farmer in autumn, we were surveying the wrecks of summer. There on the
ploughed ground lay a great golden object. He pointed to it, saying,
"That is a good big pumpkin." I said, "Yes, but I don't care about
pumpkins." "No," he said, "nor do I." I said, "You care for them,
though, as they grow large. You called this a good big one." "No! On
the contrary, a pumpkin that is large is worth less. Growing makes it
coarser. But that is a good big pumpkin." I saw there was some meaning
in his mind, but I could not make out what it was. Soon after I heard
a schoolboy telling about having had a "good big thrashing." I knew
that he did not like such things. His phrase could not indicate
approval, and what did it signify? He coupled the two words _good_ and
_big_; and I asked myself if there was between them any natural
connection? On reflection I thought there was. If you wish to find the
full pumpkin nature, here you have it. All that a pumpkin can be is
set forth here as nowhere else. And for that matter, anybody who might
foolishly wish to explore a thrashing would find all he sought in this
one. In short, what seemed to be intended was that all the functions
constituting the things talked about were present in these instances
and hard at work, mutually assisting one another, and joining to make
up such a rounded whole that from it nothing was omitted which
possibly might render its organic wholeness complete. Here then is a
notion of goodness widely unlike the one previously developed.
Goodness now appears shut up within verifiable bounds where it is not
continually referred to something which lies beyond. An object is here
reckoned not as good _for_, but as good in itself. The Venus of Milo
is a good statue not through what it does, but through what it is. And
perhaps it may conduce to clearness if we now give technical names to
our two contrasted conceptions and call the former extrinsic goodness
and the latter intrinsic. Extrinsic goodness will then signify the
adjustment of an object to something which lies outside itself;