For centuries men who navigated the seas guided themselves by the stars. In time they rose above this imperfect method through the discovery of the magnetic needle, which by its natural principle of activity pointed them to the north. Now they can tell where they are in the darkest night on the most distant sea. That is the kind of progress that we have to seek in ethics. So long as we have nothing but an ethical system of ethical sayings, we direct our course by stars, which, however brilliant their shining, give us only more or less reliable guidance, and can be hidden from us by rising mist. During a stormy night they leave mankind, as we know by recent experiences, in the lurch. If, however, we have in our possession a system of ethics as a principle which is a necessity of thought and comes to clearness within ourselves, there begins a far-reaching ethical deepening of individuals, and steady ethical progress in mankind. [pg 027] CHAPTER IV RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL WORLD-VIEWS The world-views of the world-religions IN the world-religions we can see powerful attempts to establish an ethical world-view. The religious thinkers of China, Lao-tse (born 604 B.C.), Kung-tse (Confucius, 537-479 B.C.), Meng-tse (372-289 B.C.) and Chwang-tse (fourth century B.C.), all try to ground the ethical in a world- and life-affirming nature-philosophy. In so doing they arrive at a world-view which, because it is optimistic-ethical, contains incentives to inward and outward civilization. The religious thinkers of India also, the Brahmanic philosophers, the Buddha (560-480 B.C.), and the Hindus, start, like the Chinese, from thought about the existing world, _i.e._ from nature-philosophy. They do not, however, take a world- and life-affirming view of it, but a world- and life-denying one. Their world-view is pessimistic-ethical, and contains, therefore, incentives to inward civilization only, not to outward as well. Chinese religiousness, and Indian, recognize only a single world-principle. They are monistic and pantheistic. Their world-view has to solve the problem of how far we can recognize the original source of the world as ethical, and how far, correspondingly, we become ethical by the surrender to it of our will.