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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***
+
+THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE
+
+BY G. LOWES DICKINSON
+
+Fellow of King's College, Cambridge,
+and Author of a Modern Symposium
+
+THIRD EDITION
+
+1900
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  How do the waves along the level shore
+    Follow and fly in hurrying sheets of foam,
+  For ever doing what they did before,
+    For ever climbing what is never clomb!
+  Is there an end to their perpetual haste,
+    Their iterated round of low and high,
+  Or is it one monotony of waste
+    Under the vision of the vacant sky?
+  And thou, who on the ocean of thy days
+    Dost like a swimmer patiently contend,
+  And though thou steerest with a shoreward gaze
+    Misdoubtest of a harbour or an end,
+  What would the threat, or what the promise be,
+    Could I but read the riddle of the sea!
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
+explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue is
+a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but, in its
+application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of failures. I
+am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but think that I have
+chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For, in the first place,
+the problems I have undertaken to discuss have an interest not only
+philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious to treat them in a
+way which might perhaps appeal to some readers who are not professed
+students of philosophy. And, secondly, my subject is one which belongs
+to the sphere of right opinion and perception, rather than to that of
+logic and demonstration; and seems therefore to be properly approached
+in the tentative spirit favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics
+most men, I think, will feel that it is in conversation that they get
+their best lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in
+literary form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude
+in approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
+little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
+myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
+set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or endorse
+them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain opinions of
+my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which should be least
+imprisoning to my own thought, and least provocative of the reader's
+antagonism. It has been my object, to borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de
+présenter des séries d'idées se développant selon un ordre logique, et
+non d'inculquer une opinion ou de prêcher un systême déterminé.' And
+I may add, with him, 'Moins que jamais je me sens l'audace de parler
+doctrinalernent en pareille matière.'
+
+In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent in the
+Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater skill than any
+to which I can pretend. The connection of the various phases of the
+discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as it would be in a formal
+treatise; and in the midst of digressions and interruptions, such
+as are natural in conversation, the main thread of the reasoning may
+sometimes be lost I have therefore appended a brief summary of the
+argument, set forth in its logical connections.
+
+
+
+
+ARGUMENT
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
+consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a diversity
+which suggests _primâ facie_ a scepticism as to the truth of any of
+these ideas.
+
+The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is made
+to show that the position is one which is not really accepted by
+thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their lives by
+their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit their belief in
+these ideas.
+
+This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for the
+regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a Good for
+himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of all. It is
+suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men commonly does
+imply a belief in a General Good.
+
+Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a Good
+of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
+individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
+may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In reply,
+it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by fact;
+(2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all, namely,
+society and its institutions.
+
+In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good is to
+empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its main value.
+
+II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect do,
+whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their actual
+conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that there seems
+to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This latter proposition
+is distasteful to some of the party, who endeavour to maintain that
+there really is no uncertainty as to what is good.
+
+Thus it is argued:
+
+(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct. To
+which it is replied that there appear to be many such 'instincts'
+conflicting among themselves.
+
+(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good being
+defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is replied
+that such a judgment is as _a priori_ and unbased as any other, and as
+much open to dispute.
+
+It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we can have
+no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief discussion of
+the nature of Science, and the applicability of its methods to Ethics.
+
+(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which it
+is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the moral
+reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are current.
+Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in fact,
+vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.
+
+(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest happiness
+of the greatest number." To which it is replied:
+
+(a) That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in accordance with
+'common sense.'
+
+(b) That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest and narrowest
+sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a criterion of
+Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that the term Pleasure
+becomes as indefinite as the term Good.
+
+(c) That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly applied, it
+would lead to results that would shock those who profess to adopt it.
+
+III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it is
+suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we can
+discover, tentatively, what things are good.
+
+To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
+experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
+would be metaphysical, and _a priori_. In reply, the bare possibility
+of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no one really
+believes that all our opinions derived from experience are false,
+and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of all ethical
+significance and worth.
+
+Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do actually
+find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though imperfect
+perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by practice, to
+perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is drawn between
+our perception of Good and our perception of Beauty.
+
+It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a knowledge
+but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as one to be
+realised in Time.
+
+IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
+conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
+brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil must
+be conceived as mere 'appearance.'
+
+In reply, it is suggested:
+
+(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal Good
+with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.
+
+(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed to
+ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but ought
+to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who hold that
+Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of action that they
+should come to see that everything is good.
+
+(3) That this latter conception of the end of action--namely, that we
+should bring ourselves to see that what appears to be Evil is really
+Good--is too flagrantly opposed to common sense to be seriously
+accepted.
+
+To sum up:
+
+In this Book the following positions have been discussed and rejected:
+
+(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real fact.
+
+(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good--such as (a)
+an infallible instinct, (b) the course of Nature, (c) current
+conventions, (d) pleasure.
+
+(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere 'appearance.'
+
+And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be made, a
+progressive discovery of Good.
+
+In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
+approached.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to point
+out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the character of
+a Good which we might hold to be perfect--here referred to as '_The_
+Good.'
+
+The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the position, at
+which we are supposed to have arrived, that the experience of any one
+person, or set of persons, about Good is limited and imperfect, and
+that therefore in any attempt to describe what it is that we hold
+to be good, to compare Goods among one another, and to suggest
+an absolute Good, we can only hope, at best, to arrive at some
+approximation to truth.
+
+I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain preliminary
+points are then discussed. These are:
+
+(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be an
+object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.
+
+(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested that
+the Good we pursue is
+
+(a) That of future generations. Some difficulties in this view are
+brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue is the Good
+of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we mean by that.
+
+(b) That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to be involved
+in difficulty.
+
+II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes on
+to an examination of some of our activities from the point of view
+of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: (1) to
+bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of Good; (2) to
+suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free from defects, such
+a Good being referred to as '_The_ Good.'
+
+(1) It is first suggested that _all_ activities are good, if pursued
+in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems bad in each,
+viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general survey of them
+all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to be tenable.
+
+(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To this it
+is objected that ethical actions are always means to an end, and that
+it is this end that must be conceived to be really good.
+
+(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with physical
+objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of Good; but
+such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only because it is
+precarious, but because it depends upon objects of which it is not the
+essence to produce that Good, but which, on the contrary, just as much
+and as often produce Evil.
+
+(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
+brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:
+
+(a) That they have, by their essence, that Good which is called
+Beauty.
+
+(b) That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be eternal.
+
+(c) That, though complex, they are such that their parts are
+necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to the
+total Beauty.
+
+On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:
+
+(a) That outside and independent of Art there is the 'real world,'
+so that this Good is only a partial one.
+
+(b) That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to demand, for
+a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be so of its own
+nature, without our intervention.
+
+(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
+knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held as
+to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:
+
+(a) the view that knowledge is 'the description and summing up in
+brief formulæ, of the routine of our perceptions.' It is questioned
+whether there is really much Good in such an activity. And it is
+argued that, whatever Good it may have, it cannot be _the_ Good,
+seeing that knowledge may be, and frequently is, knowledge of Bad.
+
+(b) the view that knowledge consists in the perception of 'necessary
+connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this seems to be
+open to the same objection as (a). But, further, it is argued that
+the perpetual contemplation of necessary relations among ideas does
+not satisfy our conception of the Good; but that we require an
+element analogous somehow to that of sense, though not, like sense,
+unintelligible and obscure.
+
+(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other persons,
+where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps find
+something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences to being
+absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are in contact
+
+(a) with objects, not 'mere ideas.'
+
+(b) with objects that are good in themselves and
+
+(c) intelligible and
+
+(d) harmonious to our own nature.
+
+It is objected that love, so conceived, is
+
+(a) rarely, perhaps never, experienced.
+
+(b) in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.
+
+This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we know
+comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to be
+absolutely good.
+
+III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived, is it
+not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems to depend
+on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The following
+points are therefore discussed:
+
+(a) Whether personal immortality is conceivable?
+
+(b) Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable pursuit of
+Good?
+
+On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the Dialogue
+closes with the description of a dream.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange
+in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a
+gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled
+not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of
+my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an
+interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience of
+life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and confined. Last
+year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me especially
+agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip Audubon, whom,
+since his business lay in the East, I had not had an opportunity of
+seeing for many years. I mention him particularly, because, although,
+as will be seen, he did not take much part in the discussion I am
+about to describe, he was, in a sense, the originator of it. For, in
+the first place, it was he who had invited us to the place in which we
+were staying,--an upland valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a
+house; and, further, it was through my renewed intercourse with him
+that I was led into the train of thought which issued in the following
+conversation. His life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous
+in the extreme, had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was
+constitutionally inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened
+than diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I
+hesitate to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
+associations with the schools from which he was singularly free. His
+melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic system; it
+was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be described,
+perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the worthlessness
+and irrationality of the world. Such a position is not readily shaken
+by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt to assail it; but it
+could not fail to impress itself strongly upon my mind, and to keep
+my thoughts constantly employed upon that old problem of the worth
+of things, in which, indeed, for other reasons, I was already
+sufficiently interested.
+
+A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival of
+another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn together
+at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in later years our
+paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination had led him into
+an active career, and for some years he had been travelling abroad
+as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I felt, therefore, some
+curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him, and to ascertain how far
+his views had been modified by his experience of the world.
+
+The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a kind
+of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place of
+rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes
+nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade
+listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in
+the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the
+garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the
+fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, and yet I was unwilling
+to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me and said: "Well, my dear
+philosopher, and how goes the world with you? What have you been doing
+in all these years since we met?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."
+
+"What have you been thinking then?"
+
+"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about the
+world seems to suit you."
+
+"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the quiet of
+the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic countenance,
+I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. I believe if
+I stayed here long you would lure me back to philosophy; and yet I
+thought I had finally escaped when I broke away from you before."
+
+"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one is
+caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying to
+help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."
+
+"And have you found a way?"
+
+"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you and
+hear how you have fared."
+
+"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."
+
+"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You may
+have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so have I.
+But that is only because I want to grapple with it more closely."
+
+"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"
+
+"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who have
+had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to what
+conclusions they have been led by their own direct experience."
+
+"Conclusions about what?"
+
+"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to be
+fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say, given
+up the subject--I mean the whole question of the values we attach, or
+ought to attach, to things."
+
+"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as of
+old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So I used
+to say at college and so I say now."
+
+"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to say;
+but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."
+
+"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit of
+experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me in my
+original view."
+
+"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to hear
+about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as you
+know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of other
+people's."
+
+"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to me,
+in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary diversity of
+men's ideals."
+
+"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"
+
+"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance, until
+I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between the
+Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear that
+either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know which.
+Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But when one
+gets among them and really talks to them, when one realizes how
+profound and intelligent is their contempt for our civilization,
+how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how illusory our
+progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to wonder whether,
+after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit that one judges them
+to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether there is anything at
+all except blind prejudice in any opinions and ideas about Right and
+Wrong."
+
+"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir Richard
+Burton:
+
+"'There is no good, there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will;
+What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.
+They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of
+     time,
+Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been banned as sin or
+     crime.'"
+
+"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
+travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not be
+necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a single
+city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who can look
+below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed uniformity of
+beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and incongruities
+are concealed! Every type, every individual almost, is distinguished
+from every other in precisely this point of the judgments he makes
+about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer think of the life of
+a studious recluse? or the city man of that of the artist? and vice
+versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all of us go about judging
+and condemning one another root and branch. We are in no real
+agreement as to the worth either of men or things. It is an illusion
+of the 'canting moralist' (to use Stevenson's phrase) that there is
+any fixed and final standard of Good. Good is just what any one thinks
+it to be; and one man has as much right to his opinion as another."
+
+"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there are
+different opinions about Good, they are all equally valuable."
+
+"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally worthless."
+
+"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to doubt
+whether you really believe it yourself."
+
+"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."
+
+"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to me
+most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act, and
+are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is good, as
+though you did believe it to be true."
+
+"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"
+
+"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to introduce
+any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it to yourself
+any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you hold to be good
+really somehow is so, your life, I think, would resolve itself into
+mere chaos."
+
+"I don't see that"
+
+"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a life
+is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold to be
+good."
+
+"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."
+
+"I doubt it"
+
+"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"
+
+"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they think
+good."
+
+"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think bad,
+like Milton's Satan--'Evil be thou my Good'?"
+
+"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing what he
+thought good; only he thought that evil was good."
+
+"But that is a contradiction."
+
+"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in which I
+believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the Bad. To them
+it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."
+
+"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"
+
+"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, power and
+wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because he thought
+them good; if his choice also involved what he thought bad, such as
+murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these bad, which I
+doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in his choice as in
+its consequences. But even if I were to admit that he and others have
+chosen and do choose what they believe to be bad, it would not affect
+the point I want to make. For to choose Bad must be, in your view, as
+absurd as to choose Good; since, I suppose, you do not believe, that
+our opinions about the one have any more validity than our opinions
+about the other. So that if we are to abandon Good as a principle of
+choice, it is idle to say we may fall back upon Bad."
+
+"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do not
+need either the one or the other. You must have noticed--I am sure I
+have--that men do not in practice choose with any direct reference to
+Good or Bad; they choose what they think will bring them pleasure, or
+fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a livelihood."
+
+"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"
+
+"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far
+believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to go
+to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be seriously
+angry and distressed."
+
+"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not help
+themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to imagine. We
+have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad enough."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we choose
+is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The criterion is
+Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to realize."
+
+"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the criterion
+is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that other
+pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than those
+they have chosen, and that these better things were and are open to
+themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to the worse,
+knowing it all the time to be the worse."
+
+"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely, are not
+really 'open' to them, except so far as external circumstances are
+concerned. They are hampered in their choice by passions and desires,
+by that part of them which does not choose, but is passively carried
+away by alien attractions; and the course they actually adopt is the
+best they can choose, though they see a better which they would choose
+if they could. The choice is always of Good, but it may be diverted by
+passion to less Good."
+
+"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the matter."
+
+"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own
+consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still, that
+is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I should
+expect that most people who reflect would agree with me. They would
+say, I think, that they always choose the best they can, though
+regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and it would
+seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose Bad, or
+choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."
+
+"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are right--what
+follows?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said, 'practically
+bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least, our opinions about
+what is good; for otherwise we should have no principle to choose by,
+if it be true that the principle of choice is Good."
+
+"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without choosing!"
+
+"But could we?"
+
+"I don't see why not; many people do."
+
+"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it be?"
+
+Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a voice from
+behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the back into one
+of those large lofty barns which commonly form part of a Swiss house;
+and as the floor of this room was covered with straw, it was possible
+to approach that way without making much noise. For this reason, two
+others of our party had been able to join us without our observing it.
+Their names were Parry and Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just
+getting into practice at the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in
+years, though a very precocious one, whom I had brought with me,
+ostensibly as a pupil, but really as a companion. He was an eager
+student of philosophy, and had something of that contempt of youth for
+any one older than twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart
+to resent, though have long passed the age which qualifies me to
+become the object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate
+way he had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
+proceeding.
+
+"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without choice one
+would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every random mood and
+impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"
+
+Ellis looked round rather amused.
+
+"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
+impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
+calculation any day!"
+
+"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good and
+Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."
+
+"What _is_ your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been trying in
+vain to make head or tail of it"
+
+"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
+against this bullying."
+
+"But you _must_ take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are to
+discuss."
+
+"I don't see why; you might take one instead."
+
+"Yes, but you began."
+
+"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, to
+go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many
+different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion
+has been discovered for testing these opinions----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from
+the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial
+agreement about what is good."
+
+"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let
+me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that
+there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and
+that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we
+have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions, or to suppose
+that it is possible to have any true opinions on the subject at all."
+
+"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.
+
+"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very difficult
+to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the point, and
+the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are nevertheless
+practically bound, whether we can justify it to our reason or not,
+to believe that our own opinions about what is good have somehow some
+validity."
+
+"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you interrupted--and
+your interruption really completed my argument--I imagine it to be
+impossible for us not to make choices; and in making choices, as I
+think, we use our ideas about Good as a principle of choice."
+
+"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted the
+truth of that last statement."
+
+"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally--and generally, I
+confess, I do not see how it could be proved or disproved, except by
+an appeal to every individual's experience--do you not admit it in
+your own case? Do you not find that, in choosing, you follow your idea
+of what is good, so far as you can under the limitations of your own
+passions and of external circumstances?"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to admit that
+I do."
+
+"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I mean
+that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your opinion about
+Good, you would have nothing else to fall back upon?"
+
+"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."
+
+"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive yourself
+living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard, from moment
+to moment, following blindly any impulse that may happen to turn
+up, without any principle by which you might subordinate one to the
+other?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't think I can."
+
+"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that you, at
+any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically bound to
+believe that our opinions about what is good have some validity, even
+though we cannot say what or how much."
+
+"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny in
+theory?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the
+attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice
+would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only
+principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to accept.
+In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about Good that
+engenders order among our passions and desires; and without it we
+should sink back to be mere creatures of blind impulse, such as
+perhaps in fact, many men really are."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant
+protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that
+brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part,
+I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so
+abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the
+appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because I
+have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has nothing to
+do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he ejaculated, in a kind of
+passion, "it's a preposterous thing to tell me that I believe in
+Good, merely because I lead a life like a mill-horse! That would be an
+admirable reason for believing in Bad--but Good!"
+
+He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press him
+further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of insult to
+his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for the sake of
+the argument to give some answer, so I began:--
+
+"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead it?"
+
+"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would do it
+if I could help it?"
+
+"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"
+
+"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."
+
+"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"
+
+"No, but it's a necessary thing."
+
+"Necessary, why?"
+
+"Because one must live."
+
+"Then it is a good thing to live?"
+
+"No, it's a very bad one."
+
+"Why do you live, then?"
+
+"Because I can't help it."
+
+"But it is always possible to stop living."
+
+"No, it isn't"
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't choose to
+be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave other people here
+to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of honour. As I'm here, I'm
+going to play the game. All I say is that the game is not worth the
+playing; and you will never persuade me into the belief that it Is."
+
+"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to persuade
+you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You believe, as
+you have really admitted in principle, that it is good to live rather
+than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous, laborious life,
+which you say you detest Take away that belief, and your whole being
+is transformed. Either you change your manner of life, abandon the
+routine which you hate, break up the order imposed (as I said at
+first) by your idea about Good, and give yourself up to the chaos of
+chance desires; or you depart from life altogether, on the hypothesis
+that that is the good thing to do. But in any case the truth appears
+to remain that somehow or other you do believe in Good; and that it is
+this belief which determines the whole course of your life."
+
+"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am
+unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought
+it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the
+argument.
+
+"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your general
+contention, I should still maintain that it is not by virtue of any
+conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into our lives. We
+simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature and character,
+preferring one object to another, suppressing or developing this or
+that tendency. Our choices are not determined by our abstract notion
+of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is deduced from our
+choices."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular choices our
+general idea of the kind of things which we consider good. That may
+be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach validity to
+these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our Good, those that we
+approve as distinguished from those that we do not. And my contention
+is that, in spite of all diversity of opinions as to what really are
+the good things to choose, we are bound to attach, each of us, some
+validity to our own, under penalty of reducing our life to a moral
+chaos."
+
+"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean that
+we must believe that our opinions are right?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that they
+are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and until we see
+something righter. But above all, that opinions on this subject really
+are either right or wrong, or more right and less right; and that of
+this rightness or wrongness we really have some kind of perception,
+however difficult it may be to give an account of it, and that in
+accordance with such perception we may come to change our opinions or
+those of other people, by the methods of discussion and persuasion and
+the like. And all this, as I understand, is what Ellis was denying."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you have
+proved it."
+
+"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to show
+that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because a
+belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that, I
+thought, you did admit yourself."
+
+"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether my
+theory is not more reasonable than my practice."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question that
+really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which
+underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it
+seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I
+think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of our
+opinions about Good."
+
+"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with
+philosophy but with psychology."
+
+"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever it
+be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place yourself
+at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from there."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the whole,
+I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you might
+easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is very much
+one _ad hominem_."
+
+"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of argument in
+which I much believe in these matters. I am content, for the present,
+if you and the others here go along with me."
+
+"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in an
+unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of common
+sense."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
+rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie say?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with anything so
+lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute and _à priori_,
+by which we may prove for certain that Good is, and discover, as well,
+what things are good."
+
+"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone, should
+find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the quest. It is
+only in default of anything better that I fall back on this--I dare
+not call it method; this appeal to opinion and belief."
+
+"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have shown,
+or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were granted
+that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good, it doesn't
+follow that they believe in anything except each a Good for himself.
+So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say would be that
+there are a number of different and perhaps incompatible Goods, each
+good for some particular individual, but none necessarily good for
+all. I, at least, admit no more than that."
+
+"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."
+
+"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was
+familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each
+individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as
+he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe this,
+under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I see no
+reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought to choose
+is identical, or even compatible, with that which another ought to
+choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and mutually exclusive
+moral worlds. In other words, even though I may admit a Good for each,
+I am not prepared to admit a Good for all."
+
+"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a not-Good;
+and that seems to be a contradiction."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be Good
+for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for another."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole conception
+is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for anybody or
+anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple, immutable
+eternal."
+
+"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually tear me
+to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see no reason to
+admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to me."
+
+"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"
+
+"But, to me, something else has a meaning."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to
+explain."
+
+"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods, oughtn't
+to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other particular
+name of its own?"
+
+"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of them
+Good because from one point of view--that of some particular
+individual--each of them is something that ought to be. I, at any
+rate, admit no more than that. For each individual there is something
+that ought to be; but this, which ought to be for him, is very likely
+something that ought not to be for somebody else."
+
+On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and
+despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.
+
+"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these incompatible
+Goods."
+
+"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good, say,
+for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the people who
+come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire to make and
+increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he ruins in the
+process. And so on, _ad infinitum_; one has only to look at the
+world to see that the Goods of individuals are not only diverse but
+incompatible one with another."
+
+"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to be good
+which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not the fact
+of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the things in
+question are not really good?"
+
+"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion. It
+may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of things
+incompatible with what is good for you."
+
+"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so?
+Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow be
+compatible with what is really good for others?"
+
+"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be
+proved."
+
+"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument _ad hominem_. Do not
+you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"
+
+"No, I don't know that I do."
+
+"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for people in
+general?"
+
+"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."
+
+"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."
+
+"In what way do I not?"
+
+"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to enter
+Parliament."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the country
+in favour of--well, I don't quite know what--shall we say in favour of
+the war?"
+
+"Say so, by all means, if you like."
+
+"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at large? or
+at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of them? Do you
+admit that?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will admit,
+I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but what of
+that? Very probably I am wrong."
+
+"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main thing is,
+that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right at all; that
+there is something to be wrong or right about."
+
+"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I shall
+always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again and again,
+I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are worth anything at
+all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an opinion about; and then
+I shall retire from politics altogether; and then--then how will you
+get hold of me?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I
+suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily
+affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I
+presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to some
+general Good?"
+
+"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing of
+the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"
+
+"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on to
+examine the consequences of the supposition."
+
+"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"
+
+"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for that, I
+suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of the case,
+interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the same time, on
+the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a general Good, your
+only object in this interchange will be your own Good, (in which you
+admit that you do believe.) If, for example, you are a doctor,
+your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself, to increase your
+knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the lowest, it is to
+accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your purpose be to
+alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the advance of
+science; for that would be to suppose that these ends, although they
+purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good, which is the
+hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a lawyer, you will
+not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting the law; such ends
+as these for you are mere illusions; for even if justice exist at all,
+it certainly is not a Good, for if it were, it would be a Good for
+all, and, as we agree, there is no such thing. Men like Bentham,
+therefore, to you will be mere visionaries, and the legal system as a
+whole will have no sense or purport, except so far as it contributes
+to sharpen your wits and fill your pocket And so, in general, with all
+professions and occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat
+it merely as a means to your own Good; and since you have no Good
+which is also common to other men, you will use these others without
+scruple to further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without
+necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be theirs."
+
+"Well," he said, "and why not?"
+
+"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it would be
+so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it possible that you
+should ever adopt such an attitude?"
+
+"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an
+idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other
+men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for example,
+a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in his business
+operations, ever had any regard for anything except his own personal
+advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people he ruined? Do you
+suppose he cared even whether he ruined his country, except so far as
+such ruin might interfere with his own profit? Or look again at the
+famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do you suppose it mattered to
+him that he might be starving half the world, and imperilling the
+governments of Europe? It was enough for him that he should realize a
+fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, he washed his hands. He and men
+like him adopt, I have no doubt, precisely the position which you are
+trying to show is impossible."
+
+"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
+general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you. And
+my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good, he
+denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
+not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
+described."
+
+"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume that a
+disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily involves
+a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his own Good
+consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in that case of
+course he will try to further it."
+
+"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other people.
+Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no Good common
+to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in furthering the
+Good of one we are also furthering that of others. So that even
+supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists in furthering
+the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put his belief into
+practice, but at most will be able to help some one man, with the
+likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and injuring many others.
+Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an egoist, yet he cannot work
+for a common Good; and that simply because there is no common Good to
+work for."
+
+At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the
+discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character,
+suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of optimism
+and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was rather
+pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and especially
+Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it irritating. His
+present speech was characteristic of his manner.
+
+"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has vitiated
+your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because every man
+has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to be common
+to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible one with
+another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is necessarily
+hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who are intent on
+theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by all experience,
+that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man, in pursuing his own
+advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue theirs. The world, if
+you like to put it so, is a world of egoists; but a world constructed
+with such exquisite art, that the egoism of one is not only compatible
+with, but indispensable to that of another. On this principle all
+society rests. The producer, seeking his own profit, is bound to
+satisfy the consumer; the capitalist cannot exist without supporting
+the labourer; the borrower and lender are knit by the closest ties of
+mutual advantage; and so with all the ranks and divisions of mankind,
+social, political, economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against
+the other, in delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part
+with part, they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for
+ever disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true,
+and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and
+reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole.
+And when we consider----"
+
+But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and
+Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:
+
+"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests
+countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow your
+own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and the thief,
+of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the fraudulent
+company-promoter; when, turning from these private examples, we cast
+our eyes on international relations, when we observe the perfect
+accord of interest between all the great powers in the far East;
+when we note the smooth harmonious working of that flawless political
+machine so aptly named the European Concert, each member pursuing its
+own advantage, yet co-operating without friction to a common end; or
+when, reverting to the economic sphere, we contemplate the exquisite
+adjustment that prevails between the mutual interest of labour and
+capital--an adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional
+disturbance, just to show that the centre of gravity is changing;
+when we observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan,
+annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime
+example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single
+individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating
+with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and contributing,
+by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a great and
+oppressed people--if indeed, in such a world as ours, anyone can
+be said to be oppressed--when, my dear Parry, we contemplate these
+things, then--then--words fail me! Finish the sentence as you only
+can."
+
+"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very well
+you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still maintain
+that we must take broad views of these matters, and that the position
+adopted is substantially correct, if you take long enough periods
+of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his own Good does
+contribute also to the Good of others."
+
+"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point,
+"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that
+everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is no
+common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is essential
+to the realization of the Good of all the rest"
+
+"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I believe."
+
+"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one thing
+which we shall have to call a common Good."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to
+all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common
+condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."
+
+"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society' what
+is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at least you
+admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of common activity
+and end; and the motives of men in undertaking these common activities
+become a matter of comparative indifference. Whatever they are
+consciously aiming at, whether it be their own Good, or the Good of
+all, or, as is more probable, a varying mixture of both, the fact
+remains that they do, and we do, admit a common Good, the maintenance
+and development of society itself. And that is all I was concerned to
+get you to agree to."
+
+"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common Good
+except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition of Good
+than Good itself?"
+
+"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard
+society as nothing but a condition of the realization of independent,
+individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the Good of each
+individual consists in his relations with other individuals. But this
+I do not know that I am in a position to establish. Meantime, however,
+we can, I think, maintain, that few candid men, understanding the
+issue, will really deny altogether a common Good; for they will have
+to admit that in society we have at the very least a common condition
+of Good."
+
+"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that there
+is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if pressed, would
+probably admit one."
+
+"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not
+attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is
+impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as before,
+that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at his own
+peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have shown is, that
+to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to deny to one's life
+and action all worth except what is bound up with one's own Good, to
+the complete exclusion of any Good of all. In the second place, it is
+to deny all worth to every public and social institution--to religion,
+law, government, the family, all activities, in a word, which
+contribute to and make up what we call society. Further, it is to
+empty history, which is the record of society, of its main interest
+and significance, and in particular to eliminate the idea of progress;
+for progress, of course, implies a common Good towards which progress
+is directed. In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self,
+and reveal him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations
+from which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which,
+apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is to
+make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his solitary
+ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main attraction
+by its dissociation from the development of others. Now, if any man,
+having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a sense, not
+merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were, in every
+nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny that he
+believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the denial with
+his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life, adjusting to
+his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings, and thoughts;
+if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then I, for my part,
+am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be wrong. All I can do
+is to set my experience against his, and to appeal to the experience
+of others; and we must wait till further experience on either side
+leads (if it ever is to lead) to an agreement. But, on the other hand,
+if a man merely makes the denial with his lips, because, perhaps, he
+conceives it impossible to prove the opposite, or because he sees
+that what is good cannot be defined beyond dispute, or whatever other
+plausible reason he may have; and if, while he persists in his denial,
+he continues to act as if the contrary were true, taking part with
+zest and enthusiasm in the common business of life, pushing causes,
+supporting institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and
+that without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his
+own Good--in that case I shall take leave to think that he does not
+really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely think he
+does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole tissue of
+his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real opinion than
+the propositions he enunciates with his lips."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of course
+we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the question is,
+whether we have a right to."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was the more
+modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a right or no
+is another matter, more difficult and more profound than I care to
+approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved beyond dispute to
+the reason, either that certain things are good or that they are not,
+there would be no place for such discussions as this. But, it appears,
+such proof has not yet been given,--or do you think it has?"
+
+"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"
+
+"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall back
+on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to prejudice,--and
+so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an appeal to the passion men
+have to find worth in their lives, and their refusal to accept any
+view by which such worth is denied. To anyone who refuses to accept
+any judgment about what is good, I prove, or endeavour to prove, that
+such refusal cuts away the whole basis of his life; and I ask him if
+he is prepared to accept that consequence. If he affirms that he is,
+and affirms it not only with his lips but in his action, then I have
+no more to say; but if he cannot accept the consequences, then, I
+suppose, he will reconsider the premisses, and admit that he does
+really believe that judgments about what is good may be true, and,
+provisionally, that his own are true, or at least as true as he can
+make them, and that he does in fact accept and act upon them as true,
+and intends to do so until he is convinced that they are false. And
+this attitude of his feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude
+of faith; it is, I think, the attitude most men would adopt if they
+were pressed home upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable
+enough, and rather to be praised than to be condemned."
+
+"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very
+unsatisfactory."
+
+"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're all
+driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about nothing."
+
+"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really delightful
+paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are bound to
+believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what it is!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"
+
+"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"
+
+"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things are
+good."
+
+"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could think
+that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that we are
+bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I cannot see
+that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very diversity, it
+seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope is, that perhaps
+they do all contain some truth, although they may contain falsehood as
+well."
+
+"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All the
+confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we can't see
+what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that there is all
+this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers always assume,
+as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of opinion and
+reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really determine conduct.
+Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is determined, at least in
+essentials, by something very much more like instinct. And it is
+to this instinct which, by the nature of the case, is simple and
+infallible, that we ought to look to tell us what is good, and not
+to our reason, which, as you admit yourself, can only land us in
+contradictory judgments. I know, of course, that you have a prejudice
+against any such view."
+
+"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should be glad
+of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never yet been
+able to find one."
+
+"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place; or,
+perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it. You will
+never discover what is good by any process of rational inquiry. It's a
+matter of direct perception, above and beyond all argument."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you said,
+simple and infallible?"
+
+"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all
+practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is for
+this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say, of
+course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour or two
+in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate if the
+habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For inquiry does
+tend in the long run to influence opinion, and generally to influence
+it in the wrong way; whereas, if people simply go on following their
+instinct, they are much more likely to do what is right, than if they
+try to act on so-called rational grounds."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious
+difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you bid
+us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its content?
+What _is_ it, anyhow, that it should be set up in this way above
+reason?"
+
+"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct is,
+that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey; there's
+no question about it."
+
+"But there _is_ question about the content of Good."
+
+"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how small
+a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we act
+simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest and most
+prosperous."
+
+"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What
+standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"
+
+"From common sense."
+
+"And what is common sense?"
+
+"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"
+
+"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every instinct
+require another to justify it, and so _ad infinitum_?"
+
+"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable
+good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a clever
+child.
+
+"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point. Is
+it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient justification, or
+does it require justification by something else?"
+
+"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong
+instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands
+above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of
+dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism
+simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it challenges."
+
+"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this instinct
+is so strong therefore it is always good to follow it?"
+
+"I should say so, generally speaking."
+
+"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man should
+run away in battle?"
+
+"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There you get
+a superposition of the social upon the merely individual instinct."
+
+"And how does that come about?"
+
+"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been ingeniously
+explained as follows. We start with the primary instinct of
+self-preservation. This means, at first, that each individual strives
+to preserve himself. But as time goes on individuals discover that
+they can only preserve themselves by associating with others, and that
+they must defend society if they want to defend themselves. They thus
+form a habit of defending society; and this habit becomes in time a
+second instinct, and an instinct so strong that it even overrides
+the primary one from which it was derived; till at last you get
+individuals sacrificing in defence of the community those very lives
+which they originally entered the community to preserve."
+
+"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really true that
+every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so only by virtue
+of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull himself up and remember
+that, after all, the preservation of his life was the only motive that
+induced him to endanger it, he would run away like a sensible man, and
+try some other device to achieve his end, the device of society having
+evidently broken down, so far as he is concerned."
+
+"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism! The
+point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and has
+therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the reason
+touch it in the least"
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very hard that
+a man can't rectify such an important error. The imposition is simply
+monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut up in society on the
+distinct understanding, to begin with, that society was to help them
+to preserve their lives; instead of which, it starves them and hangs
+them and sends them to be shot in battle, and they aren't allowed
+to raise a word of protest or even to perceive what a fraud is being
+perpetrated upon them!"
+
+"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to me
+a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the better
+instincts."
+
+"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These
+instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the
+instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and fight?"
+
+"No doubt," he admitted.
+
+"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he stays and
+fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs away?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know what is
+Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between instincts,
+to approve one and condemn another. And our problem still remains, how
+can we do this? how can we get any certainty of standard?"
+
+"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an instinct is.
+My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with what seemed to
+be your assumption that whatever it is in us that judges about Good
+judges in a single, uniform, infallible way. Whereas, in fact, as you
+had to admit, sometimes at the same moment it pronounces judgments not
+only diverse but contradictory."
+
+"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As
+a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we
+require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science rather
+than in philosophy."
+
+"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with it?"
+
+"What has _not_ science to do with?" said a new voice from behind. It
+was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the breakfast room (he
+always breakfasted late), and had overheard the last remark. He was a
+lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather distinguished in that field,
+and an enthusiastic believer in the capacity of the scientific method
+to solve all problems.
+
+"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that
+science has nothing to do with the Good."
+
+"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed that be
+true."
+
+"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I interposed. I
+was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the same time I was
+desirous to avoid a discussion between him and Leslie, for their types
+of mind and habits of thought were so radically opposed that it was
+as idle for them to engage in debate as for two bishops of opposite
+colour to attempt to capture one another upon a chessboard. He
+answered readily enough to my challenge.
+
+"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge, and
+that is the method we call scientific."
+
+"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by that
+method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of knowledge, but
+only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere, the only safe guide
+is the actual concrete operation of Nature."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent
+hostility.
+
+"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only to
+be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in fact
+identical with the condition towards which she tends, and morality the
+means to attaining it."
+
+"But----" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him short.
+
+"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"
+
+"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only ascertain
+by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution. Biology and
+Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one another, are
+rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, _sotto-voce_, "here comes the social organism!
+I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."
+
+"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing, or
+ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to draw any
+certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty clear what
+kind of results we shall arrive at."
+
+"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"
+
+"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the position
+I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be regarded as
+provisional."
+
+"Of course! Pray go on!"
+
+"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the single
+cell----"
+
+"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity, "with a C
+or with an S?"
+
+"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal body
+is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a progressive
+modification in the structure of each cell, the differentiation of
+groups of cells to perform special functions,--digestive, respiratory,
+and the rest,--and the subordination of each cell or group of cells to
+the whole. Similarly, in sociology----"
+
+"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain himself,
+"mightn't we take all this for granted?"
+
+"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."
+
+"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy. And I
+don't see how----"
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"
+
+"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted, that
+in the social organism----"
+
+"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"
+
+"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell, the
+various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus its
+alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange; its
+circulatory system, in the network of communications; its nervous
+system, in the government machinery; its----"
+
+"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never could
+find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society corresponds to the
+spleen?"
+
+"Or the liver?" added Leslie.
+
+"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.
+
+"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are tired of
+being serious it's no use for me to continue."
+
+"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one does
+get a little tired of the social organism."
+
+"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really understand
+it."
+
+"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."
+
+At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in polemics;
+so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.
+
+"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position, how
+does it help us to judge what is good?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is, that it
+is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into individuals
+and individuals into societies--the protozoon, in other words,
+evolves into the animal, the animal into what some have called the
+'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this physical evolution
+corresponds a psychical one. What kind of consciousness an animal may
+have, we can indeed only conjecture; and we cannot even go so far as
+conjecture in the case of the cell; but we may reasonably assume
+that important psychical changes of the original elements are
+accompaniments and conditions of their aggregation into larger
+entities; and the morality (if you will permit the word) of the cell
+that is incorporated in an animal body will consist in adapting itself
+as perfectly as may be to the new conditions, in subordinating its
+consciousness to that of the Whole--briefly, in acquiring a social
+instead of an individual self. And now, to follow the clue thus
+obtained into the higher manifestations of life. As the cell is to the
+animal, so is the individual to society, and that on the psychical as
+well as on the physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she
+is perfecting society; that is the end and goal of all her striving.
+When, therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has
+this simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the
+perfect social body."
+
+As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'_Parturiunt montes_,'" and
+Leslie took it up with: "And not even a mouse!"
+
+"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say, until
+we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me more like
+a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth. But the
+question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage Wilson
+gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself, I suppose,
+might have been reached, and commonly is, without any recourse to the
+aid of natural science."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by the
+scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may assert
+that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over individual
+passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't see how you
+would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the whole evolution of
+Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate; and can say:--if you
+resist that tendency you are resisting Nature herself!"
+
+"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able to
+resist Nature?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of the
+plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but destined
+sooner or later to be absorbed."
+
+"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you said at
+the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So that, instead
+of looking within to find our criterion, we ought really to look
+without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of Nature and to
+acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."
+
+"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I am
+inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able to make
+out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the direction
+which, on the whole, we prefer."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led you to
+just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature was not from
+the cell to the animal, and from the individual to society, but in
+precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of all things was a
+resolution into the primitive elements--do you think you would have
+been as ready to assert that it is the goal of Nature that must
+determine our ideal of Good?"
+
+"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"
+
+"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical than
+the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of your
+authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives
+the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of
+continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the
+utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again to
+the original condition. What you were describing is the movement which
+we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be good,
+at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose us to have
+reached the point at which the opposite movement begins; suppose what
+we had to look forward to and to describe as the course of Nature
+were a process, not from simple to complex, from homogeneous to
+heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but one in exactly the
+contrary direction, a dissolution of society into its individuals,
+of animals into the cells of which they are composed, of life into
+chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and so on through the scale of
+Being, reversing the whole course of evolution--should we, in such a
+case, still have to say that the process of Nature was right, and that
+she is to give the law to our judgment about Good?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only those
+who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the qualities
+enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long run, be
+eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize opinions
+with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt, is why we
+approve what you call the upward movement, which is the one in which
+Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same reason, if, or when,
+a movement in the opposite direction should set in, people holding
+opinions like ours will tend to be eliminated, while those will tend
+to survive more and more who approve the current of evolution then
+prevailing."
+
+"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be at last
+attained, by the simple process of eliminating the dissentients!"
+
+"Precisely!"
+
+"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory for the
+people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we want to know
+is, what _we_ are to judge to be Good, not what somebody else will be
+made to judge, centuries hence."
+
+"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the argument
+you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her we shall be
+knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object strongly to
+her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the harmony of the final
+consummation--even if it were to be final, and not merely the turn of
+the tide; and I am sensibly aware of the horrible discomfort of the
+intermediate stages, the pushing, kicking, trampling of the host, and
+the wounded and dead left behind on the march. Of all this I venture
+to disapprove; then comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!'
+I ask why, and she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still
+demur, and she comes down on me with a threat--'Very good, approve or
+no, as you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By
+all means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection
+that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a martyr.
+Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner because I venture
+to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry; and in my humble
+opinion it's Nature, not _I_, that cuts a poor figure!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking like
+that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"
+
+"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer the
+ridiculous."
+
+"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For I
+cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."
+
+"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about Good
+must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of Nature may,
+as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure of Good; the
+measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the study of
+Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by giving it
+new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last resort; and the
+judgment can never be a mere statement as to the course which Nature
+is pursuing."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount
+importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right
+judgment?"
+
+"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the study
+of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All that I
+wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you have been
+trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other, to get rid
+of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by substituting for
+them a statement about the tendencies of Nature--that this contention
+cannot be upheld."
+
+"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a
+scientific basis for your judgment."
+
+"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what you
+include under science."
+
+"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief formulæ of
+the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a description of what
+happens."
+
+"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good can
+certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are judgments of
+what ought to be, not of what is."
+
+"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have
+nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."
+
+"But might there not be some way of judging between opinions?"
+
+"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective test?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case of the
+sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of ours,
+but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine which is
+independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us from without
+with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of our own can
+impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the power of inference,
+whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are able to build up a
+knowledge of what is. But when, on the other hand, we turn to such of
+our ideas as deal with the Good, the Beautiful, and the like--here
+we have no test external to ourselves, no authority superior and
+independent. Invite a group of men to witness a scientific experiment,
+and none of them will be able to deny either the sequence of the
+phenomena produced, or the chain of reasoning (supposing it to be
+sound) which leads to the conclusion based upon them. Invite the same
+men to judge of a picture, or consult them on a question of moral
+casuistry, and they will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will
+there be any objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion
+is more correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense
+are, or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation,
+infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are
+different not only in different persons, but in the same person at
+different times."
+
+"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The
+question is whether--"
+
+"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main point.
+I was going to say that not merely are there these differences
+of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the opinions were
+uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective and devoid
+of scientific validity. It is the external reference that gives its
+certainty to science; and such a reference is impossible in the case
+of judgments about the Beautiful and the Good. Such judgments are
+merely records of what we think or feel. These ideas of ours may or
+may not happen to be consistent one with another; but whether they are
+so or not, they are merely our ideas, and have nothing to do with the
+essential nature of reality."
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds in the
+way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point of view
+of God--only for the sake of argument," I added, seeing him about to
+protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being through and through
+as it really is; and along with this knowledge of reality he has a
+conviction that reality is good. Now, with this conviction of his none
+other, _ex hypothesi_, can compete; for he being God, we must at any
+rate admit that if anybody can be right, it must be he. No one then
+can dispute or shake his opinion; and since he is eternal he will
+not change it of himself. Is there then, under the circumstances, any
+distinction of validity between his judgment that what is, is, and his
+judgment that what is, is good?"
+
+"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an imaginary
+case. But if you press me I can only say that I still adhere to my
+view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God or anybody
+else, can be no more than a subjective expression of opinion."
+
+"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in so far
+as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to eliminate
+the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you dwelt, of the
+impressions of external sense, the certainty of the impressions is
+your and my certainty that we have them; and so in the case of a
+cogent argument; for any given person the test of the cogency is his
+perception that the cogency is there. And it is the same with
+the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test except
+perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions conflict;
+not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the case I
+imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself, then
+the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as the
+certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."
+
+"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're beginning to
+talk metaphysics."
+
+"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is sense."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."
+
+"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."
+
+"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."
+
+"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air of
+an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really matter?
+Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good, the fact
+remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good, his Good,
+our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in process of
+flux, according to the time of day, the time of life, and the state
+of the liver. That being so, what is the use of discussing Good
+in itself? And why be so disturbed about it? There's Leslie, for
+instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked out of the universe
+because he can't discover his objective standard! My dear boy, life
+goes on just the same, my life, his life, your life, all the lives.
+Why not make an end of the worry at once by admitting frankly that
+Good is a chimæra, and that we get on very well without it?"
+
+"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.
+
+"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that none
+of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."
+
+"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with you
+merely because you override me in argument--even if you did, which you
+don't."
+
+"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that you
+disagree."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was silence,
+till I began to fear that our argument would collapse; when, to my
+relief, Parry returned to the charge.
+
+"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I can't
+help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I feel
+sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does not
+really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good by
+instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it. And
+what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in experience."
+
+"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.
+
+"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and
+country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I want
+to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name possesses, in
+its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly follows, the
+moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective standard,
+worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department of life,
+really is good. To this standard every plain man, without reasoning,
+and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and naturally conform;
+so do all of us who are discussing here, in all the common affairs of
+our daily life. We know, if I may say so, better than we know; and the
+difficulties into which we are driven, in speculations such as
+that upon which we are engaged, arise, to my mind, from a false and
+unnecessary abstraction--from putting aside all the rich content
+of actual life, and calling into the wilderness for the answer to a
+question which solves itself in the street and the market-place."
+
+"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy with
+what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."
+
+"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and thousands!"
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was referring
+is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own standard of Good;
+but these standards are different and even opposite; so that it would
+seem we require some criterion by which to compare and judge them."
+
+"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are not
+concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great civilization
+believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient Greeks, of
+whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are absurdly
+over-estimated; but they had at least that good quality--they believed
+in themselves. To them the whole non-Greek world was barbarian; the
+standard of Good was frankly their own standard; and it was a standard
+knowable and known, however wide might be the deviations from it in
+practice. We find accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in
+the real. Plato, even, in constructing his imaginary republic,
+does not build in the void, evoking from his own consciousness
+a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for the Birds; on the contrary, he bases
+his structure upon the actual, following the general plan of the
+institutions of Sparta and Crete; and neither to him nor to Aristotle
+does it ever occur that there is, or could be, any form of state worth
+considering, except the city-state with which they were familiar. It
+is the same with their treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of
+the Greeks, not of Man in general, and stands in close relation to the
+facts of contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not,
+like that of our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for
+vaguely-imagined millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal
+interpretation of their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature
+and form the very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in
+the troubled stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply
+the essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who
+frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and
+hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his countrymen.
+That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is the one natural
+to the plain man in every well-organized society. Good is best known
+when it is not investigated; and people like ourselves would do no
+useful service if we were to induce in others the habit of discussion
+which education has made a second nature to ourselves."
+
+"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that we
+are all anarchists in disguise?"
+
+"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by
+Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health is
+ignorance."
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for that."
+
+"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined. "But
+if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that we are
+suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern world. It was
+easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they had no past. But
+for us the past overweights the present; we cannot, if we would,
+get rid of the burden of it. All that was once absolute has become
+relative, including our own conceptions and ideals; and as we look
+back down the ages and see civilization after civilization come into
+being, flourish and decay, it is impossible for us to believe that
+the society in which we happen to be born is more ultimate than any
+of these, or that its ideal, as reflected in its institutions, has
+any more claim than theirs to be regarded as a final and absolute
+expression of Good."
+
+"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals evolve,
+but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more validity for
+us than any other. As to those of the past, they were, no doubt,
+important in their day, but they have no importance for the modern
+world. The very fact that they are past is proof that they are also
+superseded."
+
+"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that everything
+that is later in time is also better? That we are better artists than
+the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more spiritual than the
+men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those of the Renaissance?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all that.
+I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress; and that
+therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that alone, which we
+ought practically to consider."
+
+"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there are so
+many."
+
+"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is
+embodied in current laws and customs."
+
+"But these are always themselves in process of change."
+
+"Yes, gradual change."
+
+"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And to
+sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end, the
+sanctioning of a whole revolution."
+
+"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally
+established, what right have we to judge that the established is the
+Good?"
+
+"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what we do."
+
+"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we
+reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else do
+you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and disquiet we
+are apt to experience in the presence of a bold denier?"
+
+"I don't know that I do experience it."
+
+"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially vivid
+experience of the kind."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my mind
+when I was speaking."
+
+"Well, but what does he say?"
+
+"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."
+
+"What does he deny, then?"
+
+"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should conjecture,
+at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and all the rest of
+it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon as
+progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with all that
+it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong, of the bad
+against the good, of the herd against the master. Every great society,
+in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in the sense that the
+many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed to the few; and
+that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good conscience, in free
+obedience to the universal law of the world. 'Be strong, be hard' are
+his ultimate ethical principles. The modern virtues, or what we affect
+to consider such, sympathy, pity, justice, thrift, unselfishness and
+the like, are merely symptoms of moral degeneration. The true and
+great and noble man is above all things selfish; and the highest type
+of humanity is to be sought in Napoleon or Cæsar Borgia."
+
+"But that's mere raving!"
+
+"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be. But
+not simply because it contradicts those current notions which we are
+embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is precisely
+those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet it with a
+bare denial."
+
+"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"
+
+"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely be
+stronger if you had reason for your faith."
+
+"But I think my reason sufficient--those are not the ideas of the
+age."
+
+"But for all you know they may be those of the next."
+
+"Well, that will be its concern."
+
+"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you said
+that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose, is what
+you want to attain."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally
+current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of
+the Good you want to achieve."
+
+"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the Good!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't."
+
+"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take the
+ideas of our time as a final criterion?"
+
+"I suppose so--I don't know--I'm sure there's something in it! Do you
+believe yourself that they have no import for us?"
+
+"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import is.
+We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a current
+convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact of the
+tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a moral reformer
+to modify the convention. Or do you not think so?"
+
+"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"
+
+"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there any
+institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open to
+obvious criticism? Take what you will--parliamentary government, the
+family, the law of real property--is there one of them that could be
+adequately and successfully defended?"
+
+"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The family--"
+
+"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss that!
+But upon one thing we seem to be agreed--that whatever may be the
+value of current standards of Good in assisting our judgment, we
+cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of authority. And
+so once more we are thrown back each upon his own opinions."
+
+"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to
+attach some validity."
+
+"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have any."
+
+I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming round
+from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining members of our
+party. They had just returned from a mountaineering expedition; and
+now, having had their bath, had come out to join us in our usual
+place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the _Times_ and the _Daily
+Chronicle_. He was a keen business man, and a Radical politician of
+some note; and though not naturally inclined to speculative thought,
+would sometimes take part in our discussions if ever they seemed to
+touch on any practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were
+often very much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive
+and polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth
+the course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of
+satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some
+talk about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to
+apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"
+
+"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will be
+willing to help us?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't much
+in my line."
+
+"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you even
+know what we're talking about!"
+
+"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it be
+when you get together?"
+
+"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something more
+like ethics."
+
+"What is the question?" asked Dennis.
+
+Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract
+the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the
+profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune, had
+not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his time for
+some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed talking to
+him, though the position he had come to hold was one which I found it
+very difficult to understand, and I am not sure that I have been able
+to represent it fairly.
+
+"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question, "our
+judgments about what is good, and trying without much success to get
+over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem to be
+practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we find it
+hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far and in what
+sense."
+
+"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help you.
+At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and what's
+bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the same
+point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a convinced
+Utilitarian."
+
+"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to the
+word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"
+
+"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I could
+see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."
+
+"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the things you
+speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny it."
+
+"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
+argument."
+
+"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"
+
+"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good and
+what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do it!"
+
+"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"
+
+"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on important
+points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what ought to be
+done, but about how to do it."
+
+"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.
+
+"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and healthy."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
+happy."
+
+"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good to
+make people happy."
+
+"Oh well, if you deny that--"
+
+"Well, if I deny that?"
+
+"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply means,
+what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I do."
+
+"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a Utilitarian."
+
+"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I believe,
+does everybody else."
+
+"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture can go,
+is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and liquid, and
+of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of attainable
+and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater quantities for most
+pigs.'"
+
+"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of Hedonism."
+
+"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.
+
+"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well enough,
+though probably not Bartlett's."
+
+"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"A what?" said Bartlett.
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"And what may that be?"
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him short.
+"It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for example,
+is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship; they are, he
+says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of possessing the goodwill
+of such and such individuals, and the right of expecting from them, in
+consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous services.'"
+
+We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not help
+protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single example."
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The pleasures
+of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of acquiring
+or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in consequence, of
+expecting particular favours from him, either in this life or in
+another.'"
+
+We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your
+levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an
+egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"
+
+"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.
+
+"And what's the difference?"
+
+"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis interrupted him
+again.
+
+"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the other a
+prig."
+
+"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"
+
+"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the same
+as theirs. And of all the _à priori_ systems I prefer Utilitarianism,
+because it is at least clear, simple, and precise."
+
+"That is what I can never see that it is."
+
+"Why, what is your difficulty?"
+
+"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a
+dogma."
+
+"True," he said, "but that particular dogma--the greatest happiness
+of the greatest number--is one which commends itself to everyone's
+consciousness."
+
+"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A
+crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain disease
+about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of discovering
+how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is found, by the
+hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general preponderance
+of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they go to the
+crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name of the
+utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to vivisection. The
+tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will be inconceivable:
+but think of the result! A general preponderance in the community at
+large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of pain inflicted on you,
+an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody else. Upon you, it is
+true, will fall the whole of the pain; whereas the pleasure will be so
+minutely distributed among innumerable individuals that the increment
+in each case will be almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be
+there! and our arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure
+will exceed the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among
+a greater number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the
+hedonistic calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you!
+Rise to the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting
+room! What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to
+Bartlett to express his sentiments!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case, to
+begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it did,
+one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to take an
+impartial view of the situation."
+
+"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what would
+really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to suffer? Do you
+think they would believe they ought to accept the sacrifice? Every
+man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for himself; and what
+right has he to accept it for other people?"
+
+"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought to."
+
+"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon common
+sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common sense would
+repudiate it."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a case, as I
+said, that could not occur--a mere marginal case."
+
+"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental fallacy.
+Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number is good has a more obvious and
+indisputable validity than any other judgments of worth. It seems to
+me to be just one judgment among others; and, like the others, it may
+be true or false. However, I will not press that point. But what I
+should like to insist upon is, that the doctrine which Bartlett seemed
+to hold--"
+
+"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed an
+opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy in
+the world." And with that he opened the _Chronicle_, and presently
+becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further attention to the
+course of our debate.
+
+"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or
+no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at
+once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since its
+enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as closed. It
+will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry, that the truth of
+the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so that it has only to
+be stated to be accepted?"
+
+"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the Utilitarians
+is that everyone who has the capacity and will take the trouble to
+reflect will, in fact, arrive at their conclusions."
+
+"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is good, the
+result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there are many
+possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and simple than any
+other judgment of the kind?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as it is,
+requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for every fresh
+case that turns up."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to
+discover wherein that happiness consists."
+
+"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as pleasure."
+
+"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"
+
+"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply sensations.
+If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am thirsty, I
+feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these feelings; they are
+simple and radical."
+
+"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple cases
+as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics. And, on
+the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they lose at
+once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult to interpret
+as Good and Evil."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as that
+between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be fairly
+summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as everyone knows,
+the choices are far more difficult; they are between, let us say, a
+bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony; leisure and liberty now, or
+£1000 a-year twenty years hence; art and fame at the cost of health,
+or sound nerves and obscurity; and so on, and so on through all
+the possible cases, infinitely more complex in reality than I could
+attempt to indicate here, all of which, no doubt, could be brought
+under your formula, but none of which the formula would help to
+solve."
+
+"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult to
+apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."
+
+"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what
+follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that in
+making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call the
+hedonistic calculus--"
+
+"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the important
+point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small thing to
+know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we do know it)
+that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of pleasure over pain;
+the whole problem is to discover, in innumerable detailed cases,
+wherein precisely the preponderance consists. But this can only be
+learnt, if at all, by long and difficult, and, it may be, painful
+experience. We do not really know, _à priori_, what things are
+pleasurable, in the extended sense which we must give to the word if
+the doctrine is to be at all plausible, any more definitely than we
+know what things are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting
+the word Pleasure for the word Good, even if the substitution were
+legitimate, have not really done much to help us in our choice."
+
+"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even if we
+do not know what things are pleasurable."
+
+"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not know
+what things are good."
+
+"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."
+
+"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."
+
+"But you cannot define Good."
+
+"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by direct
+experience."
+
+"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in the
+case of Pleasure everyone _does_ recognise it when it occurs; whereas
+there is no such general recognition of Good."
+
+"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."
+
+"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true or
+no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial whether
+Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally recognisable. The
+point is that they are radically different things."
+
+"No," objected Parry, "_our_ point is that they are the same thing."
+
+"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone can."
+
+"And _I_ don't believe that anyone _cannot_!"
+
+"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry?"
+
+"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular
+example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin or
+poetry is."
+
+"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one itches is as good
+as, say, pursuing scientific research."
+
+"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is not
+equal."
+
+"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in
+scratching?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some
+physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a
+catamite."
+
+"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross physical
+pleasures do not last."
+
+"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss of
+scratching, or of--"
+
+"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of way. It
+seems to me to deserve serious treatment"
+
+"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a heaven of
+scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser experience,
+would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure than a heaven of
+scientific research."
+
+"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."
+
+"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you would.
+The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific research is a
+better thing than such physical pleasure, and then you bring out your
+calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that foregone conclusion.
+And that is what the Utilitarians always do. Being ordinary decent
+people they accept the same values as the rest of the world, and on
+the same grounds as the rest of the world. And then they pretend,
+and no doubt believe themselves, that they have been led to their
+conclusions by the hedonistic calculus. But really, if they made an
+impartial attempt to apply the calculus fairly, they would arrive
+at quite different results, results which would surprise and shock
+themselves, and destroy the whole plausibility of their theory."
+
+"That is your view of the matter."
+
+"But isn't it yours?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this
+utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident
+about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what
+things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that
+all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is not
+pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is disputed.
+So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that there are
+a number of conflicting opinions about what things are good, that
+to these opinions some validity must be attached, but that it is
+difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to choose between
+them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the truth about Good
+must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by interrogating the actual
+experience of men in their judgments about good things, we may perhaps
+be able to get at least some, shadowy notion of the object of our
+quest"
+
+"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even by your
+own confession we end where we began."
+
+"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"
+
+For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat (it was
+now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the murmur of
+the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to their dinner)
+seemed to have induced a general disinclination to the effort of
+speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known to be tired in
+body or mind, and who was always debating something--it seemed to
+matter very little what--even he, I thought at first, was ready to let
+the discussion drop. But presently it became clear that he was only
+revolving my last words in his mind, for before long he turned to me
+and said:
+
+"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or what
+results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie pricked
+up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as ever to pursue
+the subject further.
+
+"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of discovering
+Good independently of all experience?"
+
+The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.
+
+"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what kind of a
+method would that be?"
+
+"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was thinking
+of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by Hegel in his
+_Logic_?"
+
+"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey much
+to my mind."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take any
+statement you like--for example, 'Nothing exists!'--put it into the
+dialectical machine, turn the handle, and hey presto! out comes the
+Absolute! The thing's infallible; it does not matter what you put in;
+you always get out the same identical sausage."
+
+Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand now!"
+
+"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't much
+matter."
+
+"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian plan."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room, lock the
+door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you proceed
+to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its contents; look
+steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a well; and at the
+bottom you will find Truth in the form of a categorical imperative.
+Or, if you don't like that, there's the method of Fichte. You take an
+Ego, by preference yourself; convert it into a proposition; negate it,
+affirm it, negate it again, and so on _ad infinitum_, until you get
+out the whole Universe in the likeness of yourself. But that's rather
+a difficult method; probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take--"
+
+"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a
+name."
+
+"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the question
+is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all arrive at
+totally different results."
+
+"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he replied. "I
+merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such method of pure
+reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."
+
+"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such method
+yourself?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You simply lie down and block the road?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."
+
+"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk round
+you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.
+
+"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."
+
+"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that there
+really is some such method as you suggest of discovering Good--a
+purely rational method, independent of all common experience."
+
+"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."
+
+"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so discovered,
+would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or would it be
+merely the total reality of which they are imperfect and inadequate
+expressions?"
+
+"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to them.
+All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good and some
+bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to suppose that
+our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were by an accidental
+coincidence."
+
+"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a
+Good, and that there is a purely rational and _à priori_ method of
+discovering it, yet we do not profess to have ascertained that method
+ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has been ascertained by anyone?
+In any case, we admit, I suppose, that to the great mass of men, both
+of our own and all previous ages, such a method has remained unknown
+and unsuspected?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the
+impression that they were really good."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and small
+alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that store
+of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the drama of
+history?"
+
+"Undoubtedly!"
+
+"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The
+purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had they
+any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some particular
+case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven to achieve,
+whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like Cæsar, to found
+a polity, whether their quest were virtue or power or truth, or any
+other of the ends we are accustomed to value and praise, or whether
+they sought the direct opposites of these, or simply lived from hour
+to hour following without reflexion the impulse of the moment, in any
+and every case all alike, great and small, good and bad, leaders and
+followers, or however else we may class them, were, in fact, equally
+insignificant and absurd, the idle sport of illusions, one as
+empty and baseless as another. The history of nations, the lives
+of individual men, are stripped, in this view, of all interest and
+meaning; nowhere is there advance or retrogression, nowhere better or
+worse, nowhere sense or consistency at all. Systems, however imposing,
+structures, however vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The
+stars fall from the human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like
+will-o'-the-wisps; the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and
+dissolves in smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with
+impotent eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as
+it dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only
+view we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we
+believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."
+
+"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and the
+future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we
+shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you put
+forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a reason and
+purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any rate, could
+and did believe that they were helping to realize great Goods; but
+we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to forego even that
+satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good exists, and that
+there is a method of discovering it by pure reason; but this method,
+we may safely assume, we shall not most of us have ascertained. Or do
+you think we shall?"
+
+"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained it
+myself."
+
+"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume that
+it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the pursuit of
+Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which we call
+good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the true Good.
+Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men who have learnt
+indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing about it, except
+that it has nothing to do with what they call good. What kind of life
+will they live? Whatever they may put their hand to, they will at once
+be paralyzed by the thought that it cannot possibly be worth pursuing.
+Politics, art, pleasure, science--of these and all other ends
+they know but one thing, that all is vanity. As by the touch of
+enchantment, their world is turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch
+lips and hands towards a water for ever vanishing, a fruit for
+ever withdrawn. At war with empty phantoms, they 'strike with their
+spirit's knife,' as Shelley has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and
+lost they move about in worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable,
+'children crying in the night, with no language but a cry,' and no
+father to cry to. And in all this blind confusion the only comfort
+vouchsafed is that somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how,
+discover a Good of which the only thing they know is that it has no
+connection with the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account
+of the condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept
+and believe your hypothesis?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against this
+appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really were as I
+suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it seemed to ruin
+our own life."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all, we have
+no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so, and
+every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is true,
+demonstrate--and that was admitted from the first--that any of our
+judgments about what is good are true; but there is no reason why we
+should not believe--and I should say we must believe--that somehow or
+other they do at least have truth in them."
+
+"Well, and if so?"
+
+"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do not
+believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon some
+purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things which
+we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so, and by
+analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of such things
+we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that we judge to be
+good; and again by increasing experience we may come to know more Good
+than we knew; and generally, if we once admit that we have some light,
+we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and that getting of more light
+will be the most important business, not only of philosophy, but of
+life."
+
+"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge rightly?
+If we really have a perception, how is it that it is confused, not
+clear?"
+
+"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this kind.
+Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot know
+Good except in so far as we experience it--so, at least, I think,
+though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even if our
+judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear, our
+conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and tentative,
+because there would be so much Good that we had not experienced. But,
+in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about what we do experience
+are confused, because every experience is indefinitely complex, and
+contains, along with the Good, so much that is indifferent or bad. And
+to analyze out precisely what it is that we are judging to be good is
+often a difficult and laborious task, though it is one that should be
+a main preoccupation with us all."
+
+"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity and
+confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good--one, that our
+experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"
+
+"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to me, is
+like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop some other
+sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find it hard to say
+what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the state of the organ;
+and it is only by the progressive perfecting of that, that they can
+settle their doubts and put an end to their disputes, whether with
+themselves or with other people."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive that
+we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye, whose
+nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the nature of
+the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye of the soul,
+being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet perceive Good with any
+clearness or precision, but only in a faint imperfect way, catching
+now one aspect of it, now another, but never resting content in any of
+these, being driven on by the impulse to realize itself to ever surer
+and finer discrimination, with the sense that it is learning its own
+nature as it learns that of its object, and that it will never be
+itself a true and perfect organ until it is confronted with the true
+and perfect Good. And as by the physical eye we learn by degrees
+to distinguish colours and forms, to separate and combine them,
+and arrange them in definite groups, and then, going further, after
+discerning in this way a world of physical things, proceed to fashion
+for our delight a world of art, in that finer experience becoming
+aware of our own finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul,
+by long and tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the
+Goods which Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied,
+proceed to shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art,
+fashioning the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under
+the stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever
+destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own
+nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on without
+rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse that urges
+her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in the perfect
+enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because in it she
+has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a possible
+conception?"
+
+"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still feel a
+difficulty."
+
+"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk anything."
+
+"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that the
+perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected that
+instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore require
+another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me that
+your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate some
+faculty--which perhaps you might as well call an instinct--and
+this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort to realize itself,
+proceeds to discriminate various objects as good. But, now, does this
+same faculty also know that the Goods are good, and which is better
+than which, and generally in what relations they stand to one another
+and to the absolutely Good? Or do we not require here, too, another
+faculty to make these judgments, and must not this faculty, as I
+said at first, have previously achieved, by some method of its own, a
+knowledge of Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"
+
+"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing but an
+infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes, must be,
+in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and self-evident;
+and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only quarrel with him was
+in regard to his assumption that the judgments we make about Good are
+final and conclusive. The experiences we recognize as good are always,
+it seems to me, also bad; because we are never able to apprehend or
+experience what is absolutely Good. Only, as I like to believe--you
+may say I have no grounds for the belief--we are always progressing
+towards such a Good; and the more of it we apprehend and experience,
+the more we are aware of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to
+say, of the well-being of that part of us, whatever it may be--I call
+it the soul--which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you
+will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception, but
+one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know Good,
+but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of Good goes
+her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon and varying
+with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is aware of a tension,
+as it were, when she cannot expand, of a drooping and inanition when
+nutriment fails, of a rush of health and vigour as she passes into a
+new and larger life, as she freely unfolds this or that aspect of her
+complex being, triumphs at last over an obstacle that has long hemmed
+and thwarted her course, and rests for a moment in free and joyous
+consciousness of self, like a stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge,
+to meander in the sun through a green melodious valley. And this
+perception she has of her own condition is like our perception of
+health and disease. We know when we are well, not by any process of
+ratiocination, by applying from without a standard of health deduced
+by pure thought, but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So
+it is with this soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her
+perception of Good is but the other side of her perception of her own
+well-being, for her well-being consists in her conformity to Good.
+Thus every phase of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in
+one sense good, and in another bad; good in so far as it is
+self-expression, bad in so far as the expression is incomplete. From
+the limitations of her being she flies, towards its expansion she
+struggles; and by her perception that every Good she attains is also
+bad, she is driven on in her quest of that ultimate Good which
+would be, if she could reach it, at once the complete realization of
+herself, and her complete conformity to Good."
+
+"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your method of
+discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at all?"
+
+"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess
+that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part of
+Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She
+does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the
+sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in this
+case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds of
+activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of this
+soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may be,
+temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central
+experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary
+rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in
+them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere deductions
+from a process which is always developing and transforming itself.
+Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so many landmarks left to
+show the route by which the soul is marching; casts, as it were, of
+her features at various stages of her growth, but never the final
+record of her perfect countenance. And that is why the current
+morality, the positive institutions and laws, on which Parry insisted
+with so much force, both have and have not the value he assigned to
+them. They are in truth invaluable records of experience, and he is
+rash who attacks them without understanding; and yet, in a sense,
+they are only to be understood in order to be superseded, because the
+experience they resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would
+you agree with that, Parry, or no?"
+
+"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to put in
+practice."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous thing,
+and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is courage and
+sanity."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view is our
+knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a
+knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what
+I call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have
+recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we
+call knowledge, so far as it goes."
+
+"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of experience?"
+
+"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to suggest
+that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure reason, we
+should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good itself; for
+Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of experience, not a
+formula."
+
+"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to arrive at
+its formula by pure reason."
+
+"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the thought,
+that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see our way
+to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis, altogether
+forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on realizing Goods,
+and so making progress towards the ultimate Good, which is the goal
+not merely of knowledge but of action."
+
+"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your conception,
+is Good related to Happiness?"
+
+"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by
+experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as
+one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret
+the deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the
+interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too abstract
+and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning, no doubt,
+it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much interesting
+discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to the question
+of the content of Good, than to that of the method of discovering it."
+
+"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a method
+at all?"
+
+"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method of all
+science, namely, the interpretation of experience."
+
+"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of
+interpretation."
+
+"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we could
+not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you defined
+it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what ought to
+be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and classifying of
+the deliverances of this internal sense, has a certain analogy to the
+procedure of science. At any rate, it might, I think, fairly be called
+a method, though a method difficult to apply, and one, above
+all, which only he can apply who has within himself the requisite
+experience. And in this respect the study of the Good resembles the
+study of the Beautiful."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well aware
+that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do not profess
+to be in complete possession of it. They have a perception of the
+Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but tentative and in process
+of growth. This perception they cultivate by constant observation of
+beautiful works, some more and some less, according to their genius
+and opportunities; and thus they are always coming to see, though they
+never see perfectly, just as I said was the case in the matter of the
+Good."
+
+"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any standard
+at all in such matters?"
+
+"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself; and
+that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some slight
+extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to develop
+it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no standard of
+judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like themselves;
+and that there really is no standard and no knowledge possible in such
+matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man will not choose to
+cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to clear and ever clearer
+perception, he will either never believe that there is any knowledge
+of Good, or any meaning at all in the word; or else, since all men
+feel the need of an end for action, he will have recourse to a fixed
+dogma, taken up by accident and clung to with obstinate desperation,
+without any root in his true inner nature; and to him all discussion
+about Good will seem to be mere folly, since he will believe either
+that he possesses it already or that it cannot be possessed at all.
+Or If he ask after the method of discovering it, he will be unable
+to understand it, because he does not choose to develop the necessary
+experience; and so he will go through life for ever unconvinced,
+arguing often and angrily, but always with no result, while all the
+time the knowledge he denies is lying hidden within him, if only he
+had the patience and faith to seek it there. But without that, there
+is no possibility of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether
+to leave him alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the
+only idea I can form as to the possibility of discovering what is
+Beautiful and Good."
+
+There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:
+
+"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are always
+seeking Good?"
+
+"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not
+committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we have
+the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do so."
+
+"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"
+
+"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."
+
+"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"
+
+"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my mind,
+that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in secure
+possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make no facile
+assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the growth of the
+soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a quiet unfolding of
+leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I recognize the delight
+of expansion, I recognize also the pain of repression--the thwarted
+desire, the unfulfilled hope, the passion vain and abortive. I do not
+say even whether or no, in this dim travail of the spirit, pleasure
+prevails over pain, evil over good. The most I would claim is to have
+suggested a meaning for our life in terms of Good; and my view, I half
+hoped, would have appealed in particular to you, because what I have
+offered is not an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to
+relate to the actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the
+significance of those facts themselves, to supply a key to the
+cryptogram we call experience. And in proportion as we really believed
+this view to be true, it would lead us not away from but into life,
+not shutting us up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like
+the homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and
+rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny light
+over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams and floods,
+myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never felt, through
+that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when he broke the
+glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow under the yellow
+moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and tritons, her gliding
+pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through tempest and calm, by night or
+day, companioned or alone, to the haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the
+home where the Mothers dwell."
+
+As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made any
+impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically
+and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday
+experience?"
+
+"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."
+
+"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to make
+anything of the kind out of mine."
+
+"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the interpretation
+may be true; and that some day you may recognize it to be so yourself.
+Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of the game than you
+who play it; and surely in moments of leisure like this you will not
+refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read the riddle of the sphinx."
+
+"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a poem."
+
+"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in poetry
+than in philosophy or science?"
+
+But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was a
+babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of thought
+disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way, had been
+revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first opportunity he
+turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in your position that
+I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it is our seeking that
+determines the Good, or the Good that determines our seeking."
+
+"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We, in
+the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and
+in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously
+indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not mere
+caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore suppose
+somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."
+
+"But then, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our
+seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving
+through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort and
+strain."
+
+"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even while
+you admit that in some sense it is?"
+
+"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist completely."
+
+"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is at all
+it is eternal and complete."
+
+"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing but
+appearance."
+
+"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is good'?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."
+
+"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter. Take,
+for instance, a simple fact of our own experience--pain. Would you
+say, perhaps, that pain is good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really is."
+
+"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"
+
+"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."
+
+"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to the
+pain that appears to us?"
+
+"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the point. The
+point is, that it is only in connection with what is in God that the
+word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither good nor bad; it
+is simply not real."
+
+"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is in
+appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the use
+of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are feeling
+it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And as to the
+Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What consolation is
+it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to be told that God
+is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is simply absurd to call
+God's Good good at all, unless it has some kind of relation to our
+Good."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my opinion,
+it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such a view. When
+I am really at my best, when my intellect and imagination are working
+freely, and the humours and passions of the flesh are laid to rest, I
+seem to see, with a kind of direct intuition, that the world, just as
+it is, is good, and that it is only the confusion and obscurity due to
+imperfect vision that makes us call it defective and wish to alter it
+for the better. When I perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is
+also Good; and I cannot then distinguish between what is, and what
+ought to be."
+
+"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot understand."
+
+"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it were by
+a concrete example. I find that when I think out any particular aspect
+of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think it out at all, all
+the parts and details fall into such perfect order and arrangement
+that it becomes impossible for me any longer to desire that anything
+should be other than it is. And that, even in the regions where at
+other times I am most prone to discover error and defect. You know,
+for instance, that I am something of an economist?"
+
+"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of
+light!"
+
+"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of affairs
+which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet the more
+one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the harmony
+and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and flow of
+business from this trade or country to that, the rise and fall of
+wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital into or
+out of one industry or another, the varying relations of imports
+to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in close
+connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the lives of
+countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being or ill-being,
+it may be their very life and death, together with the whole fate
+of future generations in health, capacity, opportunity, and the
+like,--all this complexus of things, so chaotic and unintelligible at
+the first view, so full, as we say, of iniquity, injustice, and the
+like, falls, as we penetrate further, into one vast and harmonious
+system, so inspiring to the imagination, so inevitable to the
+understanding, that our objections and cavillings, ethical, æsthetic,
+or what you will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if
+they persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we
+abandon ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some
+world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are
+taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the
+ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I am
+absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic enough;
+but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so conceived that
+appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This partial vision of
+mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of the way in which
+I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a Being necessary and
+therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our own incoherent and
+tentative criticisms, our complaints that this or that should, if only
+it could, be otherwise, our regrets, desires, aspirations, and
+the like, shew but as so many testimonies to our own essential
+imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted, rather than signs of worth
+to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the elect of creation."
+
+He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene, since
+I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he kept
+silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and Eternal
+which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and the young.
+So I began myself rather tentatively:
+
+"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to indicate;
+and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is attractive. It is when
+we endeavour to work it out in detail that the difficulties appear.
+The position, as I understand it, is, that, from the point of view of
+the Absolute, what we call Evil and what we call Good simply have
+no existence. Good and Evil, in our sense, are mere appearances; and
+Good, in the absolute sense, is identical with the Absolute or with
+God?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."
+
+"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region which
+you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear in our
+social system--poverty, disease, starvation and the rest--is not
+really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but is merely what appears
+to us? There is, in fact, no social evil?"
+
+"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is none."
+
+"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and other
+ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's lives
+happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to
+introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and
+confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical
+impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied--the quest
+of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere putting of
+ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart from any
+attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities mere
+illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even vices,
+impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous attempts to
+adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I apprehend,
+there must be in time and change, and some meaning also in our
+efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we imagine. The
+divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a process that
+is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not rectilinear, much as
+Milton appears to imagine it when he describes the blessed spirits
+'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity'; and
+of this eternal process our activity, which we suppose to be moving
+towards an end, is somehow or other an essential element. So that,
+in this way, it is necessary and right that we should strive after
+ideals; only, when we are thinking philosophically, we ought to make
+clear to ourselves that in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its
+fulfilment consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to
+regard as a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is
+the 'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the
+belief that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that
+delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is really
+itself the End."
+
+I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite
+serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept
+silence, I took up the argument as follows.
+
+"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but still the
+same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put forward. On
+your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf between God's
+conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the world is
+eternally good; and in its goodness is included that illusion by which
+it appears to us so bad, that we are continually employed in trying to
+make it better. The maintenance of this illusion is essential to the
+nature of the world; to us, evil always must appear. But, as we know
+by experience, the evil that _appears_ is just as terrible and just
+as hateful as it would be if it really _were_. A toothache, as Audubon
+put it, is no less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We
+cannot, if we would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would
+be impious to try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His
+ingenious plan to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore
+are chained and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what
+seems good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that
+all existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant;
+it belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no access."
+
+"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why not
+just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who is
+responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely
+an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable
+condition!"
+
+"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means, if you
+like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent, indeed,
+and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and hourly toll
+of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the mind He has
+created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from spirits greater,
+though weaker, than Himself."
+
+This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I did
+not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but proceeded
+to a somewhat different point:
+
+"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it
+appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse Him
+of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the matter,
+it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that we should
+never discover the deception that is being played upon us. But, it
+seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your own confession,
+has not only detected but exposed it. Well then, what is to be done?
+Do you suppose that we could, even if we would, continue to lend
+ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and purposes cease to
+have any interest for us, once we are clear that they are not true
+ends? And that which, according to the hypothesis, _is_ the true end,
+the 'dateless and irrevoluble circle' of activity, that, surely, we
+at least cannot sanction or approve, seeing that it involves and
+perpetuates the very misery and pain whose destruction was our only
+motive for acting at all. For, whatever may be the case with God, we,
+you will surely admit, are forbidden by all that in us is highest and
+best, to approve or even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation
+of a world of whose existence all that we call evil is an essential
+and eternal constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if
+the Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as
+it thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very
+imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its
+plans."
+
+Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began, "between
+you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with their
+heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on my head or
+my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in stating my view;
+or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction in my mind. At any
+rate, what I believe, whether or no I can believe it consistently, is
+that it is possible for us, so to speak, to take God's point of
+view; so that the evil against which we rebel we may come at last to
+acquiesce in, as seen from the higher point of view. And, seriously,
+don't you think it is conceivable that that may be, after all, the
+true meaning of the discipline of life?"
+
+"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow me to
+press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say, there is
+at least one of our aims which has a real significance, namely, that
+of reaching the point of view of God. But this is something that lies
+in the future, something to be brought about. And so, on your own
+hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that which eternally exists,
+but something which has to be realized in time--namely, a change of
+mind on the part of all rational beings, whereby they view the world
+no longer in a partial imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '_sub
+specie æternitatis_'"
+
+"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the Absolute,
+though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow or other, is
+eternally perfect and good; and this eternal perfection and goodness
+are unaffected by any change that may take place in our minds."
+
+"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to
+settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your
+admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying
+before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand, you
+do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at nothing
+else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you do aim, at
+least, with your whole nature at this--to attain a view of the world
+as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not merely as it appears
+to us."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."
+
+"That aim, then, is your Good?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For you do
+not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least to have
+attained as perfectly as you hope to?"
+
+He agreed again.
+
+"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good of
+yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good of God
+in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your permission, for
+some future inquiry. It is enough for our present purpose that even
+you, who assert the eternal perfection of the world, do nevertheless
+at the same time admit a future Good; and much more do other men admit
+it, who have no idea that the world is perfect at all. So that we may,
+I think, safely suppose it to be generally agreed that the Good is
+something to be realized in the future, so far, at any rate as it
+concerns us--and, for my part, I have no desire to go farther than
+that."
+
+"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the matter so.
+But I reserve the right to go back upon the argument."
+
+"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but a
+discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth. Meantime,
+then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something to be brought
+about; and let us consider next the other point that Is included in
+your position. According to you, as I understand, what requires to be
+brought about, if ever Good is to be realized, is not any change in
+the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world, in the structure, as it
+were, of our experience, but only a change in our attitude towards all
+this--a change in the subject, as they say, and not in the object.
+Our aim should be not to abolish what we call evil, by successive
+modifications of physical and social conditions, but rather, all these
+remaining essentially the same, to come to see that what appears to be
+evil is not really so."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."
+
+"So that, for example, though we might still experience a toothache,
+we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with all the host
+of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they would continue
+unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say, only to us they would
+appear no longer bad, but good?"
+
+"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil,
+so-called, is merely illusion."
+
+I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For some time
+past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis and myself,
+with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie. Ellis had gone
+indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together about something else;
+and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in the _Chronicle_. I
+noticed, however, that for the last few moments he had been getting
+restless, and I suspected that he was listening, behind his newspaper,
+to what we were saying. I was not therefore altogether surprised when,
+upon Dennis' last remark, he suddenly broke into our debate with the
+exclamation;
+
+"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There is a
+curiously apt one here in the _Chronicle_."
+
+And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about
+phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any
+rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering and
+oppression.
+
+"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of thing
+that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an
+example."
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words; but for
+my own part I should have thought that, if anything is real, that
+is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself were the
+sufferer."
+
+"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment of
+suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality of
+pain?"
+
+"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one really
+knows what it is that one is judging about."
+
+"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that experience
+involves knowledge and _vice versa_. It is, indeed, to my mind,
+part of the irony of life, that we know so much which we can never
+experience, and experience so much which we can never know."
+
+"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am sure,
+that you will never get rid of evil by calling it illusion."
+
+"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it, in the
+sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any other means.
+But we were discussing not what we are to do with evil, but how we are
+to conceive it."
+
+"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion, you
+will never do anything with it at all."
+
+"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."
+
+"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit, that
+for us, while we live in the region of what you call 'Appearance,'
+Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as Good."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."
+
+"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with
+Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I have
+been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which we live
+(whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and Good are
+the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss them from our
+consideration either on the ground that we know nothing of them (as
+Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the ground that we know all
+about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to think). On the contrary, it
+is, I believe, our main business to find out about them; and that
+we can find out about them is with me an article of faith, and so, I
+believe, it is with most people, whether or no they are aware of it or
+are ready to admit it."
+
+Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon us to
+lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our usual
+hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally taking a
+lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we reassembled in
+the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did not
+suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The conversation
+had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such topics, and
+finally had died away into a long silence, which, for my own part, I
+felt no particular inclination to break. We had let down an awning to
+shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine in upon us, so that
+it was still cool and pleasant where we sat; and so delightful did I
+feel the situation to be, that I was almost vexed to be challenged to
+renew our interrupted debate. The challenge, rather to my surprise,
+came from Audubon, who suddenly said to me, _à propos_ of nothing, in
+a tone at once ironic and genial:
+
+"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."
+
+"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great
+nonsense."
+
+"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear you."
+
+"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were bored."
+
+"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't
+arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses me
+most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that you're
+going to get at some result."
+
+"But didn't we?"
+
+"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we must
+believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good is."
+
+"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."
+
+"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."
+
+"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that we can
+come to some agreement even about that."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because people are so radically different, that there is no common
+ground to build upon."
+
+"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the pudding
+is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight of us, all
+Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or less in the
+same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise the question,
+you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the chances in your
+favour, any substantial agreement about what we think good."
+
+This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I could
+refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself against the
+consequences of failure. So I began, with some hesitation, "You must
+remember that I have never maintained that at any given moment any
+given set of people will be found to be in agreement on all points.
+All I ventured to suggest was, that instead of our all being made, as
+you contend, radically different, we have, underneath our differences,
+a common nature, capable of judging, and judging truly, about Good,
+though only on the basis of actual experience of Good. And on this
+view I shall, of course, expect to find differences of opinion,
+corresponding to differences of experience, even among people as much
+alike as ourselves; only I shall not expect the differences to be
+finally irreconcilable, but that we shall be able to supplement and
+elucidate one another's conclusions by bringing to bear each his own
+experience upon that of the rest."
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the
+experiment."
+
+"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others. Only I
+must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what it is I
+am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I have
+been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in this
+difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or no, and
+to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the object being
+simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we can; to define
+somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope of coming to see
+something more."
+
+They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to begin,
+when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt discouraged.
+"After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my making the
+attempt."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," I said. "At least--well, I may as well confess it, though
+it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is, that there are
+certain quite fundamental points in this connection on which Dennis
+and I have never been able to agree; and although I believe we should
+in time come to understand one another, I doubt whether we can do so
+here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at all as if he meant
+to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry him along with me, I
+suppose I may as well give up at once."
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession. We
+will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if you can
+persuade the rest of us."
+
+"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever allow me
+to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if he doesn't
+happen to agree."
+
+"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in order."
+
+Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very easy
+manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I stay, I
+certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."
+
+"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that we
+should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by the
+process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you without any
+really scandalous concession on either side."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can try."
+
+So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some hesitation, as
+follows:
+
+"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it seems
+to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious activity."
+
+As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.
+
+"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I could
+command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of fact, can
+form no idea of Good except in connection with consciousness."
+
+"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's good,
+so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness of it."
+
+"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of anything
+existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for me to
+know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you, perhaps, are
+differently constituted."
+
+"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there is no
+experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive that of
+which we have no experience? And I should have thought it was clear
+that Good, like Truth, _is_, whether or no anyone is aware of it. Or
+would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when someone is thinking of
+it?"
+
+"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about it
+just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I think,
+need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to get at, for
+the moment, is something rather different. I will put it like this:
+Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human action, must be
+conceived, must it not, as an object of consciousness? For otherwise
+do you think we should trouble to pursue it?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we ought to."
+
+"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to take
+an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
+artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
+unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately
+hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of the
+sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such production
+as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and really ought
+we to, do anything except with some reference to consciousness?"
+
+"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite
+possible that we ought."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a closer
+agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view? for, if not,
+I will, with your permission, go on to the next point"
+
+None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a pause,
+I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in the sense
+in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action, involves some
+kind of conscious activity. And the next question would seem to be,
+activity of whom?"
+
+"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough. It
+must be an activity of some person or persons."
+
+"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."
+
+But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in answer to
+Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"
+
+"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.
+
+"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put your
+questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is most
+people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some future
+generation."
+
+At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I thought
+it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said, "Suppose, then, we
+were to make a beginning by examining your hypothesis."
+
+"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should all
+have accepted it--unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."
+
+"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Nor I," added Audubon.
+
+"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"
+
+"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"
+
+"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it leads
+us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of activity of
+some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so, Parry?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state of
+activity, as you call it, will be."
+
+"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous,
+co-ordinate, coherent----"
+
+"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The question
+is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, it is
+located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those
+that follow it. But now, what about all the other generations, from
+the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would seem, can have no
+meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come
+after them."
+
+"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to bring it
+about, not indeed for themselves, but for their successors."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of men
+and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex lives of
+action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, satisfactions,
+aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call Good, and avoiding
+what they call Bad, under the naïf impression that there is Good and
+Bad for them--and yet the significance of all this is not really for
+themselves at all, but for some quite other people who will have the
+luck to be born in the remote future, and for whose sake alone their
+fellow-creatures, from the very beginning of time, have been brought
+into being like so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside,
+when done with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."
+
+"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you call
+them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the final
+Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all. It has
+just as much Good as people can get out of it."
+
+"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their own
+with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they do get
+Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
+cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
+ourselves, whether we live well or badly."
+
+"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has his
+own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I admire are
+those who have sacrificed themselves for the future."
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and with a
+view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I understand you,
+have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good for ourselves, which
+is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is reserved for a future
+generation), but still is something Good as far as it goes--whether
+it be a certain degree of happiness, or however else we may have to
+define it; and as to this Good, there appears to be no difficulty,
+for we who pursue it are also the people who get it That is so, is it
+not?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For besides
+this Good of our own, we have also, according to the theory, to
+consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those who are to be
+born in some indefinite future. And to this remote and alien Good we
+have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our own."
+
+"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."
+
+"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange it
+seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive
+generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous--being projected,
+as it were, from the plane of time into that of space."
+
+"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."
+
+"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we shall
+have. We shall have a society divided into two classes, composed, the
+one of all the generations who, if they followed one another in
+time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other of all the
+millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two classes the first
+would be perpetually engaged in working for the second, sacrificing to
+it, if need be, on occasion, all its own Good, but without any hope
+or prospect of ever entering itself into that other Good which is the
+monopoly of the other class, but to the production of which its own
+efforts are directed. What should we say of such a society? Should we
+not say that it was founded on injustice and inequality, and all those
+other phrases with which we are wont to denounce a system of serfdom
+or slavery?"
+
+"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has falsified
+the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian generation would not
+come into being until the others had ceased to be; and therefore the
+latter would not be being sacrificed to it."
+
+"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely it
+comes to the same thing?"
+
+"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think sacrifice is
+the right word. In a society every man's interest is in the Whole; and
+when he works for the Whole he is also working for himself."
+
+"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly
+constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a society
+as I have described. And then there is a further difficulty--and here,
+I confess, my projection of time into space really does falsify the
+issue; for in the succession of generations in time, where _is_ the
+Whole? Each generation comes into being, passes, and disappears; but
+how, or in what, are they summed up?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last
+generation."
+
+"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow
+persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"
+
+"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by them,
+and is the result of their labour and activities."
+
+"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I eat are
+summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the oysters!"
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it right
+that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it) for the
+next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the point. At any
+rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the shortsightedness of
+modern politicians, and their unwillingness to run great risks and
+undertake great labours for the future."
+
+"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying to
+see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I confess,
+that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in some sense
+or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of future
+generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."
+
+"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."
+
+"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what that
+instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean, as you
+yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole. Only the
+difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."
+
+"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"
+
+"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which bids us
+labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this hypothesis,
+has no significance for us, but only for other people."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we ought to
+obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise. Even taking
+the view that the order of the world is altogether unjust, as I admit
+it would be on the view we are considering, yet, since we cannot
+remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make the best of it;
+and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for those who come after
+us, even though we can never enter into it ourselves."
+
+"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the best
+we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves--as much as we
+can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For we do at least
+know, or may hope to discover, what Good for ourselves is; whereas
+Good for other people is far more hypothetical."
+
+"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot
+approve--to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own pleasure of the
+moment. We should breed, for example, without any regard to the future
+efficacy of the race----"
+
+"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."
+
+"Yes, but we don't justify it--those of us, at least, who think. And,
+again, we should squander on immediate gratifications wealth which
+ought to be stored up against the future. And so on, and so on; it is
+not necessary to multiply examples."
+
+"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought that
+kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of fact,
+we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I hinted
+before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity in and
+for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And, whether it is
+reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea of the Whole, so
+as to include future generations. But, as it seems to me, the real
+meaning and justification of our action is not merely that we are
+seeking the Good of future generations but that we are endeavouring to
+realize our own Good, which consists in some such form of activity. So
+that really, as was suggested at the beginning, Good will be a kind of
+activity in ourselves, even though that activity be directed towards
+ends in which we do not expect to share."
+
+At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke in at
+last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.
+
+"Why do you keep saying '_Our_ Good'?" he cried. "Why do you not say
+_the_ Good? I can't understand this talk of me and thee, our Good, and
+their Good, as if there were as many Goods as there are people."
+
+"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by Parry,
+who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future generation.
+Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy myself at the kind
+of language into which I was betrayed. But what I want to say is
+this: So far as it is true at all that it is good to labour for future
+generations, goodness consists in the activity of so labouring, as
+much, at least, as in the result produced in those for whose sake the
+labour is. That, at least, is the only way in which I can find the
+position reasonable at all."
+
+"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his
+position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of thought.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong end."
+
+"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a coil."
+
+"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in. You
+started with the idea that the Good must be good for individuals; and
+that was sure to land you in confusion."
+
+"What then is your idea?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard
+everything from the point of view of the species."
+
+At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.
+
+"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not the
+Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is true of
+the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the case of man,
+because there the interest of the species is embodied in a particular
+form--the Society or the State--and may be clearly envisaged, as a
+thing apart, towards the maintenance of which conscious efforts may be
+directed."
+
+"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also the
+Good?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I have
+already urged against the view that the course of Nature determines
+the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it is a view
+which many people hold--and one which was held long before there was a
+science of biology--that the community is the end, and the individual
+only the means."
+
+"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour to the
+view."
+
+"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to restrain
+himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of language. In
+the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by Plato, men
+were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much they might be
+subordinated to the community. But now!--why, if you open one of these
+sociological books, mostly, I am bound to say, in German, 'Entwurf
+einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch einer anthropologischen
+Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft vom Sozial-biologischen
+Standpunkt aus,' and the like--you will hardly be able to realize that
+you are dealing with human beings at all. I have seen an unmarried
+woman called a 'female non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men
+actually cease to be even animals; they become mere numbers; they are
+calculated by the theory of combinations; they are masses, averages,
+classes, curves, anything but men! For every million of the
+population, it has been solemnly estimated, there will be one genius,
+one imbecile, 256,791 individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just
+below it! Observe, 256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to
+believe, 256,790! What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is
+the kind of thing that is revolutionizing history and politics!
+No more great men, no more heroic actions, no more inspirations,
+passions, and ideals! Nothing but calculations of the chances that A
+will meet and breed out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of
+survival! Nothing but----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be
+digressing."
+
+"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this world
+altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they have no
+arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an addition
+sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a species----"
+
+"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be himself, as
+I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"
+
+There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar quotation;
+and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken thread of the
+argument. But at last I got a hearing for the question I was anxious
+to address to Wilson.
+
+"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the community?"
+
+"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."
+
+"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"
+
+"In the sense of that organization of individuals which represents, so
+to speak, the species."
+
+"How represents?"
+
+"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect the
+species."
+
+"But is that the function of the community?"
+
+"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If you
+look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere historian,
+who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist and man of
+science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it is nothing but
+an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or artificial, as you
+like to call it. First, there is the struggle of races, which may be
+traced not only in war and conquest, but more insidiously under the
+guise of peace, so that, for example, at this day you may witness
+throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the long-headed fair by
+the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the struggle of nation with
+nation, resulting in the gradual elimination of the weaker--that, of
+course, is obvious enough; but what is not always so clearly seen is
+the not less certain fact, that within the limits of each society the
+same process is everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle
+for existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else
+is our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it
+is determined that certain persons only shall have access to certain
+professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages are
+confined to people of the same class, thus securing the perpetuation
+of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted and
+better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon.
+Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the race,
+combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to the top,
+others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those, indifferent
+to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it controls, but
+envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."
+
+"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that is
+kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as well
+as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the long-headed
+fair race, is giving place to what I understand is regarded as an
+inferior type."
+
+"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still, on the
+whole, the movement is an upward one."
+
+"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are at
+present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of Good
+we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but of
+the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is it
+somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for the
+individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not one by
+one or in groups."
+
+"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the individuals
+taken together."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species, according
+to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or should sink
+to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But is that also
+good for the individual in question?"
+
+"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it
+matters. I only say that it is good for the species."
+
+"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the
+species it is good for them."
+
+"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of the best
+individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"
+
+"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the selected
+individuals?"
+
+"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be
+selected."
+
+"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are
+eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"
+
+"God! No! I mean good, simply good."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang, as it
+were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"
+
+"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."
+
+"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"
+
+"I don't say that"
+
+"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you. If you
+reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either the Good you
+speak of is that of all the individuals of the species taken together,
+or it is that of the best individuals; and in either case I seem to
+see difficulties."
+
+"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.
+
+"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how it can
+be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or eliminated. I
+should have thought, if there were any Good for them, it would consist
+in their being made better."
+
+"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best possible
+thing, for them, to be eliminated."
+
+"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be absence
+of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at all, we could
+not apply it to them?"
+
+"Perhaps not"
+
+"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other
+alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that of
+the ultimately selected individuals."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that the
+Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we were
+met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see what
+meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."
+
+"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The species
+is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of individuals.
+I'm sick of these biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico
+treatises, with their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of
+men! their prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and
+the people who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent
+particles of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the
+machine works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations,
+co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations
+standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they are
+cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent demand that
+we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As though we should
+be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the thumbscrew!"
+
+"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the
+spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."
+
+"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of
+disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."
+
+"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is there."
+
+"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's not
+a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand knowledge, nor
+original vision of life. It simply ignores all the important facts."
+
+"Which do you call the important facts?"
+
+"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations,
+sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information contained
+in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological treatises that
+ever have been or will be written."
+
+"Oh, come!" cried Parry.
+
+"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example,
+these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To
+the sociologist their elimination is their only _raison d'être_. He
+cancels them out with the same delight as if they were figures in a
+complex fraction. But pick up any novel dealing with the life of
+the slums, and you find that these figures are really composed of
+innumerable individual units, existing each for himself, and each his
+own sufficient justification, each a sacred book comprising its own
+unique secret, a master-piece of the divine tragedian, a universe
+self-moved and self-contained, a centre of infinity, a mirror of
+totality, in a word, a human soul."
+
+"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were true,
+it would not affect the sociological laws."
+
+"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are as
+unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."
+
+"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a _reductio ad absurdum_
+of your view."
+
+"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What I
+really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw on
+my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."
+
+"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said already."
+
+"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the point.
+You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the position
+you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious activity. If
+it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a suicidal audacity),
+conscious activity in whom? And to that question, of course, you can
+find no answer."
+
+"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I have
+known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves, but is,
+a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."
+
+"Rather," he replied, "that it _is_ God. But I don't really know
+whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He or It
+be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the things we
+call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to accept them
+as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have no right to
+endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some individual
+persons."
+
+"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference
+of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is
+associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am
+willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good, if
+ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated. But of
+that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more fortunate. And if
+you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of course, of its content,
+which shall represent it intelligibly to us as independent of any
+consciousness like our own, I am quite ready to relinquish the
+argument to you."
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a way
+that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to have had
+what you call 'experience' of it."
+
+"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"
+
+"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to feel it
+was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this point, to my
+great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed with a solution
+of the difficulty in which we were involved, but with a diversion of
+which I was only too glad to take advantage.
+
+"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
+Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is the
+kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like ourselves.
+And I thought that was what you were going to discuss."
+
+"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."
+
+"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as it is
+quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do with the
+real subject."
+
+"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's get
+along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. What are
+we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it is the real
+question."
+
+"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
+trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some
+activity."
+
+"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up sharp,
+as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.
+
+"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
+another, and the more the merrier."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you mean?
+whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?"
+
+"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially in
+themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which
+they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation palls in
+time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the
+just measure and proportion. We are complex creatures, and we ought to
+employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the
+others."
+
+"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe more in
+detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"
+
+"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The most
+I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."
+
+"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
+listening."
+
+"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to move in
+a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar
+flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of
+all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with all its bustle,
+smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight
+away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the
+farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To hunt or fish for weeks
+and months in strange wild places, camping out among strange beasts
+and birds, lost in pathless forests, or wandering over silent plains.
+Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to feel the press of business, to
+make or lose millions in a week, to adventure, compete, and win; but
+always, at the moment when this might pall, with a haven of rest
+in view, an ancient English mansion, stately, formal, and august,
+islanded, over its sunken fence, by acres of buttercups. There to
+study, perhaps to write, perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden
+at night of new discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the
+world of commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be
+off on my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs
+in Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking
+hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action itself,
+not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the Good for fear
+I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, attaining the
+only Good I can conceive--a full and harmonious exercise of all my
+faculties and powers."
+
+On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of sympathy
+that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was young
+enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual zeal and
+passion.
+
+"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more
+good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is so
+imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged for
+some other, equally defective."
+
+"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time and
+place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the
+detriment of others."
+
+"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than bad?
+You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of each; but
+in practice you would have to experience also the bad. Your hunting
+in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, and hunger; your
+fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and disillusionment; and so
+through all your chapter of accidents--for accidents they are at best,
+and never the substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil,
+dogged by a shadow of Good."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view--from an idealist, too!
+Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the rough with the
+smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you call good and bad; it
+consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike. If I were
+Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both."
+
+"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis produced by
+one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the other."
+
+"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to learn.
+This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb."
+
+"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! What is
+it you are trying to say?"
+
+"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming perilously
+near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view by a
+denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it."
+
+"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the world is
+good?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister to
+Good if you approach it in the proper way."
+
+"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."
+
+"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"
+
+"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to answer
+Leslie?"
+
+"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at all.
+But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is,
+that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what
+is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The complexity of
+the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its 'ups,' its abysses
+and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We would not alter it if we
+could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely
+with acquiescence but with triumph."
+
+"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.
+
+"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
+anything."
+
+"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, art,
+that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has
+its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them,
+for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call
+it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims
+our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to miss
+anything or anyone."
+
+"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and Dennis are
+strangely agreed for once!"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge said
+on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues. Dennis
+accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical system; I,
+because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is Hegel; mine is
+Walt Whitman."
+
+"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"
+
+"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no better
+nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good and
+bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an actual
+physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:
+
+ "I do not call one greater and one smaller,
+  That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
+  I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
+  And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of
+       the wren,
+  And the tree-toad is a 'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;
+  And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven,
+  And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
+  And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
+  And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."
+
+"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course, it's
+rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at all."
+
+"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."
+
+  "I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of
+       wickedness also.
+  What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
+  Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
+  My gait is no fault-finder's or rejector's gait,
+  I moisten the roots of all that grows."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "This is the meal equally set, this is the meat for natural hunger,
+  It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointment
+       with all,
+  I will not have a single person slighted or kept away,
+  The kept-woman, spunger, thief are hereby invited,
+  The heavy-lipped slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
+  There shall be no difference between them and the rest."
+
+"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.
+
+"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.
+
+"I think I might like it if I were drunk."
+
+"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"
+
+'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the sponger
+and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."
+
+"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman to
+invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however miscellaneous
+the company, doesn't alter the character of the dinner."
+
+"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed all
+through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a work of
+art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama. What's play
+to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he himself is an
+actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact brought home to
+him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."
+
+"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise. The
+point of the position is that one should play one's part oneself,
+but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total effect, never
+complaining of Evil merely because one happens to suffer, but taking
+the suffering itself as an element in the æsthetic perfection of the
+Whole."
+
+"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather brutally,
+"when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."
+
+"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.
+
+"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with the
+thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."
+
+"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents of our
+unhealthy habits of life."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the
+substance of the world."
+
+"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which you
+seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is good,
+it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the activity you
+describe seems to have nothing to do with right and wrong."
