{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_On_the_Basis_of_Morality_Part_II/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_On_the_Basis_of_Morality_Part_II","id":"wikisource_On_the_Basis_of_Morality_Part_II","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Basis_of_Morality/Part_II","summary":null,"tags":["Pages_with_translator","Subpages"],"text":"part II.\n\nCRITIQUE OP KANT'S BASIS OE\nETHICS.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nPRELIMINARY REMARKS.\n\nIT is Kant's great service to moral science that he\npurified it of all Eudaemonism. With the ancients,\nEthics was a doctrine of Eudaemonism\u00a0; with the\nmoderns for the most part it has been a doctrine of\nsalvation. The former wished to prove that virtue\nand happiness are identical\u00a0; but this was like having\ntwo figures which never coincide with each other, no\nmatter how they may be placed. The latter have\nendeavoured to connect the two, not by the principle\nof identity, but by that of causation, thus making\nhappiness the result of virtue\u00a0; but to do this, they\nwere obliged to have recourse to sophisms, or else to\nassume the existence of a world beyond any possible\nperception of the senses.\n\nAmong the ancients Plato alone forms an ex-\nception\u00a0: his system is not eudaemonistic\u00a0; it is\nmystic, instead. Even the Ethics of the Cynics and\nStoics is nothing but a special form of Eudaemonism,\nto prove which, there is no lack of evidence and\ntestimony, but the nature of my present task forbids\nthe space.\n\nThe ancients, then, equally with the moderns, Plato\nbeing the single exception, agree in making virtue\nonly a means to an end. Indeed, strictly speaking,\neven Kant banished Eudaemonism from Ethics more\nin appearance than in reality, for between virtue and\nhappiness he still leaves a certain mysterious con-\nnection\u00a0; there is an obscure and difficult passage in\nhis doctrine of the Highest Good, where they occur\ntogether\u00a0; while it is a patent fact that the course of\nvirtue runs entirely counter to that of happiness.\nBut, passing over this, we may say that with Kant\nthe ethical principle appears as something quite in-\ndependent of experience and its teaching\u00a0; it is trans-\ncendental, or metaphysical. He recognises that human\nconduct possesses a significance that oversteps all\npossibility of experience, and is therefore actually the\nbridge leading to that which he calls the \"intel-\nligible \" l world, the mundus noumenon, the world of\nThings in themselves.\n\nThe fame, which the Kantian Ethics has won, is\ndue not only to this higher level, which it reached,\n\nVorstellung, that is, The World as Will and Idea\u00a0; \" Idea \"\nbeing used much as eiSwXoi/ sometimes is (cf. Xen. Sym. t\n4, 21), in the sense of \" an image in the mind,\" \" a mental\npicture.\" {Translator.)']\n\n1 It seems better to keep this technical word than to\nattempt a cumbrous periphrasis. The meaning is perfectly\nclear. The sensibilia (phaenomena) are opposed to the in-\ntelligibilia (noumena), which compose the transcendental\nworld. So the individual, in so far as he is a phaenomenon,\nhas an empirical character\u00a0; in so far as he is a noumenon,\nhis character is intelligible (intelligibilis). The mundus in-\ntelligibilis, or mundus noumendn is the KOO-^IOV voyrbs of\nNew Platonism. (Translator.)\n\nPRELIMINARY REMARKS. 25\n\nbut also to the moral purity and loftiness of its\nconclusions. It is by the latter that most people\nhave been attracted, without paying much attention\nto the foundation, which is propounded in a very\ncomplex, abstract and artificial form\u00a0; and Kant him-\nself required all his powers of acumen and synthesis\nto give it an appearance of solidity. Fortunately, he\nseparated his Ethics from the exposition of its basis,\ndevoting to the latter a special work entitled the\nGrundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, the theme of\nwhich will be found to be precisely the same as that\nof our prize essay. For on page xiii of the preface\nhe says\u00a0: \" The present treatise is nothing else but\nan attempt to find out and establish the supreme\nprinciple of morality. This is an investigation, whose\nscope is complete in itself, and which should be\nkept apart from all other moral researches.\" It\nis in this book that we find the basis, that is to say,\nthe essentials of his Ethics set forth with an acute\npenetration and systematic conciseness, as in no other\nof his writings. It has, moreover, the great advantage\nof being the first of Kant's moral works, appearing, 1\nas it did, only four years later than the Kritik der\nReinen Vernunft, and consequently it dates from the\nperiod when, although he was sixty-one, the detri-\nmental effect of old age on his intellect was not yet\nperceptible. On the other hand, this is distinctly trace-\nable in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft, which\nwas published in 1788, or one year later than the\nunhappy remodelling of the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft\n\n1 It was published in 1785\u00a0: The Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,\nfirst edition, in 1781. (Translator.}\n\n26 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nin the second edition, whereby the latter, his immortal\nmaster-piece, was obviously marred. An analysis of\nthis question is to be found in the preface to the\nnew edition by Rosenkranz, 1 from which my own\ninvestigation makes it impossible for me to dissent.\nThe Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft contains in its\nessentials the same material as the above-mentioned\nGrundlegung\u00a0; only the latter has a more concise and\nrigorous form, while in the former the subject is handled\nwith greater prolixity, interspersed with digressions,\nand even padded with some pieces of moral rhetoric,\nto heighten the impression. When Kant wrote it, he\nhad at last, and late in life, become deservedly famous\u00a0;\nhence, being certain of boundless attention, he allowed\ngreater play to the garrulity of old age.\n\nBut the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft contains\ntwo sections which are peculiar to itself. First\u00a0: the ex-\nposition of the relation between Freedom and Necessity\n(pp. 169-179 of the fourth edition, and pp. 223-231\nin Rosenkranz). This passage is above all praise, and\nundoubtedly was framed earlier in his life, as it is\nentirely in harmony with his treatment of the same\nsubject in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (pp. 560-\n586\u00a0; Rosenkranz, p. 438, sqq.). And secondly\u00a0: the\nMoraltheologie, which will more and more come to be\nrecognised as the real object Kant had in view. In\nhis Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Tugendlehre\nthis pendant to the deplorable Rechtslehre, written in\n1797, the debility of old age is at length fully pre-\nponderant. For all these reasons the present criticism\n\n1 His analysis is really derived from myself, but in this\nplace I am speaking incognito.\n\nPRELIMINARY REMARKS. 27\n\nwill mainly deal with the treatise first mentioned, viz.,\nthe Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, and the\nreader will please understand that all the page\nnumbers given by themselves refer to it. Both the\nother works will only be considered as accessory and\nsecondary. For a proper comprehension of the present\ncriticism, which, in probing the Kantian Ethics to\nits depths, bears directly and principally on this\nGrundlegung, it is very desirable that the latter be\ncarefully read through again, so that the mind may\nhave a perfectly clear and fresh presentment of what\nit contains. It is but a matter of 128 and xiv pages\n(in Rosenkranz only 100 pages altogether). I shall\nquote from the third edition of 1792, adding the\npage number of the new complete publication by\nRosenkranz, with an R. prefixed.\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nON THE IMPEKATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.\n\nKANT'S Trpwrov ^evSo^ (first false step) lies in Ms\nconception of Ethics itself, and this is found very\nclearly expressed on page 62 (R., p. 54)\u00a0: \" In a\nsystem of practical philosophy we are not concerned\nwith adducing reasons for that which takes place,\nbut with formulating laws regarding that which\nought to take place, even if it never does take\nplace.\" This is at once a distinct petitio principii.\nWho tells you that there are laws to which our\nconduct ought to be subject\u00a0? Who tells you that\nthat ought to take place, which in fact never does\ntake place\u00a0? What justification have you for making\nthis assumption at the outset, and consequently\nfor forcing upon us, as the only possible one, a\nsystem of Ethics couched in the imperative terms of\nlegislation\u00a0? I say, in contradistinction to Kant, that\nthe student of Ethics, and no less the philosopher\nin general, must content himself with explaining and\ninterpreting that Ifrhich is given, in other words,\nthat which really is, or takes place, so as to obtain\nan understanding of it, and I maintain furthermore\nthat there is plenty to do in this direction, much\nmore than has hitherto been done, after the lapse\n\n28\n\nTHE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 29\n\nof thousands of years. Following the above petitio\nprincipii, Kant straightway, without any previous\ninvestigation, assumes in the preface (which is en-\ntirely devoted to the subject), that purely moral\nlaws exist\u00a0; and this assumption remains thenceforth\nundisturbed, and forms the very foundation of his\nwhole system. We, however, prefer first of all to\nexamine the conception denoted by the word \" law.\"\nThe true and original meaning of the term is limited\nto law as between citizens\u00a0; it is the lex, vofios, of\nthe Romans and Greeks, a human institution, and\ndepending on human volition. It has a secondary,\nderived, figurative, metaphorical meaning, when\napplied to Nature, whose operations, partly known\na priori, partly learnt by experience, and which\nare always constant, we call natural laws. Only\na very small portion of these natural laws can\nbe discerned a priori, and with admirable acute-\nness, Kant set them apart, and classed them\nunder the name \" Metaphysics of Nature.\" There\nis also undoubtedly a law for the human will, in\nso far as man belongs to Nature\u00a0; and this law\nis strictly provable, admits of no exception, is\ninviolable, and immovable as the mountains, and\ndoes not, like the Categorical Imperative, imply\na quasi-necessity, but rather a complete and abso-\nlute one. It is the law of motivation, a form of\nthe law of causation\u00a0; in other words, it is the\ncausation which is brought about by the medium\nof the understanding. It is the sole demonstrable\nlaw to which the human will as such is subject.\nIt means that every action can only take place in\n\n30 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nconsequence of a sufficient motive. Like causality\nin general, it is a natural law. On the other\nhand, moral laws, apart from human institution,\nstate ordinance, or religious doctrine, cannot rightly\nbe assumed as existing without proof. Kant, there-\nfore, by taking such laws for granted, is guilty\nof a petitio principii, which is all the bolder, in\nthat he at once adds (page vi of the preface) that\na moral law ought to imply \" absolute necessity.\"\nBut \" absolute necessity \" is everywhere characterised\nby an inevitable chain of consequence\u00a0; how, then,\ncan such a conception be attached to these alleged\nmoral laws (as an instance of which he adduces\n\" thou shalt not lie \" *)\u00a0? Every one knows, and\nhe himself admits, that no such consecution for\nthe most part takes place\u00a0; the reverse, indeed, is\nthe rule.\n\nIn scientific Ethics before we admit as controlling\nthe will other laws besides that of motivation-\nlaws which are original and independent of all\nhuman ordinance we must first prove and deduce\ntheir existence\u00a0; that is, provided in things ethical\nwe are concerned not merely with recommending\nhonesty, but with practising it. Until that proof\nbe furnished, I shall recognise only one source to\nwhich is traceable the importation into Ethics of\nthe conception Law, Precept, Obligation. It is one\nwhich is foreign to philosophy. I mean the Mosaic\nDecalogue. Indeed the spelling \" du sollt \" 2 in the\n\n1 Du sollt (sic) nicht liigen.\n\n2 Sollt is the old form for \"sollst.\" Cf. Eng., shalt: Icel.\n\n. (Translator.)\n\nTHE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 31\n\nabove instance of a moral law, the first put forward\nby Kant, naively betrays this origin. A conception,\nhowever, which can point to no other source than\nthis, has no right, without undergoing further scrutiny,\nthus to force its way into philosophical Ethics. It\nwill be rejected, until introduced by duly accredited\nproof. Thus on the threshold of the subject Kant\nmakes his first petitio principii, and that no small one.\nOur philosopher, then, by begging the question\nin his preface, simply assumes the conception of\nMoral Law as given and existing beyond all doubt\u00a0;\nand he treats the closely related conception of Duty\n(page 8, R, p. 16) exactly in the same way. Without\nsubjecting it to any further test, he admits it forth-\nwith as a proper appurtenance of Ethics. But here,\nagain, I am compelled to enter a protest. This\nconception, equally with the kindred notions of Law,\nCommand, Obligation, etc., taken thus uncondition-\nally, has its source in theological morals, and\nit will remain a stranger to philosophical morals, so\nlong as it fails to furnish sufficient credentials drawn\neither from man's nature, or from the objective world.\nTill then, I can only recognise the Decalogue as\nthe origin of all these connected conceptions. Since\nthe rise of Christianity there is no doubt that\nphilosophical has been unconsciously moulded by\ntheological ethics. And since the latter is essentially\ndictatorial, the former appears in the shape of pre-\ncepts and inculcation of Duty, in all innocence, and\nwithout any suspicion that first an ulterior sanction\nis needful for this role\u00a0; rather does she suppose it\nto be her proper and natural form. It is true that\n\n32 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nall peoples, ages, and creeds, and indeed all philo-\nsophers (with the exception of the materialists proper)\nhave undeniably recognised that the ethical significance\nof human conduct is a metaphysical one, in other\nwords, that it stretches out beyond this phaenomenal\nexistence and reaches to eternity\u00a0; but it is equally\ntrue that the presentment of this fact in terms of\nCommand and Obedience, of Law and Duty, is no\npart of its essence. Furthermore, separated from\nthe theological hypotheses whence they have sprung,\nthese conceptions lose in reality all meaning, and\nto attempt a substitute for the former by talking\nwith Kant of absolute obligation and of unconditioned\nduty, is to feed the reader with empty words, nay\nmore, is to give him a contradictio in adjecto 1 to\ndigest.\n\nEvery obligation derives all sense and meaning\nsimply and solely from its relation to threatened\npunishment or promised reward. Hence, long before\nKant was thought of, Locke says\u00a0: \" For since it\nwould be utterly in vain, to suppose a rule set to\nthe free actions of man, without annexing to it some\nenforcement of good and evil to determine his will\u00a0;\nwe must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also\nsome reward or punishment annexed to that law\n{Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. II., ch. 33,\n6). What ought to be done is therefore necessarily\nconditioned by punishment or reward\u00a0; consequently,\nto use Kant's language, it is essentially and inevitably\n\n1 A contradiction in the adjective. This occurs when the\nepithet applied to a noun contradicts its essential meaning.\n(Translator.)\n\nTHE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 33\n\nhypothetical, and never, as he maintains, categorical.\nIf we think away these conditions, the conception\nof obligation becomes void of sense\u00a0; hence absolute\nobligation is most certainly a contradictio in adjecto.\nA commanding voice, whether it come from within,\nor from without, cannot possibly be imagined except\nas threatening or promising. Consequently obedience\nto it, which may be wise or foolish according to\ncircumstances, is yet always actuated by selfishness,\nand therefore morally worthless.\n\nThe complete nnthinkableness and nonsense of\nthis conception of an unconditioned obligation, which\nlies at the root of the Kantian Ethics, appears\nlater in the system itself, namely in the Kritik der\nPraktiscken Vernunft\u00a0: just as some concealed poison\nin an organism cannot remain hid, but sooner or later\nmust come out and show itself. For this obligation,\nsaid to be so unconditioned, nevertheless postulates\nmore than one condition in the background\u00a0; it assumes\na rewarder, a reward, and the immortality of the\nperson to be rewarded.\n\nThis is of course unavoidable, if one really makes\nDuty and Obligation the fundamental conception of\nEthics\u00a0; for these ideas are essentially relative, and\ndepend for their significance on the threatened penalty\nor the promised reward. The guerdon which is\nassumed to be in store for virtue shows clearly enough\ntli at only in appearance she works for nothing. It\nis, however, put forward modestly veiled, under the\nname of the Highest Good, which is the union of\nVirtue and Happiness. But this is at bottom nothing\nelse but a morality that derives its origin from\n\n3\n\n34 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nHappiness, which means, a morality resting on selfish-\nness. In other words, it is Eudaemonism, which\nKant had solemnly thrust out of the front door of\nhis system as an intruder, only to let it creep in\nagain by the postern under the name of the Highest\nGood. This is how the assumption of unconditioned\nabsolute obligation, concealing as it does a contra-\ndiction, avenges itself. Conditioned obligation, on\nthe other hand, cannot of course be any first principle\nfor Ethics, since everything done out of regard for\nreward or punishment is necessarily an egoistic\ntransaction, and as such is without any real moral\nvalue. All this makes it clear that a nobler and\nwider view of Ethics is needed, if we are in earnest\nabout our endeavour to truly account for the signi-\nficance of human conduct a significance which\nextends beyond phaenomena and is eternal.\n\nAs all obligation is entirely dependent on a con-\ndition, so also is all duty. Both conceptions are very\nclosely related, indeed almost identical. The only\ndifference between them might be said to be that\nobligation in general may rest on mere force, whereas\nduty involves the sense of obligation deliberately\nundertaken, such as we see between master and\nservant, principal and subordinate, rulers and the\nruled. And since no one undertakes a duty gratis,\nevery duty implies also a right. The slave has no\nduties, because he has no rights\u00a0; but he is subject\nto an obligation which rests on sheer force. In the\nfollowing Part I shall explain the only meaning\nwhich the conception \" Duty \" has in Ethics.\n\nIf we put Ethics in an imperative form, making\n\nTHE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 35\n\nit a Doctrine of Duties, and regard the moral worth\nor worthlessness of human conduct as the fulfilment\nor violation of duties, we must remember that this\nview of Duty, and of Obligation in general, is un-\ndeniably derived solely from theological Morals, and\nprimarily from the Decalogue, and consequently that\nit rests essentially and inseparably on the assumption\nof man's dependence on another will which gives\nhim commands and announces reward or punishment.\nBut the more the assumption of such a will is in\nTheology positive and precise, the less should it\nbe quietly and unsuspectingly introduced into philo-\nsophical Morals. Hence we have no right to assume\nbeforehand that for the latter the imperative Form,\nthe ordaining of commands, laws, and duties is an\nessential and a matter of course\u00a0; and it is a very\npoor shift to substitute the word \" absolute \" or\n\" categorical \" for the external condition which is\nindissolubly attached to such conceptions by their\nvery nature\u00a0: for this gives rise, as explained above,\nto a contradictio in adjecto.\n\nKant, then, without more ado or any close ex-\namination, borrowed this imperative Form of Ethics\nfrom theological Morals. The hypotheses of the\nlatter (in other words, Theology) really lie at the\nroot of his system, and as these alone in point of\nfact lend it any meaning or sense, so they cannot be\nseparated from, indeed are implicitly contained in,\nit. After this, when he had expounded his position\nthe task of developing in turn a Theology out of\nhis Morals the famous Moraltheologie was easy\nenough. For the conceptions which are implicitly\n\n36 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\ninvolved in his Imperative, and which lie hidden at\nthe base of his Morals, only required to be brought\nforward and expressed explicitly as postulates of\nPractical Reason. And so it was that, to the world's\ngreat edification, a Theology appeared depending\nsimply on Ethics, indeed actually derived therefrom.\nBut this came about because the ethical system itself\nrests on concealed theological hypotheses. I mean\nno derisive comparison, but in its form the process\nis analogous to that whereby a conjurer prepares\na surprise for us, when he lets us find something\nwhere he had previously employed his art to place\nit. Described in the abstract, Kant's procedure is\nthis\u00a0: what ought to have been his first principle,\nor hypothesis (viz., Theology) he made the conclusion,\nand what ought to have been deduced as the con-\nclusion (viz., the Categorical Command) he took as\nhis hypothesis. 