“Should you say, then,” I asked, “that we are nearer to knowing whether or no the soul is immortal?”

He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, “What a question!” he cried.  “I should say that we have long known that it isn’t”

“Then,” I said, “if so, we know that the Good cannot be realized.”

“What!” he exclaimed.  “I had not understood that your conception of the Good involved the idea of personal immortality.”

“I am almost afraid it does,” I replied, “but I am not quite sure.  We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when we were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable in ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come.  And we thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us.”

“But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though I was afraid all along of something of the kind.”

“Well,” I said, “for fear you should think you have been cheated, we will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we will suppose that we mean by the Good of some future generation, still retaining for Good the signification we gave to it.  The question then of whether or no the Good can be realized, will be the question whether or no it is possible that at some future time all individuals should be knit together in that ultimate relation which we called love.”

“But,” cried Leslie, “the love was to be eternal!  So that their souls at least would have to be immortal; and if theirs, why not ours?”

I looked at Wilson; and “Well,” I said, “what are we to say?”

“For my part,” he replied, “I have nothing to say.  I consider the whole idea of immortality illegitimate.”

“Yet on that,” I said, “hangs the eternal nature of our Good.  But may we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?”

“How could we!” cried Leslie, “for it is only the individuals who happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they were alive.”

“Another glory shorn from our Good!” I said.  “Still, let us hold fast to what we may!  Shall we say that if the Good is to be realized the individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, will be bound together in this relation?”

“You can say that if you like,” said Wilson, “and something of that kind I suppose one would envisage as the end.  Only I’m not sure that I very well know what you mean by love.”

“Alas!” I cried, “is even that to go?  Is nothing at all to be left of my poor conception?”

“You, can say if you like,” he replied, “and I suppose it comes to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a perfectly harmonious way.”

“In other words,” cried Ellis, “that you will have a society perfectly definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate!  ‘There’s glory for you!’ as Humpty Dumpty said.”

“Well,” I said, “this is something very different from what we defined to be Good!  But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of positive science, that it might be possible to realize?”