 This constructive tension between “distinctive [eigentümlich]” and “universal” sides of morality survives to constitute the central principle of Schleiermacher’s mature ethics lectures. There he begins by arguing that very general versions or analogues of such a constructive tension exist as universal facts of nature—that all finite beings exhibit such a tension; more specifically, that all life does so in the form of a tension between autonomy and social commonality; and more specifically still, that all human mental life does so in that same form. He then goes on to derive from this a moral duty to realize such a tension in one’s own person.