"On Liberty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mill John Stuart)

subjects, and the Government. By liberty, was meant protection against
the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except
in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily
antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of
a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their
authority from inheritance or conquest, who, at all events, did not
hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did
not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever
precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their
power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a
weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less
than against external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the
community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures, it was
needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest,
commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures
would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any of the
minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of
defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots
was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to
exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant
by liberty. It was attempted in two ways. First, by obtaining a
recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or
rights, which it was to be regarded as a breach of duty in the ruler
to infringe, and which if he did infringe, specific resistance, or
general rebellion, was held to be justifiable. A second, and generally
a later expedient, was the establishment of constitutional checks,
by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort,
supposed to represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to
some of the more important acts of the governing power. To the first
of these modes of limitation, the ruling power, in most European
countries, was compelled, more or less, to submit. It was not so
with the second; and, to attain this, or when already in some degree
possessed, to attain it more completely, became everywhere the
principal object of the lovers of liberty. And so long as mankind were
content to combat one enemy by another, and to be ruled by a master,
on condition of being guaranteed more or less efficaciously against
his tyranny, they did not carry their aspirations beyond this point.

A time, however, came, in the progress of human affairs, when men
ceased to think it a necessity of nature that their governors should
be an independent power, opposed in interest to themselves. It
appeared to them much better that the various magistrates of the State
should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure.
In that way alone, it seemed, could they have complete security that
the powers of government would never be abused to their
disadvantage. By degrees this new demand for elective and temporary
rulers became the prominent object of the exertions of the popular
party, wherever any such party existed; and superseded, to a
considerable extent, the previous efforts to limit the power of
rulers. As the struggle proceeded for making the ruling power