THE CREDIT FOR GOOD ACTIONS. 527 



scarcely think of praising the average man for coming up to this stand- 

 ard. Some virtues we expect of certain classes of men, and not in the 

 same degree of others. We expect, for example, a greater foresight and 

 power of self-control in those who have enjoyed educational advantages 

 and whose horizoi^ has been widened. And we expect a much greater 

 sensitiveness to moral considerations on the part of those who have had 

 the inestimable advantage of good moral training, and have been 

 brought up in a good home. We Judge a man according to the class in 

 which we find him ; if he falls below the expected standard of excellence, 

 we blame him, and if he rises above it, we regard him as worthy of 

 credit. But besides these class-standards, which may be very numerous, 

 we have individual standards which we apply when we come to know 

 individual men well, and these express our judgment of the actual 

 moral condition of the individual. 



We have, perhaps, kno^Ti our friend Smith for ten years or more, 

 and have clearly perceived that he readily falls a prey to irascible im- 

 pulses. He himself deplores the fact, and resolves to express himself 

 more temperately when things happen to ruffle him. We see him on 

 some trying occasion with flushed cheek and the flash in his eye that has 

 heretofore heralded the tempest. But the expected storm does not 

 come; the good resolution has triumphed, and the clouds roll away 

 without emptying themselves as the weather-wise had fully expected 

 them to do. Of course we give Smith no little credit for this victory, 

 and if we really know him intimately we probably endeavor to let him 

 know, in some tactful way, that we admire his magnanimity and self- 

 control. Or perhaps the individual to whom we give credit for a rather 

 unexpected act of self-denial is our son Tommy, whom we have known 

 rather intimately for a number of years, and with whose impulses and 

 capabilities we think we are fairly well acquainted. The boy has on 

 various occasions found stolen jam irresistibly sweet, and neither re- 

 flections upon the possibilities of detection and punishment nor the 

 feeble stings of an immature conscience have sufficed to deter him from 

 tasting that sweetness. But we discover that, on a certain occasion, op- 

 portunity has not been lacking. There has been a prolonged conflict 

 between the law in his members and the law in his mind, and the latter 

 has come off victorious. We praise Tommy for his continence, make 

 him feel that he has left the field covered with glory, and we devise 

 means of implanting in his small mind the conviction that honesty is 

 not a thing to be regretted. 



In this last instance we have, I think, a good indication of what we 

 really mean by the credit that is given to this or that good action, and of 

 the standard by which we measure it. We think of an action as credit- 

 able when we recognize the presence of warring impulses, and regard the 

 good decision as a victory over a more or less redoubtable enemy. The 



