Chapter VI: The Ideal (2)

=123.= I have now completed my examination into the nature of those great positive goods, which do not appear to include among their constituents anything positively evil or ugly, though they include much which is in itself indifferent. And I wish to point out certain conclusions which appear to follow, with regard to the nature of the Summum Bonum, or that state of things which would be the most perfect we can conceive. Those idealistic philosophers, whose views agree most closely with those here advocated, in that they deny pleasure to be the sole good and regard what is completely good as having some complexity, have usually represented a purely spiritual state of existence as the Ideal. Regarding matter as essentially imperfect, if not positively evil, they have concluded that the total absence of all material properties is necessary to a state of perfection. Now, according to what has been said, this view would be correct so far as it asserts that any great good must be _mental_, and so far as it asserts that a purely material existence, _by itself_, can have little or no value. The superiority of the spiritual over the material has, in a sense, been amply vindicated. But it does not follow, from this superiority, that a perfect state of things must be one, from which all material properties are rigidly excluded: on the contrary, if our conclusions are correct, it would seem to be the case that a state of things, in which they are included, must be vastly better than any conceivable state in which they were absent. In order to see that this is so, the chief thing necessary to be considered is _exactly what it is_ which we declare to be good when we declare that the appreciation of beauty in Art and Nature is so. That this appreciation _is_ good, the philosophers in question do not for the most part deny. But, if we admit it, then we should remember Butler’s maxim that: Everything is what it is, and not another thing. I have tried to shew, and I think it is too evident to be disputed, that such appreciation is an organic unity, a complex whole; and that, in its most undoubted instances, part of what is included in this whole is _a cognition of material qualities_, and particularly of a vast variety of what are called _secondary_ qualities. If, then, it is _this_ whole, which we know to be good, and not another thing, then we know that material qualities, even though they be perfectly worthless in themselves, are yet essential constituents of what is far from worthless. What we know to be valuable is the apprehension of just these qualities, and not of any others; and, if we propose to subtract them from it, then what we have left is _not_ that which we know to have value, but something else. And it must be noticed that this conclusion holds, even if my contention, that a true belief in the existence of these qualities adds to the value of the whole in which it is included, be disputed. We should then, indeed, be entitled to assert that the _existence_ of a material world was wholly immaterial to perfection; but the fact that what we knew to be good was a cognition of _material qualities_ (though purely imaginary), would still remain. It must, then, be admitted on pain of self-contradiction--on pain of holding that things are not what they are, but something else--that a world, from which material qualities were wholly banished, would be a world which lacked many, if not all, of those things, which we know most certainly to be great goods. That it _might_ nevertheless be a far better world than one which retained these goods, I have already admitted (§ 111 (1)). But in order to shew that any such world _would_ be thus better, it would be necessary to shew that the retention of these things, though good in themselves, impaired, in a more than equal degree, the value of some whole, to which they might belong; and the task of shewing this has certainly never been attempted. Until it be performed, we are entitled to assert that material qualities are a necessary constituent of the Ideal; that, though something utterly unknown _might_ be better than any world containing either them or any other good we know, yet we have no reason to suppose that anything whatever would be better than a state of things in which they were included. To deny and exclude matter, is to deny and exclude the best we know. That a thing may retain its value, while losing some of its qualities, is utterly untrue. All that is true is that the changed thing may have more value than, or as much value as, that of which the qualities have been lost. What I contend is that nothing, which we _know_ to be good and which contains no material qualities, has such great value that we can declare it, _by itself_, to be superior to the whole which would be formed by the addition to it of an appreciation of material qualities. That a _purely_ spiritual good may be the _best_ of single things, I am not much concerned to dispute, although, in what has been said with regard to the nature of personal affection, I have given reasons for doubting it. But that by adding to it some appreciation of material qualities, which, though perhaps inferior by itself, is certainly a great positive good, we should obtain a greater sum of value, which no corresponding decrease in the value of the whole, as a whole, could counterbalance--this, I maintain, we have certainly no reason to doubt.

=124.= In order to complete this discussion of the main principles involved in the determination of intrinsic values, the chief remaining topics, necessary to be treated, appear to be two. The first of these is the nature of great intrinsic _evils_, including what I may call _mixed_ evils; that is to say, those evil wholes, which nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something positively good or beautiful. And the second is the nature of what I may similarly call _mixed_ goods; that is to say, those wholes, which, though intrinsically good _as wholes_, nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something positively evil or ugly. It will greatly facilitate this discussion, if I may be understood throughout to use the terms ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly,’ not necessarily with reference to things of the kind which most naturally occur to us as instances of what is beautiful and ugly, but in accordance with my own proposed definition of beauty. Thus I shall use the word ‘beautiful’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is good in itself; and ‘ugly’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is evil in itself.

