“Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end,” John Stuart Mill, son of the legendary father, wrote in 1859.[43] In two canonical texts, On Liberty (1859) and Considerations on Representative Government (1861), he juxtaposed civilization and barbarism to create new ideological idioms advocating for a narrative of human development that was intimately bound with Britain’s civilizing mission.[44]
