We need no further witness of the divorce between idealistic and
national morality than that which is supplied in the memorable
utterance of Bishop Magee, "No state which was conducted on truly
Christian principles could hold together for a week."

And domestic morality will constantly come into conflict with public
morality.

To do everything in one's power to advance one's relatives and friends
irrespectively of all considerations of merit would, no doubt, be
quite sound domestic morality; it could, however, not always be
reconciled with public morality. In the same way, to take one's
country's part in all eventualities would be patriotic, but it might
quite well conflict with the higher interests of humanity.

Now, the point towards which we have been winning our way is that each
man's moral station and degree will be determined by the election
which he makes where egoism and altruism, and where a narrower and a
wider code of morality, conflict.

That the moral law forbids yielding to the promptings of egoism or to
those of the narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the
precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. Criminal and anti-social
actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their
commission were not purely egoistic.

But the ethical law demands more than abstention from definitely
anti-social actions. It demands from every individual that he shall
recognise the precepts of public morality as of superior obligation to
those of egoism and domestic morality.