ganized. In other words, the higher
interest, which is entitled to preference, requires some modification
of the participating interests. But the higher interest owes its title
to its liberality or comprehensiveness. Hence it must represent _the
maximum fulfilment of both interests which the conditions allow_. Such
a controlling interest may require you altogether to forego the present
indulgence, or it may merely require that it be severely limited. In
any case, the controlling interest will _represent_ both interests,
modified, postponed, or suppressed, as is necessary for their maximum
joint fulfilment. The higher interest which thus replaces the original
interest, and which is entitled to do so only {54} because it
incorporates them, I propose to call _moral purpose_.

There are two highly important principles which we have been brought to
recognize through this analysis of preference, and it will be worth our
while briefly to resume them.

In the first place, no interest is entitled to your exclusive regard
merely because it happens at any given time to be moving you. I shall
call this the principle of the objective validity of interests. I mean
simply that an interest is none the less an interest because it does
not coincide with an individual's momentary inclination. In reminding
you of an interest overlooked, I have not sought to justify it by
subsuming it under your present interest. I have not tried to prove
that it is to your interest as an epicure that you should go to the
play. I have simply pointed out the other interest, and allowed it to
stand on its merits. In ethical theories of a certain type, and in
much impromptu moralizing, it is assumed that there is no legitimate
appeal except in behalf of interests that are at the instant already
alive. This is as absurd as to suppose that in order to bring you to
the truth in any purely theoretical matter, I must confine myself to
evidence that you already recognize. In both cases your individual
experience at any given time may be narrow and limited owing to causes
that are in the highest {55} degree arbitrary. It may be advisable
that I should solicit your attention by connecting what I have to offer
with what is already familiar to you; but this is a psychological
expedient. My appeal is logically supported by objects, by principles,
by data which are in no wise dependent for their claims on their
connection with your present stock in trade.