Understanding the value of the (apparent) absolutism of the moral rules, we also understand why moral sentiment is so highly estimated as compared with a mere number of correct acts. Moral sentiment is the only reliable source of correct action. If we judge a person exclusively or mainly by his success in correct activity, we are likely to discourage his attempting a difficult task. In order to give the greatest possible encouragement, we tell him that it is his free will to do good that determines our estimation of his social value, no matter whether he succeeds or not. However, the question whether a man’s will is to be called good or bad, can be answered only by pointing out a social purpose, the furtherance of the welfare of the whole. Without this the will to do good, the feeling of duty, is like the rope by means of which Münchhausen descended from the moon.
The absolutism of morality explains the close relation of morality to religion. Religion, morality, and sometimes political law, are under God’s protection; the laws of reasoning and of artistic creation are not. The latter are also gifts of God, but left unprotected. Error and bad taste are no sins. Religion, if without direct protection by threatened punishment, would be found by each individual; but each would find a different one, and since only one religion is supposed to be the true one, uniformity has to be enforced by threats. Morality still more needs protection by threatened punishment coming from God, since individual desires differ greatly, and would never give rise directly to uniform moral rules. These rules are the product of the experience of generations, and always meet with more or less resistance from the individual. Human authority is frequently not strong enough to overcome this resistance. So God’s protection is needed--and found very easily. What can a father reply to his ever questioning child: Why must I give away a part of what I like to keep myself, or tell what I shall be punished for? He gives the same answer which he gives to the question who made the horses and the whole world: “God made these rules.” Perhaps it would be best if the child were always told that God did not impose these rules upon man as something foreign to his nature, simply because God capriciously chose to do so; but that he gave man these rules because they are needed for the highest development of human life. Only a will which acts morally because this significance of morality is understood can be said to be truly free.