As an example of the distinction, let me take the case of a debtor and a creditor disputing about a debt which the former denies.  A lawyer and a moralist are present, and show a lively interest in the matter.  Both desire that the dispute should end in the same way, although what they want is by no means the same.  The lawyer says, I want this man to get back what belongs to him; and the moralist, I want that man to do his duty.

It is with the will alone that morality is concerned.  Whether external force hinders or fails to hinder the will from working does not in the least matter.  For morality the external world is real only in so far as it is able or unable to lead and influence the will.  As soon as the will is determined, that is, as soon as a resolve is taken, the external world and its events are of no further moment and practical do not exist.  For if the events of the world had any such reality—­that is to say, if they possessed a significance in themselves, or any other than that derived from the will which is affected by them—­what a grievance it would be that all these events lie in the realm of chance and error!  It is, however, just this which proves that the important thing is not what happens, but what is willed.  Accordingly, let the incidents of life be left to the play of chance and error, to demonstrate to man that he is as chaff before the wind.

The State concerns itself only with the incidents—­with what happens; nothing else has any reality for it.  I may dwell upon thoughts of murder and poison as much as I please:  the State does not forbid me, so long as the axe and rope control my will, and prevent it from becoming action.

Ethics asks:  What are the duties towards others which justice imposes upon us? in other words, What must I render?  The Law of Nature asks:  What need I not submit to from others? that is, What must I suffer?  The question is put, not that I may do no injustice, but that I may not do more than every man must do if he is to safeguard his existence, and than every man will approve being done, in order that he may be treated in the same way himself; and, further, that I may not do more than society will permit me to do.  The same answer will serve for both questions, just as the same straight line can be drawn from either of two opposite directions, namely, by opposing forces; or, again, as the angle can give the sine, or the sine the angle.

It has been said that the historian is an inverted prophet.  In the same way it may be said that a teacher of law is an inverted moralist (viz., a teacher of the duties of justice), or that politics are inverted ethics, if we exclude the thought that ethics also teaches the duty of benevolence, magnanimity, love, and so on.  The State is the Gordian knot that is cut instead of being untied; it is Columbus’ egg which is made to stand by being broken instead of balanced, as though the business in question were to make it stand rather than to balance it.  In this respect the State is like the man who thinks that he can produce fine weather by making the barometer go up.