Even then, morality cannot limit its task to the ordering of private life, but must extend its activity to general conditions and human society. Life in the community must be exalted, and fitted to become the representative of spiritual life. It is one of the chief demands of modern times, that not only private life, but the whole of human society, should be subject to moral judgment and moral operation. Hegel condemned as "paltriness of faith," (Kleinkrämerei des Glaubens) men's belief in the guidance of their personal destiny by divine might and wisdom, while at the same time they believed the fate of mankind, as manifested in the history of the world, to be governed by blind unreasonable chance. We must also combat a paltriness of morality which concerns itself with the private affairs of individuals, but shows no interest and recognises no obligation with regard to what concerns humanity at large. In former times, when man was conscious of his weakness with regard to his environment, the most hopeless situation could be accepted as the will of God or as a decree of fate. But the modern man, with his consciousness of power and of his obligations towards the community, cannot reject the idea of the moral solidarity of all. He must therefore concern himself with the general conditions of mankind, and must display active interest in this direction. Let us further consider what has been achieved by the autonomy of the spiritual life. We must first of all return to the new depth of life which we have already recognised as one of its most important results. This means that we must cultivate in ourselves a firm basis, a continuous activity which determines, vitalises, and permeates each individual action. We must develop a distinct nucleus, an essential character which is not a mere background to our activity, but an integral part of it. This being the case, morality cannot be satisfied with stimulating man to certain achievements, and setting free the forces within him; it demands of him a new life, in which he must strive to make the deepening of activity we have been considering, an essential part of all his action. This is the ideal we try to realise in the development of personality and moral character. We want not merely to _act_ but to _be_ something, to make something out of ourselves, to put our own personal self into our action, and to so act that we ourselves thereby grow and advance. Only then life is so concentrated on itself and becomes self-conscious and self-centred--only then can it gain significance; it will otherwise be empty and hollow inwardly, in spite of unremitting activity. This is what justifies the estimation in which the ideas of personality and character are held. Why indeed should we value it so highly, were it but an accumulation of natural forces and impulses, and not the representative and starting-point of a new life?