Morals and the Evolution of Man Part 1

Morals and the Evolution of Man.

by Max Simon Nordau.

CHAPTER I

THE PHENOMENON OF MORALITY

A very well-known experiment in animal psychology was once made by Mobius. An aquarium was divided into two compartments by means of a pane of gla.s.s; in one of these a pike was put and in the other a tench.

Hardly had the former caught sight of his prey, when he rushed to the attack without noticing the transparent part.i.tion. He crashed with extreme violence again the obstacle and was hurled back stunned, with a badly battered nose. No sooner had he recovered from the blow than he again made an onslaught upon his neighbour--with the same result. He repeated his efforts a few times more, but succeeded only in badly hurting his head and mouth. At last a dim idea dawned upon his dull mind that some unknown and invisible power was protecting the tench, and that any attempt to devour it would be in vain; consequently from that moment he ceased from all further endeavours to molest his prey. Thereupon the pane of gla.s.s was removed from the tank, and pike and tench swam around together; the former took no notice whatever of his defenceless neighbour, who had become sacred to him. In the first instance the pike had not perceived the gla.s.s part.i.tion against which he had dashed his head; now he did not see that it had been taken away. All he knew was this: he must not attack this tench, otherwise he would fare badly. The pane of gla.s.s, though no longer actually there, surrounded the tench as with a coat of mail which effectually warded off the murderous attacks of the pike.

The fact so often observed, that man in many cases does that which he pa.s.sionately desires to leave undone, and refrains from doing that which all his instincts urge him to do--this phenomenon of Morality is a generalization upon a huge scale of the above experiment on animals with the pane of gla.s.s in a tank.

Jean Jacques Rousseau thought out a theoretical human being who was by nature good. Such a human being does not exist and has never existed.

From sheer annoyance at the provoking obliquity of vision which led the enthusiast of Geneva to develop such a theory, one is sorely tempted to go to the opposite extreme and declare that man is by nature fundamentally bad; but such an a.s.sertion is just as nave as Rousseau's contention. Good and bad are values which we can only learn to appreciate when we have felt the effect of the phenomenon of Morality.

The concepts of good and evil are of much later origin than mankind, and can therefore no more const.i.tute a fundamental characteristic of man's original nature than, for instance, the cut and colour of his clothes; though it is open to wiseacres to maintain that man's nature to some extent actually finds expression in the cut and colour of his clothes--that is, in his choice of them. Anyone contemplating primitive man, man as he emerges from the hands of Nature, stripped of all the additions which he has acquired in the course of his historical development, is bound to admit that man is neither good nor bad; he is a living being acting according to the instincts implanted in his nature; just like the pike. But in most contingencies he does not obey these instincts, and if he reflects upon himself and his actions, he is astounded at realizing this, and asks: "Why do I refrain from revelling in the gratification of my desires?"

Innumerable times every day of his life he would like to break many or all of the Ten Commandments; but he abstains from so doing, and, what is more, mostly without effort, without having painfully to suppress his desire. What prevents him from yielding to his impulses? An invisible power which lays its commands upon him: "Thou shalt not!" "Thou shalt!"

Often his aims and inclinations come into violent collision with this order, or this prohibition, and are hurled back by the painful impact.

Man hears the threatening, imperious voice, but cannot see whence it comes. Accustomed to reason by a.n.a.logy, he concludes that it is, like thunder, a voice of Nature. When the pike has sufficiently injured his nose against the pane of gla.s.s, he a.s.sumes as an actual fact that an insuperable barrier separates him from the tench, and, moreover, that it is both useless and painful to come into contact with this. He does not try to discover the nature of the obstacle, and gives up any further attempt upon his mysteriously protected prey. Man, with a more highly developed intelligence than the pike, does not accept the phenomenon of Morality with dull resignation. Since he has become conscious of a mysterious barrier erected between his volitions and his actions, he has not ceased to reflect upon this barrier, to investigate it with a timid yet irresistible desire for knowledge, and to try and discover its nature.

It redounds to man's credit that he has devoted so much time and energy to investigating the character and essence of Morality. But the result of these investigations does not redound to his credit. With the exception of theology, there is no subject upon which so much has been written as upon ethics. Yet whosoever plunges into this boundless sea of literature will emerge with feelings bordering upon horror and despair.

