sentiment of national patriotism and of loyalty to the national vocation quite displaced the enthusiasm for man as such. With the sentiment of nationality came also a reawakened and developed interest in history, and this brought with it much that was inimical to the natural rights view; for it is a commonplace to say that the latter was hopelessly unhistorical. The notion of the individual as a self-sufficing entity was put out of court by the evident fact that most at least of what makes up his individuality is elicited only by the action and the reaction of his environment, physical and mental, upon him. At the same time, by a parallel line of thought, the notion of society as an analogue of temporary, voluntary associations of persons was equally discredited by the fact that the community, with its institutions, its habitual preferences, its culture, is a going concern, possessing a momentum and an inertia of its own.
Thus a complete reconstruction of the theory of political liberalism was called for. A theory was needed which would bring into accord the two apparently contradictory principles of self-control by the individual and restraint of the individual by the law. It was evident on all scores that the only sane or fruitful principle of reform was liberty in accordance with and by means of law; but such a principle cannot be founded on the assumption that liberty consists in the absence of restraint. In particular, it was evident that freedom could no longer be defended on the prima facie ground that the individual possesses a sphere of strictly private interests not to be invaded by public forces. The inadequacy of this argument for its purpose may be illustrated by Mill's famous distinction between conduct which "affects the interests of no person besides himself," and conduct which "affects prejudicially the interests of others."[1] The difficulty which Mill finds in handling this distinction shows its fatal weakness. Mill is, in fact, quite unable to show that there is any conduct of importance which concerns only individual interests, and the utter arbitrariness of the distinction is shown by his own extraordinary applications of it. Thus he is apparently quite willing to give the public a free hand in controlling
- ↑ Liberty, Chapter IV.
