On Liberty

John Stuart Mill was an egalitarian, but he also could recognize that there could be some negative consequences of greater equality along with a lot of positives. He seemed to let not only the working class vote, but also women vote. Was this the first time anyone had heard these arguments from him? There were things he had written before, I believe I'm correct to say, including some early things that actually went in a somewhat different direction and were less supportive of free speech. But you know, on liberty is really sort of the definitive statement; nobody reading it would have thought it was just a rehash of things you've done before.