There is no formula for adjustment. Intelligence, insight into one's powers and capacities, caution, boldness, compromise, firmness, aggressiveness, tact,--these and a dozen other traits and qualities come into play. It is a favorite teaching of optimistic sentimentalists, "Will conquers everything--it is omnipotent." God's will is,--but no one else's. What happens when two will and pray for diametrically opposing results? "Then God is on the side of the heaviest battalions," said Napoleon. Victory comes to the best prepared, the most intelligent, the least hampered and the luckiest. Outside of metaphysics and theology there is no abstract will; it is a part of purpose, intelligence and instinct and shares in their imperfections and limitations. To will the impossible is to taste failure, although it may be difficult to know what is impossible. Fight hard, be brave, keep your powder dry and have good friends is the best counsel for adjustment. But learn resignation and cultivate a sense of humor. No inspiration in that? Well, I must leave inspiration to others who have an infallible formula. The best I can offer in adjustment is the old prayer, "Lord, make me love the chase and not the quarry! Lord, make me live up to my ideals!" Out of the welter of conflicts into which the individual is plunged through his own nature and the nature of the life around him, out of the experience of the race and the teaching of its leaders come ideals. Good, Beauty, Justice,--these are good deeds, beautiful things, true and non-contradictory expressions, just acts raised to the divine and absolute, and therefore worshiped. And their opposite, arising from evil deeds, ugly and disgusting things, misleading experiences and suffering, become unified into various forms of Evil. Life becomes divided into two parts, Good and Evil, and personified (by the great majority) into God and the Devil. Man seeks the Good, hates Evil, esteems himself when he conforms to the ideal, loathes himself when he violates it. He cannot judge himself; he wishes to know the judgment of others and accepts or rejects that judgment. We say man seeks pleasure, satisfaction, the Good. True. But it is important to know that essentially he seeks a higher self-valuation, seeks to establish his own dignity and worth and has his highest satisfaction when that valuation is reached through conformity with absolute standards. CHAPTER XII. THE METHODS OF PURPOSE--WORK CHARACTERS Having asked concerning any person, "What are his purposes?" whether of power or fellowship, whether permanent or transitory, whether adjustable or not, we next ask, "How does he seek their fulfillment?"