ood man as a man who performs good actions.
And for each method of definition something may be said. But if we
adopt both methods together and say in one breath that good is what
the good man does and that the good man is he who does good, is our
logic any better than that of the ordination-candidate who defined the
functions of an archdeacon as archdiaconal functions? And yet Green
comes very near to describing this logical circle. "The moral good,"
he says, is "that which satisfies the desire of amoral agent"; but
"the question, ... What do we mean by calling ourselves moral agents?
is one to which a final answer cannot be given without an answer to
the question, What is moral good?"[3]

[Footnote 1: Prolegomena to Ethics, sec. 154, p. 160.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid., sec. 156, p. 163.]

[Footnote 3: Prolegomena to Ethics, secs. 171, 172, p. 179.]

When Green really grapples with the difficulty of distinguishing the
moral from the immoral in character or in conduct, it is possible
to distinguish different ways in which he attempts to draw the
distinction--these different ways being, however, not independent but
complementary to one another in his thought. The first suggestion is
that good is distinguished from evil, or the true good from a good
which is merely apparent, by its permanence. It gives a lasting
satisfaction instead of a merely transient satisfaction: "the true
good ... is an end in which the effort of a moral agent can really
find rest."[1] In this statement two points seem to be involved which
the use of the rather metaphorical term 'finding rest' tends to
confuse. If we are looking for the distinction simply of a good action
or motive from a bad one we may point to the approval of conscience in
the former case: this has a permanence--or rather an independence of
time--which distinguishes it from the satisfaction of some temporary
desire. But I do not think that this is what Green means. He wished
to avoid falling back upon mere disconnected judgments of conscience
after the manner of the intuitional moralists. The 'true good' for him
seems to mean the attainment, the complete realisation, of the moral
ideal. Were this reached we should indeed 'find rest,' for moral
activity as we know it would be at an end. But the moral ideal
is never thus attained; its realisation, as Green holds, is only
progressive and never completed. Consequently 'rest' is never 'found.'
It is of the nature of the moral life to pres