it to lie in the fact that such a person =draws less distinction between himself and others than is usually done=. In the eyes of the malicious individual this difference is so great that he takes direct delight in the spectacle of suffering,--a delight, which he accordingly seeks without thought of any other benefit to himself, nay, sometimes, even to his own hurt. From the egoist's point of view the same difference is still large enough to make him bring much trouble on his neighbours, in order to obtain a small personal advantage. Hence for both of these, between the =ego=, which is limited to their own persons, and the =non-ego=, which includes all the rest of the world, there is fixed a great gulf, a mighty abyss: _Pereat mundus, dum ego salvus sim_ (the world may perish, provided I be safe), is their maxim. For the good man, on the contrary, this distinction is by no means so pronounced; indeed, in the case of magnanimous deeds, it appears to become a vanishing quantity, because then the weal of another is advanced at the cost of the benefactor, the self of another placed on an equality with his own. And when it is a question of saving a number of fellow-beings, total self-obliteration may be developed, the one giving his life for many. The inquiry now presents itself, whether the latter way of looking at the relation subsisting between the ego and the non-ego, which forms the mainspring of a good man's conduct, is mistaken and due to an illusion; or whether the error does not rather attach to the opposite view, on which Egoism and Malice are based.