The preceding considerations, which were unavoidably necessary in order to clear the ground, now enable me to indicate the true incentive which underlies all acts of real moral worth. The seriousness, and indisputable genuineness, with which we shall find it is distinguished, removes it far indeed from the hair-splittings, subtleties, sophisms, assertions formulated out of airy nothings, and _a priori_ soap-bubbles, which all systems up to the present have tried to make at once the source of moral conduct and the basis of Ethics. This incentive I shall not put forward as an hypothesis to be accepted or rejected, as one pleases; I shall actually =prove= that it is the only possible one. But as this demonstration requires several fundamental truths to be borne in mind, the reader's attention is first called to certain propositions which we must presuppose, and which may properly be considered as axioms; except the last two, which result from the analysis contained in the preceding chapter, and in Part II., Chapter III. (1) No action can take place without a sufficient motive; as little as a stone can move without a sufficient push or pull. (2) Similarly, no action can be left undone, when, given the character of the doer, a sufficient motive is present; unless a stronger counter-motive necessarily prevents it. (3) Whatever moves the Will,--this, and this alone, implies the sense of weal and woe, in the widest sense of the term; and conversely, weal and woe signify "that which is in conformity with, or which is contrary to, a Will." Hence every motive must have a connection with weal and woe. (4) Consequently every action stands in relation to, and has as its ultimate object, a being susceptible of weal and woe. (5) This being is either the doer himself; or another, whose position as regards the action is therefore =passive=; since it is done either to his harm, or to his benefit and advantage. (6) Every action, which has to do, as its ultimate object, with the weal and woe of the agent himself, is =egoistic=. (7) The foregoing propositions with regard to what is done apply equally to what is left undone, in all cases where motive and counter-motive play their parts. (8) From the analysis in the foregoing chapter, it results that =Egoism= and the =moral worth= of an action absolutely exclude each other. If an act have an =egoistic= object as its motive, then no moral value can be attached to it; if an act is to have moral value, then no egoistic object, direct or indirect, near or remote, may be its motive. (9) In consequence of my elimination in Part II., Chapter III., of alleged duties towards ourselves, the moral significance of our conduct can only lie in the effect produced upon others; its relation to the latter is alone that which lends it moral worth, or worthlessness, and constitutes it an act of justice, loving-kindness, etc., or the reverse.