Let
me explain this like this: Suppose
that one of you or I was an omnicient
person who therefore knew all the
movements of all the bodies in the wo[r|l]d,
dead or alive who further knew & could describe all
the states of minds of all human
beings that ever were & suppose that
this omnicient person wrote all
he knew, that is everything that
is to be known, in a big book. Then
this book would contain the whole
description of the world. And what
I want to say is that this book
would ˇthen not contain anything that
we [c|w]ould call an absolute ethical
judjment of value or anything that
would ˇdirectly [e|i]mply such a judgment. It
would of course contain all
relat<i>ve judgments of value as for

8 IV
instance that so & so is a good ˇor a bad runner
for it would contain the fact
that he ran so many yards the distance of 1 mile
in so many seconds minutes & seconds.
The book would ˇof course contain all possible
true scientific propositions & in fact
all A significant ˇ& true propositions that
can be made.

     
Now what I wish to
say is that all facts are as it
were on the same level that there
is no such thing as absolute impor-
tance or unimportance in them & that
therefore in the same way all propositions
are on the same level that there
are no propositions which are in any
absolute sense sublime, important or ˇon the other hand
trivial. Now perhaps some of you will
agree to that & be reminded of
Hamlet's words ---. Dut this again
could lead to misunderstanding. What
Hamlet says seems to imply that good
& bad are not qualities of the world
[a|o]utside us but a<t>tributes of our states
of mind. But what I mean is that
the state of mind to so far as we mean
by that a fact which we cann describe
is in no ethical sense good or bad.

     
If for instance in our world book ˇwe read the description of an
appalling murder is described in all the
details physical & psychological psychical that is
with all the pains & anguish the victim
had to endure with all the studied cruelty
of the murderer the ˇmere description of
facts ˇpysical & psychical will contain nothing of

9
what which we [w|c]ould say that this is an
ethical proposition. The event murder
will be on exactly the same level
as any other event for instance the
falling of a stone. Certainly the
reading of this description might
cause us pains or rage or any other
emotions or we might read about
the pain or rage caused by this
murder in other people when they
got to know it but there will simply
be facts facts & fa<c>ts but no
Ethics. —

From http://www.wittgensteinsource.org/texts/BTEd/Ms-139a

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