IN what he writes of “Liberty,” John Stuart Mill is most concerned to demonstrate that the right object of social order is to foster the development of character and to create higher types of individual manhood. With Herbert Spencer he represented during the nineteenth century the evolution of those eighteenth-century ideals of higher freedom and usefulness for the individual, out of which grew the American Constitution. From the time of Alfred the Great to that of John, and from John at Runnymede to Charles I. at the block, England slowly developed the idea of government for the man in opposition to the long-accepted theory that man exists by divine ordinance for government. That men may be, may do, may grow, with no other restriction than the equal right of each to equal opportunity—this is the fundamental principle of liberty as it has grown out of the long struggle of English-speaking peoples against arbitrary power. For this Mill stood with boldness in his generation, and it will be long before succeeding generations cease to feel his influence.

  He was born in London, May 20th, 1806. His “Logic,” which appeared in 1843, gave him standing as one of the foremost thinkers of England, and his reputation was further increased by his “Political Economy” in 1848. “Liberty,” which is perhaps his masterpiece, appeared in 1859. He wrote also “On the Subjection of Women,” “Auguste Comte and Positivism,” “England and Ireland,” “On the Irish Land Question,” and on allied topics of philosophy and political economy. He died at Avignon, France, May 8th, 1873.