Of these ethical writers some put the chief emphasis on the ethical disposition of the individual, while others hold that ethics are constituted chiefly by their content, which aims at the good of society. What is common to them all [pg 183] is that they try to combine the ethic of ethical personality and the ethic of utilitarianism without having inquired into their higher unity. That is why the chapters in which they touch on the problem of the basic principle of the moral are always the part of their works which is the least clear and the least living. One is conscious of how happy they feel when they have waded through this swamp, and can launch out into consideration of the different ethical standpoints which have emerged in history, or can face questions on single points in ethical practice. And when they handle practical questions, it is obvious that they are not in possession of any usable basic principle of the moral. Their coming to terms with reality is a mere groping here and there. The considerations on the strength of which they decide are set out now in this sense, now in that. Hence these ethical writers frequently offer very interesting discussions on ethical problems, but the conception of the moral never gets from them any real explanation or any deepening. The criterion of a real ethic is whether it allows their full rights to the problems of personal morality and of the relation of man to man, problems with which we are concerned every day and every hour, and in which we must become ethical personalities. These academical works do not do this. Therefore, although they may arrive at results which deserve attention, they are not capable of giving effective ethical impulses to the thought of their time. The ethic of self-perfecting. Kant’s successors: Cohen, Herrmann This mediating ethic is not left uncriticized. In Germany inheritors of the Kantian spirit like Hermann Cohen (b. 1842)_(_84_)_ and Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922)_(_85_)_ oppose [pg 184] it, and in English-speaking countries successors of the Intuitionists like James Martineau (1805-1900),_(_86_)_ F. H. Bradley (b. 1846),_(_87_)_ T. H. Green (1836-1882),_(_88_)_ Simon Laurie (1829-1909),_(_89_)_ and James Seth (b. 1860)._(_90_)_ In spite of wide differences in detail these thinkers agree in refusing to derive ethics either from the ethical disposition of man or from the claims of society. They represent them as produced entirely through the ethical personality. To become ethical personalities, however, (so they say) we step out of ourselves and work for the good of the community.