III
How then do we employ the word "good"? I do not ask how we ought to
employ it, but how we do. For the present we shall be engaged in a
psychological inquiry, not an ethical one. We need to get at the plain
facts of usage. I will therefore ask each reader to look into his own
mind, see on what occasions he uses the word, and decide what meaning
he attaches to it. Taking up a few of the simplest possible examples,
we will through them inquire when and why we call things good.
Here is a knife. When is it a good knife? Why, a knife is made for
something, for cutting. Whenever the knife slides evenly through a
piece of wood, unimpeded by anything in its own structure, and with a
minimum of effort on the part of him who steers it, when there is no
disposition of its edge to bend or break, but only to do its appointed
work effectively, then we know that a good knife is at work. Or,
looking at the matter from another point of view, whenever the handle
of the knife neatly fits the hand, following its lines and presenting
no obstruction, so that it is a pleasure to use it, we may say that in
these respects also the knife is a good knife. That is, the knife
becomes good through adaptation to its work, an adaptation realized in
its cleavage of the wood and in its conformity to the hand.
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