“I don’t say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that there is a distinction.  And I cannot help feeling—­and this is where we seem to disagree—­that in estimating the Good of individual lives we must have regard to that which they realize in and for themselves, not merely to that which they may be contributing to produce some day in somebody else.”

“These ‘somebody elses,’” cried Ellis, “being after all nothing but other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite series of people doing Good to one another, and none of them getting any Good for themselves, like the:  islanders who lived by taking in one another’s washing!”

“Well, but,” said Wilson, “supposing I consent, for the sake of argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which individuals realize in themselves.  What follows then?”

“Why, then” I said, “it would, I think, be very hard to maintain that we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth while to have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at death.  At any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look frankly at the mass of men and women, judging them not as means to something else, but as ends in themselves, with reference not to happiness, or content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply to Good—­if we look at them so, can we honestly say that there is enough significance in their lives to justify the labour and expense of producing and maintaining them?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, “they probably think themselves that there is.”

“Probably,” I rejoined, “they do not think about it at all.  But what I should like to know is, what do you think?”

“I don’t see,” he objected, “how I can have any opinion; the problem is too vast and indeterminate.”

“Is it?” cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way, and with more than his usual energy of protest “Well, indeterminate or no, it’s the one point on which I have no doubt.  Most people are only fit to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest thing for them if some one would do it.”

“Well,” I said, “at any rate that is a vigorous opinion.  Does anyone else share it?”

“I do,” said Leslie, “on the whole.  Most men, if they are not actually bad, are at best indifferent—­’sacs merely, floating with open mouths for food to slip in.’”

“Upon my word!” cried Bartlett, “it’s wonderful how much you know about them, considering how very little you’ve seen of them!”

“Oh!” I said, turning to him, “then you do not agree with this estimate?”

“I!” he said.  “Oh, no!  I am not a superior person!  Most men, I suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal better!”

“They might well be that,” I replied, “without being particularly good.  But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be better to confine ourselves to our own experience and consider whether for ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life much worth having, supposing death to be the end of it all.”