THE ALLEGED SCEPTICISM OF KANT. 183 
combinations of chance, or the far-seeing purposes of 
Divinity. That is, as it seems to me, the lesson of Kant; 
pure intelligence, he would say, is destructive; man does 
not live by logic alone. If you desire to get at the root of 
things, you must supplement. your view of man as a thinking 
creature by man as a moral creature. What is destroyed, or, 
at all events, rendered doubtful by the first process, becomes 
rehabilitated by the second. The essence of man’s nature is 
not intellect Heat but intellect plus feeling, plus practical 
activity. 
But, you naturally ask, is it so true that moral philosophy 
can yield us such results? Certainly it can, on Kantian lines, 
and that is throughout the point of view with which I am 
occupied. We need only look at three points, not confining 
ourselves to the terminology or even the precise doctrines of 
Kant, but adhering, I think, to his spint. The first is the 
meaning of conscience; the second is the meaning of duty ; 
the third is the meaning of good. What is conscience ? 
The essence of the conception, that which gives it its peculiar 
character, is the combination which we find in it of emotional 
elements and intellectual. Itis the sensitive mirror on which 
are breathed all the shadows of our active life. It is that 
which lays bare with such unfailing force the relative value 
of all the aims and objects to which our action is directed. 
It steeps the intellectual recognition of what we have done 
or should do in a warm atmosphere of emotion. It practi- 
cally denies the severance of feeling and thought, because 
in itself it is both feeling and thought. You may tell me 
that its natural history can be traced, you may say that it 
has arisen out of all sorts of conditions of expediency or 
utility. The analysis may or may not be correct, but I must 
remind you that explanation does not alter the value of the 
conception, nor does the account of how a thing came to be 
alter the nature of that which it is. I take conscience, as 
you find it in the highest, most morally developed men and 
women whom you “know. What is this strange judging 
and feeling power which has guided their path in life ? 
What can it be, except the eternal vindication of men’s 
position as the sons of God and the inheritors of a Divine 
nature ? 
This, perhaps, someone will say, is mere rhetoric. Let us 
turn, therefore, to the second of those conceptions of morality 
to which I have already referred. What is duty? Its 
essence 1s obligation. Man feels that in reviewing possible 
