nscience is not a moral guide. It is simply
that monitor within that reiterates to us forever and forever and
forever, Do right. But conscience does not tell us what is right. We
must decide those questions as a matter of calm study and judgment in
the light of human experience. It is the judgment that should tell us
whether a thing is right or wrong. And how shall we know whether it is
right or wrong? Simply by the consequences. That which helps, that
which lifts man up, that which adds to the happiness and the well-being
of the world, as the result of human experience, is right. That which
hurts, that which injures men and women, that which takes away from
their welfare and happiness, that is wrong. All these things, as we
shall see before I get through, are inherent in the nature of things,
not created by statute, not the result of the moral teaching of
anybody.

This leads me to extend this idea a little farther, and to raise the
question as to what is the standard by which you are to judge moral
action. If you will think it out with a little care, you will find that
the standard of all moral action may be summed up in the one word
"life." Life, first, as continuance; second, to use a philosophical
term, content, that which it includes. Life, this is the standard of
right and wrong.

To illustrate, take me physically, leave out of account all the rest of
my nature now for a moment, and consider me as an animal. From the
point of view of my body, that which conduces to length of life, to
fullness, to completion, to enjoyment of life, is right, the only
right, from this physical point of view. That which threatens my life,
that which takes away my sum of strength, injures my health, takes away
from my possibility of enjoyment, that, from a physical point of view,
is wrong; and there can be no other right or wrong from the point of
view of the body.

But I am not simply body. So this principle must be modified. Come up
to the fact that I am an intellectual being. In order to develop myself
intellectually, I may have to forego things that would be pleasant on
the bodily plane. I sacrifice the lower for the higher; and that which
would be right on the physical plane becomes relatively wrong now,
because it interferes with something that is higher and more important.

Rise one step to man as an affectional being. If you wish to develop
him to the finest and highest here, you may not only be obliged under
certain cond