Only when one cares enough to sacrifice that “part of the self which the good of our species requires” (Mill 1818, V.527) can individual exertion be directed towards the pursuit of social happiness. But it was a pursuit neither for the narrow-minded nor for the faint-hearted. For this reason, Mill thought that no great public good could “rest with safety on any thing so precarious, as the chance of extraordinary virtue in particular men” (Mill 1816, 248). “Is it according to the experience of human nature, that men with the powers of government in their hands are angels and have never any propensity to oppress?”, he wondered (Mill 1813d, 464).