able matter must go to constitute perfection. For perfection or individuality is a system, harmonious and thus inclusive of everything. And goodness we have now taken to be the willed reality of its perfection by a soul. And hence neither the form of system by itself, nor again, any one matter apart from the whole, is either perfect or good.[1]
But, as with truth and reality, so with goodness our one standard becomes double, and individuality falls apart into the aspects of harmony and extent. In principle, and actually in the end, these two features must coincide (Chapter xxiv.); but in judging of phenomena we are constantly forced to apply them separately. I propose to say nothing about the various concrete modes in which this two-fold perfection has been realized in fact. But, solely with a view to bring out the radical vice of all goodness, I will proceed to lay stress on this divergence in application. The aspects of extent and of harmony come together in the end, but no less certainly in that end goodness, as such, will have perished.
I am about, in other words, to invite attention to what is called self-sacrifice. Goodness is the realization by an individual of his own perfection, and that perfection consists, as we have seen, in both harmony and extent. And provisionally these two features will not quite coincide. To reduce the raw material of one’s nature to the highest degree of system, and to use every element from whatever source as a subordinate means to this object, is certainly one genuine view of goodness. On the other hand to widen as far as possible the end to be pursued, and to realize this through the distraction or the dissipation of one’s own individuality, is certainly also good. An individual system, aimed at in one’s self, and again the subordination of one’s own development to a wide-embracing end, are each
- ↑ This applies emphatically to any specific feeling of goodness or morality.
