Mr. Mill, however, went beyond this conception. He had a belief in pleasures, and thought human life by no means a poor thing to those who know how to make the best of it. It was essential both to the stability of his utilitarian philosophy, and to the contentment of his own temperament, that the reality of happiness should be vindicated, and he did both vindicate and attain it. A highly pleasurable excitement that should have no end, of course he did not think possible; but he regarded the two constituents of a satisfied life, much tranquillity and some excitement, as perfectly attainable by many men, and as ultimately attainable by very many more. The ingredients of this satisfaction he set forth as follows:--a willingness not to expect more from life than life is capable of bestowing; an intelligent interest in the objects of mental culture; genuine private affections; and a sincere interest in the public good. What, on the other hand, are the hindrances which prevent these elements from being in the possession of every one born in a civilised country? Ignorance; bad laws or customs, debarring a man or woman from the sources of happiness within reach; and 'the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering--such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection.'[6] But every one of these calamitous impediments is susceptible of the weightiest modification, and some of them of final removal. Mr. Mill had learnt from Turgot and Condorcet--two of the wisest and noblest of men, as he justly calls them (113)--among many other lessons, this of the boundless improvableness of the human lot, and we may believe that he read over many a time the pages in which Condorcet delineated the Tenth Epoch in the history of human perfectibility, and traced out in words of finely reserved enthusiasm the operation of the forces which should consummate the progress of the race. 'All the grand sources of human suffering,' Mr. Mill thought, 'are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is grievously slow--though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made--yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of selfish indulgence consent to be without' (_Utilitarianism_, 22). [Footnote 6: For this exposition see _Utilitarianism_, pp. 18-24.]