like a sealed order. Where, then, is this criterion to be discovered? Certainly nowhere else but in my Egoism, which is the nearest, ever ready, original, and living standard of all volition, and which has at any rate the jus primi occupantis before every moral principle. The direction for finding the real moral law, which is contained in the Kantian rule, rests, as a matter of fact, on the tacit assumption that I can only wish for that which is most to my advantage. Now because, in framing a precept to be generally followed, I cannot regard myself as always active, but must contemplate my playing a passive part eventualiter and at times; therefore from this point of view my egoism decides for justice and loving-kindness; not from any wish to practise these virtues, but because it desires to experience them.