Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/173

No. 2.] unless we keep in mind a distinction at which I have already hinted. What this is, might be suggested by a certain peculiarity in connection with our judgment of the good. Not infrequently we have occasion to say that we approve a good while yet we do not desire it for ourselves; and if this is true, it might seem again to raise the question whether after all a quality which we approve without desire does not come nearer to an intellectual fact than an emotional. I think this may be met by noting that there are really two different kinds of judgment that we pass about the good, and that one of them is more purely intellectual than the other. Usually, I think, it is assumed that our conception of the totality of good, or of the Summum Bonum, is identical with our notion of the end which appeals to us as personally, our duty, or our ideal. But there are difficulties in such an assumption. Concretely, it must be evident that not every man's good, as his practical ideal and goal, can be identically the same; and if each man's different good is the Summum Bonum, there is no Summum Bonum. Or it may be asked whether I really want for myself, or regard as my duty, every- thing that I approve and admire as good; and it seems clear, again, that I do not.

To meet this, I may draw again on the distinction between the satisfactoriness of an experience, and the satisfactoriness of the approving judgment. Now I shall, other things being equal, naturally feel approval of that which satisfies my own desires; and if I were no more than an animal this is as far as my judgment of approval would go. But it is actually not limited to this; and the reason is, simply, that I among other things am also a rational being. And by this I mean something quite definite; I mean that I am capable of separating my intellect temporarily from the pursuit of other ends more personal to me, and of looking at things impartially, just for the sake of seeing them as they are. I can separate the idea of good, for example, from the particular things which seem good to me because I want them for myself, and, noting that satisfaction of desire is their common character, can generalize this, and talk of good, not as that which satisfies my desire, but as that which satisfies desire. Accordingly my