And pleasure is the ordinary result of the action of the organs; pain is sometimes the result, but it is the extraordinary not the ordinary result. Whatever may be the degree of pain occasionally produced, or however protracted its duration, yet it is never the natural, that is, the usual or permanent state, either of a single organ, or of an apparatus, or of the system. The usual, the permanent, the natural condition of each organ, and of the entire system, is pleasurable. Abstracting, therefore, from the aggregate amount of pleasure, the aggregate amount of pain, the balance in favour of pleasure is immense. This is true of the ordinary experience of ordinary men, even taking their physical and mental states such as they are at present; but the ordinary physical and mental states, considered as sources of pleasure of every human being, might be prodigiously improved; and some attempt will be made, in a subsequent part of this work, to show in what manner and to what extent. It has been already stated that there are cases in which pleasure is manifestly given for its own sake; in which it is rested in as an ultimate object: but the converse is never found: in no case is the excitement of pain gratuitous. Among all the examples of secretion, there is no instance of a fluid, the object of which is to irritate and inflame: among all the actions of the economy, there is none, the object of which is the production of pain. Moreover, all such action of the organs, as is productive of pleasure, is conducive to their complete development, and consequently to the increase of their capacity for producing pleasure; while all such action of the organs as is productive of pain is preventive of their complete development, and consequently diminishes their capacity for producing pain. The natural tendency of pleasure is to its own augmentation and perpetuity. Pain, on the contrary, is self-destructive. Special provision is made in the economy, for preventing pain from passing beyond a certain limit, and from enduring beyond a certain time. Pain, when it reaches a certain intensity, deadens the sensibility of the sentient nerve; and when it lasts beyond a certain time, it excites new actions in the organ affected, by which the organ is either restored to a sound state, or so changed in structure that its function is wholly abolished. But change of structure and abolition of function, if extensive and permanent, are incompatible with the continuance of life. If, then, the actions of the economy, excited by pain, fail to put an end to suffering by restoring the diseased organ to a healthy state, they succeed in putting an end to it by terminating life. Pain, therefore, cannot be so severe and lasting as materially to preponderate over pleasure, without soon proving destructive to life.