The four essays here collected, for the first time, in a single volume, show Mill applying his liberal utilitarian philosophy to a range of issues that remain vital today--issues of the nature of ethics, the scope and limits of individual liberty, the merits and costs of democratic government, and the place of women in society. Contrary to the common view, these essays show Mill to be a systematic and consistent thinker rather than the muddled eclectic of traditional interpretations. Mill emerges as a thinker no less ambitious than Marx, and one whose concerns are as much our own as his.