Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end.

The line rejects a utilitarian view of life in which experiences matter chiefly for what they produce—wisdom, moral improvement, social advantage, or “results.” Instead, it treats lived sensation and consciousness as intrinsically valuable: the point is not what experience yields afterward, but the immediacy of experiencing. In Pater’s aesthetic outlook, this elevates intensity, attention, and presence over deferred payoff. The claim also implies skepticism toward moralizing narratives that convert life into lessons; it urges valuing the qualitative texture of moments themselves, not merely their “fruit.”