The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue | Page 7

or occupations are, in their opinion, better than those they have chosen, and that these better things were and are open to themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to the worse, knowing it all the time to be the worse."
"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely, are not really 'open' to them, except so far as external circumstances are concerned. They are hampered in their choice by passions and desires, by that part of them which does not choose, but is passively carried away by alien attractions; and the course they actually adopt is the best they can choose, though they see a better which they would choose if they could. The choice is always of Good, but it may be diverted by passion to less Good."
"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the matter."
"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still, that is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I should expect that most people who reflect would agree with me. They would say, I think, that they always choose the best they can, though regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and it would seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose Bad, or choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."
"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are right--what follows?"
"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said, 'practically bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least, our opinions about what is good; for otherwise we should have no principle to choose by, if it be true that the principle of choice is Good."
"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without choosing!"
"But could we?"
"I don't see why not; many people do."
"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it be?"
Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a voice from behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the back into one of those large lofty barns which commonly form part of a Swiss house; and as the floor of this room was covered with straw, it was possible to approach that way without making much noise. For this reason, two others of our party had been able to join us without our observing it. Their names were Parry and Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just getting into practice at the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in years, though a very precocious one, whom I had brought with me, ostensibly as a pupil, but really as a companion. He was an eager student of philosophy, and had something of that contempt of youth for any one older than twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart to resent, though have long passed the age which qualifies me to become the object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate way he had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was proceeding.
"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without choice one would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every random mood and impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"
Ellis looked round rather amused.
"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad calculation any day!"
"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good and Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."
"What is your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been trying in vain to make head or tail of it"
"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest against this bullying."
"But you must take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are to discuss."
"I don't see why; you might take one instead."
"Yes, but you began."
"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, to go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion has been discovered for testing these opinions----"
"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial agreement about what is good."
"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions,