"I quite understand. To create Intelligence, its Creator when creating himself must go one better—break his own anticipated record. What are Graubosch's views about Good and Evil? They both are factors in our existing System, especially the latter."
"He ignores both, as antiquated and unnecessary. In his System, the fruitless discussions about which is which—where one ends and the other begins, and so on—disappear entirely."
"That sounds good. Vice and Virtue could shake hands over it—a Coalition Ministry, don't you know?"
"Pardon me!—the exact reverse. Party Government would be intensified. But I ought to describe what Graubosch terms the Plus and Minus of his System, in its Moral or Ethical aspects. The first expression recognizes in what has been hitherto absurdly called 'Good' merely the Invariable and Necessary Antecedent leaking out, so to speak, and becoming perceptible to our Senses. The second, in what has been equally absurdly called 'Evil,' its diminution or repression."
Challis yawned. He was getting bored. "Does not that," he said, "assume the existence of some counter-power, able to diminish and repress?"
"Graubosch avoids doing so. And therein lies the beauty of his System. His Minus is simply negation of his Plus. An exact parallel is supplied by the phenomena of light and darkness. To ascribe to darkness powers of extinguishing light is scientifically absurd."
"I see." Challis spoke in a winding-up tone. His bore perceived it, and dexterously pinioned him.
"Pardon me one moment more," he said, "We are at a point where the beauty of the System becomes most manifest. I refer to its elasticity—its power of utilizing, provisionally at any rate, existing Institutions pending its maturer development. Graubosch does not doubt the efficacy at some future date of the Metaphysical Check on our propensities supplied by the Plus and Minus of his System. But he proposes for the present—at least, until believers in a Personal God from early youth have had time to die out—to postpone the Plus which is to take his place. Also—and this is important in connection with the operation of Metaphysical Checks—he is favourable to the retention of a Personal Devil until the Masses have acquired an insight into Metaphysics...."
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Mr. Challis. "I have letters to write, and they say the Post goes at twelve...."
"But I hope I have impressed you favourably. We must bear in mind...."