be admitted as final. And there needs be the less hesitation to accept
this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no
other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity.
What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains,
or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general
suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains nor
pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with
pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is
worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings
and judgment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and
judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be
preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those
of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is
suspectible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

  I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly
just conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the directive
rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an indispensable
condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that
standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest
amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted
whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness,
there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the
world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism,
therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of
nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by
the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is
concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the bare
enunciation of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation
superfluous.

  According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained,
the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all
other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or
that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible
from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of
quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for
measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those
who in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their
habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best
furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, according to
the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily
also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined, the
rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an
existence such as has been described might be, to the greatest
extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so
far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.

  Against this doctrine, however, arises another class of objectors,
who say that happiness, in any form, cannot be the rational purpose of
human life and action; because, in the first place, it is
unattainable: and they contemptuously ask, what right hast thou to
be happy? a question which Mr. Carlyle clenches by the addition,
What right, a short time ago, hadst thou even to be? Next, they say,
that men can do without happiness; that all noble human beings have
felt this, and could not have become noble but by learning the
lesson of Entsagen, or renunciation; which lesson, thoroughly learnt
and submitted to, they affirm to be the beginning and necessary
condition of all virtue.

  The first of these objections would go to the root of the matter
were it well founded; for if no happiness is to be had at all by human
beings, the attainment of it cannot be the end of morality, or of
any rational conduct. Though, even in that case, something might still
be said for the utilitarian theory; since utility includes not
solely the pursuit of happiness, but the prevention or mitigation of
unhappiness; and if the former aim be chimerical, there will be all
the greater scope and more imperative need for the latter, so long
at least as mankind think fit to live, and do not take refuge in the
simultaneous act of suicide recommended under certain conditions by
Novalis. When, however, it is thus positively asserted to be
impossible that human life should be happy, the assertion, if not
something like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration. If by
happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it
is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure
lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions,
hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not
its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have
taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as
those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of
rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and
transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided
predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the
foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is
capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been
fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the
name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of
many, during some considerable portion of their lives. The present
wretched education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only
real hindrance to its being attainable by almost all.

  The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to
consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such
a moderate share of it. But great numbers of mankind have been
satisfied with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied life
appear to be two, either of which by itself is often found
sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and excitement. With much
tranquillity, many find that they can be content with very little
pleasure: with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a
considerable quantity of pain. There is assuredly no inherent