i8o DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



admitted rule is the first expression in consciousness of 

 the forces making for that order within which matches 

 the order without. The formation of such an order 

 involves the correlation of different impulses and desires, 

 restraining one, developing another, modifying a third, and 

 the psychological reaction which supports it when chal- 

 lenged is not so much one feeling or sentiment co-ordinate 

 with others, as an effect or precipitate of the entire mass 

 of impulse-feelings that have been brought into a working 

 synthesis. It implies, that is to say, that unity of feeling 

 which constitutes the normal self, the practical side of which 

 is that central control relating the particular act to the 

 general lines of life which we call Will. For Will is the 

 practical expression of system or relatedness as between 

 different elements in active impulse, as reason is the 

 theoretical expression of system or relatedness in the 

 apprehension of experience, and Will is, accordingly, the 

 response correlative to broad and comprehensive ends or to 

 general principles of action^ as desire is the response to 

 particular ends. The psychological evolution then in- 

 volved in the bare formation of human ethics may be con- 

 / j 1 ceived as the growth of a synthesis of the impulsive forces 

 of our nature in response to the requirements of a social 

 life. This organised body of impulses expresses itself in 

 consciousness as the sense of obligation to admitted rules, 

 and in action as the control of aberrant desires by will. 



From the general conditions of human ethics we may 

 now proceed to the phases of ethical development. 



(i) Custom. 



In Ethical as in mental development generally we come 

 in the ruder forms of life upon traces or a stage in which 

 the distinctively ethical categories are imperfectly formed. 

 In all known human societies, indeed, the simpler social 

 rights and duties are in one way or another supported by 

 customs which have at their back sentiments of an ethical 

 character. Yet in the earlier stages there are many indica- 

 tions that what is distinctively ethical has not detached 

 itself from elements of a different origin and character. 



