478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



doctor to his sick ctiild. though death would remove what he feels 

 to be a burden. What, now, shall we think of a world peopled 

 with Kant's typically moral men — men who in the one case, while 

 doing right by one another, do it with indifference and severally 

 know one another to be so doing it, and men who, in the other 

 case, do right by one another notwithstanding the promptings of 

 evil passions to do otherwise, and who severally know themselves 

 surrounded by others similarly prompted ? Most people will, I 

 think, say that even in the first case life would be hardly bear- 

 able, and that in the second case it would be absolutely intoler- 

 able. Had such been men's natures, Schopenhauer would indeed 

 have had good reason for urging that the race should bring itself 

 to an end as quickly as possible. 



Contemplate now the doings of one whose acts according to 

 Kant have no moral worth. He goes through his daily work not 

 thinking of duty to wife and child, but having in his thought the 

 pleasure of witnessing their welfare ; and on reaching home he 

 delights to see his little girl with rosy cheeks and laughing eyes 

 eating heartily. When he hands back to a shopkeeper the shilling 

 given in excess of right change, he does not stop to ask what the 

 moral law requires : the thought of profiting by the man's mis- 

 take is intrinsically repugnant to him. One who is drowning he 

 plunges in to rescue without any idea of duty, but because he can 

 not contemplate without horror the death which threatens. If for 

 a worthy man who is out of employment he takes much trouble to 

 find a place, he does it because the consciousness of the man's difi&- 

 culties is painful to him, and because he knows that he will benefit 

 not only him but the employer who engages him ; no moral maxim 

 enters his mind. When he goes to see a sick friend the gentle 

 tones of his voice and the kindly expression of his face show that 

 he is come not from any sense of obligation but because pity and 

 a desire to raise his friend's spirits have moved him. If he aids in 

 some public measure which helps men to help themselves, it is 

 not in pursuance of the admonition " Do as you would be done 

 by," but because the distresses around make him unhappy and 

 the thought of mitigating them gives him pleasure. And so 

 throughout : he ever does the right thing not in obedience to any 

 injunction, but because he loves the right thing in and for itself. 

 And now who would not like to live in a world where every one 

 was thus characterized? 



What, then, shall we think of Kant's conception of moral worth, 

 when, if it were displayed universally in men's acts the world 

 would be intolerable, and when if these same acts were univer- 

 sally performed from inclination, the world would be delightful ? 



I had intended to criticise, with kindred results I think, three 



