Dangers and temptations plainly vary with temperament. As a single example, it is easy to see that it is well for a man to take account of his temperament as to the kind of memories he has; for these come in directly to affect decision. It is a psychological fact that some men have good memories for joys and successes, and poor memories for injuries and sorrows and difficulties. Of others, the reverse is true. The former are apt to be rash in their decisions and undertakings; the latter to find both positive decision and undertaking difficult. Note, for example, the bearing of these kinds of memory upon the duty of forgiveness. Some of us simply cannot recall after a time how mean a man has been to us; we cannot reproduce with any vividness the original situation; it is comparatively easy for such to forgive. Others can bring back the whole scene in detail, and powerfully feel it again; for such, forgiveness is much harder.

It should need no argument to prove, in particular, that this forgetting of differences of temperament is a most fruitful cause of the seeming unreality of the spiritual life. Men question their own spiritual insights and experiences because these do not come to

them in the same way as those of others of quite different temperaments. Both need to take account of their temperaments, when decisions are to be made.

More definitely, the intellect may help character, by giving a clear discernment of what moral progress is. Even this, however, is plainly not a purely intellectual problem, but a part of our moral conflict itself. But the intellect may contribute much. Even if it were true that a man's purpose at a given time were wholly right, yet progress would be possible to him. Clear thinking may show that progress is possible in steadiness of purpose, in the multiplication of motives to insure the persistent purpose, and in broader, deeper, more skilful and delicate application of the purpose. In the first place, growing insight should place before a man so clearly and completely the different relations of his purpose to the well-being of himself and of others, as to put almost beyond desire any opposite course; and the flickering, vacillating will becomes thus replaced by unshaken steadiness of purpose.

Progress is also possible in the broader application of the right purpose. Nearly all men

live in more or less constant blindness to certain spheres of moral conduct. In certain relations, the moral problem is never raised. The knights of the Middle Ages, for example, were, many of them, men of genuine and chivalrous Christian purpose, yet few recognized any large duty to their poorest dependents. One awakes at times with a kind of amazement to the recognition of a duty that has long stared him squarely in the face, but which nevertheless for him has not previously seemed to exist. Much of our moral growth consists in the broadening application of wellrecognized principles, in the widening of the field of obligation. The awakening of our own generation to a new social consciousness is a marked example of such broadening of the moral life.

But great progress is possible as well in the deeper application of the right purpose. Here belongs the growing discernment of the rich complexity and significance of life, of the destiny of man, of the worth of personality and of personal relations-a discernment that makes a man's previous aims and achievements seem shallow and imperfect enough. Life means so much more to him, that his sense of obligation has deepened

proportionately. He cannot treat lightly his own life, or the life of another.

And to come to such a sense of the sacredness of life's calling, is at the same time to see the possible progress in more skilful and delicate application of the right purpose. Real tact implies moral advancement. One longs for an imagination more creative and profound, to present to himself adequately the circumstances of the other man; a judgment more delicately sensitive to discern the precise forms in which his purpose should now be embodied. Such judgment and such imagination are no happy inheritance; they come only from long moral experience and discipline. It is this skilful and delicate application which makes the highest attainment in morals — real beauty of character-the ideal embodiment of one's ideal-possible.

But the most direct intellectual help to a wise conduct of life comes from clearness and definiteness in memory, imagination, and thinking. To remember with distinctness the entire and exact consequences of previous experiences, to be able to set before oneself with vivid and detailed imagination even the remote results of the action now con

templated—this is to be able to call to one's aid the strongest motives to righteousness. Clear and definite thinking, moreover, moves directly and unhesitatingly toward its goal, and for that very reason seems to be a distinct help to decisive action. For all purposeful action involves the use of definite means to definite ends. Definiteness in thinking, thus, seems to be directly connected with decision in action, and vagueness of thinking with indecision and weakness.

It is therefore of great moral value to form a habit of requiring of oneself clearness and definiteness with reference to all with which one means seriously to deal-clearness and definiteness in the original impressions, in memories, in insights, in purposes, in statements. There must be no suffering of oneself in vague reasonings, vague bargains, vague promises, and vague conclusions. When decision and definiteness are at all possible, there should be a complete avoidance of all vagueness and procrastination, and a firm purpose to look the facts fully in the face. Intellectual vagueness is a habit easy to form, and bodily weariness greatly favors it; but it is a habit distinctly inimical to the acquirement of will-power and of practical