In the foregoing exposition I have, I trust, evinced a sincere desire to give Utilitarianism its full due, and I shall at least be admitted to have shown myself entirely free from most of those more vulgar misconceptions of its nature which have given its professors such just offence. Many of its assailants have not scrupled to stigmatise as worthy only of swine a doctrine which represents life as having no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit than pleasure. To these, however, it has, by the great apostle of Utilitarianism, been triumphantly replied that it is really they themselves who insult human nature by using language that assumes human beings to be capable of no higher pleasures than those of which swine are capable; and that, moreover, if the assumption were correct, and if the capacities of men and of swine were identical, whatever rule of life were good enough for the latter would likewise be good enough for the former. But I am not an assailant of this description. Inasmuch as there undeniably are very many and very various kinds of pleasure, I of course allow Utilitarianism credit for common sense enough to acknowledge that those kinds are most worthy of pursuit which, from whatever cause, possess most value--that those which are most precious are those most to be prized. But whoever allows thus much will have no alternative but to concede a great deal more. The most precious of pleasures is that which arises from the practice of virtue, as may be proved conclusively in the only way of which the case admits, viz., by reference to the fact that, whoever is equally acquainted with that and with other pleasures, deliberately prefers it to all the rest, will, if necessary, forego all others for its sake, and values no others obtainable only at its expense. By necessary implication it follows that, as being more valuable than any other, the pleasure arising from the practice of virtue must be that which Utilitarianism recommends above all others as an object of pursuit. But the pursuit of this particular pleasure and the practice of virtue are synonymous terms. What, therefore, Utilitarianism above all other things recommends and insists upon is the practice of virtue. Now, the practice of virtue commonly involves subordination of one's own interest to that of other people; indeed, virtue would not be virtue in the utilitarian sense of the word unless it did involve such subordination. Wherefore the pleasure arising from the practice of virtue, the pleasure which occupies the highest place on the utilitarian scale, and that which Utilitarianism exhorts its disciples chiefly to seek after, is nothing else than the pleasure derived from attending to other people's pleasure instead of to our own.