=Individualism.=--The assertion by the individual of his own opinions and beliefs, his own independence and interests, as over against group standards, authority, and interests, is known as individualism. It is evident that such assertion will always mark a new level of conduct. Action must now be personal and voluntary. It is also evident that it may be either better or worse than the level of custom and group life. The first effect is likely to be, in appearance at least, a change for the worse. The old restraints are tossed aside; "creeds outworn" no longer steady or direct; the strong or the crafty individual comes to the fore and exploits his fellows. Every man does what is "right in his own eyes." The age of the Sophists in Greece, of the Renaissance in Italy, of the Enlightenment and Romantic movement in western Europe, and of the industrial revolution in recent times illustrate different phases of individualism. A people, as well as an individual, may "go to pieces" in its reaction against social authority and custom. But such one-sided individualism is almost certain to call out prophets of a new order; "organic filaments" of new structures appear; family, industry, the state, are organized anew and upon more voluntary basis. Those who accept the new conditions and assume responsibility with their freedom, who direct their choices by reason instead of passion, who "aim at justice and kindness" as well as at happiness, become moral persons and gain thereby new worth and dignity. While, then, the general movement is on the whole a movement of individualism, it demands just as necessarily, if there is to be moral progress, a _reconstructed individual_--a person who is individual in choice, in feeling, in responsibility, and at the same time social in what he regards as good, in his sympathies, and in his purposes. Otherwise individualism means progress toward the immoral. § 2. SOCIOLOGICAL AGENCIES IN THE TRANSITION The agencies which bring about the change from customary and group morality to conscious and personal morality are varied. Just as character is developed in the child and young man by various means, sometimes by success, sometimes by adversity or loss of a parent, sometimes by slow increase in knowledge, and sometimes by a sudden right-about-face with a strong emotional basis, so it is with peoples. Some, like the Japanese at the present, are brought into sudden contact with the whole set of commercial and military forces from without. Among others, as with the Greeks, a fermentation starts within, along intellectual, economic, political, and religious lines. Or again, national calamities may upset all the old values, as with the Hebrews. But we may note four typical agencies which are usually more or less active.