This criterion of the Spirit, of Progress, of Reality, is the intimate measure of our acts in the moral conscience, as it is the foundation, more or less clearly expressed, of our moral judgments. Why do we exalt Giordano Bruno, who allowed himself to be condemned to the stake for asserting his philosophy? Perhaps for the calmness with which he faced the torture? But many fanatics, even malefactors, are capable of this, and it may sometimes even be a simple sensual desire, of which we have seen examples in history and of which a modern Italian poet has lately sung, exalting the beauty of the flame and the voluptuousness of the pyre. By facing death and refusing to deny his philosophy, Bruno contributed to the creation of a larger form of civilization, and for this reason he is not only a victim, but also a _martyr,_ in the etymological sense of the word: witness and realizer of a demand of the Spirit in universal.--Why do we praise the charitable man? Perhaps because he yields to the emotion caused by the spectacle of suffering. But emotion in itself is neither moral nor immoral, and thus to yield to it materially is weakness, that is, immorality. The charitable man, when he removes or mitigates suffering, relights a life and reconquers a force for the common work, which both he and the person whom he has benefited, must serve. [Sidenote: _Critique of antimoralism._] There is indeed nothing more foolish than antimoralism, so much the fashion in our day; it is an ugly echo of unhealthy social conditions, of one-sided theories ill understood (Marxism, Nietzscheianism). Antimoralism is justified, in so far as it combats moral hypocrisy in favour of effective morality instead of that of mere words, but it loses all meaning when it inflates empty phrases or combines contradictory propositions and preaches against morality itself. By so doing, it thinks to celebrate strength, health and freedom, but on the contrary exalts servitude to unbridled passions, the apparent health of the invalid and the apparent strength of the maniac. Morality (begging pardon of literary immoralists), far from being a pedantic fiction or the consolation of the impotent, is _good blood against bad blood._ [Sidenote: _Confused tendencies of tautological, material, religious formulæ, etc., toward the Ethic of the Spirit._]