Nietzsche in the interests of his attack seizes upon the word _neighbour_. Not only does he demand, with Kierkegaard, a setting-aside of morality for the sake of the end in view, but he is exasperated that the true nature of morality should be held to consist in a consideration of the immediate results of our actions, to which we are to conform. To what is narrow and pettifogging in this morality he opposes another, which looks beyond these immediate results and aspires, even by means that cause our neighbour pain, to more distant objects; such as the advancement of knowledge, although this will lead to sorrow and doubt and evil passions in our neighbour. We need not on this account be without pity, but we may hold our pity captive for the sake of the object. And as it is now unreasonable to term pity unselfish and seek to consecrate it, it is equally so to hand over a series of actions to the evil conscience, merely because they have been maligned as egotistical. What has happened in recent times in this connection is that the instinct of self-denial and self-sacrifice, everything altruistic, has been glorified as if it were the supreme value of morality. The English moralists, who at present dominate Europe, explain the origin of ethics in the following way: Unselfish actions were originally called _good_ by those who were their objects and who benefited by them; afterwards this original reason for praising them was forgotten, and unselfish actions came to be regarded as good in themselves. According to a statement of Nietzsche himself it was a work by a German author with English leanings, Dr. Paul Rée's _Der Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen_ (Chemnitz, 1877), which provoked him to such passionate and detailed opposition that he had to thank this book for the impulse to clear up and develop his own ideas on the subject. The surprising part of it, however, is this: Dissatisfaction with his first book caused Rée to write a second and far more important work on the same subject--_Die Entstehung des Gewissens_ (Berlin, 1885)--in which the point of view offensive to Nietzsche is abandoned and several of the leading ideas advanced by the latter against Rée are set forth, supported by a mass of evidence taken from various authors and races of men. The two philosophers were personally acquainted. I knew them both, but had no opportunity of questioning either on this matter. It is therefore impossible for me to say which of the two influenced the other, or why Nietzsche in 1887 alludes to his detestation of the opinions put forward by Rée in 1877, without mentioning how near the latter had come to his own view in the work published two years previously.