pleasure, a great deal
might be said, which, however, I leave the reader to supply. But every
one will see that the nobler the power which is brought into play,
the greater will be the pleasure which it gives; for pleasure always
involves the use of one's own powers, and happiness consists in a
frequent repetition of pleasure. No one will deny that in this respect
the pleasures of sensibility occupy a higher place than either of
the other two fundamental kinds; which exist in an equal, nay, in
a greater degree in brutes; it is this preponderating amount of
sensibility which distinguishes man from other animals. Now, our
mental powers are forms of sensibility, and therefore a preponderating
amount of it makes us capable of that kind of pleasure which has to do
with mind, so-called intellectual pleasure; and the more sensibility
predominates, the greater the pleasure will be.[1]

[Footnote 1: Nature exhibits a continual progress, starting from the
mechanical and chemical activity of the inorganic world, proceeding
to the vegetable, with its dull enjoyment of self, from that to the
animal world, where intelligence and consciousness begin, at first
very weak, and only after many intermediate stages attaining its last
great development in man, whose intellect is Nature's crowning point,
the goal of all her efforts, the most perfect and difficult of all her
works. And even within the range of the human intellect, there are a
great many observable differences of degree, and it is very seldom
that intellect reaches its highest point, intelligence properly
so-called, which in this narrow and strict sense of the word, is
Nature's most consummate product, and so the rarest and most precious
thing of which the world can boast. The highest product of Nature
is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors
itself more plainly and completely than anywhere else. A man endowed
with this form of intelligence is in possession of what is noblest
and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in
comparison with which all others are small. From his surroundings he
asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got,
time, as it were, to polish his diamond. All other pleasures that are
not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all,
movements of will--desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to
what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in
th