Here a free rein is given to all man's errors, to his habit of drawing false conclusions, to his faulty modes of thought. Incapacity to interpret facts, a.s.sociation of ideas, elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp and uncurbed by any criticism, intemperate mysticism, arrogant dogmatism, shallow self-sufficiency--all these vie with one another in the presentment of theories which either are patently foolish, arbitrary or ill-founded, or else prove to be so when impartially examined.

It is hard for the few reasonable thinkers who have taken part in this great investigation to make their voices heard amid the uproar raised by the solemn, unctuous, dictatorial or pedantic tomfools. And even the former are not entirely satisfactory, because they do not distinguish clearly enough between the form and the substance, the externals and the essence of Morality, and because they do not discriminate with sufficient care between questions as to its nature, origin and aim, and its powers or sanctions--questions which must on no account be confounded.

What is Morality? Obviously it is necessary to attempt a clear answer to this question before any useful purpose can be served by inquiring into the group of problems to which it gives rise: its aim, its laws, its origin, its method, its a.s.sumptions. The Stoics answer this question as follows: "Morality is living according to Nature." Furthermore, it is quite in accordance with the doctrine of the Stoics that Cicero says: "Virtue, however, is nothing but Nature developed to the highest possible degree of perfection" ("_ad summum perducta_"). Moral therefore means natural; Morality and Nature are equivalent; they are one. Really a simpler or more childlike explanation is hardly possible. The most superficial glance at human life and at our own soul teaches us that Morality is contrary to Nature, that it must struggle against Nature to a.s.sert itself, that it means a victory over Nature, in so far as we understand by Nature in this special sense the most primitive reaction of man to simple and more complicated stimuli, the first tendency of impulse, the immediate, instinctive urge to act. Further, the definition of the Stoics ignores the aggregation of concepts which the synthetic conception, Morality, involves; as if this were self-evident and required no definition. The Stoics tacitly a.s.sume that Morality and Good are synonymous. Cicero makes this a.s.sumption clearer by using the word Virtue (_virtus_) instead of Morality. But in all languages this word implies approbation and praise. It is an appreciation of worth (_Werturteil_), to use the expression so appropriately coined by Lotze.

But the very fact that we recognize Morality as being valuable is by no means a matter of course and it demands an explanation.

Certain actions could only be judged to be good if they were distinguished from others which did not suggest the same judgment, which were felt to be not good, to be bad or indifferent. We come to the question, What is Good, what is Bad? The Stoics reply, "That which is good is natural." It is easy to call facts which please us natural, and such as displease us unnatural. In reality both series of facts are equally natural; because everything that happens is natural; because by definition Nature is the synthesis of all phenomena; because nothing exists outside of Nature, and within Nature everything is a part of her and therefore is natural and can be nothing but natural. If we nevertheless wish to distinguish between natural and unnatural phenomena, if we call Good, Morality, and Virtue natural, and compare them favourably with the unnatural, this only proves that we use the words natural and unnatural as synonyms for good and bad, and that we have a ready-made standard by which we measure the naturalness or unnaturalness (that is, the goodness or badness) of actions, and that there exists within ourselves the law by which we judge them to be good or bad. But how do we come by this law? How, of what material, and why do we fas.h.i.+on this standard? Why do we approve of one thing as good and condemn another as bad? What qualities do the former and the latter possess, or what qualities do we ascribe to them? That is what we want to know when we inquire as to the significance of Morality, and the definition of the Stoics throws no light whatever upon the matter.

According to Aristotle Morality is "the activity of Practical Reason, which is accompanied by pleasurable emotion." It is not worth while to dwell upon this definition. It is absolutely valueless. Practical Reason is not a definite concept; Aristotle does not say anywhere what he understands by "practical" when he applies this attribute to Reason; and to call every activity of Practical Reason accompanied by pleasurable emotion Morality is mere eccentricity.

