nd 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
appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings
possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact,
proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part
of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which
conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of
desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a
sacrifice of happiness-that the superior being, in anything like equal
circumstances, is not happier than the inferior-confounds the two very
different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the
being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of
having them fully satisfied; and a highly-endowed being will always feel
that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted,
is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at
all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed
unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all
the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human
being dissatisfied than a pig