!" 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
polemi