FOOTNOTES:
[7] The following list of uses of the word “good” has been taken from Murray’s New Oxford Dictionary, The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia, Webster’s, and the Standard Dictionary. From the same sources also were derived the lists given in the following five chapters. It should, however, be well noted that the lexicographer rarely attempts such an analytical definition of words as we are in search of here. He confines himself chiefly to the etymology of a word and its synonyms, and to citing quotations which illustrate the accepted usage of words. As a result, the man who looks into a dictionary will increase his range of associations long before he will be stimulated to perform that most fruitful of all mental activities,—critical analysis.
The Uses of the Word “Good”
1. Good food; fit to eat, untainted.
2. Good food; nutritious, palatable.
3. Good medicine; useful as a remedy.
4. Good soil; fertile, arable.
5. Good ice; easy to skate on.
6. Good ice; fit to dissolve in drinking water.
7. Good ship; capable, or under sail, or expressing pride in the owner, or as an expression of well-wishing.
8. Good cat; able mouser, house-broken, etc.
9. Good child; quiet, obedient, not troublesome.
10. Good person for: capable, thorough, skilful, competent, clever at, in concord with.
11. “To can no good,” (colloq.); to be untrained.
12. Good for a period of time; well able to accomplish.
13. In good earnest; vigorously and effectively.
14. Good king; one who fulfils his function, or is beloved by his subjects.
15. To good; to improve land by manuring it.
16. Good space or time for; available for the purpose.
17. Good opinion; favorable or approving, laudatory.
18. Good cry; beneficent, profitable, salutary, wholesome.
19. Good spirits; not depressed or dejected, indicative of resilience or ambition.
20. Good offices; friendly use of power.
21. Good man; kind, benevolent, gentle, gracious, friendly, favorably disposed, virtuous, skilful, commendable, pious, devout, or religiously approved.
22. Good season; holy days.
23. The good book; “tending to spiritual edification.”
24. The good God; “connoting perfection or benevolence.”
25. Highest good; conventional phrase of philosophers.
26. “Antonio is a good man”; reliable, safe, able to fulfil his engagements, financially sound.
27. “A man of good”; of property, standing, rank.
28. Goods; property, merchandise, wares, live-stock, cattle, etc.
29. “A great good”; a large sum of money.
30. To yield a good product or result; to turn to a person’s advantage.
31. To the good; balance on the credit side, excess of assets over liabilities.
32. “Good fors”; colloquial in South Africa for promissory notes, drafts, “I.O.U.’s,” etc.
33. Good wind; favorable, not too weak or too strong.
34. Good health; conducive to peace of mind and longevity.
35. Good order; stable, satisfying.
36. Good complexion; gratifying, favorable, advantageous, etc.
37. Good face; fair or smooth, or indicating intellectual ability or trustworthiness of character.
38. Good play; agreeable, amusing, skilful.
39. Good fame; honorable, not sullied.
40. To have a good night of it; to sleep undisturbedly and to be refreshed by so doing.
41. To have a good time of it; period of enjoyment.
42. Good will; benevolence.
43. “Good morning”; elliptical for well wishing.
44. “Good bye”; elliptical for well wishing at departure.
45. To take in good part; to be somewhat pleased, or at least not displeased.
46. “Good to overcome”; easy to overcome.
47. To appear or seem good; implying various degrees of commendation, depending, however, upon the accent of the speaker.
