Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/434

418 because it is not shown to be superior to them, and it cannot be shown to be superior. To do so would require one to prove that it is better in the sense in which they are severally good, and as there is no one sense in which they are severally good, this is impossible. The individual standards are good, one of them in one sense, another in another, and so on. The general standard cannot be better in any of these senses of the word good, for the person whose ideal is to be proved to be inferior would be required to desire something more than what by hypothesis he desires most. And even if the general standard were shown to be better in the same sense of the word good, in which some personal standard is good, or in the several senses of the word good, in which the whole multitude of personal standards are severally good, there would still be as many senses of the word good, and as many standards, as there are individuals. The general standard would be the ideal in one sense, so far as I am concerned,—in the sense that it is most to my taste; and in another sense, so far as Jones is concerned,—in the sense that it is most to his taste; and so on. This on the supposition that the words good, better, and best, in relation to the general standard, mean what they do in relation to any of the personal standards; but the truth is that in relation to the general standard they have quite a special meaning. Each of the personal standards requires the word 'good' to mean that which is capable of satisfying a certain person, and the word 'better' to mean that which is capable of satisfying that particular person still more; while, so far as the general standard is concerned, that is good which is capable of satisfying anybody, and that is better which is capable either of satisfying that person more or of satisfying more persons. Instead, therefore, of reducing the multitude of personal standards to one, the general standard but adds one to their number. There were already as many standards as individuals; there are now all these and an extra.

It remains to point out another difference between the general standard and the personal standards. Each of them obliges one to recognize the inequality of different objects of