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.

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted
with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a
most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their
higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into
any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a
beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a
fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling
and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be
persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied
with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they
possess more than he, for the most complete satisfaction of all the
desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they
would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape
from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however
undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more
to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and is
certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type;
but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into
what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what
explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to
pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to
some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we
may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal
to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the
inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement,
both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most