 Mills argues that the only way to make sense of the evident contradictions in modern European philosophy is to understand this body of work as distinguishing types of selves among the human race (Mills 1998). Because of these type-differences, anti-authoritarian reforms and demands for democracy were never meant to be extended to the colonies. Sub-persons (women, slaves, the members of inferior cultures) did not merit suffrage, freedom, consultation, or self-determination. There was debate over whether these groups would remain forever inferior, less than human, or whether they might advance (Boxill 2005). But even those, like Rousseau, who believed in the possibility of uplift, assumed that “persons” would be the ones showing “sub-persons” the way forward, and judging their progress.