he ought to do this or that according to a code laid down by authority. This will make a real democracy always impossible. However the sentiment of duty arises, it becomes the central feeling in all inner conflicts, and it wrestles with inclination and the pleasant choice. Duty is the great inhibitor, but also it says "Thou shalt!" Ideally, duty involves self-sacrifice, and practically man dislikes self-sacrifice save where love is very strong. Duty chains a man to his task where he is inclined for a holiday. Duty may demand a man's life, and that sacrifice seems easier for men to make than the giving up of power and pelf. (In the late war it was no great trouble to pass laws conscripting life; it was impossible to pass laws conscripting wealth. It was easier for a man to allow his son to go to war than to give up his wealth en masse.) The power of the feeling of duty and right over men is very variable. There are a few to whom the feeling of "ought" is all powerful; they cannot struggle against it, even though they wish to. All of their goings, comings and doings are governed thereby, and even though they find the rest of the world dropping from them, they resist the herd. For the mass of men duty governs a few relationships--to family and country--and even here self-interest is camouflaged by the term "duty" in the phrase "a man owes a duty to himself." This is the end of real duty. The average man or woman makes a duty of nonessentials, of ceremonials, but is greatly moved by the cry of duty if it comes from authority or from those he respects. He fiercely resents it if told he is not doing his duty, but is quick to tell others they are not doing theirs. There is also a group in whom the sense of duty is almost completely lacking, or rather fails to govern action. Ordinarily these are spoken of as lacking moral fiber, but in reality the organizing energy of character and the inhibition of the impulse to seek pleasure and present desire is feeble. Sometimes there is lack of affection toward others, little of the real glow of tender feeling, either towards children[1] or parents or any one. Though these are often emotional, they are not, in the good meaning of the term, sentimental. [1] It is again to be emphasized that the most vital instincts may be lacking. Even the maternal feeling may be absent, not only in the human mother but in the animal mother. So we need not be surprised if there are those with no sense of right or duty.