I. With regard, then, to great positive evils, I think it is evident that, if we take all due precautions to discover _precisely what_ those things are, of which, _if they existed absolutely by themselves_, we should judge the existence to be a great evil, we shall find most of them to be organic unities of exactly the same nature as those which are the greatest positive goods. That is to say, they are cognitions of some object, accompanied by some emotion. Just as neither a cognition nor an emotion, _by itself_, appeared capable of being greatly good, so (with one exception), neither a cognition nor an emotion, _by itself_, appears capable of being greatly evil. And just as a whole formed of both, even without the addition of any other element, appeared undoubtedly capable of being a great good, so such a whole, _by itself_, appears capable of being a great evil. With regard to the _third_ element, which was discussed as capable of adding greatly to the value of a good, namely, _true belief_, it will appear that it has different relations towards different kinds of evils. In some cases the addition of true belief to a positive evil seems to constitute a far worse evil; but in other cases it is not apparent that it makes any difference.

The greatest positive evils may be divided into the following three classes.

=125.= (1) The first class consists of those evils, which seem always to include an enjoyment or admiring contemplation of things which are themselves either evil or ugly. That is to say these evils are characterised by the fact that they include precisely the same emotion, which is also essential to the greatest unmixed goods, from which they are differentiated by the fact that this emotion is directed towards an inappropriate object. In so far as this emotion is either a slight good in itself or a slightly beautiful object, these evils would therefore be cases of what I have called ‘mixed’ evils; but, as I have already said, it seems very doubtful whether an emotion, completely isolated from its object, has either value or beauty: it certainly has not much of either. It is, however, important to observe that the very same emotions, which are often loosely talked of as the greatest or the only goods, may be essential constituents of the very worst wholes: that, according to the nature of the cognition which accompanies them, they may be conditions either of the greatest good, or of the greatest evil.

In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances--cruelty and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions, in their worst form. If we then consider what judgment we should pass upon a universe which consisted _solely_ of minds thus occupied, without the smallest hope that there would ever exist in it the smallest consciousness of any object other than those proper to these passions, or any feeling directed to any such object, I think we cannot avoid the conclusion that the existence of such a universe would be a far worse evil than the existence of none at all. But, if this be so, it follows that these two vicious states are not only, as is commonly admitted, bad as means, but also bad in themselves.--And that they involve in their nature that complication of elements, which I have called a love of what is evil or ugly, is, I think, no less plain. With regard to the pleasures of lust, the nature of the cognition, by the presence of which they are to be defined, is somewhat difficult to analyse. But it appears to include both cognitions of organic sensations and perceptions of states of the body, of which the enjoyment is certainly an evil in itself. So far as these are concerned, lasciviousness would, then, include in its essence an admiring contemplation of what is ugly. But certainly one of its commonest ingredients, in its worst forms, is an enjoyment of the same state of mind in other people: and in this case it would therefore also include a love of what is evil. With regard to cruelty, it is easy to see that an enjoyment of pain in other people is essential to it; and, as we shall see, when we come to consider pain, this is certainly a love of evil: while, in so far as it also includes a delight in the bodily signs of agony, it would also comprehend a love of what is ugly. In both cases, it should be observed, the evil of the state is heightened not only by an increase in the evil or ugliness of the object, but also by an increase in the enjoyment.

It might be objected, in the case of cruelty, that our disapproval of it, even in the isolated case supposed, where no considerations of its badness as a means could influence us, may yet be really directed to the pain of the persons, which it takes delight in contemplating. This objection may be met, in the first place, by the remark that it entirely fails to explain the judgment, which yet, I think, no one, on reflection, will be able to avoid making, that even though the amount of pain contemplated be the same, yet the greater the delight in its contemplation, the worse the state of things. But it may also, I think, be met by notice of a fact, which we were unable to urge in considering the similar possibility with regard to goods--namely the possibility that the reason why we attribute greater value to a worthy affection for a _real_ person, is that we take into account the additional good consisting in the existence of that person. We may I think urge, in the case of cruelty, that its intrinsic odiousness is equally great, whether the pain contemplated really exists or is purely imaginary. I, at least, am unable to distinguish that, in this case, the presence of _true belief_ makes any difference to the intrinsic value of the whole considered, although it undoubtedly may make a great difference to its value _as a means_. And so also with regard to other evils of this class: I am unable to see that a true belief in the _existence_ of their objects makes any difference in the degree of their positive demerits. On the other hand, the presence of another class of beliefs seems to make a considerable difference. When we enjoy what is evil or ugly, in spite of our knowledge that it is so, the state of things seems considerably worse than if we made no judgment at all as to the object’s value. And the same seems also, strangely enough, to be the case when we make a false judgment of value. When we admire what is ugly or evil, believing that it is beautiful and good, this belief seems also to enhance the intrinsic vileness of our condition. It must, of course, be understood that, in both these cases, the judgment in question is merely what I have called a judgment of taste; that is to say, it is concerned with the worth of the qualities actually cognised and not with the worth of the object, to which those qualities may be rightly or wrongly attributed.

Finally it should be mentioned that evils of this class, _beside_ that emotional element (namely enjoyment and admiration) which they share with great unmixed goods, appear always also to include some specific emotion, which does not enter in the same way into the constitution of any good. The presence of this specific emotion seems certainly to enhance the badness of the whole, though it is not plain that, by itself, it would be either evil or ugly.

