and he may be quite unable to give an account of the moods and figures of the syllogism; but he cannot lose the critical habit if he once has acquired it, and he cannot but be on his guard against himself as well as against others. There is a keen pleasure in gaining such insight. It gives a feeling of freedom and power, and rids one of that horrid sense that, although this or that bit of reasoning is certainly bad, it is impossible to tell just what is the matter with it. And as for its practical utility, if it is desirable to get rid of prejudice and confusion, and to possess a clear and reasonable mind, then anything that makes for this must be of value. Of the desirability that all who can afford the luxury of a liberal education should do some serious reading in ethics, it seems hardly necessary to speak. The deficiencies of the ethics of the unreflective have already been touched upon in Chapter XVIII. But I cannot forbear dwelling upon it again. What thoughtful man is not struck with the variety of ethical standards which obtain in the same community? The clergyman who has a strong sense of responsibility for the welfare of his flock is sometimes accused of not sufficiently realizing the importance of a frank expression of the whole truth about things; the man of science, whose duty it seems to be to peer into the mysteries of the universe, and to tell what he sees or what he guesses, is accused of an indifference to the effect which his utterances may have upon the less enlightened who hear him speak; many criticise the lawyer for a devotion to the interests of his client which is at times in doubtful harmony with the interests of justice in the larger sense; in the business world commercial integrity is exalted, and lapses from the ethical code which do not assail this cardinal virtue are not always regarded with equal seriousness. It is as though men elected to worship at the shrine of a particular saint, and were inclined to overlook the claims of others. For all this there is, of course, a reason; such things are never to be looked upon as mere accident. But this does not mean that these more or less conflicting standards are all to be accepted as satisfactory and as ultimate. It is inevitable that those who study ethics seriously, who really reflect upon ethical problems, should sometimes criticise the judgments of their fellow-men rather unfavorably. Of such independent criticism many persons have a strong distrust. I am reminded here of an eminent mathematician who maintained that the study of ethics has a tendency to distort the student's judgments as to what is right and what is wrong. He had observed that there is apt to be some divergence of opinion between those who think seriously upon morals and those who do not, and he gave the preference to the unthinking majority.