This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1918 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I PRELUDE What this book offers is a system of thought and of points of view as to conduct, as these have jointly grown out of personal experience. It will be useful to introduce them with an autobiographical statement. The ideas which follow are such as have been found by me, the author, to be fruitful. Certainly I claim for them objectivity; but I do so because of what I have found them to mean in my own life. He who has been scorched by lightning knows that the effects of the lightning will be felt by all who are exposed to the same experience. I narrate my experience; let others compare with it theirs. There is, however, a serious, and most embarrassing difficulty in the way of discussing the phases and vicissitudes of one's ethical development. Self-appraisement is necessarily involved in the narration. The outstanding subject of ethics is the self and its relations. The physicist, the chemist, the biologist, however the methods they use may differ in other respects, agree in the endeavor to eliminate the personal equation. The psychologist likewise does his best to see the procession that moves across the inner stage like an interested but detached spectator. In the case of ethics, however, the personal factor cannot be eliminated, bec...