When every life is regarded as an end in itself from the point of view that it can never be lived again; that it must, therefore, be lived as completely and greatly as possible; when every personality is valued as an asset in life that has never existed before and will never occur again, then also the erotic happiness or unhappiness of a human being will be treated as of greater importance, and not to himself alone. No, it will be so also to the whole community—through the life and the work his happiness may give the race or his unhappiness deprive it of. For himself, as well as for others, the individual will then examine the right of renouncing happiness as conscientiously as he now submits to the duty of bearing unhappiness. The importance to children of their parents’ life together will depend upon the kind of life it is, when it has been seen that when all is said the new generation has most to gain by love being always and everywhere set up as the condition of the highest worth of cohabitation. This is the rich promise that the new path offers; but the majority cannot see the promise on account of the possible new dangers. It is this dread that still paralyses the courage to dare the untried, in order to win the valuable. It is astonishing that those who tremble for the future never seek consolation in the past. They would there find, for example, that when the family ceased to be the match-maker, when the guardian could no longer keep a woman in a position of legal incapacity and prevent her marrying—then there were prophecies of exactly the same “dissolution of society and of the family” as are now dreaded in freer forms of matrimony. But the same people who now laugh at the former forebodings are convinced that the latter will be realised; for man believes in nothing so reluctantly as in his own nature’s power of replacing outward bonds with inner ones. And yet, long before the new forms are ready, there is an abundance of the new feelings which are to fill them. Nothing is more certain than that, if feelings were no better than laws, we should never have new laws (Mill). But human beings will never believe in the possibilities of development of their own feelings until they leave off seeking their strength from above. They will never have faith in themselves as pathfinders until they no longer believe themselves “guided.” As soon as a change has taken place, it is regarded “historically,” as a given consequence of “rational” causes and “divine” guidance. But to look historically at the future; to trust in regard to what has not yet happened to the given consequences—for good and evil—of the same constantly operating causes, this does not occur to the guardians of society. Their belief in God’s guidance is always—retrospective.