"[8]
[Footnote 1: Appearance and Reality, p. 412.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., p. 410.]
[Footnote 3: Appearance and Reality, pp. 412, 413.]
[Footnote 4: Ethical Studies (1876), pp. 59, 63.]
[Footnote 5: Appearance and Reality, p. 414.]
[Footnote 6: Appearance and Reality, p. 414.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 415.]
[Footnote 8: A.E. Taylor, Problem of Conduct (1901), p. 65.]
It is worth while considering this view of the contradictions inherent
in morality. To start with, goodness was defined by relation to
desire: the good was said to be what satisfies desire. Desire is
plainly a mental state in which idea and existence are separated. As
such it cannot be attributed to the Absolute Reality. It will involve
a contradiction, therefore, if we identify goodness with Absolute
Reality; for goodness implies a distinction (between idea and
existence) which cannot find place in the Absolute. But if "degrees"
of reality be asserted, we must admit stages short of the Absolute,
and goodness may belong to such a stage in which process or
development is allowed as a fact. But Mr Bradley will have it not only
that it is a contradiction to identify this process with the Absolute,
but also that the conception of goodness is itself contradictory. "A
satisfied desire," he says, "is, in short, inconsistent with itself.
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