To take only one example: if I have a house built, and accept the architect's plans because they please me greatly, my practical reason is most certainly active; the gratification induced by my reasonable choice of the plans is doubtless a pleasurable emotion; but a.s.suredly no one will characterize as moral this activity of my practical reason which is accompanied by pleasurable emotion. It may be that Aristotle was contemplating not a single action, but conduct in life as a whole. In that case he has expressed in an unfortunate, and much too loose a manner the thought that Morality is Reason plus pleasurable emotion. We shall frequently meet with and have to examine this idea, which omits to explain why pleasurable emotions attend certain activities of "Practical Reason," whatever that may be, and fail to be aroused by others.

Judaism, as embodied in its law-givers and prophets, teaches that Morality consists in living and acting in accordance with the divine Will. Maimonides, who, however, was regarded by many of his contemporaries as a heretic, does not consider Judaism a creed at all, but a code of Morality. He maintains that anyone who repudiates the tenets of the Jewish faith, even the most essential one, namely, the belief in a single G.o.d, must not be excluded from the Jewish community as long as he conforms to its moral laws. This thinker, usually so accurate and nice in his reasoning, overlooks the fact that in this case he is contradicting himself in a manner wellnigh comic. According to him, too, Morality consists in the endeavour to live and act in accordance with the divine Will. How is such an endeavour possible for a man who does not believe in G.o.d and for whom consequently no divine Will exists? Therefore either Morality must be something different from an approximation to the standard set up by the divine Will, or else he who denies G.o.d cannot be moral. But I will leave the author of the "Guide of those who have gone astray" to his self-contradiction, and only retain the Jewish definition of Morality as based upon the Will of G.o.d.

Without any restriction Christianity has taken over this definition from the mother-religion. In his zeal to claim that G.o.d alone is the source of all Morality, St. Augustine allows himself to be carried away to such an extent that he libels mankind most hatefully. Just as for Rousseau man is by nature good, for the Bishop of Hippo he is by nature fundamentally bad. Left to his own devices he would always wallow in the mire of sin and vice, and would never even feel the wish to abandon his wickedness. It is G.o.d's mercy alone which rescues him from his depravity and sets his feet upon the path of righteousness, leading him to virtue, salvation and eternal bliss. Thomas Aquinas is no less definite on this point. The scriptures of Judaism and Christianity contain the eternal law which G.o.d has ordained for mankind. He points out the paths that man should follow. All Morality springs from Him alone.

To this very day true believers adhere to this doctrine. Morality did not originate on earth; the knowledge of it is a gift of grace from heaven to mankind. It is derived from G.o.d; it is that which G.o.d has willed; or else it does not need any special act of volition on the part of G.o.d, but is the essence of G.o.d himself. That is the teaching of Paley, the cla.s.sical moral philosopher. Virtue consists in doing good to mankind in obedience to the Will of G.o.d, and in order to attain eternal salvation. Here stress is laid upon the fact that Morality is active love for one's neighbour, and this is a concession on the part of the conciliatory Englishman to the utilitarian ethics of his countrymen; but for him the necessary and sufficient reason for this love of one's neighbour is the Will of G.o.d and the desire for eternal salvation. The German devotee, Baader, bl.u.s.tering like a capuchin, preaches this twaddle: "Any Morality which is not rooted in divine law is the intellectual impiety of our time raised to its highest power; it is the perfection of atheism; for the idea of the absolute autonomy of man atheistically denies the Father as law-giver; the theistic denial of the necessity for divine aid in fulfilling the law does away with the Son or Mediator, and finally the materialistic-pantheistic apotheosis of Matter does away with the Holy Ghost with its sanctifying power." The Frenchman Jouffroy, though more careful and reticent in his manner, unmistakably expresses his conviction that "ethics, as well as the philosophy of law, inevitably and necessarily lead to theology."

But this necessity only exists for minds whose desire for knowledge and truth is easily satisfied by words without a meaning that can be visualized, by fabulous statements accepted without proof, by fictions of the imagination, and by shallow juggling with the a.s.sociation of ideas. Even those who do not approve all Auguste Comte's arguments will agree with him when he cla.s.sifies the successive steps in the mental development of mankind as the theological, transcendental, and scientific modes of thought. When man's understanding is in its infancy he is content with a supernatural explanation of all phenomena which strike him as mysterious, disquiet him or rouse his curiosity. Only I have never been able to understand why Comte discriminates between the theological and the transcendental modes of thought, and a.s.signs to the latter a higher place than the former. Both are on a footing of absolute equality; both raise arbitrary fictions of the imagination to the position of sources of knowledge; both subst.i.tute anthropomorphic trivialities for the observation of phenomena and research into the conditions under which they occur and their relations.h.i.+p to one another.

