The extension of education,the extension of means of communication,the extension of manufactures,and,above all,the supremacy of public opinion,are all in its favour.With 'so great a mass of influences hostile to individuality'it is 'not easy to see how it can stand its ground.'
When Mill,as a young man,suddenly reflected that,if all his principles were adopted,he should still be unhappy,he did not doubt their truth.But now he seems to be emphatically asserting that the victory of all the principles for which he and his friends had contended would be itself disastrous.'Progress'meant precisely the set of changes which he now pronounces to lead to stagnation.Democracy in full activity will extinguish the very principle of social vitality.And yet,when at a later period Mill became a politician,he gave his vote as heartily as the blindest enthusiast for measures which inaugurated a great step towards democracy.His sincerity in both cases is beyond a doubt,and gives emphasis to the problem,how his practical political doctrine can be reconciled with his doctrine of development.
The first question provoked by such assertions is the question whether this is a correct,still more,whether it is an exhaustive,diagnosis of the social disease?May not Mill be emphasising one aspect of a complex problem,and seeing the extinction of that 'individuality'which is really an element of welfare,in the extinction of such an 'individualism'as is incompatible with social improvement?His general aim is unimpeachable.The harmonious development of all our faculties represents a worthy ideal.The first or most essential of all human virtues,as Humboldt had said,is energy;for the greater the vitality,the more rich and various the type which can be evolved by cultivation.Yet it may be doubted whether the two aims suggested will always coincide.Energy certainly may go with narrowness,with implicit faith and limited purpose.The stream flows more forcibly in a defined channel.If Knox was inferior to Pericles or,say,the Jew to the Greek,the inferiority was not in energy or endurance.The efflorescence of Greek culture was short lived,it has been said,because there was too much Alcibiades and too little of Moses.(23)Culture tends to effeminacy unless guarded by 'renunciation'and regulated by concentration upon distinct purpose.As in the question of toleration,Mill overestimates the value of mere contradiction,so in questions of conduct he seems to overestimate mere eccentricity.Yet eccentricity is surely bad so far as it is energy wasted;expended upon trifles or devoted to purposes which a wider knowledge shows to be chimerical.To balance and correlate the various activities,to direct energy to the best purposes,and to minimise a needless antagonism is as essential to development as to give free play to the greatest variety of healthy activities.
Mill's doctrine may thus be taken as implying a historical generalisation.Historical generalisations are wrong as a rule;and one defect in this seems to be evident.Are energetic characters really rarer than of old?We may dismiss the illusion which personified whole processes of slow evolution in the name of some great prophet or legislator.It may still be true that the importance of the individual has really been greater in former epochs.The personal qualities of William the Conqueror or of Hildebrand may have affected history more than the personal qualities of Bismarck or of Pius IX.The action of great men,indeed,at all periods whatever,is essentially dependent upon their social environment;but personal idiosyncrasies may count for more in the total result at one period than another.The fortunes of a rude tribe may be,not only more obviously but more really,dependent upon the character of its chief than the fortunes of a civilised nation upon the character of its prime minister.And,therefore,it may be,the individual as a more important factor in the result,seems to represent greater individual energy.Yet the energy of the old feudal baron,who could ride roughshod over his weaker neighbours or coerce them with fire and sword,is not necessarily greater than the energy of the modern statesman,who has by gentler means slowly to weld together alliances of nations,to combine and inspirit parties,to direct public opinion,and to act therefore with constant reference to the national or cosmopolitan order.
