of thought we mean freedom of speech, freedom of
the press, freedom of action, whether individual or associated, and of
that freedom the present generation, as compared with all former
generations, the English nation, as compared with all other nations,
enjoys, there can be no doubt, a good measure, pressed down, and shaken
together, and sometimes running over.

It may be said that some dogmas still remain in politics, in religion, and
in morality; but those who defend them claim no longer any infallibility,
and those who attack them, however small their minority, need fear no
violence, nay, may reckon on an impartial and even sympathetic hearing, as
soon as people discover in their pleadings the true ring of honest
conviction and the warmth inspired by an unselfish love of truth.

It has seemed strange, therefore, to many readers of Mill, particularly on
the Continent, that this plea for liberty, this demand for freedom for
every individual to be what he is, and to develop all the germs of his
nature, should have come from what is known as the freest of all
countries, England. We might well understand such a cry of indignation if
it had reached us from Russia; but why should English philosophers, of all
others, have to protest against the tyranny of society? It is true,
nevertheless, that in countries governed despotically, the individual,
unless he is obnoxious to the Government, enjoys far greater freedom, or
rather license, than in a country like England, which governs itself.
Russian society, for instance, is extremely indulgent. It tolerates in its
rulers and statesmen a haughty defiance of the simplest rules of social
propriety, and it seems amused rather than astonished or indignant at the
vagaries, the frenzies, and outrages of those who in brilliant
drawing-rooms or lecture-rooms preach the doctrines of what is called
Nihilism or Individualism,(2)--viz., "that society must be regenerated by a
struggle for existence and the survival of the strongest, processes which
Nature has sanctioned, and which have proved successful among wild
animals." If there is danger in these doctrines the Government is expected
to see to it. It may place watchmen at the doors of every house and at the
corner of every street, but it must not count on the better classes coming
forward to enrol themselves as special constables, or even on the
cooeperation of public opinion which in England would annihilate that kind
of Nihilism with on