vacy and solitude, to follow a lead and to take it,
to fear and hate, and sympathize with others. The satisfaction
of any one of these impulses gives pleasure. Any one
of these may become a dominant passion. But it is not
through yielding to a single imperious impulse that men attain
genuine happiness. To be excessively pugnacious or amorous
or fearful is to court unhappiness, both for the individual
and his fellows. It is only by giving each instinct its
proportionate chance in the total context of all the instincts, that
happiness is to be found.

It is for this reason that, as Aristotle first pointed out, a
study of what is good for man must start with a study of
what man himself is. The study of ethics must consequently
fall back for its data upon psychology. It must note with
precision the things that men can do, before it tells them what
they ought to do. For the things they ought to do, are
dependent on the conditions which limit and determine their
ideals. Any ethical system that deliberately excludes from
its formulation natural human desires and capacities, is
denying the very sources of all morality. For every ideal
has its root back in some unlearned human impulse, and an
ideal that has no basis in the nature of man, is not an ideal,
but a negation. The ideal "way of life" is one that provides
for the harmonious utilization of all those possibilities which
lie in man's original nature. To deny a place to the sex
impulse is to deny a place to ideal love. To deny the moral
legitimacy of the fighting instinct is to take away the basis
of that immense energy which goes to sustain great moral
reformers. The place of ethical theory is not to deny human
impulses, but to turn them to uses in which they will not
hinder other impulses either of the individual or of others.
Through physical science, men have sought to make the most
of their physical environment; through moral science, they
can try to make the most of the human equipment which is
theirs for better or for worse. This human equipment is an
opportunity; and the utilization of this opportunity constitutes
happiness. It is in the realization of the possibilities
offered by our original human nature that reflection upon
morals is justified. It is in the effective fulfillment of this
opportunity that its success must be measured.

MORALITY AND HUMAN NATURE. A moral theory that is
merely coercive and arbitrary, therefore, is not in a genuine
sense moral.