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Passage (John Stuart Mill, *On Liberty*, 1859, Ch. II, continued): "For while every one well knows himself to be fallible, few think it necessary to take any precautions against their own fallibility, or admit the supposition that any opinion, of which they feel very certain, may be one of the examples of the error to which they acknowledge themselves to be liable. Absolute princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects. People more happily situated, who sometimes hear their opinions disputed, and are not wholly unused to be set right when they are wrong, place the same unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by all who surround them, or to whom they habitually defer: for in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on the infallibility of 'the world' in general. And the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact; his party, his sect, his church, his class of society." Mill's claim that 'in proportion to a man's want of confidence in his own solitary judgment, does he usually repose, with implicit trust, on the infallibility of "the world" in general' most directly implies:

Apeople who doubt themselves end up trusting the group around them with the same uncritical confidence they have withheld from themselves.
Bsolitary judgment is always superior to collective judgment.
Cpeople learn over time to balance solitary and collective judgment.
Dthe world's opinions are inherently more reliable than an individual's.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. people who doubt themselves end up trusting the group around them with the same uncritical confidence they have withheld from themselves.
Mill is naming an irony: the very person who lacks confidence in **his own** judgment then transfers that *missing* confidence onto **the world's** judgment — without examining whether the world deserves it. The word *in proportion to* signals a direct trade-off: the less you trust yourself, the more you trust *the world*. - **B** and **D** state value claims Mill does not make in this sentence. - **C** introduces a developmental story Mill does not describe.
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