=2. Self-Realization as Aim of Moral Action.=--This realization of selfhood in the right course of action is, however, not _the_ end of a moral act--that is, it is not the only end. The moral act is one which sustains a whole complex system of social values; one which keeps vital and progressive the industrial order, science, art, and the State. The patriot who dies for his country may find in that devotion his own supreme realization, but none the less the aim of his act is precisely that for which he performs it: the conservation of his nation. He dies _for_ his country, not _for_ himself. He is what he would be in dying for his country, not in dying for himself. To say that his conscious aim is self-realization is to put the cart before the horse. That his willingness to die for his country proves that his country's good is taken by him to constitute himself and his own good is true; but his aim is his country's good _as constituting_ his self-realization, not the self-realization. It is impossible that genuine artistic creation or execution should not be accompanied with the joy of an expanding selfhood, but the artist who thinks _of_ himself and allows a view of himself to intervene between his performance and its result, has the embarrassment and awkwardness of "self-consciousness," which affects for the worse his artistic product. And it makes little difference whether it is the thought of himself as materially profiting, or as famous, or as technical performer, or as benefiting the public, or as securing his own complete artistic culture, that comes in between. In any case, there is loss to the work, and loss in the very thing taken as end, namely, development of his own powers. The problem of morality, upon the intellectual side, is the discovery of, the finding of, the self, in the objective end to be striven for; and then upon the overt practical side, it is the losing of the self in the endeavor for the objective realization. This is the lasting truth in the conception of self-abnegation, self-forgetfulness, disinterested interest.