Introductory Note

Introductory Note

BOOK REVIEWS.

There have sprung up within the last two years not less than four American magazines of progressive thought, which now compete in the proposition of their religious and philosophical conceptions to the world. These four magazines are, in the chronological order in which they were founded, The Monist, The International Journal of Ethics, The Philosophical Review, and The New World. The Monist represents that world-conception which takes its stand upon facts and systematises facts into a unitary view. Thus it recognises the methods of science as the methods of all knowledge, to the exclusion of supernatural revelation, or intuitionalism, or any kind of mysticism. But The Monist does not rest satisfied with this. The Monist preaches a religion; and the prophets of this religion are not only the great ethical teachers of mankind, but everybody who reveals truth, Kant and Comte, Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and all living representatives of scientific inquiry. Thus The Monist is a magazine that points out the religious import of science and philosophy.

The International Journal of Ethics follows in the same line in so far only as it has nothing to say to the old orthodox conceptions of religion. It tries to teach a higher morality, but in establishing ethics it pursues quite another course. It is the organ of the Ethical Societies and the leaders of the Ethical Societies are confident that they can have ethics not only without theology but also without religion, science, or philosophy. They consider the world-conception of a man as something indifferent, or unessential, in ethics, and by proposing a non-committal policy with respect to religious and philosophical views, they expect to be the better fitted to preach good conduct. (Philadelphia: International Journal of Ethics, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)

The Philosophical Review represents a philosophical conception which has still a strong hold upon the Universities on this side of the Atlantic. Transcendentalism, metaphysicism, and that theological philosophy which still operates with supernatural quantities, or at least has not discarded the dualistic features of supernaturalism, are represented in its columns. Certainly they are well represented and by their best upholders of the present time, and authors of more modern and positivistic views are not excluded. Exactly so in The Monist, the representatives of metaphysicism and those who still believe in the dual existence of man, in his self, or ego, and his transcendental existence are welcome; but there is nevertheless a fundamental difference in the world-conception of the two magazines. (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)

The New World is the latest new-comer in the field of magazine literature, and we welcome its appearance most cordially. There are strongly marked differences between The New World and The Monist, for the former is a theological magazine that deepens religion with the assistance of philosophy while the latter, rather the reverse, is a philosophical magazine that widens philosophy and applies it to practical life so as to become a religion. But for that very reason The New World seems to meet The Monist half way. The New World is an offshoot of modern theology. Its contributors come largely from the ranks of the maturest unitarian thinkers. They practically accept the principles of criticism and scientific inquiry and thus they are approaching rapidly that common goal of human thought, which The Monist propounds as the leading maxim of philosophy and religion, namely, to regard nature as the only revelation and experience as our guide in life; to base religion upon and to derive ethics from a critically-sifted statement of facts. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

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FOOTNOTES:

[86] Questions of Philosophy and Psychology.

APPENDIX TO THE MONIST, VOL. II, NO. 4

KANT AND SPENCER

TWO ARTICLES REPRINTED FROM NOS. 51, 52, AND 158 OF THE OPEN COURT

1. THE ETHICS OF KANT 2. KANT ON EVOLUTION

BY DR. PAUL CARUS

CHICAGO: THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY

THE ETHICS OF KANT.

IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM.

Mr. Herbert Spencer has published in The Popular Science Monthly for August, an essay on the Ethics of Kant; a translation of this article had appeared in the July Number of the Revue Philosophique, and it cannot fail to have been widely noticed. It is to be regretted that unfamiliarity with the German language and perhaps also with Kant’s terminology has led Mr. Spencer into errors to which attention is called in the following discussion.[87]

Mr. Spencer says:

“If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which, with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as being the two things that excited his awe, he had known more of Man than he did, he would probably have expressed himself somewhat otherwise.”

Kant, in his famous dictum that two things excited his admiration, the starry heaven above him and the conscience within him, contrasted two kinds of sublimity.[88] The grandeur of the Universe is that of size and extension, while the conscience of man commands respect for its moral dignity. The universe is wonderful in its expanse and in its order of mechanical regularity; the conscience of man is grand, being intelligent volition that aspires to be in harmony with universal laws.

Mr. Spencer continues:

“Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful enough, whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness of it is of a different kind according as we assume it to have been supernaturally given or infer that it has been naturally evolved. The knowledge of Man in that large sense which Anthropology expresses, had made, in Kant’s day, but small advances. The books of travel were relatively few, and the facts which they contained concerning the human mind as existing in different races, had not been gathered together and generalized. In our days, the conscience of Man as inductively known has none of that universality of presence and unity of nature which Kant’s saying tacitly assumes.”

