the writing; the writing, in reference to a reader's eyes; his eyes,
in reference to supporting his family--where shall we ever stop? We
can never catch up with goodness. It is always promising to disclose
itself a little way beyond, and then evading us, slipping from under
our fingers just when we are about to touch it. This meaning of
goodness is self-contradictory.

And it is also too large. It includes more to goodness than properly
belongs there. If we call everything good which is good _for_,
everything which shows adaptation to an end, then we shall be obliged
to count a multitude of matters good which we are accustomed to think
of as evil. Filth will be good, for it promotes fevers as nothing else
does. Earthquakes are good, for shaking down houses. It is inapposite
to urge that we do not want fevers or shaken houses. Wishes are
provided no place in our meaning of good. Goodness merely assists,
promotes, is conducive to any result whatever. It marks the functional
character, without regard to the desirability of that which the
function effects. But this is unsatisfactory and may well set us on a
search for supplementary meanings.



V

When we ask if the Venus of Milo is a good statue, we have to confess
that it is good beyond almost any object on which our eyes have ever
rested. And yet it is not good _for_ anything; it is no means for
an outside end. Rather, it is good in itself. This possibility that
things may be good in themselves was once brought forcibly to my
attention by a trivial incident. Wandering over my fields with my