Secondly, there is another improper sense in which we attribute falsity to works of art which fail to realize the artist’s ideal. In this sense we speak of a “false” note in music, a “false” measure in poetry, a “false” tint in painting, a “false” curve in sculpture or architecture. “False” here means defective, bad, wanting in perfection. The object being out of harmony with the ideal or design in the practical intellect of the artist, we describe it as “false” after the analogy of what takes place when we describe as “false gold” a substance which is out of harmony with the idea of gold in the speculative intellect. It is in relation to the speculative, not the practical, intellect, that things have ontological truth. All created things are, of course, as such, in conformity not only with the Divine Intellect considered as speculative, but also with the Divine Intellect considered as practical. For God, being omnipotent, does all things according to the designs of His Wisdom. For Him nothing is accidental, nothing happens by chance. But the world He has freely willed to create is not the best possible world. Both in the physical and in the moral order there are things and events which are defective, which fall short of their natural perfection. This defectiveness, which is properly physical or moral evil, is sometimes described as falsity, lying, vanity, etc., on account of the discrepancy between those things and the ideal of what they should be. But all such defective realities are known to be what they are by the Divine Mind, and may be known as they really are by the human mind. They have, therefore, their ontological truth. The question of their perfection or imperfection gives rise to the consideration of quite a different aspect of reality, namely its _goodness_. This, then, we must deal with in the next place. CHAPTER VI. REALITY AND THE GOOD. 44. THE GOOD AS “DESIRABLE” AND AS “SUITABLE”.—The notion of the _good_ (L. _bonum_; Gr. ἀγαθόν) is one of the most familiar of all notions. But like all other transcendental or widely generic concepts, the analysis of it opens up some fundamental questions. The princes of ancient Greek philosophy, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, gave much anxious thought to its elucidation. The tentative gropings of Socrates involved an ambiguity which issued in the conflicting philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. Nor did Plato succeed in bringing down from the clouds the “Idea of the Good” which he so devotedly worshipped as the Sun of the Intellectual World. It needed the more sober and searching analysis of the Stagyrite to bring to light the formula so universally accepted in after ages: The Good of beings is that which all desire: _Bonum est quod omnia appetunt_.(173) Let us try to reach the fundamental idea underlying the terms “good,” “goodness,” by some simple examples.