"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"
"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"
"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer still—that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their Beauty, results from the very principle of their nature, and is not a mere accident of circumstances."
"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only raison d'être?"
"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."
"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the point I have been waiting to come to."
"What point?" I asked.
"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in their simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all æsthetic and other elements—as in the example you gave of a cold bath—the relation of the object to the sense is so simple and direct, that really, if we were to speak accurately, we should have, I think, to say, that so far as the perception of Good is concerned the object is merged in the subject, and what you get is simply a good sensation."
"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the time I did not think it necessary to be so precise."
"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we are to bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw light, I believe, on the general nature of Good."