=126.= (2) The second class of great evils are undoubtedly mixed evils; but I treat them next, because, in a certain respect, they appear to be the _converse_ of the class last considered. Just as it is essential to this last class that they should include an emotion, appropriate to the cognition of what is good or beautiful, but directed to an inappropriate object; so to this second class it is essential that they should include a cognition of what is good or beautiful, but accompanied by an inappropriate emotion. In short, just as the last class may be described as cases of the love of what is evil or ugly, so this class may be described as cases of the hatred of what is good or beautiful.

With regard to these evils it should be remarked: First, that the vices of hatred, envy and contempt, where these vices are evil in themselves, appear to be instances of them; and that they are frequently accompanied by evils of the first class, for example, where a delight is felt in the pain of a good person. Where they are thus accompanied, the whole thus formed is undoubtedly worse than if either existed singly.

And secondly: That in their case a true belief in the existence of the good or beautiful object, which is hated, does appear to enhance the badness of the whole, in which it is present. Undoubtedly also, as in our first class, the presence of a true belief as to the _value_ of the objects contemplated, increases the evil. But, contrary to what was the case in our first class, a _false_ judgment of value appears to lessen it.

=127.= (3) The third class of great positive evils appears to be the class of _pains_.

With regard to these it should first be remarked that, as in the case of pleasure, it is not pain itself, but only the consciousness of pain, towards which our judgments of value are directed. Just as in Chap. III., it was said that pleasure, however intense, which no one felt, would be no good at all; so it appears that pain, however intense, of which there was no consciousness, would be no evil at all.

It is, therefore, only the consciousness of intense pain, which can be maintained to be a great evil. But that this, _by itself_, may be a great evil, I cannot avoid thinking. The case of pain thus seems to differ from that of pleasure: for the mere consciousness of pleasure, however intense, does not, _by itself_, appear to be a _great_ good, even if it has some slight intrinsic value. In short, pain (if we understand by this expression, the consciousness of pain) appears to be a far worse evil than pleasure is a good. But, if this be so, then _pain_ must be admitted to be an exception from the rule which seems to hold both of all _other_ great evils and of _all_ great goods: namely that they are all organic unities to which _both_ a cognition of an object _and_ an emotion directed towards that object are essential. In the case of pain and of pain alone, it seems to be true that a mere cognition, by itself, may be a great evil. It is, indeed, _an_ organic unity, since it involves both the cognition and the object, neither of which, by themselves, has either merit or demerit. But it is a less complex organic unity than any other great evil and than any great good, _both_ in respect of the fact that it does not involve, _beside_ the cognition, an emotion directed towards its object, _and also_ in respect of the fact that the _object_ may here be absolutely simple, whereas in most, if not all, other cases, the object itself is highly complex.

This want of analogy between the relation of pain to intrinsic evil and of pleasure to intrinsic good, seems also to be exhibited in a second respect. Not only is it the case that consciousness of intense pain is, by itself, a great evil, whereas consciousness of intense pleasure is, by itself, no great good; but also the _converse_ difference appears to hold of the contribution which they make to the value of the whole, when they are combined respectively with another great evil or with a great good. That is to say, the presence of pleasure (though not in proportion to its intensity) does appear to enhance the value of a whole, in which it is combined with any of the great unmixed goods which we have considered: it might even be maintained that it is _only_ wholes, in which _some_ pleasure is included, that possess any great value: it is certain, at all events, that the presence of pleasure makes a contribution to the value of good wholes greatly in excess of its own intrinsic value. On the contrary, if a feeling of pain be combined with any of the evil states of mind which we have been considering, the difference which its presence makes to the value of the whole, _as a whole_, seems to be rather for the better than the worse: in any case, the only additional evil which it introduces, is that which it, by itself, intrinsically constitutes. Thus, whereas pain is _in itself_ a great evil, but makes no addition to the badness of a whole, in which it is combined with some other bad thing, except that which consists in its own intrinsic badness; pleasure, conversely, is not _in itself_ a great good, but does make a great addition to the goodness of a whole in which it is combined with a good thing, quite apart from its own intrinsic value.

=128.= But finally, it must be insisted that pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this: that we cannot assume either that the presence of pleasure always makes a state of things better _on the whole_, or that the presence of pain always makes it worse. This is the truth which is most liable to be overlooked with regard to them; and it is because this is true, that the common theory, that pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil, has its grossest consequences in misjudgments of value. Not only is the pleasantness of a state _not_ in proportion to its intrinsic worth; it may even add positively to its vileness. We do not think the successful hatred of a villain the less vile and odious, because he takes the keenest delight in it; nor is there the least need, in logic, why we should think so, apart from an unintelligent prejudice in favour of pleasure. In fact it seems to be the case that wherever pleasure is added to an evil state of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is _always_ worse than if no pleasure had been there. And similarly with regard to pain. If pain be added to an evil state of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is _always_ better, _as a whole_, than if no pain had been there; though here, if the pain be too intense, since that is a great evil, the state may not be better _on the whole_. It is in this way that the theory of vindictive punishment may be vindicated. The infliction of pain on a person whose state of mind is bad may, if the pain be not too intense, create a state of things that is better _on the whole_ than if the evil state of mind had existed unpunished. Whether such a state of things can ever constitute a _positive_ good, is another question.

