GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 523
by storms of panic, fear, irrational elation or wild hatred,
and their reasons are drugged by the voice of the spell-
binding demagogue. What is more, the more closely they
approximate to the average, the more completely are they
open to the force of suggestion. It follows that the majority
which, after all, is composed of average men, dominated by
code and creed and custom, amenable to propaganda, echoes
and mirrors of their environment, will tend to demand
conformity in respect of the creeds and codes, acceptance
of the propaganda and acquiescence in the environment
from all citizens; they will require, in other words,
that the* influences which dominate them shall dominate
will insist that all shall wear
all. Slaves themselves, they
the same fetters.
It was against this tyranny of the majority that Mill
sought to safeguard the liberty of the individual.
The Importance of Variety. One of the strongest
arguments in Mill's case for non-interference is his insistence
upon the value of variety. Men are by nature different,
and, Mill claimed, should have the right to develop their
differences. The fact of difference should not be deplored.
On the contrary, any society in which it is really worth
while to live is a society in which men's minds and personalities
exhibit variety. "Such are the differences among
human beings/' Mill wrote, "in their sources of pleasure,
their
susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them
of different physical and moral agencies, that unless there
is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they
neither obtain their fair share of happiness, nor grow up
to the mental, moral and aesthetic stature of which they
are capable." In the standardization of opinion imposed
by * dictatorship Mill would have seen not only the impoverishment
of the spirit and the deadening of the mind
of the community, but also the suppression of all that
makes the life of civilized men interesting, vital and gay.
"It is not," he wrote, "by wearing down into uniformity
all that ii individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and