Mr. Spencer apparently supposes that Kant believed in a supernatural origin of the human conscience. This, however, is erroneous.

Mr. Spencer’s error is excusable in consideration of the fact that some disciples of Kant have fallen into a similar error. Professor Adler, of New York, who attempts in the Societies for Ethical Culture to carry into effect the ethics of Pure Reason, maintains that the commandments of the ought and “the light that shines through them come from beyond, but its beams are broken as they pass through our terrestrial medium, and the full light in all its glory we can never see.”

Ethics based on an unknowable power, is mysticism; and mysticism does not essentially differ from dualism and supernaturalism.

Kant’s reasoning is far from mysticism and from supernaturalism. He was fully convinced that civilized man with his moral and intellectual abilities had naturally evolved from the lower state of an animal existence. We read in his essay, “Presumable Origin of the History of Mankind” (Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte. Editio Hartenstein, Vol. IV, p. 321):

“From this conception of the primitive history of mankind it follows that the departure of man from the paradise represented to him by his reason as the earliest place of sojourn of his race, has been nothing else than the transition from the rude condition of a purely animal existence to the condition of a human being; a transition from the leading-strings of instinct to direction by reason, in a word, from the protectorate of nature to a status of freedom.”

The view that the conscience of man is innate, in the sense of a non-natural, of a mysterious, or even of a supernatural origin, is untenable. Those disciples of Kant who entertain such views have certainly misinterpreted their great master, and the passages adduced by Mr. Spencer from so many sources are sufficient evidence of the fact that “there are widely different degrees” [we should rather say kinds] “of conscience in the different races.” Mr. Spencer continues:

“Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, his conception of the human mind, and consequently his ethical conception, would scarcely have been what they were. Believing, as he did, that one object of his awe—the stellar Universe—has been evolved,[89] he might by evidence like the foregoing have been led to suspect that the other object of his awe—the human conscience—has been evolved; and has consequently a real nature unlike its apparent nature.” ... “If, instead of assuming that conscience is simple because it seems simple to careless introspection he had entertained the hypothesis that it is perhaps complex—a consolidated product of multitudinous experiences received mainly by ancestors and added to by self—he might have arrived at a consistent system of Ethics.” ...

“In brief, as already implied, had Kant, instead of his incongruous beliefs that the celestial bodies have had an evolutionary origin, but that the minds of living beings on them, or at least on one of them, have had a non-evolutionary origin, entertained the belief that both have arisen by Evolution, he would have been saved from the impossibilities of his Metaphysics, and the untenabilities of his Ethics.”

Mr. Spencer believes that Kant had assumed conscience to be “simple, because it seems simple to careless introspection.” But there is no evidence in Kant’s works for this assumption. On the contrary, Kant reversed the old view of so-called “rational psychology” which considered conscience as innate and which was based on the error that consciousness is simple. Des Cartes’s syllogism cogito ergo sum is based on this idea, which at the same time served as a philosophical evidence for the indestructibility and immortality of the ego. The simplicity of consciousness had been considered as an axiom, until Kant came and showed that it was a fallacy, a paralogism of pure reason. Dr. Noah Porter has written, from an apparently dualistic standpoint, a sketch entitled “The Ethics of Kant,” in which he says:

“The skepticism and denials of Kant’s speculative theory in respect to noumena, both material and psychical, had unfortunately cut him off from the possibility of recognizing the personal ego as anything more than a logical fiction.”

Kant says in his “Critique of Pure Reason”:[90]

“In the internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the Ego is but the consciousness of my thought.... From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore the category of substance cannot be applied.”[91]

Concerning the statement that Kant had believed in the non-evolutionary origin of living beings, we quote from his essay on The Different Races of Men, Chap. III, where Kant speaks of “the immediate causes of the origin of these different races.” He says:

“The conditions (Gründe) which, inhering in the constitution of an organic body, determine a certain evolutionary process (Auswickelung[92]) are called, if this process is concerned with particular parts, germs; if, on the other hand, it touches only the size or the relation of the parts to one another, I call it natural capabilities (natürliche Anlagen).”[93]

And in a foot-note Kant makes the following remark:

“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science (Naturbeschreibung) and natural history in one and the same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural phenomena, as they now are, always leaves to be desired the knowledge of that which they have been before now and through what succession of modifications they have passed in order to have arrived, in every respect, to their present state. Natural History, which at present we almost entirely lack, would teach us the changes that have affected the form of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the earth (plants and animals), that they have suffered by natural transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the prototype of the original species, that they have experienced. It would probably trace a great number of apparently different varieties back to species of one and the same kind and would convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”[94]

