heroic deeds without holding himself blamable for such omissions. [Footnote 37: Price, _Review of the Principal Questions in Morals_, p. 204 _sq._] [Footnote 38: _Cf._ Sidgwick, _op. cit._ p. 221.] Professor Sidgwick observes that "we should not deny that it is, in some sense, a man's strict duty to do whatever action he judges most excellent, so far as it is in his power."[39] This, as it seems to me, is not a matter of course, and nothing of the kind is involved in the notion of duty itself. We must not confound the moral law with the moral ideal. Duty is the minimum of morality, the supreme moral ideal of the best man is the maximum of it. Those who sum up the whole of morality in the word "ought" identify the minimum and the maximum, but I fail to see that morality is better for this. Rather it is worse. The recognition of a "super-obligatory" does not lower the moral ideal; on the contrary it raises it, or at any rate makes it more possible to vindicate the moral law and to administer it justly. It is nowadays a recognised principle in legislation that a law loses part of its weight if it cannot be strictly enforced. If the realisation of the highest moral ideal is commanded by a moral law, such a law will always remain a dead letter, and morality will gain nothing. Far above the anxious {154} effort to fulfil the commandments of duty stands the free and lofty aspiration to live up to an ideal, which, unattainable as it may be, threatens neither with blame nor remorse him who fails to reach its summits. Does not experience show that those whose thoughts are constantly occupied with the prescriptions of duty are apt to become hard and intolerant? [Footnote 39: _Ibid._ p. 219.]