"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We, in the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not mere caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore suppose somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."
"But then, in what sense is it?"
"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort and strain."
"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even while you admit that in some sense it is?"
"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist completely."
"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is at all it is eternal and complete."
"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense is it?"
"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing but appearance."
"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."
"Yes."