Kant has nowhere, so far as we know, made any objection to the idea of evolution. But he opposed the theory that all life should have originated from one single kind. In reviewing and epitomizing Joh. Gottfr. Herder’s work, “Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit,” Kant says:

... “Book II, treats of organized matter on the earth.... The beginnings of vegetation.... The changes suffered by man and beast through climatic influences.... In them all we find one prevailing form and a similar osseous structure.... These transitional links render it not at all impossible that in marine animals, in plants, and, indeed, possibly in so-called inanimate substances, one and the same fundamental principle of organization may prevail, although infinitely cruder and more complex in operation. In the sight of eternal being, which beholds all things in one connection, it is possible that the structure of the ice-particle, while receiving form, and of the snowflake, while being crystallized, bears an analogous relation to the formation of the embryo in a mother’s womb.... The third book compares the structure of animals and plants with the organization of man.... It was not because man was ordained to be a rational creature that upright stature was given him for using his limbs according to reason; on the contrary he acquired his reason as a consequence of his upright stature.... From stone to crystals, from crystals to metals, from metals to plant-creation, from thence to the animal, and ultimately to man, we have seen the form of organization advancing, and with it the faculties and instincts of creatures becoming more diversified, until at last they all became united in the human form, in so far as the latter could comprise them.... As the body increases by food, so does the mind by ideas; indeed, we notice here the same laws of assimilation, of growth, and of generation. In a word, an inner spiritual man is being formed within us, which has a nature of its own and which employs the body as an instrument merely.... Our humanity is merely a preliminary training, the bud of a blossom to come. Step by step does nature cast off the ignoble and the base, while it builds and adds to the spiritual and continues to fashion the pure and refined with increasing niceness; thus are we in a position to hope from the artist-hand of nature that in that other existence our bud of humanity will also appear in its real and true form of divine manhood.” ...

[Herder’s idea of evolution would stand on the whole if his conception of “the spiritual” did not imply a preternatural agent.]

“The present state of man is probably the link of junction between two worlds.... Yet man is not to investigate himself in this future state; he is to believe himself into it.”

Kant makes no objection whatever to the evolutionary ideas of Herder. But Herder was not free from supernaturalism and from fantastic ideas in reference to the future development of man. He had not yet dropped the dualistic conception of the ‘duplicity’ of man and believed in the immortality of a distinct spiritual individual within his body. Kant’s objection, therefore, is two-fold; 1) against Herder’s supernaturalism which leads him beyond this world; and, 2) against the descent of all species from one and the same genus. He says:

“In the gradation between the different species and individuals of a natural kingdom, nature shows us nothing else than the fact that it abandons individuals to total destruction and preserves the species alone.... As concerns that invisible kingdom of active and independent forces, we fail to see why the author, after having believed he could confidently infer from organized beings, the existence of the rational principle in man did not rather attribute this principle directly to him merely as spiritual nature, instead of lifting it out of chaos through the structural form of organised matter.... As to the gradation of organized beings, our author is not to be too severely reproached, if the scheme has not met the requirements of his conception, which extends so far beyond the limits of this world; for its application even to the natural kingdoms here on earth leads to nothing. The slight differences exhibited when species are compared with reference to their common points of resemblance, are, where there is such great multiplicity, a necessary consequence of just this multiplicity. The assumption of common kinship between them, inasmuch as one kind would have to spring from another and all from one original and primitive species, or from one and the same creative source (Mutterschoss)—the assumption of such a common kinship would lead to ideas so strange that reason shrinks from them, and we cannot attribute this idea to the author without doing him injustice. Concerning his suggestions in comparative anatomy through all species down to plants, the workers in natural science must judge for themselves whether the hints given for new observations, will be useful and whether they are justified.... It is desirable that our ingenious author who in the continuation of his work will find more terra firma, may somewhat restrain his bright genius, and that philosophy (which consists rather in pruning than in fostering luxuriant growth) may lead him to the perfection of his labors not through hints but through definite conceptions, not by imagination but by observation, not by a metaphysical or emotional phantasy but by reason, broad in its plan but careful in its work.”

Kant rejected certain conceptions of evolution, but he did not at all show himself averse to the idea in general. He touched upon the subject only incidentally and it is certain that he did not especially favor or entertain the belief in a non-evolutionary origin of living beings.

Before proceeding to the main points of his criticism, Mr. Spencer calls attention to what he designates as Kant’s abnormal reasoning. Mr. Spencer says:

“Something must be said concerning abnormal reasoning as compared with normal reasoning.” ...

“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the negation is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of which the affirmation is inconceivable, and therefrom proceeds to draw conclusions” ...

“The first sentence in Kant’s first chapter runs thus: ‘Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will.’” ...

