When European thought refuses to make self-devotion universal, the reason is that its efforts are directed to reaching a rational ethic which deals with universally valid judgments, and it sees a prospect of that only when it can keep its feet upon the solid ground of discussion of the interests of human society. But an ethic which busies [pg 235] itself with the relations of man to the whole creation forsakes it. Such an ethic is driven into discussions about existence as such. Whether it will or not, it has to plunge into the adventure of coming to terms with nature-philosophy, and the result of such an adventure cannot be foreseen. This is a correct conclusion. But it has already been shown that the ethic of society, which guides men from the outside, supposing it can be drawn up in this way at all, is never a true ethic, but merely an appendix to ethics. It has been established further that true ethics are always subjective, that they have an irrational enthusiasm as their very breath of life, and have to come to terms with nature-philosophy. The ethic of self-devotion has, therefore, no reason for shrinking from this in any case unavoidable adventure. Its house has been burnt down. Let it go out into the world to seek its fortune. Let it, then, venture to accept the thought that self-devotion has to be practised not only towards men but towards all living creatures, yes, towards all life whatever that exists in the world and is within the reach of man. Let it rise to the conception that the relation of men to each other is only an expression of that in which they all stand to Being and to the world in general. Having thus become cosmic, the ethic of devotion can hope to meet the ethic of self-perfecting, which is fundamentally cosmic, and to unite itself with it. The ethic of self-perfecting and mysticism But in order that the ethic of self-perfecting may combine with that of self-devotion, it must first become cosmic in the right way. It is indeed fundamentally cosmic, because self-perfecting can consist of nothing but this, that man comes into his true relation to the Being that is in him and outside him. His natural, outward connexion with Being he means to [pg 236] change into a spiritual, inward devotion to it, letting his passive and active relation to things be determined by this devotion. In this effort, however, he has never yet got further than a passive devotion to Being. He is always driven past active devotion to it. This one-sidedness is what makes it impossible for the two ethics of self-perfecting and of self-devotion to penetrate each other, and to produce together the complete ethic of passive and active self-perfecting.