James Mill thought that “of all the circumstances which affect the happiness, the beauty, and order, and well-being of society, by far the most important” is individual character (Mill 1813a, 97). The shaping of character was no simple matter. From the domestic to the political sphere, many institutions played a part in the “elevation of the people”: elevation “above ignorance, above swinishness, above prostitute servility, above oppression, above delusion religious or political, above grovelling vice, above subjection to the irrational passions” (Mill 1813c, 345; Plassart 2008 and 2019). To adapt a famous Stoic idea, as we move from the inner to the outer concentric circles of affection and concern for one's self and for others, it becomes increasingly difficult (impossible even without conducive physical and moral circumstances), to abstain from doing harm or do positive good to others. As we saw, without strong associations, the knowing subject’s mind hardly takes cognizance of the interests or even the existence of others outside the narrow circle of one's self, family, friends and associates.