act so, in order to come to the conclusion that such action has no reasonable foundation, and only seems to us necessary, because up to two thousand years ago such conduct was considered right, and a habit of acting so was formed. Why should a non-Christian, not acknowledging God, nor regarding the fulfilment of His will as the aim of life, decide to kill the robber in order to defend the child? By killing the robber he certainly kills, whereas he cannot know positively whether the robber would have killed the child or not. But letting that pass, who shall say whether the child's life was more needed, was better, than the robber's life?
Surely if the non-Christian knows not God, nor sees life's meaning in the performance of His will, the only rule for his actions must be a reckoning, a conception, of what is more profitable for him and for all men: a continuation of the robber's life or of the child's. To decide that he needs to know what would become of the child whom he saves, and what—had he not killed him—would have been the future of the robber he kills. And as he cannot know this, the non-Christian has no sufficient rational
