GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

A THEORY OF GOOD OR VALUE 457
Two of them, truth and beauty, arc independent both, in
themselves and in their manifestations of human conscious-
ness. The function of human consciousness in relation to
these values is limited to recognition of the first and
appreciation of the second. The other two values, however,
happiness and moral virtue, do belong to human consciousness,
are, indeed, as many would say, states of human
consciousness. Of the mode of manifestation of these two
values, which belong more particularly to the sphere of
ethics, something more must be said.
If the criticism of Hedonism contained in the preceding
chapter* is valid, happiness differs from the other values
by reason of the fact that it cannot, or rather that it
should not, be made thfe object ofdirect pursuit. Happiness,
I have suggested, is of the nature of a by-product which
enriches the consciousness of a healthy organism whose
energy is fully engaged in an activity appropriate to the
organism. What is meant by "an activity appropriate to
the organism", and what, if any, is the generic charac-
teristic of those states of consciousness which happiness
enriches?
All states of consciousness are, I suggested in the last
chapter,' directed upon something and derive their dis-
tinctive qualities, including their feeling tone, from the
nature of the object upon which they are directed.3
An appropriate activity of consciousness is, then, one which
is keenly directed upon a worthy object, which absorbs
its interest. What is a worthy object?
Amid the apparently embarrassing variety of answers
with which the great moralists of the past have presented
us, there can be detected a certain underlying unanimity.
Happiness, I am maintaining, is a sign of the worthy
employment of our conscious faculties; conversely, boredom
and apathy will be a sign of their unworthy employ-
* See Chapter XI, pp. 400-406.
Sec Chapter XI, pp. ^10-412.
1 For an elaboration of this view which belongs to theory of knowledge,
see my Philosophical Aspects of Modern Scitnct, Chapters IV, V and VI.
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