We have seen how in
any organic relationship every part is both means and end. Goodness
tends toward organism; and so far as it obtains, each member of the
universe receives its own appropriate expansion and dignity. The
present definition merely states the great truth of organization with
too objective an emphasis; as that which found the satisfaction of
desire to be the ground of goodness over-emphasized the subjective
side. The one is too legal, the other too aesthetic. Yet each calls
attention to an important and supplementary factor in the formation of
goodness.
VII
In closing these dull defining chapters, in which I have tried to sum
up the notion of goodness in general--a conception so thin and empty
that it is equally applicable to things and persons--it may be well to
gather together in a single group the several definitions we have
reached.
Intrinsic goodness expresses the fulfillment of function in the
construction of an organism.
By an organism is meant such an assemblage of active and differing
parts that in it each part both aids and is aided by all the others.
Extrinsic goodness is found when an object employs an already
constituted wholeness to further the wholeness of others.
A part is good when it furnishes that and that only which may add
value to other parts.
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