If I am asked, What is good?
my answer is
that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked How is
good to be defined?
my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all
I have to say about it. But disappointing as these answers may appear, they are
of the very last importance. To readers who are familiar with philosophic
terminology, I can express their importance by saying that they amount to this:
That propositions about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic;
and that is plainly no trivial matter. And the same thing may be expressed more
popularly, by saying that, if I am right, then nobody can foist upon us such an
axiom as that Pleasure is the only good
or that The good is the
desired
on the pretence that this is the very meaning of the word
.