+
+"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,
+
+  "Das hör ich sechzlg Jahre wiederholen,
+  Ich fluche drauf, aber verstohlen."
+
+"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can
+hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and
+Right."
+
+Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's point
+and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is that Right
+is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all activity
+that is merely a means from that which is really an end in itself, and
+good."
+
+"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not merely a
+means?"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems to
+me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own sake;
+even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view, and if
+these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in the work
+of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps, but I think
+it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe and maintain
+that they only work in order to make money, nevertheless are so
+unwilling to retire when the money is made; or, if they do, are so
+often dissatisfied and unhappy?"
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than pain.
+It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's only
+that they find even greater distress in idleness."
+
+"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly maintain
+that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because they take
+delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there is play--and
+I have known you play cricket yourself!"
+
+"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way, he
+would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
+shooting."
+
+"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him. And, in
+fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that there is no
+form of activity which men feel to be good for its own sake, though
+the Good of course may be partial and precarious."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any form
+which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to something
+else."
+
+"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act of
+visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I suppose,
+Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of activities which
+one distinguishes as moral."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good in
+itself but is only a means to some other Good?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so. But it
+all depends upon how we define it."
+
+"And how do you define it?"
+
+"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal to
+seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the attainment
+of one that is remoter but higher."
+
+"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
+proposition follows of itself."
+
+"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"
+
+"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."
+
+"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest of,
+and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end of our
+inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is expressed
+in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the definition
+I suggested--namely, action pursued not for its own sake, but for the
+sake of something else."
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept silent
+as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing as a mere
+means the only kind of activity which is an end in itself----"
+
+"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some dismay.
+"Is that really what you think?"
+
+"Of course it is! why not?"
+
+"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing what we
+ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate Good."
+
+"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely, without
+reference to anything else. It is a unique form of activity, dependent
+on nothing but itself; and for anything we have yet shown, it may be
+the Good we are in quest of."
+
+This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great perplexity.
+I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened no response in
+me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while I was hesitating,
+Leslie began:
+
+"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we
+ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"
+
+"Yes, I think it might."
+
+"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good, even
+while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he was doing
+what he ought"
+
+"Yes, I suppose he might be."
+
+"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.
+
+"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."
+
+"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown that the
+Good is dependent on the things we call good."
+
+"No," I said, "but we did show--or at least for the time being we
+agreed to admit--that it must have some relation to what we call
+goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or less, express
+its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is based upon the
+hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may get to know
+something about the Good. So that I do not see how we can entertain an
+idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our experience of goods."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position. Let us
+say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we ought,
+only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless everybody
+participates in it at once. But if everybody participated in it,
+there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty would not
+arise."
+
+"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so, I
+don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult to
+conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to speak,
+in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would be--without
+pleasure, without business, without knowledge, without anything at all
+analogous to what we call good, purged wholly and completely of all
+that might taint the purity of the moral sense, of philanthropy, of
+friendship, of love, even, I suppose, of the love of virtue, a life
+simply of obligation, without anything to be obliged to except a law."
+
+"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible case."
+
+"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that Good
+consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all other
+accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you really
+meant?"
+
+"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life according
+to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to separate the
+law from the life, and call it Good all by itself."
+
+"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean, in
+which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still if the
+same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we should
+be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious and felt
+obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in which you
+seemed to be using the word?"
+
+"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does certainly
+seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."
+
+"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is Good,
+not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it is not.
+At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a realization
+of Good in the activities which we pursue without effort or friction,
+than in those which involve a struggle between duty and inclination."
+
+"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often enough
+are bad."
+
+"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I should look
+for the best idea I could form of what Good might be."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest; and now
+I leave the road clear."
+
+"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in front!
+When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a short cut
+across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the road, with
+the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong track."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."
+
+"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!" he
+continued, turning to me.
+
+"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end,
+though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall suppose,
+however, that I have convinced him that it is not in ethical activity
+as such that we can expect to find the most perfect example of Good.
+And now I propose to examine in turn some other of our activities,
+starting with that which seems to be the most primitive of all."
+
+"And which is that?"
+
+"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct
+contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of
+reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the rest.
+Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"
+
+"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And he
+broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":
+
+  "Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
+  The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
+  Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,
+  And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
+  And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,
+  And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
+  And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
+  That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
+  How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
+  All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy."
+
+The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a flood
+of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of Englishmen,
+in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with a sentiment
+not far removed from poetry--the only poetry of which they are not
+half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting for the moment his
+customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest over his favourite
+pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of this talk was lost
+upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but some touches there were
+that recalled experiences of my own, and for that reason, I suppose,
+have lingered in my memory. Thus, I recollect, some one spoke of
+skating on Derwentwater, the miles of black, virgin ice, the ringing
+and roaring of the skates, the sunset glow, and the moon rising full
+over the mountains; and another recalled a bathe on the shore of
+Ægina, the sun on the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though
+the whole naked body were plunged in some æthereal liqueur, drinking
+it in with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
+sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
+Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
+supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and you
+sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own theme?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial they
+would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said of them
+would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly than yours
+what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far as I can
+understand, the delights you have been describing are really very
+complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, there is clearly
+an æsthetic charm--you kept speaking of heather and sunrises, and
+colours and wide prospects; and then there is the satisfaction you
+evidently feel in skill, acquiring or acquired, and in the knowledge
+you possess of the habits of beasts and birds. All this, of course,
+goes beyond the delight of simple sense perception, though, no doubt,
+inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was
+something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless,
+I think we can detect Good--Good of sheer unadulterated sensation.
+Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and
+hot! You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the
+water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
+dimittis.'"
+
+They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:
+
+"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed behind
+that masque of austere philosophy!"
+
+Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
+sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
+remember, the famous tale about Keats--how he covered his tongue
+and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he said, "the
+delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when this had
+gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I began, "to
+illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I think, recognized
+to the full its merits; and we shall be equally ready, I suppose, to
+recognize its defects."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any rate,
+shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think these are the
+only pure Goods."
+
+"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are precarious.
+It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go without choice
+of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes established between our
+senses and the outer world. The very same things which at such times
+appear to be perfectly at one with ourselves, as if they had been made
+for us and we for them, we see and feel to have also a nature not only
+distinct but even alien and hostile to our own. The water which cools
+our skin and quenches our thirst also drowns; the fire which warms
+and comforts also burns; and so on through all the chapter--I need not
+weary you with details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to
+our bodies, she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at
+least as varied and efficacious as she is our friend."
+
+"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her
+properly; we have to learn how to manage her."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to learn
+how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our finger
+here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods--they are, as I said,
+precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one might say, was the
+sword of the angel that drove man out of his imaginary Eden. For
+at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will permit me to romance
+a little,) seizing every delight as it offered itself, under an
+instinctive impression that there were nothing but delights to be
+met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when he was thirsty,
+sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in unquestioning trust of
+his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt by experience how evil
+follows good, and pleasure often enough is bought by pain, he would
+begin, would he not, instead of simply accepting Good where it is, to
+endeavour to create it where it is not, sacrificing often enough the
+present to the future, and rejecting many immediate delights for the
+sake of those more remote? And this involves a complete change in his
+attitude; for he is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort
+that harmony between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at
+first was immediately given."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind. This
+reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."
+
+"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little consequence,
+if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we are not at
+present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is thus set out
+upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to create, since
+he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects harmonious to
+himself. But in this quest has he been, should you say, successful?"
+
+"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is progressively
+satisfying his needs, even if they are never completely satisfied."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The relation
+of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and obscure. It
+is as though he began with the idea that he had only to remove a few
+blemishes from her face to make her completely accordant with
+his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than these surface
+blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots deeper than all
+his probings; the more he cuts away the more he exposes of an element
+radically alien to himself, terrible and incomprehensible, branching
+wide and striking deep, and throwing up from depths unknown those
+symptoms and symbols of itself which he mistook for mere superficial
+stains."
+
+"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a view."
+
+"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit that a
+certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense, whether
+they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by the labour
+of man."
+
+"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing to
+order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For
+the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food,
+shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all
+chance."
+
+"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"
+
+"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say,
+we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care
+about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure but
+those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one risk we
+proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin, as it were,
+of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which we hold most
+precious."
+
+"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases to be
+good. That's precisely what I am always saying."
+
+"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One way
+or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to secure, or
+because, when secured, they lose their specific quality. Goods of this
+kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change, whether they be
+offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung from her in the
+sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I said, precarious.
+And now, have they any other defects?"
+
+"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"
+
+"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"
+
+"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact that
+they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of imagination."
+
+"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving
+at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not the
+whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other Goods
+you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the Goods we
+are speaking of appeal."
+
+"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"
+
+"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."
+
+"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I think
+of it the less I understand this famous distinction between body and
+soul, and the relation of one to the other."
+
+"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at all."
+
+"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't understand
+it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it out of our
+discussion."
+
+"So should I!" said Wilson.
+
+"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"
+
+"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case before
+us, why should we not try directly to define that specific property of
+the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes their defect,
+without having recourse to these difficult terms body and soul at
+all?"
+
+"Well," he agreed, "we might try."
+
+"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"
+
+He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of way:
+
+"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow their
+slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They come
+upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires we
+can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather than
+active."
+
+"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and perfect
+Good?"
+
+"No, I think not"
+
+"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"
+
+"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of
+ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole nature
+to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole nature to
+experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien to us and
+nothing in us alien to it."
+
+"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense----?"
+
+"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind applies.
+For these Goods appear to arise in things and under circumstances
+which have quite another nature than that of being good for us. It is
+not the essence of water to quench our thirst, of fire to cook for us,
+or of the sun to give us light----"
+
+"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added Ellis.
+
+"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us good
+are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter, to do
+innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So that the
+goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to our senses,
+they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel that essentially
+either they are not Goods, or their goodness is something beyond and
+different from that which is revealed to sense."
+
+"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as I
+understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance which,
+so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any rate to Good
+of that kind?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and
+substance?"
+
+"Yes; don't you think so too?"
+
+"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"
+
+Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing, indeed,
+to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We have then,
+so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main defects, the
+first, that they are precarious; the second, which is closely
+connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its explanation,
+that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding the word in
+the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we cannot find any
+class of Goods similar to these, but free from their defects."
+
+"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to have
+similar defects?"
+
+"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."
+
+"But are there any such Goods?"
+
+"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These, are
+they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it is their
+whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful, and to that
+extent Good--for I suppose you will admit that the Beautiful is a kind
+of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare to say so, to be, in a
+certain sense, eternal."
+
+"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we give
+for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material
+objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I was
+talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point of
+view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut away,
+as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set apart in
+a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to pass into
+something else, but only through the alien nature of the matter to
+which it is bound."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I give it
+you in the words of a poet."
+
+And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a Grecian
+Urn":
+
+  "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
+    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
+  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd.
+    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
+  Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
+    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
+      Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
+  Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;
+      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
+    For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!
+
+  "Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
+    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
+  And, happy melodist, unwearied,
+    For ever piping songs for ever new;
+  More happy love! more happy, happy love!
+    For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
+      For ever panting and for ever young;
+  All breathing human passion far above,
+    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
+      A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."
+
+"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I don't
+see how it bears on the argument."
+
+"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to make.
+Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists in the
+fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it from our
+sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in the eighth
+heaven."
+
+"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"
+
+"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"
+
+"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer
+still--that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their Beauty,
+results from the very principle of their nature, and is not a mere
+accident of circumstances."
+
+"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only _raison d'être_?"
+
+"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far
+resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."
+
+"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the point I
+have been waiting to come to."
+
+"What point?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in their
+simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all æsthetic
+and other elements--as in the example you gave of a cold bath--the
+relation of the object to the sense is so simple and direct, that
+really, if we were to speak accurately, we should have, I think, to
+say, that so far as the perception of Good is concerned the object is
+merged in the subject, and what you get is simply a good sensation."
+
+"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the time
+I did not think it necessary to be so precise."
+
+"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we are to
+bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw light, I
+believe, on the general nature of Good."
+
+"What characteristic is that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important thing
+is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of the one in
+the other, it is the subject that is merged in the object, not
+_vice versa_. We have to contemplate the object, anyhow, as having a
+character of its own; and it is to this character that I want to draw
+attention."
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every work
+of nature--so far as it can be viewed æsthetically--comprises a number
+of elements necessarily connected in a whole; and this necessary
+connection is the point on which we ought to insist"
+
+"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically necessary?"
+
+"No," he replied, "æsthetically. I mean, that we have a direct
+perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or altered
+without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the ideal; and
+it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is more or less
+perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these things would agree
+to that."
+
+No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was not,
+myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works of Art;
+but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in general?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be
+conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I suppose,
+would imagine that such elements might be thrown together haphazard
+and yet constitute a good whole."
+
+"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem to
+have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in his
+quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art, which, in
+the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not precarious, seeing
+that by their form, through which they are Art, they are set above the
+flux of time, though by their matter, we admit, they are bound to
+it And, in the second place, the Good which they have, they have by
+virtue of their essence; Good is their substance, not an accident of
+their changing relations. And, lastly, being complex wholes, the parts
+of which they are composed are bound together in necessary connection.
+These characteristics, at any rate, we have discovered in works of
+Art: and no doubt many more might be discoverable. But now, let us
+turn to the other side, and consider the defects in which this class
+of Goods is involved."
+
+"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something to
+say."
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."
+
+"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever may be
+the merits of a work of Art--and they may be all that you say--it has
+this one grand defect--it isn't real!"
+
+"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my
+life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something very
+tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know what
+it is. They talk of 'real life'--real life! what is it? As if one life
+wasn't as real as another!"
+
+"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is. Real
+life is the shady side of life."
+
+"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the world."
+
+"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the person
+speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he speaks."
+
+"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our present
+concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word 'real.' In what
+sense is Art not real?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something ideal. It
+is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and change; its
+connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is a kind of
+flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our eyes. The real
+world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is ugly, brutal,
+material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"
+
+"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it were,
+you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it. How do you
+know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the Ideal, as all
+poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that case, Art would be
+more real than what you would call Reality, because it would represent
+the essence of the world, the thing it would like to be if it could,
+and is, so far as it can. That was Aristotle's view, anyhow."
+
+"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree with
+Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would like to
+be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."
+
+"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for instance,
+there's the realistic novel!"
+
+"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of all--only it's apt
+to be such bad idealism!"
+
+"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art, in
+the sense, in which we have been using the word."
+
+I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion of
+realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at issue,
+I turned to Bartlett, and said:
+
+"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes. You
+say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by side of
+it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call real life.
+And that whatever be the relation between the two worlds, whether
+we are to say that the one imitates the other, or interprets it, or
+idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it aside. Art is a refuge
+from life, not a substitute for it; a little blessed island in the
+howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a partial Good; whereas the
+true Good, I suppose, would be somehow universal."
+
+"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without
+blemish."
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to think that
+Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield us more than
+we have yet got out of it--perhaps even more than he knows is in it"
+
+"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming over to
+my side!"
+
+"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your
+strength really lies."
+
+"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your discovering new
+defences for me."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my mind.
+We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real life,' the
+'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear as to what
+they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have obscurely in
+their heads--that the Real is something from which you cannot escape;
+something which forces itself upon you without reference to choice or
+desire, having a nature of its own which may or may not conform, more
+or less to yours, but in any case is distinct and independent. That
+is why they would say, for example, that the illusions of a madman
+are not real, meaning that they do not represent real things, however
+vivid their appearance may be, because they are the productions merely
+of his own consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented
+to a sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they
+would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent
+nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included in
+the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."
+
+"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon Art?"
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of
+Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a certain
+violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our interest.
+What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put ourselves for
+the moment into the position of the artist. To him certain materials
+are presented which of course are real in our present acceptation
+of the term, being such as they are of their own nature, without
+any dependence upon him. Upon these materials he flings himself, and
+shapes them according to his desire, impressing, as it were, his
+own nature upon theirs, till they confront him as a kind of image of
+himself in an alien stuff. So far, then, he has a Good, and a Good
+presented to him as real; but for the Goodness of this reality he is
+himself responsible. In so far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it
+has still the nature which was first presented to him, before he began
+his work--a nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations,
+as is shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something
+else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To this
+nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to stamp
+upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a sense,
+only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains independent and
+alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as he has found Good,
+is after all only a form of himself; and one can conceive him feeling
+a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the Walküre, when in his
+quest for a free, substantial, self-subsistent Good he finds after
+all, for ever, nothing but images of himself:
+
+  "'Das Andre, das ich ersehne,
+  Das Andre, erseh' ich nie.'
+
+"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I find it
+rather hard to put it into words."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying, so far
+as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself. To
+all others the work of Art must appear as something independent of
+themselves."
+
+"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be made
+to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism between
+the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to it.
+The form will seem from this point of view something factitious and
+artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by one
+like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast, perhaps,
+as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the landscape
+Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is not a
+'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right; it is
+a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if you will,
+admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to be loved in
+default of a better, with the best faculties of brain and soul, but
+still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in and of itself,
+as well as through and for us, Good by its own nature apart from our
+interposition, self-moved, self-determined, self-dependent, and in
+which alone our desires could finally rest.--Don't you think that some
+such feeling may, perhaps, be at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of
+Art as unreal?"
+
+Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to myself.
+For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that you have
+said."
+
+"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree with me.
+But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and Leslie, for
+Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie assented with
+enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.
+
+"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems to me
+rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good? Or do
+you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely of its
+own nature?"
+
+"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any case I
+agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in Art."
+
+"In what then?"
+
+"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."
+
+"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"
+
+"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for the
+view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."
+
+"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But of
+late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and now I
+see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is something
+that falls very far short of Good."
+
+"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"
+
+"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has instructed
+me."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."
+
+And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of Knowledge.
+
+"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in brief
+formulæ of the routine of our perceptions."
+
+"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that with
+Good?"
+
+"But"--objected Dennis--"in the first place, I don't understand the
+definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree with it."
+
+"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no difficulty
+there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main positions.
+First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of things in
+themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in fixed routines;
+thirdly ..."
+
+"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's a
+perception of something?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."
+
+"What then? Simply a state in me?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"Then does nothing exist except my states?"
+
+"Nothing else exists primarily for you."
+
+"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease to
+exist?"
+
+"You infer such a world from your states."
+
+"Then there is something besides my states--this world which I infer;
+and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions, is the reality of
+which I have knowledge?"
+
+"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."
+
+"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a
+discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are at
+present concerned."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of Knowledge
+with Good; and to do so we must first discover what Knowledge is."
+
+"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of Knowledge,
+and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and then we will
+take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we don't find that
+either satisfies the requirements of Good we will leave Knowledge and
+go on to something else."
+
+"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my chance."
+
+"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And I
+dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain, I
+suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you define
+it, could be identified with Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much believe in
+Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I define it, is a
+good thing, I have no doubt whatever."
+
+"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me, mainly as a
+means, in so far as it enables us to master Nature."
+
+"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"
+
+"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to point
+out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature that the
+Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge itself. Or should
+you say that there is Good in the scientific activity itself, quite
+apart from any practical results to which it may lead?"
+
+"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the higher
+and more ideal Good."
+
+"This activity itself of inventing brief formulæ to resume the routine
+of our perceptions?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, but what _is_ the Good of it? That is what it is so hard for
+a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery of Reality?
+For that, I could understand, would be good."
+
+"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal merely
+with our perceptions."
+
+"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect
+fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it, you
+do not suppose this fluid to be real."
+
+"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled to
+give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions
+occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an
+account."
+
+"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say more
+precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps, in the
+discovery of necessary connections?"
+
+"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order which
+is, as a matter of fact, regular."
+
+"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do move
+in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of
+gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time in
+restraining himself.
+
+"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning to him
+I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from scientific
+activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality, nor yet in
+that of necessary connection, wherein should you say, does it consist?
+Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which
+we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and
+apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And,
+conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order among
+our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to utilize
+them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical results of
+science), but because in itself we prefer order to disorder, even if
+no other advantage were to be got out of it."
+
+"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the kind
+of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable than a
+disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he objects to
+British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers the chances
+of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary machine-like
+depredations of the tax-collector."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex factors. I
+was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of scientific activity
+as such. And I think there is an intellectual satisfaction in the
+discovery of order, even though it be dissociated from necessity."
+
+"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is the
+only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is, Knowledge is an
+extension of experience, and is good simply as such. The sense of More
+and still More beyond what has yet been discovered, of new facts, new
+successions, new combinations, of ever fresh appeals to our interest,
+our wonder, our admiration, the mere excitement of discovery for its
+own sake, quite apart from anything else to which it may lead, a dash
+of adventure, too, a heightening of life--that is what is the real
+spur to science and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."
+
+"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general process
+of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No doubt there is
+an attraction in all activity--Ellis has already expounded it; and all
+experience involves a kind of Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at
+was the special attraction of scientific activity; and that seems to
+be, so far as I can see, simply the discovery of order."
+
+"Well," he said, "if you like--what then?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind of
+activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be bad.
+There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an activity
+concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even though it
+were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think that if all men
+were diseased, they would nevertheless be in possession of the Good,
+if only they had perfect knowledge of the laws of disease?"
+
+"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not only
+the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object known."
+
+"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that Knowledge
+may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is, or may be
+knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to constitute the Good."
+
+"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."
+
+"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has Dennis
+to say?"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very hard
+to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a protest."
+
+"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us is the
+heretic?"
+
+"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"
+
+"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely
+the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all,
+I shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of
+necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the fascination."
+
+"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All that is
+really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we read into
+the facts."
+
+"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much as
+anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of all
+Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical knowledge is
+necessary."
+
+"But it is all based on assumptions."
+
+"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them
+necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law of
+Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement
+that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow of
+necessity."
+
+"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given! Everything is
+based ultimately on certain successions and coincidences of which all
+that can be said is simply that they exist, without any possibility of
+getting behind them."
+
+"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be the
+ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections throughout; so
+that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all the rest would
+inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it progresses towards
+this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at all. A routine simply
+given without internal coherence is to my mind a contradiction in
+terms; either the routine is necessary, or it's not a routine at all,
+but at best a mere appearance of a routine."
+
+"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight this
+out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception of
+Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it from the
+point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin with, seems
+to me to be involved in the same defect we have already noted--namely,
+that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as knowledge of Good. And
+I suppose you would hardly maintain, any more than Wilson did, that
+the Good may consist in knowledge of Bad?"
+
+"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion that
+there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which there is
+knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could attain to
+it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there would be no
+distinction, or at least no antagonism, between thinking on the one
+hand and the thing thought on the other."
+
+"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in fact any
+knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type of what you
+mean?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are dealing
+with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which is somehow
+native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however you like
+to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions, such as
+substance and causation."
+
+"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is alien
+to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of what we
+call knowledge, is the element of sense--the something given, which
+thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may dress and serve it
+up in its own sauce?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."
+
+"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but only of
+pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the
+Good?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that such a
+Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better than
+that of which we have an experience, but radically and fundamentally
+different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not only are we sunk
+in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the time our heads are
+under too,--in fact most of us never get them out at all; it is only
+a few philosophers every now and again who emerge for a moment or two
+into sun and air, to breathe that element of pure thought which is too
+fine even for them, except as a rare indulgence. At other times, they
+too must be content with the grosser atmosphere which is the common
+sustenance of common men."
+
+"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining that
+the Good is within easy reach of all."
+
+"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you describe
+it, very few people would care to put out their hands to take it. I,
+at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of Good in the kind
+of activity I understand you to mean. It is as though you should say,
+that Good consists in the perpetual perception that 2 + 2 = 4."
+
+"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would be,
+that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One would
+move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest, central
+at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is my ideal of
+a perfect activity!"
+
+"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For what, in
+fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you describe? I suppose
+the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"
+
+"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and flaws!"
+
+"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the
+better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of life--of
+nature, of history, of art, of religion, of everything in which we
+are really interested; imagine being left to turn for ever, like a
+squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea of a squirrel in the idea
+of a cage, round and round the wheel of these hollow notions, without
+hands, without feet, without anything anywhere by which we could lay
+hold of a something that is not thought, a something solid, resistant,
+palpitating, 'luscious and aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a
+sense, a flesh, call it what you will, the unintelligible, but still
+the indispensable, that which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to
+miss, and which, if it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow
+include!"
+
+Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the
+matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense, or
+anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented and also
+alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something which is
+unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will be, so far,
+not good."
+
+"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which must be
+present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection among the
+elements presented; and secondly, that the elements themselves should
+be of such a kind as to be, as it were, transparent to that which
+apprehends them, so that it asks no questions as to what they are
+or whence they come, but accepts them naturally and as a matter of
+course, with the same inevitability as it accepts its own being."
+
+"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects of
+thought as you defined them?
+
+"I think so."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long
+discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis pressed
+you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified absolutely
+with Good."
+
+"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that view."
+
+"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be
+intelligible in the sense you have explained?"
+
+"I should say so."
+
+"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive of
+any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the
+intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that
+immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's
+quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have in
+your mind?"
+
+"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art. In them
+we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other than mere
+ideas."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary connection
+one with the other."
+
+"Yes, but not logically necessary."
+
+"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the necessity
+of the connection, surely, that is important; the character of the
+necessity is a secondary consideration."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work
+of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements
+themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which
+apprehends them?"
+
+"Certainly not, for they are mere sense--of all things the most
+obscure and baffling."
+
+"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made
+beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far,
+intelligible."
+
+"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a
+way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to
+thought?"
+
+"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does not, I
+think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is something else
+as well."
+
+"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense, so far
+at least it is not intelligible."
+
+"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we
+noticed before in works of art--that their Beauty, or Goodness, is not
+essential to their whole nature, but is something imposed, as it were,
+on an alien stuff. And it is this alien element that we now pronounce
+to be unintelligible."
+
+"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of art to
+be absolutely good."
+
+"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there
+nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to
+want?"
+
+No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then, in
+a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a direct
+appeal to Audubon.
+
+"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am sure
+you must have something to suggest."
+
+"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these things
+is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you have never
+once referred all through to what I should have thought was the best
+Good we know--if, indeed, we know any Good at all."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only things
+that I think really worth having--if anything were worth having."
+
+A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"
+
+"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of should be
+found just there?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why, in persons!"
+
+"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"
+
+"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me approach the
+matter properly."
+
+"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have your
+chance."
+
+"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we had
+reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to form
+a conception of it, must be something immediately presented,
+and presented in such a way, that it should be directly
+intelligible--intelligible not only in the relations that obtain
+between its elements, but also in the substance, so to speak, of the
+elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a type, as Dennis
+maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas and their relations.
+But the Good, we held, could not consist in these. It must be
+something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense, and yet it could not
+be sense, for sense did not seem to be intelligible. But now, when
+Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that perhaps we might find in persons
+what we want And that is what I should like to examine now."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."
+
+"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not
+sense, though he is manifested through sense."
+
+"What does that mean?" said Wilson.
+
+"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know him
+through his body."
+
+"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a function
+of it."
+
+"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when we
+talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven save
+me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne Körper, ganz abstrakt,' as Heine
+says."
+
+"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to
+consider the soul apart from the body."
+
+"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about body and
+soul."
+
+"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been driven
+into it unawares."
+
+"But what do you mean by the soul?"
+
+"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of
+psychology--for even people who object to the word 'soul' don't mind
+talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the soul. Anyhow, what
+I mean is that which thinks and feels and wills."
+
+"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.
+
+"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of all
+things the most intelligible."
+
+"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all things the
+least."
+
+"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you have
+in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse to call
+the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its various
+faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and all the
+other points which are examined in books of psychology. All that
+I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no profession of
+understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking at persons as we
+know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown to us in literature
+and art, they really are intelligible to us in the same way that we
+are intelligible to ourselves."
+
+"And how is that?"
+
+"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no feeling or
+action of which human beings are capable, from the very highest to
+the very lowest, which other human beings may not sympathetically
+understand, through the mere fact that they have the same nature.
+They will understand more or less according as they have more or
+less sympathy and insight; but in any case they are capable of
+understanding, and it is the business of literature and art to make
+them understand."
+
+"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"
+
+"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any rate,
+what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not indeed (as
+in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our whole complex
+nature, that it does not demand explanation."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the people
+I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand explanation.
+I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing, or what they're
+for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me! And what's worse,
+probably my existence is the same to them!"
+
+"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to study them
+all sympathetically, you would end by understanding them."
+
+"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of pathological
+way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I shouldn't understand
+why they exist. It seems to me, most people aren't fit to exist; and I
+dare say they have the same opinion about me."
+
+"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"
+
+"Yes, a few: my friends."
+
+"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said that
+you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often have
+you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our whole
+physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me to
+be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my friends.
+Still----"
+
+"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I wanted.
+For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be, gives us
+at least something which perhaps we shall find comes nearer to what
+we might conceive to be absolutely Good than anything else we have yet
+hit upon."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not, as
+an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of our own
+ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with works of art?"
+
+"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any rate,
+I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am, but
+simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much imposed
+upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out of which
+they had carded a statue."
+
+"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.
+
+"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions are
+common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"
+
+"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should affirm
+that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is commonly
+called love, no doubt, the physical element is the predominant, or
+even the only one present; and in that case there may be illusion to
+an indefinite extent. But the love which is based upon years of common
+experience, which has grown with the growth of the whole person,
+in power and intelligence and insight, which has survived countless
+disappointments and surmounted countless obstacles, the love of
+husband and wife, the love, as we began by saying, of friends--such
+love, as Browning says boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I
+suppose you will admit, does exist, however rarely?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it really
+is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination, that is
+directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say that its Good
+is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the person of the
+loved."
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the Good,
+that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff--the body."
+
+"But," I replied,"_is_ the body alien? Is it not rather an expression
+of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the soul?"
+
+"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!
+
+  "'Not with my soul, Love!--bid no soul like mine
+  Lap thee around nor leave the poor sense room!
+  Take sense too--let me love entire and whole--
+        Not with my soul.'"
+
+"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and anyhow,
+I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of the poem
+is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between body and
+soul."
+
+"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists call the
+transcending of it."
+
+"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."
+
+"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is annihilated
+at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get is a feeling of
+total union with the person, body and soul at once, or rather, neither
+one nor the other, but simply that which is in and through both."
+
+"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case of the
+soul being merged in the body."
+
+"That depends," replied Ellis.
+
+"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was thinking
+of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the moments
+of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a ^correspondence
+between body and soul, as though the one were the expression of the
+other?"
+
+"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more often a
+discrepancy."
+
+"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a discrepancy
+to begin with, don't you think that in the course of years the spirit
+does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh, and especially on
+the features of the face?"
+
+"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body make.'"
+
+"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a beautiful
+fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks maintained--and on such
+a point they were good judges--a profound and significant truth.
+At any rate, I find it to be so in the case of the people I care
+about--though there I know Audubon will dissent. In them, every
+change of expression, every tone of voice, every gesture has its
+significance; there is nothing that is not expressive--not a curl of
+the hair, not a lift of the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait.
+The body becomes, as it were, transparent and pervious to the soul;
+and that inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere
+else, seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting
+itself as the perfect medium of spirit."
+
+"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend your
+remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often as
+expressive and adorable as the body itself."
+
+"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the soul,
+'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But, seriously,
+don't you agree with me that there is something in the view which
+regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct expression of the
+person, not a mere stuff in which he Inheres?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I
+understand what you mean."
+
+"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it be
+a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in the
+same way as the soul?"
+
+"Perhaps, in a sort of way."
+
+"And so we should have In the person loved an object which, though
+presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible; and our
+activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is, of love,
+would come nearer than any other experience of ours to what we might
+call a perfect Good?"
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the Good
+itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being the
+medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like other
+sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end to death.
+And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of the person
+is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of sense, is
+precarious.'
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to
+maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have
+analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for
+a moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a
+suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect Good,
+even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."
+
+"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"
+
+"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal, and in
+the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in love, as
+we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is a relation
+only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond it proceeds
+the main current of our lives, involving innumerable relations of a
+very different kind from this."
+
+"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with all its
+attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless, so trivial
+and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world with all that
+in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space, infinite in complexity;
+here is the whole range of human relations, to say nothing of those
+that are not human, of activities innumerable in and upon nature and
+man himself, of inventions, discoveries, institutions, laws, arts,
+sciences, religions; and the meaning and purpose and end of all this
+we calmly assert to be--what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village
+green!"
+
+"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and kisses
+and village greens?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"
+
+"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."
+
+"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"
+
+"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
+all-comprehensive."
+
+"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary heaven
+to land us in!"
+
+"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
+is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
+short."
+
+"Then I fear I shall never rest!"
+
+"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if we
+can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you call
+an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is necessary
+to enable us to interpret the world we know."
+
+"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."
+
+"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For the
+Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
+some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
+impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny the
+passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges us to
+the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we want to
+understand the nature of that passion, we must understand the nature
+of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is for the sake
+of life here that we need that comprehension, not for the sake of life
+somewhere else."
+
+"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for Love?"
+
+"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."
+
+"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village green!"
+
+"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an
+episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to me."
+
+"By all means! That is what I want."
+
+"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as it is.
+Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex
+relations--economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and
+about and in these relations centres the interest of our life,
+whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its
+character. Among these relations some few perhaps--or, it may be,
+even none--realize for a longer or shorter time, with more or less
+completeness, that ultimate identity in diversity, that 'me in thee'
+which we call love; the rest comprise various degrees of attraction
+and repulsion, hatred, contempt, indifference, toleration, respect,
+sympathy, and so on; and all together, always changing, dissolving,
+and combining anew, weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the
+shifting, restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect
+and result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal
+of that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all
+with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this,
+whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is
+that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in those
+which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think, through it
+alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as we have it,
+never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the moment; for
+those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that they have found
+it merely in union with one other person. For what love gains in
+intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in practice it may
+even come to frustrate the very end it seeks, limiting instead of
+expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it deepens, and, by causing
+the disruption of all other ties, impoverishing the natures it should
+have enriched. Or don't you think that this happens sometimes, for
+instance in married life?"
+
+"I do indeed."
+
+"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that one
+who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love,
+yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other
+connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one
+who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as
+though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has
+only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking, as
+you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village green
+realize then and there the consummation of the world."
+
+"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put forward,
+what place is left for the common business of life--for the things
+which really do, for the most part, occupy and possess men's minds,
+and the more, in my opinion, the greater their force and capacity."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as that?
+
+"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."
+
+"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue them, I am
+not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they are in
+essence is just, like most other activities, relations between human
+beings--relations of command and obedience, of respect, admiration,
+antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex, infinitely various, but
+still all of them strung, as it were, upon a single thread of passion;
+all of them at tension to become something else; all pointing to the
+consummation which it is the nature of that which created them to
+seek, and all, in that sense, paradoxical as it may sound, only means
+to love."
+
+"You don't repudiate such activities then?"
+
+"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge, but, if
+I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose, who have
+the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt, the greatest
+intension too. But every man has to live his own way, according to his
+opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think myself, all are involved
+in the same scheme, and all are driven to the same consummation."
+
+"A consummation in the clouds!"
+
+"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the important
+point, that which urges us to it is here and now. Everything is rooted
+in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our longing and dissatisfaction,
+our restlessness never-to-be-quenched, our counting as nothing what
+has been attained in the pressing on to more, our lying down and
+rising up, our stumbling and recovering, whether we fail, as we call
+it, or succeed, whether we act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all
+that we are, all that we hope to be springs from the passion for Good,
+and points, if we are right in our analysis, to love as its end."
+
+Upon this Audubon broke out:--"That's all very well! But the one
+crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true, for aught
+I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we seek--though I am
+not aware of seeking it myself. But, after all, the real question is,
+Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools to seek it."
+
+"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since you
+challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we can get
+it or no."
+
+"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this
+discussion?"
+
+"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good, which is
+the point to which you are always harking back. But you have surely
+forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"
+
+"What basis?"
+
+"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find out,
+not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we know
+little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if we are
+to find significance in life."
+
+"But how can we believe what we don't know?"
+
+"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we always
+do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake anything
+makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth doing, and
+In the second place that it is possible to be done. He may be wrong in
+both these assumptions, but without them he could not move a step. And
+so with regard to the business of life, as a whole, it is necessary
+to assume, if we are to make anything of it at all, both that there is
+Good, and that we know something about it; and also, I think, that it
+is somehow or other realizable; but I do not know that any of these
+assumptions could be proved."
+
+"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"
+
+"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed, to my
+mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves, that we
+should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as they have
+not received definite proof. But still they are, I think, as I said,
+assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any meaning to
+life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the will'; and our
+attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."
+
+"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"
+
+"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it.
+Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not to
+affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were. It
+is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding; the
+attitude of the general going into battle, not of the philosopher in
+his closet."
+
+"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude is
+suspense of mind."
+
+"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those with
+which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are to choose
+to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption about the
+Good."
+
+"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply
+wait?"
+
+"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is it
+possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting itself
+an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to wait?"
+
+"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as those
+which you are trying to make us accept."
+
+"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to discover
+what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of fact, really
+dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or rather, if you
+will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the will' which we have
+elicited?"
+
+"What are they? Let me have them again."
+
+"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some meaning."
+
+"Agreed!"
+
+"Second, that we know something about that meaning."
+
+"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume that
+controversy."
+
+"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know nothing
+about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first assumption
+is also destroyed, and with it all significance in life."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."
+
+"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which comes
+nearest to Good is that which we called love."
+
+"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative approximation."
+
+"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it necessary
+to include also the postulate that Good can be realized?"
+
+"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room for
+what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized is a
+question of knowledge."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions--if only we could
+know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we do not
+know."
+
+"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every year we
+are learning more and more about the course and destiny of mankind."
+
+"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing
+whether or no the soul is immortal?"
+
+He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!" he
+cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"
+
+"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be realized."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception of
+the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."
+
+"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite sure.
+We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when we
+were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable in
+ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we
+thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."
+
+"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though I was
+afraid all along of something of the kind."
+
+"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been cheated, we
+will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we will suppose
+that we mean by the Good of some future generation, still retaining
+for Good the signification we gave to it. The question then of whether
+or no the Good can be realized, will be the question whether or no it
+is possible that at some future time all individuals should be knit
+together in that ultimate relation which we called love."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that _their_
+souls at least would have to be immortal; and if theirs, why not
+ours?"
+
+I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to say?"
+
+"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider the
+whole idea of immortality illegitimate."
+
+"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good. But may
+we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"
+
+"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals who
+happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they were
+alive."
+
+"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold fast
+to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be realized the
+individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, will be bound
+together in this relation?"
+
+"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of that
+kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not sure that I
+very well know what you mean by love."
+
+"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be left of
+my poor conception?"
+
+"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes
+to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a
+perfectly harmonious way."
+
+"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society perfectly
+definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory for you!' as
+Humpty Dumpty said."
+
+"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we defined
+to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of positive
+science, that it might be possible to realize?"
+
+"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that
+science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it can
+be realized."
+
+"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal immortality?"
+
+"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of
+personal immortality is one which science ought even to entertain."
+
+"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain it. Does
+not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such questions?"
+
+"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not call
+that science."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn of
+mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two,
+whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much
+vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit both
+upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and then
+followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of science,
+which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson took up a
+position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought, to declare
+that science appeared to be developing all the vices of theology
+without any of its virtues--the dogmatism, the "index expurgatorius,"
+and the whole machinery for suppressing speculation, without any of
+the capacity to impose upon the conscience a clear and well-defined
+scheme of life. This debate, however, was carried on in a tone too
+polemic to elicit any really fruitful result; and as soon as I was
+able I endeavoured to steer the conversation back into the smoother
+waters from which it had been driven.
+
+"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, that
+on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and cannot
+know anything at all."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there is no
+foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of our hopes
+and fears, or of those of our ancestors."
+
+"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is not
+true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for thinking
+it to be true."
+
+"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to relegate
+the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimæras. What we have no
+reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to concern ourselves
+with."
+
+"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one that
+interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We may not
+know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help profoundly caring."
+
+"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but, honestly, I do
+not myself care in the least"
+
+"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the Good;
+and that is really the question I want to come back to. What is the
+minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? Is it
+sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the race'? Or
+must we also believe in the progress of the individual, involving, as
+it does, personal immortality?"
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
+life--that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it seems to me
+to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one knows one will
+not participate oneself than for one in which one's personal happiness
+is involved. I have always sympathized with Comte, pedant as he was,
+in the remark he made when he was dying."
+
+"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte irréparable?' That
+always struck me as the most humorous thing ever said."
+
+"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect of
+death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not involve
+his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death is
+the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
+individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
+manly view."
+
+"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but this is
+a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire.
+Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his
+faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions
+unfulfilled--why it's sublime! its Kiplingese--there's no other word
+for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."
+
+"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained
+or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties
+undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated!
+Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they
+deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die--he has done what he
+had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the next generation."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal'
+means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that
+is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there
+never was a normal man?"
+
+"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
+include every one except a few decadents and faddists."
+
+At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression,
+I thought it best to intervene again.
+
+"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
+position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
+Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of the
+individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."
+
+"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always does
+realize sufficient Good for himself."
+
+"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself that his
+life has significance? Or because of the future Good of the race?"
+
+"I don't know; both, I suppose."
+
+"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is sufficient,
+by itself, to give significance to the lives of individuals who are
+never to partake in it?"
+
+"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe is,
+that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to that of
+the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends as you seem
+to suggest."
+
+"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that there
+is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling--and this is where we seem
+to disagree--that in estimating the Good of individual lives we must
+have regard to that which they realize in and for themselves, not
+merely to that which they may be contributing to produce some day in
+somebody else."
+
+"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing but
+other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite series
+of people doing Good to one another, and none of them getting any
+Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by taking in one
+another's washing!"
+
+"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of
+argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which
+individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"
+
+"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain that
+we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth while to
+have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at death. At
+any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look frankly at the
+mass of men and women, judging them not as means to something else,
+but as ends in themselves, with reference not to happiness, or
+content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply to Good--if we
+look at them so, can we honestly say that there is enough significance
+in their lives to justify the labour and expense of producing and
+maintaining them?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that there
+is."
+
+"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But what I
+should like to know is, what do you think?"
+
+"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the problem
+is too vast and indeterminate."
+
+"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way, and
+with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate or no,
+it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are only fit
+to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest thing for them
+if some one would do it."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does anyone
+else share it?"
+
+"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not actually
+bad, are at best indifferent--'sacs merely, floating with open mouths
+for food to slip in.'"
+
+"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you know
+about them, considering how very little you've seen of them!"
+
+"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this
+estimate?"
+
+"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I
+suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal better!"
+
+"They might well be that," I replied, "without being particularly
+good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be better to
+confine ourselves to our own experience and consider whether for
+ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life much worth
+having, supposing death to be the end of it all."
+
+"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis, "and
+so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather monstrous to
+ask the question at all."
+
+"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most inconsistent of
+men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson for his acquiescence
+in the extinction of the individual 'with his opportunities
+unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the rest of it. And
+now you appear to be adopting precisely the same attitude yourself."
+
+"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good enough
+for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful ruffian!"
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I was a
+few years ago."
+
+"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"
+
+"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all the
+Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come. What
+we actually realize we value less for itself than for something else
+which it promises. The moments of good experience we expand till they
+fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of indifferent or bad we
+simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we say, because the universe
+is good; and this goodness we expect to grasp in its entirety, not
+to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at least the day after. And so,
+like the proverbial ass, we are lured on by a wisp of hay. But being,
+at bottom, intelligent brutes, we begin, in time, to reflect; we put
+back our ears, and plant our feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and
+refuse to budge an inch till we have some further information as to
+the meaning of the journey into which we are being enticed. That,
+at least, is the point that has been reached by this ass who is now
+addressing you. I want to know something more about that bundle of
+hay; and that is why I am interested in the question of personal
+immortality."
+
+"Which means--to drop the metaphor----?"
+
+"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely to get
+more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I may very
+likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in others.
+For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as much bad
+as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say. And in the
+second place, even of what Good there is--and I do not under-estimate
+its worth--it is but an infinitesimal portion that I am capable of
+realizing, so limited am I by temperament and circumstance, so
+bound by the errors and illusions of the past, so hampered by the
+disabilities crowding in from the future. For though, as I think, the
+older I get the more clearly I recognize what is good, and the more I
+learn to value and to perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I
+become capable of making it my own, and must in the nature of things
+become less and less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those
+of the intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to
+be involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from
+the naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt
+and expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least
+effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'--you remember the
+passage:
+
+  "'... Every day my sense of joy
+  Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
+  By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
+  While every day my hairs fall more and more,
+  My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase--
+  The horror quickening still from year to year,
+  The consummation coming past escape,
+  When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy--
+  When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
+  Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
+  Alive still in the phrase of such as thou,
+  I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
+  The man who loved his life so over-much,
+  Shall sleep in my urn.'
+
+"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured it,
+perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is
+natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good,
+life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last
+judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will be
+a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of those
+most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been worth the
+trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite promise only to
+bury it fruitless in the grave."
+
+"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.
+
+"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very much
+care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether it is not
+the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not by the
+worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the belief in
+personal immortality."
+
+"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of
+people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet
+maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life.
+Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may remember,
+life appeared not less but more worth living when she had become
+convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited
+with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as
+a deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more
+intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of
+untiring and fruitful activity."
+
+"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call magnanimous!"
+
+"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and
+unimaginative."
+
+"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position which
+can be and has been adopted."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of the
+facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would make it
+increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an estimate which is
+to endure must be not only magnanimous but reasonable."
+
+"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to be
+reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are cases in
+which life is well worth living quite apart from the hypothesis of
+personal immortality."
+
+"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom it
+seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous, among
+those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose opinions
+alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly found in talking
+to people about death--supposing, which is unusual, that they are
+willing to talk about it at all--that they adopt one of two views,
+either of which presupposes the worthlessness of life, if life, as we
+know it, be indeed all"
+
+"What views do you mean?"
+
+"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and rejoice
+in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil; or they
+hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find there the
+reason and justification for existence which they have never been able
+to discover here."
+
+"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which I
+should have thought was as common as either of the others,--that of
+those who believe in a life after death, but look forward to it with
+inexpressible fear of the possible evils which it may contain."
+
+"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual
+experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of
+existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should maintain,
+have not really found life satisfactory, or they would look forward
+with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its continuance."
+
+"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal
+immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."
+
+"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the hypothesis
+involves the realization of that Good which, without it, we recognize
+to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and from that point
+of view, that I have introduced it."
+
+"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis is,
+I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is practically
+necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most people do not
+require it--ordinary simple people, I mean, who do their work and make
+no fuss about it."
+
+"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such people
+to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment any view
+suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe that if ever
+you can get a man, no matter how plain and unsophisticated, to reflect
+fairly upon his own experience, and to look impartially at the facts
+all round, abstracting from all bias of habit and mood and prejudice,
+he will admit that if it be true that the individual is extinguished
+at death, together with all his possibilities of realizing Good,
+then life cannot rationally be judged to be worth the living, however
+imperatively we may be compelled to continue to live it."
+
+"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on which I
+rely! That seems to me the justification of life--the fact that we are
+forced to live! I trust that instinct more than all the inclination in
+the world!"
+
+"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you mean
+that you judge it to be good?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your reason,
+which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your reason, the
+faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the only difference
+between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do really believe to
+be good, whereas you accept and cling to a particular judgment about
+Good, without any attempt to test it and harmonize it with others."
+
+"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and
+problematical in the extreme."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a simple,
+profound, imperative cry of Nature!"
+
+"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is good,
+except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."
+
+"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather blaspheme
+Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming either. For it may
+be that what you call Nature has provided for the realization of Good.
+That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was suggesting; and it is you
+who appear to be setting it aside."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it were
+something one could really entertain! To me it is not a hypothesis at
+all; it's simply an inconceivability."
+
+"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"
+
+"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."
+
+"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality of
+one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the soul
+does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and death and
+consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once one begins
+trying to realize it."
+
+"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt
+Whitman."
+
+"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly did
+justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while ago. It
+is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good and bad, and
+even appears at times to obliterate the distinction between them. But
+also, whether consistently or no, he regards them all as phases of
+a process, good only because of what they promise to be. So that his
+view really requires a belief in immortality to justify it; and to him
+such belief is as natural and simple as to Wilson it is absurd. There
+is a passage somewhere, I remember--perhaps you can quote it--it
+begins, 'Is it wonderful that I should be immortal?'"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I remember":
+
+    "Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
+    immortal;
+
+    "I know it is wonderful--but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and
+    how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
+
+    "And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of
+    summers and winters to articulate and walk. All this is equally
+    wonderful.
+
+    "And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
+    without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other,
+    is every bit as wonderful.
+
+    "And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
+
+    "And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be
+    true, is just as wonderful.
+
+    "And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
+    equally wonderful,
+
+    "And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
+    wonderful."
+
+"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that Whitman, at
+any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the immortality of the
+soul is unimaginable."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to believe
+it to be true."
+
+"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is concerned,
+though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But the point I
+raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view of life and
+hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are not bound to
+adopt this, hypothesis of immortality--to believe, that is, that,
+somehow or other, there awaits us a state of being in which all souls
+shall be bound together in that harmonious and perfect relation of
+which we have a type and foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be
+true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that
+it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then
+we must say either that such Good is unattainable--and in that case
+why should we idly pursue it?--or that we believe we shall attain it
+under some other conditions of existence. And according as we adopt
+one or the other position--so it seems to me--our attitude towards
+life will be one of affirmation or of negation."
+
+"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
+of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
+unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
+we can--and some Good you admit we can get--and might find in that
+pursuit a sufficient justification for life."
+
+"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well find,
+that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so immensely
+preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to an end an
+existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely in the persons
+of our luckless descendants."
+
+"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is taken by
+the Western world."
+
+"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its activity is
+the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."
+
+"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This
+instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and vigour."
+
+"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling, and
+all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp of the
+modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with them; you
+may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of activity. I
+am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your being right, and I
+seem to find it in personal immortality."
+
+"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right absolutely
+and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate law; whether
+or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to inquire into the
+conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us in the pursuit, then
+I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be discouraged."
+
+"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you are
+right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in Good
+and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was my main
+point. On the other question about what Good is and whether it is
+attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so conscious am I
+that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach. Only, that there
+is really something to learn, of that I am profoundly convinced.
+Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me there?"
+
+"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't seem to
+me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about Good, that
+doesn't affect the nature of Reality--and Reality, I believe, is bad!"
+
+"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what we
+see and touch and handle?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to
+impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded,
+under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes
+an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am
+walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a
+quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am overwhelmed
+by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for the moment to be
+such, that everything I hear and see and touch is mere illusion after
+all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if only I could find the
+way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to some native and ineradicable
+strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I sometimes think, to the memory
+of a strange experience which I once underwent and have never been
+able to forget"
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it may be
+worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less, on the
+subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and once
+only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence
+of anæsthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or rather,
+conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if dream it were,
+which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my life. It was as
+follows:
+
+"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul, I
+thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body,
+began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed through
+the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was beating like a
+thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the carotids to the brain,
+whence it emerged by the fissures of the skull into the outer air.
+No sooner was it free (though still attached, as I felt with some
+uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to the pia mater) than it gathered
+itself together (into what form I could not say), and with incredible
+speed shot upwards, till it reached what seemed to be the floor of
+heaven. Through this it passed, I know not how, and found itself all
+at once in a new world.
+
+"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain, difficult
+though it be to find suitable language; for the things here, of which
+our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols of the things
+there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now identified with my
+soul, and had forgotten all about my body)--the feeling I had was that
+of sitting alone beside a river. What kind of country it was I can
+hardly describe, for there was nowhere any definite colour or form,
+only a suggestion, such as I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite
+tracts of empty space. I could not even say there was light or
+darkness, for my organ of perception did not seem to be the eye; only
+I was aware of an emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold,
+grey, and formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if
+indeed silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived
+either sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to
+silence in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
+(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
+distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
+flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
+the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
+as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
+rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
+pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
+they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
+that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
+I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which they
+passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out again was
+the sequence of their lives and deaths.
+
+"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
+something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
+disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or whatever
+may have been my mode of cognition--'Of course! That is it, and that
+is all! Souls are indeed immortal--why should we ever have imagined
+otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? I see the death-side
+now as I saw the life-side then; and one has as little meaning as the
+other. As it has been, so it will be, now, henceforth, and for ever,
+in and out, in and out, without pause or stint, futile, trivial,
+silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and vain!' The long pre-occupation
+of men with religion, philosophy, and art, seemed to me now as
+incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. There was nothing after all to
+be interested about! There was simply this! The dreariness of my mood
+was indescribable, and corresponded so closely to the scene before
+me that I found myself wondering which was effect, which cause. The
+silence, the tracts of unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the
+ceaseless vibration along its surface of infinite moving points,
+all this was a reflex of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was
+Intolerable; to escape became my only object; and with this in view I
+rose and began to move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.
+
+"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high towers
+standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked like
+towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them; for they
+had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite substance
+or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so, the idea of
+verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of form or colour as
+everything else in this strange land. I made my way towards them along
+the bank; and when I had come close under the first, I saw that there
+was a door in it, and written over the door, in a language I cannot
+now recall, but which then I knew that I had always known, an
+inscription whose sense was:
+
+  "'_I am the Eye; come into me and see_.'
+
+"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I did
+not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be
+worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was
+open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I
+was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it
+had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the sensation of seeing light
+for the first time! For hitherto, as I have tried to explain, though
+it has been necessary to speak in terms of sight, I have done so
+only by a metaphor, and it was not really by vision that I became
+acquainted with the scene I have described. But now I saw, and saw
+pure light! And yet not only saw, but, as I thought apprehended it
+with the other senses, both with those we know and with others of
+which we have not yet dreamt. I heard light, I tasted and touched it,
+it enveloped and embraced me; I swam in it as in an element, wafted
+and washed and luxuriantly lapped. Pure light, and nothing else!
+No objects, at first! It was only by degrees, and as the first
+intoxication subsided, that I began to be aware of anything but the
+medium itself. I saw then that I was standing at what seemed to be a
+window, looking out over the scene I had just left But how changed it
+was! The river now, like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny
+champaign bright with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky;
+and the happy souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm
+day in the Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible
+delight; but as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery
+plain before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river
+clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a star,
+then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these again into
+others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was revolving
+about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can conceive,
+infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for the stars
+were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of ours, and by
+these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite harmonies, the
+threads of the intricate figure were kept distinct.
+
+"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our
+astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive
+the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth our
+faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension of time
+and change is measured by units too small for us to be able to embrace
+by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars. But I, in my
+then condition, had powers commensurate with all existence; so that
+not only could I follow with the eye the coils of that celestial
+morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as they approached
+or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I was minded,
+the course of its secular history; whole series of changes and
+transformations such as we laboriously infer, from fossils and rocks
+and hard unmalleable things, being there (as though petrifaction were
+reversed and solidest things made fluid) unrolled before me, molten
+and glowing and swift, in a stream of torrential evolution whose
+moments were centuries. Wonderful it was, and strange, to see the
+first trembling film creep like a mantle over a globe of fire, shiver,
+and break, and form again, and gradually harden and cohere, now
+crushed into ridges and pits, now extended into plains, and tossing
+the hissing seas from bed to bed, as the levels of the viscous surface
+rose and fell. Wonderful, too, when the crust was formed and life
+became possible, how everywhere, in wet or dry, hot or cold alike,
+wherever footing could be found, came up and flourished and decayed
+things that root and things that move, winged or finned or legged,
+creeping, flying, running, breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle,
+forest, and marsh, pursuing and pursued, devouring and devoured,
+pairing, contending, killing, things huge beyond belief, mammoth
+and icthyosaurus, things minute and numerous past the power of
+calculation, coming and going as they could find space, species
+succeeding to species, and crowding every point and vantage for life
+on the heaving tumultuous bosom of eddying worlds.
+
+"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a kind
+of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact that
+though everything was in constant change, and in the change there was
+clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect anything that
+seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not direction to an end;
+for the end was no better than the beginning, it was only different;
+the idea of Good, in short, did not apply. And this fact, which was
+striking enough in the case of the phenomena I have described, made
+itself felt with even more insistence when I turned to consider the
+course of human history. For that too I saw unrolled before me, not
+only on our own, but on innumerable other worlds, in various phases
+and in various forms, both those which we know, and others of which we
+have no conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men
+I saw housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in
+wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the
+mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast, nomad
+tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and peace,
+politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this, so far as
+I could observe, although, through all vacillations, there appeared
+to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there was nothing to
+indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas about Good, but
+these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the efficient causes
+of events, were in no sense the explanation of the process. There
+was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no purpose, end, or
+justification at all. Man, like nature, was the plaything of a blind
+fate. The idea of Good had no application.
+
+"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne in
+upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but one
+desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had left.
+And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus for
+release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see through
+his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me out!' And
+instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of the tower, in
+that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space, with the souls
+going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw written over the door
+from which I had emerged, and which was opposite to that by which I
+had entered, words whose sense was:
+
+  "'_Eye hath not seen_.'
+
+"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the river; and
+over that was written:
+
+  "'_Turris scientiae_.'
+
+"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been open,
+should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience from which
+I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and made my way
+along the bank towards the second tower.
+
+"Over the door of this was written in the same language as before:
+
+  "'_I am the Ear; come into me and hear_.'
+
+"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some apprehension,
+but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was I within than I
+was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that which had greeted
+me in the Tower of Sight, but even more ravishingly sweet. This time
+what I felt was the sensation of pure sound: sound, not merely heard,
+but, as before in the case of light, apprehended at once by every
+avenue of sense, and folding and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole
+being in a clear and buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees
+that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of
+rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form.
+The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling
+grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite
+lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river.
+But one by one other elements crept into the strain; it increased in
+volume and variety of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it
+grew at length into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound,
+that there is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly
+compare it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other
+composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force of
+its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all, its
+endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never actually
+reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to dread or
+to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more wonderful
+still was my clear perception, while I listened, that what was being
+presented to me now through the medium of sound was precisely the same
+world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight. Every phenomenon, and
+sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed there, I recognized now,
+in appropriate musical form. The foundation of all was a great basal
+rhythm, given out on something that throbbed like drums, terrible in
+its persistence and yet beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented
+the mechanical basis of the world, the processes which science
+knows as 'laws of motion' and the like, but which really, as I then
+perceived, might more aptly be described as the more inveterate of
+Nature's habits. Upon this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by
+almost imperceptible gradations, was built up an infinitely complex
+structure of intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in
+freedom, ease and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the
+ear snatches of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or,
+as it might be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never
+complete, fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come,
+which they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it
+were, from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear
+in new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I
+knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.
+
+"As this character of the music and its representative meaning grew
+gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight a
+certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I passionately
+desired to hear given out in full the theme which as yet had been only
+suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I knew that with its
+appearance the music would come to a close, just at the moment when
+its cessation would involve the keenest revulsion of feeling. And this
+moment, I felt, was rapidly approaching. The rhythm grew more and
+more rapid, the instruments scaled higher and higher, the tension of
+chromatic progressions was strained to what seemed breaking point,
+till suddenly, with an effect as though a stream, long pent in a
+gorge, had escaped with a burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole
+symphony broke away into the major key, and high and clear, chanted,
+as it seemed, on ten thousand trumpets, silver, æthereal, and
+exquisitely sweet for all their resonant clangour, I heard the
+ultimate melody of things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen,
+with the emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close;
+and I found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on
+the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once more
+was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with the
+souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous and vain!
+
+"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written over
+the door the inscription:
+
+  "'_Ear hath not heard_.'
+
+"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there inscribed:
+
+  "'_Turris Artis_?'
+
+"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the third
+tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of hope and
+fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear, has given me
+what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it seems, a more perfect
+symbol than that; for it, at least, is Beauty, and the other was only
+Power. But is there, then, nothing but symbols? Or shall I, in one of
+these towers, shall I perhaps find the thing that is symbolized?'
+
+"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door facing
+me I saw written:
+
+  "'_I am the Heart; come into me and feel_.'
+
+"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an experience
+even stranger and more delightful than before, but also, I fear, more
+indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a pure feeling,
+which was not of any particular sense, (as, before, of sight and
+hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling of Life itself,
+the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one has in health,
+underlying all particular activities. In this sensation I seemed, as
+before, to be lapped, as in an element; but this time the feeling
+did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when I came to myself, that I
+actually was in the river, leaping along with the other souls in such
+an ecstasy of physical delight as I have never felt before or since.
+Such, at least, was my first impression; but gradually it changed
+into something which I despair of rendering in words, for indeed I
+can hardly render it in my own thoughts. Conceive, however, that as,
+according to the teaching of science, every part of matter is affected
+by every other, insomuch that, as they say, the fall of an apple
+disturbs the balance of the universe; so, in my experience then, (and
+this, I believe, is really true) all souls were intimately connected
+by spiritual ties. Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or
+other, more or less obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were
+so closely involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that
+they formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained
+in their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion,
+distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and fulfilling
+in due proportion their periods and paths under the control of
+spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member; about me were
+grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and around stretched
+away, like infinite points of light, in a clear heaven of passion,
+the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a figure, for what I am
+describing in terms of space, I apprehended through the medium of
+feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees of affection, from
+extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate there was, as well as
+love, the one representing repulsion, the other attraction; and by
+their joint influence the whole system was sustained. It was not,
+however, in equilibrium; at least, not in stable equilibrium. There
+was a trend, as I soon became aware, towards a centre. The energy of
+love was constantly striving to annihilate distance and unite in a
+single sphere the scattered units that were only kept apart by the
+energy of hate. This effort I felt proceeding in every particular
+group, and, more faintly, from one group to another: I felt it with
+an intensity at once of pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even
+imagine, much less describe; and most of all did I feel it within
+the limits of my own group, of which some of those now present
+were members. But within this group in particular I was aware of an
+extraordinary resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no
+names,) steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest
+of us, or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups.
+This resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a
+tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole system
+seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and alone, being
+dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to my body. At the
+same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw my body, as I
+thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it swallowed me
+down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the operator's room,
+with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like Audubon's, though
+I afterwards ascertained it was really that of the assistant, uttering
+the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see why!'
+
+"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since been able
+to continue it, and to discover what was written over the other doors
+of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did not enter.
+So that I have had to go on ever since with the knowledge I then
+acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be, it is in the life
+of the affections, with all its confused tangle of loves and hates,
+attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all, indifferences, it is
+in this intricate commerce of souls that we may come nearest to
+apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly apprehend, but the
+quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any significance to life,
+and makes it a thing which a wise and brave man will be able to
+persuade himself it is right to endure."
+
+With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to me
+that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused
+reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took
+the æther, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In the
+confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was
+curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I
+should behave."
+
+"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do _not_ see
+why!" And with that the conversation I had to report closed.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***</div>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes
+Dickinson</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Leah Moser<br>
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br>
+           from images provided by the Million Book Project</b></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE MEANING OF GOOD&mdash;A DIALOGUE</h1>
+
+<h2>BY G. LOWES DICKINSON</h2>
+
+<center>FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE, AND AUTHOR OF A MODERN
+SYMPOSIUM</center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<center><i>THIRD EDITION</i></center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<center>1900</center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+ <!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<center><a href="#DEDICATION"><b>DEDICATION</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#ARGUMENT"><b>ARGUMENT</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#BOOK_I"><b><i>BOOK I</i>.</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#BOOK_II"><b><i>BOOK II</i>.</b></a><br>
+</center>
+
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="DEDICATION"></a>
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+
+<table align="center" summary="Dedication">
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">How do the waves along the
+level shore</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Follow and fly in hurrying sheets
+of foam,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For ever doing what they did
+before,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever climbing what is never
+clomb!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is there an end to their perpetual
+haste,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their iterated round of low and
+high,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or is it one monotony of
+waste</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Under the vision of the vacant
+sky?</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou, who on the ocean of thy
+days</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dost like a swimmer patiently
+contend,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And though thou steerest with a
+shoreward gaze</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Misdoubtest of a harbour or an
+end,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What would the threat, or what the
+promise be,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could I but read the riddle of the
+sea!</span><br>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
+explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue
+is a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but,
+in its application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of
+failures. I am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but
+think that I have chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For,
+in the first place, the problems I have undertaken to discuss have
+an interest not only philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious
+to treat them in a way which might perhaps appeal to some readers
+who are not professed students of philosophy. And, secondly, my
+subject is one which belongs to the sphere of right opinion and
+perception, rather than to that of logic and demonstration; and
+seems therefore to be properly approached in the tentative spirit
+favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics most men, I think,
+will feel that it is in conversation that they get their best
+lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in literary
+form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude in
+approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
+little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
+myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
+set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or
+endorse them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain
+opinions of my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which
+should be least imprisoning to my own thought, and least
+provocative of the reader's antagonism. It has been my object, to
+borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de pr&eacute;senter des s&eacute;ries
+d'id&eacute;es se d&eacute;veloppant selon un ordre logique, et non
+d'inculquer une opinion ou de pr&ecirc;cher un syst&ecirc;me
+d&eacute;termin&eacute;.' And I may add, with him, 'Moins que
+jamais je me sens l'audace de parler doctrinalernent en pareille
+mati&egrave;re.'</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent
+in the Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater
+skill than any to which I can pretend. The connection of the
+various phases of the discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as
+it would be in a formal treatise; and in the midst of digressions
+and interruptions, such as are natural in conversation, the main
+thread of the reasoning may sometimes be lost I have therefore
+appended a brief summary of the argument, set forth in its logical
+connections.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="ARGUMENT"></a>
+<h2>ARGUMENT</h2>
+
+<p><i>BOOK I</i>.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
+consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a
+diversity which suggests <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> a scepticism as
+to the truth of any of these ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is
+made to show that the position is one which is not really accepted
+by thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their
+lives by their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit
+their belief in these ideas.</p>
+
+<p>This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for
+the regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a
+Good for himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of
+all. It is suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men
+commonly does imply a belief in a General Good.</p>
+
+<p>Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a
+Good of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
+individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
+may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In
+reply, it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by
+fact; (2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all,
+namely, society and its institutions.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good
+is to empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its
+main value.</p>
+
+<p>II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect
+do, whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their
+actual conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that
+there seems to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This
+latter proposition is distasteful to some of the party, who
+endeavour to maintain that there really is no uncertainty as to
+what is good.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is argued:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct.
+To which it is replied that there appear to be many such
+'instincts' conflicting among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good
+being defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is
+replied that such a judgment is as <i>a priori</i> and unbased as
+any other, and as much open to dispute.</p>
+
+<p>It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we
+can have no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief
+discussion of the nature of Science, and the applicability of its
+methods to Ethics.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which
+it is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the
+moral reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are
+current. Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in
+fact, vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.</p>
+
+<p>(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest
+happiness of the greatest number." To which it is replied:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in
+accordance with 'common sense.'</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest
+and narrowest sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a
+criterion of Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that
+the term Pleasure becomes as indefinite as the term Good.</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly
+applied, it would lead to results that would shock those who
+profess to adopt it.</p>
+
+<p>III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it
+is suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we
+can discover, tentatively, what things are good.</p>
+
+<p>To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
+experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
+would be metaphysical, and <i>a priori</i>. In reply, the bare
+possibility of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no
+one really believes that all our opinions derived from experience
+are false, and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of
+all ethical significance and worth.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do
+actually find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though
+imperfect perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by
+practice, to perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is
+drawn between our perception of Good and our perception of
+Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a
+knowledge but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as
+one to be realised in Time.</p>
+
+<p>IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
+conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
+brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil
+must be conceived as mere 'appearance.'</p>
+
+<p>In reply, it is suggested:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal
+Good with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed
+to ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but
+ought to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who
+hold that Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of
+action that they should come to see that everything is good.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That this latter conception of the end of
+action&mdash;namely, that we should bring ourselves to see that
+what appears to be Evil is really Good&mdash;is too flagrantly
+opposed to common sense to be seriously accepted.</p>
+
+<p>To sum up:</p>
+
+<p>In this Book the following positions have been discussed and
+rejected:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good&mdash;such as
+<i>(a)</i> an infallible instinct, <i>(b)</i> the course of Nature,
+<i>(c)</i> current conventions, <i>(d)</i> pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere
+'appearance.'</p>
+
+<p>And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be
+made, a progressive discovery of Good.</p>
+
+<p>In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
+approached.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p><i>BOOK II</i>.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to
+point out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the
+character of a Good which we might hold to be perfect&mdash;here
+referred to as '<i>The</i> Good.'</p>
+
+<p>The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the
+position, at which we are supposed to have arrived, that the
+experience of any one person, or set of persons, about Good is
+limited and imperfect, and that therefore in any attempt to
+describe what it is that we hold to be good, to compare Goods among
+one another, and to suggest an absolute Good, we can only hope, at
+best, to arrive at some approximation to truth.</p>
+
+<p>I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain
+preliminary points are then discussed. These are:</p>
+
+<p>(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be
+an object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.</p>
+
+<p>(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested
+that the Good we pursue is</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That of future generations. Some difficulties in this
+view are brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue
+is the Good of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we
+mean by that.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to
+be involved in difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes
+on to an examination of some of our activities from the point of
+view of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view:
+(1) to bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of
+Good; (2) to suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free
+from defects, such a Good being referred to as '<i>The</i>
+Good.'</p>
+
+<p>(1) It is first suggested that <i>all</i> activities are good,
+if pursued in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems
+bad in each, viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general
+survey of them all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to
+be tenable.</p>
+
+<p>(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To
+this it is objected that ethical actions are always means to an
+end, and that it is this end that must be conceived to be really
+good.</p>
+
+<p>(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with
+physical objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of
+Good; but such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only
+because it is precarious, but because it depends upon objects of
+which it is not the essence to produce that Good, but which, on the
+contrary, just as much and as often produce Evil.</p>
+
+<p>(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
+brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That they have, by their essence, that Good which is
+called Beauty.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be
+eternal.</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> That, though complex, they are such that their parts
+are necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to
+the total Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That outside and independent of Art there is the
+'real world,' so that this Good is only a partial one.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to
+demand, for a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be
+so of its own nature, without our intervention.</p>
+
+<p>(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
+knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held
+as to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> the view that knowledge is 'the description and
+summing up in brief formul&aelig;, of the routine of our
+perceptions.' It is questioned whether there is really much Good in
+such an activity. And it is argued that, whatever Good it may have,
+it cannot be <i>the</i> Good, seeing that knowledge may be, and
+frequently is, knowledge of Bad.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> the view that knowledge consists in the perception of
+'necessary connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this
+seems to be open to the same objection as <i>(a)</i>. But, further,
+it is argued that the perpetual contemplation of necessary
+relations among ideas does not satisfy our conception of the Good;
+but that we require an element analogous somehow to that of sense,
+though not, like sense, unintelligible and obscure.</p>
+
+<p>(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other
+persons, where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps
+find something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences
+to being absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are
+in contact</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> with objects, not 'mere ideas.'</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> with objects that are good in themselves and</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> intelligible and</p>
+
+<p><i>(d)</i> harmonious to our own nature.</p>
+
+<p>It is objected that love, so conceived, is</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> rarely, perhaps never, experienced.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.</p>
+
+<p>This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we
+know comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to
+be absolutely good.</p>
+
+<p>III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived,
+is it not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems
+to depend on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The
+following points are therefore discussed:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> Whether personal immortality is conceivable?</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable
+pursuit of Good?</p>
+
+<p>On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the
+Dialogue closes with the description of a dream.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="BOOK_I"></a>
+<h2><i>BOOK I</i>.</h2>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to
+arrange in some pleasant place, either in England or on the
+continent, a gathering of old college friends. In this way I have
+been enabled not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what
+to a man of my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and
+extend, by an interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an
+experience of life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and
+confined. Last year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me
+especially agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip
+Audubon, whom, since his business lay in the East, I had not had an
+opportunity of seeing for many years. I mention him particularly,
+because, although, as will be seen, he did not take much part in
+the discussion I am about to describe, he was, in a sense, the
+originator of it. For, in the first place, it was he who had
+invited us to the place in which we were staying,&mdash;an upland
+valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a house; and, further, it
+was through my renewed intercourse with him that I was led into the
+train of thought which issued in the following conversation. His
+life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous in the extreme,
+had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was constitutionally
+inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened than
+diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I hesitate
+to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
+associations with the schools from which he was singularly free.
+His melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic
+system; it was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be
+described, perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the
+worthlessness and irrationality of the world. Such a position is
+not readily shaken by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt
+to assail it; but it could not fail to impress itself strongly upon
+my mind, and to keep my thoughts constantly employed upon that old
+problem of the worth of things, in which, indeed, for other
+reasons, I was already sufficiently interested.</p>
+
+<p>A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival
+of another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn
+together at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in
+later years our paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination
+had led him into an active career, and for some years he had been
+travelling abroad as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I
+felt, therefore, some curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him,
+and to ascertain how far his views had been modified by his
+experience of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a
+kind of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place
+of rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some
+minutes nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in
+the shade listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the
+grass in the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little
+fountain in the garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter
+every minute on the fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk,
+and yet I was unwilling to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me
+and said: "Well, my dear philosopher, and how goes the world with
+you? What have you been doing in all these years since we met?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you been thinking then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about
+the world seems to suit you."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the
+quiet of the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic
+countenance, I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life.
+I believe if I stayed here long you would lure me back to
+philosophy; and yet I thought I had finally escaped when I broke
+away from you before."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one
+is caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying
+to help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you found a way?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you
+and hear how you have fared."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."</p>
+
+<p>"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You
+may have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so
+have I. But that is only because I want to grapple with it more
+closely."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"</p>
+
+<p>"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who
+have had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to
+what conclusions they have been led by their own direct
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Conclusions about what?"</p>
+
+<p>"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to
+be fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say,
+given up the subject&mdash;I mean the whole question of the values
+we attach, or ought to attach, to things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as
+of old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So
+I used to say at college and so I say now."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to
+say; but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."</p>
+
+<p>"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit
+of experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me
+in my original view."</p>
+
+<p>"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to
+hear about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as
+you know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of
+other people's."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to
+me, in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary
+diversity of men's ideals."</p>
+
+<p>"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance,
+until I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between
+the Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear
+that either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know
+which. Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But
+when one gets among them and really talks to them, when one
+realizes how profound and intelligent is their contempt for our
+civilization, how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how
+illusory our progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to
+wonder whether, after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit
+that one judges them to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether
+there is anything at all except blind prejudice in any opinions and
+ideas about Right and Wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir
+Richard Burton:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'There is no good, there is no bad,
+these be the whims of mortal will;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What works me weal that call I
+good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They change with space, they shift
+with race, and in the veriest span of time,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each vice has worn a virtue's
+crown, all good been banned as sin or crime.'"</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
+travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not
+be necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a
+single city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who
+can look below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed
+uniformity of beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and
+incongruities are concealed! Every type, every individual almost,
+is distinguished from every other in precisely this point of the
+judgments he makes about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer
+think of the life of a studious recluse? or the city man of that of
+the artist? and vice versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all
+of us go about judging and condemning one another root and branch.
+We are in no real agreement as to the worth either of men or
+things. It is an illusion of the 'canting moralist' (to use
+Stevenson's phrase) that there is any fixed and final standard of
+Good. Good is just what any one thinks it to be; and one man has as
+much right to his opinion as another."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there
+are different opinions about Good, they are all equally
+valuable."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally
+worthless."</p>
+
+<p>"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to
+doubt whether you really believe it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."</p>
+
+<p>"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to
+me most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act,
+and are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is
+good, as though you did believe it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to
+introduce any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it
+to yourself any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you
+hold to be good really somehow is so, your life, I think, would
+resolve itself into mere chaos."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a
+life is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold
+to be good."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it"</p>
+
+<p>"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they
+think good."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think
+bad, like Milton's Satan&mdash;'Evil be thou my Good'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing
+what he thought good; only he thought that evil was good."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is a contradiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in
+which I believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the
+Bad. To them it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose,
+power and wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because
+he thought them good; if his choice also involved what he thought
+bad, such as murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these
+bad, which I doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in
+his choice as in its consequences. But even if I were to admit that
+he and others have chosen and do choose what they believe to be
+bad, it would not affect the point I want to make. For to choose
+Bad must be, in your view, as absurd as to choose Good; since, I
+suppose, you do not believe, that our opinions about the one have
+any more validity than our opinions about the other. So that if we
+are to abandon Good as a principle of choice, it is idle to say we
+may fall back upon Bad."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do
+not need either the one or the other. You must have noticed&mdash;I
+am sure I have&mdash;that men do not in practice choose with any
+direct reference to Good or Bad; they choose what they think will
+bring them pleasure, or fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a
+livelihood."</p>
+
+<p>"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far
+believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to
+go to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be
+seriously angry and distressed."</p>
+
+<p>"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not
+help themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to
+imagine. We have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we
+choose is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The
+criterion is Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to
+realize."</p>
+
+<p>"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the
+criterion is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that
+other pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than
+those they have chosen, and that these better things were and are
+open to themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to
+the worse, knowing it all the time to be the worse."</p>
+
+<p>"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely,
+are not really 'open' to them, except so far as external
+circumstances are concerned. They are hampered in their choice by
+passions and desires, by that part of them which does not choose,
+but is passively carried away by alien attractions; and the course
+they actually adopt is the best they can choose, though they see a
+better which they would choose if they could. The choice is always
+of Good, but it may be diverted by passion to less Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own
+consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still,
+that is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I
+should expect that most people who reflect would agree with me.
+They would say, I think, that they always choose the best they can,
+though regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and
+it would seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose
+Bad, or choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are
+right&mdash;what follows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said,
+'practically bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least,
+our opinions about what is good; for otherwise we should have no
+principle to choose by, if it be true that the principle of choice
+is Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without
+choosing!"</p>
+
+<p>"But could we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why not; many people do."</p>
+
+<p>"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a
+voice from behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the
+back into one of those large lofty barns which commonly form part
+of a Swiss house; and as the floor of this room was covered with
+straw, it was possible to approach that way without making much
+noise. For this reason, two others of our party had been able to
+join us without our observing it. Their names were Parry and
+Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just getting into practice at
+the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in years, though a very
+precocious one, whom I had brought with me, ostensibly as a pupil,
+but really as a companion. He was an eager student of philosophy,
+and had something of that contempt of youth for any one older than
+twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart to resent,
+though have long passed the age which qualifies me to become the
+object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate way he
+had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
+proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without
+choice one would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every
+random mood and impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"</p>
+
+<p>Ellis looked round rather amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
+impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
+calculation any day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good
+and Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>is</i> your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been
+trying in vain to make head or tail of it"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
+against this bullying."</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>must</i> take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are
+to discuss."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why; you might take one instead."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you began."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then,
+to go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are
+so many different opinions about what things are good, and that no
+criterion has been discovered for testing these
+opinions&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that
+from the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a
+substantial agreement about what is good."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position,
+let me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying,
+that there are so many different opinions about what things are
+good, and that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I
+hold that we have no reason to attach any validity to these
+opinions, or to suppose that it is possible to have any true
+opinions on the subject at all."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very
+difficult to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the
+point, and the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are
+nevertheless practically bound, whether we can justify it to our
+reason or not, to believe that our own opinions about what is good
+have somehow some validity."</p>
+
+<p>"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you
+interrupted&mdash;and your interruption really completed my
+argument&mdash;I imagine it to be impossible for us not to make
+choices; and in making choices, as I think, we use our ideas about
+Good as a principle of choice."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted
+the truth of that last statement."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally&mdash;and
+generally, I confess, I do not see how it could be proved or
+disproved, except by an appeal to every individual's
+experience&mdash;do you not admit it in your own case? Do you not
+find that, in choosing, you follow your idea of what is good, so
+far as you can under the limitations of your own passions and of
+external circumstances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to
+admit that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I
+mean that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your
+opinion about Good, you would have nothing else to fall back
+upon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."</p>
+
+<p>"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive
+yourself living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard,
+from moment to moment, following blindly any impulse that may
+happen to turn up, without any principle by which you might
+subordinate one to the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I don't think I can."</p>
+
+<p>"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that
+you, at any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically
+bound to believe that our opinions about what is good have some
+validity, even though we cannot say what or how much."</p>
+
+<p>"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny
+in theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the
+attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice
+would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only
+principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to
+accept. In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about
+Good that engenders order among our passions and desires; and
+without it we should sink back to be mere creatures of blind
+impulse, such as perhaps in fact, many men really are."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant
+protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that
+brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part,
+I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so
+abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the
+appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because
+I have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has
+nothing to do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he
+ejaculated, in a kind of passion, "it's a preposterous thing to
+tell me that I believe in Good, merely because I lead a life like a
+mill-horse! That would be an admirable reason for believing in
+Bad&mdash;but Good!"</p>
+
+<p>He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press
+him further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of
+insult to his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for
+the sake of the argument to give some answer, so I
+began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would
+do it if I could help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."</p>
+
+<p>"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but it's a necessary thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Necessary, why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because one must live."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is a good thing to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's a very bad one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you live, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I can't help it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is always possible to stop living."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't"</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't
+choose to be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave
+other people here to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of
+honour. As I'm here, I'm going to play the game. All I say is that
+the game is not worth the playing; and you will never persuade me
+into the belief that it Is."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to
+persuade you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You
+believe, as you have really admitted in principle, that it is good
+to live rather than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous,
+laborious life, which you say you detest Take away that belief, and
+your whole being is transformed. Either you change your manner of
+life, abandon the routine which you hate, break up the order
+imposed (as I said at first) by your idea about Good, and give
+yourself up to the chaos of chance desires; or you depart from life
+altogether, on the hypothesis that that is the good thing to do.
+But in any case the truth appears to remain that somehow or other
+you do believe in Good; and that it is this belief which determines
+the whole course of your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am
+unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought
+it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your
+general contention, I should still maintain that it is not by
+virtue of any conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into
+our lives. We simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature
+and character, preferring one object to another, suppressing or
+developing this or that tendency. Our choices are not determined by
+our abstract notion of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is
+deduced from our choices."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular
+choices our general idea of the kind of things which we consider
+good. That may be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach
+validity to these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our
+Good, those that we approve as distinguished from those that we do
+not. And my contention is that, in spite of all diversity of
+opinions as to what really are the good things to choose, we are
+bound to attach, each of us, some validity to our own, under
+penalty of reducing our life to a moral chaos."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean
+that we must believe that our opinions are right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that
+they are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and
+until we see something righter. But above all, that opinions on
+this subject really are either right or wrong, or more right and
+less right; and that of this rightness or wrongness we really have
+some kind of perception, however difficult it may be to give an
+account of it, and that in accordance with such perception we may
+come to change our opinions or those of other people, by the
+methods of discussion and persuasion and the like. And all this, as
+I understand, is what Ellis was denying."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you
+have proved it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to
+show that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because
+a belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that,
+I thought, you did admit yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether
+my theory is not more reasonable than my practice."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question
+that really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which
+underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it
+seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I
+think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of
+our opinions about Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with
+philosophy but with psychology."</p>
+
+<p>"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever
+it be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place
+yourself at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the
+whole, I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you
+might easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is
+very much one <i>ad hominem</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of
+argument in which I much believe in these matters. I am content,
+for the present, if you and the others here go along with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in
+an unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of
+common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
+rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with
+anything so lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute
+and <i>&agrave; priori</i>, by which we may prove for certain that
+Good is, and discover, as well, what things are good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone,
+should find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the
+quest. It is only in default of anything better that I fall back on
+this&mdash;I dare not call it method; this appeal to opinion and
+belief."</p>
+
+<p>"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have
+shown, or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were
+granted that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good,
+it doesn't follow that they believe in anything except each a Good
+for himself. So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say
+would be that there are a number of different and perhaps
+incompatible Goods, each good for some particular individual, but
+none necessarily good for all. I, at least, admit no more than
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was
+familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each
+individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as
+he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe
+this, under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I
+see no reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought
+to choose is identical, or even compatible, with that which another
+ought to choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and
+mutually exclusive moral worlds. In other words, even though I may
+admit a Good for each, I am not prepared to admit a Good for
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a
+not-Good; and that seems to be a contradiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be
+Good for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for
+another."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole
+conception is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for
+anybody or anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple,
+immutable eternal."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually
+tear me to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see
+no reason to admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, to me, something else has a meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to
+explain."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods,
+oughtn't to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other
+particular name of its own?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of
+them Good because from one point of view&mdash;that of some
+particular individual&mdash;each of them is something that ought to
+be. I, at any rate, admit no more than that. For each individual
+there is something that ought to be; but this, which ought to be
+for him, is very likely something that ought not to be for somebody
+else."</p>
+
+<p>On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and
+despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these
+incompatible Goods."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good,
+say, for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the
+people who come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire
+to make and increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he
+ruins in the process. And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>; one has only
+to look at the world to see that the Goods of individuals are not
+only diverse but incompatible one with another."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to
+be good which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not
+the fact of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the
+things in question are not really good?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion.
+It may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of
+things incompatible with what is good for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so?
+Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow
+be compatible with what is really good for others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be
+proved."</p>
+
+<p>"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument <i>ad hominem</i>.
+Do not you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't know that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for
+people in general?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way do I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to
+enter Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the
+country in favour of&mdash;well, I don't quite know
+what&mdash;shall we say in favour of the war?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say so, by all means, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at
+large? or at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of
+them? Do you admit that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will
+admit, I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but
+what of that? Very probably I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main
+thing is, that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right
+at all; that there is something to be wrong or right about."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I
+shall always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again
+and again, I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are
+worth anything at all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an
+opinion about; and then I shall retire from politics altogether;
+and then&mdash;then how will you get hold of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I
+suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily
+affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I
+presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to
+some general Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing
+of the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on
+to examine the consequences of the supposition."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for
+that, I suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of
+the case, interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the
+same time, on the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a
+general Good, your only object in this interchange will be your own
+Good, (in which you admit that you do believe.) If, for example,
+you are a doctor, your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself,
+to increase your knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the
+lowest, it is to accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your
+purpose be to alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the
+advance of science; for that would be to suppose that these ends,
+although they purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good,
+which is the hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a
+lawyer, you will not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting
+the law; such ends as these for you are mere illusions; for even if
+justice exist at all, it certainly is not a Good, for if it were,
+it would be a Good for all, and, as we agree, there is no such
+thing. Men like Bentham, therefore, to you will be mere
+visionaries, and the legal system as a whole will have no sense or
+purport, except so far as it contributes to sharpen your wits and
+fill your pocket And so, in general, with all professions and
+occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat it merely as a
+means to your own Good; and since you have no Good which is also
+common to other men, you will use these others without scruple to
+further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without
+necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be
+theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "and why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it
+would be so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it
+possible that you should ever adopt such an attitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an
+idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other
+men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for
+example, a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in
+his business operations, ever had any regard for anything except
+his own personal advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people
+he ruined? Do you suppose he cared even whether he ruined his
+country, except so far as such ruin might interfere with his own
+profit? Or look again at the famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do
+you suppose it mattered to him that he might be starving half the
+world, and imperilling the governments of Europe? It was enough for
+him that he should realize a fortune; of all the rest, I suppose,
+he washed his hands. He and men like him adopt, I have no doubt,
+precisely the position which you are trying to show is
+impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
+general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you.
+And my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good,
+he denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
+not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
+described."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume
+that a disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily
+involves a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his
+own Good consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in
+that case of course he will try to further it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other
+people. Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no
+Good common to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in
+furthering the Good of one we are also furthering that of others.
+So that even supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists
+in furthering the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put
+his belief into practice, but at most will be able to help some one
+man, with the likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and
+injuring many others. Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an
+egoist, yet he cannot work for a common Good; and that simply
+because there is no common Good to work for."</p>
+
+<p>At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the
+discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character,
+suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of
+optimism and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was
+rather pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and
+especially Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it
+irritating. His present speech was characteristic of his
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has
+vitiated your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because
+every man has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to
+be common to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible
+one with another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is
+necessarily hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who
+are intent on theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by
+all experience, that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man,
+in pursuing his own advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue
+theirs. The world, if you like to put it so, is a world of egoists;
+but a world constructed with such exquisite art, that the egoism of
+one is not only compatible with, but indispensable to that of
+another. On this principle all society rests. The producer, seeking
+his own profit, is bound to satisfy the consumer; the capitalist
+cannot exist without supporting the labourer; the borrower and
+lender are knit by the closest ties of mutual advantage; and so
+with all the ranks and divisions of mankind, social, political,
+economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against the other, in
+delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part with part,
+they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for ever
+disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true,
+and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and
+reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole.
+And when we consider&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and
+Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests
+countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow
+your own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and
+the thief, of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the
+fraudulent company-promoter; when, turning from these private
+examples, we cast our eyes on international relations, when we
+observe the perfect accord of interest between all the great powers
+in the far East; when we note the smooth harmonious working of that
+flawless political machine so aptly named the European Concert,
+each member pursuing its own advantage, yet co-operating without
+friction to a common end; or when, reverting to the economic
+sphere, we contemplate the exquisite adjustment that prevails
+between the mutual interest of labour and capital&mdash;an
+adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional disturbance,
+just to show that the centre of gravity is changing; when we
+observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan,
+annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime
+example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single
+individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating
+with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and
+contributing, by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a
+great and oppressed people&mdash;if indeed, in such a world as
+ours, anyone can be said to be oppressed&mdash;when, my dear Parry,
+we contemplate these things, then&mdash;then&mdash;words fail me!
+Finish the sentence as you only can."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very
+well you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still
+maintain that we must take broad views of these matters, and that
+the position adopted is substantially correct, if you take long
+enough periods of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his
+own Good does contribute also to the Good of others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point,
+"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that
+everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is
+no common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is
+essential to the realization of the Good of all the rest"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one
+thing which we shall have to call a common Good."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to
+all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common
+condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society'
+what is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at
+least you admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of
+common activity and end; and the motives of men in undertaking
+these common activities become a matter of comparative
+indifference. Whatever they are consciously aiming at, whether it
+be their own Good, or the Good of all, or, as is more probable, a
+varying mixture of both, the fact remains that they do, and we do,
+admit a common Good, the maintenance and development of society
+itself. And that is all I was concerned to get you to agree
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common
+Good except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition
+of Good than Good itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard
+society as nothing but a condition of the realization of
+independent, individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the
+Good of each individual consists in his relations with other
+individuals. But this I do not know that I am in a position to
+establish. Meantime, however, we can, I think, maintain, that few
+candid men, understanding the issue, will really deny altogether a
+common Good; for they will have to admit that in society we have at
+the very least a common condition of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that
+there is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if
+pressed, would probably admit one."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not
+attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is
+impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as
+before, that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at
+his own peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have
+shown is, that to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to
+deny to one's life and action all worth except what is bound up
+with one's own Good, to the complete exclusion of any Good of all.
+In the second place, it is to deny all worth to every public and
+social institution&mdash;to religion, law, government, the family,
+all activities, in a word, which contribute to and make up what we
+call society. Further, it is to empty history, which is the record
+of society, of its main interest and significance, and in
+particular to eliminate the idea of progress; for progress, of
+course, implies a common Good towards which progress is directed.
+In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self, and reveal
+him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations from
+which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which,
+apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is
+to make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his
+solitary ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main
+attraction by its dissociation from the development of others. Now,
+if any man, having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a
+sense, not merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were,
+in every nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny
+that he believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the
+denial with his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life,
+adjusting to his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings,
+and thoughts; if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then
+I, for my part, am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be
+wrong. All I can do is to set my experience against his, and to
+appeal to the experience of others; and we must wait till further
+experience on either side leads (if it ever is to lead) to an
+agreement. But, on the other hand, if a man merely makes the denial
+with his lips, because, perhaps, he conceives it impossible to
+prove the opposite, or because he sees that what is good cannot be
+defined beyond dispute, or whatever other plausible reason he may
+have; and if, while he persists in his denial, he continues to act
+as if the contrary were true, taking part with zest and enthusiasm
+in the common business of life, pushing causes, supporting
+institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and that
+without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his own
+Good&mdash;in that case I shall take leave to think that he does
+not really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely
+think he does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole
+tissue of his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real
+opinion than the propositions he enunciates with his lips."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of
+course we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the
+question is, whether we have a right to."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was
+the more modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a
+right or no is another matter, more difficult and more profound
+than I care to approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved
+beyond dispute to the reason, either that certain things are good
+or that they are not, there would be no place for such discussions
+as this. But, it appears, such proof has not yet been
+given,&mdash;or do you think it has?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall
+back on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to
+prejudice,&mdash;and so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an
+appeal to the passion men have to find worth in their lives, and
+their refusal to accept any view by which such worth is denied. To
+anyone who refuses to accept any judgment about what is good, I
+prove, or endeavour to prove, that such refusal cuts away the whole
+basis of his life; and I ask him if he is prepared to accept that
+consequence. If he affirms that he is, and affirms it not only with
+his lips but in his action, then I have no more to say; but if he
+cannot accept the consequences, then, I suppose, he will reconsider
+the premisses, and admit that he does really believe that judgments
+about what is good may be true, and, provisionally, that his own
+are true, or at least as true as he can make them, and that he does
+in fact accept and act upon them as true, and intends to do so
+until he is convinced that they are false. And this attitude of his
+feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude of faith; it is, I
+think, the attitude most men would adopt if they were pressed home
+upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable enough, and
+rather to be praised than to be condemned."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very
+unsatisfactory."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're
+all driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really
+delightful paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are
+bound to believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what
+it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"</p>
+
+<p>"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things
+are good."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could
+think that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that
+we are bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I
+cannot see that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very
+diversity, it seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope
+is, that perhaps they do all contain some truth, although they may
+contain falsehood as well."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All
+the confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we
+can't see what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that
+there is all this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers
+always assume, as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of
+opinion and reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really
+determine conduct. Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is
+determined, at least in essentials, by something very much more
+like instinct. And it is to this instinct which, by the nature of
+the case, is simple and infallible, that we ought to look to tell
+us what is good, and not to our reason, which, as you admit
+yourself, can only land us in contradictory judgments. I know, of
+course, that you have a prejudice against any such view."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should
+be glad of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never
+yet been able to find one."</p>
+
+<p>"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place;
+or, perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it.
+You will never discover what is good by any process of rational
+inquiry. It's a matter of direct perception, above and beyond all
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you
+said, simple and infallible?"</p>
+
+<p>"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all
+practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is
+for this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say,
+of course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour
+or two in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate
+if the habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For
+inquiry does tend in the long run to influence opinion, and
+generally to influence it in the wrong way; whereas, if people
+simply go on following their instinct, they are much more likely to
+do what is right, than if they try to act on so-called rational
+grounds."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious
+difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you
+bid us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its
+content? What <i>is</i> it, anyhow, that it should be set up in
+this way above reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct
+is, that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey;
+there's no question about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But there <i>is</i> question about the content of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how
+small a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we
+act simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest
+and most prosperous."</p>
+
+<p>"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What
+standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"</p>
+
+<p>"From common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is common sense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"</p>
+
+<p>"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every
+instinct require another to justify it, and so <i>ad
+infinitum</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable
+good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a
+clever child.</p>
+
+<p>"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point.
+Is it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient
+justification, or does it require justification by something
+else?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong
+instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands
+above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of
+dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism
+simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it
+challenges."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this
+instinct is so strong therefore it is always good to follow
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so, generally speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man
+should run away in battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There
+you get a superposition of the social upon the merely individual
+instinct."</p>
+
+<p>"And how does that come about?"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been
+ingeniously explained as follows. We start with the primary
+instinct of self-preservation. This means, at first, that each
+individual strives to preserve himself. But as time goes on
+individuals discover that they can only preserve themselves by
+associating with others, and that they must defend society if they
+want to defend themselves. They thus form a habit of defending
+society; and this habit becomes in time a second instinct, and an
+instinct so strong that it even overrides the primary one from
+which it was derived; till at last you get individuals sacrificing
+in defence of the community those very lives which they originally
+entered the community to preserve."</p>
+
+<p>"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really
+true that every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so
+only by virtue of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull
+himself up and remember that, after all, the preservation of his
+life was the only motive that induced him to endanger it, he would
+run away like a sensible man, and try some other device to achieve
+his end, the device of society having evidently broken down, so far
+as he is concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism!
+The point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and
+has therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the
+reason touch it in the least"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very
+hard that a man can't rectify such an important error. The
+imposition is simply monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut
+up in society on the distinct understanding, to begin with, that
+society was to help them to preserve their lives; instead of which,
+it starves them and hangs them and sends them to be shot in battle,
+and they aren't allowed to raise a word of protest or even to
+perceive what a fraud is being perpetrated upon them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to
+me a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the
+better instincts."</p>
+
+<p>"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These
+instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the
+instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and
+fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he
+stays and fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs
+away?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know
+what is Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between
+instincts, to approve one and condemn another. And our problem
+still remains, how can we do this? how can we get any certainty of
+standard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an
+instinct is. My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with
+what seemed to be your assumption that whatever it is in us that
+judges about Good judges in a single, uniform, infallible way.
+Whereas, in fact, as you had to admit, sometimes at the same moment
+it pronounces judgments not only diverse but contradictory."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As
+a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we
+require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science
+rather than in philosophy."</p>
+
+<p>"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has <i>not</i> science to do with?" said a new voice from
+behind. It was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the
+breakfast room (he always breakfasted late), and had overheard the
+last remark. He was a lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather
+distinguished in that field, and an enthusiastic believer in the
+capacity of the scientific method to solve all problems.</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that
+science has nothing to do with the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed
+that be true."</p>
+
+<p>"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I
+interposed. I was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the
+same time I was desirous to avoid a discussion between him and
+Leslie, for their types of mind and habits of thought were so
+radically opposed that it was as idle for them to engage in debate
+as for two bishops of opposite colour to attempt to capture one
+another upon a chessboard. He answered readily enough to my
+challenge.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge,
+and that is the method we call scientific."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by
+that method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of
+knowledge, but only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere,
+the only safe guide is the actual concrete operation of
+Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent
+hostility.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only
+to be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in
+fact identical with the condition towards which she tends, and
+morality the means to attaining it."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him
+short.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"</p>
+
+<p>"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only
+ascertain by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution.
+Biology and Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one
+another, are rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, <i>sotto-voce</i>, "here comes the
+social organism! I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing,
+or ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to
+draw any certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty
+clear what kind of results we shall arrive at."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the
+position I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be
+regarded as provisional."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Pray go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the
+single cell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity,
+"with a C or with an S?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal
+body is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a
+progressive modification in the structure of each cell, the
+differentiation of groups of cells to perform special
+functions,&mdash;digestive, respiratory, and the rest,&mdash;and
+the subordination of each cell or group of cells to the whole.
+Similarly, in sociology&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain
+himself, "mightn't we take all this for granted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy.
+And I don't see how&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted,
+that in the social organism&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell,
+the various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus
+its alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange;
+its circulatory system, in the network of communications; its
+nervous system, in the government machinery; its&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never
+could find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society
+corresponds to the spleen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or the liver?" added Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are
+tired of being serious it's no use for me to continue."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one
+does get a little tired of the social organism."</p>
+
+<p>"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really
+understand it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."</p>
+
+<p>At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in
+polemics; so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position,
+how does it help us to judge what is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is,
+that it is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into
+individuals and individuals into societies&mdash;the protozoon, in
+other words, evolves into the animal, the animal into what some
+have called the 'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this
+physical evolution corresponds a psychical one. What kind of
+consciousness an animal may have, we can indeed only conjecture;
+and we cannot even go so far as conjecture in the case of the cell;
+but we may reasonably assume that important psychical changes of
+the original elements are accompaniments and conditions of their
+aggregation into larger entities; and the morality (if you will
+permit the word) of the cell that is incorporated in an animal body
+will consist in adapting itself as perfectly as may be to the new
+conditions, in subordinating its consciousness to that of the
+Whole&mdash;briefly, in acquiring a social instead of an individual
+self. And now, to follow the clue thus obtained into the higher
+manifestations of life. As the cell is to the animal, so is the
+individual to society, and that on the psychical as well as on the
+physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she is perfecting
+society; that is the end and goal of all her striving. When,
+therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has this
+simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the
+perfect social body."</p>
+
+<p>As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'<i>Parturiunt
+montes</i>,'" and Leslie took it up with: "And not even a
+mouse!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say,
+until we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me
+more like a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth.
+But the question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage
+Wilson gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself,
+I suppose, might have been reached, and commonly is, without any
+recourse to the aid of natural science."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by
+the scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may
+assert that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over
+individual passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't
+see how you would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the
+whole evolution of Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate;
+and can say:&mdash;if you resist that tendency you are resisting
+Nature herself!"</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able
+to resist Nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of
+the plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but
+destined sooner or later to be absorbed."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you
+said at the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So
+that, instead of looking within to find our criterion, we ought
+really to look without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of
+Nature and to acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I
+am inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able
+to make out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the
+direction which, on the whole, we prefer."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led
+you to just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature
+was not from the cell to the animal, and from the individual to
+society, but in precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of
+all things was a resolution into the primitive elements&mdash;do
+you think you would have been as ready to assert that it is the
+goal of Nature that must determine our ideal of Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical
+than the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of
+your authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives
+the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of
+continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the
+utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again
+to the original condition. What you were describing is the movement
+which we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be
+good, at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose
+us to have reached the point at which the opposite movement begins;
+suppose what we had to look forward to and to describe as the
+course of Nature were a process, not from simple to complex, from
+homogeneous to heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but
+one in exactly the contrary direction, a dissolution of society
+into its individuals, of animals into the cells of which they are
+composed, of life into chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and
+so on through the scale of Being, reversing the whole course of
+evolution&mdash;should we, in such a case, still have to say that
+the process of Nature was right, and that she is to give the law to
+our judgment about Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only
+those who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the
+qualities enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long
+run, be eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize
+opinions with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt,
+is why we approve what you call the upward movement, which is the
+one in which Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same
+reason, if, or when, a movement in the opposite direction should
+set in, people holding opinions like ours will tend to be
+eliminated, while those will tend to survive more and more who
+approve the current of evolution then prevailing."</p>
+
+<p>"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be
+at last attained, by the simple process of eliminating the
+dissentients!"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory
+for the people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we
+want to know is, what <i>we</i> are to judge to be Good, not what
+somebody else will be made to judge, centuries hence."</p>
+
+<p>"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the
+argument you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her
+we shall be knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object
+strongly to her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the
+harmony of the final consummation&mdash;even if it were to be
+final, and not merely the turn of the tide; and I am sensibly aware
+of the horrible discomfort of the intermediate stages, the pushing,
+kicking, trampling of the host, and the wounded and dead left
+behind on the march. Of all this I venture to disapprove; then
+comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!' I ask why, and
+she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still demur, and she
+comes down on me with a threat&mdash;'Very good, approve or no, as
+you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By all
+means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection
+that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a
+martyr. Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner
+because I venture to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry;
+and in my humble opinion it's Nature, not <i>I</i>, that cuts a
+poor figure!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking
+like that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer
+the ridiculous."</p>
+
+<p>"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For
+I cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about
+Good must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of
+Nature may, as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure
+of Good; the measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the
+study of Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by
+giving it new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last
+resort; and the judgment can never be a mere statement as to the
+course which Nature is pursuing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount
+importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right
+judgment?"</p>
+
+<p>"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the
+study of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All
+that I wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you
+have been trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other,
+to get rid of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by
+substituting for them a statement about the tendencies of
+Nature&mdash;that this contention cannot be upheld."</p>
+
+<p>"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a
+scientific basis for your judgment."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what
+you include under science."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief
+formul&aelig; of the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a
+description of what happens."</p>
+
+<p>"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good
+can certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are
+judgments of what ought to be, not of what is."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have
+nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"But might there not be some way of judging between
+opinions?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective
+test?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case
+of the sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of
+ours, but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine
+which is independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us
+from without with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of
+our own can impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the
+power of inference, whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are
+able to build up a knowledge of what is. But when, on the other
+hand, we turn to such of our ideas as deal with the Good, the
+Beautiful, and the like&mdash;here we have no test external to
+ourselves, no authority superior and independent. Invite a group of
+men to witness a scientific experiment, and none of them will be
+able to deny either the sequence of the phenomena produced, or the
+chain of reasoning (supposing it to be sound) which leads to the
+conclusion based upon them. Invite the same men to judge of a
+picture, or consult them on a question of moral casuistry, and they
+will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will there be any
+objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion is more
+correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense are,
+or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation,
+infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are
+different not only in different persons, but in the same person at
+different times."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The
+question is whether&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main
+point. I was going to say that not merely are there these
+differences of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the
+opinions were uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective
+and devoid of scientific validity. It is the external reference
+that gives its certainty to science; and such a reference is
+impossible in the case of judgments about the Beautiful and the
+Good. Such judgments are merely records of what we think or feel.
