ABSTRACT
A hundred years ago all the up-to-date superior people were what was called Utilitarians. The name was badly chosen, and people made endless fun of them. They were supposed to want everything to be useful and to be quite indifferent to the mere pleasantness of things. It was said that they thought there was no use in a nightingale except that it could be roasted, or in a rose except that an expensive scent could be made from it. To this day, when people speak of a utilitarian age, or a utilitarian point of view, they mean the habit of regarding things not as they are in themselves but as a means to some end, generally money. The original Utilitarians did not think quite in this way. They thought that the only thing worth having was happiness, and they judged those things to be useful which tend to produce happiness. They would have said that if there is more pleasure to be got from the nightingale’s song than from the taste of the nightingale, the bird is more useful alive than dead. As far as their theories went, these men were no more utilitarian in the bad sense of the word than anybody else, but it is true that in their temperaments they were rather cold and rather prudent. They did not believe in acting upon impulse but thought that one should weigh the consequences of every possible action with the utmost care and choose that act the consequences of which would give the greatest balance of pleasure over pain in the world at large.
