If an action has a purely egoistic imperative, it can have no moral worth. The implication, therefore, is that a man whose piety is impelled by the plight of his soul in the afterlife is not such a moral man after all. Morality is instead founded in the everyday phenomenon of compassion. The spontaneous participation, independent of all ulterior considerations, primarily in the suffering of another, and thus in the prevention or elimination of it. Only insofar as an action has sprung from compassion does it have moral value; and every action resulting from any other motives has none. You will find, then, that your dogmas and codes are of no moral value at all, for the experience of the individual - acting in accordance with his own freedom - is at both the beginning and end of morality.
