It all depends on a relative difference in methods of thought. The one group works towards the basic principle of ethics by a more intuitive process, the other by a process which is more analytical. It is the depth, not the method of the thought, which decides the matter. The more intuitive thinker produces his ethical thought like an artist who with the production of an important work of art opens up new horizons. In deep-reaching moral sayings like the beatitudes of Jesus the basic principle of morality shines out. There comes progress in the recognition of what is moral, even if the provision of a foundation for it fails to advance in the same way. On the other hand, the searching for the basic principle of the moral by the process of critical analysis may lead to an impoverished system of ethics, because there runs through it the effort to take into account only what is connected with the idea that seems to be what is being sought for. That is why philosophical ethics are as a rule so far behind practical ethics, and have so little direct influence. While religious moralists in one mighty word can get down to the [pg 026] waters flowing far below the surface, philosophical ethics often dig out nothing but a slight hollow in which a puddle forms. Nevertheless, it is rational thinking alone which is able to pursue the search for the basic principle with perseverance and hope of success. It must find it at last, if it only goes deep enough, and is simple enough. The weakness of all ethics hitherto, whether philosophical or religious, has lain in this, that they have not shown individuals how to deal directly and naturally with reality. To a large extent they merely talk “about it and about.” They do not touch a man’s daily experience, and therefore they exert no permanent pressure upon him. The result is lack of ethical thought, and mere platitudes about ethics. The true basic principle of the ethical must be not only something universally valid, but something absolutely elementary and inward, which, once it has dawned upon a man, never lets him loose, which as a matter of course runs like a thread through all his meditation, which never lets itself be thrust aside, and which continually challenges him to come to an understanding with reality.