t be shifted to society or the Church,
or any other institution. Each individual is moral or not according as
he lives up to the light that he has, according as he carries into
execution principles that are for the good of his race. A particular
act, then, may be moral for one individual and immoral for another, and
non-moral for still another.

In the third place, morality is a matter of individual responsibility.
It is "choice be the individual," the "perceiving whatever makes for
social order and progress." No one can choose for another, no one can
perceive for another. The burden of Choosing for the good of the group
rests on the individual, it cannot be shifted to society or the Church,
or any other institution. Each individual is moral or not according as
he lives up to the light that he has, according as he carries into
execution principles that are for the good of his race. A particular
act, then, may be moral for one individual and immoral for another, and
non-moral for still another.

To go off into the forest to die if one is diseased may be a moral act
for a savage in central Africa; but for a civilized man to do so would
probably be immoral because of his greater knowledge. To give liquor to
babies to quiet them may be a non-moral act on the part of ignorant
immigrants from Russia; but for a trained physician to do so would be
immoral. Morality, then, is a personal matter, and the responsibility
for it rests on the individual.

Of course this makes possible the setting up of individual opinion as to
what is for the good of the group in opposition to tradition and custom.
This is, of course, dangerous if it is mere opinion or if it is carried
to an extreme. Few men have the gift of seeing what makes for social
well-being beyond that of the society of thoughtful people of their
time. And yet if a man has the insight, if his investigations point to a
greater good for the group from doing something which is different from
the standards held by his peers, then morality requires that he do his
utmost to bring about such changes. If it is borne in mind that every
man is the product of his age and that it is evolution, not revolution,
that is constructive, this essential of true morality will not seem so
dangerous. All the reformers the world has ever seen, all the pioneers
in social service, have been men who, living up to their individual
responsibility, have acted as they believed for society's best good in
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