Even that “great principle in the Law” (as R. Akiba called it), “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” though in form it appears to be positive, is in reality, if rightly understood, negative. If the Torah had meant that a man must love his neighbour to the extent of sacrificing his life for him, it would have said: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour _more than_ thyself.” But when you love your neighbour _as_ yourself, neither more nor less, then your feelings are in a state of perfect equilibrium, with no leaning either to your side or to your neighbour’s. And this is, in fact, the true meaning of the verse. “Self-love must not be allowed to incline the scale on the side of your own advantage; love your neighbour as yourself, and then inevitably _justice_ will be the deciding factor, and you will do nothing to your neighbour that you would consider a wrong if it were done to yourself.” For proof that this is the real meaning we have only to look further in the same passage of Leviticus, where we find: “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself (Lev. xix. 33, 34). Here it is evident that to love the stranger “as thyself” means to carry out the negative precept “ye shall not vex him”; and if the stranger is expressly placed on the same footing as the native, this shows that in relation to the native also the intention is only that self-love must not prove a stronger motive than justice. But in the Gospels the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” receives an altruistic sense: it means that your own life is less important than your neighbour’s. Hence it is possible to find some small justification for the habit which Christians have of attributing this verse to the Gospels, as though it appeared there, and not in the Mosaic Law, for the first time. It is true that _the meaning which they put on the verse_ belongs not to our Law, but to the Gospels.[172]