first, the basis of all preference, and then, in detail, the reasons for preferring this concrete act to that.  Here are a thousand impulses and instincts drawing us, with infinite further possibilities suggesting themselves to reflection; the more developed our natures the more frequently do our desires conflict.  Why is any one better than another?  How can we decide between them?  Or shall we perhaps disown them all for some other and better way.

Man’s effort to solve these problems is revealed outwardly in a multitude of precepts and laws, in customs and conventions; and inwardly in the sense of duty and shame, in aspiration, in the instinctive reactions of praise, blame, contentment, and remorse.  The leadings of these forces are, however, often divergent, sometimes radically so.  We must seek a completer insight.  There must be some best way of solving the problem of life, some happiest, most useful way of living; its pursuit constitutes the field of ethics.  Nothing could be more practical, more vital, more universally human.

Why should we study ethics?

(1) The most obvious reason for the study of ethics is that we may get more light for our daily problems.  We are constantly having to choose how we shall act and being perplexed by opposing advantages.  Decide one way or the other we must.  On what grounds shall we decide?  How shall we feel assured that we are following a real duty, pursuing an actual good, and not being led astray by a mere prejudice or convention?  The alternative is, to decide on impulse, at haphazard, after some superficial and one-sided reflection; or to think the matter through, to get some definite criteria for judgments, and to face the recurrent question, what shall we do?  In the steady light of those principles. [Footnote:  Cf.  Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, vol. i:  “Marcus Aurelius,” opening paragraph:  “The object of systems of morality is to take possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by presenting to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of conduct.  In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its days of languor or gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making way towards its goal.”]

(2) In addition to the fact that we all have unavoidable problems which we must solve one way or another, a little familiarity with life, an acquaintance with the biographies of great and good men, should lead us to suspect that beyond the horizon of these immediate needs lie whole ranges of beautiful and happy living to which comparatively few ever attain.  There are better ways of doing things than most of us have dreamed.  The study of ethics should reveal these vistas and stimulate us to a noble discontent with