What is individuality?

John Stuart Mill, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

John Stuart Mill answers

The difficulty in defending individuality is not, as one might suppose, that people dispute the means of securing it; the real difficulty is their indifference to the end itself.1 Were it generally felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being — not merely a pleasant supplement to civilization, instruction, and culture, but a necessary part and condition of all those things — the case would be half won before the argument began.1

What, then, is individuality? It is not mere eccentricity, though eccentricity is one of its symptoms; it is the cultivation and calling forth of what is distinctly one's own, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others.2 I take the formulation from Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose words form the epigraph to On Liberty: the end of man is "the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole," and toward this end two things are required — freedom, and variety of situations.3

From the union of these arise individual vigour and manifold diversity, which combine in originality.3 The enemy of individuality is the theory — held in various forms, Calvinist and otherwise — that human nature is corrupt, that self-will is evil, and that what is required of a person is submission: not the expression of their own faculties, but obedience to an authority that prescribes the same conduct for all.4

Against this I set the Greek ideal of self-development, which recognizes human nature as fitted for purposes other than mere abnegation.5 It is better to be a Pericles than either a John Knox or an Alcibiades; the Periclean type unites self-assertion with self-government, and surrenders neither.6 The social consequence of individuality cultivated is not isolation but enrichment.

Human life becomes rich, diversified, and animating; it furnishes more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings; and it strengthens the tie that binds each person to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to.7 Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it is called, and whether it professes to enforce the will of God or the injunctions of men.8 Society, in gaining conformity, loses the very thing that makes its own life worth having.

Sources

  1. the greatest difficulty to be encountered does not lie in the appreciation of means towards an acknowledged end, but in the indifference of persons in general to the end itself. If it were felt that the free development of individuality is one of the leading essentials of well-being; that it is not only a co-ordinate element with all that is designated by the terms civilization, instruction, education, culture, but is itself a necessary part and condition of all those things; there would be no danger that liberty should be undervalued
    Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being, p. 266
  2. It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation
    Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being, p. 269
  3. the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole… for this there are two requisites, 'freedom, and variety of situations;' and that from the union of these arise 'individual vigour and manifold diversity,' which combine themselves in 'originality.'
    Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being, p. 266
  4. Strict Calvinism, by inculcating rigid submission to the will of God, thereby numbs the independence of the individual
    ON LIBERTY”: INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY, AND STATE, pp. 42–43
  5. He finds more attractive the Greek ideal of self-development, which recognizes human nature as suitable for purposes other than merely abnegation.
    ON LIBERTY”: INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY, AND STATE, pp. 42–43
  6. It may be better to be a John Knox than an Alcibiades, but it is better to be a Pericles than either; nor would a Pericles, if we had one in these days, be without anything good which belonged to John Knox.
    Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being, p. 269
  7. human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to.
    Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being, p. 269
  8. whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men
    ON LIBERTY”: INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY, AND STATE, pp. 42–43