1 But after he had thus turned the\nthing upside down, nobody, not even he himself,\nrecognised it as being what it really was, namely the\nold well-known system of theological Morals. How\nthis trick was accomplished we shall consider in the\nsixth and seventh chapters of the present Part.\n\nEthics was of course frequently put in the im-\nperative form, and treated as a doctrine of duties\nalso in pre-Kantian philosophy\u00a0; but it was always\nthen based upon the will of a God whose existence\nhad been otherwise proved, and so there was no\n\n1 Like the converse of a geometrical proposition, this Kantian\ninversion is not necessarily true\u00a0; its validity, in fact, depends\non the conclusion being implicitly contained in the hypothesis.\n(Translator.)\n\nTHE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 37\n\ninconsequence. As soon, however, as the attempt\nwas made, as Kant attempted, to give a foundation\nto Ethics independent of this will, and establish it\nwithout metaphysical hypotheses, there was no longer\nany justification for taking as its basis the words\n\" thou shalt,\" and \" it is thy duty \" (that is, the\nimperative form), without first deducing the truth\nthereof from some other source.\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nON THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES\nIN PARTICULAR.\n\nTHIS form of the doctrine of duties was very accept-\nable to Kant, and in working out his position he\nleft it untouched\u00a0; for, like his predecessors, along\nwith the duties towards others he ranged also duties\ntowards ourselves. I, however, entirely reject this\nassumption, and, as there will be no better oppor-\ntunity, I shall here incidentally explain my view.\n\nDuties towards ourselves must, just as all others,\nbe based either on right or on love. Duties towards\nourselves based on right are impossible, because of\nthe self-evident fundamental principle volenti non Jit\ninjuria (where the will assents, no injury is done).\nFor what I do is always what I will\u00a0; consequently\nalso what I do to myself is never anything but what\nI will, therefore it cannot be unjust. Next, as\nregards duties towards ourselves based on love.\nEthics here finds her work already done, and comes\ntoo late. The impossibility of violating the duty\nof self-love is at once assumed by the first law of\nChristian Morals\u00a0: \" Love thy neighbour as thyself.\"\nAccording to this, the love which each man cherishes\nfor himself is postulated as the maximum, and as\n\n38\n\nTHE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES. 39\n\nthe condition of all other love\u00a0; while the converse,\n\" Love thyself as thy neighbour \" is never added\u00a0; for\nevery one would feel that the latter does not claim\nenough. Moreover, self-love would be the sole duty\nregularly involving an opus supererogationis. Kant\nhimself says in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde\nzur Tugendlehre, p. 13 (R., p. 230)\u00a0: \" That which\neach man inevitably wills of himself, does not belong\nto the conception of Duty.\" This idea of duties\ntowards ourselves is nevertheless still held in repute,\nindeed it enjoys for the most part special favour\u00a0;\nnor need we feel surprise. But it has an amusing\neffect in cases where people begin to show anxiety\nabout their persons, and talk quite earnestly of the\nduty of self-preservation\u00a0; the while it is sufficiently\nclear that fear will lend them legs soon enough, and\nthat they have no need of any law of duty to help\nthem along.\n\nFirst among the duties towards ourselves is gener-\nally placed that of not committing suicide, the line\nof argument taken being extremely prejudiced and\nresting on the shallowest basis. Unlike animals,\nman is not only a prey to bodily pain limited to\nthe passing moment, but also to those incomparably\ngreater mental sufferings, which, reaching forwards\nand backwards, draw upon the future and the past;\nand nature, by way of compensation, has granted\nto man alone the privilege of being able to end\nhis life at his own pleasure, before she herself sets\na term to it\u00a0; thus, while animals necessarily live so\nlong as they can, man need only live so long as\nhe will.\n\n40 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nWhether he ought on ethical gronnds to forego\nthis privilege is a difficult question, which in any\ncase cannot be decided by the usual superficial\nreasoning. The arguments against suicide which\nKant does not deem unworthy of adducing (p. 53,\nR, p. 48 and p. 67, B,., p. 57), I cannot conscien-\ntiously describe as other than pitiable, and quite\nundeserving of an answer. It is laughable indeed\nto suppose that reflections of such a kind could have\nwrested the dagger from the hands of Cato, of Cleo-\npatra, of Cocceius Nerva (Tac., Ann., vi. 26) or of\nArria the wife of Paetus (Plin., Ep., iii. 16). If\nreal moral motives for not committing suicide actually\nexist, it is certain that they lie very deep, and cannot\nbe reached by the plummet of ordinary Ethics. They\nbelong to a higher view of things than is adaptable\neven to the standpoint of the present treatise.\n\nThat which generally comes next on the rubric of\nduties towards ourselves may be divided partly into\nrules of worldly wisdom, partly into hygienic pre-\nscriptions\u00a0; but neither class belongs to Morals in\nthe proper sense. Last on the catalogue comes the\nprohibition of unnatural lust onanism, paederastia,\nand bestiality. Of these onanism is mainly a vice\nof childhood, and must be fought against much more\nwith the weapon of dietetics than with that of ethics\u00a0;\nhence we find that the authors of books directed\nagainst it are physicians (e.g., Tissot and others)\nrather than moralists. After dietetics and hygiene\nhave done their work, and struck it down by irrefutable reasoning, if Ethics desires to take up the\nmatter, she finds little left for her to do. Bestiality,\nagain, is of very rare occurrence\u00a0; it is thoroughly\nabnormal and exceptional, and, moreover, so loath-\nsome and foreign to human nature, that itself,\nbetter than all arguments of reason, passes judgment on itself, and deters by sheer disgust. For\nthe rest, as being a degradation of human nature, it\nis in reality an offence against the species as such,\nand in the abstract\u00a0; not against human units. Of\nthe three sexual perversions of which we are speaking\nit is consequently only with paederastia that Ethics\nhas to do, and in treating of Justice this vice finds\nits proper place. For Justice is infringed by it, in\nface of which fact, the dictum volenti nonfat injuria is\nunavailing. The injustice consists in the seduction\nof the younger and inexperienced person, who is\nthereby ruined physically and morally.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.\n\nWITH the imperative Form of Ethics, which in\nChapter II. we proved to be a petitio principii, is\ndirectly connected a favourite idea of Kant's, that\nmay be excused, but cannot be adopted. Sometimes\nwe see a physician, after having employed a certain\nremedy with conspicuous success, henceforth prescrib-\ning it for almost all diseases\u00a0; to such a one Kant\nmay be likened. By separating the a priori from\nthe a posteriori in human knowledge he made the\nmost brilliant and pregnant discovery that Metaphysics\ncan boast of. What wonder then that thereafter he\nshould try to apply this method, this sundering of\nthe two forms, everywhere, and should consequently\nmake Ethics also consist of two parts, a pure, i.e.,\nan a priori knowable part, and an empirical\u00a0? The\nlatter of these he rejects as unreliable for the purpose\nof founding Ethics. To trace out the former and\nexhibit it by itself is his purpose in the Grundlegung\nder Metaphysik der Sitten, which he accordingly\nrepresents as a science purely a priori, exactly in\nthe same way as he sets forth the Metaphysische\nAnfangsgrunde der Naturtvissenschaft. He asserts\nin fact that the Moral Law, which without warrant,\n\n42\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 43\n\nwithout deduction, or proof of any sort, lie postulates\nas existing, is furthermore a Law knowable a priori\nand independent of all internal or external experience\u00a0;\nit \" rests \" (he says) \" solely on conceptions of pure\nReason\u00a0; and is to be taken as a synthetic proposition\na priori \" (Kritik der Praktiscken Vernunft\u00a0: p. 56\nof fourth Edition\u00a0; R., p. 142). But from this defini-\ntion the implication immediately follows that such a\nLaw can only be formal, like everything else known\na priori, and consequently has only to do with the\nForm of actions, not with their Essence. Let\nit be thought what this means\u00a0! He emphatically\nadds (p. vi of the preface to the Grundlegung\u00a0;\nR-., p. 5) that it is \" useless to look for it either\nsubjectively in man's nature, or objectively in the\naccidents of the external world,\" and (preface of\nthe same, page vii\u00a0; R., p. 6) that \" nothing whatever\nconnected with it can be borrowed from knowledge\nrelating to man, i.e., from anthropology.\" On page\n59 (R., p. 52) he repeats, \"That one ought on no\naccount to fall into the mistake of trying to derive\none's principle of morality from the special constitu-\ntion of human nature \"\u00a0; and again, on page 60\n(R., p. 52), he says that, \"Everything derived from\nany natural disposition peculiar to man, or from\ncertain feelings and propensities, or indeed from any\nspecial trend attaching solely to human nature, and\nnot necessarily to be taken as the Will of every\nrational being,\" is incapable of affording a foundation\nfor the moral law. This shows beyond all possibility\nof contradiction that Kant does not represent the\nalleged moral law as a fact of consciousness, capable\n\n44 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nof empirical proof which is how the later would-\nbe philosophers, both individually and collectively,\nwish to pass it off. In discarding every empirical\nbasis for Morals, he rejects all internal, and still more\ndecidedly all external, experience. Accordingly he\nfounds and I call special attention to this his moral\nprinciple not on any provable fact of consciousness,\nsuch as an inner natural disposition, nor yet upon\nany objective relation of things in the external world.\nNo\u00a0! That would be an empirical foundation. Instead\nof this, pure conceptions a priori, i.e., conceptions,\nwhich so far contain nothing derived from internal\nor external experience, and thus are simply shells\nwithout kernels these are to be made the basis of\nMorals. Let us consider the full meaning of such\na position. Human consciousness as well as the\nwhole external world, together with all the experience\nand all the facts they comprise, are swept from under\nour feet. We have nothing to stand upon. And\nwhat have we to hold to\u00a0? Nothing but a few entirely\nabstract, entirely unsubstantial conceptions, floating\nin the air equally with ourselves. It is from these,\nor, more correctly, from the mere form of their\nconnection with judgments made, that a Law is\ndeclared to proceed, which by so-called absolute\nnecessity is supposed to be valid, and to be strong\nenough to lay bit and bridle on the surging throng of\nhuman desires, on the storm of passion, on the giant\nmight of egoism. We shall see if such be the case.\n\nWith this preconceived notion that the basis of\nMorals must be necessarily and strictly a priori, and\nentirely free from everything empirical, another of\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 45\n\nKant's favourite ideas is closely connected. The\nmoral principle that he seeks to establish is, he says,\na synthetic proposition a priori, of merely formal\ncontents, and hence exclusively a matter of Pure\nReason\u00a0; and accordingly, as such, to be regarded as\nvalid not only for men, but for all possible rational\nbeings\u00a0; indeed he declares it to hold good for man\n\" on this account alone,\" i.e., because per accidens\nman comes under the category of rational beings.\nHere lies the cause of his basing the Moral principle\nnot on any feeling, but on pure Eeason (which knows\nnothing but itself and the statement of its antithesis).\nSo that this pure Reason is taken, not as it really\nand exclusively is an intellectual faculty of man-\nbut as a self-existent hypostatic essence, yet with-\nout the smallest authority\u00a0; the pernicious effects\nof such example and precedent being sufficiently\nshown in the pitiful philosophy of the present day.\nIndeed, this view of Morals as existing not for\nmen, as men, but for all rational beings, as such, is\nwith Kant a principle so firmly established, an idea\nso favourite, that he is never tired of repeating it\nat every opportunity.\n\nI, on the contrary, maintain that we are never\nentitled to raise into a genus that which we only\nknow of in a single species. For we could bring\nnothing into our idea of the genus but what we had\nabstracted from, this one species\u00a0; so that what we\nshould predicate of the genus could after all only be\nunderstood of the single species. While, if we should\nattempt to think away (without any warrant) the\nparticular attributes of the species, in order to form\n\n46 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nour genus, we should perhaps remove the exact,\ncondition whereby the remaining attributes, hypo-\nstatised as a genus, are made possible. Just as we\nrecognise intelligence in general to be an attribute of\nanimal beings alone, and are therefore never justified\nin thinking of it as existing outside, and independent,\nof animal nature\u00a0; so we recognise Reason as the\nexclusive attribute of the human race, and have not\nthe smallest right to suppose that Reason exists\nexternally to it, and then proceed to set up a genus\ncalled \" Rational Beings,\" differing from its single\nknown species \" Man \"\u00a0; still less are we warranted\nin laying down laws for such imaginary rational\nbeings in the abstract. To talk of rational beings\nexternal to men is like talking of heavy beings\nexternal to bodies. One cannot help suspecting\nthat Kant was thinking a little of the dear cherubim,\nor at any rate counted on their presence in the\nconviction of the reader. In any case this doctrine\ncontains a tacit assumption of an anima rationales,\nwhich as being entirely different from the anima\nsensitiva, and the anima vegetativa, is supposed\nto persist after death, and then to be indeed nothing\nelse but rationalis. But in the Kritik der Reinen\nVernunft Kant himself has expressly and elabor-\nately made an end of this most transcendent hypo-\nstasis. Nevertheless, in his ethics generally, and in\nthe Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft especially, there\nseems always to hover in the background the thought\nthat the inner and eternal essence of man consists\nof Reason. In this connection, where the matter\nonly occurs incidentally, I must content myself with\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 47\n\nsimply asserting the contrary. Reason, as indeed\nthe intellectual faculty as a whole, is secondary, is\nan attribute of phaenomena, being in point of fact\nconditioned by the organism\u00a0; whereas it is the Will\nin man which is his very self, the only part of him\nwhich is metaphysical, and therefore indestructible.\n\nThe success with which Kant had applied his\nmethod to the theoretical side of philosophy led him\non to extend it to the practical. Here also he\nendeavoured to separate pure a priori from empirical\na posteriori knowledge. For this purpose he assumed\nthat just as we know a priori the laws of Space,\nof Time, and of Causality, so in like manner, or at\nany rate analogously, we have the moral plumbline\nfor our conduct given us prior to all experience, and\nrevealed in a Categorical Imperative, an absolute\n\" Ought.\" But how wide is the difference between\nthis alleged moral law a priori, and our theoretical\nknowledge a priori of Space, Time, and Causality\u00a0!\nThe latter are nothing but the expression of the forms,\ni.e., the functions of our intellect, whereby alone we\nare capable of grasping an objective world, and\nwherein alone it can be mirrored\u00a0; so that the world\n(as we know it) is absolutely conditioned by these\nforms, and all experience must invariably and exactly\ncorrespond to them just as everything that I see\nthrough a blue glass must appear blue. While the\nformer, the so-called moral law, is something that\nexperience pours ridicule on at every step\u00a0; indeed,\nas Kant himself says, it is doubtful whether in\npractice it has ever really been followed on any single\noccasion. How completely unlike are the things\n\n48 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nwhich are here classed together under the conception\nof apriority\u00a0! Moreover, Kant overlooked the fact\nthat, according to his own teaching, in theoretical\nphilosophy, it is exactly the Apriority of our know-\nledge of Time, Space, and Causality independent\nas this is of experience that limits it strictly to\nphaenomena, i.e., to the picture of the world as re-\nflected in our consciousness, and makes it entirely\ninvalid as regards the real nature of things, i.e., as\nregards whatever exists independently of our capacity\nto grasp it.\n\nSimilarly, when we turn to practical philosophy,\nhis alleged moral law, if it have an a priori origin\nin ourselves, must also be only pbaenomeual, and\nleave entirely untouched the essential nature of things.\nOnly this conclusion would stand in the sharpest\ncontradiction as much to the facts themselves, as to\nKant's view of them. For it is precisely the moral\nprinciple in us that he everywhere (e.g., Kritik der\nPraktischen Vernunft, p. 175\u00a0; 11., p. 228) represents\nas being in the closest connection with the real essence\nof things, indeed, as directly in contact with it\u00a0; and\nin all passages in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,\nwhere the mysterious Thing in itself comes forward\na little more clearly, it shows itself as the moral\nprinciple in us, as Will. But of this he failed to\ntake account.\n\nIn Chapter II. of this Part, I explained how Kant\ntook over bodily from theological Morals the imperative\nform of Ethics, i.e., the conception of obligation, of\nlaw, and of duty\u00a0; and how at the same time he was\nconstrained to leave behind that which in the realm\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 49\n\nof theology alone lends force and significance to these\nideas. But he felt the need of some basis for them,\nand accordingly went so far as to require that the\nconception of duty itself should be also the ground\nof its fulfilment\u00a0; in other words, that it should itself\nbe its own enforcement. An action, he says (p. 11\u00a0;\nR, p. 18), has no genuine moral worth, unless it be\ndone simply as a matter of duty, and for duty's sake,\nwithout any liking for it being felt\u00a0; and the character\nonly begins to have value, if a man, who has no\nsympathy in his heart, and is cold and indifferent to\nothers' sufferings, and who is not by nature a lover\nof his kind, is nevertheless a doer of good actions,\nsolely out of a pitiful sense of duty. This assertion,\nwhich is revolting to true moral sentiment\u00a0; this\napotheosis of lovelessness, the exact opposite, as it is,\nof the Christian doctrine of Morals, which places love\nbefore everything else, and teaches that without it\nnothing profiteth (1 Cor. xiii. 3)\u00a0; this stupid moral\npedantry has been ridiculed by Schiller in two\napposite epigrams, entitled Gewissensskrupel (Scruples\nof Conscience) and Entscheidung (Decision). 1\n\nIt appears that some passages in the Kritik der Prak-\ntischen Vernunft, which exactly suit this connection,\nwere the immediate occasion of the verses. Thus, for\ninstance, on p. 150 (B., p. 211) we find\u00a0: \"Obedience\nto the moral law, which a man feels incumbent on\nhim, is based not on voluntary inclination, nor on en-\ndeavour willingly put forth, without any authoritative\n\n1 These epigrams form the close of Schiller's poem \" Die\nPhilosophen,\" which is worth reading in this connection.\n(Translator.)\n\n4\n\n50 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\ncommand, but on a sense of duty.\" Yes, it must be\ncommanded\u00a0! What slavish morality\u00a0! Arid again\non p. 213 (R., p. 257): \"Feelings of compassion,\nand of tender-hearted sympathy would be actually\ntroublesome to persons who think aright, because\nthrough such emotions their well weighed maxims\nwould become confused, and so the desire would grow\nup to be rid of them, and to be subject solely to the\nlawgiver Reason.\" Now I maintain without hesita-\ntion that what opens the hand of the above-described\n(p. 11\u00a0; R., p. 18) loveless doer of good, who is\nindifferent to the sufferings of other people, cannot\n(provided he have no secondary motives) be anything\nelse than a slavish Sei<ri8ai/j,ovia (fear of the gods),\nequally whether he calls his fetich \" Categorical\nImperative \" or Fitzlipuzli. 1 For what but fear can\nmove a hard heart\u00a0?\n\nFurthermore, on p. 13 (R., p. 19), in accordance\nwith the above view, we find that the moral worth\nof an action is supposed to lie, by no means in the\nintention which led to it, but in the maxim which\nwas followed. Whereas I, on the contrary, ask the\nreader to reflect that it is the intention alone which\ndecides as to the moral worth, or worthlessness, of\nan action, so that the same act may deserve con-\ndemnation or praise according to the intention which\ndetermined it. Hence it is that, whenever men dis-\ncuss a proceeding to which some moral importance is\nattached, the intention is always investigated, and by\nthis standard alone the matter is judged\u00a0; as, like-\nwise, it is in the intention alone that every one seeks\n1 More correctly, Huitzilopochtli\u00a0: a Mexican deity.\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 51\n\njustification, if he see his conduct misinterpreted,\nor excuse, if its consequence be mischievous.\n\nOn p. 14 (R., p. 20) we at last reach the definition\nof Duty, which is the fundamental conception of\nKant's entire ethical system. It is\u00a0: \" The necessity\nof an action out of respect for the law.