in the case of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Moderns. The morality of Early Group Life is also described in a convenient and summary manner for the beginner, or for the general student; and in general the main strength and resources of this part consist in the exhibition of the extent to which nearly all of our "conceptions for the moral" are taken from the group relations, or from the jural and religious aspects, as these have been gradually brought to clearer consciousness." The "kind" man acts as one of the kin; the caitiff is a captive, the "villain," a feudal tenant, honor and honesty were what the group admired and so on. At the same time the defects as well as the values of customary morality are sharply dealt with, and the connection of all this formative, and transitional, and incipiently rational and social morality, with what in Book II is called the moral situation proper, is skillfully suggested and partly elaborated. The moral life is on the one hand a life of purpose and on the other a "transforming life," and there is always implicit in it the distinction between the "what" and the "how"—the choice between lower (personal) and "higher" aspects, and the recognition of "some standard or some sense of duty and law" [italics mine]. We shall inquire below whether the theoretical part adequately provides for such a standard or law.
In Part II we have first a careful preliminary attempt to get at the essence of the "moral situation." This arises, we are shown, when the ends of our actions seem to compete with another: conduct as "moral" maybe defined as " activity called forth and directed by ideas of value or worth, where the values concerned are so mutually incompatible as to require consideration and selection before an overt action is entered upon." Then follows a quasi "phenomenological " treatment of the problem of the moral judgment. The questions a "thoughtful and progressive" individual must consider in his own conduct about the "meaning of his habits" and the "problem of moral advance" are (1) What is the Good? (2) How is this Good known? (3) When it is known, how does it acquire authority? What is the place of law and duty in the moral life? (4) What is the place of selfhood in the moral process? etc. Historically, we are shown, the problem of the nature of the Good became the problem of the Control of Affections and Desires, and this again became the Problem of the Control of Private Interests by Law, and this last the Problem of Individuality and Citizenship. All this, however, is, as it were, modestly recognized to be a mere "hap-hazard" method of treatment, and Professor Dewey goes on in true Pragmatist
