... to live his life the wrong way than be made to live the right way. Mill was influenced by Alexis de Tocqueville, whose work, Democracy in America (2) opened Mills eyes to how democracy exposed liberty to new dangers. The driving force of democracy is the will of the majority and Mill was concerned that this left every aspect of life exposed to social scrutiny and regulation, and he feared the "tyranny of the majority" (3). He felt that democracy, if left unrestrained, could pose a threat to the minority and individual autonomy. The two great values of democracy; majority rule and minority liberty are often incompatible and Mill was one of the first to investigate this unresolved area in his essay On Liberty. On Liberty concerned the "nature and limits of power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual" (4), he sought to distinguish the destructive oppression ...

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