Ebook: Utilitarianism, and the Contest in America

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), a British philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an advocate of utilitarianism, the ethical theory of his godfather, Jeremy Bentham, but his conception of it was very different from that of Bentham. His father's History of India was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. A contemporary record of his studies from eight to thirteen is published in Bain's sketch of his life. It suggests that his autobiography rather understates the amount of work done. His works include Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844), Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859), Auguste Comte and Positivism (1865), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), The Contest in America (1862), and Utilitarianism (1863).