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ship, a tendency to union within themselves, form a stream upon which they drift along in the current of every senseless fashion of the day-examples of a kindly but, alas! a weak, frivolous conformity. "That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time," is a reflection as true now, as in the days when Mr. Mill wrote his Essay on Liberty.

Outwardly we are a free nation, taking off our hats less than any other European nation, which is a very significant symbol, as Mr. Spencer shows.* In religion, we are thorough nonconformists-Protestants protesting against popish or clerical supremacy-but inwardly we are prostrate, letting the tyranny of that monstrous pope, conventional custom, crush out of us the pith of individual character, and the sweetest honey of our social life. "Send no poet to London!" cried the sweet singer, Heine; "that colossal uniformity, that mechanical motion, that irksomeness of joy itself, that inexorable London stifles phantasy and rends the heart." This tendency to uniformity is adverse to progress and to happiness.

The path of evolution is one that leads from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, but our impulse to conformity turns us the other way. It gives supremacy to the mediocre natures that always preponderate in number; it suppresses genius, which is ever exceptional, and grinds our common humanity down to the universal level of the commonplace. "Is there no remedy for this?" Yes, there is a remedy within our reach, so soon as leading minds awake to full consciousness of the danger of our present position. On examining the question of our material welfare, in a former chapter, we found that Mr. Matthew Arnold enlightened us as to the great centre of evil from which there radiate-poverty, crime, disease, and exhorted us to let the light of reason play freely upon the population question, whereupon it became clear to us that intellect is capable of controlling adverse forces, and working out human happiness, in spite of the instinctive tendency which he showed as the great obstacle to our material progress.

Now, similarly here, Mr. J. Stuart Mill points to a central evil to the special obstacle, in short, which obstructs our mental and moral progress; and as in the former case, so here also we find that intellect can guide us. It must teach us how to take the force of union that is diffused amongst us, the gentle spirit of conformity that is at this moment working our * In his Essay on Manners and Fashion.

ruin, into our own hands (as it were), and forge out of it a strong chain, to hold back the tyranny of social conventionalism, and place a barrier around each and every individual, whether high or low, rich or poor, strong or weak, to guard his rights, and keep sacred his liberty of thought, word, and action, within the whole sphere of his personal or individual life.

For political liberty, for religious liberty, for class liberty, we have long been, and at this moment are still bravely fighting; but for social liberty-that is, individual freedom from the subtle tyranny of conventionalism—we have not yet begun to fight; and until we do, we are not upon the evolution path to natural social heterogeneity, the only true condition to bring about rapid mental and moral development. But my reader may say, "Why fight at all? What hinders individuals from preserving their own freedom in all social matters? Surely a man needs no aid to eat, to sleep, to dress, to see his friends, in short, to live out his personal life, according to his own ideas, and precisely as he chooses?" Strange as it may seem, he does require this aid. As a matter of fact, the tyranny of custom and fashion so press upon him at every point, that alone, he cannot maintain freedom without a fight, and if he fights unaided one primary result is injury to character.

Now, it so happens that development and preservation of character are precisely what we desire, and if we mar or hurt it in the individual (by thrusting upon him a struggle for personal liberty), we are simply frustrating our direct aim and object.

And here we have a point in reference to human nature which we must carefully observe. If an individual has worked out intellectual freedom for himself, and is compelled to live a life of nonconformity in matters that he deems essential, he is certain to yearn tenderly and deeply for conformity with his fellows on every other side; and in all that he thinks less important, he will avoid eccentricity. He will eat, dress, live, like others if he can, although in doing so he suffers greatly. Individual strength of intellect does not suffice to oppose the social strength of intellectual weakness and folly; the latter is much the more powerful; and what we have to do is to subdue it by another social force that will dominate the tyranny of numbers, and protect the individual in his freedom.

