Among those moral philosophers who see in pleasurable emotions the aim of Morality, its reward and its incentive, we must distinguish two groups: those who understand by pleasurable emotions such as appeal to the senses--the Hedonists; and those who spiritualize the meaning of the word and expect of Morality not an immediate bodily gratification, a pleasure, or an insipid satisfaction of the sense, but lasting happiness--the Eudæmonists. At the first glance the Eudæmonists seem to have a higher and more worthy conception of the subjective reaction of moral conduct than have the Hedonists; for the satisfaction the former expect and promise does not apply to the lower spheres of our organic life, but to the loftiest functions of our mind, from which alone a feeling of happiness can emanate.
But if we look into the matter more closely we find that to draw a sharp distinction between the Hedonists and Eudæmonists is more than a little arbitrary. For Pleasure and Happiness differ hardly at all in essentials, but chiefly in degree; and this would at once be obvious if one only took the trouble to define the two ideas, which, however, is mostly not done. And with good reason, for it is impossible to explain Pleasure. You can use synonyms for it; you can look wise and say: Pleasure is that which is agreeable, or that which one desires, that in which one delights, or a certain quality of feeling which accompanies such organic processes as strengthen or vitalize the system; but all that this amounts to is to say in a roundabout way, Pleasure is Pleasure. It is a fundamental fact of our inner consciousness, just as inexplicable as life, or as its antithesis, Pain. But if we assume that Pleasure is something given by subjective experience, then the idea of Happiness can be defined. Happiness is a flooding of the consciousness with sunshine; it is enjoyment of the moment, a sense of living in the present accentuated by pleasurable emotion. If this feeling is organically differentiated, that is, if it springs from a certain section of the mind or mechanism of the body and can be located there, it is ecstasy. It is only felt as Happiness when it is, so to speak, melted, dissolved, distributed throughout the organism, coenesthetically diffused.