 Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", His conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.Mill was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by his predecessor Jeremy Bentham.He contributed to the investigation of scientific methodology, though his knowledge of the topic was based on the writings of others, notably William Whewell, John Herschel, and Auguste Comte, and research carried out for Mill by Alexander Bain.