“... The majority attend to words rather than to things; and thus very frequently assent to terms without attaching to them any meaning, either because they think they once understood them, or imagine they received them from others by whom they were correctly understood.... Wherefore, if we would philosophize in earnest, and give ourselves to the search after all truths we are capable of knowing, we must, in the first place, lay aside our prejudices; in other words, we must take care scrupulously to withhold our assent from the opinions we have formerly admitted, until upon new examination we discover that they are true.” DESCARTES, “The Principles of Philosophy,” LXXIV, LXXV. What do we mean by the word “good”? That is to say, how shall we describe the action-pattern which the stimulus of this word arouses in us? What does it mean when _we_ use it, and what does it mean to us when _others_ employ it in their speech? Before we can answer these questions, it is first essential to scan the list of things to which this word is applied, for only by so doing can we identify the term _good_ with some specific function of the human organism.[7] Although such a task is a difficult one, the difficulty does not appear to be insurmountable. In spite of the fact that nearly eighty significations are possessed by this word, they will, nevertheless, if pondered long enough, reveal some common core of meaning. And if we now bear in mind that every such synonym implies a motor mechanism that is developing a specific attitude toward the environment, we shall hope to find a true solution to the problem of the meaning of the concept “good”. The term _good_ is used as an adjective, noun, and adverb, and occasionally (Ex. 15) as a verb; in addition, it has sometimes an idiomatic significance, in which case its exact status as a part of speech is doubtful. These differences, however, need not concern us here. _Good_ has originally an adjectival signification, and by derivation implies _fitting_ or _suitable_. This is highly important, for since _fitting_ and _suitable_ exclusively describe things which help us realize our purposes, we may consider the relationship between _good_ and human behavior to be inseparable. The type of action-pattern implied by this word may also be faintly foreseen.