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Rh is the highest universalism. Ernest Mack is in great error when he denies the subject, and thinks it is only after the renunciation of the individual "I" that an ethical relation, which excludes neglect of the strange "I" and overestimation of the individual "I," may be expected. It has already been seen where the want of one's own I leads in relation to one's neighbour. The I is the fundamental ground of all social morality. I should never be able to place myself, as an actual psychological being, in an ethical relation to a mere bundle of elements. It is possible to imagine such a relationship; but it is entirely opposed to practical conduct; because it eliminates the psychological condition necessary for making the moral idea an actual reality.

We are preparing for a real ethical relation to our fellow men when we make them conscious that each of them possesses a higher self, a soul, and that they must realise the souls in others.

This relation is, however, manifested in the most curious manner in the man of genius. No one suffers so much as he with the people, and, therefore, for the people, with whom he lives. For, in a certain sense, it is certainly only "by suffering" that a man knows. If compassion is not itself clear, abstractly conceivable or visibly symbolic knowledge, it is, at any rate, the strongest impulse for the acquisition of knowledge. It is only by suffering that the genius understands men. And the genius suffers most because he suffers with and in each and all; but he suffers most through his understanding.

Although I tried to show in an earlier chapter that genius is the factor which primarily elevates man above the animals, and in connection with that fact that it is man alone who has a history (this being explained by the presence in all men of some degree of the quality of genius). I must return to that earlier side of my argument. Genius involves the living actuality of the intelligible subject. History manifests itself only as a social thing, as the "objective spirit," the individuals as such playing no part in it,