part II.
CRITIQUE OP KANT'S BASIS OE
ETHICS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
IT is Kant's great service to moral science that he
purified it of all Eudaemonism. With the ancients,
Ethics was a doctrine of Eudaemonism ; with the
moderns for the most part it has been a doctrine of
salvation. The former wished to prove that virtue
and happiness are identical ; but this was like having
two figures which never coincide with each other, no
matter how they may be placed. The latter have
endeavoured to connect the two, not by the principle
of identity, but by that of causation, thus making
happiness the result of virtue ; but to do this, they
were obliged to have recourse to sophisms, or else to
assume the existence of a world beyond any possible
perception of the senses.
Among the ancients Plato alone forms an ex-
ception : his system is not eudaemonistic ; it is
mystic, instead. Even the Ethics of the Cynics and
Stoics is nothing but a special form of Eudaemonism,
to prove which, there is no lack of evidence and
testimony, but the nature of my present task forbids
the space.
The ancients, then, equally with the moderns, Plato
being the single exception, agree in making virtue
only a means to an end. Indeed, strictly speaking,
even Kant banished Eudaemonism from Ethics more
in appearance than in reality, for between virtue and
happiness he still leaves a certain mysterious con-
nection ; there is an obscure and difficult passage in
his doctrine of the Highest Good, where they occur
together ; while it is a patent fact that the course of
virtue runs entirely counter to that of happiness.
But, passing over this, we may say that with Kant
the ethical principle appears as something quite in-
dependent of experience and its teaching ; it is trans-
cendental, or metaphysical. He recognises that human
conduct possesses a significance that oversteps all
possibility of experience, and is therefore actually the
bridge leading to that which he calls the "intel-
ligible " l world, the mundus noumenon, the world of
Things in themselves.
The fame, which the Kantian Ethics has won, is
due not only to this higher level, which it reached,
Vorstellung, that is, The World as Will and Idea ; " Idea "
being used much as eiSwXoi/ sometimes is (cf. Xen. Sym. t
4, 21), in the sense of " an image in the mind," " a mental
picture." {Translator.)']
1 It seems better to keep this technical word than to
attempt a cumbrous periphrasis. The meaning is perfectly
clear. The sensibilia (phaenomena) are opposed to the in-
telligibilia (noumena), which compose the transcendental
world. So the individual, in so far as he is a phaenomenon,
has an empirical character ; in so far as he is a noumenon,
his character is intelligible (intelligibilis). The mundus in-
telligibilis, or mundus noumendn is the KOO-^IOV voyrbs of
New Platonism. (Translator.)
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 25
but also to the moral purity and loftiness of its
conclusions. It is by the latter that most people
have been attracted, without paying much attention
to the foundation, which is propounded in a very
complex, abstract and artificial form ; and Kant him-
self required all his powers of acumen and synthesis
to give it an appearance of solidity. Fortunately, he
separated his Ethics from the exposition of its basis,
devoting to the latter a special work entitled the
Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, the theme of
which will be found to be precisely the same as that
of our prize essay. For on page xiii of the preface
he says : " The present treatise is nothing else but
an attempt to find out and establish the supreme
principle of morality. This is an investigation, whose
scope is complete in itself, and which should be
kept apart from all other moral researches." It
is in this book that we find the basis, that is to say,
the essentials of his Ethics set forth with an acute
penetration and systematic conciseness, as in no other
of his writings. It has, moreover, the great advantage
of being the first of Kant's moral works, appearing, 1
as it did, only four years later than the Kritik der
Reinen Vernunft, and consequently it dates from the
period when, although he was sixty-one, the detri-
mental effect of old age on his intellect was not yet
perceptible. On the other hand, this is distinctly trace-
able in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft, which
was published in 1788, or one year later than the
unhappy remodelling of the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft
1 It was published in 1785 : The Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,
first edition, in 1781. (Translator.}
26 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
in the second edition, whereby the latter, his immortal
master-piece, was obviously marred. An analysis of
this question is to be found in the preface to the
new edition by Rosenkranz, 1 from which my own
investigation makes it impossible for me to dissent.
The Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft contains in its
essentials the same material as the above-mentioned
Grundlegung ; only the latter has a more concise and
rigorous form, while in the former the subject is handled
with greater prolixity, interspersed with digressions,
and even padded with some pieces of moral rhetoric,
to heighten the impression. When Kant wrote it, he
had at last, and late in life, become deservedly famous ;
hence, being certain of boundless attention, he allowed
greater play to the garrulity of old age.
But the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft contains
two sections which are peculiar to itself. First : the ex-
position of the relation between Freedom and Necessity
(pp. 169-179 of the fourth edition, and pp. 223-231
in Rosenkranz). This passage is above all praise, and
undoubtedly was framed earlier in his life, as it is
entirely in harmony with his treatment of the same
subject in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (pp. 560-
586 ; Rosenkranz, p. 438, sqq.). And secondly : the
Moraltheologie, which will more and more come to be
recognised as the real object Kant had in view. In
his Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Tugendlehre
this pendant to the deplorable Rechtslehre, written in
1797, the debility of old age is at length fully pre-
ponderant. For all these reasons the present criticism
1 His analysis is really derived from myself, but in this
place I am speaking incognito.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 27
will mainly deal with the treatise first mentioned, viz.,
the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, and the
reader will please understand that all the page
numbers given by themselves refer to it. Both the
other works will only be considered as accessory and
secondary. For a proper comprehension of the present
criticism, which, in probing the Kantian Ethics to
its depths, bears directly and principally on this
Grundlegung, it is very desirable that the latter be
carefully read through again, so that the mind may
have a perfectly clear and fresh presentment of what
it contains. It is but a matter of 128 and xiv pages
(in Rosenkranz only 100 pages altogether). I shall
quote from the third edition of 1792, adding the
page number of the new complete publication by
Rosenkranz, with an R. prefixed.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE IMPEKATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
KANT'S Trpwrov ^evSo^ (first false step) lies in Ms
conception of Ethics itself, and this is found very
clearly expressed on page 62 (R., p. 54) : " In a
system of practical philosophy we are not concerned
with adducing reasons for that which takes place,
but with formulating laws regarding that which
ought to take place, even if it never does take
place." This is at once a distinct petitio principii.
Who tells you that there are laws to which our
conduct ought to be subject ? Who tells you that
that ought to take place, which in fact never does
take place ? What justification have you for making
this assumption at the outset, and consequently
for forcing upon us, as the only possible one, a
system of Ethics couched in the imperative terms of
legislation ? I say, in contradistinction to Kant, that
the student of Ethics, and no less the philosopher
in general, must content himself with explaining and
interpreting that Ifrhich is given, in other words,
that which really is, or takes place, so as to obtain
an understanding of it, and I maintain furthermore
that there is plenty to do in this direction, much
more than has hitherto been done, after the lapse
28
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 29
of thousands of years. Following the above petitio
principii, Kant straightway, without any previous
investigation, assumes in the preface (which is en-
tirely devoted to the subject), that purely moral
laws exist ; and this assumption remains thenceforth
undisturbed, and forms the very foundation of his
whole system. We, however, prefer first of all to
examine the conception denoted by the word " law."
The true and original meaning of the term is limited
to law as between citizens ; it is the lex, vofios, of
the Romans and Greeks, a human institution, and
depending on human volition. It has a secondary,
derived, figurative, metaphorical meaning, when
applied to Nature, whose operations, partly known
a priori, partly learnt by experience, and which
are always constant, we call natural laws. Only
a very small portion of these natural laws can
be discerned a priori, and with admirable acute-
ness, Kant set them apart, and classed them
under the name " Metaphysics of Nature." There
is also undoubtedly a law for the human will, in
so far as man belongs to Nature ; and this law
is strictly provable, admits of no exception, is
inviolable, and immovable as the mountains, and
does not, like the Categorical Imperative, imply
a quasi-necessity, but rather a complete and abso-
lute one. It is the law of motivation, a form of
the law of causation ; in other words, it is the
causation which is brought about by the medium
of the understanding. It is the sole demonstrable
law to which the human will as such is subject.
It means that every action can only take place in
30 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
consequence of a sufficient motive. Like causality
in general, it is a natural law. On the other
hand, moral laws, apart from human institution,
state ordinance, or religious doctrine, cannot rightly
be assumed as existing without proof. Kant, there-
fore, by taking such laws for granted, is guilty
of a petitio principii, which is all the bolder, in
that he at once adds (page vi of the preface) that
a moral law ought to imply " absolute necessity."
But " absolute necessity " is everywhere characterised
by an inevitable chain of consequence ; how, then,
can such a conception be attached to these alleged
moral laws (as an instance of which he adduces
" thou shalt not lie " *) ? Every one knows, and
he himself admits, that no such consecution for
the most part takes place ; the reverse, indeed, is
the rule.
In scientific Ethics before we admit as controlling
the will other laws besides that of motivation-
laws which are original and independent of all
human ordinance we must first prove and deduce
their existence ; that is, provided in things ethical
we are concerned not merely with recommending
honesty, but with practising it. Until that proof
be furnished, I shall recognise only one source to
which is traceable the importation into Ethics of
the conception Law, Precept, Obligation. It is one
which is foreign to philosophy. I mean the Mosaic
Decalogue. Indeed the spelling " du sollt " 2 in the
1 Du sollt (sic) nicht liigen.
2 Sollt is the old form for "sollst." Cf. Eng., shalt: Icel.
. (Translator.)
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 31
above instance of a moral law, the first put forward
by Kant, naively betrays this origin. A conception,
however, which can point to no other source than
this, has no right, without undergoing further scrutiny,
thus to force its way into philosophical Ethics. It
will be rejected, until introduced by duly accredited
proof. Thus on the threshold of the subject Kant
makes his first petitio principii, and that no small one.
Our philosopher, then, by begging the question
in his preface, simply assumes the conception of
Moral Law as given and existing beyond all doubt ;
and he treats the closely related conception of Duty
(page 8, R, p. 16) exactly in the same way. Without
subjecting it to any further test, he admits it forth-
with as a proper appurtenance of Ethics. But here,
again, I am compelled to enter a protest. This
conception, equally with the kindred notions of Law,
Command, Obligation, etc., taken thus uncondition-
ally, has its source in theological morals, and
it will remain a stranger to philosophical morals, so
long as it fails to furnish sufficient credentials drawn
either from man's nature, or from the objective world.
Till then, I can only recognise the Decalogue as
the origin of all these connected conceptions. Since
the rise of Christianity there is no doubt that
philosophical has been unconsciously moulded by
theological ethics. And since the latter is essentially
dictatorial, the former appears in the shape of pre-
cepts and inculcation of Duty, in all innocence, and
without any suspicion that first an ulterior sanction
is needful for this role ; rather does she suppose it
to be her proper and natural form. It is true that
32 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
all peoples, ages, and creeds, and indeed all philo-
sophers (with the exception of the materialists proper)
have undeniably recognised that the ethical significance
of human conduct is a metaphysical one, in other
words, that it stretches out beyond this phaenomenal
existence and reaches to eternity ; but it is equally
true that the presentment of this fact in terms of
Command and Obedience, of Law and Duty, is no
part of its essence. Furthermore, separated from
the theological hypotheses whence they have sprung,
these conceptions lose in reality all meaning, and
to attempt a substitute for the former by talking
with Kant of absolute obligation and of unconditioned
duty, is to feed the reader with empty words, nay
more, is to give him a contradictio in adjecto 1 to
digest.
Every obligation derives all sense and meaning
simply and solely from its relation to threatened
punishment or promised reward. Hence, long before
Kant was thought of, Locke says : " For since it
would be utterly in vain, to suppose a rule set to
the free actions of man, without annexing to it some
enforcement of good and evil to determine his will ;
we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also
some reward or punishment annexed to that law
{Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. II., ch. 33,
6). What ought to be done is therefore necessarily
conditioned by punishment or reward ; consequently,
to use Kant's language, it is essentially and inevitably
1 A contradiction in the adjective. This occurs when the
epithet applied to a noun contradicts its essential meaning.
(Translator.)
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 33
hypothetical, and never, as he maintains, categorical.
If we think away these conditions, the conception
of obligation becomes void of sense ; hence absolute
obligation is most certainly a contradictio in adjecto.
A commanding voice, whether it come from within,
or from without, cannot possibly be imagined except
as threatening or promising. Consequently obedience
to it, which may be wise or foolish according to
circumstances, is yet always actuated by selfishness,
and therefore morally worthless.
The complete nnthinkableness and nonsense of
this conception of an unconditioned obligation, which
lies at the root of the Kantian Ethics, appears
later in the system itself, namely in the Kritik der
Praktiscken Vernunft : just as some concealed poison
in an organism cannot remain hid, but sooner or later
must come out and show itself. For this obligation,
said to be so unconditioned, nevertheless postulates
more than one condition in the background ; it assumes
a rewarder, a reward, and the immortality of the
person to be rewarded.
This is of course unavoidable, if one really makes
Duty and Obligation the fundamental conception of
Ethics ; for these ideas are essentially relative, and
depend for their significance on the threatened penalty
or the promised reward. The guerdon which is
assumed to be in store for virtue shows clearly enough
tli at only in appearance she works for nothing. It
is, however, put forward modestly veiled, under the
name of the Highest Good, which is the union of
Virtue and Happiness. But this is at bottom nothing
else but a morality that derives its origin from
3
34 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
Happiness, which means, a morality resting on selfish-
ness. In other words, it is Eudaemonism, which
Kant had solemnly thrust out of the front door of
his system as an intruder, only to let it creep in
again by the postern under the name of the Highest
Good. This is how the assumption of unconditioned
absolute obligation, concealing as it does a contra-
diction, avenges itself. Conditioned obligation, on
the other hand, cannot of course be any first principle
for Ethics, since everything done out of regard for
reward or punishment is necessarily an egoistic
transaction, and as such is without any real moral
value. All this makes it clear that a nobler and
wider view of Ethics is needed, if we are in earnest
about our endeavour to truly account for the signi-
ficance of human conduct a significance which
extends beyond phaenomena and is eternal.
As all obligation is entirely dependent on a con-
dition, so also is all duty. Both conceptions are very
closely related, indeed almost identical. The only
difference between them might be said to be that
obligation in general may rest on mere force, whereas
duty involves the sense of obligation deliberately
undertaken, such as we see between master and
servant, principal and subordinate, rulers and the
ruled. And since no one undertakes a duty gratis,
every duty implies also a right. The slave has no
duties, because he has no rights ; but he is subject
to an obligation which rests on sheer force. In the
following Part I shall explain the only meaning
which the conception " Duty " has in Ethics.
If we put Ethics in an imperative form, making
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 35
it a Doctrine of Duties, and regard the moral worth
or worthlessness of human conduct as the fulfilment
or violation of duties, we must remember that this
view of Duty, and of Obligation in general, is un-
deniably derived solely from theological Morals, and
primarily from the Decalogue, and consequently that
it rests essentially and inseparably on the assumption
of man's dependence on another will which gives
him commands and announces reward or punishment.
But the more the assumption of such a will is in
Theology positive and precise, the less should it
be quietly and unsuspectingly introduced into philo-
sophical Morals. Hence we have no right to assume
beforehand that for the latter the imperative Form,
the ordaining of commands, laws, and duties is an
essential and a matter of course ; and it is a very
poor shift to substitute the word " absolute " or
" categorical " for the external condition which is
indissolubly attached to such conceptions by their
very nature : for this gives rise, as explained above,
to a contradictio in adjecto.
Kant, then, without more ado or any close ex-
amination, borrowed this imperative Form of Ethics
from theological Morals. The hypotheses of the
latter (in other words, Theology) really lie at the
root of his system, and as these alone in point of
fact lend it any meaning or sense, so they cannot be
separated from, indeed are implicitly contained in,
it. After this, when he had expounded his position
the task of developing in turn a Theology out of
his Morals the famous Moraltheologie was easy
enough. For the conceptions which are implicitly
36 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
involved in his Imperative, and which lie hidden at
the base of his Morals, only required to be brought
forward and expressed explicitly as postulates of
Practical Reason. And so it was that, to the world's
great edification, a Theology appeared depending
simply on Ethics, indeed actually derived therefrom.
But this came about because the ethical system itself
rests on concealed theological hypotheses. I mean
no derisive comparison, but in its form the process
is analogous to that whereby a conjurer prepares
a surprise for us, when he lets us find something
where he had previously employed his art to place
it. Described in the abstract, Kant's procedure is
this : what ought to have been his first principle,
or hypothesis (viz., Theology) he made the conclusion,
and what ought to have been deduced as the con-
clusion (viz., the Categorical Command) he took as
his hypothesis. 1 But after he had thus turned the
thing upside down, nobody, not even he himself,
recognised it as being what it really was, namely the
old well-known system of theological Morals. How
this trick was accomplished we shall consider in the
sixth and seventh chapters of the present Part.
Ethics was of course frequently put in the im-
perative form, and treated as a doctrine of duties
also in pre-Kantian philosophy ; but it was always
then based upon the will of a God whose existence
had been otherwise proved, and so there was no
1 Like the converse of a geometrical proposition, this Kantian
inversion is not necessarily true ; its validity, in fact, depends
on the conclusion being implicitly contained in the hypothesis.
(Translator.)
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 37
inconsequence. As soon, however, as the attempt
was made, as Kant attempted, to give a foundation
to Ethics independent of this will, and establish it
without metaphysical hypotheses, there was no longer
any justification for taking as its basis the words
" thou shalt," and " it is thy duty " (that is, the
imperative form), without first deducing the truth
thereof from some other source.
