ABSTRACT
One of the most comprehensive and systematic works dealing with the relationship between the individual and the society in which they live is John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty. It was Mill’s thesis that individual liberty was the primary principle which should govern relations between the individual and society, and that there were large and important areas of human conduct which should be beyond the control of the state. Mill was worried by the tendency of the state, like some malign octopus, to take over more and more of the individual’s freedom of action.
