Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, “Well,” he began, “between you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with their heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on my head or my heels.  But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in stating my view; or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction in my mind.  At any rate, what I believe, whether or no I can believe it consistently, is that it is possible for us, so to speak, to take God’s point of view; so that the evil against which we rebel we may come at last to acquiesce in, as seen from the higher point of view.  And, seriously, don’t you think it is conceivable that that may be, after all, the true meaning of the discipline of life?”

“I cannot tell,” I said, “perhaps it may.  But, meantime, allow me to press home the importance of your admission.  For, as you say, there is at least one of our aims which has a real significance, namely, that of reaching the point of view of God.  But this is something that lies in the future, something to be brought about.  And so, on your own hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that which eternally exists, but something which has to be realized in time—­namely, a change of mind on the part of all rational beings, whereby they view the world no longer in a partial imperfect way, but, in Spinoza’s phrase, ’sub specie aeternitatis’”

“No,” he said, “I cannot admit that that is an end for the Absolute, though I admit it is an end for us.  The Absolute, somehow or other, is eternally perfect and good; and this eternal perfection and goodness are unaffected by any change that may take place in our minds.”

“Well,” I said, “I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to settle how that can possibly be.  Meantime, I am content with your admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying before us to be realized in the future.  For that, as I understand, you do admit.  In your own life, for example, even if you aim at nothing else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you do aim, at least, with your whole nature at this—­to attain a view of the world as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not merely as it appears to us.”

“Yes,” he said, “I admit that is my aim.”

“That aim, then, is your Good?”

“I suppose so.”

“And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future?  For you do not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least to have attained as perfectly as you hope to?”

He agreed again.

“Well then,” I continued, “what may be the relation of this Good of yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good of God in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your permission, for some future inquiry.  It is enough for our present purpose that even you, who assert the eternal perfection of the world, do nevertheless at the same time admit a future Good; and much more do other men admit it, who have no idea that the world is perfect at all.  So that we may, I think, safely suppose it to be generally agreed that the Good is something to be realized in the future, so far, at any rate as it concerns us—­and, for my part, I have no desire to go farther than that.”