\" But what\nis necessary takes place with absolute certainty\u00a0;\nwhile conduct based on pure duty generally does not\ncome off at all. And not only this\u00a0; Kant himself\nadmits (p. 25\u00a0; R., p. 28) that there are no certain\ninstances on record of conduct determined solely by\npure duty\u00a0; and on p. 26 (R., p. 29) he says\u00a0: \" It is\nutterly impossible to know with certainty from ex-\nperience whether there has ever really been one single\ncase in which an action, however true to duty, has\nrested simply on its idea.\" And similarly on p. 28\n(R., p. 30) and p. 49 (R., p. 50). In what sense\nthen can necessity be attributed to such an action\u00a0?\nAs it is only fair always to put the most favourable\ninterpretation on an author's words, we will suppose\nhim to mean that an act true to duty is objectively\nnecessary, but subjectively accidental. Only it is\nprecisely this that is more easily said than thought\u00a0;\nfor where is the Object of this objective necessity, the\nconsequence of which for the most part, perhaps indeed\nalways, fails to be realised in objective reality\u00a0?\nWith every wish to be unbiassed, I cannot but\nthink that the expression necessity of an action\nis nothing but an artificially concealed, very forced\nparaphrase of the word \" ought.\" l This will become\n\n1 Or \"shall,\" as in the \"them shalt\" of the Decalogue.\n(Translator,)\n\n52 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nclearer if we notice that in the same definition\nthe word Achtung (respect) is employed, where\nGehorsam (obedience) is meant. Similarly in the\nnote on p. 16 (R., p. 20) we read\u00a0: \" Achtung signifies\nsimply the subordination of my will to a law. The\ndirect determination of the will by a law, and the\nconsciousness that it is so determined this is what\nis denoted by Achtung\" In what language\u00a0? In\nGerman the proper term is Gehorsam. But the word\nAchtung, so unsuitable as it is, cannot without a\nreason have been put in place of the word Gehorsam.\nIt must serve some purpose\u00a0; and this is obviously\nnone other than to veil the derivation of the im-\nperative form, and of the conception of duty, from\ntheological Morals\u00a0; just as we saw above that the\nexpression \" necessity of an action,\" which is such a\nforced and awkward substitute for the word \" shall,\"\nwas only chosen because \" shall \" is the exact\nlanguage of the Decalogue. The above definition\u00a0:\n\" Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for\nthe law,\" would therefore read in natural, undisguised,\nplain language\u00a0: \" Duty signifies an action which\nought to be done out of obedience to a law.\" This is\n\" the real form of the poodle.\" l\n\nBut now as to the Law, which is the real founda-\ntion stone of the Kantian Ethics. What does it\ncontain\u00a0? And where is it inscribed\u00a0? This is the chief\n\n1 l< Des Pudels Kern \"\u00a0; V. Goethe's Faust, Part I. Studir-\nzimmer. Schopenhauer means that his analysis has forced the\nreal meaning out of Kant's language, just as Faust by his\nexorcism compels Mephistopheles, who was in the form of a\npoodle, to resume his true form. (Translator.)\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 53\n\npoint of inquiry. In the first place, be it observed\nthat we have two questions to deal with\u00a0: the\none has to do with the Principle, the other with\nthe Basis of Ethics two entirely different things,\nalthough they are frequently, and sometimes indeed\nintentionally, confused.\n\nThe principle or main proposition of an ethical\nsystem is the shortest and most concise definition\nof the line of conduct which it prescribes, or, if it\nhave no imperative form, of the line of conduct to\nwhich it attaches real moral worth. It thus contains,\nin the general terms of a single enunciation, the direc-\ntion for following the path of virtue, which is derived\nfrom that system\u00a0: in other words, it is the o/rt 1\nof virtue. Whereas the Basis of any theory of Ethics\nis the SIOTI* of virtue, the reason of the obligation\nenjoined, of the exhortation or praise given, whether\nit be sought in human nature, or in the external\nconditions of the world, or in anything else. As\nin all sciences, so also in Ethics the o,rt must be\nclearly distinguished from the Biort. But most\nteachers of Morals wilfully confound this difference\u00a0:\nprobably because the o,rt is so easy, the 8t<m so\nexceedingly difficult, to give. They are therefore\nglad to try to make up for the poverty on the one\nhand, by the riches on the other, and to bring about\na happy marriage between Ilevia (poverty) and ITopo?\n(plenty), by putting them together in one proposition. 3\n\n1 o,n\u00a0: i.e., the \" what \" a thing is\u00a0; its principle, or essence.\n(Translator.)\n\n2 Std\u00a0: i.e., the \" wherefore \" of a thing\u00a0; its raison d'etre,\nits underlying cause. (Translator.)\n\n3 Schopenhauer was doubtless thinking of the famous\n\n54 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nThis is generally done by taking the familiar 6,n\nout of the simple form in which it can be expressed,\nand forcing it into an artificial formula, from which\nit is only to be deduced as the conclusion of given\npremises\u00a0; and the* reader is led by this performance\nto feel as if he had grasped not only the thing, but\nits cause as well. We may easily convince ourselves\nof this by recalling all the most familiar principles\nof Morals. As, however, in what follows I have no\nintention of imitating acrobatic tricks of this sort,\nbut purpose proceeding with all honesty and straight-\nforwardness, I cannot make the principle of Ethics\nequivalent to its basis, but must keep the two quite\nseparate. Accordingly, this o,n i.e., the principle,\nthe fundamental proposition as to which in its\nessence all teachers of Morals are really, at one, how-\never much they may clothe it in different costumes,\nI shall at once express in the form which I take to\nbe the simplest and purest possible, viz.\u00a0: Neminem\nlaede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva. (Do harm\nto no one\u00a0; but rather help all people, as far as\nlies in your power.) This is in truth the proposi-\ntion which all ethical writers expend their energies\nin endeavouring to account for. It is the common\nresult of their manifold and widely differing de-\nductions\u00a0; it is the o,n for which the SIOTI is still\nsought after\u00a0; the consequence, the cause of which\nis wanting. Hence it is itself nothing but the\n\nmyth in Plato's Symposium Chap. 23 (Teubner's edition,\nLeipzig, 1875), where Eros is represented as the offspring of\nTLopos and Ilej/ia, who on the birthday of Aphrodite were united\nin the garden of Zeus. (Translator.')\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 55\n\nDatum (the thing given), in relation to which the\nQuaesitum (the thing required) is the problem of\nevery ethical system, as also of the present prize\nessay. The solution of this riddle will disclose\nthe real foundation of Ethics, which, like the\nphilosopher's stone, has been searched for from time\nimmemorial. That the Datum, the o,ri, the principle\nis most purely expressed by the enunciation I have\ngiven, can be seen from the fact that it stands to\nevery other precept of Morals as a conclusion to given\npremises, and therefore constitutes the real goal it\nis desired to attain\u00a0; so that all other ethical com-\nmandments can only be regarded as paraphrases, as\nindirect or disguised statements, of the above simple\nproposition. This is true, for instance, even of that\ntrite and apparently elementary maxim\u00a0: Quod tibi fieri\nnon vis, alteri nefeceris. 1 (Do not to another what you\nare unwilling should be done to yourself.) The defect\nhere is that the wording only touches the duties im-\nposed by law, not those required by virtue\u00a0; a thing\nwhich can be easily remedied by the omission of non\nand ne. Thus changed, it really means nothing else\nthan\u00a0: Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes,juva.\nBut as this sense is only reached by a periphrasis, the\nformula gains the appearance of having also revealed\nits own ultimate foundation, its Btort,\u00a0; which, however,\nis not the case, because it does not in the least follow\nthat, if I am unwilling that something be done to\nmyself, I ought not to do it to others. The same\nis true of every other principle or leading proposition\nof Ethics that has hitherto been put forward.\n1 Hugo Grotius attributes it to the Emperor Severus.\n\n56 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nIf we now return to the above question\u00a0: how does\nthe law read, in obeying which, according to Kant, duty\nconsists\u00a0? and on what is it based\u00a0? we shall find that\nour philosopher, like most others, has in an extremely\nartificial manner closely connected the principle of\nMorals with its basis. I again call attention to what\nI have already examined at the outset I mean, the\nKantian claim that the principle of Ethics must be\npurely a, priori and purely formal, indeed an a priori\nsynthetical proposition, which consequently may not\ncontain anything material, nor rest upon anything\nempirical, whether objectively in the external world,\nor subjectively in consciousness, such as any feeling,\ninclination, impulse, and the like. Kant was perfectly\naware of the difficulty of this position\u00a0; for on p. 60\n(R., p. 53) he says\u00a0: \" It will be seen that philosophy\nhas here indeed reached a precarious standpoint,\nwhich yet is to be immovable, notwithstanding that\nit is neither dependent on, nor supported by, anything\nin heaven or on earth.\" We shall therefore with all\nthe greater interest and curiosity await the solution\nof the problem he has set himself, namely, how\nsomething is to arise out of nothing, that is, how\nout of purely a priori conceptions, which contain\nnothing empirical or material, the laws of material\nhuman action are to grow up. This is a process\nwhich we may find symbolised in chemistry, where\nout of three invisible gases (Azote, Hydrogen, and\nChlorine 1 ), and thus in apparently empty space,\nsolid sal-ammoniac is evolved before our eyes.\n\n1 Azote = Nitrogen. The formula for Ammonium Chloride\nor Sal-ammoniac is NH 4 C1. (Translator).\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 57\n\nI will, however, explain, more clearly than Kanteither\nwould or could, the method whereby he accomplishes\nthis difficult task. The demonstration is all the more\nnecessary because what he did appears to be seldom\nproperly understood. Almost all Kant's disciples\nhave fallen into the mistake of supposing that he\npresents his Categorical Imperative directly as a fact\nof consciousness. But in that case its origin would\nbe anthropological, and, as resting on experience,\nalthough internal, it would have an empirical basis\u00a0:\na position which runs directly counter to the Kantian\nview, and which he repeatedly rejects. Thus on p. 48\n(R., p. 44) he says\u00a0: \" It cannot be empirically\ndetermined whether any such Categorical Imperative\nexists everywhere \"\u00a0; and again, on p. 49 (R., p. 45)\u00a0:\n\" The possibility of the Categorical Imperative must\nbe investigated entirely on a priori grounds, because\nhere we are not helped by any testimony of ex-\nperience as to its reality.\" Even Reinhold, his first\npupil, missed this point\u00a0; for in his Beitrdge zur\nUebersicht der Philosophie am Anfange des 19.\nJahrhunderts, No. 2, p. 21, we find him saying\u00a0: \" Kant\nassumes the moral law to be a direct and certain\nreality, an original fact of the moral consciousness.\"\nBut if Kant had wished to make the Categorical\nImperative a fact of consciousness, and thus give it\nan empirical foundation, he certainly would not have\nfailed at least to put it forward as such. And this\nis precisely what he never does. As far as I know,\nthe Categorical Imperative appears for the first time\nin the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (p. 802 of the\nfirst, and p. 830 of the fifth, edition), entirely ex mine\n\n58 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\n(unexpectedly), without any preamble, and merely\nconnected with the preceding sentence by an altogether\nunjustifiable \" therefore.\" It is only in the Grundlage\nzur Metapliysik der Sitten a book to which we here\ndevote especial attention that it is first introduced\nexpressly and formally, as a deduction from certain\nconcepts. Whereas in lieinhold's Formula concordiae\ndes Kriticism.us, 1 we actually read on p. 122 the\nfollowing sentence\u00a0: \" We distinguish moral self-\nconsciousness from the experience with which it, as\nan original fact transcending all knowledge, is bound\nup in the human consciousness\u00a0; and we understand\nby such self-consciousness the direct consciousness of\nduty, that is, of the necessity we are under of admitting\nthe legitimacy whether pleasurable or the reverse\nof the will, as the stimulus and as the measure of\nits own operations.\"\n\nThis would of course be \" a charming thesis, with\na very pretty hypothesis to boot.\" 2 But seriously\u00a0:\ninto what an outrageous petitio principii do we\nfind Kant's moral law here developed\u00a0! If that\nwere true, Ethics would indubitably have a basis\nof incomparable solidity, and there would be no need\nof any questions being set for prize essays, to en-\ncourage inquiry in this direction. But the greatest\nmarvel would be, that men had been so slow in\ndiscovering such a fact of consciousness, corisider-\n\n1 To be found in the fifth number of the Beitrdge zur\nUebersicht der Philosophic am Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts\na journal of the greatest importance for critical philosophy.\n\n2 \" Einen erklecklichen SATZ, fa, und der auch was SETZT.\"\nSCHILLER.\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 59\n\ning that for the space of thousands of years a basis\nfor Morals has been sought after with zealous patient\ntoil. How Kant himself is responsible for this\ndeplorable mistake, I shall explain further on\u00a0; never-\ntheless, one cannot but wonder at the undisputed\npredominance of such a radical error among his\ndisciples. Have they never, whilst writing all their\nnumberless books on the Kantian philosophy, noticed\nthe disfigurement which the Kritik der Reinen Ver-\nnunft underwent in the second edition, and which made\nit an incoherent, self-contradictory work\u00a0? It seems\nthat this has only now come to light\u00a0; and, in my\nopinion, the fact has been quite correctly analysed in\nRosenkranz's preface to the second volume of his\ncomplete edition of Kant's works. We must, how-\never, remember that many scholars, being unceasingly\noccupied as teachers and authors, find very little\ntime left for private and exact research. It is certain\nthat docendo disco (I learn by teaching) is not un-\nconditionally true\u00a0; sometimes indeed one is tempted\nto parody it by saying\u00a0: semper docendo nihil disco\n(by always teaching I learn nothing)\u00a0; and even what\nDiderot puts into the mouth of Rameau's nephew is not\naltogether without reason: \" ' And as for these teachers,\ndo you suppose they understand the sciences they\ngive instruction in\u00a0? Not a bit of it, my dear sir,\nnot a bit of it. If they possessed sufficient knowledge\nto be able to teach them, they would not do so.'\n' Why\u00a0? ' ' Because they would have devoted their lives\nto the study of them.'\" (Goethe's translation, p. 104.)\nLichtenberg too says\u00a0: \" I have rather observed that\nprofessional people are often exactly those who do\n\n60 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nnot know best.\" But to return to the Kantian Ethics\u00a0:\nmost persons, provided only the conclusion reached\nagrees with their moral feelings, immediately assume\nthat there is no flaw to be found in its derivation\u00a0;\nand if the process of deduction looks difficult, they\ndo not trouble themselves much about it, but are\ncontent to trust the faculty.\n\nThus the foundation which Kant gave to his moral\nlaw by no means consists in its being proved em-\npirically to be a fact of consciousness\u00a0; neither does\nhe base it on an appeal to moral feeling, nor yet on\na petitio principii, under its fine modern name of\nan u absolute Postulate.\" It is formed rather of a\nvery subtle process of thought, which he twice\nadvances, on p. 17 and p. 51 (R., p. 22, and p. 46),\nand which I shall now proceed to make clear.\n\nKant, be it observed, ridiculed all empirical stimuli\nof the will, and began by removing everything,\nwhether subjective or objective, on which a law\ndetermining the will's action could be empirically\nbased. The consequence is, that he has nothing left\nfor the substance of his law but simply its Form. Now\nthis can only be the abstract conception of lawfulness.\nBut the conception of lawfulness is built up out of\nwhat is valid for all persons equally. Therefore the\nsubstance of the law consists of the conception of\nwhat is universally valid, and its contents are of\ncourse nothing else than its universal validity. Hence\nthe formula will read as follows\u00a0: \" Act only in\naccordance with that precept which you can also wish\nshould be a general law for all rational beings.\"\nThis, then, is the real foundation for the most part so\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 61\n\ngreatly misunderstood which Kant constructed for his\nprinciple of Morals, and therefore for his whole ethical\nsystem. Compare also the Kritik der Praktiscken\nVernunft, p. 61 (R., p. 147)\u00a0; the end of Note 1.\n\nI pay Kant a tribute of sincere admiration for the\ngreat acumen . he displayed in carrying out this dex-\nterous feat, but I continue in all seriousness my\nexamination of his position according to the standard\nof truth. I will only observe and this point I shall\ntake up again later on that here reason, because,\nand in so far as, it works out the above explained\nspecial ratiocination, receives the name of practical\nreason. Now the Categorical Imperative of Practical\nReason is the law which results from this process of\nthought. Consequently Practical Reason is not in\nthe least what most people, including even Fichte,\nhave regarded it a special faculty that cannot be\ntraced to its source, a qualitas occulta, a sort of\nmoral instinct, like Hutcheson's \" moral sense \"\u00a0; but\nit is (as Kant himself in his preface, p. xii. [R., p. 8],\nand elsewhere, often enough declares) one and the\nsame with theoretical reason is, in fact, theoretical\nreason itself, in so far as the latter works out the\nratiocinative process I have described. It is noticeable\nthat Fichte calls the Categorical Imperative of Kant\nan absolute Postulate (Grundlage der gesammten\nWissenschaftslehre, Tubingen, 1802, p. 240, Note).\nThis is the modern, more showy, expression for petitio\nprincipii, and thus we see that he, too, regularly\naccepted the Categorical Imperative, and consequently\nmust be included among those who have fallen into\nthe mistake above criticised.\n\n62 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nThe objection, to which this Kantian basis of\nMorals is at once and directly exposed, lies in the\nfact that such an origin of a moral law in us is im-\npossible, because of its assumption that man would\nquite of his own accord hit on the idea of looking\nabout for, and inquiring after, a law to which his will\nshould be subject, and which should shape its actions.\nThis procedure, however, cannot possibly occur to him\nof itself\u00a0; at best it could only be after another moral\nstimulus had supplied the first impulse and motive\nthereto\u00a0; and such a stimulus would have to be\npositively operative, and real\u00a0; and show itself to\nbe such, as well as spontaneously influence, indeed\nforce its presence upon, the mind. But anything of\nthis sort would run counter to Kant's assumption,\nwhich, according to the chain of reasoning above\ndescribed, is to be regarded as itself the origin of all\nmoral conceptions in fact, the punctum saliens of\nMorality. Consequently, as long as there is no such\nantecedent incentive (because, ex hypothesi, there\nexists no other moral stimulus but the process of\nthought already explained), so long Egoism alone\nmust remain as the plumb-line of human conduct,\nas the guiding thread of the law of motivation\u00a0; so\nlong the entirely empirical and egoistic motives of\nthe moment, alone and unchecked, must determine,\nin each separate case, the conduct of a man\u00a0; since,\non this assumption, there is no voice to arrest\nhim, neither does any reason whatever exist, why\nhe should be minded to inquire after, to say nothing\nof anxiously searching for, a law which should limit\nand govern his will 1 . And yet it is only possible\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 63\n\non this supposition that he should think out the\nabove remarkable piece of mental legerdemain. It\nmatters not how far we may care to put a strict\nand exact interpretation on this Kantian process,\nor whether we choose to tone it down to some\ndim, obscurely felt operation of thought. No\nmodification of it can attack the primary truths that\nout of nothing, nothing comes, and that an effect\nrequires a cause. The moral stimulus, like every\nmotive that effects the will, must in all cases make\nitself felt spontaneously, and therefore have a positive\nworking, and consequently be real. And because for\nmen the only thing which has reality is the empirical,\nor else that which is supposed to have a possibly\nempirical existence, therefore it follows that the\nmoral stimulus cannot but be empirical, and show\nitself as such of its own accord\u00a0; and without waiting\nfor us to begin our search, it must come and press\nitself upon us, and this with such force that it may,\nat least possibly, overcome the opposing egoistic\nmotives in all their giant strength. For Ethics has\nto do with actual human conduct, and not with the\na priori building of card houses a performance\nwhich yields results that no man would ever turn to\nin the stern stress and battle of life, and which, in\nface of the storm of our passions, would be about\nas serviceable as a syringe in a great fire.