CHAPTER II.

GENERAL RETROSPECT.

For the people morality comes through, and is founded on, theology, as the express will of God. On the other hand, we see philosophers, with few exceptions, taking special pains to entirely exclude this kind of foundation; indeed, so they may but avoid it, they prefer even to find a refuge in sophistry. Whence comes this antithesis? Assuredly no more efficient basis for Ethics can be imagined than the theological; for who would be so bold as to oppose the will of the Almighty and the Omniscient? Unquestionably, no one; if only this will were proclaimed in an authentic, official manner (if one may say so), whereby no possible room for doubt could be left. This, however, is precisely the condition which does not admit of being realised. It is rather the inverse process which is attempted. The law declared to be the will of God men try to accredit as such, by demonstrating its agreement with our own independent, and hence, natural moral views, and an appeal is consequently made to these as being more direct and certain. But this is not all. We perceive that an action performed solely through threat of punishment and promise of reward would be moral much more in appearance than in reality; since, after all, it would have its root in Egoism, and in the last resort the scale would be turned by the greater or less amount of credulity evinced in each case. Now it was none other than Kant who destroyed the foundations of Speculative Theology, which up to his time were accounted unshakable. Speculative Theology had hitherto sustained Ethics, and in order to procure for the former an existence of some sort, if only an imaginary one, his wish was to proceed inversely, and make Ethics sustain Speculative Theology. So that it is now more than ever impossible to think of basing Ethics on Theology; for no one knows any longer which of the two is to be the supporter, and which the supported, and the consequence is a circulus vitiosus.

It is precisely through the influence of Kant's philosophy; through the contemporaneous effect of the unparalleled progress made in all the natural sciences, with regard to which every past age in comparison with our own appears childish; and lastly, through the knowledge of Sanskrit literature, and of those most ancient and widest spread faiths, Brahmanism and Buddhism, which, as far as time and space go, are the most important religions systems of mankind, and, as a matter of fact, are the original native religions of our own race, now well known to be of Asiatic descent—our race, to which in its new strange home they once more send a message across the centuries;—it is because of all this, I say, that the fundamental philosophical convictions of learned Europe have in the course of the last fifty years undergone a revolution, which perhaps many only reluctantly admit, but which cannot be denied. The result of this change is that the old supports of Ethics have been shown to be rotten, while the assurance remains that Ethics itself can never collapse; whence the conviction arises that for it there must exist a groundwork different from any hitherto provided, and adaptable to the advanced views of the age. The need of such is making itself felt more and more, and in it we undoubtedly find the reason that has induced the Royal Society to make the present important question the subject of a prize essay.

In every age much good morality has been preached; but the explanation of its raison d'être has always been encompassed with difficulties. On the whole we discern an endeavour to get at some objective truth, from which the ethical injunctions could-be logically deduced; and it has been sought for both in the nature of things, and in the nature of man; but in vain. The result was always the same. The will of each human unit was found to gravitate solely towards its own individual welfare, the idea of which in its entirety is designated by the term "blissfulness" (Glückseligkeit); and this striving after self-satisfaction leads mankind by a path very, different to the one morality would fain point out. The endeavour was next made now to identify "blissfulness" with virtue, now to represent it as virtue's consequence and effect. Both attempts have always failed; and this for no want of sophistry. Then recourse was had to artificial formulas, purely objective and abstract, as well a posteriori as a priori, from which correct ethical conduct undoubtedly admitted of being deduced. But there was nothing found in man's nature to afford these a footing, whereby they might have availed to guide the strivings of his volition, in face of its egoistic tendency. It appears to me superfluous to verify all this by describing and criticising every hitherto existing foundation of morality; not only because I share Augustine's opinion, non est pro magno habendum quid homines senserint, sed quae sit rei veritas (It is the truth about a thing, not men's opinions thereon, that is of importance); but also because it would be like γλαύκας εἰς 'Aθήνας κομίζειν (i.e., carrying coals to Newcastle); for previous attempts to give a foundation to Ethics are sufficiently well-known to the Royal Society, and the very question proposed shows that it is also convinced of their inadequateness. Any reader less well-informed will find a careful, if not complete, presentment of the attempts hitherto made, in Garve's Uebersicht der vornehmsten Principien der Sittenlehre, and again, in Stäudlin's Geschichte der Moralphilosophie. It is of course very disheartening to reflect that Ethics, which so directly concerns life, has met with the same unhappy fate as the abstruse science of Metaphysics, and that its first principle, though perpetually sought for ever since the time of Socrates, has still to be found. Moreover, we must remember that in Ethics, much more than in any other science, what is essential is contained in its fundamental propositions; the deductions are so simple that they come of themselves. For all are capable of drawing a conclusion, but few of judging. And this is exactly the reason why lengthy text-books and dissertations on Morals are as superfluous as they are tedious. Meantime, if I may postulate an acquaintance with all the former foundations of Ethics, my task will be lightened. Whoever observes how ancient as well as modern philosophers (the Church creed sufficed for the middle ages) have had recourse to the most diverse and extraordinary arguments, in order to provide for the generally recognised requirements of morality a basis capable of proof, and how notwithstanding they admittedly failed; he will be able to measure the difficulty of the problem, and estimate my contribution accordingly. And he who has learned to know that none of the roads hitherto struck on lead to the goal, will be the more willing to tread with me a very different path from these—a path which up to now either has not been noticed, or else has been passed over with contempt; perhaps because it was the most natural one.[1] As a matter of fact my solution of the question will remind many of Columbus' egg.

