nature of the finite,' and, like virtue, either is, or is nearly allied to,
knowledge. The modern philosopher would remark that the indefinite is
equally real with the definite. Health and mental qualities are in the
concrete undefined; they are nevertheless real goods, and Plato rightly
regards them as falling under the finite class. Again, we are able to
define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are in the mind, but in so
far as they are manifested externally, and can therefore be reduced to rule
and measure. And if we adopt the test of definiteness, the pleasures of
the body are more capable of being defined than any other pleasures. As in
art and knowledge generally, we proceed from without inwards, beginning
with facts of sense, and passing to the more ideal conceptions of mental
pleasure, happiness, and the like.

2. Pleasure is depreciated as relative, while good is exalted as absolute.
But this distinction seems to arise from an unfair mode of regarding them;
the abstract idea of the one is compared with the concrete experience of
the other. For all pleasure and all knowledge may be viewed either
abstracted from the mind, or in relation to the mind (compare Aristot. Nic.
Ethics). The first is an idea only, which may be conceived as absolute and
unchangeable, and then the abstract idea of pleasure will be equally
unchangeable with that of knowledge. But when we come to view either as
phenomena of consciousness, the same defects are for the most part incident
to both of them. Our hold upon them is equally transient and uncertain;
the mind cannot be always in a state of intellectual tension, any more than
capable of feeling pleasure always. The knowledge which is at one time
clear and distinct, at another seems to fade away, just as the pleasure of
health after sickness, or of eating after hunger, soon passes into a
neutral state of unconsciousness and indifference. Change and alternation
are necessary for the mind as well as for the body; and in this is to be
acknowledged, not an element of evil, but rather a law of nature. The