, becomes less problematical; and indubitably in future we shall certainly know the real and original character of the delight experienced by the selfless, the self-denying, the self-sacrificing: this delight is a phase of cruelty.⁠—So much provisionally for the origin of “altruism” as a moral value, and the marking out the ground from which this value has grown: it is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a value .