In seeking to explain his opinions on a timeless subject;the relations between the sexes;John Stuart Mill admits that he has undertaken an arduous task. For "there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of all those which gather round and protect old institutions and customs, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress of the great modern spiritual and social transition."Yet typically in this essay Mill assails a system of inequality which he feels supports and encourages the subjection of one individual by another and raises questions about the nature and relationship of power and liberty. He proposes to tap the existing climate of opinion that would admit to the great injustice of excluding half the human race from decent occupations and public function on the basis of sex.