The Nature of Goodness | Page 7

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.

II
MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOODNESS
I
Our diagram of goodness, as drawn in the last chapter, has its special
imperfections, and through these cannot fail to suggest certain
erroneous notions of goodness. To these I now turn. The first of them is
connected with its own method of construction. It will be remembered
that we arbitrarily threw an arrow from D to A, thus making what was
hitherto an end become a means to its own means. Was this legitimate?
Does any such closed circle exist?
It certainly does not. Our universe contains nothing that can be
represented by that figure. Indeed if anywhere such a self-sufficing
organism did exist, we could never know it. For, by the hypothesis, it
would be altogether adequate to itself and without relations beyond its
own bounds. And if it were thus cut off from connection with
everything except itself, it could not even affect our knowledge. It
would be a closed universe within our universe, and be for us as good
as zero. We must own, then, that we have no acquaintance with any
such perfect