(1) In its negative form it had been already announced both among the Jews and among the Greeks: “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto yourselves.”[84] But one great superiority of our Lord over other teachers lies in the positive character of His teachings. His will is not simply that men should abstain from wrong-doing, but rather that they should be occupied in right-doing. (2) Here, as elsewhere, our Lord is proverbial; and this maxim must not be interpreted “at the foot of the letter.” Nothing in common life is more annoying than when people do so interpret and act upon it; with the result that they behave as if every one must agree with them in what they like or dislike. What is meant of course is that we are to act towards others with the same considerateness which we would desire that others should exhibit towards us. (3) We must realize that here we have the very kernel of Christian social duty. There was a great truth announced by the philosopher Immanuel Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only.” We are to treat all men always as ends in themselves; never as means merely towards some other end which we have in view, whether it be production, or convenience, or pleasure. Now this is only putting into a philosophical form what our Lord states more simply, more practically. We are to take the same thought for others that we would have others take for ourselves. We are to make no exceptions in our own favour. We are to love our neighbour as ourselves. We are to remember that every one in God’s sight counts for one; and that nobody counts for more than one. This, I say, is the principle of all Christian social conduct. It is the principle of justice; that is, of equal consideration. We could go on drawing out its applications for hours, and never have exhausted them. And it cannot be said that it is at present within reasonable distance of being realized in what is called Christian society. We have a more or less true ideal of what our own human life ought to be――of what opportunities we ought to have for the development of our faculties――of what home and school and college, youth and married life and old age, work and rest, ought to mean for ourselves and our families. We are to make these ideals universal. We are so to limit our desires that what we want for ourselves we can reasonably expect also for others. We are to be as truly zealous and active for other classes or other individuals as we are for our own class or our own family or ourselves. The service which we expect from others, we are to see that we render in some real sense to them, and that without respect of persons. This maxim is not inconsistent with inequality of position or (within limits) of wealth――for men are differently constituted in their capacities and wants――but it does demand equality of consideration.