No More Learning

Thus then, in the indifferent sphere of physical life, man ought to
already commence his moral life; his own proper activity ought
already to make way in passivity, and his rational liberty beyond
the limits of sense; he ought already to impose the law of his will
upon his inclinations; he ought--if you will permit me the
expression--to carry into the domain of matter the war against
matter, in order to be dispensed from combatting this redoubtable
enemy upon the sacred field of liberty; he ought to learn to have
nobler desires, not to be forced to have sublime volitions. This is
the fruit of aesthetic culture, which submits to the laws of the
beautiful, in which neither the laws of nature nor those of reason
suffer, which does not force the will of man, and which by the form
it gives to exterior life already opens internal life.

LETTER XXIV.

Accordingly three different moments or stages of development can be
distinguished, which the individual man, as well as the whole race,
must of necessity traverse in a determinate order if they are to
fulfil the circle of their determination. No doubt, the separate
periods can be lengthened or shortened, through accidental causes
which are inherent either in the influence of external things or
under the free caprice of men; but neither of them can be
overstepped, and the order of their sequence cannot be inverted
either by nature or by the will. Man, in his PHYSICAL condition,
suffers only the power of nature; he gets rid of this power in the
aesthetical condition, and he rules them in the moral state.

What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and the
serenity of form tames down the savageness of life? Eternally
uniform in his aims, eternally changing in his judgments, self-
seeking without being himself, unfettered without being free, a
slave without serving any rule. At this period, the world is to him
only destiny, not yet an object; all has existence for him only in
as far as it procures existence to him; a thing that neither seeks
from nor gives to him is non-existent. Every phenomenon stands out
before him, separate and cut off, as he finds himself in the series
of beings. All that is, is to him through the bias of the moment;
every change is to him an entirely fresh creation, because with the
necessary IN HIM, the necessary OUT OF HIM is wanting, which binds
together all the changing forms in the universe, and which holds
fast the law on the theatre of his action, while the individual
departs. It is in vain that nature lets the rich variety of her
forms pass before him; he sees in her glorious fulness nothing but
his prey, in her power and greatness nothing but his enemy. Either
he encounters objects, and wishes to draw them to himself in desire,
or the objects press in a destructive manner upon him, and he
thrusts them away in dismay and terror. In both cases his relation
to the world of sense is immediate CONTACT; and perpetually anxious
through its pressure, restless and plagued by imperious wants, he
nowhere finds rest except in enervation, and nowhere limits save in
exhausted desire.

"True, his is the powerful breast and the mighty hand of the
Titans. . .
A certain inheritance; yet the god welded
Round his forehead a brazen band;
Advice, moderation, wisdom, and patience,--
Hid it from his shy, sinister look.
Every desire is with him a rage,
And his rage prowls around limitless. "--"Iphigenia in Tauris"

Ignorant of his own human dignity, he is far removed from honouring
it in others, and conscious of his own savage greed, he fears it in
every creature that he sees like himself. He never sees others in
himself, only himself in others, and human society, instead of
enlarging him to the race, only shuts him up continually closer in
his individuality. Thus limited, he wanders through his sunless
life, till favouring nature rolls away the load of matter from his
darkened senses, reflection separates him from things, and objects
show themselves at length in the after-glow of the consciousness.

It is true we cannot point out this state of rude nature as we have
here portrayed it in any definite people and age. It is only an
idea, but an idea with which experience agrees most closely in
special features. It may be said that man was never in this animal
condition, but he has not, on the other hand, ever entirely escaped
from it. Even in the rudest subjects, unmistakable traces of
rational freedom can be found, and even in the most cultivated,
features are not wanting that remind us of that dismal natural
condition. It is possible for man, at one and the same time, to
unite the highest and the lowest in his nature; and if his DIGNITY
depends on a strict separation of one from the other, his HAPPINESS
depends on a skilful removal of this separation. The culture which
is to bring his dignity into agreement with his happiness will
therefore have to provide for the greatest purity of these two
principles in their most intimate combination.

Consequently the first appearance of reason in man is not the
beginning of humanity. This is first decided by his freedom, and
reason begins first by making his sensuous dependence boundless; a
phenomenon that does not appear to me to have been sufficiently
elucidated, considering its importance and universality. We know
that the reason makes itself known to man by the demand for the
absolute--the self-dependent and necessary. But as this want of the
reason cannot be satisfied in any separate or single state of his
physical life, he is obliged to leave the physical entirely and to
rise from a limited reality to ideas. But although the true meaning
of that demand of the reason is to withdraw him from the limits of
time and to lead him up from the world of sense to an ideal world,
yet this same demand of reason, by a misapplication--scarcely to be
avoided in this age, prone to sensuousness--can direct him to
physical life, and, instead of making man free, plunge him in the
most terrible slavery.

Facts verify this supposition. Man raised on the wings of
imagination leaves the narrow limits of the present, in which mere
animality is enclosed, in order to strive on to an unlimited future.
But while the limitless is unfolded to his dazed IMAGINATION, his
heart has not ceased to live in the separate, and to serve the
moment. The impulse towards the absolute seizes him suddenly in the
midst of his animality, and as in this cloddish condition all his
efforts aim only at the material and temporal, and are limited by
his individuality, he is only led by that demand of the reason to
extend his individuality into the infinite, instead of to abstract
from it. He will be led to seek instead of form an inexhaustible
matter, instead of the unchangeable an everlasting change and an
absolute securing of his temporal existence. The same impulse which,
directed to his thought and action, ought to lead to truth and
morality, now directed to his passion and emotional state, produces
nothing but an unlimited desire and an absolute want. The first
fruits, therefore, that he reaps in the world of spirits, are cares
and fear--both operations of the reason; not of sensuousness, but of
a reason that mistakes its object and applies its categorical
imperative to matter. All unconditional systems of happiness are
fruits of this tree, whether they have for their object the present
day or the whole of life, or what does not make them any more
respectable, the whole of eternity, for their object. An unlimited
duration of existence and of well-being is only an ideal of the
desires; hence a demand which can only be put forth by an animality
striving up to the absolute. Man, therefore, without gaining
anything for his humanity by a rational expression of this sort,
loses the happy limitation of the animal over which he now only
possesses the unenviable superiority of losing the present for an
endeavour after what is remote, yet without seeking in the limitless
future anything but the present.

But even if the reason does not go astray in its object, or err in
the question, sensuousness will continue to falsify the answer for a
long time. As soon as man has begun to use his understanding and to
knit together phenomena in cause and effect, the reason, according
to its conception, presses on to an absolute knitting together and
to an unconditional basis. In order merely to be able to put forward
this demand man must already have stepped beyond the sensuous, but
the sensuous uses this very demand to bring back the fugitive.

In fact it is now that he ought to abandon entirely the world of
sense in order to take his flight into the realm of ideas; for the
intelligence temains eternally shut up in the finite and in the
contingent, and does not cease putting questions without reaching
the last link of the chain. But as the man with whom we are engaged
is not yet capable of such an abstraction, and does not find it in
the sphere of sensuous knowledge, and because he does not look for
it in pure reason, he will seek for it below in the region of
sentiment, and will appear to find it. No doubt the sensuous shows
him nothing that has its foundation in itself, and that legislates
for itself, but it shows him something that does not care for
foundation or law; therefore thus not being able to quiet the
intelligence by showing it a final cause, he reduces it to silence
by the conception which desires no cause; and being incapable of
understanding the sublime necessity of reason, he keeps to the blind
constraint of matter. As sensuousness knows no other end than its
interest, and is determined by nothing except blind chance, it makes
the former the motive of its actions, and the latter the master of
the world.

