Where, then, did man get the notion of straightness, and what has this first class of the uses of “right” to do with ethics? Man got the notion of straightness, we surmise, from such things as freely falling bodies, which give not only the idea of perpendicular, but also and at the same time the ideas of direct and immediately; from the sunbeams which drew for him imaginary lines among the clouds and through the foliage of the forest; from his need of taking the shortest course across the fields in pursuit of wild animals for the supply of his larder; and from his reminiscent ponderings of the comparative merits of less and less curved and crooked arrows used in the chase. Moreover, man walks with the greatest safety and pursues his game with the greatest chances of success when his feet go without hesitation on a level or straight surface. Under these conditions he can attain his ends directly and immediately; as the saying is, “Things will then come out all right.” Consequently, even the straight line has ethical implications: the speed with which some actions are performed and the time required to cover the distance between man and his objective are very often the chief considerations in the attainment of a good or the avoidance of an evil thing.
And this brings us by a very slight transition to
Class B
“Right” as Descriptive of the Method (or Object) by Which the Desired End Can be Obtained.
Here the purpose involved, or the end sought, is neither praised nor blamed. Nor have we indeed as yet reached any basis by which a criterion of purposes and ends can be established. So far as we have gone, “right” implies technique, and nothing more.
The members of this class are as follows:
13. The “right” information.
14. “Right” whale; the one to capture in order to get whalebone.
15. “Rub your sarsnet well, the right way of the sarsnet.”
16. “Let it be a constant rule to scrub the boards the right way of the grain, that is, lengthwise.”