ever, not always be reconciled with public morality. In the same way, to take one's country's part in all eventualities would be patriotic, but it might quite well conflict with the higher interests of humanity.
Now, the point towards which we have been winning our way is that each man's moral station and degree will be determined by the election which he makes where egoism and altruism, and where a narrower and a wider code of morality, conflict.
That the moral law forbids yielding to the promptings of egoism or to those of the narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. Criminal and anti-social actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their commission were not purely egoistic.
But the ethical law demands more than abstention from definitely anti-social actions. It demands from every individual that he shall recognise the precepts of public mor-
