olute Reality. It will involve
a contradiction, therefore, if we identify goodness with Absolute
Reality; for goodness implies a distinction (between idea and
existence) which cannot find place in the Absolute. But if "degrees"
of reality be asserted, we must admit stages short of the Absolute,
and goodness may belong to such a stage in which process or
development is allowed as a fact. But Mr Bradley will have it not only
that it is a contradiction to identify this process with the Absolute,
but also that the conception of goodness is itself contradictory. "A
satisfied desire," he says, "is, in short, inconsistent with itself.
For, so far as it is quite satisfied, it is not a desire; and, so far
as it is a desire, it must remain at least partly unsatisfied."[1] Of
course, if the desire is satisfied, it ceases. It was and it is not.
But there is no more contradiction here than in any other case of
temporal succession. A satisfied desire is, it is true, no longer a
desire. But the phrase is contradictory only in appearance; for it
means that the desire has been satisfied and in its satisfaction has
ceased to exist as a desire. A much more important discrepancy is
asserted when it is said that "two great divergent forms of moral
goodness exist." The fight for moral goodness is 'under two
flags'--self-assertion and self-sacrifice. And the allies "seem
hostile to one another," "at least in some respects and with some
persons."[2] We have here the time-honoured opposition of egoism and
altruism, with a difference. Mr Bradley's most notable adherent in the
region of ethical enquiry prefers to overlook the difference and
to return to the older opposition of conflicting ideals.[3] But Mr
Bradley himself declines to rate the social factor in conduct so
high. It is not altruism or social activity which is the opponent of
self-assertion or egoism, but self-sacrifice; and both self-assertion
and self-sacrifice are kinds of self-realisation: in the former the
self seeks its realisation by perfecting its harmony; in the latter,
by increasing its extent. It is not in content that the two modes of
self-realisation differ: social factors, for instance, may enter into
both; it is in the diverse uses made of the contents:[4] 'system' is
aimed at in the one; 'width' in the other.[5] The harmony of these two
methods is attained only when both morality and the individual self
are "transcended and submerged."[6]

[Footnote 1: Appearance and