again but the old delusion, for our ideal has no reality, and it can have none. The reality it calls for is its own, and it calls for it in that which is alien to its nature. It is permanent, and moments of sense are fleeting; it is objective, and they are not; it stays with us, and they must go. We have tried to find ourselves as this or that, and we are not this or that, and soon discover that not one nor any number of transitory sensations is our realization. We have made an end of the satisfaction of an appetite; the satisfaction of an appetite does not last, but an end does last, because in it we have set ourselves before ourselves to be realized; and, if an end is to satisfy us, it must be a permanent objective something, which when possessed we still have, and find ourselves really there.
We need not repeat how the idea of the act which, as an ideal satisfaction, remains present and survives the particular act, goes on to institute a process with no end (p. 87). We may notice how the thought of an end makes possible the artificial creation of appetite as a means to sensuous satisfaction, and further that here again is the origin of loathing. The perpetual unsatisfied want and disappointment, with their pain, are themselves transferred to and objectified in the idea of that which is lusted after, and now is both longed for and hated.
So far we have seen the nature of lust as compared with appetite; but the ideal voluptuary is not merely the man who lusts and is not satisfied. He reaches a level which, intellectually considered, is still higher. The failure of the objects of lust to give satisfaction, and the disappointment which ensues, provoke reflection which may take this turn. ‘My ends are objects in which I am to find pleasure, but I do not find it; and so there must be something wrong somewhere. I have made a mistake as to the end; the deceit was “an illusion of close association”; I wanted pleasure in the ends, and so I thought I wanted the ends; and the ends have fooled me. The attempt to realize the objective ends as ends in themselves was a delusion; I have proved by experience that none of these objects is the end I really want. I want them all, and yet I want none for itself; and that shows there is something in all which I want. What is this? It is my pleasure. The idea of my pleasure, apart from any particular sort of pleasant feeling, and apart from
