At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I thought it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said, "Suppose, then, we were to make a beginning by examining your hypothesis."
"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should all have accepted it—unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."
"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.
"Nor I," added Audubon.
"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"
"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"
"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it leads us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of activity of some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so, Parry?"
"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state of activity, as you call it, will be."
"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous, co-ordinate, coherent——"
"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The question is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, it is located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those that follow it. But now, what about all the other generations, from the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would seem, can have no meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come after them."