No doubt this operation is astonishing, indeed hardly comprehensible. It is, in fact, the great mystery of Ethics, its original phaenomenon, and the boundary stone, past which only transcendental speculation may dare to take a step. Herein we see the wall of partition, which, according to the light of nature (as reason is called by old theologians), entirely separates being from being, broken down, and the non-ego to a certain extent identified with the ego. I wish for the moment to leave the metaphysical explanation of this enigma untouched, and first to inquire whether all acts of voluntary justice and true loving-kindness really arise from it. If so, our problem will be solved, for we shall have found the ultimate basis of morality, and shown that it lies in human nature itself. This foundation, however, in its turn cannot form a problem of Ethics, but rather, like every other ultimate fact as such, of Metaphysics. Only the solution, that the latter offers of the primary ethical phaenomenon, lies outside the limits of the question put by the Danish Royal Society, which is concerned solely with the basis; so that the transcendental explanation can be given merely as a voluntary and unessential appendix. But before I turn to the derivation of the Cardinal virtues from the original incentive, as here disclosed, I have still to bring to the notice of the reader two observations which the subject renders necessary. (1) For the purpose of easier comprehension I have simplified the above presentation of compassion as the sole source of truly moral actions, by intentionally leaving out of consideration the incentive of =Malice=, which while it is equally useless to the self as compassion, makes the =pain= of others its ultimate purpose. We are now, however, in a position, by including it, to state the above proof more completely, and rigorously, as follows:-- There are only =three= fundamental springs of human conduct, and all possible motives arise from one or other of these. They are: (_a_) Egoism; which desires the weal of the self, and is limitless. (_b_) Malice; which desires the woe of others, and may develop to the utmost cruelty. (_c_) Compassion; which desires the weal of others, and may rise to nobleness and magnanimity. Every human act is referable to one of these springs; although two of them may work together. Now, as we have assumed that actions of moral worth are in point of fact realities; it follows that they also must proceed from one of these primal sources. But, by the eighth axiom, they cannot arise from the first, and still less from the second; since all conduct springing from the latter is morally worthless, while the offshoots of the former are in part neither good nor bad in themselves. Hence they must have their origin in the third incentive; and this will be established _a posteriori_ in the sequel.