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 recognise 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, 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