CHAPTER III.
ON THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES
IN PARTICULAR.
THIS form of the doctrine of duties was very accept-
able to Kant, and in working out his position he
left it untouched ; for, like his predecessors, along
with the duties towards others he ranged also duties
towards ourselves. I, however, entirely reject this
assumption, and, as there will be no better oppor-
tunity, I shall here incidentally explain my view.
Duties towards ourselves must, just as all others,
be based either on right or on love. Duties towards
ourselves based on right are impossible, because of
the self-evident fundamental principle volenti non Jit
injuria (where the will assents, no injury is done).
For what I do is always what I will ; consequently
also what I do to myself is never anything but what
I will, therefore it cannot be unjust. Next, as
regards duties towards ourselves based on love.
Ethics here finds her work already done, and comes
too late. The impossibility of violating the duty
of self-love is at once assumed by the first law of
Christian Morals : " Love thy neighbour as thyself."
According to this, the love which each man cherishes
for himself is postulated as the maximum, and as
38
THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES. 39
the condition of all other love ; while the converse,
" Love thyself as thy neighbour " is never added ; for
every one would feel that the latter does not claim
enough. Moreover, self-love would be the sole duty
regularly involving an opus supererogationis. Kant
himself says in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde
zur Tugendlehre, p. 13 (R., p. 230) : " That which
each man inevitably wills of himself, does not belong
to the conception of Duty." This idea of duties
towards ourselves is nevertheless still held in repute,
indeed it enjoys for the most part special favour ;
nor need we feel surprise. But it has an amusing
effect in cases where people begin to show anxiety
about their persons, and talk quite earnestly of the
duty of self-preservation ; the while it is sufficiently
clear that fear will lend them legs soon enough, and
that they have no need of any law of duty to help
them along.
First among the duties towards ourselves is gener-
ally placed that of not committing suicide, the line
of argument taken being extremely prejudiced and
resting on the shallowest basis. Unlike animals,
man is not only a prey to bodily pain limited to
the passing moment, but also to those incomparably
greater mental sufferings, which, reaching forwards
and backwards, draw upon the future and the past;
and nature, by way of compensation, has granted
to man alone the privilege of being able to end
his life at his own pleasure, before she herself sets
a term to it ; thus, while animals necessarily live so
long as they can, man need only live so long as
he will.
40 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
Whether he ought on ethical gronnds to forego
this privilege is a difficult question, which in any
case cannot be decided by the usual superficial
reasoning. The arguments against suicide which
Kant does not deem unworthy of adducing (p. 53,
R, p. 48 and p. 67, B,., p. 57), I cannot conscien-
tiously describe as other than pitiable, and quite
undeserving of an answer. It is laughable indeed
to suppose that reflections of such a kind could have
wrested the dagger from the hands of Cato, of Cleo-
patra, of Cocceius Nerva (Tac., Ann., vi. 26) or of
Arria the wife of Paetus (Plin., Ep., iii. 16). If
real moral motives for not committing suicide actually
exist, it is certain that they lie very deep, and cannot
be reached by the plummet of ordinary Ethics. They
belong to a higher view of things than is adaptable
even to the standpoint of the present treatise.
That which generally comes next on the rubric of
duties towards ourselves may be divided partly into
rules of worldly wisdom, partly into hygienic pre-
scriptions ; but neither class belongs to Morals in
the proper sense. Last on the catalogue comes the
prohibition of unnatural lust onanism, paederastia,
and bestiality. Of these onanism is mainly a vice
of childhood, and must be fought against much more
with the weapon of dietetics than with that of ethics ;
hence we find that the authors of books directed
against it are physicians (e.g., Tissot and others)
rather than moralists. After dietetics and hygiene
have done their work, and struck it down by irrefutable reasoning, if Ethics desires to take up the
matter, she finds little left for her to do. Bestiality,
again, is of very rare occurrence ; it is thoroughly
abnormal and exceptional, and, moreover, so loath-
some and foreign to human nature, that itself,
better than all arguments of reason, passes judgment on itself, and deters by sheer disgust. For
the rest, as being a degradation of human nature, it
is in reality an offence against the species as such,
and in the abstract ; not against human units. Of
the three sexual perversions of which we are speaking
it is consequently only with paederastia that Ethics
has to do, and in treating of Justice this vice finds
its proper place. For Justice is infringed by it, in
face of which fact, the dictum volenti nonfat injuria is
unavailing. The injustice consists in the seduction
of the younger and inexperienced person, who is
thereby ruined physically and morally.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
WITH the imperative Form of Ethics, which in
Chapter II. we proved to be a petitio principii, is
directly connected a favourite idea of Kant's, that
may be excused, but cannot be adopted. Sometimes
we see a physician, after having employed a certain
remedy with conspicuous success, henceforth prescrib-
ing it for almost all diseases ; to such a one Kant
may be likened. By separating the a priori from
the a posteriori in human knowledge he made the
most brilliant and pregnant discovery that Metaphysics
can boast of. What wonder then that thereafter he
should try to apply this method, this sundering of
the two forms, everywhere, and should consequently
make Ethics also consist of two parts, a pure, i.e.,
an a priori knowable part, and an empirical ? The
latter of these he rejects as unreliable for the purpose
of founding Ethics. To trace out the former and
exhibit it by itself is his purpose in the Grundlegung
der Metaphysik der Sitten, which he accordingly
represents as a science purely a priori, exactly in
the same way as he sets forth the Metaphysische
Anfangsgrunde der Naturtvissenschaft. He asserts
in fact that the Moral Law, which without warrant,
42
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 43
without deduction, or proof of any sort, lie postulates
as existing, is furthermore a Law knowable a priori
and independent of all internal or external experience ;
it " rests " (he says) " solely on conceptions of pure
Reason ; and is to be taken as a synthetic proposition
a priori " (Kritik der Praktiscken Vernunft : p. 56
of fourth Edition ; R., p. 142). But from this defini-
tion the implication immediately follows that such a
Law can only be formal, like everything else known
a priori, and consequently has only to do with the
Form of actions, not with their Essence. Let
it be thought what this means ! He emphatically
adds (p. vi of the preface to the Grundlegung ;
R-., p. 5) that it is " useless to look for it either
subjectively in man's nature, or objectively in the
accidents of the external world," and (preface of
the same, page vii ; R., p. 6) that " nothing whatever
connected with it can be borrowed from knowledge
relating to man, i.e., from anthropology." On page
59 (R., p. 52) he repeats, "That one ought on no
account to fall into the mistake of trying to derive
one's principle of morality from the special constitu-
tion of human nature " ; and again, on page 60
(R., p. 52), he says that, "Everything derived from
any natural disposition peculiar to man, or from
certain feelings and propensities, or indeed from any
special trend attaching solely to human nature, and
not necessarily to be taken as the Will of every
rational being," is incapable of affording a foundation
for the moral law. This shows beyond all possibility
of contradiction that Kant does not represent the
alleged moral law as a fact of consciousness, capable
44 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
of empirical proof which is how the later would-
be philosophers, both individually and collectively,
wish to pass it off. In discarding every empirical
basis for Morals, he rejects all internal, and still more
decidedly all external, experience. Accordingly he
founds and I call special attention to this his moral
principle not on any provable fact of consciousness,
such as an inner natural disposition, nor yet upon
any objective relation of things in the external world.
No ! That would be an empirical foundation. Instead
of this, pure conceptions a priori, i.e., conceptions,
which so far contain nothing derived from internal
or external experience, and thus are simply shells
without kernels these are to be made the basis of
Morals. Let us consider the full meaning of such
a position. Human consciousness as well as the
whole external world, together with all the experience
and all the facts they comprise, are swept from under
our feet. We have nothing to stand upon. And
what have we to hold to ? Nothing but a few entirely
abstract, entirely unsubstantial conceptions, floating
in the air equally with ourselves. It is from these,
or, more correctly, from the mere form of their
connection with judgments made, that a Law is
declared to proceed, which by so-called absolute
necessity is supposed to be valid, and to be strong
enough to lay bit and bridle on the surging throng of
human desires, on the storm of passion, on the giant
might of egoism. We shall see if such be the case.
With this preconceived notion that the basis of
Morals must be necessarily and strictly a priori, and
entirely free from everything empirical, another of
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 45
Kant's favourite ideas is closely connected. The
moral principle that he seeks to establish is, he says,
a synthetic proposition a priori, of merely formal
contents, and hence exclusively a matter of Pure
Reason ; and accordingly, as such, to be regarded as
valid not only for men, but for all possible rational
beings ; indeed he declares it to hold good for man
" on this account alone," i.e., because per accidens
man comes under the category of rational beings.
Here lies the cause of his basing the Moral principle
not on any feeling, but on pure Eeason (which knows
nothing but itself and the statement of its antithesis).
So that this pure Reason is taken, not as it really
and exclusively is an intellectual faculty of man-
but as a self-existent hypostatic essence, yet with-
out the smallest authority ; the pernicious effects
of such example and precedent being sufficiently
shown in the pitiful philosophy of the present day.
Indeed, this view of Morals as existing not for
men, as men, but for all rational beings, as such, is
with Kant a principle so firmly established, an idea
so favourite, that he is never tired of repeating it
at every opportunity.
I, on the contrary, maintain that we are never
entitled to raise into a genus that which we only
know of in a single species. For we could bring
nothing into our idea of the genus but what we had
abstracted from, this one species ; so that what we
should predicate of the genus could after all only be
understood of the single species. While, if we should
attempt to think away (without any warrant) the
particular attributes of the species, in order to form
46 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
our genus, we should perhaps remove the exact,
condition whereby the remaining attributes, hypo-
statised as a genus, are made possible. Just as we
recognise intelligence in general to be an attribute of
animal beings alone, and are therefore never justified
in thinking of it as existing outside, and independent,
of animal nature ; so we recognise Reason as the
exclusive attribute of the human race, and have not
the smallest right to suppose that Reason exists
externally to it, and then proceed to set up a genus
called " Rational Beings," differing from its single
known species " Man " ; still less are we warranted
in laying down laws for such imaginary rational
beings in the abstract. To talk of rational beings
external to men is like talking of heavy beings
external to bodies. One cannot help suspecting
that Kant was thinking a little of the dear cherubim,
or at any rate counted on their presence in the
conviction of the reader. In any case this doctrine
contains a tacit assumption of an anima rationales,
which as being entirely different from the anima
sensitiva, and the anima vegetativa, is supposed
to persist after death, and then to be indeed nothing
else but rationalis. But in the Kritik der Reinen
Vernunft Kant himself has expressly and elabor-
ately made an end of this most transcendent hypo-
stasis. Nevertheless, in his ethics generally, and in
the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft especially, there
seems always to hover in the background the thought
that the inner and eternal essence of man consists
of Reason. In this connection, where the matter
only occurs incidentally, I must content myself with
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 47
simply asserting the contrary. Reason, as indeed
the intellectual faculty as a whole, is secondary, is
an attribute of phaenomena, being in point of fact
conditioned by the organism ; whereas it is the Will
in man which is his very self, the only part of him
which is metaphysical, and therefore indestructible.
The success with which Kant had applied his
method to the theoretical side of philosophy led him
on to extend it to the practical. Here also he
endeavoured to separate pure a priori from empirical
a posteriori knowledge. For this purpose he assumed
that just as we know a priori the laws of Space,
of Time, and of Causality, so in like manner, or at
any rate analogously, we have the moral plumbline
for our conduct given us prior to all experience, and
revealed in a Categorical Imperative, an absolute
" Ought." But how wide is the difference between
this alleged moral law a priori, and our theoretical
knowledge a priori of Space, Time, and Causality !
The latter are nothing but the expression of the forms,
i.e., the functions of our intellect, whereby alone we
are capable of grasping an objective world, and
wherein alone it can be mirrored ; so that the world
(as we know it) is absolutely conditioned by these
forms, and all experience must invariably and exactly
correspond to them just as everything that I see
through a blue glass must appear blue. While the
former, the so-called moral law, is something that
experience pours ridicule on at every step ; indeed,
as Kant himself says, it is doubtful whether in
practice it has ever really been followed on any single
occasion. How completely unlike are the things
48 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
which are here classed together under the conception
of apriority ! Moreover, Kant overlooked the fact
that, according to his own teaching, in theoretical
philosophy, it is exactly the Apriority of our know-
ledge of Time, Space, and Causality independent
as this is of experience that limits it strictly to
phaenomena, i.e., to the picture of the world as re-
flected in our consciousness, and makes it entirely
invalid as regards the real nature of things, i.e., as
regards whatever exists independently of our capacity
to grasp it.
Similarly, when we turn to practical philosophy,
his alleged moral law, if it have an a priori origin
in ourselves, must also be only pbaenomeual, and
leave entirely untouched the essential nature of things.
Only this conclusion would stand in the sharpest
contradiction as much to the facts themselves, as to
Kant's view of them. For it is precisely the moral
principle in us that he everywhere (e.g., Kritik der
Praktischen Vernunft, p. 175 ; 11., p. 228) represents
as being in the closest connection with the real essence
of things, indeed, as directly in contact with it ; and
in all passages in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,
where the mysterious Thing in itself comes forward
a little more clearly, it shows itself as the moral
principle in us, as Will. But of this he failed to
take account.
In Chapter II. of this Part, I explained how Kant
took over bodily from theological Morals the imperative
form of Ethics, i.e., the conception of obligation, of
law, and of duty ; and how at the same time he was
constrained to leave behind that which in the realm
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 49
of theology alone lends force and significance to these
ideas. But he felt the need of some basis for them,
and accordingly went so far as to require that the
conception of duty itself should be also the ground
of its fulfilment ; in other words, that it should itself
be its own enforcement. An action, he says (p. 11 ;
R, p. 18), has no genuine moral worth, unless it be
done simply as a matter of duty, and for duty's sake,
without any liking for it being felt ; and the character
only begins to have value, if a man, who has no
sympathy in his heart, and is cold and indifferent to
others' sufferings, and who is not by nature a lover
of his kind, is nevertheless a doer of good actions,
solely out of a pitiful sense of duty. This assertion,
which is revolting to true moral sentiment ; this
apotheosis of lovelessness, the exact opposite, as it is,
of the Christian doctrine of Morals, which places love
before everything else, and teaches that without it
nothing profiteth (1 Cor. xiii. 3) ; this stupid moral
pedantry has been ridiculed by Schiller in two
apposite epigrams, entitled Gewissensskrupel (Scruples
of Conscience) and Entscheidung (Decision). 1
It appears that some passages in the Kritik der Prak-
tischen Vernunft, which exactly suit this connection,
were the immediate occasion of the verses. Thus, for
instance, on p. 150 (B., p. 211) we find : "Obedience
to the moral law, which a man feels incumbent on
him, is based not on voluntary inclination, nor on en-
deavour willingly put forth, without any authoritative
1 These epigrams form the close of Schiller's poem " Die
Philosophen," which is worth reading in this connection.
(Translator.)
4
50 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
command, but on a sense of duty." Yes, it must be
commanded ! What slavish morality ! Arid again
on p. 213 (R., p. 257): "Feelings of compassion,
and of tender-hearted sympathy would be actually
troublesome to persons who think aright, because
through such emotions their well weighed maxims
would become confused, and so the desire would grow
up to be rid of them, and to be subject solely to the
lawgiver Reason." Now I maintain without hesita-
tion that what opens the hand of the above-described
(p. 11 ; R., p. 18) loveless doer of good, who is
indifferent to the sufferings of other people, cannot
(provided he have no secondary motives) be anything
else than a slavish Sei<ri8ai/j,ovia (fear of the gods),
equally whether he calls his fetich " Categorical
Imperative " or Fitzlipuzli. 1 For what but fear can
move a hard heart ?
Furthermore, on p. 13 (R., p. 19), in accordance
with the above view, we find that the moral worth
of an action is supposed to lie, by no means in the
intention which led to it, but in the maxim which
was followed. Whereas I, on the contrary, ask the
reader to reflect that it is the intention alone which
decides as to the moral worth, or worthlessness, of
an action, so that the same act may deserve con-
demnation or praise according to the intention which
determined it. Hence it is that, whenever men dis-
cuss a proceeding to which some moral importance is
attached, the intention is always investigated, and by
this standard alone the matter is judged ; as, like-
wise, it is in the intention alone that every one seeks
1 More correctly, Huitzilopochtli : a Mexican deity.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 51
justification, if he see his conduct misinterpreted,
or excuse, if its consequence be mischievous.
On p. 14 (R., p. 20) we at last reach the definition
of Duty, which is the fundamental conception of
Kant's entire ethical system. It is : " The necessity
of an action out of respect for the law." But what
is necessary takes place with absolute certainty ;
while conduct based on pure duty generally does not
come off at all. And not only this ; Kant himself
admits (p. 25 ; R., p. 28) that there are no certain
instances on record of conduct determined solely by
pure duty ; and on p. 26 (R., p. 29) he says : " It is
utterly impossible to know with certainty from ex-
perience whether there has ever really been one single
case in which an action, however true to duty, has
rested simply on its idea." And similarly on p. 28
(R., p. 30) and p. 49 (R., p. 50). In what sense
then can necessity be attributed to such an action ?
As it is only fair always to put the most favourable
interpretation on an author's words, we will suppose
him to mean that an act true to duty is objectively
necessary, but subjectively accidental. Only it is
precisely this that is more easily said than thought ;
for where is the Object of this objective necessity, the
consequence of which for the most part, perhaps indeed
always, fails to be realised in objective reality ?
