210 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
have to add the special enjoyment at which gourmets aim
through an extraordinary cultivation of the palate.
This kind of enjoyment would have the greatest imag-
inable value if the need for it never went unsatisfied, and
if, along with the enjoyment, we did not have to accept a
certain quantity of pain into the bargain.
Modern science holds that nature produces more life
than it can maintain; that is, nature creates more hunger
than it is in a position to satisfy. In the struggle for exist-
ence, the excess life that is produced must perish painful-
ly. Granted, in each moment, the needs of life are greater
than the available means of satisfying them, and there-
fore the pleasure of life is compromised. Yet this in no
way diminishes the pleasure in life that is actually
present. Wherever desire finds satisfaction, there is a cor-
responding quantity of enjoyment—even if there exists,
in this creature or others, a huge number of unsatisfied
drives. What is diminished is thevalue of the enjoyment
of life. If only a portion of the needs of a living creature
find satisfaction, the creature has a corresponding degree
of enjoyment. The smaller the enjoyment is in proportion
to the total demands of life in the sphere of the desires in
question, the less value that enjoyment will have. We can
imagine the value represented by a fraction whose nu-
merator is the enjoyment actually present and whose de-
nominator is the total sum of the needs. When the
numerator and the denominator are equal, that is, when
all needs are satisfied, then the fraction has a value of
one. It becomes greater than one when more pleasure is
present in a living creature than its desires demand; it is
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