\n\nI have already noticed above how Kant considered\nit a special merit of his moral law that it is founded\nsolely on abstract, pure a priori conceptions, con-\nsequently on pure reason\u00a0; whereby its validity obtain*\n(he says) not only for men, but for all rational beings\n\n64 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nas such. All the more must we regret that pure,\nabstract conceptions a priori, without real contents,\nand without any kind of empirical basis can never\nmove, at any rate, men\u00a0; of other rational beings\nI am of course incapable of speaking. The second\ndefect, then, in Kant's ethical basis is its lack of\nreal substance. So far this has escaped notice,\nbecause the real nature of his foundation has in all\nprobability been thoroughly understood only by an\nexceedingly small number of those who were its\nenthusiastic propagandists. The second fault, I re-\npeat, is entire want of reality, and hence of possible\nefficacy. The structure floats in the air, like a web\nof the subtlest conceptions devoid of all contents\u00a0;\nit is based on nothing, and can therefore support\nnothing, and move nothing. And yet Kant loaded\nit with a burden of enormous weight, namely, the\nhypothesis of the Freedom of the Will. In spite of\nhis oft declared conviction that freedom in human\naction has absolutely no place\u00a0; that theoretically\nnot even its possibility is thinkable (Kritik der\nPraktischen Vernunft, p. 168\u00a0; R., p. 223); that, if the\ncharacter of a man, and all the motives which work\non him were exactly known, his conduct could be\ncalculated as certainly and as precisely as an eclipse\nof the moon (ibidem, p. 177\u00a0; R., p. 230)\u00a0: he\nnevertheless makes an assumption of freedom\n(although only ictealiter, and as a postulate) by his\ncelebrated conclusion\u00a0: \" You can, because you\nought \"\u00a0; and this on the strength of his precious\nethical basis, which, as we see, floats in the air in-\ncorporeal. But if it has once been clearly recognised\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 65\n\nthat a thing is not, and cannot be, what is the use of\nall the postulates in the world? It would be much\nmore to the purpose to cast away that on which\nthe postulate is based, because it is an impossible\nsupposition\u00a0; and this course would be justified by the\nrule a non posse ad non esse valet consequentia\u00a0; J and\nby a reductio ad absurdum, which would at the same\ntime be fatal to the Categorical Imperative. Instead\nof which one false doctrine is built up on the other.\n\nThe inadmissibility of a basis for Morals consisting\nof a few entirely abstract and empty conceptions\nmust have been apparent to Kant himself in secret.\nFor in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft, where (as\nI have already said) he is not so strict and methodical\nin his work, and where we find him becoming bolder\non account of the fame he had gained, it is re-\nmarkable how the ethical basis gradually changes\nits nature, and almost forgets that it is a mere web\nof abstract ideas\u00a0; in fact, it seems distinctly desirous\nof becoming more substantial. Thus, for instance,\non p. 81 (R., p. 163) of the above work are the\nwords\u00a0: \" The Moral Law in some sort a fact of Pure\nReason.\" What is one to think of this extraordinary\nexpression\u00a0? In every other place that which is\nfact is opposed to what is knowable by pure reason.\nSimilarly on p. 83 (R., p. 164) we read of \" a Reason\nwhich directly determines the Will \"\u00a0; and so on.\n\nNow let us remember that in laying his founda-\ntion Kant expressly and repeatedly rejects every\n\n1 To argue from impossibility to non-existence is valid\ni.e., the impossibility of a thing makes its non-existence a\nsafe conclusion. (Translator.)\n\n5\n\n86 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nanthropological basis, everything that could prove the\nCategorical Imperative to be a fact of consciousness,\nbecause such a proof would be empirical. Neverthe-\nless, his successors were so emboldened by incidental\nutterances like the above that they went to much\ngreater lengths. Fichte in his work, System der\nSittenlehre, p. 49, warns us expressly \" not to allow\nourselves to be misled into trying to explain, and\nderive from external sources, the consciousness that\nwe have duties, because this would be detrimental\nto the dignity and absoluteness of the law.\" A\nvery nice excuse\u00a0! Again on p. 66 he says\u00a0: \" The\nprinciple of Morality is a thought which is based\non the intellectual intuition of the absolute activity\nof the intelligence, and which is directly conceived\nby the pure intelligence of its own accord.\" What\na fine flourish to conceal the helplessness of this\nclap-trap\u00a0! Whoever may like to convince himself\nhow Kant's disciples, little by little, totally forgot\nand ignored the real nature of the foundation and\nderivation which their master originally gave to the\nmoral law, should read a very interesting essay in\nReinhold's Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophic\nim Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, No. 2, 1801. In\nit, on pp. 105 and 106, it is maintained \"that in\nthe Kantian philosophy Autonomy (which is the\nsame thing as the Categorical Imperative) is a fact\nof consciousness, and cannot be traced further back,\ninasmuch as it declares itself by means of a direct\nconsciousness.\"\n\nBut in this case, it would have an anthropological ,\nand consequently empirical, foundation a position\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 67\n\nwhich is diametrically opposed to Kant's explicit\nand repeated utterances. Again, on p. 108 we find\u00a0:\n\" Both in the practical philosophy of criticism, and\nin the whole of the purified or higher transcendental\nphilosophy, Autonomy is that which is founded, and\nwhich founds, by itself alone\u00a0; and which is neither\ncapable of, nor requires, any other foundation\u00a0; it is that\nwhich is absolutely original, true and certain per se\u00a0;\nthe primal truth\u00a0; the prius KCLT e^o^r/y (jpar excel-\nlence)\u00a0; the absolute principle. Whoever, therefore,\nimagines, requires, or seeks any basis for this Auto-\nnomy external to itself, can only be regarded by the\nKantian School as wanting in moral consciousness j 1\nor else as failing to interpret this consciousness\ncorrectly, through the employment of false first\nprinciples in his speculations. The School of Fichte\nand Schelling declares him to be afflicted with a\ndulness of intellect that renders him incapable of\nbeing a philosopher, and forms the characteristic of\nthe unholy canaille, and the sluggish brute, or (to\nuse Schelling's more veiled expression) of the\nprofanum vulgus and the ignavum pecus\" Every\none will understand how much truth there can be in\na doctrine which it is sought to uphold by such\n\n1 Dock? ich's dock\u00a0! Wissen sie nichts Vernunftiges mehr\n\nzu erwidern,\n\nSchieben sies Einem geschwind in das Gfewissen hinein.\nSCHILLER, Die Philosophen.\n\nJust as I thought\u00a0! Can they give no more any answer of\n\nreason,\n\nQuickly the ground is changed\u00a0: Conscience, they say,\nis at fault.\n\n(Translator.)\n\n68 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\ndefiant and dogmatic rhetoric. Meanwhile, we must\ndoubtless explain by the respect that this language\ninspired, the really childish credulity with which\nKant's followers accepted the Categorical Imperative,\nand at once treated it as a matter beyond dispute.\nThe truth is that in this case any objections raised to\na theoretical assertion might easily be confounded\nwith moral obliquity\u00a0; so that every one, although\nhe had no very clear idea in his own mind of the\nCategorical Imperative, yet preferred to be silent,\nbelieving, as he did, in secret, that others were\nprobably better off, and had succeeded in evolving a\nclearer and more definite mental picture of it. For\nno one likes to turn his conscience inside out.\n\nThus in the Kantian School Practical Reason\nwith its Categorical Imperative appears more and\nmore as a hyperphysical fact, as a Delphian temple\nin the human soul, out of whose dark recesses proceed\noracles that infallibly declare not, alas\u00a0! what will,\nbut what ought to, happen. This doctrine of Practical\nReason, as a direct and immediate fact, once it had\nbeen adopted, or rather introduced by artifice combined\nwith defiance, was unhappily later on extended also\nto Theoretical Reason\u00a0; and not unnaturally\u00a0: for\nKant himself had often said that both are but one\nand the same Reason (e.g., Preface, p. xii\u00a0; R., p. 8).\nAfter it had been once admitted that in the domain\nof the Practical there is a Reason which dictates ex\ntripode, 1 it was an easy step to concede the same\nprivilege to Theoretical Reason also, closely related\n\n1 As from the Pythian tripod\u00a0: i.e., with official authority,\nex cathedrd.\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 69\n\nas the latter is to the former indeed, consubstantial\nwith it. The one was thus pronounced to be just\nas immediate as the other, the advantage of this\nbeing no less immense than obvious.\n\nThen it was that all philosophasters and fancy-\nmongers, with J. H. Jacobi the denouncer of atheists\nat their head, came crowding to this postern which\nwas so unexpectedly opened to them. They wanted to\nbring their small wares to market, or at least to save\nwhat they most valued of the old heirlooms which\nKant's teaching threatened to pulverise. As in the\nlife of the individual a single youthful mistake often\nruins the whole career\u00a0; so when Kant made that\none false assumption of a Practical Reason furnished\nwith credentials exclusively transcendent, and (like\nthe supreme courts of appeal) with powers of decision\n\" without grounds,\" the result was that out of the\naustere gravity of the Critical Philosophy was evolved\na teaching utterly heterogeneous to it. We hear of a\nReason at first only dimly u surmising,\" then clearly\n\" comprehending \" the \" Supersensuous,\" and at last\nendowed with a perfect \"intellectual intuition\" of it.\nEvery dreamer could now promulgate his mental freaks\nas the \" absolute,\" i.e., officially issued, deliverances,\nand revelations of this Reason. Nor need we be sur-\nprised if the new privilege was fully taken advantage of.\n\nHere, then, is the origin of that philosophical\nmethod which appeared immediately after Kant,\nand which is made up of clap-trap, of mystifica-\ntion, of imposture, of deception, and of throwing\ndust in the eyes. This era will be known one day\nin the History of Philosophy as \"The Period of\n\n70 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nDishonesty.\" For it was signalised by the disappear-\nance of the characteristic of honesty, of searching after\ntruth in common with the reader, which was well\nmarked in the writings of all previous philosophers.\nThe philosophaster's object was not to instruct, but\nto befool his hearers, as every page attests. At\nfirst Fichte and Schelling shine as the heroes of\nthis epoch\u00a0; to be followed by the man who is quite\nunworthy even of them, and greatly their inferior\nin point of talent I mean the stupid and clumsy\ncharlatan Hegel. The Chorus is composed of a mixed\ncompany of professors of philosophy, who in solemn\nfashion discourse to their public about the Endless,\nthe Absolute, and many other matters of which they\ncan know absolutely nothing.\n\nAs a stepping-stone to raise Reason to her\nprophetic throne a wretched jeu d 1 esprit was actually\ndragged in, and made to serve. It was asserted\nthat, as the word Vernunft (Reason) comes from\nvernehmen (to comprehend), therefore Vernunft means\na capacity to comprehend the so-called \" Super-\nsensuous,\" i.e.) NefaXorcoKKvyla, 1 or Cloud-cuckoo-\ntown. This pretty notion met with boundless\napproval, and for the space of thirty years was\nconstantly repeated in Germany with immense\nsatisfaction\u00a0; indeed, it was made the foundation of\nphilosophic manuals. And yet it is as clear as noon-\nday that of course Vernunft (Reason) comes from\nvernehmen (to comprehend), but only because Reason\nmakes man superior to animals, so that he not only\nhears, but also comprehends (vemimmt) by no means,\n1 V. Aristoph., Aves, 819 et alibi. (Translator.)\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 71\n\nwhat is going on in Cloud-cuckoo-town but what\nis said, as by one reasonable person to another, the\nwords spoken being comprehended (vernommen) by the\nlistener\u00a0; and this capacity is called Reason ( Vernunft).\nSuch is the interpretation that all peoples, ages,\nand languages have put on the word Reason. It\nhas always been understood to mean the posses-\nsion of general, abstract, non-intuitive ideas, named\nconcepts, which are denoted and fixed by means of\nwords. This faculty alone it is which in reality gives\nto men their advantage over animals. For these\nabstract ideas, or concepts, that is, mental impressions\nformed of the sum of many separate things, are\nthe condition of language and through it of actual\nthought\u00a0; through which again they determine the\nconsciousness not only of the present (which animals\nalso have), but of the past and the future as such\u00a0;\nwhence it results that they are the modulus, so to say,\nof clear recollection, of circumspection, of foresight,\nand of intention\u00a0; the constant factor in the evolution\nof systematic co-operation, of the state, of trades,\narts, sciences, religions, and philosophies, in short,\nof everything that so sharply distinguishes human\nfrom animal life. Beasts have only intuitive ideas,\nand therefore also only intuitive motives\u00a0; consequently\nthe dependence of their volition on motives is manifest.\nWith man this dependence is no less a fact\u00a0; he,\ntoo (with due allowance for individual character), is\naffected by motives under the strictest law of necessity.\nOnly these are for the most part not intuitive but\nabstract ideas, that is, conceptions, or thoughts, which\nnevertheless are the result of previous intuitions, hence\n\n72 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nof external influences. This, however, gives him a\nrelative freedom relative, that is, as compared with\nan animal. For his action is not determined (as it\nis in all other creatures) by the surroundings of\nthe moment as intuitively perceived, but by the\nthoughts he has derived from experience, or gained\nby instruction. Consequently the motive, by which\nhe, too, is necessarily swayed, is not always at once\nobvious to the looker-on simultaneously with the act\u00a0;\nit lies concealed in the brain. It is this that lends\nto all his movements, as well as to his conduct and\nwork as a whole, a character manifestly different\nfrom that observable in the habits of beasts. He\nseems as though guided by finer, invisible threads\u00a0;\nwhence all his acts bear the stamp of deliberation\nand premeditation, thus gaining an appearance of\nindependence, which sufficiently distinguishes them\nfrom those of animals. All these great differences,\nhowever, spring solely out of the capacity for abstract\nideas, concepts. This capacity is therefore the essen-\ntial part of Reason, that is, of the faculty peculiar to\nman, and it is called TO Xoyipov, 1 TO \\oyia-TiKov,\nratio, la ragione, il discorso, raison, reason, discourse\nof reason. If I were asked what the distinction is\nbetween it and Verstand, ^01)9, intellects, entendement,\nunderstanding\u00a0; I should reply thus\u00a0: The latter is\nthat capacity for knowledge which animals also\npossess in varying degrees, and which is seen in us at\nits highest development\u00a0; in other words, it is the\n\n1 \\6yipos means \" remarkable,\" being never used in the sense\nof \" rational.\" To \\oyixby is perhaps a possible expression\u00a0;\nthe right word is Xoyor. (Translator.)\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 73\n\ndirect consciousness of the law of Causality a con-\nsciousness which precedes all experience, being\nconstituted by the very form of the understanding,\nwhose essential nature is, in fact, therein contained.\nOn it depends in the first place the intuitive percep-\ntion of the external world\u00a0; for the senses by them-\nselves are only capable of impression, a thing which\nis very far from being intuitive perception; indeed,\nthe former is nothing but the material of the latter\u00a0:\nvov<? opa KOI vovs atcovei, r'aXXa Kaxba Kal rv(f>\\d.\n(The mind sees, the mind hears\u00a0; everything else is\ndeaf and blind.) Intuitive perception is the result of\nour directly referring the impressions of the sense-\norgans to their cause, which, exactly because of this\nact of the intelligence, presents itself as an external\nobject under the mode of intuition proper to us,\n\n'.., in space. This is a proof that the Law of\n\nCausality is known to us a priori, and does not\narise from experience, since experience itself, inas-\nmuch as it presupposes intuitive perception, is only\npossible through the same law. All the higher\nqualities of the intellect, all cleverness, sagacity,\npenetration, acumen are directly proportional to the\nexactness and fulness with which the workings of\nCausality in all its relations are grasped\u00a0; for all\nknowledge of the connection of things, in the widest\nsense of the word, is based on the comprehension\nof this law, and the clearness and accuracy with\nwhich it is understood is the measure of one man's\nsuperiority to another in understanding, shrewdness,\ncunning. On the other hand, the epithet reasonable\nhas at all times been applied to the man who does\n\n74 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nnot allow himself to be guided by intuitive impressions,\nbut by thoughts and conceptions, and who therefore\nalways sets to work logically after due reflection\nand forethought. Conduct of this sort is everywhere\nknown as reasonable. Not that this by any means\nimplies uprightness and love for one's fellows.\nOn the contrary, it is quite possible to act in the\nmost reasonable way, that is, according to conclusions\nscientifically deduced, and weighed with the nicest\nexactitude\u00a0; and yet to follow the most selfish, unjust,\nand even iniquitous maxims. So that never before\nKant did it occur to any one to identify just, virtuous,\nand noble conduct with reasonable\u00a0; the two lines of\nbehaviour have always been completely separated, and\nkept apart. The one depends on the kind of motivation\u00a0;\nthe other on the difference in fundamental principles.\nOnly after Kant (because he taught that virtue\nhas its source in Pure Reason) did the virtuous and\nthe reasonable become one and the same thing, despite\nthe usage of these words which all languages have\nadopted a usage which is not fortuitous, but the\nwork of universal, and therefore uniform, human\njudgment. \" Keasonable \" and \" vicious \" are terms\nthat go very well together\u00a0; indeed great, far-reaching\ncrimes are only possible from their union. Similarly,\n\" unreasonable \" and \" noble-minded \" are often found\nassociated\u00a0; e.g., if I give to-day to the needy man\nwhat I shall myself require to-morrow more urgently\nthan he\u00a0; or, if I am so far affected as to hand over\nto one in distress the sum which my creditor is waiting\nfor\u00a0; and such cases could be multiplied indefinitely.\nWe have seen that this exaltation of Reason to\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 75\n\nbe the source of all virtue rests on two assertions.\nFirst, as Practical Reason, it is said to issue, like\nan oracle, peremptory Imperatives purely a priori.\nSecondly, taken in connection with the false ex-\nplanation of Theoretical Reason, as given in the\nKritik der Reinen Vernunft, it is presented as a certain\nfaculty essentially concerned with the Unconditioned, as\nmanifested in three alleged Ideas l (the impossibility\nof which the intellect at the same time recognises\na priori). And we found that this position, as an\nexemplar vitiis imitabile^ led our muddy-headed\nphilosophers, Jacobi at their head, from bad to\nworse. They talked of Reason ( Vernunft} as directly\ncomprehending (vernehmend) the \" Supersensuous/'\nand absurdly declared that it is a certain mental\nproperty which has to do essentially with things\ntranscending all experience, i.e., with metaphysics\u00a0;\nand that it perceives directly and intuitively the\nultimate causes of all things, and of all Being, the\nSupersensuous, the Absolute, the Divine, etc. Now,\nhad it been wished to use Reason, instead of deifying\nit, such assertions as these must long ago have been\nmet by the simple remark that, if man, by virtue\nof a special organ, furnished by his Reason, for\nsolving the riddle of the world, possessed an innate\nmetaphysics that only required development\u00a0; in that\n\n1 The three Ideas are\u00a0: (1) The Psychological\u00a0; (2) The\nCosmological\u00a0; (3) The Theological. V. The Paralogisms of\nPure Reasons, in the Dialectics\u00a0: Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,\nPart I. (Translator.)\n\n2 An example easy to be imitated in its faults. V. Horace,\nEp. Lib. I., xix. 17. (Translator.)\n\n76 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\ncase there would have to be just as complete agree-\nment on metaphysical matters as on the truths\nof arithmetic and geometry\u00a0; and this would make\nit totally impossible that there should exist on the\nearth a large number of radically different religions,\nand a still larger number of radically different\nsystems of philosophy. Indeed, we may rather\nsuppose that, if any one were found to differ from\nthe rest in his religious or philosophical views, he\nwould be at once regarded as a subject for mental\npathology. Nor would the following plain reflection\nhave failed to present itself. If we discovered a\nspecies of apes which intentionally prepared instru-\nments for fighting, or building, or for any other\npurpose\u00a0; we should immediately admit that it was\nendowed with Reason. On the other hand, if we\nmeet with savages destitute of all metaphysics, or\nof all religion (and there are such)\u00a0; it does not\noccur to us to deny them Reason on that account.