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Chapter 1 No.1
I have already strained my readers' attention sufficiently by these abstract statements of matters technical and minute. Let us stop thinking for a while and observe. I will draw a picture of goodness and teach the eye what sort of thing it is. We have only to follow in our drawing the conditions already laid down. We agreed that when an object was good it was good for something; so that if A is good, it must be good for B. This instrumental relation, of means to end, may well be indicated by an arrow pointing out the direction in which the influence moves.
But if B is also to be good, it too must be connected by an arrow with another object, C, and this in the same way with D. The process might evidently be continued forever, but will be sufficiently shown in the three stages of Figure 1. Here the arrow always expresses the extrinsic goodness of the letter which lies behind it, in reference to the letter which lies before.
[Fig. 1]
But drawing our diagram in this fashion and finding a little gap between D and A, the completing mind of man longs to fill up that gap. We have no warrant for doing anything of the sort; but let us try the experiment and see what effect will follow. Under the new arrangement we find that not only is D good for A, but that A, being good for B and for C, is also good for D. To express these facts in full it would be necessary to put a point on each end of the arrow connecting A and D.
[Fig. 2]
But the same would be true of the relation between A and B; that is, B, being good for C and for D, is also good for A. Or, as similar reasoning would hold throughout the figure, all the arrows appearing there should be supplied with heads at both ends. And there is one further correction. A is good for B and for C; that is, A is good for C. The same relation should also be indicated between B and D. So that to render our diagram complete it would be necessary to supply it with two diagonal arrows having double heads. It would then assume the following form.
[Fig. 3]
Here is a picture of intrinsic goodness. In this figure we have a whole represented in which every part is good for every other part. But this is merely a pictorial statement of the definition which Kant once gave of an organism. By an organism he says, we mean that assemblage of active and differing parts in which each part is both means and end. Extrinsic goodness, the relation of means to end, we have expressed in our diagram by the pointed arrow. But as soon as we filled in the gap between D and A each arrow was obliged to point in two directions. We had an organic whole instead of a lot of external adjustments. In such a whole each part has its own function to perform, is active; and all must differ from one another, or there would be mere repetition and aggregation instead of organic supplementation of end by means. An organism has been more briefly defined, and the curious mutuality of its support expressed, by saying that it is a unit made up of cooperant parts. And each of these definitions expresses the notion of intrinsic goodness which we have already reached. Intrinsic goodness is the expression of the fullness of function in the construction of an organism.
I have elsewhere (The Field of Ethics) explained the epoch-making character in any life of this conception of an organism. Until one has come in sight of it, he is a child. When once he begins to view things organically, he is-at least in outline-a scientific, an artistic, a moral man. Experience then becomes coherent and rational, and the disjointed modes of immaturity, ugliness, and sin no longer attract. At no period of the world's history has this truly formative conception exercised a wider influence than today. It is accordingly worth while to depict it with distinctness, and to show how fully it is wrought into the very nature of goodness.
REFERENCES ON THE DOUBLE ASPECT OF GOODNESS
Alexander's Moral Order and Progress, bk. ii. ch. ii.
Bradley's Appearance and Reality, ch. xxv.
Sidgwick's Methods, bk. i. ch. ix.
Spencer's Principles of Ethics, pt. i. ch. iii.
Muirhead's Elements of Ethics, bk. iv. ch. ii.
Ladd's Philosophy of Conduct, ch. iii.
Kant's Practical Reason, bk. i. ch. ii.
The Meaning of Good, by G.L. Dickinson.
Chapter 1 No.1
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Chapter 2 No.2
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Chapter 3 No.3
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Chapter 4 No.4
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Chapter 5 No.5
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Chapter 6 No.6
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Chapter 7 No.7
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Chapter 8 No.8
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Chapter 9 No.9
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Chapter 10 No.10
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Chapter 11 No.11
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Chapter 12 No.12
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Chapter 13 No.13
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Chapter 14 No.14
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Chapter 15 No.15
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Chapter 16 No.16
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Chapter 17 No.17
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Chapter 18 No.18
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Chapter 19 No.19
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Chapter 20 No.20
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Chapter 21 No.21
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Chapter 22 No.22
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Chapter 23 No.23
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Chapter 24 No.24
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Chapter 25 No.25
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Chapter 26 No.26
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Chapter 27 No.27
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Chapter 28 No.28
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Chapter 29 No.29
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Chapter 30 No.30
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Chapter 31 No.31
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Chapter 32 No.32
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Chapter 33 No.33
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Chapter 34 No.34
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Chapter 35 No.35
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Chapter 36 No.36
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Chapter 37 No.37
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Chapter 38 No.38
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Chapter 39 No.39
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Chapter 40 No.40
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