“Yes,” he said, “and one can more or less define what the state of activity, as you call it, will be.”

“Of course,” interposed Ellis, “it will be one of heterogeneous, co-ordinate, coherent——­”

“That,” I interrupted, “is not at present the question.  The question is merely as to the location of Good.  According to Parry, it is located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those that follow it.  But now, what about all the other generations, from the beginning of the world onward?  Good, it would seem, can have no meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come after them.”

“Oh, yes, it has!” he replied, “for it is their business to bring it about, not indeed for themselves, but for their successors.”

“But,” cried Leslie, “what an absurd idea!  Countless myriads of men and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex lives of action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, satisfactions, aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call Good, and avoiding what they call Bad, under the naif impression that there is Good and Bad for them—­and yet the significance of all this is not really for themselves at all, but for some quite other people who will have the luck to be born in the remote future, and for whose sake alone their fellow-creatures, from the very beginning of time, have been brought into being like so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside, when done with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead.”

“Oh, come!” said Parry, “you exaggerate!  These tools, as you call them, have a good enough time.  It does not follow, because the final Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all.  It has just as much Good as people can get out of it.”

“But then,” said Leslie, “in that case it is this Good of their own with which each generation is really concerned.  So far as they do get Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves.”

“Certainly,” said Ellis; “and for my own part, I am sick of that cant of living for future generations.  Let us, at least, live for ourselves, whether we live well or badly.”

“Well,” replied Parry, rather stiffly, “of course every one has his own ideas.  But I confess that, for my own part, the men I admire are those who have sacrificed themselves for the future.”

“But, Parry,” I interposed, “let us get clear about this; and with a view to clearness let us take our own case.  We, as I understand you, have to keep in view a double Good:  first, a Good for ourselves, which is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is reserved for a future generation), but still is something Good as far as it goes—­whether it be a certain degree of happiness, or however else we may have to define it; and as to this Good, there appears to be no difficulty, for we who pursue it are also the people who get it That is so, is it not?”

He agreed.