In this connexion we may say that the good we do for our own country is a nearer good than the good we do for an alien country, therefore if doing the good involves a choice we should choose our own country; for the debt we owe to our own country is greater than the debt we owe to humanity at large. Equally the good we owe to our own family is nearer than, and therefore comes before, the good we owe to society. To this most people will accede, and, in fact, the realization of this is at the base of all sense of Responsibility; thus every man, in whatsoever capacity he is acting, whether as statesman, county councillor, soldier or head of a family, should put the considerations of the body he represents or belongs to before all others; and finally he owes it to himself--or God[32]--to be true to himself, even before he can be true to another, in the sense that keeping faith with a friend will not excuse a man acting dishonestly or untruthfully towards himself. And this for the reason that Truth is independent of Utilitarian valuation, since Truth alone is an _a priori_ and self-evident "good"; by its very meaning it is a statement of "what is," temporally as well as ultimately; as such it must be a statement of indisputable fact, not opinion or faith which rests on assertion. Since more things are capable of being proved untrue than ultimately true, it follows that as a criterion of conduct its value is chiefly negative. It can thus be shown that lying, deception, breach of contract are wrong _per se_, for truth is the basic principle upon which all others depend, and the necessary postulate of the idea of God, whilst the value of our positive acts must for the most part depend upon some such standard as the Greatest Happiness or Utility principle. As an illustration of the "nearer is the greater good" principle may be cited the line taken up by Disraeli when the controversy over the opium trade between India and China first came to the fore. Disraeli firmly refused to ruin our export trade in opium for any quixotic considerations involving the moral effect upon the Chinaman, whilst it in no way implied a breach of faith with him. Less clear is the question of precedence when two primary obligations are conflicting; primary obligations are here intended to mean those obligatory duties which may rightly be exacted from a person by reason of his indebtedness to the corporate body to which he belongs, or which he represents, and which is entitled to a preference in the good he does.