48. A good deal; an amount greater than expected.
49. A good deal; adequate, abundant, ample, sufficient.
50. As good as; practically or to all intents and purposes the same.
51. To be as good as one’s word; to act up to the full sense of the letter or the meaning.
52. To make good; to succeed, fulfil, or perform, carry out or succeed in performing.
53. To make good; to fill up even or level.
54. To make good; to repair or restore, to compensate for, to supply a deficiency, to pay a debt.
55. To make good; to secure prisoners for the night.
56. To make good; to prove to be true or valid, to demonstrate or substantiate a statement.
57. Good for a certain amount; spoken of a person expected to pay or contribute.
58. Good debts; those which are expected to be paid in full.
59. To make one’s part good; to make a successful resistance.
60. To become good for; to fulfil expectation.
61. To come to good; spoken of a dream that comes true.
62. Good birth; average or above the average, not humble or mean.
63. Good coin; genuine, not counterfeit.
64. Good purpose or conduct; commendable, acceptable, up to standard, not causing trouble.
65. Good jest; smart, witty, typical, or even exceptional.
66. Good right, claim, reason, plea, proposition; valid, sound.
67. Good legal decision, or contract; valid, effectual, not vitiated by any flaw.
68. To have a good mind to; to be ready to act, to have a matured intention.
69. “Our good wishes go with you”; expectation of happiness or prosperity.
70. For good and all; valid conclusion, finally.
71. “Good my lord”; courteous address, deferential attitude, expectation of favor or esteem.
72. Good life insurance risk; likely to live a long time.
73. “Good men and true”; spoken of a jury that is expected to render a fair verdict.
74. Good old; possibly a term of praise, or merely meaning very old.
75. “Good words!”; equivalent to “do not speak so fiercely,” or “I expected kind words from you.”
76. “The good people”; palliatory with reference to the fairies or witches.
77. Good gracious! good Peter! good God!; exclamatory, possibly signifying the presence of something that is unexpected, which may be either welcome or otherwise.
78. Good folk; used in a jocular or depreciatory sense.
79. Goody good; mildly depreciatory of trustful simplicity.
CHAPTER IV
THE ACTION-PATTERNS IMPLIED BY THE WORD “BAD,” WITH A NOTE ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF “EVIL”
“It is noteworthy that there has never been a problem of good, but always a problem of evil. Man takes the good in his life for granted, while he bewails the presence of evil in all its forms. May not reality be of such a character that evil is as natural as good?”
R. W. Sellars, “The Next Step in Religion,” pp. 153-5.
Good and bad, or good and evil, have from the most ancient times been held to be diametrical and thoroughgoing opposites of each other. In the system of Zoroaster this antithesis is metaphorically projected into the remotest heavens, where Mazda, the God of Light, whose deeds were goodness itself, endlessly strove to annihilate Angra, the tireless perpetrator of deceit. The Christian mythologists, in a characteristic imitation of pagan creeds, loved to imagine a final Day of Judgment, when the mild, spotless followers of the Lamb were to be rewarded by an eternal separation from the sooty henchmen of Satan. Similar conceptions, though none of them nearly so poetic, have tinged the thought of every subsequent era. Most of us are familiar with Milton’s fabulous version of the theology of the Middle Ages, in which God the Father is depicted as struggling against the powers of darkness, not, however, by sending irresistible cohorts to besiege and conquer Hell, but rather by counteracting their insidious propaganda in the playground of Adam’s Eden. Indeed, one has but to learn to read the simplest literature in any language to realize how much of what is called thinking consists simply in devising contrasts and antitheses. It is the orator’s chief tour de force, the historian’s commonplace, the dramatist’s all-important method of producing a plot, and, in fact, without it, no literature would seem to give an adequate picture of the realities of human life. Small wonder then, that in the philosophy of Empedocles, the world-view of Zoroaster, and the theology of Christendom, this stereotyped way of thinking, originating in and generated by the physics and physiology of man’s musculature, should be manifest; or that the common man should so readily and persistently hold to the diametrical opposition between good and bad, and right and wrong. The law of reciprocal innervation, being implicit in the body’s architecture, is necessarily a basic formula for man’s thought.