With every wish to be unbiassed, I cannot but
think that the expression necessity of an action
is nothing but an artificially concealed, very forced
paraphrase of the word " ought." l This will become
1 Or "shall," as in the "them shalt" of the Decalogue.
(Translator,)
52 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
clearer if we notice that in the same definition
the word Achtung (respect) is employed, where
Gehorsam (obedience) is meant. Similarly in the
note on p. 16 (R., p. 20) we read : " Achtung signifies
simply the subordination of my will to a law. The
direct determination of the will by a law, and the
consciousness that it is so determined this is what
is denoted by Achtung" In what language ? In
German the proper term is Gehorsam. But the word
Achtung, so unsuitable as it is, cannot without a
reason have been put in place of the word Gehorsam.
It must serve some purpose ; and this is obviously
none other than to veil the derivation of the im-
perative form, and of the conception of duty, from
theological Morals ; just as we saw above that the
expression " necessity of an action," which is such a
forced and awkward substitute for the word " shall,"
was only chosen because " shall " is the exact
language of the Decalogue. The above definition :
" Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for
the law," would therefore read in natural, undisguised,
plain language : " Duty signifies an action which
ought to be done out of obedience to a law." This is
" the real form of the poodle." l
But now as to the Law, which is the real founda-
tion stone of the Kantian Ethics. What does it
contain ? And where is it inscribed ? This is the chief
1 l< Des Pudels Kern " ; V. Goethe's Faust, Part I. Studir-
zimmer. Schopenhauer means that his analysis has forced the
real meaning out of Kant's language, just as Faust by his
exorcism compels Mephistopheles, who was in the form of a
poodle, to resume his true form. (Translator.)
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 53
point of inquiry. In the first place, be it observed
that we have two questions to deal with : the
one has to do with the Principle, the other with
the Basis of Ethics two entirely different things,
although they are frequently, and sometimes indeed
intentionally, confused.
The principle or main proposition of an ethical
system is the shortest and most concise definition
of the line of conduct which it prescribes, or, if it
have no imperative form, of the line of conduct to
which it attaches real moral worth. It thus contains,
in the general terms of a single enunciation, the direc-
tion for following the path of virtue, which is derived
from that system : in other words, it is the o/rt 1
of virtue. Whereas the Basis of any theory of Ethics
is the SIOTI* of virtue, the reason of the obligation
enjoined, of the exhortation or praise given, whether
it be sought in human nature, or in the external
conditions of the world, or in anything else. As
in all sciences, so also in Ethics the o,rt must be
clearly distinguished from the Biort. But most
teachers of Morals wilfully confound this difference :
probably because the o,rt is so easy, the 8t<m so
exceedingly difficult, to give. They are therefore
glad to try to make up for the poverty on the one
hand, by the riches on the other, and to bring about
a happy marriage between Ilevia (poverty) and ITopo?
(plenty), by putting them together in one proposition. 3
1 o,n : i.e., the " what " a thing is ; its principle, or essence.
(Translator.)
2 Std : i.e., the " wherefore " of a thing ; its raison d'etre,
its underlying cause. (Translator.)
3 Schopenhauer was doubtless thinking of the famous
54 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
This is generally done by taking the familiar 6,n
out of the simple form in which it can be expressed,
and forcing it into an artificial formula, from which
it is only to be deduced as the conclusion of given
premises ; and the* reader is led by this performance
to feel as if he had grasped not only the thing, but
its cause as well. We may easily convince ourselves
of this by recalling all the most familiar principles
of Morals. As, however, in what follows I have no
intention of imitating acrobatic tricks of this sort,
but purpose proceeding with all honesty and straight-
forwardness, I cannot make the principle of Ethics
equivalent to its basis, but must keep the two quite
separate. Accordingly, this o,n i.e., the principle,
the fundamental proposition as to which in its
essence all teachers of Morals are really, at one, how-
ever much they may clothe it in different costumes,
I shall at once express in the form which I take to
be the simplest and purest possible, viz. : Neminem
laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva. (Do harm
to no one ; but rather help all people, as far as
lies in your power.) This is in truth the proposi-
tion which all ethical writers expend their energies
in endeavouring to account for. It is the common
result of their manifold and widely differing de-
ductions ; it is the o,n for which the SIOTI is still
sought after ; the consequence, the cause of which
is wanting. Hence it is itself nothing but the
myth in Plato's Symposium Chap. 23 (Teubner's edition,
Leipzig, 1875), where Eros is represented as the offspring of
TLopos and Ilej/ia, who on the birthday of Aphrodite were united
in the garden of Zeus. (Translator.')
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 55
Datum (the thing given), in relation to which the
Quaesitum (the thing required) is the problem of
every ethical system, as also of the present prize
essay. The solution of this riddle will disclose
the real foundation of Ethics, which, like the
philosopher's stone, has been searched for from time
immemorial. That the Datum, the o,ri, the principle
is most purely expressed by the enunciation I have
given, can be seen from the fact that it stands to
every other precept of Morals as a conclusion to given
premises, and therefore constitutes the real goal it
is desired to attain ; so that all other ethical com-
mandments can only be regarded as paraphrases, as
indirect or disguised statements, of the above simple
proposition. This is true, for instance, even of that
trite and apparently elementary maxim : Quod tibi fieri
non vis, alteri nefeceris. 1 (Do not to another what you
are unwilling should be done to yourself.) The defect
here is that the wording only touches the duties im-
posed by law, not those required by virtue ; a thing
which can be easily remedied by the omission of non
and ne. Thus changed, it really means nothing else
than : Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes,juva.
But as this sense is only reached by a periphrasis, the
formula gains the appearance of having also revealed
its own ultimate foundation, its Btort, ; which, however,
is not the case, because it does not in the least follow
that, if I am unwilling that something be done to
myself, I ought not to do it to others. The same
is true of every other principle or leading proposition
of Ethics that has hitherto been put forward.
1 Hugo Grotius attributes it to the Emperor Severus.
56 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
If we now return to the above question : how does
the law read, in obeying which, according to Kant, duty
consists ? and on what is it based ? we shall find that
our philosopher, like most others, has in an extremely
artificial manner closely connected the principle of
Morals with its basis. I again call attention to what
I have already examined at the outset I mean, the
Kantian claim that the principle of Ethics must be
purely a, priori and purely formal, indeed an a priori
synthetical proposition, which consequently may not
contain anything material, nor rest upon anything
empirical, whether objectively in the external world,
or subjectively in consciousness, such as any feeling,
inclination, impulse, and the like. Kant was perfectly
aware of the difficulty of this position ; for on p. 60
(R., p. 53) he says : " It will be seen that philosophy
has here indeed reached a precarious standpoint,
which yet is to be immovable, notwithstanding that
it is neither dependent on, nor supported by, anything
in heaven or on earth." We shall therefore with all
the greater interest and curiosity await the solution
of the problem he has set himself, namely, how
something is to arise out of nothing, that is, how
out of purely a priori conceptions, which contain
nothing empirical or material, the laws of material
human action are to grow up. This is a process
which we may find symbolised in chemistry, where
out of three invisible gases (Azote, Hydrogen, and
Chlorine 1 ), and thus in apparently empty space,
solid sal-ammoniac is evolved before our eyes.
1 Azote = Nitrogen. The formula for Ammonium Chloride
or Sal-ammoniac is NH 4 C1. (Translator).
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 57
I will, however, explain, more clearly than Kanteither
would or could, the method whereby he accomplishes
this difficult task. The demonstration is all the more
necessary because what he did appears to be seldom
properly understood. Almost all Kant's disciples
have fallen into the mistake of supposing that he
presents his Categorical Imperative directly as a fact
of consciousness. But in that case its origin would
be anthropological, and, as resting on experience,
although internal, it would have an empirical basis :
a position which runs directly counter to the Kantian
view, and which he repeatedly rejects. Thus on p. 48
(R., p. 44) he says : " It cannot be empirically
determined whether any such Categorical Imperative
exists everywhere " ; and again, on p. 49 (R., p. 45) :
" The possibility of the Categorical Imperative must
be investigated entirely on a priori grounds, because
here we are not helped by any testimony of ex-
perience as to its reality." Even Reinhold, his first
pupil, missed this point ; for in his Beitrdge zur
Uebersicht der Philosophie am Anfange des 19.
Jahrhunderts, No. 2, p. 21, we find him saying : " Kant
assumes the moral law to be a direct and certain
reality, an original fact of the moral consciousness."
But if Kant had wished to make the Categorical
Imperative a fact of consciousness, and thus give it
an empirical foundation, he certainly would not have
failed at least to put it forward as such. And this
is precisely what he never does. As far as I know,
the Categorical Imperative appears for the first time
in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft (p. 802 of the
first, and p. 830 of the fifth, edition), entirely ex mine
58 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
(unexpectedly), without any preamble, and merely
connected with the preceding sentence by an altogether
unjustifiable " therefore." It is only in the Grundlage
zur Metapliysik der Sitten a book to which we here
devote especial attention that it is first introduced
expressly and formally, as a deduction from certain
concepts. Whereas in lieinhold's Formula concordiae
des Kriticism.us, 1 we actually read on p. 122 the
following sentence : " We distinguish moral self-
consciousness from the experience with which it, as
an original fact transcending all knowledge, is bound
up in the human consciousness ; and we understand
by such self-consciousness the direct consciousness of
duty, that is, of the necessity we are under of admitting
the legitimacy whether pleasurable or the reverse
of the will, as the stimulus and as the measure of
its own operations."
This would of course be " a charming thesis, with
a very pretty hypothesis to boot." 2 But seriously :
into what an outrageous petitio principii do we
find Kant's moral law here developed ! If that
were true, Ethics would indubitably have a basis
of incomparable solidity, and there would be no need
of any questions being set for prize essays, to en-
courage inquiry in this direction. But the greatest
marvel would be, that men had been so slow in
discovering such a fact of consciousness, corisider-
1 To be found in the fifth number of the Beitrdge zur
Uebersicht der Philosophic am Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts
a journal of the greatest importance for critical philosophy.
2 " Einen erklecklichen SATZ, fa, und der auch was SETZT."
SCHILLER.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 59
ing that for the space of thousands of years a basis
for Morals has been sought after with zealous patient
toil. How Kant himself is responsible for this
deplorable mistake, I shall explain further on ; never-
theless, one cannot but wonder at the undisputed
predominance of such a radical error among his
disciples. Have they never, whilst writing all their
numberless books on the Kantian philosophy, noticed
the disfigurement which the Kritik der Reinen Ver-
nunft underwent in the second edition, and which made
it an incoherent, self-contradictory work ? It seems
that this has only now come to light ; and, in my
opinion, the fact has been quite correctly analysed in
Rosenkranz's preface to the second volume of his
complete edition of Kant's works. We must, how-
ever, remember that many scholars, being unceasingly
occupied as teachers and authors, find very little
time left for private and exact research. It is certain
that docendo disco (I learn by teaching) is not un-
conditionally true ; sometimes indeed one is tempted
to parody it by saying : semper docendo nihil disco
(by always teaching I learn nothing) ; and even what
Diderot puts into the mouth of Rameau's nephew is not
altogether without reason: " ' And as for these teachers,
do you suppose they understand the sciences they
give instruction in ? Not a bit of it, my dear sir,
not a bit of it. If they possessed sufficient knowledge
to be able to teach them, they would not do so.'
' Why ? ' ' Because they would have devoted their lives
to the study of them.'" (Goethe's translation, p. 104.)
Lichtenberg too says : " I have rather observed that
professional people are often exactly those who do
60 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
not know best." But to return to the Kantian Ethics :
most persons, provided only the conclusion reached
agrees with their moral feelings, immediately assume
that there is no flaw to be found in its derivation ;
and if the process of deduction looks difficult, they
do not trouble themselves much about it, but are
content to trust the faculty.
Thus the foundation which Kant gave to his moral
law by no means consists in its being proved em-
pirically to be a fact of consciousness ; neither does
he base it on an appeal to moral feeling, nor yet on
a petitio principii, under its fine modern name of
an u absolute Postulate." It is formed rather of a
very subtle process of thought, which he twice
advances, on p. 17 and p. 51 (R., p. 22, and p. 46),
and which I shall now proceed to make clear.
Kant, be it observed, ridiculed all empirical stimuli
of the will, and began by removing everything,
whether subjective or objective, on which a law
determining the will's action could be empirically
based. The consequence is, that he has nothing left
for the substance of his law but simply its Form. Now
this can only be the abstract conception of lawfulness.
But the conception of lawfulness is built up out of
what is valid for all persons equally. Therefore the
substance of the law consists of the conception of
what is universally valid, and its contents are of
course nothing else than its universal validity. Hence
the formula will read as follows : " Act only in
accordance with that precept which you can also wish
should be a general law for all rational beings."
This, then, is the real foundation for the most part so
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 61
greatly misunderstood which Kant constructed for his
principle of Morals, and therefore for his whole ethical
system. Compare also the Kritik der Praktiscken
Vernunft, p. 61 (R., p. 147) ; the end of Note 1.
I pay Kant a tribute of sincere admiration for the
great acumen . he displayed in carrying out this dex-
terous feat, but I continue in all seriousness my
examination of his position according to the standard
of truth. I will only observe and this point I shall
take up again later on that here reason, because,
and in so far as, it works out the above explained
special ratiocination, receives the name of practical
reason. Now the Categorical Imperative of Practical
Reason is the law which results from this process of
thought. Consequently Practical Reason is not in
the least what most people, including even Fichte,
have regarded it a special faculty that cannot be
traced to its source, a qualitas occulta, a sort of
moral instinct, like Hutcheson's " moral sense " ; but
it is (as Kant himself in his preface, p. xii. [R., p. 8],
and elsewhere, often enough declares) one and the
same with theoretical reason is, in fact, theoretical
reason itself, in so far as the latter works out the
ratiocinative process I have described. It is noticeable
that Fichte calls the Categorical Imperative of Kant
an absolute Postulate (Grundlage der gesammten
Wissenschaftslehre, Tubingen, 1802, p. 240, Note).
This is the modern, more showy, expression for petitio
principii, and thus we see that he, too, regularly
accepted the Categorical Imperative, and consequently
must be included among those who have fallen into
the mistake above criticised.
62 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
The objection, to which this Kantian basis of
Morals is at once and directly exposed, lies in the
fact that such an origin of a moral law in us is im-
possible, because of its assumption that man would
quite of his own accord hit on the idea of looking
about for, and inquiring after, a law to which his will
should be subject, and which should shape its actions.
This procedure, however, cannot possibly occur to him
of itself ; at best it could only be after another moral
stimulus had supplied the first impulse and motive
thereto ; and such a stimulus would have to be
positively operative, and real ; and show itself to
be such, as well as spontaneously influence, indeed
force its presence upon, the mind. But anything of
this sort would run counter to Kant's assumption,
which, according to the chain of reasoning above
described, is to be regarded as itself the origin of all
moral conceptions in fact, the punctum saliens of
Morality. Consequently, as long as there is no such
antecedent incentive (because, ex hypothesi, there
exists no other moral stimulus but the process of
thought already explained), so long Egoism alone
must remain as the plumb-line of human conduct,
as the guiding thread of the law of motivation ; so
long the entirely empirical and egoistic motives of
the moment, alone and unchecked, must determine,
in each separate case, the conduct of a man ; since,
on this assumption, there is no voice to arrest
him, neither does any reason whatever exist, why
he should be minded to inquire after, to say nothing
of anxiously searching for, a law which should limit
and govern his will 1 . And yet it is only possible
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 63
on this supposition that he should think out the
above remarkable piece of mental legerdemain. It
matters not how far we may care to put a strict
and exact interpretation on this Kantian process,
or whether we choose to tone it down to some
dim, obscurely felt operation of thought. No
modification of it can attack the primary truths that
out of nothing, nothing comes, and that an effect
requires a cause. The moral stimulus, like every
motive that effects the will, must in all cases make
itself felt spontaneously, and therefore have a positive
working, and consequently be real. And because for
men the only thing which has reality is the empirical,
or else that which is supposed to have a possibly
empirical existence, therefore it follows that the
moral stimulus cannot but be empirical, and show
itself as such of its own accord ; and without waiting
for us to begin our search, it must come and press
itself upon us, and this with such force that it may,
at least possibly, overcome the opposing egoistic
motives in all their giant strength. For Ethics has
to do with actual human conduct, and not with the
a priori building of card houses a performance
which yields results that no man would ever turn to
in the stern stress and battle of life, and which, in
face of the storm of our passions, would be about
as serviceable as a syringe in a great fire.
