I PROLEGOMENA 31 



make any human society more efficient in 

 the struggle for existence with the state of 

 nature, or with other societies, it works in har 

 monious contrast with the cosmic process. But 

 it is none the less true that, since law and 

 morals are restraints upon the struggle for ex 

 istence between men in society, the ethical 

 process is in opposition to the principle of the 

 cosmic process, and tends to the suppression of the 

 qualities best fitted for success in that struggle. 1 



It is further to be observed that, just as the self- 

 assertion, necessary to the maintenance of society 

 against the state of nature, will destroy that society 

 if it is allowed free operation within ; so the self- 

 restraint, the essence of the ethical process, which 

 is no less an essential condition of the existence of 

 every polity, may, by excess, become ruinous to it . 



Moralists of all ages and of all faiths, attending 

 only to the relations of men towards one another 

 in an ideal society, have agreed upon the 

 " golden rule," " Do as you would be done by." 

 In other words, let sympathy be your guide ; 

 put yourself in the place of the man towards 

 whom your action is directed ; and do to him 

 what you would like to have done to yourself 

 under the circumstances. However much one 

 may admire the generosity of such a rule of con- 



1 See the essay " On the Struggle for Existence in Human 

 Society" below ; and Collected Esxays, voL i. p. 276, for Kant'a 

 recognition of these facts. 



