"I did not invent the word, but found it in one of Galt's novels, the 'Annals of the Parish,' in which the Scotch clergyman, of whom the book is a supposed autobiography, is represented as warning his parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become utilitarians. With a boy's fondness for a name and a banner I seized on the word, and for some years called myself and others by it as a sectarian appellation; and it came to be occasionally used by some others holding the opinions it was intended to designate. As those opinions attracted more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and opponents, and got into rather common use just about the time when those who had originally assumed it, laid down that along with other sectarian characteristics." It is pointed out, however, by Mr. Sidgwick in his article on Benthamism,[77] that Bentham himself suggested the name "Utilitarian," in a letter to Dumont, as far back as June, 1802. Mill explicitly states that it was his purpose in these Essays on Utilitarianism to expound a previously received doctrine of utility. Towards the close of his first chapter, containing General Remarks, he says (p. 6): "On the present occasion, I shall, without further discussion of the other theories, attempt to contribute something towards the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is susceptible of." He proceeds to explain that a preliminary condition of the rational acceptance or rejection of a doctrine is that its formula should be correctly understood. The very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of the Utilitarian formula was the chief obstacle which impeded its reception; the main work to be done, therefore, by a Utilitarian writer was to clear the doctrine from the grosser misconceptions. Thus the question would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed. His Essays purport throughout to be a defence and exposition of the Utilitarian doctrine.