erely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, it is
located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, in those
that follow it. But now, what about all the other generations, from
the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would seem, can have no
meaning for them, since it is the special privilege of those who come
after them."

"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to bring it
about, not indeed for themselves, but for their successors."

"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of men
and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex lives of
action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, satisfactions,
aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call Good, and avoiding
what they call Bad, under the naif impression that there is Good and
Bad for them--and yet the significance of all this is not really for
themselves at all, but for some quite other people who will have the
luck to be born in the remote future, and for whose sake alone their
fellow-creatures, from the very beginning of time, have been brought
into being like so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside,
when done with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."

"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you call
them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the final
Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all. It has
just as much Good as people can get out of it."

"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their own
with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they do get
Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."

"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that
cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for
ourselves, whether we live well or badly."

"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has his
own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I admire are
those who have sacrificed themselves for the future."

"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and with a
view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I understand you,
have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good for ourselves, which
is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is reserved for a future
generation), but still is something Good as far as it goes--whether
it be a certain degree of happiness, or however else we may h