But if we look deeper, we shall find that the difference between the two doctrines on this point is not one of less or more, but that there is a fundamental difference between their views as to the basis of morality. It was not by accident that Hillel put his principle in negative form; the truth is that the moral basis of Judaism will not bear the positive principle. If the positive saying were to be found somewhere attributed to Hillel, we should not be able to rejoice; we should have to impugn the genuineness of a “discovery” which put into Hillel’s mouth a saying opposed to the spirit of Judaism. The root of the distinction lies here also, as I have said, in the love of Judaism for _abstract_ principles. The moral law of the Gospels beholds man in his individual shape, with his natural attitude towards himself and others, and asks him to reverse this attitude, to substitute the “other” for the “self” in his individual life, to abandon plain egoism for inverted egoism. For in truth the altruism of the Gospels is neither more nor less than inverted egoism. Altruism and egoism alike deny the individual _as such_ all _objective_ moral value, and make him merely a _means_ to a subjective end; but egoism makes the “other” a means to the advantage of the “self,” while altruism does just the reverse. Now Judaism removed this subjective attitude from the moral law, and based it on an abstract, objective foundation, on _absolute justice_, which regards the individual as such as having a moral value, and makes no distinction between the “self” and the “other.” According to this view, it is the sense of justice in the human heart that is the supreme judge of a man’s own actions and of those of other men. This sense must be made independent of individual relations, as though it were some separate abstract being; and before it all men, _including the self_, must be equal. All men, including the self, must develop their lives and their faculties to the utmost possible extent, and at the same time each must help his neighbour to attain that goal, so far as he is able. Just as I have no right to ruin another man’s life for the sake of my own, so I have no right to ruin my own life for the sake of another’s. Both of us are men, and both our lives have the same value before the throne of justice. I know no better illustration of this point of view than the following well-known _B’raitha_: “Imagine two men journeying through the desert, only one of whom has a bottle of water. If both of them drink, they must both die; if one of them only drinks, he will reach safety. Ben P’tura held that it was better that both should drink and die, than that one should witness the death of his comrade. But Akiba refuted this view by citing the scriptural verse, ‘and thy brother shall live with thee.’ _With thee_—that is to say, thine own life comes before thy neighbour’s” (_Baba M’zia_, 62_a_).