=Individual Emancipation.=--In other cases, what takes place is a consciousness of liberation; of assertion of personal rights and privileges, claims for new modes of activity and new kinds of enjoyment. The individual feels that he is his own end; that the impulses and capacities which he finds in himself are sacred, and afford the only genuine law for his behavior; that whatever restricts the full exercise of these personal powers and hampers the satisfaction of personal desires is coercive and morally abnormal. Existing social institutions may be practically necessary, but they are morally undesirable; they are to be used, or got around in the interests of personal gratifications. As some feel that social conditions are hostile to the realization of the highest moral _obligations_, so others feel that they are hostile to the full possession of their _rights_, of that to which they are properly entitled. =Eventual Transformation of Social Values and Aims.=--In extreme cases, the individual may come to believe that, either on the basis of his true obligations or his true rights, the very principle of society is morally indifferent or even unworthy; that the moral life is eventually or intrinsically an individual matter, although it happens to be outwardly led under social conditions. But in the main the opposition is not to the social relations as such, but to existing institutions and customs as inadequate. Then the reaction of the individual against the existing social scheme, whether on the ground of ideals too high to be supported by it or on the ground of personal claims to which it does not afford free play, becomes a means to the reconstruction and transformation of social habits. In this way, _reflective morality is a mark of a progressive society, just as customary morality is of a stationary society_. Reflection on values is the method of their modification. The monastic Christian in his outward withdrawal from social life, still maintained the conception of a perfected society, of a kingdom of God or Heaven to be established. This ideal became to some extent the working method for changing the existing order. The Stoics, who held in light esteem existing community ties, had the conception of a universal community, a cosmopolis, ruled by universal law, of which every rational being was a member and subject. This notion became operative to some extent in the development of judicial and administrative systems much more generalized and equitable than the purely local customs, laws, and standards which it swept away. The Epicurean had the ideal of friendship on the basis of which were formed groups of congenial associates held together neither by legal ties, nor by universal laws of reason, nor by unity of religious aspiration and belief, but by friendship and companionable intercourse. Thus were afforded other centers of social reconstruction. § 4. EFFECTS UPON THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER