and effect, since it concerns a practical good, i. e. one that is possible by means of action; consequently either the desire of happiness must be the motive to maxims of virtue,1 or the maxim of virtue must be the efficient cause of happiness. The first is absolutely impossible, because (as was proved in the Analytic) maxims which place the determining principle of the will in the desire of personal happiness are not moral at all, and no virtue can be founded on them. But the second is also impossible, because the practical connection of causes and effects in the world, as the result of the determination of the will, does not depend upon the moral dispositions of the will, but on the knowledge of the laws of nature and the physical power to use them for one's purposes; consequently we cannot expect in the world by the most punctilious observance of the moral laws any necessary connection of happiness with virtue, adequate to the summum bonum. Now as the promotion of this summum bonum, the conception of which contains this connection, is a priori a necessary object of our will, and inseparably attached to the moral law, the impossibility of the former must prove the falsity of the latter. If then the supreme good is not possible by practical rules, then the moral law also which commands us to promote it is directed to vain imaginary ends, and must consequently be false."

Kant's view, then, was that the supreme aim of the virtuous man is simply that of conforming to this law of reason-i. e., according to him, the law of formal consistency. He must not pursue virtue for the sake of happiness, but purely for the sake of duty. In this sense Kant inculcates self-sacrifice. But he does not regard self-sacrifice as the end. The end is conformity to law, obedience to reason. Further, Kant considers that though the virtuous man does not aim at happiness, yet the complete well-being2 of a human being includes happiness as well as virtue. And apparently he thought that if we had no ground for believing that the two elements are ultimately conjoined, the ground of morality itself would be removed.

1 This is what Kant denies: and it is only in this sense that he is fairly to be described as an ascetic, or as one who advocates selfsacrifice.

Complete well-being (bonum consummatum) as distinguished from supreme well-being (supremum bonum). The supreme good is virtue: the complete good is virtue + happiness. See Critique of Practical Reason, Part I., Book II., chap. ii. (Abbott's translation, p. 206). For a discussion of Kant's view on this point, see Caird's Critical Philosophy of Kant, Book II., chap, v. (vol. ii. pp. 289-314)

For morality rests on a demand of reason; and the possibility of attaining the summum bonum is also a demand of reason. If the demands of reason were chimerical in the latter case, they would be equally discredited in the former. He solves the difficulty by postulating the existence of God, "as the necessary condition of the possibility of the summum bonum." 2

From this it will be seen that Kant did not really regard selfsacrifice as the end. Indeed it may be doubted whether it has ever been regarded as an end by any serious school of moralists. Bentham, indeed (at least as represented by Dumont 3), contrasts his utilitarian theory with what he calls "the Ascetic Principle," saying of the latter that "those who follow it have a horror of pleasures. Everything which gratifies the senses, in their view, is odious and criminal. They found morality upon privations, and virtue upon the renouncement of one's self. In one word, the reverse of the partisans of utility, they approve everything which tends to diminish enjoyment, they blame everything which tends to augment it." But this description would evidently not apply to Kant, nor perhaps to any school of moralists, if we except some of the extremest of the Cynics. Bentham himself, in the passage from which the above extract is taken, does not refer to any philosophic writers, but only to the Jansenists and some other theologians. Even the Stoics (to whom certainly Kant bears a strong resemblance 7) did not regard

1 Observe the close resemblance between Kant's view on this point and that of Butler. See Sidgwick's History of Ethics, pp. 195–7. Kant, however, states the difficulty in a much more precise and profound form than that in which it is put by Butler. Kant's attempted solution, in like manner, is characterised by immeasurably greater speculative depth.

2 Kant, loc. cit., section V. (Abbott, p. 221).

3 Theory of Legislation, chap. ii. See also Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. ii.

4 There is, indeed, a passage in the Methodology of Pure Practical Reason (Abbott's translation, p. 254), in which Kant says that virtue is "worth so much only because it costs so much." But the context shows that his meaning is merely that the cost brings clearly to light the purity of the motive.

5 See Sidgwick's History of Ethics, p. 33-35

6 For an account of the Stoics, see Sidgwick's History of Ethics, pp. 70-85

7 Cf. Caird's Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. ii. pp. 222-3, &c.

the sacrifice of happiness as in itself a good. On the contrary, as Kant himself remarks,1 both the Stoics and Epicureans were agreed in identifying virtue with happiness: only while the Epicureans held that the pursuit of happiness is virtue, the Stoics held, contrariwise, that the pursuit of virtue is happiness.2

I have thought it desirable to dwell on this slight divergence between my view on this point and that stated in Mr. Muirhead's Elements, not for the purpose of emphasising my disagreement, but rather to bring out the fundamental identity of our views. For if the reader will turn to the passage in Mr. Muirhead's book, I think he will easily see that the difference between us is merely superficial. Although Mr. Muirhead treats of the Kantian Ethics under the heading "The End as Self-Sacrifice," and refers to it as illustrating the ascetic principle in morals, yet his actual treatment of Kant's fundamental position does not, I think, materially differ from that suggested in the present manual. I am convinced, therefore, that our divergence on this point is little more than verbal.

