John_Mill

John Mill The struggle between liberty and authority in On Liberty can be categorized under two headings with the first demonstrating adverse force between liberty and authority and the second showing authoritative forms operating without a necessarily antagonistic manner alongside liberty. “ The struggle between liberty and authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar,”(662). This statement by John Mill reflects his view of the adverse position held by the ruler over the ruled. The ruler whether in the form of king, queen, or group of governing powers was necessary to ensure that persons were not preyed upon or harmed by other members of the community. However, the ruling body itself might following their own agenda when it conflicted with that of ruled be motivated to prey upon such members of the population. While the ruler would did indeed substantially lessen the number of weaker predators that a citizen might be subject to, it became evident that the ruler itself would become the most powerful and worried about predator of all. Liberty then came to be defined as the citizen’s ability to circumvent or limit the power mill, john, ruler, power, liberty, body, people, governing, first, certain, authority, upon, two, second, ruling, rulers, ruled, rule, population, often, interest, however, came, between, 663, under, struggle, should, own, over, might, members, itself, indeed, held, governmental, general