Even the divine part in man, the moral law, in its first
manifestation in the sensuous cannot avoid this perversion, As this
moral law is only prohibited and combats in man the interest of
sensuous egotism, it must appear to him as something strange until
he has come to consider this self-love as the stranger, and the
voice of reason as his true self. Therefore he confines himself to
feeling the fetters which the latter imposes on him, without having
the consciousness of the infinite emancipation which it procures for
him. Without suspecting in himself the dignity of lawgiver, he only
experiences the constraint and the impotent revolt of a subject
fretting under the yoke, because in this experience the sensuous
impulsion precedes the moral impulsion, he gives to the law of
necessity a beginning in him, a positive origin, and by the most
unfortunate of all mistakes he converts the immutable and the
eternal in himself into a transitory accident He makes up his mind
to consider the notions of the just and the unjust as statutes which
have been introduced by a will, and not as having in themselves an
eternal value. Just as in the explanation of certain natural
phenomena he goes beyond nature and seeks out of her what can only
be found in her, in her own laws; so also in the explanation of
moral phenomena he goes beyond reason and makes light of his
humanity, seeking a god in this way. It is not wonderful that a
religion which he has purchased at the cost of his humanity shows
itself worthy of this origin, and that he only considers as absolute
and eternally binding laws that have never been binding from all
eternity. He has placed himself in relation with, not a holy being,
but a powerful. Therefore the spirit of his religion, of the homage
that he gives to God, is a fear that abases him, and not a
veneration that elevates him in his own esteem.

Though these different aberrations by which man departs from the
ideal of his destination cannot all take place at the same time,
because several degrees have to be passed over in the transition
from the obscure of thought to error, and from the obscure of will
to the corruption of the will; these degrees are all, without
exception, the consequence of his physical state, because in all the
vital impulsion sways the formal impulsion. Now, two cases may
happen: either reason may not yet have spoken in man, and the
physical may reign over him with a blind necessity, or reason may
not be sufficiently purified from sensuous impressions, and the
moral may still be subject to the physical; in both cases the only
principle that has a real power over him is a material principle,
and man, at least as regards his ultimate tendency, is a sensuous
being. The only difference is, that in the former case he is an
animal without reason, and in the second case a rational animal. But
he ought to be neither one nor the other: he ought to be a man.
Nature ought not to rule him exclusively; nor reason conditionally.
The two legislations ought to be completely independent and yet
mutually complementary.

LETTER XXV.

Whilst man, in his first physical condition, is only passively
affected by the world of sense, he is still entirely identified with
it; and for this reason the external world, as yet, has no objective
existence for him. When he begins in his aesthetic state of mind to
regard the world objectively, then only is his personality severed
from it, and the world appears to him an objective reality, for the
simple reason that he has ceased to form an identical portion of it.

That which first connects man with the surrounding universe is the
power of reflective contemplation. Whereas desire seizes at once its
object, reflection removes it to a distance and renders it
inalienably her own by saving it from the greed of passion. The
necessity of sense which he obeyed during the period of mere
sensations, lessens during the period of reflection; the senses are
for the time in abeyance; even ever-fleeting time stands still
whilst the scattered rays of consciousness are gathering and shape
themselves; an image of the infinite is reflected upon the
perishable ground. As soon as light dawns in man, there is no longer
night outside of him; as soon as there is peace within him the storm
lulls throughout the universe, and the contending forces of nature
find rest within prescribed limits. Hence we cannot wonder if
ancient traditions allude to these great changes in the inner man as
to a revolution in surrounding nature, and symbolise thought
triumphing over the laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, which
terminates the reign of Saturn.

As long as man derives sensations from a contact with nature, he is
her slave; but as soon as he begins to reflect upon her objects and
laws he becomes her lawgiver. Nature, which previously ruled him as
a power, now expands before him as an object. What is objective to
him can have no power over him, for in order to become objective it
has to experience his own power. As far and as long as he impresses
a form upon matter, he cannot be injured by its effect; for a spirit
can only be injured by that which deprives it of its freedom.
Whereas he proves his own freedom by giving a form to the formless;
where the mass rules heavily and without shape, and its undefined
outlines are for ever fluctuating between uncertain boundaries, fear
takes up its abode; but man rises above any natural terror as soon
as he knows how to mould it, and transform it into an object of his
art. As soon as he upholds his independence toward phaenomenal
nature, he maintains his dignity toward her as a thing of power and
with a noble freedom he rises against his gods. They throw aside the
mask with which they had kept him in awe during his infancy, and to
his surprise his mind perceives the reflection of his own image. The
divine monster of the Oriental, which roams about changing the world
with the blind force of a beast of prey, dwindles to the charming
outline of humanity in Greek fable; the empire of the Titans is
crushed, and boundless force is tamed by infinite form.

But whilst I have been merely searching for an issue from the
material world and a passage into the world of mind, the bold flight
of my imagination has already taken me into the very midst of the
latter world. The beauty of which we are in search we have left
behind by passing from the life of mere sensations to the pure form
and to the pure object. Such a leap exceeds the condition of human
nature; in order to keep pace with the latter we must return to the
world of sense. Beauty is indeed the sphere of unfettered
contemplation and reflection; beauty conducts us into the world of
ideas, without however taking us from the world of sense, as occurs
when a truth is perceived and acknowledged. This is the pure product
of a process of abstraction from everything material and accidental,
a pure object free from every subjective barrier, a pure state of
self-activity without any admixture of passive sensations. There is
indeed a way back to sensation from the highest abstraction; for
thought teaches the inner sensation, and the idea of logical and
moral unity passes into a sensation of sensual accord. But if we
delight in knowledge we separate very accurately our own conceptions
from our sensations; we look upon the latter as something
accidental, which might have been omitted without the knowledge
being impaired thereby, without truth being less true. It would,
however, be a vain attempt to suppress this connection of the
faculty of feeling with the idea of beauty, consequently, we shall
not succeed in representing to ourselves one as the effect of the
other, but we must look upon them both together and reciprocally as
cause and effect. In the pleasure which we derive from knowledge we
readily distinguish the passage from the active to the passive
state, and we clearly perceive that the first ends when the second
begins. On the contrary, from the pleasure which we take in beauty,
this transition from the active to the passive is not perceivable,
and reflection is so intimately blended with feeling that we believe
we feel the form immediately. Beauty is then an object to us, it is
true, because reflection is the condition of the feeling which we
have of it; but it is also a state of our personality (our Ego),
because the feeling is the condition of the idea we conceive of it:
beauty is therefore doubtless form, because we contemplate it, but
it is equally life because we feel it. In a word, it is at once our
state and our act. And precisely because it is at the same time both
a state and an act, it triumphantly proves to us that the passive
does not exclude the active, neither matter nor form, neither the
finite nor the infinite; and that consequently the physical
dependence to which man is necessarily devoted does not in any way
destroy his moral liberty. This is the proof of beauty, and I ought
to add that this ALONE can prove it. In fact, as in the possession
of truth or of logical unity, feeling is not necessarily one with
the thought, but follows it accidentally; it is a fact which only
proves that a sensitive nature can succeed a rational nature, and
vice versa; not that they co-exist, that they exercise a reciprocal
action one over the other, and lastly that they ought to be united
in an absolute and necessary manner. From this exclusion of feeling
as long as there is thought, and of thought so long as there is
feeling, we should on the contrary conclude that the two natures are
incompatible, so that in order to demonstrate that pure reason is to
be realised in humanity, the best proof given by the analysis is
that this realisation is demanded. But, as in the realisation of
beauty or of aesthetic unity, there is a real union, mutual
substitution of matter and of form, of passive and of active, by
this alone is proved the compatibility of the two natures, the
possible realisation of the infinite in the finite, and consequently
also the possibility of the most sublime humanity.