The only force available for this purpose is a well-directed public opinion. Society in the aggregate is bound to protect

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individuals from tyranny, and the peculiarity in this case is that the tyranny is its own. Society, then, has to renounce tyranny; it has to change its own mental attitude, to cease from meddling interference, from petty exactions, from despotism in trifles, from all desire and demand for uniformity. It must set itself to desire variety, to show reverence for personal freedom, and sympathetic jealousy for individual rights, and, above all, it must brace itself to an energetic guarding of the liberty of each and every social unit with an eternal vigilance.

By union and co-operation we may (if we will) bring about general enlightenment-the opening of all eyes to the true nature of this despotism which enthrals our minds. Conventional custom means the rule of the unintelligent. We ought consciously and intelligently to reject its authority, and adopt that of principle or law, but law not of man's devising, but of his discovery only-the social law of civilized human nature, that "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.'

In some few directions the pressure of tyrannic conventionalism has led to union in opposition. For instance, a Rational Dress Association now exists which thus sets forth its purpose: "Female dress has reached an extreme pitch of extravagance both in form and expense, and even rich and fashionable ladies moan over the slavery to which they are subjected. The objects of this society are to promote the adoption according to individual taste and convenience, of a style of dress based upon considerations of health, comfort, and beauty, and to deprecate constant changes of fashion, which cannot be recommended on any of these grounds." This movement, then, appeared progressive. It was calculated to lead public opinion in a matter important to health and happiness, to ventilate the whole subject of dress, and gain freedom for individuals. "Women's dress," said one of the promoters, ought to facilitate freedom of movement." But behold, upon the 8th of February, 1883, at a meeting held in London, a lady speaker stated that the society had arrived at three conclusions, and one of these was, that "fluctuating fashion must be crystallized into some unchanging shape of dress"! Alas for freedom! We are to be as individuals physically free within our clothes, but we are not to be mentally free to choose our own clothes! Fashion is to rule us still; only, instead of a changeful dame who keeps us for ever on the move, she is to become rigid, and settle once for all what we poor women are

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to wear down the dark ages to the crack of doom! Let us beware. The law of social freedom is not to be obeyed by shaping new forms for tyranny to assume, and even union and co-operation may prove obstructive unless intelligence and knowledge guide them.

At the beginning of this chapter I quoted Mr. Spencer's words to an American; and now in ending my chapter I will remind my reader of his wise comments on the social state of the Americans. The American people, he said, retain the form of freedom, but there has been a considerable loss of the substance. The sovereign people are fast becoming a puppet which moves and springs as the wire-pullers determine. The remedy is a question of character. There is a lack of moral sentiments. . . . In short, the Americans and we sail in similar boats. Both nations are outwardly free, inwardly slavish. Both require conscientiousness; that is, love of truth and justice -a sense of individual rights, a sympathetic jealousy over the rights of others, and willingness to pay the price of liberty in an eternal vigilance.

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CHAPTER XIII.

OUR UNORGANIZED SOCIAL LIFE.

"Institutions left us from the past are no more diabolical than divine, being the fruit of necessary development."--PROFESSOR SEELEY.

"It will be our own fault if in our own land society is not organized upon a new foundation."-MISS SEDGWICK.

In this country, as we have seen, parental and other despotisms have marvellously relaxed. Arbitrary, visible authority has given way to respect for the individual; but a subtle, invisible authority the rule of Mrs. Grundy-has, on the contrary, vastly increased. This rule of Mrs. Grundy is a social force of entirely different nature from the inward, invisible force, which ultimately will regulate a perfect society, holding its units together in such relations as cannot fail to produce pure and innocent happiness. The latter is centred in each individual a power of self-control making pressure from without, to keep him in his true position, unnecessary, and removing from him all impulse to press upon or tyrannize over others. The former is a tyranny as complete as any system of outward control; only it is a tyranny of the mind rather than of the person, ruling through fear, and not through love as the future force will rule. It tends to crush individuality and repress. development of those qualities that beautify and ennoble human character. Whereas, on the one hand, the regulative force of self-control causes each social unit to resemble a majestic planet, revolving upon its own axis, and freely radiating forth in all directions its little portion of the cosmic light, this other force makes of the individual a piece of mechanism to be wound up and moved hither and thither, as Mrs. Grundy wills, and often put by her to base and ignoble uses.