of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps, but I think
it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe and maintain
that they only work in order to make money, nevertheless are so
unwilling to retire when the money is made; or, if they do, are so
often dissatisfied and unhappy?"

"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than pain.
It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's only
that they find even greater distress in idleness."

"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly maintain
that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because they take
delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there is play--and
I have known you play cricket yourself!"

"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way, he
would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or
shooting."

"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him. And, in
fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that there is no
form of activity which men feel to be good for its own sake, though
the Good of course may be partial and precarious."

"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any form
which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to something
else."

"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act of
visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I suppose,
Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of activities which
one distinguishes as moral."

"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good in
itself but is only a means to some other Good?"

"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so. But it
all depends upon how we define it."

"And how do you define it?"

"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal to
seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the attainment
of one that is remoter but higher."

"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your
proposition follows of itself."

"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"

"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."

"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest of,
and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end of our
inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is expressed
in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the definition
I sugges