The Book of John Stuart Mill 5 · Written by himself, from On Liberty and his Autobiography
John Stuart Mill, born in London in 1806, died at Avignon in France in 1873. His father educated him himself: Greek at three, Latin at eight, and no company of children his own age. At twenty his mind gave way, and he came back to himself reading Wordsworth. On Liberty appeared in 1859, The Subjection of Women in 1869, and the Autobiography after his death. He entered the Commons in 1865, and in 1867 moved to give women the vote, the first such motion in the British parliament. This volume rests on what he wrote himself, not on another man’s record of him. He is the only one in this scripture who never had a religion — not that he threw it off, but that he never had it. Chapters 3 and 4 supply what the scripture was missing: the reason The Rule 7 lets the Stoa contradict the canon.
5.1Some say: the customs of the world are mostly good; do as they do, and why think for yourself?
5.2I answer: even if every one of those customs were right, the man who copies them has not lived.
5.3For a man who lets the world lay out his life for him needs no faculty but one — imitation. An ape has that faculty.
5.4Do as you are told, and do rightly, and you have the good of the thing done.
5.5Think it through and then do it, and do rightly, and you have the good of the thing done, and a man who has thought besides.
5.6The second of those is yours.
5.7Some treat a human being as a machine: built to a pattern and set to do the work assigned.
5.8A human being is not a machine. A human being is a tree, which must grow out on every side, according to the living force inside it.
5.9So I say: a person whose desires and impulses are his own is said to have a character.
5.10A person whose desires and impulses are not his own has no character — no more than a steam engine has a character.
5.11Some fear this will end in disorder. I say: grinding down what is different in people grows nothing good. It grows only more of the same.
5.12Nor am I telling you to go against custom. A man who does the contrary is still led by custom, only led the other way.
5.13I am saying this: when a custom is put in your hands, ask why first, and then do it.
5.14Doing it after asking, and doing it without asking, look from outside like the same act.
5.15From inside they are two different men.
5.16A man who has never asked for himself has never owned his life, however creditably he has lived it. (cf. The Highest Covenant 1.4)