seeking to confirm. Aristotle lays it down as an axiom, that a man who does not devote himself to some section of the social and spiritual world, if such a being were conceivable, would be no man at all. Family, or friends, or reputation, or country, or God are there in the background, secretly summoned to justify our every thought and word and deed. Because man's nature is social, his end must be social also. It will prevent misunderstanding later, if we put the question squarely here, Does the end justify the means? As popularly understood, most emphatically No. The support of a school is a good end. Does it justify the raising of money by a lottery? Certainly not. The support of one's family is a good end. Does it justify drawing a salary for which no adequate services are rendered? Certainly not. Yet if we push the question farther, and ask why these particular ends do not justify these particular means, we discover that it is because these means employed are destructive of an end vastly higher and greater than the particular ends they are employed to serve. They break down the structure and undermine the foundations of the industrial and social order; an end infinitely more important than the maintenance of any particular school, or the support of any individual family. Hence these means are not to be judged by their promotion of certain specific ends, but by their failure to promote the greatest and best end of all; the comprehensive welfare of society as a whole, of which all institutions and families and individuals are but subordinate members. Throughout our discussion of Aristotle we must understand that the word "end" always has this large social reference, and includes the highest social service of which the man is capable. If we attempt to apply to particular private ends of our own what Aristotle applies to the universal end at which all men ought to aim, we shall make his teaching a pretext for the grossest crimes, and reduce it to little more than sophisticated selfishness. With this understanding of his terms, we may venture to plunge boldly into his system and state it in its most paradoxical and startling form. III RIGHT AND WRONG DETERMINED BY THE END