on and must remain in the sphere of intellectual comment, that
a situation does not really become moral until we are confronted with
the question of what shall be done in a concrete case, and are obliged
to act upon our theory. A stirring appeal has lately been made by a
recognized ethical lecturer who has declared that "It is insanity to
expect to receive the data of wisdom by looking on. We arrive at moral
knowledge only by tentative and observant practice. We learn how to
apply the new insight by having attempted to apply the old and having
found it to fail."

This necessity of reducing the experiment to action throws out of the
undertaking all timid and irresolute persons, more than that, all those
who shrink before the need of striving forward shoulder to shoulder with
the cruder men, whose sole virtue may be social effort, and even that
not untainted by self-seeking, who are indeed pushing forward social
morality, but who are doing it irrationally and emotionally, and often
at the expense of the well-settled standards of morality.

The power to distinguish between the genuine effort and the adventitious
mistakes is perhaps the most difficult test which comes to our fallible
intelligence. In the range of individual morals, we have learned to
distrust him who would reach spirituality by simply renouncing the
world, or by merely speculating upon its evils. The result, as well as
the process of virtues attained by repression, has become distasteful to
us. When the entire moral energy of an individual goes into the
cultivation of personal integrity, we all know how unlovely the result
may become; the character is upright, of course, but too coated over
with the result of its own endeavor to be attractive. In this effort
toward a higher morality in our social relations, we must demand that
the individual shall be willing to lose the sense of personal
achievement, and shall be content to realize his activity only in
connection with the activity of the many.

The cry of "Back to the people" is always heard at the same time, when
we have the prophet's demand for repentance or the religious cry of
"Back to Christ," as though we would seek refuge with our fellows and
believe in our common experiences as a preparation for a new moral
struggle.

As the acceptance of democracy brings a certain life-giving power, so it
has its own sanctions and comforts. Perhaps the most obvious one is the
curious sense which comes to us fro