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 harmonious con- 

 trast with the cosmic process. But it is none the 

 less true that, since law and morals are restraints 

 upon the struggle for existence 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.* 



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- 



* See the essay " On the Struggle for Existence in Hu- 

 man Society " below ; and Collected Essays, vol. i. p. 276, 

 for Kant's recognition of these facts. 



