====================== HES POSTING ================== 
 
In Mill's Autobiography, there is a brief discussion of the  
manner in which the term "utilitarian" made its way into the  
language.  In Chapter III, Mill notes 
 
"It was in the winter of 1822-23 that I formed the plan of a little  
society, to be composed of young men agreeing in fundemental  
principles -- acknowledging utilty as their standard in ethics and  
politics, and a certain number of the principal corrollaries drawn  
from it in the philosophy I had accepted -- and meeting once a  
fortnight to read essays and discuss questions conformably to the  
premises thus agreed upon. The fact would hardly be worth mentioning,  
but for the circumstances, that the name I gave to the society I had  
planned was the Utilitarian Society. It was the first time that any  
one had taken the title of Utilitarian; and the term made its way  
into the language, from this humble source. I did not invent the  
word, but found it in one of Galt's novels, the Annals of the Parish,  
in which the Scotch clergymen, of whom the book is supposed to be an  
autobiography, is represented as warning his parishioners not to  
leave the Gospel and become utilitarian." 
 
I hope this passage adds a bit to the current discussion. 
 
Steven W. Nape 
Assistant Professor 
Division of Business and Social Sciences 
Gordon College 
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]