I have already noticed above how Kant considered
it a special merit of his moral law that it is founded
solely on abstract, pure a priori conceptions, con-
sequently on pure reason ; whereby its validity obtain*
(he says) not only for men, but for all rational beings
64 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
as such. All the more must we regret that pure,
abstract conceptions a priori, without real contents,
and without any kind of empirical basis can never
move, at any rate, men ; of other rational beings
I am of course incapable of speaking. The second
defect, then, in Kant's ethical basis is its lack of
real substance. So far this has escaped notice,
because the real nature of his foundation has in all
probability been thoroughly understood only by an
exceedingly small number of those who were its
enthusiastic propagandists. The second fault, I re-
peat, is entire want of reality, and hence of possible
efficacy. The structure floats in the air, like a web
of the subtlest conceptions devoid of all contents ;
it is based on nothing, and can therefore support
nothing, and move nothing. And yet Kant loaded
it with a burden of enormous weight, namely, the
hypothesis of the Freedom of the Will. In spite of
his oft declared conviction that freedom in human
action has absolutely no place ; that theoretically
not even its possibility is thinkable (Kritik der
Praktischen Vernunft, p. 168 ; R., p. 223); that, if the
character of a man, and all the motives which work
on him were exactly known, his conduct could be
calculated as certainly and as precisely as an eclipse
of the moon (ibidem, p. 177 ; R., p. 230) : he
nevertheless makes an assumption of freedom
(although only ictealiter, and as a postulate) by his
celebrated conclusion : " You can, because you
ought " ; and this on the strength of his precious
ethical basis, which, as we see, floats in the air in-
corporeal. But if it has once been clearly recognised
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 65
that a thing is not, and cannot be, what is the use of
all the postulates in the world? It would be much
more to the purpose to cast away that on which
the postulate is based, because it is an impossible
supposition ; and this course would be justified by the
rule a non posse ad non esse valet consequentia ; J and
by a reductio ad absurdum, which would at the same
time be fatal to the Categorical Imperative. Instead
of which one false doctrine is built up on the other.
The inadmissibility of a basis for Morals consisting
of a few entirely abstract and empty conceptions
must have been apparent to Kant himself in secret.
For in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft, where (as
I have already said) he is not so strict and methodical
in his work, and where we find him becoming bolder
on account of the fame he had gained, it is re-
markable how the ethical basis gradually changes
its nature, and almost forgets that it is a mere web
of abstract ideas ; in fact, it seems distinctly desirous
of becoming more substantial. Thus, for instance,
on p. 81 (R., p. 163) of the above work are the
words : " The Moral Law in some sort a fact of Pure
Reason." What is one to think of this extraordinary
expression ? In every other place that which is
fact is opposed to what is knowable by pure reason.
Similarly on p. 83 (R., p. 164) we read of " a Reason
which directly determines the Will " ; and so on.
Now let us remember that in laying his founda-
tion Kant expressly and repeatedly rejects every
1 To argue from impossibility to non-existence is valid
i.e., the impossibility of a thing makes its non-existence a
safe conclusion. (Translator.)
5
86 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
anthropological basis, everything that could prove the
Categorical Imperative to be a fact of consciousness,
because such a proof would be empirical. Neverthe-
less, his successors were so emboldened by incidental
utterances like the above that they went to much
greater lengths. Fichte in his work, System der
Sittenlehre, p. 49, warns us expressly " not to allow
ourselves to be misled into trying to explain, and
derive from external sources, the consciousness that
we have duties, because this would be detrimental
to the dignity and absoluteness of the law." A
very nice excuse ! Again on p. 66 he says : " The
principle of Morality is a thought which is based
on the intellectual intuition of the absolute activity
of the intelligence, and which is directly conceived
by the pure intelligence of its own accord." What
a fine flourish to conceal the helplessness of this
clap-trap ! Whoever may like to convince himself
how Kant's disciples, little by little, totally forgot
and ignored the real nature of the foundation and
derivation which their master originally gave to the
moral law, should read a very interesting essay in
Reinhold's Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophic
im Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, No. 2, 1801. In
it, on pp. 105 and 106, it is maintained "that in
the Kantian philosophy Autonomy (which is the
same thing as the Categorical Imperative) is a fact
of consciousness, and cannot be traced further back,
inasmuch as it declares itself by means of a direct
consciousness."
But in this case, it would have an anthropological ,
and consequently empirical, foundation a position
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 67
which is diametrically opposed to Kant's explicit
and repeated utterances. Again, on p. 108 we find :
" Both in the practical philosophy of criticism, and
in the whole of the purified or higher transcendental
philosophy, Autonomy is that which is founded, and
which founds, by itself alone ; and which is neither
capable of, nor requires, any other foundation ; it is that
which is absolutely original, true and certain per se ;
the primal truth ; the prius KCLT e^o^r/y (jpar excel-
lence) ; the absolute principle. Whoever, therefore,
imagines, requires, or seeks any basis for this Auto-
nomy external to itself, can only be regarded by the
Kantian School as wanting in moral consciousness j 1
or else as failing to interpret this consciousness
correctly, through the employment of false first
principles in his speculations. The School of Fichte
and Schelling declares him to be afflicted with a
dulness of intellect that renders him incapable of
being a philosopher, and forms the characteristic of
the unholy canaille, and the sluggish brute, or (to
use Schelling's more veiled expression) of the
profanum vulgus and the ignavum pecus" Every
one will understand how much truth there can be in
a doctrine which it is sought to uphold by such
1 Dock? ich's dock ! Wissen sie nichts Vernunftiges mehr
zu erwidern,
Schieben sies Einem geschwind in das Gfewissen hinein.
SCHILLER, Die Philosophen.
Just as I thought ! Can they give no more any answer of
reason,
Quickly the ground is changed : Conscience, they say,
is at fault.
(Translator.)
68 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
defiant and dogmatic rhetoric. Meanwhile, we must
doubtless explain by the respect that this language
inspired, the really childish credulity with which
Kant's followers accepted the Categorical Imperative,
and at once treated it as a matter beyond dispute.
The truth is that in this case any objections raised to
a theoretical assertion might easily be confounded
with moral obliquity ; so that every one, although
he had no very clear idea in his own mind of the
Categorical Imperative, yet preferred to be silent,
believing, as he did, in secret, that others were
probably better off, and had succeeded in evolving a
clearer and more definite mental picture of it. For
no one likes to turn his conscience inside out.
Thus in the Kantian School Practical Reason
with its Categorical Imperative appears more and
more as a hyperphysical fact, as a Delphian temple
in the human soul, out of whose dark recesses proceed
oracles that infallibly declare not, alas ! what will,
but what ought to, happen. This doctrine of Practical
Reason, as a direct and immediate fact, once it had
been adopted, or rather introduced by artifice combined
with defiance, was unhappily later on extended also
to Theoretical Reason ; and not unnaturally : for
Kant himself had often said that both are but one
and the same Reason (e.g., Preface, p. xii ; R., p. 8).
After it had been once admitted that in the domain
of the Practical there is a Reason which dictates ex
tripode, 1 it was an easy step to concede the same
privilege to Theoretical Reason also, closely related
1 As from the Pythian tripod : i.e., with official authority,
ex cathedrd.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 69
as the latter is to the former indeed, consubstantial
with it. The one was thus pronounced to be just
as immediate as the other, the advantage of this
being no less immense than obvious.
Then it was that all philosophasters and fancy-
mongers, with J. H. Jacobi the denouncer of atheists
at their head, came crowding to this postern which
was so unexpectedly opened to them. They wanted to
bring their small wares to market, or at least to save
what they most valued of the old heirlooms which
Kant's teaching threatened to pulverise. As in the
life of the individual a single youthful mistake often
ruins the whole career ; so when Kant made that
one false assumption of a Practical Reason furnished
with credentials exclusively transcendent, and (like
the supreme courts of appeal) with powers of decision
" without grounds," the result was that out of the
austere gravity of the Critical Philosophy was evolved
a teaching utterly heterogeneous to it. We hear of a
Reason at first only dimly u surmising," then clearly
" comprehending " the " Supersensuous," and at last
endowed with a perfect "intellectual intuition" of it.
Every dreamer could now promulgate his mental freaks
as the " absolute," i.e., officially issued, deliverances,
and revelations of this Reason. Nor need we be sur-
prised if the new privilege was fully taken advantage of.
Here, then, is the origin of that philosophical
method which appeared immediately after Kant,
and which is made up of clap-trap, of mystifica-
tion, of imposture, of deception, and of throwing
dust in the eyes. This era will be known one day
in the History of Philosophy as "The Period of
70 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
Dishonesty." For it was signalised by the disappear-
ance of the characteristic of honesty, of searching after
truth in common with the reader, which was well
marked in the writings of all previous philosophers.
The philosophaster's object was not to instruct, but
to befool his hearers, as every page attests. At
first Fichte and Schelling shine as the heroes of
this epoch ; to be followed by the man who is quite
unworthy even of them, and greatly their inferior
in point of talent I mean the stupid and clumsy
charlatan Hegel. The Chorus is composed of a mixed
company of professors of philosophy, who in solemn
fashion discourse to their public about the Endless,
the Absolute, and many other matters of which they
can know absolutely nothing.
As a stepping-stone to raise Reason to her
prophetic throne a wretched jeu d 1 esprit was actually
dragged in, and made to serve. It was asserted
that, as the word Vernunft (Reason) comes from
vernehmen (to comprehend), therefore Vernunft means
a capacity to comprehend the so-called " Super-
sensuous," i.e.) NefaXorcoKKvyla, 1 or Cloud-cuckoo-
town. This pretty notion met with boundless
approval, and for the space of thirty years was
constantly repeated in Germany with immense
satisfaction ; indeed, it was made the foundation of
philosophic manuals. And yet it is as clear as noon-
day that of course Vernunft (Reason) comes from
vernehmen (to comprehend), but only because Reason
makes man superior to animals, so that he not only
hears, but also comprehends (vemimmt) by no means,
1 V. Aristoph., Aves, 819 et alibi. (Translator.)
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 71
what is going on in Cloud-cuckoo-town but what
is said, as by one reasonable person to another, the
words spoken being comprehended (vernommen) by the
listener ; and this capacity is called Reason ( Vernunft).
Such is the interpretation that all peoples, ages,
and languages have put on the word Reason. It
has always been understood to mean the posses-
sion of general, abstract, non-intuitive ideas, named
concepts, which are denoted and fixed by means of
words. This faculty alone it is which in reality gives
to men their advantage over animals. For these
abstract ideas, or concepts, that is, mental impressions
formed of the sum of many separate things, are
the condition of language and through it of actual
thought ; through which again they determine the
consciousness not only of the present (which animals
also have), but of the past and the future as such ;
whence it results that they are the modulus, so to say,
of clear recollection, of circumspection, of foresight,
and of intention ; the constant factor in the evolution
of systematic co-operation, of the state, of trades,
arts, sciences, religions, and philosophies, in short,
of everything that so sharply distinguishes human
from animal life. Beasts have only intuitive ideas,
and therefore also only intuitive motives ; consequently
the dependence of their volition on motives is manifest.
With man this dependence is no less a fact ; he,
too (with due allowance for individual character), is
affected by motives under the strictest law of necessity.
Only these are for the most part not intuitive but
abstract ideas, that is, conceptions, or thoughts, which
nevertheless are the result of previous intuitions, hence
72 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
of external influences. This, however, gives him a
relative freedom relative, that is, as compared with
an animal. For his action is not determined (as it
is in all other creatures) by the surroundings of
the moment as intuitively perceived, but by the
thoughts he has derived from experience, or gained
by instruction. Consequently the motive, by which
he, too, is necessarily swayed, is not always at once
obvious to the looker-on simultaneously with the act ;
it lies concealed in the brain. It is this that lends
to all his movements, as well as to his conduct and
work as a whole, a character manifestly different
from that observable in the habits of beasts. He
seems as though guided by finer, invisible threads ;
whence all his acts bear the stamp of deliberation
and premeditation, thus gaining an appearance of
independence, which sufficiently distinguishes them
from those of animals. All these great differences,
however, spring solely out of the capacity for abstract
ideas, concepts. This capacity is therefore the essen-
tial part of Reason, that is, of the faculty peculiar to
man, and it is called TO Xoyipov, 1 TO \oyia-TiKov,
ratio, la ragione, il discorso, raison, reason, discourse
of reason. If I were asked what the distinction is
between it and Verstand, ^01)9, intellects, entendement,
understanding ; I should reply thus : The latter is
that capacity for knowledge which animals also
possess in varying degrees, and which is seen in us at
its highest development ; in other words, it is the
1 \6yipos means " remarkable," being never used in the sense
of " rational." To \oyixby is perhaps a possible expression ;
the right word is Xoyor. (Translator.)
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 73
direct consciousness of the law of Causality a con-
sciousness which precedes all experience, being
constituted by the very form of the understanding,
whose essential nature is, in fact, therein contained.
On it depends in the first place the intuitive percep-
tion of the external world ; for the senses by them-
selves are only capable of impression, a thing which
is very far from being intuitive perception; indeed,
the former is nothing but the material of the latter :
vov<? opa KOI vovs atcovei, r'aXXa Kaxba Kal rv(f>\d.
(The mind sees, the mind hears ; everything else is
deaf and blind.) Intuitive perception is the result of
our directly referring the impressions of the sense-
organs to their cause, which, exactly because of this
act of the intelligence, presents itself as an external
object under the mode of intuition proper to us,
'.., in space. This is a proof that the Law of
Causality is known to us a priori, and does not
arise from experience, since experience itself, inas-
much as it presupposes intuitive perception, is only
possible through the same law. All the higher
qualities of the intellect, all cleverness, sagacity,
penetration, acumen are directly proportional to the
exactness and fulness with which the workings of
Causality in all its relations are grasped ; for all
knowledge of the connection of things, in the widest
sense of the word, is based on the comprehension
of this law, and the clearness and accuracy with
which it is understood is the measure of one man's
superiority to another in understanding, shrewdness,
cunning. On the other hand, the epithet reasonable
has at all times been applied to the man who does
74 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
not allow himself to be guided by intuitive impressions,
but by thoughts and conceptions, and who therefore
always sets to work logically after due reflection
and forethought. Conduct of this sort is everywhere
known as reasonable. Not that this by any means
implies uprightness and love for one's fellows.
On the contrary, it is quite possible to act in the
most reasonable way, that is, according to conclusions
scientifically deduced, and weighed with the nicest
exactitude ; and yet to follow the most selfish, unjust,
and even iniquitous maxims. So that never before
Kant did it occur to any one to identify just, virtuous,
and noble conduct with reasonable ; the two lines of
behaviour have always been completely separated, and
kept apart. The one depends on the kind of motivation ;
the other on the difference in fundamental principles.
Only after Kant (because he taught that virtue
has its source in Pure Reason) did the virtuous and
the reasonable become one and the same thing, despite
the usage of these words which all languages have
adopted a usage which is not fortuitous, but the
work of universal, and therefore uniform, human
judgment. " Keasonable " and " vicious " are terms
that go very well together ; indeed great, far-reaching
crimes are only possible from their union. Similarly,
" unreasonable " and " noble-minded " are often found
associated ; e.g., if I give to-day to the needy man
what I shall myself require to-morrow more urgently
than he ; or, if I am so far affected as to hand over
to one in distress the sum which my creditor is waiting
for ; and such cases could be multiplied indefinitely.
We have seen that this exaltation of Reason to
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 75
be the source of all virtue rests on two assertions.
First, as Practical Reason, it is said to issue, like
an oracle, peremptory Imperatives purely a priori.
Secondly, taken in connection with the false ex-
planation of Theoretical Reason, as given in the
Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, it is presented as a certain
faculty essentially concerned with the Unconditioned, as
manifested in three alleged Ideas l (the impossibility
of which the intellect at the same time recognises
a priori). And we found that this position, as an
exemplar vitiis imitabile^ led our muddy-headed
philosophers, Jacobi at their head, from bad to
worse. They talked of Reason ( Vernunft} as directly
comprehending (vernehmend) the " Supersensuous/'
and absurdly declared that it is a certain mental
property which has to do essentially with things
transcending all experience, i.e., with metaphysics ;
and that it perceives directly and intuitively the
ultimate causes of all things, and of all Being, the
Supersensuous, the Absolute, the Divine, etc. Now,
had it been wished to use Reason, instead of deifying
it, such assertions as these must long ago have been
met by the simple remark that, if man, by virtue
of a special organ, furnished by his Reason, for
solving the riddle of the world, possessed an innate
metaphysics that only required development ; in that
1 The three Ideas are : (1) The Psychological ; (2) The
Cosmological ; (3) The Theological. V. The Paralogisms of
Pure Reasons, in the Dialectics : Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,
Part I. (Translator.)
2 An example easy to be imitated in its faults. V. Horace,
Ep. Lib. I., xix. 17. (Translator.)
76 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
case there would have to be just as complete agree-
ment on metaphysical matters as on the truths
of arithmetic and geometry ; and this would make
it totally impossible that there should exist on the
earth a large number of radically different religions,
and a still larger number of radically different
systems of philosophy. Indeed, we may rather
suppose that, if any one were found to differ from
the rest in his religious or philosophical views, he
would be at once regarded as a subject for mental
pathology. Nor would the following plain reflection
have failed to present itself. If we discovered a
species of apes which intentionally prepared instru-
ments for fighting, or building, or for any other
purpose ; we should immediately admit that it was
endowed with Reason. On the other hand, if we
meet with savages destitute of all metaphysics, or
of all religion (and there are such) ; it does not
occur to us to deny them Reason on that account.
The Reason that proves its pretended supersensuous
knowledge was duly brought back to bounds by
Kant's critique ; but Jacobi's wonderful Reason, that
directly comprehends the supersensuous, he must
indeed have thought beneath all criticism. Mean-
while, a certain imperious and oracular Reason of
the same kind is still, at the Universities, fastened
on the shoulders of our innocent youth.
NOTE.
If we wish to reach the real origin of this hypothesis
of Practical Reason, we must trace its descent a
little further back. We shall find that it is derived
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 77
from a doctrine, which Kant totally confuted, but
which nevertheless, in this connection, lies secretly
(indeed he himself is not aware of it) at the root
of his assumption of a Practical Reason with its
Imperatives and its Autonomy a reminiscence of
a former mode of thought. I mean the so-called
Rational Psychology, according to which man is
composed of two entirely heterogeneous substances
the material body, and the immaterial soul. Plato
was the first to formulate this dogma, and he en-
deavoured to prove it as an objective truth. But it
was Descartes who, by working it out with scientific
exactness, perfectly developed and completed it.
