To say this is to admit that morality varies with different temperaments and different needs. What is best for one person is not necessarily best for another; what is right for an early stage of civilization is not always right for a later. The patriarchal family was a source of strength in primitive society; today it would be a needless tyranny. Life in a tropical isle frees man from the necessity of many virtues which a more rigorous climate entails. The poet needs to live in a different way from the coal-heaver. Just so far as our individual and racial needs vary-our real needs, not our supposed needs and pathological desires (and always bearing in mind the needs of others)-just so far is what is right for one different from what is right for another. This is no condemnation of eudsemonistic morality. On the contrary, a clear recognition of this truth would happily relax the sometimes over-rigid conventions of society, its cut-and- dried- made-on-one-pattern code, and make it more elastic and suitable to individual needs. However, we are not so different from one another as we are apt to think. The extenuation of sin on the plea that the "artistic temperament" demands this, or a "sensitive nature" needs that, is much overdone. Differences in temperament are superficial compared with the miles of underlying strata of plain human nature. "A man's a man for a' that," and must submit to the rules for human life. The man of "artistic temperament" does not know himself well enough. He feels superficial and transient cravings; he ignores his underlying needs, and the fundamental duties which, in common with all other men, he owes to his fellows. The standard of morality is absolute and objective, then, for each individual, and approximately the same for all human beings. He is wise who seeks not to mould his life according to his longings, but who accepts the rules of the game and follows the paths blazed by the seers and doers before him. Only those individuals and those nations have achieved success that have been willing to learn and follow the ideals which life itself imposes, the eternal laws which religious men call the will of God. For criticisms of the account of morality here defended: F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. II. J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, book II, chaps, I, II. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, book in, chap. I, first half, book IV, chap. III. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XIV. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap. vi. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap, III; book II, chaps, I, II. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, part I. G. E. Moore, Ethics, chap. VII. In rebuttal of some of these arguments: J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chaps, II and IV. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, IX, X. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. X. CHAPTER XIII ALTERNATIVE THEORIES