[Footnote 2: Helvetius, _De l'Homme_, i. 263.] If the moral concepts are essentially generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth moral emotions, and, at the same time, contain the notion of {102} disinterestedness, we must conclude that the emotions from which they spring are felt disinterestedly. Of this fact we find an echo--more or less faithful--in the maxims of various ethical theorisers, as well as practical moralists. We find it in the utilitarian demand that, in regard to his own happiness and that of others, an agent should be "as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator";[3] in the "rule of righteousness" laid down by Samuel Clarke, that "We so deal with every man, as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect he should with us";[4] in Kant's formula, "Act only on that maxim which thou canst at the same time will to become a universal law";[5] in Professor Sidgwick's so-called axiom, "I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of another";[6] in the biblical sayings, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,"[7] and, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."[8] The same fact is expressed in the Indian Mahabharata, where it is said:--"Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclination. In refusing, in bestowing, in regard to pleasure and to pain, to what is agreeable and disagreeable, a man obtains the proper rule by regarding the case as like his own."[9] Similar words are ascribed to Confucius.[10] When Tsze-kung asked if there is any one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, the Master answered, "Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to {103} others." And in another utterance Confucius showed that the rule had for him not only a negative, but a positive form. He said that, in the way of the superior man, there are four things to none of which he himself had as yet attained; to serve his father as he would require his son to serve him, to serve his prince as he would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder brother as he would require his younger brother to serve him, and to set the example in behaving to a friend as he would require the friend to behave to him.[11] [Footnote 3: Stuart Mill, _Utilitarianism_, p. 24.] [Footnote 4: Clarke, _Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion_, p. 201.] [Footnote 5: Kant, _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, sec. 2 (_Sämmtliche Werke_, iv. 269).] [Footnote 6: Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, p. 383. However, as we have seen above, this so-called "axiom" is not a correct representation of the disinterestedness of moral emotions.] [Footnote 7: _Leviticus_, xix. 18. _St. Matthew_, xxii. 39.] [Footnote 8: _St. Matthew_, vii. 12. _Cf._ _St. Luke_, vi. 31.]