sound rule of action up to some undetermined point where its consequences finally become black enough to frighten him; while if you talk of consistency the word is as one from an unknown tongue. We shall therefore attempt to establish the position that social well-being is in ail cases the only criterion of justice, by showing that from its very nature desert cannot be made the measure of reward; and that, not because it would require the solution of problems that are difficult, but rather such as are in their very nature impossible even to formulate. We may assume with confidence that any conception of duty that requires of us that which is in its essence impossible is a mistaken one. If therefore we can prove our minor premise, we shall have no fear as to the conclusion.
In the proper sense of the term desert or merit is directly and indissolubly connected with the phenomenon of effort and that alone. There would be no such words if everywhere and always devotion to duty were alike easy, if we did not sometimes have to fight temptation, and if this conflict did not involve the putting forth of effort. With the concrete examples of this phenomenon all are sufficiently familiar. If a man with a hot temper controls himself under great provocation, we attribute to him much greater merit than to one who could not get angry if he tried. Similarly the credit attaching to a gift for a public charity or to a service rendered to a friend depends, other things being equal, in the first case upon the intensity of the individual's love for money, in the second upon his native indisposition to activity, his inertia as it were. This principle holds as truly in the industrial world as in any other department of human life. He who carries on a legitimate business is engaged in supplying the wants of his fellowmen. If such activity were mere fun instead of being on the whole a task, if strict devotion to duty did not make considerable demands upon our powers of self-control, if it did not frequently or usually involve a rising superior to the mere inclination of the moment, then, however useful it might be, we should never attribute credit to anyone in connection with it, it would involve no claim for reward on the
