only for the security of others.

  It is proper to state that I forego any advantage which could be
derived to my argument from the idea of abstract right, as a thing
independent of utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all
ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense,
grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a progressive being.
Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual
spontaneity to external control, only in respect to those actions of
each, which concern the interest of other people. If any one does an
act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing
him, by law, or, where legal penalties are not safely applicable, by
general disapprobation. There are also many positive acts for the
benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform;
such as to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share
in the common defence, or in any other joint work necessary to the
interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to
perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a
fellow creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenceless
against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's
duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not
doing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but
by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them
for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires a much more
cautious exercise of compulsion than the former. To make any one
answerable for doing evil to others is the rule; to make him
answerable for not preventing evil is, comparatively speaking, the
exception. Yet there are many cases clear enough and grave enough to
justify that exception. In all things which regard the external
relations of the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose
interests are concerned, and, if need be, to society as their
protector. There are often good reasons for not holding him to the
responsibility; but these reasons must arise from the special
expediencies of the case: either because it is a kind of case in which
he is on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own
discretion, than when controlled in any way in which society have it
in their power to control him; or because the attempt to exercise
control would produce other evils, greater than those which it would
prevent. When such reasons as these preclude the enforcement of
responsibility, the conscience of the agent himself should step into
the vacant judgment seat, and protect those interests of others
which have no external protection; judging himself all the more
rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being made accountable
to the judgment of his fellow creatures.

  But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished
from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest;
comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which
affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their
free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I
say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance; for
whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the
objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive
consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region
of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of
consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience in the most
comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute
freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or
speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of
expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a
different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of
an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as
much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great
part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it.
Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of
framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we
like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment
from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them,
even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty,
within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to
unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons
combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or
deceived.

  No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole,
respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none
is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and
unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of
pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt
to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.
Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or
mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each
other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each
to live as seems good to the rest.

  Though this doctrine is anything but new, and, to some persons,
may have the air of a truism, there is no doctrine which stands more
directly opposed to the general tendency of existing opinion and
practice. Society has expended fully as much effort in the attempt
(according to its lights) to compel people to conform to its notions
of personal as of social excellence. The ancient commonwealths thought
themselves entitled to practise, and the ancient philosophers
countenanced, the regulation of every part of private conduct by
public authority, on the ground that the State had a deep interest
in the whole bodily and mental discipline of every one of its
citizens; a mode of thinking which may have been admissible in small
republics surrounded by powerful enemies, in constant peril of being
subverted by foreign attack or internal commotion, and to which even a
short interval of relaxed energy and self-command might so easily be