# Quote — John Stuart Mill, Autobiography > I thought the predominance of the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English Constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small inconvenience, but as the great demoralizing agency in the country. Demoralizing, first, because it made the conduct of the government an example of gross public immorality, through the predominance of private over public interests in the State, and the abuse of the powers of legislation for the advantage of classes. Secondly, and in a still greater degree, because the respect of the multitude always attaching itself principally to that which, in the existing state of society, is the chief passport to power; and under English institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the signs of riches, were almost the only things really respected, and the life of the people was mainly devoted to the pursuit of them. I thought, that while the higher and richer classes held the power of government, the instruction and improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render the people more powerful for throwing off the yoke: but if the democracy obtained a large, and perhaps the principal, share in the governing power, it would become the interest of the opulent classes to promote their education, in order to ward off really mischievous errors, and especially those which would lead to unjust violations of property. On these grounds I was not only as ardent as ever for democratic institutions, but earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. Simonian, and all other anti-property doctrines might spread widely among the poorer classes; not that I thought those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted on, but in order that the higher classes might be made to see that they had more to fear from the poor when uneducated, than when educated. - Author: [John Stuart Mill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill.md) - Book: [Autobiography](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography.md) - Page: 171 - Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Ch._5:_A_Crisis_in_My_Mental_History._One_Stage_Onward.) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)) - Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [power](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power.md), [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md) - Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/i-thought-the ## More from this book > The practical reformer has continually to demand that changes be made in things which are supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to question the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of established facts; and it is often an indispensable part of his argument to show, how these powerful feelings had their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary and indefeasible. There is therefore a natural hostility between him and a philosophy which discourages the explanation of feelings and moral facts by circumstances and association, and prefers to treat them as ultimate elements of human nature; a philosophy which is addicted to holding up favorite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems intuition to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking with an authority higher than that of our reason. In particular, I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. p. 273 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/the-practical-reformer.md) Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [character](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/character.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md) > I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/i-well-knew.md) Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md) > It is the character of the British people, or at least of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for the British people, that to induce them to approve of any change, it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance; my proposal was condemned, but any scheme for Irish Land reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by comparison. p. 294 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-stuart-mill/autobiography/it-is-the.md) Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [change](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/change.md)