From the perplexities of religion many flee to morality as to something secure and untouched by dissension. The position of morality is, indeed, different from that of religion. Of atheists there are many; but there are few, if any, who deny the validity of all moral values: that fidelity is better than deceit, love better than hate, concerning this there is no dispute. But it is a question how far this agreement extends and how much we may gain from it. Within the same sphere of culture at least it is with very little difficulty that we come to agreement in respect of individual matters of morality; if ethical societies limited themselves to practical morality, and did not at the same time wish to settle questions of principle, they would find scarcely any opposition. But, as soon as we comprehend the individual matters as a whole and ask for a foundation for the whole, problem after problem makes its appearance, and it soon becomes clear that we can neither establish nor distinctively form morality without a conviction concerning life as a whole and our fundamental relation to reality. If, therefore, there is so much uncertainty in the present concerning life as a whole and our fundamental relation to reality, we must inevitably become doubtful and unclear with regard to morality. In fact, the position may be described in this way: we lack a morality which has a secure basis and a definite character; in morality, also, after-effects of the past mingle with the impulses of the present; and we are accustomed to conceal the poverty of our own possessions by historical knowledge and mere learning--so much is this the case that we are able even in a state of disgraceful poverty to think ourselves rich. There are no less than five types of morality which seek our adherence and the guidance of our soul: we may suppose that in each of these there is some truth, but no single one is able to win our acceptance entirely; each leads to a certain point, and then we recognise a limit. We have a religious morality, in which our volition is related to and our destiny is determined by a divine power; but this endangers the spiritual independence of man, and has a strong tendency to make his life too passive; besides, in this case, the prostration of religion also weakens the power of morality and its power to direct life. We have a morality of culture, which directs all power towards increasing the progress of humanity, and subordinates all subjective preference to the requirements of an objective operation and creation; but the ceaselessly increasing differentiation of work makes this form of morality a danger to the soul as a whole; man is in danger of being made a mere means and instrument of a soulless process of culture. We have a social morality, which makes the welfare of society the chief thing, and which, by strengthening the feeling of solidarity, produces humane efforts in abundance, but is unable to include life as a