And yet the doubt is unfounded, and a comparison may serve to make this clear. It is certain that no one can entirely avoid error; still, avoidable or unavoidable, every error remains a judgment, which is what it should not be, and is opposed to the indispensable demands of logic. What applies to logic in respect of weakness of thought applies to ethics on the ground of weakness of will. Ethics cannot cease to demand from a man that he should love the acknowledged good and prefer that which is recognized to be better, not putting anything else before the highest practical good. Even were it proved (which is not the case), that in a definite class of cases all men without exception in respect of these were never able to remain true to the highest practical good, this would still not afford the slightest justification for setting aside the fundamental ethical demand. Even then it would still remain an evident and unchangeable truth, the sole and only right rule, here as everywhere, to give the preference to the better over what is less good. J. S. Mill fears that this would lead to endless self-reproaches and that these constant reproaches would embitter the life of each individual. This, however, is so little implied by the rule that it is easily demonstrable that such a result is excluded. Goethe well understood this,-- “Nichts taugt Ungeduld” i.e. impatience in respect of one’s own imperfections, he says in one of his by no means lax sayings,-- “Noch weniger Reue,” --giving way to the stings of conscience, when fresh joyous resolve is alone available,-- “Jene vermehrt die Schuld, Diese schafft neue.”[A] [A] “Impatience naught avails Nor more availeth rue, One addeth to the fault, The other maketh new.”--Tr. In an album I once found in the hand of the pious Abbot Haneberg, afterwards Bishop of Spires, the following lines, written to the same effect:-- “Sonne dich mit Lust an Gottes Huld, Hab’ mit allen--auch mit dir, Geduld.”[B] [B] “Bathe thyself with delight in the sunshine of heavenly grace, Let patience toward all men abound--e’en with thyself find a place.”--Tr. [43] (_p. 28_). It is necessary to be on one’s guard against drawing from the principle of love of our neighbour the conclusion that each has to _care for_ every other individual in the same degree as for himself, which, far from conducing towards the universal good, would rather essentially prejudice it. This is seen by reflecting on the circumstance that to ourselves we stand in a position different from that in which we stand to everybody else, while again in respect of these others we are in a position to help, or to injure, one more, the other less. If there are human beings in Mars the inhabitants of the earth can and ought to wish them good also, not however to strive after their good in the same manner as for himself and his fellow-men.