"Maybe." He looked downright friendly, she thought, until you noticed the rigid watchfulness. His smile was comfortable; he probably felt that the rumble of amusement was, on the whole, one for his side. It probably was. She risked a glance toward the jury. Most of them looked puzzled, but none really irritated except little Mr. Anson; Flint-face Fielding seemed coldly interested, but whether in a favorable or hostile way there was no telling. In Helen Butler Edith saw a tiny flicker, surely friendliness, as their eyes met for an instant. It might mean recognition and memory, but if Miss Butler had any thought of disqualifying herself because of a trivial meeting months ago when they had not even exchanged names, she would surely have done it already. _Best not look at her again._ "I think, Miss Nolan, I'd better go back to my original question. I gave you my definition of 'absolute,' you remember, and you said--which sounded reasonable to me--that human activity can't very well be free from human error. Now, may I take that as a positive no to my earlier question: you do not believe in absolute ethical principles?" "Not quite, Mr. Hunter. Some ethical principles take on the apparent quality of absolutes, or of universal law, simply because virtually all the members of a society endorse them. In other words we act as if those principles were absolutes, whether we can justify it logically or not. So let me put it this way: I believe in following certain ethical principles as strictly as though they had the nature of universal law, so long as my own conscience, my own intelligence, can agree to it." "I see. But that means, doesn't it, that your conscience is actually, to you, the supreme judge?" "In a sense it has to be." "For example," said Judge Mann suddenly, and Edith turned to him feeling as though he had reached out a hand to aid her in crossing slippery rocks above a torrent--"for example, if an individual accepts the orders or doctrines of an external authority, would you agree, Miss Nolan, that his acceptance is itself an act of his own conscience, or will, or intelligence?" "Yes, your Honor, that expresses what I had in mind." The Judge said: "In fact the individual can have no dealings, no contact with ideas or doctrines or even with simple observation of the physical world, unless there is first a positive action of his own intelligence. Is this still in line with your thought, Miss Nolan?" "Yes, your Honor." "And--I'll be done in a moment, Mr. Hunter--and finally, would you agree, Miss Nolan, that this decidedly elementary fact is often overlooked in our everyday thinking, perhaps because it's so obvious that we aren't willing to give it a second glance or work out its implications?" "I believe so. We accept the fact the way animals accept the air they breathe, and with no more thought."