Henceforth we need no longer be embarrassed to find a transition
from dependent feeling to moral liberty, because beauty reveals to
us the fact that they can perfectly co-exist, and that to show
himself a spirit, man need not escape from matter. But if on one
side he is free, even in his relation with a visible world, as the
fact of beauty teaches, and if on the other side freedom is
something absolute and super-sensuous, as its idea necessarily
implies, the question is no longer how man succeeds in raising
himself from the finite to the absolute, and opposing himself in his
thought and will to sensuality, as this has already been produced in
the fact of beauty. In a word, we have no longer to ask how he
passes from virtue to truth, which is already included in the
former, but how he opens a way for himself from vulgar reality to
aesthetic reality, and from the ordinary feelings of life to the
perception of the beautiful.

LETTER XXVI.

I have shown in the previous letters that it is only the aesthetic
disposition of the soul that gives birth to liberty, it cannot
therefore be derived from liberty nor have a moral origin. It must
be a gift of nature; the favour of chance alone can break the bonds
of the physical state and bring the savage to duty. The germ of the
beautiful will find an equal difficulty in developing itself in
countries where a severe nature forbids man to enjoy himself, and in
those where a prodigal nature dispenses him from all effort; where
the blunted senses experience no want, and where violent desire can
never be satisfied. The delightful flower of the beautiful will
never unfold itself in the case of the Troglodyte hid in his cavern
always alone, and never finding humanity outside himself; nor among
nomads, who, travelling in great troops, only consist of a
multitude, and have no individual humanity. It will only flourish in
places where man converses peacefully with himself in his cottage,
and with the whole race when he issues from it. In those climates
where a limpid ether opens the senses to the lightest impression,
whilst a life-giving warmth developes a luxuriant nature, where even
in the inanimate creation the sway of inert matter is overthrown,
and the victorious form ennobles even the most abject natures; in
this joyful state and fortunate zone, where activity alone leads to
enjoyment, and enjoyment to activity, from life itself issues a holy
harmony, and the laws of order develope life, a different result
takes place. When imagination incessantly escapes from reality, and
does not abandon the simplicity of nature in its wanderings: then
and there only the mind and the senses, the receptive force and the
plastic force, are developed in that happy equilibrium which is the
soul of the beautiful and the condition of humanity.

What phaenomenon accompanies the initiation of the savage into
humanity? However far we look back into history the phaenomenon is
identical among all people who have shaken off the slavery of the
animal state, the love of appearance, the inclination for dress and
for games.

Extreme stupidity and extreme intelligence have a certain affinity
in only seeking the real and being completely insensible to mere
appearance. The former is only drawn forth by the immediate presence
of an object in the senses, and the second is reduced to a quiescent
state only by referring conceptions to the facts of experience. In
short, stupidity cannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence
descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want of reality and
attachment to the real are only the consequence of a want and a
defect, indifference to the real and an interest taken in
appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and a decisive step
towards culture. In the first place it is the proof of an exterior
liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits, the
fancy is strictly chained down to the real; it is only when want is
satisfied that it developes without hindrance. But it is also the
proof of an internal liberty, because it reveals to us a force
which, independent of an external substratum, sets itself in motion,
and has sufficient energy to remove from itself the solicitations of
nature. The reality of things is effected by things, the appearance
of things is the work of man, and a soul that takes pleasure in
appearance does not take pleasure in what it receives but in what it
makes.

It is self-evident that I am speaking of aesthetical evidence
different from reality and truth, and not of logical appearance
identical with them. Therefore if it is liked it is because it is an
appearance, and not because it is held to be something better than
it is: the first principle alone is a play whilst the second is a
deception. To give a value to the appearance of the first kind can
never injure truth, because it is never to be feared that it will
supplant it--the only way in which truth can be injured. To despise
this appearance is to despise in general all the fine arts of which
it is the essence. Nevertheless, it happens sometimes that the
understanding carries its zeal for reality as far as this
intolerance, and strikes with a sentence of ostracism all the arts
relating to beauty in appearance, because it is only an appearance.
However, the intelligence only shows this vigorous spirit when it
calls to mind the affinity pointed out further back. I shall find
some day the occasion to treat specially of the limits of beauty in
its appearance.

It is nature herself which raises man from reality to appearance by
endowing him with two senses which only lead him to the knowledge of
the real through appearance. In the eye and the ear the organs of
the senses are already freed from the persecutions of nature, and
the object with which we are immediately in contact through the
animal senses is remoter from us. What we see by the eye differs
from what we feel; for the understanding to reach objects overleaps
the light which separates us from them. In truth, we are passive to
an object; in sight and hearing the object is a form we create.
While still a savage, man only enjoys through touch merely aided by
sight and sound. He either does not rise to perception through
sight, or does not rest there. As soon as he begins to enjoy through
sight, vision has an independent value, he is aesthetically free,
and the instinct of play is developed.

The instinct of play likes appearance, and directly it is awakened
it is followed by the formal imitative instinct which treats
appearance as an independent thing. Directly man has come to
distinguish the appearance from the reality, the form from the body,
he can separate, in fact he has already done so. Thus the faculty of
the art of imitation is given with the faculty of form in general.
The inclination that draws us to it reposes on another tendency I
have not to notice here. The exact period when the aesthetic
instinct, or that of art, developes, depends entirely on the
attraction that mere appearance has for men.

As every real existence proceeds from nature as a foreign power,
whilst every appearance comes in the first place from man as a
percipient subject, he only uses his absolute sight in separating
semblance from essence, and arranging according to subjective law.
With an unbridled liberty he can unite what nature has severed,
provided he can imagine his union, and he can separate what nature
has united, provided this separation can take place in his
intelligence. Here nothing can be sacred to him but his own law: the
only condition imposed upon him is to respect the border which
separates his own sphere from the existence of things or from the
realm of nature.

This human right of ruling is exercised by man in the art of
appearance; and his success in extending the empire of the
beautiful, and guarding the frontiers of truth, will be in
proportion with the strictness with which he separates form from
substance: for if he frees appearance from reality he must also do
the converse.

But man possesses sovereign power only in the world of appearance,
in the unstibstantial realm of imagination, only by abstaining from
giving being to appearance in theory, and by giving it being in
practice. It follows that the poet transgresses his proper limits
when he attributes being to his ideal, and when he gives this ideal
aim as a determined existence. For he can only reach this result by
exceeding his right as a poet, that of encroaching by the ideal on
the field of experience, and by pretending to determine real
existence in virtue of a simple possibility, or else he renounces
his right as poet by letting experience encroach on the sphere of
the ideal, and by restricting possibility to the conditions of
reality.

It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by being
independent or doing without reality, that the appearance is
aesthetical. Directly it apes reality or needs reality for effect it
is nothing more than a vile instrument for material ends, and can
prove nothing for the freedom of the mind. Moreover, the object in
which we find beauty need not be unreal if pur judgment disregards
this reality; nor if it regards this the judgment is no longer
aesthetical. A beautiful woman if living would no doubt please us as
much and rather more than an equally beautiful woman seen in
painting; but what makes the former please men is not her being an
independent appearance; she no longer pleases the pure aesthetic
feeling. In the painting, life must only attract as an appearance,
and reality as an idea. But it is certain that to feel in a living
object only the pure appearance, requires a greatly higher aesthetic
culture than to do without life in the appearance.

