Lord Dymchurch nodded and mused.  From his look it was plain that Lashmar interested, and at the same time, puzzled him.  In their previous conversations, Dyce had talked more or less vaguely, throwing out a suggestion here, a criticism there, and, though with the air of one who had made up his mind on most subjects, preserving an attitude of liberal scepticism; to-day he seemed in the mood for precision, and the coherence of his arguments did not fail to impress the listener.  His manner in reasoning had a directness, an eagerness, which seemed to declare fervid conviction; as he went on from point to point, his eyes gleamed and his chin quivered; the unremarkable physiognomy was transformed as though from within; illumined by unexpected radiance, and invested with the beauty of intellectual ardour.  Very apt for the contagion of such enthusiasm, Lord Dymchurch showed in his smile that he was listening with pleasure; yet he did not wholly yield himself to the speaker’s influence.

“One objection occurs to me,” he remarked, averting his eyes for a moment.  “The organic body is a thing finished and perfect.  Granted that evolution goes on in the same way to form the body politic, the process, evidently, is far from complete—­as you began by admitting.  Won’t the result depend on the nature and tendency of each being that goes to make up the whole?  And, if that be so, isn’t it the business of the individual to assert his individuality, so as to make the State that he’s going to belong to the kind of State he would wish it to be?  I express myself very awkwardly—­”

“Not at all, not at all!  In that sense, individualism is no doubt part of the evolutionary scheme; I quite agree with you.  What I object to is the idea, conveyed in Spencer’s title, that the man as a man can have interests or rights opposed to those of the State as a State.  Your thorough individualist seems to me to lose sight of the fact that, but for the existing degree of human association, he simply wouldn’t be here at all.  He speaks as if he had made himself, and had the right to dispose of himself; whereas it is society, civilisation, the State—­call it what you will—­that has given him everything he possesses, except his physical organs.  Take a philosopher who prides himself on his detachment from vulgar cares and desires, duties and troubles, and looks down upon the world with pity or contempt.  Suppose the world—­that is to say, his human kind—­revenged itself by refusing to have anything whatever to do with him, however indirectly; the philosopher would soon find himself detached with a vengeance.  And suppose it possible to go further than that; suppose the despised world could demand back from him all it had given, through the course of ages to his ancestors in him; behold Mr. Philosopher literally up a tree—­a naked anthropoid, with a brain just capable of supplying his stomach and—­perhaps—­of saving him from wild beasts.”

Lord Dymchurch indulged a quiet mirth.