+These ideas of ours may or may not happen to be consistent one with
+another; but whether they are so or not, they are merely our ideas,
+and have nothing to do with the essential nature of reality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds
+in the way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point
+of view of God&mdash;only for the sake of argument," I added,
+seeing him about to protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being
+through and through as it really is; and along with this knowledge
+of reality he has a conviction that reality is good. Now, with this
+conviction of his none other, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, can compete; for
+he being God, we must at any rate admit that if anybody can be
+right, it must be he. No one then can dispute or shake his opinion;
+and since he is eternal he will not change it of himself. Is there
+then, under the circumstances, any distinction of validity between
+his judgment that what is, is, and his judgment that what is, is
+good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an
+imaginary case. But if you press me I can only say that I still
+adhere to my view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God
+or anybody else, can be no more than a subjective expression of
+opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in
+so far as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to
+eliminate the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you
+dwelt, of the impressions of external sense, the certainty of the
+impressions is your and my certainty that we have them; and so in
+the case of a cogent argument; for any given person the test of the
+cogency is his perception that the cogency is there. And it is the
+same with the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test
+except perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions
+conflict; not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the
+case I imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself,
+then the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as
+the certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're
+beginning to talk metaphysics."</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."</p>
+
+<p>"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air
+of an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really
+matter? Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good,
+the fact remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good,
+his Good, our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in
+process of flux, according to the time of day, the time of life,
+and the state of the liver. That being so, what is the use of
+discussing Good in itself? And why be so disturbed about it?
+There's Leslie, for instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked
+out of the universe because he can't discover his objective
+standard! My dear boy, life goes on just the same, my life, his
+life, your life, all the lives. Why not make an end of the worry at
+once by admitting frankly that Good is a chim&aelig;ra, and that we
+get on very well without it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that
+none of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with
+you merely because you override me in argument&mdash;even if you
+did, which you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that
+you disagree."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was
+silence, till I began to fear that our argument would collapse;
+when, to my relief, Parry returned to the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I
+can't help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I
+feel sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does
+not really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good
+by instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it.
+And what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and
+country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I
+want to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name
+possesses, in its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly
+follows, the moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective
+standard, worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department
+of life, really is good. To this standard every plain man, without
+reasoning, and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and
+naturally conform; so do all of us who are discussing here, in all
+the common affairs of our daily life. We know, if I may say so,
+better than we know; and the difficulties into which we are driven,
+in speculations such as that upon which we are engaged, arise, to
+my mind, from a false and unnecessary abstraction&mdash;from
+putting aside all the rich content of actual life, and calling into
+the wilderness for the answer to a question which solves itself in
+the street and the market-place."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy
+with what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and
+thousands!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was
+referring is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own
+standard of Good; but these standards are different and even
+opposite; so that it would seem we require some criterion by which
+to compare and judge them."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are
+not concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great
+civilization believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient
+Greeks, of whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are
+absurdly over-estimated; but they had at least that good
+quality&mdash;they believed in themselves. To them the whole
+non-Greek world was barbarian; the standard of Good was frankly
+their own standard; and it was a standard knowable and known,
+however wide might be the deviations from it in practice. We find
+accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in the real. Plato,
+even, in constructing his imaginary republic, does not build in the
+void, evoking from his own consciousness a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for
+the Birds; on the contrary, he bases his structure upon the actual,
+following the general plan of the institutions of Sparta and Crete;
+and neither to him nor to Aristotle does it ever occur that there
+is, or could be, any form of state worth considering, except the
+city-state with which they were familiar. It is the same with their
+treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of the Greeks, not of Man
+in general, and stands in close relation to the facts of
+contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not, like that of
+our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for vaguely-imagined
+millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal interpretation of
+their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature and form the
+very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in the troubled
+stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply the
+essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who
+frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and
+hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his
+countrymen. That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is
+the one natural to the plain man in every well-organized society.
+Good is best known when it is not investigated; and people like
+ourselves would do no useful service if we were to induce in others
+the habit of discussion which education has made a second nature to
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that
+we are all anarchists in disguise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by
+Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health
+is ignorance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined.
+"But if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that
+we are suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern
+world. It was easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they
+had no past. But for us the past overweights the present; we
+cannot, if we would, get rid of the burden of it. All that was once
+absolute has become relative, including our own conceptions and
+ideals; and as we look back down the ages and see civilization
+after civilization come into being, flourish and decay, it is
+impossible for us to believe that the society in which we happen to
+be born is more ultimate than any of these, or that its ideal, as
+reflected in its institutions, has any more claim than theirs to be
+regarded as a final and absolute expression of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals
+evolve, but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more
+validity for us than any other. As to those of the past, they were,
+no doubt, important in their day, but they have no importance for
+the modern world. The very fact that they are past is proof that
+they are also superseded."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that
+everything that is later in time is also better? That we are better
+artists than the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more
+spiritual than the men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those
+of the Renaissance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all
+that. I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress;
+and that therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that
+alone, which we ought practically to consider."</p>
+
+<p>"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there
+are so many."</p>
+
+<p>"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is
+embodied in current laws and customs."</p>
+
+<p>"But these are always themselves in process of change."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, gradual change."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And
+to sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end,
+the sanctioning of a whole revolution."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally
+established, what right have we to judge that the established is
+the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what
+we do."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we
+reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else
+do you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and
+disquiet we are apt to experience in the presence of a bold
+denier?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I do experience it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially
+vivid experience of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my
+mind when I was speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he deny, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should
+conjecture, at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and
+all the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon
+as progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with
+all that it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong,
+of the bad against the good, of the herd against the master. Every
+great society, in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in
+the sense that the many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed
+to the few; and that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good
+conscience, in free obedience to the universal law of the world.
+'Be strong, be hard' are his ultimate ethical principles. The
+modern virtues, or what we affect to consider such, sympathy, pity,
+justice, thrift, unselfishness and the like, are merely symptoms of
+moral degeneration. The true and great and noble man is above all
+things selfish; and the highest type of humanity is to be sought in
+Napoleon or C&aelig;sar Borgia."</p>
+
+<p>"But that's mere raving!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be.
+But not simply because it contradicts those current notions which
+we are embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is
+precisely those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet
+it with a bare denial."</p>
+
+<p>"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely
+be stronger if you had reason for your faith."</p>
+
+<p>"But I think my reason sufficient&mdash;those are not the ideas
+of the age."</p>
+
+<p>"But for all you know they may be those of the next."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that will be its concern."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you
+said that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose,
+is what you want to attain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally
+current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of
+the Good you want to achieve."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the
+Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take
+the ideas of our time as a final criterion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so&mdash;I don't know&mdash;I'm sure there's
+something in it! Do you believe yourself that they have no import
+for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import
+is. We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a
+current convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact
+of the tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a
+moral reformer to modify the convention. Or do you not think
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there
+any institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open
+to obvious criticism? Take what you will&mdash;parliamentary
+government, the family, the law of real property&mdash;is there one
+of them that could be adequately and successfully defended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The
+family&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss
+that! But upon one thing we seem to be agreed&mdash;that whatever
+may be the value of current standards of Good in assisting our
+judgment, we cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of
+authority. And so once more we are thrown back each upon his own
+opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to
+attach some validity."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have
+any."</p>
+
+<p>I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming
+round from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining
+members of our party. They had just returned from a mountaineering
+expedition; and now, having had their bath, had come out to join us
+in our usual place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the
+<i>Times</i> and the <i>Daily Chronicle</i>. He was a keen business
+man, and a Radical politician of some note; and though not
+naturally inclined to speculative thought, would sometimes take
+part in our discussions if ever they seemed to touch on any
+practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were often very
+much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive and
+polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth the
+course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of
+satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some talk
+about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to
+apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will
+be willing to help us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't
+much in my line."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you
+even know what we're talking about!"</p>
+
+<p>"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it
+be when you get together?"</p>
+
+<p>"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something
+more like ethics."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the question?" asked Dennis.</p>
+
+<p>Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract
+the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the
+profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune,
+had not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his
+time for some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed
+talking to him, though the position he had come to hold was one
+which I found it very difficult to understand, and I am not sure
+that I have been able to represent it fairly.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question,
+"our judgments about what is good, and trying without much success
+to get over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem
+to be practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we
+find it hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far
+and in what sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help
+you. At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and
+what's bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the
+same point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a
+convinced Utilitarian."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to
+the word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"</p>
+
+<p>"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I
+could see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the
+things you speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good
+and what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"</p>
+
+<p>"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on
+important points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what
+ought to be done, but about how to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and
+healthy."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good
+to make people happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, if you deny that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I deny that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply
+means, what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a
+Utilitarian."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I
+believe, does everybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture
+can go, is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and
+liquid, and of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of
+attainable and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater
+quantities for most pigs.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of
+Hedonism."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well
+enough, though probably not Bartlett's."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic
+Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" said Bartlett.</p>
+
+<p>"An egoistic Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"And what may that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him
+short. "It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for
+example, is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship;
+they are, he says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of
+possessing the goodwill of such and such individuals, and the right
+of expecting from them, in consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous
+services.'"</p>
+
+<p>We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not
+help protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single
+example."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The
+pleasures of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of
+acquiring or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in
+consequence, of expecting particular favours from him, either in
+this life or in another.'"</p>
+
+<p>We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your
+levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an
+egoistic Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"And what's the difference?"</p>
+
+<p>"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis
+interrupted him again.</p>
+
+<p>"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the
+other a prig."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the
+same as theirs. And of all the <i>&agrave; priori</i> systems I
+prefer Utilitarianism, because it is at least clear, simple, and
+precise."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I can never see that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what is your difficulty?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a
+dogma."</p>
+
+<p>"True," he said, "but that particular dogma&mdash;the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number&mdash;is one which commends itself
+to everyone's consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A
+crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain
+disease about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of
+discovering how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is
+found, by the hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general
+preponderance of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they
+go to the crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name
+of the utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to
+vivisection. The tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will
+be inconceivable: but think of the result! A general preponderance
+in the community at large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of
+pain inflicted on you, an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody
+else. Upon you, it is true, will fall the whole of the pain;
+whereas the pleasure will be so minutely distributed among
+innumerable individuals that the increment in each case will be
+almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be there! and our
+arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure will exceed
+the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among a greater
+number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the hedonistic
+calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you! Rise to
+the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting room!
+What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to
+Bartlett to express his sentiments!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case,
+to begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it
+did, one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to
+take an impartial view of the situation."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what
+would really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to
+suffer? Do you think they would believe they ought to accept the
+sacrifice? Every man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for
+himself; and what right has he to accept it for other people?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon
+common sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common
+sense would repudiate it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a
+case, as I said, that could not occur&mdash;a mere marginal
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental
+fallacy. Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number is good has a more
+obvious and indisputable validity than any other judgments of
+worth. It seems to me to be just one judgment among others; and,
+like the others, it may be true or false. However, I will not press
+that point. But what I should like to insist upon is, that the
+doctrine which Bartlett seemed to hold&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed
+an opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy
+in the world." And with that he opened the <i>Chronicle</i>, and
+presently becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further
+attention to the course of our debate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or
+no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at
+once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since
+its enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as
+closed. It will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry,
+that the truth of the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so
+that it has only to be stated to be accepted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the
+Utilitarians is that everyone who has the capacity and will take
+the trouble to reflect will, in fact, arrive at their
+conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is
+good, the result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there
+are many possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and
+simple than any other judgment of the kind?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as
+it is, requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for
+every fresh case that turns up."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to
+discover wherein that happiness consists."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply
+sensations. If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am
+thirsty, I feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these
+feelings; they are simple and radical."</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple
+cases as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics.
+And, on the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they
+lose at once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult
+to interpret as Good and Evil."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as
+that between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be
+fairly summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as
+everyone knows, the choices are far more difficult; they are
+between, let us say, a bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony;
+leisure and liberty now, or &pound;1000 a-year twenty years hence;
+art and fame at the cost of health, or sound nerves and obscurity;
+and so on, and so on through all the possible cases, infinitely
+more complex in reality than I could attempt to indicate here, all
+of which, no doubt, could be brought under your formula, but none
+of which the formula would help to solve."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult
+to apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."</p>
+
+<p>"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what
+follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that
+in making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call
+the hedonistic calculus&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the
+important point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small
+thing to know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we
+do know it) that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of
+pleasure over pain; the whole problem is to discover, in
+innumerable detailed cases, wherein precisely the preponderance
+consists. But this can only be learnt, if at all, by long and
+difficult, and, it may be, painful experience. We do not really
+know, <i>&agrave; priori</i>, what things are pleasurable, in the
+extended sense which we must give to the word if the doctrine is to
+be at all plausible, any more definitely than we know what things
+are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting the word Pleasure
+for the word Good, even if the substitution were legitimate, have
+not really done much to help us in our choice."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even
+if we do not know what things are pleasurable."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not
+know what things are good."</p>
+
+<p>"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot define Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by
+direct experience."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in
+the case of Pleasure everyone <i>does</i> recognise it when it
+occurs; whereas there is no such general recognition of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true
+or no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial
+whether Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally
+recognisable. The point is that they are radically different
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"No," objected Parry, "<i>our</i> point is that they are the
+same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone
+can."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>I</i> don't believe that anyone <i>cannot</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that,
+quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as
+poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular
+example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin
+or poetry is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that,
+quantity of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one
+itches is as good as, say, pursuing scientific research."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is
+not equal."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in
+scratching?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some
+physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a
+catamite."</p>
+
+<p>"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross
+physical pleasures do not last."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss
+of scratching, or of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of
+way. It seems to me to deserve serious treatment"</p>
+
+<p>"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a
+heaven of scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser
+experience, would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure
+than a heaven of scientific research."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you
+would. The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific
+research is a better thing than such physical pleasure, and then
+you bring out your calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that
+foregone conclusion. And that is what the Utilitarians always do.
+Being ordinary decent people they accept the same values as the
+rest of the world, and on the same grounds as the rest of the
+world. And then they pretend, and no doubt believe themselves, that
+they have been led to their conclusions by the hedonistic calculus.
+But really, if they made an impartial attempt to apply the calculus
+fairly, they would arrive at quite different results, results which
+would surprise and shock themselves, and destroy the whole
+plausibility of their theory."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your view of the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this
+utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident
+about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what
+things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that
+all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is
+not pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is
+disputed. So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that
+there are a number of conflicting opinions about what things are
+good, that to these opinions some validity must be attached, but
+that it is difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to
+choose between them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the
+truth about Good must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by
+interrogating the actual experience of men in their judgments about
+good things, we may perhaps be able to get at least some, shadowy
+notion of the object of our quest"</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even
+by your own confession we end where we began."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat
+(it was now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the
+murmur of the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to
+their dinner) seemed to have induced a general disinclination to
+the effort of speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known
+to be tired in body or mind, and who was always debating
+something&mdash;it seemed to matter very little what&mdash;even he,
+I thought at first, was ready to let the discussion drop. But
+presently it became clear that he was only revolving my last words
+in his mind, for before long he turned to me and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or
+what results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie
+pricked up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as
+ever to pursue the subject further.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of
+discovering Good independently of all experience?"</p>
+
+<p>The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what
+kind of a method would that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was
+thinking of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by
+Hegel in his <i>Logic</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey
+much to my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take
+any statement you like&mdash;for example, 'Nothing
+exists!'&mdash;put it into the dialectical machine, turn the
+handle, and hey presto! out comes the Absolute! The thing's
+infallible; it does not matter what you put in; you always get out
+the same identical sausage."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't
+much matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian
+plan."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room,
+lock the door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you
+proceed to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its
+contents; look steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a
+well; and at the bottom you will find Truth in the form of a
+categorical imperative. Or, if you don't like that, there's the
+method of Fichte. You take an Ego, by preference yourself; convert
+it into a proposition; negate it, affirm it, negate it again, and
+so on <i>ad infinitum</i>, until you get out the whole Universe in
+the likeness of yourself. But that's rather a difficult method;
+probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the
+question is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all
+arrive at totally different results."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he
+replied. "I merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such
+method of pure reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such
+method yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You simply lie down and block the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk
+round you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that
+there really is some such method as you suggest of discovering
+Good&mdash;a purely rational method, independent of all common
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so
+discovered, would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or
+would it be merely the total reality of which they are imperfect
+and inadequate expressions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to
+them. All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good
+and some bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to
+suppose that our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were
+by an accidental coincidence."</p>
+
+<p>"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a
+Good, and that there is a purely rational and <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> method of discovering it, yet we do not profess to have
+ascertained that method ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has
+been ascertained by anyone? In any case, we admit, I suppose, that
+to the great mass of men, both of our own and all previous ages,
+such a method has remained unknown and unsuspected?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the
+impression that they were really good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and
+small alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that
+store of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the
+drama of history?"</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The
+purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had
+they any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some
+particular case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven
+to achieve, whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like
+C&aelig;sar, to found a polity, whether their quest were virtue or
+power or truth, or any other of the ends we are accustomed to value
+and praise, or whether they sought the direct opposites of these,
+or simply lived from hour to hour following without reflexion the
+impulse of the moment, in any and every case all alike, great and
+small, good and bad, leaders and followers, or however else we may
+class them, were, in fact, equally insignificant and absurd, the
+idle sport of illusions, one as empty and baseless as another. The
+history of nations, the lives of individual men, are stripped, in
+this view, of all interest and meaning; nowhere is there advance or
+retrogression, nowhere better or worse, nowhere sense or
+consistency at all. Systems, however imposing, structures, however
+vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The stars fall from the
+human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like will-o'-the-wisps;
+the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and dissolves in
+smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with impotent
+eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as it
+dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only view
+we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we
+believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."</p>
+
+<p>"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and
+the future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we
+shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you
+put forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a
+reason and purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any
+rate, could and did believe that they were helping to realize great
+Goods; but we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to
+forego even that satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good
+exists, and that there is a method of discovering it by pure
+reason; but this method, we may safely assume, we shall not most of
+us have ascertained. Or do you think we shall?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained
+it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume
+that it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the
+pursuit of Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which
+we call good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the
+true Good. Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men
+who have learnt indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing
+about it, except that it has nothing to do with what they call
+good. What kind of life will they live? Whatever they may put their
+hand to, they will at once be paralyzed by the thought that it
+cannot possibly be worth pursuing. Politics, art, pleasure,
+science&mdash;of these and all other ends they know but one thing,
+that all is vanity. As by the touch of enchantment, their world is
+turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch lips and hands towards a
+water for ever vanishing, a fruit for ever withdrawn. At war with
+empty phantoms, they 'strike with their spirit's knife,' as Shelley
+has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and lost they move about in
+worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable, 'children crying in
+the night, with no language but a cry,' and no father to cry to.
+And in all this blind confusion the only comfort vouchsafed is that
+somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how, discover a Good of
+which the only thing they know is that it has no connection with
+the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account of the
+condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept and
+believe your hypothesis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against
+this appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really
+were as I suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it
+seemed to ruin our own life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all,
+we have no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so,
+and every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is
+true, demonstrate&mdash;and that was admitted from the
+first&mdash;that any of our judgments about what is good are true;
+but there is no reason why we should not believe&mdash;and I should
+say we must believe&mdash;that somehow or other they do at least
+have truth in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and if so?"</p>
+
+<p>"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do
+not believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon
+some purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things
+which we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so,
+and by analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of
+such things we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that
+we judge to be good; and again by increasing experience we may come
+to know more Good than we knew; and generally, if we once admit
+that we have some light, we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and
+that getting of more light will be the most important business, not
+only of philosophy, but of life."</p>
+
+<p>"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge
+rightly? If we really have a perception, how is it that it is
+confused, not clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this
+kind. Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot
+know Good except in so far as we experience it&mdash;so, at least,
+I think, though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even
+if our judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear,
+our conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and
+tentative, because there would be so much Good that we had not
+experienced. But, in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about
+what we do experience are confused, because every experience is
+indefinitely complex, and contains, along with the Good, so much
+that is indifferent or bad. And to analyze out precisely what it is
+that we are judging to be good is often a difficult and laborious
+task, though it is one that should be a main preoccupation with us
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity
+and confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good&mdash;one,
+that our experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to
+me, is like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop
+some other sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find
+it hard to say what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the
+state of the organ; and it is only by the progressive perfecting of
+that, that they can settle their doubts and put an end to their
+disputes, whether with themselves or with other people."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive
+that we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye,
+whose nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the
+nature of the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye
+of the soul, being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet
+perceive Good with any clearness or precision, but only in a faint
+imperfect way, catching now one aspect of it, now another, but
+never resting content in any of these, being driven on by the
+impulse to realize itself to ever surer and finer discrimination,
+with the sense that it is learning its own nature as it learns that
+of its object, and that it will never be itself a true and perfect
+organ until it is confronted with the true and perfect Good. And as
+by the physical eye we learn by degrees to distinguish colours and
+forms, to separate and combine them, and arrange them in definite
+groups, and then, going further, after discerning in this way a
+world of physical things, proceed to fashion for our delight a
+world of art, in that finer experience becoming aware of our own
+finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul, by long and
+tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the Goods which
+Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied, proceed to
+shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art, fashioning
+the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under the
+stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever
+destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own
+nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on
+without rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse
+that urges her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in
+the perfect enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because
+in it she has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a
+possible conception?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still
+feel a difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that
+the perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected
+that instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore
+require another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me
+that your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate
+some faculty&mdash;which perhaps you might as well call an
+instinct&mdash;and this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort
+to realize itself, proceeds to discriminate various objects as
+good. But, now, does this same faculty also know that the Goods are
+good, and which is better than which, and generally in what
+relations they stand to one another and to the absolutely Good? Or
+do we not require here, too, another faculty to make these
+judgments, and must not this faculty, as I said at first, have
+previously achieved, by some method of its own, a knowledge of
+Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing
+but an infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes,
+must be, in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and
+self-evident; and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only
+quarrel with him was in regard to his assumption that the judgments
+we make about Good are final and conclusive. The experiences we
+recognize as good are always, it seems to me, also bad; because we
+are never able to apprehend or experience what is absolutely Good.
+Only, as I like to believe&mdash;you may say I have no grounds for
+the belief&mdash;we are always progressing towards such a Good; and
+the more of it we apprehend and experience, the more we are aware
+of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to say, of the well-being
+of that part of us, whatever it may be&mdash;I call it the
+soul&mdash;which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you
+will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception,
+but one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know
+Good, but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of
+Good goes her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon
+and varying with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is
+aware of a tension, as it were, when she cannot expand, of a
+drooping and inanition when nutriment fails, of a rush of health
+and vigour as she passes into a new and larger life, as she freely
+unfolds this or that aspect of her complex being, triumphs at last
+over an obstacle that has long hemmed and thwarted her course, and
+rests for a moment in free and joyous consciousness of self, like a
+stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge, to meander in the sun
+through a green melodious valley. And this perception she has of
+her own condition is like our perception of health and disease. We
+know when we are well, not by any process of ratiocination, by
+applying from without a standard of health deduced by pure thought,
+but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So it is with this
+soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her perception of Good
+is but the other side of her perception of her own well-being, for
+her well-being consists in her conformity to Good. Thus every phase
+of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in one sense good, and in
+another bad; good in so far as it is self-expression, bad in so far
+as the expression is incomplete. From the limitations of her being
+she flies, towards its expansion she struggles; and by her
+perception that every Good she attains is also bad, she is driven
+on in her quest of that ultimate Good which would be, if she could
+reach it, at once the complete realization of herself, and her
+complete conformity to Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your
+method of discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at
+all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess
+that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part
+of Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She
+does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the
+sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in
+this case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds
+of activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of
+this soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may
+be, temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central
+experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary
+rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in
+them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere
+deductions from a process which is always developing and
+transforming itself. Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so
+many landmarks left to show the route by which the soul is
+marching; casts, as it were, of her features at various stages of
+her growth, but never the final record of her perfect countenance.
+And that is why the current morality, the positive institutions and
+laws, on which Parry insisted with so much force, both have and
+have not the value he assigned to them. They are in truth
+invaluable records of experience, and he is rash who attacks them
+without understanding; and yet, in a sense, they are only to be
+understood in order to be superseded, because the experience they
+resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would you agree
+with that, Parry, or no?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to
+put in practice."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous
+thing, and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is
+courage and sanity."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view
+is our knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a
+knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what I
+call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have
+recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we
+call knowledge, so far as it goes."</p>
+
+<p>"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of
+experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to
+suggest that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure
+reason, we should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good
+itself; for Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of
+experience, not a formula."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to
+arrive at its formula by pure reason."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the
+thought, that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see
+our way to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis,
+altogether forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on
+realizing Goods, and so making progress towards the ultimate Good,
+which is the goal not merely of knowledge but of action."</p>
+
+<p>"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your
+conception, is Good related to Happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by
+experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as
+one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret the
+deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the
+interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too
+abstract and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning,
+no doubt, it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much
+interesting discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to
+the question of the content of Good, than to that of the method of
+discovering it."</p>
+
+<p>"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a
+method at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method
+of all science, namely, the interpretation of experience."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of
+interpretation."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we
+could not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you
+defined it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what
+ought to be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and
+classifying of the deliverances of this internal sense, has a
+certain analogy to the procedure of science. At any rate, it might,
+I think, fairly be called a method, though a method difficult to
+apply, and one, above all, which only he can apply who has within
+himself the requisite experience. And in this respect the study of
+the Good resembles the study of the Beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well
+aware that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do
+not profess to be in complete possession of it. They have a
+perception of the Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but
+tentative and in process of growth. This perception they cultivate
+by constant observation of beautiful works, some more and some
+less, according to their genius and opportunities; and thus they
+are always coming to see, though they never see perfectly, just as
+I said was the case in the matter of the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any
+standard at all in such matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself;
+and that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some
+slight extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to
+develop it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no
+standard of judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like
+themselves; and that there really is no standard and no knowledge
+possible in such matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man
+will not choose to cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to
+clear and ever clearer perception, he will either never believe
+that there is any knowledge of Good, or any meaning at all in the
+word; or else, since all men feel the need of an end for action, he
+will have recourse to a fixed dogma, taken up by accident and clung
+to with obstinate desperation, without any root in his true inner
+nature; and to him all discussion about Good will seem to be mere
+folly, since he will believe either that he possesses it already or
+that it cannot be possessed at all. Or If he ask after the method
+of discovering it, he will be unable to understand it, because he
+does not choose to develop the necessary experience; and so he will
+go through life for ever unconvinced, arguing often and angrily,
+but always with no result, while all the time the knowledge he
+denies is lying hidden within him, if only he had the patience and
+faith to seek it there. But without that, there is no possibility
+of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether to leave him
+alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the only idea I
+can form as to the possibility of discovering what is Beautiful and
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are
+always seeking Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not
+committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we
+have the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my
+mind, that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in
+secure possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make
+no facile assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the
+growth of the soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a
+quiet unfolding of leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I
+recognize the delight of expansion, I recognize also the pain of
+repression&mdash;the thwarted desire, the unfulfilled hope, the
+passion vain and abortive. I do not say even whether or no, in this
+dim travail of the spirit, pleasure prevails over pain, evil over
+good. The most I would claim is to have suggested a meaning for our
+life in terms of Good; and my view, I half hoped, would have
+appealed in particular to you, because what I have offered is not
+an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to relate to the
+actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the significance of
+those facts themselves, to supply a key to the cryptogram we call
+experience. And in proportion as we really believed this view to be
+true, it would lead us not away from but into life, not shutting us
+up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like the
+homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and
+rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny
+light over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams
+and floods, myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never
+felt, through that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when
+he broke the glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow
+under the yellow moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and
+tritons, her gliding pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through
+tempest and calm, by night or day, companioned or alone, to the
+haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the home where the Mothers
+dwell."</p>
+
+<p>As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made
+any impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically
+and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday
+experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to
+make anything of the kind out of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the
+interpretation may be true; and that some day you may recognize it
+to be so yourself. Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of
+the game than you who play it; and surely in moments of leisure
+like this you will not refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read
+the riddle of the sphinx."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a
+poem."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in
+poetry than in philosophy or science?"</p>
+
+<p>But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was
+a babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of
+thought disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way,
+had been revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first
+opportunity he turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in
+your position that I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it
+is our seeking that determines the Good, or the Good that
+determines our seeking."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We,
+in the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and
+in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously
+indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not
+mere caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore
+suppose somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our
+seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving
+through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort
+and strain."</p>
+
+<p>"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even
+while you admit that in some sense it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist
+completely."</p>
+
+<p>"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is
+at all it is eternal and complete."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing
+but appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is
+good'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter.
+Take, for instance, a simple fact of our own experience&mdash;pain.
+Would you say, perhaps, that pain is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to
+the pain that appears to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the
+point. The point is, that it is only in connection with what is in
+God that the word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither
+good nor bad; it is simply not real."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is
+in appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the
+use of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are
+feeling it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And
+as to the Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What
+consolation is it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to
+be told that God is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is
+simply absurd to call God's Good good at all, unless it has some
+kind of relation to our Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my
+opinion, it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such
+a view. When I am really at my best, when my intellect and
+imagination are working freely, and the humours and passions of the
+flesh are laid to rest, I seem to see, with a kind of direct
+intuition, that the world, just as it is, is good, and that it is
+only the confusion and obscurity due to imperfect vision that makes
+us call it defective and wish to alter it for the better. When I
+perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is also Good; and I
+cannot then distinguish between what is, and what ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it
+were by a concrete example. I find that when I think out any
+particular aspect of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think
+it out at all, all the parts and details fall into such perfect
+order and arrangement that it becomes impossible for me any longer
+to desire that anything should be other than it is. And that, even
+in the regions where at other times I am most prone to discover
+error and defect. You know, for instance, that I am something of an
+economist?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of
+light!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of
+affairs which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet
+the more one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the
+harmony and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and
+flow of business from this trade or country to that, the rise and
+fall of wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital
+into or out of one industry or another, the varying relations of
+imports to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in
+close connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the
+lives of countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being
+or ill-being, it may be their very life and death, together with
+the whole fate of future generations in health, capacity,
+opportunity, and the like,&mdash;all this complexus of things, so
+chaotic and unintelligible at the first view, so full, as we say,
+of iniquity, injustice, and the like, falls, as we penetrate
+further, into one vast and harmonious system, so inspiring to the
+imagination, so inevitable to the understanding, that our
+objections and cavillings, ethical, &aelig;sthetic, or what you
+will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if they
+persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we abandon
+ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some
+world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are
+taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the
+ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I
+am absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic
+enough; but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so
+conceived that appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This
+partial vision of mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of
+the way in which I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a
+Being necessary and therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our
+own incoherent and tentative criticisms, our complaints that this
+or that should, if only it could, be otherwise, our regrets,
+desires, aspirations, and the like, shew but as so many testimonies
+to our own essential imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted,
+rather than signs of worth to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the
+elect of creation."</p>
+
+<p>He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene,
+since I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he
+kept silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and
+Eternal which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and
+the young. So I began myself rather tentatively:</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to
+indicate; and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is
+attractive. It is when we endeavour to work it out in detail that
+the difficulties appear. The position, as I understand it, is,
+that, from the point of view of the Absolute, what we call Evil and
+what we call Good simply have no existence. Good and Evil, in our
+sense, are mere appearances; and Good, in the absolute sense, is
+identical with the Absolute or with God?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."</p>
+
+<p>"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region
+which you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear
+in our social system&mdash;poverty, disease, starvation and the
+rest&mdash;is not really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but
+is merely what appears to us? There is, in fact, no social
+evil?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is
+none."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and
+other ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's
+lives happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to
+introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and
+confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical
+impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied&mdash;the
+quest of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere
+putting of ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart
+from any attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities
+mere illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even
+vices, impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous
+attempts to adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I
+apprehend, there must be in time and change, and some meaning also
+in our efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we
+imagine. The divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a
+process that is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not
+rectilinear, much as Milton appears to imagine it when he describes
+the blessed spirits 'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble
+circle of eternity'; and of this eternal process our activity,
+which we suppose to be moving towards an end, is somehow or other
+an essential element. So that, in this way, it is necessary and
+right that we should strive after ideals; only, when we are
+thinking philosophically, we ought to make clear to ourselves that
+in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its fulfilment
+consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to regard as
+a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is the
+'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the belief
+that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that
+delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is
+really itself the End."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite
+serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept
+silence, I took up the argument as follows.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but
+still the same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put
+forward. On your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf
+between God's conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the
+world is eternally good; and in its goodness is included that
+illusion by which it appears to us so bad, that we are continually
+employed in trying to make it better. The maintenance of this
+illusion is essential to the nature of the world; to us, evil
+always must appear. But, as we know by experience, the evil that
+<i>appears</i> is just as terrible and just as hateful as it would
+be if it really <i>were</i>. A toothache, as Audubon put it, is no
+less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We cannot, if we
+would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would be impious to
+try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His ingenious plan
+to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore are chained
+and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what seems
+good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that all
+existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant; it
+belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no
+access."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why
+not just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who
+is responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely
+an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable
+condition!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means,
+if you like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent,
+indeed, and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and
+hourly toll of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the
+mind He has created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from
+spirits greater, though weaker, than Himself."</p>
+
+<p>This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I
+did not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but
+proceeded to a somewhat different point:</p>
+
+<p>"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it
+appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse
+Him of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the
+matter, it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that
+we should never discover the deception that is being played upon
+us. But, it seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your
+own confession, has not only detected but exposed it. Well then,
+what is to be done? Do you suppose that we could, even if we would,
+continue to lend ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and
+purposes cease to have any interest for us, once we are clear that
+they are not true ends? And that which, according to the
+hypothesis, <i>is</i> the true end, the 'dateless and irrevoluble
+circle' of activity, that, surely, we at least cannot sanction or
+approve, seeing that it involves and perpetuates the very misery
+and pain whose destruction was our only motive for acting at all.
+For, whatever may be the case with God, we, you will surely admit,
+are forbidden by all that in us is highest and best, to approve or
+even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation of a world of
+whose existence all that we call evil is an essential and eternal
+constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if the
+Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as it
+thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very
+imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its
+plans."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began,
+"between you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with
+their heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on
+my head or my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in
+stating my view; or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction
+in my mind. At any rate, what I believe, whether or no I can
+believe it consistently, is that it is possible for us, so to
+speak, to take God's point of view; so that the evil against which
+we rebel we may come at last to acquiesce in, as seen from the
+higher point of view. And, seriously, don't you think it is
+conceivable that that may be, after all, the true meaning of the
+discipline of life?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow
+me to press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say,
+there is at least one of our aims which has a real significance,
+namely, that of reaching the point of view of God. But this is
+something that lies in the future, something to be brought about.
+And so, on your own hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that
+which eternally exists, but something which has to be realized in
+time&mdash;namely, a change of mind on the part of all rational
+beings, whereby they view the world no longer in a partial
+imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '<i>sub specie
+&aelig;ternitatis</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the
+Absolute, though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow
+or other, is eternally perfect and good; and this eternal
+perfection and goodness are unaffected by any change that may take
+place in our minds."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to
+settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your
+admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying
+before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand,
+you do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at
+nothing else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you
+do aim, at least, with your whole nature at this&mdash;to attain a
+view of the world as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not
+merely as it appears to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."</p>
+
+<p>"That aim, then, is your Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For
+you do not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least
+to have attained as perfectly as you hope to?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good
+of yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good
+of God in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your
+permission, for some future inquiry. It is enough for our present
+purpose that even you, who assert the eternal perfection of the
+world, do nevertheless at the same time admit a future Good; and
+much more do other men admit it, who have no idea that the world is
+perfect at all. So that we may, I think, safely suppose it to be
+generally agreed that the Good is something to be realized in the
+future, so far, at any rate as it concerns us&mdash;and, for my
+part, I have no desire to go farther than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the
+matter so. But I reserve the right to go back upon the
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but
+a discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth.
+Meantime, then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something
+to be brought about; and let us consider next the other point that
+Is included in your position. According to you, as I understand,
+what requires to be brought about, if ever Good is to be realized,
+is not any change in the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world,
+in the structure, as it were, of our experience, but only a change
+in our attitude towards all this&mdash;a change in the subject, as
+they say, and not in the object. Our aim should be not to abolish
+what we call evil, by successive modifications of physical and
+social conditions, but rather, all these remaining essentially the
+same, to come to see that what appears to be evil is not really
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"So that, for example, though we might still experience a
+toothache, we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with
+all the host of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they
+would continue unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say,
+only to us they would appear no longer bad, but good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil,
+so-called, is merely illusion."</p>
+
+<p>I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For
+some time past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis
+and myself, with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie.
+Ellis had gone indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together
+about something else; and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in
+the <i>Chronicle</i>. I noticed, however, that for the last few
+moments he had been getting restless, and I suspected that he was
+listening, behind his newspaper, to what we were saying. I was not
+therefore altogether surprised when, upon Dennis' last remark, he
+suddenly broke into our debate with the exclamation;</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There
+is a curiously apt one here in the <i>Chronicle</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about
+phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any
+rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering
+and oppression.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of
+thing that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an
+example."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words;
+but for my own part I should have thought that, if anything is
+real, that is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself
+were the sufferer."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment
+of suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality
+of pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one
+really knows what it is that one is judging about."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that
+experience involves knowledge and <i>vice versa</i>. It is, indeed,
+to my mind, part of the irony of life, that we know so much which
+we can never experience, and experience so much which we can never
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am
+sure, that you will never get rid of evil by calling it
+illusion."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it,
+in the sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any
+other means. But we were discussing not what we are to do with
+evil, but how we are to conceive it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion,
+you will never do anything with it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit,
+that for us, while we live in the region of what you call
+'Appearance,' Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."</p>
+
+<p>"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with
+Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I
+have been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which
+we live (whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and
+Good are the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss
+them from our consideration either on the ground that we know
+nothing of them (as Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the
+ground that we know all about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to
+think). On the contrary, it is, I believe, our main business to
+find out about them; and that we can find out about them is with me
+an article of faith, and so, I believe, it is with most people,
+whether or no they are aware of it or are ready to admit it."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon
+us to lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our
+usual hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally
+taking a lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we
+reassembled in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="BOOK_II"></a>
+<h2><i>BOOK II</i>.</h2>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did
+not suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The
+conversation had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such
+topics, and finally had died away into a long silence, which, for
+my own part, I felt no particular inclination to break. We had let
+down an awning to shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine
+in upon us, so that it was still cool and pleasant where we sat;
+and so delightful did I feel the situation to be, that I was almost
+vexed to be challenged to renew our interrupted debate. The
+challenge, rather to my surprise, came from Audubon, who suddenly
+said to me, <i>&agrave; propos</i> of nothing, in a tone at once
+ironic and genial:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great
+nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were
+bored."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't
+arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses
+me most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that
+you're going to get at some result."</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we
+must believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that
+we can come to some agreement even about that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because people are so radically different, that there is no
+common ground to build upon."</p>
+
+<p>"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the
+pudding is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight
+of us, all Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or
+less in the same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise
+the question, you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the
+chances in your favour, any substantial agreement about what we
+think good."</p>
+
+<p>This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I
+could refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself
+against the consequences of failure. So I began, with some
+hesitation, "You must remember that I have never maintained that at
+any given moment any given set of people will be found to be in
+agreement on all points. All I ventured to suggest was, that
+instead of our all being made, as you contend, radically different,
+we have, underneath our differences, a common nature, capable of
+judging, and judging truly, about Good, though only on the basis of
+actual experience of Good. And on this view I shall, of course,
+expect to find differences of opinion, corresponding to differences
+of experience, even among people as much alike as ourselves; only I
+shall not expect the differences to be finally irreconcilable, but
+that we shall be able to supplement and elucidate one another's
+conclusions by bringing to bear each his own experience upon that
+of the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the
+experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others.
+Only I must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what
+it is I am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I
+have been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in
+this difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or
+no, and to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the
+object being simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we
+can; to define somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope
+of coming to see something more."</p>
+
+<p>They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to
+begin, when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt
+discouraged. "After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my
+making the attempt."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," I said. "At least&mdash;well, I may as well confess
+it, though it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is,
+that there are certain quite fundamental points in this connection
+on which Dennis and I have never been able to agree; and although I
+believe we should in time come to understand one another, I doubt
+whether we can do so here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at
+all as if he meant to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry
+him along with me, I suppose I may as well give up at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession.
+We will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if
+you can persuade the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever
+allow me to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if
+he doesn't happen to agree."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in
+order."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very
+easy manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I
+stay, I certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that
+we should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by
+the process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you
+without any really scandalous concession on either side."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you can try."</p>
+
+<p>So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some
+hesitation, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it
+seems to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious
+activity."</p>
+
+<p>As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have
+nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I
+could command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of
+fact, can form no idea of Good except in connection with
+consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's
+good, so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of
+anything existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for
+me to know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you,
+perhaps, are differently constituted."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there
+is no experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive
+that of which we have no experience? And I should have thought it
+was clear that Good, like Truth, <i>is</i>, whether or no anyone is
+aware of it. Or would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when
+someone is thinking of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about
+it just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I
+think, need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to
+get at, for the moment, is something rather different. I will put
+it like this: Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human
+action, must be conceived, must it not, as an object of
+consciousness? For otherwise do you think we should trouble to
+pursue it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we
+ought to."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to
+take an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
+artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
+unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately
+hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of
+the sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such
+production as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and
+really ought we to, do anything except with some reference to
+consciousness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite
+possible that we ought."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a
+closer agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view?
+for, if not, I will, with your permission, go on to the next
+point"</p>
+
+<p>None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a
+pause, I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in
+the sense in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action,
+involves some kind of conscious activity. And the next question
+would seem to be, activity of whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough.
+It must be an activity of some person or persons."</p>
+
+<p>"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."</p>
+
+<p>But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in
+answer to Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put
+your questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is
+most people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some
+future generation."</p>
+
+<p>At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I
+thought it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said,
+"Suppose, then, we were to make a beginning by examining your
+hypothesis."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should
+all have accepted it&mdash;unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."</p>
+
+<p>"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," added Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it
+leads us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of
+activity of some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so,
+Parry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state
+of activity, as you call it, will be."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous,
+co-ordinate, coherent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The
+question is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry,
+it is located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose,
+in those that follow it. But now, what about all the other
+generations, from the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would
+seem, can have no meaning for them, since it is the special
+privilege of those who come after them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to
+bring it about, not indeed for themselves, but for their
+successors."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of
+men and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex
+lives of action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears,
+satisfactions, aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call
+Good, and avoiding what they call Bad, under the na&iuml;f
+impression that there is Good and Bad for them&mdash;and yet the
+significance of all this is not really for themselves at all, but
+for some quite other people who will have the luck to be born in
+the remote future, and for whose sake alone their fellow-creatures,
+from the very beginning of time, have been brought into being like
+so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside, when done
+with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you
+call them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the
+final Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all.
+It has just as much Good as people can get out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their
+own with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they
+do get Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
+cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
+ourselves, whether we live well or badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has
+his own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I
+admire are those who have sacrificed themselves for the
+future."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and
+with a view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I
+understand you, have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good
+for ourselves, which is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is
+reserved for a future generation), but still is something Good as
+far as it goes&mdash;whether it be a certain degree of happiness,
+or however else we may have to define it; and as to this Good,
+there appears to be no difficulty, for we who pursue it are also
+the people who get it That is so, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For
+besides this Good of our own, we have also, according to the
+theory, to consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those
+who are to be born in some indefinite future. And to this remote
+and alien Good we have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our
+own."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange
+it seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive
+generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous&mdash;being
+projected, as it were, from the plane of time into that of
+space."</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we
+shall have. We shall have a society divided into two classes,
+composed, the one of all the generations who, if they followed one
+another in time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other
+of all the millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two
+classes the first would be perpetually engaged in working for the
+second, sacrificing to it, if need be, on occasion, all its own
+Good, but without any hope or prospect of ever entering itself into
+that other Good which is the monopoly of the other class, but to
+the production of which its own efforts are directed. What should
+we say of such a society? Should we not say that it was founded on
+injustice and inequality, and all those other phrases with which we
+are wont to denounce a system of serfdom or slavery?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has
+falsified the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian
+generation would not come into being until the others had ceased to
+be; and therefore the latter would not be being sacrificed to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely
+it comes to the same thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think
+sacrifice is the right word. In a society every man's interest is
+in the Whole; and when he works for the Whole he is also working
+for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly
+constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a
+society as I have described. And then there is a further
+difficulty&mdash;and here, I confess, my projection of time into
+space really does falsify the issue; for in the succession of
+generations in time, where <i>is</i> the Whole? Each generation
+comes into being, passes, and disappears; but how, or in what, are
+they summed up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last
+generation."</p>
+
+<p>"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow
+persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by
+them, and is the result of their labour and activities."</p>
+
+<p>"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I
+eat are summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the
+oysters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it
+right that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it)
+for the next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the
+point. At any rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the
+shortsightedness of modern politicians, and their unwillingness to
+run great risks and undertake great labours for the future."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying
+to see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I
+confess, that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in
+some sense or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of
+future generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what
+that instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean,
+as you yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole.
+Only the difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which
+bids us labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this
+hypothesis, has no significance for us, but only for other
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we
+ought to obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise.
+Even taking the view that the order of the world is altogether
+unjust, as I admit it would be on the view we are considering, yet,
+since we cannot remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make
+the best of it; and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for
+those who come after us, even though we can never enter into it
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the
+best we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves&mdash;as
+much as we can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For
+we do at least know, or may hope to discover, what Good for
+ourselves is; whereas Good for other people is far more
+hypothetical."</p>
+
+<p>"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot
+approve&mdash;to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own
+pleasure of the moment. We should breed, for example, without any
+regard to the future efficacy of the race&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but we don't justify it&mdash;those of us, at least, who
+think. And, again, we should squander on immediate gratifications
+wealth which ought to be stored up against the future. And so on,
+and so on; it is not necessary to multiply examples."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought
+that kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of
+fact, we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I
+hinted before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity
+in and for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And,
+whether it is reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea
+of the Whole, so as to include future generations. But, as it seems
+to me, the real meaning and justification of our action is not
+merely that we are seeking the Good of future generations but that
+we are endeavouring to realize our own Good, which consists in some
+such form of activity. So that really, as was suggested at the
+beginning, Good will be a kind of activity in ourselves, even
+though that activity be directed towards ends in which we do not
+expect to share."</p>
+
+<p>At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke
+in at last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you keep saying '<i>Our</i> Good'?" he cried. "Why do
+you not say <i>the</i> Good? I can't understand this talk of me and
+thee, our Good, and their Good, as if there were as many Goods as
+there are people."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by
+Parry, who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future
+generation. Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy
+myself at the kind of language into which I was betrayed. But what
+I want to say is this: So far as it is true at all that it is good
+to labour for future generations, goodness consists in the activity
+of so labouring, as much, at least, as in the result produced in
+those for whose sake the labour is. That, at least, is the only way
+in which I can find the position reasonable at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his
+position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong
+end."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a
+coil."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in.
+You started with the idea that the Good must be good for
+individuals; and that was sure to land you in confusion."</p>
+
+<p>"What then is your idea?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard
+everything from the point of view of the species."</p>
+
+<p>At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.</p>
+
+<p>"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not
+the Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is
+true of the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the
+case of man, because there the interest of the species is embodied
+in a particular form&mdash;the Society or the State&mdash;and may
+be clearly envisaged, as a thing apart, towards the maintenance of
+which conscious efforts may be directed."</p>
+
+<p>"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also
+the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I
+have already urged against the view that the course of Nature
+determines the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it
+is a view which many people hold&mdash;and one which was held long
+before there was a science of biology&mdash;that the community is
+the end, and the individual only the means."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour
+to the view."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to
+restrain himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of
+language. In the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by
+Plato, men were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much
+they might be subordinated to the community. But now!&mdash;why, if
+you open one of these sociological books, mostly, I am bound to
+say, in German, 'Entwurf einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch
+einer anthropologischen Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft
+vom Sozial-biologischen Standpunkt aus,' and the like&mdash;you
+will hardly be able to realize that you are dealing with human
+beings at all. I have seen an unmarried woman called a 'female
+non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men actually cease to be
+even animals; they become mere numbers; they are calculated by the
+theory of combinations; they are masses, averages, classes, curves,
+anything but men! For every million of the population, it has been
+solemnly estimated, there will be one genius, one imbecile, 256,791
+individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just below it! Observe,
+256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to believe, 256,790!
+What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is the kind of thing
+that is revolutionizing history and politics! No more great men, no
+more heroic actions, no more inspirations, passions, and ideals!
+Nothing but calculations of the chances that A will meet and breed
+out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of survival!
+Nothing but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be
+digressing."</p>
+
+<p>"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this
+world altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they
+have no arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an
+addition sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a
+species&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be
+himself, as I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"</p>
+
+<p>There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar
+quotation; and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken
+thread of the argument. But at last I got a hearing for the
+question I was anxious to address to Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the
+community?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."</p>
+
+<p>"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the sense of that organization of individuals which
+represents, so to speak, the species."</p>
+
+<p>"How represents?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect
+the species."</p>
+
+<p>"But is that the function of the community?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If
+you look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere
+historian, who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist
+and man of science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it
+is nothing but an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or
+artificial, as you like to call it. First, there is the struggle of
+races, which may be traced not only in war and conquest, but more
+insidiously under the guise of peace, so that, for example, at this
+day you may witness throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the
+long-headed fair by the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the
+struggle of nation with nation, resulting in the gradual
+elimination of the weaker&mdash;that, of course, is obvious enough;
+but what is not always so clearly seen is the not less certain
+fact, that within the limits of each society the same process is
+everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle for
+existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else is
+our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it
+is determined that certain persons only shall have access to
+certain professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages
+are confined to people of the same class, thus securing the
+perpetuation of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted
+and better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon.
+Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the
+race, combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to
+the top, others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those,
+indifferent to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it
+controls, but envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that
+is kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as
+well as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the
+long-headed fair race, is giving place to what I understand is
+regarded as an inferior type."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still,
+on the whole, the movement is an upward one."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are
+at present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of
+Good we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but
+of the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is
+it somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for
+the individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not
+one by one or in groups."</p>
+
+<p>"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the
+individuals taken together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species,
+according to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or
+should sink to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But
+is that also good for the individual in question?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it
+matters. I only say that it is good for the species."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the
+species it is good for them."</p>
+
+<p>"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of
+the best individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"</p>
+
+<p>"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the
+selected individuals?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be
+selected."</p>
+
+<p>"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are
+eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"</p>
+
+<p>"God! No! I mean good, simply good."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang,
+as it were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you.
+If you reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either
+the Good you speak of is that of all the individuals of the species
+taken together, or it is that of the best individuals; and in
+either case I seem to see difficulties."</p>
+
+<p>"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how
+it can be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or
+eliminated. I should have thought, if there were any Good for them,
+it would consist in their being made better."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best
+possible thing, for them, to be eliminated."</p>
+
+<p>"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be
+absence of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at
+all, we could not apply it to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other
+alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that
+of the ultimately selected individuals."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that
+the Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we
+were met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see
+what meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The
+species is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of
+individuals. I'm sick of these
+biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico treatises, with
+their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of men! their
+prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and the people
+who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent particles
+of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the machine
+works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations,
+co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations
+standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they
+are cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent
+demand that we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As
+though we should be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the
+thumbscrew!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the
+spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."</p>
+
+<p>"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of
+disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's
+not a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand
+knowledge, nor original vision of life. It simply ignores all the
+important facts."</p>
+
+<p>"Which do you call the important facts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations,
+sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information
+contained in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological
+treatises that ever have been or will be written."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come!" cried Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example,
+these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To
+the sociologist their elimination is their only <i>raison
+d'&ecirc;tre</i>. He cancels them out with the same delight as if
+they were figures in a complex fraction. But pick up any novel
+dealing with the life of the slums, and you find that these figures
+are really composed of innumerable individual units, existing each
+for himself, and each his own sufficient justification, each a
+sacred book comprising its own unique secret, a master-piece of the
+divine tragedian, a universe self-moved and self-contained, a
+centre of infinity, a mirror of totality, in a word, a human
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were
+true, it would not affect the sociological laws."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are
+as unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."</p>
+
+<p>"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a <i>reductio ad
+absurdum</i> of your view."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What
+I really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw
+on my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the
+point. You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the
+position you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious
+activity. If it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a
+suicidal audacity), conscious activity in whom? And to that
+question, of course, you can find no answer."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I
+have known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves,
+but is, a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," he replied, "that it <i>is</i> God. But I don't really
+know whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He
+or It be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the
+things we call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to
+accept them as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have
+no right to endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some
+individual persons."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference
+of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is
+associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am
+willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good,
+if ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated.
+But of that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more
+fortunate. And if you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of
+course, of its content, which shall represent it intelligibly to us
+as independent of any consciousness like our own, I am quite ready
+to relinquish the argument to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a
+way that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to
+have had what you call 'experience' of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to
+feel it was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this
+point, to my great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed
+with a solution of the difficulty in which we were involved, but
+with a diversion of which I was only too glad to take
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
+Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is
+the kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like
+ourselves. And I thought that was what you were going to
+discuss."</p>
+
+<p>"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."</p>
+
+<p>"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as
+it is quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do
+with the real subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's
+get along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street.
+What are we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it
+is the real question."</p>
+
+<p>"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
+trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into
+some activity."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up
+sharp, as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.</p>
+
+<p>"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
+another, and the more the merrier."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you
+mean? whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike
+indifferently?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially
+in themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in
+which they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation
+palls in time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be
+delightful in the just measure and proportion. We are complex
+creatures, and we ought to employ all our faculties alike, never
+one alone at the cost of all the others."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe
+more in detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The
+most I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."</p>
+
+<p>"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
+listening."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to
+move in a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the
+peculiar flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast
+with that of all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with
+all its bustle, smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and
+crime, straight away, without word or warning, breaking all
+engagements, to the farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To
+hunt or fish for weeks and months in strange wild places, camping
+out among strange beasts and birds, lost in pathless forests, or
+wandering over silent plains. Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to
+feel the press of business, to make or lose millions in a week, to
+adventure, compete, and win; but always, at the moment when this
+might pall, with a haven of rest in view, an ancient English
+mansion, stately, formal, and august, islanded, over its sunken
+fence, by acres of buttercups. There to study, perhaps to write,
+perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden at night of new
+discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the world of
+commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be off on
+my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs in
+Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking
+hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action
+itself, not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the
+Good for fear I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods,
+attaining the only Good I can conceive&mdash;a full and harmonious
+exercise of all my faculties and powers."</p>
+
+<p>On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of
+sympathy that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was
+young enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual
+zeal and passion.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more
+good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is
+so imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged
+for some other, equally defective."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time
+and place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the
+detriment of others."</p>
+
+<p>"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than
+bad? You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of
+each; but in practice you would have to experience also the bad.
+Your hunting in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue,
+and hunger; your fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and
+disillusionment; and so through all your chapter of
+accidents&mdash;for accidents they are at best, and never the
+substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil, dogged by a
+shadow of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view&mdash;from an
+idealist, too! Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the
+rough with the smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you
+call good and bad; it consists in the activity itself which feeds
+upon both alike. If I were Dennis I should say it is the synthesis
+of both."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis
+produced by one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to
+learn. This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the
+lamb."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis!
+What is it you are trying to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming
+perilously near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is
+mere appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view
+by a denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the
+world is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister
+to Good if you approach it in the proper way."</p>
+
+<p>"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to
+answer Leslie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at
+all. But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest
+is, that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight
+in what is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The
+complexity of the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its
+'ups,' its abysses and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We
+would not alter it if we could; it is better than we could make it;
+and we accept it not merely with acquiescence but with
+triumph."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes,
+art, that is the word! To me life appears like a great
+tragi-comedy. It has its shadows as well as its lights, but we
+would not lose one of them, for fear of destroying the harmony of
+the whole. Call it good, or call it bad, no matter, so it is. The
+villain no less than the hero claims our applause; it would be dull
+without him. We can't afford to miss anything or anyone."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and
+Dennis are strangely agreed for once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge
+said on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues.
+Dennis accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical
+system; I, because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is
+Hegel; mine is Walt Whitman."</p>
+
+<p>"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"</p>
+
+<p>"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no
+better nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good
+and bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an
+actual physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I do not call one greater and one
+smaller,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That which fills its period and
+place is equal to any.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I believe a leaf of grass is no
+less than the journey-work of the stars.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the pismire is equally perfect,
+and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the tree-toad is a
+'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the running blackberry would
+adorn the parlours of heaven,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the narrowest hinge in my hand
+puts to scorn all machinery,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the cow-crunching with
+depressed head surpasses any statue,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And a mouse is miracle enough to
+stagger sextillions of infidels."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course,
+it's rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I am not the poet of goodness
+only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness
+also.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What blurt is this about virtue and
+about vice?</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Evil propels me and reform of evil
+propels me, I stand indifferent,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My gait is no fault-finder's or
+rejector's gait,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I moisten the roots of all that
+grows."</span><br>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 10%;">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is the meal equally set, this
+is the meat for natural hunger,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is for the wicked just the same
+as the righteous, I make appointment with all,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not have a single person
+slighted or kept away,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The kept-woman, spunger, thief are
+hereby invited,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The heavy-lipped slave is invited,
+the venerealee is invited;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There shall be no difference
+between them and the rest."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I might like it if I were drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the
+sponger and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman
+to invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however
+miscellaneous the company, doesn't alter the character of the
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed
+all through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a
+work of art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama.
+What's play to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he
+himself is an actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact
+brought home to him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise.
+The point of the position is that one should play one's part
+oneself, but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total
+effect, never complaining of Evil merely because one happens to
+suffer, but taking the suffering itself as an element in the
+&aelig;sthetic perfection of the Whole."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather
+brutally, "when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."</p>
+
+<p>"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with
+the thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents
+of our unhealthy habits of life."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the
+substance of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which
+you seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is
+good, it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the
+activity you describe seems to have nothing to do with right and
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Das h&ouml;r ich sechzlg Jahre
+wiederholen,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ich fluche drauf, aber
+verstohlen."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can
+hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and
+Right."</p>
+
+<p>Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's
+point and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is
+that Right is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all
+activity that is merely a means from that which is really an end in
+itself, and good."</p>
+
+<p>"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not
+merely a means?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems
+to me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own
+sake; even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view,
+and if these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in
+the work of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps,
+but I think it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe
+and maintain that they only work in order to make money,
+nevertheless are so unwilling to retire when the money is made; or,
+if they do, are so often dissatisfied and unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than
+pain. It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's
+only that they find even greater distress in idleness."</p>
+
+<p>"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly
+maintain that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because
+they take delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there
+is play&mdash;and I have known you play cricket yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way,
+he would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
+shooting."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him.
+And, in fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that
+there is no form of activity which men feel to be good for its own
+sake, though the Good of course may be partial and precarious."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any
+form which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to
+something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act
+of visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I
+suppose, Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of
+activities which one distinguishes as moral."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good
+in itself but is only a means to some other Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so.
+But it all depends upon how we define it."</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you define it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal
+to seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the
+attainment of one that is remoter but higher."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
+proposition follows of itself."</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest
+of, and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end
+of our inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is
+expressed in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the
+definition I suggested&mdash;namely, action pursued not for its own
+sake, but for the sake of something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept
+silent as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing
+as a mere means the only kind of activity which is an end in
+itself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some
+dismay. "Is that really what you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is! why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing
+what we ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely,
+without reference to anything else. It is a unique form of
+activity, dependent on nothing but itself; and for anything we have
+yet shown, it may be the Good we are in quest of."</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great
+perplexity. I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened
+no response in me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while
+I was hesitating, Leslie began:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we
+ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think it might."</p>
+
+<p>"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good,
+even while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he
+was doing what he ought"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose he might be."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown
+that the Good is dependent on the things we call good."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but we did show&mdash;or at least for the time
+being we agreed to admit&mdash;that it must have some relation to
+what we call goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or
+less, express its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is
+based upon the hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may
+get to know something about the Good. So that I do not see how we
+can entertain an idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our
+experience of goods."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position.
+Let us say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we
+ought, only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless
+everybody participates in it at once. But if everybody participated
+in it, there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty
+would not arise."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so,
+I don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult
+to conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to
+speak, in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would
+be&mdash;without pleasure, without business, without knowledge,
+without anything at all analogous to what we call good, purged
+wholly and completely of all that might taint the purity of the
+moral sense, of philanthropy, of friendship, of love, even, I
+suppose, of the love of virtue, a life simply of obligation,
+without anything to be obliged to except a law."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that
+Good consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all
+other accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you
+really meant?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life
+according to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to
+separate the law from the life, and call it Good all by
+itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean,
+in which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still
+if the same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so."</p>
+
+<p>"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we
+should be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious
+and felt obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in
+which you seemed to be using the word?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does
+certainly seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is
+Good, not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it
+is not. At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a
+realization of Good in the activities which we pursue without
+effort or friction, than in those which involve a struggle between
+duty and inclination."</p>
+
+<p>"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often
+enough are bad."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I
+should look for the best idea I could form of what Good might
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest;
+and now I leave the road clear."</p>
+
+<p>"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in
+front! When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a
+short cut across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the
+road, with the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong
+track."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."</p>
+
+<p>"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!"
+he continued, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end,
+though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall
+suppose, however, that I have convinced him that it is not in
+ethical activity as such that we can expect to find the most
+perfect example of Good. And now I propose to examine in turn some
+other of our activities, starting with that which seems to be the
+most primitive of all."</p>
+
+<p>"And which is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct
+contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of
+reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the
+rest. Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And
+he broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Oh, the wild joys of living! the
+leaping from rock up to rock,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The strong rending of boughs from
+the fir-tree, the cool silver shock</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the plunge in a pool's living
+water, the hunt of the bear,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sultriness showing the lion
+is couched in his lair.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the meal, the rich dates
+yellowed over with gold dust divine,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the locust-flesh steeped in the
+pitcher, the full draught of wine,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sleep in the dried
+river-channel where bulrushes tell</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the water was wont to go
+warbling so softly and well.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How good is man's life, the mere
+living! how fit to employ</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the heart and the soul and the
+senses for ever in joy."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a
+flood of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of
+Englishmen, in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with
+a sentiment not far removed from poetry&mdash;the only poetry of
+which they are not half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting
+for the moment his customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest
+over his favourite pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of
+this talk was lost upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but
+some touches there were that recalled experiences of my own, and
+for that reason, I suppose, have lingered in my memory. Thus, I
+recollect, some one spoke of skating on Derwentwater, the miles of
+black, virgin ice, the ringing and roaring of the skates, the
+sunset glow, and the moon rising full over the mountains; and
+another recalled a bathe on the shore of &AElig;gina, the sun on
+the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though the whole naked
+body were plunged in some &aelig;thereal liqueur, drinking it in
+with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
+sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
+Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
+supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and
+you sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own
+theme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial
+they would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said
+of them would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly
+than yours what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far
+as I can understand, the delights you have been describing are
+really very complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation,
+there is clearly an &aelig;sthetic charm&mdash;you kept speaking of
+heather and sunrises, and colours and wide prospects; and then
+there is the satisfaction you evidently feel in skill, acquiring or
+acquired, and in the knowledge you possess of the habits of beasts
+and birds. All this, of course, goes beyond the delight of simple
+sense perception, though, no doubt, inextricably bound up with it
+But what I was thinking of at first was something less complex and
+more elementary in which, nevertheless, I think we can detect
+Good&mdash;Good of sheer unadulterated sensation. Think, for
+example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and hot! You
+will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the water pouring
+down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
+dimittis.'"</p>
+
+<p>They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:</p>
+
+<p>"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed
+behind that masque of austere philosophy!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
+sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
+remember, the famous tale about Keats&mdash;how he covered his
+tongue and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he
+said, "the delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when
+this had gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I
+began, "to illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I
+think, recognized to the full its merits; and we shall be equally
+ready, I suppose, to recognize its defects."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any
+rate, shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think
+these are the only pure Goods."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are
+precarious. It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go
+without choice of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes
+established between our senses and the outer world. The very same
+things which at such times appear to be perfectly at one with
+ourselves, as if they had been made for us and we for them, we see
+and feel to have also a nature not only distinct but even alien and
+hostile to our own. The water which cools our skin and quenches our
+thirst also drowns; the fire which warms and comforts also burns;
+and so on through all the chapter&mdash;I need not weary you with
+details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to our bodies,
+she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at least as
+varied and efficacious as she is our friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her
+properly; we have to learn how to manage her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to
+learn how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our
+finger here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods&mdash;they
+are, as I said, precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one
+might say, was the sword of the angel that drove man out of his
+imaginary Eden. For at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will
+permit me to romance a little,) seizing every delight as it offered
+itself, under an instinctive impression that there were nothing but
+delights to be met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when
+he was thirsty, sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in
+unquestioning trust of his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt
+by experience how evil follows good, and pleasure often enough is
+bought by pain, he would begin, would he not, instead of simply
+accepting Good where it is, to endeavour to create it where it is
+not, sacrificing often enough the present to the future, and
+rejecting many immediate delights for the sake of those more
+remote? And this involves a complete change in his attitude; for he
+is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort that harmony
+between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at first was
+immediately given."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind.
+This reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little
+consequence, if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we
+are not at present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is
+thus set out upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to
+create, since he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects
+harmonious to himself. But in this quest has he been, should you
+say, successful?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is
+progressively satisfying his needs, even if they are never
+completely satisfied."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The
+relation of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and
+obscure. It is as though he began with the idea that he had only to
+remove a few blemishes from her face to make her completely
+accordant with his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than
+these surface blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots
+deeper than all his probings; the more he cuts away the more he
+exposes of an element radically alien to himself, terrible and
+incomprehensible, branching wide and striking deep, and throwing up
+from depths unknown those symptoms and symbols of itself which he
+mistook for mere superficial stains."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a
+view."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit
+that a certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense,
+whether they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by
+the labour of man."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing
+to order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For
+the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food,
+shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say,
+we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care
+about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure
+but those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one
+risk we proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin,
+as it were, of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which
+we hold most precious."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases
+to be good. That's precisely what I am always saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One
+way or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to
+secure, or because, when secured, they lose their specific quality.
+Goods of this kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change,
+whether they be offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung
+from her in the sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I
+said, precarious. And now, have they any other defects?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact
+that they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of
+imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving
+at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not
+the whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other
+Goods you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the
+Goods we are speaking of appeal."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I
+think of it the less I understand this famous distinction between
+body and soul, and the relation of one to the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't
+understand it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it
+out of our discussion."</p>
+
+<p>"So should I!" said Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case
+before us, why should we not try directly to define that specific
+property of the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes
+their defect, without having recourse to these difficult terms body
+and soul at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he agreed, "we might try."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of
+way:</p>
+
+<p>"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow
+their slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They
+come upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires
+we can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather
+than active."</p>
+
+<p>"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and
+perfect Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think not"</p>
+
+<p>"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of
+ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole
+nature to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole
+nature to experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien
+to us and nothing in us alien to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind
+applies. For these Goods appear to arise in things and under
+circumstances which have quite another nature than that of being
+good for us. It is not the essence of water to quench our thirst,
+of fire to cook for us, or of the sun to give us
+light&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added
+Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us
+good are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter,
+to do innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So
+that the goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to
+our senses, they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel
+that essentially either they are not Goods, or their goodness is
+something beyond and different from that which is revealed to
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as
+I understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance
+which, so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any
+rate to Good of that kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and
+substance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; don't you think so too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"</p>
+
+<p>Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing,
+indeed, to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We
+have then, so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main
+defects, the first, that they are precarious; the second, which is
+closely connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its
+explanation, that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding
+the word in the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we
+cannot find any class of Goods similar to these, but free from
+their defects."</p>
+
+<p>"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to
+have similar defects?"</p>
+
+<p>"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there any such Goods?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These,
+are they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it
+is their whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful,
+and to that extent Good&mdash;for I suppose you will admit that the
+Beautiful is a kind of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare
+to say so, to be, in a certain sense, eternal."</p>
+
+<p>"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we
+give for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material
+objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I
+was talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point
+of view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut
+away, as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set
+apart in a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to
+pass into something else, but only through the alien nature of the
+matter to which it is bound."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I
+give it you in the words of a poet."</p>
+
+<p>And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a
+Grecian Urn":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Heard melodies are sweet, but
+those unheard</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft
+pipes, play on;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not to the sensual ear, but, more
+endear'd.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pipe to the spirit ditties of no
+tone;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair youth beneath the trees, thou
+canst not leave</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy song, nor ever can those trees
+be bare;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bold lover, never, never canst thou
+kiss,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though winning near the
+goal&mdash;yet, do not grieve;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She cannot fade, though thou hast
+not thy bliss,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever wilt thou love and she be
+fair!</span><br><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ah, happy, happy boughs! that
+cannot shed</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your leaves, nor ever bid the
+spring adieu;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, happy melodist,
+unwearied,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever piping songs for ever
+new;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More happy love! more happy, happy
+love!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever warm and still to be
+enjoyed,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For ever panting and for ever
+young;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All breathing human passion far
+above,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That leaves a heart high-sorrowful
+and cloyed,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A burning forehead, and a parching
+tongue."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I
+don't see how it bears on the argument."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to
+make. Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists
+in the fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it
+from our sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in
+the eighth heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"</p>
+
+<p>"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"</p>
+
+<p>"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer
+still&mdash;that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their
+Beauty, results from the very principle of their nature, and is not
+a mere accident of circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only <i>raison
+d'&ecirc;tre</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far
+resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the
+point I have been waiting to come to."</p>
+
+<p>"What point?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in
+their simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all
+&aelig;sthetic and other elements&mdash;as in the example you gave
+of a cold bath&mdash;the relation of the object to the sense is so
+simple and direct, that really, if we were to speak accurately, we
+should have, I think, to say, that so far as the perception of Good
+is concerned the object is merged in the subject, and what you get
+is simply a good sensation."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the
+time I did not think it necessary to be so precise."</p>
+
+<p>"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we
+are to bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw
+light, I believe, on the general nature of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"What characteristic is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important
+thing is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of
+the one in the other, it is the subject that is merged in the
+object, not <i>vice versa</i>. We have to contemplate the object,
+anyhow, as having a character of its own; and it is to this
+character that I want to draw attention."</p>
+
+<p>"In what respect?"</p>
+
+<p>"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every
+work of nature&mdash;so far as it can be viewed
+&aelig;sthetically&mdash;comprises a number of elements necessarily
+connected in a whole; and this necessary connection is the point on
+which we ought to insist"</p>
+
+<p>"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically
+necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "&aelig;sthetically. I mean, that we have a
+direct perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or
+altered without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the
+ideal; and it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is
+more or less perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these
+things would agree to that."</p>
+
+<p>No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was
+not, myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works
+of Art; but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in
+general?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be
+conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I
+suppose, would imagine that such elements might be thrown together
+haphazard and yet constitute a good whole."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem
+to have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in
+his quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art,
+which, in the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not
+precarious, seeing that by their form, through which they are Art,
+they are set above the flux of time, though by their matter, we
+admit, they are bound to it And, in the second place, the Good
+which they have, they have by virtue of their essence; Good is
+their substance, not an accident of their changing relations. And,
+lastly, being complex wholes, the parts of which they are composed
+are bound together in necessary connection. These characteristics,
+at any rate, we have discovered in works of Art: and no doubt many
+more might be discoverable. But now, let us turn to the other side,
+and consider the defects in which this class of Goods is
+involved."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."</p>
+
+<p>"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever
+may be the merits of a work of Art&mdash;and they may be all that
+you say&mdash;it has this one grand defect&mdash;it isn't
+real!"</p>
+
+<p>"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my
+life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something
+very tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know
+what it is. They talk of 'real life'&mdash;real life! what is it?
+As if one life wasn't as real as another!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is.
+Real life is the shady side of life."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the
+person speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he
+speaks."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our
+present concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word
+'real.' In what sense is Art not real?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something
+ideal. It is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and
+change; its connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is
+a kind of flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our
+eyes. The real world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is
+ugly, brutal, material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it
+were, you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it.
+How do you know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the
+Ideal, as all poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that
+case, Art would be more real than what you would call Reality,
+because it would represent the essence of the world, the thing it
+would like to be if it could, and is, so far as it can. That was
+Aristotle's view, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree
+with Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would
+like to be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for
+instance, there's the realistic novel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of
+all&mdash;only it's apt to be such bad idealism!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art,
+in the sense, in which we have been using the word."</p>
+
+<p>I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion
+of realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at
+issue, I turned to Bartlett, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes.
+You say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by
+side of it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call
+real life. And that whatever be the relation between the two
+worlds, whether we are to say that the one imitates the other, or
+interprets it, or idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it
+aside. Art is a refuge from life, not a substitute for it; a little
+blessed island in the howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a
+partial Good; whereas the true Good, I suppose, would be somehow
+universal."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without
+blemish."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to
+think that Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield
+us more than we have yet got out of it&mdash;perhaps even more than
+he knows is in it"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming
+over to my side!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your
+strength really lies."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your
+discovering new defences for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my
+mind. We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real
+life,' the 'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear
+as to what they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have
+obscurely in their heads&mdash;that the Real is something from
+which you cannot escape; something which forces itself upon you
+without reference to choice or desire, having a nature of its own
+which may or may not conform, more or less to yours, but in any
+case is distinct and independent. That is why they would say, for
+example, that the illusions of a madman are not real, meaning that
+they do not represent real things, however vivid their appearance
+may be, because they are the productions merely of his own
+consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented to a
+sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they
+would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent
+nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included
+in the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon
+Art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of
+Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a
+certain violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our
+interest. What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put
+ourselves for the moment into the position of the artist. To him
+certain materials are presented which of course are real in our
+present acceptation of the term, being such as they are of their
+own nature, without any dependence upon him. Upon these materials
+he flings himself, and shapes them according to his desire,
+impressing, as it were, his own nature upon theirs, till they
+confront him as a kind of image of himself in an alien stuff. So
+far, then, he has a Good, and a Good presented to him as real; but
+for the Goodness of this reality he is himself responsible. In so
+far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it has still the nature
+which was first presented to him, before he began his work&mdash;a
+nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations, as is
+shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something
+else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To
+this nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to
+stamp upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a
+sense, only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains
+independent and alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as
+he has found Good, is after all only a form of himself; and one can
+conceive him feeling a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the
+Walk&uuml;re, when in his quest for a free, substantial,
+self-subsistent Good he finds after all, for ever, nothing but
+images of himself:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Das Andre, das ich
+ersehne,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Das Andre, erseh' ich
+nie.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I
+find it rather hard to put it into words."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying,
+so far as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself.
+To all others the work of Art must appear as something independent
+of themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be
+made to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism
+between the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to
+it. The form will seem from this point of view something factitious
+and artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by
+one like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast,
+perhaps, as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the
+landscape Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is
+not a 'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right;
+it is a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if
+you will, admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to
+be loved in default of a better, with the best faculties of brain
+and soul, but still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in
+and of itself, as well as through and for us, Good by its own
+nature apart from our interposition, self-moved, self-determined,
+self-dependent, and in which alone our desires could finally
+rest.&mdash;Don't you think that some such feeling may, perhaps, be
+at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of Art as unreal?"</p>
+
+<p>Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to
+myself. For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that
+you have said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree
+with me. But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and
+Leslie, for Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie
+assented with enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems
+to me rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good?
+Or do you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely
+of its own nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any
+case I agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in
+Art."</p>
+
+<p>"In what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"</p>
+
+<p>"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for
+the view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But
+of late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and
+now I see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is
+something that falls very far short of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has
+instructed me."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."</p>
+
+<p>And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of
+Knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in
+brief formul&aelig; of the routine of our perceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that
+with Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;objected Dennis&mdash;"in the first place, I don't
+understand the definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no
+difficulty there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main
+positions. First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of
+things in themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in
+fixed routines; thirdly ..."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's
+a perception of something?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"What then? Simply a state in me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely."</p>
+
+<p>"Then does nothing exist except my states?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing else exists primarily for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease
+to exist?"</p>
+
+<p>"You infer such a world from your states."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is something besides my states&mdash;this world
+which I infer; and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions,
+is the reality of which I have knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a
+discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are
+at present concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of
+Knowledge with Good; and to do so we must first discover what
+Knowledge is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of
+Knowledge, and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and
+then we will take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we
+don't find that either satisfies the requirements of Good we will
+leave Knowledge and go on to something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And
+I dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain,
+I suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you
+define it, could be identified with Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much
+believe in Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I
+define it, is a good thing, I have no doubt whatever."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me,
+mainly as a means, in so far as it enables us to master
+Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to
+point out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature
+that the Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge
+itself. Or should you say that there is Good in the scientific
+activity itself, quite apart from any practical results to which it
+may lead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the
+higher and more ideal Good."</p>
+
+<p>"This activity itself of inventing brief formul&aelig; to resume
+the routine of our perceptions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what <i>is</i> the Good of it? That is what it is so
+hard for a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery
+of Reality? For that, I could understand, would be good."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal
+merely with our perceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect
+fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it,
+you do not suppose this fluid to be real."</p>
+
+<p>"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled
+to give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions
+occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an
+account."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say
+more precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps,
+in the discovery of necessary connections?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order
+which is, as a matter of fact, regular."</p>
+
+<p>"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do
+move in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of
+gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time
+in restraining himself.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning
+to him I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from
+scientific activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality,
+nor yet in that of necessary connection, wherein should you say,
+does it consist? Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which
+we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and
+apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And,
+conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order
+among our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to
+utilize them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical
+results of science), but because in itself we prefer order to
+disorder, even if no other advantage were to be got out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the
+kind of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable
+than a disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he
+objects to British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers
+the chances of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary
+machine-like depredations of the tax-collector."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex
+factors. I was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of
+scientific activity as such. And I think there is an intellectual
+satisfaction in the discovery of order, even though it be
+dissociated from necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is
+the only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is,
+Knowledge is an extension of experience, and is good simply as
+such. The sense of More and still More beyond what has yet been
+discovered, of new facts, new successions, new combinations, of
+ever fresh appeals to our interest, our wonder, our admiration, the
+mere excitement of discovery for its own sake, quite apart from
+anything else to which it may lead, a dash of adventure, too, a
+heightening of life&mdash;that is what is the real spur to science
+and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general
+process of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No
+doubt there is an attraction in all activity&mdash;Ellis has
+already expounded it; and all experience involves a kind of
+Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at was the special attraction
+of scientific activity; and that seems to be, so far as I can see,
+simply the discovery of order."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "if you like&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind
+of activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be
+bad. There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an
+activity concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even
+though it were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think
+that if all men were diseased, they would nevertheless be in
+possession of the Good, if only they had perfect knowledge of the
+laws of disease?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not
+only the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object
+known."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that
+Knowledge may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is,
+or may be knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to
+constitute the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has
+Dennis to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very
+hard to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a
+protest."</p>
+
+<p>"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us
+is the heretic?"</p>
+
+<p>"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely
+the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all, I
+shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of
+necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the
+fascination."</p>
+
+<p>"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All
+that is really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we
+read into the facts."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much
+as anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of
+all Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical
+knowledge is necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is all based on assumptions."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them
+necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law
+of Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement
+that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow
+of necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given!
+Everything is based ultimately on certain successions and
+coincidences of which all that can be said is simply that they
+exist, without any possibility of getting behind them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be
+the ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections
+throughout; so that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all
+the rest would inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it
+progresses towards this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at
+all. A routine simply given without internal coherence is to my
+mind a contradiction in terms; either the routine is necessary, or
+it's not a routine at all, but at best a mere appearance of a
+routine."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight
+this out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception
+of Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it
+from the point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin
+with, seems to me to be involved in the same defect we have already
+noted&mdash;namely, that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as
+knowledge of Good. And I suppose you would hardly maintain, any
+more than Wilson did, that the Good may consist in knowledge of
+Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion
+that there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which
+there is knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could
+attain to it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there
+would be no distinction, or at least no antagonism, between
+thinking on the one hand and the thing thought on the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in
+fact any knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type
+of what you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are
+dealing with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which
+is somehow native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however
+you like to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions,
+such as substance and causation."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is
+alien to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of
+what we call knowledge, is the element of sense&mdash;the something
+given, which thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may
+dress and serve it up in its own sauce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."</p>
+
+<p>"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but
+only of pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the
+Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that
+such a Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better
+than that of which we have an experience, but radically and
+fundamentally different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not
+only are we sunk in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the
+time our heads are under too,&mdash;in fact most of us never get
+them out at all; it is only a few philosophers every now and again
+who emerge for a moment or two into sun and air, to breathe that
+element of pure thought which is too fine even for them, except as
+a rare indulgence. At other times, they too must be content with
+the grosser atmosphere which is the common sustenance of common
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining
+that the Good is within easy reach of all."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you
+describe it, very few people would care to put out their hands to
+take it. I, at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of
+Good in the kind of activity I understand you to mean. It is as
+though you should say, that Good consists in the perpetual
+perception that 2 + 2 = 4."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would
+be, that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One
+would move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest,
+central at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is
+my ideal of a perfect activity!"</p>
+
+<p>"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For
+what, in fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you
+describe? I suppose the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and
+flaws!"</p>
+
+<p>"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the
+better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of
+life&mdash;of nature, of history, of art, of religion, of
+everything in which we are really interested; imagine being left to
+turn for ever, like a squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea
+of a squirrel in the idea of a cage, round and round the wheel of
+these hollow notions, without hands, without feet, without anything
+anywhere by which we could lay hold of a something that is not
+thought, a something solid, resistant, palpitating, 'luscious and
+aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a sense, a flesh, call it what
+you will, the unintelligible, but still the indispensable, that
+which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to miss, and which, if
+it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow include!"</p>
+
+<p>Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the
+matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense,
+or anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented
+and also alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something
+which is unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will
+be, so far, not good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which
+must be present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection
+among the elements presented; and secondly, that the elements
+themselves should be of such a kind as to be, as it were,
+transparent to that which apprehends them, so that it asks no
+questions as to what they are or whence they come, but accepts them
+naturally and as a matter of course, with the same inevitability as
+it accepts its own being."</p>
+
+<p>"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects
+of thought as you defined them?</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long
+discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis
+pressed you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified
+absolutely with Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that
+view."</p>
+
+<p>"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be
+intelligible in the sense you have explained?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so."</p>
+
+<p>"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive
+of any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the
+intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that
+immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's
+quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have
+in your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art.
+In them we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other
+than mere ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary
+connection one with the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not logically necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the
+necessity of the connection, surely, that is important; the
+character of the necessity is a secondary consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work
+of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements
+themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which
+apprehends them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, for they are mere sense&mdash;of all things the
+most obscure and baffling."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made
+beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far,
+intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a
+way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to
+thought?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does
+not, I think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is
+something else as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense,
+so far at least it is not intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we
+noticed before in works of art&mdash;that their Beauty, or
+Goodness, is not essential to their whole nature, but is something
+imposed, as it were, on an alien stuff. And it is this alien
+element that we now pronounce to be unintelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of
+art to be absolutely good."</p>
+
+<p>"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there
+nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to
+want?"</p>
+
+<p>No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then,
+in a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a
+direct appeal to Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am
+sure you must have something to suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these
+things is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you
+have never once referred all through to what I should have thought
+was the best Good we know&mdash;if, indeed, we know any Good at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only
+things that I think really worth having&mdash;if anything were
+worth having."</p>
+
+<p>A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of
+should be found just there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, in persons!"</p>
+
+<p>"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me
+approach the matter properly."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have
+your chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we
+had reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to
+form a conception of it, must be something immediately presented,
+and presented in such a way, that it should be directly
+intelligible&mdash;intelligible not only in the relations that
+obtain between its elements, but also in the substance, so to
+speak, of the elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a
+type, as Dennis maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas
+and their relations. But the Good, we held, could not consist in
+these. It must be something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense,
+and yet it could not be sense, for sense did not seem to be
+intelligible. But now, when Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that
+perhaps we might find in persons what we want And that is what I
+should like to examine now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not
+sense, though he is manifested through sense."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" said Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know
+him through his body."</p>
+
+<p>"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a
+function of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when
+we talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven
+save me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne K&ouml;rper, ganz
+abstrakt,' as Heine says."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to
+consider the soul apart from the body."</p>
+
+<p>"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about
+body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been
+driven into it unawares."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you mean by the soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of
+psychology&mdash;for even people who object to the word 'soul'
+don't mind talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the
+soul. Anyhow, what I mean is that which thinks and feels and
+wills."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of
+all things the most intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all
+things the least."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you
+have in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse
+to call the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its
+various faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and
+all the other points which are examined in books of psychology. All
+that I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no
+profession of understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking
+at persons as we know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown
+to us in literature and art, they really are intelligible to us in
+the same way that we are intelligible to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"And how is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no
+feeling or action of which human beings are capable, from the very
+highest to the very lowest, which other human beings may not
+sympathetically understand, through the mere fact that they have
+the same nature. They will understand more or less according as
+they have more or less sympathy and insight; but in any case they
+are capable of understanding, and it is the business of literature
+and art to make them understand."</p>
+
+<p>"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any
+rate, what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not
+indeed (as in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our
+whole complex nature, that it does not demand explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the
+people I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand
+explanation. I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing,
+or what they're for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me!
+And what's worse, probably my existence is the same to them!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to
+study them all sympathetically, you would end by understanding
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of
+pathological way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I
+shouldn't understand why they exist. It seems to me, most people
+aren't fit to exist; and I dare say they have the same opinion
+about me."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a few: my friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said
+that you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often
+have you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our
+whole physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me
+to be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my
+friends. Still&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I
+wanted. For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be,
+gives us at least something which perhaps we shall find comes
+nearer to what we might conceive to be absolutely Good than
+anything else we have yet hit upon."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not,
+as an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of
+our own ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with
+works of art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any
+rate, I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am,
+but simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much
+imposed upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out
+of which they had carded a statue."</p>
+
+<p>"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions
+are common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should
+affirm that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is
+commonly called love, no doubt, the physical element is the
+predominant, or even the only one present; and in that case there
+may be illusion to an indefinite extent. But the love which is
+based upon years of common experience, which has grown with the
+growth of the whole person, in power and intelligence and insight,
+which has survived countless disappointments and surmounted
+countless obstacles, the love of husband and wife, the love, as we
+began by saying, of friends&mdash;such love, as Browning says
+boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I suppose you will admit,
+does exist, however rarely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it
+really is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination,
+that is directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say
+that its Good is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the
+person of the loved."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the
+Good, that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff&mdash;the
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I replied,"<i>is</i> the body alien? Is it not rather an
+expression of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the
+soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Not with my soul, Love!&mdash;bid
+no soul like mine</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lap thee around nor leave the poor
+sense room!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take sense too&mdash;let me love
+entire and whole&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Not with my soul.'"</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and
+anyhow, I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of
+the poem is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between
+body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists
+call the transcending of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is
+annihilated at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get
+is a feeling of total union with the person, body and soul at once,
+or rather, neither one nor the other, but simply that which is in
+and through both."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case
+of the soul being merged in the body."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," replied Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was
+thinking of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the
+moments of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a
+^correspondence between body and soul, as though the one were the
+expression of the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more
+often a discrepancy."</p>
+
+<p>"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a
+discrepancy to begin with, don't you think that in the course of
+years the spirit does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh,
+and especially on the features of the face?"</p>
+
+<p>"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body
+make.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a
+beautiful fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks
+maintained&mdash;and on such a point they were good judges&mdash;a
+profound and significant truth. At any rate, I find it to be so in
+the case of the people I care about&mdash;though there I know
+Audubon will dissent. In them, every change of expression, every
+tone of voice, every gesture has its significance; there is nothing
+that is not expressive&mdash;not a curl of the hair, not a lift of
+the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait. The body becomes, as
+it were, transparent and pervious to the soul; and that
+inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere else,
+seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting itself
+as the perfect medium of spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend
+your remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often
+as expressive and adorable as the body itself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the
+soul, 'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But,
+seriously, don't you agree with me that there is something in the
+view which regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct
+expression of the person, not a mere stuff in which he
+Inheres?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I
+understand what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it
+be a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in
+the same way as the soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, in a sort of way."</p>
+
+<p>"And so we should have In the person loved an object which,
+though presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible;
+and our activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is,
+of love, would come nearer than any other experience of ours to
+what we might call a perfect Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the
+Good itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being
+the medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like
+other sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end
+to death. And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of
+the person is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of
+sense, is precarious.'</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to
+maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have
+analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for a
+moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a
+suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect
+Good, even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal,
+and in the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in
+love, as we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is
+a relation only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond
+it proceeds the main current of our lives, involving innumerable
+relations of a very different kind from this."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with
+all its attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless,
+so trivial and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world
+with all that in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space,
+infinite in complexity; here is the whole range of human relations,
+to say nothing of those that are not human, of activities
+innumerable in and upon nature and man himself, of inventions,
+discoveries, institutions, laws, arts, sciences, religions; and the
+meaning and purpose and end of all this we calmly assert to
+be&mdash;what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village green!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and
+kisses and village greens?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
+all-comprehensive."</p>
+
+<p>"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary
+heaven to land us in!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
+is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
+short."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I fear I shall never rest!"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if
+we can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you
+call an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is
+necessary to enable us to interpret the world we know."</p>
+
+<p>"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."</p>
+
+<p>"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For
+the Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
+some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
+impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny
+the passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges
+us to the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we
+want to understand the nature of that passion, we must understand
+the nature of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is
+for the sake of life here that we need that comprehension, not for
+the sake of life somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for
+Love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."</p>
+
+<p>"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village
+green!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an
+episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means! That is what I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as
+it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most
+complex relations&mdash;economic, political, social, domestic, and
+the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of
+our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or
+whatever its character. Among these relations some few
+perhaps&mdash;or, it may be, even none&mdash;realize for a longer
+or shorter time, with more or less completeness, that ultimate
+identity in diversity, that 'me in thee' which we call love; the
+rest comprise various degrees of attraction and repulsion, hatred,
+contempt, indifference, toleration, respect, sympathy, and so on;
+and all together, always changing, dissolving, and combining anew,
+weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the shifting,
+restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect and
+result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal of
+that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all
+with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this,
+whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is
+that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in
+those which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think,
+through it alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as
+we have it, never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the
+moment; for those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that
+they have found it merely in union with one other person. For what
+love gains in intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in
+practice it may even come to frustrate the very end it seeks,
+limiting instead of expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it
+deepens, and, by causing the disruption of all other ties,
+impoverishing the natures it should have enriched. Or don't you
+think that this happens sometimes, for instance in married
+life?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that
+one who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love,
+yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other
+connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one
+who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as
+though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has
+only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking,
+as you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village
+green realize then and there the consummation of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put
+forward, what place is left for the common business of
+life&mdash;for the things which really do, for the most part,
+occupy and possess men's minds, and the more, in my opinion, the
+greater their force and capacity."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as
+that?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue
+them, I am not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they
+are in essence is just, like most other activities, relations
+between human beings&mdash;relations of command and obedience, of
+respect, admiration, antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex,
+infinitely various, but still all of them strung, as it were, upon
+a single thread of passion; all of them at tension to become
+something else; all pointing to the consummation which it is the
+nature of that which created them to seek, and all, in that sense,
+paradoxical as it may sound, only means to love."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't repudiate such activities then?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge,
+but, if I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose,
+who have the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt,
+the greatest intension too. But every man has to live his own way,
+according to his opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think
+myself, all are involved in the same scheme, and all are driven to
+the same consummation."</p>
+
+<p>"A consummation in the clouds!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the
+important point, that which urges us to it is here and now.
+Everything is rooted in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our
+longing and dissatisfaction, our restlessness never-to-be-quenched,
+our counting as nothing what has been attained in the pressing on
+to more, our lying down and rising up, our stumbling and
+recovering, whether we fail, as we call it, or succeed, whether we
+act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all that we are, all that
+we hope to be springs from the passion for Good, and points, if we
+are right in our analysis, to love as its end."</p>
+
+<p>Upon this Audubon broke out:&mdash;"That's all very well! But
+the one crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true,
+for aught I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we
+seek&mdash;though I am not aware of seeking it myself. But, after
+all, the real question is, Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools
+to seek it."</p>
+
+<p>"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since
+you challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we
+can get it or no."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this
+discussion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good,
+which is the point to which you are always harking back. But you
+have surely forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"</p>
+
+<p>"What basis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find
+out, not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we
+know little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if
+we are to find significance in life."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can we believe what we don't know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we
+always do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake
+anything makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth
+doing, and In the second place that it is possible to be done. He
+may be wrong in both these assumptions, but without them he could
+not move a step. And so with regard to the business of life, as a
+whole, it is necessary to assume, if we are to make anything of it
+at all, both that there is Good, and that we know something about
+it; and also, I think, that it is somehow or other realizable; but
+I do not know that any of these assumptions could be proved."</p>
+
+<p>"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed,
+to my mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves,
+that we should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as
+they have not received definite proof. But still they are, I think,
+as I said, assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any
+meaning to life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the
+will'; and our attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it.
+Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not
+to affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were.
+It is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding;
+the attitude of the general going into battle, not of the
+philosopher in his closet."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude
+is suspense of mind."</p>
+
+<p>"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those
+with which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are
+to choose to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption
+about the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply
+wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is
+it possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting
+itself an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to
+wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as
+those which you are trying to make us accept."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to
+discover what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of
+fact, really dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or
+rather, if you will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the
+will' which we have elicited?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are they? Let me have them again."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some
+meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Second, that we know something about that meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume
+that controversy."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know
+nothing about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first
+assumption is also destroyed, and with it all significance in
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."</p>
+
+<p>"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which
+comes nearest to Good is that which we called love."</p>
+
+<p>"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative
+approximation."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."</p>
+
+<p>"And after that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it
+necessary to include also the postulate that Good can be
+realized?"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room
+for what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized
+is a question of knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions&mdash;if only
+we could know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we
+do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every
+year we are learning more and more about the course and destiny of
+mankind."</p>
+
+<p>"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing
+whether or no the soul is immortal?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!"
+he cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be
+realized."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception
+of the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite
+sure. We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when
+we were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable
+in ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we
+thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."</p>
+
+<p>"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though
+I was afraid all along of something of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been
+cheated, we will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we
+will suppose that we mean by the Good of some future generation,
+still retaining for Good the signification we gave to it. The
+question then of whether or no the Good can be realized, will be
+the question whether or no it is possible that at some future time
+all individuals should be knit together in that ultimate relation
+which we called love."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that
+<i>their</i> souls at least would have to be immortal; and if
+theirs, why not ours?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider
+the whole idea of immortality illegitimate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good.
+But may we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals
+who happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they
+were alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold
+fast to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be
+realized the individuals then alive, so long as they are alive,
+will be bound together in this relation?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of
+that kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not
+sure that I very well know what you mean by love."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be
+left of my poor conception?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes
+to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a
+perfectly harmonious way."</p>
+
+<p>"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society
+perfectly definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory
+for you!' as Humpty Dumpty said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we
+defined to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of
+positive science, that it might be possible to realize?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that
+science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it
+can be realized."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal
+immortality?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of
+personal immortality is one which science ought even to
+entertain."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain
+it. Does not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such
+questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not
+call that science."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn
+of mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two,
+whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much
+vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit
+both upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and
+then followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of
+science, which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson
+took up a position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought,
+to declare that science appeared to be developing all the vices of
+theology without any of its virtues&mdash;the dogmatism, the "index
+expurgatorius," and the whole machinery for suppressing
+speculation, without any of the capacity to impose upon the
+conscience a clear and well-defined scheme of life. This debate,
+however, was carried on in a tone too polemic to elicit any really
+fruitful result; and as soon as I was able I endeavoured to steer
+the conversation back into the smoother waters from which it had
+been driven.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument,
+that on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and
+cannot know anything at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there
+is no foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of
+our hopes and fears, or of those of our ancestors."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is
+not true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for
+thinking it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to
+relegate the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chim&aelig;ras.
+What we have no reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to
+concern ourselves with."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one
+that interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We
+may not know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help
+profoundly caring."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but,
+honestly, I do not myself care in the least"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the
+Good; and that is really the question I want to come back to. What
+is the minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant?
+Is it sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the
+race'? Or must we also believe in the progress of the individual,
+involving, as it does, personal immortality?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
+life&mdash;that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it
+seems to me to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one
+knows one will not participate oneself than for one in which one's
+personal happiness is involved. I have always sympathized with
+Comte, pedant as he was, in the remark he made when he was
+dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte
+irr&eacute;parable?' That always struck me as the most humorous
+thing ever said."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect
+of death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not
+involve his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death
+is the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
+individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
+manly view."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but
+this is a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never
+aspire. Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual
+with his faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his
+ambitions unfulfilled&mdash;why it's sublime! its
+Kiplingese&mdash;there's no other word for it! Shake hands, Wilson!
+you're a hero."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing
+strained or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about
+faculties undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and
+exaggerated! Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much
+what they deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die&mdash;he
+has done what he had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the
+next generation."</p>
+
+<p>"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what
+'normal' means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or
+perhaps that is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they
+not, that there never was a normal man?"</p>
+
+<p>"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
+include every one except a few decadents and faddists."</p>
+
+<p>At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another
+digression, I thought it best to intervene again.</p>
+
+<p>"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
+position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
+Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of
+the individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always
+does realize sufficient Good for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself
+that his life has significance? Or because of the future Good of
+the race?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; both, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is
+sufficient, by itself, to give significance to the lives of
+individuals who are never to partake in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe
+is, that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to
+that of the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends
+as you seem to suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that
+there is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling&mdash;and this is
+where we seem to disagree&mdash;that in estimating the Good of
+individual lives we must have regard to that which they realize in
+and for themselves, not merely to that which they may be
+contributing to produce some day in somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing
+but other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite
+series of people doing Good to one another, and none of them
+getting any Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by
+taking in one another's washing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of
+argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which
+individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain
+that we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth
+while to have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at
+death. At any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look
+frankly at the mass of men and women, judging them not as means to
+something else, but as ends in themselves, with reference not to
+happiness, or content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply
+to Good&mdash;if we look at them so, can we honestly say that there
+is enough significance in their lives to justify the labour and
+expense of producing and maintaining them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that
+there is."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But
+what I should like to know is, what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the
+problem is too vast and indeterminate."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way,
+and with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate
+or no, it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are
+only fit to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest
+thing for them if some one would do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does
+anyone else share it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not
+actually bad, are at best indifferent&mdash;'sacs merely, floating
+with open mouths for food to slip in.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you
+know about them, considering how very little you've seen of
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this
+estimate?"</p>
+
+<p>"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I
+suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal
+better!"</p>
+
+<p>"They might well be that," I replied, "without being
+particularly good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be
+better to confine ourselves to our own experience and consider
+whether for ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life
+much worth having, supposing death to be the end of it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis,
+"and so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather
+monstrous to ask the question at all."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most
+inconsistent of men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson
+for his acquiescence in the extinction of the individual 'with his
+opportunities unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the
+rest of it. And now you appear to be adopting precisely the same
+attitude yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good
+enough for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful
+ruffian!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I
+was a few years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all
+the Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come.
+What we actually realize we value less for itself than for
+something else which it promises. The moments of good experience we
+expand till they fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of
+indifferent or bad we simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we
+say, because the universe is good; and this goodness we expect to
+grasp in its entirety, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at
+least the day after. And so, like the proverbial ass, we are lured
+on by a wisp of hay. But being, at bottom, intelligent brutes, we
+begin, in time, to reflect; we put back our ears, and plant our
+feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and refuse to budge an inch
+till we have some further information as to the meaning of the
+journey into which we are being enticed. That, at least, is the
+point that has been reached by this ass who is now addressing you.
+I want to know something more about that bundle of hay; and that is
+why I am interested in the question of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"Which means&mdash;to drop the metaphor&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely
+to get more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I
+may very likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in
+others. For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as
+much bad as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say.
+And in the second place, even of what Good there is&mdash;and I do
+not under-estimate its worth&mdash;it is but an infinitesimal
+portion that I am capable of realizing, so limited am I by
+temperament and circumstance, so bound by the errors and illusions
+of the past, so hampered by the disabilities crowding in from the
+future. For though, as I think, the older I get the more clearly I
+recognize what is good, and the more I learn to value and to
+perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I become capable of
+making it my own, and must in the nature of things become less and
+less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those of the
+intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to be
+involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from the
+naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt and
+expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least
+effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'&mdash;you remember
+the passage:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'... Every day my sense of
+joy</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grows more acute, my soul
+(intensified</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By power and insight) more
+enlarged, more keen;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While every day my hairs fall more
+and more,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My hand shakes, and the heavy years
+increase&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The horror quickening still from
+year to year,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The consummation coming past
+escape,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall know most, and yet
+least enjoy&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When all my works wherein I prove
+my worth,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Being present still to mock me in
+men's mouths,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alive still in the phrase of such
+as thou,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I, I the feeling, thinking, acting
+man,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The man who loved his life so
+over-much,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall sleep in my urn.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured
+it, perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is
+natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good,
+life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last
+judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will
+be a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of
+those most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been
+worth the trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite
+promise only to bury it fruitless in the grave."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very
+much care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether
+it is not the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not
+by the worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the
+belief in personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of
+people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet
+maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life.
+Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may
+remember, life appeared not less but more worth living when she had
+become convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited
+with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as a
+deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more
+intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of
+untiring and fruitful activity."</p>
+
+<p>"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call
+magnanimous!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and
+unimaginative."</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position
+which can be and has been adopted."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of
+the facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would
+make it increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an
+estimate which is to endure must be not only magnanimous but
+reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to
+be reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are
+cases in which life is well worth living quite apart from the
+hypothesis of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom
+it seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous,
+among those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose
+opinions alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly
+found in talking to people about death&mdash;supposing, which is
+unusual, that they are willing to talk about it at all&mdash;that
+they adopt one of two views, either of which presupposes the
+worthlessness of life, if life, as we know it, be indeed all"</p>
+
+<p>"What views do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and
+rejoice in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil;
+or they hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find
+there the reason and justification for existence which they have
+never been able to discover here."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which
+I should have thought was as common as either of the
+others,&mdash;that of those who believe in a life after death, but
+look forward to it with inexpressible fear of the possible evils
+which it may contain."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual
+experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of
+existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should
+maintain, have not really found life satisfactory, or they would
+look forward with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its
+continuance."</p>
+
+<p>"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal
+immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the
+hypothesis involves the realization of that Good which, without it,
+we recognize to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and
+from that point of view, that I have introduced it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis
+is, I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is
+practically necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most
+people do not require it&mdash;ordinary simple people, I mean, who
+do their work and make no fuss about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such
+people to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment
+any view suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe
+that if ever you can get a man, no matter how plain and
+unsophisticated, to reflect fairly upon his own experience, and to
+look impartially at the facts all round, abstracting from all bias
+of habit and mood and prejudice, he will admit that if it be true
+that the individual is extinguished at death, together with all his
+possibilities of realizing Good, then life cannot rationally be
+judged to be worth the living, however imperatively we may be
+compelled to continue to live it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on
+which I rely! That seems to me the justification of life&mdash;the
+fact that we are forced to live! I trust that instinct more than
+all the inclination in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you
+mean that you judge it to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your
+reason, which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your
+reason, the faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the
+only difference between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do
+really believe to be good, whereas you accept and cling to a
+particular judgment about Good, without any attempt to test it and
+harmonize it with others."</p>
+
+<p>"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and
+problematical in the extreme."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a
+simple, profound, imperative cry of Nature!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is
+good, except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."</p>
+
+<p>"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather
+blaspheme Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming
+either. For it may be that what you call Nature has provided for
+the realization of Good. That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was
+suggesting; and it is you who appear to be setting it aside."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it
+were something one could really entertain! To me it is not a
+hypothesis at all; it's simply an inconceivability."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality
+of one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the
+soul does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and
+death and consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once
+one begins trying to realize it."</p>
+
+<p>"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt
+Whitman."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly
+did justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while
+ago. It is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good
+and bad, and even appears at times to obliterate the distinction
+between them. But also, whether consistently or no, he regards them
+all as phases of a process, good only because of what they promise
+to be. So that his view really requires a belief in immortality to
+justify it; and to him such belief is as natural and simple as to
+Wilson it is absurd. There is a passage somewhere, I
+remember&mdash;perhaps you can quote it&mdash;it begins, 'Is it
+wonderful that I should be immortal?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I remember":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Is it wonderful that I should be
+immortal? as every one is immortal;</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I know it is wonderful&mdash;but
+my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my
+mother's womb is equally wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And passed from a babe, in the
+creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate
+and walk. All this is equally wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that my soul embraces you
+this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other,
+and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as
+wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can think such
+thoughts as these is just as wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can remind you, and
+you think them and know them to be true, is just as
+wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that the moon spins round the
+earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that they balance themselves
+with the sun and stars is equally wonderful."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that
+Whitman, at any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the
+immortality of the soul is unimaginable."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to
+believe it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is
+concerned, though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But
+the point I raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view
+of life and hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are
+not bound to adopt this, hypothesis of immortality&mdash;to
+believe, that is, that, somehow or other, there awaits us a state
+of being in which all souls shall be bound together in that
+harmonious and perfect relation of which we have a type and
+foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be true that perfect
+Good does involve some such relation, and yet that it is one
+unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then we must
+say either that such Good is unattainable&mdash;and in that case
+why should we idly pursue it?&mdash;or that we believe we shall
+attain it under some other conditions of existence. And according
+as we adopt one or the other position&mdash;so it seems to
+me&mdash;our attitude towards life will be one of affirmation or of
+negation."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
+of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
+unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
+we can&mdash;and some Good you admit we can get&mdash;and might
+find in that pursuit a sufficient justification for life."</p>
+
+<p>"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well
+find, that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so
+immensely preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to
+an end an existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely
+in the persons of our luckless descendants."</p>
+
+<p>"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is
+taken by the Western world."</p>
+
+<p>"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its
+activity is the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This
+instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and
+vigour."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling,
+and all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp
+of the modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with
+them; you may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of
+activity. I am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your
+being right, and I seem to find it in personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right
+absolutely and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate
+law; whether or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to
+inquire into the conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us
+in the pursuit, then I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be
+discouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you
+are right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in
+Good and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was
+my main point. On the other question about what Good is and whether
+it is attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so
+conscious am I that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach.
+Only, that there is really something to learn, of that I am
+profoundly convinced. Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't
+seem to me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about
+Good, that doesn't affect the nature of Reality&mdash;and Reality,
+I believe, is bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what
+we see and touch and handle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to
+impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded,
+under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes
+an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am
+walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a
+quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am
+overwhelmed by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for
+the moment to be such, that everything I hear and see and touch is
+mere illusion after all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if
+only I could find the way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to
+some native and ineradicable strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I
+sometimes think, to the memory of a strange experience which I once
+underwent and have never been able to forget"</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it
+may be worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less,
+on the subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and
+once only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence
+of an&aelig;sthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or
+rather, conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if
+dream it were, which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my
+life. It was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul,
+I thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body,
+began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed
+through the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was
+beating like a thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the
+carotids to the brain, whence it emerged by the fissures of the
+skull into the outer air. No sooner was it free (though still
+attached, as I felt with some uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to
+the pia mater) than it gathered itself together (into what form I
+could not say), and with incredible speed shot upwards, till it
+reached what seemed to be the floor of heaven. Through this it
+passed, I know not how, and found itself all at once in a new
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain,
+difficult though it be to find suitable language; for the things
+here, of which our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols
+of the things there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now
+identified with my soul, and had forgotten all about my
+body)&mdash;the feeling I had was that of sitting alone beside a
+river. What kind of country it was I can hardly describe, for there
+was nowhere any definite colour or form, only a suggestion, such as
+I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite tracts of empty space. I
+could not even say there was light or darkness, for my organ of
+perception did not seem to be the eye; only I was aware of an
+emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold, grey, and
+formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if indeed
+silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived either
+sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to silence
+in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
+(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
+distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
+flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
+the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
+as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
+rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
+pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
+they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
+that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
+I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which
+they passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out
+again was the sequence of their lives and deaths.</p>
+
+<p>"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
+something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
+disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or
+whatever may have been my mode of cognition&mdash;'Of course! That
+is it, and that is all! Souls are indeed immortal&mdash;why should
+we ever have imagined otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it?
+I see the death-side now as I saw the life-side then; and one has
+as little meaning as the other. As it has been, so it will be, now,
+henceforth, and for ever, in and out, in and out, without pause or
+stint, futile, trivial, silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and
+vain!' The long pre-occupation of men with religion, philosophy,
+and art, seemed to me now as incomprehensible as it was ridiculous.
+There was nothing after all to be interested about! There was
+simply this! The dreariness of my mood was indescribable, and
+corresponded so closely to the scene before me that I found myself
+wondering which was effect, which cause. The silence, the tracts of
+unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the ceaseless vibration
+along its surface of infinite moving points, all this was a reflex
+of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was Intolerable; to escape
+became my only object; and with this in view I rose and began to
+move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.</p>
+
+<p>"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high
+towers standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked
+like towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them;
+for they had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite
+substance or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so,
+the idea of verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of
+form or colour as everything else in this strange land. I made my
+way towards them along the bank; and when I had come close under
+the first, I saw that there was a door in it, and written over the
+door, in a language I cannot now recall, but which then I knew that
+I had always known, an inscription whose sense was:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Eye; come into me and
+see</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I
+did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could
+not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The
+door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the
+threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and
+delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the
+sensation of seeing light for the first time! For hitherto, as I
+have tried to explain, though it has been necessary to speak in
+terms of sight, I have done so only by a metaphor, and it was not
+really by vision that I became acquainted with the scene I have
+described. But now I saw, and saw pure light! And yet not only saw,
+but, as I thought apprehended it with the other senses, both with
+those we know and with others of which we have not yet dreamt. I
+heard light, I tasted and touched it, it enveloped and embraced me;
+I swam in it as in an element, wafted and washed and luxuriantly
+lapped. Pure light, and nothing else! No objects, at first! It was
+only by degrees, and as the first intoxication subsided, that I
+began to be aware of anything but the medium itself. I saw then
+that I was standing at what seemed to be a window, looking out over
+the scene I had just left But how changed it was! The river now,
+like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny champaign bright
+with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky; and the happy
+souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm day in the
+Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible delight; but
+as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery plain
+before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river
+clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a
+star, then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these
+again into others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was
+revolving about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can
+conceive, infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for
+the stars were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of
+ours, and by these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite
+harmonies, the threads of the intricate figure were kept
+distinct.</p>
+
+<p>"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our
+astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive
+the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth
+our faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension
+of time and change is measured by units too small for us to be able
+to embrace by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars.
+But I, in my then condition, had powers commensurate with all
+existence; so that not only could I follow with the eye the coils
+of that celestial morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as
+they approached or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I
+was minded, the course of its secular history; whole series of
+changes and transformations such as we laboriously infer, from
+fossils and rocks and hard unmalleable things, being there (as
+though petrifaction were reversed and solidest things made fluid)
+unrolled before me, molten and glowing and swift, in a stream of
+torrential evolution whose moments were centuries. Wonderful it
+was, and strange, to see the first trembling film creep like a
+mantle over a globe of fire, shiver, and break, and form again, and
+gradually harden and cohere, now crushed into ridges and pits, now
+extended into plains, and tossing the hissing seas from bed to bed,
+as the levels of the viscous surface rose and fell. Wonderful, too,
+when the crust was formed and life became possible, how everywhere,
+in wet or dry, hot or cold alike, wherever footing could be found,
+came up and flourished and decayed things that root and things that
+move, winged or finned or legged, creeping, flying, running,
+breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle, forest, and marsh, pursuing
+and pursued, devouring and devoured, pairing, contending, killing,
+things huge beyond belief, mammoth and icthyosaurus, things minute
+and numerous past the power of calculation, coming and going as
+they could find space, species succeeding to species, and crowding
+every point and vantage for life on the heaving tumultuous bosom of
+eddying worlds.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a
+kind of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact
+that though everything was in constant change, and in the change
+there was clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect
+anything that seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not
+direction to an end; for the end was no better than the beginning,
+it was only different; the idea of Good, in short, did not apply.
+And this fact, which was striking enough in the case of the
+phenomena I have described, made itself felt with even more
+insistence when I turned to consider the course of human history.
+For that too I saw unrolled before me, not only on our own, but on
+innumerable other worlds, in various phases and in various forms,
+both those which we know, and others of which we have no
+conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men I saw
+housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in
+wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the
+mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast,
+nomad tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and
+peace, politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this,
+so far as I could observe, although, through all vacillations,
+there appeared to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there
+was nothing to indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas
+about Good, but these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the
+efficient causes of events, were in no sense the explanation of the
+process. There was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no
+purpose, end, or justification at all. Man, like nature, was the
+plaything of a blind fate. The idea of Good had no application.</p>
+
+<p>"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne
+in upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but
+one desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had
+left. And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus
+for release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see
+through his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me
+out!' And instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of
+the tower, in that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space,
+with the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out,
+futile, trivial, tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw
+written over the door from which I had emerged, and which was
+opposite to that by which I had entered, words whose sense was:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Eye hath not
+seen</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the
+river; and over that was written:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris
+scientiae</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been
+open, should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience
+from which I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and
+made my way along the bank towards the second tower.</p>
+
+<p>"Over the door of this was written in the same language as
+before:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Ear; come into me and
+hear</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some
+apprehension, but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was
+I within than I was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that
+which had greeted me in the Tower of Sight, but even more
+ravishingly sweet. This time what I felt was the sensation of pure
+sound: sound, not merely heard, but, as before in the case of
+light, apprehended at once by every avenue of sense, and folding
+and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole being in a clear and buoyant
+element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute
+essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to
+appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was
+pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring
+reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the
+song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other
+elements crept into the strain; it increased in volume and variety
+of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it grew at length
+into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound, that there
+is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly compare
+it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other
+composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force
+of its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all,
+its endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never
+actually reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to
+dread or to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more
+wonderful still was my clear perception, while I listened, that
+what was being presented to me now through the medium of sound was
+precisely the same world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight.
+Every phenomenon, and sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed
+there, I recognized now, in appropriate musical form. The
+foundation of all was a great basal rhythm, given out on something
+that throbbed like drums, terrible in its persistence and yet
+beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented the mechanical basis
+of the world, the processes which science knows as 'laws of motion'
+and the like, but which really, as I then perceived, might more
+aptly be described as the more inveterate of Nature's habits. Upon
+this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by almost imperceptible
+gradations, was built up an infinitely complex structure of
+intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in freedom, ease
+and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the ear snatches
+of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or, as it might
+be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never complete,
+fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come, which
+they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it were,
+from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear in
+new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I
+knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.</p>
+
+<p>"As this character of the music and its representative meaning
+grew gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight
+a certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I
+passionately desired to hear given out in full the theme which as
+yet had been only suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I
+knew that with its appearance the music would come to a close, just
+at the moment when its cessation would involve the keenest
+revulsion of feeling. And this moment, I felt, was rapidly
+approaching. The rhythm grew more and more rapid, the instruments
+scaled higher and higher, the tension of chromatic progressions was
+strained to what seemed breaking point, till suddenly, with an
+effect as though a stream, long pent in a gorge, had escaped with a
+burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole symphony broke away into
+the major key, and high and clear, chanted, as it seemed, on ten
+thousand trumpets, silver, &aelig;thereal, and exquisitely sweet
+for all their resonant clangour, I heard the ultimate melody of
+things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen, with the
+emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close; and I
+found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on
+the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once
+more was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with
+the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile,
+trivial, tedious, monotonous and vain!</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written
+over the door the inscription:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Ear hath not
+heard</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there
+inscribed:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris Artis</i>?'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the
+third tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of
+hope and fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear,
+has given me what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it
+seems, a more perfect symbol than that; for it, at least, is
+Beauty, and the other was only Power. But is there, then, nothing
+but symbols? Or shall I, in one of these towers, shall I perhaps
+find the thing that is symbolized?'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door
+facing me I saw written:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Heart; come into me
+and feel</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an
+experience even stranger and more delightful than before, but also,
+I fear, more indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a
+pure feeling, which was not of any particular sense, (as, before,
+of sight and hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling
+of Life itself, the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one
+has in health, underlying all particular activities. In this
+sensation I seemed, as before, to be lapped, as in an element; but
+this time the feeling did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when
+I came to myself, that I actually was in the river, leaping along
+with the other souls in such an ecstasy of physical delight as I
+have never felt before or since. Such, at least, was my first
+impression; but gradually it changed into something which I despair
+of rendering in words, for indeed I can hardly render it in my own
+thoughts. Conceive, however, that as, according to the teaching of
+science, every part of matter is affected by every other, insomuch
+that, as they say, the fall of an apple disturbs the balance of the
+universe; so, in my experience then, (and this, I believe, is
+really true) all souls were intimately connected by spiritual ties.
+Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or other, more or less
+obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were so closely
+involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that they
+formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained in
+their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion,
+distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and
+fulfilling in due proportion their periods and paths under the
+control of spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member;
+about me were grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and
+around stretched away, like infinite points of light, in a clear
+heaven of passion, the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a
+figure, for what I am describing in terms of space, I apprehended
+through the medium of feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees
+of affection, from extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate
+there was, as well as love, the one representing repulsion, the
+other attraction; and by their joint influence the whole system was
+sustained. It was not, however, in equilibrium; at least, not in
+stable equilibrium. There was a trend, as I soon became aware,
+towards a centre. The energy of love was constantly striving to
+annihilate distance and unite in a single sphere the scattered
+units that were only kept apart by the energy of hate. This effort
+I felt proceeding in every particular group, and, more faintly,
+from one group to another: I felt it with an intensity at once of
+pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even imagine, much less
+describe; and most of all did I feel it within the limits of my own
+group, of which some of those now present were members. But within
+this group in particular I was aware of an extraordinary
+resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no names,)
+steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest of us,
+or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups. This
+resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a
+tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole
+system seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and
+alone, being dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to
+my body. At the same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw
+my body, as I thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it
+swallowed me down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the
+operator's room, with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like
+Audubon's, though I afterwards ascertained it was really that of
+the assistant, uttering the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see
+why!'</p>
+
+<p>"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since
+been able to continue it, and to discover what was written over the
+other doors of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did
+not enter. So that I have had to go on ever since with the
+knowledge I then acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be,
+it is in the life of the affections, with all its confused tangle
+of loves and hates, attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all,
+indifferences, it is in this intricate commerce of souls that we
+may come nearest to apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly
+apprehend, but the quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any
+significance to life, and makes it a thing which a wise and brave
+man will be able to persuade himself it is right to endure."</p>
+
+<p>With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to
+me that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused
+reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took
+the &aelig;ther, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In
+the confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was
+curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I
+should behave."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I
+dreamt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do
+<i>not</i> see why!" And with that the conversation I had to report
+closed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #12508 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12508)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes
+Dickinson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue
+
+Author: G. Lowes Dickinson
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2004  [eBook #12508]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Leah Moser and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team from images provided by the Million Book Project
+
+
+
+THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE
+
+BY G. LOWES DICKINSON
+
+Fellow of King's College, Cambridge,
+and Author of a Modern Symposium
+
+THIRD EDITION
+
+1900
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  How do the waves along the level shore
+    Follow and fly in hurrying sheets of foam,
+  For ever doing what they did before,
+    For ever climbing what is never clomb!
+  Is there an end to their perpetual haste,
+    Their iterated round of low and high,
+  Or is it one monotony of waste
+    Under the vision of the vacant sky?
+  And thou, who on the ocean of thy days
+    Dost like a swimmer patiently contend,
+  And though thou steerest with a shoreward gaze
+    Misdoubtest of a harbour or an end,
+  What would the threat, or what the promise be,
+    Could I but read the riddle of the sea!
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
+explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue is
+a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but, in its
+application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of failures. I
+am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but think that I have
+chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For, in the first place,
+the problems I have undertaken to discuss have an interest not only
+philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious to treat them in a
+way which might perhaps appeal to some readers who are not professed
+students of philosophy. And, secondly, my subject is one which belongs
+to the sphere of right opinion and perception, rather than to that of
+logic and demonstration; and seems therefore to be properly approached
+in the tentative spirit favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics
+most men, I think, will feel that it is in conversation that they get
+their best lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in
+literary form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude
+in approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
+little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
+myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
+set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or endorse
+them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain opinions of
+my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which should be least
+imprisoning to my own thought, and least provocative of the reader's
+antagonism. It has been my object, to borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de
+présenter des séries d'idées se développant selon un ordre logique, et
+non d'inculquer une opinion ou de prêcher un systême déterminé.' And
+I may add, with him, 'Moins que jamais je me sens l'audace de parler
+doctrinalernent en pareille matière.'
+
+In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent in the
+Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater skill than any
+to which I can pretend. The connection of the various phases of the
+discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as it would be in a formal
+treatise; and in the midst of digressions and interruptions, such
+as are natural in conversation, the main thread of the reasoning may
+sometimes be lost I have therefore appended a brief summary of the
+argument, set forth in its logical connections.
+
+
+
+
+ARGUMENT
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
+consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a diversity
+which suggests _primâ facie_ a scepticism as to the truth of any of
+these ideas.
+
+The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is made
+to show that the position is one which is not really accepted by
+thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their lives by
+their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit their belief in
+these ideas.
+
+This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for the
+regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a Good for
+himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of all. It is
+suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men commonly does
+imply a belief in a General Good.
+
+Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a Good
+of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
+individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
+may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In reply,
+it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by fact;
+(2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all, namely,
+society and its institutions.
+
+In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good is to
+empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its main value.
+
+II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect do,
+whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their actual
+conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that there seems
+to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This latter proposition
+is distasteful to some of the party, who endeavour to maintain that
+there really is no uncertainty as to what is good.
+
+Thus it is argued:
+
+(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct. To
+which it is replied that there appear to be many such 'instincts'
+conflicting among themselves.
+
+(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good being
+defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is replied
+that such a judgment is as _a priori_ and unbased as any other, and as
+much open to dispute.
+
+It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we can have
+no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief discussion of
+the nature of Science, and the applicability of its methods to Ethics.
+
+(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which it
+is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the moral
+reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are current.
+Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in fact,
+vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.
+
+(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest happiness
+of the greatest number." To which it is replied:
+
+(a) That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in accordance with
+'common sense.'
+
+(b) That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest and narrowest
+sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a criterion of
+Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that the term Pleasure
+becomes as indefinite as the term Good.
+
+(c) That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly applied, it
+would lead to results that would shock those who profess to adopt it.
+
+III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it is
+suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we can
+discover, tentatively, what things are good.
+
+To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
+experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
+would be metaphysical, and _a priori_. In reply, the bare possibility
+of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no one really
+believes that all our opinions derived from experience are false,
+and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of all ethical
+significance and worth.
+
+Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do actually
+find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though imperfect
+perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by practice, to
+perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is drawn between
+our perception of Good and our perception of Beauty.
+
+It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a knowledge
+but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as one to be
+realised in Time.
+
+IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
+conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
+brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil must
+be conceived as mere 'appearance.'
+
+In reply, it is suggested:
+
+(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal Good
+with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.
+
+(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed to
+ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but ought
+to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who hold that
+Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of action that they
+should come to see that everything is good.
+
+(3) That this latter conception of the end of action--namely, that we
+should bring ourselves to see that what appears to be Evil is really
+Good--is too flagrantly opposed to common sense to be seriously
+accepted.
+
+To sum up:
+
+In this Book the following positions have been discussed and rejected:
+
+(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real fact.
+
+(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good--such as (a)
+an infallible instinct, (b) the course of Nature, (c) current
+conventions, (d) pleasure.
+
+(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere 'appearance.'
+
+And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be made, a
+progressive discovery of Good.
+
+In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
+approached.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to point
+out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the character of
+a Good which we might hold to be perfect--here referred to as '_The_
+Good.'
+
+The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the position, at
+which we are supposed to have arrived, that the experience of any one
+person, or set of persons, about Good is limited and imperfect, and
+that therefore in any attempt to describe what it is that we hold
+to be good, to compare Goods among one another, and to suggest
+an absolute Good, we can only hope, at best, to arrive at some
+approximation to truth.
+
+I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain preliminary
+points are then discussed. These are:
+
+(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be an
+object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.
+
+(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested that
+the Good we pursue is
+
+(a) That of future generations. Some difficulties in this view are
+brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue is the Good
+of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we mean by that.
+
+(b) That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to be involved
+in difficulty.
+
+II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes on
+to an examination of some of our activities from the point of view
+of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: (1) to
+bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of Good; (2) to
+suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free from defects, such
+a Good being referred to as '_The_ Good.'
+
+(1) It is first suggested that _all_ activities are good, if pursued
+in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems bad in each,
+viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general survey of them
+all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to be tenable.
+
+(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To this it
+is objected that ethical actions are always means to an end, and that
+it is this end that must be conceived to be really good.
+
+(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with physical
+objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of Good; but
+such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only because it is
+precarious, but because it depends upon objects of which it is not the
+essence to produce that Good, but which, on the contrary, just as much
+and as often produce Evil.
+
+(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
+brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:
+
+(a) That they have, by their essence, that Good which is called
+Beauty.
+
+(b) That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be eternal.
+
+(c) That, though complex, they are such that their parts are
+necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to the
+total Beauty.
+
+On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:
+
+(a) That outside and independent of Art there is the 'real world,'
+so that this Good is only a partial one.
+
+(b) That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to demand, for
+a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be so of its own
+nature, without our intervention.
+
+(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
+knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held as
+to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:
+
+(a) the view that knowledge is 'the description and summing up in
+brief formulæ, of the routine of our perceptions.' It is questioned
+whether there is really much Good in such an activity. And it is
+argued that, whatever Good it may have, it cannot be _the_ Good,
+seeing that knowledge may be, and frequently is, knowledge of Bad.
+
+(b) the view that knowledge consists in the perception of 'necessary
+connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this seems to be
+open to the same objection as (a). But, further, it is argued that
+the perpetual contemplation of necessary relations among ideas does
+not satisfy our conception of the Good; but that we require an
+element analogous somehow to that of sense, though not, like sense,
+unintelligible and obscure.
+
+(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other persons,
+where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps find
+something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences to being
+absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are in contact
+
+(a) with objects, not 'mere ideas.'
+
+(b) with objects that are good in themselves and
+
+(c) intelligible and
+
+(d) harmonious to our own nature.
+
+It is objected that love, so conceived, is
+
+(a) rarely, perhaps never, experienced.
+
+(b) in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.
+
+This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we know
+comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to be
+absolutely good.
+
+III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived, is it
+not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems to depend
+on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The following
+points are therefore discussed:
+
+(a) Whether personal immortality is conceivable?
+
+(b) Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable pursuit of
+Good?
+
+On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the Dialogue
+closes with the description of a dream.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange
+in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a
+gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled
+not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of
+my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an
+interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience of
+life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and confined. Last
+year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me especially
+agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip Audubon, whom,
+since his business lay in the East, I had not had an opportunity of
+seeing for many years. I mention him particularly, because, although,
+as will be seen, he did not take much part in the discussion I am
+about to describe, he was, in a sense, the originator of it. For, in
+the first place, it was he who had invited us to the place in which we
+were staying,--an upland valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a
+house; and, further, it was through my renewed intercourse with him
+that I was led into the train of thought which issued in the following
+conversation. His life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous
+in the extreme, had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was
+constitutionally inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened
+than diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I
+hesitate to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
+associations with the schools from which he was singularly free. His
+melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic system; it
+was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be described,
+perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the worthlessness
+and irrationality of the world. Such a position is not readily shaken
+by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt to assail it; but it
+could not fail to impress itself strongly upon my mind, and to keep
+my thoughts constantly employed upon that old problem of the worth
+of things, in which, indeed, for other reasons, I was already
+sufficiently interested.
+
+A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival of
+another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn together
+at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in later years our
+paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination had led him into
+an active career, and for some years he had been travelling abroad
+as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I felt, therefore, some
+curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him, and to ascertain how far
+his views had been modified by his experience of the world.
+
+The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a kind
+of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place of
+rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes
+nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade
+listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in
+the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the
+garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the
+fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, and yet I was unwilling
+to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me and said: "Well, my dear
+philosopher, and how goes the world with you? What have you been doing
+in all these years since we met?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."
+
+"What have you been thinking then?"
+
+"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about the
+world seems to suit you."
+
+"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the quiet of
+the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic countenance,
+I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. I believe if
+I stayed here long you would lure me back to philosophy; and yet I
+thought I had finally escaped when I broke away from you before."
+
+"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one is
+caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying to
+help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."
+
+"And have you found a way?"
+
+"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you and
+hear how you have fared."
+
+"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."
+
+"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You may
+have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so have I.
+But that is only because I want to grapple with it more closely."
+
+"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"
+
+"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who have
+had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to what
+conclusions they have been led by their own direct experience."
+
+"Conclusions about what?"
+
+"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to be
+fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say, given
+up the subject--I mean the whole question of the values we attach, or
+ought to attach, to things."
+
+"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as of
+old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So I used
+to say at college and so I say now."
+
+"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to say;
+but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."
+
+"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit of
+experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me in my
+original view."
+
+"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to hear
+about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as you
+know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of other
+people's."
+
+"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to me,
+in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary diversity of
+men's ideals."
+
+"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"
+
+"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance, until
+I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between the
+Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear that
+either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know which.
+Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But when one
+gets among them and really talks to them, when one realizes how
+profound and intelligent is their contempt for our civilization,
+how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how illusory our
+progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to wonder whether,
+after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit that one judges them
+to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether there is anything at
+all except blind prejudice in any opinions and ideas about Right and
+Wrong."
+
+"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir Richard
+Burton:
+
+"'There is no good, there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will;
+What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.
+They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of
+     time,
+Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been banned as sin or
+     crime.'"
+
+"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
+travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not be
+necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a single
+city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who can look
+below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed uniformity of
+beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and incongruities
+are concealed! Every type, every individual almost, is distinguished
+from every other in precisely this point of the judgments he makes
+about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer think of the life of
+a studious recluse? or the city man of that of the artist? and vice
+versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all of us go about judging
+and condemning one another root and branch. We are in no real
+agreement as to the worth either of men or things. It is an illusion
+of the 'canting moralist' (to use Stevenson's phrase) that there is
+any fixed and final standard of Good. Good is just what any one thinks
+it to be; and one man has as much right to his opinion as another."
+
+"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there are
+different opinions about Good, they are all equally valuable."
+
+"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally worthless."
+
+"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to doubt
+whether you really believe it yourself."
+
+"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."
+
+"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to me
+most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act, and
+are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is good, as
+though you did believe it to be true."
+
+"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"
+
+"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to introduce
+any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it to yourself
+any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you hold to be good
+really somehow is so, your life, I think, would resolve itself into
+mere chaos."
+
+"I don't see that"
+
+"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a life
+is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold to be
+good."
+
+"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."
+
+"I doubt it"
+
+"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"
+
+"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they think
+good."
+
+"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think bad,
+like Milton's Satan--'Evil be thou my Good'?"
+
+"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing what he
+thought good; only he thought that evil was good."
+
+"But that is a contradiction."
+
+"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in which I
+believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the Bad. To them
+it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."
+
+"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"
+
+"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, power and
+wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because he thought
+them good; if his choice also involved what he thought bad, such as
+murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these bad, which I
+doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in his choice as in
+its consequences. But even if I were to admit that he and others have
+chosen and do choose what they believe to be bad, it would not affect
+the point I want to make. For to choose Bad must be, in your view, as
+absurd as to choose Good; since, I suppose, you do not believe, that
+our opinions about the one have any more validity than our opinions
+about the other. So that if we are to abandon Good as a principle of
+choice, it is idle to say we may fall back upon Bad."
+
+"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do not
+need either the one or the other. You must have noticed--I am sure I
+have--that men do not in practice choose with any direct reference to
+Good or Bad; they choose what they think will bring them pleasure, or
+fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a livelihood."
+
+"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"
+
+"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far
+believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to go
+to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be seriously
+angry and distressed."
+
+"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not help
+themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to imagine. We
+have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad enough."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we choose
+is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The criterion is
+Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to realize."
+
+"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the criterion
+is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that other
+pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than those
+they have chosen, and that these better things were and are open to
+themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to the worse,
+knowing it all the time to be the worse."
+
+"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely, are not
+really 'open' to them, except so far as external circumstances are
+concerned. They are hampered in their choice by passions and desires,
+by that part of them which does not choose, but is passively carried
+away by alien attractions; and the course they actually adopt is the
+best they can choose, though they see a better which they would choose
+if they could. The choice is always of Good, but it may be diverted by
+passion to less Good."
+
+"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the matter."
+
+"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own
+consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still, that
+is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I should
+expect that most people who reflect would agree with me. They would
+say, I think, that they always choose the best they can, though
+regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and it would
+seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose Bad, or
+choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."
+
+"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are right--what
+follows?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said, 'practically
+bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least, our opinions about
+what is good; for otherwise we should have no principle to choose by,
+if it be true that the principle of choice is Good."
+
+"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without choosing!"
+
+"But could we?"
+
+"I don't see why not; many people do."
+
+"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it be?"
+
+Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a voice from
+behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the back into one
+of those large lofty barns which commonly form part of a Swiss house;
+and as the floor of this room was covered with straw, it was possible
+to approach that way without making much noise. For this reason, two
+others of our party had been able to join us without our observing it.
+Their names were Parry and Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just
+getting into practice at the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in
+years, though a very precocious one, whom I had brought with me,
+ostensibly as a pupil, but really as a companion. He was an eager
+student of philosophy, and had something of that contempt of youth for
+any one older than twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart
+to resent, though have long passed the age which qualifies me to
+become the object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate
+way he had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
+proceeding.
+
+"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without choice one
+would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every random mood and
+impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"
+
+Ellis looked round rather amused.
+
+"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
+impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
+calculation any day!"
+
+"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good and
+Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."
+
+"What _is_ your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been trying in
+vain to make head or tail of it"
+
+"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
+against this bullying."
+
+"But you _must_ take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are to
+discuss."
+
+"I don't see why; you might take one instead."
+
+"Yes, but you began."
+
+"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, to
+go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many
+different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion
+has been discovered for testing these opinions----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from
+the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial
+agreement about what is good."
+
+"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let
+me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that
+there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and
+that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we
+have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions, or to suppose
+that it is possible to have any true opinions on the subject at all."
+
+"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.
+
+"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very difficult
+to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the point, and
+the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are nevertheless
+practically bound, whether we can justify it to our reason or not,
+to believe that our own opinions about what is good have somehow some
+validity."
+
+"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you interrupted--and
+your interruption really completed my argument--I imagine it to be
+impossible for us not to make choices; and in making choices, as I
+think, we use our ideas about Good as a principle of choice."
+
+"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted the
+truth of that last statement."
+
+"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally--and generally, I
+confess, I do not see how it could be proved or disproved, except by
+an appeal to every individual's experience--do you not admit it in
+your own case? Do you not find that, in choosing, you follow your idea
+of what is good, so far as you can under the limitations of your own
+passions and of external circumstances?"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to admit that
+I do."
+
+"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I mean
+that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your opinion about
+Good, you would have nothing else to fall back upon?"
+
+"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."
+
+"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive yourself
+living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard, from moment
+to moment, following blindly any impulse that may happen to turn
+up, without any principle by which you might subordinate one to the
+other?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't think I can."
+
+"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that you, at
+any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically bound to
+believe that our opinions about what is good have some validity, even
+though we cannot say what or how much."
+
+"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny in
+theory?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the
+attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice
+would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only
+principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to accept.
+In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about Good that
+engenders order among our passions and desires; and without it we
+should sink back to be mere creatures of blind impulse, such as
+perhaps in fact, many men really are."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant
+protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that
+brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part,
+I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so
+abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the
+appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because I
+have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has nothing to
+do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he ejaculated, in a kind of
+passion, "it's a preposterous thing to tell me that I believe in
+Good, merely because I lead a life like a mill-horse! That would be an
+admirable reason for believing in Bad--but Good!"
+
+He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press him
+further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of insult to
+his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for the sake of
+the argument to give some answer, so I began:--
+
+"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead it?"
+
+"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would do it
+if I could help it?"
+
+"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"
+
+"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."
+
+"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"
+
+"No, but it's a necessary thing."
+
+"Necessary, why?"
+
+"Because one must live."
+
+"Then it is a good thing to live?"
+
+"No, it's a very bad one."
+
+"Why do you live, then?"
+
+"Because I can't help it."
+
+"But it is always possible to stop living."
+
+"No, it isn't"
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't choose to
+be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave other people here
+to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of honour. As I'm here, I'm
+going to play the game. All I say is that the game is not worth the
+playing; and you will never persuade me into the belief that it Is."
+
+"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to persuade
+you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You believe, as
+you have really admitted in principle, that it is good to live rather
+than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous, laborious life,
+which you say you detest Take away that belief, and your whole being
+is transformed. Either you change your manner of life, abandon the
+routine which you hate, break up the order imposed (as I said at
+first) by your idea about Good, and give yourself up to the chaos of
+chance desires; or you depart from life altogether, on the hypothesis
+that that is the good thing to do. But in any case the truth appears
+to remain that somehow or other you do believe in Good; and that it is
+this belief which determines the whole course of your life."
+
+"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am
+unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought
+it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the
+argument.
+
+"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your general
+contention, I should still maintain that it is not by virtue of any
+conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into our lives. We
+simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature and character,
+preferring one object to another, suppressing or developing this or
+that tendency. Our choices are not determined by our abstract notion
+of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is deduced from our
+choices."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular choices our
+general idea of the kind of things which we consider good. That may
+be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach validity to
+these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our Good, those that we
+approve as distinguished from those that we do not. And my contention
+is that, in spite of all diversity of opinions as to what really are
+the good things to choose, we are bound to attach, each of us, some
+validity to our own, under penalty of reducing our life to a moral
+chaos."
+
+"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean that
+we must believe that our opinions are right?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that they
+are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and until we see
+something righter. But above all, that opinions on this subject really
+are either right or wrong, or more right and less right; and that of
+this rightness or wrongness we really have some kind of perception,
+however difficult it may be to give an account of it, and that in
+accordance with such perception we may come to change our opinions or
+those of other people, by the methods of discussion and persuasion and
+the like. And all this, as I understand, is what Ellis was denying."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you have
+proved it."
+
+"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to show
+that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because a
+belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that, I
+thought, you did admit yourself."
+
+"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether my
+theory is not more reasonable than my practice."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question that
+really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which
+underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it
+seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I
+think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of our
+opinions about Good."
+
+"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with
+philosophy but with psychology."
+
+"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever it
+be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place yourself
+at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from there."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the whole,
+I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you might
+easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is very much
+one _ad hominem_."
+
+"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of argument in
+which I much believe in these matters. I am content, for the present,
+if you and the others here go along with me."
+
+"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in an
+unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of common
+sense."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
+rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie say?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with anything so
+lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute and _à priori_,
+by which we may prove for certain that Good is, and discover, as well,
+what things are good."
+
+"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone, should
+find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the quest. It is
+only in default of anything better that I fall back on this--I dare
+not call it method; this appeal to opinion and belief."
+
+"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have shown,
+or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were granted
+that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good, it doesn't
+follow that they believe in anything except each a Good for himself.
+So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say would be that
+there are a number of different and perhaps incompatible Goods, each
+good for some particular individual, but none necessarily good for
+all. I, at least, admit no more than that."
+
+"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."
+
+"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was
+familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each
+individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as
+he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe this,
+under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I see no
+reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought to choose
+is identical, or even compatible, with that which another ought to
+choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and mutually exclusive
+moral worlds. In other words, even though I may admit a Good for each,
+I am not prepared to admit a Good for all."
+
+"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a not-Good;
+and that seems to be a contradiction."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be Good
+for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for another."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole conception
+is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for anybody or
+anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple, immutable
+eternal."
+
+"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually tear me
+to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see no reason to
+admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to me."
+
+"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"
+
+"But, to me, something else has a meaning."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to
+explain."
+
+"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods, oughtn't
+to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other particular
+name of its own?"
+
+"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of them
+Good because from one point of view--that of some particular
+individual--each of them is something that ought to be. I, at any
+rate, admit no more than that. For each individual there is something
+that ought to be; but this, which ought to be for him, is very likely
+something that ought not to be for somebody else."
+
+On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and
+despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.
+
+"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these incompatible
+Goods."
+
+"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good, say,
+for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the people who
+come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire to make and
+increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he ruins in the
+process. And so on, _ad infinitum_; one has only to look at the
+world to see that the Goods of individuals are not only diverse but
+incompatible one with another."
+
+"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to be good
+which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not the fact
+of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the things in
+question are not really good?"
+
+"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion. It
+may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of things
+incompatible with what is good for you."
+
+"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so?
+Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow be
+compatible with what is really good for others?"
+
+"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be
+proved."
+
+"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument _ad hominem_. Do not
+you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"
+
+"No, I don't know that I do."
+
+"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for people in
+general?"
+
+"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."
+
+"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."
+
+"In what way do I not?"
+
+"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to enter
+Parliament."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the country
+in favour of--well, I don't quite know what--shall we say in favour of
+the war?"
+
+"Say so, by all means, if you like."
+
+"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at large? or
+at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of them? Do you
+admit that?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will admit,
+I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but what of
+that? Very probably I am wrong."
+
+"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main thing is,
+that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right at all; that
+there is something to be wrong or right about."
+
+"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I shall
+always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again and again,
+I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are worth anything at
+all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an opinion about; and then
+I shall retire from politics altogether; and then--then how will you
+get hold of me?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I
+suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily
+affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I
+presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to some
+general Good?"
+
+"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing of
+the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"
+
+"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on to
+examine the consequences of the supposition."
+
+"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"
+
+"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for that, I
+suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of the case,
+interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the same time, on
+the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a general Good, your
+only object in this interchange will be your own Good, (in which you
+admit that you do believe.) If, for example, you are a doctor,
+your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself, to increase your
+knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the lowest, it is to
+accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your purpose be to
+alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the advance of
+science; for that would be to suppose that these ends, although they
+purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good, which is the
+hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a lawyer, you will
+not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting the law; such ends
+as these for you are mere illusions; for even if justice exist at all,
+it certainly is not a Good, for if it were, it would be a Good for
+all, and, as we agree, there is no such thing. Men like Bentham,
+therefore, to you will be mere visionaries, and the legal system as a
+whole will have no sense or purport, except so far as it contributes
+to sharpen your wits and fill your pocket And so, in general, with all
+professions and occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat
+it merely as a means to your own Good; and since you have no Good
+which is also common to other men, you will use these others without
+scruple to further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without
+necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be theirs."
+
+"Well," he said, "and why not?"
+
+"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it would be
+so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it possible that you
+should ever adopt such an attitude?"
+
+"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an
+idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other
+men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for example,
+a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in his business
+operations, ever had any regard for anything except his own personal
+advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people he ruined? Do you
+suppose he cared even whether he ruined his country, except so far as
+such ruin might interfere with his own profit? Or look again at the
+famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do you suppose it mattered to
+him that he might be starving half the world, and imperilling the
+governments of Europe? It was enough for him that he should realize a
+fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, he washed his hands. He and men
+like him adopt, I have no doubt, precisely the position which you are
+trying to show is impossible."
+
+"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
+general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you. And
+my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good, he
+denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
+not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
+described."
+
+"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume that a
+disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily involves
+a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his own Good
+consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in that case of
+course he will try to further it."
+
+"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other people.
+Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no Good common
+to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in furthering the
+Good of one we are also furthering that of others. So that even
+supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists in furthering
+the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put his belief into
+practice, but at most will be able to help some one man, with the
+likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and injuring many others.
+Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an egoist, yet he cannot work
+for a common Good; and that simply because there is no common Good to
+work for."
+
+At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the
+discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character,
+suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of optimism
+and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was rather
+pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and especially
+Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it irritating. His
+present speech was characteristic of his manner.
+
+"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has vitiated
+your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because every man
+has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to be common
+to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible one with
+another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is necessarily
+hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who are intent on
+theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by all experience,
+that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man, in pursuing his own
+advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue theirs. The world, if
+you like to put it so, is a world of egoists; but a world constructed
+with such exquisite art, that the egoism of one is not only compatible
+with, but indispensable to that of another. On this principle all
+society rests. The producer, seeking his own profit, is bound to
+satisfy the consumer; the capitalist cannot exist without supporting
+the labourer; the borrower and lender are knit by the closest ties of
+mutual advantage; and so with all the ranks and divisions of mankind,
+social, political, economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against
+the other, in delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part
+with part, they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for
+ever disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true,
+and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and
+reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole.
+And when we consider----"
+
+But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and
+Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:
+
+"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests
+countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow your
+own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and the thief,
+of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the fraudulent
+company-promoter; when, turning from these private examples, we cast
+our eyes on international relations, when we observe the perfect
+accord of interest between all the great powers in the far East;
+when we note the smooth harmonious working of that flawless political
+machine so aptly named the European Concert, each member pursuing its
+own advantage, yet co-operating without friction to a common end; or
+when, reverting to the economic sphere, we contemplate the exquisite
+adjustment that prevails between the mutual interest of labour and
+capital--an adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional
+disturbance, just to show that the centre of gravity is changing;
+when we observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan,
+annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime
+example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single
+individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating
+with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and contributing,
+by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a great and
+oppressed people--if indeed, in such a world as ours, anyone can
+be said to be oppressed--when, my dear Parry, we contemplate these
+things, then--then--words fail me! Finish the sentence as you only
+can."
+
+"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very well
+you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still maintain
+that we must take broad views of these matters, and that the position
+adopted is substantially correct, if you take long enough periods
+of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his own Good does
+contribute also to the Good of others."
+
+"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point,
+"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that
+everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is no
+common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is essential
+to the realization of the Good of all the rest"
+
+"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I believe."
+
+"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one thing
+which we shall have to call a common Good."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to
+all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common
+condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."
+
+"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society' what
+is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at least you
+admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of common activity
+and end; and the motives of men in undertaking these common activities
+become a matter of comparative indifference. Whatever they are
+consciously aiming at, whether it be their own Good, or the Good of
+all, or, as is more probable, a varying mixture of both, the fact
+remains that they do, and we do, admit a common Good, the maintenance
+and development of society itself. And that is all I was concerned to
+get you to agree to."
+
+"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common Good
+except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition of Good
+than Good itself?"
+
+"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard
+society as nothing but a condition of the realization of independent,
+individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the Good of each
+individual consists in his relations with other individuals. But this
+I do not know that I am in a position to establish. Meantime, however,
+we can, I think, maintain, that few candid men, understanding the
+issue, will really deny altogether a common Good; for they will have
+to admit that in society we have at the very least a common condition
+of Good."
+
+"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that there
+is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if pressed, would
+probably admit one."
+
+"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not
+attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is
+impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as before,
+that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at his own
+peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have shown is, that
+to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to deny to one's life
+and action all worth except what is bound up with one's own Good, to
+the complete exclusion of any Good of all. In the second place, it is
+to deny all worth to every public and social institution--to religion,
+law, government, the family, all activities, in a word, which
+contribute to and make up what we call society. Further, it is to
+empty history, which is the record of society, of its main interest
+and significance, and in particular to eliminate the idea of progress;
+for progress, of course, implies a common Good towards which progress
+is directed. In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self,
+and reveal him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations
+from which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which,
+apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is to
+make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his solitary
+ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main attraction
+by its dissociation from the development of others. Now, if any man,
+having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a sense, not
+merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were, in every
+nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny that he
+believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the denial with
+his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life, adjusting to
+his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings, and thoughts;
+if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then I, for my part,
+am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be wrong. All I can do
+is to set my experience against his, and to appeal to the experience
+of others; and we must wait till further experience on either side
+leads (if it ever is to lead) to an agreement. But, on the other hand,
+if a man merely makes the denial with his lips, because, perhaps, he
+conceives it impossible to prove the opposite, or because he sees
+that what is good cannot be defined beyond dispute, or whatever other
+plausible reason he may have; and if, while he persists in his denial,
+he continues to act as if the contrary were true, taking part with
+zest and enthusiasm in the common business of life, pushing causes,
+supporting institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and
+that without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his
+own Good--in that case I shall take leave to think that he does not
+really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely think he
+does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole tissue of
+his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real opinion than
+the propositions he enunciates with his lips."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of course
+we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the question is,
+whether we have a right to."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was the more
+modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a right or no
+is another matter, more difficult and more profound than I care to
+approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved beyond dispute to
+the reason, either that certain things are good or that they are not,
+there would be no place for such discussions as this. But, it appears,
+such proof has not yet been given,--or do you think it has?"
+
+"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"
+
+"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall back
+on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to prejudice,--and
+so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an appeal to the passion men
+have to find worth in their lives, and their refusal to accept any
+view by which such worth is denied. To anyone who refuses to accept
+any judgment about what is good, I prove, or endeavour to prove, that
+such refusal cuts away the whole basis of his life; and I ask him if
+he is prepared to accept that consequence. If he affirms that he is,
+and affirms it not only with his lips but in his action, then I have
+no more to say; but if he cannot accept the consequences, then, I
+suppose, he will reconsider the premisses, and admit that he does
+really believe that judgments about what is good may be true, and,
+provisionally, that his own are true, or at least as true as he can
+make them, and that he does in fact accept and act upon them as true,
+and intends to do so until he is convinced that they are false. And
+this attitude of his feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude
+of faith; it is, I think, the attitude most men would adopt if they
+were pressed home upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable
+enough, and rather to be praised than to be condemned."
+
+"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very
+unsatisfactory."
+
+"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're all
+driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about nothing."
+
+"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really delightful
+paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are bound to
+believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what it is!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"
+
+"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"
+
+"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things are
+good."
+
+"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could think
+that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that we are
+bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I cannot see
+that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very diversity, it
+seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope is, that perhaps
+they do all contain some truth, although they may contain falsehood as
+well."
+
+"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All the
+confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we can't see
+what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that there is all
+this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers always assume,
+as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of opinion and
+reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really determine conduct.
+Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is determined, at least in
+essentials, by something very much more like instinct. And it is
+to this instinct which, by the nature of the case, is simple and
+infallible, that we ought to look to tell us what is good, and not
+to our reason, which, as you admit yourself, can only land us in
+contradictory judgments. I know, of course, that you have a prejudice
+against any such view."
+
+"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should be glad
+of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never yet been
+able to find one."
+
+"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place; or,
+perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it. You will
+never discover what is good by any process of rational inquiry. It's a
+matter of direct perception, above and beyond all argument."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you said,
+simple and infallible?"
+
+"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all
+practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is for
+this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say, of
+course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour or two
+in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate if the
+habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For inquiry does
+tend in the long run to influence opinion, and generally to influence
+it in the wrong way; whereas, if people simply go on following their
+instinct, they are much more likely to do what is right, than if they
+try to act on so-called rational grounds."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious
+difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you bid
+us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its content?
+What _is_ it, anyhow, that it should be set up in this way above
+reason?"
+
+"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct is,
+that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey; there's
+no question about it."
+
+"But there _is_ question about the content of Good."
+
+"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how small
+a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we act
+simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest and most
+prosperous."
+
+"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What
+standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"
+
+"From common sense."
+
+"And what is common sense?"
+
+"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"
+
+"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every instinct
+require another to justify it, and so _ad infinitum_?"
+
+"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable
+good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a clever
+child.
+
+"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point. Is
+it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient justification, or
+does it require justification by something else?"
+
+"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong
+instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands
+above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of
+dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism
+simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it challenges."
+
+"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this instinct
+is so strong therefore it is always good to follow it?"
+
+"I should say so, generally speaking."
+
+"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man should
+run away in battle?"
+
+"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There you get
+a superposition of the social upon the merely individual instinct."
+
+"And how does that come about?"
+
+"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been ingeniously
+explained as follows. We start with the primary instinct of
+self-preservation. This means, at first, that each individual strives
+to preserve himself. But as time goes on individuals discover that
+they can only preserve themselves by associating with others, and that
+they must defend society if they want to defend themselves. They thus
+form a habit of defending society; and this habit becomes in time a
+second instinct, and an instinct so strong that it even overrides
+the primary one from which it was derived; till at last you get
+individuals sacrificing in defence of the community those very lives
+which they originally entered the community to preserve."
+
+"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really true that
+every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so only by virtue
+of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull himself up and remember
+that, after all, the preservation of his life was the only motive that
+induced him to endanger it, he would run away like a sensible man, and
+try some other device to achieve his end, the device of society having
+evidently broken down, so far as he is concerned."
+
+"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism! The
+point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and has
+therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the reason
+touch it in the least"
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very hard that
+a man can't rectify such an important error. The imposition is simply
+monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut up in society on the
+distinct understanding, to begin with, that society was to help them
+to preserve their lives; instead of which, it starves them and hangs
+them and sends them to be shot in battle, and they aren't allowed
+to raise a word of protest or even to perceive what a fraud is being
+perpetrated upon them!"
+
+"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to me
+a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the better
+instincts."
+
+"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These
+instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the
+instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and fight?"
+
+"No doubt," he admitted.
+
+"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he stays and
+fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs away?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know what is
+Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between instincts,
+to approve one and condemn another. And our problem still remains, how
+can we do this? how can we get any certainty of standard?"
+
+"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an instinct is.
+My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with what seemed to
+be your assumption that whatever it is in us that judges about Good
+judges in a single, uniform, infallible way. Whereas, in fact, as you
+had to admit, sometimes at the same moment it pronounces judgments not
+only diverse but contradictory."
+
+"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As
+a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we
+require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science rather
+than in philosophy."
+
+"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with it?"
+
+"What has _not_ science to do with?" said a new voice from behind. It
+was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the breakfast room (he
+always breakfasted late), and had overheard the last remark. He was a
+lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather distinguished in that field,
+and an enthusiastic believer in the capacity of the scientific method
+to solve all problems.
+
+"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that
+science has nothing to do with the Good."
+
+"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed that be
+true."
+
+"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I interposed. I
+was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the same time I was
+desirous to avoid a discussion between him and Leslie, for their types
+of mind and habits of thought were so radically opposed that it was
+as idle for them to engage in debate as for two bishops of opposite
+colour to attempt to capture one another upon a chessboard. He
+answered readily enough to my challenge.
+
+"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge, and
+that is the method we call scientific."
+
+"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by that
+method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of knowledge, but
+only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere, the only safe guide
+is the actual concrete operation of Nature."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent
+hostility.
+
+"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only to
+be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in fact
+identical with the condition towards which she tends, and morality the
+means to attaining it."
+
+"But----" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him short.
+
+"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"
+
+"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only ascertain
+by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution. Biology and
+Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one another, are
+rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, _sotto-voce_, "here comes the social organism!
+I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."
+
+"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing, or
+ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to draw any
+certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty clear what
+kind of results we shall arrive at."
+
+"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"
+
+"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the position
+I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be regarded as
+provisional."
+
+"Of course! Pray go on!"
+
+"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the single
+cell----"
+
+"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity, "with a C
+or with an S?"
+
+"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal body
+is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a progressive
+modification in the structure of each cell, the differentiation of
+groups of cells to perform special functions,--digestive, respiratory,
+and the rest,--and the subordination of each cell or group of cells to
+the whole. Similarly, in sociology----"
+
+"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain himself,
+"mightn't we take all this for granted?"
+
+"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."
+
+"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy. And I
+don't see how----"
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"
+
+"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted, that
+in the social organism----"
+
+"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"
+
+"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell, the
+various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus its
+alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange; its
+circulatory system, in the network of communications; its nervous
+system, in the government machinery; its----"
+
+"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never could
+find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society corresponds to the
+spleen?"
+
+"Or the liver?" added Leslie.
+
+"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.
+
+"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are tired of
+being serious it's no use for me to continue."
+
+"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one does
+get a little tired of the social organism."
+
+"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really understand
+it."
+
+"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."
+
+At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in polemics;
+so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.
+
+"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position, how
+does it help us to judge what is good?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is, that it
+is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into individuals
+and individuals into societies--the protozoon, in other words,
+evolves into the animal, the animal into what some have called the
+'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this physical evolution
+corresponds a psychical one. What kind of consciousness an animal may
+have, we can indeed only conjecture; and we cannot even go so far as
+conjecture in the case of the cell; but we may reasonably assume
+that important psychical changes of the original elements are
+accompaniments and conditions of their aggregation into larger
+entities; and the morality (if you will permit the word) of the cell
+that is incorporated in an animal body will consist in adapting itself
+as perfectly as may be to the new conditions, in subordinating its
+consciousness to that of the Whole--briefly, in acquiring a social
+instead of an individual self. And now, to follow the clue thus
+obtained into the higher manifestations of life. As the cell is to the
+animal, so is the individual to society, and that on the psychical as
+well as on the physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she
+is perfecting society; that is the end and goal of all her striving.
+When, therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has
+this simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the
+perfect social body."
+
+As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'_Parturiunt montes_,'" and
+Leslie took it up with: "And not even a mouse!"
+
+"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say, until
+we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me more like
+a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth. But the
+question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage Wilson
+gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself, I suppose,
+might have been reached, and commonly is, without any recourse to the
+aid of natural science."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by the
+scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may assert
+that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over individual
+passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't see how you
+would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the whole evolution of
+Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate; and can say:--if you
+resist that tendency you are resisting Nature herself!"
+
+"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able to
+resist Nature?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of the
+plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but destined
+sooner or later to be absorbed."
+
+"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you said at
+the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So that, instead
+of looking within to find our criterion, we ought really to look
+without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of Nature and to
+acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."
+
+"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I am
+inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able to make
+out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the direction
+which, on the whole, we prefer."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led you to
+just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature was not from
+the cell to the animal, and from the individual to society, but in
+precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of all things was a
+resolution into the primitive elements--do you think you would have
+been as ready to assert that it is the goal of Nature that must
+determine our ideal of Good?"
+
+"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"
+
+"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical than
+the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of your
+authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives
+the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of
+continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the
+utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again to
+the original condition. What you were describing is the movement which
+we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be good,
+at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose us to have
+reached the point at which the opposite movement begins; suppose what
+we had to look forward to and to describe as the course of Nature
+were a process, not from simple to complex, from homogeneous to
+heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but one in exactly the
+contrary direction, a dissolution of society into its individuals,
+of animals into the cells of which they are composed, of life into
+chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and so on through the scale of
+Being, reversing the whole course of evolution--should we, in such a
+case, still have to say that the process of Nature was right, and that
+she is to give the law to our judgment about Good?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only those
+who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the qualities
+enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long run, be
+eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize opinions
+with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt, is why we
+approve what you call the upward movement, which is the one in which
+Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same reason, if, or when,
+a movement in the opposite direction should set in, people holding
+opinions like ours will tend to be eliminated, while those will tend
+to survive more and more who approve the current of evolution then
+prevailing."
+
+"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be at last
+attained, by the simple process of eliminating the dissentients!"
+
+"Precisely!"
+
+"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory for the
+people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we want to know
+is, what _we_ are to judge to be Good, not what somebody else will be
+made to judge, centuries hence."
+
+"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the argument
+you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her we shall be
+knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object strongly to
+her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the harmony of the final
+consummation--even if it were to be final, and not merely the turn of
+the tide; and I am sensibly aware of the horrible discomfort of the
+intermediate stages, the pushing, kicking, trampling of the host, and
+the wounded and dead left behind on the march. Of all this I venture
+to disapprove; then comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!'
+I ask why, and she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still
+demur, and she comes down on me with a threat--'Very good, approve or
+no, as you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By
+all means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection
+that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a martyr.
+Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner because I venture
+to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry; and in my humble
+opinion it's Nature, not _I_, that cuts a poor figure!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking like
+that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"
+
+"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer the
+ridiculous."
+
+"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For I
+cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."
+
+"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about Good
+must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of Nature may,
+as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure of Good; the
+measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the study of
+Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by giving it
+new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last resort; and the
+judgment can never be a mere statement as to the course which Nature
+is pursuing."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount
+importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right
+judgment?"
+
+"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the study
+of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All that I
+wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you have been
+trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other, to get rid
+of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by substituting for
+them a statement about the tendencies of Nature--that this contention
+cannot be upheld."
+
+"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a
+scientific basis for your judgment."
+
+"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what you
+include under science."
+
+"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief formulæ of
+the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a description of what
+happens."
+
+"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good can
+certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are judgments of
+what ought to be, not of what is."
+
+"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have
+nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."
+
+"But might there not be some way of judging between opinions?"
+
+"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective test?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case of the
+sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of ours,
+but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine which is
+independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us from without
+with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of our own can
+impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the power of inference,
+whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are able to build up a
+knowledge of what is. But when, on the other hand, we turn to such of
+our ideas as deal with the Good, the Beautiful, and the like--here
+we have no test external to ourselves, no authority superior and
+independent. Invite a group of men to witness a scientific experiment,
+and none of them will be able to deny either the sequence of the
+phenomena produced, or the chain of reasoning (supposing it to be
+sound) which leads to the conclusion based upon them. Invite the same
+men to judge of a picture, or consult them on a question of moral
+casuistry, and they will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will
+there be any objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion
+is more correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense
+are, or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation,
+infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are
+different not only in different persons, but in the same person at
+different times."
+
+"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The
+question is whether--"
+
+"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main point.
+I was going to say that not merely are there these differences
+of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the opinions were
+uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective and devoid
+of scientific validity. It is the external reference that gives its
+certainty to science; and such a reference is impossible in the case
+of judgments about the Beautiful and the Good. Such judgments are
+merely records of what we think or feel. These ideas of ours may or
+may not happen to be consistent one with another; but whether they are
+so or not, they are merely our ideas, and have nothing to do with the
+essential nature of reality."
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds in the
+way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point of view
+of God--only for the sake of argument," I added, seeing him about to
+protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being through and through
+as it really is; and along with this knowledge of reality he has a
+conviction that reality is good. Now, with this conviction of his none
+other, _ex hypothesi_, can compete; for he being God, we must at any
+rate admit that if anybody can be right, it must be he. No one then
+can dispute or shake his opinion; and since he is eternal he will
+not change it of himself. Is there then, under the circumstances, any
+distinction of validity between his judgment that what is, is, and his
+judgment that what is, is good?"
+
+"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an imaginary
+case. But if you press me I can only say that I still adhere to my
+view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God or anybody
+else, can be no more than a subjective expression of opinion."
+
+"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in so far
+as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to eliminate
+the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you dwelt, of the
+impressions of external sense, the certainty of the impressions is
+your and my certainty that we have them; and so in the case of a
+cogent argument; for any given person the test of the cogency is his
+perception that the cogency is there. And it is the same with
+the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test except
+perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions conflict;
+not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the case I
+imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself, then
+the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as the
+certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."
+
+"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're beginning to
+talk metaphysics."
+
+"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is sense."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."
+
+"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."
+
+"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."
+
+"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air of
+an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really matter?
+Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good, the fact
+remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good, his Good,
+our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in process of
+flux, according to the time of day, the time of life, and the state
+of the liver. That being so, what is the use of discussing Good
+in itself? And why be so disturbed about it? There's Leslie, for
+instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked out of the universe
+because he can't discover his objective standard! My dear boy, life
+goes on just the same, my life, his life, your life, all the lives.
+Why not make an end of the worry at once by admitting frankly that
+Good is a chimæra, and that we get on very well without it?"
+
+"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.
+
+"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that none
+of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."
+
+"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with you
+merely because you override me in argument--even if you did, which you
+don't."
+
+"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that you
+disagree."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was silence,
+till I began to fear that our argument would collapse; when, to my
+relief, Parry returned to the charge.
+
+"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I can't
+help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I feel
+sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does not
+really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good by
+instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it. And
+what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in experience."
+
+"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.
+
+"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and
+country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I want
+to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name possesses, in
+its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly follows, the
+moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective standard,
+worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department of life,
+really is good. To this standard every plain man, without reasoning,
+and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and naturally conform;
+so do all of us who are discussing here, in all the common affairs of
+our daily life. We know, if I may say so, better than we know; and the
+difficulties into which we are driven, in speculations such as
+that upon which we are engaged, arise, to my mind, from a false and
+unnecessary abstraction--from putting aside all the rich content
+of actual life, and calling into the wilderness for the answer to a
+question which solves itself in the street and the market-place."
+
+"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy with
+what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."
+
+"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and thousands!"
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was referring
+is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own standard of Good;
+but these standards are different and even opposite; so that it would
+seem we require some criterion by which to compare and judge them."
+
+"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are not
+concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great civilization
+believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient Greeks, of
+whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are absurdly
+over-estimated; but they had at least that good quality--they believed
+in themselves. To them the whole non-Greek world was barbarian; the
+standard of Good was frankly their own standard; and it was a standard
+knowable and known, however wide might be the deviations from it in
+practice. We find accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in
+the real. Plato, even, in constructing his imaginary republic,
+does not build in the void, evoking from his own consciousness
+a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for the Birds; on the contrary, he bases
+his structure upon the actual, following the general plan of the
+institutions of Sparta and Crete; and neither to him nor to Aristotle
+does it ever occur that there is, or could be, any form of state worth
+considering, except the city-state with which they were familiar. It
+is the same with their treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of
+the Greeks, not of Man in general, and stands in close relation to the
+facts of contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not,
+like that of our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for
+vaguely-imagined millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal
+interpretation of their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature
+and form the very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in
+the troubled stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply
+the essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who
+frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and
+hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his countrymen.
+That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is the one natural
+to the plain man in every well-organized society. Good is best known
+when it is not investigated; and people like ourselves would do no
+useful service if we were to induce in others the habit of discussion
+which education has made a second nature to ourselves."
+
+"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that we
+are all anarchists in disguise?"
+
+"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by
+Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health is
+ignorance."
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for that."
+
+"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined. "But
+if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that we are
+suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern world. It was
+easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they had no past. But
+for us the past overweights the present; we cannot, if we would,
+get rid of the burden of it. All that was once absolute has become
+relative, including our own conceptions and ideals; and as we look
+back down the ages and see civilization after civilization come into
+being, flourish and decay, it is impossible for us to believe that
+the society in which we happen to be born is more ultimate than any
+of these, or that its ideal, as reflected in its institutions, has
+any more claim than theirs to be regarded as a final and absolute
+expression of Good."
+
+"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals evolve,
+but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more validity for
+us than any other. As to those of the past, they were, no doubt,
+important in their day, but they have no importance for the modern
+world. The very fact that they are past is proof that they are also
+superseded."
+
+"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that everything
+that is later in time is also better? That we are better artists than
+the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more spiritual than the
+men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those of the Renaissance?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all that.
+I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress; and that
+therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that alone, which we
+ought practically to consider."
+
+"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there are so
+many."
+
+"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is
+embodied in current laws and customs."
+
+"But these are always themselves in process of change."
+
+"Yes, gradual change."
+
+"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And to
+sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end, the
+sanctioning of a whole revolution."
+
+"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally
+established, what right have we to judge that the established is the
+Good?"
+
+"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what we do."
+
+"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we
+reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else do
+you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and disquiet we
+are apt to experience in the presence of a bold denier?"
+
+"I don't know that I do experience it."
+
+"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially vivid
+experience of the kind."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my mind
+when I was speaking."
+
+"Well, but what does he say?"
+
+"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."
+
+"What does he deny, then?"
+
+"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should conjecture,
+at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and all the rest of
+it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon as
+progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with all that
+it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong, of the bad
+against the good, of the herd against the master. Every great society,
+in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in the sense that the
+many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed to the few; and
+that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good conscience, in free
+obedience to the universal law of the world. 'Be strong, be hard' are
+his ultimate ethical principles. The modern virtues, or what we affect
+to consider such, sympathy, pity, justice, thrift, unselfishness and
+the like, are merely symptoms of moral degeneration. The true and
+great and noble man is above all things selfish; and the highest type
+of humanity is to be sought in Napoleon or Cæsar Borgia."
+
+"But that's mere raving!"
+
+"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be. But
+not simply because it contradicts those current notions which we are
+embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is precisely
+those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet it with a
+bare denial."
+
+"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"
+
+"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely be
+stronger if you had reason for your faith."
+
+"But I think my reason sufficient--those are not the ideas of the
+age."
+
+"But for all you know they may be those of the next."
+
+"Well, that will be its concern."
+
+"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you said
+that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose, is what
+you want to attain."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally
+current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of
+the Good you want to achieve."
+
+"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the Good!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't."
+
+"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take the
+ideas of our time as a final criterion?"
+
+"I suppose so--I don't know--I'm sure there's something in it! Do you
+believe yourself that they have no import for us?"
+
+"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import is.
+We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a current
+convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact of the
+tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a moral reformer
+to modify the convention. Or do you not think so?"
+
+"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"
+
+"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there any
+institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open to
+obvious criticism? Take what you will--parliamentary government, the
+family, the law of real property--is there one of them that could be
+adequately and successfully defended?"
+
+"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The family--"
+
+"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss that!
+But upon one thing we seem to be agreed--that whatever may be the
+value of current standards of Good in assisting our judgment, we
+cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of authority. And
+so once more we are thrown back each upon his own opinions."
+
+"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to
+attach some validity."
+
+"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have any."
+
+I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming round
+from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining members of our
+party. They had just returned from a mountaineering expedition; and
+now, having had their bath, had come out to join us in our usual
+place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the _Times_ and the _Daily
+Chronicle_. He was a keen business man, and a Radical politician of
+some note; and though not naturally inclined to speculative thought,
+would sometimes take part in our discussions if ever they seemed to
+touch on any practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were
+often very much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive
+and polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth
+the course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of
+satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some
+talk about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to
+apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"
+
+"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will be
+willing to help us?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't much
+in my line."
+
+"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you even
+know what we're talking about!"
+
+"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it be
+when you get together?"
+
+"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something more
+like ethics."
+
+"What is the question?" asked Dennis.
+
+Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract
+the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the
+profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune, had
+not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his time for
+some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed talking to
+him, though the position he had come to hold was one which I found it
+very difficult to understand, and I am not sure that I have been able
+to represent it fairly.
+
+"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question, "our
+judgments about what is good, and trying without much success to get
+over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem to be
+practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we find it
+hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far and in what
+sense."
+
+"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help you.
+At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and what's
+bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the same
+point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a convinced
+Utilitarian."
+
+"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to the
+word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"
+
+"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I could
+see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."
+
+"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the things you
+speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny it."
+
+"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
+argument."
+
+"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"
+
+"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good and
+what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do it!"
+
+"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"
+
+"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on important
+points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what ought to be
+done, but about how to do it."
+
+"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.
+
+"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and healthy."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
+happy."
+
+"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good to
+make people happy."
+
+"Oh well, if you deny that--"
+
+"Well, if I deny that?"
+
+"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply means,
+what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I do."
+
+"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a Utilitarian."
+
+"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I believe,
+does everybody else."
+
+"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture can go,
+is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and liquid, and
+of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of attainable
+and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater quantities for most
+pigs.'"
+
+"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of Hedonism."
+
+"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.
+
+"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well enough,
+though probably not Bartlett's."
+
+"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"A what?" said Bartlett.
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"And what may that be?"
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him short.
+"It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for example,
+is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship; they are, he
+says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of possessing the goodwill
+of such and such individuals, and the right of expecting from them, in
+consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous services.'"
+
+We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not help
+protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single example."
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The pleasures
+of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of acquiring
+or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in consequence, of
+expecting particular favours from him, either in this life or in
+another.'"
+
+We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your
+levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an
+egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"
+
+"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.
+
+"And what's the difference?"
+
+"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis interrupted him
+again.
+
+"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the other a
+prig."
+
+"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"
+
+"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the same
+as theirs. And of all the _à priori_ systems I prefer Utilitarianism,
+because it is at least clear, simple, and precise."
+
+"That is what I can never see that it is."
+
+"Why, what is your difficulty?"
+
+"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a
+dogma."
+
+"True," he said, "but that particular dogma--the greatest happiness
+of the greatest number--is one which commends itself to everyone's
+consciousness."
+
+"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A
+crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain disease
+about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of discovering
+how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is found, by the
+hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general preponderance
+of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they go to the
+crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name of the
+utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to vivisection. The
+tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will be inconceivable:
+but think of the result! A general preponderance in the community at
+large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of pain inflicted on you,
+an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody else. Upon you, it is
+true, will fall the whole of the pain; whereas the pleasure will be so
+minutely distributed among innumerable individuals that the increment
+in each case will be almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be
+there! and our arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure
+will exceed the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among
+a greater number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the
+hedonistic calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you!
+Rise to the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting
+room! What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to
+Bartlett to express his sentiments!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case, to
+begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it did,
+one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to take an
+impartial view of the situation."
+
+"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what would
+really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to suffer? Do you
+think they would believe they ought to accept the sacrifice? Every
+man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for himself; and what
+right has he to accept it for other people?"
+
+"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought to."
+
+"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon common
+sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common sense would
+repudiate it."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a case, as I
+said, that could not occur--a mere marginal case."
+
+"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental fallacy.
+Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number is good has a more obvious and
+indisputable validity than any other judgments of worth. It seems to
+me to be just one judgment among others; and, like the others, it may
+be true or false. However, I will not press that point. But what I
+should like to insist upon is, that the doctrine which Bartlett seemed
+to hold--"
+
+"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed an
+opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy in
+the world." And with that he opened the _Chronicle_, and presently
+becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further attention to the
+course of our debate.
+
+"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or
+no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at
+once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since its
+enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as closed. It
+will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry, that the truth of
+the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so that it has only to
+be stated to be accepted?"
+
+"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the Utilitarians
+is that everyone who has the capacity and will take the trouble to
+reflect will, in fact, arrive at their conclusions."
+
+"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is good, the
+result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there are many
+possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and simple than any
+other judgment of the kind?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as it is,
+requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for every fresh
+case that turns up."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to
+discover wherein that happiness consists."
+
+"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as pleasure."
+
+"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"
+
+"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply sensations.
+If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am thirsty, I
+feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these feelings; they are
+simple and radical."
+
+"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple cases
+as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics. And, on
+the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they lose at
+once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult to interpret
+as Good and Evil."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as that
+between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be fairly
+summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as everyone knows,
+the choices are far more difficult; they are between, let us say, a
+bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony; leisure and liberty now, or
+£1000 a-year twenty years hence; art and fame at the cost of health,
+or sound nerves and obscurity; and so on, and so on through all
+the possible cases, infinitely more complex in reality than I could
+attempt to indicate here, all of which, no doubt, could be brought
+under your formula, but none of which the formula would help to
+solve."
+
+"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult to
+apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."
+
+"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what
+follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that in
+making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call the
+hedonistic calculus--"
+
+"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the important
+point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small thing to
+know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we do know it)
+that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of pleasure over pain;
+the whole problem is to discover, in innumerable detailed cases,
+wherein precisely the preponderance consists. But this can only be
+learnt, if at all, by long and difficult, and, it may be, painful
+experience. We do not really know, _à priori_, what things are
+pleasurable, in the extended sense which we must give to the word if
+the doctrine is to be at all plausible, any more definitely than we
+know what things are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting
+the word Pleasure for the word Good, even if the substitution were
+legitimate, have not really done much to help us in our choice."
+
+"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even if we
+do not know what things are pleasurable."
+
+"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not know
+what things are good."
+
+"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."
+
+"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."
+
+"But you cannot define Good."
+
+"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by direct
+experience."
+
+"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in the
+case of Pleasure everyone _does_ recognise it when it occurs; whereas
+there is no such general recognition of Good."
+
+"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."
+
+"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true or
+no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial whether
+Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally recognisable. The
+point is that they are radically different things."
+
+"No," objected Parry, "_our_ point is that they are the same thing."
+
+"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone can."
+
+"And _I_ don't believe that anyone _cannot_!"
+
+"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry?"
+
+"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular
+example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin or
+poetry is."
+
+"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one itches is as good
+as, say, pursuing scientific research."
+
+"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is not
+equal."
+
+"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in
+scratching?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some
+physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a
+catamite."
+
+"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross physical
+pleasures do not last."
+
+"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss of
+scratching, or of--"
+
+"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of way. It
+seems to me to deserve serious treatment"
+
+"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a heaven of
+scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser experience,
+would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure than a heaven of
+scientific research."
+
+"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."
+
+"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you would.
+The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific research is a
+better thing than such physical pleasure, and then you bring out your
+calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that foregone conclusion.
+And that is what the Utilitarians always do. Being ordinary decent
+people they accept the same values as the rest of the world, and on
+the same grounds as the rest of the world. And then they pretend,
+and no doubt believe themselves, that they have been led to their
+conclusions by the hedonistic calculus. But really, if they made an
+impartial attempt to apply the calculus fairly, they would arrive
+at quite different results, results which would surprise and shock
+themselves, and destroy the whole plausibility of their theory."
+
+"That is your view of the matter."
+
+"But isn't it yours?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this
+utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident
+about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what
+things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that
+all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is not
+pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is disputed.
+So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that there are
+a number of conflicting opinions about what things are good, that
+to these opinions some validity must be attached, but that it is
+difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to choose between
+them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the truth about Good
+must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by interrogating the actual
+experience of men in their judgments about good things, we may perhaps
+be able to get at least some, shadowy notion of the object of our
+quest"
+
+"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even by your
+own confession we end where we began."
+
+"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"
+
+For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat (it was
+now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the murmur of
+the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to their dinner)
+seemed to have induced a general disinclination to the effort of
+speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known to be tired in
+body or mind, and who was always debating something--it seemed to
+matter very little what--even he, I thought at first, was ready to let
+the discussion drop. But presently it became clear that he was only
+revolving my last words in his mind, for before long he turned to me
+and said:
+
+"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or what
+results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie pricked
+up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as ever to pursue
+the subject further.
+
+"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of discovering
+Good independently of all experience?"
+
+The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.
+
+"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what kind of a
+method would that be?"
+
+"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was thinking
+of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by Hegel in his
+_Logic_?"
+
+"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey much
+to my mind."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take any
+statement you like--for example, 'Nothing exists!'--put it into the
+dialectical machine, turn the handle, and hey presto! out comes the
+Absolute! The thing's infallible; it does not matter what you put in;
+you always get out the same identical sausage."
+
+Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand now!"
+
+"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't much
+matter."
+
+"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian plan."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room, lock the
+door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you proceed
+to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its contents; look
+steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a well; and at the
+bottom you will find Truth in the form of a categorical imperative.
+Or, if you don't like that, there's the method of Fichte. You take an
+Ego, by preference yourself; convert it into a proposition; negate it,
+affirm it, negate it again, and so on _ad infinitum_, until you get
+out the whole Universe in the likeness of yourself. But that's rather
+a difficult method; probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take--"
+
+"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a
+name."
+
+"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the question
+is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all arrive at
+totally different results."
+
+"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he replied. "I
+merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such method of pure
+reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."
+
+"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such method
+yourself?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You simply lie down and block the road?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."
+
+"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk round
+you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.
+
+"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."
+
+"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that there
+really is some such method as you suggest of discovering Good--a
+purely rational method, independent of all common experience."
+
+"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."
+
+"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so discovered,
+would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or would it be
+merely the total reality of which they are imperfect and inadequate
+expressions?"
+
+"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to them.
+All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good and some
+bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to suppose that
+our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were by an accidental
+coincidence."
+
+"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a
+Good, and that there is a purely rational and _à priori_ method of
+discovering it, yet we do not profess to have ascertained that method
+ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has been ascertained by anyone?
+In any case, we admit, I suppose, that to the great mass of men, both
+of our own and all previous ages, such a method has remained unknown
+and unsuspected?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the
+impression that they were really good."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and small
+alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that store
+of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the drama of
+history?"
+
+"Undoubtedly!"
+
+"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The
+purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had they
+any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some particular
+case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven to achieve,
+whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like Cæsar, to found
+a polity, whether their quest were virtue or power or truth, or any
+other of the ends we are accustomed to value and praise, or whether
+they sought the direct opposites of these, or simply lived from hour
+to hour following without reflexion the impulse of the moment, in any
+and every case all alike, great and small, good and bad, leaders and
+followers, or however else we may class them, were, in fact, equally
+insignificant and absurd, the idle sport of illusions, one as
+empty and baseless as another. The history of nations, the lives
+of individual men, are stripped, in this view, of all interest and
+meaning; nowhere is there advance or retrogression, nowhere better or
+worse, nowhere sense or consistency at all. Systems, however imposing,
+structures, however vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The
+stars fall from the human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like
+will-o'-the-wisps; the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and
+dissolves in smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with
+impotent eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as
+it dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only
+view we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we
+believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."
+
+"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and the
+future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we
+shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you put
+forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a reason and
+purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any rate, could
+and did believe that they were helping to realize great Goods; but
+we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to forego even that
+satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good exists, and that
+there is a method of discovering it by pure reason; but this method,
+we may safely assume, we shall not most of us have ascertained. Or do
+you think we shall?"
+
+"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained it
+myself."
+
+"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume that
+it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the pursuit of
+Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which we call
+good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the true Good.
+Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men who have learnt
+indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing about it, except
+that it has nothing to do with what they call good. What kind of life
+will they live? Whatever they may put their hand to, they will at once
+be paralyzed by the thought that it cannot possibly be worth pursuing.
+Politics, art, pleasure, science--of these and all other ends
+they know but one thing, that all is vanity. As by the touch of
+enchantment, their world is turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch
+lips and hands towards a water for ever vanishing, a fruit for
+ever withdrawn. At war with empty phantoms, they 'strike with their
+spirit's knife,' as Shelley has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and
+lost they move about in worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable,
+'children crying in the night, with no language but a cry,' and no
+father to cry to. And in all this blind confusion the only comfort
+vouchsafed is that somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how,
+discover a Good of which the only thing they know is that it has no
+connection with the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account
+of the condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept
+and believe your hypothesis?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against this
+appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really were as I
+suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it seemed to ruin
+our own life."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all, we have
+no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so, and
+every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is true,
+demonstrate--and that was admitted from the first--that any of our
+judgments about what is good are true; but there is no reason why we
+should not believe--and I should say we must believe--that somehow or
+other they do at least have truth in them."
+
+"Well, and if so?"
+
+"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do not
+believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon some
+purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things which
+we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so, and by
+analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of such things
+we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that we judge to be
+good; and again by increasing experience we may come to know more Good
+than we knew; and generally, if we once admit that we have some light,
+we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and that getting of more light
+will be the most important business, not only of philosophy, but of
+life."
+
+"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge rightly?
+If we really have a perception, how is it that it is confused, not
+clear?"
+
+"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this kind.
+Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot know
+Good except in so far as we experience it--so, at least, I think,
+though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even if our
+judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear, our
+conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and tentative,
+because there would be so much Good that we had not experienced. But,
+in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about what we do experience
+are confused, because every experience is indefinitely complex, and
+contains, along with the Good, so much that is indifferent or bad. And
+to analyze out precisely what it is that we are judging to be good is
+often a difficult and laborious task, though it is one that should be
+a main preoccupation with us all."
+
+"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity and
+confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good--one, that our
+experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"
+
+"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to me, is
+like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop some other
+sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find it hard to say
+what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the state of the organ;
+and it is only by the progressive perfecting of that, that they can
+settle their doubts and put an end to their disputes, whether with
+themselves or with other people."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive that
+we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye, whose
+nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the nature of
+the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye of the soul,
+being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet perceive Good with any
+clearness or precision, but only in a faint imperfect way, catching
+now one aspect of it, now another, but never resting content in any of
+these, being driven on by the impulse to realize itself to ever surer
+and finer discrimination, with the sense that it is learning its own
+nature as it learns that of its object, and that it will never be
+itself a true and perfect organ until it is confronted with the true
+and perfect Good. And as by the physical eye we learn by degrees
+to distinguish colours and forms, to separate and combine them,
+and arrange them in definite groups, and then, going further, after
+discerning in this way a world of physical things, proceed to fashion
+for our delight a world of art, in that finer experience becoming
+aware of our own finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul,
+by long and tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the
+Goods which Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied,
+proceed to shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art,
+fashioning the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under
+the stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever
+destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own
+nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on without
+rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse that urges
+her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in the perfect
+enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because in it she
+has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a possible
+conception?"
+
+"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still feel a
+difficulty."
+
+"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk anything."
+
+"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that the
+perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected that
+instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore require
+another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me that
+your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate some
+faculty--which perhaps you might as well call an instinct--and
+this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort to realize itself,
+proceeds to discriminate various objects as good. But, now, does this
+same faculty also know that the Goods are good, and which is better
+than which, and generally in what relations they stand to one another
+and to the absolutely Good? Or do we not require here, too, another
+faculty to make these judgments, and must not this faculty, as I
+said at first, have previously achieved, by some method of its own, a
+knowledge of Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"
+
+"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing but an
+infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes, must be,
+in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and self-evident;
+and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only quarrel with him was
+in regard to his assumption that the judgments we make about Good are
+final and conclusive. The experiences we recognize as good are always,
+it seems to me, also bad; because we are never able to apprehend or
+experience what is absolutely Good. Only, as I like to believe--you
+may say I have no grounds for the belief--we are always progressing
+towards such a Good; and the more of it we apprehend and experience,
+the more we are aware of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to
+say, of the well-being of that part of us, whatever it may be--I call
+it the soul--which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you
+will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception, but
+one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know Good,
+but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of Good goes
+her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon and varying
+with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is aware of a tension,
+as it were, when she cannot expand, of a drooping and inanition when
+nutriment fails, of a rush of health and vigour as she passes into a
+new and larger life, as she freely unfolds this or that aspect of her
+complex being, triumphs at last over an obstacle that has long hemmed
+and thwarted her course, and rests for a moment in free and joyous
+consciousness of self, like a stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge,
+to meander in the sun through a green melodious valley. And this
+perception she has of her own condition is like our perception of
+health and disease. We know when we are well, not by any process of
+ratiocination, by applying from without a standard of health deduced
+by pure thought, but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So
+it is with this soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her
+perception of Good is but the other side of her perception of her own
+well-being, for her well-being consists in her conformity to Good.
+Thus every phase of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in
+one sense good, and in another bad; good in so far as it is
+self-expression, bad in so far as the expression is incomplete. From
+the limitations of her being she flies, towards its expansion she
+struggles; and by her perception that every Good she attains is also
+bad, she is driven on in her quest of that ultimate Good which
+would be, if she could reach it, at once the complete realization of
+herself, and her complete conformity to Good."
+
+"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your method of
+discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at all?"
+
+"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess
+that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part of
+Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She
+does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the
+sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in this
+case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds of
+activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of this
+soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may be,
+temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central
+experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary
+rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in
+them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere deductions
+from a process which is always developing and transforming itself.
+Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so many landmarks left to
+show the route by which the soul is marching; casts, as it were, of
+her features at various stages of her growth, but never the final
+record of her perfect countenance. And that is why the current
+morality, the positive institutions and laws, on which Parry insisted
+with so much force, both have and have not the value he assigned to
+them. They are in truth invaluable records of experience, and he is
+rash who attacks them without understanding; and yet, in a sense,
+they are only to be understood in order to be superseded, because the
+experience they resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would
+you agree with that, Parry, or no?"
+
+"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to put in
+practice."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous thing,
+and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is courage and
+sanity."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view is our
+knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a
+knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what
+I call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have
+recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we
+call knowledge, so far as it goes."
+
+"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of experience?"
+
+"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to suggest
+that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure reason, we
+should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good itself; for
+Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of experience, not a
+formula."
+
+"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to arrive at
+its formula by pure reason."
+
+"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the thought,
+that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see our way
+to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis, altogether
+forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on realizing Goods,
+and so making progress towards the ultimate Good, which is the goal
+not merely of knowledge but of action."
+
+"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your conception,
+is Good related to Happiness?"
+
+"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by
+experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as
+one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret
+the deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the
+interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too abstract
+and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning, no doubt,
+it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much interesting
+discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to the question
+of the content of Good, than to that of the method of discovering it."
+
+"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a method
+at all?"
+
+"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method of all
+science, namely, the interpretation of experience."
+
+"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of
+interpretation."
+
+"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we could
+not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you defined
+it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what ought to
+be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and classifying of
+the deliverances of this internal sense, has a certain analogy to the
+procedure of science. At any rate, it might, I think, fairly be called
+a method, though a method difficult to apply, and one, above
+all, which only he can apply who has within himself the requisite
+experience. And in this respect the study of the Good resembles the
+study of the Beautiful."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well aware
+that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do not profess
+to be in complete possession of it. They have a perception of the
+Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but tentative and in process
+of growth. This perception they cultivate by constant observation of
+beautiful works, some more and some less, according to their genius
+and opportunities; and thus they are always coming to see, though they
+never see perfectly, just as I said was the case in the matter of the
+Good."
+
+"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any standard
+at all in such matters?"
+
+"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself; and
+that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some slight
+extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to develop
+it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no standard of
+judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like themselves;
+and that there really is no standard and no knowledge possible in such
+matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man will not choose to
+cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to clear and ever clearer
+perception, he will either never believe that there is any knowledge
+of Good, or any meaning at all in the word; or else, since all men
+feel the need of an end for action, he will have recourse to a fixed
+dogma, taken up by accident and clung to with obstinate desperation,
+without any root in his true inner nature; and to him all discussion
+about Good will seem to be mere folly, since he will believe either
+that he possesses it already or that it cannot be possessed at all.
+Or If he ask after the method of discovering it, he will be unable
+to understand it, because he does not choose to develop the necessary
+experience; and so he will go through life for ever unconvinced,
+arguing often and angrily, but always with no result, while all the
+time the knowledge he denies is lying hidden within him, if only he
+had the patience and faith to seek it there. But without that, there
+is no possibility of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether
+to leave him alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the
+only idea I can form as to the possibility of discovering what is
+Beautiful and Good."
+
+There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:
+
+"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are always
+seeking Good?"
+
+"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not
+committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we have
+the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do so."
+
+"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"
+
+"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."
+
+"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"
+
+"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my mind,
+that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in secure
+possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make no facile
+assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the growth of the
+soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a quiet unfolding of
+leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I recognize the delight
+of expansion, I recognize also the pain of repression--the thwarted
+desire, the unfulfilled hope, the passion vain and abortive. I do not
+say even whether or no, in this dim travail of the spirit, pleasure
+prevails over pain, evil over good. The most I would claim is to have
+suggested a meaning for our life in terms of Good; and my view, I half
+hoped, would have appealed in particular to you, because what I have
+offered is not an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to
+relate to the actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the
+significance of those facts themselves, to supply a key to the
+cryptogram we call experience. And in proportion as we really believed
+this view to be true, it would lead us not away from but into life,
+not shutting us up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like
+the homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and
+rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny light
+over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams and floods,
+myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never felt, through
+that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when he broke the
+glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow under the yellow
+moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and tritons, her gliding
+pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through tempest and calm, by night or
+day, companioned or alone, to the haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the
+home where the Mothers dwell."
+
+As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made any
+impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically
+and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday
+experience?"
+
+"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."
+
+"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to make
+anything of the kind out of mine."
+
+"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the interpretation
+may be true; and that some day you may recognize it to be so yourself.
+Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of the game than you
+who play it; and surely in moments of leisure like this you will not
+refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read the riddle of the sphinx."
+
+"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a poem."
+
+"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in poetry
+than in philosophy or science?"
+
+But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was a
+babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of thought
+disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way, had been
+revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first opportunity he
+turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in your position that
+I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it is our seeking that
+determines the Good, or the Good that determines our seeking."
+
+"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We, in
+the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and
+in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously
+indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not mere
+caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore suppose
+somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."
+
+"But then, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our
+seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving
+through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort and
+strain."
+
+"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even while
+you admit that in some sense it is?"
+
+"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist completely."
+
+"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is at all
+it is eternal and complete."
+
+"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing but
+appearance."
+
+"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is good'?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."
+
+"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter. Take,
+for instance, a simple fact of our own experience--pain. Would you
+say, perhaps, that pain is good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really is."
+
+"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"
+
+"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."
+
+"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to the
+pain that appears to us?"
+
+"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the point. The
+point is, that it is only in connection with what is in God that the
+word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither good nor bad; it
+is simply not real."
+
+"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is in
+appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the use
+of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are feeling
+it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And as to the
+Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What consolation is
+it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to be told that God
+is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is simply absurd to call
+God's Good good at all, unless it has some kind of relation to our
+Good."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my opinion,
+it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such a view. When
+I am really at my best, when my intellect and imagination are working
+freely, and the humours and passions of the flesh are laid to rest, I
+seem to see, with a kind of direct intuition, that the world, just as
+it is, is good, and that it is only the confusion and obscurity due to
+imperfect vision that makes us call it defective and wish to alter it
+for the better. When I perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is
+also Good; and I cannot then distinguish between what is, and what
+ought to be."
+
+"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot understand."
+
+"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it were by
+a concrete example. I find that when I think out any particular aspect
+of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think it out at all, all
+the parts and details fall into such perfect order and arrangement
+that it becomes impossible for me any longer to desire that anything
+should be other than it is. And that, even in the regions where at
+other times I am most prone to discover error and defect. You know,
+for instance, that I am something of an economist?"
+
+"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of
+light!"
+
+"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of affairs
+which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet the more
+one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the harmony
+and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and flow of
+business from this trade or country to that, the rise and fall of
+wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital into or
+out of one industry or another, the varying relations of imports
+to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in close
+connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the lives of
+countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being or ill-being,
+it may be their very life and death, together with the whole fate
+of future generations in health, capacity, opportunity, and the
+like,--all this complexus of things, so chaotic and unintelligible at
+the first view, so full, as we say, of iniquity, injustice, and the
+like, falls, as we penetrate further, into one vast and harmonious
+system, so inspiring to the imagination, so inevitable to the
+understanding, that our objections and cavillings, ethical, æsthetic,
+or what you will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if
+they persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we
+abandon ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some
+world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are
+taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the
+ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I am
+absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic enough;
+but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so conceived that
+appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This partial vision of
+mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of the way in which
+I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a Being necessary and
+therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our own incoherent and
+tentative criticisms, our complaints that this or that should, if only
+it could, be otherwise, our regrets, desires, aspirations, and
+the like, shew but as so many testimonies to our own essential
+imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted, rather than signs of worth
+to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the elect of creation."
+
+He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene, since
+I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he kept
+silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and Eternal
+which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and the young.
+So I began myself rather tentatively:
+
+"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to indicate;
+and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is attractive. It is when
+we endeavour to work it out in detail that the difficulties appear.
+The position, as I understand it, is, that, from the point of view of
+the Absolute, what we call Evil and what we call Good simply have
+no existence. Good and Evil, in our sense, are mere appearances; and
+Good, in the absolute sense, is identical with the Absolute or with
+God?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."
+
+"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region which
+you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear in our
+social system--poverty, disease, starvation and the rest--is not
+really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but is merely what appears
+to us? There is, in fact, no social evil?"
+
+"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is none."
+
+"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and other
+ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's lives
+happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to
+introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and
+confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical
+impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied--the quest
+of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere putting of
+ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart from any
+attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities mere
+illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even vices,
+impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous attempts to
+adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I apprehend,
+there must be in time and change, and some meaning also in our
+efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we imagine. The
+divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a process that
+is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not rectilinear, much as
+Milton appears to imagine it when he describes the blessed spirits
+'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity'; and
+of this eternal process our activity, which we suppose to be moving
+towards an end, is somehow or other an essential element. So that,
+in this way, it is necessary and right that we should strive after
+ideals; only, when we are thinking philosophically, we ought to make
+clear to ourselves that in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its
+fulfilment consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to
+regard as a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is
+the 'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the
+belief that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that
+delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is really
+itself the End."
+
+I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite
+serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept
+silence, I took up the argument as follows.
+
+"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but still the
+same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put forward. On
+your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf between God's
+conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the world is
+eternally good; and in its goodness is included that illusion by which
+it appears to us so bad, that we are continually employed in trying to
+make it better. The maintenance of this illusion is essential to the
+nature of the world; to us, evil always must appear. But, as we know
+by experience, the evil that _appears_ is just as terrible and just
+as hateful as it would be if it really _were_. A toothache, as Audubon
+put it, is no less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We
+cannot, if we would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would
+be impious to try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His
+ingenious plan to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore
+are chained and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what
+seems good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that
+all existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant;
+it belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no access."
+
+"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why not
+just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who is
+responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely
+an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable
+condition!"
+
+"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means, if you
+like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent, indeed,
+and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and hourly toll
+of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the mind He has
+created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from spirits greater,
+though weaker, than Himself."
+
+This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I did
+not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but proceeded
+to a somewhat different point:
+
+"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it
+appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse Him
+of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the matter,
+it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that we should
+never discover the deception that is being played upon us. But, it
+seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your own confession,
+has not only detected but exposed it. Well then, what is to be done?
+Do you suppose that we could, even if we would, continue to lend
+ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and purposes cease to
+have any interest for us, once we are clear that they are not true
+ends? And that which, according to the hypothesis, _is_ the true end,
+the 'dateless and irrevoluble circle' of activity, that, surely, we
+at least cannot sanction or approve, seeing that it involves and
+perpetuates the very misery and pain whose destruction was our only
+motive for acting at all. For, whatever may be the case with God, we,
+you will surely admit, are forbidden by all that in us is highest and
+best, to approve or even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation
+of a world of whose existence all that we call evil is an essential
+and eternal constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if
+the Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as
+it thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very
+imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its
+plans."
+
+Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began, "between
+you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with their
+heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on my head or
+my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in stating my view;
+or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction in my mind. At any
+rate, what I believe, whether or no I can believe it consistently, is
+that it is possible for us, so to speak, to take God's point of
+view; so that the evil against which we rebel we may come at last to
+acquiesce in, as seen from the higher point of view. And, seriously,
+don't you think it is conceivable that that may be, after all, the
+true meaning of the discipline of life?"
+
+"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow me to
+press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say, there is
+at least one of our aims which has a real significance, namely, that
+of reaching the point of view of God. But this is something that lies
+in the future, something to be brought about. And so, on your own
+hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that which eternally exists,
+but something which has to be realized in time--namely, a change of
+mind on the part of all rational beings, whereby they view the world
+no longer in a partial imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '_sub
+specie æternitatis_'"
+
+"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the Absolute,
+though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow or other, is
+eternally perfect and good; and this eternal perfection and goodness
+are unaffected by any change that may take place in our minds."
+
+"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to
+settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your
+admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying
+before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand, you
+do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at nothing
+else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you do aim, at
+least, with your whole nature at this--to attain a view of the world
+as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not merely as it appears
+to us."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."
+
+"That aim, then, is your Good?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For you do
+not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least to have
+attained as perfectly as you hope to?"
+
+He agreed again.
+
+"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good of
+yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good of God
+in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your permission, for
+some future inquiry. It is enough for our present purpose that even
+you, who assert the eternal perfection of the world, do nevertheless
+at the same time admit a future Good; and much more do other men admit
+it, who have no idea that the world is perfect at all. So that we may,
+I think, safely suppose it to be generally agreed that the Good is
+something to be realized in the future, so far, at any rate as it
+concerns us--and, for my part, I have no desire to go farther than
+that."
+
+"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the matter so.
+But I reserve the right to go back upon the argument."
+
+"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but a
+discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth. Meantime,
+then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something to be brought
+about; and let us consider next the other point that Is included in
+your position. According to you, as I understand, what requires to be
+brought about, if ever Good is to be realized, is not any change in
+the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world, in the structure, as it
+were, of our experience, but only a change in our attitude towards all
+this--a change in the subject, as they say, and not in the object.
+Our aim should be not to abolish what we call evil, by successive
+modifications of physical and social conditions, but rather, all these
+remaining essentially the same, to come to see that what appears to be
+evil is not really so."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."
+
+"So that, for example, though we might still experience a toothache,
+we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with all the host
+of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they would continue
+unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say, only to us they would
+appear no longer bad, but good?"
+
+"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil,
+so-called, is merely illusion."
+
+I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For some time
+past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis and myself,
+with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie. Ellis had gone
+indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together about something else;
+and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in the _Chronicle_. I
+noticed, however, that for the last few moments he had been getting
+restless, and I suspected that he was listening, behind his newspaper,
+to what we were saying. I was not therefore altogether surprised when,
+upon Dennis' last remark, he suddenly broke into our debate with the
+exclamation;
+
+"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There is a
+curiously apt one here in the _Chronicle_."
+
+And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about
+phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any
+rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering and
+oppression.
+
+"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of thing
+that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an
+example."
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words; but for
+my own part I should have thought that, if anything is real, that
+is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself were the
+sufferer."
+
+"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment of
+suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality of
+pain?"
+
+"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one really
+knows what it is that one is judging about."
+
+"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that experience
+involves knowledge and _vice versa_. It is, indeed, to my mind,
+part of the irony of life, that we know so much which we can never
+experience, and experience so much which we can never know."
+
+"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am sure,
+that you will never get rid of evil by calling it illusion."
+
+"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it, in the
+sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any other means.
+But we were discussing not what we are to do with evil, but how we are
+to conceive it."
+
+"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion, you
+will never do anything with it at all."
+
+"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."
+
+"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit, that
+for us, while we live in the region of what you call 'Appearance,'
+Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as Good."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."
+
+"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with
+Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I have
+been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which we live
+(whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and Good are
+the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss them from our
+consideration either on the ground that we know nothing of them (as
+Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the ground that we know all
+about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to think). On the contrary, it
+is, I believe, our main business to find out about them; and that
+we can find out about them is with me an article of faith, and so, I
+believe, it is with most people, whether or no they are aware of it or
+are ready to admit it."
+
+Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon us to
+lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our usual
+hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally taking a
+lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we reassembled in
+the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did not
+suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The conversation
+had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such topics, and
+finally had died away into a long silence, which, for my own part, I
+felt no particular inclination to break. We had let down an awning to
+shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine in upon us, so that
+it was still cool and pleasant where we sat; and so delightful did I
+feel the situation to be, that I was almost vexed to be challenged to
+renew our interrupted debate. The challenge, rather to my surprise,
+came from Audubon, who suddenly said to me, _à propos_ of nothing, in
+a tone at once ironic and genial:
+
+"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."
+
+"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great
+nonsense."
+
+"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear you."
+
+"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were bored."
+
+"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't
+arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses me
+most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that you're
+going to get at some result."
+
+"But didn't we?"
+
+"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we must
+believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good is."
+
+"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."
+
+"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."
+
+"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that we can
+come to some agreement even about that."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because people are so radically different, that there is no common
+ground to build upon."
+
+"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the pudding
+is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight of us, all
+Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or less in the
+same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise the question,
+you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the chances in your
+favour, any substantial agreement about what we think good."
+
+This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I could
+refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself against the
+consequences of failure. So I began, with some hesitation, "You must
+remember that I have never maintained that at any given moment any
+given set of people will be found to be in agreement on all points.
+All I ventured to suggest was, that instead of our all being made, as
+you contend, radically different, we have, underneath our differences,
+a common nature, capable of judging, and judging truly, about Good,
+though only on the basis of actual experience of Good. And on this
+view I shall, of course, expect to find differences of opinion,
+corresponding to differences of experience, even among people as much
+alike as ourselves; only I shall not expect the differences to be
+finally irreconcilable, but that we shall be able to supplement and
+elucidate one another's conclusions by bringing to bear each his own
+experience upon that of the rest."
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the
+experiment."
+
+"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others. Only I
+must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what it is I
+am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I have
+been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in this
+difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or no, and
+to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the object being
+simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we can; to define
+somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope of coming to see
+something more."
