=Empirical Rules Also Differ Widely.=--The fact is, moreover, that it is only when the "intermediate generalizations" are taken vaguely and abstractly that there is as much agreement as Mill claims. All educated and virtuous persons in the same country practically agree upon the rules of justice, benevolence, and regard for life, so long as they are taken in such a vague way that they mean anything in general and nothing in particular. Every one is in favor of justice in the abstract; but existing political and economic discussions regarding tariff, sumptuary laws, monetary standards, trades unions, trusts, the relation of capital and labor, the regulation or ownership of public utilities, the nationalization of land and industry, show that large bodies of intelligent and equally well-disposed people are quite capable of finding that the principle of justice requires exactly opposite things. Custom still forms the background of all moral life, nor can we imagine a state of affairs in which it should not. Customs are not external to individuals' courses of action; they are embodied in the habits and purposes of individuals; in the words of Grote (quoted above, p. 173), they "reign under the appearance of habitual, _self-suggested_ tendencies." Laws, formulated and unformulated, social conventions, rules of manners, the general expectations of public opinion, are all of them sources of instruction regarding conduct. Without them the individual would be practically helpless in determining the right courses of action in the various situations in which he finds himself. Through them he has provided himself in advance with a list of questions, an organized series of points-of-view, by which to approach and estimate each state of affairs requiring action. Most of the moral judgments of every individual are framed in this way. =For Customs Conflict.=--If social customs, or individual habits, never conflicted with one another, this sort of guidance would suffice for the determination of right and wrong. But reflection is necessitated because opposite habits set up incompatible ends, forms of happiness between which choice has to be made. Hence the need of _principles in judging_. Principles of judgment cannot simply reinstate past rules of behavior, for the simple reason that as long as these rules suffice there is no reflection and no demand for principles. Good and evil, right and wrong, are embodied in the injunctions and prohibitions of customs and institutions and are not thought about.