Though "good," being affixed to a great variety of objects, takes different shades of meaning in different cases, there is one characteristic common to everything called "good." This is hardly, as Mr. Spencer maintains,[24] its quality of being well adapted to a given end. It is true that the good knife is one which will cut, the good gun one which carries far and true. But I fail to see that "good" in a moral sense involves any idea of an adaptation to a given purpose, and, by calling conduct {146} "good," we certainly do not mean that it "conduces to life in each and all." "Good" simply expresses approval or praise of something on account of some quality which it possesses. A house is praised as "good" because it fulfils the end desired, a wine because it has an agreeable taste, a man on account of his moral worth. "Good," as a moral epithet, involves a praise which is the outward expression of the emotion of moral approval, and is affixed to a subject of moral valuation on account of its tendency to call forth such an emotion. [Footnote 24: Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, i. 21 _sqq._] "Good" has commonly been identified with "right," but such an identification is incorrect. A father does right in supporting his young children, inasmuch as he, by supporting them, discharges a duty incumbent upon him, but we do not say that he does a good deed by supporting them, or that it is good of him to do so. Nor do we call it good of a man not to kill or rob his neighbours, although his conduct is so far right. The antithesis between right and wrong is, in a certain sense at least, contradictory, the antithesis between good and bad is only contrary. Every act--provided that it falls within the sphere of positive moral valuation--that is not wrong is right, but every act that is not bad is not necessarily good. Just as we may say of a thing that it is "not bad," and yet refuse to call it "good," so we may object to calling the simple discharge of a duty "good," although the opposite mode of conduct would be bad. On the other hand, no confusion of ethical concepts is involved in attributing goodness to the performance of a duty, or, in other words, praising a man for an act the omission of which would have incurred blame. To say of one and the same act that it is right and that it is good, really means that we look upon it from different points of view. Since moral praise expresses a benevolent attitude of mind, it is commendable for a man not to be niggard in his acknowledgment of other people's right conduct; whereas, self-praise being objectionable, only the other point of view is deemed proper when he passes a {147} judgment upon himself. He may say, without incurring censure, "I have done my duty, I have done what is right," but hardly, "I have done a good deed"; and it would be particularly obnoxious to say, "I am a good man." The best man even refuses to be called good by others:--"Why callest thou me