When the individual is faced with the alternative of having to sacrifice in some way or other the happiness or the existence of another, or else to bear the loss himself, he is in a position to obey the demands of ethics and to choose the latter. But society, thinking impersonally and pursuing its aims impersonally, does not allow the same weight to consideration for the happiness or existence of an individual. In principle humaneness is not an item in its ethic. But individuals come continually into the position of being in one way or another executive organs of society, and then the conflict between the two points of view becomes active. That this may always be decided in its own favour, [pg 229] society exerts itself to limit as closely as possible the authority of the ethic of personality, although inwardly it has to acknowledge its superiority. It wants to have servants who will never oppose it. Even a society the ethical standard of which is relatively high, is dangerous to the ethics of its members. If those things which form precisely the defects of a social ethic develop strongly, and society exercises, further, an excessively strong spiritual influence on individuals, then the ethic of ethical personality is ruined. This happens in present-day society, the ethical conscience of which is becoming fatally stunted by a biologico-sociological ethic and this, moreover, finally corrupted by nationalism. The great mistake made by ethical thought down to the present time is that it fails to admit the essential difference between the ethic of ethical personality and that which is established from the standpoint of society, and always thinks that it ought, and is able, to cast them in one piece. The result is that the ethic of personality is sacrificed to the ethic of society. An end must be put to this. What matters is to recognise that the two are engaged in a conflict which cannot be made less intense. Either the ethic of personality raises the social ethic, so far as it can, to its own level, or it is dragged down by the latter. But to get rid of the present unhealthy state of opinion it is not enough to bring individuals to a consciousness that if they are not to suffer spiritual harm they must be in a state of continual conflict with the ethics of society. What matters is to establish a basic principle of the moral, which will put the ethic of personality in a position to come with consistency and success to discussion and agreement with the ethic of society. Hitherto there has been no possibility of putting this weapon into its hands. Ethics have, as we know, always been regarded as the most thorough-going possible devotion to society.