When the frank and independent appearance is found in man
separately, or in a whole people, it may be inferred they have mind,
taste, and all prerogatives connected with them. In this case, the
ideal will be seen to govern real life, honour triumphing over
fortune, thought over enjoyment, the dream of immortality over a
transitory existence.

In this case public opinion will no longer be feared and an olive
crown will be more valued than a purple mantle. Impotence and
perversity alone have recourse to false and paltry semblance, and
individuals as well as nations who lend to reality the support of
appearance, or to the aesthetical appearance the support of reality,
show their moral unworthiness and their aesthetical impotence.
Therefore, a short and conclusive answer can be given to this
question--How far will appearance be permitted in the moral world?
It will run thus in proportion as this appearance will be
sesthetical, that is, an appearance that does not try to make up for
reality, nor requires to be made up for by it. The aesthetical
appearance can never endanger the truth of morals: wherever it seems
to do so the appearance is not aesthetical. Only a stranger to the
fashionable world can take the polite assurances, which are only a
form, for proofs of affection, and say he has been deceived; but
only a clumsy fellow in good society calls in the aid of duplicity
and flatters to become amiable. The former lacks the pure sense for
independent appearance; therefore he can only give a value to
appearance by truth. The second lacks reality, and wishes to replace
it by appearance. Nothing is more common than to hear depreciators
of the times utter these paltry complaints--that all solidity has
disappeared from the world, and that essence is neglected for
semblance. Though I feel by no means called upon to defend this age
against these reproaches, I must say that the wide application of
these criticisms shows that they attach blame to the age, not only
on the score of the falsez but also of the frank appearance. And
even the exceptions they admit in favour of the beautiful have for
their object less the independent appearance than the needy
appearance. Not only do they attack the artificial colouring that
hides truth and replaces reality, but also the beneficent appearance
that fills a vacuum and clothes poverty; and they even attack the
ideal appearance that ennobles a vulgar reality. Their strict sense
of truth is rightlyl offended by the falsity of manners;
unfortunately, they class politeness in this category. It displeases
them that the noisy and showy so often eclipse true merit, but they
are no less shocked that appearance is also demanded from merit, and
that a real substance does not dispense with an agreeable form. They
regret the cordiality, the energy, and solidity of ancient times;
they would restore with them ancient coarseness, heaviness, and the
old Gothic profusion. By judgments of this kind they show an esteem
for the matter itself unworthy of humanity, which ought only to
value tne matter inasmuch as it can receive a form and enlarge the
empire of ideas. Accordingly, the taste of the age need not much
fear these criticisms, if it can clear itself before better judges.
Our defect is not to grant a value to aesthetic appearance (we do
not do this enough): a severe judge of the beautiful might rather
reproach us with not having arrived at pure appearance, with not
having separated clearly enough existence from the phaenomenon, and
thus established their limits. We shall deserve this reproach so
long as we cannot enjoy the beautiful in living nature without
desiring it; as long as we cannot admire the beautiful in the
imitative arts without having an end in view; as long as we do not
grant to imagination an absolute legislation of its own; and as long
as we do not inspire it with care for its dignity by the esteem we
testify for its works.

LETTER XXVII.

Do not fear for reality and truth. Even if the elevated idea of
aesthetic appearance became general, it would not become so, as long
as man remains so little cultivated as to abuse it; and if it became
general, this would result from a culture that would prevent all
abuse of it. The pursuit of independent appearance requires more
power of abstraction, freedom of heart, and energy of will than man
requires to shut himself up in reality; and he must have left the
latter behind him if he wishes to attain to aesthetic appearance.
Therefore a man would calculate very badly who took the road of the
ideal to save himself that of reality. Thus reality would not have
much to fear from appearance, as we understand it; but, on the other
hand, appearance would have more to fear from reality. Chained to
matter, man uses appearance for his purposes before he allows it a
proper personality in the art of the ideal: to come to that point a
complete revolution must take place in his mode of feeling,
otherwise he would not be even on the way to the ideal.
Consequently, when we find in man the signs of a pure and
disinterested esteem, we can infer that this revolution has taken
place in his nature, and that humanity has really begun in him.
Signs of this kind are found even in the first and rude attempts
that he makes to embellish his existence, even at the risk of making
it worse in its material conditions. As soon as he begins to prefer
form to substance and to risk reality for appearance (known by him
to be such), the barriers of animal life fall, and he finds himself
on a track that has no end.

Not satisfied with the needs of nature, he demands the superfluous.
First, only the superfluous of matter, to secure his enjoyment
beyond the present necessity; but afterwards he wishes a
superabundance in matter, an aesthetical supplement to satisfy the
impulse for the formal, to extend enjoyment beyond necessity. By
piling up provisions simply for a future use, and anticipating their
enjoyment in the imagination, he outsteps the limits of the present
moment, but not those of time in general. He enjoys more; he does
not enjoy differently. But as soon as he makes form enter into his
enjoyment, and he keeps in view the forms of the objects which
satisfy his desires, he has not only increased his pleasure in
extent and intensity, but he has also ennobled it in mode and
species.

No doubt nature has given more than is necessary to unreasoning
beings; she has caused a gleam of freedom to shine even in the
darkness of animal life. When the lion is not tormented by hunger,
and when no wild beast challenges him to fight, his unemployed
energy creates an object for himself; full of ardour, he fills the
re-echoing desert with his terrible roars, and his exuberant force
rejoices in itself, showing itself without an object. The insect
flits about rejoicing in life in the sunlight, and it is certainly
not the cry of want that makes itself heard in the melodious song of
the bird; there is undeniably freedom in these movements, though it
is not emancipation from want in general, but from a determinate
external necessity.

The animal works, when a privation is the motor of its activity, and
it plays when the plenitude of force is this motor, when an
exuberant life is excited to action. Even in inanimate nature a
luxury of strength and a latitude of determination are shown, which
in this material sense might be styled play. The tree produces
numberless germs that are abortive without developing, and it sends
forth more roots, branches and leaves, organs of nutrition, than are
used for the preservation of the species. Whatever this tree
restores to the elements of its exuberant life, without using it, or
enjoying it, may be expended by life in free and joyful movements.
It is thus that nature offers in her material sphere a sort of
prelude to the limitless, and that even there she suppresses
partially the chains from which she will be completely emancipated
in the realm of form. The constraint of superabundance or physical
play, answers as a transition from the constraint of necessity, or
of physical seriousness, to aesthetical play; and before shaking
off, in the supreme freedom of the beautiful, the yoke of any
special aim, nature already approaches, at least remotely, this
independence, by the free movement which is itself its own end and
means.

The imagination, like the bodily organs, has in man its free
movement and its material play, a play in which, without any
reference to form, it simply takes pleasure in its arbitrary power
and in the absence of all hindrance. These plays of fancy, inasmuch
as form is not mixed up with them, and because a free succession of
images makes all their charm, though confined to man, belong
exclusively to animal life, and only prove one thing--that he is
delivered from all external sensuous constraint--without our being
entitled to infer that there is in it an independent plastic force.

