e case of ambition, generally with more or less of illusion. With
intellectual pleasure, on the other hand, truth becomes clearer and
clearer. In the realm of intelligence pain has no power. Knowledge is
all in all. Further, intellectual pleasures are accessible entirely
and only through the medium of the intelligence, and are limited by
its capacity. _For all the wit there is in the world is useless to him
who has none_. Still this advantage is accompanied by a substantial
disadvantage; for the whole of Nature shows that with the growth of
intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with
the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme
point.]

The normal, ordinary man takes a vivid interest in anything only in so
far as it excites his will, that is to say, is a matter of personal
interest to him. But constant excitement of the will is never an
unmixed good, to say the least; in other words, it involves pain.
Card-playing, that universal occupation of "good society" everywhere,
is a device for providing this kind of excitement, and that, too,
by means of interests so small as to produce slight and momentary,
instead of real and permanent, pain. Card-playing is, in fact, a mere
tickling of the will.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Vulgarity_ is, at bottom, the kind of consciousness in
which the will completely predominates over the intellect, where the
latter does nothing more than perform the service of its master, the
will. Therefore, when the will makes no demands, supplies no motives,
strong or weak, the intellect entirely loses its power, and the result
is complete vacancy of mind. Now _will without intellect_ is the most
vulgar and common thing in the world, possessed by every blockhead,
who, in the gratification of his passions, shows the stuff of which he
is made. This is the condition of mind called _vulgarity_, in which
the only active elements are the organs of sense, and that small
amount of intellect which is necessary for apprehending the data of
sense. Accordingly, the vulgar man is constantly open to all sorts of
impressions, and immediately perceives all the little trifling things
that go on in his environment: the lightest whisper, the most trivial
circumstance, is sufficient to rouse his attention; he is just like an
animal. Such a man's mental condition reveals itself in his face, in
his whole exterior; and hence that vulgar, repulsive appearance, which
is all the more off