ABSTRACT
The gradation of higher and lower permeates uninterruptedly the whole series of values. It is therefore at all events a different relation. The principle of gradation itself demands an exposition precedent to the analysis, even if it be merely to settle why only the phenomenology of specific values can furnish a sketch of a scale of value. The methodological difficulty consists in value, that one can bring the manifoldness of values not otherwise to view than in a series, and that the tendency arises quite of itself to suggest, at least generally, a gradation in such a series. The consciousness of their being higher is utterly decisive. Every morally selective consciousness of values is necessarily a consciousness of the scale of values. Even if it should be proved that in general the higher axiological position belongs to the more highly complex structure, one could educe no principle there from.
