uch appreciation saves the ethicist from
the pernicious fallacy of erecting personal preferences into universal
laws; and it also saves him from falling into the ethical abyss where
all things are of equal value because all things are equally vain.

Ethical tolerance is different from ethical sentimentality. Every one
has the sovereign natural right to cherish the excellence in harmony
with his character. But the equality extends no further. A comprehensive
estimate of the powers of the mind can be made and they can be arranged
in a series of increasing value. No arrangement can ever be absolutely
final and authoritative, for what one free man considers the highest
perfection of human life, another will consider to be only of secondary
importance. Still, all free men will agree that certain powers of the
mind are superior to others. But superiority is not rationally endowed
with legislative power over others. The free man is superior to the
slave, but he has, because of that, no rational right to dominate him;
neither is it his office to revile or despise him; the slave was given
his nature, he did not ask for it.

But if it is not the office of the free man to dominate or revile the
slave still less is it the divinely appointed office of the slave to
rule and revile the free man--universal democratic prejudices
notwithstanding. And in support of the independent, and in case of
contest, superior right of the free man we have the very highest
authority for those who do not trust themselves to be guided by reason.
God Himself has pronounced upon this tremendous issue. And not in mere
words, but by unmistakable deeds. When Lucifer, the first absolute
democrat or equalitarian, the first one to maintain that no one was
better than he was, raised his impious standard, God assembled all His
faithful hosts together and hurled Lucifer out of Heaven into Hell. And
justly so. For Lucifer had, by his foul, sacrilegious doctrine and
action, revealed himself to be the Prince of Darkness not the Prince of
Light. To our untold and everlasting misery the Prince of Darkness who
failed to ensnare the majority of angels did succeed in ensnaring the
majority of mankind. So irredeemably so, even the sweetly and tenderly
lyrical Prince of Peace had to be sent to us bearing a ghastly sword.

Reason is not, according to Spinoza, a constitutive power in man's life;
it is a regulative principle. Spinoza is, in the traditional usage of
the term,