\nThe Reason that proves its pretended supersensuous\nknowledge was duly brought back to bounds by\nKant's critique\u00a0; but Jacobi's wonderful Reason, that\ndirectly comprehends the supersensuous, he must\nindeed have thought beneath all criticism. Mean-\nwhile, a certain imperious and oracular Reason of\nthe same kind is still, at the Universities, fastened\non the shoulders of our innocent youth.\n\nNOTE.\n\nIf we wish to reach the real origin of this hypothesis\nof Practical Reason, we must trace its descent a\nlittle further back. We shall find that it is derived\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 77\n\nfrom a doctrine, which Kant totally confuted, but\nwhich nevertheless, in this connection, lies secretly\n(indeed he himself is not aware of it) at the root\nof his assumption of a Practical Reason with its\nImperatives and its Autonomy a reminiscence of\na former mode of thought. I mean the so-called\nRational Psychology, according to which man is\ncomposed of two entirely heterogeneous substances\nthe material body, and the immaterial soul. Plato\nwas the first to formulate this dogma, and he en-\ndeavoured to prove it as an objective truth. But it\nwas Descartes who, by working it out with scientific\nexactness, perfectly developed and completed it.\nAnd this is just what brought its fallacy to light, as\ndemonstrated by Spinoza, Locke, and Kant succes-\nsively. It was demonstrated by Spinoza\u00a0; because his\nphilosophy consists chiefly in the refutation of his\nmaster's twofold dualism, and because he entirely and\nexpressly denied the two Substances of Descartes,\nand took as his main principle the following pro-\nposition\u00a0: \" Substantia cogitans et substantia extensa\nuna eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam\nsub illo attribute comprehenditur \" 1 It was demon-\nstrated by Locke\u00a0; for he combated the theory of\ninnate ideas, derived all knowledge from the sensuous,\nand taught that it is not impossible that Matter\nshould think. And lastly, it was demonstrated by\n\n1 The thinking substance, and substance in extension are\none and the self-same substance, which is contained now\nunder the latter attribute (i.e., extension), now under the\nformer (i.e., the attribute of thinking). Ethica, Part IL,\nProp. 7. Corollary.\n\n78 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nKant, in his Kritik der Rationalen Psychologie, as\ngiven in the first edition. Leibnitz and Wolff were\nthe champions on the bad side\u00a0; and this brought\nLeibnitz the undeserved honour of being compared\nto the great Plato, who was really so unlike him.\n\nBut to enter into details here would be out of\nplace. According to this Rational Psychology, the\nsoul was originally and in its essence a perceiving\nsubstance, and only as a consequence thereof did it\nbecome possessed of volition. According as it carried\non these two modes of its activity, Perception and\nVolition, conjoined with the body, or incorporeal, and\nentirely per se, so it was endowed with a lower or\nhigher faculty of perception, and of volition in like\nkind. In its higher faculty the immaterial soul\nwas active solely by itself, and without co-opera-\ntion of the body. In this case it was intellectus\npurus, being composed of concepts, belonging ex-\nclusively to itself, and of the corresponding acts of\nwill, both of which were absolutely spiritual, and\nhad nothing sensuous about them the sensuous\nbeing derived from the body. x So that it perceived\nnothing else but pure Abstracts, Universals, innate\nconceptions, aeternae veritates, etc.\u00a0; wherefore also\nits volition was entirely controlled by purely spiritual\nideas like these. On the other hand, the soul's lower\nfaculty of Perception and Volition was the result\nof its working in concert and close union with the\nvarious organs of the body, whereby a prejudicial\n\n1 Intellectio pura est intellectio, quae circa nullas imagines\ncorporeas versatur. (Pure intelligence is intelligence that has\nnothing to do with any bodily forms.) Cart., Medit., p. 188.\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 79\n\neffect was produced on its unmixed spiritual activity.\nHere, i.e., to this lower faculty, was supposed to\nbelong every intuitive perception, which consequently\nwould have to be obscure and confused, while the\nabstract, formed by separating from objects their\nqualities, would be clear\u00a0! The will, which was\ndetermined by preceptions thus sensuously conditioned,\nformed the lower Volition, and it was for the most\npart bad\u00a0; for its acts were guided by the impulse\nof the senses\u00a0; while the other will (the higher) was\nuntrammelled, was guided by Pure Reason, and apper-\ntained only to the immaterial soul. This doctrine of\nthe Cartesians has been best expounded by De la\nForge, in his Tractatus de Mente Humana, where in\nchap. 23 we read\u00a0: l Non nisi eadem voluntas est, quae\nappellatur appetitus sensitivus, quando excitatur per\njudicia, quae formantur consequenter ad perceptiones\nsensuum\u00a0; et quae appetitus rationalis nominatur, cum\n\n1 It is nothing but one and the same will, which at one\ntime is called sensuous desire, when it is stimulated by acts\nof judgment, formed in consequence of perceptions of the\nsenses\u00a0; and which at another time is called rational desire\n(i.e. desire of the reason), when the mind forms acts of\njudgment about its own proper ideas, independently of the\nthoughts belonging to, and mixed up with, the senses\u00a0; which\nthoughts are the causes of the mind's tendencies. . . . That\nthese two diverse propensities of the will should be regarded\nas two distinct desires is occasioned by the fact that very\noften the one is opposed to the other, because the intention,\nwhich is built up by the mind on the foundation of its own\nproper perceptions, does not always agree with the thoughts\nwhich are suggested to the mind by the body's disposition\u00a0;\nwhereby it (the mind) is often constrained to will something,\nwhile its reason makes it choose something different.\n(Translator,)\n\n80 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nmens judicia format de propriis suis ideis, inde-\npendenter a cogitationibus sensuum con/mis, quae\ninclinationum ejus sunt causae. . . . Id, quod\noccasionem dedit, ut duae istae diversae voluntatis\npropensiones pro duobus dwcrsis appetitibus sumer-\nentur, est, quod saepissime unus alteri opponatur,\nquid propositum, quod mens superaedificat propriis\nsuis perceptionibus, non semper consentit cum cogita-\ntionibus, quae menti a corporis dispositione suggeruntur,\nper quam saepe obligatur ad aliquid wlendum, dum\nratio ejus earn aliud optarefacit.\n\nOut of the dim reminiscence of such views there\nfinally arose Kant's doctrine of the Automony of the\nWill, which, as the mouthpiece of Pure, Practical\nReason, lays down the law for all rational beings\nas such, and recognises nothing but formal motives,\nas opposed to material\u00a0; the latter determining only\nthe lower faculty of desires, to which the higher\nis hostile. For the rest, this whole theory, which\nwas not really systematically set forth till the time\nof Descartes, is nevertheless to be found as far back\nas Aristotle. In his De Anima I. 1, it is sufficiently\nclearly stated\u00a0; while Plato in the Phaedo (pp. 188\nand 189, edit. Bipont.) had already paved the way,\nwith no uncertain hints. After being elaborated to\ngreat perfection by the Cartesian doctrine, we find\nit a hundred years later waxed bold and strong,\nand occupying the foremost place\u00a0; but precisely for\nthis reason forced to reveal its true nature. An\nexcellent resume of the view which then prevailed\nis presented in Muratori's Delia Forza della Fantasia,\nchaps. 1-4 and 13, In this work the imagination is\n\nON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 81\n\nregarded as a pa rely material, corporeal organ of\nthe brain (the lower faculty of perception), its\nfunction being to intuitively apprehend the external\nworld on the data of the senses\u00a0; and nought remains\nfor the immaterial soul but thinking, reflecting, and\ndetermining. It must have been felt how obviously\nthis position involves the whole subject in doubt.\nFor if Matter is capable of the intuitive apprehension\nof the world in all its complexity, it is inconceivable\nthat it should, not also be capable of abstracting\nthis intuition\u00a0; wherefrom everything else would\nfollow. Abstraction is of course nothing else than\nan elimination of the qualities attaching to things\nwhich are not necessary for general purposes, in\nother words, the individual and special differences.\nFor instance, if 1 disregard, or abstract, that which\nis peculiar to the sheep, ox, stag, camel, etc., I\nreach the conception of ruminants. By this opera-\ntion the ideas lose their intuitiveness, and as merely\nabstract, non-intuitive notions or concepts, they\nrequire words to fix them in the consciousness, and\nallow of their being adequately handled. All this\nshows that Kant was still under the influence of\nthe after-effect of that old-time doctrine, when he\npropounded his Practical Reason with its Imperatives.\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nON THE LEADING PEINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.\n\nAFTER having tested in the preceding chapter the\nactual basis of Kant's Ethics, I now turn to that\nwhich rests on it his leading principle of Morals.\nThe latter is very closely connected with the former\u00a0;\nindeed, in a certain sense, they both grew up together.\nWe have seen that the formnla expressing the\nprinciple reads as follows\u00a0: \" Act only in accordance\nwith that precept which you can also wish should be\na general law for all rational beings.\" It is a strange\nproceeding for a man, who ex hypothesi is seeking\na law to determine what he should do, and what\nhe should leave undone, to be instructed first to search\nfor one fit to regulate the conduct of all possible\nrational beings\u00a0; but we will pass over that. It is\nsufficient only to notice the fact that in the above\nguiding rule, as put forth by Kant, we have obviously\nnot reached the moral law itself, but only a finger-\npost, or indication where it is to be looked for. The\nmoney, so to say, is not yet paid down, but we hold\na safe draft for it. And who, then, is the cashier?\nTo say the truth at once\u00a0: a paymaster in this con-\nnection surely very unexpected, being neither more\nnor less than Egoism, as I shall now demonstrate.\n\n82\n\nTHE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 83\n\nThe precept, it is said, which I can wish were\nthe guide of all men's conduct, is itself the real\nmoral principle. That which I can wish is the hinge\non which the given direction turns. But what can\n1 truly wish, and what not\u00a0? Clearly, in order to\ndetermine what I can wish in the matter under\ndiscussion, I require yet another criterion\u00a0; for with-\nout such I could never find the key to the instruction\nwhich comes to me like a sealed order. Where,\nthen, is this criterion to be discovered\u00a0? Certainly\nnowhere else but in my Egoism, which is the nearest,\never ready, original, and living standard of all volition,\nand which has at any rate the jus primi occupantis\nbefore every moral principle. The direction for finding\nthe real moral law, which is contained in the Kantian\nrule, rests, as a matter of fact, on the tacit assump-\ntion that I can only wish for that which is most\nto my advantage. Now because, in framing a precept\nto be generally followed, I cannot regard myself as\nalways active, but must contemplate my playing a\npassive part eventualiter and at times\u00a0; therefore\nfrom this point of view my egoism decides for justice\nand lovingkindness\u00a0; not from any wish to practise\nthese virtues, but because it desires to experience them.\nWe are reminded of the miser, who, after listening\nto a sermon on beneficence, exclaims\u00a0:\n\n\" Wie griindlich ausgefuhrt, wie schon\u00a0!\n\nFast mocht' ich betteln gehn.\"\n(How well thought out, how excellent\u00a0!\nAlmost I'd like to beg.)\n\nThis is the indispensable key to the direction in\nwhich Kant's leading principle of Ethics is embedded\u00a0;\n\n84 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nnor can he help supplying it himself. Only he re-\nfrains from doing so at the moment of propounding\nhis precept, lest we should feel shocked. It is found\nfurther on in the text, at a decent distance, so as\nto prevent the fact at once leaping to light, that\nhere, after all, in spite of his grand a priori edifice,\nEgoism is sitting on the judge's seat, scales in hand.\nMoreover, it does not occur, till after he has decided,\nfrom the point of view of the eventualiter passive\nside, that this position holds good for the active\nrole as well. Thus, on p. 19 (R., p. 24) we read\u00a0:\n\" That 1 could not wish for a general law to establish\nlying, because people would no longer believe me,\nor else pay me back in the same coin.\" Again on\np. 55 (R., p. 49)\u00a0: \" The universality of a law to\nthe effect that every one could promise what he\nlikes, without any intention of keeping his word,\nwould make the promise itself, together with the\nobject in view, whatever that might be, impossible\u00a0;\nfor no one would believe it.\" On p. 56 (R., p. 50),\nin connection with the maxim of hard-heartedness, we\nfind the following\u00a0: \" A will, which should determine\nthis, would contradict itself\u00a0; for cases can occur, in\nwhich a man needs the love and sympathy of others,\nand in which he, by virtue of such a natural law,\nevolved from his own will, would deprive himself\nof all hope of the help, which he desires.\" Similarly\nin the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft (Part I., vol. i.,\nchap. 2, p. 123\u00a0; R., p. 192)\u00a0: \"If every one were to\nregard others' distress with total indifference, and\nyou were to belong to such an order of things\u00a0;\nwould you be there with the concurrence of your\n\nTHE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 85\n\nwill\u00a0? \" Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus\niniquam\u00a0! 1 one could reply. These passages suffici-\nently show in what sense the phrase, \" to be able\nto wish,\" in Kant's formula is to be understood.\nBut it is in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der\nTugendlehre, that this real nature of his ethical\nprinciple is most clearly stated. In 30 we read\u00a0:\n\" For every one wishes to be helped. If, however,\na man were to give utterance to his rule of unwilling-\nness to help others, all people would be justified\nin refusing him assistance. Thus this rule of selfish-\nness contradicts itself.\" Would be justified, he says,\nwould be justified\u00a0! Here, then, it is declared, as\nexplicitly as anything can be, that moral obligation\nrests solely and entirely on presupposed reciprocity\u00a0;\nconsequently it is utterly selfish, and only admits\nof being interpreted by egoism, which, under the\ncondition of reciprocity, knows how to make a\ncompromise cleverly enough. Such a course would\nbe quite in place if it were a question of laying\ndown the fundamentals of state-organisation, but not,\nwhen we come to construct those of ethics. In the\nGrundlegung, p. 81 (R., p. 67), the following sentence\noccurs\u00a0: \" The principle of always acting in accordance\nwith that precept which you can also wish were\nuniversally established as law this is the only\ncondition under which a man's will can never be in\nantagonism with itself.\" From what has been said\nabove, it will be apparent that the true meaning\nof the word \" antagonism \" may be thus, explained\u00a0:\n\n1 How rashly do we sanction an unjust law, which will\ncome home to ourselves\u00a0! (Hor., Sat., Lib. I., iii. 67.)\n\n86 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nif a man should sanction the precept of injustice\nand hard-heartedness, he would subsequently, in the\nevent of his playing a passive part, recall it, and\nso his will would contradict itself.\n\nFrom this analysis it is abundantly clear that\nKant's famous leading principle is not as he\nmaintains with tireless repetition a categorical, but\nin reality a hypothetical Imperative\u00a0; because it\ntacitly presupposes the condition that the law to be\nestablished for what I do inasmuch as I make it\nuniversal shall also be a law for what is done to\nme\u00a0; and because I, under this condition, as the\neventualiter non-active party, cannot possibly wish\nfor injustice and hard-heartedness. But if I strike\nout this proviso, and, trusting perhaps to my sur-\npassing strength of mind and body, think of myself\nas always active, and never passive\u00a0; then, in choosing\nthe precept which is to be universally valid, if there\nexists no basis for ethics other than Kant's, I can\nperfectly well wish that injustice and hard-heartedness\nshould be the general rule, and consequently order\nthe world\n\nUpon the simple plan,\n\nThat they should take, who have the power,\nAnd they should keep, who can.\n\n(WORDSWORTH.)\n\nIn the foregoing chapter we showed that the\nKantian leading principle of Ethics is devoid of all\nreal foundation. It is now clear that to this singular\ndefect must.be added, notwithstanding Kant's express\nassertion to the contrary, its concealed hypothetical\nnature, whereby its basis turns out to be nothing else\n\nTHE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 87\n\nthan Egoism, the latter being the secret interpreter\nof the direction which it contains. Furthermore,\nregarding it solely as a formula, we find that it is\nonly a periphrasis, an obscure and disguised mode of\nexpressing the well-known rale\u00a0: Quod tibi fieri non\nvis, alteri ne feceris (do not to another what you are\nunwilling should be done to yourself)\u00a0; if, that is, by\nomitting the non and ne, we remove the limitation, and\ninclude the duties taught by love as well as those pre-\nscribed by taw. For it is obvious that this is the only\nprecept which I can wish should regulate the conduct\nof all men (speaking, of course, from the point of view\nof the possibly passive part I may play, where my\nEgoism is touched). This rule, Quod tibi fieri, etc., is,\nhowever, in its turn, merely a circumlocution for, or,\nif it be preferred, a premise of, the proposition which\nI have laid down as the simplest and purest definition\nof the conduct required by the common consent of all\nethical systems\u00a0; namely, Neminem laede, immo omnes,\nquantum potes, juva (do harm to no one\u00a0; but\nrather help all people, as far as lies in your power).\nThe true and real substance of Morals is this, and\nnever can be anything else. But on what is it based\u00a0?\nWhat is it that lends force to this command\u00a0? This\nis the old and difficult problem with which man is\nstill to-day confronted. For, on the other side, we\nhear Egoism crying with a loud voice\u00a0: Neminem juva,\nimmo omnes, si forte conducit, laede (help nobody,\nbut rather injure all people, if it brings you any\nadvantage)\u00a0; nay more, Malice gives us the variant\u00a0:\nImmo omnes, quantum potes, laede (but rather injure\nall people as far as you can). To bring into the\n\n88 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nlists a combatant equal, or rather superior to Egoism\nand Malice combined this is the task of all Ethics.\nHeic Rhodus, heic salta\u00a0! l\n\nThe division of human duty into two classes has\nlong been recognised, and no doubt owes its origin\nto the nature of morality itself. We have (1) the\nduties ordained by law (otherwise called the perfect,\nobligatory, narrower duties), and (2) those prescribed\nby virtue (otherwise called imperfect, wider, meri-\ntorious, or, preferably, the duties taught by love).\nOn p. 57 (R, p. 60) we find Kant desiring to give\na further confirmation to the moral principle, which\nhe propounded, by undertaking to derive this classi-\nfication from it. But the attempt turns out to be\nso forced, and so obviously bad, that it only testifies\nin the strongest way against the soundness of his\nposition. For, according to him, the duties laid\ndown by statutes rest on a precept, the contrary\nof which, taken as a general natural law, is declared\nto be quite unthinkable without contradiction\u00a0; while\n\n1 \" Here is Rhodes, here make your leap\u00a0! \" I.e., \" Here is the\nplace of trial, here let us see what you can do\u00a0! \" This Latin\nproverb is derived from one of JEsop's fables. A braggart\nboasts of having once accomplished a wonderful jump in\nRhodes, and appeals to the evidence of the eye-witnesses.\nThe bystanders then exclaim\u00a0: \" Friend, if this be true, you\nhave no need of witnesses\u00a0; for this is Rhodes, and your leap\nyou can make here.\" The words are: dXX', & </>tXe, et TOVTO\na\\T)6fs fVriv, ovdev Set croi p.nprvpu>v' OUTTJ yap 'PoSos- xal TrjyS^jLia. V-\nFabulae Aesopicae Collectae. Edit. Halm, Leipzig\u00a0: Teubner.\n1875. N~r. 2036, p. 102. The other version of the fable (Nr.\n203, p. 101) gives\u00a0: S> OVTOS, et aXrjdfs TOVT' fcrnv, ov8fi> 8(1 croi\nIdov 17 'Po'Sor, I8ov Koi TO TnjSjj/ia. (Translator.) .\n\nTHE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 89\n\nthe duties inculcated by virtue are made to depend\non a maxim, the opposite of which can (he says)\nbe conceived as a general natural law, but cannot\npossibly be wished for. I beg the reader to reflect\nthat the rule of injustice, the reign of might instead\nof right, which in the Kantian view is not even\nthinkable as a natural law, is in reality, and in\npoint of fact, the dominant order of things not only\nin the animal kingdom, but among men as well.\nIt is true that an attempt has been made among\ncivilised peoples to obviate its injurious effects by\nmeans of all the machinery of state government\u00a0;\nbut as soon as this, wherever, or of whatever kind,\nit be, is suspended or eluded, the natural law\nimmediately resumes its sway. Indeed between\nnation and nation it never ceases to prevail\u00a0; the\ncustomary jargon about justice is well known to\nbe nothing but diplomacy's official style\u00a0; the real\narbiter is brute force. On the other hand, genuine,\ni.e., voluntary, acts of justice, do occur beyond all\ndoubt, but always only as exceptions to the rule.