endeavoured to support Gerald Tribe. It was evident that he
could feel no deep concern about the issue. He merely wanted Gerald
Tribe to get an innings for once against Malster.

"You see, as the supporter of a personal god has very truly pointed
out," continued Lord Henry, "the morality of any race, or nation, or
group of nations, who believe in a personal god, comes ultimately to
derive its authority from the will of that personal god."

"Quite so!" said Denis in the same arrogant tone he had used all the
time.

"Yes, but with what result?" Lord Henry demanded.

"With the result--" began the Incandescent Gerald.

"Leave it to him, you silly!" whispered the soft, sweet, female voice
with some eagerness. It was clear that Mrs. Tribe had suddenly changed
her mind about going to bed.

"With the result," continued Lord Henry emphatically, "that the moment
the belief in the personal god declines, as on analysis it must decline,
morality declines with it. For morality in such cases is bound up, as
you say, with the belief in a personal god. Civilisation, in fact, is
once again on the rocks and society is no longer safe--why? Because by
making your moral code issue from the lips of your personal god, it has
become so much waste paper now that your personal god is beginning to be
felt as an absurdity. Thus in a religion with a personal god, heresy
always kills two birds with one stone. But once the bird morality is
killed, it takes a new civilisation and a new culture to hatch another
one. Man can survive without a belief in a personal god; he cannot
survive without a morality."

"But a personal god," objected Denis, "is omniscient, all-seeing. He is
assumed to know all men's actions, and they dare not do wrong precisely
because they know he is watching them. That surely is the best safeguard
to decent conduct; it is in fact the meaning of conscience!"

"Yes, I was coming to that point," said Lord Henry gravely, "and what is
the outcome of the thousands of years of belief in this omniscient god,
who can see all men's action? Why, sir, whoever you are," Lord Henry
exclaimed, his voice swelling with indignation, "the result is that
to-day things have come to such a pass that it is scarcely possible to
trust one man or woman in the whole of these islands to do the right
thing against their own interests, when your god, and your god alone is
their witness. That is the state to which your belief in an omniscient
personal g