THE RIGHT OF THE WEAKER.--When any one submits under certain conditions to a greater power, as a besieged town for instance, the counter-condition is that one can destroy one's self, burn the town, and so cause the mighty one a great loss. Therefore there is a kind of _equalisation_ here, on the basis of which rights may be determined. The enemy has his advantage in maintaining it. In so far there are also rights between slaves and masters, that is, precisely so far as the possession of the slave is useful and important to his master. The _right_ originally extends _so far as_ one _appears_ to be valuable to the other, essentially unlosable, unconquerable, and so forth. In so far the weaker one also has rights, but lesser ones. Hence the famous _unusquisque tantum juris habet, quantum potentia valet_ (or more exactly, _quantum potentia valere creditur_). 94. THE THREE PHASES OF HITHERTO EXISTING MORALITY.--It is the first sign that the animal has become man when its actions no longer have regard only to momentary welfare, but to what is enduring, when it grows _useful_ and _practical_; there the free rule of reason first breaks out. A still higher step is reached when he acts according to the principle of _honour_ by this means he brings himself into order, submits to common feelings, and that exalts him still higher over the phase in which he was led only by the idea of usefulness from a personal point of view; he respects and wishes to be respected, _i.e._ he understands usefulness as dependent upon what he thinks of others and what others think of him. Eventually he acts, on the highest step of the _hitherto_ existing--morality, according to _his_ standard of things and men; he himself decides for himself and others what is honourable, what is useful; he has become the law-giver of opinions, in accordance with the ever more highly developed idea of what is useful and honourable. Knowledge enables him to place that which is most useful, that is to say the general, enduring usefulness, above the personal, the honourable recognition of general, enduring validity above the momentary; he lives and acts as a collective individual. 95.