On Liberty
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~55,200 words · 262 passages
- W. L. Courtney — introduction
Cite this work
- APAJohn Stuart Mill. (n.d.). On Liberty. The Walter Scott Publishing Co.. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty
- MLAJohn Stuart Mill. On Liberty. The Walter Scott Publishing Co.. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty.
- ChicagoJohn Stuart Mill. On Liberty. The Walter Scott Publishing Co.. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/john-stuart-mill/on-liberty.
Reference to the reproduced edition. SigPhi is the digital reproduction, not the publisher. Year, publisher and translator are included when recorded; “n.d.” means the year is unknown. Responsibility for an introduction or note depends on the passage cited.
What it is about
The classic defence of individual liberty: the only legitimate reason to exercise power over anyone against their will is to prevent harm to others — never their own good, nor the opinion of the majority.
Context and history
Published in 1859, the same year as 'On the Origin of Species'. Mill conceived it with his wife, Harriet Taylor, who had died the year before; the dedication calls it half hers, and he refused ever to revise a line of it. What troubled him was not so much the tyrant as a newer threat: the tyranny of the majority and of custom in democratic societies, the social suffocation of anyone who thinks differently. It is the work that has set the terms of the free-speech debate to this day.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
years were very much influenced by his friendship and correspondence with Comte, a curious comradeship between men of such different temperament. In 1848 Mill published his _Political Economy_, to which he had given his serious study since the completion of his _Logic_. His articles and reviews, though they involved a good deal of work--as, for instance, the re-perusal of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ in the original before reviewing Grote's _Greece_--were recreation to the student. The year 1856 saw him head of the Examiners' Office in the India House, and another two years brought the end of his official work, owing to the transfer of India to the Crown. In the same year his wife died. _Liberty_ was published shortly after, as well as the _Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform_, and no year passed without Mill making important contributions on the political, philosophical, and ethical questions of the day. Seven years after the death of his wife, Mill was invited to contest Westminster. His feeling on the conduct of elections made him refuse to take any personal action in the matter, and he gave the frankest expression to his political views, but nevertheless he was elected by a large majority. He was not a conventional success in the House; as a speaker he lacked magnetism. But his influence was widely felt. "For the sake of the House of Commons at large," said Mr. Gladstone, "I rejoiced …
Themes in this work
Quotes
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction.”
“He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.”
“The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.”
“The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained.”