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 m