impulsive acts which may be as certain an index of the good or bad will as the most highly self-conscious acts. Conduct expressly moral is a potent factor in the formation of habit; and habits formed through its agency may bear the evident marks of its origin. The impulses, simple as they may be, are yet the impulses of a moral being; and he cannot wholly disclaim responsibility for them. Thus occasion is found for a species of indirect moral judgments. The present act is judged as the consequence of a (known or probable) series of acts, it being this former conduct that is the ultimate object of the judgment.
In like manner, an explicitly moral act, accompanied by a clear conviction of its entire goodness, may, nevertheless, become the object of adverse moral judgment when its relation to previous conduct is considered. The choice may be shown to have been misdirected by reason of previous immorality, and thus to be virtually an additional expression of the weakness of character formerly displayed. Here, then, without departure from the real spirit of ethical subjectivism, we have arrived at what is apparently a complete reversal of its most formidable dogma, that that is right which I believe to be right. For my very belief is the fruit of past endeavor and cannot legitimately be separated in reflection from the circumstances of its origin. And yet the solid core of the dogma is retained,—that the good of my present conception is so far good, and is, indeed, the only good which is now open to me. To act against the best judgment of the moment, however careless or otherwise inadequate may have been its premises, and however happy the event may prove, is simply to commit an additional wrong. And since, after all, human life is one that must be lived forward, the good of ethical subjectivism, poor as it may seem in retrospect, is the highest ideal toward which a man can ever strive.
The distinction is currently made, that whereas independently of its actual consequences a volition may be judged as formally right or wrong, its material rightness or wrongness must be determined by reference to the actual outcome of the act. For a well-meant act may turn out ill, and the worst intentions may have a fortunate issue. Now, if our analysis be correct, the for-
