By itself, therefore, the assertion that the moral agent 'finds rest' in the 'true good' does not enable us to distinguish the moral agent or the moral action from the immoral. For we are unable to define the 'true good.' It is not a part of experience; it is an ideal: and Green allows that we can give no complete account of it; he even says that we can give no positive account of it. At the same time this consideration leads to another and connected method for distinguishing good from evil. "Of a life of completed development," Green holds, "of activity with the end attained, we can only speak or think in negatives, and thus only can we speak or think of that state of being in which, according to our theory, the ultimate moral good must consist."[1] But the development is a real process which manifests itself in habits and social institutions; and from these its actual achievements we can to a certain extent see what the moral capability of man "has in it to become," and thus "know enough of ultimate moral good to guide our conduct." One of the most valuable portions of Green's own work is his description of the gradual widening and purifying of human conceptions regarding goodness in character and conduct. But all this implies some standard of discrimination and selection between what is good and what is evil in human achievement. Which developments are truly realisations of "the moral capability of man," and so tend to the attainment of ultimate good, and which developments are expressions of those capacities which seek an apparent good only and are to be classed as evil, as impediments to the realisation of the good,--these have to be discriminated; and is it so clear that from the mere record of human deeds we are able to draw the distinction? Do we not need some criterion of goodness to guide our judgment? and does not Green himself use such a criterion when he appeals to the tendency of certain institutions and habits to "make the welfare of all the welfare of each," and of certain arts to make nature "the friend of man"?[2] Common welfare and the utilisation of nature in the service of man seem to be taken as tests of the true development of moral capabilities. The criteria themselves may be excellent; but they are not got out of the mere record: they are brought by us to its contemplation. To this special question I can find no answer in Green. He is indeed aware that there is a difficulty; or rather he admits that something has been "taken for granted." He has assumed that there is "some best state of being for man"; that this best state is eternally present to a divine consciousness; and further, that this "eternal mind" is reproducing itself as the self of man.[3] On this supposition only, he says, can our moral activity be explained; and he holds that the supposition can be justified metaphysically and has been so justified by himself in the earlier part of his treatise. [Footnote 1: Prolegomena to Ethics, § 172, p. 180.]