Even though this be admitted, it guides us only a little ways through the tangle of ethical problems. In the first place, no such dramatic portrayal as, for example, that of Zoroaster,—whatever theatrical agonies it might provoke,—has either reduced the sum of the world’s distresses, or furnished the least insight into the nature of the supposed opposites of goodness. For that matter, indeed, very little knowledge of this character has arisen out of ethical debate or speculation. The assumptions have been many, the facts few; and usually, whenever this discrepancy has been realized, overdrafts have been written on the phantom bank of theory with the vain hope that by this means ethical solvency could be attained. In the second place, it has scarcely occurred to any one to ask whether there was not some other way of looking at the ethical problem than in this duplex manner, for if an irreconcilable opposition in the field of ethics is assumed as a fundamental principle, nothing but an eternal deadlock can result in the conclusion. Now the empirical fact is that man’s muscles (the functions of which determine his thoughts), can do other things than oppose and counteract each other, for every day of our lives we see these other motor activities manifested. However, our traditional ethical theory would have it that the dilemma is inescapable,—that things are either good or bad, or actions either right or wrong, and people either virtuous or vicious, and that there is no middle ground, or possibility of reconciliation. Mark, however, that only in serious pathological cases do we observe a complete rigidity of the body due to chronic muscular antagonisms. Is it not therefore a valid inference that the mental rigidity of most adherents to the bi-polar theory in ethics is likewise a pathological sign, and, if so, are we not driven to the conclusion that man’s traditional ethical notions are symptoms of physiological malfunctioning?
Important as all this is, however, it cannot turn us aside from our interest in finding out just to what an extent the word “bad” is a real antonym to the word “good,” especially since knowledge of this sort is first necessary before we can employ the method of science in the service of the problems of human conduct. Let us, then, resume our original search.
The term “bad” is a gestural sign which we employ in two different senses,—to point out a deficiency or lack, (that is, to indicate merely the absence of good), and in a positive sense, to hint the presence of something definitely antagonistic to good. By an analogy, if money is a good, we should call it “bad” in the privative sense of the term for one to be without it; while it is “bad” in the positive sense for one to be deeply in debt. But even while we ponder these two behavior situations, they tend, at least partly, to coalesce, very much indeed as Classes A and B of “good” merged at times imperceptibly into one another. For if the man who is without money, but not in debt, passionately desires to purchase and spend, he will immediately place himself in the class of debtors, and experience therewith the positive form of “badness,” at least so far as his feelings of inhibition are concerned. However, just to what an extent these two categories of “bad” may be identified cannot be shown until we have first reviewed the separate uses to which this term is put,[8] and have also deduced the action-patterns which it implies.
It can be divined at once from a careful perusal of this brief array, herewith subjoined, that the concept “bad” is, on the whole, a far less variegated symbol than is the concept “good.” Its use is more restricted, its connotation is less rich in variety, and, as can be already predicted, the number of separate classes into which our array may be distributed is fewer than was the case with the term “good.” For while we have here hints of three classes which are, roughly speaking, negatives of Classes A, B, and C of “good,” we have nothing at all comparable to the negatives of Classes D and E. To wit:—
Class A. That which is useless, unfit, unserviceable, and the like, for any purpose whatever.
Class B. That which brings pain, discomfort, loss, or death. In some respects this class is the negative of Class B of “good,” having the general meaning of undependable. However, it is not the negative of every shade of meaning implied by that class, as can at once be seen when we consider that there are no “bads” which are the antitheses of goods, that is, property. For, as we have already observed, even some debts are good debts.
Class C. That which disappoints expectation.[9] Here also the negation is limited, for while with Class C of “good” the tone of the voice could convey an immense variety of meanings, here no such great array of nuances is found.
In consideration, then, of what has just preceded, we may emphatically deny that “bad” is a true antonym of the word “good.” Not only is this to be instantly deduced from the array of uses to which these terms are put, but also from the contents of the five classes of “good” and the three classes of “bad.” We shall presently discover whether “evil,” as an adjunct of the concept “bad,” makes up this discrepancy.
Resuming, then, our main theme, how shall we proceed to define privative and positive “bad” in physiological terms, and by what means shall we discover the action-patterns which are implied by the three classes of “bad” which we have just delimited?
In general, and from the reader’s own experience, “bad” means thwarting, inhibition, opposition, the interruption of action, the durable dissatisfactions of life. We need, however, to come at the matter a little more closely. In the preceding chapter we saw that when we are ready to act, the stimulus that elicits the reaction for which we are keyed up is called “good.” Employing the methods of inductive science, with our eye on the behavior possibilities of the human organism, we find the following stimulus-response situations adequate to reveal the origin of the word “bad.”
