perfection may be held to exclude desire; or if, as
I have argued, the character of desire is bound to
survive in it, it must be in some form quite different
from the unsatisfied desires which we know. But
good is an element of finite experience, and it
means not perfection as such, but perfection in so
far as it appears in the dualism of finiteness, as
involving a discord and a reconciliation of idea and
existence. Thus the idea of good at once concerns
the creature's whole being; it is not, like pain and
pleasure, mere de facto experience of obstruction
or unobstructedness. In its desire for good--its
desire for an object which as desired is good--the
creature as such takes a side, and pledges itself to
the search for satisfaction as such, for complete
satisfaction, for something in which its being will
be at one with itself. It may seem that so much
is not involved in the desire for this or that, which
may be readily slurred over and forgotten. But
this is only in so far as the creature is distracted
between its objects of desire. Its nature, as self-
conscious, is to aspire to unification. So far as it
desires, it takes a side and assumes an attitude to
this effect. In evil desire--there is, we shall argue,
no desire for evil--in evil desire this taking sides,
though confronted with hostility, is presupposed.
Good involves an attitude to satisfaction, an ap-
proval on the whole. Evil is the reverse of this,
the rebellion. It is the inclination to a satisfaction
which is attended by dread or hostility against the
threatening absorption in good; the self-assertion of
some element which does not want--in which the
self does not want--to be organised within the
creature's satisfaction as desired. The point of

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