[360] It is obvious that if ‘desirability,’ in the above definition, were interpreted hedonistically, the term “health” would merely give us a new name for the general problem of utilitarian morality; not a new suggestion for its solution. I ought to say that the notions of “social welfare” or “wellbeing” are elsewhere used by Mr. Stephen, in the place of those here quoted, but I do not think that he means by them any more than what I understand him to mean by “health” or “efficiency”—i.e. that state of the social organism which tends to its preservation under the conditions of its existence.
[361] Book ii. chap. vi. § [3].
[362] I do not mean to assert that ‘play’ in some form is not necessary for physical health: but there is a long step from the encouragement of play, so far as salutary, to the promotion of social culture.
[363] It may be observed that the increased heterogeneity which the development of modern industry has brought with it, in the form of a specialisation of industrial functions which tends to render the lives of individual workers narrow and monotonous, has usually been regarded by philanthropists as seriously infelicific; and as needing to be counteracted by a general diffusion of the intellectual culture now enjoyed by the few—which, if realised, would tend pro tanto to make the lives of different classes in the community less heterogeneous.
[364] I do not mean that this sentiment is in my view incompatible with Utilitarianism; I mean that it must not attach itself to any subordinate rules of conduct, but only to the supreme principle of acting with impartial concern for all elements of general happiness.
[365] For example, Mr. Bain in Mind (Jan. 1883, pp. 48, 49).
[366] This sentence is not an exact quotation, but a summary of the doctrine set forth by J. S. Mill in his treatise On Liberty (Introduction).
[367] See Mill On Liberty, chap. iv. It may be observed that Mill’s doctrine is certainly opposed to common sense: since (e.g.) it would exclude from censure almost all forms of sexual immorality committed by unmarried and independent adults.