ce?"

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