THE ETHICS OF KANT. 



475 



meaning is there in tlie statement that it will not be achieved 

 when made the immediate object ? One who was thus admon- 

 ished might properly rejoin : " You say I shall not get happiness 

 if I make it the object of pursuit ? Suppose then I do not make 

 it the object of my pursuit ; shall I get it ? If I do, then your ad- 

 monition amounts to this, that I shall obtain it better if I proceed 

 in some other way than that I adopt. If I do not get it, then I 

 remain without happiness if I follow your way, just as much as 

 if I follow my own, and nothing is gained." An illustration will 

 best show how the matter stands. To a tyro in archery the in- 

 structor says : " Sir, you must not point your arrow directly at 

 the target ; if you do, you will inevitably miss it ; you must aim 

 high above the target, and you may then possibly pierce the bull's- 

 eye." What now is implied by the warning and the advice ? 

 Clearly that the purpose is to hit the target. Otherwise there is 

 no sense in the remark that it will be missed if directly aimed at ; 

 and no sense in the remark that to be hit, something higher 

 must be aimed at. Similarly with happiness. There is no sense 

 in the remark that happiness will not be found if it is directly 

 sought, unless happiness is a thing to be somehow or other ob- 

 tained. 



" Yes ; there is sense," I hear it said. " Just as it may be that 

 the target is not the thing to be hit at all, either by aiming directly 

 or indirectly at it, but that some other thing is to be hit ; so it 

 may be that the thing to be achieved immediately or remotely is 

 not happiness at all, but some other thing : the other thing being 

 duty." In answer to this the admonished man may reasonably 

 say : " What then is meant by Kant's statement that the man who 

 pursues happiness ' fails of true satisfaction '? All happiness is 

 made up of satisfactions. The 'true satisfaction' which Kant 

 offers as an alternative, must be some kind of happiness ; and if a 

 truer satisfaction, must be a greater or better happiness ; and bet- 

 ter must mean on the average, and in the long run, greater. If 

 this ' true satisfaction ' does not mean greater happiness of self — 

 distant if not proximate, in another life if not in this life — and if 

 it does not mean greater happiness by achieving the happiness of 

 others ; then you propose to me as an end a smaller happiness in- 

 stead of a greater, and I decline it." 



So that in this professed repudiation of happiness as an end, 

 there lies the inavoidable implication that it is the end. 



This last consideration introduces us naturally to another of 

 Kant's cardinal doctrines. That there may be no mistake in my 

 representation of it, I must make a long quotation. 



" I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent with 

 duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for with these the 