“Most fallacies result from the habit of using words without fully rendering them into thoughts—passing them by with recognitions of their meanings as ordinarily used, without stopping to consider whether these meanings admit of being given to them in the cases named. Let us not rest satisfied with thinking vaguely of what is understood by ‘a Good Will,’ but let us interpret the words definitely. Will implies the consciousness of some end to be achieved. Exclude from it every idea of purpose, and the conception of Will disappears. An end of some kind being necessarily implied by the conception of Will, the quality of the Will is determined by the quality of the end contemplated. Will itself, considered apart from any distinguishing epithet, is not cognizable by Morality at all. It becomes cognizable by Morality only when it gains its character as good or bad by virtue of its contemplated end as good or bad.” ...

“Kant tells us that a good will is one that is good in and for itself without reference to ends.”

It is unfortunate that Mr. Spencer misunderstood the first sentence of Kant’s book (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten). Kant does not speak of “a good will without qualification,” nor does the expression “without qualification” refer to “a will without reference to ends.” Kant speaks of good will in opposition to other good things. Nothing, he says, can without qualification (ohne Einschränkung) be called good, except a good will.[95] Dr. Porter sums up the first page of Kant’s essay in the following words:

“The first section of the treatise opens with the memorable and often-quoted utterance, that ‘nothing can be possibly conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will.’ If character is compared with gifts of nature, as intelligence, courage, and gifts of fortune, as riches, health, or contentment, all these are defective, ‘if there is not a good will to correct their possible perversion and to rectify the whole principle of acting, and adapt it to its end.’[96] A man who is endowed with every other good can never give pleasure to an impartial, rational spectator unless he possesses a good will. ‘Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition of being worthy of happiness.’ ... ‘Moreover, a good will is good not for what it effects but for what it intends, even when it fails to accomplish its purposes, ... as when the man wills the good of another and is impotent to promote it, or actually effects just the opposite of what he proposes or wills.’”

In the passages quoted by Dr. Porter, Kant speaks of “the end to which good will adapts other goods”; and in another passage of the same book, Kant directly declares that “it is the end that serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination.” Mr. Spencer must have overlooked these sentences. Kant says:

“The will is conceived as a power of determining itself to action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a power can only be met with in rational beings. Now it is the END that serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination, and this end, if fixed by reason alone, must hold equally good for all rational creatures.”

* * * * *

Mr. Spencer interrupts his essay on the Ethics of Kant by a digression on Kant’s conception of time and space. It would lead us too far at present if we would follow Mr. Spencer on this ground also. A comparison of Spencer’s remarks on the subject with Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” will show that Kant’s view of space and time is radically different from that view which Mr. Spencer represents as the Kantian conception of time and space.

* * * * *

Kant rejects the idea that happiness is the end and purpose of life and at the same time he declares that ethics must be based not on the pursuit of happiness but on the categorical imperative or more popularly expressed on our sense of duty.

Mr. Spencer argues:

“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.’” ...

“That which Kant should have said is that the exclusive pursuit of what are distinguished as pleasures and amusements is disappointing.” ...

“It is not, as Kant says, guidance by ‘a cultivated reason,’ which leads to disappointment, but guidance by an uncultivated reason.”

The passage quoted by Mr. Spencer from Kant, reads in its context as follows:

“In the physical constitution of an organized being we take it for granted[97] that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but such as is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. If in a being possessing reason and will, the preservation, the prosperity, in a word, the happiness of that being, constituted the actual purpose of nature, nature had certainly adopted an extremely unwise expedient to this end, had it made the reason of that being the executive agent of its purposes in this matter. For all actions that it had to perform with this end in view, and the whole rule of its conduct, would have been far more exactly prescribed by instinct, and this end would have been far more safely attained by this means than can ever take place through the instrumentality of reason.” ...

“As a matter of fact we find that the more a cultivated reason occupies itself with the purpose of enjoying life and happiness, the farther does the person possessing it recede from the state of true contentment; and hence there arises in the case of many, and pre-eminently in the case of those most experienced in the exercise of reason, if they are only frank enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology or hate of reason; for after weighing every advantage that they derive, I will not say from the invention of all arts facilitating ordinary luxury, but even from the sciences, (which after all are in their eyes a luxury of the intellect,) they still discover that virtually they have burdened themselves more with toil and trouble than they have gained in point of happiness, and thus, in the end, they are more apt to envy than contemn the commoner type of men who are more immediately subject to the guidance of natural instinct alone, and who do not suffer their reason to influence in any great degree their acts and omissions.”

