simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature and character,
preferring one object to another, suppressing or developing this or
that tendency. Our choices are not determined by our abstract notion
of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is deduced from our
choices."

"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular choices our
general idea of the kind of things which we consider good. That may
be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach validity to
these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our Good, those that we
approve as distinguished from those that we do not. And my contention
is that, in spite of all diversity of opinions as to what really are
the good things to choose, we are bound to attach, each of us, some
validity to our own, under penalty of reducing our life to a moral
chaos."

"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean that
we must believe that our opinions are right?"

"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that they
are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and until we see
something righter. But above all, that opinions on this subject really
are either right or wrong, or more right and less right; and that of
this rightness or wrongness we really have some kind of perception,
however difficult it may be to give an account of it, and that in
accordance with such perception we may come to change our opinions or
those of other people, by the methods of discussion and persuasion and
the like. And all this, as I understand, is what Ellis was denying."

"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you have