John Stuart Mill
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Reading and studying the life and works of John Stuart Mill can clearly show that through the course of his writings, his opinions and beliefs hinge upon one main idea. Many of these famous works appear to suggest, and not unreasonably so, that Mill was in fact a strong and devout elitist in the truest sense of the word with his "devotion" to the idea of democracy simply playing the role of a cover up to the ulterior motives lying behind the description of his elite state. However, the arguments, when examined more carefully, show that the one main idea which Mill unequivocally supports is not a that of a purely elitist state at all, but a system of democracy in which the most fit to rule due exactly that which they are most fit to do, rule. Though his ideology progresses and sways slightly with the changing times in which he lives and writes, his steadfastness to this central idea can be seen in countless places throughout his writings. Therefore Mill was both a democrat (though not in the Athenian sense) and an elitist (though not in the Platonic sense), and these two truths together support the argument that the type of government Mill would support and design resembled quite closely the republic in which Americans find ourselves today.
In The Spirit of the Age Mill explains the desire for a "Natural" state in comparison to the "Transitional" state that he says England is in at the time of his writings. It is obvious through the lengthy arguments laid out that a transitional state is not only undesirable and not beneficial but one in which, "The multitude are without a guide; and society is exposed to all the errors and dangers which are to be expected when person's who have never studied any branch of knowledge comprehensively and as a whole attempt to judge for themselves upon particular parts of it" (Spirit of the Age, 8-9). Likewise the transitional state is one of chaos and where, "authority does not exist at all, or, existing resides anywhere but in the most cultivated intellects, and the most exalted characters of the age" (Spirit of the Age, 19-20). This undesirable state of living and governing is contrasted by the "Natural" state in which, "those whose opinions the people follow, whose feelings they imbibe, and who practically and by common consent, perform the office of thinking for the people, are persons better qualified than any others whom the civilization of the age and country affords, to think and judge rightly and usefully" (Spirit of the Age, 17). The state that Mill hopes to set up is one where those who should rule do, and those who should not rule submit their authority to those in power...