hich it is
done, and irrespective therefore of its effect upon other less obvious
doings.

It is hoped that the prior discussion has sufficiently elaborated the
method by which both of these evils are avoided. One or both of these
evils must result wherever individuals, whether young or old, cannot
engage in a progressively cumulative undertaking under conditions which
engage their interest and require their reflection. For only in such
cases is it possible that the disposition of desire and thinking should
be an organic factor in overt and obvious conduct. Given a consecutive
activity embodying the student's own interest, where a definite result
is to be obtained, and where neither routine habit nor the following of
dictated directions nor capricious improvising will suffice, and
there the rise of conscious purpose, conscious desire, and deliberate
reflection are inevitable. They are inevitable as the spirit and quality
of an activity having specific consequences, not as forming an isolated
realm of inner consciousness.

2. The Opposition of Duty and Interest. Probably there is no antithesis
more often set up in moral discussion than that between acting
from "principle" and from "interest." To act on principle is to act
disinterestedly, according to a general law, which is above all personal
considerations. To act according to interest is, so the allegation runs,
to act selfishly, with one's own personal profit in view. It substitutes
the changing expediency of the moment for devotion to unswerving moral
law. The false idea of interest underlying this opposition has already
been criticized (See Chapter X), but some moral aspects of the question
will now be considered. A clew to the matter may be found in the fact
that the supporters of the "interest" side of the controversy habitually
use the term "self-interest." Starting from the premises that unless
there is interest in an object or idea, there is no motive force, they
end with the conclusion that even when a person claims to be acting from
principle or from a sense of duty, he really acts as he does because
there "is something in it" for himself. The premise is sound; the
conclusion false. In reply the other school argues that since man is
capable of generous self-forgetting and even self-sacrificing action, he
is capable of acting without interest. Again the premise is sound, and
the conclusion false. The error on both sides lies in a false notion of
the relatio