" "We cannot maintain that for me a thing ought to
exist on its own account, while for you it ought not; that would
merely mean that one of us is mistaken, since in fact everything
either ought to exist, or ought not." Thus we are asked to believe
that good attaches to things for no reason or cause, and according to
no principles of distribution; that it must be found there by a sort
of receptive exploration in each separate case; in other words, that
it is an absolute, not a relative thing, a primary and not a secondary
quality.
That the quality "good" is indefinable is one assertion, and obvious;
but that the presence of this quality is unconditioned is another, and
astonishing. My logic, I am well aware, is not very accurate or
subtle; and I wish Mr. Russell had not left it to me to discover the
connection between these two propositions. Green is an indefinable
predicate, and the specific quality of it can be given only in
intuition; but it is a quality that things acquire under certain
conditions, so much so that the same bit of grass, at the same moment,
may have it from one point of view and not from another. Right and
left are indefinable; the difference could not be explained without
being invoked in the explanation; yet everything that is to the right
is not to the right on no condition, but obviously on the condition
that some one is looking in a certain direction; and if some one else
at the same time is looking in the opposite direction, what is truly
to the right will be truly to the left also.
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