\nFurthermore\u00a0: wishing to give instances by way\nof introducing the above-mentioned classification,\nKant establishes the duties prescribed by law first\n(p. 53\u00a0; R., p. 48) through the so-called duty towards\noneself, the duty of not ending one's life voluntarily,\nif the pain outweigh the pleasure. Accordingly, the\nrule of suicide is held to be not even thinkable as\na general natural law. I, on the contrary, maintain\nthat, since here there can be no intervention of\nstate control, it is exactly this rule which is proved\nto be an actually existing, unchecked natural law.\n\n90 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nFor it is absolutely certain (as daily experience\nattests) that men in the vast majority of cases turn\nto self-destruction directly the gigantic strength of\nthe innate instinct of self-preservation is distinctly\noverpowered by great suffering. To suppose that\nthere is any thought whatever that can have a\ndeferring effect, after the fear of death, which is\nso strong and so closely bound up with the nature\nof every living thing, has shown itself powerless\u00a0;\nin other words, to suppose that there is a thought\nstill mightier than this fear is a daring assump-\ntion, all the more so, when we see, that it\nis one which is so difficult to discover that the\nmoralists are not yet able to determine it with pre-\ncision. In any case, it is certain that arguments\nagainst suicide of the sort put forward by Kant in\nthis connection (p. 53\u00a0: R., p. 48, and p. 67\u00a0; R., p.\n57) have never hitherto restrained any one tired\nof life even for a moment. Thus a natural law,\nwhich ineontestably exists, and is operative every\nday, is declared by Kant to be simply unthinkable\nwithout contradiction, and all for the sake of making\nhis Moral Principle the basis of the classification of\nduties\u00a0! At this point it is, I confess, not without\nsatisfaction that I look forward to the groundwork\nwhich I shall give to Ethics in the sequel. From\nit the division of Duty into what is prescribed by\nlaw, and what is taught by love, or, better, into\njustice and lovingkindness, results quite naturally\nthough a principle of separation which arises from\nthe nature of the subject, and which entirely of itself\ndraws a sharp line of demarkation\u00a0; so that the\n\nTHE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 91\n\nfoundation of Morals, which I shall present, has in\nfact ready to hand that confirmation, to which Kant,\nwith a view to support his own position, lays a\ncompletely groundless claim.\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nON THE DEBIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE\nOF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.\n\nIT is well known that Kant put the leading principle\nof his Ethics into another quite different shape,\nin which it is expressed directly\u00a0; the first being\nindirect, indeed nothing more than an indication as\nto how the principle is to be sought for. Beginning\nat p. 63 (R., p. 55), he prepares the way for his\nsecond formula by means of very strange, ambiguous,\nnot to say distorted, 1 definitions of the conceptions\nEnd and Means, which may be much more simply and\ncorrectly denoted thus\u00a0: an End is the direct motive\nof an act of the Will, a Means the indirect\u00a0: simplex\nsigillum veri (simplicity is the seal of truth). Kant,\nhowever, slips through his wonderful enunciations to\nthe statement\u00a0: \" Man, indeed every rational being,\nexists as an end in himself.\" On this I must remark\nthat \" to exist as an end in oneself\" is an unthinkable\nexpression, a contradictio in adjecto. 2 To be an\n\n1 To keep the play of words in \" geschrobene\" \" verschro-\nbene,\" we may perhaps render them\u00a0: \"twisted\" . . . \"mis-\ntwisted.\" ( Translator. )\n\n2 A contradiction in that which is added. A term applied\nto two ideas which cannot be brought into a thinkable\nrelationship. ( Translator.)\n\n92\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 93\n\nend means to be an object of volition. Every end\ncan only exist in relation to a will, whose end, i.e.,\n(as above stated), whose direct motive it is. Only\nthus can the idea, \"end\" have any sense; which is\nlost as soon as such connection is broken. But this\nrelation, which is essential to the thing, necessarily\nexcludes every \"in itself.\" \"End in oneself\" is\nexactly like saying\u00a0: \" Friend in oneself\u00a0; enemy\nin oneself\u00a0; uncle in oneself\u00a0; north or east in\nitself\u00a0; above or below in itself\u00a0; \" and so on. At\nbottom the \" end in itself \" is in the same case as\nthe \" absolute ought \"\u00a0; the same thought the theo-\nlogical secretly, indeed, unconsciously lies at the\nroot of each as its condition. Nor is the \" absolute\nworth,\" which is supposed to be attached to this\nalleged, though unthinkable, \" end in itself,\" at all\nbetter circumstanced. It also must be characterised,\nwithout pity, as a contradictio in adjecto. Every\n\"worth\" is a valuation by comparison, and its\nbearing is necessarily twofold. First, it is relative,\nsince it exists for some one\u00a0; and secondly, it is\ncomparative, as being compared with something else,\nand estimated accordingly. Severed from these two\nconditions, the conception, \" worth,\" loses all sense\nand meaning, and so obviously, that further demon-\nstration is needless. But more\u00a0: just as the phrases\n\" end in itself \" and \" absolute worth \" outrage\nlogic, so true morality is outraged by the statement\non p. 65 (R., p. 56), that irrational beings (that is,\nanimals) are things, and should therefore be treated\nsimply as means, which are not at the same time\nends. In harmony with this, it is expressly declared\n\n94 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nin the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Tugend-\nlekre, 16\u00a0: \"A man can have no duties towards\nany being, except towards his fellowmen\u00a0; \" and\nthen, 17, we read: \"To treat animals cruelly\nruns counter to the duty of man towards himself;\nbecause it deadens the feeling of sympathy for\nthem in their sufferings, and thus weakens a natural\ntendency which is very serviceable to morality in\nrelation to other men.\" So one is only to have\ncompassion on animals for the sake of practice,\nand they are as it were the pathological phantom\non which to train one's sympathy with men\u00a0! In\ncommon with the whole of Asia that is not tainted\nby Islam (which is tantamount to Judaism), I\nregard such tenets as odious and revolting. Here,\nonce again, we see withal how entirely this philo-\nsophical morality, which is, as explained above, only\na theological one in disguise, depends in reality on\nthe biblical Ethics. Thus, because Christian morals\nleave - animals out of consideration (of which more\nlater on)\u00a0; therefore in philosophical morals they are\nof course at once outlawed\u00a0; they are merely \" things,\"\nsimply means to ends of any sort\u00a0; and so they are\ngood for vivisection, for deer-stalking, bull-fights,\nhorse-races, etc., and they may be whipped to death\nas they struggle along with heavy quarry carts.\nShame on such a morality which is worthy of Pariahs,\nChandalas and Mlechchas *\u00a0; which fails to recognise\n\n1 A Chandala (or 6andala) means one who is born of a\n\nBrahman woman by a Sudra husband, such a union being\nan abomination. Hence it is a term applied to a low common\n\nDEEIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 95\n\nthe Eternal Reality immanent in everything that has\nlife, and shining forth with inscrutable significance\nfrom all eyes that see the sun\u00a0! This is a morality\nwhich knows and values only the precious species\nthat gave it birth\u00a0; whose characteristic reason it\nmakes the condition under which a being may be\nan object of moral regard.\n\nBy this rough path, then, indeed, per fas et\nnefas (by fair means and by foul), Kant reaches the\nsecond form in which he expresses the fundamental\nprinciple of his Ethics\u00a0: \"Act in such a way that\nyou at all times treat mankind, as much in your\nown person, as in the person of every one else, not\nonly as a Means, but also as an End.\" Such a\nstatement is a very artificial and roundabout way\nof saying\u00a0: \" Do not consider yourself alone, but\nothers also\u00a0; \" this in turn is a paraphrase for\u00a0: Quod\ntibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris (do not to another\nwhat yon are unwilling should be done to yourself)\u00a0;\nand the latter, as I have said, contains nothing but\nthe premises to the conclusion, which is the true\nand final goal of all morals and of all moralising\u00a0;\nN eminent laede, immo omnes, quantum potes juva (do\nharm to no one\u00a0; but rather help all people as far\nas lies in your power). Like all beautiful things,\nthis proposition looks best unveiled. Be it only\nobserved that the alleged duties towards oneself are\ndragged into this second Kantian edict intentionally\n\nperson. Mlechcha (or Mleccha) means a foreigner; one who\ndoes not speak Sanskrit, and is not subject to Hindu in-\nstitutions. The transition from a \"a barbarian\" to a bad\nor wicked man, is easy. (Translator.)\n\n96 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nand not without difficulty. Some place of course had\nto be found for them. 1\n\nAnother objection that could be raised against the\nformula is that the malefactor condemned to be\nexecuted is treated merely as an instrument, and not\nas an end, and this with perfectly good reason\u00a0; for\nhe is the indispensable means of upholding the terror\nof the law by its fulfilment, and of thus accomplishing\nthe law's end the repression of crime.\n\nBut if this second definition helps nothing towards\nlaying a foundation for Ethics, if it cannot even pass\nmuster as its leading principle, that is, as an adequate\nand direct summary of ethical precepts\u00a0; it has never-\ntheless the merit of containing a fine apergu of moral\npsychology, for it marks egoism by an exceedingly\ncharacteristic token, which is quite worth while being\nhere more closely considered. This egoism, then, of\nwhich each of us is full, and to conceal which, as our\npartie honteuse, we have invented politeness, is per-\npetually peering through every veil cast over it, and\nmay especially be detected in the fact that our\ndealings with all those, who come across our path,\nare directed by the one object of trying to find,\nbefore everything else, and as if by instinct, a pos-\nsible means to any of the numerous ends with which\nwe are always engrossed. When we make a new\nacquaintance, our first thought, as a rule, is whether\nthe man can be useful to us in some way. If he\ncan do nothing for our benefit, then as soon as we\nare convinced of this, he himself generally becomes\n\n1 These so-called duties have been discussed in Chapter III.\nof this Part.\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 97\n\nnothing to us. To seek in all other people a possible\nmeans to our ends, in other words, to make them\nonr instruments, is almost part of the very nature\nof human eyes\u00a0; and whether the instrument will\nhave to suffer more or less in the using, is a thought\nwhich comes \"much later, sometimes not at all. That\nwe assume others to be similarly disposed is shown\nin many ways\u00a0; e.g., by the fact that, when, we ask\nany one for information or advice, we lose all con-\nfidence in his words directly we discover that he\nmay have some interest in the matter, however small\nor remote. For then we immediately take for granted\nthat he will make us a means to his ends, and hence\ngive his advice not in accordance with his discernment,\nbut with his desire, and this, no matter how exact\nthe former may be, or how little the latter seem\ninvolved\u00a0; since we know only too well that a cubic\ninch of desire weighs much more than a cubic yard\nof discernment. Conversely, when we ask in such\ncases\u00a0: \" What ought I to do\u00a0? \" as a rule, nothing\nelse will occur to our counsellor, but how we should\nshape our action to suit his own ends\u00a0; and to this\neffect he will give his reply immediately, and as it\nwere mechanically, without so much as bestowing\na thought on our ends\u00a0; because it is his Will that\ndirectly dictates the answer, or ever the question\ncan come before the bar of his real judgment. Hence\nhe tries to mould our conduct to his own benefit,\nwithout even being conscious of it, and while he\nsupposes that he is speaking out of the abundance\nof his discernment, in reality he is nothing but the\nmouth-piece of his own desire\u00a0; indeed, such self-\n\n7\n\n98 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\ndeception may lead him so far as to utter lies,\nwithout being aware of it. So greatly does the\ninfluence of the Will preponderate that of the\nIntelligence. Consequently, it is not the testimony\nof our own consciousness, but rather, for the most\npart, that of our interest, which avails to determine\nwhether our language be in accordance with what\nwe discern, or what we desire. To take another\ncase. Let us suppose that a man pursued by enemies\nand in danger of life, meets a pedlar and inquires\nfor some by-way of escape\u00a0; it may happen that the\nlatter will answer him by the question\u00a0: \" Do you\nneed any of my wares\u00a0? \" It is not of course meant\nthat matters are always like this. On the contrary,\nmany a man is found to show a direct and real\nparticipation in another's weal and woe, or (in Kant's\nlanguage) to regard him as an end and not as a\nmeans. How far it seems natural, or the reverse,\nto each one to treat his neighbour for once in the\nway as an end, instead of (as usual) a means,\nthis is the criterion of the great ethical difference\nexisting between character and character\u00a0; and that\non which the mental attitude of sympathy rests in\nthe last resort will be the true basis of Ethics, and\nwill form the subject of the third part of this Essay.\n\nThus, in his second formula, Kant distinguishes\nEgoism and its opposite by a very characteristic\ntrait\u00a0; and this point of merit I have all the more\ngladly brought out into strong light and illustrated,\nbecause in other respects there is little in the ground-\nwork of his Ethics that I can admit.\n\nThe third and last form in which Kant put forward\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 99\n\nhis Moral Principle is the Autonomy of the Will\u00a0:\n\" The Will of every rational being is universally\nlegislative for all rational beings.\" This of course\nfollows from the first form. As a consequence of the\nthird, however, we are asked to believe (see p. 71\u00a0;\nR., p. 60) that the specific characteristic of the\nCategorical Imperative lies in the renunciation of all\ninterest by the Will when acting from a sense of duty.\nAll previous moral principles had thus (he says)\nbroken down, \" because the latter invariably attributed\nto human actions at bottom a certain interest, whether\noriginating in compulsion, or in pleasurable attraction\nan interest which might be one's own, or another's \"\n(p. 73\u00a0; R., p. 62). (Another's\u00a0: let this be particularly\n'noticed.) \" Whereas a universally legislative Will\nmust prescribe actions which are not based on any\ninterest at all, but solely on a feeling of duty.\"\nI beg the reader to think what this really means.\nAs a matter of fact, nothing less than volition with-\nout motive, in other words, effect without cause.\nInterest and Motive are interchangeable ideas\u00a0;\nwhat is interest but quod mea interest, that which\nis of importance to me\u00a0? And is not this, in one\nword, whatever stirs and sets in motion my Will\u00a0?\nConsequently, what is an interest other than the\nworking of a motive upon the Will\u00a0? Therefore\nwhere a motive moves the Will, there the latter has\nan interest\u00a0; but where the Will is affected by no\nmotive, there in truth it can be as little active, as\na stone is able to leave its place without being\npushed or pulled. No educated person will require\nany demonstration of this. It follows that every\n\n100 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\naction, inasmuch as it necessarily .must have a\nmotive, necessarily also presupposes an interest.\nKant, however, propounds a second entirely new class\nof actions which are performed without any interest,\ni.e., without motive. And these actions are all\ndeeds of justice and lovingkindness\u00a0! It will be\nseen that this monstrous assumption, to be refuted,\nneeded only to be reduced to its real meaning, which\nwas concealed through the word u interest \" being\ntrifled with. Meanwhile Kant celebrates (p. 74 sqq.\u00a0;\nR., p. 62) the triumph of his Autonomy of the\nWill by setting up a moral Utopia called the\nKingdom of Ends, which is peopled with nothing but\nrational beings in abstracto. These, one and all, are\nalways willing, without willing any actual thing (i.e.,\nwithout interest)\u00a0: the only thing that they will is\nthat they may all perpetually will in accordance with\none maxim (i.e., Autonomy). Difficile est satiram\nnon scribere 1 (it is difficult to refrain from writing\na satire).\n\nBut there is something else to which Kant is led\nby his autonomy of the will\u00a0; and it involves more\nserious consequences than the little innocent King-\ndom of Ends, which is perfectly harmless and may\nbe left in peace. I mean the conception of human\ndignity. Now this \" dignity \" is made to rest solely\non man's autonomy, and to lie in the fact that the law\nwhich he ought to obey is his own work, his relation\nto it thus being the same as that of the subjects of a\nconstitutional government to their statutes. As an\nornamental finish to the Kantian system of morals\n1 Juvenal, Sat. I. 30.\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 101'\n\nsuch a theory might after all be passed over. Only\nthis expression \" Human Dignity,\" once it was uttered\nby Kant, became the shibboleth of all perplexed and\nempty-headed moralists. For behind that imposing\nformula they concealed their lack, not to say, of a\nreal ethical basis, but of any basis at all which\nwas possessed of an intelligible meaning\u00a0; supposing\ncleverly enough that their readers would be so\npleased to see themselves invested with such a\n\"dignity\" that they would be quite satisfied. 1 Let\nus, however, look at this conception a little more\ncarefully, and submit it to the test of reality. Kant\n(p. 79\u00a0; R., p. 60) defines dignity as \" an uncon-\nditioned, incomparable value.\" This is an explanation\nwhich makes such an effect by its magnificent sound\nthat one does not readily summon up courage to\nexamine it at close quarters\u00a0; else we should find\nthat it too is nothing but a hollow hyperbole, within\nwhich there lurks like a gnawing worm, the con-\ntradictio in adjecto. Every value is the estimation\nof one thing compared with another\u00a0; it is thus a\nconception of comparison, and consequently relative\u00a0;\nand this relativity is precisely that which forms the\nessence of the idea. According to Diogenes Laertius\n(Book VII., chap. 106), 2 this was already correctly\ntaught by the Stoics. He says\u00a0: ir^v Se a%iav dvai\n\n1 It appears that G. W. Block in his Neue Grundlegung der\nPhilosojihie der Sitten, 1802, was the first to make \" Human\nDignity\" expressly and exclusively the foundation-stone of\nEthics, which he then built up entirely on it.\n\n2 V. Diogenes Laertius, de Clarorum Philosophorum Vitis,\netc., edit. C. Gabr. Cobet. Paris\u00a0; Didot, 1862. In this edition\nthe passage quoted is in chap. 105 ad fin., p. 182. (Translator.)\n\n102 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nafjbOi^rjv BoKifjidaTov, rw av o efjwreipos TWV\nrd^rj- o/jLOiov elirelv, a/ner/3ecr$at irvpov^ 7rpo9 ras crvv\n-rfjjiiova) Kpidds. 1 An incomparable, unconditioned, absolute\nvalue, such as \"dignity\" is declared by Kant to\nbe, is thus, like so much else in Philosophy, the-\nstatement in words of a thought which is really\nunthinkable\u00a0; just as much as \" the highest number,\"\nor \" the greatest space.\"\n\n\" Dock eben wo Beyriffe fehlen,\nDa stellt ein WORT zu rechter Zdt sick ein.\"\n\n(But where conceptions fail,\nJust there a WORD comes in to fill the blank.)\n\nSo it was with this expression, \" Human Dignity.\"\nA most acceptable phrase was brought into currency.\nThereon every system of Morals, that was spun out\nthrough all classes of duty, and all forms of casuistry,\nfound a broad basis\u00a0; from which serene elevation\nit could comfortably go on preaching.\n\nAt the end of his exposition (p. 124\u00a0; E., p. 97),\nKant says\u00a0: \" But how it is that Pure Reason without\nother motives, that may have their derivation else-\nwhere, can by itself be practical\u00a0; that is, how, without\nthere being any object for the Will to take an\nantecedent interest in, the simple principle of the\nuniversal validity of all the precepts of Pure Reason,\nas laws, can of itself provide a motive and bring\nabout an interest which may be called purely moral\u00a0;\nor, in other words, how it is that Pure Reason can\n\n1 They teacb that \" worth \" is the equivalent value of a\nthing which has been tested, whatever an expert may fix that\nvalue to be\u00a0; as, for instance, to take wheat in exchange for\nbarley and a mule. (Translator.)\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 103\n\nbe practical\u00a0; to explain this problem, all human\nreason is inadequate, and all trouble and work spent\non it are vain.\" Now it should be remembered that,\nif any one asserts the existence of a thing which\ncannot even be conceived as possible, it is incumbent on\nhim to prove that it is an actual reality\u00a0; whereas the\nCategorical Imperative of Practical Reason is expressly\nnot put forward as a fact of consciousness, nor otherwise\nfounded on experience. Rather are we frequently\ncautioned not to attempt to explain it by having\nrecourse to empirical authropology. (Of. e.g., p. vi.