It is solely to the latest attempt at giving, a basis to Ethics—I mean the Kantian—that a critical examination will be devoted. I shall make it all the more exhaustive, partly because the great ethical reform of Kant gave to this science a foundation having a real superiority to previous ones and partly because it still remains the last important pronouncement in this domain; for which reason it has obtained general acceptance up to the present day, and is universally taught, although differently garnished by certain changes in the demonstration and in the terminology. It is the ethical system of the last sixty years, which must be removed ere we enter on another path. Furthermore, my criticism of the Kantian basis will give me occasion to examine and discuss most of the fundamental conceptions of Ethics, and the outcome of this investigation I shall later on be able to postulate. Besides, inasmuch as opposites illustrate each other, it is exactly this course which will be the best preparation and guide, indeed the direct way, to my own position, which in its essential points is diametrically opposed to Kant's. It would therefore be a very perverse beginning to skip the following criticism, and turn at once to the positive part of my exposition, which then would remain only half intelligible.

In any case the time has assuredly arrived for once to cite Ethics before the bar of a searching scrutiny. During more than half a century it has been lying comfortably on the restful cushion which Kant arranged for it—the cushion of the Categorical Imperative of Practical Reason. In our day this Imperative is mostly introduced to us under a name which, being smoother and less ostentatious, has obtained more currency. It is called "the Moral Law"; and thus entitled, with a passing bow to reason and experience, it slips through unobserved into the house. Once inside, there is no end to its orders and commands; nor can it ever afterwards be brought to account. It was proper, indeed inevitable, that Kant, as the inventor of the thing, should remain satisfied with his creation, particularly as he shelved by its means errors still more glaring. But to be obliged to look on and see asses disporting themselves on the comfortable cushion which he prepared, and which since his time has been more and more trampled on and flattened out—this truly is hard. I allude to the daily hackney compilers, who, with the ready confidence born of stupidity, imagine that they have given a foundation to Ethics, if they do but appeal to that "Moral Law" which Is alleged to be inherent in our reason; and then they complacently weave upon this such a confused and wide-reaching tissue of phrases that they succeed in rendering unintelligible the clearest and simplest relations of life: and all this, without ever once seriously asking themselves whether in point of fact there really does exist such a "Moral Law," as a convenient code of morality, graven in our heads or hearts.

Hence I admit the especial pleasure I feel in proceeding to remove from Ethics its broad cushion of repose, and I unreservedly declare my intention of proving that Kant's Practical Reason and Categorical Imperative are completely unwarrantable, baseless, and fabricated assumptions; and I shall further show that Kant's whole system, like those of his predecessors, is in want of a solid foundation. Consequently Ethics will again be consigned to its former entirely helpless condition, there to remain, until I come to demonstrate the true moral principle of human nature—a principle which is incontestably efficient, and has its root in our very being. The latter, however, has no such broad basis to offer as the above-mentioned cushion; so that, doubtless, those who are accustomed to take things easily, will not abandon their comfortable old seat, before they are thoroughly aware how deeply the ground on which it stands is undermined.

PART II.

CRITIQUE OF KANT'S BASIS OF 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 exception: 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.[1]

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 connection; —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 independent of experience and its teaching; it is transcendental, 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 "intelligible"[2] world, the mundus noumenôn, 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, 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 himself 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,[3] 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 detrimental effect of old age on his intellect was not yet perceptible. On the other hand, this is distinctly traceable 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 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,[4] 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 exposition 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 Anfangsgründe 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 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 IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.

Kant's πρῶτον ψεῡδος (first false step) lies in his 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 which 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 of thousands of years. Following the above petitio principii, Kant straightway, without any previous investigation, assumes in the preface (which is entirely 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, νόμος, 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 acuteness, 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 absolute 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 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, therefore, 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"[1])? 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 above instance of a moral law, the first put forward by Kant, naïvely 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 forthwith 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 unconditionally, 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 precepts and inculcation of Duty, in all innocence, and without any suspicion that first an ulterior sanction is needful for this rôle; rather does she suppose it to be her proper and natural form. It is true that all peoples, ages, and creeds, and indeed all philosophers (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[3] 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 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 unthinkableness 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 Praktischen 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 that 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 Happiness, which means, a morality resting on selfishness. 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 contradiction, 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 significance of human conduct—a significance which extends beyond phaenomena and is eternal.

As all obligation is entirely dependent on a condition, 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 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 undeniably 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 philosophical 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 examination, 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 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 conclusion (viz., the Categorical Command) he took as his hypothesis.[4] 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 imperative 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 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 acceptable 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 opportunity, 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 fit 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 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 Anfangsgründe 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 generally 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.

Whether he ought on ethical grounds 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, R., p. 57), I cannot conscientiously 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 Cleopatra, 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.[1]

That which generally comes next on the rubric of duties towards ourselves may be divided partly into rules of worldly wisdom, partly into hygienic prescriptions; 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 loathsome 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 non fit injuria is unavailing. The injustice consists in the seduction of the younger and inexperienced person, who is thereby ruined physically and morally.