+
+They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to begin,
+when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt discouraged.
+"After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my making the
+attempt."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," I said. "At least--well, I may as well confess it, though
+it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is, that there are
+certain quite fundamental points in this connection on which Dennis
+and I have never been able to agree; and although I believe we should
+in time come to understand one another, I doubt whether we can do so
+here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at all as if he meant
+to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry him along with me, I
+suppose I may as well give up at once."
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession. We
+will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if you can
+persuade the rest of us."
+
+"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever allow me
+to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if he doesn't
+happen to agree."
+
+"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in order."
+
+Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very easy
+manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I stay, I
+certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."
+
+"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that we
+should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by the
+process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you without any
+really scandalous concession on either side."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can try."
+
+So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some hesitation, as
+follows:
+
+"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it seems
+to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious activity."
+
+As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.
+
+"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I could
+command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of fact, can
+form no idea of Good except in connection with consciousness."
+
+"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's good,
+so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness of it."
+
+"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of anything
+existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for me to
+know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you, perhaps, are
+differently constituted."
+
+"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there is no
+experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive that of
+which we have no experience? And I should have thought it was clear
+that Good, like Truth, _is_, whether or no anyone is aware of it. Or
+would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when someone is thinking of
+it?"
+
+"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about it
+just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I think,
+need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to get at, for
+the moment, is something rather different. I will put it like this:
+Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human action, must be
+conceived, must it not, as an object of consciousness? For otherwise
+do you think we should trouble to pursue it?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we ought to."
+
+"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to take
+an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
+artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
+unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately
+hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of the
+sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such production
+as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and really ought
+we to, do anything except with some reference to consciousness?"
+
+"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite
+possible that we ought."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a closer
+agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view? for, if not,
+I will, with your permission, go on to the next point"
+
+None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a pause,
+I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in the sense
+in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action, involves some
+kind of conscious activity. And the next question would seem to be,
+activity of whom?"
+
+"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough. It
+must be an activity of some person or persons."
+
+"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."
+
+But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in answer to
+Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"
+
+"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.
+
+"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put your
+questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is most
+people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some future
+generation."
+
+At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I thought
+it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said, "Suppose, then, we
+were to make a beginning by examining your hypothesis."
+
+"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should all
+have accepted it--unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."
+
+"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Nor I," added Audubon.
+
+"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"
+
+"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"
+
+"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it leads
+us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of activity of
+some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so, Parry?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state of
+activity, as you call it, will be."
+
+"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous,
+co-ordinate, coherent----"
+
+"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The question
+is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, it is
+located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those
+that follow it. But now, what about all the other generations, from
+the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would seem, can have no
+meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come
+after them."
+
+"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to bring it
+about, not indeed for themselves, but for their successors."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of men
+and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex lives of
+action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, satisfactions,
+aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call Good, and avoiding
+what they call Bad, under the naïf impression that there is Good and
+Bad for them--and yet the significance of all this is not really for
+themselves at all, but for some quite other people who will have the
+luck to be born in the remote future, and for whose sake alone their
+fellow-creatures, from the very beginning of time, have been brought
+into being like so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside,
+when done with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."
+
+"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you call
+them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the final
+Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all. It has
+just as much Good as people can get out of it."
+
+"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their own
+with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they do get
+Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
+cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
+ourselves, whether we live well or badly."
+
+"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has his
+own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I admire are
+those who have sacrificed themselves for the future."
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and with a
+view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I understand you,
+have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good for ourselves, which
+is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is reserved for a future
+generation), but still is something Good as far as it goes--whether
+it be a certain degree of happiness, or however else we may have to
+define it; and as to this Good, there appears to be no difficulty,
+for we who pursue it are also the people who get it That is so, is it
+not?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For besides
+this Good of our own, we have also, according to the theory, to
+consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those who are to be
+born in some indefinite future. And to this remote and alien Good we
+have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our own."
+
+"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."
+
+"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange it
+seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive
+generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous--being projected,
+as it were, from the plane of time into that of space."
+
+"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."
+
+"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we shall
+have. We shall have a society divided into two classes, composed, the
+one of all the generations who, if they followed one another in
+time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other of all the
+millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two classes the first
+would be perpetually engaged in working for the second, sacrificing to
+it, if need be, on occasion, all its own Good, but without any hope
+or prospect of ever entering itself into that other Good which is the
+monopoly of the other class, but to the production of which its own
+efforts are directed. What should we say of such a society? Should we
+not say that it was founded on injustice and inequality, and all those
+other phrases with which we are wont to denounce a system of serfdom
+or slavery?"
+
+"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has falsified
+the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian generation would not
+come into being until the others had ceased to be; and therefore the
+latter would not be being sacrificed to it."
+
+"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely it
+comes to the same thing?"
+
+"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think sacrifice is
+the right word. In a society every man's interest is in the Whole; and
+when he works for the Whole he is also working for himself."
+
+"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly
+constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a society
+as I have described. And then there is a further difficulty--and here,
+I confess, my projection of time into space really does falsify the
+issue; for in the succession of generations in time, where _is_ the
+Whole? Each generation comes into being, passes, and disappears; but
+how, or in what, are they summed up?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last
+generation."
+
+"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow
+persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"
+
+"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by them,
+and is the result of their labour and activities."
+
+"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I eat are
+summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the oysters!"
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it right
+that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it) for the
+next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the point. At any
+rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the shortsightedness of
+modern politicians, and their unwillingness to run great risks and
+undertake great labours for the future."
+
+"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying to
+see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I confess,
+that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in some sense
+or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of future
+generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."
+
+"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."
+
+"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what that
+instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean, as you
+yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole. Only the
+difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."
+
+"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"
+
+"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which bids us
+labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this hypothesis,
+has no significance for us, but only for other people."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we ought to
+obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise. Even taking
+the view that the order of the world is altogether unjust, as I admit
+it would be on the view we are considering, yet, since we cannot
+remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make the best of it;
+and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for those who come after
+us, even though we can never enter into it ourselves."
+
+"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the best
+we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves--as much as we
+can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For we do at least
+know, or may hope to discover, what Good for ourselves is; whereas
+Good for other people is far more hypothetical."
+
+"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot
+approve--to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own pleasure of the
+moment. We should breed, for example, without any regard to the future
+efficacy of the race----"
+
+"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."
+
+"Yes, but we don't justify it--those of us, at least, who think. And,
+again, we should squander on immediate gratifications wealth which
+ought to be stored up against the future. And so on, and so on; it is
+not necessary to multiply examples."
+
+"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought that
+kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of fact,
+we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I hinted
+before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity in and
+for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And, whether it is
+reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea of the Whole, so
+as to include future generations. But, as it seems to me, the real
+meaning and justification of our action is not merely that we are
+seeking the Good of future generations but that we are endeavouring to
+realize our own Good, which consists in some such form of activity. So
+that really, as was suggested at the beginning, Good will be a kind of
+activity in ourselves, even though that activity be directed towards
+ends in which we do not expect to share."
+
+At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke in at
+last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.
+
+"Why do you keep saying '_Our_ Good'?" he cried. "Why do you not say
+_the_ Good? I can't understand this talk of me and thee, our Good, and
+their Good, as if there were as many Goods as there are people."
+
+"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by Parry,
+who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future generation.
+Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy myself at the kind
+of language into which I was betrayed. But what I want to say is
+this: So far as it is true at all that it is good to labour for future
+generations, goodness consists in the activity of so labouring, as
+much, at least, as in the result produced in those for whose sake the
+labour is. That, at least, is the only way in which I can find the
+position reasonable at all."
+
+"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his
+position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of thought.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong end."
+
+"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a coil."
+
+"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in. You
+started with the idea that the Good must be good for individuals; and
+that was sure to land you in confusion."
+
+"What then is your idea?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard
+everything from the point of view of the species."
+
+At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.
+
+"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not the
+Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is true of
+the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the case of man,
+because there the interest of the species is embodied in a particular
+form--the Society or the State--and may be clearly envisaged, as a
+thing apart, towards the maintenance of which conscious efforts may be
+directed."
+
+"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also the
+Good?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I have
+already urged against the view that the course of Nature determines
+the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it is a view
+which many people hold--and one which was held long before there was a
+science of biology--that the community is the end, and the individual
+only the means."
+
+"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour to the
+view."
+
+"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to restrain
+himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of language. In
+the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by Plato, men
+were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much they might be
+subordinated to the community. But now!--why, if you open one of these
+sociological books, mostly, I am bound to say, in German, 'Entwurf
+einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch einer anthropologischen
+Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft vom Sozial-biologischen
+Standpunkt aus,' and the like--you will hardly be able to realize that
+you are dealing with human beings at all. I have seen an unmarried
+woman called a 'female non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men
+actually cease to be even animals; they become mere numbers; they are
+calculated by the theory of combinations; they are masses, averages,
+classes, curves, anything but men! For every million of the
+population, it has been solemnly estimated, there will be one genius,
+one imbecile, 256,791 individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just
+below it! Observe, 256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to
+believe, 256,790! What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is
+the kind of thing that is revolutionizing history and politics!
+No more great men, no more heroic actions, no more inspirations,
+passions, and ideals! Nothing but calculations of the chances that A
+will meet and breed out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of
+survival! Nothing but----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be
+digressing."
+
+"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this world
+altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they have no
+arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an addition
+sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a species----"
+
+"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be himself, as
+I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"
+
+There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar quotation;
+and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken thread of the
+argument. But at last I got a hearing for the question I was anxious
+to address to Wilson.
+
+"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the community?"
+
+"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."
+
+"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"
+
+"In the sense of that organization of individuals which represents, so
+to speak, the species."
+
+"How represents?"
+
+"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect the
+species."
+
+"But is that the function of the community?"
+
+"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If you
+look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere historian,
+who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist and man of
+science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it is nothing but
+an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or artificial, as you
+like to call it. First, there is the struggle of races, which may be
+traced not only in war and conquest, but more insidiously under the
+guise of peace, so that, for example, at this day you may witness
+throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the long-headed fair by
+the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the struggle of nation with
+nation, resulting in the gradual elimination of the weaker--that, of
+course, is obvious enough; but what is not always so clearly seen is
+the not less certain fact, that within the limits of each society the
+same process is everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle
+for existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else
+is our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it
+is determined that certain persons only shall have access to certain
+professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages are
+confined to people of the same class, thus securing the perpetuation
+of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted and
+better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon.
+Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the race,
+combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to the top,
+others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those, indifferent
+to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it controls, but
+envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."
+
+"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that is
+kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as well
+as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the long-headed
+fair race, is giving place to what I understand is regarded as an
+inferior type."
+
+"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still, on the
+whole, the movement is an upward one."
+
+"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are at
+present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of Good
+we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but of
+the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is it
+somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for the
+individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not one by
+one or in groups."
+
+"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the individuals
+taken together."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species, according
+to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or should sink
+to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But is that also
+good for the individual in question?"
+
+"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it
+matters. I only say that it is good for the species."
+
+"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the
+species it is good for them."
+
+"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of the best
+individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"
+
+"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the selected
+individuals?"
+
+"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be
+selected."
+
+"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are
+eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"
+
+"God! No! I mean good, simply good."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang, as it
+were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"
+
+"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."
+
+"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"
+
+"I don't say that"
+
+"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you. If you
+reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either the Good you
+speak of is that of all the individuals of the species taken together,
+or it is that of the best individuals; and in either case I seem to
+see difficulties."
+
+"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.
+
+"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how it can
+be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or eliminated. I
+should have thought, if there were any Good for them, it would consist
+in their being made better."
+
+"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best possible
+thing, for them, to be eliminated."
+
+"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be absence
+of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at all, we could
+not apply it to them?"
+
+"Perhaps not"
+
+"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other
+alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that of
+the ultimately selected individuals."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that the
+Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we were
+met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see what
+meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."
+
+"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The species
+is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of individuals.
+I'm sick of these biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico
+treatises, with their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of
+men! their prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and
+the people who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent
+particles of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the
+machine works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations,
+co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations
+standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they are
+cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent demand that
+we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As though we should
+be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the thumbscrew!"
+
+"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the
+spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."
+
+"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of
+disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."
+
+"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is there."
+
+"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's not
+a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand knowledge, nor
+original vision of life. It simply ignores all the important facts."
+
+"Which do you call the important facts?"
+
+"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations,
+sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information contained
+in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological treatises that
+ever have been or will be written."
+
+"Oh, come!" cried Parry.
+
+"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example,
+these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To
+the sociologist their elimination is their only _raison d'être_. He
+cancels them out with the same delight as if they were figures in a
+complex fraction. But pick up any novel dealing with the life of
+the slums, and you find that these figures are really composed of
+innumerable individual units, existing each for himself, and each his
+own sufficient justification, each a sacred book comprising its own
+unique secret, a master-piece of the divine tragedian, a universe
+self-moved and self-contained, a centre of infinity, a mirror of
+totality, in a word, a human soul."
+
+"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were true,
+it would not affect the sociological laws."
+
+"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are as
+unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."
+
+"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a _reductio ad absurdum_
+of your view."
+
+"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What I
+really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw on
+my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."
+
+"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said already."
+
+"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the point.
+You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the position
+you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious activity. If
+it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a suicidal audacity),
+conscious activity in whom? And to that question, of course, you can
+find no answer."
+
+"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I have
+known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves, but is,
+a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."
+
+"Rather," he replied, "that it _is_ God. But I don't really know
+whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He or It
+be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the things we
+call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to accept them
+as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have no right to
+endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some individual
+persons."
+
+"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference
+of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is
+associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am
+willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good, if
+ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated. But of
+that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more fortunate. And if
+you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of course, of its content,
+which shall represent it intelligibly to us as independent of any
+consciousness like our own, I am quite ready to relinquish the
+argument to you."
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a way
+that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to have had
+what you call 'experience' of it."
+
+"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"
+
+"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to feel it
+was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this point, to my
+great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed with a solution
+of the difficulty in which we were involved, but with a diversion of
+which I was only too glad to take advantage.
+
+"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
+Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is the
+kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like ourselves.
+And I thought that was what you were going to discuss."
+
+"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."
+
+"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as it is
+quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do with the
+real subject."
+
+"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's get
+along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. What are
+we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it is the real
+question."
+
+"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
+trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some
+activity."
+
+"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up sharp,
+as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.
+
+"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
+another, and the more the merrier."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you mean?
+whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?"
+
+"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially in
+themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which
+they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation palls in
+time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the
+just measure and proportion. We are complex creatures, and we ought to
+employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the
+others."
+
+"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe more in
+detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"
+
+"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The most
+I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."
+
+"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
+listening."
+
+"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to move in
+a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar
+flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of
+all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with all its bustle,
+smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight
+away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the
+farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To hunt or fish for weeks
+and months in strange wild places, camping out among strange beasts
+and birds, lost in pathless forests, or wandering over silent plains.
+Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to feel the press of business, to
+make or lose millions in a week, to adventure, compete, and win; but
+always, at the moment when this might pall, with a haven of rest
+in view, an ancient English mansion, stately, formal, and august,
+islanded, over its sunken fence, by acres of buttercups. There to
+study, perhaps to write, perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden
+at night of new discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the
+world of commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be
+off on my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs
+in Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking
+hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action itself,
+not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the Good for fear
+I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, attaining the
+only Good I can conceive--a full and harmonious exercise of all my
+faculties and powers."
+
+On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of sympathy
+that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was young
+enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual zeal and
+passion.
+
+"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more
+good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is so
+imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged for
+some other, equally defective."
+
+"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time and
+place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the
+detriment of others."
+
+"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than bad?
+You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of each; but
+in practice you would have to experience also the bad. Your hunting
+in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, and hunger; your
+fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and disillusionment; and so
+through all your chapter of accidents--for accidents they are at best,
+and never the substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil,
+dogged by a shadow of Good."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view--from an idealist, too!
+Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the rough with the
+smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you call good and bad; it
+consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike. If I were
+Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both."
+
+"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis produced by
+one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the other."
+
+"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to learn.
+This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb."
+
+"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! What is
+it you are trying to say?"
+
+"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming perilously
+near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view by a
+denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it."
+
+"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the world is
+good?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister to
+Good if you approach it in the proper way."
+
+"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."
+
+"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"
+
+"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to answer
+Leslie?"
+
+"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at all.
+But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is,
+that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what
+is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The complexity of
+the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its 'ups,' its abysses
+and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We would not alter it if we
+could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely
+with acquiescence but with triumph."
+
+"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.
+
+"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
+anything."
+
+"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, art,
+that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has
+its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them,
+for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call
+it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims
+our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to miss
+anything or anyone."
+
+"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and Dennis are
+strangely agreed for once!"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge said
+on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues. Dennis
+accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical system; I,
+because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is Hegel; mine is
+Walt Whitman."
+
+"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"
+
+"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no better
+nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good and
+bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an actual
+physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:
+
+ "I do not call one greater and one smaller,
+  That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
+  I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
+  And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of
+       the wren,
+  And the tree-toad is a 'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;
+  And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven,
+  And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
+  And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
+  And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."
+
+"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course, it's
+rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at all."
+
+"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."
+
+  "I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of
+       wickedness also.
+  What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
+  Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
+  My gait is no fault-finder's or rejector's gait,
+  I moisten the roots of all that grows."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "This is the meal equally set, this is the meat for natural hunger,
+  It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointment
+       with all,
+  I will not have a single person slighted or kept away,
+  The kept-woman, spunger, thief are hereby invited,
+  The heavy-lipped slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
+  There shall be no difference between them and the rest."
+
+"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.
+
+"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.
+
+"I think I might like it if I were drunk."
+
+"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"
+
+'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the sponger
+and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."
+
+"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman to
+invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however miscellaneous
+the company, doesn't alter the character of the dinner."
+
+"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed all
+through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a work of
+art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama. What's play
+to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he himself is an
+actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact brought home to
+him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."
+
+"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise. The
+point of the position is that one should play one's part oneself,
+but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total effect, never
+complaining of Evil merely because one happens to suffer, but taking
+the suffering itself as an element in the æsthetic perfection of the
+Whole."
+
+"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather brutally,
+"when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."
+
+"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.
+
+"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with the
+thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."
+
+"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents of our
+unhealthy habits of life."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the
+substance of the world."
+
+"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which you
+seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is good,
+it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the activity you
+describe seems to have nothing to do with right and wrong."
+
+"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,
+
+  "Das hör ich sechzlg Jahre wiederholen,
+  Ich fluche drauf, aber verstohlen."
+
+"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can
+hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and
+Right."
+
+Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's point
+and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is that Right
+is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all activity
+that is merely a means from that which is really an end in itself, and
+good."
+
+"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not merely a
+means?"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems to
+me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own sake;
+even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view, and if
+these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in the work
+of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps, but I think
+it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe and maintain
+that they only work in order to make money, nevertheless are so
+unwilling to retire when the money is made; or, if they do, are so
+often dissatisfied and unhappy?"
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than pain.
+It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's only
+that they find even greater distress in idleness."
+
+"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly maintain
+that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because they take
+delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there is play--and
+I have known you play cricket yourself!"
+
+"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way, he
+would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
+shooting."
+
+"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him. And, in
+fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that there is no
+form of activity which men feel to be good for its own sake, though
+the Good of course may be partial and precarious."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any form
+which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to something
+else."
+
+"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act of
+visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I suppose,
+Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of activities which
+one distinguishes as moral."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good in
+itself but is only a means to some other Good?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so. But it
+all depends upon how we define it."
+
+"And how do you define it?"
+
+"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal to
+seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the attainment
+of one that is remoter but higher."
+
+"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
+proposition follows of itself."
+
+"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"
+
+"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."
+
+"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest of,
+and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end of our
+inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is expressed
+in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the definition
+I suggested--namely, action pursued not for its own sake, but for the
+sake of something else."
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept silent
+as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing as a mere
+means the only kind of activity which is an end in itself----"
+
+"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some dismay.
+"Is that really what you think?"
+
+"Of course it is! why not?"
+
+"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing what we
+ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate Good."
+
+"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely, without
+reference to anything else. It is a unique form of activity, dependent
+on nothing but itself; and for anything we have yet shown, it may be
+the Good we are in quest of."
+
+This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great perplexity.
+I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened no response in
+me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while I was hesitating,
+Leslie began:
+
+"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we
+ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"
+
+"Yes, I think it might."
+
+"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good, even
+while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he was doing
+what he ought"
+
+"Yes, I suppose he might be."
+
+"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.
+
+"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."
+
+"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown that the
+Good is dependent on the things we call good."
+
+"No," I said, "but we did show--or at least for the time being we
+agreed to admit--that it must have some relation to what we call
+goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or less, express
+its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is based upon the
+hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may get to know
+something about the Good. So that I do not see how we can entertain an
+idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our experience of goods."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position. Let us
+say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we ought,
+only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless everybody
+participates in it at once. But if everybody participated in it,
+there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty would not
+arise."
+
+"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so, I
+don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult to
+conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to speak,
+in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would be--without
+pleasure, without business, without knowledge, without anything at all
+analogous to what we call good, purged wholly and completely of all
+that might taint the purity of the moral sense, of philanthropy, of
+friendship, of love, even, I suppose, of the love of virtue, a life
+simply of obligation, without anything to be obliged to except a law."
+
+"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible case."
+
+"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that Good
+consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all other
+accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you really
+meant?"
+
+"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life according
+to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to separate the
+law from the life, and call it Good all by itself."
+
+"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean, in
+which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still if the
+same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we should
+be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious and felt
+obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in which you
+seemed to be using the word?"
+
+"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does certainly
+seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."
+
+"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is Good,
+not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it is not.
+At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a realization
+of Good in the activities which we pursue without effort or friction,
+than in those which involve a struggle between duty and inclination."
+
+"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often enough
+are bad."
+
+"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I should look
+for the best idea I could form of what Good might be."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest; and now
+I leave the road clear."
+
+"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in front!
+When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a short cut
+across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the road, with
+the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong track."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."
+
+"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!" he
+continued, turning to me.
+
+"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end,
+though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall suppose,
+however, that I have convinced him that it is not in ethical activity
+as such that we can expect to find the most perfect example of Good.
+And now I propose to examine in turn some other of our activities,
+starting with that which seems to be the most primitive of all."
+
+"And which is that?"
+
+"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct
+contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of
+reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the rest.
+Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"
+
+"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And he
+broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":
+
+  "Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
+  The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
+  Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,
+  And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
+  And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,
+  And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
+  And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
+  That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
+  How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
+  All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy."
+
+The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a flood
+of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of Englishmen,
+in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with a sentiment
+not far removed from poetry--the only poetry of which they are not
+half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting for the moment his
+customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest over his favourite
+pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of this talk was lost
+upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but some touches there were
+that recalled experiences of my own, and for that reason, I suppose,
+have lingered in my memory. Thus, I recollect, some one spoke of
+skating on Derwentwater, the miles of black, virgin ice, the ringing
+and roaring of the skates, the sunset glow, and the moon rising full
+over the mountains; and another recalled a bathe on the shore of
+Ægina, the sun on the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though
+the whole naked body were plunged in some æthereal liqueur, drinking
+it in with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
+sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
+Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
+supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and you
+sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own theme?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial they
+would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said of them
+would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly than yours
+what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far as I can
+understand, the delights you have been describing are really very
+complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, there is clearly
+an æsthetic charm--you kept speaking of heather and sunrises, and
+colours and wide prospects; and then there is the satisfaction you
+evidently feel in skill, acquiring or acquired, and in the knowledge
+you possess of the habits of beasts and birds. All this, of course,
+goes beyond the delight of simple sense perception, though, no doubt,
+inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was
+something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless,
+I think we can detect Good--Good of sheer unadulterated sensation.
+Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and
+hot! You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the
+water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
+dimittis.'"
+
+They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:
+
+"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed behind
+that masque of austere philosophy!"
+
+Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
+sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
+remember, the famous tale about Keats--how he covered his tongue
+and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he said, "the
+delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when this had
+gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I began, "to
+illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I think, recognized
+to the full its merits; and we shall be equally ready, I suppose, to
+recognize its defects."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any rate,
+shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think these are the
+only pure Goods."
+
+"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are precarious.
+It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go without choice
+of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes established between our
+senses and the outer world. The very same things which at such times
+appear to be perfectly at one with ourselves, as if they had been made
+for us and we for them, we see and feel to have also a nature not only
+distinct but even alien and hostile to our own. The water which cools
+our skin and quenches our thirst also drowns; the fire which warms
+and comforts also burns; and so on through all the chapter--I need not
+weary you with details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to
+our bodies, she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at
+least as varied and efficacious as she is our friend."
+
+"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her
+properly; we have to learn how to manage her."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to learn
+how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our finger
+here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods--they are, as I said,
+precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one might say, was the
+sword of the angel that drove man out of his imaginary Eden. For
+at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will permit me to romance
+a little,) seizing every delight as it offered itself, under an
+instinctive impression that there were nothing but delights to be
+met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when he was thirsty,
+sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in unquestioning trust of
+his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt by experience how evil
+follows good, and pleasure often enough is bought by pain, he would
+begin, would he not, instead of simply accepting Good where it is, to
+endeavour to create it where it is not, sacrificing often enough the
+present to the future, and rejecting many immediate delights for the
+sake of those more remote? And this involves a complete change in his
+attitude; for he is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort
+that harmony between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at
+first was immediately given."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind. This
+reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."
+
+"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little consequence,
+if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we are not at
+present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is thus set out
+upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to create, since
+he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects harmonious to
+himself. But in this quest has he been, should you say, successful?"
+
+"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is progressively
+satisfying his needs, even if they are never completely satisfied."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The relation
+of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and obscure. It
+is as though he began with the idea that he had only to remove a few
+blemishes from her face to make her completely accordant with
+his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than these surface
+blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots deeper than all
+his probings; the more he cuts away the more he exposes of an element
+radically alien to himself, terrible and incomprehensible, branching
+wide and striking deep, and throwing up from depths unknown those
+symptoms and symbols of itself which he mistook for mere superficial
+stains."
+
+"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a view."
+
+"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit that a
+certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense, whether
+they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by the labour
+of man."
+
+"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing to
+order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For
+the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food,
+shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all
+chance."
+
+"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"
+
+"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say,
+we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care
+about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure but
+those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one risk we
+proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin, as it were,
+of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which we hold most
+precious."
+
+"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases to be
+good. That's precisely what I am always saying."
+
+"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One way
+or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to secure, or
+because, when secured, they lose their specific quality. Goods of this
+kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change, whether they be
+offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung from her in the
+sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I said, precarious.
+And now, have they any other defects?"
+
+"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"
+
+"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"
+
+"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact that
+they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of imagination."
+
+"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving
+at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not the
+whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other Goods
+you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the Goods we
+are speaking of appeal."
+
+"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"
+
+"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."
+
+"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I think
+of it the less I understand this famous distinction between body and
+soul, and the relation of one to the other."
+
+"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at all."
+
+"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't understand
+it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it out of our
+discussion."
+
+"So should I!" said Wilson.
+
+"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"
+
+"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case before
+us, why should we not try directly to define that specific property of
+the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes their defect,
+without having recourse to these difficult terms body and soul at
+all?"
+
+"Well," he agreed, "we might try."
+
+"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"
+
+He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of way:
+
+"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow their
+slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They come
+upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires we
+can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather than
+active."
+
+"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and perfect
+Good?"
+
+"No, I think not"
+
+"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"
+
+"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of
+ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole nature
+to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole nature to
+experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien to us and
+nothing in us alien to it."
+
+"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense----?"
+
+"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind applies.
+For these Goods appear to arise in things and under circumstances
+which have quite another nature than that of being good for us. It is
+not the essence of water to quench our thirst, of fire to cook for us,
+or of the sun to give us light----"
+
+"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added Ellis.
+
+"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us good
+are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter, to do
+innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So that the
+goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to our senses,
+they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel that essentially
+either they are not Goods, or their goodness is something beyond and
+different from that which is revealed to sense."
+
+"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as I
+understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance which,
+so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any rate to Good
+of that kind?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and
+substance?"
+
+"Yes; don't you think so too?"
+
+"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"
+
+Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing, indeed,
+to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We have then,
+so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main defects, the
+first, that they are precarious; the second, which is closely
+connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its explanation,
+that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding the word in
+the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we cannot find any
+class of Goods similar to these, but free from their defects."
+
+"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to have
+similar defects?"
+
+"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."
+
+"But are there any such Goods?"
+
+"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These, are
+they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it is their
+whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful, and to that
+extent Good--for I suppose you will admit that the Beautiful is a kind
+of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare to say so, to be, in a
+certain sense, eternal."
+
+"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we give
+for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material
+objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I was
+talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point of
+view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut away,
+as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set apart in
+a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to pass into
+something else, but only through the alien nature of the matter to
+which it is bound."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I give it
+you in the words of a poet."
+
+And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a Grecian
+Urn":
+
+  "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
+    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
+  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd.
+    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
+  Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
+    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
+      Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
+  Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;
+      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
+    For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!
+
+  "Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
+    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
+  And, happy melodist, unwearied,
+    For ever piping songs for ever new;
+  More happy love! more happy, happy love!
+    For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
+      For ever panting and for ever young;
+  All breathing human passion far above,
+    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
+      A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."
+
+"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I don't
+see how it bears on the argument."
+
+"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to make.
+Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists in the
+fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it from our
+sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in the eighth
+heaven."
+
+"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"
+
+"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"
+
+"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer
+still--that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their Beauty,
+results from the very principle of their nature, and is not a mere
+accident of circumstances."
+
+"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only _raison d'être_?"
+
+"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far
+resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."
+
+"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the point I
+have been waiting to come to."
+
+"What point?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in their
+simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all æsthetic
+and other elements--as in the example you gave of a cold bath--the
+relation of the object to the sense is so simple and direct, that
+really, if we were to speak accurately, we should have, I think, to
+say, that so far as the perception of Good is concerned the object is
+merged in the subject, and what you get is simply a good sensation."
+
+"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the time
+I did not think it necessary to be so precise."
+
+"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we are to
+bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw light, I
+believe, on the general nature of Good."
+
+"What characteristic is that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important thing
+is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of the one in
+the other, it is the subject that is merged in the object, not
+_vice versa_. We have to contemplate the object, anyhow, as having a
+character of its own; and it is to this character that I want to draw
+attention."
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every work
+of nature--so far as it can be viewed æsthetically--comprises a number
+of elements necessarily connected in a whole; and this necessary
+connection is the point on which we ought to insist"
+
+"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically necessary?"
+
+"No," he replied, "æsthetically. I mean, that we have a direct
+perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or altered
+without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the ideal; and
+it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is more or less
+perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these things would agree
+to that."
+
+No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was not,
+myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works of Art;
+but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in general?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be
+conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I suppose,
+would imagine that such elements might be thrown together haphazard
+and yet constitute a good whole."
+
+"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem to
+have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in his
+quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art, which, in
+the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not precarious, seeing
+that by their form, through which they are Art, they are set above the
+flux of time, though by their matter, we admit, they are bound to
+it And, in the second place, the Good which they have, they have by
+virtue of their essence; Good is their substance, not an accident of
+their changing relations. And, lastly, being complex wholes, the parts
+of which they are composed are bound together in necessary connection.
+These characteristics, at any rate, we have discovered in works of
+Art: and no doubt many more might be discoverable. But now, let us
+turn to the other side, and consider the defects in which this class
+of Goods is involved."
+
+"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something to
+say."
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."
+
+"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever may be
+the merits of a work of Art--and they may be all that you say--it has
+this one grand defect--it isn't real!"
+
+"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my
+life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something very
+tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know what
+it is. They talk of 'real life'--real life! what is it? As if one life
+wasn't as real as another!"
+
+"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is. Real
+life is the shady side of life."
+
+"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the world."
+
+"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the person
+speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he speaks."
+
+"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our present
+concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word 'real.' In what
+sense is Art not real?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something ideal. It
+is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and change; its
+connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is a kind of
+flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our eyes. The real
+world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is ugly, brutal,
+material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"
+
+"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it were,
+you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it. How do you
+know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the Ideal, as all
+poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that case, Art would be
+more real than what you would call Reality, because it would represent
+the essence of the world, the thing it would like to be if it could,
+and is, so far as it can. That was Aristotle's view, anyhow."
+
+"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree with
+Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would like to
+be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."
+
+"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for instance,
+there's the realistic novel!"
+
+"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of all--only it's apt
+to be such bad idealism!"
+
+"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art, in
+the sense, in which we have been using the word."
+
+I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion of
+realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at issue,
+I turned to Bartlett, and said:
+
+"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes. You
+say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by side of
+it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call real life.
+And that whatever be the relation between the two worlds, whether
+we are to say that the one imitates the other, or interprets it, or
+idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it aside. Art is a refuge
+from life, not a substitute for it; a little blessed island in the
+howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a partial Good; whereas the
+true Good, I suppose, would be somehow universal."
+
+"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without
+blemish."
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to think that
+Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield us more than
+we have yet got out of it--perhaps even more than he knows is in it"
+
+"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming over to
+my side!"
+
+"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your
+strength really lies."
+
+"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your discovering new
+defences for me."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my mind.
+We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real life,' the
+'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear as to what
+they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have obscurely in
+their heads--that the Real is something from which you cannot escape;
+something which forces itself upon you without reference to choice or
+desire, having a nature of its own which may or may not conform, more
+or less to yours, but in any case is distinct and independent. That
+is why they would say, for example, that the illusions of a madman
+are not real, meaning that they do not represent real things, however
+vivid their appearance may be, because they are the productions merely
+of his own consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented
+to a sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they
+would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent
+nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included in
+the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."
+
+"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon Art?"
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of
+Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a certain
+violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our interest.
+What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put ourselves for
+the moment into the position of the artist. To him certain materials
+are presented which of course are real in our present acceptation
+of the term, being such as they are of their own nature, without
+any dependence upon him. Upon these materials he flings himself, and
+shapes them according to his desire, impressing, as it were, his
+own nature upon theirs, till they confront him as a kind of image of
+himself in an alien stuff. So far, then, he has a Good, and a Good
+presented to him as real; but for the Goodness of this reality he is
+himself responsible. In so far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it
+has still the nature which was first presented to him, before he began
+his work--a nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations,
+as is shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something
+else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To this
+nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to stamp
+upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a sense,
+only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains independent and
+alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as he has found Good,
+is after all only a form of himself; and one can conceive him feeling
+a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the Walküre, when in his
+quest for a free, substantial, self-subsistent Good he finds after
+all, for ever, nothing but images of himself:
+
+  "'Das Andre, das ich ersehne,
+  Das Andre, erseh' ich nie.'
+
+"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I find it
+rather hard to put it into words."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying, so far
+as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself. To
+all others the work of Art must appear as something independent of
+themselves."
+
+"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be made
+to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism between
+the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to it.
+The form will seem from this point of view something factitious and
+artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by one
+like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast, perhaps,
+as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the landscape
+Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is not a
+'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right; it is
+a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if you will,
+admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to be loved in
+default of a better, with the best faculties of brain and soul, but
+still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in and of itself,
+as well as through and for us, Good by its own nature apart from our
+interposition, self-moved, self-determined, self-dependent, and in
+which alone our desires could finally rest.--Don't you think that some
+such feeling may, perhaps, be at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of
+Art as unreal?"
+
+Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to myself.
+For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that you have
+said."
+
+"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree with me.
+But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and Leslie, for
+Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie assented with
+enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.
+
+"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems to me
+rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good? Or do
+you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely of its
+own nature?"
+
+"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any case I
+agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in Art."
+
+"In what then?"
+
+"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."
+
+"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"
+
+"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for the
+view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."
+
+"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But of
+late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and now I
+see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is something
+that falls very far short of Good."
+
+"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"
+
+"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has instructed
+me."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."
+
+And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of Knowledge.
+
+"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in brief
+formulæ of the routine of our perceptions."
+
+"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that with
+Good?"
+
+"But"--objected Dennis--"in the first place, I don't understand the
+definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree with it."
+
+"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no difficulty
+there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main positions.
+First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of things in
+themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in fixed routines;
+thirdly ..."
+
+"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's a
+perception of something?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."
+
+"What then? Simply a state in me?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"Then does nothing exist except my states?"
+
+"Nothing else exists primarily for you."
+
+"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease to
+exist?"
+
+"You infer such a world from your states."
+
+"Then there is something besides my states--this world which I infer;
+and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions, is the reality of
+which I have knowledge?"
+
+"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."
+
+"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a
+discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are at
+present concerned."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of Knowledge
+with Good; and to do so we must first discover what Knowledge is."
+
+"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of Knowledge,
+and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and then we will
+take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we don't find that
+either satisfies the requirements of Good we will leave Knowledge and
+go on to something else."
+
+"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my chance."
+
+"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And I
+dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain, I
+suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you define
+it, could be identified with Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much believe in
+Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I define it, is a
+good thing, I have no doubt whatever."
+
+"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me, mainly as a
+means, in so far as it enables us to master Nature."
+
+"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"
+
+"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to point
+out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature that the
+Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge itself. Or should
+you say that there is Good in the scientific activity itself, quite
+apart from any practical results to which it may lead?"
+
+"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the higher
+and more ideal Good."
+
+"This activity itself of inventing brief formulæ to resume the routine
+of our perceptions?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, but what _is_ the Good of it? That is what it is so hard for
+a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery of Reality?
+For that, I could understand, would be good."
+
+"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal merely
+with our perceptions."
+
+"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect
+fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it, you
+do not suppose this fluid to be real."
+
+"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled to
+give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions
+occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an
+account."
+
+"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say more
+precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps, in the
+discovery of necessary connections?"
+
+"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order which
+is, as a matter of fact, regular."
+
+"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do move
+in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of
+gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time in
+restraining himself.
+
+"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning to him
+I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from scientific
+activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality, nor yet in
+that of necessary connection, wherein should you say, does it consist?
+Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which
+we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and
+apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And,
+conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order among
+our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to utilize
+them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical results of
+science), but because in itself we prefer order to disorder, even if
+no other advantage were to be got out of it."
+
+"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the kind
+of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable than a
+disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he objects to
+British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers the chances
+of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary machine-like
+depredations of the tax-collector."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex factors. I
+was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of scientific activity
+as such. And I think there is an intellectual satisfaction in the
+discovery of order, even though it be dissociated from necessity."
+
+"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is the
+only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is, Knowledge is an
+extension of experience, and is good simply as such. The sense of More
+and still More beyond what has yet been discovered, of new facts, new
+successions, new combinations, of ever fresh appeals to our interest,
+our wonder, our admiration, the mere excitement of discovery for its
+own sake, quite apart from anything else to which it may lead, a dash
+of adventure, too, a heightening of life--that is what is the real
+spur to science and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."
+
+"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general process
+of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No doubt there is
+an attraction in all activity--Ellis has already expounded it; and all
+experience involves a kind of Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at
+was the special attraction of scientific activity; and that seems to
+be, so far as I can see, simply the discovery of order."
+
+"Well," he said, "if you like--what then?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind of
+activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be bad.
+There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an activity
+concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even though it
+were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think that if all men
+were diseased, they would nevertheless be in possession of the Good,
+if only they had perfect knowledge of the laws of disease?"
+
+"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not only
+the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object known."
+
+"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that Knowledge
+may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is, or may be
+knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to constitute the Good."
+
+"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."
+
+"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has Dennis
+to say?"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very hard
+to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a protest."
+
+"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us is the
+heretic?"
+
+"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"
+
+"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely
+the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all,
+I shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of
+necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the fascination."
+
+"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All that is
+really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we read into
+the facts."
+
+"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much as
+anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of all
+Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical knowledge is
+necessary."
+
+"But it is all based on assumptions."
+
+"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them
+necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law of
+Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement
+that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow of
+necessity."
+
+"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given! Everything is
+based ultimately on certain successions and coincidences of which all
+that can be said is simply that they exist, without any possibility of
+getting behind them."
+
+"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be the
+ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections throughout; so
+that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all the rest would
+inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it progresses towards
+this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at all. A routine simply
+given without internal coherence is to my mind a contradiction in
+terms; either the routine is necessary, or it's not a routine at all,
+but at best a mere appearance of a routine."
+
+"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight this
+out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception of
+Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it from the
+point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin with, seems
+to me to be involved in the same defect we have already noted--namely,
+that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as knowledge of Good. And
+I suppose you would hardly maintain, any more than Wilson did, that
+the Good may consist in knowledge of Bad?"
+
+"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion that
+there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which there is
+knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could attain to
+it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there would be no
+distinction, or at least no antagonism, between thinking on the one
+hand and the thing thought on the other."
+
+"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in fact any
+knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type of what you
+mean?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are dealing
+with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which is somehow
+native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however you like
+to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions, such as
+substance and causation."
+
+"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is alien
+to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of what we
+call knowledge, is the element of sense--the something given, which
+thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may dress and serve it
+up in its own sauce?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."
+
+"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but only of
+pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the
+Good?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that such a
+Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better than
+that of which we have an experience, but radically and fundamentally
+different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not only are we sunk
+in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the time our heads are
+under too,--in fact most of us never get them out at all; it is only
+a few philosophers every now and again who emerge for a moment or two
+into sun and air, to breathe that element of pure thought which is too
+fine even for them, except as a rare indulgence. At other times, they
+too must be content with the grosser atmosphere which is the common
+sustenance of common men."
+
+"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining that
+the Good is within easy reach of all."
+
+"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you describe
+it, very few people would care to put out their hands to take it. I,
+at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of Good in the kind
+of activity I understand you to mean. It is as though you should say,
+that Good consists in the perpetual perception that 2 + 2 = 4."
+
+"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would be,
+that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One would
+move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest, central
+at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is my ideal of
+a perfect activity!"
+
+"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For what, in
+fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you describe? I suppose
+the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"
+
+"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and flaws!"
+
+"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the
+better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of life--of
+nature, of history, of art, of religion, of everything in which we
+are really interested; imagine being left to turn for ever, like a
+squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea of a squirrel in the idea
+of a cage, round and round the wheel of these hollow notions, without
+hands, without feet, without anything anywhere by which we could lay
+hold of a something that is not thought, a something solid, resistant,
+palpitating, 'luscious and aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a
+sense, a flesh, call it what you will, the unintelligible, but still
+the indispensable, that which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to
+miss, and which, if it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow
+include!"
+
+Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the
+matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense, or
+anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented and also
+alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something which is
+unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will be, so far,
+not good."
+
+"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which must be
+present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection among the
+elements presented; and secondly, that the elements themselves should
+be of such a kind as to be, as it were, transparent to that which
+apprehends them, so that it asks no questions as to what they are
+or whence they come, but accepts them naturally and as a matter of
+course, with the same inevitability as it accepts its own being."
+
+"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects of
+thought as you defined them?
+
+"I think so."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long
+discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis pressed
+you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified absolutely
+with Good."
+
+"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that view."
+
+"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be
+intelligible in the sense you have explained?"
+
+"I should say so."
+
+"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive of
+any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the
+intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that
+immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's
+quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have in
+your mind?"
+
+"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art. In them
+we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other than mere
+ideas."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary connection
+one with the other."
+
+"Yes, but not logically necessary."
+
+"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the necessity
+of the connection, surely, that is important; the character of the
+necessity is a secondary consideration."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work
+of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements
+themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which
+apprehends them?"
+
+"Certainly not, for they are mere sense--of all things the most
+obscure and baffling."
+
+"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made
+beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far,
+intelligible."
+
+"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a
+way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to
+thought?"
+
+"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does not, I
+think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is something else
+as well."
+
+"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense, so far
+at least it is not intelligible."
+
+"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we
+noticed before in works of art--that their Beauty, or Goodness, is not
+essential to their whole nature, but is something imposed, as it were,
+on an alien stuff. And it is this alien element that we now pronounce
+to be unintelligible."
+
+"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of art to
+be absolutely good."
+
+"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there
+nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to
+want?"
+
+No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then, in
+a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a direct
+appeal to Audubon.
+
+"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am sure
+you must have something to suggest."
+
+"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these things
+is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you have never
+once referred all through to what I should have thought was the best
+Good we know--if, indeed, we know any Good at all."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only things
+that I think really worth having--if anything were worth having."
+
+A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"
+
+"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of should be
+found just there?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why, in persons!"
+
+"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"
+
+"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me approach the
+matter properly."
+
+"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have your
+chance."
+
+"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we had
+reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to form
+a conception of it, must be something immediately presented,
+and presented in such a way, that it should be directly
+intelligible--intelligible not only in the relations that obtain
+between its elements, but also in the substance, so to speak, of the
+elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a type, as Dennis
+maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas and their relations.
+But the Good, we held, could not consist in these. It must be
+something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense, and yet it could not
+be sense, for sense did not seem to be intelligible. But now, when
+Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that perhaps we might find in persons
+what we want And that is what I should like to examine now."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."
+
+"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not
+sense, though he is manifested through sense."
+
+"What does that mean?" said Wilson.
+
+"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know him
+through his body."
+
+"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a function
+of it."
+
+"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when we
+talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven save
+me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne Körper, ganz abstrakt,' as Heine
+says."
+
+"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to
+consider the soul apart from the body."
+
+"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about body and
+soul."
+
+"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been driven
+into it unawares."
+
+"But what do you mean by the soul?"
+
+"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of
+psychology--for even people who object to the word 'soul' don't mind
+talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the soul. Anyhow, what
+I mean is that which thinks and feels and wills."
+
+"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.
+
+"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of all
+things the most intelligible."
+
+"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all things the
+least."
+
+"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you have
+in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse to call
+the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its various
+faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and all the
+other points which are examined in books of psychology. All that
+I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no profession of
+understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking at persons as we
+know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown to us in literature
+and art, they really are intelligible to us in the same way that we
+are intelligible to ourselves."
+
+"And how is that?"
+
+"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no feeling or
+action of which human beings are capable, from the very highest to
+the very lowest, which other human beings may not sympathetically
+understand, through the mere fact that they have the same nature.
+They will understand more or less according as they have more or
+less sympathy and insight; but in any case they are capable of
+understanding, and it is the business of literature and art to make
+them understand."
+
+"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"
+
+"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any rate,
+what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not indeed (as
+in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our whole complex
+nature, that it does not demand explanation."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the people
+I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand explanation.
+I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing, or what they're
+for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me! And what's worse,
+probably my existence is the same to them!"
+
+"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to study them
+all sympathetically, you would end by understanding them."
+
+"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of pathological
+way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I shouldn't understand
+why they exist. It seems to me, most people aren't fit to exist; and I
+dare say they have the same opinion about me."
+
+"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"
+
+"Yes, a few: my friends."
+
+"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said that
+you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often have
+you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our whole
+physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me to
+be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my friends.
+Still----"
+
+"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I wanted.
+For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be, gives us
+at least something which perhaps we shall find comes nearer to what
+we might conceive to be absolutely Good than anything else we have yet
+hit upon."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not, as
+an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of our own
+ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with works of art?"
+
+"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any rate,
+I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am, but
+simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much imposed
+upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out of which
+they had carded a statue."
+
+"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.
+
+"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions are
+common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"
+
+"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should affirm
+that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is commonly
+called love, no doubt, the physical element is the predominant, or
+even the only one present; and in that case there may be illusion to
+an indefinite extent. But the love which is based upon years of common
+experience, which has grown with the growth of the whole person,
+in power and intelligence and insight, which has survived countless
+disappointments and surmounted countless obstacles, the love of
+husband and wife, the love, as we began by saying, of friends--such
+love, as Browning says boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I
+suppose you will admit, does exist, however rarely?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it really
+is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination, that is
+directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say that its Good
+is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the person of the
+loved."
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the Good,
+that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff--the body."
+
+"But," I replied,"_is_ the body alien? Is it not rather an expression
+of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the soul?"
+
+"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!
+
+  "'Not with my soul, Love!--bid no soul like mine
+  Lap thee around nor leave the poor sense room!
+  Take sense too--let me love entire and whole--
+        Not with my soul.'"
+
+"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and anyhow,
+I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of the poem
+is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between body and
+soul."
+
+"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists call the
+transcending of it."
+
+"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."
+
+"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is annihilated
+at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get is a feeling of
+total union with the person, body and soul at once, or rather, neither
+one nor the other, but simply that which is in and through both."
+
+"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case of the
+soul being merged in the body."
+
+"That depends," replied Ellis.
+
+"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was thinking
+of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the moments
+of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a ^correspondence
+between body and soul, as though the one were the expression of the
+other?"
+
+"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more often a
+discrepancy."
+
+"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a discrepancy
+to begin with, don't you think that in the course of years the spirit
+does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh, and especially on
+the features of the face?"
+
+"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body make.'"
+
+"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a beautiful
+fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks maintained--and on such
+a point they were good judges--a profound and significant truth.
+At any rate, I find it to be so in the case of the people I care
+about--though there I know Audubon will dissent. In them, every
+change of expression, every tone of voice, every gesture has its
+significance; there is nothing that is not expressive--not a curl of
+the hair, not a lift of the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait.
+The body becomes, as it were, transparent and pervious to the soul;
+and that inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere
+else, seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting
+itself as the perfect medium of spirit."
+
+"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend your
+remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often as
+expressive and adorable as the body itself."
+
+"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the soul,
+'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But, seriously,
+don't you agree with me that there is something in the view which
+regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct expression of the
+person, not a mere stuff in which he Inheres?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I
+understand what you mean."
+
+"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it be
+a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in the
+same way as the soul?"
+
+"Perhaps, in a sort of way."
+
+"And so we should have In the person loved an object which, though
+presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible; and our
+activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is, of love,
+would come nearer than any other experience of ours to what we might
+call a perfect Good?"
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the Good
+itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being the
+medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like other
+sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end to death.
+And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of the person
+is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of sense, is
+precarious.'
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to
+maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have
+analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for
+a moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a
+suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect Good,
+even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."
+
+"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"
+
+"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal, and in
+the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in love, as
+we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is a relation
+only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond it proceeds
+the main current of our lives, involving innumerable relations of a
+very different kind from this."
+
+"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with all its
+attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless, so trivial
+and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world with all that
+in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space, infinite in complexity;
+here is the whole range of human relations, to say nothing of those
+that are not human, of activities innumerable in and upon nature and
+man himself, of inventions, discoveries, institutions, laws, arts,
+sciences, religions; and the meaning and purpose and end of all this
+we calmly assert to be--what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village
+green!"
+
+"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and kisses
+and village greens?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"
+
+"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."
+
+"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"
+
+"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
+all-comprehensive."
+
+"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary heaven
+to land us in!"
+
+"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
+is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
+short."
+
+"Then I fear I shall never rest!"
+
+"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if we
+can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you call
+an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is necessary
+to enable us to interpret the world we know."
+
+"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."
+
+"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For the
+Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
+some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
+impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny the
+passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges us to
+the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we want to
+understand the nature of that passion, we must understand the nature
+of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is for the sake
+of life here that we need that comprehension, not for the sake of life
+somewhere else."
+
+"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for Love?"
+
+"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."
+
+"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village green!"
+
+"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an
+episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to me."
+
+"By all means! That is what I want."
+
+"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as it is.
+Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex
+relations--economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and
+about and in these relations centres the interest of our life,
+whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its
+character. Among these relations some few perhaps--or, it may be,
+even none--realize for a longer or shorter time, with more or less
+completeness, that ultimate identity in diversity, that 'me in thee'
+which we call love; the rest comprise various degrees of attraction
+and repulsion, hatred, contempt, indifference, toleration, respect,
+sympathy, and so on; and all together, always changing, dissolving,
+and combining anew, weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the
+shifting, restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect
+and result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal
+of that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all
+with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this,
+whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is
+that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in those
+which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think, through it
+alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as we have it,
+never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the moment; for
+those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that they have found
+it merely in union with one other person. For what love gains in
+intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in practice it may
+even come to frustrate the very end it seeks, limiting instead of
+expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it deepens, and, by causing
+the disruption of all other ties, impoverishing the natures it should
+have enriched. Or don't you think that this happens sometimes, for
+instance in married life?"
+
+"I do indeed."
+
+"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that one
+who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love,
+yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other
+connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one
+who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as
+though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has
+only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking, as
+you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village green
+realize then and there the consummation of the world."
+
+"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put forward,
+what place is left for the common business of life--for the things
+which really do, for the most part, occupy and possess men's minds,
+and the more, in my opinion, the greater their force and capacity."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as that?
+
+"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."
+
+"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue them, I am
+not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they are in
+essence is just, like most other activities, relations between human
+beings--relations of command and obedience, of respect, admiration,
+antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex, infinitely various, but
+still all of them strung, as it were, upon a single thread of passion;
+all of them at tension to become something else; all pointing to the
+consummation which it is the nature of that which created them to
+seek, and all, in that sense, paradoxical as it may sound, only means
+to love."
+
+"You don't repudiate such activities then?"
+
+"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge, but, if
+I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose, who have
+the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt, the greatest
+intension too. But every man has to live his own way, according to his
+opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think myself, all are involved
+in the same scheme, and all are driven to the same consummation."
+
+"A consummation in the clouds!"
+
+"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the important
+point, that which urges us to it is here and now. Everything is rooted
+in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our longing and dissatisfaction,
+our restlessness never-to-be-quenched, our counting as nothing what
+has been attained in the pressing on to more, our lying down and
+rising up, our stumbling and recovering, whether we fail, as we call
+it, or succeed, whether we act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all
+that we are, all that we hope to be springs from the passion for Good,
+and points, if we are right in our analysis, to love as its end."
+
+Upon this Audubon broke out:--"That's all very well! But the one
+crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true, for aught
+I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we seek--though I am
+not aware of seeking it myself. But, after all, the real question is,
+Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools to seek it."
+
+"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since you
+challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we can get
+it or no."
+
+"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this
+discussion?"
+
+"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good, which is
+the point to which you are always harking back. But you have surely
+forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"
+
+"What basis?"
+
+"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find out,
+not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we know
+little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if we are
+to find significance in life."
+
+"But how can we believe what we don't know?"
+
+"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we always
+do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake anything
+makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth doing, and
+In the second place that it is possible to be done. He may be wrong in
+both these assumptions, but without them he could not move a step. And
+so with regard to the business of life, as a whole, it is necessary
+to assume, if we are to make anything of it at all, both that there is
+Good, and that we know something about it; and also, I think, that it
+is somehow or other realizable; but I do not know that any of these
+assumptions could be proved."
+
+"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"
+
+"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed, to my
+mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves, that we
+should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as they have
+not received definite proof. But still they are, I think, as I said,
+assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any meaning to
+life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the will'; and our
+attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."
+
+"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"
+
+"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it.
+Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not to
+affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were. It
+is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding; the
+attitude of the general going into battle, not of the philosopher in
+his closet."
+
+"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude is
+suspense of mind."
+
+"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those with
+which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are to choose
+to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption about the
+Good."
+
+"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply
+wait?"
+
+"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is it
+possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting itself
+an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to wait?"
+
+"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as those
+which you are trying to make us accept."
+
+"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to discover
+what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of fact, really
+dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or rather, if you
+will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the will' which we have
+elicited?"
+
+"What are they? Let me have them again."
+
+"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some meaning."
+
+"Agreed!"
+
+"Second, that we know something about that meaning."
+
+"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume that
+controversy."
+
+"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know nothing
+about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first assumption
+is also destroyed, and with it all significance in life."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."
+
+"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which comes
+nearest to Good is that which we called love."
+
+"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative approximation."
+
+"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it necessary
+to include also the postulate that Good can be realized?"
+
+"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room for
+what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized is a
+question of knowledge."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions--if only we could
+know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we do not
+know."
+
+"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every year we
+are learning more and more about the course and destiny of mankind."
+
+"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing
+whether or no the soul is immortal?"
+
+He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!" he
+cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"
+
+"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be realized."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception of
+the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."
+
+"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite sure.
+We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when we
+were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable in
+ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we
+thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."
+
+"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though I was
+afraid all along of something of the kind."
+
+"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been cheated, we
+will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we will suppose
+that we mean by the Good of some future generation, still retaining
+for Good the signification we gave to it. The question then of whether
+or no the Good can be realized, will be the question whether or no it
+is possible that at some future time all individuals should be knit
+together in that ultimate relation which we called love."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that _their_
+souls at least would have to be immortal; and if theirs, why not
+ours?"
+
+I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to say?"
+
+"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider the
+whole idea of immortality illegitimate."
+
+"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good. But may
+we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"
+
+"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals who
+happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they were
+alive."
+
+"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold fast
+to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be realized the
+individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, will be bound
+together in this relation?"
+
+"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of that
+kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not sure that I
+very well know what you mean by love."
+
+"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be left of
+my poor conception?"
+
+"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes
+to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a
+perfectly harmonious way."
+
+"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society perfectly
+definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory for you!' as
+Humpty Dumpty said."
+
+"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we defined
+to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of positive
+science, that it might be possible to realize?"
+
+"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that
+science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it can
+be realized."
+
+"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal immortality?"
+
+"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of
+personal immortality is one which science ought even to entertain."
+
+"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain it. Does
+not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such questions?"
+
+"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not call
+that science."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn of
+mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two,
+whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much
+vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit both
+upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and then
+followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of science,
+which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson took up a
+position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought, to declare
+that science appeared to be developing all the vices of theology
+without any of its virtues--the dogmatism, the "index expurgatorius,"
+and the whole machinery for suppressing speculation, without any of
+the capacity to impose upon the conscience a clear and well-defined
+scheme of life. This debate, however, was carried on in a tone too
+polemic to elicit any really fruitful result; and as soon as I was
+able I endeavoured to steer the conversation back into the smoother
+waters from which it had been driven.
+
+"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, that
+on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and cannot
+know anything at all."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there is no
+foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of our hopes
+and fears, or of those of our ancestors."
+
+"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is not
+true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for thinking
+it to be true."
+
+"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to relegate
+the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimæras. What we have no
+reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to concern ourselves
+with."
+
+"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one that
+interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We may not
+know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help profoundly caring."
+
+"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but, honestly, I do
+not myself care in the least"
+
+"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the Good;
+and that is really the question I want to come back to. What is the
+minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? Is it
+sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the race'? Or
+must we also believe in the progress of the individual, involving, as
+it does, personal immortality?"
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
+life--that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it seems to me
+to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one knows one will
+not participate oneself than for one in which one's personal happiness
+is involved. I have always sympathized with Comte, pedant as he was,
+in the remark he made when he was dying."
+
+"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte irréparable?' That
+always struck me as the most humorous thing ever said."
+
+"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect of
+death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not involve
+his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death is
+the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
+individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
+manly view."
+
+"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but this is
+a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire.
+Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his
+faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions
+unfulfilled--why it's sublime! its Kiplingese--there's no other word
+for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."
+
+"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained
+or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties
+undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated!
+Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they
+deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die--he has done what he
+had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the next generation."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal'
+means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that
+is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there
+never was a normal man?"
+
+"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
+include every one except a few decadents and faddists."
+
+At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression,
+I thought it best to intervene again.
+
+"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
+position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
+Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of the
+individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."
+
+"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always does
+realize sufficient Good for himself."
+
+"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself that his
+life has significance? Or because of the future Good of the race?"
+
+"I don't know; both, I suppose."
+
+"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is sufficient,
+by itself, to give significance to the lives of individuals who are
+never to partake in it?"
+
+"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe is,
+that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to that of
+the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends as you seem
+to suggest."
+
+"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that there
+is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling--and this is where we seem
+to disagree--that in estimating the Good of individual lives we must
+have regard to that which they realize in and for themselves, not
+merely to that which they may be contributing to produce some day in
+somebody else."
+
+"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing but
+other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite series
+of people doing Good to one another, and none of them getting any
+Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by taking in one
+another's washing!"
+
+"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of
+argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which
+individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"
+
+"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain that
+we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth while to
+have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at death. At
+any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look frankly at the
+mass of men and women, judging them not as means to something else,
+but as ends in themselves, with reference not to happiness, or
+content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply to Good--if we
+look at them so, can we honestly say that there is enough significance
+in their lives to justify the labour and expense of producing and
+maintaining them?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that there
+is."
+
+"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But what I
+should like to know is, what do you think?"
+
+"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the problem
+is too vast and indeterminate."
+
+"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way, and
+with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate or no,
+it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are only fit
+to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest thing for them
+if some one would do it."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does anyone
+else share it?"
+
+"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not actually
+bad, are at best indifferent--'sacs merely, floating with open mouths
+for food to slip in.'"
+
+"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you know
+about them, considering how very little you've seen of them!"
+
+"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this
+estimate?"
+
+"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I
+suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal better!"
+
+"They might well be that," I replied, "without being particularly
+good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be better to
+confine ourselves to our own experience and consider whether for
+ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life much worth
+having, supposing death to be the end of it all."
+
+"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis, "and
+so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather monstrous to
+ask the question at all."
+
+"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most inconsistent of
+men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson for his acquiescence
+in the extinction of the individual 'with his opportunities
+unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the rest of it. And
+now you appear to be adopting precisely the same attitude yourself."
+
+"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good enough
+for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful ruffian!"
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I was a
+few years ago."
+
+"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"
+
+"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all the
+Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come. What
+we actually realize we value less for itself than for something else
+which it promises. The moments of good experience we expand till they
+fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of indifferent or bad we
+simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we say, because the universe
+is good; and this goodness we expect to grasp in its entirety, not
+to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at least the day after. And so,
+like the proverbial ass, we are lured on by a wisp of hay. But being,
+at bottom, intelligent brutes, we begin, in time, to reflect; we put
+back our ears, and plant our feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and
+refuse to budge an inch till we have some further information as to
+the meaning of the journey into which we are being enticed. That,
+at least, is the point that has been reached by this ass who is now
+addressing you. I want to know something more about that bundle of
+hay; and that is why I am interested in the question of personal
+immortality."
+
+"Which means--to drop the metaphor----?"
+
+"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely to get
+more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I may very
+likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in others.
+For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as much bad
+as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say. And in the
+second place, even of what Good there is--and I do not under-estimate
+its worth--it is but an infinitesimal portion that I am capable of
+realizing, so limited am I by temperament and circumstance, so
+bound by the errors and illusions of the past, so hampered by the
+disabilities crowding in from the future. For though, as I think, the
+older I get the more clearly I recognize what is good, and the more I
+learn to value and to perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I
+become capable of making it my own, and must in the nature of things
+become less and less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those
+of the intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to
+be involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from
+the naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt
+and expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least
+effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'--you remember the
+passage:
+
+  "'... Every day my sense of joy
+  Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
+  By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
+  While every day my hairs fall more and more,
+  My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase--
+  The horror quickening still from year to year,
+  The consummation coming past escape,
+  When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy--
+  When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
+  Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
+  Alive still in the phrase of such as thou,
+  I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
+  The man who loved his life so over-much,
+  Shall sleep in my urn.'
+
+"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured it,
+perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is
+natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good,
+life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last
+judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will be
+a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of those
+most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been worth the
+trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite promise only to
+bury it fruitless in the grave."
+
+"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.
+
+"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very much
+care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether it is not
+the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not by the
+worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the belief in
+personal immortality."
+
+"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of
+people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet
+maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life.
+Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may remember,
+life appeared not less but more worth living when she had become
+convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited
+with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as
+a deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more
+intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of
+untiring and fruitful activity."
+
+"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call magnanimous!"
+
+"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and
+unimaginative."
+
+"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position which
+can be and has been adopted."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of the
+facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would make it
+increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an estimate which is
+to endure must be not only magnanimous but reasonable."
+
+"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to be
+reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are cases in
+which life is well worth living quite apart from the hypothesis of
+personal immortality."
+
+"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom it
+seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous, among
+those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose opinions
+alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly found in talking
+to people about death--supposing, which is unusual, that they are
+willing to talk about it at all--that they adopt one of two views,
+either of which presupposes the worthlessness of life, if life, as we
+know it, be indeed all"
+
+"What views do you mean?"
+
+"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and rejoice
+in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil; or they
+hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find there the
+reason and justification for existence which they have never been able
+to discover here."
+
+"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which I
+should have thought was as common as either of the others,--that of
+those who believe in a life after death, but look forward to it with
+inexpressible fear of the possible evils which it may contain."
+
+"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual
+experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of
+existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should maintain,
+have not really found life satisfactory, or they would look forward
+with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its continuance."
+
+"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal
+immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."
+
+"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the hypothesis
+involves the realization of that Good which, without it, we recognize
+to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and from that point
+of view, that I have introduced it."
+
+"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis is,
+I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is practically
+necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most people do not
+require it--ordinary simple people, I mean, who do their work and make
+no fuss about it."
+
+"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such people
+to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment any view
+suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe that if ever
+you can get a man, no matter how plain and unsophisticated, to reflect
+fairly upon his own experience, and to look impartially at the facts
+all round, abstracting from all bias of habit and mood and prejudice,
+he will admit that if it be true that the individual is extinguished
+at death, together with all his possibilities of realizing Good,
+then life cannot rationally be judged to be worth the living, however
+imperatively we may be compelled to continue to live it."
+
+"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on which I
+rely! That seems to me the justification of life--the fact that we are
+forced to live! I trust that instinct more than all the inclination in
+the world!"
+
+"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you mean
+that you judge it to be good?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your reason,
+which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your reason, the
+faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the only difference
+between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do really believe to
+be good, whereas you accept and cling to a particular judgment about
+Good, without any attempt to test it and harmonize it with others."
+
+"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and
+problematical in the extreme."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a simple,
+profound, imperative cry of Nature!"
+
+"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is good,
+except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."
+
+"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather blaspheme
+Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming either. For it may
+be that what you call Nature has provided for the realization of Good.
+That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was suggesting; and it is you
+who appear to be setting it aside."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it were
+something one could really entertain! To me it is not a hypothesis at
+all; it's simply an inconceivability."
+
+"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"
+
+"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."
+
+"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality of
+one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the soul
+does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and death and
+consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once one begins
+trying to realize it."
+
+"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt
+Whitman."
+
+"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly did
+justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while ago. It
+is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good and bad, and
+even appears at times to obliterate the distinction between them. But
+also, whether consistently or no, he regards them all as phases of
+a process, good only because of what they promise to be. So that his
+view really requires a belief in immortality to justify it; and to him
+such belief is as natural and simple as to Wilson it is absurd. There
+is a passage somewhere, I remember--perhaps you can quote it--it
+begins, 'Is it wonderful that I should be immortal?'"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I remember":
+
+    "Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
+    immortal;
+
+    "I know it is wonderful--but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and
+    how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
+
+    "And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of
+    summers and winters to articulate and walk. All this is equally
+    wonderful.
+
+    "And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
+    without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other,
+    is every bit as wonderful.
+
+    "And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
+
+    "And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be
+    true, is just as wonderful.
+
+    "And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
+    equally wonderful,
+
+    "And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
+    wonderful."
+
+"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that Whitman, at
+any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the immortality of the
+soul is unimaginable."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to believe
+it to be true."
+
+"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is concerned,
+though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But the point I
+raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view of life and
+hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are not bound to
+adopt this, hypothesis of immortality--to believe, that is, that,
+somehow or other, there awaits us a state of being in which all souls
+shall be bound together in that harmonious and perfect relation of
+which we have a type and foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be
+true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that
+it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then
+we must say either that such Good is unattainable--and in that case
+why should we idly pursue it?--or that we believe we shall attain it
+under some other conditions of existence. And according as we adopt
+one or the other position--so it seems to me--our attitude towards
+life will be one of affirmation or of negation."
+
+"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
+of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
+unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
+we can--and some Good you admit we can get--and might find in that
+pursuit a sufficient justification for life."
+
+"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well find,
+that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so immensely
+preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to an end an
+existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely in the persons
+of our luckless descendants."
+
+"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is taken by
+the Western world."
+
+"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its activity is
+the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."
+
+"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This
+instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and vigour."
+
+"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling, and
+all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp of the
+modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with them; you
+may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of activity. I
+am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your being right, and I
+seem to find it in personal immortality."
+
+"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right absolutely
+and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate law; whether
+or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to inquire into the
+conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us in the pursuit, then
+I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be discouraged."
+
+"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you are
+right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in Good
+and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was my main
+point. On the other question about what Good is and whether it is
+attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so conscious am I
+that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach. Only, that there
+is really something to learn, of that I am profoundly convinced.
+Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me there?"
+
+"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't seem to
+me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about Good, that
+doesn't affect the nature of Reality--and Reality, I believe, is bad!"
+
+"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what we
+see and touch and handle?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to
+impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded,
+under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes
+an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am
+walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a
+quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am overwhelmed
+by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for the moment to be
+such, that everything I hear and see and touch is mere illusion after
+all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if only I could find the
+way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to some native and ineradicable
+strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I sometimes think, to the memory
+of a strange experience which I once underwent and have never been
+able to forget"
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it may be
+worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less, on the
+subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and once
+only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence
+of anæsthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or rather,
+conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if dream it were,
+which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my life. It was as
+follows:
+
+"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul, I
+thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body,
+began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed through
+the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was beating like a
+thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the carotids to the brain,
+whence it emerged by the fissures of the skull into the outer air.
+No sooner was it free (though still attached, as I felt with some
+uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to the pia mater) than it gathered
+itself together (into what form I could not say), and with incredible
+speed shot upwards, till it reached what seemed to be the floor of
+heaven. Through this it passed, I know not how, and found itself all
+at once in a new world.
+
+"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain, difficult
+though it be to find suitable language; for the things here, of which
+our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols of the things
+there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now identified with my
+soul, and had forgotten all about my body)--the feeling I had was that
+of sitting alone beside a river. What kind of country it was I can
+hardly describe, for there was nowhere any definite colour or form,
+only a suggestion, such as I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite
+tracts of empty space. I could not even say there was light or
+darkness, for my organ of perception did not seem to be the eye; only
+I was aware of an emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold,
+grey, and formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if
+indeed silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived
+either sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to
+silence in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
+(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
+distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
+flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
+the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
+as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
+rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
+pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
+they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
+that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
+I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which they
+passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out again was
+the sequence of their lives and deaths.
+
+"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
+something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
+disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or whatever
+may have been my mode of cognition--'Of course! That is it, and that
+is all! Souls are indeed immortal--why should we ever have imagined
+otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? I see the death-side
+now as I saw the life-side then; and one has as little meaning as the
+other. As it has been, so it will be, now, henceforth, and for ever,
+in and out, in and out, without pause or stint, futile, trivial,
+silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and vain!' The long pre-occupation
+of men with religion, philosophy, and art, seemed to me now as
+incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. There was nothing after all to
+be interested about! There was simply this! The dreariness of my mood
+was indescribable, and corresponded so closely to the scene before
+me that I found myself wondering which was effect, which cause. The
+silence, the tracts of unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the
+ceaseless vibration along its surface of infinite moving points,
+all this was a reflex of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was
+Intolerable; to escape became my only object; and with this in view I
+rose and began to move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.
+
+"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high towers
+standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked like
+towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them; for they
+had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite substance
+or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so, the idea of
+verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of form or colour as
+everything else in this strange land. I made my way towards them along
+the bank; and when I had come close under the first, I saw that there
+was a door in it, and written over the door, in a language I cannot
+now recall, but which then I knew that I had always known, an
+inscription whose sense was:
+
+  "'_I am the Eye; come into me and see_.'
+
+"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I did
+not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be
+worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was
+open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I
+was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it
+had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the sensation of seeing light
+for the first time! For hitherto, as I have tried to explain, though
+it has been necessary to speak in terms of sight, I have done so
+only by a metaphor, and it was not really by vision that I became
+acquainted with the scene I have described. But now I saw, and saw
+pure light! And yet not only saw, but, as I thought apprehended it
+with the other senses, both with those we know and with others of
+which we have not yet dreamt. I heard light, I tasted and touched it,
+it enveloped and embraced me; I swam in it as in an element, wafted
+and washed and luxuriantly lapped. Pure light, and nothing else!
+No objects, at first! It was only by degrees, and as the first
+intoxication subsided, that I began to be aware of anything but the
+medium itself. I saw then that I was standing at what seemed to be a
+window, looking out over the scene I had just left But how changed it
+was! The river now, like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny
+champaign bright with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky;
+and the happy souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm
+day in the Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible
+delight; but as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery
+plain before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river
+clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a star,
+then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these again into
+others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was revolving
+about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can conceive,
+infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for the stars
+were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of ours, and by
+these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite harmonies, the
+threads of the intricate figure were kept distinct.
+
+"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our
+astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive
+the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth our
+faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension of time
+and change is measured by units too small for us to be able to embrace
+by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars. But I, in my
+then condition, had powers commensurate with all existence; so that
+not only could I follow with the eye the coils of that celestial
+morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as they approached
+or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I was minded,
+the course of its secular history; whole series of changes and
+transformations such as we laboriously infer, from fossils and rocks
+and hard unmalleable things, being there (as though petrifaction were
+reversed and solidest things made fluid) unrolled before me, molten
+and glowing and swift, in a stream of torrential evolution whose
+moments were centuries. Wonderful it was, and strange, to see the
+first trembling film creep like a mantle over a globe of fire, shiver,
+and break, and form again, and gradually harden and cohere, now
+crushed into ridges and pits, now extended into plains, and tossing
+the hissing seas from bed to bed, as the levels of the viscous surface
+rose and fell. Wonderful, too, when the crust was formed and life
+became possible, how everywhere, in wet or dry, hot or cold alike,
+wherever footing could be found, came up and flourished and decayed
+things that root and things that move, winged or finned or legged,
+creeping, flying, running, breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle,
+forest, and marsh, pursuing and pursued, devouring and devoured,
+pairing, contending, killing, things huge beyond belief, mammoth
+and icthyosaurus, things minute and numerous past the power of
+calculation, coming and going as they could find space, species
+succeeding to species, and crowding every point and vantage for life
+on the heaving tumultuous bosom of eddying worlds.
+
+"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a kind
+of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact that
+though everything was in constant change, and in the change there was
+clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect anything that
+seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not direction to an end;
+for the end was no better than the beginning, it was only different;
+the idea of Good, in short, did not apply. And this fact, which was
+striking enough in the case of the phenomena I have described, made
+itself felt with even more insistence when I turned to consider the
+course of human history. For that too I saw unrolled before me, not
+only on our own, but on innumerable other worlds, in various phases
+and in various forms, both those which we know, and others of which we
+have no conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men
+I saw housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in
+wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the
+mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast, nomad
+tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and peace,
+politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this, so far as
+I could observe, although, through all vacillations, there appeared
+to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there was nothing to
+indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas about Good, but
+these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the efficient causes
+of events, were in no sense the explanation of the process. There
+was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no purpose, end, or
+justification at all. Man, like nature, was the plaything of a blind
+fate. The idea of Good had no application.
+
+"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne in
+upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but one
+desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had left.
+And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus for
+release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see through
+his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me out!' And
+instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of the tower, in
+that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space, with the souls
+going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw written over the door
+from which I had emerged, and which was opposite to that by which I
+had entered, words whose sense was:
+
+  "'_Eye hath not seen_.'
+
+"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the river; and
+over that was written:
+
+  "'_Turris scientiae_.'
+
+"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been open,
+should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience from which
+I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and made my way
+along the bank towards the second tower.
+
+"Over the door of this was written in the same language as before:
+
+  "'_I am the Ear; come into me and hear_.'
+
+"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some apprehension,
+but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was I within than I
+was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that which had greeted
+me in the Tower of Sight, but even more ravishingly sweet. This time
+what I felt was the sensation of pure sound: sound, not merely heard,
+but, as before in the case of light, apprehended at once by every
+avenue of sense, and folding and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole
+being in a clear and buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees
+that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of
+rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form.
+The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling
+grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite
+lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river.
+But one by one other elements crept into the strain; it increased in
+volume and variety of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it
+grew at length into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound,
+that there is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly
+compare it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other
+composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force of
+its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all, its
+endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never actually
+reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to dread or
+to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more wonderful
+still was my clear perception, while I listened, that what was being
+presented to me now through the medium of sound was precisely the same
+world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight. Every phenomenon, and
+sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed there, I recognized now,
+in appropriate musical form. The foundation of all was a great basal
+rhythm, given out on something that throbbed like drums, terrible in
+its persistence and yet beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented
+the mechanical basis of the world, the processes which science
+knows as 'laws of motion' and the like, but which really, as I then
+perceived, might more aptly be described as the more inveterate of
+Nature's habits. Upon this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by
+almost imperceptible gradations, was built up an infinitely complex
+structure of intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in
+freedom, ease and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the
+ear snatches of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or,
+as it might be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never
+complete, fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come,
+which they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it
+were, from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear
+in new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I
+knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.
+
+"As this character of the music and its representative meaning grew
+gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight a
+certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I passionately
+desired to hear given out in full the theme which as yet had been only
+suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I knew that with its
+appearance the music would come to a close, just at the moment when
+its cessation would involve the keenest revulsion of feeling. And this
+moment, I felt, was rapidly approaching. The rhythm grew more and
+more rapid, the instruments scaled higher and higher, the tension of
+chromatic progressions was strained to what seemed breaking point,
+till suddenly, with an effect as though a stream, long pent in a
+gorge, had escaped with a burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole
+symphony broke away into the major key, and high and clear, chanted,
+as it seemed, on ten thousand trumpets, silver, æthereal, and
+exquisitely sweet for all their resonant clangour, I heard the
+ultimate melody of things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen,
+with the emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close;
+and I found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on
+the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once more
+was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with the
+souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous and vain!
+
+"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written over
+the door the inscription:
+
+  "'_Ear hath not heard_.'
+
+"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there inscribed:
+
+  "'_Turris Artis_?'
+
+"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the third
+tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of hope and
+fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear, has given me
+what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it seems, a more perfect
+symbol than that; for it, at least, is Beauty, and the other was only
+Power. But is there, then, nothing but symbols? Or shall I, in one of
+these towers, shall I perhaps find the thing that is symbolized?'
+
+"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door facing
+me I saw written:
+
+  "'_I am the Heart; come into me and feel_.'
+
+"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an experience
+even stranger and more delightful than before, but also, I fear, more
+indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a pure feeling,
+which was not of any particular sense, (as, before, of sight and
+hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling of Life itself,
+the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one has in health,
+underlying all particular activities. In this sensation I seemed, as
+before, to be lapped, as in an element; but this time the feeling
+did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when I came to myself, that I
+actually was in the river, leaping along with the other souls in such
+an ecstasy of physical delight as I have never felt before or since.
+Such, at least, was my first impression; but gradually it changed
+into something which I despair of rendering in words, for indeed I
+can hardly render it in my own thoughts. Conceive, however, that as,
+according to the teaching of science, every part of matter is affected
+by every other, insomuch that, as they say, the fall of an apple
+disturbs the balance of the universe; so, in my experience then, (and
+this, I believe, is really true) all souls were intimately connected
+by spiritual ties. Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or
+other, more or less obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were
+so closely involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that
+they formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained
+in their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion,
+distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and fulfilling
+in due proportion their periods and paths under the control of
+spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member; about me were
+grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and around stretched
+away, like infinite points of light, in a clear heaven of passion,
+the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a figure, for what I am
+describing in terms of space, I apprehended through the medium of
+feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees of affection, from
+extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate there was, as well as
+love, the one representing repulsion, the other attraction; and by
+their joint influence the whole system was sustained. It was not,
+however, in equilibrium; at least, not in stable equilibrium. There
+was a trend, as I soon became aware, towards a centre. The energy of
+love was constantly striving to annihilate distance and unite in a
+single sphere the scattered units that were only kept apart by the
+energy of hate. This effort I felt proceeding in every particular
+group, and, more faintly, from one group to another: I felt it with
+an intensity at once of pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even
+imagine, much less describe; and most of all did I feel it within
+the limits of my own group, of which some of those now present
+were members. But within this group in particular I was aware of an
+extraordinary resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no
+names,) steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest
+of us, or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups.
+This resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a
+tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole system
+seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and alone, being
+dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to my body. At the
+same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw my body, as I
+thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it swallowed me
+down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the operator's room,
+with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like Audubon's, though
+I afterwards ascertained it was really that of the assistant, uttering
+the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see why!'
+
+"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since been able
+to continue it, and to discover what was written over the other doors
+of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did not enter.
+So that I have had to go on ever since with the knowledge I then
+acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be, it is in the life
+of the affections, with all its confused tangle of loves and hates,
+attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all, indifferences, it is
+in this intricate commerce of souls that we may come nearest to
+apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly apprehend, but the
+quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any significance to life,
+and makes it a thing which a wise and brave man will be able to
+persuade himself it is right to endure."
+
+With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to me
+that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused
+reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took
+the æther, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In the
+confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was
+curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I
+should behave."
+
+"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do _not_ see
+why!" And with that the conversation I had to report closed.
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes Dickinson</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes
+Dickinson</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue</p>
+<p>Author: G. Lowes Dickinson</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 3, 2004  [eBook #12508]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: iso-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE***</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><b>E-text prepared by Leah Moser<br>
+           and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br>
+           from images provided by the Million Book Project</b></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE MEANING OF GOOD&mdash;A DIALOGUE</h1>
+
+<h2>BY G. LOWES DICKINSON</h2>
+
+<center>FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE, AND AUTHOR OF A MODERN
+SYMPOSIUM</center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<center><i>THIRD EDITION</i></center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+<center>1900</center>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+ <!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<center><a href="#DEDICATION"><b>DEDICATION</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#ARGUMENT"><b>ARGUMENT</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#BOOK_I"><b><i>BOOK I</i>.</b></a><br>
+ <a href="#BOOK_II"><b><i>BOOK II</i>.</b></a><br>
+</center>
+
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="DEDICATION"></a>
+<h2>DEDICATION</h2>
+
+<table align="center" summary="Dedication">
+<tr>
+<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">How do the waves along the
+level shore</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Follow and fly in hurrying sheets
+of foam,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For ever doing what they did
+before,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever climbing what is never
+clomb!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is there an end to their perpetual
+haste,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their iterated round of low and
+high,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or is it one monotony of
+waste</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Under the vision of the vacant
+sky?</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou, who on the ocean of thy
+days</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dost like a swimmer patiently
+contend,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And though thou steerest with a
+shoreward gaze</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Misdoubtest of a harbour or an
+end,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What would the threat, or what the
+promise be,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could I but read the riddle of the
+sea!</span><br>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="PREFACE"></a>
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
+explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue
+is a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but,
+in its application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of
+failures. I am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but
+think that I have chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For,
+in the first place, the problems I have undertaken to discuss have
+an interest not only philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious
+to treat them in a way which might perhaps appeal to some readers
+who are not professed students of philosophy. And, secondly, my
+subject is one which belongs to the sphere of right opinion and
+perception, rather than to that of logic and demonstration; and
+seems therefore to be properly approached in the tentative spirit
+favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics most men, I think,
+will feel that it is in conversation that they get their best
+lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in literary
+form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude in
+approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
+little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
+myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
+set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or
+endorse them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain
+opinions of my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which
+should be least imprisoning to my own thought, and least
+provocative of the reader's antagonism. It has been my object, to
+borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de pr&eacute;senter des s&eacute;ries
+d'id&eacute;es se d&eacute;veloppant selon un ordre logique, et non
+d'inculquer une opinion ou de pr&ecirc;cher un syst&ecirc;me
+d&eacute;termin&eacute;.' And I may add, with him, 'Moins que
+jamais je me sens l'audace de parler doctrinalernent en pareille
+mati&egrave;re.'</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent
+in the Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater
+skill than any to which I can pretend. The connection of the
+various phases of the discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as
+it would be in a formal treatise; and in the midst of digressions
+and interruptions, such as are natural in conversation, the main
+thread of the reasoning may sometimes be lost I have therefore
+appended a brief summary of the argument, set forth in its logical
+connections.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="ARGUMENT"></a>
+<h2>ARGUMENT</h2>
+
+<p><i>BOOK I</i>.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
+consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a
+diversity which suggests <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> a scepticism as
+to the truth of any of these ideas.</p>
+
+<p>The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is
+made to show that the position is one which is not really accepted
+by thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their
+lives by their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit
+their belief in these ideas.</p>
+
+<p>This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for
+the regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a
+Good for himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of
+all. It is suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men
+commonly does imply a belief in a General Good.</p>
+
+<p>Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a
+Good of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
+individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
+may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In
+reply, it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by
+fact; (2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all,
+namely, society and its institutions.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good
+is to empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its
+main value.</p>
+
+<p>II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect
+do, whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their
+actual conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that
+there seems to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This
+latter proposition is distasteful to some of the party, who
+endeavour to maintain that there really is no uncertainty as to
+what is good.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it is argued:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct.
+To which it is replied that there appear to be many such
+'instincts' conflicting among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good
+being defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is
+replied that such a judgment is as <i>a priori</i> and unbased as
+any other, and as much open to dispute.</p>
+
+<p>It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we
+can have no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief
+discussion of the nature of Science, and the applicability of its
+methods to Ethics.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which
+it is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the
+moral reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are
+current. Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in
+fact, vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.</p>
+
+<p>(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest
+happiness of the greatest number." To which it is replied:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in
+accordance with 'common sense.'</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest
+and narrowest sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a
+criterion of Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that
+the term Pleasure becomes as indefinite as the term Good.</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly
+applied, it would lead to results that would shock those who
+profess to adopt it.</p>
+
+<p>III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it
+is suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we
+can discover, tentatively, what things are good.</p>
+
+<p>To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
+experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
+would be metaphysical, and <i>a priori</i>. In reply, the bare
+possibility of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no
+one really believes that all our opinions derived from experience
+are false, and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of
+all ethical significance and worth.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do
+actually find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though
+imperfect perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by
+practice, to perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is
+drawn between our perception of Good and our perception of
+Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a
+knowledge but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as
+one to be realised in Time.</p>
+
+<p>IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
+conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
+brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil
+must be conceived as mere 'appearance.'</p>
+
+<p>In reply, it is suggested:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal
+Good with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed
+to ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but
+ought to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who
+hold that Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of
+action that they should come to see that everything is good.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That this latter conception of the end of
+action&mdash;namely, that we should bring ourselves to see that
+what appears to be Evil is really Good&mdash;is too flagrantly
+opposed to common sense to be seriously accepted.</p>
+
+<p>To sum up:</p>
+
+<p>In this Book the following positions have been discussed and
+rejected:</p>
+
+<p>(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good&mdash;such as
+<i>(a)</i> an infallible instinct, <i>(b)</i> the course of Nature,
+<i>(c)</i> current conventions, <i>(d)</i> pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere
+'appearance.'</p>
+
+<p>And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be
+made, a progressive discovery of Good.</p>
+
+<p>In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
+approached.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p><i>BOOK II</i>.</p>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to
+point out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the
+character of a Good which we might hold to be perfect&mdash;here
+referred to as '<i>The</i> Good.'</p>
+
+<p>The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the
+position, at which we are supposed to have arrived, that the
+experience of any one person, or set of persons, about Good is
+limited and imperfect, and that therefore in any attempt to
+describe what it is that we hold to be good, to compare Goods among
+one another, and to suggest an absolute Good, we can only hope, at
+best, to arrive at some approximation to truth.</p>
+
+<p>I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain
+preliminary points are then discussed. These are:</p>
+
+<p>(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be
+an object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.</p>
+
+<p>(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested
+that the Good we pursue is</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That of future generations. Some difficulties in this
+view are brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue
+is the Good of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we
+mean by that.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to
+be involved in difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes
+on to an examination of some of our activities from the point of
+view of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view:
+(1) to bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of
+Good; (2) to suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free
+from defects, such a Good being referred to as '<i>The</i>
+Good.'</p>
+
+<p>(1) It is first suggested that <i>all</i> activities are good,
+if pursued in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems
+bad in each, viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general
+survey of them all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to
+be tenable.</p>
+
+<p>(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To
+this it is objected that ethical actions are always means to an
+end, and that it is this end that must be conceived to be really
+good.</p>
+
+<p>(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with
+physical objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of
+Good; but such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only
+because it is precarious, but because it depends upon objects of
+which it is not the essence to produce that Good, but which, on the
+contrary, just as much and as often produce Evil.</p>
+
+<p>(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
+brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That they have, by their essence, that Good which is
+called Beauty.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be
+eternal.</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> That, though complex, they are such that their parts
+are necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to
+the total Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> That outside and independent of Art there is the
+'real world,' so that this Good is only a partial one.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to
+demand, for a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be
+so of its own nature, without our intervention.</p>
+
+<p>(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
+knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held
+as to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> the view that knowledge is 'the description and
+summing up in brief formul&aelig;, of the routine of our
+perceptions.' It is questioned whether there is really much Good in
+such an activity. And it is argued that, whatever Good it may have,
+it cannot be <i>the</i> Good, seeing that knowledge may be, and
+frequently is, knowledge of Bad.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> the view that knowledge consists in the perception of
+'necessary connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this
+seems to be open to the same objection as <i>(a)</i>. But, further,
+it is argued that the perpetual contemplation of necessary
+relations among ideas does not satisfy our conception of the Good;
+but that we require an element analogous somehow to that of sense,
+though not, like sense, unintelligible and obscure.</p>
+
+<p>(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other
+persons, where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps
+find something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences
+to being absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are
+in contact</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> with objects, not 'mere ideas.'</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> with objects that are good in themselves and</p>
+
+<p><i>(c)</i> intelligible and</p>
+
+<p><i>(d)</i> harmonious to our own nature.</p>
+
+<p>It is objected that love, so conceived, is</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> rarely, perhaps never, experienced.</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.</p>
+
+<p>This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we
+know comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to
+be absolutely good.</p>
+
+<p>III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived,
+is it not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems
+to depend on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The
+following points are therefore discussed:</p>
+
+<p><i>(a)</i> Whether personal immortality is conceivable?</p>
+
+<p><i>(b)</i> Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable
+pursuit of Good?</p>
+
+<p>On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the
+Dialogue closes with the description of a dream.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="BOOK_I"></a>
+<h2><i>BOOK I</i>.</h2>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to
+arrange in some pleasant place, either in England or on the
+continent, a gathering of old college friends. In this way I have
+been enabled not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what
+to a man of my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and
+extend, by an interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an
+experience of life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and
+confined. Last year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me
+especially agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip
+Audubon, whom, since his business lay in the East, I had not had an
+opportunity of seeing for many years. I mention him particularly,
+because, although, as will be seen, he did not take much part in
+the discussion I am about to describe, he was, in a sense, the
+originator of it. For, in the first place, it was he who had
+invited us to the place in which we were staying,&mdash;an upland
+valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a house; and, further, it
+was through my renewed intercourse with him that I was led into the
+train of thought which issued in the following conversation. His
+life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous in the extreme,
+had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was constitutionally
+inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened than
+diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I hesitate
+to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
+associations with the schools from which he was singularly free.
+His melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic
+system; it was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be
+described, perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the
+worthlessness and irrationality of the world. Such a position is
+not readily shaken by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt
+to assail it; but it could not fail to impress itself strongly upon
+my mind, and to keep my thoughts constantly employed upon that old
+problem of the worth of things, in which, indeed, for other
+reasons, I was already sufficiently interested.</p>
+
+<p>A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival
+of another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn
+together at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in
+later years our paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination
+had led him into an active career, and for some years he had been
+travelling abroad as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I
+felt, therefore, some curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him,
+and to ascertain how far his views had been modified by his
+experience of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a
+kind of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place
+of rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some
+minutes nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in
+the shade listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the
+grass in the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little
+fountain in the garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter
+every minute on the fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk,
+and yet I was unwilling to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me
+and said: "Well, my dear philosopher, and how goes the world with
+you? What have you been doing in all these years since we met?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you been thinking then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about
+the world seems to suit you."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the
+quiet of the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic
+countenance, I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life.
+I believe if I stayed here long you would lure me back to
+philosophy; and yet I thought I had finally escaped when I broke
+away from you before."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one
+is caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying
+to help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you found a way?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you
+and hear how you have fared."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."</p>
+
+<p>"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You
+may have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so
+have I. But that is only because I want to grapple with it more
+closely."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"</p>
+
+<p>"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who
+have had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to
+what conclusions they have been led by their own direct
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Conclusions about what?"</p>
+
+<p>"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to
+be fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say,
+given up the subject&mdash;I mean the whole question of the values
+we attach, or ought to attach, to things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as
+of old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So
+I used to say at college and so I say now."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to
+say; but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."</p>
+
+<p>"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit
+of experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me
+in my original view."</p>
+
+<p>"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to
+hear about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as
+you know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of
+other people's."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to
+me, in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary
+diversity of men's ideals."</p>
+
+<p>"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance,
+until I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between
+the Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear
+that either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know
+which. Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But
+when one gets among them and really talks to them, when one
+realizes how profound and intelligent is their contempt for our
+civilization, how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how
+illusory our progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to
+wonder whether, after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit
+that one judges them to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether
+there is anything at all except blind prejudice in any opinions and
+ideas about Right and Wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir
+Richard Burton:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'There is no good, there is no bad,
+these be the whims of mortal will;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What works me weal that call I
+good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They change with space, they shift
+with race, and in the veriest span of time,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each vice has worn a virtue's
+crown, all good been banned as sin or crime.'"</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
+travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not
+be necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a
+single city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who
+can look below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed
+uniformity of beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and
+incongruities are concealed! Every type, every individual almost,
+is distinguished from every other in precisely this point of the
+judgments he makes about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer
+think of the life of a studious recluse? or the city man of that of
+the artist? and vice versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all
+of us go about judging and condemning one another root and branch.
+We are in no real agreement as to the worth either of men or
+things. It is an illusion of the 'canting moralist' (to use
+Stevenson's phrase) that there is any fixed and final standard of
+Good. Good is just what any one thinks it to be; and one man has as
+much right to his opinion as another."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there
+are different opinions about Good, they are all equally
+valuable."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally
+worthless."</p>
+
+<p>"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to
+doubt whether you really believe it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."</p>
+
+<p>"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to
+me most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act,
+and are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is
+good, as though you did believe it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to
+introduce any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it
+to yourself any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you
+hold to be good really somehow is so, your life, I think, would
+resolve itself into mere chaos."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a
+life is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold
+to be good."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt it"</p>
+
+<p>"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they
+think good."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think
+bad, like Milton's Satan&mdash;'Evil be thou my Good'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing
+what he thought good; only he thought that evil was good."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is a contradiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in
+which I believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the
+Bad. To them it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose,
+power and wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because
+he thought them good; if his choice also involved what he thought
+bad, such as murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these
+bad, which I doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in
+his choice as in its consequences. But even if I were to admit that
+he and others have chosen and do choose what they believe to be
+bad, it would not affect the point I want to make. For to choose
+Bad must be, in your view, as absurd as to choose Good; since, I
+suppose, you do not believe, that our opinions about the one have
+any more validity than our opinions about the other. So that if we
+are to abandon Good as a principle of choice, it is idle to say we
+may fall back upon Bad."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do
+not need either the one or the other. You must have noticed&mdash;I
+am sure I have&mdash;that men do not in practice choose with any
+direct reference to Good or Bad; they choose what they think will
+bring them pleasure, or fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a
+livelihood."</p>
+
+<p>"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far
+believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to
+go to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be
+seriously angry and distressed."</p>
+
+<p>"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not
+help themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to
+imagine. We have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we
+choose is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The
+criterion is Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to
+realize."</p>
+
+<p>"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the
+criterion is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that
+other pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than
+those they have chosen, and that these better things were and are
+open to themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to
+the worse, knowing it all the time to be the worse."</p>
+
+<p>"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely,
+are not really 'open' to them, except so far as external
+circumstances are concerned. They are hampered in their choice by
+passions and desires, by that part of them which does not choose,
+but is passively carried away by alien attractions; and the course
+they actually adopt is the best they can choose, though they see a
+better which they would choose if they could. The choice is always
+of Good, but it may be diverted by passion to less Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own
+consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still,
+that is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I
+should expect that most people who reflect would agree with me.
+They would say, I think, that they always choose the best they can,
+though regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and
+it would seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose
+Bad, or choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are
+right&mdash;what follows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said,
+'practically bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least,
+our opinions about what is good; for otherwise we should have no
+principle to choose by, if it be true that the principle of choice
+is Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without
+choosing!"</p>
+
+<p>"But could we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why not; many people do."</p>
+
+<p>"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a
+voice from behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the
+back into one of those large lofty barns which commonly form part
+of a Swiss house; and as the floor of this room was covered with
+straw, it was possible to approach that way without making much
+noise. For this reason, two others of our party had been able to
+join us without our observing it. Their names were Parry and
+Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just getting into practice at
+the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in years, though a very
+precocious one, whom I had brought with me, ostensibly as a pupil,
+but really as a companion. He was an eager student of philosophy,
+and had something of that contempt of youth for any one older than
+twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart to resent,
+though have long passed the age which qualifies me to become the
+object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate way he
+had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
+proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without
+choice one would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every
+random mood and impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"</p>
+
+<p>Ellis looked round rather amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
+impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
+calculation any day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good
+and Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>is</i> your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been
+trying in vain to make head or tail of it"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
+against this bullying."</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>must</i> take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are
+to discuss."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why; you might take one instead."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you began."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then,
+to go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are
+so many different opinions about what things are good, and that no
+criterion has been discovered for testing these
+opinions&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that
+from the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a
+substantial agreement about what is good."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position,
+let me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying,
+that there are so many different opinions about what things are
+good, and that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I
+hold that we have no reason to attach any validity to these
+opinions, or to suppose that it is possible to have any true
+opinions on the subject at all."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very
+difficult to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the
+point, and the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are
+nevertheless practically bound, whether we can justify it to our
+reason or not, to believe that our own opinions about what is good
+have somehow some validity."</p>
+
+<p>"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you
+interrupted&mdash;and your interruption really completed my
+argument&mdash;I imagine it to be impossible for us not to make
+choices; and in making choices, as I think, we use our ideas about
+Good as a principle of choice."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted
+the truth of that last statement."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally&mdash;and
+generally, I confess, I do not see how it could be proved or
+disproved, except by an appeal to every individual's
+experience&mdash;do you not admit it in your own case? Do you not
+find that, in choosing, you follow your idea of what is good, so
+far as you can under the limitations of your own passions and of
+external circumstances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to
+admit that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I
+mean that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your
+opinion about Good, you would have nothing else to fall back
+upon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."</p>
+
+<p>"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive
+yourself living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard,
+from moment to moment, following blindly any impulse that may
+happen to turn up, without any principle by which you might
+subordinate one to the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I don't think I can."</p>
+
+<p>"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that
+you, at any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically
+bound to believe that our opinions about what is good have some
+validity, even though we cannot say what or how much."</p>
+
+<p>"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny
+in theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the
+attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice
+would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only
+principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to
+accept. In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about
+Good that engenders order among our passions and desires; and
+without it we should sink back to be mere creatures of blind
+impulse, such as perhaps in fact, many men really are."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant
+protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that
+brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part,
+I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so
+abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the
+appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because
+I have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has
+nothing to do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he
+ejaculated, in a kind of passion, "it's a preposterous thing to
+tell me that I believe in Good, merely because I lead a life like a
+mill-horse! That would be an admirable reason for believing in
+Bad&mdash;but Good!"</p>
+
+<p>He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press
+him further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of
+insult to his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for
+the sake of the argument to give some answer, so I
+began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would
+do it if I could help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."</p>
+
+<p>"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but it's a necessary thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Necessary, why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because one must live."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is a good thing to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's a very bad one."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you live, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I can't help it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is always possible to stop living."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it isn't"</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't
+choose to be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave
+other people here to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of
+honour. As I'm here, I'm going to play the game. All I say is that
+the game is not worth the playing; and you will never persuade me
+into the belief that it Is."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to
+persuade you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You
+believe, as you have really admitted in principle, that it is good
+to live rather than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous,
+laborious life, which you say you detest Take away that belief, and
+your whole being is transformed. Either you change your manner of
+life, abandon the routine which you hate, break up the order
+imposed (as I said at first) by your idea about Good, and give
+yourself up to the chaos of chance desires; or you depart from life
+altogether, on the hypothesis that that is the good thing to do.
+But in any case the truth appears to remain that somehow or other
+you do believe in Good; and that it is this belief which determines
+the whole course of your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am
+unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought
+it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the
+argument.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your
+general contention, I should still maintain that it is not by
+virtue of any conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into
+our lives. We simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature
+and character, preferring one object to another, suppressing or
+developing this or that tendency. Our choices are not determined by
+our abstract notion of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is
+deduced from our choices."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular
+choices our general idea of the kind of things which we consider
+good. That may be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach
+validity to these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our
+Good, those that we approve as distinguished from those that we do
+not. And my contention is that, in spite of all diversity of
+opinions as to what really are the good things to choose, we are
+bound to attach, each of us, some validity to our own, under
+penalty of reducing our life to a moral chaos."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean
+that we must believe that our opinions are right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that
+they are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and
+until we see something righter. But above all, that opinions on
+this subject really are either right or wrong, or more right and
+less right; and that of this rightness or wrongness we really have
+some kind of perception, however difficult it may be to give an
+account of it, and that in accordance with such perception we may
+come to change our opinions or those of other people, by the
+methods of discussion and persuasion and the like. And all this, as
+I understand, is what Ellis was denying."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you
+have proved it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to
+show that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because
+a belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that,
+I thought, you did admit yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether
+my theory is not more reasonable than my practice."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question
+that really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which
+underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it
+seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I
+think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of
+our opinions about Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with
+philosophy but with psychology."</p>
+
+<p>"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever
+it be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place
+yourself at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the
+whole, I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you
+might easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is
+very much one <i>ad hominem</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of
+argument in which I much believe in these matters. I am content,
+for the present, if you and the others here go along with me."</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in
+an unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of
+common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
+rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with
+anything so lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute
+and <i>&agrave; priori</i>, by which we may prove for certain that
+Good is, and discover, as well, what things are good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone,
+should find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the
+quest. It is only in default of anything better that I fall back on
+this&mdash;I dare not call it method; this appeal to opinion and
+belief."</p>
+
+<p>"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have
+shown, or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were
+granted that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good,
+it doesn't follow that they believe in anything except each a Good
+for himself. So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say
+would be that there are a number of different and perhaps
+incompatible Goods, each good for some particular individual, but
+none necessarily good for all. I, at least, admit no more than
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was
+familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each
+individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as
+he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe
+this, under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I
+see no reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought
+to choose is identical, or even compatible, with that which another
+ought to choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and
+mutually exclusive moral worlds. In other words, even though I may
+admit a Good for each, I am not prepared to admit a Good for
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a
+not-Good; and that seems to be a contradiction."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be
+Good for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for
+another."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole
+conception is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for
+anybody or anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple,
+immutable eternal."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually
+tear me to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see
+no reason to admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, to me, something else has a meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to
+explain."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods,
+oughtn't to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other
+particular name of its own?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of
+them Good because from one point of view&mdash;that of some
+particular individual&mdash;each of them is something that ought to
+be. I, at any rate, admit no more than that. For each individual
+there is something that ought to be; but this, which ought to be
+for him, is very likely something that ought not to be for somebody
+else."</p>
+
+<p>On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and
+despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these
+incompatible Goods."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good,
+say, for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the
+people who come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire
+to make and increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he
+ruins in the process. And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>; one has only
+to look at the world to see that the Goods of individuals are not
+only diverse but incompatible one with another."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to
+be good which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not
+the fact of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the
+things in question are not really good?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion.
