they designate as utterly mean and grovelling as a doctrine worthy only of swine to whom the followers of Epicurus were at a very early period contemptuously likened and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German French and English assailants When thus attacked the Epicureans have always answered that it is not they but their accusers who represent human nature in a degrading light since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable If this supposition were true the charge could not be gainsaid but would then be no longer an imputation for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading precisely because a beast s pleasures do not satisfy a human being s conceptions of happiness Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites and when once made conscious of them do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification I do not indeed consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of consequences from the utilitarian principle To do this in any sufficient" manner many Stoic as well as Christian elements require to be included But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect of the feelings and imagination and of the moral sentiments a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation It must be admitted however that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency safety uncostliness &c of the former - that is in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case but they might have taken the other and as it may be called higher ground with entire consistency It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others It would be absurd that while in estimating all other things quality is considered as well as quantity the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another merely as a pleasure except its being greater in amount there is but one possible answer Of two pleasures if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it that is the more desirable pleasure If one of the two is