e said, "in a very easy
manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I stay, I
certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."

"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that we
should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by the
process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you without any
really scandalous concession on either side."

"Well," he said, "you can try."

So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some hesitation, as
follows:

"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it seems
to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious activity."

As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.

"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have nothing to
do with it."

"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I could
command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of fact, can
form no idea of Good except in connection with consciousness."

"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's good,
so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness of it."

"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of anything
existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for me to
know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you, perhaps, are
differently constituted."

"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there is no
experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive that of
which we have no experience? And I should have thought it was clear
that Good, like Truth, _is_, whether or no anyone is aware of it. Or
would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when someone is thinking of
it?"

"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about it
just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I think,
need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to get at, for
the moment, is something rather different. I will put it like this:
Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human action, must be
conceived, must it not, as an object of consciousness? For otherwise
do you think we should trouble to pursue it?"

"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we ought to."

"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to take
an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an
artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete
unconsciousness,