w Mr. Mill's doctrine laid down the main condition of finding your
hero; namely, that all ways should be left open to him, because no man,
nor majority of men, could possibly tell by which of these ways their
deliverers were from time to time destined to present themselves. Wits
have caricatured all this, by asking us whether by encouraging the tares
to grow, you give the wheat a better chance. This is as misleading as
such metaphors usually are. The doctrine of liberty rests on a faith
drawn from the observation of human progress, that though we know wheat
to be serviceable and tares to be worthless, yet there are in the great
seed-plot of human nature a thousand rudimentary germs, not wheat and
not tares, of whose properties we have not had a fair opportunity of
assuring ourselves. If you are too eager to pluck up the tares, you are
very likely to pluck up with them these untried possibilities of human
excellence, and you are, moreover, very likely to injure the growing
wheat as well. The demonstration of this lies in the recorded experience
of mankind.

Nor is this all. Mr. Mill's doctrine does not lend the least countenance
to the cardinal opinion of some writers in the last century, that the
only need of human character and of social institutions is to be let
alone. He never said that we were to leave the ground uncultivated, to
bring up whatever might chance to grow. On the contrary, the ground was
to be cultivated with the utmost care and knowledge, with a view to
prevent the growth of tares--but cultivated in a certain manner. You may
take the method of the Inquisition, of the more cruel of the Puritans,
of De Maistre, of Mr. Carlyle; or you may take Mr. Mill's method of
cultivation. According to the doctrine of Liberty, we are to devote
ourselves to prevention, as the surest and most wholesome mode of
extirpation. Persuade; argue; cherish virtuous example; bring up the
young in habits of right opinion and right motive; shape your social
arrangements so as to stimulate the best parts of character. By these
means you will gain all the advantages that could possibly have come of
heroes and legislative dragooning, as well as a great many more which
neither heroes nor legislative dragooning could ever have secured.

It is well with men, Mr. Mill said, moreover, in proportion as they
respect truth. Now they at once prove and strengthen their respect for
truth, by having an open mind to all its possibilities, while