=129.= II. The consideration of this other question belongs properly to the second topic, which was reserved above for discussion namely the topic of ‘mixed’ goods. ‘Mixed’ goods were defined above as things, which, though positively good _as wholes_, nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something intrinsically evil or ugly. And there certainly seem to be such goods. But for the proper consideration of them, it is necessary to take into account a new distinction the distinction just expressed as being between the value which a thing possesses ‘_as a whole_,’ and that which it possesses ‘_on the whole_.’

When ‘mixed’ goods were defined as things positively good _as wholes_, the expression was ambiguous. It was meant that they were positively good _on the whole_; but it must now be observed that the value which a thing possesses _on the whole_ may be said to be equivalent to the sum of the value which it possesses _as a whole_, _together with_ the intrinsic values which may belong to any of its parts. In fact, by the ‘value which a thing possesses as a whole,’ there may be meant two quite distinct things. There may be meant either (1) That value which arises solely _from the combination_ of two or more things; or else (2) The total value formed by the addition to (1) of any intrinsic values which may belong to the things combined. The meaning of the distinction may perhaps be most easily seen by considering the supposed case of vindictive punishment. If it is true that the combined existence of two evils may yet constitute a less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either singly, it is plain that this can only be because there arises from the combination a positive good which is greater than the _difference_ between the sum of the two evils and the demerit of either singly: this positive good would then be the value of the whole, _as a whole_, in sense (1). Yet if this value be not so great a good as the sum of the two evils is an evil, it is plain that the value of the whole state of things will be a positive evil; and this value is the value of the whole, _as a whole_, in sense (2). Whatever view may be taken with regard to the particular case of vindictive punishment, it is plain that we have here _two distinct things_, with regard to _either_ of which a separate question may be asked in the case of every organic unity. The first of these two things may be expressed as _the difference_ between the value _of the whole thing_ and the sum of the value of its parts. And it is plain that where the parts have little or no intrinsic value (as in our first class of goods, §§ 114, 115), this difference will be nearly or absolutely identical with the value of the whole thing. The distinction, therefore, only becomes important in the case of wholes, of which one or more parts have a great intrinsic value, positive or negative. The first of these cases, that of a whole, in which one part has a great _positive_ value, is exemplified in our 2nd and 3rd classes of great unmixed goods (§§ 120, 122); and similarly the Summum Bonum is a whole of which _many_ parts have a great _positive_ value. Such cases, it may be observed, are also very frequent and very important objects of Aesthetic judgment; since the essential distinction between the ‘classical’ and the ‘romantic’ styles consists in the fact that the former aims at obtaining the greatest possible value for the whole, _as a whole_, in sense (1), whereas the latter sacrifices this in order to obtain the greatest possible value for some _part_, which is itself an organic unity. It follows that we cannot declare either style to be necessarily superior, since an equally good result _on the whole_, or ‘as a whole’ in sense (2), may be obtained by either method; but the distinctively _aesthetic_ temperament seems to be characterised by a tendency to prefer a good result obtained by the classical, to an equally good result obtained by the romantic method.

=130.= But what we have now to consider are cases of wholes, in which one or more parts have a great _negative_ value--are great positive evils. And first of all, we may take the _strongest_ cases, like that of retributive punishment, in which we have a whole, exclusively composed of two great positive evils--wickedness and pain. Can such a whole ever be positively good _on the whole_?

(1) I can see no reason to think that such wholes ever are positively good _on the whole_. But from the fact that they may, nevertheless, be less evils, than either of their parts taken singly, it follows that they have a characteristic which is most important for the correct decision of practical questions. It follows that, quite apart from _consequences_ or any value which an evil may have as a mere means, it may, _supposing_ one evil already exists, be worth while to create another, since, by the mere creation of this second, there may be constituted a whole less bad than if the original evil had been left to exist by itself. And similarly, with regard to all the wholes which I am about to consider, it must be remembered, that, even if they are not goods _on the whole_, yet, where an evil already exists, as in this world evils do exist, the existence of the other part of these wholes will constitute a thing desirable _for its own sake_--that is to say, not merely a means to future goods, but one of the _ends_ which must be taken into account in estimating what that best possible state of things is, to which every right action must be a means.

=131.= (2) But, as a matter of fact, I cannot avoid thinking that there are wholes, containing something positively evil and ugly, which are, nevertheless, great positive goods on the whole. Indeed, it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue, which contain anything intrinsically good, chiefly belong. It need not, of course, be denied that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those unmixed goods which were first discussed--that is to say, a real love of what is good or beautiful. But the typical and characteristic virtuous dispositions, so far as they are not mere means, seem rather to be examples of mixed goods. We may take as instances (_a_) Courage and Compassion, which seem to belong to the second of the three classes of virtues distinguished in our last chapter (§ 107); and (_b_) the specifically ‘moral’ sentiment, by reference to which the third of those three classes was defined (§ 108).

