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

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 527
venture in the last chapter to offer certain observations
indicating the principles which should govern such interference.
1 My immediate concern is with the question of
Sovereignty; where, we are asking, is or should be the
ultimate repository of power in a community, and in this
connection it is pertinent to point out that Mill's insistence
upon the need for the free play and exprefsion of individual
opinion, and his vindication of the freedom of individual
behaviour unfettered by the timidities and unconfined
by the conventionalities of the majority, led him to introduce
what was in effect a division of mankind into two
separate classes, and to assign effective Sovereignty to the
superior minority.
Elements of Platonism in Mill. On the one hand, there
were thp many who took their opinions ready-made from
their environment and were prepared to allow their actions
to be guided by the behaviour of their fellows; on the other,
there was a superior minority willing and able to exercise
their minds on independent lines, in whom Mill recognized
the pioneers and natural leaders of our species. It was the
independence of this minority against encroachment by
what he called the "collective mediocrity", that Mill was
especially concerned to preserve. But the lines upon which
this concern directed his thinking led him to some rather
surprising conclusions. I will summarize his argument
in a series of propositions.
(i) The development of individual personality is a
good.
(a) It leads to the increase of variety, which is also
a good.
(3) Variety entails inequality and inequality is, therefore,
in the nature of things.
(4) The object of the State is the development of the
personalities of its members, more particularly of the intellectual
elements in the personalities of its members.
1 Sec Ghaper XDC, pp. 777~78i.