“And how, may I ask,” said Wilson, after a pause, “in your conception, is Good related to Happiness?”

“That,” I replied, “is one of the points we have to ascertain by experience.  For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret the deliverances of their internal sense.  I do not imagine the interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too abstract and general to have very much meaning.  But some meaning, no doubt, it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much interesting discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to the question of the content of Good, than to that of the method of discovering it.”

“The method!” replied Wilson, “but have you really indicated a method at all?”

“I have indicated,” I replied “what I suppose to be the method of all science, namely, the interpretation of experience.”

“But,” he objected, “everything depends on the kind of interpretation.”

“True,” I admitted, “but long ago I did my best to prove that we could not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you defined it.  For that can tell us only about what is, not about what ought to be.  At the same time, the recording and comparing and classifying of the deliverances of this internal sense, has a certain analogy to the procedure of science.  At any rate, it might, I think, fairly be called a method, though a method difficult to apply, and one, above all, which only he can apply who has within himself the requisite experience.  And in this respect the study of the Good resembles the study of the Beautiful.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why,” I said, “those who are conversant with the arts are well aware that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do not profess to be in complete possession of it.  They have a perception of the Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but tentative and in process of growth.  This perception they cultivate by constant observation of beautiful works, some more and some less, according to their genius and opportunities; and thus they are always coming to see, though they never see perfectly, just as I said was the case in the matter of the Good.”

“But,” objected Parry, “what proof is there that there is any standard at all in such matters?”

“There is no proof,” I replied, “except the perception itself; and that is sufficient proof to those who have it.  And to some slight extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to develop it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no standard of judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like themselves; and that there really is no standard and no knowledge possible in such matters.  And it is the same with Good; if a man will not choose to cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to clear and ever clearer perception, he will either never believe that there is any knowledge