The Meaning of Good-A Dialogue Part 27

"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."

"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which comes nearest to Good is that which we called love."

"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative approximation."

"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."

"And after that?"

"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it necessary to include also the postulate that Good can be realized?"

"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room for what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized is a question of knowledge."

"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions--if only we could know. But I was a.s.suming that this is one of the things we do not know."

"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every year we are learning more and more about the course and destiny of mankind."

"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing whether or no the soul is immortal?"

He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!" he cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"

"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be realized."

"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception of the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."

"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite sure.

We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when we were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable in ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."

"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though I was afraid all along of something of the kind."

"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been cheated, we will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we will suppose that we mean by the Good of some future generation, still retaining for Good the signification we gave to it. The question then of whether or no the Good can be realized, will be the question whether or no it is possible that at some future time all individuals should be knit together in that ultimate relation which we called love."

"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that _their_ souls at least would have to be immortal; and if theirs, why not ours?"

I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to say?"

"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider the whole idea of immortality illegitimate."

"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good. But may we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"

"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals who happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they were alive."

"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold fast to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be realized the individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, will be bound together in this relation?"

"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of that kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not sure that I very well know what you mean by love."

"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be left of my poor conception?"

"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a perfectly harmonious way."

"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society perfectly definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory for you!' as Humpty Dumpty said."

"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we defined to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of positive science, that it might be possible to realize?"

"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it can be realized."

"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal immortality?"

"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of personal immortality is one which science ought even to entertain."

"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain it. Does not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such questions?"

"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not call that science."

"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn of mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two, whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit both upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and then followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of science, which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson took up a position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought, to declare that science appeared to be developing all the vices of theology without any of its virtues--the dogmatism, the "index expurgatorius,"

and the whole machinery for suppressing speculation, without any of the capacity to impose upon the conscience a clear and well-defined scheme of life. This debate, however, was carried on in a tone too polemic to elicit any really fruitful result; and as soon as I was able I endeavoured to steer the conversation back into the smoother waters from which it had been driven.

"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, that on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and cannot know anything at all."

"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there is no foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of our hopes and fears, or of those of our ancestors."

"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is not true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for thinking it to be true."

"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to relegate the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimaeras. What we have no reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to concern ourselves with."

"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one that interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We may not know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help profoundly caring."

"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly const.i.tuted, but, honestly, I do not myself care in the least"

"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the Good; and that is really the question I want to come back to. What is the minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? Is it sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the race'? Or must we also believe in the progress of the individual, involving, as it does, personal immortality?"

"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of life--that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it seems to me to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one knows one will not partic.i.p.ate oneself than for one in which one's personal happiness is involved. I have always sympathized with Comte, pedant as he was, in the remark he made when he was dying."

"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte irreparable?' That always struck me as the most humorous thing ever said."

"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect of death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not involve his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death is the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and manly view."

"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but this is a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire.

Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions unfulfilled--why it's sublime! its Kiplingese--there's no other word for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."

"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated!

Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die--he has done what he had it in him to do, and pa.s.sed on his work to the next generation."

"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal'

means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there never was a normal man?"

"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I include every one except a few decadents and faddists."

At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression, I thought it best to intervene again.