thoughts and moods influence inevitably a man’s outward acts.  What we do depends upon what we have been thinking and imagining and feeling.  The Great Teacher was right when he bade men refrain not merely from murder, but from angry thoughts; not merely from adultery, but from lustful glances; not merely from perjury, but from the desire to deceive.  Epictetus puts it, “What we ought not to do we should not even think of doing.”  And Marcus Aurelius writes, “We should accustom ourselves to think upon othing that we should hesitate to reveal to others if they asked to know it.”  This is sound advice.  Without attempting to settle the problem of determinism or indeterminism, which falls properly within the sphere of natural rather than of moral philosophy, it is evident that our conduct is largely the result of that set of potentialities which we call character, that our happiness is in great degree shaped by our inward mental states.

Hence the large role of “motive” and “intent” in ethical theory.  High motives and good intentions lead-sometimes to disastrous, acts we know what place is paved therewith.  We need the wisdom of the serpent as well as the innocence of the dove.  But other things being equal, pure desires tend to right conduct.  A man whose mind dwells upon the good side of his neighbors, who loves and sympathizes, and enjoys their friendship, will be far less likely to give vent to acts of cruelty or malice than one who indulges in spiteful feelings, fault finding, and resentment.  Our habitual thoughts and desires make us responsive to certain stimuli and indifferent to others.  The words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, as well as the trifling acts that we perform, in themselves however unimportant, have their subtle and accumulative influence in determining our momentous acts.  The familiar case of the drinker who says, “This glass doesn’t count” can be paralleled in every field of life.  It pays to keep in moral training, to cultivate kindly and disciplined thoughts, to forbid ill natured and unworthy feelings, and self-indulgent dreams.  Otherwise before we know it the barriers of resistance will crumble and we shall do what we had never supposed we should do, some act that is the fruit of our unregulated inner life. [Footnote:  Cf.  George Eliot in Romola:  “Tito” (who, having posed as a rich and noble gentleman, being unexpectedly confronted with his plebeian father, on the spur of the moment disowned him with the merciless words, “Some madman, surely!”) “Was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character.”] Can we say, with Kant, that the only good is the Good Will?  It is not uncommon for instrumental goods to come to receive a homage greater than that which is paid to the ends they serve.  It is notably and necessarily so with the various aspects of the concept of morality; virtue, conscience, goodness