Facts are public and unimpeachable, values are private and gratuitous. There is an obvious dif- ference between recounting a fact, such as 'This cathedral wasbuilt in 1612,' and registering a value-judgement, such as 'This cathedral is amagnificent specimen of baroque architecture.' But suppose I made the first kind of statement while showing an overseas visitor around England, and found that it puzzled her considerably. Why, she might ask, do you keep telling me the dates of the foundation of all these buildings? Why this obsession with origins? In the society I live in, she might go on, we keep no record at all of such events: we classify our buildings instead according to whether they face north-west or south-east. What this might do would be to demonstrate part of the unconscious system of value-judgements which underlies my own descriptive statements. Such value-judgements are not necessarily of the same kind as 'This cathedral is a magnificent specimen of baroque architec- ture,' but they are value-judgements none the less, and no factual pro- nouncement I make can escape them.
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