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-