1. When we are ready to act in some precise manner, but no stimulus, that is, opportunity, is afforded for such action, the term “bad” adequately describes the situation. Here it becomes a gestural sign which may point either to the environment or to the organism. It is for this reason that a man in debt, hungry, and in want is said to be “in a bad way”; while in his predicament counterfeit money and tainted food would be unequivocally bad.
2. When we are ready to act, but are prevented from releasing the energy we have mobilized because the stimulus is inadequate, and does not call forth the exact response which we have been preparing to make, the situation may again be described as “bad.” “That’s too bad,” we sometimes say of a suit of clothes which, while adequately keeping out the winter’s cold, does not quite fit the shoulders.
3. When we are unready, to act in a certain way, but are summarily called upon to mobilize our energy for this purpose, the situation is again often described as “bad.” Unexpected, excess taxes always produce an emotional situation specifically related to this value predicate.
4. Any inadequate response, in other words, one that is faulty, erroneous, and the like, may be called “bad.” Sometimes, also, the person making such a response is described by the same term.
From this it appears that the general meaning of “bad” is within the scope of our discovery. Not only is this deducible from our previous identification of this concept with the useless, the independable, and with that which disappoints, but it is also plainly foreshadowed by the four behavior situations we have just described. “Bad” seems to imply that action, interest, purpose, and the like, have been thwarted; that the organism has become a center of inhibitions, and is in discomfort either because the energy which it has mobilized cannot be released into action, or because demands for such release cannot be met. Such a physiological condition is best described as incoordinate. And this term covers all three of our classes of “bad.” Moreover, by partial contrast with good, “bad” implies a withdrawing reaction, with either a slump in muscular tone (in which case we have privative “bad”), or else a sudden onset of unrelieved tensions—(positive “bad”). Accompanying such a condition, we may safely postulate synaptic impermeability and inhibition, together with varying degrees of unpleasant strain sensations. But mark, that we do not say that the “bad” is always equivalent to the painful.
Were physiological science sufficiently advanced, it would be possible for us to complete our definition of badness in terms of the mal-functioning of such internal systems as the alimentary canal, the cardiac, respiratory, and excretory mechanisms, and the endocrine glands. Our common experience indubitably indicates that all forms of thwarting and inhibition which prompt our exclamations, react violently upon the internal machinery. Indeed, it is not too much to claim that both the centrifugal and centripetal types of behavior which are implied by the terms “good” and “bad” respectively just as often as not have their source in the postures and manœuvres of our organic interior. That is, brief to say, why the healthy man and the dyspeptic, the optimist and the pessimist, will give precisely opposite accounts of the same external world. We remarked before that speech not only points out and distinguishes objects for us, but also implies and predicts human activities. Our analysis of good and bad fortifies this thesis beyond contradiction, and shows that any value predicate that has a specific reference to the environment has specific implications for the organism as well.
The Physiology of “Evil”
In some minds the term “evil” has primarily what is called a moral signification, and implies first and foremost anything “contrary to an accepted standard of righteousness,” or anything “inconsistent with or violating the moral law”; and consequently, it is equivalent to the terms “sinful” and “wicked.” Let us not meet such minds too intimately. Speaking in this fashion is not only vague, but misleading as well. For when duly examined, almost every so-called “standard of righteousness” becomes a totally unspecific category of behavior, while the term “moral law” is not law in any dependable sense of the term at all. Certainly it is not a law of nature,—of human nature,—for it does not adequately describe any typical behavior situations. Neither is it law to a jurist, since there is no organized force that can be brought to bear upon human beings to compel them to obey it in their actions, much less in their thinking. Moreover, the terms “sinful” and “wicked” are so narrow and provincial and so exclusively employed by religionists “to pelt their adversaries with,” that their equivalence to “evil” as a term of value in the broadest ethical sense is, to say the least of it, problematical. Whether unfortunately or not, none of the purely moral categories are fundamental for an understanding of the actual behavior of human beings. Indeed, as a usual thing, they hint uncritical and disorderly thinking in him who uses them, rather than specify any intelligent and sympathetic appreciation of human interests, or any analytical insight into the environment which now thwarts and now furthers such interests.
