Seldom has the “generation” of an Absolute been so clearly set forth. We do not suppose, any more than Hobbes himself did, that this word “generation” has any historical significance. Men never lived in the state of nature here defined, they never foregathered to reason out in this way the advisability of organizing themselves into commonwealths. Instead of “generation,” read, if you will, “justification,” _i.e._, the justification in reason for the commonwealth’s existence and dominion. Then observe that not only does this great loyalist (the whole Leviathan is one of the loyalist documents of the Civil Wars)--not only does he demand a reason for the loyal faith that is in him, but in the development of this reason it turns out that the absolute _is not another will at all_, but only one’s own will thoughtfully dealing with others to win for itself a “more contented life.” Now of course it is an absurdity to try to give a reason why any will whatever should be taken for absolute and expect to keep it so; for the very function of this reason is to show what more ultimate end is served by acknowledging this will as master. But if we do follow Hobbes’s reason for bowing as deep as we do bow to Leviathan, this reason is that our own deepest desire--or what Hobbes takes to be such--is thereby best served. “For it is,” says he, “a voluntary act; and of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself.” Why then, that morality which promised to give us a meaning of the good that would enable us to understand how the progress of science with its hypothetical goods might let us stray from or even lead us away from _the_ good, has turned out to be itself offering us a hypothetical good, _to be itself an effort of science_,--the science of many wills meeting in presence of but a single world. And this I take to be the fate, not only of Hobbes’s but of all moralities: differ as they may respecting that Other-will they take to be absolute, they all alike recommend a sacrifice of my will to another will, not indeed for the sacrifice’ sake, nor yet for that other will’s sake when all is said, but that my own will may find “a more contented life thereby.” * * * * * Most of us have let our thoughts respecting the good of life stop with the acceptance of those moral goods that the opinion of our time takes to be absolute. These standard objects of loyalty, the state, the hearth, the cause, we serve with devotion and to them make our sacrifice. It is natural we should look with distrust, even with hostility, upon those who have let their thought go further and have asked, How in serving these Other-wills is our own deeper desire the better fulfilled? And yet, if our analysis is so far correct, this is the most intelligent, the most dignified of questions; for no historic morality has really meant to present itself as a system of sacrifices with no corresponding satisfactions.