Secondly, the boundaries of jurisprudence and of ethics are by no means clear. Jurisprudence is more narrowly confined. It has no right to lay claim to or to pass a verdict upon everything which ethics may discover or attain. Laws and the constraint they imply are a necessary evil, a crutch for the lame and defective social conscience. They must be reduced to an indispensable minimum. The ethical and social instincts, on the other hand, can never be too highly developed. Humanity must gradually develop in the future to such a point that jurisprudence may be completely replaced by an instinctive and inculcated social impulse. “Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte Wie eine ew’ge Krankheit fort.”[C] [C] “Laws and statutes pass on in heritage, like an eternal disease.”――Goethe, _Faust_. In order now properly to understand our actual subject, viz. sexual ethics, we must state the fact that an action, as well as the motives which inspire it, may be either (1) _ethically positive_, i.e. good; (2) _ethically negative_, i.e. evil; or (3) _ethically indifferent_, i.e. without any relation to morals. In their relationship to morals an action and its motive may be completely independent of one another, as we have already seen. We must further note that there are various degrees of duty, and that from this cause conflicts may arise. There are duties towards one’s self, which serve to increase the worth, and particularly the social worth, of the individual by self-culture and education. In these days of effeminate culture it is too often forgotten that self-discipline and restraint, and even a certain degree of asceticism, fit the individual for freedom and happiness, while the craving for pleasure makes him useless and dependent. Then there are duties towards the family and those nearer to us, towards the State, towards existing Humanity, and towards posterity. This last duty is the highest of all. Everything that we enjoy to-day in culture and knowledge we owe to the toil, the suffering, and often the martyrdom of our forefathers. Our most sacred duty is, therefore, to secure for our descendants a loftier, happier and worthier existence than our own. Speaking generally, a rational system of morals must subordinate the welfare of the individual to that of the community at large. A man who is unprejudiced and possesses the ethical and social instinct will therefore hold it as a principle first of all to do no man any injury; then to develop his own individuality as highly as possible, which will be both for his own good and that of the community; and as far as in him lies to be of service to others and to Humanity. From this we may derive the following commandment of sexual ethics:―― _Thou shalt take heed in thy sexual desire, in its manifestations in thy soul, and chiefly in thy sexual acts, that thou do no hurt to thyself nor another, nor, above all, to the race of men; but shalt strive with thy might to increase the worth of each and all._