From the above brief sketch, which is based upon the theory of evolution and the researches of science, it is clear as the day that moral laws can only be relative. They were always relative to the family, to the tribe, to the fatherland; they must become relative to mankind. The racial (that is, inherited and instinctive) social sense in man is unfortunately very variable in individual cases. In the average it is extremely weak and chiefly directed towards a few individuals. Moreover, as the result of centuries of bad habits and ancient prejudices, its objects are falsely or unsuitably taught in process of educating children. Instead of the child’s sense of duty being directed to the necessity of labour and social sacrifice for mankind as a whole and posterity in particular, it is directed towards false codes of honour, local patriotism, family exclusiveness, private property, pretended divine commandments, and so forth. The Earth is small, and human intercourse becomes more extensive every year; the union of all civilised peoples into a single great civilised community is _inevitable_. Ethics must, therefore, as far as reason permits, be directed towards this object. We require animals and plants in order to live, so that we can further extend our altruism at most to a moderate protection of other animals, if we are to avoid injury to our own race. We may remark in passing that the altruism of many lovers of animals, who prefer their favourite pets to human beings and to the social welfare, is typical of the exclusiveness and stupidity of misdirected impulses of sympathy. Morality must therefore in the future consist of a common social impulse――it must itself become social. This impulse must overthrow not only egotism, but also the exclusiveness of individual sympathies. We are still, alas, far from this goal! The family is often a thieves’ kitchen; patriotism is a prolific parent of wars; while communities and societies, however noble their objects may be, readily degenerate into petty sects and cliques. And now comes yet another difficulty, namely, the frequent lack of harmony between the ethical motives which inspire an action and its real moral value. “Ich bin Ein Theil von jener Kraft Die stets das Böse will Und stets das Gute schafft,” says Mephistopheles in Goethe’s _Faust_.[B] Let us say often instead of always, and mention also that other Power which often wills the good and yet does the evil, and we have the well-known picture of the intelligent, ambitious egotist, who, without any sense of duty, achieves great and good results; and that of the foolish, infatuated altruist, who devotes the whole might of his zeal for duty to the service of socially pernicious forces! [B] “I am a part of that power which always wills the evil and always does the good.” * * * * *