“Oh well, if you deny that—­”

“Well, if I deny that?”

“I don’t believe you to be serious, that’s all.  Good simply means, what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I do.”

“You see!” interposed Dennis; “I told you he was a Utilitarian.”

“I daresay I am; at any rate, that’s what I think; and so, I believe, does everybody else.”

“‘The Universe,’” murmured Ellis, “’so far as sane conjecture can go, is an immeasurable swine’s trough, consisting of solid and liquid, and of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of attainable and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater quantities for most pigs.’”

“That’s very unfair,” Parry protested, “as an account of Hedonism.”

“I don’t see that it is at all,” cried Leslie.

“I think,” I said, “that it represents Bentham’s position well enough, though probably not Bartlett’s.”

“Oh well,” said Parry, “Bentham was only an egoistic Hedonist.”

“A what?” said Bartlett.

“An egoistic Hedonist.”

“And what may that be?”

“An egoistic Hedonist,” Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him short.  “It’s best explained,” he said, “by an example.  Here, for example, is Bentham’s definition of the pleasures of friendship; they are, he says, ’those which accompany the persuasion of possessing the goodwill of such and such individuals, and the right of expecting from them, in consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous services.’”

We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not help protesting.  “You really can’t judge,” he said, “by a single example.”

“Can’t you?” cried Ellis; “well then, here’s another.  ’The pleasures of piety’ are ’those which accompany the persuasion of acquiring or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in consequence, of expecting particular favours from him, either in this life or in another.’”

We laughed again; and Parry said, “Well, I resign myself to your levity.  And after all, it doesn’t much matter, for no one now is an egoistic Hedonist.”

“What are we then,” asked Bartlett, “you and I?”

“Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists,” said Parry.

“And what’s the difference?”

“The difference is,” Parry began to explain, but Ellis interrupted him again.

“The difference is,” he cried, “that one is a brute and the other a prig.”

“Really, Ellis,” Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.

“But, Parry,” I interposed, “are you a Utilitarian?”

“Not precisely,” he replied; “but my conclusions are much the same as theirs.  And of all the a priori systems I prefer Utilitarianism, because it is at least clear, simple, and precise.”

“That is what I can never see that it is.”

“Why, what is your difficulty?”

“In the first place,” I said, “the system appears to rest upon a dogma.”