TO THE ADMIRERS OF OBJECTIVENESS.—He who, as a child, has observed in his parents and acquaintances in the midst of whom he has grown up, certain varied and strong feelings, with but little subtle discernment and inclination for intellectual justice, and has therefore employed his best powers and his most precious time in imitating these feelings, will observe in himself when he arrives at years of discretion that every new thing or man he meets with excites in him either sympathy or aversion, envy or contempt. Under the domination of this experience, which he is powerless to shake off, he admires neutrality of feeling or “objectivity” as an extraordinary thing, as something connected with genius or a very rare morality, and he cannot believe that even this neutrality is merely the product of education and habit. 112. ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DUTY AND RIGHT.—Our duties are the claims which others have upon us. How did they acquire these claims? By the fact that they considered us as capable of making and holding agreements and contracts, by assuming that we were their like and equals, and by consequently entrusting something to us, bringing us up, educating us, and supporting us. We do our duty, _i.e._ we justify that conception of our power for the sake of which all these things were done for us. We return them in proportion as they were meted out to us. It is thus our pride that orders us to do our duty—we desire to re-establish our own independence by opposing to that which others have done for us something that we do for them, for in that way the others invade our sphere of power, and would for ever have a hand in it if we did not make reprisals by means of “duty,” and thus encroach upon their power. The rights of others can only have regard to that which lies within our power; it would be unreasonable on their part to require something from us which does not belong to us. To put the matter more accurately, their rights can only relate to what they imagine to be in our power, provided that it is something that we ourselves consider as being in our power. The same error may easily occur on either side. The feeling of duty depends upon our having the same belief in regard to the extent of our power as other people have, _i.e._ that we can promise certain things and undertake to do them freely (“free will”).