thing of which the world can boast. The highest product of Nature
is the clearest degree of consciousness, in which the world mirrors
itself more plainly and completely than anywhere else. A man endowed
with this form of intelligence is in possession of what is noblest
and best on earth; and accordingly, he has a source of pleasure in
comparison with which all others are small. From his surroundings he
asks nothing but leisure for the free enjoyment of what he has got,
time, as it were, to polish his diamond. All other pleasures that are
not of the intellect are of a lower kind; for they are, one and all,
movements of will--desires, hopes, fears and ambitions, no matter to
what directed: they are always satisfied at the cost of pain, and in
the case of ambition, generally with more or less of illusion. With
intellectual pleasure, on the other hand, truth becomes clearer and
clearer. In the realm of intelligence pain has no power. Knowledge is
all in all. Further, intellectual pleasures are accessible entirely
and only through the medium of the intelligence, and are limited by
its capacity. _For all the wit there is in the world is useless to him
who has none_. Still this advantage is accompanied by a substantial
disadvantage; for the whole of Nature shows that with the growth of
intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with
the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme
point.]

The normal, ordinary man takes a vivid interest in anything only in so
far as it excites his will, that is to say, is a matter of personal
interest to him. But constant excitement of the will is never an
unmixed good, to say the least; in other words, it involves pain.
Card-playing, that universal occupation of "good society" everywhere,
is a device for providing this kind of excitement, and that, too,
by means of interests so small as to produce slight and momentary,