Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/490

474 the "line of direction" falls within it. In young children, in boys and girls who are admonished to "sit up" in weakly people, and in the old, the spine lapses into that convex form characteristic of lower Primates. It is the same with the balancing of the head. Only by a muscular strain to which habit makes us insensible, as it does to the exposure of the face to cold, is the head maintained in position: immediately certain cervical muscles are relaxed, the head falls forward; and where there is great debility the chin rests permanently on the chest.

So far, indeed, is the assumption of Kant from being true, that the very reverse is probably true. After contemplating the countless examples of imperfections exhibited in low types of creatures, and decreasing with the ascent to high types, but still exemplified in the highest, any one who concludes, as he may reasonably do, that Evolution has not yet reached its limit, may infer that most likely no such thing as a perfect organ exists. Thus the basis of the argument by which Kant attempts to justify his assumption that there exists a good will apart from a good end, disappears utterly, and leaves his dogma in all its naked unthinkableness.

One of the propositions contained in Kant's first chapter is that "we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction." A preliminary remark to be made on this statement is that in its sweeping form it is not true. I assert that it is untrue on the strength of personal experiences. In the course of my life there have occurred many intervals, averaging a month each, in which the pursuit of happiness was the sole object, and in which happiness was successfully pursued. How successfully may be judged from the fact that I would gladly live over again each of those periods without change, an assertion which I certainly can not make of any portions of my life spent in the daily discharge of duties. That which Kant should have said is that the exclusive pursuit of what are distinguished as pleasures and amusements is disappointing. This is doubtless true; and for the obvious reason that it over exercises one group of faculties, and exhausts them, while it leaves unexercised another group of faculties, which consequently do not yield the gratifications accompanying their exercise. It is not, as Kant says, guidance by "a cultivated reason" which leads to disappointment, but guidance by an uncultivated reason; for a cultivated reason teaches that continuous action of a small part of the nature, joined with inaction of the rest, must end in dissatisfaction.

But now, supposing we accept Kant's statement in full, what is its implication? That happiness is the thing to be desired, and, in one way or another, the thing to be achieved. For if not, what