As may have already been divined, a mechanistic ethics on its constructive side does not maintain a pension list for the outworn conceptions of an earlier day. Consequently, in this place we shall not ask what used to be thought of the “Freedom of the Will,” nor shall we quote Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” as a prologue to our theme. For while only a hundred years ago no ethical teacher could have safely omitted giving great emphasis to the theological setting of these two concepts, today such a treatment would not arouse the slightest “problematic thrill.” What used to be called “the Will” is now an obsolete expression;—indeed, ever since Spinoza wrote, it has been regarded as a myth. In its stead, we speak of the individual or particular volitions of men, and we discuss their value in reducing the gap between our liquid matter and its good. Likewise, what was once called the lump-sum of our Duty has now become separated and analyzed into claims, interests, other-regarding sentiments, and the like, each one of which has a history and a real meaning for our flesh-and-blood personality. All such changes, while perhaps highly disconcerting to those persons who feel that they cannot get along without their “guiding fictions,” are really signs of a salutary advance along ethical lines. Once it is realized that what is popularly termed “will-power” is after all only _skill-power_, and that “moral obligation” should be translated into _pragmatic urgency_, it will be plain that only clearly-prevised action-tendencies can properly be called either right or virtuous. It may be true that many a successful action has been performed in the name of a fetichistic belief, but who will doubt that an even more profitable action could have been motivated with less waste of the body’s energies, had there been correct insight and a frank facing of the facts. As long as people are afraid of life, so long are they bound to allege some false cause of their actions. Conversely, as soon as they realize that they _are_ what they _do_, and whenever they learn that their ethical books cannot be balanced by drawing on a phantom bank account, they begin to pile up ethical assets, and to reduce their ethical liabilities.