perhaps it may conduce to clearness if we now give technical names to
our two contrasted conceptions and call the former extrinsic goodness
and the latter intrinsic. Extrinsic goodness will then signify the
adjustment of an object to something which lies outside itself;
intrinsic will say that the many powers of an object are so adjusted
to one another that they cooperate to render the object a firm
totality. Both will indicate relationship; but in the one case the
relations considered are _extra se_, in the other _inter se_.
Goodness, however, will everywhere point to organic adjustment.
If this double aspect of goodness is as clear and important as I
believe it to be, it must have left its record in language. And in
fact we find that popular speech distinguishes worth and value in much
the same way as I have distinguished intrinsic and extrinsic goodness.
To say that an object has value is to declare it of consequence in
reference to something other than itself. To speak of its worth is to
call attention to what its own nature involves. In a somewhat similar
fashion Mr. Bradley distinguishes the extension and harmony of
goodness, and Mr. Alexander the right and the perfect.
VI
When, however, we have got the two sorts of goodness distinctly
parted, our next business is to get them together again. Are they in
fact altogether separate? Is the extrinsic goodness of an object
entirely detachable from its intrinsic? I think not. They are
invariably found together. Indeed, extrinsic goodness would be
impossible in an object which did not possess a fair degree of
intrinsic. How could a table, for example, be useful for holding a
glass of water if the table were not well made, if powers appropriate
to tables were not present and mutually cooperating? Unless equipped
with intrinsic goodness, the table can exhibit no extrinsic goodness
whatever. And, on the other hand, intrinsic goodness, coherence of
inner constitution, is always found attended by some degree of
extrinsic goodness, or influence over other things. Nothing exists
entirely by itself. Each object has its relationships, and through
these is knitted into the frame of the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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