Kant uses the expression “cultivated reason” not in opposition to “uncultivated reason,” but to “instinct” as that inherited faculty which teaches a being to live in accordance with nature and its natural conditions, without the interference of thought and reflection.

That uncultivated reason would lead to disappointment, Kant never would have denied. He would have added: “It does more, it leads to a speedy ruin.”

But if reason does not produce happiness, what then is the use of reason? Kant answers, reason produces in man the good will.

It is reason which enables man to form abstractions, to think in generalizations and to conceive the import of universal laws. When his will deliberately and consciously conforms to universal laws, it is good. Kant says:

“Thus will (viz. the good will) can not be the sole and whole Good, but it must still be the highest Good and the condition necessary to everything else, even to all desire of happiness.” ...

“To know what I have to do in order that my volition be good, requires on my part no far-reaching sagacity. Unexperienced in respect of the course of nature, unable to be prepared for all the occurrences transpiring therein, I simply ask myself: Can’st thou so will, that the maxim of thy conduct may become a universal law? Where it can not become a universal law, there the maxim of thy conduct is reprehensible, and that, too, not by reason of any disadvantage consequent thereupon to thee or even others, but because it is not fit to enter as a principle into a possible enactment of universal laws.”

If a maxim of conduct is fit to enter as a principle into a possible enactment of universal laws, it will be found in harmony with the cosmical laws; if not, it must come in conflict with the order of things in the universe. It then cannot stand, and will, if persistently adhered to, lead (perhaps slowly but inevitably) to certain ruin.

Concerning the proposition that happiness may be regarded as the purpose of life Kant in his review of Herder’s “Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit” (Ed. H. IV, p. 190), speaks of the relativity of happiness and its insufficiency as a final aim of life:

... “First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence to one class of men or to one generation over another.... If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheite had never been visited by more civilized peoples and were ordained to live in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they should exist at all and whether it would not have been just as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only through pure enjoyment?”

Concerning the mission or purpose of humanity and its ultimate realization, Kant interprets Herder’s views as follows:

“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual member of all the offspring of the human race, but that only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole is unceasing progress, and the perfection (Vollendung) of this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a quite useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.”

We learn from the passages quoted from Kant that his idea of good will is neither mystical and supernatural, nor is it vague. It is a conception as logically and definitely defined as any mathematical definition. Good will in the sense in which Kant defines it, is only possible in a reasonable being by the power of its reason. The good will is the intention of conforming to universal principles and thus of being in harmony with the All. This good will is the corner-stone of Kant’s ethics; it appears as the categoric imperative of duty, so to act that the maxim of one’s conduct may be fit to become a universal law. It is formulated in another passage: “Act so as if the maxim of thy conduct by thy volition were to become a natural law.”

It is easily seen that, in Kant’s conception, the ought of morals (viz. of the categoric imperative) does not stand in contradiction to the must of natural laws. Kant’s conception is monistic, not dualistic. Kant says:

“The moral ought is man’s inner, necessary volition as being a member of an intelligible world and is conceived by him as an ought only in so far as he considers himself also as a member of the sensory world.”[98]

Our way of explaining it would be: Man feels in his activity the categoric imperative as an ought. So the snow crystal, if it were possessed of sensation, would feel its formation as an “ought.” But both are, and to an outside observer will appear, as a “must.”

* * * * *

In the Spencerian system of ethics, which is utilitarianism, the moral maxim or the idea of duty is not distinguished from the feeling of pleasure or pain that accompanies ethical thoughts and acts, and their consequences. This lack of distinction induces Mr. Spencer to consider man’s pursuit of happiness as the basis of ethics. Accordingly the aim of ethics, he maintains, is not the performance of duty, not the realization of the good; to the utilitarian this is only the means. The end of ethics is the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

It is strange that Mr. Spencer’s essay contains a passage which, although intended as a point of objection to Kant, is a corroboration of Kant’s ethics, and a refutation of Mr. Spencer’s own views. While denying the statement that “a cultivated reason, if applied with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, will fail to produce true satisfaction,” Mr. Spencer says:

“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 cannot make of any portions of my life spent in the daily discharge of duties.”

This statement, if it proves anything, proves that happiness is one thing and duty is another; it proves that Kant’s theory of ethics, which is based on the discharge of duty and not on the pursuit of happiness, is correct, and that Mr. Spencer’s theory which identifies duty with the pursuit of happiness, is wrong.