+It may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of
+things incompatible with what is good for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so?
+Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow
+be compatible with what is really good for others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be
+proved."</p>
+
+<p>"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument <i>ad hominem</i>.
+Do not you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't know that I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for
+people in general?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way do I not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to
+enter Parliament."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the
+country in favour of&mdash;well, I don't quite know
+what&mdash;shall we say in favour of the war?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say so, by all means, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at
+large? or at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of
+them? Do you admit that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will
+admit, I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but
+what of that? Very probably I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main
+thing is, that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right
+at all; that there is something to be wrong or right about."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I
+shall always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again
+and again, I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are
+worth anything at all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an
+opinion about; and then I shall retire from politics altogether;
+and then&mdash;then how will you get hold of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I
+suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily
+affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I
+presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to
+some general Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing
+of the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on
+to examine the consequences of the supposition."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for
+that, I suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of
+the case, interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the
+same time, on the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a
+general Good, your only object in this interchange will be your own
+Good, (in which you admit that you do believe.) If, for example,
+you are a doctor, your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself,
+to increase your knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the
+lowest, it is to accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your
+purpose be to alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the
+advance of science; for that would be to suppose that these ends,
+although they purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good,
+which is the hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a
+lawyer, you will not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting
+the law; such ends as these for you are mere illusions; for even if
+justice exist at all, it certainly is not a Good, for if it were,
+it would be a Good for all, and, as we agree, there is no such
+thing. Men like Bentham, therefore, to you will be mere
+visionaries, and the legal system as a whole will have no sense or
+purport, except so far as it contributes to sharpen your wits and
+fill your pocket And so, in general, with all professions and
+occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat it merely as a
+means to your own Good; and since you have no Good which is also
+common to other men, you will use these others without scruple to
+further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without
+necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be
+theirs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "and why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it
+would be so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it
+possible that you should ever adopt such an attitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an
+idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other
+men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for
+example, a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in
+his business operations, ever had any regard for anything except
+his own personal advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people
+he ruined? Do you suppose he cared even whether he ruined his
+country, except so far as such ruin might interfere with his own
+profit? Or look again at the famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do
+you suppose it mattered to him that he might be starving half the
+world, and imperilling the governments of Europe? It was enough for
+him that he should realize a fortune; of all the rest, I suppose,
+he washed his hands. He and men like him adopt, I have no doubt,
+precisely the position which you are trying to show is
+impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
+general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you.
+And my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good,
+he denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
+not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
+described."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume
+that a disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily
+involves a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his
+own Good consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in
+that case of course he will try to further it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other
+people. Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no
+Good common to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in
+furthering the Good of one we are also furthering that of others.
+So that even supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists
+in furthering the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put
+his belief into practice, but at most will be able to help some one
+man, with the likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and
+injuring many others. Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an
+egoist, yet he cannot work for a common Good; and that simply
+because there is no common Good to work for."</p>
+
+<p>At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the
+discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character,
+suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of
+optimism and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was
+rather pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and
+especially Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it
+irritating. His present speech was characteristic of his
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has
+vitiated your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because
+every man has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to
+be common to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible
+one with another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is
+necessarily hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who
+are intent on theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by
+all experience, that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man,
+in pursuing his own advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue
+theirs. The world, if you like to put it so, is a world of egoists;
+but a world constructed with such exquisite art, that the egoism of
+one is not only compatible with, but indispensable to that of
+another. On this principle all society rests. The producer, seeking
+his own profit, is bound to satisfy the consumer; the capitalist
+cannot exist without supporting the labourer; the borrower and
+lender are knit by the closest ties of mutual advantage; and so
+with all the ranks and divisions of mankind, social, political,
+economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against the other, in
+delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part with part,
+they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for ever
+disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true,
+and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and
+reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole.
+And when we consider&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and
+Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests
+countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow
+your own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and
+the thief, of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the
+fraudulent company-promoter; when, turning from these private
+examples, we cast our eyes on international relations, when we
+observe the perfect accord of interest between all the great powers
+in the far East; when we note the smooth harmonious working of that
+flawless political machine so aptly named the European Concert,
+each member pursuing its own advantage, yet co-operating without
+friction to a common end; or when, reverting to the economic
+sphere, we contemplate the exquisite adjustment that prevails
+between the mutual interest of labour and capital&mdash;an
+adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional disturbance,
+just to show that the centre of gravity is changing; when we
+observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan,
+annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime
+example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single
+individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating
+with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and
+contributing, by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a
+great and oppressed people&mdash;if indeed, in such a world as
+ours, anyone can be said to be oppressed&mdash;when, my dear Parry,
+we contemplate these things, then&mdash;then&mdash;words fail me!
+Finish the sentence as you only can."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very
+well you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still
+maintain that we must take broad views of these matters, and that
+the position adopted is substantially correct, if you take long
+enough periods of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his
+own Good does contribute also to the Good of others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point,
+"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that
+everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is
+no common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is
+essential to the realization of the Good of all the rest"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one
+thing which we shall have to call a common Good."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to
+all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common
+condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society'
+what is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at
+least you admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of
+common activity and end; and the motives of men in undertaking
+these common activities become a matter of comparative
+indifference. Whatever they are consciously aiming at, whether it
+be their own Good, or the Good of all, or, as is more probable, a
+varying mixture of both, the fact remains that they do, and we do,
+admit a common Good, the maintenance and development of society
+itself. And that is all I was concerned to get you to agree
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common
+Good except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition
+of Good than Good itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard
+society as nothing but a condition of the realization of
+independent, individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the
+Good of each individual consists in his relations with other
+individuals. But this I do not know that I am in a position to
+establish. Meantime, however, we can, I think, maintain, that few
+candid men, understanding the issue, will really deny altogether a
+common Good; for they will have to admit that in society we have at
+the very least a common condition of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that
+there is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if
+pressed, would probably admit one."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not
+attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is
+impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as
+before, that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at
+his own peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have
+shown is, that to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to
+deny to one's life and action all worth except what is bound up
+with one's own Good, to the complete exclusion of any Good of all.
+In the second place, it is to deny all worth to every public and
+social institution&mdash;to religion, law, government, the family,
+all activities, in a word, which contribute to and make up what we
+call society. Further, it is to empty history, which is the record
+of society, of its main interest and significance, and in
+particular to eliminate the idea of progress; for progress, of
+course, implies a common Good towards which progress is directed.
+In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self, and reveal
+him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations from
+which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which,
+apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is
+to make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his
+solitary ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main
+attraction by its dissociation from the development of others. Now,
+if any man, having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a
+sense, not merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were,
+in every nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny
+that he believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the
+denial with his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life,
+adjusting to his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings,
+and thoughts; if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then
+I, for my part, am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be
+wrong. All I can do is to set my experience against his, and to
+appeal to the experience of others; and we must wait till further
+experience on either side leads (if it ever is to lead) to an
+agreement. But, on the other hand, if a man merely makes the denial
+with his lips, because, perhaps, he conceives it impossible to
+prove the opposite, or because he sees that what is good cannot be
+defined beyond dispute, or whatever other plausible reason he may
+have; and if, while he persists in his denial, he continues to act
+as if the contrary were true, taking part with zest and enthusiasm
+in the common business of life, pushing causes, supporting
+institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and that
+without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his own
+Good&mdash;in that case I shall take leave to think that he does
+not really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely
+think he does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole
+tissue of his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real
+opinion than the propositions he enunciates with his lips."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of
+course we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the
+question is, whether we have a right to."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was
+the more modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a
+right or no is another matter, more difficult and more profound
+than I care to approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved
+beyond dispute to the reason, either that certain things are good
+or that they are not, there would be no place for such discussions
+as this. But, it appears, such proof has not yet been
+given,&mdash;or do you think it has?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall
+back on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to
+prejudice,&mdash;and so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an
+appeal to the passion men have to find worth in their lives, and
+their refusal to accept any view by which such worth is denied. To
+anyone who refuses to accept any judgment about what is good, I
+prove, or endeavour to prove, that such refusal cuts away the whole
+basis of his life; and I ask him if he is prepared to accept that
+consequence. If he affirms that he is, and affirms it not only with
+his lips but in his action, then I have no more to say; but if he
+cannot accept the consequences, then, I suppose, he will reconsider
+the premisses, and admit that he does really believe that judgments
+about what is good may be true, and, provisionally, that his own
+are true, or at least as true as he can make them, and that he does
+in fact accept and act upon them as true, and intends to do so
+until he is convinced that they are false. And this attitude of his
+feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude of faith; it is, I
+think, the attitude most men would adopt if they were pressed home
+upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable enough, and
+rather to be praised than to be condemned."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very
+unsatisfactory."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're
+all driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really
+delightful paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are
+bound to believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what
+it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"</p>
+
+<p>"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things
+are good."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could
+think that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that
+we are bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I
+cannot see that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very
+diversity, it seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope
+is, that perhaps they do all contain some truth, although they may
+contain falsehood as well."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All
+the confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we
+can't see what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that
+there is all this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers
+always assume, as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of
+opinion and reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really
+determine conduct. Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is
+determined, at least in essentials, by something very much more
+like instinct. And it is to this instinct which, by the nature of
+the case, is simple and infallible, that we ought to look to tell
+us what is good, and not to our reason, which, as you admit
+yourself, can only land us in contradictory judgments. I know, of
+course, that you have a prejudice against any such view."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should
+be glad of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never
+yet been able to find one."</p>
+
+<p>"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place;
+or, perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it.
+You will never discover what is good by any process of rational
+inquiry. It's a matter of direct perception, above and beyond all
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you
+said, simple and infallible?"</p>
+
+<p>"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all
+practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is
+for this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say,
+of course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour
+or two in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate
+if the habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For
+inquiry does tend in the long run to influence opinion, and
+generally to influence it in the wrong way; whereas, if people
+simply go on following their instinct, they are much more likely to
+do what is right, than if they try to act on so-called rational
+grounds."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious
+difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you
+bid us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its
+content? What <i>is</i> it, anyhow, that it should be set up in
+this way above reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct
+is, that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey;
+there's no question about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But there <i>is</i> question about the content of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how
+small a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we
+act simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest
+and most prosperous."</p>
+
+<p>"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What
+standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"</p>
+
+<p>"From common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is common sense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"</p>
+
+<p>"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every
+instinct require another to justify it, and so <i>ad
+infinitum</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable
+good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a
+clever child.</p>
+
+<p>"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point.
+Is it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient
+justification, or does it require justification by something
+else?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong
+instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands
+above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of
+dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism
+simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it
+challenges."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this
+instinct is so strong therefore it is always good to follow
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so, generally speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man
+should run away in battle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There
+you get a superposition of the social upon the merely individual
+instinct."</p>
+
+<p>"And how does that come about?"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been
+ingeniously explained as follows. We start with the primary
+instinct of self-preservation. This means, at first, that each
+individual strives to preserve himself. But as time goes on
+individuals discover that they can only preserve themselves by
+associating with others, and that they must defend society if they
+want to defend themselves. They thus form a habit of defending
+society; and this habit becomes in time a second instinct, and an
+instinct so strong that it even overrides the primary one from
+which it was derived; till at last you get individuals sacrificing
+in defence of the community those very lives which they originally
+entered the community to preserve."</p>
+
+<p>"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really
+true that every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so
+only by virtue of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull
+himself up and remember that, after all, the preservation of his
+life was the only motive that induced him to endanger it, he would
+run away like a sensible man, and try some other device to achieve
+his end, the device of society having evidently broken down, so far
+as he is concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism!
+The point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and
+has therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the
+reason touch it in the least"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very
+hard that a man can't rectify such an important error. The
+imposition is simply monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut
+up in society on the distinct understanding, to begin with, that
+society was to help them to preserve their lives; instead of which,
+it starves them and hangs them and sends them to be shot in battle,
+and they aren't allowed to raise a word of protest or even to
+perceive what a fraud is being perpetrated upon them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to
+me a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the
+better instincts."</p>
+
+<p>"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These
+instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the
+instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and
+fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he
+stays and fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs
+away?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know
+what is Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between
+instincts, to approve one and condemn another. And our problem
+still remains, how can we do this? how can we get any certainty of
+standard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an
+instinct is. My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with
+what seemed to be your assumption that whatever it is in us that
+judges about Good judges in a single, uniform, infallible way.
+Whereas, in fact, as you had to admit, sometimes at the same moment
+it pronounces judgments not only diverse but contradictory."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As
+a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we
+require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science
+rather than in philosophy."</p>
+
+<p>"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has <i>not</i> science to do with?" said a new voice from
+behind. It was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the
+breakfast room (he always breakfasted late), and had overheard the
+last remark. He was a lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather
+distinguished in that field, and an enthusiastic believer in the
+capacity of the scientific method to solve all problems.</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that
+science has nothing to do with the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed
+that be true."</p>
+
+<p>"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I
+interposed. I was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the
+same time I was desirous to avoid a discussion between him and
+Leslie, for their types of mind and habits of thought were so
+radically opposed that it was as idle for them to engage in debate
+as for two bishops of opposite colour to attempt to capture one
+another upon a chessboard. He answered readily enough to my
+challenge.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge,
+and that is the method we call scientific."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by
+that method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of
+knowledge, but only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere,
+the only safe guide is the actual concrete operation of
+Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent
+hostility.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only
+to be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in
+fact identical with the condition towards which she tends, and
+morality the means to attaining it."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him
+short.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"</p>
+
+<p>"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only
+ascertain by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution.
+Biology and Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one
+another, are rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, <i>sotto-voce</i>, "here comes the
+social organism! I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing,
+or ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to
+draw any certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty
+clear what kind of results we shall arrive at."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the
+position I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be
+regarded as provisional."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Pray go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the
+single cell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity,
+"with a C or with an S?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal
+body is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a
+progressive modification in the structure of each cell, the
+differentiation of groups of cells to perform special
+functions,&mdash;digestive, respiratory, and the rest,&mdash;and
+the subordination of each cell or group of cells to the whole.
+Similarly, in sociology&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain
+himself, "mightn't we take all this for granted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy.
+And I don't see how&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted,
+that in the social organism&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell,
+the various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus
+its alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange;
+its circulatory system, in the network of communications; its
+nervous system, in the government machinery; its&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never
+could find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society
+corresponds to the spleen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or the liver?" added Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are
+tired of being serious it's no use for me to continue."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one
+does get a little tired of the social organism."</p>
+
+<p>"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really
+understand it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."</p>
+
+<p>At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in
+polemics; so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position,
+how does it help us to judge what is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is,
+that it is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into
+individuals and individuals into societies&mdash;the protozoon, in
+other words, evolves into the animal, the animal into what some
+have called the 'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this
+physical evolution corresponds a psychical one. What kind of
+consciousness an animal may have, we can indeed only conjecture;
+and we cannot even go so far as conjecture in the case of the cell;
+but we may reasonably assume that important psychical changes of
+the original elements are accompaniments and conditions of their
+aggregation into larger entities; and the morality (if you will
+permit the word) of the cell that is incorporated in an animal body
+will consist in adapting itself as perfectly as may be to the new
+conditions, in subordinating its consciousness to that of the
+Whole&mdash;briefly, in acquiring a social instead of an individual
+self. And now, to follow the clue thus obtained into the higher
+manifestations of life. As the cell is to the animal, so is the
+individual to society, and that on the psychical as well as on the
+physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she is perfecting
+society; that is the end and goal of all her striving. When,
+therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has this
+simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the
+perfect social body."</p>
+
+<p>As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'<i>Parturiunt
+montes</i>,'" and Leslie took it up with: "And not even a
+mouse!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say,
+until we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me
+more like a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth.
+But the question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage
+Wilson gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself,
+I suppose, might have been reached, and commonly is, without any
+recourse to the aid of natural science."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by
+the scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may
+assert that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over
+individual passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't
+see how you would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the
+whole evolution of Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate;
+and can say:&mdash;if you resist that tendency you are resisting
+Nature herself!"</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able
+to resist Nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of
+the plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but
+destined sooner or later to be absorbed."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you
+said at the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So
+that, instead of looking within to find our criterion, we ought
+really to look without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of
+Nature and to acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I
+am inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able
+to make out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the
+direction which, on the whole, we prefer."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led
+you to just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature
+was not from the cell to the animal, and from the individual to
+society, but in precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of
+all things was a resolution into the primitive elements&mdash;do
+you think you would have been as ready to assert that it is the
+goal of Nature that must determine our ideal of Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical
+than the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of
+your authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives
+the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of
+continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the
+utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again
+to the original condition. What you were describing is the movement
+which we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be
+good, at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose
+us to have reached the point at which the opposite movement begins;
+suppose what we had to look forward to and to describe as the
+course of Nature were a process, not from simple to complex, from
+homogeneous to heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but
+one in exactly the contrary direction, a dissolution of society
+into its individuals, of animals into the cells of which they are
+composed, of life into chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and
+so on through the scale of Being, reversing the whole course of
+evolution&mdash;should we, in such a case, still have to say that
+the process of Nature was right, and that she is to give the law to
+our judgment about Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only
+those who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the
+qualities enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long
+run, be eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize
+opinions with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt,
+is why we approve what you call the upward movement, which is the
+one in which Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same
+reason, if, or when, a movement in the opposite direction should
+set in, people holding opinions like ours will tend to be
+eliminated, while those will tend to survive more and more who
+approve the current of evolution then prevailing."</p>
+
+<p>"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be
+at last attained, by the simple process of eliminating the
+dissentients!"</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory
+for the people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we
+want to know is, what <i>we</i> are to judge to be Good, not what
+somebody else will be made to judge, centuries hence."</p>
+
+<p>"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the
+argument you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her
+we shall be knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object
+strongly to her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the
+harmony of the final consummation&mdash;even if it were to be
+final, and not merely the turn of the tide; and I am sensibly aware
+of the horrible discomfort of the intermediate stages, the pushing,
+kicking, trampling of the host, and the wounded and dead left
+behind on the march. Of all this I venture to disapprove; then
+comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!' I ask why, and
+she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still demur, and she
+comes down on me with a threat&mdash;'Very good, approve or no, as
+you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By all
+means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection
+that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a
+martyr. Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner
+because I venture to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry;
+and in my humble opinion it's Nature, not <i>I</i>, that cuts a
+poor figure!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking
+like that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer
+the ridiculous."</p>
+
+<p>"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For
+I cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about
+Good must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of
+Nature may, as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure
+of Good; the measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the
+study of Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by
+giving it new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last
+resort; and the judgment can never be a mere statement as to the
+course which Nature is pursuing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount
+importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right
+judgment?"</p>
+
+<p>"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the
+study of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All
+that I wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you
+have been trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other,
+to get rid of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by
+substituting for them a statement about the tendencies of
+Nature&mdash;that this contention cannot be upheld."</p>
+
+<p>"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a
+scientific basis for your judgment."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what
+you include under science."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief
+formul&aelig; of the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a
+description of what happens."</p>
+
+<p>"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good
+can certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are
+judgments of what ought to be, not of what is."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have
+nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"But might there not be some way of judging between
+opinions?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective
+test?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case
+of the sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of
+ours, but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine
+which is independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us
+from without with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of
+our own can impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the
+power of inference, whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are
+able to build up a knowledge of what is. But when, on the other
+hand, we turn to such of our ideas as deal with the Good, the
+Beautiful, and the like&mdash;here we have no test external to
+ourselves, no authority superior and independent. Invite a group of
+men to witness a scientific experiment, and none of them will be
+able to deny either the sequence of the phenomena produced, or the
+chain of reasoning (supposing it to be sound) which leads to the
+conclusion based upon them. Invite the same men to judge of a
+picture, or consult them on a question of moral casuistry, and they
+will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will there be any
+objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion is more
+correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense are,
+or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation,
+infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are
+different not only in different persons, but in the same person at
+different times."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The
+question is whether&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main
+point. I was going to say that not merely are there these
+differences of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the
+opinions were uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective
+and devoid of scientific validity. It is the external reference
+that gives its certainty to science; and such a reference is
+impossible in the case of judgments about the Beautiful and the
+Good. Such judgments are merely records of what we think or feel.
+These ideas of ours may or may not happen to be consistent one with
+another; but whether they are so or not, they are merely our ideas,
+and have nothing to do with the essential nature of reality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds
+in the way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point
+of view of God&mdash;only for the sake of argument," I added,
+seeing him about to protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being
+through and through as it really is; and along with this knowledge
+of reality he has a conviction that reality is good. Now, with this
+conviction of his none other, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, can compete; for
+he being God, we must at any rate admit that if anybody can be
+right, it must be he. No one then can dispute or shake his opinion;
+and since he is eternal he will not change it of himself. Is there
+then, under the circumstances, any distinction of validity between
+his judgment that what is, is, and his judgment that what is, is
+good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an
+imaginary case. But if you press me I can only say that I still
+adhere to my view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God
+or anybody else, can be no more than a subjective expression of
+opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in
+so far as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to
+eliminate the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you
+dwelt, of the impressions of external sense, the certainty of the
+impressions is your and my certainty that we have them; and so in
+the case of a cogent argument; for any given person the test of the
+cogency is his perception that the cogency is there. And it is the
+same with the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test
+except perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions
+conflict; not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the
+case I imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself,
+then the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as
+the certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're
+beginning to talk metaphysics."</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."</p>
+
+<p>"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air
+of an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really
+matter? Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good,
+the fact remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good,
+his Good, our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in
+process of flux, according to the time of day, the time of life,
+and the state of the liver. That being so, what is the use of
+discussing Good in itself? And why be so disturbed about it?
+There's Leslie, for instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked
+out of the universe because he can't discover his objective
+standard! My dear boy, life goes on just the same, my life, his
+life, your life, all the lives. Why not make an end of the worry at
+once by admitting frankly that Good is a chim&aelig;ra, and that we
+get on very well without it?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that
+none of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with
+you merely because you override me in argument&mdash;even if you
+did, which you don't."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that
+you disagree."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was
+silence, till I began to fear that our argument would collapse;
+when, to my relief, Parry returned to the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I
+can't help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I
+feel sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does
+not really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good
+by instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it.
+And what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and
+country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I
+want to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name
+possesses, in its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly
+follows, the moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective
+standard, worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department
+of life, really is good. To this standard every plain man, without
+reasoning, and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and
+naturally conform; so do all of us who are discussing here, in all
+the common affairs of our daily life. We know, if I may say so,
+better than we know; and the difficulties into which we are driven,
+in speculations such as that upon which we are engaged, arise, to
+my mind, from a false and unnecessary abstraction&mdash;from
+putting aside all the rich content of actual life, and calling into
+the wilderness for the answer to a question which solves itself in
+the street and the market-place."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy
+with what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and
+thousands!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was
+referring is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own
+standard of Good; but these standards are different and even
+opposite; so that it would seem we require some criterion by which
+to compare and judge them."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are
+not concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great
+civilization believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient
+Greeks, of whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are
+absurdly over-estimated; but they had at least that good
+quality&mdash;they believed in themselves. To them the whole
+non-Greek world was barbarian; the standard of Good was frankly
+their own standard; and it was a standard knowable and known,
+however wide might be the deviations from it in practice. We find
+accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in the real. Plato,
+even, in constructing his imaginary republic, does not build in the
+void, evoking from his own consciousness a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for
+the Birds; on the contrary, he bases his structure upon the actual,
+following the general plan of the institutions of Sparta and Crete;
+and neither to him nor to Aristotle does it ever occur that there
+is, or could be, any form of state worth considering, except the
+city-state with which they were familiar. It is the same with their
+treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of the Greeks, not of Man
+in general, and stands in close relation to the facts of
+contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not, like that of
+our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for vaguely-imagined
+millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal interpretation of
+their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature and form the
+very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in the troubled
+stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply the
+essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who
+frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and
+hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his
+countrymen. That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is
+the one natural to the plain man in every well-organized society.
+Good is best known when it is not investigated; and people like
+ourselves would do no useful service if we were to induce in others
+the habit of discussion which education has made a second nature to
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that
+we are all anarchists in disguise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by
+Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health
+is ignorance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined.
+"But if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that
+we are suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern
+world. It was easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they
+had no past. But for us the past overweights the present; we
+cannot, if we would, get rid of the burden of it. All that was once
+absolute has become relative, including our own conceptions and
+ideals; and as we look back down the ages and see civilization
+after civilization come into being, flourish and decay, it is
+impossible for us to believe that the society in which we happen to
+be born is more ultimate than any of these, or that its ideal, as
+reflected in its institutions, has any more claim than theirs to be
+regarded as a final and absolute expression of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals
+evolve, but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more
+validity for us than any other. As to those of the past, they were,
+no doubt, important in their day, but they have no importance for
+the modern world. The very fact that they are past is proof that
+they are also superseded."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that
+everything that is later in time is also better? That we are better
+artists than the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more
+spiritual than the men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those
+of the Renaissance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all
+that. I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress;
+and that therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that
+alone, which we ought practically to consider."</p>
+
+<p>"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there
+are so many."</p>
+
+<p>"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is
+embodied in current laws and customs."</p>
+
+<p>"But these are always themselves in process of change."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, gradual change."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And
+to sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end,
+the sanctioning of a whole revolution."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally
+established, what right have we to judge that the established is
+the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what
+we do."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we
+reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else
+do you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and
+disquiet we are apt to experience in the presence of a bold
+denier?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I do experience it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially
+vivid experience of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my
+mind when I was speaking."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."</p>
+
+<p>"What does he deny, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should
+conjecture, at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and
+all the rest of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon
+as progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with
+all that it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong,
+of the bad against the good, of the herd against the master. Every
+great society, in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in
+the sense that the many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed
+to the few; and that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good
+conscience, in free obedience to the universal law of the world.
+'Be strong, be hard' are his ultimate ethical principles. The
+modern virtues, or what we affect to consider such, sympathy, pity,
+justice, thrift, unselfishness and the like, are merely symptoms of
+moral degeneration. The true and great and noble man is above all
+things selfish; and the highest type of humanity is to be sought in
+Napoleon or C&aelig;sar Borgia."</p>
+
+<p>"But that's mere raving!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be.
+But not simply because it contradicts those current notions which
+we are embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is
+precisely those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet
+it with a bare denial."</p>
+
+<p>"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely
+be stronger if you had reason for your faith."</p>
+
+<p>"But I think my reason sufficient&mdash;those are not the ideas
+of the age."</p>
+
+<p>"But for all you know they may be those of the next."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that will be its concern."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you
+said that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose,
+is what you want to attain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally
+current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of
+the Good you want to achieve."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the
+Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take
+the ideas of our time as a final criterion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so&mdash;I don't know&mdash;I'm sure there's
+something in it! Do you believe yourself that they have no import
+for us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import
+is. We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a
+current convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact
+of the tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a
+moral reformer to modify the convention. Or do you not think
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there
+any institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open
+to obvious criticism? Take what you will&mdash;parliamentary
+government, the family, the law of real property&mdash;is there one
+of them that could be adequately and successfully defended?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The
+family&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss
+that! But upon one thing we seem to be agreed&mdash;that whatever
+may be the value of current standards of Good in assisting our
+judgment, we cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of
+authority. And so once more we are thrown back each upon his own
+opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to
+attach some validity."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have
+any."</p>
+
+<p>I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming
+round from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining
+members of our party. They had just returned from a mountaineering
+expedition; and now, having had their bath, had come out to join us
+in our usual place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the
+<i>Times</i> and the <i>Daily Chronicle</i>. He was a keen business
+man, and a Radical politician of some note; and though not
+naturally inclined to speculative thought, would sometimes take
+part in our discussions if ever they seemed to touch on any
+practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were often very
+much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive and
+polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth the
+course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of
+satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some talk
+about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to
+apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will
+be willing to help us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't
+much in my line."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you
+even know what we're talking about!"</p>
+
+<p>"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it
+be when you get together?"</p>
+
+<p>"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something
+more like ethics."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the question?" asked Dennis.</p>
+
+<p>Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract
+the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the
+profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune,
+had not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his
+time for some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed
+talking to him, though the position he had come to hold was one
+which I found it very difficult to understand, and I am not sure
+that I have been able to represent it fairly.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question,
+"our judgments about what is good, and trying without much success
+to get over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem
+to be practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we
+find it hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far
+and in what sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help
+you. At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and
+what's bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the
+same point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a
+convinced Utilitarian."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to
+the word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"</p>
+
+<p>"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I
+could see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the
+things you speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good
+and what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"</p>
+
+<p>"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on
+important points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what
+ought to be done, but about how to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and
+healthy."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good
+to make people happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, if you deny that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I deny that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply
+means, what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a
+Utilitarian."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I
+believe, does everybody else."</p>
+
+<p>"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture
+can go, is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and
+liquid, and of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of
+attainable and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater
+quantities for most pigs.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of
+Hedonism."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well
+enough, though probably not Bartlett's."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic
+Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"A what?" said Bartlett.</p>
+
+<p>"An egoistic Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"And what may that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him
+short. "It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for
+example, is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship;
+they are, he says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of
+possessing the goodwill of such and such individuals, and the right
+of expecting from them, in consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous
+services.'"</p>
+
+<p>We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not
+help protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single
+example."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The
+pleasures of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of
+acquiring or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in
+consequence, of expecting particular favours from him, either in
+this life or in another.'"</p>
+
+<p>We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your
+levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an
+egoistic Hedonist."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"And what's the difference?"</p>
+
+<p>"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis
+interrupted him again.</p>
+
+<p>"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the
+other a prig."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the
+same as theirs. And of all the <i>&agrave; priori</i> systems I
+prefer Utilitarianism, because it is at least clear, simple, and
+precise."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I can never see that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what is your difficulty?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a
+dogma."</p>
+
+<p>"True," he said, "but that particular dogma&mdash;the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number&mdash;is one which commends itself
+to everyone's consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A
+crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain
+disease about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of
+discovering how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is
+found, by the hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general
+preponderance of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they
+go to the crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name
+of the utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to
+vivisection. The tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will
+be inconceivable: but think of the result! A general preponderance
+in the community at large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of
+pain inflicted on you, an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody
+else. Upon you, it is true, will fall the whole of the pain;
+whereas the pleasure will be so minutely distributed among
+innumerable individuals that the increment in each case will be
+almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be there! and our
+arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure will exceed
+the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among a greater
+number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the hedonistic
+calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you! Rise to
+the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting room!
+What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to
+Bartlett to express his sentiments!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case,
+to begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it
+did, one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to
+take an impartial view of the situation."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what
+would really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to
+suffer? Do you think they would believe they ought to accept the
+sacrifice? Every man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for
+himself; and what right has he to accept it for other people?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon
+common sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common
+sense would repudiate it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a
+case, as I said, that could not occur&mdash;a mere marginal
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental
+fallacy. Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number is good has a more
+obvious and indisputable validity than any other judgments of
+worth. It seems to me to be just one judgment among others; and,
+like the others, it may be true or false. However, I will not press
+that point. But what I should like to insist upon is, that the
+doctrine which Bartlett seemed to hold&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed
+an opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy
+in the world." And with that he opened the <i>Chronicle</i>, and
+presently becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further
+attention to the course of our debate.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or
+no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at
+once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since
+its enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as
+closed. It will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry,
+that the truth of the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so
+that it has only to be stated to be accepted?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the
+Utilitarians is that everyone who has the capacity and will take
+the trouble to reflect will, in fact, arrive at their
+conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is
+good, the result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there
+are many possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and
+simple than any other judgment of the kind?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as
+it is, requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for
+every fresh case that turns up."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to
+discover wherein that happiness consists."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply
+sensations. If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am
+thirsty, I feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these
+feelings; they are simple and radical."</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple
+cases as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics.
+And, on the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they
+lose at once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult
+to interpret as Good and Evil."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as
+that between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be
+fairly summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as
+everyone knows, the choices are far more difficult; they are
+between, let us say, a bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony;
+leisure and liberty now, or &pound;1000 a-year twenty years hence;
+art and fame at the cost of health, or sound nerves and obscurity;
+and so on, and so on through all the possible cases, infinitely
+more complex in reality than I could attempt to indicate here, all
+of which, no doubt, could be brought under your formula, but none
+of which the formula would help to solve."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult
+to apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."</p>
+
+<p>"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what
+follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that
+in making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call
+the hedonistic calculus&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the
+important point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small
+thing to know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we
+do know it) that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of
+pleasure over pain; the whole problem is to discover, in
+innumerable detailed cases, wherein precisely the preponderance
+consists. But this can only be learnt, if at all, by long and
+difficult, and, it may be, painful experience. We do not really
+know, <i>&agrave; priori</i>, what things are pleasurable, in the
+extended sense which we must give to the word if the doctrine is to
+be at all plausible, any more definitely than we know what things
+are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting the word Pleasure
+for the word Good, even if the substitution were legitimate, have
+not really done much to help us in our choice."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even
+if we do not know what things are pleasurable."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not
+know what things are good."</p>
+
+<p>"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot define Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by
+direct experience."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in
+the case of Pleasure everyone <i>does</i> recognise it when it
+occurs; whereas there is no such general recognition of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."</p>
+
+<p>"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true
+or no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial
+whether Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally
+recognisable. The point is that they are radically different
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"No," objected Parry, "<i>our</i> point is that they are the
+same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone
+can."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>I</i> don't believe that anyone <i>cannot</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that,
+quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as
+poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular
+example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin
+or poetry is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that,
+quantity of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one
+itches is as good as, say, pursuing scientific research."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is
+not equal."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in
+scratching?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some
+physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a
+catamite."</p>
+
+<p>"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross
+physical pleasures do not last."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss
+of scratching, or of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of
+way. It seems to me to deserve serious treatment"</p>
+
+<p>"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a
+heaven of scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser
+experience, would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure
+than a heaven of scientific research."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you
+would. The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific
+research is a better thing than such physical pleasure, and then
+you bring out your calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that
+foregone conclusion. And that is what the Utilitarians always do.
+Being ordinary decent people they accept the same values as the
+rest of the world, and on the same grounds as the rest of the
+world. And then they pretend, and no doubt believe themselves, that
+they have been led to their conclusions by the hedonistic calculus.
+But really, if they made an impartial attempt to apply the calculus
+fairly, they would arrive at quite different results, results which
+would surprise and shock themselves, and destroy the whole
+plausibility of their theory."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your view of the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't it yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this
+utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident
+about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what
+things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that
+all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is
+not pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is
+disputed. So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that
+there are a number of conflicting opinions about what things are
+good, that to these opinions some validity must be attached, but
+that it is difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to
+choose between them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the
+truth about Good must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by
+interrogating the actual experience of men in their judgments about
+good things, we may perhaps be able to get at least some, shadowy
+notion of the object of our quest"</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even
+by your own confession we end where we began."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat
+(it was now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the
+murmur of the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to
+their dinner) seemed to have induced a general disinclination to
+the effort of speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known
+to be tired in body or mind, and who was always debating
+something&mdash;it seemed to matter very little what&mdash;even he,
+I thought at first, was ready to let the discussion drop. But
+presently it became clear that he was only revolving my last words
+in his mind, for before long he turned to me and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or
+what results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie
+pricked up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as
+ever to pursue the subject further.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of
+discovering Good independently of all experience?"</p>
+
+<p>The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what
+kind of a method would that be?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was
+thinking of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by
+Hegel in his <i>Logic</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey
+much to my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take
+any statement you like&mdash;for example, 'Nothing
+exists!'&mdash;put it into the dialectical machine, turn the
+handle, and hey presto! out comes the Absolute! The thing's
+infallible; it does not matter what you put in; you always get out
+the same identical sausage."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't
+much matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian
+plan."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room,
+lock the door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you
+proceed to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its
+contents; look steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a
+well; and at the bottom you will find Truth in the form of a
+categorical imperative. Or, if you don't like that, there's the
+method of Fichte. You take an Ego, by preference yourself; convert
+it into a proposition; negate it, affirm it, negate it again, and
+so on <i>ad infinitum</i>, until you get out the whole Universe in
+the likeness of yourself. But that's rather a difficult method;
+probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the
+question is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all
+arrive at totally different results."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he
+replied. "I merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such
+method of pure reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such
+method yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You simply lie down and block the road?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk
+round you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that
+there really is some such method as you suggest of discovering
+Good&mdash;a purely rational method, independent of all common
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so
+discovered, would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or
+would it be merely the total reality of which they are imperfect
+and inadequate expressions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to
+them. All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good
+and some bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to
+suppose that our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were
+by an accidental coincidence."</p>
+
+<p>"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a
+Good, and that there is a purely rational and <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> method of discovering it, yet we do not profess to have
+ascertained that method ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has
+been ascertained by anyone? In any case, we admit, I suppose, that
+to the great mass of men, both of our own and all previous ages,
+such a method has remained unknown and unsuspected?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the
+impression that they were really good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and
+small alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that
+store of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the
+drama of history?"</p>
+
+<p>"Undoubtedly!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The
+purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had
+they any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some
+particular case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven
+to achieve, whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like
+C&aelig;sar, to found a polity, whether their quest were virtue or
+power or truth, or any other of the ends we are accustomed to value
+and praise, or whether they sought the direct opposites of these,
+or simply lived from hour to hour following without reflexion the
+impulse of the moment, in any and every case all alike, great and
+small, good and bad, leaders and followers, or however else we may
+class them, were, in fact, equally insignificant and absurd, the
+idle sport of illusions, one as empty and baseless as another. The
+history of nations, the lives of individual men, are stripped, in
+this view, of all interest and meaning; nowhere is there advance or
+retrogression, nowhere better or worse, nowhere sense or
+consistency at all. Systems, however imposing, structures, however
+vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The stars fall from the
+human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like will-o'-the-wisps;
+the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and dissolves in
+smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with impotent
+eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as it
+dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only view
+we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we
+believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."</p>
+
+<p>"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and
+the future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we
+shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you
+put forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a
+reason and purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any
+rate, could and did believe that they were helping to realize great
+Goods; but we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to
+forego even that satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good
+exists, and that there is a method of discovering it by pure
+reason; but this method, we may safely assume, we shall not most of
+us have ascertained. Or do you think we shall?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained
+it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume
+that it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the
+pursuit of Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which
+we call good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the
+true Good. Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men
+who have learnt indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing
+about it, except that it has nothing to do with what they call
+good. What kind of life will they live? Whatever they may put their
+hand to, they will at once be paralyzed by the thought that it
+cannot possibly be worth pursuing. Politics, art, pleasure,
+science&mdash;of these and all other ends they know but one thing,
+that all is vanity. As by the touch of enchantment, their world is
+turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch lips and hands towards a
+water for ever vanishing, a fruit for ever withdrawn. At war with
+empty phantoms, they 'strike with their spirit's knife,' as Shelley
+has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and lost they move about in
+worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable, 'children crying in
+the night, with no language but a cry,' and no father to cry to.
+And in all this blind confusion the only comfort vouchsafed is that
+somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how, discover a Good of
+which the only thing they know is that it has no connection with
+the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account of the
+condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept and
+believe your hypothesis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against
+this appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really
+were as I suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it
+seemed to ruin our own life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all,
+we have no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so,
+and every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is
+true, demonstrate&mdash;and that was admitted from the
+first&mdash;that any of our judgments about what is good are true;
+but there is no reason why we should not believe&mdash;and I should
+say we must believe&mdash;that somehow or other they do at least
+have truth in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and if so?"</p>
+
+<p>"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do
+not believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon
+some purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things
+which we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so,
+and by analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of
+such things we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that
+we judge to be good; and again by increasing experience we may come
+to know more Good than we knew; and generally, if we once admit
+that we have some light, we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and
+that getting of more light will be the most important business, not
+only of philosophy, but of life."</p>
+
+<p>"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge
+rightly? If we really have a perception, how is it that it is
+confused, not clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this
+kind. Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot
+know Good except in so far as we experience it&mdash;so, at least,
+I think, though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even
+if our judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear,
+our conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and
+tentative, because there would be so much Good that we had not
+experienced. But, in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about
+what we do experience are confused, because every experience is
+indefinitely complex, and contains, along with the Good, so much
+that is indifferent or bad. And to analyze out precisely what it is
+that we are judging to be good is often a difficult and laborious
+task, though it is one that should be a main preoccupation with us
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity
+and confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good&mdash;one,
+that our experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to
+me, is like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop
+some other sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find
+it hard to say what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the
+state of the organ; and it is only by the progressive perfecting of
+that, that they can settle their doubts and put an end to their
+disputes, whether with themselves or with other people."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive
+that we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye,
+whose nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the
+nature of the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye
+of the soul, being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet
+perceive Good with any clearness or precision, but only in a faint
+imperfect way, catching now one aspect of it, now another, but
+never resting content in any of these, being driven on by the
+impulse to realize itself to ever surer and finer discrimination,
+with the sense that it is learning its own nature as it learns that
+of its object, and that it will never be itself a true and perfect
+organ until it is confronted with the true and perfect Good. And as
+by the physical eye we learn by degrees to distinguish colours and
+forms, to separate and combine them, and arrange them in definite
+groups, and then, going further, after discerning in this way a
+world of physical things, proceed to fashion for our delight a
+world of art, in that finer experience becoming aware of our own
+finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul, by long and
+tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the Goods which
+Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied, proceed to
+shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art, fashioning
+the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under the
+stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever
+destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own
+nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on
+without rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse
+that urges her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in
+the perfect enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because
+in it she has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a
+possible conception?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still
+feel a difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that
+the perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected
+that instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore
+require another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me
+that your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate
+some faculty&mdash;which perhaps you might as well call an
+instinct&mdash;and this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort
+to realize itself, proceeds to discriminate various objects as
+good. But, now, does this same faculty also know that the Goods are
+good, and which is better than which, and generally in what
+relations they stand to one another and to the absolutely Good? Or
+do we not require here, too, another faculty to make these
+judgments, and must not this faculty, as I said at first, have
+previously achieved, by some method of its own, a knowledge of
+Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing
+but an infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes,
+must be, in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and
+self-evident; and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only
+quarrel with him was in regard to his assumption that the judgments
+we make about Good are final and conclusive. The experiences we
+recognize as good are always, it seems to me, also bad; because we
+are never able to apprehend or experience what is absolutely Good.
+Only, as I like to believe&mdash;you may say I have no grounds for
+the belief&mdash;we are always progressing towards such a Good; and
+the more of it we apprehend and experience, the more we are aware
+of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to say, of the well-being
+of that part of us, whatever it may be&mdash;I call it the
+soul&mdash;which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you
+will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception,
+but one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know
+Good, but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of
+Good goes her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon
+and varying with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is
+aware of a tension, as it were, when she cannot expand, of a
+drooping and inanition when nutriment fails, of a rush of health
+and vigour as she passes into a new and larger life, as she freely
+unfolds this or that aspect of her complex being, triumphs at last
+over an obstacle that has long hemmed and thwarted her course, and
+rests for a moment in free and joyous consciousness of self, like a
+stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge, to meander in the sun
+through a green melodious valley. And this perception she has of
+her own condition is like our perception of health and disease. We
+know when we are well, not by any process of ratiocination, by
+applying from without a standard of health deduced by pure thought,
+but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So it is with this
+soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her perception of Good
+is but the other side of her perception of her own well-being, for
+her well-being consists in her conformity to Good. Thus every phase
+of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in one sense good, and in
+another bad; good in so far as it is self-expression, bad in so far
+as the expression is incomplete. From the limitations of her being
+she flies, towards its expansion she struggles; and by her
+perception that every Good she attains is also bad, she is driven
+on in her quest of that ultimate Good which would be, if she could
+reach it, at once the complete realization of herself, and her
+complete conformity to Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your
+method of discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at
+all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess
+that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part
+of Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She
+does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the
+sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in
+this case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds
+of activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of
+this soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may
+be, temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central
+experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary
+rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in
+them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere
+deductions from a process which is always developing and
+transforming itself. Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so
+many landmarks left to show the route by which the soul is
+marching; casts, as it were, of her features at various stages of
+her growth, but never the final record of her perfect countenance.
+And that is why the current morality, the positive institutions and
+laws, on which Parry insisted with so much force, both have and
+have not the value he assigned to them. They are in truth
+invaluable records of experience, and he is rash who attacks them
+without understanding; and yet, in a sense, they are only to be
+understood in order to be superseded, because the experience they
+resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would you agree
+with that, Parry, or no?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to
+put in practice."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous
+thing, and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is
+courage and sanity."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view
+is our knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a
+knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what I
+call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have
+recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we
+call knowledge, so far as it goes."</p>
+
+<p>"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of
+experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to
+suggest that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure
+reason, we should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good
+itself; for Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of
+experience, not a formula."</p>
+
+<p>"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to
+arrive at its formula by pure reason."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the
+thought, that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see
+our way to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis,
+altogether forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on
+realizing Goods, and so making progress towards the ultimate Good,
+which is the goal not merely of knowledge but of action."</p>
+
+<p>"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your
+conception, is Good related to Happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by
+experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as
+one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret the
+deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the
+interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too
+abstract and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning,
+no doubt, it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much
+interesting discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to
+the question of the content of Good, than to that of the method of
+discovering it."</p>
+
+<p>"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a
+method at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method
+of all science, namely, the interpretation of experience."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of
+interpretation."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we
+could not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you
+defined it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what
+ought to be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and
+classifying of the deliverances of this internal sense, has a
+certain analogy to the procedure of science. At any rate, it might,
+I think, fairly be called a method, though a method difficult to
+apply, and one, above all, which only he can apply who has within
+himself the requisite experience. And in this respect the study of
+the Good resembles the study of the Beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well
+aware that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do
+not profess to be in complete possession of it. They have a
+perception of the Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but
+tentative and in process of growth. This perception they cultivate
+by constant observation of beautiful works, some more and some
+less, according to their genius and opportunities; and thus they
+are always coming to see, though they never see perfectly, just as
+I said was the case in the matter of the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any
+standard at all in such matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself;
+and that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some
+slight extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to
+develop it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no
+standard of judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like
+themselves; and that there really is no standard and no knowledge
+possible in such matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man
+will not choose to cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to
+clear and ever clearer perception, he will either never believe
+that there is any knowledge of Good, or any meaning at all in the
+word; or else, since all men feel the need of an end for action, he
+will have recourse to a fixed dogma, taken up by accident and clung
+to with obstinate desperation, without any root in his true inner
+nature; and to him all discussion about Good will seem to be mere
+folly, since he will believe either that he possesses it already or
+that it cannot be possessed at all. Or If he ask after the method
+of discovering it, he will be unable to understand it, because he
+does not choose to develop the necessary experience; and so he will
+go through life for ever unconvinced, arguing often and angrily,
+but always with no result, while all the time the knowledge he
+denies is lying hidden within him, if only he had the patience and
+faith to seek it there. But without that, there is no possibility
+of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether to leave him
+alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the only idea I
+can form as to the possibility of discovering what is Beautiful and
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are
+always seeking Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not
+committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we
+have the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my
+mind, that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in
+secure possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make
+no facile assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the
+growth of the soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a
+quiet unfolding of leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I
+recognize the delight of expansion, I recognize also the pain of
+repression&mdash;the thwarted desire, the unfulfilled hope, the
+passion vain and abortive. I do not say even whether or no, in this
+dim travail of the spirit, pleasure prevails over pain, evil over
+good. The most I would claim is to have suggested a meaning for our
+life in terms of Good; and my view, I half hoped, would have
+appealed in particular to you, because what I have offered is not
+an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to relate to the
+actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the significance of
+those facts themselves, to supply a key to the cryptogram we call
+experience. And in proportion as we really believed this view to be
+true, it would lead us not away from but into life, not shutting us
+up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like the
+homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and
+rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny
+light over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams
+and floods, myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never
+felt, through that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when
+he broke the glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow
+under the yellow moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and
+tritons, her gliding pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through
+tempest and calm, by night or day, companioned or alone, to the
+haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the home where the Mothers
+dwell."</p>
+
+<p>As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made
+any impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically
+and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday
+experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to
+make anything of the kind out of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the
+interpretation may be true; and that some day you may recognize it
+to be so yourself. Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of
+the game than you who play it; and surely in moments of leisure
+like this you will not refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read
+the riddle of the sphinx."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a
+poem."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in
+poetry than in philosophy or science?"</p>
+
+<p>But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was
+a babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of
+thought disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way,
+had been revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first
+opportunity he turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in
+your position that I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it
+is our seeking that determines the Good, or the Good that
+determines our seeking."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We,
+in the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and
+in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously
+indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not
+mere caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore
+suppose somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our
+seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving
+through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort
+and strain."</p>
+
+<p>"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even
+while you admit that in some sense it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist
+completely."</p>
+
+<p>"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is
+at all it is eternal and complete."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing
+but appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is
+good'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter.
+Take, for instance, a simple fact of our own experience&mdash;pain.
+Would you say, perhaps, that pain is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to
+the pain that appears to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the
+point. The point is, that it is only in connection with what is in
+God that the word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither
+good nor bad; it is simply not real."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is
+in appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the
+use of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are
+feeling it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And
+as to the Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What
+consolation is it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to
+be told that God is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is
+simply absurd to call God's Good good at all, unless it has some
+kind of relation to our Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my
+opinion, it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such
+a view. When I am really at my best, when my intellect and
+imagination are working freely, and the humours and passions of the
+flesh are laid to rest, I seem to see, with a kind of direct
+intuition, that the world, just as it is, is good, and that it is
+only the confusion and obscurity due to imperfect vision that makes
+us call it defective and wish to alter it for the better. When I
+perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is also Good; and I
+cannot then distinguish between what is, and what ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it
+were by a concrete example. I find that when I think out any
+particular aspect of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think
+it out at all, all the parts and details fall into such perfect
+order and arrangement that it becomes impossible for me any longer
+to desire that anything should be other than it is. And that, even
+in the regions where at other times I am most prone to discover
+error and defect. You know, for instance, that I am something of an
+economist?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of
+light!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of
+affairs which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet
+the more one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the
+harmony and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and
+flow of business from this trade or country to that, the rise and
+fall of wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital
+into or out of one industry or another, the varying relations of
+imports to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in
+close connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the
+lives of countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being
+or ill-being, it may be their very life and death, together with
+the whole fate of future generations in health, capacity,
+opportunity, and the like,&mdash;all this complexus of things, so
+chaotic and unintelligible at the first view, so full, as we say,
+of iniquity, injustice, and the like, falls, as we penetrate
+further, into one vast and harmonious system, so inspiring to the
+imagination, so inevitable to the understanding, that our
+objections and cavillings, ethical, &aelig;sthetic, or what you
+will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if they
+persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we abandon
+ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some
+world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are
+taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the
+ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I
+am absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic
+enough; but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so
+conceived that appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This
+partial vision of mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of
+the way in which I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a
+Being necessary and therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our
+own incoherent and tentative criticisms, our complaints that this
+or that should, if only it could, be otherwise, our regrets,
+desires, aspirations, and the like, shew but as so many testimonies
+to our own essential imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted,
+rather than signs of worth to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the
+elect of creation."</p>
+
+<p>He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene,
+since I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he
+kept silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and
+Eternal which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and
+the young. So I began myself rather tentatively:</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to
+indicate; and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is
+attractive. It is when we endeavour to work it out in detail that
+the difficulties appear. The position, as I understand it, is,
+that, from the point of view of the Absolute, what we call Evil and
+what we call Good simply have no existence. Good and Evil, in our
+sense, are mere appearances; and Good, in the absolute sense, is
+identical with the Absolute or with God?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."</p>
+
+<p>"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region
+which you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear
+in our social system&mdash;poverty, disease, starvation and the
+rest&mdash;is not really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but
+is merely what appears to us? There is, in fact, no social
+evil?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is
+none."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and
+other ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's
+lives happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to
+introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and
+confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical
+impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied&mdash;the
+quest of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere
+putting of ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart
+from any attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities
+mere illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even
+vices, impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous
+attempts to adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I
+apprehend, there must be in time and change, and some meaning also
+in our efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we
+imagine. The divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a
+process that is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not
+rectilinear, much as Milton appears to imagine it when he describes
+the blessed spirits 'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble
+circle of eternity'; and of this eternal process our activity,
+which we suppose to be moving towards an end, is somehow or other
+an essential element. So that, in this way, it is necessary and
+right that we should strive after ideals; only, when we are
+thinking philosophically, we ought to make clear to ourselves that
+in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its fulfilment
+consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to regard as
+a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is the
+'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the belief
+that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that
+delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is
+really itself the End."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite
+serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept
+silence, I took up the argument as follows.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but
+still the same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put
+forward. On your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf
+between God's conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the
+world is eternally good; and in its goodness is included that
+illusion by which it appears to us so bad, that we are continually
+employed in trying to make it better. The maintenance of this
+illusion is essential to the nature of the world; to us, evil
+always must appear. But, as we know by experience, the evil that
+<i>appears</i> is just as terrible and just as hateful as it would
+be if it really <i>were</i>. A toothache, as Audubon put it, is no
+less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We cannot, if we
+would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would be impious to
+try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His ingenious plan
+to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore are chained
+and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what seems
+good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that all
+existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant; it
+belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no
+access."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why
+not just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who
+is responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely
+an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable
+condition!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means,
+if you like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent,
+indeed, and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and
+hourly toll of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the
+mind He has created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from
+spirits greater, though weaker, than Himself."</p>
+
+<p>This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I
+did not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but
+proceeded to a somewhat different point:</p>
+
+<p>"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it
+appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse
+Him of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the
+matter, it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that
+we should never discover the deception that is being played upon
+us. But, it seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your
+own confession, has not only detected but exposed it. Well then,
+what is to be done? Do you suppose that we could, even if we would,
+continue to lend ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and
+purposes cease to have any interest for us, once we are clear that
+they are not true ends? And that which, according to the
+hypothesis, <i>is</i> the true end, the 'dateless and irrevoluble
+circle' of activity, that, surely, we at least cannot sanction or
+approve, seeing that it involves and perpetuates the very misery
+and pain whose destruction was our only motive for acting at all.
+For, whatever may be the case with God, we, you will surely admit,
+are forbidden by all that in us is highest and best, to approve or
+even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation of a world of
+whose existence all that we call evil is an essential and eternal
+constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if the
+Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as it
+thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very
+imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its
+plans."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began,
+"between you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with
+their heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on
+my head or my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in
+stating my view; or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction
+in my mind. At any rate, what I believe, whether or no I can
+believe it consistently, is that it is possible for us, so to
+speak, to take God's point of view; so that the evil against which
+we rebel we may come at last to acquiesce in, as seen from the
+higher point of view. And, seriously, don't you think it is
+conceivable that that may be, after all, the true meaning of the
+discipline of life?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow
+me to press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say,
+there is at least one of our aims which has a real significance,
+namely, that of reaching the point of view of God. But this is
+something that lies in the future, something to be brought about.
+And so, on your own hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that
+which eternally exists, but something which has to be realized in
+time&mdash;namely, a change of mind on the part of all rational
+beings, whereby they view the world no longer in a partial
+imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '<i>sub specie
+&aelig;ternitatis</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the
+Absolute, though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow
+or other, is eternally perfect and good; and this eternal
+perfection and goodness are unaffected by any change that may take
+place in our minds."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to
+settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your
+admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying
+before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand,
+you do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at
+nothing else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you
+do aim, at least, with your whole nature at this&mdash;to attain a
+view of the world as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not
+merely as it appears to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."</p>
+
+<p>"That aim, then, is your Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For
+you do not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least
+to have attained as perfectly as you hope to?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good
+of yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good
+of God in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your
+permission, for some future inquiry. It is enough for our present
+purpose that even you, who assert the eternal perfection of the
+world, do nevertheless at the same time admit a future Good; and
+much more do other men admit it, who have no idea that the world is
+perfect at all. So that we may, I think, safely suppose it to be
+generally agreed that the Good is something to be realized in the
+future, so far, at any rate as it concerns us&mdash;and, for my
+part, I have no desire to go farther than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the
+matter so. But I reserve the right to go back upon the
+argument."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but
+a discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth.
+Meantime, then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something
+to be brought about; and let us consider next the other point that
+Is included in your position. According to you, as I understand,
+what requires to be brought about, if ever Good is to be realized,
+is not any change in the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world,
+in the structure, as it were, of our experience, but only a change
+in our attitude towards all this&mdash;a change in the subject, as
+they say, and not in the object. Our aim should be not to abolish
+what we call evil, by successive modifications of physical and
+social conditions, but rather, all these remaining essentially the
+same, to come to see that what appears to be evil is not really
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"So that, for example, though we might still experience a
+toothache, we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with
+all the host of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they
+would continue unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say,
+only to us they would appear no longer bad, but good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil,
+so-called, is merely illusion."</p>
+
+<p>I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For
+some time past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis
+and myself, with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie.
+Ellis had gone indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together
+about something else; and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in
+the <i>Chronicle</i>. I noticed, however, that for the last few
+moments he had been getting restless, and I suspected that he was
+listening, behind his newspaper, to what we were saying. I was not
+therefore altogether surprised when, upon Dennis' last remark, he
+suddenly broke into our debate with the exclamation;</p>
+
+<p>"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There
+is a curiously apt one here in the <i>Chronicle</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about
+phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any
+rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering
+and oppression.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of
+thing that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an
+example."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words;
+but for my own part I should have thought that, if anything is
+real, that is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself
+were the sufferer."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment
+of suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality
+of pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one
+really knows what it is that one is judging about."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that
+experience involves knowledge and <i>vice versa</i>. It is, indeed,
+to my mind, part of the irony of life, that we know so much which
+we can never experience, and experience so much which we can never
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am
+sure, that you will never get rid of evil by calling it
+illusion."</p>
+
+<p>"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it,
+in the sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any
+other means. But we were discussing not what we are to do with
+evil, but how we are to conceive it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion,
+you will never do anything with it at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit,
+that for us, while we live in the region of what you call
+'Appearance,' Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."</p>
+
+<p>"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with
+Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I
+have been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which
+we live (whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and
+Good are the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss
+them from our consideration either on the ground that we know
+nothing of them (as Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the
+ground that we know all about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to
+think). On the contrary, it is, I believe, our main business to
+find out about them; and that we can find out about them is with me
+an article of faith, and so, I believe, it is with most people,
+whether or no they are aware of it or are ready to admit it."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon
+us to lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our
+usual hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally
+taking a lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we
+reassembled in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;">
+<a name="BOOK_II"></a>
+<h2><i>BOOK II</i>.</h2>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p>When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did
+not suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The
+conversation had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such
+topics, and finally had died away into a long silence, which, for
+my own part, I felt no particular inclination to break. We had let
+down an awning to shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine
+in upon us, so that it was still cool and pleasant where we sat;
+and so delightful did I feel the situation to be, that I was almost
+vexed to be challenged to renew our interrupted debate. The
+challenge, rather to my surprise, came from Audubon, who suddenly
+said to me, <i>&agrave; propos</i> of nothing, in a tone at once
+ironic and genial:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great
+nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were
+bored."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't
+arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses
+me most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that
+you're going to get at some result."</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we
+must believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that
+we can come to some agreement even about that."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"But why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because people are so radically different, that there is no
+common ground to build upon."</p>
+
+<p>"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the
+pudding is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight
+of us, all Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or
+less in the same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise
+the question, you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the
+chances in your favour, any substantial agreement about what we
+think good."</p>
+
+<p>This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I
+could refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself
+against the consequences of failure. So I began, with some
+hesitation, "You must remember that I have never maintained that at
+any given moment any given set of people will be found to be in
+agreement on all points. All I ventured to suggest was, that
+instead of our all being made, as you contend, radically different,
+we have, underneath our differences, a common nature, capable of
+judging, and judging truly, about Good, though only on the basis of
+actual experience of Good. And on this view I shall, of course,
+expect to find differences of opinion, corresponding to differences
+of experience, even among people as much alike as ourselves; only I
+shall not expect the differences to be finally irreconcilable, but
+that we shall be able to supplement and elucidate one another's
+conclusions by bringing to bear each his own experience upon that
+of the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the
+experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others.
+Only I must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what
+it is I am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I
+have been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in
+this difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or
+no, and to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the
+object being simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we
+can; to define somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope
+of coming to see something more."</p>
+
+<p>They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to
+begin, when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt
+discouraged. "After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my
+making the attempt."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," I said. "At least&mdash;well, I may as well confess
+it, though it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is,
+that there are certain quite fundamental points in this connection
+on which Dennis and I have never been able to agree; and although I
+believe we should in time come to understand one another, I doubt
+whether we can do so here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at
+all as if he meant to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry
+him along with me, I suppose I may as well give up at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession.
+We will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if
+you can persuade the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever
+allow me to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if
+he doesn't happen to agree."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in
+order."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very
+easy manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I
+stay, I certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that
+we should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by
+the process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you
+without any really scandalous concession on either side."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you can try."</p>
+
+<p>So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some
+hesitation, as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it
+seems to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious
+activity."</p>
+
+<p>As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have
+nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I
+could command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of
+fact, can form no idea of Good except in connection with
+consciousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's
+good, so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of
+anything existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for
+me to know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you,
+perhaps, are differently constituted."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there
+is no experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive
+that of which we have no experience? And I should have thought it
+was clear that Good, like Truth, <i>is</i>, whether or no anyone is
+aware of it. Or would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when
+someone is thinking of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about
+it just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I
+think, need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to
+get at, for the moment, is something rather different. I will put
+it like this: Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human
+action, must be conceived, must it not, as an object of
+consciousness? For otherwise do you think we should trouble to
+pursue it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we
+ought to."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to
+take an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
+artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
+unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately
+hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of
+the sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such
+production as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and
+really ought we to, do anything except with some reference to
+consciousness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite
+possible that we ought."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a
+closer agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view?
+for, if not, I will, with your permission, go on to the next
+point"</p>
+
+<p>None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a
+pause, I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in
+the sense in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action,
+involves some kind of conscious activity. And the next question
+would seem to be, activity of whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough.
+It must be an activity of some person or persons."</p>
+
+<p>"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."</p>
+
+<p>But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in
+answer to Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put
+your questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is
+most people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some
+future generation."</p>
+
+<p>At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I
+thought it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said,
+"Suppose, then, we were to make a beginning by examining your
+hypothesis."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should
+all have accepted it&mdash;unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."</p>
+
+<p>"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," added Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it
+leads us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of
+activity of some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so,
+Parry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state
+of activity, as you call it, will be."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous,
+co-ordinate, coherent&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The
+question is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry,
+it is located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose,
+in those that follow it. But now, what about all the other
+generations, from the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would
+seem, can have no meaning for them, since it is the special
+privilege of those who come after them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to
+bring it about, not indeed for themselves, but for their
+successors."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of
+men and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex
+lives of action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears,
+satisfactions, aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call
+Good, and avoiding what they call Bad, under the na&iuml;f
+impression that there is Good and Bad for them&mdash;and yet the
+significance of all this is not really for themselves at all, but
+for some quite other people who will have the luck to be born in
+the remote future, and for whose sake alone their fellow-creatures,
+from the very beginning of time, have been brought into being like
+so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside, when done
+with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you
+call them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the
+final Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all.
+It has just as much Good as people can get out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their
+own with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they
+do get Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
+cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
+ourselves, whether we live well or badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has
+his own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I
+admire are those who have sacrificed themselves for the
+future."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and
+with a view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I
+understand you, have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good
+for ourselves, which is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is
+reserved for a future generation), but still is something Good as
+far as it goes&mdash;whether it be a certain degree of happiness,
+or however else we may have to define it; and as to this Good,
+there appears to be no difficulty, for we who pursue it are also
+the people who get it That is so, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>He agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For
+besides this Good of our own, we have also, according to the
+theory, to consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those
+who are to be born in some indefinite future. And to this remote
+and alien Good we have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our
+own."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange
+it seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive
+generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous&mdash;being
+projected, as it were, from the plane of time into that of
+space."</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we
+shall have. We shall have a society divided into two classes,
+composed, the one of all the generations who, if they followed one
+another in time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other
+of all the millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two
+classes the first would be perpetually engaged in working for the
+second, sacrificing to it, if need be, on occasion, all its own
+Good, but without any hope or prospect of ever entering itself into
+that other Good which is the monopoly of the other class, but to
+the production of which its own efforts are directed. What should
+we say of such a society? Should we not say that it was founded on
+injustice and inequality, and all those other phrases with which we
+are wont to denounce a system of serfdom or slavery?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has
+falsified the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian
+generation would not come into being until the others had ceased to
+be; and therefore the latter would not be being sacrificed to
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely
+it comes to the same thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think
+sacrifice is the right word. In a society every man's interest is
+in the Whole; and when he works for the Whole he is also working
+for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly
+constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a
+society as I have described. And then there is a further
+difficulty&mdash;and here, I confess, my projection of time into
+space really does falsify the issue; for in the succession of
+generations in time, where <i>is</i> the Whole? Each generation
+comes into being, passes, and disappears; but how, or in what, are
+they summed up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last
+generation."</p>
+
+<p>"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow
+persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by
+them, and is the result of their labour and activities."</p>
+
+<p>"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I
+eat are summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the
+oysters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it
+right that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it)
+for the next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the
+point. At any rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the
+shortsightedness of modern politicians, and their unwillingness to
+run great risks and undertake great labours for the future."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying
+to see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I
+confess, that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in
+some sense or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of
+future generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what
+that instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean,
+as you yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole.
+Only the difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which
+bids us labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this
+hypothesis, has no significance for us, but only for other
+people."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we
+ought to obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise.
+Even taking the view that the order of the world is altogether
+unjust, as I admit it would be on the view we are considering, yet,
+since we cannot remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make
+the best of it; and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for
+those who come after us, even though we can never enter into it
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the
+best we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves&mdash;as
+much as we can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For
+we do at least know, or may hope to discover, what Good for
+ourselves is; whereas Good for other people is far more
+hypothetical."</p>
+
+<p>"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot
+approve&mdash;to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own
+pleasure of the moment. We should breed, for example, without any
+regard to the future efficacy of the race&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but we don't justify it&mdash;those of us, at least, who
+think. And, again, we should squander on immediate gratifications
+wealth which ought to be stored up against the future. And so on,
+and so on; it is not necessary to multiply examples."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought
+that kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of
+fact, we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I
+hinted before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity
+in and for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And,
+whether it is reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea
+of the Whole, so as to include future generations. But, as it seems
+to me, the real meaning and justification of our action is not
+merely that we are seeking the Good of future generations but that
+we are endeavouring to realize our own Good, which consists in some
+such form of activity. So that really, as was suggested at the
+beginning, Good will be a kind of activity in ourselves, even
+though that activity be directed towards ends in which we do not
+expect to share."</p>
+
+<p>At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke
+in at last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you keep saying '<i>Our</i> Good'?" he cried. "Why do
+you not say <i>the</i> Good? I can't understand this talk of me and
+thee, our Good, and their Good, as if there were as many Goods as
+there are people."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by
+Parry, who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future
+generation. Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy
+myself at the kind of language into which I was betrayed. But what
+I want to say is this: So far as it is true at all that it is good
+to labour for future generations, goodness consists in the activity
+of so labouring, as much, at least, as in the result produced in
+those for whose sake the labour is. That, at least, is the only way
+in which I can find the position reasonable at all."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his
+position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong
+end."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a
+coil."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in.
+You started with the idea that the Good must be good for
+individuals; and that was sure to land you in confusion."</p>
+
+<p>"What then is your idea?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard
+everything from the point of view of the species."</p>
+
+<p>At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.</p>
+
+<p>"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not
+the Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is
+true of the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the
+case of man, because there the interest of the species is embodied
+in a particular form&mdash;the Society or the State&mdash;and may
+be clearly envisaged, as a thing apart, towards the maintenance of
+which conscious efforts may be directed."</p>
+
+<p>"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also
+the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I
+have already urged against the view that the course of Nature
+determines the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it
+is a view which many people hold&mdash;and one which was held long
+before there was a science of biology&mdash;that the community is
+the end, and the individual only the means."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour
+to the view."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to
+restrain himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of
+language. In the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by
+Plato, men were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much
+they might be subordinated to the community. But now!&mdash;why, if
+you open one of these sociological books, mostly, I am bound to
+say, in German, 'Entwurf einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch
+einer anthropologischen Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft
+vom Sozial-biologischen Standpunkt aus,' and the like&mdash;you
+will hardly be able to realize that you are dealing with human
+beings at all. I have seen an unmarried woman called a 'female
+non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men actually cease to be
+even animals; they become mere numbers; they are calculated by the
+theory of combinations; they are masses, averages, classes, curves,
+anything but men! For every million of the population, it has been
+solemnly estimated, there will be one genius, one imbecile, 256,791
+individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just below it! Observe,
+256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to believe, 256,790!
+What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is the kind of thing
+that is revolutionizing history and politics! No more great men, no
+more heroic actions, no more inspirations, passions, and ideals!
+Nothing but calculations of the chances that A will meet and breed
+out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of survival!
+Nothing but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be
+digressing."</p>
+
+<p>"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this
+world altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they
+have no arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an
+addition sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a
+species&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be
+himself, as I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"</p>
+
+<p>There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar
+quotation; and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken
+thread of the argument. But at last I got a hearing for the
+question I was anxious to address to Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the
+community?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."</p>
+
+<p>"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the sense of that organization of individuals which
+represents, so to speak, the species."</p>
+
+<p>"How represents?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect
+the species."</p>
+
+<p>"But is that the function of the community?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If
+you look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere
+historian, who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist
+and man of science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it
+is nothing but an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or
+artificial, as you like to call it. First, there is the struggle of
+races, which may be traced not only in war and conquest, but more
+insidiously under the guise of peace, so that, for example, at this
+day you may witness throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the
+long-headed fair by the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the
+struggle of nation with nation, resulting in the gradual
+elimination of the weaker&mdash;that, of course, is obvious enough;
+but what is not always so clearly seen is the not less certain
+fact, that within the limits of each society the same process is
+everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle for
+existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else is
+our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it
+is determined that certain persons only shall have access to
+certain professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages
+are confined to people of the same class, thus securing the
+perpetuation of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted
+and better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon.
+Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the
+race, combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to
+the top, others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those,
+indifferent to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it
+controls, but envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that
+is kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as
+well as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the
+long-headed fair race, is giving place to what I understand is
+regarded as an inferior type."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still,
+on the whole, the movement is an upward one."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are
+at present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of
+Good we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but
+of the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is
+it somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for
+the individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not
+one by one or in groups."</p>
+
+<p>"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the
+individuals taken together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species,
+according to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or
+should sink to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But
+is that also good for the individual in question?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it
+matters. I only say that it is good for the species."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the
+species it is good for them."</p>
+
+<p>"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of
+the best individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"</p>
+
+<p>"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the
+selected individuals?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be
+selected."</p>
+
+<p>"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are
+eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"</p>
+
+<p>"God! No! I mean good, simply good."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang,
+as it were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you.
+If you reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either
+the Good you speak of is that of all the individuals of the species
+taken together, or it is that of the best individuals; and in
+either case I seem to see difficulties."</p>
+
+<p>"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how
+it can be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or
+eliminated. I should have thought, if there were any Good for them,
+it would consist in their being made better."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best
+possible thing, for them, to be eliminated."</p>
+
+<p>"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be
+absence of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at
+all, we could not apply it to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not"</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other
+alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that
+of the ultimately selected individuals."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that
+the Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we
+were met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see
+what meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The
+species is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of
+individuals. I'm sick of these
+biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico treatises, with
+their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of men! their
+prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and the people
+who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent particles
+of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the machine
+works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations,
+co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations
+standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they
+are cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent
+demand that we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As
+though we should be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the
+thumbscrew!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the
+spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."</p>
+
+<p>"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of
+disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's
+not a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand
+knowledge, nor original vision of life. It simply ignores all the
+important facts."</p>
+
+<p>"Which do you call the important facts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations,
+sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information
+contained in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological
+treatises that ever have been or will be written."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come!" cried Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example,
+these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To
+the sociologist their elimination is their only <i>raison
+d'&ecirc;tre</i>. He cancels them out with the same delight as if
+they were figures in a complex fraction. But pick up any novel
+dealing with the life of the slums, and you find that these figures
+are really composed of innumerable individual units, existing each
+for himself, and each his own sufficient justification, each a
+sacred book comprising its own unique secret, a master-piece of the
+divine tragedian, a universe self-moved and self-contained, a
+centre of infinity, a mirror of totality, in a word, a human
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were
+true, it would not affect the sociological laws."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are
+as unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."</p>
+
+<p>"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a <i>reductio ad
+absurdum</i> of your view."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What
+I really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw
+on my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the
+point. You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the
+position you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious
+activity. If it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a
+suicidal audacity), conscious activity in whom? And to that
+question, of course, you can find no answer."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I
+have known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves,
+but is, a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather," he replied, "that it <i>is</i> God. But I don't really
+know whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He
+or It be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the
+things we call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to
+accept them as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have
+no right to endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some
+individual persons."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference
+of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is
+associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am
+willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good,
+if ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated.
+But of that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more
+fortunate. And if you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of
+course, of its content, which shall represent it intelligibly to us
+as independent of any consciousness like our own, I am quite ready
+to relinquish the argument to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a
+way that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to
+have had what you call 'experience' of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to
+feel it was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this
+point, to my great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed
+with a solution of the difficulty in which we were involved, but
+with a diversion of which I was only too glad to take
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
+Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is
+the kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like
+ourselves. And I thought that was what you were going to
+discuss."</p>
+
+<p>"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."</p>
+
+<p>"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as
+it is quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do
+with the real subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's
+get along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street.
+What are we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it
+is the real question."</p>
+
+<p>"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
+trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into
+some activity."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up
+sharp, as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.</p>
+
+<p>"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
+another, and the more the merrier."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you
+mean? whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike
+indifferently?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially
+in themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in
+which they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation
+palls in time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be
+delightful in the just measure and proportion. We are complex
+creatures, and we ought to employ all our faculties alike, never
+one alone at the cost of all the others."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe
+more in detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The
+most I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."</p>
+
+<p>"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
+listening."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to
+move in a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the
+peculiar flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast
+with that of all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with
+all its bustle, smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and
+crime, straight away, without word or warning, breaking all
+engagements, to the farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To
+hunt or fish for weeks and months in strange wild places, camping
+out among strange beasts and birds, lost in pathless forests, or
+wandering over silent plains. Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to
+feel the press of business, to make or lose millions in a week, to
+adventure, compete, and win; but always, at the moment when this
+might pall, with a haven of rest in view, an ancient English
+mansion, stately, formal, and august, islanded, over its sunken
+fence, by acres of buttercups. There to study, perhaps to write,
+perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden at night of new
+discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the world of
+commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be off on
+my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs in
+Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking
+hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action
+itself, not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the
+Good for fear I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods,
+attaining the only Good I can conceive&mdash;a full and harmonious
+exercise of all my faculties and powers."</p>
+
+<p>On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of
+sympathy that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was
+young enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual
+zeal and passion.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more
+good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is
+so imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged
+for some other, equally defective."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time
+and place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the
+detriment of others."</p>
+
+<p>"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than
+bad? You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of
+each; but in practice you would have to experience also the bad.
+Your hunting in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue,
+and hunger; your fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and
+disillusionment; and so through all your chapter of
+accidents&mdash;for accidents they are at best, and never the
+substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil, dogged by a
+shadow of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view&mdash;from an
+idealist, too! Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the
+rough with the smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you
+call good and bad; it consists in the activity itself which feeds
+upon both alike. If I were Dennis I should say it is the synthesis
+of both."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis
+produced by one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the
+other."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to
+learn. This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the
+lamb."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis!
+What is it you are trying to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming
+perilously near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is
+mere appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view
+by a denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the
+world is good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister
+to Good if you approach it in the proper way."</p>
+
+<p>"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to
+answer Leslie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at
+all. But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest
+is, that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight
+in what is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The
+complexity of the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its
+'ups,' its abysses and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We
+would not alter it if we could; it is better than we could make it;
+and we accept it not merely with acquiescence but with
+triumph."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
+anything."</p>
+
+<p>"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes,
+art, that is the word! To me life appears like a great
+tragi-comedy. It has its shadows as well as its lights, but we
+would not lose one of them, for fear of destroying the harmony of
+the whole. Call it good, or call it bad, no matter, so it is. The
+villain no less than the hero claims our applause; it would be dull
+without him. We can't afford to miss anything or anyone."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and
+Dennis are strangely agreed for once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge
+said on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues.
+Dennis accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical
+system; I, because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is
+Hegel; mine is Walt Whitman."</p>
+
+<p>"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"</p>
+
+<p>"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no
+better nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good
+and bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an
+actual physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I do not call one greater and one
+smaller,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That which fills its period and
+place is equal to any.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I believe a leaf of grass is no
+less than the journey-work of the stars.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the pismire is equally perfect,
+and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the tree-toad is a
+'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the running blackberry would
+adorn the parlours of heaven,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the narrowest hinge in my hand
+puts to scorn all machinery,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the cow-crunching with
+depressed head surpasses any statue,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And a mouse is miracle enough to
+stagger sextillions of infidels."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course,
+it's rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I am not the poet of goodness
+only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness
+also.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What blurt is this about virtue and
+about vice?</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Evil propels me and reform of evil
+propels me, I stand indifferent,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My gait is no fault-finder's or
+rejector's gait,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I moisten the roots of all that
+grows."</span><br>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 10%;">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is the meal equally set, this
+is the meat for natural hunger,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is for the wicked just the same
+as the righteous, I make appointment with all,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not have a single person
+slighted or kept away,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The kept-woman, spunger, thief are
+hereby invited,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The heavy-lipped slave is invited,
+the venerealee is invited;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There shall be no difference
+between them and the rest."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I might like it if I were drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the
+sponger and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman
+to invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however
+miscellaneous the company, doesn't alter the character of the
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed
+all through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a
+work of art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama.
+What's play to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he
+himself is an actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact
+brought home to him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise.
+The point of the position is that one should play one's part
+oneself, but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total
+effect, never complaining of Evil merely because one happens to
+suffer, but taking the suffering itself as an element in the
+&aelig;sthetic perfection of the Whole."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather
+brutally, "when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."</p>
+
+<p>"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.</p>
+
+<p>"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with
+the thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents
+of our unhealthy habits of life."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the
+substance of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which
+you seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is
+good, it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the
+activity you describe seems to have nothing to do with right and
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Das h&ouml;r ich sechzlg Jahre
+wiederholen,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ich fluche drauf, aber
+verstohlen."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can
+hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and
+Right."</p>
+
+<p>Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's
+point and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is
+that Right is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all
+activity that is merely a means from that which is really an end in
+itself, and good."</p>
+
+<p>"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not
+merely a means?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems
+to me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own
+sake; even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view,
+and if these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in
+the work of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps,
+but I think it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe
+and maintain that they only work in order to make money,
+nevertheless are so unwilling to retire when the money is made; or,
+if they do, are so often dissatisfied and unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than
+pain. It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's
+only that they find even greater distress in idleness."</p>
+
+<p>"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly
+maintain that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because
+they take delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there
+is play&mdash;and I have known you play cricket yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way,
+he would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
+shooting."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him.
+And, in fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that
+there is no form of activity which men feel to be good for its own
+sake, though the Good of course may be partial and precarious."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any
+form which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to
+something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act
+of visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I
+suppose, Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of
+activities which one distinguishes as moral."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good
+in itself but is only a means to some other Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so.
+But it all depends upon how we define it."</p>
+
+<p>"And how do you define it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal
+to seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the
+attainment of one that is remoter but higher."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
+proposition follows of itself."</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest
+of, and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end
+of our inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is
+expressed in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the
+definition I suggested&mdash;namely, action pursued not for its own
+sake, but for the sake of something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept
+silent as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing
+as a mere means the only kind of activity which is an end in
+itself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some
+dismay. "Is that really what you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is! why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing
+what we ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate
+Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely,
+without reference to anything else. It is a unique form of
+activity, dependent on nothing but itself; and for anything we have
+yet shown, it may be the Good we are in quest of."</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great
+perplexity. I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened
+no response in me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while
+I was hesitating, Leslie began:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we
+ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think it might."</p>
+
+<p>"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good,
+even while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he
+was doing what he ought"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose he might be."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown
+that the Good is dependent on the things we call good."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "but we did show&mdash;or at least for the time
+being we agreed to admit&mdash;that it must have some relation to
+what we call goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or
+less, express its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is
+based upon the hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may
+get to know something about the Good. So that I do not see how we
+can entertain an idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our
+experience of goods."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position.
+Let us say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we
+ought, only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless
+everybody participates in it at once. But if everybody participated
+in it, there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty
+would not arise."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so,
+I don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult
+to conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to
+speak, in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would
+be&mdash;without pleasure, without business, without knowledge,
+without anything at all analogous to what we call good, purged
+wholly and completely of all that might taint the purity of the
+moral sense, of philanthropy, of friendship, of love, even, I
+suppose, of the love of virtue, a life simply of obligation,
+without anything to be obliged to except a law."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible
+case."</p>
+
+<p>"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that
+Good consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all
+other accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you
+really meant?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life
+according to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to
+separate the law from the life, and call it Good all by
+itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean,
+in which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still
+if the same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so."</p>
+
+<p>"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we
+should be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious
+and felt obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in
+which you seemed to be using the word?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does
+certainly seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is
+Good, not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it
+is not. At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a
+realization of Good in the activities which we pursue without
+effort or friction, than in those which involve a struggle between
+duty and inclination."</p>
+
+<p>"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often
+enough are bad."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I
+should look for the best idea I could form of what Good might
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest;
+and now I leave the road clear."</p>
+
+<p>"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in
+front! When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a
+short cut across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the
+road, with the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong
+track."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."</p>
+
+<p>"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!"
+he continued, turning to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end,
+though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall
+suppose, however, that I have convinced him that it is not in
+ethical activity as such that we can expect to find the most
+perfect example of Good. And now I propose to examine in turn some
+other of our activities, starting with that which seems to be the
+most primitive of all."</p>
+
+<p>"And which is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct
+contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of
+reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the
+rest. Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And
+he broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Oh, the wild joys of living! the
+leaping from rock up to rock,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The strong rending of boughs from
+the fir-tree, the cool silver shock</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the plunge in a pool's living
+water, the hunt of the bear,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sultriness showing the lion
+is couched in his lair.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the meal, the rich dates
+yellowed over with gold dust divine,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the locust-flesh steeped in the
+pitcher, the full draught of wine,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sleep in the dried
+river-channel where bulrushes tell</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the water was wont to go
+warbling so softly and well.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How good is man's life, the mere
+living! how fit to employ</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the heart and the soul and the
+senses for ever in joy."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a
+flood of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of
+Englishmen, in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with
+a sentiment not far removed from poetry&mdash;the only poetry of
+which they are not half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting
+for the moment his customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest
+over his favourite pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of
+this talk was lost upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but
+some touches there were that recalled experiences of my own, and
+for that reason, I suppose, have lingered in my memory. Thus, I
+recollect, some one spoke of skating on Derwentwater, the miles of
+black, virgin ice, the ringing and roaring of the skates, the
+sunset glow, and the moon rising full over the mountains; and
+another recalled a bathe on the shore of &AElig;gina, the sun on
+the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though the whole naked
+body were plunged in some &aelig;thereal liqueur, drinking it in
+with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
+sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
+Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
+supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and
+you sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own
+theme?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial
+they would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said
+of them would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly
+than yours what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far
+as I can understand, the delights you have been describing are
+really very complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation,
+there is clearly an &aelig;sthetic charm&mdash;you kept speaking of
+heather and sunrises, and colours and wide prospects; and then
+there is the satisfaction you evidently feel in skill, acquiring or
+acquired, and in the knowledge you possess of the habits of beasts
+and birds. All this, of course, goes beyond the delight of simple
+sense perception, though, no doubt, inextricably bound up with it
+But what I was thinking of at first was something less complex and
+more elementary in which, nevertheless, I think we can detect
+Good&mdash;Good of sheer unadulterated sensation. Think, for
+example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and hot! You
+will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the water pouring
+down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
+dimittis.'"</p>
+
+<p>They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:</p>
+
+<p>"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed
+behind that masque of austere philosophy!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
+sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
+remember, the famous tale about Keats&mdash;how he covered his
+tongue and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he
+said, "the delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when
+this had gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I
+began, "to illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I
+think, recognized to the full its merits; and we shall be equally
+ready, I suppose, to recognize its defects."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any
+rate, shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think
+these are the only pure Goods."</p>
+
+<p>"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are
+precarious. It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go
+without choice of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes
+established between our senses and the outer world. The very same
+things which at such times appear to be perfectly at one with
+ourselves, as if they had been made for us and we for them, we see
+and feel to have also a nature not only distinct but even alien and
+hostile to our own. The water which cools our skin and quenches our
+thirst also drowns; the fire which warms and comforts also burns;
+and so on through all the chapter&mdash;I need not weary you with
+details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to our bodies,
+she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at least as
+varied and efficacious as she is our friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her
+properly; we have to learn how to manage her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to
+learn how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our
+finger here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods&mdash;they
+are, as I said, precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one
+might say, was the sword of the angel that drove man out of his
+imaginary Eden. For at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will
+permit me to romance a little,) seizing every delight as it offered
+itself, under an instinctive impression that there were nothing but
+delights to be met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when
+he was thirsty, sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in
+unquestioning trust of his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt
+by experience how evil follows good, and pleasure often enough is
+bought by pain, he would begin, would he not, instead of simply
+accepting Good where it is, to endeavour to create it where it is
+not, sacrificing often enough the present to the future, and
+rejecting many immediate delights for the sake of those more
+remote? And this involves a complete change in his attitude; for he
+is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort that harmony
+between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at first was
+immediately given."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind.
+This reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little
+consequence, if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we
+are not at present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is
+thus set out upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to
+create, since he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects
+harmonious to himself. But in this quest has he been, should you
+say, successful?"</p>
+
+<p>"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is
+progressively satisfying his needs, even if they are never
+completely satisfied."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The
+relation of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and
+obscure. It is as though he began with the idea that he had only to
+remove a few blemishes from her face to make her completely
+accordant with his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than
+these surface blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots
+deeper than all his probings; the more he cuts away the more he
+exposes of an element radically alien to himself, terrible and
+incomprehensible, branching wide and striking deep, and throwing up
+from depths unknown those symptoms and symbols of itself which he
+mistook for mere superficial stains."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a
+view."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit
+that a certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense,
+whether they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by
+the labour of man."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing
+to order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For
+the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food,
+shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say,
+we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care
+about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure
+but those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one
+risk we proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin,
+as it were, of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which
+we hold most precious."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases
+to be good. That's precisely what I am always saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One
+way or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to
+secure, or because, when secured, they lose their specific quality.
+Goods of this kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change,
+whether they be offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung
+from her in the sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I
+said, precarious. And now, have they any other defects?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact
+that they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of
+imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving
+at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not
+the whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other
+Goods you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the
+Goods we are speaking of appeal."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I
+think of it the less I understand this famous distinction between
+body and soul, and the relation of one to the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't
+understand it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it
+out of our discussion."</p>
+
+<p>"So should I!" said Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case
+before us, why should we not try directly to define that specific
+property of the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes
+their defect, without having recourse to these difficult terms body
+and soul at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he agreed, "we might try."</p>
+
+<p>"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of
+way:</p>
+
+<p>"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow
+their slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They
+come upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires
+we can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather
+than active."</p>
+
+<p>"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and
+perfect Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I think not"</p>
+
+<p>"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of
+ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole
+nature to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole
+nature to experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien
+to us and nothing in us alien to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind
+applies. For these Goods appear to arise in things and under
+circumstances which have quite another nature than that of being
+good for us. It is not the essence of water to quench our thirst,
+of fire to cook for us, or of the sun to give us
+light&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added
+Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us
+good are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter,
+to do innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So
+that the goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to
+our senses, they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel
+that essentially either they are not Goods, or their goodness is
+something beyond and different from that which is revealed to
+sense."</p>
+
+<p>"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as
+I understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance
+which, so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any
+rate to Good of that kind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and
+substance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; don't you think so too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"</p>
+
+<p>Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing,
+indeed, to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We
+have then, so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main
+defects, the first, that they are precarious; the second, which is
+closely connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its
+explanation, that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding
+the word in the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we
+cannot find any class of Goods similar to these, but free from
+their defects."</p>
+
+<p>"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to
+have similar defects?"</p>
+
+<p>"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there any such Goods?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These,
+are they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it
+is their whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful,
+and to that extent Good&mdash;for I suppose you will admit that the
+Beautiful is a kind of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare
+to say so, to be, in a certain sense, eternal."</p>
+
+<p>"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we
+give for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material
+objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I
+was talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point
+of view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut
+away, as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set
+apart in a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to
+pass into something else, but only through the alien nature of the
+matter to which it is bound."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I
+give it you in the words of a poet."</p>
+
+<p>And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a
+Grecian Urn":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Heard melodies are sweet, but
+those unheard</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft
+pipes, play on;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not to the sensual ear, but, more
+endear'd.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pipe to the spirit ditties of no
+tone;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair youth beneath the trees, thou
+canst not leave</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy song, nor ever can those trees
+be bare;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bold lover, never, never canst thou
+kiss,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though winning near the
+goal&mdash;yet, do not grieve;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She cannot fade, though thou hast
+not thy bliss,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever wilt thou love and she be
+fair!</span><br><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ah, happy, happy boughs! that
+cannot shed</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your leaves, nor ever bid the
+spring adieu;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, happy melodist,
+unwearied,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever piping songs for ever
+new;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More happy love! more happy, happy
+love!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever warm and still to be
+enjoyed,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For ever panting and for ever
+young;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All breathing human passion far
+above,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That leaves a heart high-sorrowful
+and cloyed,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A burning forehead, and a parching
+tongue."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I
+don't see how it bears on the argument."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to
+make. Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists
+in the fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it
+from our sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in
+the eighth heaven."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"</p>
+
+<p>"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"</p>
+
+<p>"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer
+still&mdash;that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their
+Beauty, results from the very principle of their nature, and is not
+a mere accident of circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only <i>raison
+d'&ecirc;tre</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far
+resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the
+point I have been waiting to come to."</p>
+
+<p>"What point?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in
+their simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all
+&aelig;sthetic and other elements&mdash;as in the example you gave
+of a cold bath&mdash;the relation of the object to the sense is so
+simple and direct, that really, if we were to speak accurately, we
+should have, I think, to say, that so far as the perception of Good
+is concerned the object is merged in the subject, and what you get
+is simply a good sensation."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the
+time I did not think it necessary to be so precise."</p>
+
+<p>"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we
+are to bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw
+light, I believe, on the general nature of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"What characteristic is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important
+thing is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of
+the one in the other, it is the subject that is merged in the
+object, not <i>vice versa</i>. We have to contemplate the object,
+anyhow, as having a character of its own; and it is to this
+character that I want to draw attention."</p>
+
+<p>"In what respect?"</p>
+
+<p>"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every
+work of nature&mdash;so far as it can be viewed
+&aelig;sthetically&mdash;comprises a number of elements necessarily
+connected in a whole; and this necessary connection is the point on
+which we ought to insist"</p>
+
+<p>"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically
+necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "&aelig;sthetically. I mean, that we have a
+direct perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or
+altered without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the
+ideal; and it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is
+more or less perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these
+things would agree to that."</p>
+
+<p>No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was
+not, myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works
+of Art; but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in
+general?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be
+conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I
+suppose, would imagine that such elements might be thrown together
+haphazard and yet constitute a good whole."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem
+to have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in
+his quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art,
+which, in the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not
+precarious, seeing that by their form, through which they are Art,
+they are set above the flux of time, though by their matter, we
+admit, they are bound to it And, in the second place, the Good
+which they have, they have by virtue of their essence; Good is
+their substance, not an accident of their changing relations. And,
+lastly, being complex wholes, the parts of which they are composed
+are bound together in necessary connection. These characteristics,
+at any rate, we have discovered in works of Art: and no doubt many
+more might be discoverable. But now, let us turn to the other side,
+and consider the defects in which this class of Goods is
+involved."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."</p>
+
+<p>"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever
+may be the merits of a work of Art&mdash;and they may be all that
+you say&mdash;it has this one grand defect&mdash;it isn't
+real!"</p>
+
+<p>"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my
+life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something
+very tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know
+what it is. They talk of 'real life'&mdash;real life! what is it?
+As if one life wasn't as real as another!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is.
+Real life is the shady side of life."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the
+person speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he
+speaks."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our
+present concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word
+'real.' In what sense is Art not real?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something
+ideal. It is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and
+change; its connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is
+a kind of flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our
+eyes. The real world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is
+ugly, brutal, material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it
+were, you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it.
+How do you know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the
+Ideal, as all poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that
+case, Art would be more real than what you would call Reality,
+because it would represent the essence of the world, the thing it
+would like to be if it could, and is, so far as it can. That was
+Aristotle's view, anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree
+with Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would
+like to be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for
+instance, there's the realistic novel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of
+all&mdash;only it's apt to be such bad idealism!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art,
+in the sense, in which we have been using the word."</p>
+
+<p>I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion
+of realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at
+issue, I turned to Bartlett, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes.
+You say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by
+side of it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call
+real life. And that whatever be the relation between the two
+worlds, whether we are to say that the one imitates the other, or
+interprets it, or idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it
+aside. Art is a refuge from life, not a substitute for it; a little
+blessed island in the howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a
+partial Good; whereas the true Good, I suppose, would be somehow
+universal."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without
+blemish."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to
+think that Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield
+us more than we have yet got out of it&mdash;perhaps even more than
+he knows is in it"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming
+over to my side!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your
+strength really lies."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your
+discovering new defences for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my
+mind. We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real
+life,' the 'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear
+as to what they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have
+obscurely in their heads&mdash;that the Real is something from
+which you cannot escape; something which forces itself upon you
+without reference to choice or desire, having a nature of its own
+which may or may not conform, more or less to yours, but in any
+case is distinct and independent. That is why they would say, for
+example, that the illusions of a madman are not real, meaning that
+they do not represent real things, however vivid their appearance
+may be, because they are the productions merely of his own
+consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented to a
+sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they
+would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent
+nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included
+in the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon
+Art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of
+Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a
+certain violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our
+interest. What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put
+ourselves for the moment into the position of the artist. To him
+certain materials are presented which of course are real in our
+present acceptation of the term, being such as they are of their
+own nature, without any dependence upon him. Upon these materials
+he flings himself, and shapes them according to his desire,
+impressing, as it were, his own nature upon theirs, till they
+confront him as a kind of image of himself in an alien stuff. So
+far, then, he has a Good, and a Good presented to him as real; but
+for the Goodness of this reality he is himself responsible. In so
+far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it has still the nature
+which was first presented to him, before he began his work&mdash;a
+nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations, as is
+shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something
+else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To
+this nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to
+stamp upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a
+sense, only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains
+independent and alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as
+he has found Good, is after all only a form of himself; and one can
+conceive him feeling a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the
+Walk&uuml;re, when in his quest for a free, substantial,
+self-subsistent Good he finds after all, for ever, nothing but
+images of himself:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Das Andre, das ich
+ersehne,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Das Andre, erseh' ich
+nie.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I
+find it rather hard to put it into words."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying,
+so far as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself.
+To all others the work of Art must appear as something independent
+of themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be
+made to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism
+between the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to
+it. The form will seem from this point of view something factitious
+and artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by
+one like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast,
+perhaps, as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the
+landscape Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is
+not a 'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right;
+it is a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if
+you will, admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to
+be loved in default of a better, with the best faculties of brain
+and soul, but still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in
+and of itself, as well as through and for us, Good by its own
+nature apart from our interposition, self-moved, self-determined,
+self-dependent, and in which alone our desires could finally
+rest.&mdash;Don't you think that some such feeling may, perhaps, be
+at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of Art as unreal?"</p>
+
+<p>Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to
+myself. For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that
+you have said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree
+with me. But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and
+Leslie, for Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie
+assented with enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems
+to me rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good?
+Or do you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely
+of its own nature?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any
+case I agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in
+Art."</p>
+
+<p>"In what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"</p>
+
+<p>"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for
+the view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But
+of late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and
+now I see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is
+something that falls very far short of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has
+instructed me."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."</p>
+
+<p>And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of
+Knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in
+brief formul&aelig; of the routine of our perceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that
+with Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But"&mdash;objected Dennis&mdash;"in the first place, I don't
+understand the definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree
+with it."</p>
+
+<p>"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no
+difficulty there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main
+positions. First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of
+things in themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in
+fixed routines; thirdly ..."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's
+a perception of something?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."</p>
+
+<p>"What then? Simply a state in me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely."</p>
+
+<p>"Then does nothing exist except my states?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing else exists primarily for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease
+to exist?"</p>
+
+<p>"You infer such a world from your states."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is something besides my states&mdash;this world
+which I infer; and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions,
+is the reality of which I have knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a
+discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are
+at present concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of
+Knowledge with Good; and to do so we must first discover what
+Knowledge is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of
+Knowledge, and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and
+then we will take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we
+don't find that either satisfies the requirements of Good we will
+leave Knowledge and go on to something else."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And
+I dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain,
+I suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you
+define it, could be identified with Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much
+believe in Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I
+define it, is a good thing, I have no doubt whatever."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me,
+mainly as a means, in so far as it enables us to master
+Nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to
+point out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature
+that the Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge
+itself. Or should you say that there is Good in the scientific
+activity itself, quite apart from any practical results to which it
+may lead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the
+higher and more ideal Good."</p>
+
+<p>"This activity itself of inventing brief formul&aelig; to resume
+the routine of our perceptions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what <i>is</i> the Good of it? That is what it is so
+hard for a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery
+of Reality? For that, I could understand, would be good."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal
+merely with our perceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect
+fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it,
+you do not suppose this fluid to be real."</p>
+
+<p>"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled
+to give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions
+occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an
+account."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say
+more precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps,
+in the discovery of necessary connections?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order
+which is, as a matter of fact, regular."</p>
+
+<p>"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do
+move in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of
+gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time
+in restraining himself.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning
+to him I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from
+scientific activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality,
+nor yet in that of necessary connection, wherein should you say,
+does it consist? Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which
+we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and
+apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And,
+conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order
+among our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to
+utilize them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical
+results of science), but because in itself we prefer order to
+disorder, even if no other advantage were to be got out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the
+kind of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable
+than a disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he
+objects to British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers
+the chances of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary
+machine-like depredations of the tax-collector."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex
+factors. I was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of
+scientific activity as such. And I think there is an intellectual
+satisfaction in the discovery of order, even though it be
+dissociated from necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is
+the only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is,
+Knowledge is an extension of experience, and is good simply as
+such. The sense of More and still More beyond what has yet been
+discovered, of new facts, new successions, new combinations, of
+ever fresh appeals to our interest, our wonder, our admiration, the
+mere excitement of discovery for its own sake, quite apart from
+anything else to which it may lead, a dash of adventure, too, a
+heightening of life&mdash;that is what is the real spur to science
+and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general
+process of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No
+doubt there is an attraction in all activity&mdash;Ellis has
+already expounded it; and all experience involves a kind of
+Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at was the special attraction
+of scientific activity; and that seems to be, so far as I can see,
+simply the discovery of order."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "if you like&mdash;what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind
+of activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be
+bad. There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an
+activity concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even
+though it were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think
+that if all men were diseased, they would nevertheless be in
+possession of the Good, if only they had perfect knowledge of the
+laws of disease?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not
+only the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object
+known."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that
+Knowledge may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is,
+or may be knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to
+constitute the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has
+Dennis to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very
+hard to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a
+protest."</p>
+
+<p>"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us
+is the heretic?"</p>
+
+<p>"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely
+the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all, I
+shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of
+necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the
+fascination."</p>
+
+<p>"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All
+that is really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we
+read into the facts."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much
+as anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of
+all Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical
+knowledge is necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is all based on assumptions."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them
+necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law
+of Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement
+that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow
+of necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given!
+Everything is based ultimately on certain successions and
+coincidences of which all that can be said is simply that they
+exist, without any possibility of getting behind them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be
+the ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections
+throughout; so that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all
+the rest would inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it
+progresses towards this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at
+all. A routine simply given without internal coherence is to my
+mind a contradiction in terms; either the routine is necessary, or
+it's not a routine at all, but at best a mere appearance of a
+routine."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight
+this out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception
+of Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it
+from the point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin
+with, seems to me to be involved in the same defect we have already
+noted&mdash;namely, that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as
+knowledge of Good. And I suppose you would hardly maintain, any
+more than Wilson did, that the Good may consist in knowledge of
+Bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion
+that there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which
+there is knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could
+attain to it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there
+would be no distinction, or at least no antagonism, between
+thinking on the one hand and the thing thought on the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in
+fact any knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type
+of what you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are
+dealing with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which
+is somehow native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however
+you like to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions,
+such as substance and causation."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is
+alien to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of
+what we call knowledge, is the element of sense&mdash;the something
+given, which thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may
+dress and serve it up in its own sauce?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."</p>
+
+<p>"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but
+only of pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the
+Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that
+such a Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better
+than that of which we have an experience, but radically and
+fundamentally different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not
+only are we sunk in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the
+time our heads are under too,&mdash;in fact most of us never get
+them out at all; it is only a few philosophers every now and again
+who emerge for a moment or two into sun and air, to breathe that
+element of pure thought which is too fine even for them, except as
+a rare indulgence. At other times, they too must be content with
+the grosser atmosphere which is the common sustenance of common
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining
+that the Good is within easy reach of all."</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you
+describe it, very few people would care to put out their hands to
+take it. I, at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of
+Good in the kind of activity I understand you to mean. It is as
+though you should say, that Good consists in the perpetual
+perception that 2 + 2 = 4."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would
+be, that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One
+would move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest,
+central at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is
+my ideal of a perfect activity!"</p>
+
+<p>"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For
+what, in fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you
+describe? I suppose the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and
+flaws!"</p>
+
+<p>"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the
+better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of
+life&mdash;of nature, of history, of art, of religion, of
+everything in which we are really interested; imagine being left to
+turn for ever, like a squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea
+of a squirrel in the idea of a cage, round and round the wheel of
+these hollow notions, without hands, without feet, without anything
+anywhere by which we could lay hold of a something that is not
+thought, a something solid, resistant, palpitating, 'luscious and
+aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a sense, a flesh, call it what
+you will, the unintelligible, but still the indispensable, that
+which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to miss, and which, if
+it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow include!"</p>
+
+<p>Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the
+matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense,
+or anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented
+and also alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something
+which is unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will
+be, so far, not good."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which
+must be present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection
+among the elements presented; and secondly, that the elements
+themselves should be of such a kind as to be, as it were,
+transparent to that which apprehends them, so that it asks no
+questions as to what they are or whence they come, but accepts them
+naturally and as a matter of course, with the same inevitability as
+it accepts its own being."</p>
+
+<p>"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects
+of thought as you defined them?</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long
+discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis
+pressed you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified
+absolutely with Good."</p>
+
+<p>"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that
+view."</p>
+
+<p>"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be
+intelligible in the sense you have explained?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say so."</p>
+
+<p>"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive
+of any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the
+intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that
+immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's
+quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have
+in your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art.
