144 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



is. movement which on the continent of. Europe is asso- 

 between ciated with the name of .Kant. 1 Almost in every 



Bentham 



andKaut respect it marks just the opposite tendency of thought. 

 It originated about the time when Bentham published 

 the most comprehensive of his writings the ' Intro- 

 duction to the Principles of Morals and Legisla- 

 tion.' This was printed in 1780 and first published 

 in 1789. Kant's ethical doctrine was given to the 

 world in successive writings, the most important being 

 the ' Metaphysik der Sitten' (1785) and the second 

 'Critique' (1788), but in their entirety his views on 

 ethics in connection with religion were not known till 

 after the publication of his ' Religious Philosophy ' 

 (1793) and various other writings closing with the 

 year 1798. It is important to note that Kant ap- 

 proached the ethical problem after he had exhaustively 

 dealt with the theoretical problems, the problems of Know- 

 ledge and of Eeality, in his ' Critique of Pure Eeason,' 

 which was published in 1781. Bentharn's publications 

 dealt mostly with separate points of law and government. 

 He relates how he met with the ethical principle which 

 was to systematise his speculations in the writings of 

 Helvetius. It is characteristic of Bentham that he 

 thus early met with a unifying principle which was 

 in his mind comprehensive enough, and from which 



1 Without entering into the de- : seemed imperatively necessary for 



tails of the respective philosophical 

 principles, this contrast may be 

 generally denned by saying : 

 " What Bentham did was . . . 

 to stimulate the belief in the pos- 

 sibility of basing a moral theory 

 upon observation " (Leslie Stephen, 

 loc. cit., p. 126). For Kant "it 



once to elaborate a pure philosophy 

 of morals . . . which is completely 

 cleared of all that is merely em- 

 pirical and, as such, belonging to 

 anthropology " (' Metaphysik der 

 Sitten,' preface, 'Werke,' ed. Rosen- 

 kranz, vol. viii. p. 5). 



