ur
judgments about what is good, and trying without much success to get
over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem to be
practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we find it
hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far and in what
sense."

"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help you.
At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and what's
bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the same
point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a convinced
Utilitarian."

"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to the
word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"

"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I could
see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.

"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."

"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the things you
speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny it."

"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of
argument."

"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"

"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good and
what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do it!"

"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"

"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on important
points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what ought to be
done, but about how to do it."

"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.

"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and healthy."

"Why?"

"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people
happy."

"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good to
make people happy."

"Oh well, if you deny that--"

"Well, if I deny that?"

"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply means,
what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I do."

"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a Utilitarian."

"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I believe,
does everybody else."

"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture can go,
is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and liquid, and
of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of attainable
and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater quantities for most
pigs.'"

"That's very unfair," Par