And this is just what brought its fallacy to light, as
demonstrated by Spinoza, Locke, and Kant succes-
sively. It was demonstrated by Spinoza ; because his
philosophy consists chiefly in the refutation of his
master's twofold dualism, and because he entirely and
expressly denied the two Substances of Descartes,
and took as his main principle the following pro-
position : " Substantia cogitans et substantia extensa
una eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam
sub illo attribute comprehenditur " 1 It was demon-
strated by Locke ; for he combated the theory of
innate ideas, derived all knowledge from the sensuous,
and taught that it is not impossible that Matter
should think. And lastly, it was demonstrated by
1 The thinking substance, and substance in extension are
one and the self-same substance, which is contained now
under the latter attribute (i.e., extension), now under the
former (i.e., the attribute of thinking). Ethica, Part IL,
Prop. 7. Corollary.
78 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
Kant, in his Kritik der Rationalen Psychologie, as
given in the first edition. Leibnitz and Wolff were
the champions on the bad side ; and this brought
Leibnitz the undeserved honour of being compared
to the great Plato, who was really so unlike him.
But to enter into details here would be out of
place. According to this Rational Psychology, the
soul was originally and in its essence a perceiving
substance, and only as a consequence thereof did it
become possessed of volition. According as it carried
on these two modes of its activity, Perception and
Volition, conjoined with the body, or incorporeal, and
entirely per se, so it was endowed with a lower or
higher faculty of perception, and of volition in like
kind. In its higher faculty the immaterial soul
was active solely by itself, and without co-opera-
tion of the body. In this case it was intellectus
purus, being composed of concepts, belonging ex-
clusively to itself, and of the corresponding acts of
will, both of which were absolutely spiritual, and
had nothing sensuous about them the sensuous
being derived from the body. x So that it perceived
nothing else but pure Abstracts, Universals, innate
conceptions, aeternae veritates, etc. ; wherefore also
its volition was entirely controlled by purely spiritual
ideas like these. On the other hand, the soul's lower
faculty of Perception and Volition was the result
of its working in concert and close union with the
various organs of the body, whereby a prejudicial
1 Intellectio pura est intellectio, quae circa nullas imagines
corporeas versatur. (Pure intelligence is intelligence that has
nothing to do with any bodily forms.) Cart., Medit., p. 188.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 79
effect was produced on its unmixed spiritual activity.
Here, i.e., to this lower faculty, was supposed to
belong every intuitive perception, which consequently
would have to be obscure and confused, while the
abstract, formed by separating from objects their
qualities, would be clear ! The will, which was
determined by preceptions thus sensuously conditioned,
formed the lower Volition, and it was for the most
part bad ; for its acts were guided by the impulse
of the senses ; while the other will (the higher) was
untrammelled, was guided by Pure Reason, and apper-
tained only to the immaterial soul. This doctrine of
the Cartesians has been best expounded by De la
Forge, in his Tractatus de Mente Humana, where in
chap. 23 we read : l Non nisi eadem voluntas est, quae
appellatur appetitus sensitivus, quando excitatur per
judicia, quae formantur consequenter ad perceptiones
sensuum ; et quae appetitus rationalis nominatur, cum
1 It is nothing but one and the same will, which at one
time is called sensuous desire, when it is stimulated by acts
of judgment, formed in consequence of perceptions of the
senses ; and which at another time is called rational desire
(i.e. desire of the reason), when the mind forms acts of
judgment about its own proper ideas, independently of the
thoughts belonging to, and mixed up with, the senses ; which
thoughts are the causes of the mind's tendencies. . . . That
these two diverse propensities of the will should be regarded
as two distinct desires is occasioned by the fact that very
often the one is opposed to the other, because the intention,
which is built up by the mind on the foundation of its own
proper perceptions, does not always agree with the thoughts
which are suggested to the mind by the body's disposition ;
whereby it (the mind) is often constrained to will something,
while its reason makes it choose something different.
(Translator,)
80 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
mens judicia format de propriis suis ideis, inde-
pendenter a cogitationibus sensuum con/mis, quae
inclinationum ejus sunt causae. . . . Id, quod
occasionem dedit, ut duae istae diversae voluntatis
propensiones pro duobus dwcrsis appetitibus sumer-
entur, est, quod saepissime unus alteri opponatur,
quid propositum, quod mens superaedificat propriis
suis perceptionibus, non semper consentit cum cogita-
tionibus, quae menti a corporis dispositione suggeruntur,
per quam saepe obligatur ad aliquid wlendum, dum
ratio ejus earn aliud optarefacit.
Out of the dim reminiscence of such views there
finally arose Kant's doctrine of the Automony of the
Will, which, as the mouthpiece of Pure, Practical
Reason, lays down the law for all rational beings
as such, and recognises nothing but formal motives,
as opposed to material ; the latter determining only
the lower faculty of desires, to which the higher
is hostile. For the rest, this whole theory, which
was not really systematically set forth till the time
of Descartes, is nevertheless to be found as far back
as Aristotle. In his De Anima I. 1, it is sufficiently
clearly stated ; while Plato in the Phaedo (pp. 188
and 189, edit. Bipont.) had already paved the way,
with no uncertain hints. After being elaborated to
great perfection by the Cartesian doctrine, we find
it a hundred years later waxed bold and strong,
and occupying the foremost place ; but precisely for
this reason forced to reveal its true nature. An
excellent resume of the view which then prevailed
is presented in Muratori's Delia Forza della Fantasia,
chaps. 1-4 and 13, In this work the imagination is
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 81
regarded as a pa rely material, corporeal organ of
the brain (the lower faculty of perception), its
function being to intuitively apprehend the external
world on the data of the senses ; and nought remains
for the immaterial soul but thinking, reflecting, and
determining. It must have been felt how obviously
this position involves the whole subject in doubt.
For if Matter is capable of the intuitive apprehension
of the world in all its complexity, it is inconceivable
that it should, not also be capable of abstracting
this intuition ; wherefrom everything else would
follow. Abstraction is of course nothing else than
an elimination of the qualities attaching to things
which are not necessary for general purposes, in
other words, the individual and special differences.
For instance, if 1 disregard, or abstract, that which
is peculiar to the sheep, ox, stag, camel, etc., I
reach the conception of ruminants. By this opera-
tion the ideas lose their intuitiveness, and as merely
abstract, non-intuitive notions or concepts, they
require words to fix them in the consciousness, and
allow of their being adequately handled. All this
shows that Kant was still under the influence of
the after-effect of that old-time doctrine, when he
propounded his Practical Reason with its Imperatives.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE LEADING PEINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
AFTER having tested in the preceding chapter the
actual basis of Kant's Ethics, I now turn to that
which rests on it his leading principle of Morals.
The latter is very closely connected with the former ;
indeed, in a certain sense, they both grew up together.
We have seen that the formnla expressing the
principle reads as follows : " Act only in accordance
with that precept which you can also wish should be
a general law for all rational beings." It is a strange
proceeding for a man, who ex hypothesi is seeking
a law to determine what he should do, and what
he should leave undone, to be instructed first to search
for one fit to regulate the conduct of all possible
rational beings ; but we will pass over that. It is
sufficient only to notice the fact that in the above
guiding rule, as put forth by Kant, we have obviously
not reached the moral law itself, but only a finger-
post, or indication where it is to be looked for. The
money, so to say, is not yet paid down, but we hold
a safe draft for it. And who, then, is the cashier?
To say the truth at once : a paymaster in this con-
nection surely very unexpected, being neither more
nor less than Egoism, as I shall now demonstrate.
82
THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 83
The precept, it is said, which I can wish were
the guide of all men's conduct, is itself the real
moral principle. That which I can wish is the hinge
on which the given direction turns. But what can
1 truly wish, and what not ? Clearly, in order to
determine what I can wish in the matter under
discussion, I require yet another criterion ; for with-
out such I could never find the key to the instruction
which comes to me like a sealed order. Where,
then, is this criterion to be discovered ? Certainly
nowhere else but in my Egoism, which is the nearest,
ever ready, original, and living standard of all volition,
and which has at any rate the jus primi occupantis
before every moral principle. The direction for finding
the real moral law, which is contained in the Kantian
rule, rests, as a matter of fact, on the tacit assump-
tion that I can only wish for that which is most
to my advantage. Now because, in framing a precept
to be generally followed, I cannot regard myself as
always active, but must contemplate my playing a
passive part eventualiter and at times ; therefore
from this point of view my egoism decides for justice
and lovingkindness ; not from any wish to practise
these virtues, but because it desires to experience them.
We are reminded of the miser, who, after listening
to a sermon on beneficence, exclaims :
" Wie griindlich ausgefuhrt, wie schon !
Fast mocht' ich betteln gehn."
(How well thought out, how excellent !
Almost I'd like to beg.)
This is the indispensable key to the direction in
which Kant's leading principle of Ethics is embedded ;
84 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
nor can he help supplying it himself. Only he re-
frains from doing so at the moment of propounding
his precept, lest we should feel shocked. It is found
further on in the text, at a decent distance, so as
to prevent the fact at once leaping to light, that
here, after all, in spite of his grand a priori edifice,
Egoism is sitting on the judge's seat, scales in hand.
Moreover, it does not occur, till after he has decided,
from the point of view of the eventualiter passive
side, that this position holds good for the active
role as well. Thus, on p. 19 (R., p. 24) we read :
" That 1 could not wish for a general law to establish
lying, because people would no longer believe me,
or else pay me back in the same coin." Again on
p. 55 (R., p. 49) : " The universality of a law to
the effect that every one could promise what he
likes, without any intention of keeping his word,
would make the promise itself, together with the
object in view, whatever that might be, impossible ;
for no one would believe it." On p. 56 (R., p. 50),
in connection with the maxim of hard-heartedness, we
find the following : " A will, which should determine
this, would contradict itself ; for cases can occur, in
which a man needs the love and sympathy of others,
and in which he, by virtue of such a natural law,
evolved from his own will, would deprive himself
of all hope of the help, which he desires." Similarly
in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft (Part I., vol. i.,
chap. 2, p. 123 ; R., p. 192) : "If every one were to
regard others' distress with total indifference, and
you were to belong to such an order of things ;
would you be there with the concurrence of your
THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 85
will ? " Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus
iniquam ! 1 one could reply. These passages suffici-
ently show in what sense the phrase, " to be able
to wish," in Kant's formula is to be understood.
But it is in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der
Tugendlehre, that this real nature of his ethical
principle is most clearly stated. In 30 we read :
" For every one wishes to be helped. If, however,
a man were to give utterance to his rule of unwilling-
ness to help others, all people would be justified
in refusing him assistance. Thus this rule of selfish-
ness contradicts itself." Would be justified, he says,
would be justified ! Here, then, it is declared, as
explicitly as anything can be, that moral obligation
rests solely and entirely on presupposed reciprocity ;
consequently it is utterly selfish, and only admits
of being interpreted by egoism, which, under the
condition of reciprocity, knows how to make a
compromise cleverly enough. Such a course would
be quite in place if it were a question of laying
down the fundamentals of state-organisation, but not,
when we come to construct those of ethics. In the
Grundlegung, p. 81 (R., p. 67), the following sentence
occurs : " The principle of always acting in accordance
with that precept which you can also wish were
universally established as law this is the only
condition under which a man's will can never be in
antagonism with itself." From what has been said
above, it will be apparent that the true meaning
of the word " antagonism " may be thus, explained :
1 How rashly do we sanction an unjust law, which will
come home to ourselves ! (Hor., Sat., Lib. I., iii. 67.)
86 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
if a man should sanction the precept of injustice
and hard-heartedness, he would subsequently, in the
event of his playing a passive part, recall it, and
so his will would contradict itself.
From this analysis it is abundantly clear that
Kant's famous leading principle is not as he
maintains with tireless repetition a categorical, but
in reality a hypothetical Imperative ; because it
tacitly presupposes the condition that the law to be
established for what I do inasmuch as I make it
universal shall also be a law for what is done to
me ; and because I, under this condition, as the
eventualiter non-active party, cannot possibly wish
for injustice and hard-heartedness. But if I strike
out this proviso, and, trusting perhaps to my sur-
passing strength of mind and body, think of myself
as always active, and never passive ; then, in choosing
the precept which is to be universally valid, if there
exists no basis for ethics other than Kant's, I can
perfectly well wish that injustice and hard-heartedness
should be the general rule, and consequently order
the world
Upon the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep, who can.
(WORDSWORTH.)
In the foregoing chapter we showed that the
Kantian leading principle of Ethics is devoid of all
real foundation. It is now clear that to this singular
defect must.be added, notwithstanding Kant's express
assertion to the contrary, its concealed hypothetical
nature, whereby its basis turns out to be nothing else
THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 87
than Egoism, the latter being the secret interpreter
of the direction which it contains. Furthermore,
regarding it solely as a formula, we find that it is
only a periphrasis, an obscure and disguised mode of
expressing the well-known rale : Quod tibi fieri non
vis, alteri ne feceris (do not to another what you are
unwilling should be done to yourself) ; if, that is, by
omitting the non and ne, we remove the limitation, and
include the duties taught by love as well as those pre-
scribed by taw. For it is obvious that this is the only
precept which I can wish should regulate the conduct
of all men (speaking, of course, from the point of view
of the possibly passive part I may play, where my
Egoism is touched). This rule, Quod tibi fieri, etc., is,
however, in its turn, merely a circumlocution for, or,
if it be preferred, a premise of, the proposition which
I have laid down as the simplest and purest definition
of the conduct required by the common consent of all
ethical systems ; namely, Neminem laede, immo omnes,
quantum potes, juva (do harm to no one ; but
rather help all people, as far as lies in your power).
The true and real substance of Morals is this, and
never can be anything else. But on what is it based ?
What is it that lends force to this command ? This
is the old and difficult problem with which man is
still to-day confronted. For, on the other side, we
hear Egoism crying with a loud voice : Neminem juva,
immo omnes, si forte conducit, laede (help nobody,
but rather injure all people, if it brings you any
advantage) ; nay more, Malice gives us the variant :
Immo omnes, quantum potes, laede (but rather injure
all people as far as you can). To bring into the
88 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
lists a combatant equal, or rather superior to Egoism
and Malice combined this is the task of all Ethics.
Heic Rhodus, heic salta ! l
The division of human duty into two classes has
long been recognised, and no doubt owes its origin
to the nature of morality itself. We have (1) the
duties ordained by law (otherwise called the perfect,
obligatory, narrower duties), and (2) those prescribed
by virtue (otherwise called imperfect, wider, meri-
torious, or, preferably, the duties taught by love).
On p. 57 (R, p. 60) we find Kant desiring to give
a further confirmation to the moral principle, which
he propounded, by undertaking to derive this classi-
fication from it. But the attempt turns out to be
so forced, and so obviously bad, that it only testifies
in the strongest way against the soundness of his
position. For, according to him, the duties laid
down by statutes rest on a precept, the contrary
of which, taken as a general natural law, is declared
to be quite unthinkable without contradiction ; while
1 " Here is Rhodes, here make your leap ! " I.e., " Here is the
place of trial, here let us see what you can do ! " This Latin
proverb is derived from one of JEsop's fables. A braggart
boasts of having once accomplished a wonderful jump in
Rhodes, and appeals to the evidence of the eye-witnesses.
The bystanders then exclaim : " Friend, if this be true, you
have no need of witnesses ; for this is Rhodes, and your leap
you can make here." The words are: dXX', & </>tXe, et TOVTO
a\T)6fs fVriv, ovdev Set croi p.nprvpu>v' OUTTJ yap 'PoSos- xal TrjyS^jLia. V-
Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae. Edit. Halm, Leipzig : Teubner.
1875. N~r. 2036, p. 102. The other version of the fable (Nr.
203, p. 101) gives : S> OVTOS, et aXrjdfs TOVT' fcrnv, ov8fi> 8(1 croi
Idov 17 'Po'Sor, I8ov Koi TO TnjSjj/ia. (Translator.) .
THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 89
the duties inculcated by virtue are made to depend
on a maxim, the opposite of which can (he says)
be conceived as a general natural law, but cannot
possibly be wished for. I beg the reader to reflect
that the rule of injustice, the reign of might instead
of right, which in the Kantian view is not even
thinkable as a natural law, is in reality, and in
point of fact, the dominant order of things not only
in the animal kingdom, but among men as well.
It is true that an attempt has been made among
civilised peoples to obviate its injurious effects by
means of all the machinery of state government ;
but as soon as this, wherever, or of whatever kind,
it be, is suspended or eluded, the natural law
immediately resumes its sway. Indeed between
nation and nation it never ceases to prevail ; the
customary jargon about justice is well known to
be nothing but diplomacy's official style ; the real
arbiter is brute force. On the other hand, genuine,
i.e., voluntary, acts of justice, do occur beyond all
doubt, but always only as exceptions to the rule.
Furthermore : wishing to give instances by way
of introducing the above-mentioned classification,
Kant establishes the duties prescribed by law first
(p. 53 ; R., p. 48) through the so-called duty towards
oneself, the duty of not ending one's life voluntarily,
if the pain outweigh the pleasure. Accordingly, the
rule of suicide is held to be not even thinkable as
a general natural law. I, on the contrary, maintain
that, since here there can be no intervention of
state control, it is exactly this rule which is proved
to be an actually existing, unchecked natural law.
