Page:Principia Ethica 1922.djvu/165

IV] think them good; just as it is only because we have certain perceptual experiences, that we ever come to think things true. Here, then, is a special connection between willing and goodness; but it is only a causal connection—that willing is a necessary condition for the cognition of goodness.

But it may be said further that willing and feeling are not only the origin of cognitions of goodness; but that to will a thing, or to have a certain feeling towards a thing, is the same thing as to think it good. And it may be admitted that even this is generally true in a sense. It does seem to be true that we hardly ever think a thing good, and never very decidedly, without at the same time having a special attitude of feeling or will towards it; though it is certainly not the case that this is true universally. And the converse may possibly be true universally: it may be the case that a perception of goodness is included in the complex facts which we mean by willing by having certain kinds of feeling. Let us admit then, that to think a thing good and to will it are the same thing in this sense, that, wherever the latter occurs, the former also occurs as part of it; and even that they are generally the same thing in the converse sense, that when the former occurs it is generally part of the latter.

80. These facts may seem to give countenance to the general assertion that to think a thing good is to prefer it or approve it, in the sense in which preference and approval denote certain kinds of will or feeling. It seems to be always true that when we thus prefer or approve, there is included in that fact the fact that we think good; and it is certainly true, in an immense majority of instances, that when we think good, we also prefer or approve. It is natural enough, then, to say that to think good is to prefer. And what more natural than to add: When I say a thing is good, I mean that I prefer it? And yet this natural addition involves a gross confusion. Even if it be true that to think good is the same thing as to prefer (which, as we have seen, is never true in the sense that they are absolutely identical; and not always true in the sense that they occur together), yet it is not true that what you think, when you think a thing good, is that you prefer it.