ment which it requires, in this case the apple, and to the
subsidiary actions which mediate it, such as the grasping of the apple,
or the biting and mastication of it. I mean only that these modes or
factors of the interest are _in some sense good_; qualifications and
limitations may be adjudicated later.

In this case, which so far as I can see is the simplest possible case
of the sort of value that enters into life, the value is supplied by a
specific type of process which we may call an interest, and it is
supplied thereby absolutely, fundamentally. It makes both this apple
and your eating of it good that you should _like to eat it_. If you
could explain every action as you explain this action, when it is thus
isolated, there would be no moral problem.

We may now safely open the door to the objections that have been
pressing for admission. {45} The first to appear is an old friend
among philosophers; but one whose reputation so far exceeds its merits
that it must be submitted to vigilant examination. It is objected (I
am sure that you have long wanted to say this) that your repast is
_good for you, good from your point of view_, but not on that account
_really good_. These are the terms with which it is customary to
confound any serious judgment of truth; and they acquire a peculiar
force here because we seem to have invited their application. We have
agreed that your action is good in that it suits your interest, and
thus seem to have defined its goodness as relative to you. Now, if we
are to avoid a confusion of mind that would terminate our investigation
here and now, we must bring to light a latent ambiguity.

We have, it is true, discovered goodness to be a phase of a process
called "interest," which is qualified further, through the use of a
personal pronoun. The nature of goodness, in other words, is such as
to involve certain specific _relations_, here involving a person or
subject. Goodness is not peculiar in this respect; for there are very
few things in this world that do not involve specific relations. This
is the case, for example, with planets, levers, and brothers. There is
no planet without its sun, no lever without its fulcrum, no brother who
is not somebody's brother.

{46}

But the relationship in the case of goodness is supposed to be a more
serious matter; sufficiently serious to discredit the meaning of
goodness, or make all judgments concerning goodness merely expressions
of