ABSTRACT
The force that holds a man to his personal ideal is self-respect or sense of honor on the one hand, and shame on the other; these taken together constituting a veritable self-acting system of rewards and punishments. Besides strength of will, the sway of the personal ideal presupposes a developed self-sense. Because it cannot dispense with a vivid consciousness of personal worth, control through ideals flourishes in the higher classes while yet the inferior orders are under the curb of custom and authority. The morality that the propertied or exploiting classes develop among themselves has its mainspring in pride. As the empire of supernaturalism has declined personal ideals have silently extended their sway and averted the moral catastrophe which, though always predicted, has never occurred. As the fulcrum for the elevation of character by means of personal ideal is provided by vivid sense of personal dignity and worth, this form of control is weakened by everything that enfeebles this sense.
