NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 23 



formed our conceptions oj[Nature. JDfc hasjs tripped 

 the universelmre not only of all the moral values 

 which it woreflilike to antique pagan and to our 

 medieval ancestors, but also of any regard, any 

 preference,jrgr_sjiiclL_y_aiues J They are mere inci 

 dents, transitory accidents, in her everlasting re 

 distribution of matter in motion ; like the rise and 

 fall of the wave I lament, or like a single musical 

 note that a screeching, rumbling railway train 

 might happen to emit.&quot; This is a one-sided view ; 

 but suppose it were all so, what is the moral? 

 Surely, to change our standpoint, our angle of 

 vision ; to stop looking for results among condi 

 tions that we know will not yield them ; to turn our 

 gaze tojthe^^oods, the values that exist actually 

 and indubitably in_exerience ; and consider by 

 what natural conditions these particular values 

 majnblTstrengthened and. widened. _ 



Insist, if you please, that Nature as a whole 

 does not stand for good as a whole. Then, in 

 heaven s name, just because good is both so plural 

 (so &quot; numerous &quot;) and so partial, bend your ener 

 gies of intelligence and of effort to selecting the 

 specific &quot;plural arid partial natural conditions which 

 wilt at least render~vKlueyha1nye ~3o&quot;Kave more 

 secure and more extensive. Any other course is 

 the way~oTlnadness ; it is the way of the spoilt 

 child who cries at the seashore because the waves 

 do not stand still, and who cries even more f ranti- 