The only difference between them lies in the fact that transcendentalism expresses itself in choicer language than does theology, that it presents formulae that are more complicated and pretentious, less transparent and honest--formulae which the unpractised mind does not immediately recognize as mythological dogmas in a pseudo-scientific disguise.

The relations.h.i.+p of theological to transcendental thought is much the same as that of superst.i.tion to religion. Both of them are one and the same. Religion is shamefaced superst.i.tion, whereas superst.i.tion has not yet learned to feel shame. Religion is superst.i.tion in a dress-coat, and therefore fit for polite circles; superst.i.tion is religion in a cotton smock and therefore cannot be admitted to society. Superst.i.tion is the religion of the poor and una.s.suming, religion is the superst.i.tion of fine folk who plume themselves on their formal and verbal scholars.h.i.+p.

Ever since man has risen above the level of the beasts, ever since the first faint glimmerings of thought began in the thick-walled, narrow and dark skull of a hunter of the Neanderthal or Cro Magnon, he has ascribed everything unintelligible in life and in the world around him to divine actions and divine sources. How did the world come into existence? A G.o.d or G.o.ds created it. How does Nature work? In accordance with the will of a G.o.d or G.o.ds, in obedience to divine commands, as a result of divine activities. What is life? A divine gift of grace. What is consciousness? An irradiation of the divinity. What is infinity, what eternity? Attributes of the G.o.d. G.o.d is the name that from the beginning of time to the present day men have given to their ignorance. They find it easier to bear disguised by this pseudonym; they are even proud of it. With cunning self-deception they have endowed the word with the dignity pertaining to a t.i.tle of the most awe-inspiring majesty, and they no longer feel ashamed of a poverty of mind which can boast of such a magnificent name. Morality also is one of those phenomena which are not intelligible as a matter of course. The questions how, whence, why, and to what end Morality exists, and what it is, cannot be solved at a glance; its life-history is not apparent to every observer, as is that of the domestic cat. But why cudgel one's brains? Cheap explanations are ready to hand. This way mythology, you maid-of-all-work! Morality has been ordained by G.o.d. A moral life is one in accordance with G.o.d's commandments. He who will not content himself with this answer is an infidel and does not deserve to have any notice taken of him.

Let us leave the paltry statements of theologians and note how men who investigate questions more thoroughly have dealt with Morality.

Descartes defines Morality as the sustained endeavour to do that which one has recognized to be right. It is difficult to discern in this definition the father of scientific scepticism. What are the distinguis.h.i.+ng marks of Right? Is the decision as to what is right and what is wrong to be left to the subjective judgment of the individual?

In that case Descartes must concede that the action of a burglar is moral, if he has recognized that it is right for him to perpetrate his crime between two and three o'clock in the morning, that being the most favourable time for it, and then strives to the best of his ability to effect an entrance into the building he has selected, at the moment which he has recognized as the right one. Or shall all mankind, or at least the majority, and not the individual, decide what is right? In that case the definition would certainly approximate to the one which I hold to be true; but for one thing it would suffer from vagueness; and, moreover, its originator would lay himself open to the reproach of not having shown why the individual is worthy of praise when he acts in accordance with the convictions of the majority, though these be opposed to his own, and in so doing allows his action to be determined by a judgment due to a psychic mechanism other than his.

Spinoza's "Ethics" leaves the reader in great discomfort, the result of vacillating and contradictory explanations. Obviously Descartes' great disciple had no clear conception of the essence of Morality and held either consecutively, or may be even simultaneously, divers views on the subject, amongst which those of all schools of thought are either quite clearly expressed or at least implied. "By Good," he says, "I mean that which we know for certain to be useful to us."[1]

[1] I quote the wording of Berthold Auerbach's translation: "B. de Spinoza's collected works. Translated from the Latin by Berthold Auerbach." Stuttgart, J. G. Cotta, 1871. Second edition, Vol. II.

