3. An interest is _satisfaction_. It is its own reward. It is not a striving for something unrealized, or a mere condition of tension. It is the satisfaction in some object which the mind already has. This object may be possessed in some greater or less degree, in full realization or in faint grasp, but interest attaches to it as possessed. This differentiates it from desire, even where otherwise the states are the same. Desire refers to the lack, to what is not present to the mind. One state of mind may be called both interest in, and desire for, knowledge, but desire emphasizes the unknown, while interest is on account of the finding of self, of intelligence, in the object. Interest is the union in feeling, through action, of self and an object. An interest in life is had when a man can practically identify himself with some object lying beyond his immediate or already acquired self and thus be led to further expression of himself. To have an interest, then, is to be alert, to have an object, and to find satisfaction in an activity which brings this object home to self. Not every interest carries with it _complete_ satisfaction. But no interest can be wholly thwarted. The purer the interest, the more the interest is in the object for its own sake, and not for that of some ulterior consequence, the more the interest fulfills itself. "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all", and love is simply the highest power of interest--interest freed from all extrinsic stuff. Of the interests, two abstract forms may be recognized, interest in persons and interest in things. And these may be subdivided: Interest in persons: interest in _self_ and _others_. Interest in things--into their contemplation (_knowledge_) and into their production (_art_). And art again may be either productive of things to be contemplated (fine art), or useful--manufactures, industry, etc. The moral end, then, or the Good will consist in the exercise of these interests, varied as they may be in each individual by the special turn which his capacities and opportunities take. XXXV. The Exercise of Interests as the Moral End. Let us now, as a means of rendering our conception of the moral end more concrete, consider briefly each of the forms of interest.