It is not a defensive position that I propose to take. I should not think it needful at this time even so much as briefly to reflect any of those timorous and painful arguments _pro_ and _con_ that one finds at times running through the columns of the press, particularly of the religious weeklies, on such a question as, for example, whether nowadays a man can at the same time be a true Christian and a successful business man; or whether the observance of the principles of common honesty is at all compatible with a winning effort to make a decent living. I am well aware that the thoughtful and intellectual founder of this lectureship, under which I have been invited to speak, takes no such narrow view either of morality on the one hand or of the function of business life on the other. His definition of morality in business would demand something very different from the mere avoidance of certain obvious transgressions of the accepted rules of conduct, particularly of that commandment which says: "Thou shalt not steal." Nor, on the other hand, would his definition of the functions of business life be in any manner bounded by the notion that business is a pursuit having for its sole object the getting of the largest possible amount of money. Those people who are content to apply negative moral standards to the carrying on of business life remind one of the little boy's familiar definition of salt: "Salt," said he, "is what makes potatoes taste bad when you don't put any on." According to that sort of definition, morality in business would be defined as that quality which makes the grocer good and respectable when he resists temptation and does not put sand in the sugar. The smug maxim that honesty is the best policy, while doubtless true enough as a verdict of human experience under normal conditions, is not fitted to arouse much enthusiasm as a statement of ultimate ethical aims and ideals. If it were admitted that the sole or guiding motive in a business career must needs be the accumulation of money, I should certainly not think it worth while, in the name of trade morals, to urge young men who are to enter business life that they play the game according to safe and well-recognized rules. I would not take the trouble to advise them to study the penal code and to familiarize themselves with the legal definitions of grand and petit larceny, of embezzlement, or fraud, or arson, in order that they might escape certain hazards that beset a too narrow kind of devotion to business success. It is true, doubtless, that a business career affords peculiar opportunities, and is therefore subject to its own characteristic temptations, as respects the purely private and personal standards of conduct.