Courage and compassion, in so far as they contain an intrinsically desirable state of mind, seem to involve essentially a cognition of something evil or ugly. In the case of courage the object of the cognition may be an evil of any of our three classes; in the case of compassion, the proper object is pain. Both these virtues, accordingly, must contain precisely the same cognitive element, which is also essential to evils of class (1); and they are differentiated from these by the fact that the emotion directed to these objects is, in their case, an emotion of the same kind which was essential to evils of class (2). In short, just as evils of class (2) seemed to consist in a hatred of what was good or beautiful, and evils of class (1) in a love of what was evil or ugly; so these virtues involve a _hatred_ of what is evil or ugly. Both these virtues do, no doubt, also contain other elements, and, among these, each contains its specific emotion; but that their value does not depend solely upon these other elements, we may easily assure ourselves, by considering what we should think of an attitude of endurance or of defiant contempt toward an object intrinsically good or beautiful, or of the state of a man whose mind was filled with pity for the happiness of a worthy admiration. Yet pity for the undeserved sufferings of others, endurance of pain to ourselves, and a defiant hatred of evil dispositions in ourselves or in others, seem to be undoubtedly admirable in themselves; and if so, there are admirable things, which must be lost, if there were no cognition of evil.

Similarly the specifically ‘moral’ sentiment, in all cases where it has any considerable intrinsic value, appears to include a hatred of evils of the first and second classes. It is true that the emotion is here excited by the idea that an action is right or wrong; and hence the object of the idea which excites it is generally not an intrinsic evil. But, as far as I can discover, the emotion with which a conscientious man views a real or imaginary right action, contains, as an essential element, the same emotion with which he views a wrong one: it seems, indeed, that this element is necessary to make his emotion specifically _moral_. And the specifically moral emotion excited by the idea of a wrong action, seems to me to contain essentially a more or less vague cognition of the kind of intrinsic evils, which are usually caused by wrong actions, whether they would or would not be caused by the particular action in question. I am, in fact, unable to distinguish, in its main features, the moral sentiment excited by the idea of rightness and wrongness, wherever it is intense, from the total state constituted by a cognition of something intrinsically evil together with the emotion of hatred directed towards it. Nor need we be surprised that this mental state should be the one chiefly associated with the idea of rightness, if we reflect on the nature of those actions which are most commonly recognised as duties. For by far the greater part of the actions, of which we commonly think as duties, are _negative_: what we feel to be our duty is to _abstain_ from some action to which a strong natural impulse tempts us. And these wrong actions, in the avoidance of which duty consists, are usually such as produce, very immediately, some bad consequence in pain to others; while, in many prominent instances, the inclination, which prompts us to them, is itself an intrinsic evil, containing, as where the impulse is lust or cruelty, an anticipatory enjoyment of something evil or ugly. That right action does thus so frequently entail the suppression of some evil impulse, is necessary to explain the plausibility of the view that virtue _consists_ in the control of passion by reason. Accordingly, the truth seems to be that, whenever a strong moral emotion is excited by the idea of rightness, this emotion is accompanied by a vague cognition of the kind of evils usually suppressed or avoided by the actions which most frequently occur to us as instances of duty; and that the emotion is directed towards this evil quality. We may, then, conclude that the specific moral emotion owes almost all its intrinsic value to the fact that it includes a cognition of evils accompanied by a hatred of them: mere rightness, whether truly or untruly attributed to an action, seems incapable of forming the object of an emotional contemplation, which shall be any great good.

=132.= If this be so, then we have, in many prominent instances of virtue, cases of a whole, greatly good in itself, which yet contains the cognition of something, whereof the existence would be a great evil: a great good is absolutely dependent for its value, upon its inclusion of something evil or ugly, although it does not owe its value _solely_ to this element in it. And, in the case of virtues, this evil object does, in general, actually exist. But there seems no reason to think that, when it does exist, the whole state of things thus constituted is therefore the better _on the whole_. What seems indubitable, is only that the feeling contemplation of an object, whose existence _would_ be a great evil, or which is ugly, may be essential to a valuable whole. We have another undoubted instance of this in the appreciation of tragedy. But, in tragedy, the sufferings of Lear, and the vice of Iago may be purely imaginary. And it seems certain that, if they really existed, the evil thus existing, while it must detract from the good consisting in a proper feeling towards them, will add no positive value to that good great enough to counterbalance such a loss. It does, indeed, seem that the existence of a true belief in the object of these mixed goods does add _some_ value to the whole in which it is combined with them: a conscious compassion for real suffering seems to be better, _as a whole_, than a compassion for sufferings merely imaginary; and this may well be the case, even though the evil involved in the actual suffering makes the total state of things bad _on the whole_. And it certainly seems to be true that a _false_ belief in the actual existence of its object makes a worse mixed good than if our state of mind were that with which we normally regard pure fiction. Accordingly we may conclude that the only mixed goods, which are positively good _on the whole_, are those in which the object is something which _would_ be a great evil, if it existed, or which _is_ ugly.

