go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are so many
different opinions about what things are good, and that no criterion
has been discovered for testing these opinions----"

"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that from
the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a substantial
agreement about what is good."

"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, let
me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, that
there are so many different opinions about what things are good, and
that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I hold that we
have no reason to attach any validity to these opinions, or to suppose
that it is possible to have any true opinions on the subject at all."

"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.

"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very difficult
to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the point, and
the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are nevertheless
practically bound, whether we can justify it to our reason or not,
to believe that our own opinions about what is good have somehow some
validity."

"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.

"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you interrupted--and
your interruption really completed my argument--I imagine it to be
impossible for us not to make choices; and in making choices, as I
think, we use our ideas about Good as a principle of choice."