For the Reason to which Love, Public Spirit, and Humanity are the natural element, the General (Common) as truth, is no empty conception, but a promise whose fulfilment is the Good and the Beautiful. The faithfulness of this Reason never swerves, since it depends on no fear, but springs from the clearest conviction, and therefore is one with the love which it feels and inspires. Its friendship is as strong as it is unselfish, for it does not call anything "friendship" that is based on other relations than those of mind. Its generosity is always strength, its mercy never weakness. As far as its power reaches, so far and no farther do its remorse and pity extend; for all passions which reduce or dim the activity of the soul are unreasonable. The way to the attainment of the ethical spirit is pleasure, which guides, though it often misguides us; fortunately, on the wrong paths we sooner or later meet with pain, while on the right path we are ever accompanied by pleasure as "transition from less to greater perfection," to quote Spinoza. The feeling of Responsibility consists in the soul's recognition of all its action and omission of action as its own, and in the courage to endure the consequences of these. The ethical Ideal, which the ethical imagination as "scientific" conceives, is the truly happy man, the man fully in harmony with himself. This idea is to be regarded as a star by which we are to shape our course, not as an end to be fully attained. Through labor mankind approaches this ideal, attains knowledge from experience, and clarifies the concept of happiness. The "I" extends itself to an "I" of mankind, so that the individual, in making self his end, comes to make the whole of mankind his end. The ideal cannot be fully realized; the happiness of all cannot be attained; so that there is always choice between two evils, never choice of perfect good, and it is necessary to be content with the greatest good of the greatest number as principle of action.