e not conclusive to a
person's own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to
be weakened by adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not
such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where
affection or the rights of others are not concerned), it is so much done
toward rendering his feelings and character inert and torpid, instead of
active and energetic.'

Against these views, and, indeed, against the great body of valuable
thoughts so admirably presented in this work, no rational objection
would seem to be fairly adducible. But there are some very striking
passages liable to a very different criticism--passages which, if not
founded on actual misconception of facts, are, at least, so exaggerated
in statement as to require very material modifications, both as to the
existence of the evil they allege and the remedy they propose. Mr. Mill
complains of the despotism of society as having utterly suppressed all
spontaneity or individuality, and reduced the mass of mankind to a
condition of lamentable uniformity. He thinks this evil has not only
gone to a dangerous extent already, but that it threatens a still
further invasion of individual liberty with even greater disasters in
its train. It is better, however, to let Mr. Mill speak for himself in
the following passages:

'But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and
the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess but the
deficiency of personal impulses and preferences.' * * *

'In our times, from the highest class of society down to the
lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded
censorship.' * * *

'I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to
what suits their inclination. It does not occur to them to have any
inclination except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is
bowed to the yoke; even in what people do for pleasure, conformity
is the first thing thought of; they like in crowds; they exercise
choice only among things commonly done; peculiarity of taste,
eccentricity of conduct, are shunned equally with crimes; until by
dint of not following their own nature they have no nature to
follow; their human capacities are withered and starved; they
become incapable of any strong wishes or native pleasures, and are
generally without either opinions or feelings of home