The transition period is followed by the period of true morality during which the conduct chosen becomes habit. The habits characteristic of this final period are different from the habits of the non-moral period, in that they have their source in reason, whereas those of the early period grew out of instincts. This is the period of most value, the period of steady living in accordance with standards and ideals which have been tested by reason and found to be right. The transition period is wasteful and uncertain. True morality is the opposite. But so long as growth in moral matters goes on there is a continuous change from transition period to truly moral conduct and back again to a fresh transition period and again a change to morality of a still higher order. Each rationalized habit but paves the way for one still higher. Morality, then, should be a continual evolution from level to level. Only so is progress in the individual life maintained. Morality, then, requires the inhibition of some instincts and the perpetuation of others, the formation of habits and ideals, the development of the power to think and judge, the power to react to certain abstractions such as ought, right, duty, and so on, the power to carry into execution values accepted. The general laws of instinct, of habit, the response by piecemeal association, the laws of attention and appreciation, are active in securing these responses that we call moral, just as they are operative in securing other responses that do not come under this category. It is only as these general psychological laws are carried out sufficiently that stable moral conduct is secured. Any violation of these laws invalidates the result in the moral field just as it would in any other. There is not one set of principles governing moral conduct and another set governing all other types of conduct. The same general laws govern both. This being true, there is no need of discussing in detail the operation of laws controlling moral conduct--that has all been covered in the previous chapters. However, there are some suggestions which should be borne in mind in the application of these laws to this field.