permissible deception of one's neighbor to apply a patch to an old
garment so skillfully that it will escape detection; the sporting
character who takes it to be the mutual understanding among men that
truth shall not be demanded of those who deal in horses and dogs; the
youth from Texas who claims that the French philosopher, Janet, cannot be
an authority on morals, since he asserts that he who cheats at cards must
feel a burning shame. With the ethics of the ancient Hebrews, of the
Greeks, of the Romans, our young moralist has had the opportunity to
acquire some familiarity, and he can compare them, if he will, with the
Christian ethics of his own day. He knows something of history and
biography; he has read books of travel, and has some acquaintance with
the manners and customs of other peoples. Were he given to reflection, it
ought not to surprise him to find a Portuguese sea-cook maintaining that
it is wrong to steal, except from the rich; or to learn that a Wahabee
saint rated the smoking of tobacco as the worst possible sin next to
idolatry, while maintaining that murder, robbery, and such like, were
peccadilloes which a merciful God might properly overlook.

Material for reflection he has in abundance--and he often remains
relatively dogmatic and unplagued by doubt. But only relatively so; and
only so long as the claims of conflicting authorities are not forced upon
his attention, rendered importunate in the light of discussion, made so
familiar as to seem real and substantial. It is the tendency of the
widening of the horizon to arouse men to reflection, to stimulate to
criticism. From such criticism the science of ethics has its birth.

What is true of the individual is true of men in the mass. The blind life
of social classes long laid in chains by custom and tradition may come to
be illuminated by new ideas, and passive acquiescence may give way to
active participation in social endeavor. Nor can primitive peoples remain