Many philosophers, and among them very considerable thinkers, have regarded only that mode of pleasure which is peculiar to the lower phenomena of the class, and have entirely overlooked the fact that there exists a pleasure and a displeasure of a higher kind. David Hume, for example, betrays almost in every word that he has absolutely no idea of the existence of this higher class.[28] How general this oversight has been may be judged from the fact that language has no common name for it.[29] Yet the fact is undeniable and we propose now to elucidate it by a few examples. We have already said that we are endowed by nature with a pleasure for some tastes and an antipathy for others, both of which are purely instinctive. We also naturally take pleasure in clear insight, displeasure in error or ignorance. “All men,” says Aristotle in the beautiful introductory words of his _Metaphysics_,[30] “naturally desire knowledge.” This desire is an example which will serve our purpose. It is a pleasure of that higher form which is analogous to _self-evidence_ in the sphere of judgment. In our species it is universal. Were there another species which, while having different preferences from us in respect of sensible qualities, were opposed to us in loving error for its own sake and hating insight, then assuredly we should not in the latter as in the former case say: that it was a matter of taste, “de gustibus non est disputandum”; rather we should here answer decisively that such love and hatred were fundamentally absurd, that such a species hated what was undeniably good, and loved what was undeniably bad in itself. Now why, where the feeling of compulsion is equally strong, do we answer differently in the one case than in the other? The answer is simple. In the former case the feeling of compulsion was an instinctive impulse; in the latter the natural feeling of pleasure is a higher love, having the character of rightness.[31] We therefore notice when we ourselves have such a feeling, that its object is not merely loved and lovable, its opposite hated and unlovable, but also that the one is worthy of love, the other worthy of hatred, and therefore that one is good, the other bad. Another example. As we prefer insight to error, so also, generally speaking, we prefer joy (unless indeed it be joy in what is bad) to sadness. Were there beings among whom the reverse held good, we should regard such conduct as perverse, and rightly so. Here too it is because our love and our hatred are qualified as right. A third example is found in feeling itself so far as it is right and has the character of rightness. As was the case with the rightness and evidence of the judgment, so also the rightness and higher character of the feelings are also reckoned as good, while love of the bad is itself bad.[32]