And again: "To act absolutely virtuously is merely to act, live, preserve one's being (these three mean the same thing) in accordance with the dictates of Reason, because one seeks one's own interest."

According to that Morality is synonymous with egoism, and its aim is man's individual profit or interest. Even the most p.r.o.nounced Utilitarians among ethical theorists have not ventured to go to such lengths. True, they have contended that the aim of moral action is happiness, but at least they define it as the happiness of the whole community and not that of the individual, except in so far as he is a member of the community and has his fair share of its well-being.

Spinoza foresees the objection that the pursuit of one's own happiness cannot possibly deserve the universal esteem in which virtue is held, and he tries to adduce reasons whereby the egoism which he characterizes as moral may be justified and palliated:

"Everyone exists according to the supreme law of Nature, and consequently everyone does, according to the supreme law of Nature, that which results from the necessities of his own nature; and therefore every man forms his judgment as to what is good and bad according to the supreme law of Nature, pursues his own interest according to his lights, seeks revenge, strives to preserve what he loves and to destroy what he hates." That is possibly the most audacious and at the same time the most ill-founded statement that has ever been written on the subject of Morality. Morality means behaviour calculated to further one's own interest. Morality is therefore utility. But man cannot act otherwise than morally, since he always acts as he is compelled to do by his own nature. There is no sense in discriminating between good and bad, moral and immoral, since one always acts in accordance with the behests of Nature. Man automatically executes the dictates of Nature which is alone responsible for his deeds.

For the Stoics, too, Morality is action in accordance with the law of Nature, but Spinoza goes further than the Stoics, in that he does away with any universally applicable standard of moral conduct, and sets up instead of Nature pure and simple, which is the same for all, each man's individual nature as the authority which shall lay down rules of behaviour for him. So Morality is something individual and subjective.

Man acts according to the requirements of his interest; his own nature shows him what his interest requires; no other person has any right or any qualification to form a judgment upon the worth of his conduct, to call it good or bad, for he cannot know what course of action the man's personal nature, peculiar to himself and to no other, may prescribe to him. This is the doctrine of anarchy and amorality put in a nutsh.e.l.l, a more wordy paraphrase of the _Fais ce que vouldras_ (please yourself), the terse inscription that Rabelais put over the entrance to his Abbey of Theleme, as the only law governing that abode of alluring wantonness.

Spinoza certainly does half-heartedly concede to Reason the role which Aristotle positively a.s.signs to it ("To act in an absolutely virtuous manner is merely to act according to the guidance of Reason," etc.), but it is impossible to see how Reason can exercise guidance and control if "everyone does according to the supreme law of Nature that which results from the necessities of his nature." This can surely only mean that everyone may yield to the unbridled desires of his natural instincts, which is the very reverse of self-control by Reason. If Nature is to rule despotically, there is obviously no place for a const.i.tutional limitation of her sole power by the effective counsel and protests of Reason.

But Spinoza renounces in a much more definite way his views recognizing the right of every individual "to form his judgment as to what is good and bad according to the supreme law of Nature," for he calmly adds: "Society can be founded, if it reserves to itself the right possessed by the individual to take revenge, and to p.r.o.nounce a verdict on what is good and what is bad; thereby it acquires the power to prescribe rules of conduct for the community, to make laws, and to enforce them, not by means of Reason, which cannot restrict pa.s.sions, but by threats....

Hence in a state of Nature, sin cannot even be imagined."

This concession to Society most emphatically contradicts his first definition of Morality. It does away with the right claimed for the individual "to do according to the supreme law of Nature that which results from the necessities of his own nature," and by the same "supreme law of Nature" to "judge what is good and what is bad." It subjects conduct to the restraint, not of Nature, but of Society. It bears witness to the admission that "Reason cannot restrict pa.s.sions,"

although Spinoza has just required the virtuous man to "act according to the guidance of Reason." Spinoza admits that Morality is not the consequence of a law inherent in the individual, but of an extraneous law forced upon him by society; that it is not an individual but a social phenomenon. In this he agrees with the conclusions of modern sociological thought, but his merit is much diminished by the fact that he skims lightly over the one great difficulty which sociological ethics is struggling to overcome. He says, society "reserves to itself the right ... to p.r.o.nounce a verdict on what is good and what is bad, and thereby acquires the power to prescribe rules of conduct to the community," etc.

