What Mill in his earlier life thought about these foundations of the utilitarian doctrine, and the elaborate structure reared therefrom by Bentham, he has told us in his Autobiography, pp. 64 to 70. Subsequently Mill revolted, as we all know, against the narrowness of the Benthamist creed. While wishing to retain[81] the precision of expression, the definiteness of meaning, the contempt of declamatory phrases and vague generalities, which were so honourably characteristic both of Bentham and of his own father, James Mill, John Stuart decided to give a wider basis and a more free and "genial" character to the utilitarian speculations. Let us consider how Mill proceeded to give this "genial" character to the utilitarian philosophy. It must be admitted, he says,[82] that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures _chiefly_ in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former--that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. As regards Bentham, at least, Mill might have omitted the word _chiefly_. But according to Mill, there is no need why they should have taken such a ground. "They might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some _kinds_ of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd, that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone."