Morality is an arrangement which has arisen from the needs of society; that is to say, it is not innate, but is an artificial institution of the race. However, it grafts itself upon the natural organs and attributes of man, and thus, from being a sociological phenomenon, it becomes a biological one. The idea that Morality is something absolute, a cosmic force, and that it would still exist and be valid if there were no human beings, and even if the earth had no existence, I have refuted with scorn. We must hold fast to the fact that Morality is a law of human conduct, that it is in force only among mankind, and that apart from mankind it is unthinkable. As, however, it becomes a differentiated function of the apparatus of inhibition, it participates in the general processes of life and leads us to that point where, indeed, we face the unnerving outlook upon the absolute and the question of eternity.
My arguments have led me to many phenomena that can be established and interpreted as facts of experience, but the explanation of which lies beyond the power of the human mind. We have examined the riddle of life, and we have distinguished therein a number of inexplicable things: the lack of a beginning, sensitiveness to stimuli, consciousness, the transformation of vibrations into sensations and concepts, the will, and inhibition. We are forced to the conclusion that the only discernible aim of life's activities is the preservation of life, or, more shortly, that life is its own aim and object. Morality, too, either openly or by implication, sets itself the one clearly demonstrable task of ensuring to the individual the preservation and security of his existence in a higher sphere than that of individual vegetative life processes. Thereby it fits into the scheme of existence, its mysteries and aims, and becomes an integral part of the cycle of life which emerges from eternity and returns to it.
The coercion which the community exercises upon its members, by means of which it forces them to adapt their actions and abstention from action to the standard it has set up, has two forms: Custom and Law. Are the two really different? What is their relation, one to the other? These are questions worth investigating.