42 NATURE S: GOOD: A CONVERSATION 



does that intelligence perceives values as they are 

 is trivial, for it is only an elaborate way of saying 

 that they h; ,ve happened. To invite us, ceasing 

 struggle and effort., to commune with Being through 

 the moments of insight and joy that life provides, 

 is to bid us to self-indulgence to enjoyment at 

 the expense of those upon whom the burden of con 

 ducting life s affairs falls. For even the mystics 

 still need to eat and drink, be clothed and housed, 

 and somebody must do these unmystic things. And 

 to ignore others in the interest of our own perfec 

 tion is not conducive to genuine unity of Being. 



Intelligence is, indeed, as you say, discrimina 

 tion, distinction. But why? Because we have to 

 act in order to keep secure amid the moving flux 

 of circumstance, some slight but precious good that 

 Nature has bestowed ; and because, in order to act 

 successfully, we must act after conscious selection 

 after discrimination o.f means and ends. Of 

 course, all goods arrive, as; Arthur says, as natural 

 results, but so do all bads, and all grades of good 

 and bad. To label the results that occur culmina 

 tions, achievements, and then argue to a quasi- 

 moral constitution of Nature because she effects 

 such results, is to employ a logic which applies to 

 the life-cycle of the germ th,at, in achieving itself, 

 kills man with malaria, as wejll as to the process of 

 human life that in reaching its fullness cuts short 

 the germ-fulfilment. It is putting the cart before 