+In them we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other
+than mere ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary
+connection one with the other."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not logically necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the
+necessity of the connection, surely, that is important; the
+character of the necessity is a secondary consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work
+of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements
+themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which
+apprehends them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, for they are mere sense&mdash;of all things the
+most obscure and baffling."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made
+beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far,
+intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a
+way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to
+thought?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does
+not, I think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is
+something else as well."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense,
+so far at least it is not intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we
+noticed before in works of art&mdash;that their Beauty, or
+Goodness, is not essential to their whole nature, but is something
+imposed, as it were, on an alien stuff. And it is this alien
+element that we now pronounce to be unintelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of
+art to be absolutely good."</p>
+
+<p>"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there
+nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to
+want?"</p>
+
+<p>No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then,
+in a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a
+direct appeal to Audubon.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am
+sure you must have something to suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these
+things is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you
+have never once referred all through to what I should have thought
+was the best Good we know&mdash;if, indeed, we know any Good at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only
+things that I think really worth having&mdash;if anything were
+worth having."</p>
+
+<p>A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of
+should be found just there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, in persons!"</p>
+
+<p>"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me
+approach the matter properly."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have
+your chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we
+had reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to
+form a conception of it, must be something immediately presented,
+and presented in such a way, that it should be directly
+intelligible&mdash;intelligible not only in the relations that
+obtain between its elements, but also in the substance, so to
+speak, of the elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a
+type, as Dennis maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas
+and their relations. But the Good, we held, could not consist in
+these. It must be something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense,
+and yet it could not be sense, for sense did not seem to be
+intelligible. But now, when Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that
+perhaps we might find in persons what we want And that is what I
+should like to examine now."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not
+sense, though he is manifested through sense."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" said Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know
+him through his body."</p>
+
+<p>"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a
+function of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when
+we talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven
+save me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne K&ouml;rper, ganz
+abstrakt,' as Heine says."</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to
+consider the soul apart from the body."</p>
+
+<p>"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about
+body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been
+driven into it unawares."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you mean by the soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of
+psychology&mdash;for even people who object to the word 'soul'
+don't mind talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the
+soul. Anyhow, what I mean is that which thinks and feels and
+wills."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of
+all things the most intelligible."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all
+things the least."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you
+have in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse
+to call the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its
+various faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and
+all the other points which are examined in books of psychology. All
+that I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no
+profession of understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking
+at persons as we know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown
+to us in literature and art, they really are intelligible to us in
+the same way that we are intelligible to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"And how is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no
+feeling or action of which human beings are capable, from the very
+highest to the very lowest, which other human beings may not
+sympathetically understand, through the mere fact that they have
+the same nature. They will understand more or less according as
+they have more or less sympathy and insight; but in any case they
+are capable of understanding, and it is the business of literature
+and art to make them understand."</p>
+
+<p>"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any
+rate, what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not
+indeed (as in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our
+whole complex nature, that it does not demand explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the
+people I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand
+explanation. I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing,
+or what they're for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me!
+And what's worse, probably my existence is the same to them!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to
+study them all sympathetically, you would end by understanding
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of
+pathological way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I
+shouldn't understand why they exist. It seems to me, most people
+aren't fit to exist; and I dare say they have the same opinion
+about me."</p>
+
+<p>"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a few: my friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said
+that you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often
+have you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our
+whole physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me
+to be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my
+friends. Still&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I
+wanted. For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be,
+gives us at least something which perhaps we shall find comes
+nearer to what we might conceive to be absolutely Good than
+anything else we have yet hit upon."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not,
+as an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of
+our own ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with
+works of art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any
+rate, I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am,
+but simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much
+imposed upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out
+of which they had carded a statue."</p>
+
+<p>"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions
+are common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should
+affirm that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is
+commonly called love, no doubt, the physical element is the
+predominant, or even the only one present; and in that case there
+may be illusion to an indefinite extent. But the love which is
+based upon years of common experience, which has grown with the
+growth of the whole person, in power and intelligence and insight,
+which has survived countless disappointments and surmounted
+countless obstacles, the love of husband and wife, the love, as we
+began by saying, of friends&mdash;such love, as Browning says
+boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I suppose you will admit,
+does exist, however rarely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it
+really is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination,
+that is directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say
+that its Good is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the
+person of the loved."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the
+Good, that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff&mdash;the
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I replied,"<i>is</i> the body alien? Is it not rather an
+expression of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the
+soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Not with my soul, Love!&mdash;bid
+no soul like mine</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lap thee around nor leave the poor
+sense room!</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take sense too&mdash;let me love
+entire and whole&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Not with my soul.'"</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and
+anyhow, I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of
+the poem is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between
+body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists
+call the transcending of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is
+annihilated at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get
+is a feeling of total union with the person, body and soul at once,
+or rather, neither one nor the other, but simply that which is in
+and through both."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case
+of the soul being merged in the body."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends," replied Ellis.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was
+thinking of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the
+moments of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a
+^correspondence between body and soul, as though the one were the
+expression of the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more
+often a discrepancy."</p>
+
+<p>"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a
+discrepancy to begin with, don't you think that in the course of
+years the spirit does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh,
+and especially on the features of the face?"</p>
+
+<p>"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body
+make.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a
+beautiful fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks
+maintained&mdash;and on such a point they were good judges&mdash;a
+profound and significant truth. At any rate, I find it to be so in
+the case of the people I care about&mdash;though there I know
+Audubon will dissent. In them, every change of expression, every
+tone of voice, every gesture has its significance; there is nothing
+that is not expressive&mdash;not a curl of the hair, not a lift of
+the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait. The body becomes, as
+it were, transparent and pervious to the soul; and that
+inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere else,
+seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting itself
+as the perfect medium of spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend
+your remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often
+as expressive and adorable as the body itself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the
+soul, 'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But,
+seriously, don't you agree with me that there is something in the
+view which regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct
+expression of the person, not a mere stuff in which he
+Inheres?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I
+understand what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it
+be a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in
+the same way as the soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, in a sort of way."</p>
+
+<p>"And so we should have In the person loved an object which,
+though presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible;
+and our activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is,
+of love, would come nearer than any other experience of ours to
+what we might call a perfect Good?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the
+Good itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being
+the medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like
+other sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end
+to death. And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of
+the person is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of
+sense, is precarious.'</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to
+maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have
+analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for a
+moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a
+suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect
+Good, even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."</p>
+
+<p>"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal,
+and in the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in
+love, as we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is
+a relation only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond
+it proceeds the main current of our lives, involving innumerable
+relations of a very different kind from this."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with
+all its attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless,
+so trivial and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world
+with all that in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space,
+infinite in complexity; here is the whole range of human relations,
+to say nothing of those that are not human, of activities
+innumerable in and upon nature and man himself, of inventions,
+discoveries, institutions, laws, arts, sciences, religions; and the
+meaning and purpose and end of all this we calmly assert to
+be&mdash;what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village green!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and
+kisses and village greens?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
+all-comprehensive."</p>
+
+<p>"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary
+heaven to land us in!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
+is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
+short."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I fear I shall never rest!"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if
+we can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you
+call an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is
+necessary to enable us to interpret the world we know."</p>
+
+<p>"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."</p>
+
+<p>"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For
+the Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
+some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
+impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny
+the passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges
+us to the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we
+want to understand the nature of that passion, we must understand
+the nature of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is
+for the sake of life here that we need that comprehension, not for
+the sake of life somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for
+Love?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."</p>
+
+<p>"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village
+green!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an
+episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means! That is what I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as
+it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most
+complex relations&mdash;economic, political, social, domestic, and
+the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of
+our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or
+whatever its character. Among these relations some few
+perhaps&mdash;or, it may be, even none&mdash;realize for a longer
+or shorter time, with more or less completeness, that ultimate
+identity in diversity, that 'me in thee' which we call love; the
+rest comprise various degrees of attraction and repulsion, hatred,
+contempt, indifference, toleration, respect, sympathy, and so on;
+and all together, always changing, dissolving, and combining anew,
+weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the shifting,
+restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect and
+result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal of
+that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all
+with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this,
+whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is
+that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in
+those which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think,
+through it alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as
+we have it, never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the
+moment; for those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that
+they have found it merely in union with one other person. For what
+love gains in intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in
+practice it may even come to frustrate the very end it seeks,
+limiting instead of expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it
+deepens, and, by causing the disruption of all other ties,
+impoverishing the natures it should have enriched. Or don't you
+think that this happens sometimes, for instance in married
+life?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that
+one who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love,
+yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other
+connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one
+who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as
+though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has
+only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking,
+as you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village
+green realize then and there the consummation of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put
+forward, what place is left for the common business of
+life&mdash;for the things which really do, for the most part,
+occupy and possess men's minds, and the more, in my opinion, the
+greater their force and capacity."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as
+that?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue
+them, I am not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they
+are in essence is just, like most other activities, relations
+between human beings&mdash;relations of command and obedience, of
+respect, admiration, antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex,
+infinitely various, but still all of them strung, as it were, upon
+a single thread of passion; all of them at tension to become
+something else; all pointing to the consummation which it is the
+nature of that which created them to seek, and all, in that sense,
+paradoxical as it may sound, only means to love."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't repudiate such activities then?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge,
+but, if I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose,
+who have the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt,
+the greatest intension too. But every man has to live his own way,
+according to his opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think
+myself, all are involved in the same scheme, and all are driven to
+the same consummation."</p>
+
+<p>"A consummation in the clouds!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the
+important point, that which urges us to it is here and now.
+Everything is rooted in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our
+longing and dissatisfaction, our restlessness never-to-be-quenched,
+our counting as nothing what has been attained in the pressing on
+to more, our lying down and rising up, our stumbling and
+recovering, whether we fail, as we call it, or succeed, whether we
+act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all that we are, all that
+we hope to be springs from the passion for Good, and points, if we
+are right in our analysis, to love as its end."</p>
+
+<p>Upon this Audubon broke out:&mdash;"That's all very well! But
+the one crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true,
+for aught I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we
+seek&mdash;though I am not aware of seeking it myself. But, after
+all, the real question is, Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools
+to seek it."</p>
+
+<p>"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since
+you challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we
+can get it or no."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this
+discussion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good,
+which is the point to which you are always harking back. But you
+have surely forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"</p>
+
+<p>"What basis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find
+out, not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we
+know little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if
+we are to find significance in life."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can we believe what we don't know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we
+always do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake
+anything makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth
+doing, and In the second place that it is possible to be done. He
+may be wrong in both these assumptions, but without them he could
+not move a step. And so with regard to the business of life, as a
+whole, it is necessary to assume, if we are to make anything of it
+at all, both that there is Good, and that we know something about
+it; and also, I think, that it is somehow or other realizable; but
+I do not know that any of these assumptions could be proved."</p>
+
+<p>"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed,
+to my mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves,
+that we should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as
+they have not received definite proof. But still they are, I think,
+as I said, assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any
+meaning to life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the
+will'; and our attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it.
+Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not
+to affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were.
+It is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding;
+the attitude of the general going into battle, not of the
+philosopher in his closet."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude
+is suspense of mind."</p>
+
+<p>"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those
+with which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are
+to choose to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption
+about the Good."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply
+wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is
+it possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting
+itself an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to
+wait?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as
+those which you are trying to make us accept."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to
+discover what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of
+fact, really dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or
+rather, if you will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the
+will' which we have elicited?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are they? Let me have them again."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some
+meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Second, that we know something about that meaning."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume
+that controversy."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know
+nothing about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first
+assumption is also destroyed, and with it all significance in
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."</p>
+
+<p>"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which
+comes nearest to Good is that which we called love."</p>
+
+<p>"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative
+approximation."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."</p>
+
+<p>"And after that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it
+necessary to include also the postulate that Good can be
+realized?"</p>
+
+<p>"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room
+for what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized
+is a question of knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions&mdash;if only
+we could know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we
+do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every
+year we are learning more and more about the course and destiny of
+mankind."</p>
+
+<p>"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing
+whether or no the soul is immortal?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!"
+he cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be
+realized."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception
+of the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite
+sure. We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when
+we were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable
+in ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we
+thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."</p>
+
+<p>"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though
+I was afraid all along of something of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been
+cheated, we will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we
+will suppose that we mean by the Good of some future generation,
+still retaining for Good the signification we gave to it. The
+question then of whether or no the Good can be realized, will be
+the question whether or no it is possible that at some future time
+all individuals should be knit together in that ultimate relation
+which we called love."</p>
+
+<p>"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that
+<i>their</i> souls at least would have to be immortal; and if
+theirs, why not ours?"</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider
+the whole idea of immortality illegitimate."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good.
+But may we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals
+who happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they
+were alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold
+fast to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be
+realized the individuals then alive, so long as they are alive,
+will be bound together in this relation?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of
+that kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not
+sure that I very well know what you mean by love."</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be
+left of my poor conception?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes
+to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a
+perfectly harmonious way."</p>
+
+<p>"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society
+perfectly definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory
+for you!' as Humpty Dumpty said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we
+defined to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of
+positive science, that it might be possible to realize?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that
+science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it
+can be realized."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal
+immortality?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of
+personal immortality is one which science ought even to
+entertain."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain
+it. Does not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such
+questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not
+call that science."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn
+of mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two,
+whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much
+vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit
+both upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and
+then followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of
+science, which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson
+took up a position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought,
+to declare that science appeared to be developing all the vices of
+theology without any of its virtues&mdash;the dogmatism, the "index
+expurgatorius," and the whole machinery for suppressing
+speculation, without any of the capacity to impose upon the
+conscience a clear and well-defined scheme of life. This debate,
+however, was carried on in a tone too polemic to elicit any really
+fruitful result; and as soon as I was able I endeavoured to steer
+the conversation back into the smoother waters from which it had
+been driven.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument,
+that on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and
+cannot know anything at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there
+is no foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of
+our hopes and fears, or of those of our ancestors."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is
+not true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for
+thinking it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to
+relegate the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chim&aelig;ras.
+What we have no reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to
+concern ourselves with."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one
+that interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We
+may not know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help
+profoundly caring."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but,
+honestly, I do not myself care in the least"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the
+Good; and that is really the question I want to come back to. What
+is the minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant?
+Is it sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the
+race'? Or must we also believe in the progress of the individual,
+involving, as it does, personal immortality?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
+life&mdash;that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it
+seems to me to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one
+knows one will not participate oneself than for one in which one's
+personal happiness is involved. I have always sympathized with
+Comte, pedant as he was, in the remark he made when he was
+dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte
+irr&eacute;parable?' That always struck me as the most humorous
+thing ever said."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect
+of death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not
+involve his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death
+is the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
+individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
+manly view."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but
+this is a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never
+aspire. Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual
+with his faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his
+ambitions unfulfilled&mdash;why it's sublime! its
+Kiplingese&mdash;there's no other word for it! Shake hands, Wilson!
+you're a hero."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing
+strained or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about
+faculties undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and
+exaggerated! Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much
+what they deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die&mdash;he
+has done what he had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the
+next generation."</p>
+
+<p>"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what
+'normal' means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or
+perhaps that is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they
+not, that there never was a normal man?"</p>
+
+<p>"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
+include every one except a few decadents and faddists."</p>
+
+<p>At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another
+digression, I thought it best to intervene again.</p>
+
+<p>"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
+position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
+Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of
+the individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always
+does realize sufficient Good for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself
+that his life has significance? Or because of the future Good of
+the race?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; both, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is
+sufficient, by itself, to give significance to the lives of
+individuals who are never to partake in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe
+is, that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to
+that of the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends
+as you seem to suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that
+there is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling&mdash;and this is
+where we seem to disagree&mdash;that in estimating the Good of
+individual lives we must have regard to that which they realize in
+and for themselves, not merely to that which they may be
+contributing to produce some day in somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing
+but other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite
+series of people doing Good to one another, and none of them
+getting any Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by
+taking in one another's washing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of
+argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which
+individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain
+that we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth
+while to have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at
+death. At any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look
+frankly at the mass of men and women, judging them not as means to
+something else, but as ends in themselves, with reference not to
+happiness, or content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply
+to Good&mdash;if we look at them so, can we honestly say that there
+is enough significance in their lives to justify the labour and
+expense of producing and maintaining them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that
+there is."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But
+what I should like to know is, what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the
+problem is too vast and indeterminate."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way,
+and with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate
+or no, it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are
+only fit to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest
+thing for them if some one would do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does
+anyone else share it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not
+actually bad, are at best indifferent&mdash;'sacs merely, floating
+with open mouths for food to slip in.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you
+know about them, considering how very little you've seen of
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this
+estimate?"</p>
+
+<p>"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I
+suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal
+better!"</p>
+
+<p>"They might well be that," I replied, "without being
+particularly good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be
+better to confine ourselves to our own experience and consider
+whether for ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life
+much worth having, supposing death to be the end of it all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis,
+"and so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather
+monstrous to ask the question at all."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most
+inconsistent of men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson
+for his acquiescence in the extinction of the individual 'with his
+opportunities unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the
+rest of it. And now you appear to be adopting precisely the same
+attitude yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good
+enough for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful
+ruffian!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I
+was a few years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all
+the Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come.
+What we actually realize we value less for itself than for
+something else which it promises. The moments of good experience we
+expand till they fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of
+indifferent or bad we simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we
+say, because the universe is good; and this goodness we expect to
+grasp in its entirety, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at
+least the day after. And so, like the proverbial ass, we are lured
+on by a wisp of hay. But being, at bottom, intelligent brutes, we
+begin, in time, to reflect; we put back our ears, and plant our
+feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and refuse to budge an inch
+till we have some further information as to the meaning of the
+journey into which we are being enticed. That, at least, is the
+point that has been reached by this ass who is now addressing you.
+I want to know something more about that bundle of hay; and that is
+why I am interested in the question of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"Which means&mdash;to drop the metaphor&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely
+to get more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I
+may very likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in
+others. For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as
+much bad as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say.
+And in the second place, even of what Good there is&mdash;and I do
+not under-estimate its worth&mdash;it is but an infinitesimal
+portion that I am capable of realizing, so limited am I by
+temperament and circumstance, so bound by the errors and illusions
+of the past, so hampered by the disabilities crowding in from the
+future. For though, as I think, the older I get the more clearly I
+recognize what is good, and the more I learn to value and to
+perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I become capable of
+making it my own, and must in the nature of things become less and
+less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those of the
+intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to be
+involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from the
+naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt and
+expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least
+effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'&mdash;you remember
+the passage:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'... Every day my sense of
+joy</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grows more acute, my soul
+(intensified</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By power and insight) more
+enlarged, more keen;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While every day my hairs fall more
+and more,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My hand shakes, and the heavy years
+increase&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The horror quickening still from
+year to year,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The consummation coming past
+escape,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall know most, and yet
+least enjoy&mdash;</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When all my works wherein I prove
+my worth,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Being present still to mock me in
+men's mouths,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alive still in the phrase of such
+as thou,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I, I the feeling, thinking, acting
+man,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The man who loved his life so
+over-much,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall sleep in my urn.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured
+it, perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is
+natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good,
+life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last
+judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will
+be a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of
+those most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been
+worth the trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite
+promise only to bury it fruitless in the grave."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very
+much care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether
+it is not the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not
+by the worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the
+belief in personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of
+people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet
+maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life.
+Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may
+remember, life appeared not less but more worth living when she had
+become convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited
+with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as a
+deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more
+intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of
+untiring and fruitful activity."</p>
+
+<p>"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call
+magnanimous!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and
+unimaginative."</p>
+
+<p>"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position
+which can be and has been adopted."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of
+the facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would
+make it increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an
+estimate which is to endure must be not only magnanimous but
+reasonable."</p>
+
+<p>"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to
+be reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are
+cases in which life is well worth living quite apart from the
+hypothesis of personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom
+it seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous,
+among those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose
+opinions alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly
+found in talking to people about death&mdash;supposing, which is
+unusual, that they are willing to talk about it at all&mdash;that
+they adopt one of two views, either of which presupposes the
+worthlessness of life, if life, as we know it, be indeed all"</p>
+
+<p>"What views do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and
+rejoice in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil;
+or they hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find
+there the reason and justification for existence which they have
+never been able to discover here."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which
+I should have thought was as common as either of the
+others,&mdash;that of those who believe in a life after death, but
+look forward to it with inexpressible fear of the possible evils
+which it may contain."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual
+experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of
+existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should
+maintain, have not really found life satisfactory, or they would
+look forward with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its
+continuance."</p>
+
+<p>"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal
+immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the
+hypothesis involves the realization of that Good which, without it,
+we recognize to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and
+from that point of view, that I have introduced it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis
+is, I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is
+practically necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most
+people do not require it&mdash;ordinary simple people, I mean, who
+do their work and make no fuss about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such
+people to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment
+any view suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe
+that if ever you can get a man, no matter how plain and
+unsophisticated, to reflect fairly upon his own experience, and to
+look impartially at the facts all round, abstracting from all bias
+of habit and mood and prejudice, he will admit that if it be true
+that the individual is extinguished at death, together with all his
+possibilities of realizing Good, then life cannot rationally be
+judged to be worth the living, however imperatively we may be
+compelled to continue to live it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on
+which I rely! That seems to me the justification of life&mdash;the
+fact that we are forced to live! I trust that instinct more than
+all the inclination in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you
+mean that you judge it to be good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your
+reason, which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your
+reason, the faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the
+only difference between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do
+really believe to be good, whereas you accept and cling to a
+particular judgment about Good, without any attempt to test it and
+harmonize it with others."</p>
+
+<p>"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and
+problematical in the extreme."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a
+simple, profound, imperative cry of Nature!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is
+good, except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."</p>
+
+<p>"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather
+blaspheme Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming
+either. For it may be that what you call Nature has provided for
+the realization of Good. That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was
+suggesting; and it is you who appear to be setting it aside."</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it
+were something one could really entertain! To me it is not a
+hypothesis at all; it's simply an inconceivability."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality
+of one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the
+soul does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and
+death and consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once
+one begins trying to realize it."</p>
+
+<p>"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt
+Whitman."</p>
+
+<p>"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly
+did justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while
+ago. It is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good
+and bad, and even appears at times to obliterate the distinction
+between them. But also, whether consistently or no, he regards them
+all as phases of a process, good only because of what they promise
+to be. So that his view really requires a belief in immortality to
+justify it; and to him such belief is as natural and simple as to
+Wilson it is absurd. There is a passage somewhere, I
+remember&mdash;perhaps you can quote it&mdash;it begins, 'Is it
+wonderful that I should be immortal?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I remember":</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Is it wonderful that I should be
+immortal? as every one is immortal;</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I know it is wonderful&mdash;but
+my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my
+mother's womb is equally wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And passed from a babe, in the
+creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate
+and walk. All this is equally wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that my soul embraces you
+this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other,
+and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as
+wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can think such
+thoughts as these is just as wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can remind you, and
+you think them and know them to be true, is just as
+wonderful.</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that the moon spins round the
+earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,</span><br>
+ <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that they balance themselves
+with the sun and stars is equally wonderful."</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that
+Whitman, at any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the
+immortality of the soul is unimaginable."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to
+believe it to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is
+concerned, though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But
+the point I raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view
+of life and hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are
+not bound to adopt this, hypothesis of immortality&mdash;to
+believe, that is, that, somehow or other, there awaits us a state
+of being in which all souls shall be bound together in that
+harmonious and perfect relation of which we have a type and
+foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be true that perfect
+Good does involve some such relation, and yet that it is one
+unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then we must
+say either that such Good is unattainable&mdash;and in that case
+why should we idly pursue it?&mdash;or that we believe we shall
+attain it under some other conditions of existence. And according
+as we adopt one or the other position&mdash;so it seems to
+me&mdash;our attitude towards life will be one of affirmation or of
+negation."</p>
+
+<p>"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
+of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
+unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
+we can&mdash;and some Good you admit we can get&mdash;and might
+find in that pursuit a sufficient justification for life."</p>
+
+<p>"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well
+find, that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so
+immensely preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to
+an end an existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely
+in the persons of our luckless descendants."</p>
+
+<p>"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is
+taken by the Western world."</p>
+
+<p>"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its
+activity is the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This
+instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and
+vigour."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling,
+and all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp
+of the modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with
+them; you may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of
+activity. I am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your
+being right, and I seem to find it in personal immortality."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right
+absolutely and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate
+law; whether or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to
+inquire into the conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us
+in the pursuit, then I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be
+discouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you
+are right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in
+Good and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was
+my main point. On the other question about what Good is and whether
+it is attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so
+conscious am I that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach.
+Only, that there is really something to learn, of that I am
+profoundly convinced. Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't
+seem to me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about
+Good, that doesn't affect the nature of Reality&mdash;and Reality,
+I believe, is bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what
+we see and touch and handle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to
+impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded,
+under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes
+an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am
+walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a
+quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am
+overwhelmed by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for
+the moment to be such, that everything I hear and see and touch is
+mere illusion after all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if
+only I could find the way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to
+some native and ineradicable strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I
+sometimes think, to the memory of a strange experience which I once
+underwent and have never been able to forget"</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it
+may be worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less,
+on the subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and
+once only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence
+of an&aelig;sthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or
+rather, conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if
+dream it were, which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my
+life. It was as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul,
+I thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body,
+began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed
+through the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was
+beating like a thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the
+carotids to the brain, whence it emerged by the fissures of the
+skull into the outer air. No sooner was it free (though still
+attached, as I felt with some uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to
+the pia mater) than it gathered itself together (into what form I
+could not say), and with incredible speed shot upwards, till it
+reached what seemed to be the floor of heaven. Through this it
+passed, I know not how, and found itself all at once in a new
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain,
+difficult though it be to find suitable language; for the things
+here, of which our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols
+of the things there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now
+identified with my soul, and had forgotten all about my
+body)&mdash;the feeling I had was that of sitting alone beside a
+river. What kind of country it was I can hardly describe, for there
+was nowhere any definite colour or form, only a suggestion, such as
+I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite tracts of empty space. I
+could not even say there was light or darkness, for my organ of
+perception did not seem to be the eye; only I was aware of an
+emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold, grey, and
+formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if indeed
+silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived either
+sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to silence
+in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
+(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
+distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
+flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
+the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
+as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
+rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
+pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
+they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
+that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
+I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which
+they passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out
+again was the sequence of their lives and deaths.</p>
+
+<p>"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
+something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
+disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or
+whatever may have been my mode of cognition&mdash;'Of course! That
+is it, and that is all! Souls are indeed immortal&mdash;why should
+we ever have imagined otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it?
+I see the death-side now as I saw the life-side then; and one has
+as little meaning as the other. As it has been, so it will be, now,
+henceforth, and for ever, in and out, in and out, without pause or
+stint, futile, trivial, silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and
+vain!' The long pre-occupation of men with religion, philosophy,
+and art, seemed to me now as incomprehensible as it was ridiculous.
+There was nothing after all to be interested about! There was
+simply this! The dreariness of my mood was indescribable, and
+corresponded so closely to the scene before me that I found myself
+wondering which was effect, which cause. The silence, the tracts of
+unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the ceaseless vibration
+along its surface of infinite moving points, all this was a reflex
+of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was Intolerable; to escape
+became my only object; and with this in view I rose and began to
+move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.</p>
+
+<p>"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high
+towers standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked
+like towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them;
+for they had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite
+substance or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so,
+the idea of verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of
+form or colour as everything else in this strange land. I made my
+way towards them along the bank; and when I had come close under
+the first, I saw that there was a door in it, and written over the
+door, in a language I cannot now recall, but which then I knew that
+I had always known, an inscription whose sense was:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Eye; come into me and
+see</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I
+did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could
+not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The
+door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the
+threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and
+delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the
+sensation of seeing light for the first time! For hitherto, as I
+have tried to explain, though it has been necessary to speak in
+terms of sight, I have done so only by a metaphor, and it was not
+really by vision that I became acquainted with the scene I have
+described. But now I saw, and saw pure light! And yet not only saw,
+but, as I thought apprehended it with the other senses, both with
+those we know and with others of which we have not yet dreamt. I
+heard light, I tasted and touched it, it enveloped and embraced me;
+I swam in it as in an element, wafted and washed and luxuriantly
+lapped. Pure light, and nothing else! No objects, at first! It was
+only by degrees, and as the first intoxication subsided, that I
+began to be aware of anything but the medium itself. I saw then
+that I was standing at what seemed to be a window, looking out over
+the scene I had just left But how changed it was! The river now,
+like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny champaign bright
+with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky; and the happy
+souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm day in the
+Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible delight; but
+as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery plain
+before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river
+clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a
+star, then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these
+again into others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was
+revolving about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can
+conceive, infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for
+the stars were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of
+ours, and by these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite
+harmonies, the threads of the intricate figure were kept
+distinct.</p>
+
+<p>"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our
+astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive
+the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth
+our faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension
+of time and change is measured by units too small for us to be able
+to embrace by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars.
+But I, in my then condition, had powers commensurate with all
+existence; so that not only could I follow with the eye the coils
+of that celestial morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as
+they approached or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I
+was minded, the course of its secular history; whole series of
+changes and transformations such as we laboriously infer, from
+fossils and rocks and hard unmalleable things, being there (as
+though petrifaction were reversed and solidest things made fluid)
+unrolled before me, molten and glowing and swift, in a stream of
+torrential evolution whose moments were centuries. Wonderful it
+was, and strange, to see the first trembling film creep like a
+mantle over a globe of fire, shiver, and break, and form again, and
+gradually harden and cohere, now crushed into ridges and pits, now
+extended into plains, and tossing the hissing seas from bed to bed,
+as the levels of the viscous surface rose and fell. Wonderful, too,
+when the crust was formed and life became possible, how everywhere,
+in wet or dry, hot or cold alike, wherever footing could be found,
+came up and flourished and decayed things that root and things that
+move, winged or finned or legged, creeping, flying, running,
+breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle, forest, and marsh, pursuing
+and pursued, devouring and devoured, pairing, contending, killing,
+things huge beyond belief, mammoth and icthyosaurus, things minute
+and numerous past the power of calculation, coming and going as
+they could find space, species succeeding to species, and crowding
+every point and vantage for life on the heaving tumultuous bosom of
+eddying worlds.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a
+kind of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact
+that though everything was in constant change, and in the change
+there was clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect
+anything that seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not
+direction to an end; for the end was no better than the beginning,
+it was only different; the idea of Good, in short, did not apply.
+And this fact, which was striking enough in the case of the
+phenomena I have described, made itself felt with even more
+insistence when I turned to consider the course of human history.
+For that too I saw unrolled before me, not only on our own, but on
+innumerable other worlds, in various phases and in various forms,
+both those which we know, and others of which we have no
+conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men I saw
+housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in
+wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the
+mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast,
+nomad tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and
+peace, politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this,
+so far as I could observe, although, through all vacillations,
+there appeared to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there
+was nothing to indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas
+about Good, but these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the
+efficient causes of events, were in no sense the explanation of the
+process. There was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no
+purpose, end, or justification at all. Man, like nature, was the
+plaything of a blind fate. The idea of Good had no application.</p>
+
+<p>"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne
+in upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but
+one desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had
+left. And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus
+for release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see
+through his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me
+out!' And instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of
+the tower, in that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space,
+with the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out,
+futile, trivial, tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw
+written over the door from which I had emerged, and which was
+opposite to that by which I had entered, words whose sense was:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Eye hath not
+seen</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the
+river; and over that was written:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris
+scientiae</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been
+open, should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience
+from which I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and
+made my way along the bank towards the second tower.</p>
+
+<p>"Over the door of this was written in the same language as
+before:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Ear; come into me and
+hear</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some
+apprehension, but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was
+I within than I was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that
+which had greeted me in the Tower of Sight, but even more
+ravishingly sweet. This time what I felt was the sensation of pure
+sound: sound, not merely heard, but, as before in the case of
+light, apprehended at once by every avenue of sense, and folding
+and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole being in a clear and buoyant
+element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute
+essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to
+appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was
+pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring
+reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the
+song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other
+elements crept into the strain; it increased in volume and variety
+of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it grew at length
+into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound, that there
+is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly compare
+it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other
+composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force
+of its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all,
+its endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never
+actually reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to
+dread or to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more
+wonderful still was my clear perception, while I listened, that
+what was being presented to me now through the medium of sound was
+precisely the same world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight.
+Every phenomenon, and sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed
+there, I recognized now, in appropriate musical form. The
+foundation of all was a great basal rhythm, given out on something
+that throbbed like drums, terrible in its persistence and yet
+beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented the mechanical basis
+of the world, the processes which science knows as 'laws of motion'
+and the like, but which really, as I then perceived, might more
+aptly be described as the more inveterate of Nature's habits. Upon
+this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by almost imperceptible
+gradations, was built up an infinitely complex structure of
+intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in freedom, ease
+and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the ear snatches
+of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or, as it might
+be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never complete,
+fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come, which
+they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it were,
+from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear in
+new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I
+knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.</p>
+
+<p>"As this character of the music and its representative meaning
+grew gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight
+a certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I
+passionately desired to hear given out in full the theme which as
+yet had been only suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I
+knew that with its appearance the music would come to a close, just
+at the moment when its cessation would involve the keenest
+revulsion of feeling. And this moment, I felt, was rapidly
+approaching. The rhythm grew more and more rapid, the instruments
+scaled higher and higher, the tension of chromatic progressions was
+strained to what seemed breaking point, till suddenly, with an
+effect as though a stream, long pent in a gorge, had escaped with a
+burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole symphony broke away into
+the major key, and high and clear, chanted, as it seemed, on ten
+thousand trumpets, silver, &aelig;thereal, and exquisitely sweet
+for all their resonant clangour, I heard the ultimate melody of
+things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen, with the
+emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close; and I
+found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on
+the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once
+more was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with
+the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile,
+trivial, tedious, monotonous and vain!</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written
+over the door the inscription:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Ear hath not
+heard</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there
+inscribed:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris Artis</i>?'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the
+third tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of
+hope and fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear,
+has given me what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it
+seems, a more perfect symbol than that; for it, at least, is
+Beauty, and the other was only Power. But is there, then, nothing
+but symbols? Or shall I, in one of these towers, shall I perhaps
+find the thing that is symbolized?'</p>
+
+<p>"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door
+facing me I saw written:</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Heart; come into me
+and feel</i>.'</span><br>
+
+
+<p>"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an
+experience even stranger and more delightful than before, but also,
+I fear, more indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a
+pure feeling, which was not of any particular sense, (as, before,
+of sight and hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling
+of Life itself, the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one
+has in health, underlying all particular activities. In this
+sensation I seemed, as before, to be lapped, as in an element; but
+this time the feeling did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when
+I came to myself, that I actually was in the river, leaping along
+with the other souls in such an ecstasy of physical delight as I
+have never felt before or since. Such, at least, was my first
+impression; but gradually it changed into something which I despair
+of rendering in words, for indeed I can hardly render it in my own
+thoughts. Conceive, however, that as, according to the teaching of
+science, every part of matter is affected by every other, insomuch
+that, as they say, the fall of an apple disturbs the balance of the
+universe; so, in my experience then, (and this, I believe, is
+really true) all souls were intimately connected by spiritual ties.
+Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or other, more or less
+obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were so closely
+involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that they
+formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained in
+their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion,
+distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and
+fulfilling in due proportion their periods and paths under the
+control of spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member;
+about me were grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and
+around stretched away, like infinite points of light, in a clear
+heaven of passion, the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a
+figure, for what I am describing in terms of space, I apprehended
+through the medium of feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees
+of affection, from extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate
+there was, as well as love, the one representing repulsion, the
+other attraction; and by their joint influence the whole system was
+sustained. It was not, however, in equilibrium; at least, not in
+stable equilibrium. There was a trend, as I soon became aware,
+towards a centre. The energy of love was constantly striving to
+annihilate distance and unite in a single sphere the scattered
+units that were only kept apart by the energy of hate. This effort
+I felt proceeding in every particular group, and, more faintly,
+from one group to another: I felt it with an intensity at once of
+pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even imagine, much less
+describe; and most of all did I feel it within the limits of my own
+group, of which some of those now present were members. But within
+this group in particular I was aware of an extraordinary
+resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no names,)
+steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest of us,
+or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups. This
+resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a
+tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole
+system seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and
+alone, being dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to
+my body. At the same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw
+my body, as I thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it
+swallowed me down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the
+operator's room, with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like
+Audubon's, though I afterwards ascertained it was really that of
+the assistant, uttering the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see
+why!'</p>
+
+<p>"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since
+been able to continue it, and to discover what was written over the
+other doors of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did
+not enter. So that I have had to go on ever since with the
+knowledge I then acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be,
+it is in the life of the affections, with all its confused tangle
+of loves and hates, attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all,
+indifferences, it is in this intricate commerce of souls that we
+may come nearest to apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly
+apprehend, but the quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any
+significance to life, and makes it a thing which a wise and brave
+man will be able to persuade himself it is right to endure."</p>
+
+<p>With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to
+me that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused
+reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took
+the &aelig;ther, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In
+the confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was
+curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I
+should behave."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I
+dreamt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do
+<i>not</i> see why!" And with that the conversation I had to report
+closed.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes
+Dickinson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue
+
+Author: G. Lowes Dickinson
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2004  [eBook #12508]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Leah Moser and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team from images provided by the Million Book Project
+
+
+
+THE MEANING OF GOOD--A DIALOGUE
+
+BY G. LOWES DICKINSON
+
+Fellow of King's College, Cambridge,
+and Author of a Modern Symposium
+
+THIRD EDITION
+
+1900
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  How do the waves along the level shore
+    Follow and fly in hurrying sheets of foam,
+  For ever doing what they did before,
+    For ever climbing what is never clomb!
+  Is there an end to their perpetual haste,
+    Their iterated round of low and high,
+  Or is it one monotony of waste
+    Under the vision of the vacant sky?
+  And thou, who on the ocean of thy days
+    Dost like a swimmer patiently contend,
+  And though thou steerest with a shoreward gaze
+    Misdoubtest of a harbour or an end,
+  What would the threat, or what the promise be,
+    Could I but read the riddle of the sea!
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of
+explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue is
+a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but, in its
+application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of failures. I
+am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but think that I have
+chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For, in the first place,
+the problems I have undertaken to discuss have an interest not only
+philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious to treat them in a
+way which might perhaps appeal to some readers who are not professed
+students of philosophy. And, secondly, my subject is one which belongs
+to the sphere of right opinion and perception, rather than to that of
+logic and demonstration; and seems therefore to be properly approached
+in the tentative spirit favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics
+most men, I think, will feel that it is in conversation that they get
+their best lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in
+literary form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude
+in approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so
+little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt
+myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to
+set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or endorse
+them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain opinions of
+my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which should be least
+imprisoning to my own thought, and least provocative of the reader's
+antagonism. It has been my object, to borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de
+presenter des series d'idees se developpant selon un ordre logique, et
+non d'inculquer une opinion ou de precher un systeme determine.' And
+I may add, with him, 'Moins que jamais je me sens l'audace de parler
+doctrinalernent en pareille matiere.'
+
+In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent in the
+Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater skill than any
+to which I can pretend. The connection of the various phases of the
+discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as it would be in a formal
+treatise; and in the midst of digressions and interruptions, such
+as are natural in conversation, the main thread of the reasoning may
+sometimes be lost I have therefore appended a brief summary of the
+argument, set forth in its logical connections.
+
+
+
+
+ARGUMENT
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a
+consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a diversity
+which suggests _prima facie_ a scepticism as to the truth of any of
+these ideas.
+
+The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is made
+to show that the position is one which is not really accepted by
+thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their lives by
+their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit their belief in
+these ideas.
+
+This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for the
+regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a Good for
+himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of all. It is
+suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men commonly does
+imply a belief in a General Good.
+
+Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a Good
+of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of
+individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good,
+may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In reply,
+it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by fact;
+(2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all, namely,
+society and its institutions.
+
+In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good is to
+empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its main value.
+
+II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect do,
+whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their actual
+conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that there seems
+to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This latter proposition
+is distasteful to some of the party, who endeavour to maintain that
+there really is no uncertainty as to what is good.
+
+Thus it is argued:
+
+(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct. To
+which it is replied that there appear to be many such 'instincts'
+conflicting among themselves.
+
+(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good being
+defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is replied
+that such a judgment is as _a priori_ and unbased as any other, and as
+much open to dispute.
+
+It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we can have
+no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief discussion of
+the nature of Science, and the applicability of its methods to Ethics.
+
+(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which it
+is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the moral
+reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are current.
+Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in fact,
+vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.
+
+(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest happiness
+of the greatest number." To which it is replied:
+
+(a) That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in accordance with
+'common sense.'
+
+(b) That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest and narrowest
+sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a criterion of
+Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that the term Pleasure
+becomes as indefinite as the term Good.
+
+(c) That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly applied, it
+would lead to results that would shock those who profess to adopt it.
+
+III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it is
+suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we can
+discover, tentatively, what things are good.
+
+To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from
+experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good
+would be metaphysical, and _a priori_. In reply, the bare possibility
+of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no one really
+believes that all our opinions derived from experience are false,
+and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of all ethical
+significance and worth.
+
+Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do actually
+find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though imperfect
+perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by practice, to
+perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is drawn between
+our perception of Good and our perception of Beauty.
+
+It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a knowledge
+but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as one to be
+realised in Time.
+
+IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to
+conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be
+brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil must
+be conceived as mere 'appearance.'
+
+In reply, it is suggested:
+
+(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal Good
+with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.
+
+(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed to
+ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but ought
+to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who hold that
+Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of action that they
+should come to see that everything is good.
+
+(3) That this latter conception of the end of action--namely, that we
+should bring ourselves to see that what appears to be Evil is really
+Good--is too flagrantly opposed to common sense to be seriously
+accepted.
+
+To sum up:
+
+In this Book the following positions have been discussed and rejected:
+
+(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real fact.
+
+(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good--such as (a)
+an infallible instinct, (b) the course of Nature, (c) current
+conventions, (d) pleasure.
+
+(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere 'appearance.'
+
+And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be made, a
+progressive discovery of Good.
+
+In the following Book the question of the content of Good is
+approached.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to point
+out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the character of
+a Good which we might hold to be perfect--here referred to as '_The_
+Good.'
+
+The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the position, at
+which we are supposed to have arrived, that the experience of any one
+person, or set of persons, about Good is limited and imperfect, and
+that therefore in any attempt to describe what it is that we hold
+to be good, to compare Goods among one another, and to suggest
+an absolute Good, we can only hope, at best, to arrive at some
+approximation to truth.
+
+I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain preliminary
+points are then discussed. These are:
+
+(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be an
+object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.
+
+(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested that
+the Good we pursue is
+
+(a) That of future generations. Some difficulties in this view are
+brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue is the Good
+of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we mean by that.
+
+(b) That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to be involved
+in difficulty.
+
+II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes on
+to an examination of some of our activities from the point of view
+of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: (1) to
+bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of Good; (2) to
+suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free from defects, such
+a Good being referred to as '_The_ Good.'
+
+(1) It is first suggested that _all_ activities are good, if pursued
+in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems bad in each,
+viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general survey of them
+all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to be tenable.
+
+(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To this it
+is objected that ethical actions are always means to an end, and that
+it is this end that must be conceived to be really good.
+
+(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with physical
+objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of Good; but
+such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only because it is
+precarious, but because it depends upon objects of which it is not the
+essence to produce that Good, but which, on the contrary, just as much
+and as often produce Evil.
+
+(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are
+brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:
+
+(a) That they have, by their essence, that Good which is called
+Beauty.
+
+(b) That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be eternal.
+
+(c) That, though complex, they are such that their parts are
+necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to the
+total Beauty.
+
+On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:
+
+(a) That outside and independent of Art there is the 'real world,'
+so that this Good is only a partial one.
+
+(b) That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to demand, for
+a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be so of its own
+nature, without our intervention.
+
+(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in
+knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held as
+to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:
+
+(a) the view that knowledge is 'the description and summing up in
+brief formulae, of the routine of our perceptions.' It is questioned
+whether there is really much Good in such an activity. And it is
+argued that, whatever Good it may have, it cannot be _the_ Good,
+seeing that knowledge may be, and frequently is, knowledge of Bad.
+
+(b) the view that knowledge consists in the perception of 'necessary
+connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this seems to be
+open to the same objection as (a). But, further, it is argued that
+the perpetual contemplation of necessary relations among ideas does
+not satisfy our conception of the Good; but that we require an
+element analogous somehow to that of sense, though not, like sense,
+unintelligible and obscure.
+
+(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other persons,
+where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps find
+something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences to being
+absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are in contact
+
+(a) with objects, not 'mere ideas.'
+
+(b) with objects that are good in themselves and
+
+(c) intelligible and
+
+(d) harmonious to our own nature.
+
+It is objected that love, so conceived, is
+
+(a) rarely, perhaps never, experienced.
+
+(b) in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.
+
+This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we know
+comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to be
+absolutely good.
+
+III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived, is it
+not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems to depend
+on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The following
+points are therefore discussed:
+
+(a) Whether personal immortality is conceivable?
+
+(b) Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable pursuit of
+Good?
+
+On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the Dialogue
+closes with the description of a dream.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to arrange
+in some pleasant place, either in England or on the continent, a
+gathering of old college friends. In this way I have been enabled
+not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what to a man of
+my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and extend, by an
+interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an experience of
+life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and confined. Last
+year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me especially
+agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip Audubon, whom,
+since his business lay in the East, I had not had an opportunity of
+seeing for many years. I mention him particularly, because, although,
+as will be seen, he did not take much part in the discussion I am
+about to describe, he was, in a sense, the originator of it. For, in
+the first place, it was he who had invited us to the place in which we
+were staying,--an upland valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a
+house; and, further, it was through my renewed intercourse with him
+that I was led into the train of thought which issued in the following
+conversation. His life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous
+in the extreme, had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was
+constitutionally inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened
+than diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I
+hesitate to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has
+associations with the schools from which he was singularly free. His
+melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic system; it
+was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be described,
+perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the worthlessness
+and irrationality of the world. Such a position is not readily shaken
+by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt to assail it; but it
+could not fail to impress itself strongly upon my mind, and to keep
+my thoughts constantly employed upon that old problem of the worth
+of things, in which, indeed, for other reasons, I was already
+sufficiently interested.
+
+A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival of
+another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn together
+at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in later years our
+paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination had led him into
+an active career, and for some years he had been travelling abroad
+as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I felt, therefore, some
+curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him, and to ascertain how far
+his views had been modified by his experience of the world.
+
+The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a kind
+of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place of
+rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some minutes
+nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in the shade
+listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the grass in
+the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little fountain in the
+garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter every minute on the
+fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, and yet I was unwilling
+to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me and said: "Well, my dear
+philosopher, and how goes the world with you? What have you been doing
+in all these years since we met?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."
+
+"What have you been thinking then?"
+
+"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about the
+world seems to suit you."
+
+"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the quiet of
+the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic countenance,
+I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. I believe if
+I stayed here long you would lure me back to philosophy; and yet I
+thought I had finally escaped when I broke away from you before."
+
+"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one is
+caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying to
+help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."
+
+"And have you found a way?"
+
+"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you and
+hear how you have fared."
+
+"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."
+
+"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You may
+have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so have I.
+But that is only because I want to grapple with it more closely."
+
+"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"
+
+"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who have
+had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to what
+conclusions they have been led by their own direct experience."
+
+"Conclusions about what?"
+
+"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to be
+fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say, given
+up the subject--I mean the whole question of the values we attach, or
+ought to attach, to things."
+
+"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as of
+old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So I used
+to say at college and so I say now."
+
+"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to say;
+but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."
+
+"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit of
+experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me in my
+original view."
+
+"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to hear
+about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as you
+know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of other
+people's."
+
+"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to me,
+in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary diversity of
+men's ideals."
+
+"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"
+
+"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance, until
+I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between the
+Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear that
+either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know which.
+Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But when one
+gets among them and really talks to them, when one realizes how
+profound and intelligent is their contempt for our civilization,
+how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how illusory our
+progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to wonder whether,
+after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit that one judges them
+to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether there is anything at
+all except blind prejudice in any opinions and ideas about Right and
+Wrong."
+
+"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir Richard
+Burton:
+
+"'There is no good, there is no bad, these be the whims of mortal will;
+What works me weal that call I good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.
+They change with space, they shift with race, and in the veriest span of
+     time,
+Each vice has worn a virtue's crown, all good been banned as sin or
+     crime.'"
+
+"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by
+travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not be
+necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a single
+city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who can look
+below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed uniformity of
+beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and incongruities
+are concealed! Every type, every individual almost, is distinguished
+from every other in precisely this point of the judgments he makes
+about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer think of the life of
+a studious recluse? or the city man of that of the artist? and vice
+versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all of us go about judging
+and condemning one another root and branch. We are in no real
+agreement as to the worth either of men or things. It is an illusion
+of the 'canting moralist' (to use Stevenson's phrase) that there is
+any fixed and final standard of Good. Good is just what any one thinks
+it to be; and one man has as much right to his opinion as another."
+
+"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there are
+different opinions about Good, they are all equally valuable."
+
+"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally worthless."
+
+"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to doubt
+whether you really believe it yourself."
+
+"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."
+
+"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to me
+most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act, and
+are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is good, as
+though you did believe it to be true."
+
+"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"
+
+"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to introduce
+any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it to yourself
+any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you hold to be good
+really somehow is so, your life, I think, would resolve itself into
+mere chaos."
+
+"I don't see that"
+
+"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a life
+is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold to be
+good."
+
+"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."
+
+"I doubt it"
+
+"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"
+
+"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they think
+good."
+
+"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think bad,
+like Milton's Satan--'Evil be thou my Good'?"
+
+"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing what he
+thought good; only he thought that evil was good."
+
+"But that is a contradiction."
+
+"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in which I
+believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the Bad. To them
+it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."
+
+"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"
+
+"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, power and
+wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because he thought
+them good; if his choice also involved what he thought bad, such as
+murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these bad, which I
+doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in his choice as in
+its consequences. But even if I were to admit that he and others have
+chosen and do choose what they believe to be bad, it would not affect
+the point I want to make. For to choose Bad must be, in your view, as
+absurd as to choose Good; since, I suppose, you do not believe, that
+our opinions about the one have any more validity than our opinions
+about the other. So that if we are to abandon Good as a principle of
+choice, it is idle to say we may fall back upon Bad."
+
+"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do not
+need either the one or the other. You must have noticed--I am sure I
+have--that men do not in practice choose with any direct reference to
+Good or Bad; they choose what they think will bring them pleasure, or
+fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a livelihood."
+
+"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"
+
+"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far
+believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to go
+to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be seriously
+angry and distressed."
+
+"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not help
+themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to imagine. We
+have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad enough."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we choose
+is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The criterion is
+Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to realize."
+
+"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the criterion
+is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that other
+pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than those
+they have chosen, and that these better things were and are open to
+themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to the worse,
+knowing it all the time to be the worse."
+
+"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely, are not
+really 'open' to them, except so far as external circumstances are
+concerned. They are hampered in their choice by passions and desires,
+by that part of them which does not choose, but is passively carried
+away by alien attractions; and the course they actually adopt is the
+best they can choose, though they see a better which they would choose
+if they could. The choice is always of Good, but it may be diverted by
+passion to less Good."
+
+"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the matter."
+
+"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own
+consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still, that
+is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I should
+expect that most people who reflect would agree with me. They would
+say, I think, that they always choose the best they can, though
+regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and it would
+seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose Bad, or
+choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."
+
+"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are right--what
+follows?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said, 'practically
+bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least, our opinions about
+what is good; for otherwise we should have no principle to choose by,
+if it be true that the principle of choice is Good."
+
+"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without choosing!"
+
+"But could we?"
+
+"I don't see why not; many people do."
+
+"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it be?"
+
+Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a voice from
+behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the back into one
+of those large lofty barns which commonly form part of a Swiss house;
+and as the floor of this room was covered with straw, it was possible
+to approach that way without making much noise. For this reason, two
+others of our party had been able to join us without our observing it.
+Their names were Parry and Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just
+getting into practice at the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in
+years, though a very precocious one, whom I had brought with me,
+ostensibly as a pupil, but really as a companion. He was an eager
+student of philosophy, and had something of that contempt of youth for
+any one older than twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart
+to resent, though have long passed the age which qualifies me to
+become the object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate
+way he had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was
+proceeding.
+
+"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without choice one
+would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every random mood and
+impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"
+
+Ellis looked round rather amused.
+
+"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that
+impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad
+calculation any day!"
+
+"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good and
+Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."
+
+"What _is_ your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been trying in
+vain to make head or tail of it"
+
+"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest
+against this bullying."
+
+"But you _must_ take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are to
+discuss."
+
+"I don't see why; you might take one instead."
+
+"Yes, but you began."
+
+"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, to
+go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many
+different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion
+has been discovered for testing these opinions----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from
+the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial
+agreement about what is good."
+
+"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let
+me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that
+there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and
+that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we
+have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions, or to suppose
+that it is possible to have any true opinions on the subject at all."
+
+"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.
+
+"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very difficult
+to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the point, and
+the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are nevertheless
+practically bound, whether we can justify it to our reason or not,
+to believe that our own opinions about what is good have somehow some
+validity."
+
+"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you interrupted--and
+your interruption really completed my argument--I imagine it to be
+impossible for us not to make choices; and in making choices, as I
+think, we use our ideas about Good as a principle of choice."
+
+"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted the
+truth of that last statement."
+
+"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally--and generally, I
+confess, I do not see how it could be proved or disproved, except by
+an appeal to every individual's experience--do you not admit it in
+your own case? Do you not find that, in choosing, you follow your idea
+of what is good, so far as you can under the limitations of your own
+passions and of external circumstances?"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to admit that
+I do."
+
+"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I mean
+that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your opinion about
+Good, you would have nothing else to fall back upon?"
+
+"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."
+
+"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive yourself
+living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard, from moment
+to moment, following blindly any impulse that may happen to turn
+up, without any principle by which you might subordinate one to the
+other?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't think I can."
+
+"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that you, at
+any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically bound to
+believe that our opinions about what is good have some validity, even
+though we cannot say what or how much."
+
+"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny in
+theory?"
+
+"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the
+attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice
+would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only
+principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to accept.
+In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about Good that
+engenders order among our passions and desires; and without it we
+should sink back to be mere creatures of blind impulse, such as
+perhaps in fact, many men really are."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant
+protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that
+brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part,
+I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so
+abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the
+appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because I
+have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has nothing to
+do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he ejaculated, in a kind of
+passion, "it's a preposterous thing to tell me that I believe in
+Good, merely because I lead a life like a mill-horse! That would be an
+admirable reason for believing in Bad--but Good!"
+
+He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press him
+further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of insult to
+his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for the sake of
+the argument to give some answer, so I began:--
+
+"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead it?"
+
+"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would do it
+if I could help it?"
+
+"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"
+
+"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."
+
+"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"
+
+"No, but it's a necessary thing."
+
+"Necessary, why?"
+
+"Because one must live."
+
+"Then it is a good thing to live?"
+
+"No, it's a very bad one."
+
+"Why do you live, then?"
+
+"Because I can't help it."
+
+"But it is always possible to stop living."
+
+"No, it isn't"
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't choose to
+be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave other people here
+to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of honour. As I'm here, I'm
+going to play the game. All I say is that the game is not worth the
+playing; and you will never persuade me into the belief that it Is."
+
+"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to persuade
+you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You believe, as
+you have really admitted in principle, that it is good to live rather
+than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous, laborious life,
+which you say you detest Take away that belief, and your whole being
+is transformed. Either you change your manner of life, abandon the
+routine which you hate, break up the order imposed (as I said at
+first) by your idea about Good, and give yourself up to the chaos of
+chance desires; or you depart from life altogether, on the hypothesis
+that that is the good thing to do. But in any case the truth appears
+to remain that somehow or other you do believe in Good; and that it is
+this belief which determines the whole course of your life."
+
+"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am
+unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought
+it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the
+argument.
+
+"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your general
+contention, I should still maintain that it is not by virtue of any
+conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into our lives. We
+simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature and character,
+preferring one object to another, suppressing or developing this or
+that tendency. Our choices are not determined by our abstract notion
+of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is deduced from our
+choices."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular choices our
+general idea of the kind of things which we consider good. That may
+be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach validity to
+these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our Good, those that we
+approve as distinguished from those that we do not. And my contention
+is that, in spite of all diversity of opinions as to what really are
+the good things to choose, we are bound to attach, each of us, some
+validity to our own, under penalty of reducing our life to a moral
+chaos."
+
+"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean that
+we must believe that our opinions are right?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that they
+are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and until we see
+something righter. But above all, that opinions on this subject really
+are either right or wrong, or more right and less right; and that of
+this rightness or wrongness we really have some kind of perception,
+however difficult it may be to give an account of it, and that in
+accordance with such perception we may come to change our opinions or
+those of other people, by the methods of discussion and persuasion and
+the like. And all this, as I understand, is what Ellis was denying."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you have
+proved it."
+
+"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to show
+that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because a
+belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that, I
+thought, you did admit yourself."
+
+"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether my
+theory is not more reasonable than my practice."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question that
+really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which
+underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it
+seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I
+think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of our
+opinions about Good."
+
+"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with
+philosophy but with psychology."
+
+"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever it
+be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place yourself
+at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from there."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the whole,
+I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you might
+easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is very much
+one _ad hominem_."
+
+"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of argument in
+which I much believe in these matters. I am content, for the present,
+if you and the others here go along with me."
+
+"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in an
+unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of common
+sense."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
+rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie say?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with anything so
+lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute and _a priori_,
+by which we may prove for certain that Good is, and discover, as well,
+what things are good."
+
+"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone, should
+find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the quest. It is
+only in default of anything better that I fall back on this--I dare
+not call it method; this appeal to opinion and belief."
+
+"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have shown,
+or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were granted
+that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good, it doesn't
+follow that they believe in anything except each a Good for himself.
+So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say would be that
+there are a number of different and perhaps incompatible Goods, each
+good for some particular individual, but none necessarily good for
+all. I, at least, admit no more than that."
+
+"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."
+
+"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was
+familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each
+individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as
+he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe this,
+under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I see no
+reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought to choose
+is identical, or even compatible, with that which another ought to
+choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and mutually exclusive
+moral worlds. In other words, even though I may admit a Good for each,
+I am not prepared to admit a Good for all."
+
+"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a not-Good;
+and that seems to be a contradiction."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be Good
+for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for another."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole conception
+is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for anybody or
+anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple, immutable
+eternal."
+
+"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually tear me
+to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see no reason to
+admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to me."
+
+"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"
+
+"But, to me, something else has a meaning."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to
+explain."
+
+"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods, oughtn't
+to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other particular
+name of its own?"
+
+"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of them
+Good because from one point of view--that of some particular
+individual--each of them is something that ought to be. I, at any
+rate, admit no more than that. For each individual there is something
+that ought to be; but this, which ought to be for him, is very likely
+something that ought not to be for somebody else."
+
+On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and
+despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.
+
+"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these incompatible
+Goods."
+
+"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good, say,
+for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the people who
+come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire to make and
+increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he ruins in the
+process. And so on, _ad infinitum_; one has only to look at the
+world to see that the Goods of individuals are not only diverse but
+incompatible one with another."
+
+"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to be good
+which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not the fact
+of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the things in
+question are not really good?"
+
+"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion. It
+may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of things
+incompatible with what is good for you."
+
+"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so?
+Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow be
+compatible with what is really good for others?"
+
+"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be
+proved."
+
+"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument _ad hominem_. Do not
+you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"
+
+"No, I don't know that I do."
+
+"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for people in
+general?"
+
+"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."
+
+"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."
+
+"In what way do I not?"
+
+"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to enter
+Parliament."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the country
+in favour of--well, I don't quite know what--shall we say in favour of
+the war?"
+
+"Say so, by all means, if you like."
+
+"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at large? or
+at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of them? Do you
+admit that?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will admit,
+I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but what of
+that? Very probably I am wrong."
+
+"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main thing is,
+that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right at all; that
+there is something to be wrong or right about."
+
+"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I shall
+always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again and again,
+I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are worth anything at
+all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an opinion about; and then
+I shall retire from politics altogether; and then--then how will you
+get hold of me?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I
+suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily
+affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I
+presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to some
+general Good?"
+
+"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing of
+the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"
+
+"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on to
+examine the consequences of the supposition."
+
+"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"
+
+"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for that, I
+suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of the case,
+interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the same time, on
+the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a general Good, your
+only object in this interchange will be your own Good, (in which you
+admit that you do believe.) If, for example, you are a doctor,
+your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself, to increase your
+knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the lowest, it is to
+accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your purpose be to
+alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the advance of
+science; for that would be to suppose that these ends, although they
+purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good, which is the
+hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a lawyer, you will
+not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting the law; such ends
+as these for you are mere illusions; for even if justice exist at all,
+it certainly is not a Good, for if it were, it would be a Good for
+all, and, as we agree, there is no such thing. Men like Bentham,
+therefore, to you will be mere visionaries, and the legal system as a
+whole will have no sense or purport, except so far as it contributes
+to sharpen your wits and fill your pocket And so, in general, with all
+professions and occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat
+it merely as a means to your own Good; and since you have no Good
+which is also common to other men, you will use these others without
+scruple to further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without
+necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be theirs."
+
+"Well," he said, "and why not?"
+
+"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it would be
+so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it possible that you
+should ever adopt such an attitude?"
+
+"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an
+idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other
+men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for example,
+a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in his business
+operations, ever had any regard for anything except his own personal
+advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people he ruined? Do you
+suppose he cared even whether he ruined his country, except so far as
+such ruin might interfere with his own profit? Or look again at the
+famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do you suppose it mattered to
+him that he might be starving half the world, and imperilling the
+governments of Europe? It was enough for him that he should realize a
+fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, he washed his hands. He and men
+like him adopt, I have no doubt, precisely the position which you are
+trying to show is impossible."
+
+"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
+general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you. And
+my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good, he
+denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
+not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
+described."
+
+"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume that a
+disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily involves
+a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his own Good
+consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in that case of
+course he will try to further it."
+
+"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other people.
+Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no Good common
+to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in furthering the
+Good of one we are also furthering that of others. So that even
+supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists in furthering
+the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put his belief into
+practice, but at most will be able to help some one man, with the
+likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and injuring many others.
+Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an egoist, yet he cannot work
+for a common Good; and that simply because there is no common Good to
+work for."
+
+At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the
+discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character,
+suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of optimism
+and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was rather
+pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and especially
+Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it irritating. His
+present speech was characteristic of his manner.
+
+"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has vitiated
+your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because every man
+has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to be common
+to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible one with
+another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is necessarily
+hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who are intent on
+theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by all experience,
+that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man, in pursuing his own
+advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue theirs. The world, if
+you like to put it so, is a world of egoists; but a world constructed
+with such exquisite art, that the egoism of one is not only compatible
+with, but indispensable to that of another. On this principle all
+society rests. The producer, seeking his own profit, is bound to
+satisfy the consumer; the capitalist cannot exist without supporting
+the labourer; the borrower and lender are knit by the closest ties of
+mutual advantage; and so with all the ranks and divisions of mankind,
+social, political, economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against
+the other, in delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part
+with part, they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for
+ever disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true,
+and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and
+reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole.
+And when we consider----"
+
+But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and
+Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:
+
+"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests
+countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow your
+own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and the thief,
+of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the fraudulent
+company-promoter; when, turning from these private examples, we cast
+our eyes on international relations, when we observe the perfect
+accord of interest between all the great powers in the far East;
+when we note the smooth harmonious working of that flawless political
+machine so aptly named the European Concert, each member pursuing its
+own advantage, yet co-operating without friction to a common end; or
+when, reverting to the economic sphere, we contemplate the exquisite
+adjustment that prevails between the mutual interest of labour and
+capital--an adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional
+disturbance, just to show that the centre of gravity is changing;
+when we observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan,
+annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime
+example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single
+individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating
+with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and contributing,
+by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a great and
+oppressed people--if indeed, in such a world as ours, anyone can
+be said to be oppressed--when, my dear Parry, we contemplate these
+things, then--then--words fail me! Finish the sentence as you only
+can."
+
+"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very well
+you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still maintain
+that we must take broad views of these matters, and that the position
+adopted is substantially correct, if you take long enough periods
+of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his own Good does
+contribute also to the Good of others."
+
+"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point,
+"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that
+everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is no
+common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is essential
+to the realization of the Good of all the rest"
+
+"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I believe."
+
+"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one thing
+which we shall have to call a common Good."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to
+all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common
+condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."
+
+"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society' what
+is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at least you
+admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of common activity
+and end; and the motives of men in undertaking these common activities
+become a matter of comparative indifference. Whatever they are
+consciously aiming at, whether it be their own Good, or the Good of
+all, or, as is more probable, a varying mixture of both, the fact
+remains that they do, and we do, admit a common Good, the maintenance
+and development of society itself. And that is all I was concerned to
+get you to agree to."
+
+"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common Good
+except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition of Good
+than Good itself?"
+
+"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard
+society as nothing but a condition of the realization of independent,
+individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the Good of each
+individual consists in his relations with other individuals. But this
+I do not know that I am in a position to establish. Meantime, however,
+we can, I think, maintain, that few candid men, understanding the
+issue, will really deny altogether a common Good; for they will have
+to admit that in society we have at the very least a common condition
+of Good."
+
+"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that there
+is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if pressed, would
+probably admit one."
+
+"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not
+attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is
+impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as before,
+that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at his own
+peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have shown is, that
+to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to deny to one's life
+and action all worth except what is bound up with one's own Good, to
+the complete exclusion of any Good of all. In the second place, it is
+to deny all worth to every public and social institution--to religion,
+law, government, the family, all activities, in a word, which
+contribute to and make up what we call society. Further, it is to
+empty history, which is the record of society, of its main interest
+and significance, and in particular to eliminate the idea of progress;
+for progress, of course, implies a common Good towards which progress
+is directed. In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self,
+and reveal him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations
+from which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which,
+apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is to
+make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his solitary
+ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main attraction
+by its dissociation from the development of others. Now, if any man,
+having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a sense, not
+merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were, in every
+nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny that he
+believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the denial with
+his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life, adjusting to
+his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings, and thoughts;
+if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then I, for my part,
+am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be wrong. All I can do
+is to set my experience against his, and to appeal to the experience
+of others; and we must wait till further experience on either side
+leads (if it ever is to lead) to an agreement. But, on the other hand,
+if a man merely makes the denial with his lips, because, perhaps, he
+conceives it impossible to prove the opposite, or because he sees
+that what is good cannot be defined beyond dispute, or whatever other
+plausible reason he may have; and if, while he persists in his denial,
+he continues to act as if the contrary were true, taking part with
+zest and enthusiasm in the common business of life, pushing causes,
+supporting institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and
+that without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his
+own Good--in that case I shall take leave to think that he does not
+really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely think he
+does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole tissue of
+his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real opinion than
+the propositions he enunciates with his lips."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of course
+we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the question is,
+whether we have a right to."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was the more
+modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a right or no
+is another matter, more difficult and more profound than I care to
+approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved beyond dispute to
+the reason, either that certain things are good or that they are not,
+there would be no place for such discussions as this. But, it appears,
+such proof has not yet been given,--or do you think it has?"
+
+"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"
+
+"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall back
+on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to prejudice,--and
+so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an appeal to the passion men
+have to find worth in their lives, and their refusal to accept any
+view by which such worth is denied. To anyone who refuses to accept
+any judgment about what is good, I prove, or endeavour to prove, that
+such refusal cuts away the whole basis of his life; and I ask him if
+he is prepared to accept that consequence. If he affirms that he is,
+and affirms it not only with his lips but in his action, then I have
+no more to say; but if he cannot accept the consequences, then, I
+suppose, he will reconsider the premisses, and admit that he does
+really believe that judgments about what is good may be true, and,
+provisionally, that his own are true, or at least as true as he can
+make them, and that he does in fact accept and act upon them as true,
+and intends to do so until he is convinced that they are false. And
+this attitude of his feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude
+of faith; it is, I think, the attitude most men would adopt if they
+were pressed home upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable
+enough, and rather to be praised than to be condemned."
+
+"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very
+unsatisfactory."
+
+"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're all
+driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about nothing."
+
+"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really delightful
+paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are bound to
+believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what it is!"
+
+"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"
+
+"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"
+
+"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things are
+good."
+
+"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could think
+that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that we are
+bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I cannot see
+that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very diversity, it
+seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope is, that perhaps
+they do all contain some truth, although they may contain falsehood as
+well."
+
+"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All the
+confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we can't see
+what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that there is all
+this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers always assume,
+as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of opinion and
+reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really determine conduct.
+Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is determined, at least in
+essentials, by something very much more like instinct. And it is
+to this instinct which, by the nature of the case, is simple and
+infallible, that we ought to look to tell us what is good, and not
+to our reason, which, as you admit yourself, can only land us in
+contradictory judgments. I know, of course, that you have a prejudice
+against any such view."
+
+"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should be glad
+of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never yet been
+able to find one."
+
+"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place; or,
+perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it. You will
+never discover what is good by any process of rational inquiry. It's a
+matter of direct perception, above and beyond all argument."
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you said,
+simple and infallible?"
+
+"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all
+practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is for
+this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say, of
+course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour or two
+in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate if the
+habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For inquiry does
+tend in the long run to influence opinion, and generally to influence
+it in the wrong way; whereas, if people simply go on following their
+instinct, they are much more likely to do what is right, than if they
+try to act on so-called rational grounds."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious
+difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you bid
+us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its content?
+What _is_ it, anyhow, that it should be set up in this way above
+reason?"
+
+"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct is,
+that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey; there's
+no question about it."
+
+"But there _is_ question about the content of Good."
+
+"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how small
+a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we act
+simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest and most
+prosperous."
+
+"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What
+standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"
+
+"From common sense."
+
+"And what is common sense?"
+
+"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"
+
+"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every instinct
+require another to justify it, and so _ad infinitum_?"
+
+"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable
+good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a clever
+child.
+
+"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point. Is
+it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient justification, or
+does it require justification by something else?"
+
+"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong
+instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands
+above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of
+dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism
+simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it challenges."
+
+"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this instinct
+is so strong therefore it is always good to follow it?"
+
+"I should say so, generally speaking."
+
+"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man should
+run away in battle?"
+
+"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There you get
+a superposition of the social upon the merely individual instinct."
+
+"And how does that come about?"
+
+"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been ingeniously
+explained as follows. We start with the primary instinct of
+self-preservation. This means, at first, that each individual strives
+to preserve himself. But as time goes on individuals discover that
+they can only preserve themselves by associating with others, and that
+they must defend society if they want to defend themselves. They thus
+form a habit of defending society; and this habit becomes in time a
+second instinct, and an instinct so strong that it even overrides
+the primary one from which it was derived; till at last you get
+individuals sacrificing in defence of the community those very lives
+which they originally entered the community to preserve."
+
+"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really true that
+every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so only by virtue
+of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull himself up and remember
+that, after all, the preservation of his life was the only motive that
+induced him to endanger it, he would run away like a sensible man, and
+try some other device to achieve his end, the device of society having
+evidently broken down, so far as he is concerned."
+
+"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism! The
+point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and has
+therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the reason
+touch it in the least"
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very hard that
+a man can't rectify such an important error. The imposition is simply
+monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut up in society on the
+distinct understanding, to begin with, that society was to help them
+to preserve their lives; instead of which, it starves them and hangs
+them and sends them to be shot in battle, and they aren't allowed
+to raise a word of protest or even to perceive what a fraud is being
+perpetrated upon them!"
+
+"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to me
+a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the better
+instincts."
+
+"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These
+instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the
+instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and fight?"
+
+"No doubt," he admitted.
+
+"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he stays and
+fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs away?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know what is
+Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between instincts,
+to approve one and condemn another. And our problem still remains, how
+can we do this? how can we get any certainty of standard?"
+
+"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"
+
+"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an instinct is.
+My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with what seemed to
+be your assumption that whatever it is in us that judges about Good
+judges in a single, uniform, infallible way. Whereas, in fact, as you
+had to admit, sometimes at the same moment it pronounces judgments not
+only diverse but contradictory."
+
+"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As
+a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we
+require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science rather
+than in philosophy."
+
+"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with it?"
+
+"What has _not_ science to do with?" said a new voice from behind. It
+was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the breakfast room (he
+always breakfasted late), and had overheard the last remark. He was a
+lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather distinguished in that field,
+and an enthusiastic believer in the capacity of the scientific method
+to solve all problems.
+
+"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that
+science has nothing to do with the Good."
+
+"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed that be
+true."
+
+"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I interposed. I
+was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the same time I was
+desirous to avoid a discussion between him and Leslie, for their types
+of mind and habits of thought were so radically opposed that it was
+as idle for them to engage in debate as for two bishops of opposite
+colour to attempt to capture one another upon a chessboard. He
+answered readily enough to my challenge.
+
+"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge, and
+that is the method we call scientific."
+
+"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by that
+method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of knowledge, but
+only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere, the only safe guide
+is the actual concrete operation of Nature."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent
+hostility.
+
+"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only to
+be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in fact
+identical with the condition towards which she tends, and morality the
+means to attaining it."
+
+"But----" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him short.
+
+"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"
+
+"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only ascertain
+by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution. Biology and
+Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one another, are
+rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."
+
+"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, _sotto-voce_, "here comes the social organism!
+I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."
+
+"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing, or
+ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to draw any
+certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty clear what
+kind of results we shall arrive at."
+
+"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"
+
+"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the position
+I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be regarded as
+provisional."
+
+"Of course! Pray go on!"
+
+"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the single
+cell----"
+
+"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity, "with a C
+or with an S?"
+
+"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal body
+is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a progressive
+modification in the structure of each cell, the differentiation of
+groups of cells to perform special functions,--digestive, respiratory,
+and the rest,--and the subordination of each cell or group of cells to
+the whole. Similarly, in sociology----"
+
+"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain himself,
+"mightn't we take all this for granted?"
+
+"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."
+
+"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy. And I
+don't see how----"
+
+"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"
+
+"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted, that
+in the social organism----"
+
+"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"
+
+"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell, the
+various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus its
+alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange; its
+circulatory system, in the network of communications; its nervous
+system, in the government machinery; its----"
+
+"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never could
+find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society corresponds to the
+spleen?"
+
+"Or the liver?" added Leslie.
+
+"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.
+
+"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are tired of
+being serious it's no use for me to continue."
+
+"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one does
+get a little tired of the social organism."
+
+"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really understand
+it."
+
+"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."
+
+At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in polemics;
+so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.
+
+"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position, how
+does it help us to judge what is good?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is, that it
+is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into individuals
+and individuals into societies--the protozoon, in other words,
+evolves into the animal, the animal into what some have called the
+'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this physical evolution
+corresponds a psychical one. What kind of consciousness an animal may
+have, we can indeed only conjecture; and we cannot even go so far as
+conjecture in the case of the cell; but we may reasonably assume
+that important psychical changes of the original elements are
+accompaniments and conditions of their aggregation into larger
+entities; and the morality (if you will permit the word) of the cell
+that is incorporated in an animal body will consist in adapting itself
+as perfectly as may be to the new conditions, in subordinating its
+consciousness to that of the Whole--briefly, in acquiring a social
+instead of an individual self. And now, to follow the clue thus
+obtained into the higher manifestations of life. As the cell is to the
+animal, so is the individual to society, and that on the psychical as
+well as on the physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she
+is perfecting society; that is the end and goal of all her striving.
+When, therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has
+this simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the
+perfect social body."
+
+As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'_Parturiunt montes_,'" and
+Leslie took it up with: "And not even a mouse!"
+
+"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say, until
+we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me more like
+a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth. But the
+question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage Wilson
+gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself, I suppose,
+might have been reached, and commonly is, without any recourse to the
+aid of natural science."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by the
+scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may assert
+that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over individual
+passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't see how you
+would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the whole evolution of
+Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate; and can say:--if you
+resist that tendency you are resisting Nature herself!"
+
+"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able to
+resist Nature?"
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of the
+plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but destined
+sooner or later to be absorbed."
+
+"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you said at
+the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So that, instead
+of looking within to find our criterion, we ought really to look
+without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of Nature and to
+acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."
+
+"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I am
+inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able to make
+out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the direction
+which, on the whole, we prefer."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led you to
+just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature was not from
+the cell to the animal, and from the individual to society, but in
+precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of all things was a
+resolution into the primitive elements--do you think you would have
+been as ready to assert that it is the goal of Nature that must
+determine our ideal of Good?"
+
+"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"
+
+"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical than
+the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of your
+authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives
+the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of
+continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the
+utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again to
+the original condition. What you were describing is the movement which
+we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be good,
+at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose us to have
+reached the point at which the opposite movement begins; suppose what
+we had to look forward to and to describe as the course of Nature
+were a process, not from simple to complex, from homogeneous to
+heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but one in exactly the
+contrary direction, a dissolution of society into its individuals,
+of animals into the cells of which they are composed, of life into
+chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and so on through the scale of
+Being, reversing the whole course of evolution--should we, in such a
+case, still have to say that the process of Nature was right, and that
+she is to give the law to our judgment about Good?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only those
+who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the qualities
+enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long run, be
+eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize opinions
+with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt, is why we
+approve what you call the upward movement, which is the one in which
+Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same reason, if, or when,
+a movement in the opposite direction should set in, people holding
+opinions like ours will tend to be eliminated, while those will tend
+to survive more and more who approve the current of evolution then
+prevailing."
+
+"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be at last
+attained, by the simple process of eliminating the dissentients!"
+
+"Precisely!"
+
+"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory for the
+people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we want to know
+is, what _we_ are to judge to be Good, not what somebody else will be
+made to judge, centuries hence."
+
+"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the argument
+you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her we shall be
+knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object strongly to
+her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the harmony of the final
+consummation--even if it were to be final, and not merely the turn of
+the tide; and I am sensibly aware of the horrible discomfort of the
+intermediate stages, the pushing, kicking, trampling of the host, and
+the wounded and dead left behind on the march. Of all this I venture
+to disapprove; then comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!'
+I ask why, and she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still
+demur, and she comes down on me with a threat--'Very good, approve or
+no, as you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By
+all means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection
+that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a martyr.
+Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner because I venture
+to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry; and in my humble
+opinion it's Nature, not _I_, that cuts a poor figure!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking like
+that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"
+
+"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer the
+ridiculous."
+
+"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For I
+cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."
+
+"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."
+
+"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about Good
+must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of Nature may,
+as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure of Good; the
+measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the study of
+Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by giving it
+new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last resort; and the
+judgment can never be a mere statement as to the course which Nature
+is pursuing."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount
+importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right
+judgment?"
+
+"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the study
+of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All that I
+wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you have been
+trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other, to get rid
+of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by substituting for
+them a statement about the tendencies of Nature--that this contention
+cannot be upheld."
+
+"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a
+scientific basis for your judgment."
+
+"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what you
+include under science."
+
+"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief formulae of
+the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a description of what
+happens."
+
+"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good can
+certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are judgments of
+what ought to be, not of what is."
+
+"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have
+nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."
+
+"But might there not be some way of judging between opinions?"
+
+"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective test?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case of the
+sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of ours,
+but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine which is
+independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us from without
+with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of our own can
+impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the power of inference,
+whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are able to build up a
+knowledge of what is. But when, on the other hand, we turn to such of
+our ideas as deal with the Good, the Beautiful, and the like--here
+we have no test external to ourselves, no authority superior and
+independent. Invite a group of men to witness a scientific experiment,
+and none of them will be able to deny either the sequence of the
+phenomena produced, or the chain of reasoning (supposing it to be
+sound) which leads to the conclusion based upon them. Invite the same
+men to judge of a picture, or consult them on a question of moral
+casuistry, and they will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will
+there be any objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion
+is more correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense
+are, or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation,
+infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are
+different not only in different persons, but in the same person at
+different times."
+
+"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The
+question is whether--"
+
+"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main point.
+I was going to say that not merely are there these differences
+of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the opinions were
+uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective and devoid
+of scientific validity. It is the external reference that gives its
+certainty to science; and such a reference is impossible in the case
+of judgments about the Beautiful and the Good. Such judgments are
+merely records of what we think or feel. These ideas of ours may or
+may not happen to be consistent one with another; but whether they are
+so or not, they are merely our ideas, and have nothing to do with the
+essential nature of reality."
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds in the
+way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point of view
+of God--only for the sake of argument," I added, seeing him about to
+protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being through and through
+as it really is; and along with this knowledge of reality he has a
+conviction that reality is good. Now, with this conviction of his none
+other, _ex hypothesi_, can compete; for he being God, we must at any
+rate admit that if anybody can be right, it must be he. No one then
+can dispute or shake his opinion; and since he is eternal he will
+not change it of himself. Is there then, under the circumstances, any
+distinction of validity between his judgment that what is, is, and his
+judgment that what is, is good?"
+
+"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an imaginary
+case. But if you press me I can only say that I still adhere to my
+view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God or anybody
+else, can be no more than a subjective expression of opinion."
+
+"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in so far
+as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to eliminate
+the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you dwelt, of the
+impressions of external sense, the certainty of the impressions is
+your and my certainty that we have them; and so in the case of a
+cogent argument; for any given person the test of the cogency is his
+perception that the cogency is there. And it is the same with
+the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test except
+perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions conflict;
+not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the case I
+imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself, then
+the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as the
+certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."
+
+"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're beginning to
+talk metaphysics."
+
+"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is sense."
+
+"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."
+
+"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."
+
+"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."
+
+"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air of
+an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really matter?
+Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good, the fact
+remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good, his Good,
+our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in process of
+flux, according to the time of day, the time of life, and the state
+of the liver. That being so, what is the use of discussing Good
+in itself? And why be so disturbed about it? There's Leslie, for
+instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked out of the universe
+because he can't discover his objective standard! My dear boy, life
+goes on just the same, my life, his life, your life, all the lives.
+Why not make an end of the worry at once by admitting frankly that
+Good is a chimaera, and that we get on very well without it?"
+
+"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.
+
+"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that none
+of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."
+
+"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with you
+merely because you override me in argument--even if you did, which you
+don't."
+
+"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that you
+disagree."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was silence,
+till I began to fear that our argument would collapse; when, to my
+relief, Parry returned to the charge.
+
+"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I can't
+help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I feel
+sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does not
+really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good by
+instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it. And
+what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in experience."
+
+"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.
+
+"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and
+country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I want
+to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name possesses, in
+its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly follows, the
+moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective standard,
+worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department of life,
+really is good. To this standard every plain man, without reasoning,
+and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and naturally conform;
+so do all of us who are discussing here, in all the common affairs of
+our daily life. We know, if I may say so, better than we know; and the
+difficulties into which we are driven, in speculations such as
+that upon which we are engaged, arise, to my mind, from a false and
+unnecessary abstraction--from putting aside all the rich content
+of actual life, and calling into the wilderness for the answer to a
+question which solves itself in the street and the market-place."
+
+"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy with
+what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."
+
+"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and thousands!"
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was referring
+is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own standard of Good;
+but these standards are different and even opposite; so that it would
+seem we require some criterion by which to compare and judge them."
+
+"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are not
+concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great civilization
+believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient Greeks, of
+whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are absurdly
+over-estimated; but they had at least that good quality--they believed
+in themselves. To them the whole non-Greek world was barbarian; the
+standard of Good was frankly their own standard; and it was a standard
+knowable and known, however wide might be the deviations from it in
+practice. We find accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in
+the real. Plato, even, in constructing his imaginary republic,
+does not build in the void, evoking from his own consciousness
+a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for the Birds; on the contrary, he bases
+his structure upon the actual, following the general plan of the
+institutions of Sparta and Crete; and neither to him nor to Aristotle
+does it ever occur that there is, or could be, any form of state worth
+considering, except the city-state with which they were familiar. It
+is the same with their treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of
+the Greeks, not of Man in general, and stands in close relation to the
+facts of contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not,
+like that of our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for
+vaguely-imagined millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal
+interpretation of their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature
+and form the very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in
+the troubled stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply
+the essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who
+frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and
+hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his countrymen.
+That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is the one natural
+to the plain man in every well-organized society. Good is best known
+when it is not investigated; and people like ourselves would do no
+useful service if we were to induce in others the habit of discussion
+which education has made a second nature to ourselves."
+
+"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that we
+are all anarchists in disguise?"
+
+"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by
+Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health is
+ignorance."
+
+"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for that."
+
+"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined. "But
+if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that we are
+suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern world. It was
+easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they had no past. But
+for us the past overweights the present; we cannot, if we would,
+get rid of the burden of it. All that was once absolute has become
+relative, including our own conceptions and ideals; and as we look
+back down the ages and see civilization after civilization come into
+being, flourish and decay, it is impossible for us to believe that
+the society in which we happen to be born is more ultimate than any
+of these, or that its ideal, as reflected in its institutions, has
+any more claim than theirs to be regarded as a final and absolute
+expression of Good."
+
+"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals evolve,
+but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more validity for
+us than any other. As to those of the past, they were, no doubt,
+important in their day, but they have no importance for the modern
+world. The very fact that they are past is proof that they are also
+superseded."
+
+"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that everything
+that is later in time is also better? That we are better artists than
+the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more spiritual than the
+men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those of the Renaissance?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all that.
+I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress; and that
+therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that alone, which we
+ought practically to consider."
+
+"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there are so
+many."
+
+"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is
+embodied in current laws and customs."
+
+"But these are always themselves in process of change."
+
+"Yes, gradual change."
+
+"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And to
+sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end, the
+sanctioning of a whole revolution."
+
+"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally
+established, what right have we to judge that the established is the
+Good?"
+
+"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what we do."
+
+"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we
+reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else do
+you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and disquiet we
+are apt to experience in the presence of a bold denier?"
+
+"I don't know that I do experience it."
+
+"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially vivid
+experience of the kind."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my mind
+when I was speaking."
+
+"Well, but what does he say?"
+
+"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."
+
+"What does he deny, then?"
+
+"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should conjecture,
+at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and all the rest of
+it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon as
+progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with all that
+it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong, of the bad
+against the good, of the herd against the master. Every great society,
+in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in the sense that the
+many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed to the few; and
+that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good conscience, in free
+obedience to the universal law of the world. 'Be strong, be hard' are
+his ultimate ethical principles. The modern virtues, or what we affect
+to consider such, sympathy, pity, justice, thrift, unselfishness and
+the like, are merely symptoms of moral degeneration. The true and
+great and noble man is above all things selfish; and the highest type
+of humanity is to be sought in Napoleon or Caesar Borgia."
+
+"But that's mere raving!"
+
+"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be. But
+not simply because it contradicts those current notions which we are
+embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is precisely
+those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet it with a
+bare denial."
+
+"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"
+
+"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely be
+stronger if you had reason for your faith."
+
+"But I think my reason sufficient--those are not the ideas of the
+age."
+
+"But for all you know they may be those of the next."
+
+"Well, that will be its concern."
+
+"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you said
+that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose, is what
+you want to attain."
+
+"Well!"
+
+"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally
+current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of
+the Good you want to achieve."
+
+"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the Good!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I don't."
+
+"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take the
+ideas of our time as a final criterion?"
+
+"I suppose so--I don't know--I'm sure there's something in it! Do you
+believe yourself that they have no import for us?"
+
+"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import is.
+We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a current
+convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact of the
+tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a moral reformer
+to modify the convention. Or do you not think so?"
+
+"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"
+
+"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there any
+institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open to
+obvious criticism? Take what you will--parliamentary government, the
+family, the law of real property--is there one of them that could be
+adequately and successfully defended?"
+
+"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The family--"
+
+"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss that!
+But upon one thing we seem to be agreed--that whatever may be the
+value of current standards of Good in assisting our judgment, we
+cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of authority. And
+so once more we are thrown back each upon his own opinions."
+
+"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to
+attach some validity."
+
+"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have any."
+
+I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming round
+from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining members of our
+party. They had just returned from a mountaineering expedition; and
+now, having had their bath, had come out to join us in our usual
+place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the _Times_ and the _Daily
+Chronicle_. He was a keen business man, and a Radical politician of
+some note; and though not naturally inclined to speculative thought,
+would sometimes take part in our discussions if ever they seemed to
+touch on any practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were
+often very much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive
+and polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth
+the course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of
+satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some
+talk about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to
+apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"
+
+"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will be
+willing to help us?"
+
+"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't much
+in my line."
+
+"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you even
+know what we're talking about!"
+
+"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it be
+when you get together?"
+
+"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something more
+like ethics."
+
+"What is the question?" asked Dennis.
+
+Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract
+the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the
+profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune, had
+not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his time for
+some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed talking to
+him, though the position he had come to hold was one which I found it
+very difficult to understand, and I am not sure that I have been able
+to represent it fairly.
+
+"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question, "our
+judgments about what is good, and trying without much success to get
+over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem to be
+practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we find it
+hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far and in what
+sense."
+
+"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help you.
+At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and what's
+bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the same
+point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a convinced
+Utilitarian."
+
+"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to the
+word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"
+
+"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I could
+see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."
+
+"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the things you
+speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny it."
+
+"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
+argument."
+
+"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"
+
+"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good and
+what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do it!"
+
+"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"
+
+"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on important
+points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what ought to be
+done, but about how to do it."
+
+"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.
+
+"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and healthy."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
+happy."
+
+"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good to
+make people happy."
+
+"Oh well, if you deny that--"
+
+"Well, if I deny that?"
+
+"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply means,
+what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I do."
+
+"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a Utilitarian."
+
+"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I believe,
+does everybody else."
+
+"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture can go,
+is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and liquid, and
+of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of attainable
+and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater quantities for most
+pigs.'"
+
+"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of Hedonism."
+
+"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.
+
+"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well enough,
+though probably not Bartlett's."
+
+"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"A what?" said Bartlett.
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"And what may that be?"
+
+"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him short.
+"It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for example,
+is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship; they are, he
+says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of possessing the goodwill
+of such and such individuals, and the right of expecting from them, in
+consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous services.'"
+
+We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not help
+protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single example."
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The pleasures
+of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of acquiring
+or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in consequence, of
+expecting particular favours from him, either in this life or in
+another.'"
+
+We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your
+levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an
+egoistic Hedonist."
+
+"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"
+
+"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.
+
+"And what's the difference?"
+
+"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis interrupted him
+again.
+
+"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the other a
+prig."
+
+"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"
+
+"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the same
+as theirs. And of all the _a priori_ systems I prefer Utilitarianism,
+because it is at least clear, simple, and precise."
+
+"That is what I can never see that it is."
+
+"Why, what is your difficulty?"
+
+"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a
+dogma."
+
+"True," he said, "but that particular dogma--the greatest happiness
+of the greatest number--is one which commends itself to everyone's
+consciousness."
+
+"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A
+crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain disease
+about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of discovering
+how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is found, by the
+hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general preponderance
+of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they go to the
+crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name of the
+utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to vivisection. The
+tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will be inconceivable:
+but think of the result! A general preponderance in the community at
+large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of pain inflicted on you,
+an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody else. Upon you, it is
+true, will fall the whole of the pain; whereas the pleasure will be so
+minutely distributed among innumerable individuals that the increment
+in each case will be almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be
+there! and our arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure
+will exceed the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among
+a greater number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the
+hedonistic calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you!
+Rise to the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting
+room! What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to
+Bartlett to express his sentiments!"
+
+"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case, to
+begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it did,
+one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to take an
+impartial view of the situation."
+
+"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what would
+really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to suffer? Do you
+think they would believe they ought to accept the sacrifice? Every
+man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for himself; and what
+right has he to accept it for other people?"
+
+"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought to."
+
+"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon common
+sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common sense would
+repudiate it."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a case, as I
+said, that could not occur--a mere marginal case."
+
+"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental fallacy.
+Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the greatest
+happiness of the greatest number is good has a more obvious and
+indisputable validity than any other judgments of worth. It seems to
+me to be just one judgment among others; and, like the others, it may
+be true or false. However, I will not press that point. But what I
+should like to insist upon is, that the doctrine which Bartlett seemed
+to hold--"
+
+"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed an
+opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy in
+the world." And with that he opened the _Chronicle_, and presently
+becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further attention to the
+course of our debate.
+
+"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or
+no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the
+greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at
+once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since its
+enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as closed. It
+will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry, that the truth of
+the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so that it has only to
+be stated to be accepted?"
+
+"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the Utilitarians
+is that everyone who has the capacity and will take the trouble to
+reflect will, in fact, arrive at their conclusions."
+
+"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is good, the
+result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there are many
+possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and simple than any
+other judgment of the kind?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as it is,
+requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for every fresh
+case that turns up."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the
+greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to
+discover wherein that happiness consists."
+
+"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as pleasure."
+
+"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"
+
+"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply sensations.
+If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am thirsty, I
+feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these feelings; they are
+simple and radical."
+
+"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple cases
+as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics. And, on
+the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they lose at
+once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult to interpret
+as Good and Evil."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as that
+between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be fairly
+summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as everyone knows,
+the choices are far more difficult; they are between, let us say, a
+bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony; leisure and liberty now, or
+L1000 a-year twenty years hence; art and fame at the cost of health,
+or sound nerves and obscurity; and so on, and so on through all
+the possible cases, infinitely more complex in reality than I could
+attempt to indicate here, all of which, no doubt, could be brought
+under your formula, but none of which the formula would help to
+solve."
+
+"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult to
+apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."
+
+"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what
+follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that in
+making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call the
+hedonistic calculus--"
+
+"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the important
+point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small thing to
+know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we do know it)
+that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of pleasure over pain;
+the whole problem is to discover, in innumerable detailed cases,
+wherein precisely the preponderance consists. But this can only be
+learnt, if at all, by long and difficult, and, it may be, painful
+experience. We do not really know, _a priori_, what things are
+pleasurable, in the extended sense which we must give to the word if
+the doctrine is to be at all plausible, any more definitely than we
+know what things are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting
+the word Pleasure for the word Good, even if the substitution were
+legitimate, have not really done much to help us in our choice."
+
+"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even if we
+do not know what things are pleasurable."
+
+"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not know
+what things are good."
+
+"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."
+
+"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."
+
+"But you cannot define Good."
+
+"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by direct
+experience."
+
+"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in the
+case of Pleasure everyone _does_ recognise it when it occurs; whereas
+there is no such general recognition of Good."
+
+"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."
+
+"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true or
+no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial whether
+Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally recognisable. The
+point is that they are radically different things."
+
+"No," objected Parry, "_our_ point is that they are the same thing."
+
+"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone can."
+
+"And _I_ don't believe that anyone _cannot_!"
+
+"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry?"
+
+"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular
+example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin or
+poetry is."
+
+"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that, quantity
+of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one itches is as good
+as, say, pursuing scientific research."
+
+"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is not
+equal."
+
+"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in
+scratching?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some
+physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a
+catamite."
+
+"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross physical
+pleasures do not last."
+
+"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss of
+scratching, or of--"
+
+"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of way. It
+seems to me to deserve serious treatment"
+
+"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a heaven of
+scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser experience,
+would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure than a heaven of
+scientific research."
+
+"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."
+
+"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you would.
+The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific research is a
+better thing than such physical pleasure, and then you bring out your
+calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that foregone conclusion.
+And that is what the Utilitarians always do. Being ordinary decent
+people they accept the same values as the rest of the world, and on
+the same grounds as the rest of the world. And then they pretend,
+and no doubt believe themselves, that they have been led to their
+conclusions by the hedonistic calculus. But really, if they made an
+impartial attempt to apply the calculus fairly, they would arrive
+at quite different results, results which would surprise and shock
+themselves, and destroy the whole plausibility of their theory."
+
+"That is your view of the matter."
+
+"But isn't it yours?"
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this
+utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident
+about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what
+things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that
+all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is not
+pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is disputed.
+So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that there are
+a number of conflicting opinions about what things are good, that
+to these opinions some validity must be attached, but that it is
+difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to choose between
+them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the truth about Good
+must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by interrogating the actual
+experience of men in their judgments about good things, we may perhaps
+be able to get at least some, shadowy notion of the object of our
+quest"
+
+"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even by your
+own confession we end where we began."
+
+"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"
+
+For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat (it was
+now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the murmur of
+the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to their dinner)
+seemed to have induced a general disinclination to the effort of
+speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known to be tired in
+body or mind, and who was always debating something--it seemed to
+matter very little what--even he, I thought at first, was ready to let
+the discussion drop. But presently it became clear that he was only
+revolving my last words in his mind, for before long he turned to me
+and said:
+
+"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or what
+results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie pricked
+up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as ever to pursue
+the subject further.
+
+"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of discovering
+Good independently of all experience?"
+
+The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.
+
+"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what kind of a
+method would that be?"
+
+"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was thinking
+of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by Hegel in his
+_Logic_?"
+
+"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey much
+to my mind."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"
+
+"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take any
+statement you like--for example, 'Nothing exists!'--put it into the
+dialectical machine, turn the handle, and hey presto! out comes the
+Absolute! The thing's infallible; it does not matter what you put in;
+you always get out the same identical sausage."
+
+Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand now!"
+
+"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't much
+matter."
+
+"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian plan."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room, lock the
+door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you proceed
+to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its contents; look
+steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a well; and at the
+bottom you will find Truth in the form of a categorical imperative.
+Or, if you don't like that, there's the method of Fichte. You take an
+Ego, by preference yourself; convert it into a proposition; negate it,
+affirm it, negate it again, and so on _ad infinitum_, until you get
+out the whole Universe in the likeness of yourself. But that's rather
+a difficult method; probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take--"
+
+"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a
+name."
+
+"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the question
+is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all arrive at
+totally different results."
+
+"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he replied. "I
+merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such method of pure
+reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."
+
+"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such method
+yourself?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You simply lie down and block the road?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."
+
+"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk round
+you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.
+
+"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."
+
+"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that there
+really is some such method as you suggest of discovering Good--a
+purely rational method, independent of all common experience."
+
+"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."
+
+"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so discovered,
+would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or would it be
+merely the total reality of which they are imperfect and inadequate
+expressions?"
+
+"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to them.
+All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good and some
+bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to suppose that
+our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were by an accidental
+coincidence."
+
+"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a
+Good, and that there is a purely rational and _a priori_ method of
+discovering it, yet we do not profess to have ascertained that method
+ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has been ascertained by anyone?
+In any case, we admit, I suppose, that to the great mass of men, both
+of our own and all previous ages, such a method has remained unknown
+and unsuspected?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the
+impression that they were really good."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and small
+alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that store
+of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the drama of
+history?"
+
+"Undoubtedly!"
+
+"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The
+purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had they
+any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some particular
+case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven to achieve,
+whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like Caesar, to found
+a polity, whether their quest were virtue or power or truth, or any
+other of the ends we are accustomed to value and praise, or whether
+they sought the direct opposites of these, or simply lived from hour
+to hour following without reflexion the impulse of the moment, in any
+and every case all alike, great and small, good and bad, leaders and
+followers, or however else we may class them, were, in fact, equally
+insignificant and absurd, the idle sport of illusions, one as
+empty and baseless as another. The history of nations, the lives
+of individual men, are stripped, in this view, of all interest and
+meaning; nowhere is there advance or retrogression, nowhere better or
+worse, nowhere sense or consistency at all. Systems, however imposing,
+structures, however vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The
+stars fall from the human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like
+will-o'-the-wisps; the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and
+dissolves in smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with
+impotent eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as
+it dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only
+view we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we
+believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."
+
+"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and the
+future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we
+shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you put
+forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a reason and
+purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any rate, could
+and did believe that they were helping to realize great Goods; but
+we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to forego even that
+satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good exists, and that
+there is a method of discovering it by pure reason; but this method,
+we may safely assume, we shall not most of us have ascertained. Or do
+you think we shall?"
+
+"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained it
+myself."
+
+"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume that
+it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the pursuit of
+Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which we call
+good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the true Good.
+Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men who have learnt
+indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing about it, except
+that it has nothing to do with what they call good. What kind of life
+will they live? Whatever they may put their hand to, they will at once
+be paralyzed by the thought that it cannot possibly be worth pursuing.
+Politics, art, pleasure, science--of these and all other ends
+they know but one thing, that all is vanity. As by the touch of
+enchantment, their world is turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch
+lips and hands towards a water for ever vanishing, a fruit for
+ever withdrawn. At war with empty phantoms, they 'strike with their
+spirit's knife,' as Shelley has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and
+lost they move about in worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable,
+'children crying in the night, with no language but a cry,' and no
+father to cry to. And in all this blind confusion the only comfort
+vouchsafed is that somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how,
+discover a Good of which the only thing they know is that it has no
+connection with the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account
+of the condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept
+and believe your hypothesis?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against this
+appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really were as I
+suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it seemed to ruin
+our own life."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all, we have
+no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so, and
+every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is true,
+demonstrate--and that was admitted from the first--that any of our
+judgments about what is good are true; but there is no reason why we
+should not believe--and I should say we must believe--that somehow or
+other they do at least have truth in them."
+
+"Well, and if so?"
+
+"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do not
+believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon some
+purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things which
+we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so, and by
+analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of such things
+we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that we judge to be
+good; and again by increasing experience we may come to know more Good
+than we knew; and generally, if we once admit that we have some light,
+we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and that getting of more light
+will be the most important business, not only of philosophy, but of
+life."
+
+"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge rightly?
+If we really have a perception, how is it that it is confused, not
+clear?"
+
+"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this kind.
+Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot know
+Good except in so far as we experience it--so, at least, I think,
+though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even if our
+judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear, our
+conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and tentative,
+because there would be so much Good that we had not experienced. But,
+in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about what we do experience
+are confused, because every experience is indefinitely complex, and
+contains, along with the Good, so much that is indifferent or bad. And
+to analyze out precisely what it is that we are judging to be good is
+often a difficult and laborious task, though it is one that should be
+a main preoccupation with us all."
