individual has the right to make his reformatory or
revolutionary attempt at change--of course only upon the condition that his
attempt is successful, and that it stands proof.

Relatively it is easiest for ethical naturalism to establish a principle of
_virtue_, inasmuch as we have to look upon virtue as the principle of
individual perfection, and inasmuch as even naturalism, by means of the
indestructible impulse of man to attain moral ideas, can postulate an ideal
of human action. But on closer examination even the naturalistic idea of
virtue vanishes under our hands. Virtue, as individual morality, is
constituted of the factors of duty and of the highest good, which form the
motives of virtuous action. Now a system of morality which, as we have
seen, is entirely wanting in an objective solid principle of duty as the
motive of action, and which likewise, as we shall see immediately, is
wanting in an objectively established highest good as the end of action,
cannot possibly {383} produce any other idea of virtue than an abstract
formal one. In ethical naturalism, even this form is subject to change.
For, according to this system, not only the motive and end but also the
form of moral action depend on that which in every circle of society and at
every time proves to be the most successful form. It is the proof of
success or failure which gives this form a certain traditional authority
and a relative solidity--but only a relative one, and only until it is
displaced by a still more successful form.

That, finally, ethical naturalism is also wanting in an objective end of
moral action, in the idea and meaning of the _highest good_, is indeed not
denied by naturalism itself. It is true it speaks with predilection of the
idea of species, which man is to represent and to realize, and in that
respect we can say that the highest good of naturalistic ethologists is the
species or the idea of species.[11] But the idea of species is only the
empty vessel which first becomes valuable by reason of its contents. Now,
if we ask ethical naturalism the properties with which that idea of species
is to be endowed, it certainly mentions properties, but those which are too
rich; namely, it mentions the idea of all that is good in human life and
the forms of human life, _in concreto_, the whole sum of all the conditions
and acquisitions of the culture of mankind, art, nature, and science: the
comprehensive idea of these acquisitions, the en