"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but this is a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never aspire. Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual with his faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his ambitions unfulfilled—why it's sublime! its Kiplingese—there's no other word for it! Shake hands, Wilson! you're a hero."
"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing strained or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about faculties undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and exaggerated! Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much what they deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die—he has done what he had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the next generation."
"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what 'normal' means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or perhaps that is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they not, that there never was a normal man?"
"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I include every one except a few decadents and faddists."
At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another digression, I thought it best to intervene again.
"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of the individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."
"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always does realize sufficient Good for himself."
"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself that his life has significance? Or because of the future Good of the race?"
"I don't know; both, I suppose."
"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is sufficient, by itself, to give significance to the lives of individuals who are never to partake in it?"