And the crowd strives to hold its members in line. Conformity to its ways and standards is required of all, and becomes an end in itself. One does things because others do them. The crowd man is shocked by the unconventional because it is unusual. His ideas of right and wrong, which he thinks he has by _a priori_ intuition or moral sense, are merely those which prevail in his set or parish. The average man’s conscience, which seems to him to be an infallible moral guide and which he holds to be sacred and personal, is little more than a reflection of herd opinion. And as men become marshalled in the mass movements of present-day society, they tend more and more to submit the control of conduct to the “public conscience” and to leave less and less to private judgment. _There is no judgment but private judgment._ The public conscience is a creature of emotional instability. It is characterized by periodic obsessions similar to those of mania. It will remain utterly indifferent to glaring evil and every appeal to it is unheeded; then all of a sudden perhaps over a trifle, or an unconfirmed rumor, it is stirred to the highest pitch of excitement. It has a “cause” and for a time is occupied with nothing else. All realities are thrown out of perspective. The cause is vindicated regardless of consequences; it is carried triumphant at the head of a procession of human wreckage, bitterness and folly. As soon as the mischief is complete, the cause is abandoned. Men begin to “come to,” and public conscience sleeps until the next episodic attack. It is precisely in regard to matters which most deeply stir the public conscience that the educated man will be on his guard. He will not be easily bullied into surrendering his private judgment to public opinion. He will not permit the big words of herd morality to scare him away from the consideration of cold facts. Before a man can think for himself, he must have learned to think at all. There is only one sound method of moral education. It is in teaching people to think. CHAPTER XI THE CLASSICAL TRADITION--PLATO AND ARISTOTLE