Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 5 / Miscellaneous Later Essays

CHIPS FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP
F. MAX MÜLLER, M. A.,
FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTE, ETC.
VOLUME V.
MISCELLANEOUS LATER ESSAYS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
1881.

Presidential Address Delivered Before The Birmingham Midland Institute, October 20, 1879.
If there is one among the leaders of thought in England who, by the elevation of his character and the calm composure of his mind, deserved the so often misplaced title of Serene Highness, it was, I think, John Stuart Mill.
I doubt whether any of the principles for which Mill pleaded so warmly and strenuously in his Essay “On Liberty” would at the present day be challenged or resisted, even by the most illiberal of philosophers, or the most conservative of politicians. Mill's demands sound very humble to our ears. They amount to no more than this, “that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions so far as they concern the interests of no person but himself, and that he may be subjected to social or legal punishments for such actions only as are prejudicial to the interests of others.”