[Sidenote: _Vain polemic conducted with such an assumption against utilitarianism._] The polemic of autonomous Ethic against the heteronomous Ethic of utilitarianism has had a false and fruitless beginning, owing to this fiction of disinterested actions. In the belief of conquering and more than conquering, it has been attempted to show that man accomplishes some actions without any personal interest, whereas on the contrary an easy victory has in this way been prepared for the adversary. Utilitarianism, in fact, has always been able triumphantly to make the counter-demonstration that there is no action, be it as lofty as you will, that does not answer to a personal end. It is evident that the hero has his personal interest in the _pro patria mori,_ just as the saint, who wishes to direct his soul toward humility, finds his own account in allowing himself to be abused, beaten and splashed with mud ("in this is perfect joy," said Francesco of Assisi to Frate Leone). Correct polemic should not enter upon the useless task of denying this evidence; it should on the contrary admit, as was admitted above, that there is no action which does not answer to an individual desire, since it is the individual that performs it, and the universal is always obliged to avail itself of individuals. But when this point has been conceded and admitted, it will prove, as was proved above, that the useful action can either remain merely personal or progress to the action that is universal-personal, ethical-useful. And the ethical-useful action itself is precisely the new spiritual category that the utilitarian does not see. [Sidenote: _Actions morally indifferent, obligatory, supererogatory, etc. Critique._]