In "The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage," Almroth Edward Wright articulates a controversial position against the movement for women's voting rights in early 20th-century Britain. The book is characterized by its incisive rhetorical style, combining a blend of scientific reasoning, sociopolitical analysis, and anecdotal evidence that reflects the era's patriarchal paradigms. Wright employs a variety of sources, critically examining the implications of enfranchisement on societal st...

On Liberty is a philosophical work by 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and economic freedom of individuals from the state.Perhaps the most memorable point made by Mill in this work, and his basis for liberty, is that "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign". Mill is compelled to say this in opposition to what he calls the "tyranny of the maj...

Collected here in a single volume for the first time, On Liberty, Utilitarianism, Considerations on Representative Government, and The Subjection of Women show Mill applying his liberal utilitarian philosophy to a range of issues that remain vital today - issues of the nature of ethics, the scope and limits of individual liberty, the merits of and costs of democratic government, and the place of women in society. In his Introduction John Gray describes these essays as applications of Mill'...

French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville's classic treatise on the American way of life.Over 175 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville, an astute political scientist, came to the United States to evaluate the meaning and actual functioning of democracy. Here, Tocqueville discusses the advantages and dangers of majority rule—which he thought could be as tyrannical as the rule of a monarchy. He analyzes the influence of political parties and the press on the government and t...

'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' To this 'one very simple principle' the whole of Mill's essay On Liberty is dedicated. While many of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, from Adam Smith to Godwin and Thoreau, had celebrated liberty, it was Mill who organized the idea into a philosophy, and put it into the form in which it is generally known today.The editor of this essay, Gertrude Himmelfarb records responses to Mill's books and com...

The writings of John Stuart Mill have become the cornerstone of political liberalism. Collected for the first time in this volume are Mill’s three seminal and most widely read works: On Liberty, The Subjection of Women, and Utilitarianism. A brilliant defense of individual rights versus the power of the state, On Liberty is essential reading for anyone interested in political thought and theory. As Bertrand Russell reflected, “On Liberty remains a classic . . . the presen...

These two essays by John Stuart Mill, England's greatest nineteenth-century philosopher, are the fruit of six hundred years of progressive thought about individual rights and the responsibilities of society. Together they provide the moral and theoretical justification for liberal democracy as we know it, and their incalculable influence on modern history testifies not only to the force of their arguments, but also to the power ideas can have over human affairs.

A prodigiously brilliant thinker who sharply challenged the beliefs of his age, the political and social radical John Stuart Mill was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century. Regarded as one of the sacred texts of liberalism, his great work On Liberty argues lucidly that any democracy risks becoming a 'tyranny of opinion' in which minority views are suppressed if they do not conform with those of the majority. Written in the same period as On Liberty, sh...

John Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. It went through four editions during Mill's lifetime with minor additions and revisions.Although Mill includes discussions of utilitarian ethical principles in other works such as On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, Utilitarianism c...

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was considered to be one of the most important and influential figures in Western philosophy for his work in the areas of metaphysics, anthropology, theoretical physics, logic, and moral philosophy. Remarkably, Kant never left the town of Königsberg, Germany, where he had been born, received schooling, and served as lecturer at the University. Despite his provinciality, Kant developed original and comprehensive ideas in the field of politics, including his opposit...

Spencer had caught a vision of what might be in store for mankind if its potential were free to realize itself.— Edmund A. Opitz, The FreemanThis volume contains the four essays that Spencer published as The Man Versus the State in 1884 as well as five essays added by later publishers. In addition, it provides "The Proper Sphere of Government," an important early essay by Spencer.Spencer develops various specific disastrou...

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century". Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. Hoping to remedy the prob...