Note 26 — CONTENTS

(p. 16). The notion of the good, in and for itself, is accordingly a unity in the strict sense, and not, as Aristotle teaches (in consequence of a confusion which we shall have to speak of later) a unity in a merely analogous sense. German philosophers also have failed to grasp the unity of the conception. This is the case with Kant, and, quite recently, with Windelband. There is a defect in our ordinary way of speaking which may prove very misleading to Germans inasmuch as for the opposite of the term “good” there is no common expression current, but this is designated now as “schlimm,” now as “übel,” now as “böse,” now as “arg,” now as “abscheulich,” now as “schlecht,” etc. It might very well, as in similar cases, come to be thought that not only the common name is wanting, but also the common notion. And if the notion is wanting on the one side of the antithesis, it would also be wanting on the other, and so the expression “good” would seem an equivocal term.

Of all the expressions quoted, it seems to me (and philologists also, whose advice I have asked, are of the same opinion), that the expression “schlecht,” like the Latin “malum,” is most applicable as the opposite of the good in its full universality, and in this way I shall allow myself to use this expression in what follows.

The fact that I adhere to the view of a certain common character regarding the intentional relation of love and hate does not debar my recognizing along with this view, special forms for particular cases. If, therefore, “bad” is a truly universal simple class conception, there may yet be distinguished special classes within its domain of which one may be suitably termed “böse,” another “übel,” etc.