nd without wishing to be arrogant, I believe the reason is
that they choose to be duped and I don't. They intend, at all costs,
to be happy, or interested, or whatever it is that they prefer to call
it. And I don't say they are not wise in their generation. But I'm
not made like that; I just see things as they are; and I see that
they're very bad--a point in which I differ from the Creator.

"Well, now, to come to to-night's discussion, and my attitude towards
it. You have assumed throughout, as, of course, you were bound to do,
that things are worth while. But if they aren't, what becomes of all
your aims, all your views, all your problems and disputes? The basis
on which you are all agreed, however much you may differ in detail, is
that things can be made better, and that it's worth while to make them
so. But if one denies both propositions, what happens to the
superstructure? And I do deny them; and not only that, but I can't
conceive how anyone ever came to accept them. Surely, if one didn't
approach the question with an irrational bias towards optimism, one
would never imagine that there is such a thing as progress in anything
that really matters. Or are even we here impressed by such silly and
irrelevant facts as telephones and motor-cars? Ellis, I should think,
has said enough to dispel that kind of illusion; and I don't want to
labour a tedious point. If we are to look for progress at all we must
look for it, I suppose, in men. And I have never seen any evidence
that men are generally better than they used to be; on the contrary, I
think there is evidence that they are worse. But anyhow, even granting
that we could make things a bit better, what would be the use of doing
it in a world like this? If the whole structure of the universe is
bad, what's the good of fiddling with the details? You might as well
waste your time in decorating the saloon of a sinking ship. Granting
that you can improve the distribution of property, and raise the
standard of health and intelligence and all the rest of it, granting
you could to-morrow introduce your socialist state, or your liberal
state, or your anarchical co-operation, or whatever the plan may
be--how would you be better off in anything that matters? The main
governing facts would be unaltered. Men, for example, would still be
born, without being asked whether they want it or no. And that alone,
to my mind, is enough to condemn the whole business. I ca