that life thus combined and weighted, was hurled against life, was the
lingering weakness, the deficiency which attends upon all partial
attainment. The moral triumph lay in the positive access of strength.

Let us now correct our elementary conceptions of value so that they may
apply to moral value. The fulfilment of a simple isolated interest is
good, but only _the fulfilment of an organization of interests_ is
morally good. Such goodness appears in the realization of an
individual's systematic purpose or in the well-being of a community.
That it virtually implies one ultimate good, the fulfilment of the
system of all interests, must necessarily follow; although we cannot at
present deal adequately with that conclusion.

The quality of moral goodness, like the quality of goodness in the
fundamental sense, lies not in the nature of any class of objects, but
in any {16} object or activity whatsoever, in so far as this provides a
fulfilment of interest or desire. In the case of moral goodness this
fulfilment must embrace a group of interests in which each is limited
by the others. Its value lies not only in fulfilment, but also in
adjustment and harmony. And this value is independent of the special
subject-matter of the interests. Moralists have generally agreed that
it is impossible to conceive moral goodness exclusively in terms of any
special interest, even such as honor, power, or wealth.[4] There is no
interest so rare or so humble that its fulfilment is not morally good,
provided that fulfilment forms part of the systematic fulfilment of a
group of interests.

But there has persisted from the dawn of ethical theory a misconception
concerning the place of _pleasure_ in moral goodness. It has been
supposed that every interest, whatever its special subject-matter, is
an interest in pleasure. Now while a thorough criticism of hedonism
would be out of place here, even if it were profitable, a summary
consideration of it will throw some light on the truth.[5]
Fortunately, the ethical status of pleasure is much clearer than its
psychological status. As a moral concern, pleasure is either a
_special interest_, in which case it must take its place in the whole
economy of life, and submit to principles which adjust it to the rest;
or it is _an {17} element in every interest_, in which case it is
itself not an interest at all. Now whether it be proper to recognize a
special interest in pleasure, it is not necess