=1. Self-Realization as Consequence of Moral Action.=--Every good act realizes the selfhood of the agent who performs it; every bad act tends to the lowering or destruction of selfhood. This truth is expressed in Kant's maxim that every personality should be regarded as always an end, never as a means, with its implication that a wrong intent always reduces selfhood to the status of a mere tool or device for securing some end beyond itself--the self-indulgent man treating his personal powers as mere means to securing ease, comfort, or pleasure. It is expressed by ordinary moral judgment in its view that all immoral action is a sort of prostitution, a lowering of the dignity of the self to base ends. The destructive tendency of evil deeds is witnessed also by our common language in its conception of wrong as dissipation, dissoluteness, duplicity. The bad character is one which is shaky, empty, "naughty," unstable, gone to pieces, just as the good man is straight, solid, four-square, sound, substantial. This conviction that at bottom and in the end, in spite of all temporary appearance to the contrary, the right act effects a realization of the self, is also evidenced in the common belief that virtue brings its own bliss. No matter how much suffering from physical loss or from material and mental inconvenience or loss of social repute virtue may bring with it, the _quality of happiness_ that accompanies devotion to the right end is so unique, so _invaluable_, that pains and discomforts do not weigh in the balance. It is indeed possible to state this truth in such an exaggerated perspective that it becomes false; but taken just for what it is, it acknowledges that whatever harm or loss a right act may bring to the self in some of its aspects,--even extending to destruction of the bodily self,--the inmost moral self finds fulfillment and consequent happiness in the good.