would, in most cases, simply amount to doing needlessly over again something which society, on the one hand, and the highest representa- tives of humanity on the other, have done for us. Their work has resulted in certain rules being laid down and an ideal being set up as a pattern: to live morally will mean to follow these rules, to conform to this ideal. In this way alone can we be sure of remaining in complete accord with ourselves: the rational alone is self-consistent. Only in this way can we compare various lines of conduct with one another; only in this way can we estimate their moral value. The thing is so obvious that we have barely hinted at it, we have nearly always taken it for granted. But the result was that our statement remained a mere diagram and might well appear 66 MORAL OBLIGATION CH. inadequate. Indeed, on the intellectual plane, all the precepts of morality interpenetrate one another in concepts of which each one, like Leibnitz's monad, is more or less representa- tive of all the others. Above or below this plane, we find forces which, taken singly, correspond only to a part of what has been projected on the intellectual plane. Since this draw- back to the method we have adopted is undeniable, and indeed inevitable, since we perceive that we must use this method and since we feel that it cannot fail to raise objections through- out its application, we think it important, in