with a view to bring out the radical vice of all goodness."[5] Goodness, it is said, is self-realisation; and Reality—­it was assumed at the outset—­is harmonious and all-comprehensive.  These last characters are also criteria of degrees of reality, and consequently of degrees of self-realisation.  There are, therefore, two marks of self-realisation—­harmony and extent; and these two may and do diverge.  No doubt “in the end,” they will come together; but “in that end goodness, as such, will have perished."[6] “We must admit,” says Mr Bradley, “that two great divergent forms of moral goodness exist.  In order to realise the idea of a perfect self a man may have to choose between two partially conflicting methods.  Morality, in short, may dictate either self—­sacrifice or self—­assertion,"[7] “The conscious duplicity of the hypocrite,” according to an outspoken adherent of Mr Bradley’s, is “but the natural exaggeration of the unconscious duplicity which resides in the very heart of morality."[8]

[Footnote 1:  Appearance and Reality, p. 412.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., p. 410.]

[Footnote 3:  Appearance and Reality, pp. 412, 413.]

[Footnote 4:  Ethical Studies (1876), pp. 59, 63.]

[Footnote 5:  Appearance and Reality, p. 414.]

[Footnote 6:  Appearance and Reality, p. 414.]

[Footnote 7:  Ibid., p. 415.]

[Footnote 8:  A.E.  Taylor, Problem of Conduct (1901), p. 65.]

It is worth while considering this view of the contradictions inherent in morality.  To start with, goodness was defined by relation to desire:  the good was said to be what satisfies desire.  Desire is plainly a mental state in which idea and existence are separated.  As such it cannot be attributed to the Absolute 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