The Value of Life 209(needs). If the value of life depended on whether it
brought more pleasure or pain, any drive bringing its
bearer a surplus of pain would be considered worthless.
Let us now look at drives and pleasures to see whether the
former can be measured by the latter. To avoid the suspi-
cion that we consider that life begins with “the aristocracy
of intellect,” we shall begin with a “purely animal” need:
hunger.
Hunger arises when our organs can no longer function
properly without a new supply of nourishment. What
hungry persons strive for first is to satisfy their hunger.
As soon as sufficient nourishment has been supplied and
hunger ceases, everything striven for by the drive for
food has been attained. In this case, the enjoyment that
attaches to satisfaction consists initially in the removal of
the pain caused by hunger. But an additional need joins
itself to the mere drive to satisfy hunger. The person does
not want only to bring the disturbed organic functions
back into good order through the intake of nourishment,
nor simply to overcome the pain of hunger; the person
also wants this to be accompanied by pleasant sensations
of taste. When we are hungry and half an hour remains
before a tasty meal, we might even keep away from less
interesting fare that could satisfy our hunger in order to
avoid spoiling our pleasure in what is to come. We need
hunger to have the full enjoyment of our meal. In this
way, hunger becomes the occasion of pleasure for us. If
all the hunger in the world could be quieted, it would re-
sult in the full measure of enjoyment attributable to the
presence of the need for food. But to this we would still