26 NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 



that attitude more reasonable by a tough-minded 

 logic. 



Eaton. I am willing to be quiet long enough 

 for you to translate your metaphor into logic, and 

 show how I have begged the question. 



Moore. It is plain enough. You bid us turn 

 to the cultivation, the nurture, of certain values 

 in human life. But the question is whether these 

 are or are not values. And that is a question of 

 their relation to the Universe to Reality. If 

 Reality substantiates them, then indeed they are 

 values; if it mocks and flouts them as it surely 

 does if what mechanical science calls Nature be 

 ultimate and absolute then they are not values. 

 You and your kind are really the sentimentalists, 

 because you are sheer subjectivists. You say : Ac 

 cept the dream as real ; do not question about it ; 

 add a little iridescence to its fog and extend it 

 till it obscure even more of Reality than it natu 

 rally does, and all is well ! I say : Perhaps the 

 dream is no dream but an intimation of the 

 solidest and most ultimate of all realities; and a 

 thorough examination of what the positivist, the 

 materialist, accepts as solid, namely, science, re 

 veals as its own aim, standard, and presupposi 

 tion that Reality is one all-exhaustive spiritual 

 Being. 



Eaton. This is about the way I thought my 

 begging of the question would turn out. You in- 



