====================== 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]