The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

Moreover, the birthplace of this child of practical reason, the absolute ought or the categorical imperative, is not in the " Critique of Practical Eeason," but in that of " Pure Eeason," p. 802 ; V. 830. The birth is violent, and is only accomplished by means of the forceps of a therefore, which stands boldly and audaciously, indeed one might say shamelessly, between two propositions which are utterly foreign to each other and have no connection, in order to combine them as reason and consequent. Thus, that not merely perceptible but also abstract motives determine us, is the proposition from which Kant starts, expressing it in the following manner : " Not merely what excites, i.e., what affects the senses directly, determines human will, but we have a power of overcoming the impressions made upon our sensuous appetitive faculty through ideas of that which is itself in a more remote manner useful or hurtful. These deliberations as to what is worthy of desire, with reference to our whole condition, t.&, as to what is good and useful, rest upon reason." (Perfectly right ; would that he only always spoke so rationally of reason !) " Eeason therefore gives ! also laws, which are imperatives, i.e., objective laws of freedom, and say W. ought to take place, though perhaps it never does place" ! Thus, without further authentication, the categorical imperative comes into the world, in order to rule there with its unconditioned ought — a sceptre of wooden iron. For in the conception " ought " there lies always and essentially the reference to threatened punishment, or

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promised reward, as a necessary condition, and cannot be separated from it without abolishing the conception itself and taking all meaning from it. Therefore an unconditioned ought is a contradictio in adjecto.

It was necessary to censure this mistake, closely as it is otherwise connected with Kant's great service to ethics, which consists in this, that he has freed ethics from all principles of the world of experience, that is, from all direct or indirect doctrines of happiness, and has shown in a quite special manner that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world.

This service is all the greater because all ancient philosophers, with the single exception of Plato, thus the Peripatetics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, sought by very different devices either to make virtue and happiness dependent on each other in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, or to identify them in accordance with the principle of contradiction.

This charge applies with equal force to all modern philosophers down to Kant. His merit in this respect is therefore very great ; yet justice demands that we should also remember here first that his exposition and elaboration often does not correspond with :he tendency and spirit of his ethics, and secondly that, jven so, he is not really the first who separated virtue *rom all principles of happiness.

For Plato, especially in he " Eepublic," the principal tendency of which is just his, expressly teaches that virtue is to be chosen for itself done, even if unhappiness and ignominy are inevitably onnected with it.

Still more, however, Christianity reaches a perfectly unselfish virtue, which is practised tot on account of the reward in a life after death, but uite disinterestedly from love to God, for works do not ustify, but only faith, which accompanies virtue, so to peak, as its symptom, and therefore appears quite irrepective of reward and of its own accord. See Luther's De Zibertate Christiana.

I will not take into account at 11 the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reard for our works is everywhere described as the way VOL. il. K.

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of darkness, which can never lead to blessedness. Kant's doctrine of virtne, however, we do not find so pure ; or rather the exposition remains far behind the spirit of it, and indeed falls into inconsistency. In his highest good, which he afterwards discussed, we find virtue united to happiness. The ought originally so unconditioned does yet afterwards postulate one condition, in order to escape from the inner contradiction with which it is affected and with which it cannot live. Happiness in the highest good is not indeed really meant to be the motive for virtue ; yet there it is, like a secret article, the existence of which reduces all the rest to a mere sham contract. It is not really the reward of virtue, but yet it is a voluntary gift for which virtue, after work accomplished, stealthily opens the hand. One may convince oneself of this from the " Critique of Practical Reason " (p. 223-266 of the fourth, or p. 264-295 of Rosenkranz's, edition). The whole of Kant's moral theology has also the same tendency, and just on this account morality really destroys itself through moral theology. For I repeat that all virtue which in any way is practised for the sake of a reward is based upon a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism.