The fundamental question, therefore, echoed and re-echoed with ever intenser insistence: “What then is the holy thing in others? What is the supreme end or good to which all the lesser goods should be subordinate and subservient? And what is the holy thing in me?—for I may not spiritually sacrifice myself. My own highest good must be achievable in agreement with that of others. What definition of the essential end is possible that shall reconcile egoism and altruism by transforming and transcending them? And if there be such end thinkable and definable, how establish the applicability of this end to empirical man, either in the person of others or in my own?” I shall have to dwell on this subject at length in the sequel. Here at the outset I cannot forbear expressing my sense of the obliquities, the folly, the meanness, the cruelties which human nature often exhibits on the empirical side when dispassionately contemplated. That there are also finer traits in people, gleams of gold in the quartz, I do not deny. But even in the best exemplars of the race the alloy is not wanting. And it is an open question how far any human being, if his whole make-up and all the circumstances that influenced him be considered, can be called predominantly good, assuming that goodness is a matter of desert and not of chance. How, therefore, a being that to actual, impartial observation reveals himself as so dubiously worth while, can be regarded as possessing the quality of transcendent worth (which seems to be implied in the idea of personality as inviolable and precious) will be the starting-point of my inquiry into the philosophical first principle in the second part of this volume. FOOTNOTES: [13] I say _caused_, but perhaps not deliberately intended, although there are instances of the latter. An act is diabolical when maliciously designed to inflict a wrong on another; as rape for the purpose of dishonoring a family. It is cruelly selfish but not fiendish when it springs from scorn of others as if they were only fractional human beings. The Brahmin’s attitude towards the lower castes, the attitude of the feudal lord toward the serf, of Shakespeare’s nobility toward the common citizens, and of some modern theorists toward the democratic multitude, are instances in point. In such cases the moral sense itself is astray, but there is perhaps no deliberate sinning against the light. [14] I have not touched upon the further question to what extent we can really compass the happiness, except at rare moments, even of a single human being. The altruistic philosophy is apt to confound the removal of manifest evils with positive benefaction. But the removal of one kind of evil lets in new kinds; and wherein then consists the gain so far as happiness is concerned?