NATURE S GOOD: A CONVERSATION 37 



uously, finally says): There is one thing I like 

 about Arthur: he is frank. He comes out with 

 what you in all your hearts really believe theory, 

 supreme and sublime. All is to the good in this 

 best of all possible worlds, if only some one be 

 defining and classifying and syllogizing, accord 

 ing to the lines already laid down. Aristotle s God 

 of pure intelligence (as he well knew) was the 

 glorification of leisure ; and Arthur s point of view, 

 if Arthur but knew it, is as much the intellectual 

 snobbery of a leisure class economy, as the luxury 

 and display he condemns are its material snobbery. 

 There is really nothing more to be said. 



Moore. To get back into the game which 

 Grimes despises. Doesn t Arthur practically say 

 that the universe is good because it culminates in 

 intelligence, and that intelligence is good because 

 it perceives that the universe culminates in itself? 

 And, on this theory, are ignorance and error, 

 and consequent evil, any less genuine achieve 

 ments of Nature than intelligence and good? 

 And on what basis does he call by the titles of 

 achievement and end that which at best is an 

 infinitesimally fragmentary and transitory epi 

 sode? I said Eaton begged the question. Arthur 

 seems to regard it as proof of a superior intelli 

 gence ( one which realistically takes things as they 

 are) to beg the question. What is this Nature, 

 this universe in whiclTevil is as stubborn a fact as 



