 The solution consists in ‘regulating the inside through the outside’ and depends, as a consequence, on a good use of the mind. The only way in which altruism can win, is to ally itself with the mind, to make it its servant and not its slave. The heart, without the light of reason, is blind. Left to itself, affectivity is characterized by its inconsistency and instability. That is why the inside has to be regulated, that is, disciplined. And this task is assigned to the outside, because exterior reality is the best of regulators. Whatever its own defects may be, the order that science discloses in nature is, by its indifference to our desires, a source of discipline. The recognition of an unchanging external order thus becomes ‘the objective base of true human wisdom’, and ‘in the obligation to conform themselves to it’ our affections find ‘a source of fixedness appropriate for controlling their spontaneous capriciousness, and a direct stimulation to the dominance of the sympathetic instincts’ (1851, v. 1, 322; E., v. 1, 257). Science now finds itself vested with a moral function; but that also means that ‘thoughts must be systematized before feelings’ (1851, v. 1, 21; E., v. 1, 17) and that, if moral ascendancy is the primary attribute of the spiritual power, that power would not be able to carry out its duties without the aid of a superior intellect.