+
+"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity and
+confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good--one, that our
+experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"
+
+"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to me, is
+like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop some other
+sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find it hard to say
+what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the state of the organ;
+and it is only by the progressive perfecting of that, that they can
+settle their doubts and put an end to their disputes, whether with
+themselves or with other people."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive that
+we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye, whose
+nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the nature of
+the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye of the soul,
+being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet perceive Good with any
+clearness or precision, but only in a faint imperfect way, catching
+now one aspect of it, now another, but never resting content in any of
+these, being driven on by the impulse to realize itself to ever surer
+and finer discrimination, with the sense that it is learning its own
+nature as it learns that of its object, and that it will never be
+itself a true and perfect organ until it is confronted with the true
+and perfect Good. And as by the physical eye we learn by degrees
+to distinguish colours and forms, to separate and combine them,
+and arrange them in definite groups, and then, going further, after
+discerning in this way a world of physical things, proceed to fashion
+for our delight a world of art, in that finer experience becoming
+aware of our own finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul,
+by long and tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the
+Goods which Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied,
+proceed to shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art,
+fashioning the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under
+the stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever
+destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own
+nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on without
+rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse that urges
+her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in the perfect
+enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because in it she
+has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a possible
+conception?"
+
+"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still feel a
+difficulty."
+
+"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk anything."
+
+"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that the
+perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected that
+instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore require
+another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me that
+your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate some
+faculty--which perhaps you might as well call an instinct--and
+this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort to realize itself,
+proceeds to discriminate various objects as good. But, now, does this
+same faculty also know that the Goods are good, and which is better
+than which, and generally in what relations they stand to one another
+and to the absolutely Good? Or do we not require here, too, another
+faculty to make these judgments, and must not this faculty, as I
+said at first, have previously achieved, by some method of its own, a
+knowledge of Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"
+
+"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing but an
+infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes, must be,
+in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and self-evident;
+and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only quarrel with him was
+in regard to his assumption that the judgments we make about Good are
+final and conclusive. The experiences we recognize as good are always,
+it seems to me, also bad; because we are never able to apprehend or
+experience what is absolutely Good. Only, as I like to believe--you
+may say I have no grounds for the belief--we are always progressing
+towards such a Good; and the more of it we apprehend and experience,
+the more we are aware of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to
+say, of the well-being of that part of us, whatever it may be--I call
+it the soul--which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you
+will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception, but
+one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know Good,
+but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of Good goes
+her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon and varying
+with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is aware of a tension,
+as it were, when she cannot expand, of a drooping and inanition when
+nutriment fails, of a rush of health and vigour as she passes into a
+new and larger life, as she freely unfolds this or that aspect of her
+complex being, triumphs at last over an obstacle that has long hemmed
+and thwarted her course, and rests for a moment in free and joyous
+consciousness of self, like a stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge,
+to meander in the sun through a green melodious valley. And this
+perception she has of her own condition is like our perception of
+health and disease. We know when we are well, not by any process of
+ratiocination, by applying from without a standard of health deduced
+by pure thought, but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So
+it is with this soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her
+perception of Good is but the other side of her perception of her own
+well-being, for her well-being consists in her conformity to Good.
+Thus every phase of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in
+one sense good, and in another bad; good in so far as it is
+self-expression, bad in so far as the expression is incomplete. From
+the limitations of her being she flies, towards its expansion she
+struggles; and by her perception that every Good she attains is also
+bad, she is driven on in her quest of that ultimate Good which
+would be, if she could reach it, at once the complete realization of
+herself, and her complete conformity to Good."
+
+"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your method of
+discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at all?"
+
+"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess
+that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part of
+Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She
+does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the
+sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in this
+case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds of
+activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of this
+soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may be,
+temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central
+experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary
+rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in
+them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere deductions
+from a process which is always developing and transforming itself.
+Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so many landmarks left to
+show the route by which the soul is marching; casts, as it were, of
+her features at various stages of her growth, but never the final
+record of her perfect countenance. And that is why the current
+morality, the positive institutions and laws, on which Parry insisted
+with so much force, both have and have not the value he assigned to
+them. They are in truth invaluable records of experience, and he is
+rash who attacks them without understanding; and yet, in a sense,
+they are only to be understood in order to be superseded, because the
+experience they resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would
+you agree with that, Parry, or no?"
+
+"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to put in
+practice."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous thing,
+and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is courage and
+sanity."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view is our
+knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a
+knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what
+I call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have
+recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we
+call knowledge, so far as it goes."
+
+"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of experience?"
+
+"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to suggest
+that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure reason, we
+should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good itself; for
+Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of experience, not a
+formula."
+
+"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to arrive at
+its formula by pure reason."
+
+"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the thought,
+that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see our way
+to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis, altogether
+forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on realizing Goods,
+and so making progress towards the ultimate Good, which is the goal
+not merely of knowledge but of action."
+
+"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your conception,
+is Good related to Happiness?"
+
+"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by
+experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as
+one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret
+the deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the
+interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too abstract
+and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning, no doubt,
+it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much interesting
+discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to the question
+of the content of Good, than to that of the method of discovering it."
+
+"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a method
+at all?"
+
+"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method of all
+science, namely, the interpretation of experience."
+
+"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of
+interpretation."
+
+"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we could
+not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you defined
+it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what ought to
+be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and classifying of
+the deliverances of this internal sense, has a certain analogy to the
+procedure of science. At any rate, it might, I think, fairly be called
+a method, though a method difficult to apply, and one, above
+all, which only he can apply who has within himself the requisite
+experience. And in this respect the study of the Good resembles the
+study of the Beautiful."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well aware
+that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do not profess
+to be in complete possession of it. They have a perception of the
+Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but tentative and in process
+of growth. This perception they cultivate by constant observation of
+beautiful works, some more and some less, according to their genius
+and opportunities; and thus they are always coming to see, though they
+never see perfectly, just as I said was the case in the matter of the
+Good."
+
+"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any standard
+at all in such matters?"
+
+"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself; and
+that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some slight
+extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to develop
+it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no standard of
+judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like themselves;
+and that there really is no standard and no knowledge possible in such
+matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man will not choose to
+cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to clear and ever clearer
+perception, he will either never believe that there is any knowledge
+of Good, or any meaning at all in the word; or else, since all men
+feel the need of an end for action, he will have recourse to a fixed
+dogma, taken up by accident and clung to with obstinate desperation,
+without any root in his true inner nature; and to him all discussion
+about Good will seem to be mere folly, since he will believe either
+that he possesses it already or that it cannot be possessed at all.
+Or If he ask after the method of discovering it, he will be unable
+to understand it, because he does not choose to develop the necessary
+experience; and so he will go through life for ever unconvinced,
+arguing often and angrily, but always with no result, while all the
+time the knowledge he denies is lying hidden within him, if only he
+had the patience and faith to seek it there. But without that, there
+is no possibility of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether
+to leave him alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the
+only idea I can form as to the possibility of discovering what is
+Beautiful and Good."
+
+There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:
+
+"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are always
+seeking Good?"
+
+"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not
+committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we have
+the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do so."
+
+"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"
+
+"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."
+
+"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"
+
+"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my mind,
+that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in secure
+possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make no facile
+assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the growth of the
+soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a quiet unfolding of
+leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I recognize the delight
+of expansion, I recognize also the pain of repression--the thwarted
+desire, the unfulfilled hope, the passion vain and abortive. I do not
+say even whether or no, in this dim travail of the spirit, pleasure
+prevails over pain, evil over good. The most I would claim is to have
+suggested a meaning for our life in terms of Good; and my view, I half
+hoped, would have appealed in particular to you, because what I have
+offered is not an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to
+relate to the actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the
+significance of those facts themselves, to supply a key to the
+cryptogram we call experience. And in proportion as we really believed
+this view to be true, it would lead us not away from but into life,
+not shutting us up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like
+the homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and
+rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny light
+over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams and floods,
+myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never felt, through
+that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when he broke the
+glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow under the yellow
+moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and tritons, her gliding
+pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through tempest and calm, by night or
+day, companioned or alone, to the haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the
+home where the Mothers dwell."
+
+As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made any
+impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically
+and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday
+experience?"
+
+"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."
+
+"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to make
+anything of the kind out of mine."
+
+"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the interpretation
+may be true; and that some day you may recognize it to be so yourself.
+Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of the game than you
+who play it; and surely in moments of leisure like this you will not
+refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read the riddle of the sphinx."
+
+"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a poem."
+
+"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in poetry
+than in philosophy or science?"
+
+But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was a
+babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of thought
+disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way, had been
+revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first opportunity he
+turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in your position that
+I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it is our seeking that
+determines the Good, or the Good that determines our seeking."
+
+"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We, in
+the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and
+in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously
+indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not mere
+caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore suppose
+somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."
+
+"But then, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our
+seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving
+through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort and
+strain."
+
+"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even while
+you admit that in some sense it is?"
+
+"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist completely."
+
+"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is at all
+it is eternal and complete."
+
+"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense _is_ it?"
+
+"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing but
+appearance."
+
+"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is good'?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."
+
+"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter. Take,
+for instance, a simple fact of our own experience--pain. Would you
+say, perhaps, that pain is good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really is."
+
+"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"
+
+"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."
+
+"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to the
+pain that appears to us?"
+
+"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the point. The
+point is, that it is only in connection with what is in God that the
+word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither good nor bad; it
+is simply not real."
+
+"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is in
+appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the use
+of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are feeling
+it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And as to the
+Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What consolation is
+it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to be told that God
+is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is simply absurd to call
+God's Good good at all, unless it has some kind of relation to our
+Good."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my opinion,
+it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such a view. When
+I am really at my best, when my intellect and imagination are working
+freely, and the humours and passions of the flesh are laid to rest, I
+seem to see, with a kind of direct intuition, that the world, just as
+it is, is good, and that it is only the confusion and obscurity due to
+imperfect vision that makes us call it defective and wish to alter it
+for the better. When I perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is
+also Good; and I cannot then distinguish between what is, and what
+ought to be."
+
+"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot understand."
+
+"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it were by
+a concrete example. I find that when I think out any particular aspect
+of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think it out at all, all
+the parts and details fall into such perfect order and arrangement
+that it becomes impossible for me any longer to desire that anything
+should be other than it is. And that, even in the regions where at
+other times I am most prone to discover error and defect. You know,
+for instance, that I am something of an economist?"
+
+"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of
+light!"
+
+"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of affairs
+which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet the more
+one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the harmony
+and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and flow of
+business from this trade or country to that, the rise and fall of
+wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital into or
+out of one industry or another, the varying relations of imports
+to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in close
+connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the lives of
+countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being or ill-being,
+it may be their very life and death, together with the whole fate
+of future generations in health, capacity, opportunity, and the
+like,--all this complexus of things, so chaotic and unintelligible at
+the first view, so full, as we say, of iniquity, injustice, and the
+like, falls, as we penetrate further, into one vast and harmonious
+system, so inspiring to the imagination, so inevitable to the
+understanding, that our objections and cavillings, ethical, aesthetic,
+or what you will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if
+they persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we
+abandon ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some
+world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are
+taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the
+ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I am
+absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic enough;
+but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so conceived that
+appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This partial vision of
+mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of the way in which
+I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a Being necessary and
+therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our own incoherent and
+tentative criticisms, our complaints that this or that should, if only
+it could, be otherwise, our regrets, desires, aspirations, and
+the like, shew but as so many testimonies to our own essential
+imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted, rather than signs of worth
+to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the elect of creation."
+
+He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene, since
+I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he kept
+silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and Eternal
+which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and the young.
+So I began myself rather tentatively:
+
+"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to indicate;
+and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is attractive. It is when
+we endeavour to work it out in detail that the difficulties appear.
+The position, as I understand it, is, that, from the point of view of
+the Absolute, what we call Evil and what we call Good simply have
+no existence. Good and Evil, in our sense, are mere appearances; and
+Good, in the absolute sense, is identical with the Absolute or with
+God?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."
+
+"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region which
+you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear in our
+social system--poverty, disease, starvation and the rest--is not
+really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but is merely what appears
+to us? There is, in fact, no social evil?"
+
+"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is none."
+
+"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and other
+ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's lives
+happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to
+introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and
+confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical
+impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied--the quest
+of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere putting of
+ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart from any
+attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities mere
+illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even vices,
+impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous attempts to
+adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"
+
+"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I apprehend,
+there must be in time and change, and some meaning also in our
+efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we imagine. The
+divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a process that
+is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not rectilinear, much as
+Milton appears to imagine it when he describes the blessed spirits
+'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity'; and
+of this eternal process our activity, which we suppose to be moving
+towards an end, is somehow or other an essential element. So that,
+in this way, it is necessary and right that we should strive after
+ideals; only, when we are thinking philosophically, we ought to make
+clear to ourselves that in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its
+fulfilment consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to
+regard as a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is
+the 'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the
+belief that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that
+delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is really
+itself the End."
+
+I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite
+serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept
+silence, I took up the argument as follows.
+
+"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but still the
+same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put forward. On
+your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf between God's
+conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the world is
+eternally good; and in its goodness is included that illusion by which
+it appears to us so bad, that we are continually employed in trying to
+make it better. The maintenance of this illusion is essential to the
+nature of the world; to us, evil always must appear. But, as we know
+by experience, the evil that _appears_ is just as terrible and just
+as hateful as it would be if it really _were_. A toothache, as Audubon
+put it, is no less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We
+cannot, if we would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would
+be impious to try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His
+ingenious plan to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore
+are chained and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what
+seems good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that
+all existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant;
+it belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no access."
+
+"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why not
+just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who is
+responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely
+an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable
+condition!"
+
+"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means, if you
+like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent, indeed,
+and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and hourly toll
+of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the mind He has
+created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from spirits greater,
+though weaker, than Himself."
+
+This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I did
+not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but proceeded
+to a somewhat different point:
+
+"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it
+appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse Him
+of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the matter,
+it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that we should
+never discover the deception that is being played upon us. But, it
+seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your own confession,
+has not only detected but exposed it. Well then, what is to be done?
+Do you suppose that we could, even if we would, continue to lend
+ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and purposes cease to
+have any interest for us, once we are clear that they are not true
+ends? And that which, according to the hypothesis, _is_ the true end,
+the 'dateless and irrevoluble circle' of activity, that, surely, we
+at least cannot sanction or approve, seeing that it involves and
+perpetuates the very misery and pain whose destruction was our only
+motive for acting at all. For, whatever may be the case with God, we,
+you will surely admit, are forbidden by all that in us is highest and
+best, to approve or even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation
+of a world of whose existence all that we call evil is an essential
+and eternal constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if
+the Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as
+it thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very
+imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its
+plans."
+
+Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began, "between
+you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with their
+heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on my head or
+my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in stating my view;
+or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction in my mind. At any
+rate, what I believe, whether or no I can believe it consistently, is
+that it is possible for us, so to speak, to take God's point of
+view; so that the evil against which we rebel we may come at last to
+acquiesce in, as seen from the higher point of view. And, seriously,
+don't you think it is conceivable that that may be, after all, the
+true meaning of the discipline of life?"
+
+"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow me to
+press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say, there is
+at least one of our aims which has a real significance, namely, that
+of reaching the point of view of God. But this is something that lies
+in the future, something to be brought about. And so, on your own
+hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that which eternally exists,
+but something which has to be realized in time--namely, a change of
+mind on the part of all rational beings, whereby they view the world
+no longer in a partial imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '_sub
+specie aeternitatis_'"
+
+"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the Absolute,
+though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow or other, is
+eternally perfect and good; and this eternal perfection and goodness
+are unaffected by any change that may take place in our minds."
+
+"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to
+settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your
+admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying
+before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand, you
+do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at nothing
+else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you do aim, at
+least, with your whole nature at this--to attain a view of the world
+as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not merely as it appears
+to us."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."
+
+"That aim, then, is your Good?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For you do
+not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least to have
+attained as perfectly as you hope to?"
+
+He agreed again.
+
+"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good of
+yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good of God
+in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your permission, for
+some future inquiry. It is enough for our present purpose that even
+you, who assert the eternal perfection of the world, do nevertheless
+at the same time admit a future Good; and much more do other men admit
+it, who have no idea that the world is perfect at all. So that we may,
+I think, safely suppose it to be generally agreed that the Good is
+something to be realized in the future, so far, at any rate as it
+concerns us--and, for my part, I have no desire to go farther than
+that."
+
+"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the matter so.
+But I reserve the right to go back upon the argument."
+
+"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but a
+discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth. Meantime,
+then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something to be brought
+about; and let us consider next the other point that Is included in
+your position. According to you, as I understand, what requires to be
+brought about, if ever Good is to be realized, is not any change in
+the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world, in the structure, as it
+were, of our experience, but only a change in our attitude towards all
+this--a change in the subject, as they say, and not in the object.
+Our aim should be not to abolish what we call evil, by successive
+modifications of physical and social conditions, but rather, all these
+remaining essentially the same, to come to see that what appears to be
+evil is not really so."
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."
+
+"So that, for example, though we might still experience a toothache,
+we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with all the host
+of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they would continue
+unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say, only to us they would
+appear no longer bad, but good?"
+
+"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil,
+so-called, is merely illusion."
+
+I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For some time
+past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis and myself,
+with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie. Ellis had gone
+indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together about something else;
+and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in the _Chronicle_. I
+noticed, however, that for the last few moments he had been getting
+restless, and I suspected that he was listening, behind his newspaper,
+to what we were saying. I was not therefore altogether surprised when,
+upon Dennis' last remark, he suddenly broke into our debate with the
+exclamation;
+
+"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There is a
+curiously apt one here in the _Chronicle_."
+
+And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about
+phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any
+rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering and
+oppression.
+
+"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of thing
+that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an
+example."
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words; but for
+my own part I should have thought that, if anything is real, that
+is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself were the
+sufferer."
+
+"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment of
+suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality of
+pain?"
+
+"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one really
+knows what it is that one is judging about."
+
+"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that experience
+involves knowledge and _vice versa_. It is, indeed, to my mind,
+part of the irony of life, that we know so much which we can never
+experience, and experience so much which we can never know."
+
+"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am sure,
+that you will never get rid of evil by calling it illusion."
+
+"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it, in the
+sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any other means.
+But we were discussing not what we are to do with evil, but how we are
+to conceive it."
+
+"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion, you
+will never do anything with it at all."
+
+"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."
+
+"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit, that
+for us, while we live in the region of what you call 'Appearance,'
+Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as Good."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."
+
+"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with
+Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I have
+been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which we live
+(whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and Good are
+the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss them from our
+consideration either on the ground that we know nothing of them (as
+Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the ground that we know all
+about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to think). On the contrary, it
+is, I believe, our main business to find out about them; and that
+we can find out about them is with me an article of faith, and so, I
+believe, it is with most people, whether or no they are aware of it or
+are ready to admit it."
+
+Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon us to
+lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our usual
+hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally taking a
+lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we reassembled in
+the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did not
+suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The conversation
+had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such topics, and
+finally had died away into a long silence, which, for my own part, I
+felt no particular inclination to break. We had let down an awning to
+shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine in upon us, so that
+it was still cool and pleasant where we sat; and so delightful did I
+feel the situation to be, that I was almost vexed to be challenged to
+renew our interrupted debate. The challenge, rather to my surprise,
+came from Audubon, who suddenly said to me, _a propos_ of nothing, in
+a tone at once ironic and genial:
+
+"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."
+
+"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great
+nonsense."
+
+"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear you."
+
+"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were bored."
+
+"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't
+arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses me
+most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that you're
+going to get at some result."
+
+"But didn't we?"
+
+"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we must
+believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good is."
+
+"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."
+
+"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."
+
+"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that we can
+come to some agreement even about that."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because people are so radically different, that there is no common
+ground to build upon."
+
+"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the pudding
+is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight of us, all
+Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or less in the
+same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise the question,
+you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the chances in your
+favour, any substantial agreement about what we think good."
+
+This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I could
+refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself against the
+consequences of failure. So I began, with some hesitation, "You must
+remember that I have never maintained that at any given moment any
+given set of people will be found to be in agreement on all points.
+All I ventured to suggest was, that instead of our all being made, as
+you contend, radically different, we have, underneath our differences,
+a common nature, capable of judging, and judging truly, about Good,
+though only on the basis of actual experience of Good. And on this
+view I shall, of course, expect to find differences of opinion,
+corresponding to differences of experience, even among people as much
+alike as ourselves; only I shall not expect the differences to be
+finally irreconcilable, but that we shall be able to supplement and
+elucidate one another's conclusions by bringing to bear each his own
+experience upon that of the rest."
+
+"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the
+experiment."
+
+"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others. Only I
+must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what it is I
+am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I have
+been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in this
+difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or no, and
+to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the object being
+simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we can; to define
+somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope of coming to see
+something more."
+
+They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to begin,
+when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt discouraged.
+"After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my making the
+attempt."
+
+"Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," I said. "At least--well, I may as well confess it, though
+it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is, that there are
+certain quite fundamental points in this connection on which Dennis
+and I have never been able to agree; and although I believe we should
+in time come to understand one another, I doubt whether we can do so
+here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at all as if he meant
+to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry him along with me, I
+suppose I may as well give up at once."
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession. We
+will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if you can
+persuade the rest of us."
+
+"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever allow me
+to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if he doesn't
+happen to agree."
+
+"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in order."
+
+Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very easy
+manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I stay, I
+certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."
+
+"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that we
+should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by the
+process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you without any
+really scandalous concession on either side."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can try."
+
+So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some hesitation, as
+follows:
+
+"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it seems
+to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious activity."
+
+As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.
+
+"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have nothing to
+do with it."
+
+"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I could
+command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of fact, can
+form no idea of Good except in connection with consciousness."
+
+"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's good,
+so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness of it."
+
+"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of anything
+existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for me to
+know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you, perhaps, are
+differently constituted."
+
+"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there is no
+experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive that of
+which we have no experience? And I should have thought it was clear
+that Good, like Truth, _is_, whether or no anyone is aware of it. Or
+would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when someone is thinking of
+it?"
+
+"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about it
+just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I think,
+need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to get at, for
+the moment, is something rather different. I will put it like this:
+Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human action, must be
+conceived, must it not, as an object of consciousness? For otherwise
+do you think we should trouble to pursue it?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we ought to."
+
+"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to take
+an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
+artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
+unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately
+hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of the
+sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such production
+as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and really ought
+we to, do anything except with some reference to consciousness?"
+
+"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite
+possible that we ought."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a closer
+agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view? for, if not,
+I will, with your permission, go on to the next point"
+
+None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a pause,
+I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in the sense
+in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action, involves some
+kind of conscious activity. And the next question would seem to be,
+activity of whom?"
+
+"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough. It
+must be an activity of some person or persons."
+
+"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."
+
+But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in answer to
+Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"
+
+"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.
+
+"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put your
+questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is most
+people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some future
+generation."
+
+At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I thought
+it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said, "Suppose, then, we
+were to make a beginning by examining your hypothesis."
+
+"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should all
+have accepted it--unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."
+
+"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.
+
+"Nor I," added Audubon.
+
+"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"
+
+"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"
+
+"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it leads
+us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of activity of
+some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so, Parry?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state of
+activity, as you call it, will be."
+
+"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous,
+co-ordinate, coherent----"
+
+"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The question
+is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, it is
+located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those
+that follow it. But now, what about all the other generations, from
+the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would seem, can have no
+meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come
+after them."
+
+"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to bring it
+about, not indeed for themselves, but for their successors."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of men
+and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex lives of
+action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, satisfactions,
+aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call Good, and avoiding
+what they call Bad, under the naif impression that there is Good and
+Bad for them--and yet the significance of all this is not really for
+themselves at all, but for some quite other people who will have the
+luck to be born in the remote future, and for whose sake alone their
+fellow-creatures, from the very beginning of time, have been brought
+into being like so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside,
+when done with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."
+
+"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you call
+them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the final
+Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all. It has
+just as much Good as people can get out of it."
+
+"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their own
+with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they do get
+Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."
+
+"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
+cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
+ourselves, whether we live well or badly."
+
+"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has his
+own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I admire are
+those who have sacrificed themselves for the future."
+
+"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and with a
+view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I understand you,
+have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good for ourselves, which
+is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is reserved for a future
+generation), but still is something Good as far as it goes--whether
+it be a certain degree of happiness, or however else we may have to
+define it; and as to this Good, there appears to be no difficulty,
+for we who pursue it are also the people who get it That is so, is it
+not?"
+
+He agreed.
+
+"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For besides
+this Good of our own, we have also, according to the theory, to
+consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those who are to be
+born in some indefinite future. And to this remote and alien Good we
+have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our own."
+
+"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."
+
+"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange it
+seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive
+generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous--being projected,
+as it were, from the plane of time into that of space."
+
+"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."
+
+"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we shall
+have. We shall have a society divided into two classes, composed, the
+one of all the generations who, if they followed one another in
+time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other of all the
+millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two classes the first
+would be perpetually engaged in working for the second, sacrificing to
+it, if need be, on occasion, all its own Good, but without any hope
+or prospect of ever entering itself into that other Good which is the
+monopoly of the other class, but to the production of which its own
+efforts are directed. What should we say of such a society? Should we
+not say that it was founded on injustice and inequality, and all those
+other phrases with which we are wont to denounce a system of serfdom
+or slavery?"
+
+"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has falsified
+the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian generation would not
+come into being until the others had ceased to be; and therefore the
+latter would not be being sacrificed to it."
+
+"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely it
+comes to the same thing?"
+
+"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think sacrifice is
+the right word. In a society every man's interest is in the Whole; and
+when he works for the Whole he is also working for himself."
+
+"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly
+constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a society
+as I have described. And then there is a further difficulty--and here,
+I confess, my projection of time into space really does falsify the
+issue; for in the succession of generations in time, where _is_ the
+Whole? Each generation comes into being, passes, and disappears; but
+how, or in what, are they summed up?"
+
+"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last
+generation."
+
+"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow
+persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"
+
+"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by them,
+and is the result of their labour and activities."
+
+"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I eat are
+summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the oysters!"
+
+"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it right
+that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it) for the
+next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the point. At any
+rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the shortsightedness of
+modern politicians, and their unwillingness to run great risks and
+undertake great labours for the future."
+
+"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying to
+see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I confess,
+that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in some sense
+or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of future
+generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."
+
+"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."
+
+"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what that
+instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean, as you
+yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole. Only the
+difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."
+
+"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"
+
+"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which bids us
+labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this hypothesis,
+has no significance for us, but only for other people."
+
+"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we ought to
+obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise. Even taking
+the view that the order of the world is altogether unjust, as I admit
+it would be on the view we are considering, yet, since we cannot
+remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make the best of it;
+and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for those who come after
+us, even though we can never enter into it ourselves."
+
+"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the best
+we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves--as much as we
+can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For we do at least
+know, or may hope to discover, what Good for ourselves is; whereas
+Good for other people is far more hypothetical."
+
+"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot
+approve--to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own pleasure of the
+moment. We should breed, for example, without any regard to the future
+efficacy of the race----"
+
+"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."
+
+"Yes, but we don't justify it--those of us, at least, who think. And,
+again, we should squander on immediate gratifications wealth which
+ought to be stored up against the future. And so on, and so on; it is
+not necessary to multiply examples."
+
+"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought that
+kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of fact,
+we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I hinted
+before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity in and
+for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And, whether it is
+reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea of the Whole, so
+as to include future generations. But, as it seems to me, the real
+meaning and justification of our action is not merely that we are
+seeking the Good of future generations but that we are endeavouring to
+realize our own Good, which consists in some such form of activity. So
+that really, as was suggested at the beginning, Good will be a kind of
+activity in ourselves, even though that activity be directed towards
+ends in which we do not expect to share."
+
+At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke in at
+last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.
+
+"Why do you keep saying '_Our_ Good'?" he cried. "Why do you not say
+_the_ Good? I can't understand this talk of me and thee, our Good, and
+their Good, as if there were as many Goods as there are people."
+
+"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by Parry,
+who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future generation.
+Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy myself at the kind
+of language into which I was betrayed. But what I want to say is
+this: So far as it is true at all that it is good to labour for future
+generations, goodness consists in the activity of so labouring, as
+much, at least, as in the result produced in those for whose sake the
+labour is. That, at least, is the only way in which I can find the
+position reasonable at all."
+
+"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his
+position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of thought.
+
+"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong end."
+
+"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a coil."
+
+"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in. You
+started with the idea that the Good must be good for individuals; and
+that was sure to land you in confusion."
+
+"What then is your idea?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard
+everything from the point of view of the species."
+
+At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.
+
+"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not the
+Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is true of
+the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the case of man,
+because there the interest of the species is embodied in a particular
+form--the Society or the State--and may be clearly envisaged, as a
+thing apart, towards the maintenance of which conscious efforts may be
+directed."
+
+"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also the
+Good?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I have
+already urged against the view that the course of Nature determines
+the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it is a view
+which many people hold--and one which was held long before there was a
+science of biology--that the community is the end, and the individual
+only the means."
+
+"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour to the
+view."
+
+"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to restrain
+himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of language. In
+the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by Plato, men
+were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much they might be
+subordinated to the community. But now!--why, if you open one of these
+sociological books, mostly, I am bound to say, in German, 'Entwurf
+einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch einer anthropologischen
+Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft vom Sozial-biologischen
+Standpunkt aus,' and the like--you will hardly be able to realize that
+you are dealing with human beings at all. I have seen an unmarried
+woman called a 'female non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men
+actually cease to be even animals; they become mere numbers; they are
+calculated by the theory of combinations; they are masses, averages,
+classes, curves, anything but men! For every million of the
+population, it has been solemnly estimated, there will be one genius,
+one imbecile, 256,791 individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just
+below it! Observe, 256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to
+believe, 256,790! What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is
+the kind of thing that is revolutionizing history and politics!
+No more great men, no more heroic actions, no more inspirations,
+passions, and ideals! Nothing but calculations of the chances that A
+will meet and breed out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of
+survival! Nothing but----"
+
+"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be
+digressing."
+
+"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this world
+altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they have no
+arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an addition
+sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a species----"
+
+"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be himself, as
+I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"
+
+There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar quotation;
+and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken thread of the
+argument. But at last I got a hearing for the question I was anxious
+to address to Wilson.
+
+"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the community?"
+
+"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."
+
+"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"
+
+"In the sense of that organization of individuals which represents, so
+to speak, the species."
+
+"How represents?"
+
+"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect the
+species."
+
+"But is that the function of the community?"
+
+"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If you
+look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere historian,
+who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist and man of
+science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it is nothing but
+an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or artificial, as you
+like to call it. First, there is the struggle of races, which may be
+traced not only in war and conquest, but more insidiously under the
+guise of peace, so that, for example, at this day you may witness
+throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the long-headed fair by
+the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the struggle of nation with
+nation, resulting in the gradual elimination of the weaker--that, of
+course, is obvious enough; but what is not always so clearly seen is
+the not less certain fact, that within the limits of each society the
+same process is everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle
+for existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else
+is our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it
+is determined that certain persons only shall have access to certain
+professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages are
+confined to people of the same class, thus securing the perpetuation
+of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted and
+better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon.
+Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the race,
+combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to the top,
+others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those, indifferent
+to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it controls, but
+envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."
+
+"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that is
+kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as well
+as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the long-headed
+fair race, is giving place to what I understand is regarded as an
+inferior type."
+
+"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still, on the
+whole, the movement is an upward one."
+
+"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are at
+present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of Good
+we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but of
+the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is it
+somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"
+
+"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for the
+individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not one by
+one or in groups."
+
+"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the individuals
+taken together."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species, according
+to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or should sink
+to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But is that also
+good for the individual in question?"
+
+"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it
+matters. I only say that it is good for the species."
+
+"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the
+species it is good for them."
+
+"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of the best
+individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"
+
+"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the selected
+individuals?"
+
+"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be
+selected."
+
+"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are
+eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"
+
+"God! No! I mean good, simply good."
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang, as it
+were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"
+
+"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."
+
+"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"
+
+"I don't say that"
+
+"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you. If you
+reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either the Good you
+speak of is that of all the individuals of the species taken together,
+or it is that of the best individuals; and in either case I seem to
+see difficulties."
+
+"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.
+
+"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how it can
+be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or eliminated. I
+should have thought, if there were any Good for them, it would consist
+in their being made better."
+
+"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best possible
+thing, for them, to be eliminated."
+
+"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be absence
+of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at all, we could
+not apply it to them?"
+
+"Perhaps not"
+
+"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other
+alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that of
+the ultimately selected individuals."
+
+"Well, what then?"
+
+"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that the
+Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we were
+met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see what
+meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."
+
+"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The species
+is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of individuals.
+I'm sick of these biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico
+treatises, with their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of
+men! their prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and
+the people who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent
+particles of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the
+machine works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations,
+co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations
+standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they are
+cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent demand that
+we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As though we should
+be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the thumbscrew!"
+
+"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the
+spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."
+
+"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of
+disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."
+
+"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is there."
+
+"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's not
+a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand knowledge, nor
+original vision of life. It simply ignores all the important facts."
+
+"Which do you call the important facts?"
+
+"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations,
+sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information contained
+in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological treatises that
+ever have been or will be written."
+
+"Oh, come!" cried Parry.
+
+"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example,
+these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To
+the sociologist their elimination is their only _raison d'etre_. He
+cancels them out with the same delight as if they were figures in a
+complex fraction. But pick up any novel dealing with the life of
+the slums, and you find that these figures are really composed of
+innumerable individual units, existing each for himself, and each his
+own sufficient justification, each a sacred book comprising its own
+unique secret, a master-piece of the divine tragedian, a universe
+self-moved and self-contained, a centre of infinity, a mirror of
+totality, in a word, a human soul."
+
+"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were true,
+it would not affect the sociological laws."
+
+"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are as
+unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."
+
+"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a _reductio ad absurdum_
+of your view."
+
+"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What I
+really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw on
+my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."
+
+"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said already."
+
+"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the point.
+You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the position
+you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious activity. If
+it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a suicidal audacity),
+conscious activity in whom? And to that question, of course, you can
+find no answer."
+
+"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I have
+known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves, but is,
+a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."
+
+"Rather," he replied, "that it _is_ God. But I don't really know
+whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He or It
+be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the things we
+call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to accept them
+as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have no right to
+endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some individual
+persons."
+
+"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference
+of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is
+associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am
+willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good, if
+ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated. But of
+that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more fortunate. And if
+you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of course, of its content,
+which shall represent it intelligibly to us as independent of any
+consciousness like our own, I am quite ready to relinquish the
+argument to you."
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a way
+that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to have had
+what you call 'experience' of it."
+
+"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"
+
+"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to feel it
+was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this point, to my
+great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed with a solution
+of the difficulty in which we were involved, but with a diversion of
+which I was only too glad to take advantage.
+
+"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
+Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is the
+kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like ourselves.
+And I thought that was what you were going to discuss."
+
+"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."
+
+"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as it is
+quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do with the
+real subject."
+
+"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's get
+along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. What are
+we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it is the real
+question."
+
+"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
+trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some
+activity."
+
+"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up sharp,
+as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.
+
+"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
+another, and the more the merrier."
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you mean?
+whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?"
+
+"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially in
+themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which
+they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation palls in
+time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the
+just measure and proportion. We are complex creatures, and we ought to
+employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the
+others."
+
+"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe more in
+detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"
+
+"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The most
+I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."
+
+"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
+listening."
+
+"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to move in
+a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar
+flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of
+all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with all its bustle,
+smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight
+away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the
+farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To hunt or fish for weeks
+and months in strange wild places, camping out among strange beasts
+and birds, lost in pathless forests, or wandering over silent plains.
+Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to feel the press of business, to
+make or lose millions in a week, to adventure, compete, and win; but
+always, at the moment when this might pall, with a haven of rest
+in view, an ancient English mansion, stately, formal, and august,
+islanded, over its sunken fence, by acres of buttercups. There to
+study, perhaps to write, perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden
+at night of new discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the
+world of commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be
+off on my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs
+in Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking
+hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action itself,
+not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the Good for fear
+I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, attaining the
+only Good I can conceive--a full and harmonious exercise of all my
+faculties and powers."
+
+On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of sympathy
+that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was young
+enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual zeal and
+passion.
+
+"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more
+good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is so
+imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged for
+some other, equally defective."
+
+"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time and
+place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the
+detriment of others."
+
+"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than bad?
+You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of each; but
+in practice you would have to experience also the bad. Your hunting
+in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, and hunger; your
+fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and disillusionment; and so
+through all your chapter of accidents--for accidents they are at best,
+and never the substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil,
+dogged by a shadow of Good."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view--from an idealist, too!
+Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the rough with the
+smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you call good and bad; it
+consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike. If I were
+Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both."
+
+"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis produced by
+one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the other."
+
+"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to learn.
+This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb."
+
+"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! What is
+it you are trying to say?"
+
+"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming perilously
+near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view by a
+denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it."
+
+"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the world is
+good?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister to
+Good if you approach it in the proper way."
+
+"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."
+
+"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"
+
+"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to answer
+Leslie?"
+
+"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at all.
+But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is,
+that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what
+is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The complexity of
+the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its 'ups,' its abysses
+and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We would not alter it if we
+could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely
+with acquiescence but with triumph."
+
+"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.
+
+"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
+anything."
+
+"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.
+
+"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, art,
+that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has
+its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them,
+for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call
+it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims
+our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to miss
+anything or anyone."
+
+"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and Dennis are
+strangely agreed for once!"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge said
+on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues. Dennis
+accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical system; I,
+because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is Hegel; mine is
+Walt Whitman."
+
+"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"
+
+"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no better
+nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good and
+bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an actual
+physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:
+
+ "I do not call one greater and one smaller,
+  That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
+  I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
+  And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of
+       the wren,
+  And the tree-toad is a 'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;
+  And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven,
+  And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
+  And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
+  And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."
+
+"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course, it's
+rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at all."
+
+"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."
+
+  "I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of
+       wickedness also.
+  What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
+  Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,
+  My gait is no fault-finder's or rejector's gait,
+  I moisten the roots of all that grows."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "This is the meal equally set, this is the meat for natural hunger,
+  It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointment
+       with all,
+  I will not have a single person slighted or kept away,
+  The kept-woman, spunger, thief are hereby invited,
+  The heavy-lipped slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
+  There shall be no difference between them and the rest."
+
+"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.
+
+"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.
+
+"I think I might like it if I were drunk."
+
+"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"
+
+'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the sponger
+and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."
+
+"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman to
+invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however miscellaneous
+the company, doesn't alter the character of the dinner."
+
+"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed all
+through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a work of
+art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama. What's play
+to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he himself is an
+actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact brought home to
+him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."
+
+"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise. The
+point of the position is that one should play one's part oneself,
+but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total effect, never
+complaining of Evil merely because one happens to suffer, but taking
+the suffering itself as an element in the aesthetic perfection of the
+Whole."
+
+"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather brutally,
+"when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."
+
+"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.
+
+"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with the
+thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."
+
+"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents of our
+unhealthy habits of life."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the
+substance of the world."
+
+"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which you
+seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is good,
+it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the activity you
+describe seems to have nothing to do with right and wrong."
+
+"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,
+
+  "Das hoer ich sechzlg Jahre wiederholen,
+  Ich fluche drauf, aber verstohlen."
+
+"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can
+hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and
+Right."
+
+Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's point
+and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is that Right
+is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all activity
+that is merely a means from that which is really an end in itself, and
+good."
+
+"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not merely a
+means?"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems to
+me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own sake;
+even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view, and if
+these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in the work
+of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps, but I think
+it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe and maintain
+that they only work in order to make money, nevertheless are so
+unwilling to retire when the money is made; or, if they do, are so
+often dissatisfied and unhappy?"
+
+"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than pain.
+It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's only
+that they find even greater distress in idleness."
+
+"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly maintain
+that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because they take
+delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there is play--and
+I have known you play cricket yourself!"
+
+"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way, he
+would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
+shooting."
+
+"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him. And, in
+fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that there is no
+form of activity which men feel to be good for its own sake, though
+the Good of course may be partial and precarious."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any form
+which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to something
+else."
+
+"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act of
+visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I suppose,
+Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of activities which
+one distinguishes as moral."
+
+"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good in
+itself but is only a means to some other Good?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so. But it
+all depends upon how we define it."
+
+"And how do you define it?"
+
+"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal to
+seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the attainment
+of one that is remoter but higher."
+
+"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
+proposition follows of itself."
+
+"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"
+
+"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."
+
+"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest of,
+and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end of our
+inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is expressed
+in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the definition
+I suggested--namely, action pursued not for its own sake, but for the
+sake of something else."
+
+"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept silent
+as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing as a mere
+means the only kind of activity which is an end in itself----"
+
+"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some dismay.
+"Is that really what you think?"
+
+"Of course it is! why not?"
+
+"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing what we
+ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate Good."
+
+"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely, without
+reference to anything else. It is a unique form of activity, dependent
+on nothing but itself; and for anything we have yet shown, it may be
+the Good we are in quest of."
+
+This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great perplexity.
+I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened no response in
+me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while I was hesitating,
+Leslie began:
+
+"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we
+ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"
+
+"Yes, I think it might."
+
+"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good, even
+while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he was doing
+what he ought"
+
+"Yes, I suppose he might be."
+
+"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.
+
+"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."
+
+"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown that the
+Good is dependent on the things we call good."
+
+"No," I said, "but we did show--or at least for the time being we
+agreed to admit--that it must have some relation to what we call
+goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or less, express
+its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is based upon the
+hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may get to know
+something about the Good. So that I do not see how we can entertain an
+idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our experience of goods."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position. Let us
+say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we ought,
+only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless everybody
+participates in it at once. But if everybody participated in it,
+there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty would not
+arise."
+
+"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so, I
+don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult to
+conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to speak,
+in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would be--without
+pleasure, without business, without knowledge, without anything at all
+analogous to what we call good, purged wholly and completely of all
+that might taint the purity of the moral sense, of philanthropy, of
+friendship, of love, even, I suppose, of the love of virtue, a life
+simply of obligation, without anything to be obliged to except a law."
+
+"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible case."
+
+"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that Good
+consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all other
+accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you really
+meant?"
+
+"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life according
+to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to separate the
+law from the life, and call it Good all by itself."
+
+"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean, in
+which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still if the
+same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we should
+be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious and felt
+obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in which you
+seemed to be using the word?"
+
+"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does certainly
+seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."
+
+"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is Good,
+not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it is not.
+At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a realization
+of Good in the activities which we pursue without effort or friction,
+than in those which involve a struggle between duty and inclination."
+
+"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often enough
+are bad."
+
+"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I should look
+for the best idea I could form of what Good might be."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest; and now
+I leave the road clear."
+
+"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in front!
+When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a short cut
+across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the road, with
+the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong track."
+
+"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."
+
+"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!" he
+continued, turning to me.
+
+"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end,
+though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall suppose,
+however, that I have convinced him that it is not in ethical activity
+as such that we can expect to find the most perfect example of Good.
+And now I propose to examine in turn some other of our activities,
+starting with that which seems to be the most primitive of all."
+
+"And which is that?"
+
+"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct
+contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of
+reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the rest.
+Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"
+
+"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And he
+broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":
+
+  "Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
+  The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
+  Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear,
+  And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
+  And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,
+  And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
+  And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
+  That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
+  How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
+  All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy."
+
+The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a flood
+of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of Englishmen,
+in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with a sentiment
+not far removed from poetry--the only poetry of which they are not
+half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting for the moment his
+customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest over his favourite
+pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of this talk was lost
+upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but some touches there were
+that recalled experiences of my own, and for that reason, I suppose,
+have lingered in my memory. Thus, I recollect, some one spoke of
+skating on Derwentwater, the miles of black, virgin ice, the ringing
+and roaring of the skates, the sunset glow, and the moon rising full
+over the mountains; and another recalled a bathe on the shore of
+AEgina, the sun on the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though
+the whole naked body were plunged in some aethereal liqueur, drinking
+it in with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
+sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
+Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
+supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and you
+sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own theme?"
+
+"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial they
+would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said of them
+would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly than yours
+what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far as I can
+understand, the delights you have been describing are really very
+complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, there is clearly
+an aesthetic charm--you kept speaking of heather and sunrises, and
+colours and wide prospects; and then there is the satisfaction you
+evidently feel in skill, acquiring or acquired, and in the knowledge
+you possess of the habits of beasts and birds. All this, of course,
+goes beyond the delight of simple sense perception, though, no doubt,
+inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was
+something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless,
+I think we can detect Good--Good of sheer unadulterated sensation.
+Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and
+hot! You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the
+water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
+dimittis.'"
+
+They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:
+
+"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed behind
+that masque of austere philosophy!"
+
+Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
+sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
+remember, the famous tale about Keats--how he covered his tongue
+and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he said, "the
+delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when this had
+gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I began, "to
+illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I think, recognized
+to the full its merits; and we shall be equally ready, I suppose, to
+recognize its defects."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any rate,
+shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think these are the
+only pure Goods."
+
+"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are precarious.
+It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go without choice
+of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes established between our
+senses and the outer world. The very same things which at such times
+appear to be perfectly at one with ourselves, as if they had been made
+for us and we for them, we see and feel to have also a nature not only
+distinct but even alien and hostile to our own. The water which cools
+our skin and quenches our thirst also drowns; the fire which warms
+and comforts also burns; and so on through all the chapter--I need not
+weary you with details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to
+our bodies, she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at
+least as varied and efficacious as she is our friend."
+
+"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her
+properly; we have to learn how to manage her."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to learn
+how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our finger
+here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods--they are, as I said,
+precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one might say, was the
+sword of the angel that drove man out of his imaginary Eden. For
+at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will permit me to romance
+a little,) seizing every delight as it offered itself, under an
+instinctive impression that there were nothing but delights to be
+met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when he was thirsty,
+sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in unquestioning trust of
+his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt by experience how evil
+follows good, and pleasure often enough is bought by pain, he would
+begin, would he not, instead of simply accepting Good where it is, to
+endeavour to create it where it is not, sacrificing often enough the
+present to the future, and rejecting many immediate delights for the
+sake of those more remote? And this involves a complete change in his
+attitude; for he is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort
+that harmony between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at
+first was immediately given."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind. This
+reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."
+
+"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little consequence,
+if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we are not at
+present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is thus set out
+upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to create, since
+he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects harmonious to
+himself. But in this quest has he been, should you say, successful?"
+
+"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is progressively
+satisfying his needs, even if they are never completely satisfied."
+
+"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The relation
+of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and obscure. It
+is as though he began with the idea that he had only to remove a few
+blemishes from her face to make her completely accordant with
+his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than these surface
+blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots deeper than all
+his probings; the more he cuts away the more he exposes of an element
+radically alien to himself, terrible and incomprehensible, branching
+wide and striking deep, and throwing up from depths unknown those
+symptoms and symbols of itself which he mistook for mere superficial
+stains."
+
+"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a view."
+
+"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit that a
+certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense, whether
+they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by the labour
+of man."
+
+"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing to
+order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For
+the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food,
+shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all
+chance."
+
+"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"
+
+"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say,
+we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care
+about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure but
+those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one risk we
+proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin, as it were,
+of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which we hold most
+precious."
+
+"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases to be
+good. That's precisely what I am always saying."
+
+"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One way
+or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to secure, or
+because, when secured, they lose their specific quality. Goods of this
+kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change, whether they be
+offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung from her in the
+sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I said, precarious.
+And now, have they any other defects?"
+
+"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"
+
+"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"
+
+"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact that
+they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of imagination."
+
+"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving
+at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not the
+whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other Goods
+you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the Goods we
+are speaking of appeal."
+
+"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"
+
+"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."
+
+"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I think
+of it the less I understand this famous distinction between body and
+soul, and the relation of one to the other."
+
+"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at all."
+
+"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't understand
+it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it out of our
+discussion."
+
+"So should I!" said Wilson.
+
+"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"
+
+"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case before
+us, why should we not try directly to define that specific property of
+the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes their defect,
+without having recourse to these difficult terms body and soul at
+all?"
+
+"Well," he agreed, "we might try."
+
+"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"
+
+He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of way:
+
+"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow their
+slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They come
+upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires we
+can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather than
+active."
+
+"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and perfect
+Good?"
+
+"No, I think not"
+
+"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"
+
+"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of
+ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole nature
+to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole nature to
+experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien to us and
+nothing in us alien to it."
+
+"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense----?"
+
+"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind applies.
+For these Goods appear to arise in things and under circumstances
+which have quite another nature than that of being good for us. It is
+not the essence of water to quench our thirst, of fire to cook for us,
+or of the sun to give us light----"
+
+"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added Ellis.
+
+"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us good
+are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter, to do
+innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So that the
+goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to our senses,
+they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel that essentially
+either they are not Goods, or their goodness is something beyond and
+different from that which is revealed to sense."
+
+"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as I
+understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance which,
+so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any rate to Good
+of that kind?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and
+substance?"
+
+"Yes; don't you think so too?"
+
+"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"
+
+Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing, indeed,
+to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We have then,
+so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main defects, the
+first, that they are precarious; the second, which is closely
+connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its explanation,
+that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding the word in
+the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we cannot find any
+class of Goods similar to these, but free from their defects."
+
+"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to have
+similar defects?"
+
+"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."
+
+"But are there any such Goods?"
+
+"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These, are
+they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it is their
+whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful, and to that
+extent Good--for I suppose you will admit that the Beautiful is a kind
+of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare to say so, to be, in a
+certain sense, eternal."
+
+"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we give
+for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"
+
+"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material
+objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I was
+talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point of
+view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut away,
+as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set apart in
+a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to pass into
+something else, but only through the alien nature of the matter to
+which it is bound."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I give it
+you in the words of a poet."
+
+And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a Grecian
+Urn":
+
+  "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
+    Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
+  Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd.
+    Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
+  Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
+    Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
+      Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
+  Though winning near the goal--yet, do not grieve;
+      She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
+    For ever wilt thou love and she be fair!
+
+  "Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
+    Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
+  And, happy melodist, unwearied,
+    For ever piping songs for ever new;
+  More happy love! more happy, happy love!
+    For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
+      For ever panting and for ever young;
+  All breathing human passion far above,
+    That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
+      A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."
+
+"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I don't
+see how it bears on the argument."
+
+"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to make.
+Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists in the
+fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it from our
+sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in the eighth
+heaven."
+
+"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"
+
+"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"
+
+"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer
+still--that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their Beauty,
+results from the very principle of their nature, and is not a mere
+accident of circumstances."
+
+"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only _raison d'etre_?"
+
+"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far
+resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."
+
+"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the point I
+have been waiting to come to."
+
+"What point?" I asked.
+
+"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in their
+simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all aesthetic
+and other elements--as in the example you gave of a cold bath--the
+relation of the object to the sense is so simple and direct, that
+really, if we were to speak accurately, we should have, I think, to
+say, that so far as the perception of Good is concerned the object is
+merged in the subject, and what you get is simply a good sensation."
+
+"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the time
+I did not think it necessary to be so precise."
+
+"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we are to
+bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw light, I
+believe, on the general nature of Good."
+
+"What characteristic is that?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important thing
+is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of the one in
+the other, it is the subject that is merged in the object, not
+_vice versa_. We have to contemplate the object, anyhow, as having a
+character of its own; and it is to this character that I want to draw
+attention."
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every work
+of nature--so far as it can be viewed aesthetically--comprises a number
+of elements necessarily connected in a whole; and this necessary
+connection is the point on which we ought to insist"
+
+"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically necessary?"
+
+"No," he replied, "aesthetically. I mean, that we have a direct
+perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or altered
+without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the ideal; and
+it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is more or less
+perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these things would agree
+to that."
+
+No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was not,
+myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works of Art;
+but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in general?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be
+conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I suppose,
+would imagine that such elements might be thrown together haphazard
+and yet constitute a good whole."
+
+"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem to
+have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in his
+quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art, which, in
+the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not precarious, seeing
+that by their form, through which they are Art, they are set above the
+flux of time, though by their matter, we admit, they are bound to
+it And, in the second place, the Good which they have, they have by
+virtue of their essence; Good is their substance, not an accident of
+their changing relations. And, lastly, being complex wholes, the parts
+of which they are composed are bound together in necessary connection.
+These characteristics, at any rate, we have discovered in works of
+Art: and no doubt many more might be discoverable. But now, let us
+turn to the other side, and consider the defects in which this class
+of Goods is involved."
+
+"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something to
+say."
+
+"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."
+
+"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever may be
+the merits of a work of Art--and they may be all that you say--it has
+this one grand defect--it isn't real!"
+
+"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my
+life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something very
+tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know what
+it is. They talk of 'real life'--real life! what is it? As if one life
+wasn't as real as another!"
+
+"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is. Real
+life is the shady side of life."
+
+"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the world."
+
+"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the person
+speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he speaks."
+
+"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our present
+concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word 'real.' In what
+sense is Art not real?"
+
+"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something ideal. It
+is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and change; its
+connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is a kind of
+flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our eyes. The real
+world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is ugly, brutal,
+material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"
+
+"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it were,
+you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it. How do you
+know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the Ideal, as all
+poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that case, Art would be
+more real than what you would call Reality, because it would represent
+the essence of the world, the thing it would like to be if it could,
+and is, so far as it can. That was Aristotle's view, anyhow."
+
+"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree with
+Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would like to
+be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."
+
+"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for instance,
+there's the realistic novel!"
+
+"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of all--only it's apt
+to be such bad idealism!"
+
+"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art, in
+the sense, in which we have been using the word."
+
+I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion of
+realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at issue,
+I turned to Bartlett, and said:
+
+"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes. You
+say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by side of
+it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call real life.
+And that whatever be the relation between the two worlds, whether
+we are to say that the one imitates the other, or interprets it, or
+idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it aside. Art is a refuge
+from life, not a substitute for it; a little blessed island in the
+howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a partial Good; whereas the
+true Good, I suppose, would be somehow universal."
+
+"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without
+blemish."
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to think that
+Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield us more than
+we have yet got out of it--perhaps even more than he knows is in it"
+
+"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming over to
+my side!"
+
+"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your
+strength really lies."
+
+"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your discovering new
+defences for me."
+
+"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my mind.
+We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real life,' the
+'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear as to what
+they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have obscurely in
+their heads--that the Real is something from which you cannot escape;
+something which forces itself upon you without reference to choice or
+desire, having a nature of its own which may or may not conform, more
+or less to yours, but in any case is distinct and independent. That
+is why they would say, for example, that the illusions of a madman
+are not real, meaning that they do not represent real things, however
+vivid their appearance may be, because they are the productions merely
+of his own consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented
+to a sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they
+would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent
+nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included in
+the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."
+
+"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon Art?"
+
+"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of
+Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a certain
+violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our interest.
+What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put ourselves for
+the moment into the position of the artist. To him certain materials
+are presented which of course are real in our present acceptation
+of the term, being such as they are of their own nature, without
+any dependence upon him. Upon these materials he flings himself, and
+shapes them according to his desire, impressing, as it were, his
+own nature upon theirs, till they confront him as a kind of image of
+himself in an alien stuff. So far, then, he has a Good, and a Good
+presented to him as real; but for the Goodness of this reality he is
+himself responsible. In so far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it
+has still the nature which was first presented to him, before he began
+his work--a nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations,
+as is shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something
+else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To this
+nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to stamp
+upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a sense,
+only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains independent and
+alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as he has found Good,
+is after all only a form of himself; and one can conceive him feeling
+a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the Walkuere, when in his
+quest for a free, substantial, self-subsistent Good he finds after
+all, for ever, nothing but images of himself:
+
+  "'Das Andre, das ich ersehne,
+  Das Andre, erseh' ich nie.'
+
+"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I find it
+rather hard to put it into words."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying, so far
+as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself. To
+all others the work of Art must appear as something independent of
+themselves."
+
+"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be made
+to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism between
+the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to it.
+The form will seem from this point of view something factitious and
+artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by one
+like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast, perhaps,
+as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the landscape
+Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is not a
+'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right; it is
+a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if you will,
+admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to be loved in
+default of a better, with the best faculties of brain and soul, but
+still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in and of itself,
+as well as through and for us, Good by its own nature apart from our
+interposition, self-moved, self-determined, self-dependent, and in
+which alone our desires could finally rest.--Don't you think that some
+such feeling may, perhaps, be at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of
+Art as unreal?"
+
+Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to myself.
+For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that you have
+said."
+
+"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree with me.
+But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and Leslie, for
+Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie assented with
+enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.
+
+"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems to me
+rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."
+
+"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good? Or do
+you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely of its
+own nature?"
+
+"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any case I
+agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in Art."
+
+"In what then?"
+
+"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."
+
+"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"
+
+"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for the
+view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."
+
+"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But of
+late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and now I
+see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is something
+that falls very far short of Good."
+
+"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"
+
+"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has instructed
+me."
+
+"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."
+
+And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of Knowledge.
+
+"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in brief
+formulae of the routine of our perceptions."
+
+"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that with
+Good?"
+
+"But"--objected Dennis--"in the first place, I don't understand the
+definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree with it."
+
+"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no difficulty
+there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main positions.
+First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of things in
+themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in fixed routines;
+thirdly ..."
+
+"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's a
+perception of something?"
+
+"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."
+
+"What then? Simply a state in me?"
+
+"Very likely."
+
+"Then does nothing exist except my states?"
+
+"Nothing else exists primarily for you."
+
+"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease to
+exist?"
+
+"You infer such a world from your states."
+
+"Then there is something besides my states--this world which I infer;
+and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions, is the reality of
+which I have knowledge?"
+
+"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."
+
+"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a
+discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are at
+present concerned."
+
+"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of Knowledge
+with Good; and to do so we must first discover what Knowledge is."
+
+"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of Knowledge,
+and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and then we will
+take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we don't find that
+either satisfies the requirements of Good we will leave Knowledge and
+go on to something else."
+
+"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my chance."
+
+"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And I
+dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain, I
+suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you define
+it, could be identified with Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much believe in
+Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I define it, is a
+good thing, I have no doubt whatever."
+
+"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me, mainly as a
+means, in so far as it enables us to master Nature."
+
+"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"
+
+"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to point
+out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature that the
+Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge itself. Or should
+you say that there is Good in the scientific activity itself, quite
+apart from any practical results to which it may lead?"
+
+"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the higher
+and more ideal Good."
+
+"This activity itself of inventing brief formulae to resume the routine
+of our perceptions?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, but what _is_ the Good of it? That is what it is so hard for
+a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery of Reality?
+For that, I could understand, would be good."
+
+"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal merely
+with our perceptions."
+
+"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect
+fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it, you
+do not suppose this fluid to be real."
+
+"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled to
+give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions
+occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an
+account."
+
+"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say more
+precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps, in the
+discovery of necessary connections?"
+
+"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order which
+is, as a matter of fact, regular."
+
+"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do move
+in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of
+gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time in
+restraining himself.
+
+"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning to him
+I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from scientific
+activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality, nor yet in
+that of necessary connection, wherein should you say, does it consist?
+Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which
+we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and
+apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And,
+conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order among
+our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to utilize
+them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical results of
+science), but because in itself we prefer order to disorder, even if
+no other advantage were to be got out of it."
+
+"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the kind
+of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable than a
+disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he objects to
+British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers the chances
+of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary machine-like
+depredations of the tax-collector."
+
+"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex factors. I
+was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of scientific activity
+as such. And I think there is an intellectual satisfaction in the
+discovery of order, even though it be dissociated from necessity."
+
+"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is the
+only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is, Knowledge is an
+extension of experience, and is good simply as such. The sense of More
+and still More beyond what has yet been discovered, of new facts, new
+successions, new combinations, of ever fresh appeals to our interest,
+our wonder, our admiration, the mere excitement of discovery for its
+own sake, quite apart from anything else to which it may lead, a dash
+of adventure, too, a heightening of life--that is what is the real
+spur to science and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."
+
+"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general process
+of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No doubt there is
+an attraction in all activity--Ellis has already expounded it; and all
+experience involves a kind of Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at
+was the special attraction of scientific activity; and that seems to
+be, so far as I can see, simply the discovery of order."
+
+"Well," he said, "if you like--what then?"
+
+"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind of
+activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be bad.
+There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an activity
+concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even though it
+were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think that if all men
+were diseased, they would nevertheless be in possession of the Good,
+if only they had perfect knowledge of the laws of disease?"
+
+"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not only
+the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object known."
+
+"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that Knowledge
+may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is, or may be
+knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to constitute the Good."
+
+"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."
+
+"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has Dennis
+to say?"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very hard
+to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a protest."
+
+"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us is the
+heretic?"
+
+"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"
+
+"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely
+the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all,
+I shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of
+necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the fascination."
+
+"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All that is
+really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we read into
+the facts."
+
+"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much as
+anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of all
+Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical knowledge is
+necessary."
+
+"But it is all based on assumptions."
+
+"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them
+necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law of
+Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement
+that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow of
+necessity."
+
+"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given! Everything is
+based ultimately on certain successions and coincidences of which all
+that can be said is simply that they exist, without any possibility of
+getting behind them."
+
+"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be the
+ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections throughout; so
+that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all the rest would
+inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it progresses towards
+this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at all. A routine simply
+given without internal coherence is to my mind a contradiction in
+terms; either the routine is necessary, or it's not a routine at all,
+but at best a mere appearance of a routine."
+
+"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight this
+out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception of
+Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it from the
+point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin with, seems
+to me to be involved in the same defect we have already noted--namely,
+that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as knowledge of Good. And
+I suppose you would hardly maintain, any more than Wilson did, that
+the Good may consist in knowledge of Bad?"
+
+"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion that
+there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which there is
+knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could attain to
+it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there would be no
+distinction, or at least no antagonism, between thinking on the one
+hand and the thing thought on the other."
+
+"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in fact any
+knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type of what you
+mean?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are dealing
+with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which is somehow
+native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however you like
+to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions, such as
+substance and causation."
+
+"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is alien
+to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of what we
+call knowledge, is the element of sense--the something given, which
+thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may dress and serve it
+up in its own sauce?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."
+
+"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but only of
+pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the
+Good?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that such a
+Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better than
+that of which we have an experience, but radically and fundamentally
+different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not only are we sunk
+in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the time our heads are
+under too,--in fact most of us never get them out at all; it is only
+a few philosophers every now and again who emerge for a moment or two
+into sun and air, to breathe that element of pure thought which is too
+fine even for them, except as a rare indulgence. At other times, they
+too must be content with the grosser atmosphere which is the common
+sustenance of common men."
+
+"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining that
+the Good is within easy reach of all."
+
+"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you describe
+it, very few people would care to put out their hands to take it. I,
+at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of Good in the kind
+of activity I understand you to mean. It is as though you should say,
+that Good consists in the perpetual perception that 2 + 2 = 4."
+
+"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would be,
+that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One would
+move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest, central
+at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is my ideal of
+a perfect activity!"
+
+"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For what, in
+fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you describe? I suppose
+the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"
+
+"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and flaws!"
+
+"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the
+better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of life--of
+nature, of history, of art, of religion, of everything in which we
+are really interested; imagine being left to turn for ever, like a
+squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea of a squirrel in the idea
+of a cage, round and round the wheel of these hollow notions, without
+hands, without feet, without anything anywhere by which we could lay
+hold of a something that is not thought, a something solid, resistant,
+palpitating, 'luscious and aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a
+sense, a flesh, call it what you will, the unintelligible, but still
+the indispensable, that which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to
+miss, and which, if it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow
+include!"
+
+Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the
+matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense, or
+anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented and also
+alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something which is
+unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will be, so far,
+not good."
+
+"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"
+
+"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which must be
+present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection among the
+elements presented; and secondly, that the elements themselves should
+be of such a kind as to be, as it were, transparent to that which
+apprehends them, so that it asks no questions as to what they are
+or whence they come, but accepts them naturally and as a matter of
+course, with the same inevitability as it accepts its own being."
+
+"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects of
+thought as you defined them?
+
+"I think so."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long
+discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis pressed
+you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified absolutely
+with Good."
+
+"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that view."
+
+"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be
+intelligible in the sense you have explained?"
+
+"I should say so."
+
+"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive of
+any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the
+intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that
+immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's
+quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have in
+your mind?"
+
+"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art. In them
+we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other than mere
+ideas."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary connection
+one with the other."
+
+"Yes, but not logically necessary."
+
+"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the necessity
+of the connection, surely, that is important; the character of the
+necessity is a secondary consideration."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work
+of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements
+themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which
+apprehends them?"
+
+"Certainly not, for they are mere sense--of all things the most
+obscure and baffling."
+
+"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made
+beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far,
+intelligible."
+
+"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a
+way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to
+thought?"
+
+"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does not, I
+think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is something else
+as well."
+
+"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense, so far
+at least it is not intelligible."
+
+"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we
+noticed before in works of art--that their Beauty, or Goodness, is not
+essential to their whole nature, but is something imposed, as it were,
+on an alien stuff. And it is this alien element that we now pronounce
+to be unintelligible."
+
+"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of art to
+be absolutely good."
+
+"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there
+nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to
+want?"
+
+No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then, in
+a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a direct
+appeal to Audubon.
+
+"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am sure
+you must have something to suggest."
+
+"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these things
+is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you have never
+once referred all through to what I should have thought was the best
+Good we know--if, indeed, we know any Good at all."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only things
+that I think really worth having--if anything were worth having."
+
+A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"
+
+"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of should be
+found just there?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why, in persons!"
+
+"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"
+
+"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me approach the
+matter properly."
+
+"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have your
+chance."
+
+"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we had
+reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to form
+a conception of it, must be something immediately presented,
+and presented in such a way, that it should be directly
+intelligible--intelligible not only in the relations that obtain
+between its elements, but also in the substance, so to speak, of the
+elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a type, as Dennis
+maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas and their relations.
+But the Good, we held, could not consist in these. It must be
+something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense, and yet it could not
+be sense, for sense did not seem to be intelligible. But now, when
+Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that perhaps we might find in persons
+what we want And that is what I should like to examine now."
+
+"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."
+
+"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not
+sense, though he is manifested through sense."
+
+"What does that mean?" said Wilson.
+
+"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know him
+through his body."
+
+"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a function
+of it."
+
+"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when we
+talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."
+
+"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven save
+me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne Koerper, ganz abstrakt,' as Heine
+says."
+
+"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to
+consider the soul apart from the body."
+
+"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about body and
+soul."
+
+"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been driven
+into it unawares."
+
+"But what do you mean by the soul?"
+
+"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of
+psychology--for even people who object to the word 'soul' don't mind
+talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the soul. Anyhow, what
+I mean is that which thinks and feels and wills."
+
+"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.
+
+"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of all
+things the most intelligible."
+
+"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all things the
+least."
+
+"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you have
+in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse to call
+the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its various
+faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and all the
+other points which are examined in books of psychology. All that
+I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no profession of
+understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking at persons as we
+know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown to us in literature
+and art, they really are intelligible to us in the same way that we
+are intelligible to ourselves."
+
+"And how is that?"
+
+"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no feeling or
+action of which human beings are capable, from the very highest to
+the very lowest, which other human beings may not sympathetically
+understand, through the mere fact that they have the same nature.
+They will understand more or less according as they have more or
+less sympathy and insight; but in any case they are capable of
+understanding, and it is the business of literature and art to make
+them understand."
+
+"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"
+
+"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any rate,
+what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not indeed (as
+in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our whole complex
+nature, that it does not demand explanation."
+
+"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the people
+I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand explanation.
+I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing, or what they're
+for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me! And what's worse,
+probably my existence is the same to them!"
+
+"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to study them
+all sympathetically, you would end by understanding them."
+
+"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of pathological
+way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I shouldn't understand
+why they exist. It seems to me, most people aren't fit to exist; and I
+dare say they have the same opinion about me."
+
+"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"
+
+"Yes, a few: my friends."
+
+"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said that
+you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often have
+you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our whole
+physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"
+
+"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me to
+be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my friends.
+Still----"
+
+"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I wanted.
+For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be, gives us
+at least something which perhaps we shall find comes nearer to what
+we might conceive to be absolutely Good than anything else we have yet
+hit upon."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not, as
+an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of our own
+ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with works of art?"
+
+"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any rate,
+I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am, but
+simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much imposed
+upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out of which
+they had carded a statue."
+
+"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.
+
+"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions are
+common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"
+
+"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should affirm
+that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is commonly
+called love, no doubt, the physical element is the predominant, or
+even the only one present; and in that case there may be illusion to
+an indefinite extent. But the love which is based upon years of common
+experience, which has grown with the growth of the whole person,
+in power and intelligence and insight, which has survived countless
+disappointments and surmounted countless obstacles, the love of
+husband and wife, the love, as we began by saying, of friends--such
+love, as Browning says boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I
+suppose you will admit, does exist, however rarely?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it really
+is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination, that is
+directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say that its Good
+is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the person of the
+loved."
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the Good,
+that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff--the body."
+
+"But," I replied,"_is_ the body alien? Is it not rather an expression
+of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the soul?"
+
+"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!
+
+  "'Not with my soul, Love!--bid no soul like mine
+  Lap thee around nor leave the poor sense room!
+  Take sense too--let me love entire and whole--
+        Not with my soul.'"
+
+"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and anyhow,
+I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of the poem
+is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between body and
+soul."
+
+"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists call the
+transcending of it."
+
+"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."
+
+"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is annihilated
+at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get is a feeling of
+total union with the person, body and soul at once, or rather, neither
+one nor the other, but simply that which is in and through both."
+
+"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case of the
+soul being merged in the body."
+
+"That depends," replied Ellis.
+
+"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was thinking
+of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the moments
+of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a ^correspondence
+between body and soul, as though the one were the expression of the
+other?"
+
+"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more often a
+discrepancy."
+
+"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a discrepancy
+to begin with, don't you think that in the course of years the spirit
+does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh, and especially on
+the features of the face?"
+
+"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body make.'"
+
+"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a beautiful
+fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks maintained--and on such
+a point they were good judges--a profound and significant truth.
+At any rate, I find it to be so in the case of the people I care
+about--though there I know Audubon will dissent. In them, every
+change of expression, every tone of voice, every gesture has its
+significance; there is nothing that is not expressive--not a curl of
+the hair, not a lift of the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait.
+The body becomes, as it were, transparent and pervious to the soul;
+and that inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere
+else, seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting
+itself as the perfect medium of spirit."
+
+"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend your
+remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often as
+expressive and adorable as the body itself."
+
+"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the soul,
+'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But, seriously,
+don't you agree with me that there is something in the view which
+regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct expression of the
+person, not a mere stuff in which he Inheres?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I
+understand what you mean."
+
+"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it be
+a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in the
+same way as the soul?"
+
+"Perhaps, in a sort of way."
+
+"And so we should have In the person loved an object which, though
+presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible; and our
+activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is, of love,
+would come nearer than any other experience of ours to what we might
+call a perfect Good?"
+
+"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the Good
+itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being the
+medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like other
+sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end to death.
+And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of the person
+is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of sense, is
+precarious.'
+
+"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to
+maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have
+analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for
+a moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a
+suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect Good,
+even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."
+
+"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"
+
+"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal, and in
+the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in love, as
+we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is a relation
+only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond it proceeds
+the main current of our lives, involving innumerable relations of a
+very different kind from this."
+
+"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with all its
+attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless, so trivial
+and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world with all that
+in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space, infinite in complexity;
+here is the whole range of human relations, to say nothing of those
+that are not human, of activities innumerable in and upon nature and
+man himself, of inventions, discoveries, institutions, laws, arts,
+sciences, religions; and the meaning and purpose and end of all this
+we calmly assert to be--what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village
+green!"
+
+"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and kisses
+and village greens?"
+
+"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"
+
+"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."
+
+"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"
+
+"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."
+
+"And what is that?"
+
+"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
+all-comprehensive."
+
+"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary heaven
+to land us in!"
+
+"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
+is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
+short."
+
+"Then I fear I shall never rest!"
+
+"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if we
+can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you call
+an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is necessary
+to enable us to interpret the world we know."
+
+"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."
+
+"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For the
+Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
+some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
+impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny the
+passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges us to
+the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we want to
+understand the nature of that passion, we must understand the nature
+of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is for the sake
+of life here that we need that comprehension, not for the sake of life
+somewhere else."
+
+"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for Love?"
+
+"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."
+
+"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village green!"
+
+"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an
+episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to me."
+
+"By all means! That is what I want."
+
+"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as it is.
+Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex
+relations--economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and
+about and in these relations centres the interest of our life,
+whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its
+character. Among these relations some few perhaps--or, it may be,
+even none--realize for a longer or shorter time, with more or less
+completeness, that ultimate identity in diversity, that 'me in thee'
+which we call love; the rest comprise various degrees of attraction
+and repulsion, hatred, contempt, indifference, toleration, respect,
+sympathy, and so on; and all together, always changing, dissolving,
+and combining anew, weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the
+shifting, restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect
+and result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal
+of that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all
+with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this,
+whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is
+that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in those
+which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think, through it
+alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as we have it,
+never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the moment; for
+those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that they have found
+it merely in union with one other person. For what love gains in
+intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in practice it may
+even come to frustrate the very end it seeks, limiting instead of
+expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it deepens, and, by causing
+the disruption of all other ties, impoverishing the natures it should
+have enriched. Or don't you think that this happens sometimes, for
+instance in married life?"
+
+"I do indeed."
+
+"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that one
+who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love,
+yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other
+connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one
+who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as
+though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has
+only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking, as
+you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village green
+realize then and there the consummation of the world."
+
+"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put forward,
+what place is left for the common business of life--for the things
+which really do, for the most part, occupy and possess men's minds,
+and the more, in my opinion, the greater their force and capacity."
+
+"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as that?
+
+"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."
+
+"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue them, I am
+not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they are in
+essence is just, like most other activities, relations between human
+beings--relations of command and obedience, of respect, admiration,
+antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex, infinitely various, but
+still all of them strung, as it were, upon a single thread of passion;
+all of them at tension to become something else; all pointing to the
+consummation which it is the nature of that which created them to
+seek, and all, in that sense, paradoxical as it may sound, only means
+to love."
+
+"You don't repudiate such activities then?"
+
+"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge, but, if
+I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose, who have
+the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt, the greatest
+intension too. But every man has to live his own way, according to his
+opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think myself, all are involved
+in the same scheme, and all are driven to the same consummation."
+
+"A consummation in the clouds!"
+
+"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the important
+point, that which urges us to it is here and now. Everything is rooted
+in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our longing and dissatisfaction,
+our restlessness never-to-be-quenched, our counting as nothing what
+has been attained in the pressing on to more, our lying down and
+rising up, our stumbling and recovering, whether we fail, as we call
+it, or succeed, whether we act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all
+that we are, all that we hope to be springs from the passion for Good,
+and points, if we are right in our analysis, to love as its end."
+
+Upon this Audubon broke out:--"That's all very well! But the one
+crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true, for aught
+I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we seek--though I am
+not aware of seeking it myself. But, after all, the real question is,
+Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools to seek it."
+
+"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since you
+challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we can get
+it or no."
+
+"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this
+discussion?"
+
+"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good, which is
+the point to which you are always harking back. But you have surely
+forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"
+
+"What basis?"
+
+"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find out,
+not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we know
+little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if we are
+to find significance in life."
+
+"But how can we believe what we don't know?"
+
+"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we always
+do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake anything
+makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth doing, and
+In the second place that it is possible to be done. He may be wrong in
+both these assumptions, but without them he could not move a step. And
+so with regard to the business of life, as a whole, it is necessary
+to assume, if we are to make anything of it at all, both that there is
+Good, and that we know something about it; and also, I think, that it
+is somehow or other realizable; but I do not know that any of these
+assumptions could be proved."
+
+"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"
+
+"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed, to my
+mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves, that we
+should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as they have
+not received definite proof. But still they are, I think, as I said,
+assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any meaning to
+life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the will'; and our
+attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."
+
+"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"
+
+"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it.
+Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not to
+affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were. It
+is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding; the
+attitude of the general going into battle, not of the philosopher in
+his closet."
+
+"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude is
+suspense of mind."
+
+"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those with
+which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are to choose
+to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption about the
+Good."
+
+"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply
+wait?"
+
+"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is it
+possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting itself
+an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to wait?"
+
+"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as those
+which you are trying to make us accept."
+
+"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to discover
+what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of fact, really
+dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or rather, if you
+will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the will' which we have
+elicited?"
+
+"What are they? Let me have them again."
+
+"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some meaning."
+
+"Agreed!"
+
+"Second, that we know something about that meaning."
+
+"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume that
+controversy."
+
+"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know nothing
+about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first assumption
+is also destroyed, and with it all significance in life."
+
+"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."
+
+"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which comes
+nearest to Good is that which we called love."
+
+"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative approximation."
+
+"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it necessary
+to include also the postulate that Good can be realized?"
+
+"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room for
+what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized is a
+question of knowledge."
+
+"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions--if only we could
+know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we do not
+know."
+
+"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every year we
+are learning more and more about the course and destiny of mankind."
+
+"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing
+whether or no the soul is immortal?"
+
+He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!" he
+cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"
+
+"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be realized."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception of
+the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."
+
+"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite sure.
+We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when we
+were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable in
+ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we
+thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."
+
+"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though I was
+afraid all along of something of the kind."
+
+"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been cheated, we
+will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we will suppose
+that we mean by the Good of some future generation, still retaining
+for Good the signification we gave to it. The question then of whether
+or no the Good can be realized, will be the question whether or no it
+is possible that at some future time all individuals should be knit
+together in that ultimate relation which we called love."
+
+"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that _their_
+souls at least would have to be immortal; and if theirs, why not
+ours?"
+
+I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to say?"
+
+"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider the
+whole idea of immortality illegitimate."
+
+"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good. But may
+we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"
+
+"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals who
+happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they were
+alive."
+
+"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold fast
+to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be realized the
+individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, will be bound
+together in this relation?"
+
+"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of that
+kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not sure that I
+very well know what you mean by love."
+
+"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be left of
+my poor conception?"
+
+"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes
+to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a
+perfectly harmonious way."
+
+"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society perfectly
+definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory for you!' as
+Humpty Dumpty said."
+
+"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we defined
+to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of positive
+science, that it might be possible to realize?"
+
+"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that
+science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it can
+be realized."
+
+"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal immortality?"
+
+"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of
+personal immortality is one which science ought even to entertain."
+
+"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain it. Does
+not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such questions?"
+
+"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not call
+that science."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn of
+mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two,
+whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much
+vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit both
+upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and then
+followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of science,
+which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson took up a
+position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought, to declare
+that science appeared to be developing all the vices of theology
+without any of its virtues--the dogmatism, the "index expurgatorius,"
+and the whole machinery for suppressing speculation, without any of
+the capacity to impose upon the conscience a clear and well-defined
+scheme of life. This debate, however, was carried on in a tone too
+polemic to elicit any really fruitful result; and as soon as I was
+able I endeavoured to steer the conversation back into the smoother
+waters from which it had been driven.
+
+"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, that
+on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and cannot
+know anything at all."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there is no
+foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of our hopes
+and fears, or of those of our ancestors."
+
+"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is not
+true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for thinking
+it to be true."
+
+"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to relegate
+the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimaeras. What we have no
+reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to concern ourselves
+with."
+
+"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one that
+interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We may not
+know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help profoundly caring."
+
+"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but, honestly, I do
+not myself care in the least"
+
+"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the Good;
+and that is really the question I want to come back to. What is the
+minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? Is it
+sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the race'? Or
+must we also believe in the progress of the individual, involving, as
+it does, personal immortality?"
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of
+life--that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it seems to me
+to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one knows one will
+not participate oneself than for one in which one's personal happiness
+is involved. I have always sympathized with Comte, pedant as he was,
+in the remark he made when he was dying."
+
+"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte irreparable?' That
+always struck me as the most humorous thing ever said."
+
+"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect of
+death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not involve
+his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death is
+the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the
+individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and
+manly view."
+
+"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but this is
+a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire.
+Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his
+faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions
+unfulfilled--why it's sublime! its Kiplingese--there's no other word
+for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."
+
+"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained
+or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties
+undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated!
+Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they
+deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die--he has done what he
+had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the next generation."
+
+"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal'
+means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that
+is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there
+never was a normal man?"
+
+"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
+include every one except a few decadents and faddists."
+
+At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression,
+I thought it best to intervene again.
+
+"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
+position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
+Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of the
+individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."
+
+"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always does
+realize sufficient Good for himself."
+
+"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself that his
+life has significance? Or because of the future Good of the race?"
+
+"I don't know; both, I suppose."
+
+"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is sufficient,
+by itself, to give significance to the lives of individuals who are
+never to partake in it?"
+
+"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe is,
+that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to that of
+the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends as you seem
+to suggest."
+
+"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that there
+is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling--and this is where we seem
+to disagree--that in estimating the Good of individual lives we must
+have regard to that which they realize in and for themselves, not
+merely to that which they may be contributing to produce some day in
+somebody else."
+
+"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing but
+other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite series
+of people doing Good to one another, and none of them getting any
+Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by taking in one
+another's washing!"
+
+"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of
+argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which
+individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"
+
+"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain that
+we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth while to
+have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at death. At
+any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look frankly at the
+mass of men and women, judging them not as means to something else,
+but as ends in themselves, with reference not to happiness, or
+content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply to Good--if we
+look at them so, can we honestly say that there is enough significance
+in their lives to justify the labour and expense of producing and
+maintaining them?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that there
+is."
+
+"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But what I
+should like to know is, what do you think?"
+
+"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the problem
+is too vast and indeterminate."
+
+"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way, and
+with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate or no,
+it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are only fit
+to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest thing for them
+if some one would do it."
+
+"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does anyone
+else share it?"
+
+"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not actually
+bad, are at best indifferent--'sacs merely, floating with open mouths
+for food to slip in.'"
+
+"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you know
+about them, considering how very little you've seen of them!"
+
+"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this
+estimate?"
+
+"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I
+suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal better!"
+
+"They might well be that," I replied, "without being particularly
+good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be better to
+confine ourselves to our own experience and consider whether for
+ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life much worth
+having, supposing death to be the end of it all."
+
+"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis, "and
+so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather monstrous to
+ask the question at all."
+
+"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most inconsistent of
+men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson for his acquiescence
+in the extinction of the individual 'with his opportunities
+unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the rest of it. And
+now you appear to be adopting precisely the same attitude yourself."
+
+"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good enough
+for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful ruffian!"
+
+"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I was a
+few years ago."
+
+"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"
+
+"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all the
+Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come. What
+we actually realize we value less for itself than for something else
+which it promises. The moments of good experience we expand till they
+fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of indifferent or bad we
+simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we say, because the universe
+is good; and this goodness we expect to grasp in its entirety, not
+to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at least the day after. And so,
+like the proverbial ass, we are lured on by a wisp of hay. But being,
+at bottom, intelligent brutes, we begin, in time, to reflect; we put
+back our ears, and plant our feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and
+refuse to budge an inch till we have some further information as to
+the meaning of the journey into which we are being enticed. That,
+at least, is the point that has been reached by this ass who is now
+addressing you. I want to know something more about that bundle of
+hay; and that is why I am interested in the question of personal
+immortality."
+
+"Which means--to drop the metaphor----?"
+
+"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely to get
+more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I may very
+likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in others.
+For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as much bad
+as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say. And in the
+second place, even of what Good there is--and I do not under-estimate
+its worth--it is but an infinitesimal portion that I am capable of
+realizing, so limited am I by temperament and circumstance, so
+bound by the errors and illusions of the past, so hampered by the
+disabilities crowding in from the future. For though, as I think, the
+older I get the more clearly I recognize what is good, and the more I
+learn to value and to perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I
+become capable of making it my own, and must in the nature of things
+become less and less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those
+of the intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to
+be involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from
+the naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt
+and expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least
+effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'--you remember the
+passage:
+
+  "'... Every day my sense of joy
+  Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
+  By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
+  While every day my hairs fall more and more,
+  My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase--
+  The horror quickening still from year to year,
+  The consummation coming past escape,
+  When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy--
+  When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
+  Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
+  Alive still in the phrase of such as thou,
+  I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
+  The man who loved his life so over-much,
+  Shall sleep in my urn.'
+
+"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured it,
+perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is
+natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good,
+life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last
+judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will be
+a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of those
+most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been worth the
+trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite promise only to
+bury it fruitless in the grave."
+
+"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.
+
+"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very much
+care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether it is not
+the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not by the
+worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the belief in
+personal immortality."
+
+"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of
+people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet
+maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life.
+Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may remember,
+life appeared not less but more worth living when she had become
+convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited
+with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as
+a deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more
+intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of
+untiring and fruitful activity."
+
+"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call magnanimous!"
+
+"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and
+unimaginative."
+
+"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position which
+can be and has been adopted."
+
+"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of the
+facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would make it
+increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an estimate which is
+to endure must be not only magnanimous but reasonable."
+
+"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to be
+reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are cases in
+which life is well worth living quite apart from the hypothesis of
+personal immortality."
+
+"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom it
+seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous, among
+those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose opinions
+alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly found in talking
+to people about death--supposing, which is unusual, that they are
+willing to talk about it at all--that they adopt one of two views,
+either of which presupposes the worthlessness of life, if life, as we
+know it, be indeed all"
+
+"What views do you mean?"
+
+"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and rejoice
+in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil; or they
+hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find there the
+reason and justification for existence which they have never been able
+to discover here."
+
+"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which I
+should have thought was as common as either of the others,--that of
+those who believe in a life after death, but look forward to it with
+inexpressible fear of the possible evils which it may contain."
+
+"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual
+experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of
+existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should maintain,
+have not really found life satisfactory, or they would look forward
+with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its continuance."
+
+"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal
+immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."
+
+"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the hypothesis
+involves the realization of that Good which, without it, we recognize
+to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and from that point
+of view, that I have introduced it."
+
+"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis is,
+I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is practically
+necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most people do not
+require it--ordinary simple people, I mean, who do their work and make
+no fuss about it."
+
+"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such people
+to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment any view
+suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe that if ever
+you can get a man, no matter how plain and unsophisticated, to reflect
+fairly upon his own experience, and to look impartially at the facts
+all round, abstracting from all bias of habit and mood and prejudice,
+he will admit that if it be true that the individual is extinguished
+at death, together with all his possibilities of realizing Good,
+then life cannot rationally be judged to be worth the living, however
+imperatively we may be compelled to continue to live it."
+
+"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on which I
+rely! That seems to me the justification of life--the fact that we are
+forced to live! I trust that instinct more than all the inclination in
+the world!"
+
+"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you mean
+that you judge it to be good?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your reason,
+which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your reason, the
+faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the only difference
+between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do really believe to
+be good, whereas you accept and cling to a particular judgment about
+Good, without any attempt to test it and harmonize it with others."
+
+"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and
+problematical in the extreme."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a simple,
+profound, imperative cry of Nature!"
+
+"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is good,
+except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."
+
+"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."
+
+"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather blaspheme
+Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming either. For it may
+be that what you call Nature has provided for the realization of Good.
+That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was suggesting; and it is you
+who appear to be setting it aside."
+
+"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it were
+something one could really entertain! To me it is not a hypothesis at
+all; it's simply an inconceivability."
+
+"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"
+
+"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."
+
+"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality of
+one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the soul
+does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and death and
+consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once one begins
+trying to realize it."
+
+"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt
+Whitman."
+
+"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly did
+justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while ago. It
+is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good and bad, and
+even appears at times to obliterate the distinction between them. But
+also, whether consistently or no, he regards them all as phases of
+a process, good only because of what they promise to be. So that his
+view really requires a belief in immortality to justify it; and to him
+such belief is as natural and simple as to Wilson it is absurd. There
+is a passage somewhere, I remember--perhaps you can quote it--it
+begins, 'Is it wonderful that I should be immortal?'"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I remember":
+
+    "Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
+    immortal;
+
+    "I know it is wonderful--but my eyesight is equally wonderful, and
+    how I was conceived in my mother's womb is equally wonderful,
+
+    "And passed from a babe, in the creeping trance of a couple of
+    summers and winters to articulate and walk. All this is equally
+    wonderful.
+
+    "And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other
+    without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other,
+    is every bit as wonderful.
+
+    "And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
+
+    "And that I can remind you, and you think them and know them to be
+    true, is just as wonderful.
+
+    "And that the moon spins round the earth, and on with the earth, is
+    equally wonderful,
+
+    "And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equally
+    wonderful."
+
+"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that Whitman, at
+any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the immortality of the
+soul is unimaginable."
+
+"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to believe
+it to be true."
+
+"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is concerned,
+though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But the point I
+raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view of life and
+hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are not bound to
+adopt this, hypothesis of immortality--to believe, that is, that,
+somehow or other, there awaits us a state of being in which all souls
+shall be bound together in that harmonious and perfect relation of
+which we have a type and foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be
+true that perfect Good does involve some such relation, and yet that
+it is one unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then
+we must say either that such Good is unattainable--and in that case
+why should we idly pursue it?--or that we believe we shall attain it
+under some other conditions of existence. And according as we adopt
+one or the other position--so it seems to me--our attitude towards
+life will be one of affirmation or of negation."
+
+"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception
+of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is
+unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good
+we can--and some Good you admit we can get--and might find in that
+pursuit a sufficient justification for life."
+
+"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well find,
+that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so immensely
+preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to an end an
+existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely in the persons
+of our luckless descendants."
+
+"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is taken by
+the Western world."
+
+"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its activity is
+the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."
+
+"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This
+instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and vigour."
+
+"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling, and
+all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp of the
+modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with them; you
+may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of activity. I
+am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your being right, and I
+seem to find it in personal immortality."
+
+"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right absolutely
+and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate law; whether
+or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to inquire into the
+conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us in the pursuit, then
+I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be discouraged."
+
+"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you are
+right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in Good
+and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was my main
+point. On the other question about what Good is and whether it is
+attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so conscious am I
+that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach. Only, that there
+is really something to learn, of that I am profoundly convinced.
+Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me there?"
+
+"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't seem to
+me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about Good, that
+doesn't affect the nature of Reality--and Reality, I believe, is bad!"
+
+"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what we
+see and touch and handle?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to
+impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded,
+under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes
+an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am
+walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a
+quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am overwhelmed
+by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for the moment to be
+such, that everything I hear and see and touch is mere illusion after
+all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if only I could find the
+way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to some native and ineradicable
+strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I sometimes think, to the memory
+of a strange experience which I once underwent and have never been
+able to forget"
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it may be
+worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less, on the
+subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and once
+only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence
+of anaesthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or rather,
+conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if dream it were,
+which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my life. It was as
+follows:
+
+"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul, I
+thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body,
+began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed through
+the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was beating like a
+thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the carotids to the brain,
+whence it emerged by the fissures of the skull into the outer air.
+No sooner was it free (though still attached, as I felt with some
+uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to the pia mater) than it gathered
+itself together (into what form I could not say), and with incredible
+speed shot upwards, till it reached what seemed to be the floor of
+heaven. Through this it passed, I know not how, and found itself all
+at once in a new world.
+
+"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain, difficult
+though it be to find suitable language; for the things here, of which
+our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols of the things
+there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now identified with my
+soul, and had forgotten all about my body)--the feeling I had was that
+of sitting alone beside a river. What kind of country it was I can
+hardly describe, for there was nowhere any definite colour or form,
+only a suggestion, such as I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite
+tracts of empty space. I could not even say there was light or
+darkness, for my organ of perception did not seem to be the eye; only
+I was aware of an emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold,
+grey, and formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if
+indeed silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived
+either sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to
+silence in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight
+(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such,
+distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it
+flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from
+the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently,
+as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping,
+rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or
+pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that
+they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but
+that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them
+I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which they
+passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out again was
+the sequence of their lives and deaths.
+
+"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was
+something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and
+disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or whatever
+may have been my mode of cognition--'Of course! That is it, and that
+is all! Souls are indeed immortal--why should we ever have imagined
+otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? I see the death-side
+now as I saw the life-side then; and one has as little meaning as the
+other. As it has been, so it will be, now, henceforth, and for ever,
+in and out, in and out, without pause or stint, futile, trivial,
+silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and vain!' The long pre-occupation
+of men with religion, philosophy, and art, seemed to me now as
+incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. There was nothing after all to
+be interested about! There was simply this! The dreariness of my mood
+was indescribable, and corresponded so closely to the scene before
+me that I found myself wondering which was effect, which cause. The
+silence, the tracts of unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the
+ceaseless vibration along its surface of infinite moving points,
+all this was a reflex of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was
+Intolerable; to escape became my only object; and with this in view I
+rose and began to move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.
+
+"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high towers
+standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked like
+towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them; for they
+had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite substance
+or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so, the idea of
+verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of form or colour as
+everything else in this strange land. I made my way towards them along
+the bank; and when I had come close under the first, I saw that there
+was a door in it, and written over the door, in a language I cannot
+now recall, but which then I knew that I had always known, an
+inscription whose sense was:
+
+  "'_I am the Eye; come into me and see_.'
+
+"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I did
+not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could not be
+worse and might well be better than my present plight. The door was
+open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the threshold than I
+was aware of an experience more extraordinary and delightful than it
+had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the sensation of seeing light
+for the first time! For hitherto, as I have tried to explain, though
+it has been necessary to speak in terms of sight, I have done so
+only by a metaphor, and it was not really by vision that I became
+acquainted with the scene I have described. But now I saw, and saw
+pure light! And yet not only saw, but, as I thought apprehended it
+with the other senses, both with those we know and with others of
+which we have not yet dreamt. I heard light, I tasted and touched it,
+it enveloped and embraced me; I swam in it as in an element, wafted
+and washed and luxuriantly lapped. Pure light, and nothing else!
+No objects, at first! It was only by degrees, and as the first
+intoxication subsided, that I began to be aware of anything but the
+medium itself. I saw then that I was standing at what seemed to be a
+window, looking out over the scene I had just left But how changed it
+was! The river now, like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny
+champaign bright with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky;
+and the happy souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm
+day in the Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible
+delight; but as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery
+plain before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river
+clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a star,
+then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these again into
+others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was revolving
+about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can conceive,
+infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for the stars
+were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of ours, and by
+these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite harmonies, the
+threads of the intricate figure were kept distinct.
+
+"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our
+astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive
+the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth our
+faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension of time
+and change is measured by units too small for us to be able to embrace
+by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars. But I, in my
+then condition, had powers commensurate with all existence; so that
+not only could I follow with the eye the coils of that celestial
+morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as they approached
+or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I was minded,
+the course of its secular history; whole series of changes and
+transformations such as we laboriously infer, from fossils and rocks
+and hard unmalleable things, being there (as though petrifaction were
+reversed and solidest things made fluid) unrolled before me, molten
+and glowing and swift, in a stream of torrential evolution whose
+moments were centuries. Wonderful it was, and strange, to see the
+first trembling film creep like a mantle over a globe of fire, shiver,
+and break, and form again, and gradually harden and cohere, now
+crushed into ridges and pits, now extended into plains, and tossing
+the hissing seas from bed to bed, as the levels of the viscous surface
+rose and fell. Wonderful, too, when the crust was formed and life
+became possible, how everywhere, in wet or dry, hot or cold alike,
+wherever footing could be found, came up and flourished and decayed
+things that root and things that move, winged or finned or legged,
+creeping, flying, running, breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle,
+forest, and marsh, pursuing and pursued, devouring and devoured,
+pairing, contending, killing, things huge beyond belief, mammoth
+and icthyosaurus, things minute and numerous past the power of
+calculation, coming and going as they could find space, species
+succeeding to species, and crowding every point and vantage for life
+on the heaving tumultuous bosom of eddying worlds.
+
+"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a kind
+of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact that
+though everything was in constant change, and in the change there was
+clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect anything that
+seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not direction to an end;
+for the end was no better than the beginning, it was only different;
+the idea of Good, in short, did not apply. And this fact, which was
+striking enough in the case of the phenomena I have described, made
+itself felt with even more insistence when I turned to consider the
+course of human history. For that too I saw unrolled before me, not
+only on our own, but on innumerable other worlds, in various phases
+and in various forms, both those which we know, and others of which we
+have no conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men
+I saw housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in
+wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the
+mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast, nomad
+tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and peace,
+politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this, so far as
+I could observe, although, through all vacillations, there appeared
+to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there was nothing to
+indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas about Good, but
+these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the efficient causes
+of events, were in no sense the explanation of the process. There
+was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no purpose, end, or
+justification at all. Man, like nature, was the plaything of a blind
+fate. The idea of Good had no application.
+
+"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne in
+upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but one
+desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had left.
+And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus for
+release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see through
+his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me out!' And
+instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of the tower, in
+that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space, with the souls
+going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw written over the door
+from which I had emerged, and which was opposite to that by which I
+had entered, words whose sense was:
+
+  "'_Eye hath not seen_.'
+
+"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the river; and
+over that was written:
+
+  "'_Turris scientiae_.'
+
+"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been open,
+should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience from which
+I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and made my way
+along the bank towards the second tower.
+
+"Over the door of this was written in the same language as before:
+
+  "'_I am the Ear; come into me and hear_.'
+
+"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some apprehension,
+but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was I within than I
+was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that which had greeted
+me in the Tower of Sight, but even more ravishingly sweet. This time
+what I felt was the sensation of pure sound: sound, not merely heard,
+but, as before in the case of light, apprehended at once by every
+avenue of sense, and folding and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole
+being in a clear and buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees
+that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of
+rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form.
+The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling
+grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite
+lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river.
+But one by one other elements crept into the strain; it increased in
+volume and variety of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it
+grew at length into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound,
+that there is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly
+compare it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other
+composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force of
+its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all, its
+endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never actually
+reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to dread or
+to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more wonderful
+still was my clear perception, while I listened, that what was being
+presented to me now through the medium of sound was precisely the same
+world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight. Every phenomenon, and
+sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed there, I recognized now,
+in appropriate musical form. The foundation of all was a great basal
+rhythm, given out on something that throbbed like drums, terrible in
+its persistence and yet beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented
+the mechanical basis of the world, the processes which science
+knows as 'laws of motion' and the like, but which really, as I then
+perceived, might more aptly be described as the more inveterate of
+Nature's habits. Upon this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by
+almost imperceptible gradations, was built up an infinitely complex
+structure of intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in
+freedom, ease and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the
+ear snatches of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or,
+as it might be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never
+complete, fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come,
+which they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it
+were, from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear
+in new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I
+knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.
+
+"As this character of the music and its representative meaning grew
+gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight a
+certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I passionately
+desired to hear given out in full the theme which as yet had been only
+suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I knew that with its
+appearance the music would come to a close, just at the moment when
+its cessation would involve the keenest revulsion of feeling. And this
+moment, I felt, was rapidly approaching. The rhythm grew more and
+more rapid, the instruments scaled higher and higher, the tension of
+chromatic progressions was strained to what seemed breaking point,
+till suddenly, with an effect as though a stream, long pent in a
+gorge, had escaped with a burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole
+symphony broke away into the major key, and high and clear, chanted,
+as it seemed, on ten thousand trumpets, silver, aethereal, and
+exquisitely sweet for all their resonant clangour, I heard the
+ultimate melody of things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen,
+with the emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close;
+and I found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on
+the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once more
+was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with the
+souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, trivial,
+tedious, monotonous and vain!
+
+"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written over
+the door the inscription:
+
+  "'_Ear hath not heard_.'
+
+"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there inscribed:
+
+  "'_Turris Artis_?'
+
+"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the third
+tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of hope and
+fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear, has given me
+what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it seems, a more perfect
+symbol than that; for it, at least, is Beauty, and the other was only
+Power. But is there, then, nothing but symbols? Or shall I, in one of
+these towers, shall I perhaps find the thing that is symbolized?'
+
+"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door facing
+me I saw written:
+
+  "'_I am the Heart; come into me and feel_.'
+
+"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an experience
+even stranger and more delightful than before, but also, I fear, more
+indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a pure feeling,
+which was not of any particular sense, (as, before, of sight and
+hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling of Life itself,
+the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one has in health,
+underlying all particular activities. In this sensation I seemed, as
+before, to be lapped, as in an element; but this time the feeling
+did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when I came to myself, that I
+actually was in the river, leaping along with the other souls in such
+an ecstasy of physical delight as I have never felt before or since.
+Such, at least, was my first impression; but gradually it changed
+into something which I despair of rendering in words, for indeed I
+can hardly render it in my own thoughts. Conceive, however, that as,
+according to the teaching of science, every part of matter is affected
+by every other, insomuch that, as they say, the fall of an apple
+disturbs the balance of the universe; so, in my experience then, (and
+this, I believe, is really true) all souls were intimately connected
+by spiritual ties. Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or
+other, more or less obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were
+so closely involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that
+they formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained
+in their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion,
+distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and fulfilling
+in due proportion their periods and paths under the control of
+spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member; about me were
+grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and around stretched
+away, like infinite points of light, in a clear heaven of passion,
+the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a figure, for what I am
+describing in terms of space, I apprehended through the medium of
+feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees of affection, from
+extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate there was, as well as
+love, the one representing repulsion, the other attraction; and by
+their joint influence the whole system was sustained. It was not,
+however, in equilibrium; at least, not in stable equilibrium. There
+was a trend, as I soon became aware, towards a centre. The energy of
+love was constantly striving to annihilate distance and unite in a
+single sphere the scattered units that were only kept apart by the
+energy of hate. This effort I felt proceeding in every particular
+group, and, more faintly, from one group to another: I felt it with
+an intensity at once of pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even
+imagine, much less describe; and most of all did I feel it within
+the limits of my own group, of which some of those now present
+were members. But within this group in particular I was aware of an
+extraordinary resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no
+names,) steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest
+of us, or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups.
+This resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a
+tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole system
+seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and alone, being
+dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to my body. At the
+same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw my body, as I
+thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it swallowed me
+down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the operator's room,
+with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like Audubon's, though
+I afterwards ascertained it was really that of the assistant, uttering
+the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see why!'
+
+"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since been able
+to continue it, and to discover what was written over the other doors
+of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did not enter.
+So that I have had to go on ever since with the knowledge I then
+acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be, it is in the life
+of the affections, with all its confused tangle of loves and hates,
+attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all, indifferences, it is
+in this intricate commerce of souls that we may come nearest to
+apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly apprehend, but the
+quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any significance to life,
+and makes it a thing which a wise and brave man will be able to
+persuade himself it is right to endure."
+
+With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to me
+that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused
+reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took
+the aether, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In the
+confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was
+curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I
+should behave."
+
+"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I dreamt
+it."
+
+"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do _not_ see
+why!" And with that the conversation I had to report closed.
+
+
+
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