90 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
For it is absolutely certain (as daily experience
attests) that men in the vast majority of cases turn
to self-destruction directly the gigantic strength of
the innate instinct of self-preservation is distinctly
overpowered by great suffering. To suppose that
there is any thought whatever that can have a
deferring effect, after the fear of death, which is
so strong and so closely bound up with the nature
of every living thing, has shown itself powerless ;
in other words, to suppose that there is a thought
still mightier than this fear is a daring assump-
tion, all the more so, when we see, that it
is one which is so difficult to discover that the
moralists are not yet able to determine it with pre-
cision. In any case, it is certain that arguments
against suicide of the sort put forward by Kant in
this connection (p. 53 : R., p. 48, and p. 67 ; R., p.
57) have never hitherto restrained any one tired
of life even for a moment. Thus a natural law,
which ineontestably exists, and is operative every
day, is declared by Kant to be simply unthinkable
without contradiction, and all for the sake of making
his Moral Principle the basis of the classification of
duties ! At this point it is, I confess, not without
satisfaction that I look forward to the groundwork
which I shall give to Ethics in the sequel. From
it the division of Duty into what is prescribed by
law, and what is taught by love, or, better, into
justice and lovingkindness, results quite naturally
though a principle of separation which arises from
the nature of the subject, and which entirely of itself
draws a sharp line of demarkation ; so that the
THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 91
foundation of Morals, which I shall present, has in
fact ready to hand that confirmation, to which Kant,
with a view to support his own position, lays a
completely groundless claim.
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE DEBIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE
OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
IT is well known that Kant put the leading principle
of his Ethics into another quite different shape,
in which it is expressed directly ; the first being
indirect, indeed nothing more than an indication as
to how the principle is to be sought for. Beginning
at p. 63 (R., p. 55), he prepares the way for his
second formula by means of very strange, ambiguous,
not to say distorted, 1 definitions of the conceptions
End and Means, which may be much more simply and
correctly denoted thus : an End is the direct motive
of an act of the Will, a Means the indirect : simplex
sigillum veri (simplicity is the seal of truth). Kant,
however, slips through his wonderful enunciations to
the statement : " Man, indeed every rational being,
exists as an end in himself." On this I must remark
that " to exist as an end in oneself" is an unthinkable
expression, a contradictio in adjecto. 2 To be an
1 To keep the play of words in " geschrobene" " verschro-
bene," we may perhaps render them : "twisted" . . . "mis-
twisted." ( Translator. )
2 A contradiction in that which is added. A term applied
to two ideas which cannot be brought into a thinkable
relationship. ( Translator.)
92
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 93
end means to be an object of volition. Every end
can only exist in relation to a will, whose end, i.e.,
(as above stated), whose direct motive it is. Only
thus can the idea, "end" have any sense; which is
lost as soon as such connection is broken. But this
relation, which is essential to the thing, necessarily
excludes every "in itself." "End in oneself" is
exactly like saying : " Friend in oneself ; enemy
in oneself ; uncle in oneself ; north or east in
itself ; above or below in itself ; " and so on. At
bottom the " end in itself " is in the same case as
the " absolute ought " ; the same thought the theo-
logical secretly, indeed, unconsciously lies at the
root of each as its condition. Nor is the " absolute
worth," which is supposed to be attached to this
alleged, though unthinkable, " end in itself," at all
better circumstanced. It also must be characterised,
without pity, as a contradictio in adjecto. Every
"worth" is a valuation by comparison, and its
bearing is necessarily twofold. First, it is relative,
since it exists for some one ; and secondly, it is
comparative, as being compared with something else,
and estimated accordingly. Severed from these two
conditions, the conception, " worth," loses all sense
and meaning, and so obviously, that further demon-
stration is needless. But more : just as the phrases
" end in itself " and " absolute worth " outrage
logic, so true morality is outraged by the statement
on p. 65 (R., p. 56), that irrational beings (that is,
animals) are things, and should therefore be treated
simply as means, which are not at the same time
ends. In harmony with this, it is expressly declared
94 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
in the Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Tugend-
lekre, 16 : "A man can have no duties towards
any being, except towards his fellowmen ; " and
then, 17, we read: "To treat animals cruelly
runs counter to the duty of man towards himself;
because it deadens the feeling of sympathy for
them in their sufferings, and thus weakens a natural
tendency which is very serviceable to morality in
relation to other men." So one is only to have
compassion on animals for the sake of practice,
and they are as it were the pathological phantom
on which to train one's sympathy with men ! In
common with the whole of Asia that is not tainted
by Islam (which is tantamount to Judaism), I
regard such tenets as odious and revolting. Here,
once again, we see withal how entirely this philo-
sophical morality, which is, as explained above, only
a theological one in disguise, depends in reality on
the biblical Ethics. Thus, because Christian morals
leave - animals out of consideration (of which more
later on) ; therefore in philosophical morals they are
of course at once outlawed ; they are merely " things,"
simply means to ends of any sort ; and so they are
good for vivisection, for deer-stalking, bull-fights,
horse-races, etc., and they may be whipped to death
as they struggle along with heavy quarry carts.
Shame on such a morality which is worthy of Pariahs,
Chandalas and Mlechchas * ; which fails to recognise
1 A Chandala (or 6andala) means one who is born of a
Brahman woman by a Sudra husband, such a union being
an abomination. Hence it is a term applied to a low common
DEEIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 95
the Eternal Reality immanent in everything that has
life, and shining forth with inscrutable significance
from all eyes that see the sun ! This is a morality
which knows and values only the precious species
that gave it birth ; whose characteristic reason it
makes the condition under which a being may be
an object of moral regard.
By this rough path, then, indeed, per fas et
nefas (by fair means and by foul), Kant reaches the
second form in which he expresses the fundamental
principle of his Ethics : "Act in such a way that
you at all times treat mankind, as much in your
own person, as in the person of every one else, not
only as a Means, but also as an End." Such a
statement is a very artificial and roundabout way
of saying : " Do not consider yourself alone, but
others also ; " this in turn is a paraphrase for : Quod
tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris (do not to another
what yon are unwilling should be done to yourself) ;
and the latter, as I have said, contains nothing but
the premises to the conclusion, which is the true
and final goal of all morals and of all moralising ;
N eminent laede, immo omnes, quantum potes juva (do
harm to no one ; but rather help all people as far
as lies in your power). Like all beautiful things,
this proposition looks best unveiled. Be it only
observed that the alleged duties towards oneself are
dragged into this second Kantian edict intentionally
person. Mlechcha (or Mleccha) means a foreigner; one who
does not speak Sanskrit, and is not subject to Hindu in-
stitutions. The transition from a "a barbarian" to a bad
or wicked man, is easy. (Translator.)
96 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
and not without difficulty. Some place of course had
to be found for them. 1
Another objection that could be raised against the
formula is that the malefactor condemned to be
executed is treated merely as an instrument, and not
as an end, and this with perfectly good reason ; for
he is the indispensable means of upholding the terror
of the law by its fulfilment, and of thus accomplishing
the law's end the repression of crime.
But if this second definition helps nothing towards
laying a foundation for Ethics, if it cannot even pass
muster as its leading principle, that is, as an adequate
and direct summary of ethical precepts ; it has never-
theless the merit of containing a fine apergu of moral
psychology, for it marks egoism by an exceedingly
characteristic token, which is quite worth while being
here more closely considered. This egoism, then, of
which each of us is full, and to conceal which, as our
partie honteuse, we have invented politeness, is per-
petually peering through every veil cast over it, and
may especially be detected in the fact that our
dealings with all those, who come across our path,
are directed by the one object of trying to find,
before everything else, and as if by instinct, a pos-
sible means to any of the numerous ends with which
we are always engrossed. When we make a new
acquaintance, our first thought, as a rule, is whether
the man can be useful to us in some way. If he
can do nothing for our benefit, then as soon as we
are convinced of this, he himself generally becomes
1 These so-called duties have been discussed in Chapter III.
of this Part.
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 97
nothing to us. To seek in all other people a possible
means to our ends, in other words, to make them
onr instruments, is almost part of the very nature
of human eyes ; and whether the instrument will
have to suffer more or less in the using, is a thought
which comes "much later, sometimes not at all. That
we assume others to be similarly disposed is shown
in many ways ; e.g., by the fact that, when, we ask
any one for information or advice, we lose all con-
fidence in his words directly we discover that he
may have some interest in the matter, however small
or remote. For then we immediately take for granted
that he will make us a means to his ends, and hence
give his advice not in accordance with his discernment,
but with his desire, and this, no matter how exact
the former may be, or how little the latter seem
involved ; since we know only too well that a cubic
inch of desire weighs much more than a cubic yard
of discernment. Conversely, when we ask in such
cases : " What ought I to do ? " as a rule, nothing
else will occur to our counsellor, but how we should
shape our action to suit his own ends ; and to this
effect he will give his reply immediately, and as it
were mechanically, without so much as bestowing
a thought on our ends ; because it is his Will that
directly dictates the answer, or ever the question
can come before the bar of his real judgment. Hence
he tries to mould our conduct to his own benefit,
without even being conscious of it, and while he
supposes that he is speaking out of the abundance
of his discernment, in reality he is nothing but the
mouth-piece of his own desire ; indeed, such self-
7
98 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
deception may lead him so far as to utter lies,
without being aware of it. So greatly does the
influence of the Will preponderate that of the
Intelligence. Consequently, it is not the testimony
of our own consciousness, but rather, for the most
part, that of our interest, which avails to determine
whether our language be in accordance with what
we discern, or what we desire. To take another
case. Let us suppose that a man pursued by enemies
and in danger of life, meets a pedlar and inquires
for some by-way of escape ; it may happen that the
latter will answer him by the question : " Do you
need any of my wares ? " It is not of course meant
that matters are always like this. On the contrary,
many a man is found to show a direct and real
participation in another's weal and woe, or (in Kant's
language) to regard him as an end and not as a
means. How far it seems natural, or the reverse,
to each one to treat his neighbour for once in the
way as an end, instead of (as usual) a means,
this is the criterion of the great ethical difference
existing between character and character ; and that
on which the mental attitude of sympathy rests in
the last resort will be the true basis of Ethics, and
will form the subject of the third part of this Essay.
Thus, in his second formula, Kant distinguishes
Egoism and its opposite by a very characteristic
trait ; and this point of merit I have all the more
gladly brought out into strong light and illustrated,
because in other respects there is little in the ground-
work of his Ethics that I can admit.
The third and last form in which Kant put forward
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 99
his Moral Principle is the Autonomy of the Will :
" The Will of every rational being is universally
legislative for all rational beings." This of course
follows from the first form. As a consequence of the
third, however, we are asked to believe (see p. 71 ;
R., p. 60) that the specific characteristic of the
Categorical Imperative lies in the renunciation of all
interest by the Will when acting from a sense of duty.
All previous moral principles had thus (he says)
broken down, " because the latter invariably attributed
to human actions at bottom a certain interest, whether
originating in compulsion, or in pleasurable attraction
an interest which might be one's own, or another's "
(p. 73 ; R., p. 62). (Another's : let this be particularly
'noticed.) " Whereas a universally legislative Will
must prescribe actions which are not based on any
interest at all, but solely on a feeling of duty."
I beg the reader to think what this really means.
As a matter of fact, nothing less than volition with-
out motive, in other words, effect without cause.
Interest and Motive are interchangeable ideas ;
what is interest but quod mea interest, that which
is of importance to me ? And is not this, in one
word, whatever stirs and sets in motion my Will ?
Consequently, what is an interest other than the
working of a motive upon the Will ? Therefore
where a motive moves the Will, there the latter has
an interest ; but where the Will is affected by no
motive, there in truth it can be as little active, as
a stone is able to leave its place without being
pushed or pulled. No educated person will require
any demonstration of this. It follows that every
100 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
action, inasmuch as it necessarily .must have a
motive, necessarily also presupposes an interest.
Kant, however, propounds a second entirely new class
of actions which are performed without any interest,
i.e., without motive. And these actions are all
deeds of justice and lovingkindness ! It will be
seen that this monstrous assumption, to be refuted,
needed only to be reduced to its real meaning, which
was concealed through the word u interest " being
trifled with. Meanwhile Kant celebrates (p. 74 sqq. ;
R., p. 62) the triumph of his Autonomy of the
Will by setting up a moral Utopia called the
Kingdom of Ends, which is peopled with nothing but
rational beings in abstracto. These, one and all, are
always willing, without willing any actual thing (i.e.,
without interest) : the only thing that they will is
that they may all perpetually will in accordance with
one maxim (i.e., Autonomy). Difficile est satiram
non scribere 1 (it is difficult to refrain from writing
a satire).
But there is something else to which Kant is led
by his autonomy of the will ; and it involves more
serious consequences than the little innocent King-
dom of Ends, which is perfectly harmless and may
be left in peace. I mean the conception of human
dignity. Now this " dignity " is made to rest solely
on man's autonomy, and to lie in the fact that the law
which he ought to obey is his own work, his relation
to it thus being the same as that of the subjects of a
constitutional government to their statutes. As an
ornamental finish to the Kantian system of morals
1 Juvenal, Sat. I. 30.
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 101'
such a theory might after all be passed over. Only
this expression " Human Dignity," once it was uttered
by Kant, became the shibboleth of all perplexed and
empty-headed moralists. For behind that imposing
formula they concealed their lack, not to say, of a
real ethical basis, but of any basis at all which
was possessed of an intelligible meaning ; supposing
cleverly enough that their readers would be so
pleased to see themselves invested with such a
"dignity" that they would be quite satisfied. 1 Let
us, however, look at this conception a little more
carefully, and submit it to the test of reality. Kant
(p. 79 ; R., p. 60) defines dignity as " an uncon-
ditioned, incomparable value." This is an explanation
which makes such an effect by its magnificent sound
that one does not readily summon up courage to
examine it at close quarters ; else we should find
that it too is nothing but a hollow hyperbole, within
which there lurks like a gnawing worm, the con-
tradictio in adjecto. Every value is the estimation
of one thing compared with another ; it is thus a
conception of comparison, and consequently relative ;
and this relativity is precisely that which forms the
essence of the idea. According to Diogenes Laertius
(Book VII., chap. 106), 2 this was already correctly
taught by the Stoics. He says : ir^v Se a%iav dvai
1 It appears that G. W. Block in his Neue Grundlegung der
Philosojihie der Sitten, 1802, was the first to make " Human
Dignity" expressly and exclusively the foundation-stone of
Ethics, which he then built up entirely on it.
2 V. Diogenes Laertius, de Clarorum Philosophorum Vitis,
etc., edit. C. Gabr. Cobet. Paris ; Didot, 1862. In this edition
the passage quoted is in chap. 105 ad fin., p. 182. (Translator.)
102 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
afjbOi^rjv BoKifjidaTov, rw av o efjwreipos TWV
rd^rj- o/jLOiov elirelv, a/ner/3ecr$at irvpov^ 7rpo9 ras crvv
-rfjjiiova) Kpidds. 1 An incomparable, unconditioned, absolute
value, such as "dignity" is declared by Kant to
be, is thus, like so much else in Philosophy, the-
statement in words of a thought which is really
unthinkable ; just as much as " the highest number,"
or " the greatest space."
" Dock eben wo Beyriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein WORT zu rechter Zdt sick ein."
(But where conceptions fail,
Just there a WORD comes in to fill the blank.)
So it was with this expression, " Human Dignity."
A most acceptable phrase was brought into currency.
Thereon every system of Morals, that was spun out
through all classes of duty, and all forms of casuistry,
found a broad basis ; from which serene elevation
it could comfortably go on preaching.
At the end of his exposition (p. 124 ; E., p. 97),
Kant says : " But how it is that Pure Reason without
other motives, that may have their derivation else-
where, can by itself be practical ; that is, how, without
there being any object for the Will to take an
antecedent interest in, the simple principle of the
universal validity of all the precepts of Pure Reason,
as laws, can of itself provide a motive and bring
about an interest which may be called purely moral ;
or, in other words, how it is that Pure Reason can
1 They teacb that " worth " is the equivalent value of a
thing which has been tested, whatever an expert may fix that
value to be ; as, for instance, to take wheat in exchange for
barley and a mule. (Translator.)
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 103
be practical ; to explain this problem, all human
reason is inadequate, and all trouble and work spent
on it are vain." Now it should be remembered that,
if any one asserts the existence of a thing which
cannot even be conceived as possible, it is incumbent on
him to prove that it is an actual reality ; whereas the
Categorical Imperative of Practical Reason is expressly
not put forward as a fact of consciousness, nor otherwise
founded on experience. Rather are we frequently
cautioned not to attempt to explain it by having
recourse to empirical authropology. (Of. e.g., p. vi.
of the preface ; R., p. 5 ; and pp. 59, 60 ; R., p. 52).
Moreover, we are repeatedly (e.g., p. 48 ; R., p. 44)
assured " that no instance can show, and consequently
there can be no empirical proof, that an Imperative
of this sort exists everywhere." And further, on
p. 49 (R., p. 45), we read, " that the reality of the
Categorical Imperative is not a fact of experience."
Now if we put all this together, we can hardly avoid
the suspicion that Kant is jesting at his readers'
expense. But although this practice may be allowed
by the present philosophical public of Germany, and
seem good in their eyes, yet in Kant's time it was
not so much in vogue ; and besides, Ethics, then,
as always, was precisely the subject that least of
all could lend itself to jokes. Hence we must
continue to hold the conviction that what can neither
be conceived as possible, nor proved as actual, is
destitute of all credentials to attest its existence.
