The human faculties of perception, judgment, discriminative feeling, mental activity, and even moral preference, are exercised only in making a choice. He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best.
The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more than by believing a thing only because others believe it.
If the grounds of an opinion are not conclusive to the person’s own reason, his reason cannot be strengthened, but is likely to be weakened by his adopting it: and if the inducements to an act are not such as are consentaneous to his own feelings and character (where affection, or the rights of others are not concerned), it is so much done towards rendering his feelings and character inert and torpid, instead of active and energetic.
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.
衡量生命質量的標準之一就是人的生活是如何被選擇或抉擇的。
約翰·斯圖爾特·密爾認為集權主義國家或家長製的統治國家必然導致人的發育遲緩、思想狹隘和智力的萎縮。集權（包括封建家長製）環境裏，人就很容易習慣於不抉擇。沒有自由，你哪來的抉擇啊！？人的生命也就變成了循規蹈矩的重複，從精神的壓迫到物質資源的被剝削，統治階級將人變成了機器零件兒。
人隻有在作抉擇時，感知的功能才被使用，如判斷、心理活動，甚至道德取向等。按照傳統、風俗等做事的人做的不是抉擇，而是不抉擇！換言之，不抉擇的人可能是天生感知萎縮，或者後天的感知功能被集權或家長製等不同形式的“權威”壓抑或摧殘了。
人的道德和心理的感知功能隻有在被使用時才會發達，和四肢的使用是一個道理。隨波逐流、人言亦言，別人怎麽做、別人怎麽活，你也怎麽活，那就等於別人信什麽你也跟著信什麽。所以，感知功能沒有被使用。
當一個人的見解、看法等是基於不僅僅是自己的利益時，如事不關己高高掛起的人，或者習慣於“讓他人決定”的人，其感知功能會被削弱。這也是導致人的情感和性格、個性消極、倦怠的原因。
讓他人或自己生活世界的一部分為之抉擇的人不異於猩猩的模仿。隻有為自己做抉擇的人才是完全地支配和使用感知的能力、功用。簡言之，沒有自由的人首先失去了（自願的或不自願地）使用人類自身最本能的能力之一，即感知功能。
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