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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." Which of the following best describes the relationship Mill draws between absolute princes and people 'more happily situated'?

AThey are entirely different in their relation to confidence and dissent.
BPeople 'more happily situated' are immune to the error princes fall into.
CAbsolute princes are more humble than ordinary people.
DThey differ only in scale: princes are confidently wrong about everything, while ordinary people are confidently wrong only about views shared by their immediate circle.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: D. They differ only in scale: princes are confidently wrong about everything, while ordinary people are confidently wrong only about views shared by their immediate circle.
Mill's structure: princes show *complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects* — total. Ordinary people show *the same unbounded reliance only on such of their opinions as are shared by all who surround them*. Same psychology, smaller domain. The key phrase is *the same unbounded reliance* — Mill is explicitly mapping princes' total confidence onto ordinary people's partial confidence. **B** captures both halves. - **A** ignores the *same* relation Mill draws. - **C** treats happily-situated people as immune; Mill insists they are merely *less totally* confident. - **D** reverses the comparison.
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