"I regard any considerable increase of human happiness, through mere changes in outward circumstances, unaccompanied by changes in the state of desires, as hopeless."[150] And in his _Autobiography_ speaking of his first reaction against Benthamism, he says: "I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances.... The cultivation of the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophical creed."[151] =The Social Affections as Direct Interest in Others.=--The importance of this changed view lies in the fact that it compels us to regard certain desires, affections, and motives as inherently worthy, because intrinsic constituent factors of happiness. Thus it enables us to _identify_ our happiness with the happiness of others, to find our good in their good, not just to seek their happiness as, upon the whole, the most effective way of securing our own. Our social affections are direct interests in the well-being of others; their cultivation and expression is at one and the same time a source of good to ourselves, and, intelligently guided, to others. Taken in this light, it is sympathetic emotion and imagination which make the standard of general happiness not merely the "desirable end," but the desired end, the effectively working object of endeavor. =Intrinsic Motivation of Regard for Others.=--If it is asked _why_ the individual should thus regard the well-being of others as an inherent object of desire, there is, according to Mill, but one answer: We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent _social_ beings. Hence we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and of our own good from our idea of others and of their good. The natural sentiment which is the basis of the utilitarian morality, which gives the idea of the social good weight with us, is the