SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION 



as a means, but also as an end." This ethics, like 

 many another conceived by bourgeois minds after 

 Kant, falls to pieces the moment it is tried as a 

 rule of conduct in society. Its ambiguity, and 

 therefore its meaninglessness, becomes apparent 

 in the effects of class-environment on human 

 reason. Well does Franz Mehring character- 

 ize the Kantian imperative, when he writes : 

 " For the historical thinker, this statement of 

 Kant's appears at once as the historical precipi- 

 tation of the economic fact, that the bourgeoisie, 

 in order to obtain objects of exploitation suitable 

 for their ends, must not only use the working 

 class as a means, but also take care to create a 

 proletariat, in other words, to free them in the 

 name of human liberty from feudal rule." 



But in spite of his categorical imperative, and 

 his admiration for the French revolution, Kant 

 demanded full liberty only for the citizens of the 

 state, not for all its members, especially not for 

 the women and for the working class. Thus 

 he fell back to the status of the Roman constitu- 

 tion under the Caesars. 



In his " Critique of Discrimination," Kant dis- 

 covered the laws of creative imagination and 

 demonstrated that art is an innate faculty of man. 

 This work also contains the statement that the 



