him that he might be starving half the world, and imperilling the
governments of Europe? It was enough for him that he should realize a
fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, he washed his hands. He and men
like him adopt, I have no doubt, precisely the position which you are
trying to show is impossible."

"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in
general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you. And
my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good, he
denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and
not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have
described."

"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume that a
disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily involves
a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his own Good
consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in that case of
course he will try to further it."

"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other people.
Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no Good common
to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in furthering the
Good of one we are also furthering that of others. So that even
supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists in furthering
the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put his belief into
practice, but at most will be able to help some one man, with the
likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and injuring many others.
Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an egoist, yet he cannot work
for a common Good; and that simply because there is no common Good to
work for."