owe their value solely to the fact that they are ‘realisations of the true self,’ we may easily refute this statement, by asking whether the predicate that is meant by ‘realising the true self,’ supposing that it could exist alone, would have any value whatsoever. Either the _thing_, which does ‘realise the true self,’ has intrinsic value or it has not; and if it has, then it certainly does not owe its value solely to the fact that it realises the true self. =113.= If, now, we use this method of absolute isolation, and guard against these errors, it appears that the question we have to answer is far less difficult than the controversies of Ethics might have led us to expect. Indeed, once the meaning of the question is clearly understood, the answer to it, in its main outlines, appears to be so obvious, that it runs the risk of seeming to be a platitude. By far the most valuable things, which we know or can imagine, are certain states of consciousness, which may be roughly described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects. No one, probably, who has asked himself the question, has ever doubted that personal affection and the appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves; nor, if we consider strictly what things are worth having _purely for their own sakes_, does it appear probable that any one will think that anything else has _nearly_ so great a value as the things which are included under these two heads. I have myself urged in Chap. III. (§ 50) that the mere existence of what is beautiful does appear to have _some_ intrinsic value; but I regard it as indubitable that Prof. Sidgwick was so far right, in the view there discussed, that such mere existence of what is beautiful has value, so small as to be negligible, in comparison with that which attaches to the _consciousness_ of beauty. This simple truth may, indeed, be said to be universally recognised. What has _not_ been recognised is that it is the ultimate and fundamental truth of Moral Philosophy. That it is only for the sake of these things--in order that as much of them as possible may at some time exist--that any one can be justified in performing any public or private duty; that they are the _raison d’être_ of virtue; that it is they--these complex wholes _themselves_, and not any constituent or characteristic of them--that form the rational ultimate end of human action and the sole criterion of social progress: these appear to be truths which have been generally overlooked.