The explanation of the concept _true_ has already been given in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, chap. v. § 29 _et seq._ The content of the concept _beautiful_ found for the first time its proper explanation through the whole of the Third Book of the present work. We now wish to discover the significance of the concept _good_, which can be done with very little trouble. This concept is essentially relative, and signifies _the conformity of an object to any definite effort of the will_. Accordingly everything that corresponds to the will in any of its expressions and fulfils its end is thought through the concept _good_, however different such things may be in other respects. Thus we speak of good eating, good roads, good weather, good weapons, good omens, and so on; in short, we call everything good that is just as we wish it to be; and therefore that may be good in the eyes of one man which is just the reverse in those of another. The conception of the good divides itself into two sub-species—that of the direct and present satisfaction of any volition, and that of its indirect satisfaction which has reference to the future, _i.e._, the agreeable and the useful. The conception of the opposite, so long as we are speaking of unconscious existence, is expressed by the word _bad_, more rarely and abstractly by the word _evil_, which thus denotes everything that does not correspond to any effort of the will. Like all other things that can come into relation to the will, men who are favourable to the ends which happen to be desired, who further and befriend them, are called good, in the same sense, and always with that relative limitation, which shows itself, for example, in the expression, “I find this good, but you don’t.” Those, however, who are naturally disposed not to hinder the endeavours of others, but rather to assist them, and who are thus consistently helpful, benevolent, friendly, and charitable, are called _good_ men, on account of this relation of their conduct to the will of others in general. In the case of conscious beings (brutes and men) the contrary conception is denoted in German, and, within the last hundred years or so, in French also, by a different word from that which is used in speaking of unconscious existence; in German, _böse_; in French, _méchant_; while in almost all other languages this distinction does not exist; and κακος, _malus_, _cattivo_, _bad_, are used of men, as of lifeless things, which are opposed to the ends of a definite individual will. Thus, having started entirely from the passive element in the good, the inquiry could only proceed later to the active element, and investigate the conduct of the man who is called good, no longer with reference to others, but to himself; specially setting itself the task of explaining both the purely objective respect which such conduct produces in others, and the peculiar contentment with himself which it clearly