The two phases of goodness are thus seen to be mutually
dependent. Extrinsic goodness or serviceability, that where an object
employs an already constituted wholeness to further the wholeness of
another, cannot proceed except through intrinsic goodness, or that
where fullness and adjustment of functions are expressed in the
construction of an organism. Nor can intrinsic goodness be supposed to
exist shut up to itself and parted from extrinsic influence. The two
are merely different modes or points of view for assessing goodness
everywhere. Goodness in its most elementary form appears where one
object is connected with another as means to end. But the more
elaborately complicated the relation becomes, and the richer the
entanglement of means and ends--internal and external--in the
adjustment of object or person, so much ampler is the goodness. Each
object, in order to possess any good, must share in that of the
universe.
II
But the diagram suggests a second question. Are all the functions here
represented equally influential in forming the organism? Our figure
implies that they are, and I see no way of drawing it so as to avoid
the implication. But it is an error. In nature our powers have
different degrees of influence. We cannot suppose that John's
physical, commercial, domestic, and political life will have precisely
equal weight in the formation of his being.
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