Author Date

2023-07-31

Degree Name

Department

History

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Defense Date

2023-07-31

Publication Date

2023-08-10

First Faculty Advisor

Paul Kerry

First Faculty Reader

Daniel Frost

Second Faculty Reader

Grant Madsen

Honors Coordinator

Daren Ray

Keywords

Corporatism, Britain, Victorian, Liberalism, Condition-of-England, Authoritarianism

Abstract

This thesis explores the divergent arguments that Thomas Carlyle and J.S. Mill make on the subject of liberty in their most influential works, Past and Present (1843) and On Liberty (1859), respectively. Whereas Carlyle presents a corporate vision of liberty, deriving from the visionary capabilities of heroic leaders, Mill defines liberty as fundamentally rooted in individual rights and, in the third chapter of his long essay, directly critiques Carlyle in a section of On Liberty, with striking evidence that Mill responds to rhetoric found in Past and Present. Understanding their theoretical divergences provides a new vantage point with which to approach Mill and Carlyle's famous political disagreements on such issues as slavery, Ireland, and democratic reform, and it also helps explicate the epistemological differences between these two men.