Part I is an explication of the nature of what he calls ‘pure experience’ which lies at the basis of his thought.

The reason that he entitled this work An Inquiry into the Good, despite half of it being devoted to the discussion of technical points in philosophy, is because he thought that, ultimately, the central focus of this work is the great questions of human life and existence.

He wrote that was made possible by the Japanese interest in western philosophy that began with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

[2] The religious studies scholar Ninian Smart stated that An Inquiry into the Good "struck many readers as the first truly creative work by a Japanese that did not merely repeat western ideas, and yet made use of modern thinking and terminology."

However, he added that the work was criticized by the philosopher Takahashi Satomi, who found the subjectivism of "pure experience" too psychological.