And now to our analysis. The term “evil” is much more assertive than is the word “bad,” and more forceful than all but a few significations of the word “good.” It originally had the adverbial force of up or over, two words whose empathic significance is worthy of remark. Today the term “evil” signifies either (a) “that which exceeds due measure,” or (b) “that which oversteps proper limits.” Here, then, we notice at the outset that “evil,” unlike either good or bad, always carries with it the presumption of standards or rules.
To a large extent the place in the language formerly occupied by the term “evil” is now held by the term “bad.” With the reasons for this change we are not especially concerned here, although it may be appropriate to point out that the popularity of any term that has been used almost exclusively by religionists for purposes of anathema is doomed. Besides, the word “evil” calls up literary associations which condemn it to modern minds. Such expressions as “The Evil One” (that is, the Devil of the Middle Ages), the “evil eye” (another outworn superstition), the “King’s Evil,” and a dozen other equally obsolete terms have fallen into such low repute that they have weakened, so to speak, the gestural significance of the remnants of this concept. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is far more dramatic vocal quality attaching to the term “evil” than to either of the words “good” or “bad.” Few words in the language provide such an opportunity as does this one for the simultaneous display of eye-, lip-, and jaw-gestures, whose combined effects are none the less striking, no matter how empathically unpleasant they have become. We invite you to stand before the mirror, and say the word “evil” with clenched teeth and canines showing, and verify this remark.
While the term “evil” is employed as an adjective, a noun, and an adverb, we do not need to stop here to catalogue its uses under these three headings. All we need to consider is that “evil” is an intensification of “bad” in the positive sense of that term.[10] It is also a forceful negative of Class B of good, in the sense that it implies that which actively operates to produce incoordination, mal-adjustment, discomfort, and the like. It will be recalled that Class B of “good” included whatever conduced to life, health, pleasure, and stability. On the contrary, “evil” is a gestural sign that indicates any and all processes of disintegration, disruption, and confusion. It at once implies something which is energetically antagonistic to our purposes.
The definition of evil in mechanistic terms is now within our reach. We have said before that “evil” is an intensification of the term “bad,” which latter term was used to describe an incoordinate condition of the organism brought about because its wishes, interests, and purposes,—in a word, its action-patterns,—had been thwarted. Just what more than this does “evil” imply? It implies that our wishes have been thwarted to such an extent as to call forth from us the most energetic, antagonistic reactions of which we are capable. “Good” signifies an outgoing reaction, “bad” signifies a withdrawing reaction, while “evil” means that within the organism some of the available energies are being hastily mobilized to compensate for an outgoing reaction that has been thwarted. Of course, there are many persons who never attempt any compensation of such a constructive character as to prevent the recurrence of the same evil situation, either because they are physically unfit, or are poor in spirit, but in such cases the word “evil” is used without very much meaning.