It is perhaps fair to add here that a partial reply to Schiller's objections (referred to above, § 13) was made by Kant in his treatise on Religion within the Bounds of mere Reason.3 Kant there admits that a thoroughly virtuous man will love virtuous activities, and perform them with pleasure; but he regards this as a mere result of action from the sense of duty. The man who acts from a sense of duty has a feeling of pleasure gradually superinduced. This admission obviates the grosser forms of the criticism that has been passed on Kant with regard to this point; but it still leaves a fatal dualism between the law of reason and the affections of human kindness. In short, it still has the defect of emphasising the mere isolated good will instead of the good character. 4 Cf. above, Book I., chap. iii., § 2.

1 Critique of Practical Reason, Part I., Book II., chap. ii. (Abbott's translation, p. 208).

2 Or at least that a certain form of happiness is an inseparable accident of the pursuit of virtue. See Sidgwick's History of Ethics, pp. 83-4

8 Cf. also Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (Abbott's translation), pp. 312-13.

4 The point that it is specially important to remember is, that Kant always insists that duty must not be done from inclination. He never denies that it may be done with inclination. Consequently, he is not properly an ascetic.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STANDARD AS HAPPINESS.

§ 1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.-We thus see that the idea of a categorical imperative breaks down, or at least lands us in sheer emptiness. It tells us only that we must judge our actions from the point of view of a universal self, not from a private standpoint of our own, and that we must act in a way that is consistent with the idea of this higher self. All this is formal: '

1 In saying that it is merely formal, I do not of course mean to deny its practical importance. In concrete life we constantly tend to judge ourselves and others by standards that are not of universal application; and Kant's formula is useful as a safeguard against this. Perhaps the following passage from Bryce's American Commonwealth (chap. lxxv.) may serve to illustrate this danger. "All professions," he says, "have a tendency to develop a special code of rules less exacting than those of the community at large. As a profession holds certain things to be wrong, because contrary to its etiquette, which are in themselves harmless, so it justifies other things in themselves blamable. In the mercantile world, agents play sad tricks on their principals in the matter of commissions, and their fellow-merchants are astonished when the courts of law compel the ill-gotten gains to be disgorged. At the English Universities, everybody who took a Master of Arts degree was, until lately, required to sign the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Hundreds of men signed who did not believe, and admitted that they did not believe, the dogmas of this formulary; but nobody in Oxford thought the worse of them for a solemn falsehood. . Each profession indulges in deviations from the established rules of morals, but takes pains to conceal these deviations from the general public, and continues to talk about itself and its traditions with an air of unsullied virtue. What each profession does for itse'f most individuals do for themselves. They judge themselves by them

we now wait for the content with which the form is to We have to ask, in short, what is the nature

be filled.
of the ideal self, and how it is constituted.

§ 2. HIGHER AND LOWER UNIVERSES.-That certain forms of will are higher or better than others, may almost be said to be the fundamental assumption of Ethics. Now it follows from this that certain desires, or certain universes of desire, are higher or better than others. Thus it becomes a problem to determine why it is that any desire or universe of desires should be regarded as higher or better than any other. The significance of this problem may perhaps be best indicated by suggesting a possible answer. It is obvious that some universes are more comprehensive than others. If a man acts from the point of view of the happiness of his nation as a whole, this is evidently a more comprehensive point of view than that from which he acts when he has regard only to his own happiness. The former includes the latter. So too, if a man acts from the point of view of his own happiness throughout the year, he acts from a more comprehensive point of view than if he has regard only to the happiness of the passing hour. Now the narrower the point of view from which we act, the more certain we are to fall into inconsistency and self-contradiction.

selves, that is to say, by their surroundings and their own past acts, and thus erect in the inner forum of conscience a more lenient code for their own transgressions than that which they apply to others. We all know that a fault which a man has often committed seems to him slighter than one he has refrained from and seen others committing. Often he gets others to take the same view. 'It is only his way,' they say: 'it is just like Roger.' The same thing happens with nations." There is perhaps some cynicism in this; but it contains sufficient truth to illustrate the present point.