"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems to me rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."
"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good? Or do you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely of its own nature?"
"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any case I agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in Art."
"In what then?"
"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."
"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"
"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for the view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."
"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But of late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and now I see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is something that falls very far short of Good."
"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"
"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has instructed me."