However, we must in this place express our opinion that Mr. Spencer’s statement cannot be quite correct. The discharge of duty, unpleasant though the drudgery part of it may have been, was undoubtedly accompanied and followed by a certain satisfaction, which perhaps was less in quantity, but certainly higher in quality than the pleasure derived from the mere pursuit of happiness. And in the valuation of the intrinsic and of the moral worth of pleasures, the quality alone should be taken into consideration, not the quantity. In this sense only can an ethical hedonism or utilitarianism be acceptable. The man whose pleasures and pains are of a higher kind, of a nobler form, and of a better quality, is morally and generally the more evolved man. And then, the basis of ethics would be, not so much pleasure or happiness as the quality of pleasure or happiness; it would be an aspiration to evolve toward a higher plane of life, to shape our lives in nobler forms, and to enjoy nobler, greater, and more spiritual pleasures, or, as Kant says, “unceasing progress.”

Mr. Spencer’s assertion, if taken in the sense in which it stands, is a contradiction of his ethical theory. But even if Mr. Spencer had declared that the discharge of duty affords a kind of happiness or satisfaction, as it truly does, there would still remain a deep gap between his and Kant’s ethics. Mr. Spencer reduces ethics to mere worldly prudence; he says that we must do the good in order to be happy, and for the sake of its utility, and Kant says we must act so as to be in agreement with universal law. Mr. Spencer says:

“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.” ...

“An illustration will best show how the matter stands. To a tyro in archery the instructor says: ‘Sir, you must not point your arrow directly at the target; if you do, you will inevitably miss it; you must aim high above the target, and you may then possibly pierce the bull’s-eye.’ What now is implied by the warning and the advice? Clearly that the purpose is to hit the target. Otherwise there is no sense in the remark that it will be missed if directly aimed at; and no sense in the remark that to be hit, something higher must be aimed at. Similarly with happiness. There is no sense in the remark that happiness will not be found if it is directly sought, unless happiness is a thing to be somehow or other obtained.” ...

“So that in this professed repudiation of happiness as an end, there lies the inavoidable implication that it is the end.”

The pursuit of happiness is by no means repudiated by Kant as wrong or immoral; it is only maintained to be insufficient as a foundation of ethics. Kant’s remark that happiness will not be found if it is directly sought has no reference to his own ethics. Kant, speaking from the standpoint of one who takes the view of utilitarianism, says that if a cultivated reason applies itself to the sole purpose of enjoying life and happiness, it will meet with a failure.[99]

Any other explanation of the moral ought than that from the Good Will, Kant declares to be heteronomy. Will would no longer be itself, and the principle of action would lie in something foreign to the will. Kant says:

“Will in such a case would not be a law to itself; but the object by its relation to the will would impose the law upon the will.... This would admit of hypothetical imperatives only: ‘I ought to do a certain thing, because I want something else.’ The moral and therefore categorical imperative, on the contrary, says: ‘I ought to act so or so, even if I had nothing else in view.’ For instance: the hypothetical imperative of heteronomy says: ‘I ought not to lie, if I ever wish to preserve my honor.’ The categorical imperative says: ‘I ought not to lie even if it would not in the least bring me to shame.’”

Mr. Spencer quotes the following passage from Kant:

“I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent with duty, although they may be useful for this or that purpose, for with these the question whether they are done from duty can not arise at all, since they even conflict with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to duty, but to which men have no direct inclination, performing them because they are impelled thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily distinguish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from duty, or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this distinction when the action accords with duty, and the subject has besides a direct inclination to it. For example, it is always a matter of duty that a dealer should not overcharge an inexperienced purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for every one, so that a child buys of him as well as any other. Men are thus honestly served; but this is not enough to make us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and from principles of honesty: his own advantage required it; it is out of the question in this case to suppose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favor of the buyers, so that, as it were, from love he should give no advantage to one over another[!]. Accordingly the action was done neither from duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view.

“On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one’s life, and, in addition, every one has also a direct inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care which most men take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it—not from inclination or fear, but from duty—then his maxim has a moral worth.

“To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations.” (pp. 17-19)

Kant’s metaphysics of ethics is to practical ethics what pure mathematics is to applied mathematics, or what logic is to grammar. Kant’s method of reasoning in abstracto everywhere shows the mathematical bent of his mind. In a foot-note (Editio Hartenstein, IV), p. 258, he says:

“As pure mathematics is distinguished from applied mathematics and pure logic from applied logic, so may the pure philosophy (the metaphysics) of ethics be distinguished from the applied philosophy of ethics, that is, as applied to human nature. By this distinction of terms it at once appears that ethical principles are not based upon the peculiarities of human nature but that they must be existent by themselves a priori,—whence, for human nature, just as well as for any rational nature, practical rules can be derived.”

