ABSTRACT
Abram Lincoln Harris' intellectual affinity for John Stuart Mill is an odd one indeed. Harris misses the inherent dangers of the particular type of "fair" or meritocratic hierarchy present in the Millian version of the good society. The first paper is a short note Harris placed in the Journal of Political Economy in 1959 that contains correspondence between J. S. Mill and the Committee of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association for London dated in 1822. Harris attempts to come to terms with Mill's position in the East India Company where he was employed "as an official of a despotic government" at the same time that Mill was engaged in "espousal of the principles of civil and political freedom." According to Harris, Mill did not believe that the cultural and political inferiority of the native peoples was inherent or genetically based. It was, however, a reality that was best accommodated by the temporary expedient of external rule.