It has the power right enough; police, judge, prison and gallows bear witness to that; but has it the right? That is not clear without further investigation. It requires to be proved. The amoralist can emphatically deny this, basing his conclusion on Spinoza's own definition. He can legitimately declare that he need submit to no dictates of society, that he owes obedience only to his own nature and his own inner needs, and the moral philosopher can only prove to him that he is wrong by scornfully indicating the penal code and its stalwart minions.

Spinoza, we see, has already given a whole series of mutually destructive and contradictory definitions of Morality: it is the law of life and conduct which society lays down for the individual, though we do not learn from him on what principles it is based; it is the pursuit of one's own interest as indicated by Reason; it is obedience to necessity--that is to say, to the demands of one's own nature. All this does not suffice him. He discovers a new aspect of Morality.

"Recognition of Good and Evil is nothing but a pleasurable or a disagreeable emotion in so far as we are conscious of it." And again, "Pleasure is not actually bad (as the ascetics probably contend), but good; pain, on the contrary, is actually bad."

In this case the ideas pleasure and pain are treated as equivalents of good and bad, as were useful and harmful in the former case. According to the axiom that things that are equal to the same thing must be equal to one another, pleasurable is synonymous not only with good, but also with beneficial, and in like manner painful with bad and harmful. Brandy undoubtedly produces a sensation of pleasure in the drinker; is brandy, then, good in a moral sense? Above all, is it beneficial? Many such questions could be put to Spinoza, but this one is enough.

Thus we discover Spinoza to be at one and the same time a Utilitarian and a Hedonist, the champion of Impulse and again of Reason, an anarchistic individualist and a herald of the right of society to rule the individual. Angry and disappointed, we turn from him, for instead of finding in him the definite standard we sought we have met with the s.h.i.+fting hues of the chameleon and the uncanny changes of form of Proteus.

The views of the English thinkers are clearer and more convincing although they, too, do not carry their investigations far enough. Hobbes uses Justice and Injustice as synonyms for Morality and Immorality, and he definitely recognizes what Spinoza only dimly guessed, namely, that these ideas could only arise in man when living as a member of society and not in a being dwelling alone. According to him, therefore, Morality is a social and not an individual phenomenon; just as the moral philosophers of the theological school look upon it as the Will of G.o.d, so he considers it to be the Will of Society. But he was under the obligation (non-existent for the theologian) to trace to its source this social Will, to show how it is manifested, to explain why the individual not only submits to it, but values this submission far more highly than mere utility. Man learns the Will of G.o.d by revelation, and it is forbidden to inquire into its basis. To the Will of Society Hobbes cannot possibly ascribe the same incontestable sanct.i.ty. It should not have escaped his notice that this Will is neither uniform nor of a.s.sured stability, and that it often wavers and is sometimes self-contradictory.

Therefore, if he wants to call the Will of Society Justice, as the theologians call the Will of G.o.d Morality, and if he wants to look upon Justice and Morality as equivalents, then it is his duty to explain how Society can make claims which conflict with the principles on which the universal rules it has drawn up are based, and which, consequently, not being just or moral, are unjust and immoral, but which, nevertheless, must be acknowledged by the individual as being both just and moral, simply because they are social claims.

In Kant's moral philosophy we find the extremest form of mystic dogmatism; its success would be inexplicable did one not know how p.r.o.ne mankind is to be intimidated by brusque statements. Kant's dictatorial p.r.o.nouncements have become common-places. "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." That is very impressive. But what is "the maxim" on which you act? This maxim is the moral law. Now we yearn to know what this moral law is, whence it comes, and on what it is based.

