THE OTHER WORLD

man, know theyself! ~ 28 ~ being no human will or intention behind them. The second category, however, is very different in nature because it covers a wide range of actions the rights and wrongs of which must be taken seriously into consideration before being carried out. This is known as the ethical category. Imagine walking along a mountain road with ledges of rock projecting above your head. Suddenly a piece of rock detaches itself, falls on you and injures you. Do you strike the mountainside and bear a grudge against it? Of course not. The stone falling down and hurting you was purely a matter of chance. But suppose a man picks up a stone and throws it at you with the clear intention of injuring you. Won’t you then become enraged and feel like throwing stones back at him? You would be quite right in feeling that he should be punished, because what he did was intentional. Here, it is not just a question of some accidental happening, but of right and wrong action, good and bad intentions, in a word—of ethics. The examples chosen to clarify this point are of a very simple nature, in that the result of the action