When the thesis is formulated in the traditional scholastic statement, “_Omne ens est bonum_: _All being is good_” it sounds a startling paradox. Surely it cannot be contended that everything is good? A cancer in the stomach is not good; lies are not good; yet these are actual realities; cancers exist and lies are told; therefore not every reality is good. This is unquestionably true. But it does not contradict the thesis rightly understood. The true meaning of the thesis is, not that every being is good in all respects, or possesses such goodness as would justify us in describing it as “good” in the ordinary sense, but that every being possesses some goodness: every being in so far as it has actuality has formal, intrinsic goodness, or is, in other words, the term or object of natural tendency or desire. This goodness, which we predicate of any and every actual being, may be (1) the term of the natural tendency or appetite of that being itself, _bonum sibi_, or (2) it may be conceivably the term of the appetite of some other being, _bonum alteri_. Let us see whether it can be shown that every actual being has goodness in one or both of these senses. (1) _Bonum sibi_.—Is there any intelligible sense in which it can be said that the actuality of any and every existing being is _good for that being_—_bonum sibi_? There is. For if we recognize in every such being, as we must, a _nature_, a potentiality of further actualization, a tendency towards a state of fuller actuality which is its _end_; and if, furthermore, we recognize that every such being at any instant not merely _is_ or exists, but is _becoming_ or _changing_, and thereby tending effectively towards its end; we must admit not merely that the full attainment of its end (its integral or final perfection) is “desired” by, and “perfects,” and is “good” for, that being’s nature; but also that the partial realization of its end, or, in other words, the actuality it has at any instant in its changing condition of existence (its accidental or intermediate perfection) is similarly “good” for it; and even that its actual existence as compared with its mere possibility (its first or essential perfection) is “desirable” and “good” for its nature. Actually existing beings are intelligible only because they exist for some end or purpose, which, by their very existence, activities, operations, conduct, they tend to realize. If this be admitted we cannot deny that the full attainment of this end or purpose is “good” for them—suitable, desirable, agreeable, perfecting them. In so far as they fail in this purpose they are wanting in goodness, they are bad, evil. For the realization of their end their natures are endowed with appropriate powers, faculties, forces, by the normal functioning of which they gradually develop and grow in actuality. No real being is by nature inert or aimless; no real being is without its connatural faculties, forces and functions. But the natural