two stars:  one is, and ever will be, void of life, on the other exists a fragment of just living protoplasm which will never develop, will never become conscious.  Can we say honestly that we feel one to be better than the other?  Is life itself good as an end?  A clear judgment is made difficult by the fact that one cannot conceive anything without feeling something for it; one’s very conceptions provoke states of mind and thus acquire value as means.  Let us ask ourselves, bluntly, can that which has no mind and affects no mind have value?  Surely not.  But anything which has a mind can have intrinsic value, and anything that affects a mind may become valuable as a means, since the state of mind produced may be valuable in itself.  Isolate that mind.  Isolate the state of mind of a man in love or rapt in contemplation; it does not seem to lose all its value.  I do not say that its value is not decreased; obviously, it loses its value as a means to producing good states of mind in others.  But a certain value does subsist—­an intrinsic value.  Populate the lone star with one human mind and every part of that star becomes potentially valuable as a means, because it may be a means to that which is good as an end—­a good state of mind.  The state of mind of a person in love or rapt in contemplation suffices in itself.  We do not stay to inquire “What useful purpose does this serve, whom does it benefit, and how?” We say directly and with conviction—­“This is good.”

When we are challenged to justify our opinion that anything, other than a state of mind, is good, we, feeling it to be a means only, do very properly seek its good effects, and our last justification is always that it produces good states of mind.  Thus, when asked why we call a patent fertiliser good, we may, if we can find a listener, show that the fertiliser is a means to good crops, good crops a means to food, food a means to life, and life a necessary condition of good states of mind.  Further we cannot go.  When asked why we hold a particular state of mind to be good, the state of aesthetic contemplation for instance, we can but reply that to us its goodness is self-evident.  Some states of mind appear to be good independently of their consequences.  No other things appear to be good in this way.  We conclude, therefore, that good states of mind are alone good as ends.

To justify ethically any human activity, we must inquire—­“Is this a means to good states of mind?” In the case of art our answer will be prompt and emphatic.  Art is not only a means to good states of mind, but, perhaps, the most direct and potent that we possess.  Nothing is more direct, because nothing affects the mind more immediately; nothing is more potent, because there is no state of mind more excellent or more intense than the state of aesthetic contemplation.  This being so, to seek any other moral justification for art, to seek in art a means to anything less than good states of mind, is an act of wrong-headedness to be committed only by a fool or a man of genius.