"But you did not like it," said Roger, "and so you did not help it. And what was to make you like to help it, if you did not?" "If I had been good, I should not have liked to hurt Placidia, however provoking she was," I said. "And what is to be good?" said he. "To like to do right," I said. "I think that is to be good." "But what is to make you like to do right?" "Being good, to be sure," said I, feeling myself helplessly drawn into the whirlpool. "That is going round and round, and coming to nothing," said Roger. "But leaving alone about right and wrong, what is to make you do anything?" "Because I choose," said I, "or some one else chooses." "But what makes you choose?" said he. "What made you choose, for instance, to come here this afternoon?" "Because you wished it, and because it was a fine afternoon; and we always do when it is," said I. "Then you chose it because of something in you which makes you like to please me, and because the sun was shining. Neither of which you could help; therefore you did not really choose at all." "I _did_ choose, Roger," said I. "I might have felt cross, and chosen to disappoint you, if I had liked." "But you are not cross; you are good-tempered, on the whole, so you could not help liking to please me." "But I am cross sometimes with Placidia," I said. "That is because, as Aunt Gretel says, your temper is like what our mother's was, quick but sweet," said he; "and that is a deeper puzzle still, because it goes further back than you and your character, to our mother's character, that is to say; and if to hers, no one can say how much further, probably as far as Eve." "But sometimes," said I, "for instance, when you talk like this, my temper is tempted to be cross even with you, Roger. But I choose to keep my temper, and it must be I myself that choose, and not my temper or my mother's." "That is because of the two motives, the one which inclines you to keep your temper is stronger than the one which inclines you to lose it," said he. "But there is always something before your choice to make you choose, so that really you must choose what you do, and therefore you do not really choose at all." "But I do choose, Roger," said I. "I choose this instant to jump down from this tree--so--and go home." "That proves nothing," said he, following me down from the tree with provoking coolness; "you chose to jump down, because there is a wilful feeling in you which made you choose it, and that is part of your character, and probably can be traced back to Eve, and proves exactly what I say." "I am not free to do right or wrong, or anything, Roger!" I said. "Then I might as well be a cat, or a tree, or a stone." "I suppose you might, if you were," said Roger drily. "Is there no way out of the puzzle, Roger?" I said. "I do not see any," he said; "at least not by thinking. But there seems to me no end to the puzzles, if one begins to think."