which I much believe in these matters. I am content, for the present,
if you and the others here go along with me."

"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in an
unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of common
sense."

"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself
rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie say?"

"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with anything so
lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute and _à priori_,
by which we may prove for certain that Good is, and discover, as well,
what things are good."

"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone, should
find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the quest. It is
only in default of anything better that I fall back on this--I dare
not call it method; this appeal to opinion and belief."

"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have shown,
or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were granted
that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good, it doesn't
follow that they believe in anything except each a Good for himself.
So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say would be that
there are a number of different and perhaps incompatible Goods, each
good for some particular individual, but none necessarily good for
all. I, at least, admit no more than that."

"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."