responsibility of carrying out this law. To avoid the ambiguity of the word socialism we may call the latter kind of view universalism. Individualism then and universalism-an antithesis which has been the chief dividing mark of ethical theories in the century-represent two modes of regarding morality which differ in the order in which they take their terms. To the former the individual comes first, and is the measure of the law; to the latter the law or society comes first, and is the measure of the worth of the individual. Both these views are supported by groups of striking and obvious facts. In pausing to indicate these two groups of facts no apology is needed for their obviousness or familiarity. It is such familiar facts, so familiar as to seem hardly worth notice, which mark out the broad lines upon which the philosophical sciences every where proceed. A world of misunderstanding in philosophy might be removed if the data were once clearly stated upon which the opposing parties rest their case. The more obvious the data the more likely they are to be withheld. But the chief difficulties of philosophy arise from the familiarity of its facts, and a writer on ethics at least is not at liberty to shrink from platitudes.

The antithesis in ethical theories has its corresponding antithesis in the theory of knowledge, and it will be useful to adduce parallel facts in illustration from this other department. Let us first take the facts or the considerations which point to the independence or the isolation of the individual. In the first place knowledge is independent, because it comes to us ultimately from our sensations, the most personal of all our mental phenomena. "Seeing is believing" is a common saying, which refers a man back for truth upon something which he must possess for himself and not through another. All doctrines of relativity, from Protagoras downwards, repose on this simple fact. Knowledge is indeed not given by the senses of any one man alone, but it must come through a combination of materials supplied by the

senses.

But more important is the consideration that knowledge, if it is to be real, must be held by the personal effort of the learner. A man who merely repeats what he hears from others does not possess knowledge, but only he who has assimilated it to his own mind, so that it forms a part of his mental stock, and is sensitive to the forces which act upon his intellect. In all learning there is an element contributed by the teacher, but more vital is the element contributed by the learner. Hence even the most elementary education seeks to make the child use his knowledge for himself, stimulating him to test the ideas he has learnt and to inquire further. Still more plainly is this true of the student, who can only be said to learn when his knowledge has that activity which is the symptom of its having struck root. True knowledge is thus the possession only of those who think for themselves, and no advance in knowledge has ever been made but by the independent contributions of persons who have followed up honestly their own ideas, who have lifted their opinions to the measure of facts, who have put into the common stock and submitted to the judgment of others the data and the generalisations which they have themselves. acquired, the aspects of things which have appeared to them and not to another.

3. Precisely similar phenomena are supplied by conduct. All right action appeals ultimately to the wants or to the inclinations of individuals. Though it is not settled by what one man likes, yet the likes and dislikes of persons are the suggestion of conduct, and good conduct is a kind of compromise between them. A state of society which pleased no one would be an impossibility. A constitution is permanent which commends itself to its separate members, who have therefore often been supposed to create the body politic by an original contract. And, secondly, as a man's knowledge must be independent, so it is a cardinal truth of life that his conduct must be spontaneous, must arise from a self-reliant and independent

character. It is not enough to act upon the direction of others: nor again would a state of things so elaborately arranged that a person had only to acquiesce in what he found be a moral order at all. A person who needs to be constrained to good behaviour we regard as a criminal. Good conduct must be done, as we say, freely; and again we cultivate the habit of independent judgment in action. The maxim "Help yourself and God will help you" indicates our belief that the higher law approves only of those characters which are based upon independent effort. We think of a well organised society as one composed of persons whose characters have a meaning, each for itself, and who, moreover, render their service to society by making the best of themselves in the rivalry with others. Nor is this all. Just as truth arises from the shock of independent and individual opinions, so does right depend upon the conciliation of infinite differences of talent, interest, opportunity. The law, as we shall see, is not a maxim of uniformity, but every person starts on his work with a different equipment. He has to make himself out of these materials a definite and spontaneous character.

4. It is to such trite though not trivial elements of ordinary experience that individualism appeals. But there are facts as obvious which point not to the independence of the individual, but to his solidarity. Knowledge must indeed be independent, but if it is true knowledge and worth having, it is something not exclusive to its possessor, but intelligible to others. Truth has in fact a positive existence irrespective of the particular person who acquires it, and yet exists only in the minds of those who know. There is thus a social element in all true knowledge, in virtue of which it passes from mind to mind, and forms the permanent source from which individual acquisitions are derived. Moreover, though truth is formed by opinions and based upon the senses, there is always something of a man's opinions or his sensible experience which is given up in attaining truth.

He has to take care that his opinions shall not contain a merely personal element which confines them to himself. To think for yourself not only does not exclude, but on the contrary rigidly demands thinking along with others, the putting off of idiosyncrasies, the discounting of circumstances which can be appreciated only by yourself. The variable or transitory character of experience again, which arises from our mere changing moods, has to be stripped off before experience is in a form which others may understand, or can be expressed in the language which shall represent it to them. Mere opinion and mere experience have to be corrected: if not, then the knowledge, however much it bears the marks of independence, is isolated knowledge: it has not the characteristic of all truth-that it shall work.

5. The solidarity of good conduct is more patent still. Though it gratifies the wants of persons, it sets a limit to those gratifications. Every one has to give up something which he might have desired if it were not for social considerations (and this is why in the mythology of the social contract primitive men are said to have alienated their natural rights on entering into society); or he may have to stimulate his efforts to bring them to the level of the demands of others. Goodness depends on natural inclinations, but there is a process implied in it of give and take which reconciles conflicting interests. The solitary individual man is not by himself the measure of what is right. And again, though a good man must possess a principle, by which he acts as his own guide through life, we do not suppose that such a principle is something which he creates for himself without regard to a higher law. On the contrary, even a strong wicked man has a method in his wickedness (and only if he has, do we allow him to possess individuality). But his principle is an exclusive and forbidding principle: the good man, on the other hand, while self-contained and acting from intrinsic motives, is an example for the imitation of others. His character is

built upon the law of his fellows, and moulded to suit his duties towards them. Acting upon a principle, he acts upon something which is not merely a personal or peculiar whim, but based on a reasonable regard for others. And as the greatest poems are those which appeal to simple and widely diffused sentiments: and the greatest truths are those of which we can say, "This is what I have been trying to think :" so the greatest individuality is that character in whom are gathered into one clear and concentrated point the dim and scattered hopes and needs and practical sense of a multitude.

The solidarity of conduct may be presented under another form, not in reality different from the above. Neither in knowledge nor in conduct does a man create the whole substance of thought and action afresh. He finds a body of truth and a body of observances ready made, and whatever change he may make must be continuous with what he finds before him. Truth and goodness have a long start of the individual who is to attain them. Hence as a man's knowledge would not exist. except for the truth which is already discovered, so he is partly made in character by the surroundings into which he is born. That a man would not be what he is except for the social medium he lives in is a truth which has been so often dwelt upon that there is little need to labour it here. At every step and turn he is dependent upon others, and acquires his knowledge and his character from them. As he derives from his parents his physical existence, so he learns from them goodness; and as life advances, and he extends his social relations from the home to the civic life, he is moulded continually by the institutions and the customs of his society. Take an ordinary Englishman, and how much of his action could you account for supposing the institutions of England were annihilated? Transplant him to another soil, and he would be a different organism. Among the most potent of these institutions (a vague word, comprising all that belongs to culture and