Chapter VI: The Ideal

    § 110. By an ‘ideal’ state of things may be meant either (1) the Summum Bonum or absolutely best, or (2) the best which the laws of nature allow to exist in this world, or (3) anything greatly good in itself: this chapter will be principally occupied with what is ideal in sense (3)—with answering the fundamental question of Ethics. …
    § 111. but a correct answer to this question is an essential step towards a correct view as to what is ‘ideal’ in senses (1) and (2). …
    § 112. In order to obtain a correct answer to the question ‘What is good in itself?’ we must consider what value things would have if they existed absolutely by themselves; …
    § 113. and, if we use this method, it is obvious that personal affection and aesthetic enjoyments include by far the greatest goods with which we are acquainted. …
    § 114. If we begin by considering I. Aesthetic Enjoyments, it is plain (1) that there is always essential to these some one of a great variety of different emotions, though these emotions may have little value by themselves: …
    § 115. and (2) that a cognition of really beautiful qualities is equally essential, and has equally little value by itself. …
    § 116. But (3) granted that the appropriate combination of these two elements is always a considerable good and may be a very great one, we may ask whether, where there is added to this a true belief in the existence of the object of cognition, the whole thus formed is not much more valuable still. …
    § 117. I think that this question should be answered in the affirmative; but in order to ensure that this judgment is correct, we must carefully distinguish it …
    § 118. from the two judgments (a) that knowledge is valuable as a means, (b) that, where the object of the cognition is itself a good thing, its existence, of course, adds to the value of the whole state of things: …
    § 119. if, however, we attempt to avoid being biased by these two facts, it still seems that mere true belief may be a condition essential to great value. …
    § 120. We thus get a third essential constituent of many great goods; and in this way we are able to justify (1) the attribution of value to knowledge, over and above its value as a means, and (2) the intrinsic superiority of the proper appreciation of a real object over the appreciation of an equally valuable object of mere imagination: emotions directed towards real objects may thus, even if the object be inferior, claim equality with the highest imaginative pleasures. …
    § 121. Finally (4) with regard to the objects of the cognition which is essential to these good wholes, it is the business of Aesthetics to analyse their nature: it need only be here remarked (1) that, by calling them ‘beautiful’, we mean that they have this relation to a good whole; and (2) that they are, for the most part, themselves complex wholes, such that the admiring contemplation of the whole greatly exceeds in value the sum of the values of the admiring contemplation of the parts. …
    § 122. With regard to II. Personal Affection, the object is here not merely beautiful but also good in itself; it appears, however, that the appreciation of what is thus good in itself, viz. the mental qualities of a person, is certainly, by itself, not so great a good as the whole formed by the combination with it of an appreciation of corporeal beauty; but it is certain that the combination of both is a far greater good than either singly. …
    § 123. It follows from what has been said that we have every reason to suppose that a cognition of material qualities, and even their existence, is an essential constituent of the Ideal or Summum Bonum: there is only a bare possibility that they are not included in it. …
    § 124. It remains to consider positive evils and mixed goods. I. Evils may be divided into three classes, namely …
    § 125. (1) evils which consist in the love, or admiration, or enjoyment of what is evil or ugly …
    § 126. (2) evils which consist in the hatred or contempt of what is good or beautiful …
    § 127. and (3) the consciousness of intense pain: this appears to be the only thing, either greatly good or greatly evil, which does not involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object; and hence it is not analogous to pleasure in respect of its intrinsic value, while it also seems not to add to the vileness of the whole, as a whole, in which it is combined with another bad thing, whereas pleasure does add to the goodness of a whole, in which it is combined with another good thing; …
    § 128. but pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this, that pleasure by no means always increases, and pain by no means always decreases, the total value of a whole in which it is included: the converse is often true. …
    § 129. In order to consider II. Mixed Goods, we must first distinguish between (1) the value of a whole as a whole, and (2) its value on the whole or total value: (1)=the difference between (2) and the sum of the values of the parts. In view of this distinction, it then appears: …
    § 130. (1) That the mere combination of two or more evils is never positively good on the whole, although it may certainly have great intrinsic value as a whole; …
    § 131. but (2) That a whole which includes a cognition of something evil or ugly may yet be a great positive good on the whole: most virtues, which have any intrinsic value whatever, seem to be of this kind, e.g. (a) courage and compassion, and (b) moral goodness; all these are instances of the hatred or contempt of what is evil or ugly; …
    § 132. but there seems no reason to think that, where the evil object exists, the total state of things is ever positively good on the whole, although the existence of the evil may add to its value as a whole. …
    § 133. Hence (1) no actually existing evil is necessary to the Ideal, (2) the contemplation of imaginary evils is necessary to it, and (3) where evils already exist, the existence of mixed virtues has a value independent both of its consequences and of the value which it has in common with the proper appreciation of imaginary evils. …
    § 134. Concluding remarks.
    § 135. Summary of chapter.