ABSTRACT
John Stuart Mill's distinction implicitly permits censorship and restriction of liberty to a substantial degree. Its consequence is that an appropriate authority is entitled in good faith to engage in a particular act of suppression as long as the principle governing its action remains open to debate. The consideration that any principle of censorship is going to be limited to a specific type of subject-matter or a specific mode of expression brings the discussion back to the problem of the borderline case. The arbitrariness inherent in possibly acceptable censorship must be distinguished from an unacceptable arbitrary practice of censorship. If the foundations of education and censorship are regarded alike as requiring the idea of direction, the claim that censorship conflicts with human dignity would have to be regarded as correct. For many people restrictions of censorship largely represent arbitrary and often capricious interference with personal freedoms.
