How To Be A Liberal: The Story of Freedom and the Fight for its Survival

by Ian Dunt

The early manuscript detailed how the relentless study and his father’s refusal to let him play with other children had left Mill so physically incapable that he would struggle to do up a tie, even as an adult. He attempted several passages in which he described these defects in detail, then decided against them and simply wrote: ‘I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity.’ Mill described how he had been left friendless for the entirety of his childhood. His father was the only person he spent meaningful time with, and he was a cold, distant, punishing figure. ‘I thus grew up,’ he wrote, ‘in the absence of love and in the presence of fear.’