It was in the year 1869 that, impressed with the degree in which, even
during the last twenty years, when the world seemed so wholly occupied
with other matters, the socialist ideas of speculative thinkers had
spread among the workers in every civilized country, Mr. Mill formed
the design of writing a book on Socialism. Convinced that the
inevitable tendencies of modern society must be to bring the questions
involved in it always more and more to the front, he thought it of
great practical consequence that they should be thoroughly and
impartially considered, and the lines pointed out by which the best
speculatively-tested theories might, without prolongation of suffering
on the one hand, or unnecessary disturbance on the other, be applied
to the existing order of things. He therefore planned a work which
should go exhaustively through the whole subject, point by point; and
the chapters now printed are the first rough drafts thrown down
towards the foundation of that work. These chapters might not, when
the work came to be completely written out and then re-written,
according to the author's habit, have appeared in the present order;
they might have been incorporated into different parts of the work. It
has not been without hesitation that I have yielded to the urgent wish
of the editor of this Review to give these chapters to the world; but
I have complied with his request because, while they appear to me to
possess great intrinsic value as well as special application to the
problems now forcing themselves on public attention, they will not, I
believe, detract even from the mere literary reputation of their
author, but will rather form an example of the patient labor with
which good work is done.