"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of the Good you want to achieve."
"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the Good!"
"Why not?"
"Because I don't."
"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take the ideas of our time as a final criterion?"
"I suppose so—I don't know—I'm sure there's something in it! Do you believe yourself that they have no import for us?"
"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import is. We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a current convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact of the tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a moral reformer to modify the convention. Or do you not think so?"
"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"
"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there any institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open to obvious criticism? Take what you will—parliamentary government, the family, the law of real property—is there one of them that could be adequately and successfully defended?"
"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The family—"