Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/76

 the fight for existence and to what an extent they originally were useful in the preservation of species can be seen from the fact that their effect often limits itself to individuals whose maintenance is advantageous for the species. Quite a number of animals which risk their lives to save younger or weaker comrades kill without a scruple sick or aged comrades that are superfluous for the preservation of the race, and are become a burden to society. The "moral sense," "sympathy," does not extend to these elements. Even many savages behave in this manner.

The moral law is an animal impulse, and nothing else. Thence its mysterious nature, this voice in us which has no connection with any external impulse or any apparent interest; this demon or god, which, since Socrates and Plato, has been found in themselves by those moralists who refused to deduce morality from self-love or pleasure. Certainly a mysterious impulse, but not more mysterious than sexual love, maternal love, the instinct of self-preservation, the being of the organism itself, and so many other things, which only belong to the world of phenomena, and which no one looks on as products of a supersensuous world.

Because the moral law is an animal instinct of equal force to the instinct of self-preservation and reproduction, thence its force, thence its power which we obey without thought, thence our rapid decisions, in particular cases, whether an action is good or bad, virtuous or vicious; thence the energy and decision of our moral judgment, and thence the difficulty to prove it when reason begins to analyse its grounds. Thence, finally, we find that to comprehend all means to pardon all, that everything is necessary, that nothing is good or bad.

Not from our organs of knowing but from our impulses come the moral law and the moral judgment, as well as the feeling of duty and the conscience.

In many kinds of animals the social impulses attain such a strength that they become stronger than all the rest. When the former come in conflict with the latter, they then confront the latter with overpowering