And if, by a strong effort of the imagination, we
try to picture to ourselves a man, possessed, as it
were, by a daemon, in the form of an absolute Ought,
104 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
that speaks only in Categorical Imperatives, and,
confronting his wishes and inclinations, claims to be
the perpetual controller of his actions ; in* this figure
we see no true portrait of human nature, or of
our inner life ; what we do discern is an artificial
substitute for theological Morals, to which it stands
in the same relation as a wooden leg to a living one.
Our conclusion, therefore, is, that the Kantian
Ethics, like all anterior systems, is devoid of any
sure foundation. As I showed at the outset, in my
examination of its imperative Form, the structure is
at bottom nothing but an inversion of theological
Morals, cloaked in very abstract formulae of an
apparently a priori origin. That this disguise was
most artificial and unrecognisable is the more certain,
from the fact that Kant, in all good faith, was
actually himself deceived by it, arid really believed
that he could establish, independently of all theology,
and on the basis of pure intelligence a priori, those
conceptions of the Law and of the hests of Duty,
which obviously have no meaning except in theo-
logical Ethics ; whereas I have sufficiently proved
that with him they are destitute of all real foundation,
and float loosely in mid air. However, the mask at
length falls away in his own workshop, and theo-
logical Ethics stands forth unveiled, as witness his
doctrine of the Highest Good, the Postulates of
Practical Reason ; and lastly, his Moral Theology.
But this revelation freed neither Kant nor the public
from their illusion as to the real state of things ; on
the contrary, both he and they rejoiced to see all
those precepts, which hitherto had been sanctioned
DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE. 105
by Faith, now ratified and established by Ethics
(although only idealiter, and for practical purposes).
The truth is that they, in all sincerity, put the effect
for the cause, and the cause for the effect, inasmuch
as they failed to perceive that at the root of this
system of Morals there lay, as absolutely necessary
assumptions, however tacit and concealed, all the
alleged consequences that had been drawn from it.
At the end of this severe investigation, which must
also have been tiring to my readers, perhaps I may
be allowed, by way of diversion, to make a jesting,
indeed frivolous comparison. I would liken Kant,
in his self-mystification, to a man who at a ball has
been flirting the whole evening with a masked beauty,
in hopes of making a conquest ; till at last, throwing
off her disguise, she reveals herself as his wife.
CHAPTER VII.
KANT'S DOCTHINE OF CONSCIENCE.
THE alleged Practical Reason with its Categorical
Imperative, is manifestly very closely connected with
Conscience, although essentially different from it in
two respects. In the first place, the Categorical
Imperative, as commanding, necessarily speaks
before the act, whereas Conscience does not till after-
wards. Before the act Conscience can at best only
speak indirectly, that is, by means of reflection, which
holds up to it the recollection of previous cases, in
which similar acts after they were committed received
its disapproval. It is on this that the etymology of
the word Gewissen (Conscience) appears to me to
rest, because only what has already taken place is
gewiss l (certain). Undoubtedly, through external
inducement and kindled emotion, or by reason of
the internal discord of bad humour, impure, base
thoughts, and evil desires rise up in all people,
even in the best. But for these a man is not morally
responsible, and need not load his conscience with
them ; since they only show what the genus homo,
not what the individual, who thinks them, would be
1 Both words are, of course, derived from tvissen sdre =
fltievcu. (Translator.)
106
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 107
capable of doing. Other motives, if not simul-
taneously, yet almost immediately, come into his
consciousness, and confronting the unworthy inclina-
tions prevent them from ever being crystallised into
deeds ; thus causing them to resemble the out-voted
minority of au acting committee. By deeds alone
each person gains an empirical knowledge no less
of himself than of others, just as it is deeds alone
that burden the conscience. For, unlike thoughts,
these are not problematic ; on the contrary, they
are certain (gewiss), they are unchangeable, and
are not only thought, but known (gewusst). The
Latin conscientia, 1 and the Greek a-vvelSrjai,*; 2 have
the same sense. Conscience is thus the knowledge
that a man has about what he has done.
The second point of difference between the alleged
Categorical Imperative and Conscience is, that the
latter always draws its material from experience ;
which the former cannot do, since it is purely a
priori. Nevertheless, we may reasonably suppose
that Kant's Doctrine of Conscience will throw some
light on this new conception of an absolute Ought
which he introduced. His theory is most completely
set forth in the Metaphysiscke Anfangsgrunde zur
Tugendlehre, 13, and in the following criticism I
shall assume that the few pages which contain it
are lying before the reader.
1 Cf. Horace's ccmscire sibi, pallescere culpa, : Epist. I. 1,
61. To be conscious of having done wrong, to turn pale at
the thought of the crime.
3 ZwfiBrjo-is = consciousness (of right or wrong done).
(Translator.)
108 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
The Kantian interpretation of Conscience makes
an exceedingly imposing effect, before which one
used to stand with reverential awe, and all the less
confidence was felt in demurring to it, because there
lay heavy on the mind the ever-present fear of having
theoretical objections construed as practical, and, if
the correctness of Kant's view were denied, of being
regarded as devoid of conscience. I, however, cannot
be led astray in this manner, since the question here
is of theory, not of practice ; and I am not concerned
with the preaching of Morals, but with the exact
investigation of the ultimate ethical basis.
We notice at once that Kant employs exclusively
Latin legal terminology, which, however, would seem
little adapted to reflect the most secret stirrings of
the human heart. Yet this language, this judicial
way of treating the subject, he retains from first
to last, as though it were essential and proper
to the matter. And so we find brought upon the
stage of our inner self a complete Court of justice,
with indictment, judge, plaintiff, defendant, and
sentence ; nothing is wanting. Now if this tribunal,
as portrayed by Kant, really existed in our breasts,
it would be astonishing if a single person could be
found to be, I do not say, so bad, but so stupid, as to
act against his conscience. For such a supernatural
assize, of an entirely special kind, set up in our
consciousness, such a secret court like another
Fehmgericht 1 held in the dark recesses of our
1 The celebrated Secret Tribunal of Westphalia, which came
into prominence about A.D. 1220. In A.D. 1335 the Arch-
bishop of Cologne was appointed head of all the Fehme
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 109
inmost being, would inspire everybody with- a terror
and fear of the gods strong enough to really keep
him from grasping at short transient advantages, in
face of the dreadful threats of superhuman powers,
speaking in tones so near and so clear. In real
life, on the contrary, we find that the efficiency of
conscience is generally considered such a vanishing
quantity that all peoples have bethought themselves
of helping it out by means of positive religion, or
even of entirely replacing it by the latter. Moreover,
if Conscience were indeed of this peculiar nature,
the Royal Society could never have thought of the
question put for the present Prize Essay.
But if we look more closely at Kant's exposition,
we shall find that its imposing effect is mainly pro-
duced by the fact that he attributes to the moral
verdict passed on ourselves, as its peculiar and
essential characteristic, a form which in fact is not so
at all. This metaphorical bar of judgment is no more
applicable to moral self-examination than it is to
every other reflection as regards what we have done,
and might have done otherwise, where no ethical
question is involved. For it is not only true that
the same procedure of indictment, defence, and
sentence is occasionally assumed by that obviously
spurious and artificial conscience which is based on
mere superstition ; as, for instance, when a Hindu
reproaches himself with having been the murderer of
benches in Westphalia by the Emperor Charles IV. The
reader will remember the description of the trial scene in
Scott's Anne of Geierstein. Perhaps the Court of Star Chamber
comes nearest to it in English History. {Translator.)
110 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
a cow, or when a Jew remembers that he has smoked
his pipe at home on the Sabbath ; bnt even the self-
questioning which springs from no ethical source,
being indeed rather unmoral than moral, often
appears in a shape of this sort, as the following case
may exemplify. Suppose I, good-naturedly, but
thoughtlessly, have made myself surety for a friend,
and suppose there comes with evening the clear
perception of the heavy responsibility I have taken on
myself a responsibility that may easily involve me
in serious trouble, as the wise old saying, e^va' Trdpa
8' ara ! l predicts ; then at once there rise up within
me the Accuser and the Counsel for the defence, ready
to confront each other. The latter endeavours to
palliate my rashness in giving bail so hastily, by
pointing out the stress of circumstance or of obliga-
tion, or, it may be, the simple straightforwardness
of the transaction ; perhaps he even seeks excuse by
commending my kind heart. Last of all comes the
Judge who inexorably passes the sentence : " A fool's
piece of work ! " and I am overwhelmed withconfusion
So much for this judicial form of which Kant is so
fond ; his other modes of expression are, for the most
part, open to the same criticism. For instance, that
which he attributes to conscience, at the beginning of
the paragraph, as its peculiar property, applies equally
to all other scruples of an entirely different sort. He
says : " It (conscience) follows him like his shadow,
try though he may to escape. By pleasures and
1 If you give a pledge, be sure that Ate (the goddess of
mischief) is beside you ; i.e., beware of giving pledges. Thales
ap. Plat, Charm. 165 A.
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. Ill
distractions lie may be stupefied and lulled to sleep,
but he cannot avoid occasionally waking up and
coming to himself ; and then he is immediately
aware of the terrible voice," etc. Obviously, this may
be just as well understood, word for word, of the
secret consciousness of some person of private means,
who feels that his expenses far exceed his income,
and that thus his capital is being affected, and will
gradually melt away.
We have seen that Kant represents the use of
legal terms as essential to the subject, and that he
keeps to them from beginning to end ; let it now
be noted how he employs the same style for the
following finely devised sophism. He says : " That
a person accused by his conscience should be identi-
fied with the judge is an absurd way of portraying
a court of justice ; for in that case the accuser
would invariably lose." And he adds, by way of
elucidating this statement, a very ambiguous and
obscure note. His conclusion is that, if we would
avoid falling into a contradiction, we must think
of the judge (in the judicial conscience-drama that
is enacted in our breasts) as different from us, in
fact, as another person ; nay more, as one that is
an omniscient knower of hearts, whose hests are
obligatory on all, and who is almighty for every
purpose of executive authority. 1 He thus passes by a
1 Kant leads up to this position with great ingenuity, by
having recourse to the theory of the two characters coexistent
in man the noumenal (or intelligible) and the empirical ;
the one being in time, the other, timeless ; the one, fast bound
by the law of causality, the other free. (Translator.)
112 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
perfectly smooth path from conscience to superstition,
making the latter a necessary consequence of the
former ; while he is secretly sure that he will be
all the more willingly followed because the reader's
earliest training will have certainly rendered him
familiar with such ideas, if not have made them his
second nature. Here, then, Kant finds an easy task,
a thing he ought rather to have despised; for
he should have concerned himself not only with
preaching, but also with practising truthfulness. I
entirely reject the above quoted sentence, and all the
conclusions consequent thereon, and I declare it to
be nothing but a shuffling trick. It is not true that
the accuser must always lose, when the accused is
the same person as the judge ; at least not in the
court of judgment in our hearts. In the instance I
gave of one man going surety for another, did the
accuser lose ? Or must we in this case also, if we
wish to avoid a contradiction, really assume a per-
sonification after Kant's fashion, and be driven to
view objectively as another person that voice whose
deliverance would have been those terrible words :
" A fool's piece of work ! " ? A sort of Mercury,
forsooth, in living flesh ? Or perhaps a prosopopoeia
of the MfjTis (cunning) recommended by Homer (11.
xxiii. 313 sqq.)? 1 But thus we should only be
landed, as before, on the broad path of superstition,
aye, and pagan superstition too.
It is in this passage that Kant indicates his Moral
Theology, briefly indeed, yet not without all its vital
points. The fact that he takes care not to attribute
aye 8f) (TV, <p[\os, IMTJTI.V e'/i/3a\Aeo
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE. 113
to it any objective validity, but rather to present it
merely as a form subjectively unavoidable, does not
free him from the arbitrariness with which he con-
structs it, even though he only claims its necessity
for human consciousness. His fabric rests, as we
have seen, on a tissue of baseless assumptions.
So much, then, is certain. The entire imagery
that of a judicial drama whereby Kant depicts con-
science is wholly unessential and in no way peculiar
to it ; although he keeps this figure, as if it were
proper to the subject, right through to the end, in
order finally to deduce certain conclusions from it.
As a matter of fact it is a sufficiently common form,
which our thoughts easily take when we consider any
circumstance of real life. It is due for the most part
to the conflict of opposing motives which usually
spring up, and which are successively weighed and
tested by our reflecting reason. And no difference is
made whether these motives are moral or egoistic in
their nature, nor whether our deliberations are con-
cerned with some action in the past, or in the future.
Now if we strip from Kant's exposition its dress of
legal metaphor, which is only an optional dramatic
appendage, the surrounding nimbus with all its
imposing effect immediately disappears as well, and
there remains nothing but the fact that sometimes,
when we think over our actions, we are seized
with a certain self-dissatisfaction, which is marked
by a special characteristic. It is with our conduct
per se that we are discontented, not with its result,
and this feeling does not, as in every other case in
which we regret the stupidity of our behaviour, rest
8
114 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
on egoistic grounds. For on these occasions the cause
of our dissatisfaction is precisely because we have
been too egoistic, because we have taken too much
thought for ourselves, and not enough for our
neighbour ; or perhaps even because, without any
resulting advantage, we have made the misery of
others an object in itself. That we may be dissatisfied
with ourselves, and saddened by reason of sufferings
which we have inflicted, not undergone, is a plain
fact and impossible to be denied. The connection of
this with the only ethical basis that can stand an
adequate test we shall examine further on. But
Kant, like a clever special pleader, tried by magnifying
and embellishing the original datum to make all that
he possibly could of it, in order to prepare a very
broad foundation for his Ethics and Moral Theology.
CHAPTER VIII.
KANT'S DOCTKINE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE l
AND EMPIRICAL CHAEACTER. THEORY OF FREEDOM.
THE attack I have made, in the cause of truth, on
Kant's system of Morals, does not, like those of my
predecessors, touch the surface only, but penetrates to
its deepest roots. It seems, therefore, only just that,
before I leave this part of my subject, I should bring
to remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service
which he nevertheless rendered to ethical science.
I allude to his doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom
and Necessity. We find it first in the Kritik der
Reinen Vernunft (pp. 533-554 of the first, and pp. 561-
582 of the fifth, edition) ; but it is still more clearly
expounded in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft
(fourth edition, pp. 169-179 ; R., pp. 224-231).
The strict and absolute necessity of the acts of
Will, determined by motives as they arise, was first
shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and
also by Dietrich von Holbach in his Systeme de la
Nature ; and lastly by Priestley it was most com-
pletely and precisely demonstrated. This point,
indeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond
1 V. Note onf " intelligible " in Chapter I. of this Part.
(Translator.)
115
116 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the
number of perfectly established truths, and only
crass ignorance conld continue to speak of a freedom,
of a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (a free and
indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor
did Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his
predecessors, hesitate to consider' the Will as fast
bound in the chains of Necessity, the matter admitting,
as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This
is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of
freedom only from the theoretical standpoint. Never-
theless, it is true that onr actions are attended with
a consciousness of independence and original initi-
ative, which makes us recognise them as our own
work, and every one with ineradicable certainty
feels that he is the real author of his conduct, and
morally responsible for it. But since responsibility
implies the possibility of having acted otherwise,
which possibility means freedom in some sort or
manner ; therefore in the consciousness of responsi-
bility is indirectly involved also the consciousness
of freedom. The key to resolve the contradiction,
that thus arises out of the nature of the case, was
at last found by Kant through the distinction he
drew with profound acumen, between phaenomena
and the Thing in itself (das Ding an sicfi). This
distinction is the very core of his whole philosophy,
and its greatest merit.
The individual, with his immutable, innate character,
strictly determined in all his modes of expression
by the law of Causality, which, as acting through
the medium of the intellect, is here called by the
THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 117
name of Motivation, the individual so constituted
is only the phaenomenon (Erscheinung). The Thing
in itself which underlies this phaenomenon is outside
of Time and Space, consequently free from all
succession and plurality, one, and changeless. Its
constitution in itself is the intelligible character,
which is equally present in all the acts of the
individual, and stamped on every one of them,
like the impress of a signet on a thousand seals.
The empirical character of the phaenomenon the
character which manifests itself in time, and in
succession of acts is thus determined by the in-
telligible character ; and consequently, the individual,
as phaenomenon, in all his modes of expression,
which are called forth by motives, must show the
invariableness of a natural law. Whence it results
that all his actions are governed by strict necessity.
Now it used to be commonly maintained that the
character of a man may be transformed by moral
admonitions and remonstrances appealing to reason ;
but when the distinction between the intelligible
and empirical character had once been drawn, it
followed that the unchangeableness, the inflexible
rigidity of the empirical character, which thinking
people had always observed, was explained and
traced to a rational basis, and consequently accepted
as an established fact by Philosophy. Thus the
latter was so far harmonised with experience, and
ceased to stand abashed before popular wisdom,
which long before had spoken the words of truth
in the Spanish proverb : Lo que entra con el
capillo, sale con la mortaja (that which comes in
118 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
with the child's cap, goes ont with the winding-
sheet) ; or : Lo que en la leche se mama, en la
mortaja, se derrama (what is imbibed with the milk,
is ponred ont again in the winding-sheet).
