oes he, like John Stuart Mill, and everyone else I ever heard
of, speak of "higher and lower" or "better and worse" or "superior and
inferior" pleasures? And, if so, does he not perceive that he has given
away his case? For, when he says that one pleasure is "higher" or
"better" than another, he does not mean that it is greater in _quantity_
but superior in _quality_.

On page 7 of _Utilitarianism_, J.S. Mill says:--

"If one of the two (pleasures) is, by those who are competently
acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they
prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater
amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of
the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are
justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in
quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in
comparison, of small account."

But if pleasure be the sole good, the only possible criterion of
pleasures is quantity of pleasure. "Higher" or "better" can only mean
containing more pleasure. To speak of "better pleasures" in any other
sense is to make the goodness of the sole good as an end depend upon
something which, _ex hypothesi_, is not good as an end. Mill is as one
who, having set up sweetness as the sole good quality in jam, prefers
Tiptree to Crosse and Blackwell, not because it is sweeter, but because
it possesses a better kind of sweetness. To do so is to discard
sweetness as an ultimate criterion and to set up something else in its
place. So, when Mill, like everyone else, speaks of "better" or
"higher" or "superior" pleasures, he discards pleasure as an ultimate
criterion, and thereby admits that pleasure is not the sole good. He
feels that some pleasures are better than others, and determines their
respective values by the degree in which they possess that quality which
all recognise but none can define--goodness. By higher and lower,
superior and inferior pleasures we mean simply more good and less good
pleasures. There are, therefore, two different qualities, Pleasantness
and Goodness. Pleasure, amongst other things, may be good; but pleasure
cannot mean good. By "good" we cannot mean "pleasureable;" for, as we
see, there is a quality, "goodness," so distinct from pleasure that we
speak of pleasures that are more or less good without meaning pleasures
that are more or less pleasant. By "good," then, we do not mean