, I
conceive it is also the source of abundant good, or it would not have
so many supporters.

_Mr Escot._
That is by no means a consequence. Do we not every day see men
supporting the most enormous evils, which they know to be so with
respect to others, and which in reality are so with respect to
themselves, though an erroneous view of their own miserable
self-interest induces them to think otherwise?

_Mr Jenkison._
Good and evil exist only as they are perceived. I cannot therefore
understand, how that which a man perceives to be good can be in
reality an evil to him: indeed, the word _reality_ only signifies
_strong belief_.

_Mr Escot._
The views of such a man I contend are false. If he could be made to
see the truth----

_Mr Jenkison._
He sees his own truth. Truth is that which a man _troweth_. Where
there is no man there is no truth. Thus the truth of one is not the
truth of another.[7.2]

_Mr Foster._
I am aware of the etymology; but I contend that there is an universal
and immutable truth, deducible from the nature of things.

_Mr Jenkison._
By whom deducible? Philosophers have investigated the nature of things
for centuries, yet no two of them will agree in _trowing_ the same
conclusion.

_Mr Foster._
The progress of philosophical investigation, and the rapidly
increasing accuracy of human knowledge, approximate by degrees the
diversities of opinion; so that, in process of time, moral science
will be susceptible of mathematical demonstration; and, clear and
indisputable principles being universally recognised, the coincidence
of deduction will necessarily follow.

_Mr Escot._
Possibly when the inroads of luxury and disease shall have
exterminated nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine of every million of the human race, the remaining
fractional units may congregate into one point, and come to something
like the same conclusion.

_Mr Jenkison._
I doubt it much. I conceive, if only we three were survivors of the
whole system of terrestrial being, we should never agree in our
decisions as to the cause of the calamity.

_Mr Escot._
Be that as it may, I think you must at least assent to the following
positions: that the many are sacrificed to the few; that ninety-nine
in a hundred are occupied in a perpetual struggle for the preservation
of a perilous and precarious existence, while the remaining one
wallows in all the redunda