“Not quite,” I replied.  “Besides, have we ended?”

For some minutes it seemed as though we had.  The mid-day heat (it was now twelve o’clock) and the silence broken only by the murmur of the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to their dinner) seemed to have induced a general disinclination to the effort of speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known to be tired in body or mind, and who was always debating something—­it seemed to matter very little what—­even he, I thought at first, was ready to let the discussion drop.  But presently it became clear that he was only revolving my last words in his mind, for before long he turned to me and said: 

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘interrogating experience,’ or what results you hope to attain by that process.”  At this Leslie pricked up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as ever to pursue the subject further.

“Why,” continued Dennis, “should there not be a method of discovering Good independently of all experience?”

The phrase immediately arrested Wilson’s attention.

“‘A method independent of experience,’” he cried, “why, what kind of a method would that be?”

“It is not so easy to describe,” replied Dennis.  “But I was thinking of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by Hegel in his Logic?”

“I have never read Hegel,” said Wilson.  “So that doesn’t convey much to my mind.”

“Well,” said Dennis, “I am afraid I can’t summarize him!”

“Can’t you?” cried Ellis, “I can!  Here he is in a nutshell!  Take any statement you like—­for example, ’Nothing exists!’—­put it into the dialectical machine, turn the handle, and hey presto! out comes the Absolute!  The thing’s infallible; it does not matter what you put in; you always get out the same identical sausage.”

Dennis laughed.  “There, Wilson,” he said, “I hope you understand now!”

“I can’t say I do,” replied Wilson, “but I daresay it doesn’t much matter.”

“Perhaps, then,” said Ellis, “you would prefer the Kantian plan.”

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s much simpler than the other.  You go into your room, lock the door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you proceed to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its contents; look steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a well; and at the bottom you will find Truth in the form of a categorical imperative.  Or, if you don’t like that, there’s the method of Fichte.  You take an Ego, by preference yourself; convert it into a proposition; negate it, affirm it, negate it again, and so on ad infinitum, until you get out the whole Universe in the likeness of yourself.  But that’s rather a difficult method; probably you would prefer Spinoza’s.  You take—­”

“No!” cried Dennis, “there I protest!  Spinoza is too venerable a name.”

“So are they all, all venerable names,” said Ellis.  “But the question is, to which of them do you swear allegiance?  For they all arrive at totally different results.”