“No, I don’t know that I do.”

“Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for people in general?”

“I don’t see what is to prevent my believing it.”

“But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it.”

“In what way do I not?”

“Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to enter Parliament.”

“Well?”

“And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the country in favour of—­well, I don’t quite know what—­shall we say in favour of the war?”

“Say so, by all means, if you like.”

“And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?”

“Well?”

“Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at large? or at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of them?  Do you admit that?”

“Oh,” he said, “I am nothing if not frank!  At present, we will admit, I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but what of that?  Very probably I am wrong.”

“Very probably you are; but that is not the point.  The main thing is, that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right at all; that there is something to be wrong or right about.”

“But I don’t know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I shall always admit it.  Probably, after changing my opinions again and again, I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are worth anything at all; that, in fact, there’s nothing to have an opinion about; and then I shall retire from politics altogether; and then—­then how will you get hold of me?”

“Oh,” I replied, “easily enough!  For you will still continue, I suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to some general Good?”

“‘You presume’! you do indeed presume!  Suppose I believe nothing of the kind?  Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?”

“We will suppose it, if you like,” I said.  “And now let us go on to examine the consequences of the supposition.”

“By all means!” he said, “proceed!”

“Well,” I began, “since you are still living in society, (for that, I suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of the case, interchanging with others innumerable offices.  At the same time, on the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a general Good, your only object in this interchange will be your own Good, (in which you admit that you do believe.) If, for example, you are a doctor, your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself, to increase your knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the lowest, it is to accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your purpose be to alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the advance of science; for that would be to suppose that these ends, although they purport to be general,