Hitherto we have been concerned with refuting widespread objections to the possibility of morality. We must now consider the violent opposition against the appreciation which morality demands--and must demand. It seems impossible for morality to be unquestionably superior to everything else in life, and to demand absolute obedience to its requirements, since it does not fill the whole of life, but must share men's allegiance with other obligations, and must seek some compromise with them. This objection could only be valid, if our whole life were a homogeneous structure,--if one single aim dominated all activity, and achievement in this direction could alone determine the value of our action. But the case is very different. Even the one fact that two planes unite in our life makes it impossible to apply the same standard to all the variety we encounter. The various values determined by these two planes are too different to be compared with one another. How could we judge sensuous enjoyment and outer success in the same way as we judge values like truth and honour? Further, morality is not concerned merely with single values appertaining to the higher plane, but with the recognition and appropriation of this higher plane itself: it is a movement from a whole and to a whole. Once the conviction obtains that the spiritual phase of life is something entirely different to nature, the acquisition of it becomes the chief problem of life, and the claim of morality--which upholds the principle of such acquisition--can assert its supremacy over all other claims. Wherever this was contested, the new world revealed by the spiritual life was not fully recognised. The experience of history shows that no artistic or intellectual achievement could prevent a rapid abatement and deterioration of the spiritual life, if the ethical task was not fully recognised. Morality is like religion: neither can take a secondary or even a co-ordinate place; they must be valued _more_ than everything else in life, or else they will inevitably come to mean _less_. We have now seen that the doubts assailing morality generally proceed from a particular conception of the universe and of man's position in it. This more or less naturalistic conception, in spite of all it claims to be, by no means exhausts the resources of human life. As soon as we recognise the limitations of this conception of life and free ourselves from its tyranny, we are able to acknowledge fully the claims of morality. Nay, more: these claims must then appeal to us as being both legitimate and imperative; and what might at first appear to be unintelligible, will become absolutely clear and certain. FOOTNOTE: [1] From "Rabbi Ben Ezra." IV EVOLUTION OF THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE