The Meaning of Good A Dialogue by G. Lowes Dickinson
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G. Lowes Dickinson >> The Meaning of Good A Dialogue
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14 THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE
BY G. LOWES DICKINSON
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge,
and Author of a Modern Symposium
THIRD EDITION
1900
DEDICATION
How do the waves along the level shore
Follow and fly in hurrying sheets of foam,
For ever doing what they did before,
For ever climbing what is never clomb!
Is there an end to their perpetual haste,
Their iterated round of low and high,
Or is it one monotony of waste
Under the vision of the vacant sky?
And thou, who on the ocean of thy days
Dost like a swimmer patiently contend,
And though thou steerest with a shoreward gaze
Misdoubtest of a harbour or an end,
What would the threat, or what the promise be,
Could I but read the riddle of the sea!
PREFACE
An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue is
a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but, in its
application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of failures. I
am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but think that I have
chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For, in the first place,
the problems I have undertaken to discuss have an interest not only
philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious to treat them in a
way which might perhaps appeal to some readers who are not professed
students of philosophy. And, secondly, my subject is one which belongs
to the sphere of right opinion and perception, rather than to that of
logic and demonstration; and seems therefore to be properly approached
in the tentative spirit favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics
most men, I think, will feel that it is in conversation that they get
their best lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in
literary form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude
in approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or endorse
them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain opinions of
my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which should be least
imprisoning to my own thought, and least provocative of the reader's
antagonism. It has been my object, to borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de
presenter des series d'idees se developpant selon un ordre logique, et
non d'inculquer une opinion ou de precher un systeme determine.' And
I may add, with him, 'Moins que jamais je me sens l'audace de parler
doctrinalernent en pareille matiere.'
In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent in the
Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater skill than any
to which I can pretend. The connection of the various phases of the
discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as it would be in a formal
treatise; and in the midst of digressions and interruptions, such
as are natural in conversation, the main thread of the reasoning may
sometimes be lost I have therefore appended a brief summary of the
argument, set forth in its logical connections.
ARGUMENT
BOOK I.
I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a diversity
which suggests _prima facie_ a scepticism as to the truth of any of
these ideas.
The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is made
to show that the position is one which is not really accepted by
thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their lives by
their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit their belief in
these ideas.
This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for the
regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a Good for
himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of all. It is
suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men commonly does
imply a belief in a General Good.
Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a Good
of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In reply,
it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by fact;
(2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all, namely,
society and its institutions.
In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good is to
empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its main value.
II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect do,
whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their actual
conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that there seems
to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This latter proposition
is distasteful to some of the party, who endeavour to maintain that
there really is no uncertainty as to what is good.
Thus it is argued:
(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct. To
which it is replied that there appear to be many such 'instincts'
conflicting among themselves.
(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good being
defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is replied
that such a judgment is as _a priori_ and unbased as any other, and as
much open to dispute.
It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we can have
no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief discussion of
the nature of Science, and the applicability of its methods to Ethics.
(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which it
is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the moral
reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are current.
Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in fact,
vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.
(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest happiness
of the greatest number." To which it is replied:
(a) That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in accordance with
'common sense.'
(b) That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest and narrowest
sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a criterion of
Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that the term Pleasure
becomes as indefinite as the term Good.
(c) That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly applied, it
would lead to results that would shock those who profess to adopt it.
III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it is
suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we can
discover, tentatively, what things are good.
To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
would be metaphysical, and _a priori_. In reply, the bare possibility
of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no one really
believes that all our opinions derived from experience are false,
and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of all ethical
significance and worth.
Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do actually
find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though imperfect
perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by practice, to
perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is drawn between
our perception of Good and our perception of Beauty.
It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a knowledge
but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as one to be
realised in Time.
IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil must
be conceived as mere 'appearance.'
In reply, it is suggested:
(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal Good
with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.
(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed to
ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but ought
to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who hold that
Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of action that they
should come to see that everything is good.
