The Renaissance

I think what Walter Pater is trying to convey is that human experience is the base of all discovery and joy. He says that "every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us—for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end."
What I think he means by all this is that it is the instant of human connection, that point of interest that we may discern or uncover something, the moment of discovery, that we find so compelling, and not that the fruition of our philosophical meanderings or passionate observations are what drive human motivation to learn, but that the process of experience is what we most hope to attain and what we may gain the most pleasure from obtaining.
This advocate of "art for art's sake" goes on to say that "to burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." The point of life, he says, is to experience, and from out that experience we are formed as individual personalities who need do nothing more than experience and expand the realm of arts, poetry and philosophy.