=133.= With regard, then, to those mixed goods, which consist in an appropriate attitude of the mind towards things evil or ugly, and which include among their number the greater part of such virtues as have any intrinsic value whatever, the following three conclusions seem to be those chiefly requiring to be emphasized:--

(1) There seems no reason to think that where the object is a thing evil in itself, which _actually exists_, the total state of things is ever positively _good on the whole_. The appropriate mental attitude towards a really existing evil contains, of course, an element which is absolutely identical with the same attitude towards the same evil, where it is purely imaginary. And this element, which is common to the two cases, may be a great positive good, on the whole. But there seems no reason to doubt that, where the evil is _real_, the amount of this real evil is always sufficient to reduce the total sum of value to a negative quantity. Accordingly we have no reason to maintain the paradox that an ideal world would be one in which vice and suffering must exist in order that it may contain the goods consisting in the appropriate emotion towards them. It is not a positive good that suffering should exist, in order that we may compassionate it; or wickedness, that we may hate it. There is no reason to think that any actual evil whatsoever would be contained in the Ideal. It follows that we cannot admit the actual validity of any of the arguments commonly used in Theodicies; no such argument succeeds in justifying the fact that there does exist even the smallest of the many evils which this world contains. The most that can be said for such arguments is that, when they make appeal to the principle of organic unity, their appeal is valid _in principle_. It _might_ be the case that the existence of evil was necessary, not merely as a means, but analytically, to the existence of the greatest good. But we have no reason to think that this _is_ the case in any instance whatsoever.

But (2) there _is_ reason to think that the cognition of things evil or ugly, which are purely imaginary, is essential to the Ideal. In this case the burden of proof lies the other way. It cannot be doubted that the appreciation of tragedy is a great positive good; and it seems almost equally certain that the virtues of compassion, courage, and self-control contain such goods. And to all these the cognition of things which would be evil, if they existed, is analytically necessary. Here then we have things of which the existence must add value to any whole in which they are contained; nor is it possible to assure ourselves that any whole, from which they were omitted, would thereby gain more in its value _as a whole_, than it would lose by their omission. We have no reason to think that any whole, which did not contain them, would be so good _on the whole_ as some whole in which they were obtained. The case for their inclusion in the Ideal is as strong as that for the inclusion of material qualities (§ 123, above). _Against_ the inclusion of these goods nothing can be urged except a bare possibility.

Finally (3) it is important to insist that, as was said above, these mixed virtues have a great practical value, in addition to that which they possess either in themselves or as mere means. Where evils do exist, as in this world they do, the fact that they are known and properly appreciated, constitutes a state of things having greater value _as a whole_ even than the same appreciation of purely imaginary evils. This state of things, it has been said, is never positively good _on the whole_; but where the evil, which reduces its total value to a negative quantity, already unavoidably exists, to obtain the intrinsic value which belongs to it _as a whole_ will obviously produce a better state of things than if the evil had existed by itself, quite apart from the good element in it which is identical with the appreciation of imaginary evils, and from any ulterior consequences which its existence may bring about. The case is here the same as with retributive punishment. Where an evil already exists, it is well that it should be pitied or hated or endured, according to its nature; just as it may be well that some evils should be punished. Of course, as in all practical cases, it often happens that the attainment of this good is incompatible with the attainment of another and a greater one. But it is important to insist that we have here a real intrinsic value, which must be taken into account in calculating that greatest possible balance of intrinsic value, which it is always our duty to produce.

