ABSTRACT
When people say, as Schweitzer did, that the distinc tions I have been making are subject ive, are from the human point of view, it looks as though they want us to qualify the categor ical nature of those distinc tions. I am puzzled, however, by what I should do by way of such qual i fic a tion. I readily grant that what I have called the realm of meaning, where I believe our ethical thought is embed ded, does not exist in the nature of things, in the ‘fabric of the universe’ as one philo sopher describes the place where values should reside if they are genu inely object ive. The realm of meaning is of human origin, indeed a gift of culture which we might not care for, or reject, or neglect. Nothing what so ever compels us to value it. Nothing in reason or in science underwrites it. But it would be a misuse of the natural meaning of the terms to say that there fore it is an arte fact, or an inven tion, or even that it is a creation.
