400 ETHICS 



has his own special place and calling. But he is connected with 

 a larger purpose which in his consciousness becomes both an ideal 

 and a law, while its application is not limited to his individuality or 

 his circumstances. 



All this is implied in the moral judgment. It is not limited to one 

 individual consciousness or volition. But it does not follow that the 

 predicate "good," in the ethical meaning of the term, is or can be 

 applied out of relation to consciousness altogether. At the earliest 

 stages of moral development we find it applied unhesitatingly 

 wherever conscious activity is supposed to be present to anything 

 that is regarded as the embodiment of spirit; and it is applied to the 

 universe as a whole when the universe is thought of as the product 

 of mind. " Good " is not even limited to an actual existent; it neither 

 implies nor denies actual existence. "Such and such, if it existed, 

 would be a good " is as legitimate though not so primitive an expres- 

 sion of the moral judgment as "this existent is good." But it does 

 imply a relation to existence. It does not even seem possible to 

 distinguish except verbally between "good" and "ought to be." 

 And this " ought " seems to imply a reference to a purpose through 

 which the idea is to be realized. 



This conception "ought to be" is not the same as the concept 

 "ought to be done by me." The latter is an application of the more 

 general concept to a special individual in special circumstances; 

 and this is the common meaning of the concept duty. The former 

 is the more general concept of "goodness." It may be called object- 

 ive, because it does not refer to any individual state of mind; it is 

 universal because independent of the judgments and desires of the 

 individual ; and when the goodness is not due to its tendency towards 

 some further end, it may also be called absolute. 



The point of the whole argument can thus be made clear if we 

 bear in mind the familiar distinction between "good in itself" and 

 "good for me now." That the latter has always a relation to con- 

 sciousness is obvious: it is something to be done or experienced by 

 me. But there must be some ground why anything is to be or ought 

 to be done or experienced by me at any time. Present individual 

 activity must rest upon or be connected with some wider or objective 

 basis. What is good for me points to and depends upon something 

 which is not merely relatively good, but good in itself or absolutely. 

 Yet it does not follow that this good in itself is necessarily absolute 

 in the sense of having significance apart altogether from conscious- 

 ness. Its absoluteness consists in independence of individual con- 

 sciousness or feeling, not in independence of consciousness altogether. 

 It is objective rather than absolute in the literal sense of the term. 

 The good in itself, like the relative good, is one aspect which can only 

 belong to a consciousness to purpose. The moral judgment on 



