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modern ethics the idea of good is often regarded as secondary to that of ought, or right. On this view we must know what ought means, in order to know what good means.1

means.

Nearly all good things turn out on reflection to be good only as means to something else, to be only relative goods. They are conditional, in that they presuppose the goodness of the end to which they are Money is good as a means to happiness, and careful bookkeeping as a means to making money. We seem, then, bound to assume that there are some things which are good in themselves. It is commonly assumed that there can be only one summum bonum, and that all other goods can only justify themselves by showing that they are means to this. Still, primâ facie, there are several ends which lay claim to finality, and while in practice there is pretty general agreement, at any rate verbal agreement, as to the relative importance of the subordinate goods, there is considerable speculative difficulty in settling the relations of those which have claims to the position of summum genus. We all agree that money is good simply as a means; we most of us agree that health is good When we ask simply as a means. 66 a means to what?" uncertainty begins.

1 Moral good is sometimes distinguished from natural good, that is, from all other goods. The antithesis is not absolute, since good conduct is defined by many schools of thinkers as that conduct which secures the supreme good; by hedonists (e.g.) as that conduct which secures pleasure.

Aristotle ("Nic. Eth.," I. vii.) seems to regard it as a test of the summum bonum that it shall never be chosen as a means, but always as an end. This, however, is not necessary. Pleasure may be, as the hedonists say, the ultimate end, and moral excellence only valuable as a means to pleasure; nevertheless a consistent hedonist may desire to be pleased with his dinner in order that he may be good-tempered and benevolent on a critical occasion, while he justifies the benevolence on account of its hedonic result to himself and others.

We may assume that the highest good we are in search of will be a good attainable by man. By a good, even when used in its most absolute sense, we mean good for man. Indeed, when we say "God is good," we either use the term good as equivalent to morally excellent, or we imply that God is an object of enjoyment.1 We shall not hold with Plato that the good is out of relation to ourselves and human nature in general, that it is something which exists in and for itself in a world of ideas. Nor, on the other hand, will it be purely relative, merely what each man, in whatever stage of moral development, thinks good. Rather it will be what the ideally wise man (ó opóviμos) judges good.

The following appear to be the goods which have been regarded by men as absolute and final: Fame,

1 St. Anselm, " Monologium," cap. i. Cf. Dante, "Paradiso," This view has only an antiquarian interest.

xxvi.

Wisdom, Happiness, Pleasure, Perfection, Humanity, God.

§ 2. Fame; Wisdom.

Fame.-Contemporary fame or honour may be always regarded as a means to happiness or pleasure. Even posthumous fame may be represented as deriving its desirability from the pleasure which the anticipatory contemplation of it gives to the individual himself. Although a limited number of men have apparently regarded posthumous fame, or even disgraceful notoriety, as an absolute end for which they have sacrificed happiness, excellence, and perhaps even the consciousness of present fame, this view has never approved itself to the reflexion of philosophers, we may, while admitting that to some natures it deserves a high place in the hierarchy of goods, dismiss its claim to be considered the summum bonum.

Wisdom. In knowledge we have the highest exercise of the highest faculty of man, and wisdom is the widest and fullest kind of knowledge. It is not surprising therefore to find philosophers regarding wisdom as the summum bonum, the most absolutely desirable end. But when we reflect, it seems that there is an end which makes wisdom thus desirable; we desire wisdom because it is, ex hypothesi, the highest excellence of our nature. And then the question arises, whether the intellectual faculty is really the highest, whether right acting will not claim the

precedence over right thinking. There is on the whole a marked agreement to the effect that practice is the more important, though not perhaps the more characteristically human, and that wisdom is chiefly valuable as a means to practice. Occasionally, indeed, one hears from men of science unguarded expressions which would make the possession, or even the pursuit, of knowledge superior to all other goods; but these are, perhaps, not to be taken too seriously.

§ 3. Happiness.

The average plain man regards happiness as a good of the highest kind. He is prepared to admit, with Butler, that "our ideas of happiness are of all ideas the nearest and most important to us," and that “when we sit down in a cool hour we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it" (Sermon XI.).

The difficulty lies in the attempt to define happi

ness.

It is commonly identified with pleasure and the absence of pain. This is the meaning attached to it by Locke ("Essay," bk. ii., ch. xxi., § 42) and Paley ("Moral Philos.," bk. i., chap. vi.), and it of course causes happiness to disappear from the list of competitors for the position of summum bonum in favour of pleasure.

There is however another view, specially associated

with the name of Aristotle, which defines happiness as an activity of the soul, such that its own special excellence is realized or fulfilled. It is at once wellbeing and well-doing. The greatest happiness lies in the best possible exercise of the highest faculties of our nature. Since the highest activity of the highest function is assumed to be accompanied by the highest pleasure,' if we lay stress on the pleasurableness, the feeling itself as opposed to its objective conditions, Aristotle's view tends to become purely hedonistic. But the assumption is certainly open to question. The pleasures of eating and drinking, to speak of no other animal satisfactions, appear to be judged by the majority of even highly intellectual and cultivated men as more intense, more capable of repetition and prolongation and more easily accessible than those of intellectual or moral exertion. They are perhaps even no more "impure" (that is, free from unpleasant accompaniments or consequences); since few men find study and philanthropic work free from constant weariness and disappointment. That Aristotle's theory does not become merely hedonistic, is partly due to almost inevitable confusion between pleasurable feeling and its intellectually perceived conditions, and partly due to the philosopher's unwillingness to purchase consistency at the expense of half the truth. As a matter of fact happiness does seem to involve an element which, while of the nature of feeling, is yet some

1

It is questionable whether Aristotle distinguishes between greatest and best pleasure.

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