discussion bearing upon the question of the relativity of morality will be found in Santayana’s Winds of Doctrine, pp. 138-154.] But although imposed upon our restive impulses, it is not imposed by any alien and arbitrary will.  It is imposed by the same cosmos that set our consciousness into relation with a given kind of body in a given world.  Submission to it is simply submission to the laws of our own natures.  Lasting happiness can be found only in certain ways; we must make the best of it, but it is for our own good that we obey.  Morality is relative to our organic needs and particular environment.  It is a function of human nature, varying with its variations.  A different race of beings on another planet might have to have a very radically different code.  Ours is a distinctively human code, bearing the earmarks of our humanity and stamped with the particular nature of our earth-life.

To say this is to admit that morality varies with different temperaments and different needs.  What is best for one person is not necessarily best for another; what is right for an early stage of civilization is not always right for a later.  The patriarchal family was a source of strength in primitive society; today it would be a needless tyranny.  Life in a tropical isle frees man from the necessity of many virtues which a more rigorous climate entails.  The poet needs to live in a different way from the coal-heaver.  Just so far as our individual and racial needs vary-our real needs, not our supposed needs and pathological desires (and always bearing in mind the needs of others)-just so far is what is right for one different from what is right for another.  This is no condemnation of eudsemonistic morality.  On the contrary, a clear recognition of this truth would happily relax the sometimes over-rigid conventions of society, its cut-and- dried-made-on-one-pattern code, and make it more elastic and suitable to individual needs.

However, we are not so different from one another as we are apt to think.  The extenuation of sin on the plea that the “artistic temperament” demands this, or a “sensitive nature” needs that, is much overdone.  Differences in temperament are superficial compared with the miles of underlying strata of plain human nature.  “A man’s a man for a’ that,” and must submit to the rules for human life.  The man of “artistic temperament” does not know himself well enough.  He feels superficial and transient cravings; he ignores his underlying needs, and the fundamental duties which, in common with all other men, he owes to his fellows.

The standard of morality is absolute and objective, then, for each individual, and approximately the same for all human beings.  He is wise who seeks not to mould his life according to his longings, but who accepts the rules of the game and follows the paths blazed by the seers and doers before him.  Only those individuals and those nations have achieved success that have been willing to learn and follow the ideals which life itself imposes, the eternal laws which religious men call the will of God.