But to make a new Thermopylae we want a new Barbarian; and before we can recoil from temptation as the Stoics did, we must make pleasure as perilous and as terrible as it was under the Roman emperors.

Such developments of humanity are at their very essence abnormal; and to suppose that they could ever become the common type of character, would be as absurd as to suppose that all mankind could be kings.

I will take another instance that is more to the point yet.

A favourite positivist parable is that of the miser.

The miser in the first place desires gold because it can buy pleasure.