<P> Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation ." Classical liberalism, existentialism, and anarchism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis . Individualism thus involves "the right of the individual to freedom and self - realization". </P> <P> It has also been used as a term denoting "The quality of being an individual; individuality" related to possessing "An individual characteristic; a quirk ." Individualism is thus also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self - creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors as so also with humanist philosophical positions and ethics . </P> <P> In the English language, the word "individualism" was first introduced, as a pejorative, by the Owenites in the late 1830s, although it is unclear if they were influenced by Saint - Simonianism or came up with it independently . A more positive use of the term in Britain came to be used with the writings of James Elishama Smith, who was a millenarian and a Christian Israelite . Although an early Owenite socialist, he eventually rejected its collective idea of property, and found in individualism a "universalism" that allowed for the development of the "original genius ." Without individualism, Smith argued, individuals cannot amass property to increase one's happiness . William Maccall, another Unitarian preacher, and probably an acquaintance of Smith, came somewhat later, although influenced by John Stuart Mill, Thomas Carlyle, and German Romanticism, to the same positive conclusions, in his 1847 work "Elements of Individualism". </P> <P> An individual is a person or any specific object in a collection . In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual means "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person ." (q.v. "The problem of proper names"). From the 17th century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism . Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires . </P>

Where did the idea of individualism come from