alk of lofty views; but this is
a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire.
Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his
faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions
unfulfilled--why it's sublime! its Kiplingese--there's no other word
for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."

"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained
or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties
undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated!
Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they
deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die--he has done what he
had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the next generation."

"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal'
means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that
is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there
never was a normal man?"

"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I
include every one except a few decadents and faddists."

At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression,
I thought it best to intervene again.

"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's
position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future
Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of the
individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."

"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always does
realize sufficient Good for himself."

"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself that his
life has significance? Or because of the future Good of the race?"

"I don't know; both, I suppose."

"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is sufficient,
by itself, to give significance to the lives of individuals who are
never to partake in it?"

"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe is,
that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to that of
the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends as you seem
to suggest."

"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that there
is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling--and this is where we seem
to disagree--that in estimating the Good of individual lives we must
have regard to that which they realize in and for themselves, not
merely to that which they may be con