Our definition of this concept will, I think, serve to provide a new interpretation of the statement made previously, namely, that “evil always carries with it the presumption of standards or rules.” What, precisely, does this statement mean? It means that whenever we have lost our organic equilibrium in the presence of a situation described as evil, whatever we do to recover it ipso facto at that moment defines not only the standard and rule by which our conduct is regulated, but such behavior also reveals to others just what the “problem of evil” really means to us. For example, if we are vexed and become profane, profanity is patently an integral factor in our philosophy of compensation. If we lose our money, and steal another’s to make good our loss, theft is a cardinal principle in our doctrine of equalization. We may, to be sure, immediately thereafter lament the outburst by which we attempted to “set things to rights,” but we cannot retrieve the action by which we defined and exhibited our practical ethical philosophy. Our recent Emerson had this scientific truth in mind when he said, “What you are speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you say.” Examples of another sort are equally illuminating. If Socrates is condemned to death for corrupting the Athenian youth, and calmly drinks the hemlock in order to remain a law-abiding citizen to the end, this deed of probity defines the dominant action-pattern in his philosophy of retaliation. If Jesus is crucified for blasphemy and inciting to insurrection, and manifests an attitude of non-resistance and equanimity, these action-patterns once more exhibit his method of dealing with the problem of evil. In every such case the bodily habits which have long accumulated are automatically released by the appropriate stimulus into overt behavior. In physiological terms, what a man does in response to evil, shows what sort of reciprocal innervations his body has acquired. And while such a mechanistic interpretation of an ethical standard may seem astonishing, yet such a modus agendi is, unless we are greatly deceived, the one which human beings actually employ, and consequently it is the only one which has any place in an empirical science of conduct.
A Further Remark on the Opposites of “Good”
From our definition of “evil” as an intensification of “bad” in the positive sense of that term, it can at once be noted that these two words do not even together supply a thoroughgoing antonym to the word “good.” For they do not strictly imply action-patterns which in the minute and fine are opposed to those underlying all the valid uses of the word “good.” It is not to the point that “in general” (which can only mean here vaguely) these words are antithetical to each other; our analysis has produced knowledge that henceforth discounts all such remarks. And, if anyone says that for the purposes of morality, the traditional antithesis is still valid, the answer is that morality, after all, is only custom, while ethics is primarily a critical insight into that reality which the moralist has always sought to make obscure.
A more important conclusion, however, is still to be drawn from the foregoing analysis. Which is, that “evil” is not, as has usually been concluded, an opposite of “good.” Indeed, if we have described the situation fairly, when we say that ‘evil denotes that our wishes have been thwarted to such an extent as to call forth from us the most energetic, antagonistic reactions of which we are capable,’ we can only deduce from this that the antagonistic reactions are aroused for the purpose of replacing something that is “bad” by something that is “good.” But if this be the case, then the emphatic quality attaching to the word “evil” is really a sign that we have already started an outgoing reaction that shall furnish the desired compensation. This two-fold meaning of the word “evil” is worthy of more than a passing remark, but suffice it to say that in the light of what has gone before, the “problem of evil” now becomes the problem of educating a man how to replace the “bad” with the “good,” rather than a problem over which the metaphysician may dawdle or the moralist mope.
FOOTNOTES:
The Uses of the Word “Bad”
I. The Privative Significations of the Word “Bad.”
1. Bad air; vitiated, which cannot sustain healthy respiration.
2. Bad coin; debased, counterfeit.
3. Bad food; deficient in nourishment.
4. Bad food; repugnant on account of its smell or taste, whether deficient in nourishment or not.
5. Bad shot or guess; incorrect, faulty, below standard or par.
6. Bad debts; those which cannot or are not expected to be paid.
7. To go bad; to decay.
8. Bad workmanship; defective, below par, sometimes called poor or worthless.
9. In a bad way; in a wretched or miserable state, unfortunate, unfavorable.
10. With a bad grace; unwillingly.
II. The Positive Significations of the Word “Bad.”
1. Bad air; noxious, poisonous.
2. Bad food or water; injurious to health, hurtful, dangerous, pernicious.
3. Bad company; depraved, wicked, vicious.
4. Bad fit (as of a shoe); causing inconvenience, displeasure, or pain.
5. Bad smell; unpleasant, offensive, disagreeable, troublesome, painful.
6. “Bad blood”; harsh, angry feeling.
7. In bad health; suffering from disease or injury, (in pain).
8. “To the bad”; to ruin, in deficit.
9. “In bad” (slang); spoken of a man who has made trouble for himself and others.
