Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/149

 Rh outlawry in which every man is for himself, the hunter and the prey. How different is the teaching of Rousseau, who prophesied for an age in which men were sore from the rub of the harness, and longed to be turned out to pasture. The law, Rousseau preaches, is made for man, not man for the law. Man has been enslaved by his own artificial contrivances, and must strive to return to the natural goodness and happiness that are his rightful inheritance. These are the questions that still lie at the basis of our political philosophy, and divide the partisans of the day, even though they know it not. A somewhat different and perhaps more familiar turn is given to moral philosophy by Kant. With him the central idea in the moral life is duty. It is not consequence or inclination that counts, but the state of the will. Morality is founded on a law of its own, far deeper than man-made statutes. This law is delivered to the individual through his "Practical Reason," and it is the last word in all matters affecting the regulation of conduct. Thus Kant puts the accent where Protestant and Puritanic Christianity puts it; whereas Plato, bidding us look to the rounding and perfecting of life, is the spokesman of that perennial Paganism that flourishes as vigorously to-day as it did before the advent of Christianity.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Closely connected with Moral Philosophy there stands a group of problems that forms the nucleus of what may be called Philosophy of Religion. Suppose that a provisional answer has been obtained to the questions of Ethics. The good has been defined, and the duty of man made clear. What hope, then, is there of the realization of the good? May we be sure that it lies within the power of man to perform what duty prescribes? Thus there arises, first of all, the question of the status of man. Is he a creature, merely—a link in the chain of natural causes, able at most to contemplate his own helplessness? Or is he endowed with a power corresponding to his ideals, a power to control his destinies and promote the causes which he serves? This is the old and well-known problem of freedom. If you want to know what can be said for the prerogatives of man, read Kant; if you want to know what is made of man when he is