\nof the preface\u00a0; R., p. 5\u00a0; and pp. 59, 60\u00a0; R., p. 52).\nMoreover, we are repeatedly (e.g., p. 48\u00a0; R., p. 44)\nassured \" that no instance can show, and consequently\nthere can be no empirical proof, that an Imperative\nof this sort exists everywhere.\" And further, on\np. 49 (R., p. 45), we read, \" that the reality of the\nCategorical Imperative is not a fact of experience.\"\nNow if we put all this together, we can hardly avoid\nthe suspicion that Kant is jesting at his readers'\nexpense. But although this practice may be allowed\nby the present philosophical public of Germany, and\nseem good in their eyes, yet in Kant's time it was\nnot so much in vogue\u00a0; and besides, Ethics, then,\nas always, was precisely the subject that least of\nall could lend itself to jokes. Hence we must\ncontinue to hold the conviction that what can neither\nbe conceived as possible, nor proved as actual, is\ndestitute of all credentials to attest its existence.\nAnd if, by a strong effort of the imagination, we\ntry to picture to ourselves a man, possessed, as it\nwere, by a daemon, in the form of an absolute Ought,\n\n104 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nthat speaks only in Categorical Imperatives, and,\nconfronting his wishes and inclinations, claims to be\nthe perpetual controller of his actions\u00a0; in* this figure\nwe see no true portrait of human nature, or of\nour inner life\u00a0; what we do discern is an artificial\nsubstitute for theological Morals, to which it stands\nin the same relation as a wooden leg to a living one.\n\nOur conclusion, therefore, is, that the Kantian\nEthics, like all anterior systems, is devoid of any\nsure foundation. As I showed at the outset, in my\nexamination of its imperative Form, the structure is\nat bottom nothing but an inversion of theological\nMorals, cloaked in very abstract formulae of an\napparently a priori origin. That this disguise was\nmost artificial and unrecognisable is the more certain,\nfrom the fact that Kant, in all good faith, was\nactually himself deceived by it, arid really believed\nthat he could establish, independently of all theology,\nand on the basis of pure intelligence a priori, those\nconceptions of the Law and of the hests of Duty,\nwhich obviously have no meaning except in theo-\nlogical Ethics\u00a0; whereas I have sufficiently proved\nthat with him they are destitute of all real foundation,\nand float loosely in mid air. However, the mask at\nlength falls away in his own workshop, and theo-\nlogical Ethics stands forth unveiled, as witness his\ndoctrine of the Highest Good, the Postulates of\nPractical Reason\u00a0; and lastly, his Moral Theology.\nBut this revelation freed neither Kant nor the public\nfrom their illusion as to the real state of things\u00a0; on\nthe contrary, both he and they rejoiced to see all\nthose precepts, which hitherto had been sanctioned\n\nDERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 105\n\nby Faith, now ratified and established by Ethics\n(although only idealiter, and for practical purposes).\nThe truth is that they, in all sincerity, put the effect\nfor the cause, and the cause for the effect, inasmuch\nas they failed to perceive that at the root of this\nsystem of Morals there lay, as absolutely necessary\nassumptions, however tacit and concealed, all the\nalleged consequences that had been drawn from it.\n\nAt the end of this severe investigation, which must\nalso have been tiring to my readers, perhaps I may\nbe allowed, by way of diversion, to make a jesting,\nindeed frivolous comparison. I would liken Kant,\nin his self-mystification, to a man who at a ball has\nbeen flirting the whole evening with a masked beauty,\nin hopes of making a conquest\u00a0; till at last, throwing\noff her disguise, she reveals herself as his wife.\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nKANT'S DOCTHINE OF CONSCIENCE.\n\nTHE alleged Practical Reason with its Categorical\nImperative, is manifestly very closely connected with\nConscience, although essentially different from it in\ntwo respects. In the first place, the Categorical\nImperative, as commanding, necessarily speaks\nbefore the act, whereas Conscience does not till after-\nwards. Before the act Conscience can at best only\nspeak indirectly, that is, by means of reflection, which\nholds up to it the recollection of previous cases, in\nwhich similar acts after they were committed received\nits disapproval. It is on this that the etymology of\nthe word Gewissen (Conscience) appears to me to\nrest, because only what has already taken place is\ngewiss l (certain). Undoubtedly, through external\ninducement and kindled emotion, or by reason of\nthe internal discord of bad humour, impure, base\nthoughts, and evil desires rise up in all people,\neven in the best. But for these a man is not morally\nresponsible, and need not load his conscience with\nthem\u00a0; since they only show what the genus homo,\nnot what the individual, who thinks them, would be\n\n1 Both words are, of course, derived from tvissen sdre =\nfltievcu. (Translator.)\n\n106\n\nKANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 107\n\ncapable of doing. Other motives, if not simul-\ntaneously, yet almost immediately, come into his\nconsciousness, and confronting the unworthy inclina-\ntions prevent them from ever being crystallised into\ndeeds\u00a0; thus causing them to resemble the out-voted\nminority of au acting committee. By deeds alone\neach person gains an empirical knowledge no less\nof himself than of others, just as it is deeds alone\nthat burden the conscience. For, unlike thoughts,\nthese are not problematic\u00a0; on the contrary, they\nare certain (gewiss), they are unchangeable, and\nare not only thought, but known (gewusst). The\nLatin conscientia, 1 and the Greek a-vvelSrjai,*; 2 have\nthe same sense. Conscience is thus the knowledge\nthat a man has about what he has done.\n\nThe second point of difference between the alleged\nCategorical Imperative and Conscience is, that the\nlatter always draws its material from experience\u00a0;\nwhich the former cannot do, since it is purely a\npriori. Nevertheless, we may reasonably suppose\nthat Kant's Doctrine of Conscience will throw some\nlight on this new conception of an absolute Ought\nwhich he introduced. His theory is most completely\nset forth in the Metaphysiscke Anfangsgrunde zur\nTugendlehre, 13, and in the following criticism I\nshall assume that the few pages which contain it\nare lying before the reader.\n\n1 Cf. Horace's ccmscire sibi, pallescere culpa,\u00a0: Epist. I. 1,\n61. To be conscious of having done wrong, to turn pale at\nthe thought of the crime.\n\n3 ZwfiBrjo-is = consciousness (of right or wrong done).\n(Translator.)\n\n108 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nThe Kantian interpretation of Conscience makes\nan exceedingly imposing effect, before which one\nused to stand with reverential awe, and all the less\nconfidence was felt in demurring to it, because there\nlay heavy on the mind the ever-present fear of having\ntheoretical objections construed as practical, and, if\nthe correctness of Kant's view were denied, of being\nregarded as devoid of conscience. I, however, cannot\nbe led astray in this manner, since the question here\nis of theory, not of practice\u00a0; and I am not concerned\nwith the preaching of Morals, but with the exact\ninvestigation of the ultimate ethical basis.\n\nWe notice at once that Kant employs exclusively\nLatin legal terminology, which, however, would seem\nlittle adapted to reflect the most secret stirrings of\nthe human heart. Yet this language, this judicial\nway of treating the subject, he retains from first\nto last, as though it were essential and proper\nto the matter. And so we find brought upon the\nstage of our inner self a complete Court of justice,\nwith indictment, judge, plaintiff, defendant, and\nsentence\u00a0; nothing is wanting. Now if this tribunal,\nas portrayed by Kant, really existed in our breasts,\nit would be astonishing if a single person could be\nfound to be, I do not say, so bad, but so stupid, as to\nact against his conscience. For such a supernatural\nassize, of an entirely special kind, set up in our\nconsciousness, such a secret court like another\nFehmgericht 1 held in the dark recesses of our\n\n1 The celebrated Secret Tribunal of Westphalia, which came\ninto prominence about A.D. 1220. In A.D. 1335 the Arch-\nbishop of Cologne was appointed head of all the Fehme\n\nKANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 109\n\ninmost being, would inspire everybody with- a terror\nand fear of the gods strong enough to really keep\nhim from grasping at short transient advantages, in\nface of the dreadful threats of superhuman powers,\nspeaking in tones so near and so clear. In real\nlife, on the contrary, we find that the efficiency of\nconscience is generally considered such a vanishing\nquantity that all peoples have bethought themselves\nof helping it out by means of positive religion, or\neven of entirely replacing it by the latter. Moreover,\nif Conscience were indeed of this peculiar nature,\nthe Royal Society could never have thought of the\nquestion put for the present Prize Essay.\n\nBut if we look more closely at Kant's exposition,\nwe shall find that its imposing effect is mainly pro-\nduced by the fact that he attributes to the moral\nverdict passed on ourselves, as its peculiar and\nessential characteristic, a form which in fact is not so\nat all. This metaphorical bar of judgment is no more\napplicable to moral self-examination than it is to\nevery other reflection as regards what we have done,\nand might have done otherwise, where no ethical\nquestion is involved. For it is not only true that\nthe same procedure of indictment, defence, and\nsentence is occasionally assumed by that obviously\nspurious and artificial conscience which is based on\nmere superstition\u00a0; as, for instance, when a Hindu\nreproaches himself with having been the murderer of\n\nbenches in Westphalia by the Emperor Charles IV. The\nreader will remember the description of the trial scene in\nScott's Anne of Geierstein. Perhaps the Court of Star Chamber\ncomes nearest to it in English History. {Translator.)\n\n110 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\na cow, or when a Jew remembers that he has smoked\nhis pipe at home on the Sabbath\u00a0; bnt even the self-\nquestioning which springs from no ethical source,\nbeing indeed rather unmoral than moral, often\nappears in a shape of this sort, as the following case\nmay exemplify. Suppose I, good-naturedly, but\nthoughtlessly, have made myself surety for a friend,\nand suppose there comes with evening the clear\nperception of the heavy responsibility I have taken on\nmyself a responsibility that may easily involve me\nin serious trouble, as the wise old saying, e^va' Trdpa\n8' ara\u00a0! l predicts\u00a0; then at once there rise up within\nme the Accuser and the Counsel for the defence, ready\nto confront each other. The latter endeavours to\npalliate my rashness in giving bail so hastily, by\npointing out the stress of circumstance or of obliga-\ntion, or, it may be, the simple straightforwardness\nof the transaction\u00a0; perhaps he even seeks excuse by\ncommending my kind heart. Last of all comes the\nJudge who inexorably passes the sentence\u00a0: \" A fool's\npiece of work\u00a0! \" and I am overwhelmed withconfusion\nSo much for this judicial form of which Kant is so\nfond\u00a0; his other modes of expression are, for the most\npart, open to the same criticism. For instance, that\nwhich he attributes to conscience, at the beginning of\nthe paragraph, as its peculiar property, applies equally\nto all other scruples of an entirely different sort. He\nsays\u00a0: \" It (conscience) follows him like his shadow,\ntry though he may to escape. By pleasures and\n\n1 If you give a pledge, be sure that Ate (the goddess of\nmischief) is beside you\u00a0; i.e., beware of giving pledges. Thales\nap. Plat, Charm. 165 A.\n\nKANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. Ill\n\ndistractions lie may be stupefied and lulled to sleep,\nbut he cannot avoid occasionally waking up and\ncoming to himself\u00a0; and then he is immediately\naware of the terrible voice,\" etc. Obviously, this may\nbe just as well understood, word for word, of the\nsecret consciousness of some person of private means,\nwho feels that his expenses far exceed his income,\nand that thus his capital is being affected, and will\ngradually melt away.\n\nWe have seen that Kant represents the use of\nlegal terms as essential to the subject, and that he\nkeeps to them from beginning to end\u00a0; let it now\nbe noted how he employs the same style for the\nfollowing finely devised sophism. He says\u00a0: \" That\na person accused by his conscience should be identi-\nfied with the judge is an absurd way of portraying\na court of justice\u00a0; for in that case the accuser\nwould invariably lose.\" And he adds, by way of\nelucidating this statement, a very ambiguous and\nobscure note. His conclusion is that, if we would\navoid falling into a contradiction, we must think\nof the judge (in the judicial conscience-drama that\nis enacted in our breasts) as different from us, in\nfact, as another person\u00a0; nay more, as one that is\nan omniscient knower of hearts, whose hests are\nobligatory on all, and who is almighty for every\npurpose of executive authority. 1 He thus passes by a\n\n1 Kant leads up to this position with great ingenuity, by\nhaving recourse to the theory of the two characters coexistent\nin man the noumenal (or intelligible) and the empirical\u00a0;\nthe one being in time, the other, timeless\u00a0; the one, fast bound\nby the law of causality, the other free. (Translator.)\n\n112 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nperfectly smooth path from conscience to superstition,\nmaking the latter a necessary consequence of the\nformer\u00a0; while he is secretly sure that he will be\nall the more willingly followed because the reader's\nearliest training will have certainly rendered him\nfamiliar with such ideas, if not have made them his\nsecond nature. Here, then, Kant finds an easy task,\na thing he ought rather to have despised; for\nhe should have concerned himself not only with\npreaching, but also with practising truthfulness. I\nentirely reject the above quoted sentence, and all the\nconclusions consequent thereon, and I declare it to\nbe nothing but a shuffling trick. It is not true that\nthe accuser must always lose, when the accused is\nthe same person as the judge\u00a0; at least not in the\ncourt of judgment in our hearts. In the instance I\ngave of one man going surety for another, did the\naccuser lose\u00a0? Or must we in this case also, if we\nwish to avoid a contradiction, really assume a per-\nsonification after Kant's fashion, and be driven to\nview objectively as another person that voice whose\ndeliverance would have been those terrible words\u00a0:\n\" A fool's piece of work\u00a0! \"\u00a0? A sort of Mercury,\nforsooth, in living flesh\u00a0? Or perhaps a prosopopoeia\nof the MfjTis (cunning) recommended by Homer (11.\nxxiii. 313 sqq.)? 1 But thus we should only be\nlanded, as before, on the broad path of superstition,\naye, and pagan superstition too.\n\nIt is in this passage that Kant indicates his Moral\nTheology, briefly indeed, yet not without all its vital\npoints. The fact that he takes care not to attribute\n\naye 8f) (TV, <p[\\os, IMTJTI.V e'/i/3a\\Aeo\n\nKANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 113\n\nto it any objective validity, but rather to present it\nmerely as a form subjectively unavoidable, does not\nfree him from the arbitrariness with which he con-\nstructs it, even though he only claims its necessity\nfor human consciousness. His fabric rests, as we\nhave seen, on a tissue of baseless assumptions.\n\nSo much, then, is certain. The entire imagery\nthat of a judicial drama whereby Kant depicts con-\nscience is wholly unessential and in no way peculiar\nto it\u00a0; although he keeps this figure, as if it were\nproper to the subject, right through to the end, in\norder finally to deduce certain conclusions from it.\nAs a matter of fact it is a sufficiently common form,\nwhich our thoughts easily take when we consider any\ncircumstance of real life. It is due for the most part\nto the conflict of opposing motives which usually\nspring up, and which are successively weighed and\ntested by our reflecting reason. And no difference is\nmade whether these motives are moral or egoistic in\ntheir nature, nor whether our deliberations are con-\ncerned with some action in the past, or in the future.\nNow if we strip from Kant's exposition its dress of\nlegal metaphor, which is only an optional dramatic\nappendage, the surrounding nimbus with all its\nimposing effect immediately disappears as well, and\nthere remains nothing but the fact that sometimes,\nwhen we think over our actions, we are seized\nwith a certain self-dissatisfaction, which is marked\nby a special characteristic. It is with our conduct\nper se that we are discontented, not with its result,\nand this feeling does not, as in every other case in\nwhich we regret the stupidity of our behaviour, rest\n\n8\n\n114 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\non egoistic grounds. For on these occasions the cause\nof our dissatisfaction is precisely because we have\nbeen too egoistic, because we have taken too much\nthought for ourselves, and not enough for our\nneighbour\u00a0; or perhaps even because, without any\nresulting advantage, we have made the misery of\nothers an object in itself. That we may be dissatisfied\nwith ourselves, and saddened by reason of sufferings\nwhich we have inflicted, not undergone, is a plain\nfact and impossible to be denied. The connection of\nthis with the only ethical basis that can stand an\nadequate test we shall examine further on. But\nKant, like a clever special pleader, tried by magnifying\nand embellishing the original datum to make all that\nhe possibly could of it, in order to prepare a very\nbroad foundation for his Ethics and Moral Theology.\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nKANT'S DOCTKINE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE l\n\nAND EMPIRICAL CHAEACTER. THEORY OF FREEDOM.\n\nTHE attack I have made, in the cause of truth, on\nKant's system of Morals, does not, like those of my\npredecessors, touch the surface only, but penetrates to\nits deepest roots. It seems, therefore, only just that,\nbefore I leave this part of my subject, I should bring\nto remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service\nwhich he nevertheless rendered to ethical science.\nI allude to his doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom\nand Necessity. We find it first in the Kritik der\nReinen Vernunft (pp. 533-554 of the first, and pp. 561-\n582 of the fifth, edition)\u00a0; but it is still more clearly\nexpounded in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft\n(fourth edition, pp. 169-179\u00a0; R., pp. 224-231).\n\nThe strict and absolute necessity of the acts of\nWill, determined by motives as they arise, was first\nshown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and\nalso by Dietrich von Holbach in his Systeme de la\nNature\u00a0; and lastly by Priestley it was most com-\npletely and precisely demonstrated. This point,\nindeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond\n\n1 V. Note onf \" intelligible \" in Chapter I. of this Part.\n(Translator.)\n\n115\n\n116 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nall doubt, that it must be reckoned among the\nnumber of perfectly established truths, and only\ncrass ignorance conld continue to speak of a freedom,\nof a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (a free and\nindifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor\ndid Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his\npredecessors, hesitate to consider' the Will as fast\nbound in the chains of Necessity, the matter admitting,\nas he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This\nis proved by all the passages in which he speaks of\nfreedom only from the theoretical standpoint. Never-\ntheless, it is true that onr actions are attended with\na consciousness of independence and original initi-\native, which makes us recognise them as our own\nwork, and every one with ineradicable certainty\nfeels that he is the real author of his conduct, and\nmorally responsible for it. But since responsibility\nimplies the possibility of having acted otherwise,\nwhich possibility means freedom in some sort or\nmanner\u00a0; therefore in the consciousness of responsi-\nbility is indirectly involved also the consciousness\nof freedom. The key to resolve the contradiction,\nthat thus arises out of the nature of the case, was\nat last found by Kant through the distinction he\ndrew with profound acumen, between phaenomena\nand the Thing in itself (das Ding an sicfi). This\ndistinction is the very core of his whole philosophy,\nand its greatest merit.\n\nThe individual, with his immutable, innate character,\nstrictly determined in all his modes of expression\nby the law of Causality, which, as acting through\nthe medium of the intellect, is here called by the\n\nTHE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 117\n\nname of Motivation, the individual so constituted\nis only the phaenomenon (Erscheinung). The Thing\nin itself which underlies this phaenomenon is outside\nof Time and Space, consequently free from all\nsuccession and plurality, one, and changeless. Its\nconstitution in itself is the intelligible character,\nwhich is equally present in all the acts of the\nindividual, and stamped on every one of them,\nlike the impress of a signet on a thousand seals.\nThe empirical character of the phaenomenon the\ncharacter which manifests itself in time, and in\nsuccession of acts is thus determined by the in-\ntelligible character\u00a0; and consequently, the individual,\nas phaenomenon, in all his modes of expression,\nwhich are called forth by motives, must show the\ninvariableness of a natural law. Whence it results\nthat all his actions are governed by strict necessity.