The internal side of conduct is represented by the moral sentiments. These are to be distinguished from the mere motives, which, defined as something that has propulsive force, whether a feeling or a passion, does not enter into moral action except as absorbed into volition. No emotion is, in itself, right or wrong, but is only indirectly judged as such as it makes a difference to the action--as an aptitude of mind which tends to this or that predominating form of conduct. Moral sentiments, on the other hand, as moral aptitudes effective for particular conduct, contain an additional element. Moral sentiments, thus defined, being equivalent to conduct, it follows that the mere possession of sentiments cannot constitute the difference between intrinsic or internal, and customary morality; customs are themselves a matter of sentiment. Thus "conduct as a concrete whole has an inward element of sentiment and an outward element of action, and these are different, on the one hand from mere given feelings, on the other from mere action." "Conduct is this unity of feeling and action in which mere feeling is modified by the idea of action, and mere action becomes a mental, or, if we like, a spiritual thing." "Conduct and character are the same thing facing different ways." "Think of a man's conduct in relation to the mental conditions from which it proceeds, and you think of his character; think of his character as it produces results beyond these sentiments themselves, and you have conduct." There are no morally indifferent acts; when viewed in general and broader lights, all acts are either good or bad; though there are some cases of really indifferent means arising from the mechanism of action; as, for instance, that I am to go to London is not indifferent, but we may suppose that the fact that I may go by the road or by the river makes no difference to my volition. There is no distinction between virtue and prudence as regard for self, but prudence, in so far as it is compatible with social requirements, is a duty and a virtue. Ethics, then, has to do with conduct as a whole in its external and its internal aspects. In distinction from Psychology, it has to do with it not merely as a fact to be analyzed, but with reference to its nature, quality, or content, judged by a standard of value. It is not dependent upon Metaphysics, but precedes it in order of time, whatever may be said of the order of importance; Metaphysics examines, properly, the ultimate questions left over unanswered by the other sciences. From the purely physical method, Ethics has advanced to a biological method; and the doctrine that pleasure is the end of right action has been replaced by the idea of social vitality as the end. STATICAL ANALYSIS--MORAL ORDER