From this play of free association of ideas, which is still quite
material in nature and is explained by simple natural laws, the
imagination, by making the attempt of creating a free form, passes
at length at a jump to the aesthetic play: I say at one leap, for
quite a new force enters into action here; for here, for the first
time, the legislative mind is mixed with the acts of a blind
instinct, subjects the arbitrary march of the imagination to its
eternal and immutable unity, causes its independent permanence to
enter in that which is transitory, and its infinity in the sensuous.
Nevertheless, as long as rude nature, which knows of no other law
than running incessantly from change to change, will yet retain too
much strength, it will oppose itself by its different caprices to
this necessity; by its agitation to this permanence; by its manifold
needs to this independence, and by its insatiability to this sublime
simplicity. It will be also troublesome to recognise the instinct of
play in its first trials, seeing that the sensuous impulsion, with
its capricious humour and its violent appetites, constantly crosses.
It is on that account that we see the taste, still coarse, seize
that which is new and startling, the disordered, the adventurous and
the strange, the violent and the savage, and fly from nothing so
much as from calm and simplicity. It invents grotesque figures, it
likes rapid transitions, luxurious forms, sharply marked changes,
acute tones, a pathetic song.
That which man calls beautiful at this
time, is that which excites him, that which gives him matter; but
that which excites him to give his personality to the object, that
which gives matter to a possible plastic operation, for otherwise it
would not be the beautiful for him. A remarkable change has
therefore taken place in the form of his judgments; he searches for
these objects, not because they affect him, but because they furnish
him with the occasion of acting; they please him, not because they
answer to a want, but because they satisfy a law, which speaks in
his breast, although quite low as yet.

Soon it will not be sufficient for things to please him; he will
wish to please: in the first place, it is true, only by that which
belongs to him; afterwards by that which he is. That which he
possesses, that which he produces, ought not merely to bear any more
the traces of servitude, nor to mark out the end, simply and
scrupulously, by the form. Independently of the use to which it is
destined, the object ought also to reflect the enlightened
intelligence which imagines it, the hand which shaped it with
affection, the mind free and serene which chose it and exposed it to
view. Now, the ancient German searches for more magnificent furs,
for more splendid antlers of the stag, for more elegant drinking
horns; and the Caledonian chooses the prettiest shells for his
festivals. The arms themselves ought to be no longer only objects of
terror, but also of pleasure; and the skilfully worked scabbard will
not attract less attention than the homicidal edge of the sword. The
instinct of play, not satisfied with bringing into the sphere of the
necessary an aesthetic superabundance for the future more free, is
at last completely emancipated from the bonds of duty, and the
beautiful becomes of itself an object of man's exertions. He adorns
himself. The free pleasure comes to take a place among his wants,
and the useless soon becomes the best part of his joys. Form, which
from the outside gradually approaches him, in his dwelling, his
furniture, his clothing, begins at last to take possession of the
man himself, to transform him, at first exteriorly, and afterwards
in the interior. The disordered leaps of joy become the dance, the
formless gesture is changed into an amiable and harmonious
pantomime, the confused accents of feeling are developed, and begin
to obey measure and adapt themselves to song. When, like the flight
of cranes, the Trojan army rushes on to the field of battle with
thrilling cries, the Greek army approaches in silence and with a
noble and measured step. On the one side we see but the exuberance
of a blind force, on the other; the triumph of form and the simple
majesty of law.

Now, a nobler necessity binds the two sexes mutually, and the
interests of the heart contribute in rendering durable an alliance
which was at first capricious and changing like the desire that
knits it. Delivered from the heavy fetters of desire, the eye, now
calmer, attends to the form, the soul contemplates the soul, and the
interested exchange of pleasure becomes a generous exchange of
mutual inclination. Desire enlarges and rises to love, in proportion
as it sees humanity dawn in its object; and, despising the vile
triumphs gained by the senses, man tries to win a nobler victory
over the will. The necessity of pleasing subjects the powerful
nature to the gentle laws of taste; pleasure may be stolen, but love
must be a gift. To obtain this higher recompense, it is only through
the form and not through matter that it can carry on the contest. It
must cease to act on feeling as a force, to appear in the
intelligence as a simple phenomenon; it must respect liberty, as it
is liberty it wishes to please. The beautiful reconciles the
contrast of different natures in its simplest and purest expression.
It also reconciles the eternal contrast of the two sexes, in the
whole complex framework of society, or at all events it seeks to do
so; and, taking as its model the free alliance it has knit between
manly strength and womanly gentleness, it strives to place in
harmony, in the moral world, all the elements of gentleness and of
violence. Now, at length, weakness becomes sacred, and an unbridled
strength disgraces; the injustice of nature is corrected by the
generosity of chivalrous manners. The being whom no power can make
tremble, is disarmed by the amiable blush of modesty, and tears
extinguish a vengeance that blood could not have quenched. Hatred
itself hears the delicate voice of honour, the conqueror's sword
spares the disarmed enemy, and a hospitable hearth smokes for the
stranger on the dreaded hill-side where murder alone awaited him
before.

In the midst of the formidable realm of forces, and of the sacred
empire of laws, the aesthetic impulse of form creates by degrees a
third and a joyous realm, that of play and of the appearance, where
she emancipates man from fetters, in all his relations, and from all
that is named constraint, whether physical or moral.

If in the dynamic state of rights men mutually move and come into
collision as forces, in the moral (ethical) state of duties, man
opposes to man the majesty of the laws, and chains down his will. In
this realm of the beautiful or the aesthetic state, man ought to
appear to man only as a form, and an object of free play. To give
freedom through freedom is the fundamental law of this realm.

The dynamic state can only make society simply possible by subduing
nature through nature; the moral (ethical) state can only make it
morally necessary by submitting the will of the individual to the
general will. The aesthetic state alone can make it real, because it
carries out the will of all through the nature of the individual. If
necessity alone forces man to enter into society, and if his reason
engraves on his soul social principles, it is beauty only that can
give him a social character; taste alone brings harmony into
society, because it creates harmony in the individual. All other
forms of perception divide the man, because they are based
exclusively either in the sensuous or in the spiritual part of his
being. It is only the perception of beauty that makes of him an
entirety, because it demands the co-operation of his two natures.
All other forms of communication divide society, because they apply
exclusively either to the receptivity or to the private activity of
its members, and therefore to what distinguishes men one from the
other. The aesthetic communication alone unites society, because it
applies to what is common to all its members. We only enjoy the
pleasures of sense as individuals, without the nature of the race in
us sharing in it; accordingly, we cannot generalise our individual
pleasures, because we cannot generalise our individuality. We enjoy
the pleasures of knowledge as a race, dropping the Individual in our
judgment; but we cannot generalise the pleasures of the
understanding, because we cannot eliminate individuality from the
judgments of others as we do from our own. Beauty alone can we enjoy
both as individuals and as a race, that is, as representing a race.
Good appertaining to sense can only make one person happy, because
it is founded on inclination, which is always exclusive; and it can
only make a man partially happy, because his real personality does
not share in it. Absolute good can only render a man happy
conditionally, for truth is only the reward of abnegation, and a
pure heart alone has faith in a pure will. Beauty alone confers
happiness on all, and under its influence every being forgets that
he is limited.

Taste does not suffer any superior or absolute authority, and the
sway of beauty is extended over appearance. It extends up to the
seat of reason's supremacy, suppressing all that is material. It
extends down to where sensuous impulse rules with blind compulsion,
and form is undeveloped. Taste ever maintains its power on these
remote borders, where legislation is taken from it. Particular
desires must renounce their egotism, and the agreeable, otherwise
tempting the senses, must in matters of taste adorn the mind with
the attractions of grace.

Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding tone, only
excused by resistance, and do homage to nature by a nobler trust in
her. Taste leads our knowledge from the mysteries of science into
the open expanse of common sense, and changes a narrow scholasticism
into the common property of the human race. Here the highest genius
must leave its particular elevation, and make itself familiar to the
comprehension even of a child. Strength must let the Graces bind it,
and the arbitrary lion must yield to the reins of love. For this
purpose taste throws a veil over physical necessity, offending a
free mind by its coarse nudity, and dissimulating our degrading
parentage with matter by a delightful illusion of freedom. Mercenary
art itself rises from the dust; and the bondage of the bodily, at
its magic touch, falls off from the inanimate and animate. In the
aesthetic state the most slavish tool is a free citizen, having the
same rights as the noblest; and the intellect which shapes the mass
to its intent must consult it concerning its destination.
Consequently in the realm of aesthetic appearance, the idea of
equality is realised, which the political zealot would gladly see
carried out socially. It has often been said that perfect politeness
is only found near a throne. If thus restricted in the material, man
has, as elsewhere appears, to find compensation in the ideal world.

Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist, and where? It must
be in every finely harmonised soul; but as a fact, only in select
circles, like the pure ideal of the church and state--in circles
where manners are not formed by the empty imitations of the foreign,
but by the very beauty of nature; where man passes through all sorts
of complications in all simplicity and innocence, neither forced to
trench on another's freedom to preserve his own, nor to show grace
at the cost of dignity.




FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS

BY

IMMANUEL KANT


TRANSLATED BY

T. K. ABBOTT




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia, April 22, 1724,
the son of a saddler of Scottish descent. The family was pietist,
and the future philosopher entered the university of his native city
in 1740, with a view to studying theology. He developed, however, a
many-sided interest in learning, and his earlier publications were
in the field of speculative physics. After the close of his period
of study at the university he became a private tutor; then In 1755,
privat-docent; and in 1770, professor. During the first eleven years
of his professorship Kant published little, spending his energies in
the meditation that was to result in the philosophical system of
which the first part was given to the world in his "Critique of Pure
Reason" in 1781. From that time till near the end of the century he
issued volume after volume; yet when he died In 1804 he regarded his
statement of his system as fragmentary.

Of the enormous importance of Kant in the history of philosophy, no
idea can be given here. The important document which follows was
published in 1785, and forms the basis of the moral system on which
he erected the whole structure of belief in God, Freedom, and
Immortality. Kant is often difficult and obscure, and became more so
as he grew older; but the present treatise can be followed, in its
main lines, by any intelligent person who is interested enough in
the fundamental problems of human life and conduct to give it
serious and concentrated attention. To such a reader the subtle yet
clear distinctions, and the lofty and rigorous principles of action,
which it lays down, will prove an intellectual and moral tonic such
as hardly any other modern writer affords.




PREFACE

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: Physics,
Ethics, and Logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature
of the thing, and the only improvement that can be made in it is to
add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy
ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine
correctly the necessary subdivisions.

All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former
considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of
the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal
laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects.
Formal philosophy is called Logic. Material philosophy, however,
which has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they
are subject, is again two-fold; for these laws are either laws of
nature or of freedom. The science of the former is Physics, that of
the latter, Ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and
moral philosophy respectively.

Logic cannot have any empirical part; that is, a part in which the
universal and necessary laws of thought should rest on grounds taken
from experience; otherwise it would not be logic, i. e. a canon for
the understanding or the reason, valid for all thought, and capable
of demonstration. Natural and moral philosophy, on the contrary, can
each have their empirical part, since the former has to determine
the laws of nature as an object of experience; the latter the laws
of the human will, so far as it is affected by nature: the former,
however, being laws according to which everything does happen; the
latter, laws according to which everything ought to happen.
[Footnote: The word "law" is here used in two different senses, on
which see Whately's Logic, Appendix, Art. "Law. "] Ethics, however,
must also consider the conditions under which what ought to happen
frequently does not.

We may call all philosophy empirical, so far as it is based on
grounds of experience: on the other hand, that which delivers its
doctrines from a priori principles alone we may call pure
philosophy. When the latter is merely formal it is logic; if it is
restricted to definite objects of the understanding it is
metaphysic.

In this way there arises the idea of a two-fold metaphysic--a
metaphysic of nature and a metaphysic of morals. Physics will thus
have an empirical and also a rational part. It is the same with
Ethics; but here the empirical part might have the special name of
practical anthropology, the name morality being appropriated to the
rational part.

All trades, arts, and handiworks have gained by division of labour,
namely, when, instead of one man doing everything, each confines
himself to a certain kind of work distinct from others in the
treatment it requires, so as to be able to perform it With greater
facility and. in the greatest perfection. Where the different kinds
of work are not so distinguished and divided, where everyone is a
jack-of-all-trades, there manufactures remain still in the greatest
barbarism. It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy
in all its parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and
whether it would not be better for the whole business of science if
those who, to please the tastes of the public, are wont to blend the
rational and empirical elements together, mixed in all sorts of
proportions unknown to themselves, and who call themselves
independent thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to
those who apply themselves to the rational part only--if these, I
say, were warned not to carry on two employments together which
differ widely in the treatment they demand, for each of which
perhaps a special talent is required, and the combination of which
in one person only produces bunglers. But I only ask here whether
the nature of science does not require that we should always
carefully separate the empirical from the rational part, and prefix
to Physics proper (or empirical physics) a metaphysic of nature, and
to practical anthropology a metaphysic of morals, which must be
carefully cleared of everything empirical, so that we may know how
much can be accomplished by pure reason in both cases, and from
whnat sources it draws this its a priori teaching, and that whether
the latter inquiry is conducted by all moralists (whose name is
legion), or only by some who feel a calling thereto.

As my concern here is with moral philosophy, I limit the question
suggested to this: Whether it is not of the utmost necessity to
construct a pure moral philosophy, perfectly cleared of everything
which is only empirical, and which belongs to anthropology? for that
such a philosophy must be possible is evident from the common idea
of duty and of the moral laws. Every one must admit that if a law is
to have moral force, i. e. to be the basis of an obligation, it must
carry with it absolute necessity; that, for example, the precept,
"Thou shalt not lie," is not valid for men alone, as if other
rational beings had no need to observe it; and so with all the other
moral laws properly so called; that, therefore, the basis of
obligation must not be sought in the nature of man, or in the
circumstanced in the world in which he is placed, but a priori
simply in the conceptions of pure reason; and although any other
precept which is founded on principles of mere experience may be in
certain respects universal, yet in as far as it rests even in the
least degree on an empirical basis, perhaps only as to a motive,
such a precept, while it may be a practical rule, can never be
called a moral law.

Thus not only are moral laws with their principles essentially
distinguished from every other kind of practical knowledge in which
there is anything empirical, but all moral philosophy rests wholly
on its pure part. When applied to man, it does not borrow the least
thing from the knowledge of man himself (anthropology), but gives
laws a priori to him as a rational being. No doubt these laws
require a judgment sharpened by experience, in order on the one hand
to distinguish in what cases they are applicable, and on the other
to procure for them access to the will of the man, and effectual
influence on conduct; since man is acted on by so many inclinations
that, though capable of the idea of a practical pure reason, he is
not so easily able to make it effective in concrete in his life.