=134.= I have now completed such remarks as seemed most necessary to be made concerning intrinsic values. It is obvious that for the proper answering of this, the fundamental question of Ethics, there remains a field of investigation as wide and as difficult, as was assigned to Practical Ethics in my last chapter. There is as much to be said concerning what results are intrinsically good, and in what degrees, as concerning what results it is possible for us to bring about: both questions demand, and will repay, an equally patient enquiry. Many of the judgments, which I have made in this chapter, will, no doubt, seem unduly arbitrary: it must be confessed that some of the attributions of intrinsic value, which have seemed to me to be true, do not display that symmetry and system which is wont to be required of philosophers. But if this be urged as an objection, I may respectfully point out that it is none. We have no title whatever to assume that the truth on any subject-matter will display such symmetry as we desire to see--or (to use the common vague phrase) that it will possess any particular form of ‘unity.’ To search for ‘unity’ and ‘system,’ at the expense of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy, however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers. And that all truths about the Universe possess to one another all the various relations, which may be meant by ‘unity,’ can only be legitimately asserted, when we have carefully distinguished those various relations and discovered what those truths are. In particular, we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are ‘unified’ in any particular manner, except in virtue of an enquiry conducted by the method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate. The study of Ethics would, no doubt, be far more simple, and its results far more ‘systematic,’ if, for instance, pain were an evil of exactly the same magnitude as pleasure is a good; but we have no reason whatever to assume that the Universe is such that ethical truths must display this kind of symmetry: no argument against my conclusion, that pleasure and pain do _not_ thus correspond, can have any weight whatever, failing a careful examination of the instances which have led me to form it. Nevertheless I am content that the results of this chapter should be taken rather as illustrating the method which must be pursued in answering the fundamental question of Ethics, and the principles which must be observed, than as giving the correct answer to that question. That things intrinsically good or bad are many and various; that most of them are ‘organic unities,’ in the peculiar and definite sense to which I have confined the term; and that our only means of deciding upon their intrinsic value and its degree, is by carefully distinguishing exactly what the thing is, about which we ask the question, and then looking to see whether it has or has not the unique predicate ‘good’ in any of its various degrees: these are the conclusions, upon the truth of which I desire to insist. Similarly, in my last chapter, with regard to the question ‘What ought we to do?’ I have endeavoured rather to shew exactly what is the meaning of the question, and what difficulties must consequently be faced in answering it, than to prove that any particular answers are true. And that these two questions, having precisely the nature which I have assigned to them, are _the_ questions which it is the object of Ethics to answer, may be regarded as the main result of the preceding chapters. These are the questions which ethical philosophers have always been mainly concerned to answer, although they have not recognised what their question was--what predicate they were asserting to attach to things. The practice of asking what things are virtues or duties, without distinguishing what these terms mean; the practice of asking what ought to be here and now, without distinguishing whether as means or end--for its own sake or for that of its results; the search for one single _criterion_ of right or wrong, without the recognition that in order to discover a criterion we must first know what things _are_ right or wrong; and the neglect of the principle of ‘organic unities’--these sources of error have hitherto been almost universally prevalent in Ethics. The conscious endeavour to avoid them all, and to apply to all the ordinary objects of ethical judgment these two questions and these only: Has it intrinsic value? and Is it a means to the best possible?--this attempt, so far as I know, is entirely new; and its results, when compared with those habitual to moral philosophers, are certainly sufficiently surprising: that to Common Sense they will not appear so strange, I venture to hope and believe. It is, I think, much to be desired that the labour commonly devoted to answering such questions as whether certain ‘ends’ are more or less ‘comprehensive’ or more or less ‘consistent’ with one another--questions, which, even if a precise meaning were given to them, are wholly irrelevant to the proof of any ethical conclusion--should be diverted to the separate investigation of these two clear problems.

=135.= The main object of this chapter has been to define roughly the class of things, among which we may expect to find either great intrinsic goods or great intrinsic evils; and particularly to point out that there is a vast variety of such things, and that the simplest of them are, with one exception, highly complex wholes, composed of parts which have little or no value in themselves. All of them involve consciousness of an object, which is itself usually highly complex, and almost all involve also an emotional attitude towards this object; but, though they thus have certain characteristics in common, the vast variety of qualities in respect of which they differ from one another are equally essential to their value: neither the generic character of all, nor the specific character of each, is either greatly good or greatly evil by itself; they owe their value or demerit, in each case, to the presence of both. My discussion falls into three main divisions, dealing respectively (1) with unmixed goods, (2) with evils, and (3) with mixed goods. (1) Unmixed goods may all be said to consist in the love of beautiful things or of good persons: but the number of different goods of this kind is as great as that of beautiful objects, and they are also differentiated from one another by the different emotions appropriate to different objects. These goods are undoubtedly good, even where the things or persons loved are imaginary; but it was urged that, where the thing or person is real and is believed to be so, these two facts together, when combined with the mere love of the qualities in question, constitute a whole which is greatly better than that mere love, having an additional value quite distinct from that which belongs to the existence of the object, where that object is a good person. Finally it was pointed out that the love of mental qualities, by themselves, does not seem to be so great a good as that of mental and material qualities together; and that, in any case, an immense number of the best things are, or include, a love of material qualities (113-123). (2) Great evils may be said to consist either (_a_) in the love of what is evil or ugly, or (_b_) in the hatred of what is good or beautiful, or (_c_) in the consciousness of pain. Thus the consciousness of pain, if it be a great evil, is the only exception to the rule that all great goods and great evils involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object (124-128). (3) Mixed goods are those which include some element which is evil or ugly. They may be said to consist either in hatred of what is ugly or of evils of classes (_a_) and (_b_), or in compassion for pain. But where they include an evil, which actually exists, its demerit seems to be always great enough to outweigh the positive value which they possess (129-133).

INDEX.

Aesthetic
enjoyments 189-202, 203
judgment 215
temperament 216

Aesthetics 200

Affection
beauty of 204-5
misdirected 195, 198
reciprocal 198
value of 188-9, 203-5

Altruism 96-7, 167

Analytic judgments 7, 29, 33-4, 35, 220-1

Appreciation 189-90, 200, 204-5, 221

Approval 131

Approve 60

Approbation 171

Appropriate, inappropriate 192, 199, 204-5, 209, 211, 220
defined 190

Aristotle 4
definition of virtue 171
valuation of virtues 176-7
valuation of knowledge 199

Art
value of 188
_representative_, value of 193, 195, 196, 200

Autonomy 127

Bad 5, 27, 28, 95, 140, 143, 157, 178, 181, 188, 209, 210, 213, 214,
216, 218

‘Based on’ 38, 49, 54, 114, 115, 118, 120, 122, 144

Beauty
corporeal 203-4
no criterion of 202
definition of 201-2, 208
mental 203-5
‘seeing’ of 190-1
value of 28, 81-2, 83-5, 86, 94, 188-9, 201-2, 209, 211, 224

Being, dist. from existence 110-11

Belief, value of 193-200, 208, 210-11, 212, 219, 224-5

Benevolence, Sidgwick’s ‘principle of Rational’ 102-3

Bentham 145
naturalistic fallacy 17-19
quantity of pleasure 77-8

Bradley, F. H.
pleasure and desire 70
theory of judgment 125

Butler, Bishop 86, 206

Casuistry 4-5

Causal judgments
relation to Ethics 21-7, 36, 146-8, 149, 180

Causal relations 31-3, 34-6

Chastity 158

Classical style 215-16

Christ
on value of motives 178
on love 179

Christian Ethics 178
on ‘external’ rightness 177
on ‘internal’ rightness 178-9
on value of motives 177-9
on value of virtue 174

Clifford, W. K. 40

Cognition
of evil 217-19
dist. from knowledge 194
relation to will and feeling 129-30, 133, 135-6, 141
value of 85, 189-92, 194, 199, 208, 212, 224, 225

Commands, confused with moral laws 128-9, 141

Common sense 224
on value of pleasure 86, 91-2, 94-5
on duties 156-9

Compassion 217, 219, 220, 225

Conduct, relation of to Ethics 2-3, 146, 180

Conscience
defined 178
not infallible 149, 180

Conscientiousness 218
defined 179
utility of 180

Contempt 211, 217

Corporeal beauty 203-4

Courage 217

Crimes 161

Criterion
of beauty 202
evolution as 46, 50, 55-6
of goodness 137-8
pleasure as 91-2, 94-5, 108
of right and wrong 223
will as 137-8
of truth 133

Cruelty 209-11, 218

Darwin 47

Definition, nature of 6-9, 18-20

Desirable, meaning of 65-7, 73

Desire, cause and object of 68-70, 73-4

Duty
= cause of or means to good 24-5, 105, 146-8, 167, 180, 223
fuller definitions of 148, 161, 180-1, 222
incapable of being known 149-50, 181
mainly negative 218
object of _psychological_ intuition 148
relations to expediency 167-70, 181
interest 170-1, 181
possibility 150-2
rightness 148
utility 146-7, 167-70
virtue 172
will 160, 161
not self-evident 148, 181
self-regarding 168

Egoistic Hedonism 18

Egoism, as doctrine of end 18, 96-105, 109
contradiction of 99, 101-5, 109
relation to Hedonism 97-8
relation to Naturalistic Hedonism 104-5
Sidgwick’s ‘Rational’ 98-9, 102-4

Egoism, as doctrine of means 96-7, 105, 167

Emotion
aesthetic 190
value of 189-92, 199, 203, 204-5, 208, 209, 211, 212, 217, 224, 225

Empirical 39, 111, 123

Empiricism 103, 124-5, 130

End = effect 32

End = good in itself 18, 24, 64-6, 72, 73, 79-81, 83, 85, 94-5, 184,
216
dist. from ‘good as means’ 24, 72, 74, 79-81, 89, 90, 94-5, 106-7,
173-4, 178, 216, 223
‘ultimate’ 51, 83, 85, 96-7, 99-102, 183, 189
‘never justifies means’ 147, 163

End = object of desire 68, 70, 71, 72

Enjoyment 77, 96, 188, 208
aesthetic 188-9, 203
of evil and ugly 208-11, 218
sexual 95

Envy 211

Epistemology 133, 140-1

Ethics
Evolutionistic 46, 50, 54, 58
Metaphysical 39, 58, 113-15
Naturalistic 39-41, 58, 59
Practical 115-18, 140, 146, 149, 151, 154, 180, 222
province of 1-6, 21, 24, 26-7, 36, 37, 77, 115, 118, 142-6, 184,
222-4

Eudaemonist 175

Evil 153, 156, 158, 160, 186, 193, 205, 207-14, 224, 225
mixed 208, 209, 211
positive value of 216-22, 225

Evolution 46-8, 54-8

Evolutionistic 46, 50, 52, 54, 58

Existence
dist. from being 110-12
judgments about 123-5
relation to value 115-18, 118-22, 125-6, 194, 196, 197-9, 206, 210,
216, 219, 220, 221, 225

Expediency 167-70, 181

Feeling
supposed analogy to cognition 129-31, 141
supposed bearing on Ethics 129-31, 141

Fiction 121-2

Freedom, value of 86, 186

Freedom (of Will) 127

God 82, 102-4
love of 113, 194, 195-6, 200