This doctrine of the coexistence of Freedom and
Necessity I regard as the greatest of all the achieve-
ments of hnman sagacity. With the Transcendental
Aesthetics it forms the two great diamonds in the
crown of Kant's fame, which will never pass away.
In his Treatise on Freedom, Schelling obviously
served up the Kantain teaching in a paraphrase,
which by reason of its lively colouring and graphic
delineation, is for many people more comprehensible.
The work would deserve praise if its author had
had the honesty to say that he is drawing on Kant's
wisdom, not on his own. As it is, a certain part
of the philosophic public still credits him with the
entire performance.
The theory itself, and the whole question re-
garding the nature of Freedom, can be better
understood if we view them in connection with a
general truth, which I think, is most concisely
expressed by a formula frequently occurring in the
scholastic writings : Operari sequitur esse. 1 In other
words, everything in the world operates in accordance
with what it is, in accordance with its inherent
nature, in which, consequently, all its modes of
expression are already contained potentially, while
actually they are manifested when elicited by external
causes ; so that external causes are the means
whereby the essential constitution of the thing is
1 I.e., what is done is a consequence of that which is.
THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 119
revealed. And the modes of expression so resulting
form the empirical character ; whereas its hidden,
ultimate basis, which is inaccessible to experience,
is the intelligible character, that is, the real nature
per se of the particular thing in question. Man
forms no exception to the rest of nature ; he too
has a changeless character, which, however, is strictly
individual and different in each case. This character
is of course empirical as far as we can grasp it, and
therefore only phaenomenal ; while the intelligible
character is whatever may be the real nature in
itself of the person. His actions one and all, being,
as regards their external constitution, determined
by motives, can never be shaped otherwise than in
accordance with the unchangeable individual char-
acter. As a man is, so he his bound to act. Hence
for a given person in every single case, there is
absolutely only one way of acting possible : Operari
sequitur esse. 1 Freedom belongs only to the in-
telligible character, not to the empirical. The operari
(conduct) of a given individual is necessarily
determined externally by motives, internally by his
character ; therefore everything that he does neces-
sarily takes place. But in his esse (i.e., in what
he is), there, we find Freedom. He might have
been something different ; and guilt or merit attaches
to that which he is. All that he does follows
from what he is, as a mere corollary. Through
Kant's doctrine we are freed from the primary error
of connecting Necessity with esse (what one is),
and Freedom with operari (what one does) ; we
1 I.e., his acts are a consequence of what he is.
120 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
become aware that this is a misplacement of terms,
and that exactly the inverse arrangement is the
true one. Hence it is clear that the moral responsi-
bility of a man, while it first of all, and obviously,
of course, touches what he does, yet at bottom
touches what he is ; because, what he is being the
original datum, his conduct, as motives arise, could
never take any other course than that which it
actually does take. But, however strict be the
necessity, whereby, in the individual, acts are elicited
by motives, it yet never occurs to anybody not
even to him who is convinced of this necessity
to exonerate himself on that account, and cast
the blame on the motives ; for he knows well
enough that, objectively considered, any given cir-
cumstance, and its causes, perfectly admitted quite
a different, indeed, a directly opposite course of
action ; nay, that such a course would actually have
taken place, if only he had been a different person.
That he is precisely such a one as his conduct
proclaims him to be, and no other this it is for
which he feels himself responsible ; in his esse (what
he is) lies the vulnerable place, where the sting of
conscience penetrates. For Conscience is nothing but
acquaintance with one's own self an acquaintance
that arises out of one's actual mode of conduct, and
which becomes ever more intimate. So that it is the
esse (what one is) which in reality is accused by
conscience, while the operari (what one does) sup-
plies the incriminating evidence. Since we are only
conscious of Freedom through the sense of responsi-
bility ; therefore where the latter lies the former must
THEORY OF FREEDOM. 121
also be ; in the esse (in one's being). It is the
operari (what one does) that is subject to necessity.
Bat we can only get to know ourselves, as well as
others empirically ; we have no a priori knowledge
of our character. Certainly our natural tendency
is to cherish a very high opinion of it, because the
maxim : Quisque praesumitur bonus, donee probetur
eontrarium (every one is presumed to be good, until
the contrary is proved), is perhaps even more true of
the inner court of justice than of the world's tribunals.
NOTE.
He who is capable of recognising the essential
part of a thought, though clothed in a dress very
different from what he is familiar with, will see,
as I do, that this Kantian doctrine of the intelligible
and empirical character is a piece of insight already
possessed by Plato. The difference is, that with Kant
it is sublimated to an abstract clearness ; with Plato
it is treated mythically, and connected with metem-
psychosis, because, as he did not perceive the ideality
of Time, he could only represent it under a temporal
form. The identity of the one doctrine with the other
becomes exceedingly plain, if we read the explana-
tion and illustration of the Platonic myth, which
Porphyrius has given with such clear exactitude,
that its agreement with the abstract language of Kant
comes out unmistakably. In the second book of his
Eclogues, chap. 8, 37-40, 1 Stobaetis has preserved
1 V. Joannes Stobaeus. Eclogae Physicae et Ethicae, edit.
Curtius Wachsmuth et Otto Hense ; Weidmann, Berlin, 1884.
Vol. II., pp. 163-168. (Translator,)
122 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
for us in extenso that part of one of Porphyrius' lost
writings which specially comments on the myth in
question, as Plato gives it in the second half of
the tenth book of the Republic. 1 The whole section
is eminently worth reading. As a specimen I shall
quote the short 39, in the hope of inducing any
one who cares for these things to study Stobaeus
for himself. It will then immediately become ap-
parent that this Platonic myth is nothing less than
an allegory of the profound truth which Kant stated
in its abstract purity, as the doctrine of the intelligible
and empirical character, and consequently that the
latter had been reached, in its essentials, by Plato
thousands of years ago. Indeed, this view seems to
go back much further still, for Porphyrius is of opinion
that Plato took it from the Egyptians. Certainly
we already find the same theory in the Brahmanical
doctrine of metempsychosis, and it is from this Indian
source that the Egyptian priests, in all probability,
derived their wisdom. 39 is as follows :
To yap o\ov (3ov\rj/j,a TOLOVT" eoitcev elvai TO TOV
UXarawo?' eyeiv /.lev TO avTe^ovcriov ra? -^i^a?, TTplv
e/9 (roi)fj,aTa /cat /3/of9 Siatyepovs epirecrelv, et? TO i) TOVTOV
TOV fSiov eXecr&u, rj a\\ov, ov, pera Troias &>?}<> Kal
cr&)yu,aTO9 ol/ceiov Ty fay, KTe\(Ti,v /tieAAef (Kal yap
\eovTO<; (3iov eV avrf) elvat eXeadat,, Kal avSpos*).
KaKelvo [levTOi TO avre^ovcnov, a^a Trj Trpo? TWO, T&V
TOIOVTWV ftlwv TTTWcrei, e/iTreTToSicrrat. Kare\0ovcrai
yap ei? Ta crajyu/ara, Kal avrl -^rv^cov a7roWTb)v yeyovvlai,
TO avTe^ovaiov (frepovcriv oiKelov TTJ TOV
1 V. Plat., Rep., edit. Stallbaum, 614 sqq. It is the dtro
'Hpos TOV 'Apuevlov. (Translator.)
THEORY OF FREEDOM. 123
rcaracTKevf}, teal e<' &>v y^ky elvai 7rowvovv Kal
to? CTT' dvOpcaTrov, e<' a>v Se o\isyoKivr)Tov
, &>9 eVl rwv a\\u>v cr%e8by TTCLVTWV icwwi/.
'Hprrjcrdai Se TO avre^ovcriov TOVTO airb Tr}?
Kivovpevov (j,ev e avrov, (frepo/nevov Be Kara
1 To sum up. What Plato meant seems to be this. Souls
(he said) have free power, before passing into bodies and different
modes of being, to choose this or that form of life, which they
will pass through in a certain kind of existence, and in a body
adapted thereto. (For a soul may choose a lion's, equally
with a man's, mode of being.) But this free power of choice
is removed simultaneously with entrance into one or other of
such forms of life. For when once they have descended into
bodies, and instead of unfettered souls have become the souls
of living things, then they take that measure of free power
which belongs in each case to the organism of the living thing.
In some forms this power is very intelligent and full of
movement, as in man ; in some it has but little energy, and is
of a simple nature, as in almost all other creatures. More-
over, this free power depends on the organism in such a
way that while its capability of action is caused by itself
alone, its impulses are determined by the desires which have
their origin in the organism. (Translator.)
CHAPTER IX.
FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS FOE THE
ERRORS OF THE KANTIAN.
JUST as in Anatomy and Zoology, many things are
not so obvious to the pupil in preparations and
natural products as in engravings where there is
some exaggeration ; so if there is any one who, after
the above criticism, is still not entirely satisfied as
to the worthlessness of the Kantian foundation of
Ethics, I would recommend him Fichte's System der
Sittenlehre, as a sure means of freeing him from
all doubt.
Jn the old German Marionnettes a fool always
accompanied the emperor, or hero, so that he might
afterwards give in his own way a highly coloured
version of what had been said or done In like
manner behind the great Kant there stands the
author of the Wissenschaftslehre, l a true Wissen-
sckaftsleere. 2 In order to secure his own, and his
family's welfare, Fichte formed the idea of creating
a sensation by means of subtle mystification. It
was a very suitable and reasonable plan, considering
1 I.e. Scientific Doctrine.
2 I.e. Scientific Blank. Perhaps we might translate :
"Scientific Instruction" and "Scientific Misinstr action. "
(Translator.)
124
FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS 125
the nature of the German philosophic public, and
he executed it admirably by outdoing Kant in every
particular. He appeared as the latter's living
superlative, and produced a perfect caricature of
his philosophy by magnifying all its salient points.
Nor did the Ethics escape similar treatment. In
his System der Sittenlehre, we find the Categorical
Imperative grown into a Despotic Imperative ; while
the absolute " Ought," the law-giving Reason, and
the Hest of Duty have developed into a moral Fate,
an unfathomable Necessitj 7 ", requiring mankind to
act strictly in accordance with certain maxims.
To judge (pp. 308, 309) from the pompous show
made, a great deal must depend on these formulae,
although one never quite discovers what. So much
only seems clear. As in bees there is implanted
an instinct to build cells and a hive for life in
common, so men (it is alleged) are endowed with
an impulse leading them to play in common a
great, strictly moral, world-embracing Comedy, their
part being merely to figure as puppets nothing
else. But there is this important difference between
the bees and men. The hive is really brought to
completion ; while instead of a moral World-Comedy,
as a matter of fact, an exceedingly immoral one is
enacted. Here, then, we see the imperative form
of the Kantian Ethics, the moral Law, and the
absolute " Ought " pushed farther and further till
a system of ethical Fatalism is evolved, which, as
it is worked out, lapses at times into the comic. 1
1 As evidence of the truth of my words, space prevents me
from quoting more than a few passages. P. 196 : " The moral
126 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
If in Kant's doctrine we trace a certain moral
pedantry ; with Fichte this pedantry reaches the
absurd, and furnishes abundant material for satire.
Let the reader notice, for example (pp. 407-409),
how he decides the well-known instance of casuistry,
where of two human lives one must be lost. We find
indeed all the errors of Kant raised to the superlative.
Thus, on p. 199, we read : " To act in accordance with
instinct is absolute, and its requirements are peremptory,
without any object outside itself." P. 232 : " In consequence
of the Moral Law, the empirical Being in Time must be an
exact copy of the original Ego." P. 308: "The whole man
is a vehicle of the Moral Law." P. 342 : " I am only an
instrument, a mere tool of the Moral Law, not in any sense
an end." P. 343: "The end laid before every one is to be
the means of realising Reason : this is the ultimate purpose
of his existence ; for this alone he has his being, and if this
end should not be attained, there is not the least occasion
for him to live." P. 347 : "I am an instrument of the Moral
Law in the phaenomenal world." P. 360 : " It is an ordinance
of the Moral Law to nourish one's body, and study one's
health ; this of course should be done in no way, and for no
other purpose, except to provide an efficient instrument for
furthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation,"
(cf. p. 371.) P. 376 : " Every human body is an instrument
for furthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation ;
therefore the greatest possible fitness of each instrument must
constitute for me an end : consequently I must take thought
for every one." This is Fichte's derivation of loving-kindness !
P. 377 : " I can and dare take thought for myself, solely
because, and is so far as I am, an instrument of the Moral
Law." P. 388 : " To defend a hunted man atithe risk of one's
own life, is an absolute duty ; whenever the life of another
human being is in danger, you have no right to think of the
safety ot your own." P. 420 : " In the province of the Moral
Law there is no way whatever of regarding my fellow-man
except as an instrument of Reason."
FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS 127
the dictates of sympathy, of compassion, and of
loving-kindness is distinctly unmoral ; indeed this
line of conduct, as such, is contrary to morality."
Again, on p. 402 : " The impulse that makes us ready
to serve others must never be an inconsiderate good-
nature, but a clearly thought-out purpose; that, namely,
of furthering as much as possible the causality of
Reason." However, between these sallies of ridiculous
pedantry, Fichte's real philosophic crudeness peeps
out clearly enough, as we might only expect in the
case of a man whose teaching left no time for learn-
ing. He seriously puts forward the liber um arbitrium
indifferentiae (a free and indifferent choice), giving
as its foundation the most trivial and frivolous
reasons. (Pp. 160, 173, 205, 208, 237, 259, 261.)
There can be no doubt that a motive, although
working through the medium of the intelligence,
is, nevertheless, a cause, and consequently involves
the same necessity of effect as all other causes;
the corollary being that all human action is a strictly
necessary result. Whoever remains unconvinced of
this, is still, philosophically speaking, barbarous, and
ignorant of the rudiments of exact knowledge. The
perception of the strict necessity governing man's
conduct forms the line of demarcation which separates
philosophic heads from all others ; arrived at this
limit Fichte clearly showed that he belonged to the
others. Moreover, following the footsteps of Kant
(p. 303), he proceeds to make various statements
which are in direct contradiction to the above
mentioned passages ; but this inconsistency, like
many more in his writings, only proves that he,
128 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
being one who was never serious in the search for
truth, possessed no strong convictions to build on ;
as indeed for his purpose they were not in the least
necessary. Nothing is more laughable than the fact
that this man has received so much posthumous
praise for strictly consequential reasoning ; his
pedantic style full of loud declamation about trifling
matters being actually mistaken for such.
The most complete development of Fichte's system
of moral Fatalism is found in his last work : Die
Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem Allgemeinen Umrisse
Dargestellt, Berlin, 1810. It has the advantage of
being only forty-six pages (duodecimo) long, while it
contains his whole philosophy in a nutshell. It is
therefore to be recommended to all those who consider
their time too precious to be wasted on his larger
productions, which are framed with a length and
tediousness worthy of Christian Wolff, and with the
intention, in reality, of deluding, not of instructing
the reader. In this little treatise we read on p. 32 :
" The intuitive perception of a phaenornenal world
only came about, to the end that in such a world the
Ego as the absolute Ought might be visible to itself."
On p. 33 we actually find: "The ought," (i.e., the
moral necessity,) "of the Ought's visibility ;" and on
p. 36 : " An ought," (i.e., a moral necessity,) " of the
perception that I ought." This, then, is what we have
come to so soon after Kant ! His imperative Form,
with its unproved Ought, which it secured as a most
convenient TTOV crrw (standpoint), is indeed an exemplar
vitiis imitabile !
For the rest, all that I have said does not
FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS. 129
overthrow the service Fichte rendered. Kant's
philosophy, this late masterpiece of human sagacity,
in the very land where it arose, he obscured, nay,
supplanted by empty, bombastic superlatives, by
extravagances, and by the nonsense which is found,
in his Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre,
appearing under the disguise of profound penetration.
His merit was thus to show the world unmistakably
what the capacity of the German philosophical
public is ; for he made it play the part of a child
who is coaxed into giving up a precious gem in
exchange for a Niirnberg toy. The fame he obtained
in this fashion still lives on credit ; and still Fichte
is always mentioned in the same breath with Kant
as being another such ('HpaK\r)s ical TriOrjKos ! 1 ).
Indeed his name is often placed above the latter's. *
It was, of course, Fichte's example that encouraged
his successors in the art of enveloping the German
people in philosophic fog. These were animated by
the same spirit, and crowned with the same prosperity. .
Every one knows their names ; nor is this the place
to consider them at length. Needless to say, their
different opinions, down to the minutest details, are
1 I.e-y Hercules and an ape. A Greek proverb denoting
the juxtaposition of the sublime and the ridiculous. V. Greg.
Cypr. M. 3, 66 ; Macar. 4, 53 ; Luc. pise. 37 ; and Schol.
Bachm. An. 2, 332. (Translator.)
2 My proof for this is a passage from the latest philosophical
literature. Herr Feuerbach, an Hegelian (c'est tout dire ! )
in his book, Pierre Bayle : Ein Bdtrag zur Geschichte der
Philosophic, 1838, p. 80, writes as follows : " But still more
sublime than Kant's are Fichte's ideas as expressed in his
Doctrine of Morals and elsewhere. Christianity has nothing
in sublimity that could bear comparison with them."
9
130 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
still set forth, and seriously discussed, by the Pro-
fessors of Philosophy ; as if one had really to do
with philosophers ! We must, then, thank Fichte
for lucid documents now existing, which will have
to be revised one day before the Tribunal of posterity,
that Court of Appeal from the verdicts of the present,
which like the Last Judgment looked forward to
by the Saints at almost all periods, has been left
to give to true merit its just award.
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