My task has been a difficult one, and it is made much more difficult by reason of the uncertainties of our outlook, because there are now so few principles accepted by all of us as true; every principle is faced by a counter principle. It is so much easier to have fixed standards of conduct than to argue every case that occurs. We have failed in every direction to establish ideals fine enough and complete enough, and useful enough to hold our imagination and our wills. Everyone seems to be more or less at loose ends of conflicting purposes. Morals now are like clothes, made to measure and to fit each wearer. Too often, in important particulars, they change as easily and foolishly as the fashions change. I wish to bring people back to a disciplined freedom; to a recognition of their own needs and the needs of others--the deepest desires of life. A morality based on individual values is breaking down in every direction, under the temptations and unsettlements, increased and hastened by the war, but brought about primarily by profit seeking, by the struggle of everyone doing as he likes, by a society so large, so ill organized and so hurried that personal intercourse gives way to mechanical relationships. My position is all the more difficult as, while inclining more to the spirit of those who, in relation to the moral questions I have dealt with, are conservative, I yet regard very many of our accepted conventions and our laws as productive of evil. I realize the way in which they act so disastrously in hindering the spiritual and physical health of our society. I am, therefore, eager for certain very wide-reaching reforms. I have not great patience with abstract theories of right and wrong, rather I would test every law and every institution by its usefulness in helping men and women. However imperfectly I have succeeded, I have set _this aim of helpfulness_ steadfastly before me in every proposal I have made for changes in our marriage laws and in the hindering laws which regulate personal conduct. I do not want to discuss and consider humanity, life, or anything else as I would like them to be, but, as honestly as I can, I would observe and then help them as they are. So many calamities and so much sin that could be prevented are listlessly accepted by us as inevitable. New ideas and needs are entangled among old; there is much of the new that is desirable to preserve, much of the old that needs to be reformed. I would wish to oppose two tendencies: I would prevent the too ready acceptance of the fashions of the day, and I would also prevent a too loyal obedience to the prejudices of yesterday. I would unite the intelligence of the modern with the passion and sincerity of the ancient.