On Liberty
Mill, On Liberty
Mill’s dedication, epigraph and all five chapters, with all fourteen notes and Courtney’s separately attributed introduction.
Edition: John Stuart Mill · Walter Scott Publishing edition, with W. L. Courtney’s introduction · Gutenberg #34901
Voices: Title and publication · Mill · Dedication · W. L. Courtney · INTRODUCTION. I. · W. L. Courtney · II. · W. L. Courtney · III. · Printed contents · Humboldt · Epigraph · CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. · CHAPTER II. OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. · CHAPTER III. OF INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OF THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING. · CHAPTER IV. OF THE LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL. · CHAPTER V. APPLICATIONS.
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…
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived…Read it in the reading room ›