It is desirable to begin the critical section of this essay by defending its account of Mill's doctrine against passages in his writing which suggest that the doctrine was more libertarian, and more simply individualistic, than the present writer has been willing to allow. For there can, at first sight, be no mistaking the libertarian character of the great body of Mill's expressions. Chapter V of On Liberty is an assault on the ‘despotism of custom’, conformity and mediocrity, a sustained plea for eccentricity, diversity and individual liberty. On Liberty, as a whole, looks like unambiguous criticism of the tendency, in all European societies, to destroy ‘[the] remarkable diversity of character and culture’ prevailing a century before Mill wrote, the expression of doubt about the tendency said to characterize the education given in Mill's day, ‘to bring people under common influences and give them access to the general store of facts and sentiments’, and a protest against the ‘ascendancy of public opinion in the State’. These criticisms lead to the conclusion that ‘the combination of all these causes forms so great a mass of influences hostile to Individuality’ that it is only by making ‘the intelligent part of the public … see that it is good there should be differences, even though not for the better’ that the disagreeable situation will be avoided in which ‘all deviations … from one uniform type … [are] considered impious, immoral, even monstrous and contrary to nature’.