[This document is annotation to the author's transcription of Charles Dickens's "The Lost Arctic Voyagers" (1854).]
Utilitarianism is a doctrine which Dickens attacked specifically in the novel Hard Times (1854). Inculcating the principle of "The greatest good for the greatest number," philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1747-1832) founded the school, although John Stuart Mill (1806-73) actually coined the term. Dickens objected to this philosophy of expediency because he believed that it trampled upon the rights and feelings of the individual and seemed fundamentally opposed in spirit to "fancy" and works of the imagination.
[Back to the text of Dickens's "The Lost Arctic Voyagers"]
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Last modified 8 July 2004