It would seem, then, that for the mass of mankind there is small prospect indeed of achieving happiness through high aspirations. They will not have time nor opportunity for indulging them. If they look for happiness solely to such aspirations they must be disappointed, and cannot have a satisfied life; if they attempt to combine the higher and lower lives they are likely to "break down in the ineffectual attempt." Now, I submit that, under these circumstances, it is folly, according to Mill's scheme of morality, to aim high; it is equivalent to going into a life-lottery, in which there are no doubt high prizes to be gained, but few and far between. It is simply gambling with hedonic stakes; preferring a small chance of high enjoyment to comparative certainty of moderate pleasures. Mill clearly admits this when he says (p. 14), "It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect."
Although, then, "the foundation of the whole" is not to expect from life more than it is capable of bestowing, we are actually to prefer becoming highly endowed, although we cannot expect life to satisfy the corresponding aspirations. That is to say, although seeking for happiness, we are to prefer the course in which we are approximately certain of not obtaining it.
But Mill goes on to give some explanations. He says that the highly endowed being can learn to bear the imperfections of his happiness, "if they are at all bearable" (p. 14). This is small comfort if they happen to be _not at all bearable_, an alternative which is not further pursued by Mill. And will not this intolerable fate be most likely to befall those whose aspirations have been pitched most highly? But Mill goes on:
"They (that is, the imperfections of life or happiness?) will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides."