57. VARIETIES OF DOMINANT ENDS.--Obviously, the comprehensive and harmonious volitional complexes which may come to characterize different minds may be of very different complexion. Peace of mind, the bubble reputation, the amassing of a fortune, a happy domestic life, humanitarian effort, the perfecting of one's character--each may become the controlling end which furthers or inhibits individual desires and emotions. Or the ends may be such as to appear to most men far more insignificant. To the collection of first editions or the heaping together of bric-a-brac a man may sacrifice his financial security and the welfare of his family. Naturally, the moralist cannot put all such ends upon the same level; but, from the point of view of the psychologist, the processes which take place in the minds thus unified and harmonized are essentially the same. 58. AN OBJECTION ANSWERED.--To the position that it is reason or intelligence that brings about this unity and harmony an objection may be brought. It may be claimed that breadth of information and clarity of vision are quite compatible with highly inconsistent action revealing the temporary dominance of a succession of incongruous desires. _Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor_, confessed the Latin poet. Have we not seen men of the highest intelligence, gifted with foresight, quite capable of grasping the relation of means to ends, nevertheless subject to the baleful influence of momentary desires which drive them hither and thither like a rudderless bark at the mercy of the wind and tide? How does it happen that their intelligence does not help them? To this we may answer that it is not the same thing to possess intelligence and to use it. One may be supplied with information and quite capable of taking long views and embracing inclusive ends--and the attention may be so preoccupied with the desire of the moment, that the voices of others are stifled. In so far as this is the case, the man can not, at the time, be said to be reasonable or intelligent. He has information, and acts as if he were ignorant; his choices do not issue as a resultant of his desires as a whole; there is no resultant; the single desires make their influence felt separately.