This is as it should be. Duties and virtues are expressions of the Rational Social Will, and that will is a mere abstraction except as it is incorporated, with a wealth of detail, in human societies. It would be hard for the small boy to classify, under any ten commandments, the innumerable company of the "don'ts" which he hears from his mother during the course of a week. He can leave such work to the moralist. But he is receiving an education in the moral law, as an expression of the social will, through the whole seven days. If we wish, we can emphasize the _moral law_, and dwell upon the _duties_ of man. On the other hand, we may lay stress upon the _virtues_, and point to _ideals_. The Greek made much of the virtues; the Christian moralist had more to say of man's duties. In the end, there need be little discrepancy in the results. I make the same recommendation, whether I say to a man, Speak the truth! or whether I say to him, Be truthful! It may be claimed that shades of difference make themselves apparent, where one emphasizes the law and another points to an ideal. Perhaps they do, in most minds. It certainly sounds more conceited to say: "I am trying to be virtuous," than to say: "I am trying to do my duty." On the other hand, the admonition, "Be truthful," appears to leave one a little latitude. We take the truthful man, so to speak, in the lump. If he has a strong bias toward truth-speaking, and is felt to be reliable, on the whole, it is not certain that we should rob him of his title on the ground of one or two lapses for which weighty reasons could be urged. The admonition: "Speak the truth!" seems more uncompromising; and yet he who prefers this legal form may maintain that it is a general admonition addressed to men of sense who are supposed to be able to exercise reason. 144. THE NEGATIVE ASPECT OF THE MORAL LAW.--Why does the Moral Law, on the surface at least, appear to be so largely negative? As we look back upon our early youth, our days appear to be punctuated with punishments. When we attain to years of discretion, this is not the case, with most of us, at least. But when we turn to the law, in our own society or in others, we find prohibitions and penalties everywhere. Of rewards little is said. Is the social will meant to be chiefly inhibitory? Is it a check to the action of the individual?