[86] I have explained in the [concluding paragraph] of chap. iii. that a different view of hedonistic systems is admissible.
[87] The wider of the two meanings of ‘Intuition’ here distinguished is required in treating of Philosophical Intuitionism. See Book iii. chap. [xiii.]
[88] It must, however, be remembered that Aristotle regarded the general proposition obtained by induction as really more certain (and in a higher sense knowledge) than the particulars through which the mind is led up to it.
[89] Strictly speaking, the attributes of truth and falsehood only belong formally to Rules when they are changed from the imperative mood (“Do X”) into the indicative (“X ought to be done”).
[90] It should be observed that such principles will not necessarily be “intuitional” in the narrower sense that excludes consequences; but only in the wider sense as being self-evident principles relating to ‘what ought to be.’
[91] It is, however, necessary to distinguish between the ideas of Moral Goodness and Beauty as applied to human actions: although there is much affinity between them, and they have frequently been identified, especially by the Greek thinkers. No doubt both the ideas themselves and the corresponding pleasurable emotions, arising on the contemplation of conduct, are often indistinguishable: a noble action affects us like a scene, a picture, or a strain of music: and the delineation of human virtue is an important part of the means which the artist has at his disposal for producing his peculiar effects. Still, on looking closer, we see not only that there is much good conduct which is not beautiful, or at least does not sensibly impress us as such; but even that certain kinds of crime and wickedness have a splendour and sublimity of their own. For example, such a career as Cæsar Borgia’s, as Renan says, is “beau comme une tempête, comme un abîme.” It is true, I think, that in all such cases the beauty depends upon the exhibition in the criminal’s conduct of striking gifts and excellences mingled with the wickedness: but it does not seem that we can abstract the latter without impairing the æsthetic effect. And hence I conceive, we have to distinguish the sense of beauty in conduct from the sense of moral goodness.
[92] It would seem that, according to the common view of ‘good,’ there are occasions in which an individual’s sacrifice of his own good on the whole, according to the most rational conception of it that he can form, would apparently realise greater good for others. Whether, indeed, such a sacrifice is ever really required, and whether, if so, it is truly reasonable for the individual to sacrifice his own good on the whole, are among the profoundest questions of ethics: and I shall carefully consider them in subsequent chapters (especially Book iii. chap. [xiv.]). I here only desire to avoid any prejudgment of these questions in my definition of ‘my own good.’
[93] As before said (chap. iii. § [4]), so far as my ‘good on the whole’ is adopted as an end of action, the notion of ‘ought’—implying a dictate or imperative of Reason—becomes applicable to the necessary or fittest means to the attainment of the adopted end.
[94] Character is only known to us through its manifestation in conduct; and I conceive that in our common recognition of Virtue as having value in itself, we do not ordinarily distinguish character from conduct: we do not raise the question whether character is to be valued for the sake of the conduct in which it is manifested, or conduct for the sake of the character that it exhibits and develops. How this question should be answered when it is raised will be more conveniently considered at a later stage of the discussion. See Book iii. chap. ii. § [2], and chap. xiv. § [1].
[95] No doubt there is a point of view, sometimes adopted with great earnestness, from which the whole universe and not merely a certain condition of rational or sentient beings is contemplated as ‘very good’: just as the Creator in Genesis is described as contemplating it. But such a view can scarcely be developed into a method of Ethics. For practical purposes, we require to conceive some parts of the universe as at least less good than they might be. And we do not seem to have any ground for drawing such a distinction between different portions of the non-sentient universe, considered in themselves and out of relation to conscious or sentient beings.