better instrument of knowledge than
the public mind. It is the individual mind that is more directly
confronted with the evidence, more single and responsive.
Individualism is not, then, an appeal to private opinion in any
disparaging sense. For, in so far as private opinion is independent
and truthful in motive, concerning itself with its objects rather than
with the social model of the day, it is self-corrective and tends
inevitably toward the common truth. It is the opinion that is not
really individual, but imitative, respectful of persons, generally
submissive to ulterior motives of a social kind, that is private in the
bad sense. Its privacy lies in its artificiality, in its partisanship,
and in its remove from the open daylight of experience.

If, therefore, one must in moral matters finally rely on the
individual's judgment, this in no way implies the breakdown of
universal principles. It is neither necessary nor natural that
individual judgment should bespeak whim, hasty impulse, or narrow
self-interest. The guardian in Plato's _Republic_ was as much an
individual as the merchant or the soldier.[5] In a sense he was more
an individual than these, since he was not swayed by the crowd, but
thought with freedom {38} and independence. Nevertheless his thought
embraced the interests of the entire community, and comprehended the
organization and forms of adjustment through which they all might live
and thrive. In moral as in other matters the true appeal of
individualism is to an intelligence which, though emancipated from
convention, is on that very account committed to the general
necessities that lie in the field it seeks to know.

In view of these considerations, then, we may pronounce legitimate and
hopeful the moral individualism of the time. It implies the
recognition that there is a genuine ground for moral action, which may
be brought home to any individual mind that will deal honestly and
directly with the facts of life. Morality is not a useful fiction
which must be protected against inquisitiveness and cherished in
ignorance and servility; it is a body of compelling truth that will
convince wherever there is a capacity to observe and reason. It
requires no higher sanction than the individual, because the individual
is society's organ of truth; because only in the individual mind is
society open to rational conviction.

Latitudinarianism and tolerance in this sense bespeak a confidence in
m