the received opinion may be false and some other opinion consequently true, or that, the received opinion being true, a conflict with the opposite error is essential to a clear apprehension and deep feeling of the truth. But there is a commoner case still, when conflicting doctrines share the truth, and when the heretical doctrine completes the orthodox. Every opinion which embodies somewhat of the portion of the truth which the common opinion omits, ought to be considered precious with whatever amount of error and confusion it may be conjoined. In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary factors in a healthy political life. Unless opinions favourable to democracy and to aristocracy, to property, and to equality, to co-operation and to competition, to sociality and to individuality, to liberty and to discipline, and all the other standing antagonisms of practical life are expressed with equal freedom, and enforced and defended with equal talent and energy, there is no chance of both elements obtaining their due. Truth is usually reached only by the rough process of a struggle between combatants fighting under hostile banners.

It may be objected, "But _some_ received principles, especially on the highest and most vital subjects, are more than half-truths." This objection is not sound. Even the Christian morality is, in many important points, incomplete and one-sided, and unless ideas and feelings not sanctioned by it had constituted to the formation of European life and character, human affairs would have been in a worse condition than they now are.

_II.--Individuality as One of the Elements of Well-Being_

We have seen that opinions should be freely formed and freely expressed. How about _actions_? If a man refrains from molesting others in what concerns him, 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 to carry his opinions into action. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it is useful 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. It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. When, 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 principal ingredients of human happiness and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.

No one's idea of excellence in conduct is that people should do absolutely nothing but copy one another. On the other hand, it would be absurd to pretend that people ought to live as if experience had as yet done nothing towards showing that one mode of existence or of conduct is preferable to another. No one denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the results of human experience. But it is the privilege of a mature man to use and interpret experience in his own way. He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He, on the other hand, who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties--reasoning, foresight, activity, discrimination, resolution, self-control. We wish not automatons, but living, originating men and women.

So much will be readily conceded, but nevertheless it may be maintained that strong desires and passions are a peril and a snare. Yet it is desires and impulses which constitute character, and one with no desires and impulses of his own has no more character than a steam-engine. An energetic character implies strong, spontaneous impulses under the control of a strong will; and such characters are desirable, since the danger which threatens modern society is not excess but deficiency of personal impulses and preferences. Everyone nowadays asks: what is usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances, or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? The consequence is that, through failure to follow their own nature, they have no nature to follow; their human capacities are withered and starved, and are incapable of any strong pleasures or opinions properly their own.

It is not by pruning away the individual but by cultivating it wisely that human beings become valuable to themselves and to others, and that human life becomes rich, diversified, and interesting. Individuality is equivalent to development, and in proportion to the latitude given to individuality an age becomes noteworthy or the reverse.

Unfortunately, the general tendency of things is to render mediocrity the ascendant power. At present, individuals are lost in the crowd, and it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules the world. And public opinion is the opinion of collective mediocrity, and is expressed by mediocre men. The initiation of all wise and noble opinions must come from individuals, and the individuality of those who stand on the higher eminences of thought is necessary to correct the tendency that makes mankind acquiesce in customary and popular opinions.

_III.--The Limits of the Authority of Society Over the Individual_

Where, then, does the authority of society begin? How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and how much to society?

To individuality should belong that part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society.

Society, in return for the protection it affords its members, and as a condition of its existence, demands, firstly, that its members respect the rights of one another; and, secondly, that each person bear his share of the labours and sacrifices incurred in defending society for its members. Further, society may punish acts of an individual hurtful to others, even if not a violation of rights, by the force of public opinion.

But in all cases where a person's conduct affects or need only affect himself, society may not interfere. Society may help individuals in their personal affairs, but neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to any human creature that he may not use his own life, so far as it concerns himself, as he pleases. He himself is the final judge of his own concerns, and the inconveniences which are strictly inseparable from the unfavourable judgment of others are the only ones to which a person should ever be subjected for that portion of his conduct and character which affects his own good, but which does not affect the interests of others.

But how, it may be asked, can any part of the conduct of a member of society be a matter of indifference to the other members?

I fully confess that the mischief which a person does to himself may seriously affect those nearly connected with him, and even society at large. But such contingent and indirect injury should be endured by society for the sake of the greater good of human freedom, and because any attempt at coercion in private conduct will merely produce rebellion on the part of the individual coerced. Moreover, when society interferes with purely personal conduct, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong places, as the pages of history and the records of legislation abundantly demonstrate.

Closely connected with the question of the limitations of the authority of society over the individual is the question of government participation in industrial and other enterprises generally undertaken by individuals.

There are three main objections to the interference of the state in such matters. In the first place, the matter may be better managed by individuals than by the government. In the second place, though individuals may not do it so well as government might, yet it is desirable that they should do it, as a means of their own mental education. In the third place, it is undesirable to add to the power of the government. If roads, railways, banks, insurance offices, great joint-stock companies, universities, public charities, municipal corporations, and local boards were all in the government service, and if the employees in these look to the government for promotion, not all the freedom of the Press and the popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. And, for various reasons, the better qualified the heads and hands of the government officials, the more detrimental would the rule of the government be. Such a government would inevitably degenerate into a pedantocracy monopolising all the occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required for the government of mankind.

To find the best compromise between individuals and the state is difficult, but I believe the ideal must combine the greatest possible dissemination of power consistent with efficiency, and the greatest possible centralisation and diffusion of information.

JOHN MILTON

Areopagitica

It has been said of "Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton
for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of
England," that it is "the piece that lies more surely than
any other at the very heart of our prose literature." In 1637
the Star Chamber issued a decree regulating the printing,
circulation, and importation of books, and on June 14, 1643, the
Long Parliament published an order in the same spirit. Milton
(see Vol. XVII) felt that what had been done in the days of
repression and tyranny was being continued under the reign of
liberty, and that the time for protest had arrived. Liberty was
the central principle of Milton's faith. He regarded it as the
most potent, beneficent, and sacred factor in human progress; and
he applied it all round--to literature, religion, marriage, and
civic life. His "Areopagitica," published in November, 1644, was
an application of the principle to literature that has remained
unanswered. The word "Areopagitica" is derived from Areopagus,
the celebrated open-air court in Athens, whose decision in
matters of public importance was regarded as final.

_I.--The Right of Appeal_

It is not a liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth--that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. To which we are already in good part arrived; and this will be attributed first to the strong assistance of God our Deliverer, next to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England.

If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as to gainsay what your published Order hath directly said, I might defend myself with ease out of those ages to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders. Such honour was done in those days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence that cities and signiories heard them gladly, and with great respect, if they had aught in public to admonish the state.

When your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason from what quarter soever it be heard speaking, I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to show, both that love of truth which ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which is not wont to be partial to yourselves, by judging over again that Order which ye have ordained to regulate printing: that no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed unless the same be first approved and licensed by such, or at least one of such, as shall be thereto appointed.

I shall lay before ye, first, that the inventors of licensing books be those whom ye will be loth to own; next, what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of truth. I deny not that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.

Nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.

We should be wary, therefore, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books, since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, that strikes at that ethereal essence, the breath of reason itself, and slays an immortality rather than a life.

_II.--The History of Repression_

In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings which the magistrate cared to take notice of--those either blasphemous and atheistical, or libellous. The Romans, for many ages trained up only to a military roughness, knew of learning little. There libellous authors were quickly cast into prison, and the like severity was used if aught were impiously written. Except in these two points, how the world went in books the magistrate kept no reckoning.

By the time the emperors were become Christians, the books of those whom they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the general councils, and not till then were prohibited.