Schleiermacher says:

“A good is any agreement (“unity”) of definite sides [certain aspects] of reason and nature.... The end of ethical praxis is the highest good, i. e., the sum of all unions of nature and reason.... The moral law may be compared to the algebraic formula which (in analytical geometry) determines the course [path] of a curve; the highest good may be compared to the curve itself, and virtue, or moral power, to an instrument arranged for the purpose of constructing the curve according to the formula.” (Quoted from a translation of Ueberweg.)

Kant declares in other passages that in examples taken from practical life, it will be difficult to separate clearly and unmistakably the sense of duty as the real moral motive from other motives, inclinations, habits, etc. But such a distinction must be made, if the moral value of motives is to be considered in abstracto. This is necessary for a clear conception of the essential features of morality. Mr. Spencer has on other occasions highly praised the power of generalization, which indeed is fundamentally the same faculty, as thinking in abstracto; here, however, he does not follow Kant’s argument, but declares “that the assumed distinction between sense of duty and inclination is untenable.” He says:

“The very expression sense of duty implies that the mental state signified is a feeling; and if a feeling it must, like other feelings, be gratified by acts of one kind and offended by acts of an opposite kind. If we take the name conscience, which is equivalent to sense of duty, we see the same thing. The common expressions ‘a tender conscience,’ ‘a seared conscience,’ indicate the perception that conscience is a feeling—a feeling which has its satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and which inclines a man to acts which yield the one and avoid the other—produces an inclination,” (p. 476).

It is quite true that every state of consciousness is a feeling, but we can and must discriminate between consciousness or feeling and the idea or thought which becomes conscious, in which the feeling appears, and which is, so to speak, the special form of a certain feeling. The consciousness and its special form, the feeling and the mental object of feeling, are in reality one and the same. Yet they are different and must in abstracto be well distinguished. Mr. Spencer’s method is that of generalization, but generalizing can lead to no satisfactory results, if it is not constantly accompanied by discrimination. We must generalize and discriminate.

If a certain group of states of consciousness takes the form of a logical syllogism, it must not be expected that logic will find its explanation in feeling, although it cannot be denied that all the states of consciousness are feelings. Not the feeling in this case is to be explained, but logic. In our generalizations we must discriminate in abstracto between the feeling and the idea which feels. We must positively abstract from feeling and cannot consider whether the feeling of logical arguments is pleasant or unpleasant. Mr. Spencer’s method of explaining ethics, if applied to logic, would be as follows: “Man’s logical sense is a very complex feeling and has developed from simple percepts such as can be observed in the lowest animals; percepts are a higher evolved form of reactions against irritations such as take place in protoplasm. The old method of explaining logic is that of deduction, modern logic will be inductive. Formerly pure logic was considered as a science a priori; but the evolution-philosophy shows that logic is developed by steps, it appears a priori to the individual now, but it is in reality a consolidated product of multitudinous experiences received mainly by ancestors and added to by self. Logical sense accordingly finds its explanation in most simple feelings. Our conceptions of logically incorrect feelings will be more and more avoided because they will ultimately be found to be unpleasant; logical correctness is striven for because of the feeling of satisfaction that accompanies the conception of a logically correct conclusion.”

Sense is feeling, there can be no doubt. Logical sense and mathematical sense are feelings and if a person thinks a mathematical axiom or a logical syllogism or an ethical maxim, he has a feeling. Logical sense of reason is the product of evolution, and it cannot be denied either that one man has a more logical or mathematical or moral sense than another. But it does not follow that an explanation of mathematics, or logic, or ethics, must be derived from feeling pleasure and pain, or happiness. On the contrary we must abstract from feeling altogether and concern ourselves with the object of feeling only, which is the idea or the special form in which and as which feeling appears. States of consciousness (never mind whether they are painful or pleasurable) must be considered as moral if their mental object, i. e., the idea, the thought, the motive, the form in which feeling becomes manifest, is in harmony with the universal order of things.

* * * * *

Mr. Spencer declares that the world would be intolerable “if Kant’s conception of moral worth were displayed universally in men’s acts.” And it must be acknowledged that Kant’s ethics in their logical and irrefutable rigidity not only impressed the literary world of his time with the grandeur and sublimity of ethics; Kant’s ethics also astounded, and overwhelmed his readers with awe. Virtue no longer appeared to be the fervid enthusiasm of sentiments; it congealed into the cold idea of duty which can be fixed in abstract rules and will operate like the correctly calculated gear of a machine. Objections have been raised by some of Kant’s own disciples; but it must be known that the Kantian view of ethics does not suppress feelings, emotions and inclinations, it excludes them only from an estimation of the moral worth of actions. Kant gave the coup de grace to all sentimentality which had taken the lead in ethical questions too long. Mr. Spencer says:

“If those acts only have moral worth which are done from a sense of duty ... we must say that a man’s moral worth is greater in proportion as the strength of his sense of duty is such that he does the right thing not only apart from inclination but against inclination. According to Kant, then, the most moral man is the man ... who says of another that which is true though he would like to injure him by a falsehood; who lends money to his brother though he would prefer to see him in distress.”

