Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/432

 extension and harmony. Only the perfect and complete would, in the end, content our desires. And a satisfaction more consistent with itself, or again wider and fuller, approaches more nearly to that consummation in which we could rest. Further the divergence of these two aspects is itself but apparent, and consists merely in a one-sided confinement of our view. For a satisfaction determined from the outside cannot internally be harmonious, while on the other hand, if it became all-inclusive, it would have become also concordant. In its application this single principle tends naturally to fall apart into two different standards. Still, for all that, it remains in essence and at bottom the same, and it is everywhere an estimation by the Absolute.

In a sense, therefore, the Absolute is actually good, and throughout the world of goodness it is truly realized in different degrees of satisfaction. Since in ultimate Reality all existence, and all thought and feeling, become one, we may even say that every feature in the universe is thus absolutely good.

I have now briefly laid down the general meaning and significance of goodness, and may go on to consider it in a more special and restricted sense. The good, we have seen, contains the sides of existence and idea. And the existence, so far, has been found to be in accordance with the idea, but the idea itself, so far, has not necessarily produced or realized itself in the fact. When, however, we take goodness in its narrower meaning, this last feature is essential. The good, in short, will become the realized end or completed will. It is now an idea which not only has an answering