A metaphysic of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not
merely for speculative reasons, in order to investigate the sources
of the practical principles which are to be found a priori in our
reason, but also because morals themselves are liable to all sorts
of corruption, as long as we are without that clue and supreme canon
by which to estimate them correctly. For in order that an action
should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the
moral law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law,
otherwise that conformity is only very contingent and uncertain;
since a principle which is not moral, although it may now and then
produce actions conformable to the law, will also often produce
actions which contradict it. Now it is only in a pure philosophy
that we can look for the moral law in its purity and genuineness
(and, in a practical matter, this is of the utmost consequence): we
must, therefore, begin with pure philosophy (metaphysic), and
without it there cannot be any moral philosophy at all. That which
mingles these pure principles with the empirical does not deserve
the name of philosophy (for what distinguishes philosophy from
common rational knowledge is, that it treats in separate sciences
what the latter only comprehends confusedly); much less does it
deserve that of moral philosophy, since by this confusion it even
spoils the purity of morals themselves, and counteracts its own end.

Let it not be thought, however, that what is here demanded is
already extant in the propaedeutic prefixed by the celebrated Wolf
[Footnote: Johann Christian Von Wolf (1679-1728) was the author of
treatises on philosophy, mathematics, &c. , which were for a long
time the standard text-books in the German Universities. His
philosophy was founded on that of Leibnitz. ] to his moral
philosophy, namely, his so-called general practical philosophy, and
that, therefore, we have not to strike into an entirely new field.
Just because it was to be a general practical philosophy, it has not
taken into consideration a will of any particular kind-say one which
should be determined solely from a priori principles without any
empirical motives, and which we might call a pure will, but volition
in general, with all the actions and conditions which belong to it
in this general signification. By this it is distinguished from a
metaphysic of morals, just as general logic, which treats of the
acts and canons of thought in general, is distinguished from
transcendental philosophy, which treats of the particular acts and
canons of pure thought, i. e. that whose cognitions are altogether a
priori. For the metaphysic of morals has to examine the idea and the
principles of a possible pure will, and not the acts and conditions
of human volition generally, which for the most part are drawn from
psychology. It is true that moral laws and duty are spoken of in the
general practical philosophy (contrary indeed to all fitness). But
this is no objection, for in this respect, also the authors of that
science remain true to their idea of it; they do not distinguish the
motives which are prescribed as such by reason alone altogether a
priori, and which are properly moral, from the empirical motives
which the understanding raises to general conceptions merely by
comparison of experiences; but without noticing the difference of
their sources, and looking on them all as homogeneous, they consider
only their greater or less amount. It is in this way they frame
their notion of obligation, which though anything but moral, is all
that can be asked for in a philosophy which passes no judgment at
all on the origin of all possible practical concepts, whether they
are a priori, or only a posteriori.

Intending to publish hereafter a metaphysic of morals, I issue in
the first instance these fundamental principles. Indeed there is
properly no other foundation for it than the critical examination of
a pure practical reason; just as that of metaphysics is the critical
examination of the pure speculative reason, already published. But
in the first place the former is not so absolutely necessary as the
latter, because in moral concerns human reason can easily be brought
to a high degree of correctness and completeness, even in the
commonest understanding, while on the contrary in its theoretic but
pure use it is wholly dialectical; and in the second place if the
critique of a pure practical reason is to be complete, it must be
possible at the same time to show its identity with the speculative
reason in a common principle, for it can ultimately be only one and
the same reason which has to be distinguished merely in its
application. I could not, however, bring it to such completeness
here, without introducing considerations of a wholly different kind,
which would be perplexing to the reader. On this account I have
adopted the title of Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of
Morals, instead of that of a Critical Examination of the pure
practical Reason.

But in the third place, since a metaphysic of morals, in spite of
the; discouraging title, is yet capable of being presented in a
popular form, and one adapted to the common understanding, I find it
useful to separate from it this preliminary treatise on its
fundamental principles, in order that I may not hereafter have need
to introduce these necessarily subtle discussions into a book of a
more simple character.

The present treatise is, however, nothing more than the
investigation and establishment of the supreme principle of
morality, and this alone constitutes a study complete in itself, and
one which ought to be kept apart from every other moral
investigation. No doubt my conclusions on this weighty question,
which has hitherto been very unsatisfactorily examined, would
receive much light from the application of the same principle to the
whole system, and would be greatly confirmed by the adequacy which
it exhibits throughout; but I must forego this advantage, which
indeed would be after all more gratifying than useful, since the
easy applicability of a principle and its apparent adequacy give no
very certain proof of its soundness, but rather inspire a certain
partiality, which prevents us from examining and estimating it
strictly in itself, and without regard to consequences.

I have adopted in this work the method which I think most suitable,
proceeding analytically from common knowledge to the determination
of its ultimate principle, and again descending synthetically from
the examination of this principle and its sources to the common
knowledge in which we find it employed. The division will,
therefore, be as follows:--

1. First section. --Transition from the common rational knowledge of
morality to the philosophical.

2. Second section. --Transition from popular moral philosophy to the
metaphysic of morals.

3. Third section. --Final step from the metaphysic of morals to the
critique of the pure practical reason.




FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSIC OF MORALS


FIRST SECTION

TRANSITION FROM THE COMMON RATIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MORALITY TO THE
PHILOSOPHICAL

Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, of even out of it,
which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will
Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other talents of the mind,
however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as
qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many
respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad
and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which,
therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is
the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches, honour, even
health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's
condition which is called happiness, inspire pride, and often
presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of
these on the mind, and with this also to rectify the whole principle
of acting, and adapt it to its end. The sight of a Deing who is not
adorned with a single feature of a pure and good will, enjoying
unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial
rational spectator. Thus a good will appears to constitute the
indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness.

There are even some qualities which are of service to this good will
itself, and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic
unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this
qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them, and does not
permit us to regard them as absolutely good. Moderation in the
affections and passions, self-control and calm deliberation are not
only good in many respects, but even seem to constitute part of the
intrinsic worth of the person; but they are far from deserving to be
called good without qualification, although they have been so
unconditionally praised by the ancients. For without the principles
of a good will, they may become extremely bad, and the coolness of a
villain not only makes him far more dangerous, but also directly
makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been
without it.

A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not
by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply
by virtue of the volition, that is, it is good in itself, and
considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can
be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay, even of
the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that,
owing to special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of
a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to
accomplish its purpose, if with its greatest efforts it should yet
achieve nothing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to
be sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power),
then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a
thing which has its whole value in itself. Its usefulness or
fruitfulness can neither add to nor take away anything from this
value. It would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to
handle it the more conveniently in common commerce, or to attract to
it the attention of those who are not yet connoisseurs, but not to
recommend it to true connoisseurs, or to determine its value.

There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute
value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility,
that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to
the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be
the product of mere high-flown fancy, and that we may have
misunderstood the purpose of nature in assigning reason as the
governor of our will. Therefore we will examine this idea from this
point of view.

