at 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 b