Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/49

 to create such a society, that this result can be achieved through a rule which the individual sets to himself. We see how thoroughly Kant was deceived when he thought that his moral law was independent of all conditions appertaining to the world of sense, and that it formed thus a principle which would apply to all timeless and spaceless spirits including God Almighty himself.

In reality Kant’s moral law is the result of very concrete social needs. Naturally, since it springs from the wish for an harmonious society, it is possible to deduce from it the ideal of an harmonious society, and thus it has been possible to stamp Kant as a founder of Socialism. Cohen repeats this again also in his latest work, "Ethic of the Pure Will" (Ethik des reinen Willens), 1905. In reality, however, Kant is much farther removed from Socialism than the French Materialism of the eighteenth century. While, according to these, the moral law was determined by the condition of the State and society, so that the reform of morality rendered necessary, in the first place, the reform of the State and society, so that the fight against immorality widened itself into a fight against the ruling powers, according to Kant the society which exists in time and space is determined by a moral law standing outside of time and space, which directs its commands to the individual, not to society. Is the morality of the individual imperfect? One must not lay the blame for that on the State and society, but in the fact that man is not entirely an angel, but half animal and, consequently, always being drawn down by his animal nature, against which he can only fight through the raising and the purifying of this own inner man. The individual must improve himself if the society is to be improved.

It is clear Socialism takes peculair forms if we are to look on Kant as its founder. This peculiarity will be in no way diminished when we observe the further development of the moral law by him. From the moral law springs the consciousness of personality and the dignity of man, and the phrase: "Act so that you as well in