(3) That this latter conception of the end of action--namely, that we
should bring ourselves to see that what appears to be Evil is really
Good--is too flagrantly opposed to common sense to be seriously
accepted.
To sum up:
In this Book the following positions have been discussed and rejected:
(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real fact.
(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good--such as (a)
an infallible instinct, (b) the course of Nature, (c) current
conventions, (d) pleasure.
(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere 'appearance.'
And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be made, a
progressive discovery of Good.
In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
approached.
* * * * *
BOOK II.
This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to point
out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the character of
a Good which we might hold to be perfect--here referred to as '_The_
Good.'
The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the position, at
which we are supposed to have arrived, that the experience of any one
person, or set of persons, about Good is limited and imperfect, and
that therefore in any attempt to describe what it is that we hold
to be good, to compare Goods among one another, and to suggest
an absolute Good, we can only hope, at best, to arrive at some
approximation to truth.
I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain preliminary
points are then discussed. These are:
(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be an
object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.
(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested that
the Good we pursue is
(a) That of future generations. Some difficulties in this view are
brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue is the Good
of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we mean by that.
(b) That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to be involved
in difficulty.
II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes on
to an examination of some of our activities from the point of view
of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: (1) to
bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of Good; (2) to
suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free from defects, such
a Good being referred to as '_The_ Good.'
(1) It is first suggested that _all_ activities are good, if pursued
in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems bad in each,
viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general survey of them
all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to be tenable.
(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To this it
is objected that ethical actions are always means to an end, and that
it is this end that must be conceived to be really good.
(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with physical
objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of Good; but
such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only because it is
precarious, but because it depends upon objects of which it is not the
essence to produce that Good, but which, on the contrary, just as much
and as often produce Evil.
(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:
(a) That they have, by their essence, that Good which is called
Beauty.
(b) That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be eternal.
(c) That, though complex, they are such that their parts are
necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to the
total Beauty.
On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:
(a) That outside and independent of Art there is the 'real world,'
so that this Good is only a partial one.
(b) That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to demand, for
a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be so of its own
nature, without our intervention.
(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held as
to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:
(a) the view that knowledge is 'the description and summing up in
brief formulae, of the routine of our perceptions.' It is questioned
whether there is really much Good in such an activity. And it is
argued that, whatever Good it may have, it cannot be _the_ Good,
seeing that knowledge may be, and frequently is, knowledge of Bad.
(b) the view that knowledge consists in the perception of 'necessary
connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this seems to be
open to the same objection as (a). But, further, it is argued that
the perpetual contemplation of necessary relations among ideas does
not satisfy our conception of the Good; but that we require an
element analogous somehow to that of sense, though not, like sense,
unintelligible and obscure.
(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other persons,
where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps find
something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences to being
absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are in contact
(a) with objects, not 'mere ideas.'
(b) with objects that are good in themselves and
(c) intelligible and
(d) harmonious to our own nature.
It is objected that love, so conceived, is
(a) rarely, perhaps never, experienced.
(b) in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.
This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we know
comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to be
absolutely good.
III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived, is it
not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems to depend
on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The following
points are therefore discussed:
(a) Whether personal immortality is conceivable?
(b) Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable pursuit of
Good?
On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the Dialogue
closes with the description of a dream.
BOOK I.
Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange
in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a
gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled
not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of
my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an
interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience of
life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and confined. Last
year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me especially
agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip Audubon, whom,
since his business lay in the East, I had not had an opportunity of
seeing for many years. I mention him particularly, because, although,
as will be seen, he did not take much part in the discussion I am
about to describe, he was, in a sense, the originator of it. For, in
the first place, it was he who had invited us to the place in which we
were staying,--an upland valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a
house; and, further, it was through my renewed intercourse with him
that I was led into the train of thought which issued in the following
conversation. His life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous
in the extreme, had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was
constitutionally inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened
than diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I
hesitate to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
associations with the schools from which he was singularly free. His
melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic system; it
was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be described,
perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the worthlessness
and irrationality of the world. Such a position is not readily shaken
by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt to assail it; but it
could not fail to impress itself strongly upon my mind, and to keep
my thoughts constantly employed upon that old problem of the worth
of things, in which, indeed, for other reasons, I was already
sufficiently interested.