In the physical constitution of an organized being, that is, a being
adapted suitably to the purposes of life, we assume it as a
fundamental principle that no organ for any purpose will be found
but what is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. Now
in a being which has reason and a will, if the proper object of
nature were its conservation, its welfare, in a word, its happiness,
then nature would have hit upon a very bad arrangement in selecting
the reason of the creature to carry out this purpose. For all the
actions which the creature has to perform with a view to this
purpose, and the whole rule of its conduct, would be far more surely
prescribed to it by instinct, and that end would have been attained
thereby much more certainly than it ever can be by reason. Should
reason have been communicated to this favoured creature over and
above, it must only have served it to contemplate the happy
constitution of its nature, to admire it, to congratulate itself
thereon, and to feel thankful for it to the beneficent cause, but
not that it should subject its desires to that weak and delusive
guidance, and meddle bunglingly with the purpose of nature. In a
word, nature would have taken care that reason should not break
forth into practical exercise, nor have the presumption, with its
weak insight, to think out for itself the plan of happiness, and of
the means of attaining it. Nature would not only have taken on
herself the choice of the ends, but also of the means, and with wise
foresight would have entrusted both to instinct.

And, in fact, we find that the more a cultivated reason applies
itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and
happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction.
And from this circumstance there arises in many, if they are candid
enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology, that is, hatred
of reason, especially in the case of those who are most experienced
in the use of it, because after calculating all the advantages they
derive, I do not say from the invention of all the arts of common
luxury, but even from the sciences (which seem to them to be after
all only a luxury of the understanding), they find that they have,
in fact, only brought more trouble on their shoulders, rather than
gained in happiness; and they end by envying, rather than despising,
the more common stamp of men who keep closer to the guidance of mere
instinct, and do not allow their reason much influence on their
conduct. And this we must admit, that the judgment of those who
would very much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which
reason gives us in regard to the happiness and satisfaction of life,
or who would even reduce them below zero, is by no means morose or
ungrateful to the goodness with which the world is governed, but
that there lies at the root of these judgments the idea that our
existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for
happiness, reason is properly intended, and which must, therefore,
be regarded as the supreme condition to which the private ends of
man must, for the most part, be postponed. For as reason is not
competent to guide the will with certainty in regard to its objects
and the satisfaction of all our wants (which it to some extent even
multiplies), this being an end to which an implanted instinct would
have led with much greater certainty; and since, nevertheless,
reason is imparted to us as a practical faculty, i. e. as one which
is to have influence on the will, therefore, admitting that nature
generally in the distribution of her capacities has adapted the
means to the end, its true destination must be to produce a will,
not merely good as a means to something else, but good in itself,
for which reason was absolutely necessary. This will then, though
not indeed the sole and complete good, must be the supreme good and
the condition of every other, even of the desire of happiness. Under
these circumstances, there is nothing inconsistent with the wisdom
of nature in the fact that the cultivation of the reason, which is
requisite for the first and unconditional purpose, does in many ways
interfere, at least in this life, with the attainment of the second,
which is always conditional, namely, happiness. Nay, it may even
reduce it to nothing, without nature thereby failing of her purpose.
For reason recognises the establishment of a good will as its
highest practical destination, and in attaining this purpose is
capable only of a satisfaction of its own proper kind, namely, that
from the attainment of an end, which end again is determined by
reason only, notwithstanding that this may involve many a
disappointment to the ends of inclination.

We have then to develop the notion of a will which deserves to be
highly esteemed for itself, and is good without a view to anything
further, a notion which exists already in the sound natural
understanding, requiring rather to be cleared up than to be taught,
and which in estimating the value of our actions always takes the
first place, and constitutes the condition of all the rest. In order
to do this we will take the notion of duty, which includes that of a
good will, although implying certain subjectve restrictions and
hindrances. These, however, far from concealing it, or rendering it
unrecognisable, rather bring it out by contrast, and make it shine
forth so much the brighter.

I omit here all actions which are already recognised as inconsistent
with duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for
with these the question whether they are done from duty cannot arise
at all, since they even conflict with it. I also set aside those
actions which really conform to duty, but to which men have no
direct inclination, performing them because they are impelled
thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily
distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from
duty, or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this
distinction when the action accords with duty, and the subject has
besides a direct inclination to it. For example, it is always a
matter of duty that a dealer should not overcharge an inexperienced
purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman
does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for everyone, so that a
child buys of him as well as any other. Men are thus honestly
served; but this is not enough to make us believe that the tradesman
has so acted from duty and from principles of honesty: his own
advantage required it; it is out of the question in this case to
suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favour of
the buyers, so that, as it were, from love he should give no
advantage to one over another. Accordingly the action was done
neither from duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a
selfish view.

On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one's life; and, in
addition, everyone has also a direct inclination to do so. But on
this account the often anxious care which most men take for it has
no intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They
preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty
requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have
completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one,
strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or
dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without
loving it--not from inclination or fear, but from duty--then his
maxim has a moral worth.

To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are
many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other
motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading
joy around them and can take delight in the satisfaction of others
so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case
an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be,
has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other
inclinations, e. g. the inclination to honour, which, if it is
happily directed to that which is in fact of public utility and
accordant with duty, and consequently honourable, deserves praise
and encouragement, but not esteem. For the maxim lacks the moral
import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from
inclination. Put the case that the mind of that philanthropist were
clouded by sorrow of his own, extinguishing all sympathy with the
lot of others, and that while he still has the power to benefit
others in distress, he is not touched oy their trouble because he is
absorbed with his own; and now suppose that he tears himself out of
this dead insensibility, and performs the action without any
inclination to it, but simply from duty, then first has his action
its genuine moral worth. Further still; if nature has put little
sympathy in the heart of this or that man; if he, supposed to be an
upright man, is by temperament cold and indifferent to the
sufferings of others, perhaps because in respect of his own he is
provided with the special gift of patience and fortitude, and
supposes, or even requires, that others should have the same--and
such a man would certainly not be the meanest product of nature--but
if nature had not specially framed him for a philanthropist, would
he not still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a
far higher worth than that of a good-natured temperament could be?
Unquestionably. It is just in this that the moral worth of the
character is brought out which is incomparably the highest of all,
namely, that he is beneficent, not from inclination, but from duty.

To secure one's own happiness is a duty, at least indirectly; for
discontent with one's condition, under a pressure of many anxieties
and amidst unsatisfied wants, might easily become a great temptation
to transgression of duty. But here again, without looking to duty,
all men have already the strongest and most intimate inclination to
happiness, because it is just in this idea that all inclinations are
combined in one total. But the precept of happiness is often of such
a sort that it greatly interferes with some inclinations, and yet a
man cannot form any definite and certain conception of the sum of
satisfaction of all of them which is called happiness. It is not
then to be wandered at that a single inclination, definite both as
to what it promises and as to the time within which it can be
gratified, is often able to overcome such a fluctuating idea, and
that a gouty patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy what he
likes, and to suffer what he may, since, according to his
calculation, on this occasion at least, he has [only] not sacrificed
the enjoyment of the present moment to a possibly mistaken
expectation of a happiness which is supposed to be found in health.
But even in this case, if the general desire for happiness did not
influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health
was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains
in this, sas in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should
promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty, land by
this would his conduct first acquire true moral worth.

It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those
passages of Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our
neighbour, even our enemy. For love, as an affection, cannot be
commanded, but beneficence for duty's sake may; even though we are
not impelled to it by any inclination--nay, are even repelled by a
natural and unconquerable aversion. This is practical love, and not
pathological--a love which is seated in the will, and not in the
propensions of sense--in principles of action and not of tender
sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.

The second [Footnote: The first proposition was that to have moral
worth an action must be done from duty. ] proposition is: That an
action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose
which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is
determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the
object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by
which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of
desire. It is clear from what precedes that the purposes which we
may have in view in our actions, or their effects regarded as ends
and springs of the will, cannot give to actions any unconditional or
moral worth. In what, then, can their worth lie, if it is not to
consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect?