On Liberty
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Mill, John Stuart
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 283239
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: opinion
subject: society
subject: opinions
subject: people
subject: absolute
subject: essential
subject: importance
subject: human
subject: development
subject: richest
subject: diversity
subject: mill
subject: john
subject: stuart
subject: liberty
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: mill-on-215.txt
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plain html: mill-on-215.htm
sort title: On Liberty
full text: 1859 ON LIBERTY by John Stuart Mill DEDICATION The grand, leading principle, towards which every argument unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the absolute and essential importance of human development in its richest diversity. WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT: Sphere and Duties of Government. TO the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my writings- the friend and wife whose exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation was my chief reward- I dedicate this volume. Like all that I have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable advantage of her revision; some of the most important portions having been reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one half the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should be the medium of a greater benefit to it, than is ever likely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but unrivalled wisdom. Chapter 1 Introductory THE SUBJECT of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that, in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more civilised portions of the species have now entered, it presents itself under new conditions, …