A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival of
another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn together
at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in later years our
paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination had led him into
an active career, and for some years he had been travelling abroad
as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I felt, therefore, some
curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him, and to ascertain how far
his views had been modified by his experience of the world.
The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a kind
of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place of
rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes
nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade
listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in
the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the
garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the
fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, and yet I was unwilling
to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me and said: "Well, my dear
philosopher, and how goes the world with you? What have you been doing
in all these years since we met?"
"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."
"What have you been thinking then?"
"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about the
world seems to suit you."
"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the quiet of
the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic countenance,
I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. I believe if
I stayed here long you would lure me back to philosophy; and yet I
thought I had finally escaped when I broke away from you before."
"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one is
caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying to
help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."
"And have you found a way?"
"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you and
hear how you have fared."
"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."
"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You may
have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so have I.
But that is only because I want to grapple with it more closely."
"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"
"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who have
had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to what
conclusions they have been led by their own direct experience."
"Conclusions about what?"
"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to be
fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say, given
up the subject--I mean the whole question of the values we attach, or
ought to attach, to things."
"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as of
old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So I used
to say at college and so I say now."
"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to say;
but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."
"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit of
experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me in my
original view."
"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to hear
about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as you
know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of other
people's."
"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to me,
in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary diversity of
men's ideals."
"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"
"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance, until
I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between the
Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear that
either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know which.
Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But when one
gets among them and really talks to them, when one realizes how
profound and intelligent is their contempt for our civilization,
how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how illusory our
progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to wonder whether,
after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit that one judges them
to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether there is anything at
all except blind prejudice in any opinions and ideas about Right and
Wrong."
"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir Richard
Burton:
"'There is no good, there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will;
What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.
They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of
time,
Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been banned as sin or
crime.'"
"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not be
necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a single
city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who can look
below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed uniformity of
beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and incongruities
are concealed! Every type, every individual almost, is distinguished
from every other in precisely this point of the judgments he makes
about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer think of the life of
a studious recluse? or the city man of that of the artist? and vice
versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all of us go about judging
and condemning one another root and branch. We are in no real
agreement as to the worth either of men or things. It is an illusion
of the 'canting moralist' (to use Stevenson's phrase) that there is
any fixed and final standard of Good. Good is just what any one thinks
it to be; and one man has as much right to his opinion as another."
"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there are
different opinions about Good, they are all equally valuable."
"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally worthless."
"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to doubt
whether you really believe it yourself."
"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."
"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to me
most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act, and
are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is good, as
though you did believe it to be true."
"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"
"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to introduce
any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it to yourself
any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you hold to be good
really somehow is so, your life, I think, would resolve itself into
mere chaos."
"I don't see that"
"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a life
is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold to be
good."
"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."
"I doubt it"
"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"
"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they think
good."
"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think bad,
like Milton's Satan--'Evil be thou my Good'?"
"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing what he
thought good; only he thought that evil was good."
"But that is a contradiction."
"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in which I
believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the Bad. To them
it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."
"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"
"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, power and
wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because he thought
them good; if his choice also involved what he thought bad, such as
murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these bad, which I
doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in his choice as in
its consequences. But even if I were to admit that he and others have
chosen and do choose what they believe to be bad, it would not affect
the point I want to make. For to choose Bad must be, in your view, as
absurd as to choose Good; since, I suppose, you do not believe, that
our opinions about the one have any more validity than our opinions
about the other. So that if we are to abandon Good as a principle of
choice, it is idle to say we may fall back upon Bad."
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