Mr Jenkison. Good and evil exist only as they are perceived.  I cannot therefore understand, how that which a man perceives to be good can be in reality an evil to him:  indeed, the word reality only signifies strong belief.

Mr Escot. The views of such a man I contend are false.  If he could be made to see the truth——­

Mr Jenkison. He sees his own truth.  Truth is that which a man troweth.  Where there is no man there is no truth.  Thus the truth of one is not the truth of another.[7.2]

Mr Foster. I am aware of the etymology; but I contend that there is an universal and immutable truth, deducible from the nature of things.

Mr Jenkison. By whom deducible?  Philosophers have investigated the nature of things for centuries, yet no two of them will agree in trowing the same conclusion.

Mr Foster. The progress of philosophical investigation, and the rapidly increasing accuracy of human knowledge, approximate by degrees the diversities of opinion; so that, in process of time, moral science will be susceptible of mathematical demonstration; and, clear and indisputable principles being universally recognised, the coincidence of deduction will necessarily follow.

Mr Escot. Possibly when the inroads of luxury and disease shall have exterminated nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine of every million of the human race, the remaining fractional units may congregate into one point, and come to something like the same conclusion.

Mr Jenkison. I doubt it much.  I conceive, if only we three were survivors of the whole system of terrestrial being, we should never agree in our decisions as to the cause of the calamity.

Mr Escot. Be that as it may, I think you must at least assent to the following positions:  that the many are sacrificed to the few; that ninety-nine in a hundred are occupied in a perpetual struggle for the preservation of a perilous and precarious existence, while the remaining one wallows in all the redundancies of luxury that can be wrung from their labours and privations; that luxury and liberty are incompatible; and that every new want you invent for civilised man is a new instrument of torture for him who cannot indulge it.

They had now regained the shores of the lake, when the conversation was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous explosion, followed by a violent splashing of water, and various sounds of tumult and confusion, which induced them to quicken their pace towards the spot whence they proceeded.

CHAPTER VIII The Tower