ing at society, which makes the replacement of
law by liberty a condition of reaching the higher stages of social
development.

The doctrine of liberty belongs to the subject of this chapter, because
it is only another way of expressing the want of connection between
earnestness in realising our opinions, and anything like coercion in
their favour. If it were true that aversion from compromise, in carrying
out our ideas, implied the rightfulness of using all the means in our
power to hinder others from carrying out ideas hostile to them, then we
should have been preaching in a spirit unfavourable to the principle of
liberty. Our main text has been that men should refuse to sacrifice
their opinions and ways of living (in the self-regarding sphere) out of
regard to the _status quo_, or the prejudices of others. And this, as a
matter of course, excludes the right of forcing or wishing any one else
to make such a sacrifice to us. Well, the first foundation-stone for the
doctrine of liberty is to be sought in the conception of society as a
growing and developing organism. This is its true base, apart from the
numerous minor expediencies which may be adduced to complete the
structure of the argument. It is fundamentally advantageous that in
societies which have reached our degree of complex and intricate
organisation, unfettered liberty should be conceded to ideas and, within
the self-regarding sphere, to conduct also. The reasons for this are of
some such kind as the following. New ideas and new 'experiments in
living' would not arise, if there were not a certain inadequateness in
existing ideas and ways of living. They may not point to the right mode
of meeting inadequateness, but they do point to the existence and
consciousness of it. They originate in the social capability of growth.
Society can only develop itself on condition that all such novelties
(within the limit laid down, for good and valid reasons, at self
regarding conduct) are allowed to present themselves. First, because
neither the legislature nor any one else can ever know for certain what
novelties will prove of enduring value. Second, because even if we did
know for certain that given novelties were pathological growths and not
normal developments, and that they never would be of any value, still
the repression necessary to extirpate them would involve too serious a
risk both of keeping back social growth at some other point, and of
giving the direction of