Ethics ranks higher than morals, the latter merely comprising a collection of particular rules of conduct which, as particular, bear the stamp of the individual, the non-universal. The details of morality change according to epochs and peoples. This change has been regarded as an argument that there is no absolute but only relative good. But the concept of the Good is, like the concept of the Beautiful, the fruit of education; that is, it is the product of mind, which, through its own evolution, arrives at Knowledge. When we do away with all concessions to one-sided, extravagant desires, abstain from placing mind above the universal law of causality, and are content with the facts made known to us by science, we perceive that the absolute True, Beautiful, and Good, bears the character of the Universal. In this universal character it has always finally found expression in human life, and in this character it will always find expression. The idea which reaches perfect expression in the dialectic movement of these three concepts, the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, has come into existence by the mediation of the self-individualizing self-consciousness, just as the evolution on the earth, which reaches its completion in man, is the outcome of the first chemical process. Not only have the two one law,--(mind is only in so far realized[65] as nature is expressed through it, and the actuality of nature is its expression in mind) but both are, in fact, one, the succession in their development on the earth being a succession only in relation to the earth, and for us in this respect. Although to our notion of time, thousands of millions of years lie between the two, their separation does not represent a second for the universe and its eternity, for the comprehension of which it must be disregarded. The good man is he who does good for its own sake, without effort, not out of momentary caprice, but out of perfect knowledge and conviction. He is free, since he acts out of his own character, the law of nature appearing as the law of his own mind; freedom lies in the absence of discord and strife in the mind. The good man has strength of soul, just as the man who lifts a weight without effort, not he who lifts it only with the greatest effort, possesses strength of body. There is no absolute Evil in contrast to the absolute Good. Evil is negative. The perfection of man is identical with the attainment of absolute Good through evolution.