\nNow it used to be commonly maintained that the\ncharacter of a man may be transformed by moral\nadmonitions and remonstrances appealing to reason\u00a0;\nbut when the distinction between the intelligible\nand empirical character had once been drawn, it\nfollowed that the unchangeableness, the inflexible\nrigidity of the empirical character, which thinking\npeople had always observed, was explained and\ntraced to a rational basis, and consequently accepted\nas an established fact by Philosophy. Thus the\nlatter was so far harmonised with experience, and\nceased to stand abashed before popular wisdom,\nwhich long before had spoken the words of truth\nin the Spanish proverb\u00a0: Lo que entra con el\ncapillo, sale con la mortaja (that which comes in\n\n118 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nwith the child's cap, goes ont with the winding-\nsheet)\u00a0; or\u00a0: Lo que en la leche se mama, en la\nmortaja, se derrama (what is imbibed with the milk,\nis ponred ont again in the winding-sheet).\n\nThis doctrine of the coexistence of Freedom and\nNecessity I regard as the greatest of all the achieve-\nments of hnman sagacity. With the Transcendental\nAesthetics it forms the two great diamonds in the\ncrown of Kant's fame, which will never pass away.\nIn his Treatise on Freedom, Schelling obviously\nserved up the Kantain teaching in a paraphrase,\nwhich by reason of its lively colouring and graphic\ndelineation, is for many people more comprehensible.\nThe work would deserve praise if its author had\nhad the honesty to say that he is drawing on Kant's\nwisdom, not on his own. As it is, a certain part\nof the philosophic public still credits him with the\nentire performance.\n\nThe theory itself, and the whole question re-\ngarding the nature of Freedom, can be better\nunderstood if we view them in connection with a\ngeneral truth, which I think, is most concisely\nexpressed by a formula frequently occurring in the\nscholastic writings\u00a0: Operari sequitur esse. 1 In other\nwords, everything in the world operates in accordance\nwith what it is, in accordance with its inherent\nnature, in which, consequently, all its modes of\nexpression are already contained potentially, while\nactually they are manifested when elicited by external\ncauses\u00a0; so that external causes are the means\nwhereby the essential constitution of the thing is\n1 I.e., what is done is a consequence of that which is.\n\nTHE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 119\n\nrevealed. And the modes of expression so resulting\nform the empirical character\u00a0; whereas its hidden,\nultimate basis, which is inaccessible to experience,\nis the intelligible character, that is, the real nature\nper se of the particular thing in question. Man\nforms no exception to the rest of nature\u00a0; he too\nhas a changeless character, which, however, is strictly\nindividual and different in each case. This character\nis of course empirical as far as we can grasp it, and\ntherefore only phaenomenal\u00a0; while the intelligible\ncharacter is whatever may be the real nature in\nitself of the person. His actions one and all, being,\nas regards their external constitution, determined\nby motives, can never be shaped otherwise than in\naccordance with the unchangeable individual char-\nacter. As a man is, so he his bound to act. Hence\nfor a given person in every single case, there is\nabsolutely only one way of acting possible\u00a0: Operari\nsequitur esse. 1 Freedom belongs only to the in-\ntelligible character, not to the empirical. The operari\n(conduct) of a given individual is necessarily\ndetermined externally by motives, internally by his\ncharacter\u00a0; therefore everything that he does neces-\nsarily takes place. But in his esse (i.e., in what\nhe is), there, we find Freedom. He might have\nbeen something different\u00a0; and guilt or merit attaches\nto that which he is. All that he does follows\nfrom what he is, as a mere corollary. Through\nKant's doctrine we are freed from the primary error\nof connecting Necessity with esse (what one is),\nand Freedom with operari (what one does)\u00a0; we\n1 I.e., his acts are a consequence of what he is.\n\n120 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nbecome aware that this is a misplacement of terms,\nand that exactly the inverse arrangement is the\ntrue one. Hence it is clear that the moral responsi-\nbility of a man, while it first of all, and obviously,\nof course, touches what he does, yet at bottom\ntouches what he is\u00a0; because, what he is being the\noriginal datum, his conduct, as motives arise, could\nnever take any other course than that which it\nactually does take. But, however strict be the\nnecessity, whereby, in the individual, acts are elicited\nby motives, it yet never occurs to anybody not\neven to him who is convinced of this necessity\nto exonerate himself on that account, and cast\nthe blame on the motives\u00a0; for he knows well\nenough that, objectively considered, any given cir-\ncumstance, and its causes, perfectly admitted quite\na different, indeed, a directly opposite course of\naction\u00a0; nay, that such a course would actually have\ntaken place, if only he had been a different person.\nThat he is precisely such a one as his conduct\nproclaims him to be, and no other this it is for\nwhich he feels himself responsible\u00a0; in his esse (what\nhe is) lies the vulnerable place, where the sting of\nconscience penetrates. For Conscience is nothing but\nacquaintance with one's own self an acquaintance\nthat arises out of one's actual mode of conduct, and\nwhich becomes ever more intimate. So that it is the\nesse (what one is) which in reality is accused by\nconscience, while the operari (what one does) sup-\nplies the incriminating evidence. Since we are only\nconscious of Freedom through the sense of responsi-\nbility\u00a0; therefore where the latter lies the former must\n\nTHEORY OF FREEDOM. 121\n\nalso be\u00a0; in the esse (in one's being). It is the\noperari (what one does) that is subject to necessity.\nBat we can only get to know ourselves, as well as\nothers empirically\u00a0; we have no a priori knowledge\nof our character. Certainly our natural tendency\nis to cherish a very high opinion of it, because the\nmaxim\u00a0: Quisque praesumitur bonus, donee probetur\neontrarium (every one is presumed to be good, until\nthe contrary is proved), is perhaps even more true of\nthe inner court of justice than of the world's tribunals.\n\nNOTE.\n\nHe who is capable of recognising the essential\npart of a thought, though clothed in a dress very\ndifferent from what he is familiar with, will see,\nas I do, that this Kantian doctrine of the intelligible\nand empirical character is a piece of insight already\npossessed by Plato. The difference is, that with Kant\nit is sublimated to an abstract clearness\u00a0; with Plato\nit is treated mythically, and connected with metem-\npsychosis, because, as he did not perceive the ideality\nof Time, he could only represent it under a temporal\nform. The identity of the one doctrine with the other\nbecomes exceedingly plain, if we read the explana-\ntion and illustration of the Platonic myth, which\nPorphyrius has given with such clear exactitude,\nthat its agreement with the abstract language of Kant\ncomes out unmistakably. In the second book of his\nEclogues, chap. 8, 37-40, 1 Stobaetis has preserved\n\n1 V. Joannes Stobaeus. Eclogae Physicae et Ethicae, edit.\nCurtius Wachsmuth et Otto Hense\u00a0; Weidmann, Berlin, 1884.\nVol. II., pp. 163-168. (Translator,)\n\n122 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nfor us in extenso that part of one of Porphyrius' lost\nwritings which specially comments on the myth in\nquestion, as Plato gives it in the second half of\nthe tenth book of the Republic. 1 The whole section\nis eminently worth reading. As a specimen I shall\nquote the short 39, in the hope of inducing any\none who cares for these things to study Stobaeus\nfor himself. It will then immediately become ap-\nparent that this Platonic myth is nothing less than\nan allegory of the profound truth which Kant stated\nin its abstract purity, as the doctrine of the intelligible\nand empirical character, and consequently that the\nlatter had been reached, in its essentials, by Plato\nthousands of years ago. Indeed, this view seems to\ngo back much further still, for Porphyrius is of opinion\nthat Plato took it from the Egyptians. Certainly\nwe already find the same theory in the Brahmanical\ndoctrine of metempsychosis, and it is from this Indian\nsource that the Egyptian priests, in all probability,\nderived their wisdom. 39 is as follows\u00a0:\n\nTo yap o\\ov (3ov\\rj/j,a TOLOVT\" eoitcev elvai TO TOV\nUXarawo?' eyeiv /.lev TO avTe^ovcriov ra? -^i^a?, TTplv\ne/9 (roi)fj,aTa /cat /3/of9 Siatyepovs epirecrelv, et? TO i) TOVTOV\nTOV fSiov eXecr&u, rj a\\\\ov, ov, pera Troias &>?}<> Kal\ncr&)yu,aTO9 ol/ceiov Ty fay, KTe\\(Ti,v /tieAAef (Kal yap\n\\eovTO<; (3iov eV avrf) elvat eXeadat,, Kal avSpos*).\nKaKelvo [levTOi TO avre^ovcnov, a^a Trj Trpo? TWO, T&V\nTOIOVTWV ftlwv TTTWcrei, e/iTreTToSicrrat. Kare\\0ovcrai\nyap ei? Ta crajyu/ara, Kal avrl -^rv^cov a7roWTb)v yeyovvlai,\nTO avTe^ovaiov (frepovcriv oiKelov TTJ TOV\n\n1 V. Plat., Rep., edit. Stallbaum, 614 sqq. It is the dtro\n'Hpos TOV 'Apuevlov. (Translator.)\n\nTHEORY OF FREEDOM. 123\n\nrcaracTKevf}, teal e<' &>v y^ky elvai 7rowvovv Kal\nto? CTT' dvOpcaTrov, e<' a>v Se o\\isyoKivr)Tov\n, &>9 eVl rwv a\\\\u>v cr%e8by TTCLVTWV icwwi/.\n'Hprrjcrdai Se TO avre^ovcriov TOVTO airb Tr}?\nKivovpevov (j,ev e avrov, (frepo/nevov Be Kara\n\n1 To sum up. What Plato meant seems to be this. Souls\n(he said) have free power, before passing into bodies and different\nmodes of being, to choose this or that form of life, which they\nwill pass through in a certain kind of existence, and in a body\nadapted thereto. (For a soul may choose a lion's, equally\nwith a man's, mode of being.) But this free power of choice\nis removed simultaneously with entrance into one or other of\nsuch forms of life. For when once they have descended into\nbodies, and instead of unfettered souls have become the souls\nof living things, then they take that measure of free power\nwhich belongs in each case to the organism of the living thing.\nIn some forms this power is very intelligent and full of\nmovement, as in man\u00a0; in some it has but little energy, and is\nof a simple nature, as in almost all other creatures. More-\nover, this free power depends on the organism in such a\nway that while its capability of action is caused by itself\nalone, its impulses are determined by the desires which have\ntheir origin in the organism. (Translator.)\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nFICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS FOE THE\nERRORS OF THE KANTIAN.\n\nJUST as in Anatomy and Zoology, many things are\nnot so obvious to the pupil in preparations and\nnatural products as in engravings where there is\nsome exaggeration\u00a0; so if there is any one who, after\nthe above criticism, is still not entirely satisfied as\nto the worthlessness of the Kantian foundation of\nEthics, I would recommend him Fichte's System der\nSittenlehre, as a sure means of freeing him from\nall doubt.\n\nJn the old German Marionnettes a fool always\naccompanied the emperor, or hero, so that he might\nafterwards give in his own way a highly coloured\nversion of what had been said or done In like\nmanner behind the great Kant there stands the\nauthor of the Wissenschaftslehre, l a true Wissen-\nsckaftsleere. 2 In order to secure his own, and his\nfamily's welfare, Fichte formed the idea of creating\na sensation by means of subtle mystification. It\nwas a very suitable and reasonable plan, considering\n\n1 I.e. Scientific Doctrine.\n\n2 I.e. Scientific Blank. Perhaps we might translate\u00a0:\n\"Scientific Instruction\" and \"Scientific Misinstr action. \"\n(Translator.)\n\n124\n\nFICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS 125\n\nthe nature of the German philosophic public, and\nhe executed it admirably by outdoing Kant in every\nparticular. He appeared as the latter's living\nsuperlative, and produced a perfect caricature of\nhis philosophy by magnifying all its salient points.\nNor did the Ethics escape similar treatment. In\nhis System der Sittenlehre, we find the Categorical\nImperative grown into a Despotic Imperative\u00a0; while\nthe absolute \" Ought,\" the law-giving Reason, and\nthe Hest of Duty have developed into a moral Fate,\nan unfathomable Necessitj 7 \", requiring mankind to\nact strictly in accordance with certain maxims.\nTo judge (pp. 308, 309) from the pompous show\nmade, a great deal must depend on these formulae,\nalthough one never quite discovers what. So much\nonly seems clear. As in bees there is implanted\nan instinct to build cells and a hive for life in\ncommon, so men (it is alleged) are endowed with\nan impulse leading them to play in common a\ngreat, strictly moral, world-embracing Comedy, their\npart being merely to figure as puppets nothing\nelse. But there is this important difference between\nthe bees and men. The hive is really brought to\ncompletion\u00a0; while instead of a moral World-Comedy,\nas a matter of fact, an exceedingly immoral one is\nenacted. Here, then, we see the imperative form\nof the Kantian Ethics, the moral Law, and the\nabsolute \" Ought \" pushed farther and further till\na system of ethical Fatalism is evolved, which, as\nit is worked out, lapses at times into the comic. 1\n\n1 As evidence of the truth of my words, space prevents me\nfrom quoting more than a few passages. P. 196\u00a0: \" The moral\n\n126 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nIf in Kant's doctrine we trace a certain moral\npedantry\u00a0; with Fichte this pedantry reaches the\nabsurd, and furnishes abundant material for satire.\nLet the reader notice, for example (pp. 407-409),\nhow he decides the well-known instance of casuistry,\nwhere of two human lives one must be lost. We find\nindeed all the errors of Kant raised to the superlative.\nThus, on p. 199, we read\u00a0: \" To act in accordance with\n\ninstinct is absolute, and its requirements are peremptory,\nwithout any object outside itself.\" P. 232\u00a0: \" In consequence\nof the Moral Law, the empirical Being in Time must be an\nexact copy of the original Ego.\" P. 308: \"The whole man\nis a vehicle of the Moral Law.\" P. 342\u00a0: \" I am only an\ninstrument, a mere tool of the Moral Law, not in any sense\nan end.\" P. 343: \"The end laid before every one is to be\nthe means of realising Reason\u00a0: this is the ultimate purpose\nof his existence\u00a0; for this alone he has his being, and if this\nend should not be attained, there is not the least occasion\nfor him to live.\" P. 347\u00a0: \"I am an instrument of the Moral\nLaw in the phaenomenal world.\" P. 360\u00a0: \" It is an ordinance\nof the Moral Law to nourish one's body, and study one's\nhealth\u00a0; this of course should be done in no way, and for no\nother purpose, except to provide an efficient instrument for\nfurthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation,\"\n(cf. p. 371.) P. 376\u00a0: \" Every human body is an instrument\nfor furthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation\u00a0;\ntherefore the greatest possible fitness of each instrument must\nconstitute for me an end\u00a0: consequently I must take thought\nfor every one.\" This is Fichte's derivation of loving-kindness\u00a0!\nP. 377\u00a0: \" I can and dare take thought for myself, solely\nbecause, and is so far as I am, an instrument of the Moral\nLaw.\" P. 388\u00a0: \" To defend a hunted man atithe risk of one's\nown life, is an absolute duty\u00a0; whenever the life of another\nhuman being is in danger, you have no right to think of the\nsafety ot your own.\" P. 420\u00a0: \" In the province of the Moral\nLaw there is no way whatever of regarding my fellow-man\nexcept as an instrument of Reason.\"\n\nFICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS 127\n\nthe dictates of sympathy, of compassion, and of\nloving-kindness is distinctly unmoral\u00a0; indeed this\nline of conduct, as such, is contrary to morality.\"\nAgain, on p. 402\u00a0: \" The impulse that makes us ready\nto serve others must never be an inconsiderate good-\nnature, but a clearly thought-out purpose; that, namely,\nof furthering as much as possible the causality of\nReason.\" However, between these sallies of ridiculous\npedantry, Fichte's real philosophic crudeness peeps\nout clearly enough, as we might only expect in the\ncase of a man whose teaching left no time for learn-\ning. He seriously puts forward the liber um arbitrium\nindifferentiae (a free and indifferent choice), giving\nas its foundation the most trivial and frivolous\nreasons. (Pp. 160, 173, 205, 208, 237, 259, 261.)\nThere can be no doubt that a motive, although\nworking through the medium of the intelligence,\nis, nevertheless, a cause, and consequently involves\nthe same necessity of effect as all other causes;\nthe corollary being that all human action is a strictly\nnecessary result. Whoever remains unconvinced of\nthis, is still, philosophically speaking, barbarous, and\nignorant of the rudiments of exact knowledge. The\nperception of the strict necessity governing man's\nconduct forms the line of demarcation which separates\nphilosophic heads from all others\u00a0; arrived at this\nlimit Fichte clearly showed that he belonged to the\nothers. Moreover, following the footsteps of Kant\n(p. 303), he proceeds to make various statements\nwhich are in direct contradiction to the above\nmentioned passages\u00a0; but this inconsistency, like\nmany more in his writings, only proves that he,\n\n128 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nbeing one who was never serious in the search for\ntruth, possessed no strong convictions to build on\u00a0;\nas indeed for his purpose they were not in the least\nnecessary. Nothing is more laughable than the fact\nthat this man has received so much posthumous\npraise for strictly consequential reasoning\u00a0; his\npedantic style full of loud declamation about trifling\nmatters being actually mistaken for such.\n\nThe most complete development of Fichte's system\nof moral Fatalism is found in his last work\u00a0: Die\nWissenschaftslehre in ihrem Allgemeinen Umrisse\nDargestellt, Berlin, 1810. It has the advantage of\nbeing only forty-six pages (duodecimo) long, while it\ncontains his whole philosophy in a nutshell. It is\ntherefore to be recommended to all those who consider\ntheir time too precious to be wasted on his larger\nproductions, which are framed with a length and\ntediousness worthy of Christian Wolff, and with the\nintention, in reality, of deluding, not of instructing\nthe reader. In this little treatise we read on p. 32\u00a0:\n\" The intuitive perception of a phaenornenal world\nonly came about, to the end that in such a world the\nEgo as the absolute Ought might be visible to itself.\"\nOn p. 33 we actually find: \"The ought,\" (i.e., the\nmoral necessity,) \"of the Ought's visibility\u00a0;\" and on\np. 36\u00a0: \" An ought,\" (i.e., a moral necessity,) \" of the\nperception that I ought.\" This, then, is what we have\ncome to so soon after Kant\u00a0! His imperative Form,\nwith its unproved Ought, which it secured as a most\nconvenient TTOV crrw (standpoint), is indeed an exemplar\nvitiis imitabile\u00a0!\n\nFor the rest, all that I have said does not\n\nFICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS. 129\n\noverthrow the service Fichte rendered. Kant's\nphilosophy, this late masterpiece of human sagacity,\nin the very land where it arose, he obscured, nay,\nsupplanted by empty, bombastic superlatives, by\nextravagances, and by the nonsense which is found,\nin his Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre,\nappearing under the disguise of profound penetration.\nHis merit was thus to show the world unmistakably\nwhat the capacity of the German philosophical\npublic is\u00a0; for he made it play the part of a child\nwho is coaxed into giving up a precious gem in\nexchange for a Niirnberg toy. The fame he obtained\nin this fashion still lives on credit\u00a0; and still Fichte\nis always mentioned in the same breath with Kant\nas being another such ('HpaK\\r)s ical TriOrjKos\u00a0! 1 ).\nIndeed his name is often placed above the latter's. *\nIt was, of course, Fichte's example that encouraged\nhis successors in the art of enveloping the German\npeople in philosophic fog. These were animated by\nthe same spirit, and crowned with the same prosperity. .\nEvery one knows their names\u00a0; nor is this the place\nto consider them at length. Needless to say, their\ndifferent opinions, down to the minutest details, are\n\n1 I.e-y Hercules and an ape. A Greek proverb denoting\nthe juxtaposition of the sublime and the ridiculous. V. Greg.\nCypr. M. 3, 66\u00a0; Macar. 4, 53\u00a0; Luc. pise. 37\u00a0; and Schol.\nBachm. An. 2, 332. (Translator.)\n\n2 My proof for this is a passage from the latest philosophical\nliterature. Herr Feuerbach, an Hegelian (c'est tout dire\u00a0! )\nin his book, Pierre Bayle\u00a0: Ein Bdtrag zur Geschichte der\nPhilosophic, 1838, p. 80, writes as follows\u00a0: \" But still more\nsublime than Kant's are Fichte's ideas as expressed in his\nDoctrine of Morals and elsewhere. Christianity has nothing\nin sublimity that could bear comparison with them.\"\n\n9\n\n130 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.\n\nstill set forth, and seriously discussed, by the Pro-\nfessors of Philosophy\u00a0; as if one had really to do\nwith philosophers\u00a0! We must, then, thank Fichte\nfor lucid documents now existing, which will have\nto be revised one day before the Tribunal of posterity,\nthat Court of Appeal from the verdicts of the present,\nwhich like the Last Judgment looked forward to\nby the Saints at almost all periods, has been left\nto give to true merit its just award.\n\nFootnotes","title":"On the Basis of Morality/Part II","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":29495}