xperience. Accepting this
qualification, it is now in order to complicate the situation; but
retaining our analysis {48} of the elementary process, and employing
terms in the meaning derived therefrom.

Let us suppose that the apple which you enjoy eating, is my apple, and
that I delight in keeping it for my own uses. Such being the case, we
fall to wrangling over it, and your appetite is like to go unappeased.
I now have evidence to show you that your act of violent appropriation
does not conduce to your interest. This is simply an experimental and
empirical fact. I am in a position to show you that the character of
your action is other than you supposed, that you were under a
misapprehension as to its goodness. It leads not to the enjoyable
activity which interests you, but to a series of bodily exertions and a
state of unfulfilled longing in which you have no interest at all.
Indeed your action is a hinderance to your interest; in other words, is
bad.

But I proceed to point out to you the further fact that, if you will
buy the apple and thus conciliate me, you may get rid of my
interference and proceed with your activity. Your purchase is now
justified in precisely the same manner as your original seizure of the
object. If you are asked why you do it, you may still reply, "Because
I like apples."

Now, it would accord with the customary use of terms to call such
action on your part _prudence_; and prudence is commonly regarded as a
virtue {49} or moral principle. But in prudence the meaning of
morality is as yet only partially realized; it is morality upon a
relatively low level. Hence it is desirable to avoid reading too much
into it.

On the one hand, prudence does involve the checking of one interest in
consequence of the presence of another. You have noted my interest,
acknowledged it as having its own claims, and made room for it.
Therein your action differs signally from your dealings with your
mechanical environment. And it is this contact and adjustment of
interests, this practical recognition of the fact that the success of
one interest requires that other interests be respected, and dealt with
in a special manner appropriate to them as interests, that marks the
procedure as moral. On the other hand, while you have acknowledged my
interest, you have not _adopted_ it. You have concerned yourself with
my love of property only in so far as it affected your fondness for
apples. In order to a