Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/494

478 doctor to his sick child. though death would remove what he feels to be a burden. What, now, shall we think of a world peopled with Kant's typically moral men—men who in the one case, while doing right by one another, do it with indifference and severally know one another to be so doing it, and men who, in the other case, do right by one another notwithstanding the promptings of evil passions to do otherwise, and who severally know themselves surrounded by others similarly prompted? Most people will, I think, say that even in the first case life would be hardly bearable, and that in the second case it would be absolutely intolerable. Had such been men's natures, Schopenhauer would indeed have had good reason for urging that the race should bring itself to an end as quickly as possible.

Contemplate now the doings of one whose acts according to Kant have no moral worth. He goes through his daily work not thinking of duty to wife and child, but having in his thought the pleasure of witnessing their welfare; and on reaching home he delights to see his little girl with rosy cheeks and laughing eyes eating heartily. When he hands back to a shopkeeper the shilling given in excess of right change, he does not stop to ask what the moral law requires: the thought of profiting by the man's mistake is intrinsically repugnant to him. One who is drowning he plunges in to rescue without any idea of duty, but because he can not contemplate without horror the death which threatens. If for a worthy man who is out of employment he takes much trouble to find a place, he does it because the consciousness of the man's difficulties is painful to him, and because he knows that he will benefit not only him but the employer who engages him; no moral maxim enters his mind. When he goes to see a sick friend the gentle tones of his voice and the kindly expression of his face show that he is come not from any sense of obligation but because pity and a desire to raise his friend's spirits have moved him. If he aids in some public measure which helps men to help themselves, it is not in pursuance of the admonition "Do as you would be done by," but because the distresses around make him unhappy and the thought of mitigating them gives him pleasure. And so throughout: he ever does the right thing not in obedience to any injunction, but because he loves the right thing in and for itself. And now who would not like to live in a world where every one was thus characterized?

What, then, shall we think of Kant's conception of moral worth, when, if it were displayed universally in men's acts the world would be intolerable, and when if these same acts were universally performed from inclination, the world would be delightful?

I had intended to criticise, with kindred results I think, three