Reason, then, which is capable of foreseeing the results of actions, teaches a man what he must do and from what he must abstain, where he may follow his instinct and where he must resist it, according as it considers the presumptive results of yielding to impulse good or bad. But whence does Reason obtain the standard it applies to the actions of men and their results? How does it acquire the fundamental concepts Good and Bad, and what is their significance? Generally speaking, the answer will be as follows: Moral values are appraised by a standard supplied by a general consensus of opinion; Reason acknowledges as good that which meets with the approval of the community, that which the latter desires and therefore praises; the community, for its part, echoes the pronouncements of influential personages, i.e. of the most respected, most powerful, and most aristocratic; Reason condemns as bad that which the community disapproves, and which it therefore censures and rejects. This definition does not solve the problem of good and bad, it only shifts it.
Later we shall have to show upon what grounds the community discriminates between acceptable and reprehensible facts, calling the former good and the latter bad. For the present it is enough to observe that Reason derives the laws, which it constantly impresses on man, from the opinion of the community.
It can happen that Reason rejects the opinion of the community and forms a conclusion opposed to it. This revolt of individual morality against conventional morality is the great tragedy of man. It can only occur in the soul of a hero, for mediocre and insipid people always bow to the opinion of the majority. There is clearly imminent danger of making a mistake. Not seldom, however, the individual is right in his opposition to the community, and then the latter is fired by his example to examine its traditional dogmas and to correct or reject them. This is not the only, but it is the most common means by which Morality is developed and changed. Its progress demands martyrs. Strong personalities must be sacrificed to force a revision of moral values. Socrates has to swallow the draft of hemlock so that unfettered thought may acquire the right to doubt the legend of the gods. Jesus has to incur the dangerous anger of the Pharisees so that the adulteress may be treated with indulgence and human sympathy instead of being punished according to rigorous law. But the opposition of a self-willed, subjective Morality to the accepted moral law is always exceptional; the general rule is submission to the moral law. This is indeed a necessary preliminary to revolt against the moral law of the community, for it is only by means of a vigorous social education that man develops such a nicely balanced and keen sense of Good and Bad, that he cannot prevail upon himself to carry out generally approved actions which his own intelligence does not recognize as moral. He whose moral sense has not been intensified by strict discipline will never be assailed by doubt, as long as he follows in the footsteps of the multitude.