I propose, then, to examine the import of the notion ‘Good’ in the whole range of its application;--premising that, as it is for the constituents of Ultimate Good that we require a standard of comparison, we are not directly concerned with anything that is clearly only good as a means to the attainment of some ulterior end. If, indeed, we had only this latter case to consider, it would be plausible to interpret ‘good’ without reference to human desire or choice, as meaning merely ‘fit’ or ‘adapted’ for the production of certain effects--a good horse for riding, a good gun for shooting, etc. But as we apply the notion also to ultimate ends, we must seek a meaning for it which will cover both applications. § 2. There is, however, a simple interpretation of the term--which is widely maintained to be the true one--according to which everything which we judge to be good is implicitly conceived as a means to the end of pleasure, even when we do not make in our judgment any explicit reference to this or any other ulterior end. On this view, any comparison of things in respect of their ‘goodness’ would seem to be really a comparison of them as sources of pleasure; so that any attempt to systematise our intuitions of goodness, whether in conduct and character or in other things, must reasonably lead us straight to Hedonism. And no doubt, if we consider the application of the term, outside the sphere of character and conduct, to things that are not definitely regarded as means to the attainment of some ulterior object of desire, we find a close correspondence between our apprehension of pleasure derived from an object, and our recognition that the object is in itself ‘good.’ The good things of life are things which give pleasure, whether sensual or emotional: as good dinners, wines, poems, pictures, music: and this gives a _prima facie_ support to the interpretation of ‘good’ as equivalent to ‘pleasant.’ I think, however, that if we reflect on the application of the term to the cases most analogous to that of conduct--_i.e._ to what we may call ‘objects of taste’--we shall find that this interpretation of it has not clearly the support of common sense. In the first place, allowing that the judgment that any object is good of its kind is closely connected with the apprehension of pleasure derived from it, we must observe that it is generally to a specific kind of pleasure that the affirmation of goodness corresponds; and that if the object happens to give us pleasure of a different kind, we do not therefore call it good--at least without qualification. For instance, we should not call a wine good solely because it was very wholesome; nor a poem on account of its moral lessons. And hence when we come to consider the meaning of the term ‘good’ as applied to conduct, there is no reason, so far, to suppose that it has any reference or correspondence to _all_ the pleasures that may result from the conduct. Rather the perception