In the second place, morality is conduct.  Ideals, ideas, wishes, desires, all may lead to morality, but in so far as they are not expressed in conduct, to that extent they do not come under the head of morality.  One may express the sublimest idea, may claim the highest ideals, and be immoral.  Conduct is the only test of morality, just as it is the ultimate test of character.  Not only is morality judged in terms of conduct, but it is judged according as the conduct is consistent.  “Habits of conduct” make for morality or immorality.  It is not the isolated act of heroism that makes a man moral, or the single unsocial act that makes a man immoral.  The particular act may be moral or immoral, and the person be just the reverse.  It is the organization of activity, it is the habits a man has that places him in one category or the other.

In the third place, morality is a matter of individual responsibility.  It is “choice by the individual,” the “perceiving whatever makes for social order and progress.”  No one can choose for another, no one can perceive for another.  The burden of choosing for the good of the group rests on the individual, it cannot be shifted to society or the Church, or any other institution.  Each individual is moral or not according as he lives up to the light that he has, according as he carries into execution principles that are for the good of his race.  A particular act, then, may be moral for one individual and immoral for another, and non-moral for still another.

In the third place, morality is a matter of individual responsibility.  It is “choice be the individual,” the “perceiving whatever makes for social order and progress.”  No one can choose for another, no one can perceive for another.  The burden of Choosing for the good of the group rests on the individual, it cannot be shifted to society or the Church, or any other institution.  Each individual is moral or not according as he lives up to the light that he has, according as he carries into execution principles that are for the good of his race.  A particular act, then, may be moral for one individual and immoral for another, and non-moral for still another.

To go off into the forest to die if one is diseased may be a moral act for a savage in central Africa; but for a civilized man to do so would probably be immoral because of his greater knowledge.  To give liquor to babies to quiet them may be a non-moral act on the part of ignorant immigrants from Russia; but for a trained physician to do so would be immoral.  Morality, then, is a personal matter, and the responsibility for it rests on the individual.