On the moral side, again, he is at first almost entirely dependent on the judgment of others. He hears certain tendencies, activities and sentiments condemned as wicked, others upheld as praiseworthy, and even when he begins to pronounce moral judgments on his own account, these judgments must, for a long period, consist for the most part merely of fresh applications of the moral code that he has learnt from others. This subservience to the will and opinion of others (and especially to those of the parents) is a necessary and natural condition of early childhood, but it is plain that the successful development of mind and character must demand a gradually increasing degree of autonomy as regards both thought and conduct, as capabilities mature and experience widens. Success in adult life requires the capacity for determining for oneself the nature and course of the principal activities--indeed, the degree of success that is attained is to a very considerable extent dependent on the amount of such capacity. He who can only carry out the instructions of others, however obediently and skilfully, is only fitted to occupy an inferior position in the economic or the social scale. Hence, one who has never progressed far from the infantile condition of dependence on the commands and opinions of others will be lacking in one of the character qualities which are essential for the attainment of any high degree of individuality or of social and economic responsibility. [Sidenote: Autonomy and Moral Development] On the moral side also, he is debarred from the higher levels of ethical development. At the best, his morality will be one of hard and fast rules, the dictates of parental, ecclesiastical, legal or social authority, incapable of enlightened growth or modification to suit the ever changing flow of circumstances and the widening experience of life. At the worst, he may grow up destitute of all true moral consciousness whatsoever, morality being regarded by him as a certain (usually unpleasant) kind of conduct, arbitrarily imposed by external authority, and only fit to be abandoned as soon as the pressure of this authority is relaxed.