[9] In passing, it might be pertinent to consider the question as to whether the word “bad” is synonymous with ‘that which disappoints expectation.’ One might ask, for example, “Do not chronic pessimists literally expect catastrophe?” Here, as elsewhere, we must not be deceived by a trick of speech. For he who says, “I expect disaster,” is unwittingly making an equivocal statement. The man who makes such a remark cannot be implying that his whole body, with its numerous action-patterns, is completely set to receive the stimulus that will demolish his equilibrium. Rather should we infer from this utterance that he is at least partly prepared to resist it, partly to rejoice at the incident discomfiture to others, with the hope thereby of making his own troubles dwindle by comparison, and perhaps also partly anticipating the relief that will come when the suspense of waiting is over. None of these interpretations disallow the formulation of any of the above classes of “bad.” To be sure, there are certain abnormal types, like the sadist and the masochist, to whom pain is an erotic stimulus, but even so, their expectations are always directed to that particular element of the situation which, by affording an outgoing reaction, is for them a “good.”
The Significations of the Term “Evil”
1. That which causes or increases harm, injury, misfortune, or disease.
2. Such advice as is misleading, mischievous, or disastrous.
3. Any wish whose fulfilment would lead to calamity, trouble, or death.
4. Any abusive, malicious, or slanderous statement, (compare “evil tongue”).
5. Any period of time characterized by misfortune or suffering.
6. The term “evil” is also used in special senses, such as in the expression “social evil” (that is, prostitution). But such a use of this word, being special and more or less provincial, should not be over-emphasized in our definition. There are, moreover, many other social evils than prostitution, and some producing far more ethical disaster.
CHAPTER V
“RIGHT” AS A GESTURAL SIGN
“From every point of view, the overwhelming and portentous character ascribed to universal conceptions is surprising. Why, from Plato and Aristotle downwards, philosophers should have vied with each other in scorn of the knowledge of the particular, and in adoration of that of the general, is hard to understand, seeing that the more adorable knowledge ought to be that of the more adorable things, and that the things of worth are all concretes and singulars. The only value of universal characters is that they help us, by reasoning, to know new truths about individual things.... In sum, therefore, the traditional universal-worship can only be called a bit of perverse sentimentalism, a philosophic ‘idol of the tribe.’” W. James, “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I, Chap. XII, pp. 479-80.
There had been a murder in the Maritime Provinces, and two men, a jurist and a layman, were discussing it. The murdered man, it appeared, had from time to time missed some of his sheep, and one day, upon hearing a shot fired, ran down into his pasture, and came upon two boys, one of whom was carrying a gun, and the other a bag whose contours plainly revealed that it contained the body of a sheep. The farmer ordered the boys to follow him to town to give an account of their misbehavior; and this they proceeded to do without any show of resistance or word of objection. But suddenly, and without any warning, the boy who carried the gun shot the farmer in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The murderer was later apprehended, and put into the county jail, awaiting trial.
“And would they hang a boy of seventeen in Canada?” asked the layman.
“Why not?” enquired the jurist, “They can hang anyone here who has reached the age of discretion, and who knows the difference between right and wrong.”
“And will you tell me,” parried the layman, “just what that age is, and exactly what that difference is?”
The jurist eyed his inquisitor for a moment, and burst into a laugh. “Only a fool would ask such a question!” he retorted, and turned away.
All of which goes to show that a man may be proficient in legal technique, and yet be an ignoramus in ethics. Knowledge of the meaning of the word “right” is both possible and profitable, and it is hardly too much to suppose that such knowledge, when disseminated, might even produce a salutary effect upon legal theory and legal practice.
Anyone who endeavors to marshal the array of all the uses to which the word “right” is put, will be astonished to find out how extensive the list is. In point of the richness of its denotation and connotation, this concept exceeds the term “good.” And while it resembles that word in being used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb, it significantly differs from the term “good” in that it is employed to refer principally to the relations and functions of things, and hardly ever to objects of the physical environment.
No man’s span of perception is large enough, or his span of attention long enough, to surround the complete array of the uses of the word “right” unless this array be divided into classes. Such division will presently appear. And I think it can be shown that no matter how little in common some of the terms of this array seem, to a casual observer, to possess, when they are thus grouped into classes, they will be subtly linked together by adequate bonds. Let us then introduce: