Conclusion

Abstract

Among early nineteenth-century British thinkers, there was a widely accepted view that contemporary society was a commercial, civilized society, in which the influence of an emerging commercial class was rapidly increasing. Mill shared this view. In the late 1830s, he attempted to give a systematic and comprehensive analysis of civilized society in terms of the concept of civilization, a concept which reflected to a great extent his understanding of American, as well as British, society. He regarded the rise of the commercial, middle class as of great importance in characterizing contemporary society. He saw the excessive exercise of power by the majority and a subsequent excessive degree of social uniformity, which tended to repress individuality—a central theme in his later works and particularly in On Liberty—as inevitable consequences of the rise of the middle class.