The disintegration of a society, the sanction of its sins against Morality, is a slow process. It does not often take place catastrophically, with theatrical effect, so that even a dull observer can grasp the connexion between cause and effect. But whoever investigates closely will realize that all evils from which society suffers, which make life more bitter and harder for its members, are ultimately due to defective Morality. What are class struggles with their consequent hostilities between groups of the same nation, their coercion and damage, but manifestations of self-seeking, lack of consideration and injustice, that is, of Immorality? Would they be possible if members of all classes, capitalists and workers, agriculturists and townsmen, rulers and subjects were inspired by neighbourly kindness, understanding and appreciation of the needs, pretensions and feelings of their opponents, and by a spirit of self-sacrifice? Would the decay of character, the arbitrariness and arrogance of the mighty, the cowardly slavishness of the masses, with the resultant rottenness of public affairs, be conceivable if individuals were conscious of their dignity and their duty to themselves and the community, and if they had the strength and the determination to overcome their fear of men? Could wars of aggression bring ruin upon mankind if leading personalities did not give way to the desire for outward honours, to the hunger for power, to avarice, to the itch of vanity, that is to the lowest forms of selfishness, and if the masses out of stupidity or fear of a mental effort, and out of dread for their personal responsibility did not allow themselves to be misused for base purposes? Thus we find insufficient Morality in individuals, or the complete lack of it, to be at the root of all evils with which the community is afflicted, and we are justified in conceiving war, party quarrels, collisions between groups representing different interests, revolutions, in fact, all tragedies of life in societies with the suffering and destruction they entail, as the penal sanction of sins against Morality. Morality, which was created to facilitate life for the individual or to make it at all possible for him, is no longer able to fulfil its aim, and the society finds itself by its own fault back in the condition of misery and fear, owing to which its instinct of self-preservation originally forced it to make the effort of setting up the Moral law. Even the most merciless zealot cannot wish for a more efficacious and painful punishment of Immorality.