that account, bound to choose a code that will make its believers survive. The believers are not all who are affected by obedience to the code, and it may be the believer's place to be sacrificed, either because his life is worth less than his ideal, or because the unbelievers may somehow be bettered through his death. And, in general, what would be the consequence of the consistent following out of the principle that the true goal is conformity to reality? Assume that, for instance, a man in society is to regulate his actions solely according to the demands that society as a real power makes upon him, in view of his place in the social organism, and that morality thus expresses simply the requirements that the individual must meet if he is to remain a successful member of this social organism. Then, to get your moral code, you are to examine the facts of social life. You are to see, for example, what each man must nowadays do if he is to be tolerable to his fellows. You will find something of this sort: It will not do for him to kill his fellows, or to steal from them, or openly to insult them. It will be unprofitable for him to be caught in cheating them, or in lying to them. He will do well to help them as far as his means allow, and so to get a reputation for kind-heartedness and public spirit, as well as for strict integrity. For such, at least in our society, are some of the requisite or useful kinds of adjustment to our environment. On these is founded our moral code, if it is to be founded on reality alone.
“But these requirements are not equally good in all societies. Once a power to kill certain kinds of
