service to the social climber, and, to the second, taste in dress and the
habit of not repeating stories?

Thomas Reid lays stress upon the deliverances of the individual
conscience, when consulted in a quiet hour. Nevertheless he proposes five
fundamental maxims: [Footnote: _On the Active Powers of Man_, Essay
V, chapter i.]

We ought to exercise a rational self-love, and prefer a greater to a
lesser good.
We should follow nature, as revealed in the constitution of man.
We should exercise benevolence.
Right and wrong are the same for all in the same circumstances.
We should venerate and obey God.

With such writers we may contrast the Utilitarians and the adherents of
the doctrine of Self-realization, [Footnote: These will be discussed
below, chapters xxv and xxvi.] who lay little stress upon lists of
virtues or duties, but aim, respectively, at the greatest happiness of
the greatest number, and at the harmonious development of the faculties
of man, regarding as virtues such qualities of character as make for the
attainment, in the long run, of the one or the other of these ends.

11. THE STRETCHING OF MORAL CONCEPTS.--The instances given suffice to
show that the moralists speak with a variety of tongues. The code of one
age is apt to seem strange and foreign to the men of another. Even where
there is apparent agreement, a closer scrutiny often reveals that it has
been attained by a process of stretching conceptions. Take for example
the so-called "cardinal" virtues [Footnote: From _cardo_, a hinge.
These virtues were supposed to be fundamental. The name given to them was