pleasure more valuable than the primitive pleasures, both in permanency,
in the space of human existence that they are capable of covering, and
even in intensity. Virtue, according to the utilitarian conception, is a
good of this description. There was no original desire of it, or motive
to it, save its conduciveness to pleasure, and especially to protection
from pain. But through the association thus formed, it may be felt a
good in itself, and desired as such with as great intensity as any other
good; and with this difference between it and the love of money, of
power, or of fame, that all of these may, and often do, render the
individual noxious to the other members of the society to which he
belongs, whereas there is nothing which makes him so much a blessing to
them as the cultivation of the disinterested, love of virtue. And
consequently, the utilitarian standard, while it tolerates and approves
those other acquired desires, up to the point beyond which they would be
more injurious to the general happiness than promotive of it, enjoins
and requires the cultivation of the love of virtue up to the greatest
strength possible, as being above all things important to the general
happiness.

It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality
nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as
a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is
desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself
until it has become so. Those who desire virtue for its own sake, desire
it either because the consciousness of it is a pleasure, or because the
consciousness of being without it is a pain, or for both reasons united;
as in truth the pleasure and pain seldom exist separately, but almost
always together, the same person feeling pleasure in the degree of
virtue attained, and pain in not having attained more. If one of these
gave him no pleasure, and the other no pain, he would not love or desire