e with the selfish man, says Professor Fite, is that he "fails to
consider," "he fails to take account of me."[85] Well, then, _why_ does
he fail? _Why_ does he not take account of me? He probably does
"consider" me in several of the ways that are possible and in the ways
that it suits him to consider me. I call him selfish because he does not
consider me in the one particular way in which I wish to be considered.
And what will get me into his consideration from this point of view? In
some cases it may be that I can speak: "Sir, you are standing on my
toe," and as the message encounters no obstacle in any fixed purpose or
temperamental bent the idea has no difficulty in penetrating his mind.
In other cases it may interfere with his desire to raise himself as high
as possible, but I may convince him by the same logic as that of an
"approaching railway train"--that he must regard me. In still other
cases--and it is these that always test Individualism--I am not myself
aware of the injury, or I am too faint to protest. How shall those who
have no voice to speak get "consideration"? Only by "intelligent
sympathy," and by just those emotions rooted in instinctive social
tendencies which an intellectualistic Individualism excludes or
distrusts.

IV

What practical conclusion, if any, follows from this interpretation of
the moral consciousness and its categories? Moral progress involves both
the formation of better ideals and the adoption of such ideals as actual
standards and guides of life. If our view is correct we can construct
better ideals neither by logical deduction nor solely by insight into
the nature of things--if by this we mean things as they are. We must
rather take as our starting-point the conviction that moral life is a
process involving physical life, social intercourse, measuring and
constructive intelligence. We shall endeavor to further each of these
factors with the conviction that thus we are most likely to reconstruct
our standards and find a fuller good.[86]

Physical life, which has often been depreciated from the moral point of
view, is not indeed by itself supreme, but it is certain that much evil
charged to a bad will is due to morbid or defective conditions of the
physical organism. One would be ashamed to write such a truism were it
not that our juvenile courts and our prison investigations show how far
we are from having sensed it in the past. And our present labor
conditions show how far o