ntended pleasure, and the
absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To
give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more
requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas
of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question.
But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on
which this theory of morality is grounded--namely, that pleasure, and
freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all
desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in any
other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in
themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention
of pain.

Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some
of the most estimable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To
suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than
pleasure--no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit--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 r