But our yearnings remains unsatisfied. The moral law is a secret. It is an incomprehensible power which rules our consciousness. Ask no questions. Be silent, submit and obey. Even the theologian discussing moral philosophy will listen to reason. He gives us the information, sibylline though it be, that the moral law emanates from the Will of G.o.d, and is shown to us in the revelations of religion. Kant does not even give such meagre information. The moral law exists. That must suffice. "The starry heavens above thee, the moral law within thee." You retort that that is a metaphor which you may call poetical, if you like, but it is no explanation. You will get the following reply: this metaphor, rightly understood, indicates that the moral law is eternal, that it is part and parcel of uncreated Nature like the stars, that it is a phenomenon of the same order as all the elements that go to make up the universe. "The moral law does not flow from antecedent ideas of Good and Evil; on the contrary, the moral law decides what is good and what is evil." It is not derived from human experience. The less so since "it cannot be proved by experience that it has at any place or any time become real." In other words, no one can testify that the "Categorical Imperative" has ever been realized, that the moral law has "at any place or any time" ceased to be a Kantian theory productive of sacred thrills, that it has ever emerged from the unapproachable cell wherein it dwells in the temple of human consciousness, to take a place and play an active part among mortals.

The lessee of all Kant's wisdom, Hermann Cohen, with the clumsiness of an over-zealous a.s.sistant, has expressed his master's thought in a perfectly ludicrous form: "The moral law is to be conceived as a reality of such kind that it must exist, that its being must be" (note the elegance and euphony of the phrase "being must be"!) "even if no creature existed for whom it would be valid." True, the moral law is a maxim on which you should "act," a standard of human conduct, but it would still exist if there were no human beings and no action. It would come to exactly the same thing if Hermann Cohen said: the railway is to be conceived as a reality of such kind that it must exist if there were no human beings and consequently no travellers; even if there were no earth on the surface of which rails and sleepers could be laid. This is such palpable nonsense that it would be a work of supererogation to prove its absurdity. By this grotesque exaggeration Hermann Cohen has clearly brought to light the hollowness and weakness of Kant's Moral philosophy which culminates in the "Categorical Imperative." In spite of its arbitrary dogmatism, the formula of the "Categorical Imperative"

has taken a hold on the imagination of the superficially educated, and has never ceased to be repeated with the fervour evinced by a devout man at prayer, by several generations of those who have made it their business to cultivate mental and moral science.

In one of his early novels, "The Island of Dr. Moreau," H. G. Wells has described how an audacious scientist, by performing an operation on the brains of the most savage beasts of prey, such as panthers, wolves, etc., transformed them into creatures with the powers of thought and speech. He succeeds in suppressing, or at least in lulling for the time being, their bloodthirsty instincts, but he is always afraid that these may be roused again, and forbids the animals on which he experiments to touch blood or fresh meat. He takes good care to give no reason for this prohibition. He merely issues it sternly and threateningly. It is "the Law," an unknown, inexplicable, but terrible power to which one must submit, because opposition would expose one to unimaginable, but terrible evils. If temptation a.s.sails the beasts they flee it, whispering fearfully and warningly to one another: "The Law! the Law!"

Wells is a trained philosopher, and often has his tongue in his cheek. I shrewdly suspect that when he writes of the mysterious "Law" which fills Dr. Moreau's semi-humanized beasts of prey with superst.i.tious terror, he is poking fun at Kant's "Categorical Imperative."

The great logical mistake in Kant's moral philosophy is that he conceives Morality as a social or collective phenomenon, and yet defines it as an individual one. According to Kant, the Categorical Imperative exists within us. It is as immutable as the starry heavens above us. It gives us the criterion by which to discriminate between good and evil. Its realm is our consciousness wherein it lives and rules; it is not introduced from outside, it springs from no power or conditions outside our person. All the same, the only law which this ultra subjective Categorical Imperative imposes on us is the most centrifugal that can possibly be imagined: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Hence our action is designed to produce an effect on the world around us. It is "to become a universal law" can, of course, only mean, it is to become a universal law of human society, for Kant cannot possibly have aspired to make the Categorical Imperative impose laws upon the stars in their courses. Our moral law, in so far as it applies to our actions, deals with society. When we formulate it in our minds, we a.s.sociate it from its first inception with the notion of the society to which it is to be applied. It would have been logical to say: "Your standard of conduct is to be what society recognizes as its universal law." But Kant puts the cart before the horse and says on the contrary: "The maxims on which thy action is based are by thy will to become the universal law of society."