A WAIF AND ITS ADOPTION 



tion correctly and solving it. Laplace excelled 

 Kant in a consistent loyalty to scientific princi- 

 ples in cosmogeny. Hegel surpassed him in his- 

 torical perception and comprehensive grasp of 

 evolution. Marx and Engels eclipsed Hegel in 

 dialectics, setting up a new standard for the study 

 of history. And Dietzgen rounded out the work 

 of Marx and Engels by a consistent monist con- 

 ception of the universe. What else is there in 

 Kant that has not been outdone? 



" His ethics," cry the Neo-Kantians, " his sub- 

 lime ethics ! " Let us see. In the " Neue Zeit," 

 XXII, vol. I, No. 20, Franz Mehring writes that 

 the sublimity of Kant's ethics " is of the kind 

 which constitutes a step toward the ridiculous. 

 Nowhere is Kant so pronounced a philistine as in 

 his ethics, and at that a philistine in whose veins 

 all the bad blood of theology is circulating. His 

 ethics with its categorical imperative is nothing 

 but the Mosaic decalogue, and his doctrine of the 

 radical evil of human nature nothing but the 

 dogma of inherited sin. So far from having 

 assisted in the baptism of the New Testament, 

 Kant's ethics simply harked back to the Old 

 Testament. Goethe, who indeed looked with 

 sceptical eyes upon Kantian dualism, expressed 

 the opinion that Kant had miserably soiled his 



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