The Meaning of Good-A Dialogue Part 17

"Rather," he replied, "that it _is_ G.o.d. But I don't really know whether we ought to call G.o.d a conscious activity. Whatever He or It be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the things we call good are somehow reflexes of G.o.d; and we have to accept them as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have no right to endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some individual persons."

"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is a.s.sociated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good, if ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so a.s.sociated. But of that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more fortunate. And if you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of course, of its content, which shall represent it intelligibly to us as independent of any consciousness like our own, I am quite ready to relinquish the argument to you."

"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a way that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to have had what you call 'experience' of it."

"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"

"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to feel it was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this point, to my great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed with a solution of the difficulty in which we were involved, but with a diversion of which I was only too glad to take advantage.

"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!

Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is the kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like ourselves.

And I thought that was what you were going to discuss."

"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."

"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as it is quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do with the real subject."

"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's get along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. What are we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it is the real question."

"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some activity."

"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up sharp, as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.

"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as another, and the more the merrier."

"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you mean?

whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?"

"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially in themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation palls in time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the just measure and proportion. We are complex creatures, and we ought to employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the others."

"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe more in detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"

"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The most I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."

"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all listening."

"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to move in a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of all the rest. To pa.s.s, let us say, from the city with all its bustle, smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To hunt or fish for weeks and months in strange wild places, camping out among strange beasts and birds, lost in pathless forests, or wandering over silent plains.

Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to feel the press of business, to make or lose millions in a week, to adventure, compete, and win; but always, at the moment when this might pall, with a haven of rest in view, an ancient English mansion, stately, formal, and august, islanded, over its sunken fence, by acres of b.u.t.tercups. There to study, perhaps to write, perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden at night of new discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the world of commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be off on my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs in Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action itself, not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the Good for fear I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, attaining the only Good I can conceive--a full and harmonious exercise of all my faculties and powers."

On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of sympathy that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was young enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual zeal and pa.s.sion.

"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is so imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged for some other, equally defective."

"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time and place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the detriment of others."

"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than bad?

You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of each; but in practice you would have to experience also the bad. Your hunting in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, and hunger; your fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and disillusionment; and so through all your chapter of accidents--for accidents they are at best, and never the substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil, dogged by a shadow of Good."

"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view--from an idealist, too!

Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the rough with the smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you call good and bad; it consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike. If I were Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both."

"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis produced by one side of the ant.i.thesis simply swallowing the other."

"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to learn.

This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb."

"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! What is it you are trying to say?"

"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming perilously near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance."

"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view by a denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it."

"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the world is good?"

"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister to Good if you approach it in the proper way."

"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."

"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"

"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to answer Leslie?"

"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at all.

But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is, that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The complexity of the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its 'ups,' its abysses and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We would not alter it if we could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely with acquiescence but with triumph."

"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.

"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept anything."

"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.

"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, art, that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them, for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to miss anything or anyone."

"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and Dennis are strangely agreed for once!"

"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge said on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues. Dennis accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical system; I, because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is Hegel; mine is Walt Whitman."

"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"

"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no better nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good and bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an actual physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:

"I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

I believe a leaf of gra.s.s is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a 'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest; And the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow-crunching with depressed head surpa.s.ses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger s.e.xtillions of infidels."

"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course, it's rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at all."

"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."