Schiller, although an admirer of Kant, makes in his Xenions a similar objection to this corollary of the ethics of pure reason. He says:

“Willingly serve I my friends; but ’tis pity, I do it with pleasure. And I am really vexed, that there’s no virtue in me!”

And he answers in a second distich:

“There is no other advice than that you try to despise friends, And, with disgust, you will do what such a duty demands.”

The difficulty is removed under the following consideration: A man with good inclinations is less exposed to temptation than a man with bad inclinations. If both act morally under conditions otherwise the same, the latter has shown greater strength of moral purpose than the former. The former’s character (viz., his inherited inclinations and habits which represent the sum total of the moral energies of his ancestors,) is more moral than that of the latter. But the latter deserves more credit than the former for overcoming the temptation; he has in this special act shown more moral strength of will than his more fortunate and morally higher advanced fellow-man. To those who have accepted the Kantian view, Mr. Spencer’s and Schiller’s objection can serve as a warning, not to lose sight of emotions altogether. Man is not only a reasonable being, he is at the same time a feeling creature. The instinctive faculties of man, the so-called subconscious states, are the basis of his consciousness. They form the roots of his soul from which spring the clear conceptions of his reason. The more man’s habits and inclinations agree with morals, the more strength of purpose is left for further ethical advancement and moral progress.

Similar objections have also been made to Kant’s mechanical explanation of the origin of the planetary systems and milky ways. It seemed as if the divinity of nature were replaced by the rigid law of gravity. In his poem “The God’s of Greece,” Schiller complains:

“Fühllos selbst für ihres Künstlers Ehre, Gleich dem todten Schlag der Pendeluhr, Dient sie knechtisch dem Gesetz der Schwere, Die entgötterte Natur.”

“Dead even to her Master’s praise, Like lifeless pendulum’s vibration, Lo, godless Nature now obeys, Slave-like, the law of gravitation.”[100]

Such objections are always raised when a scientific explanation destroys the mystic view that a spirit or at least something unexplainable is the supposed cause of certain phenomena. Our sentiments are so closely connected and intimately interwoven with our errors that truth appears hostile to sentiment, and it becomes difficult to part with errors sanctified by emotion. Sentimentality always complains that clear thought is an enemy of romanticism, and romanticism is the only possible poetry to the taste of the sentimental.

Now it cannot be denied that a one-sided knowledge not only appears rigid, it truly is so, and will be destructive of such emotions as reverence, awe, æsthetic taste, religion and art. Criticism is a most essential feature of science and philosophy, and how negative, how desolate and melancholy appear the results of criticism! But the pruning process of criticism is very wholesome, and true science will only profit by discarding the vagueness of indistinct conceptions. Alpine lakes that are really deep can only gain by lucidity. Thus the clearness of genuine science and broad philosophy will only show the depth of truth into which by all its lucidity our emotions can plunge without ever finding it shallow or fathoming it in all its profundity.

Kant’s doctrine of ethics is a truth that can stand the severest test.

Ethics, in the sense of the word as used by Kant, can be found in man only, in so far as he is a reasonable being. A truly reasonable being does not allow himself to be guided by impulses but is led by maxims. Inclinations and habits are remnants of instinct. Not he who in instinctive good-naturedness acts morally, is the ethical man, but he who deliberately and consciously considers himself a representative of the general order of things. The man, who adopts such maxims as can become universal principles, identifies his will with the laws of the universe. Man’s moral dignity must not be sought in vague feelings or in instinctive inspirations; it is based upon his reason and is developed in so far only as he makes use of his reason.

FOOTNOTES:

[87] Quotations from Mr. Spencer’s essay will be distinguished by quotation-marks, while those from Kant will appear in hanging indentations.

[88] Kant distinguishes two kinds of sublimity: 1) the mathematical, and 2) the dynamical. His definitions are: 1) sublime is that in comparison with which everything else is small; and 2) sublime is that the mere ability to conceive which shows a power of emotion (Gemüth), the latter transcending any measurement by the senses. [1) Erhaben ist, mit welchem im Vergleich alles andere klein ist. 2) Erhaben ist, was auch nur denken zu können ein Vermögen des Gemüths beweist, das jeden Maasstab der Sinne übertrifft. Editio Hartenstein, Vol. V, pp. 257, 258.]

[89] The stellar Universe, of course, has not been evolved; Mr. Spencer means that according to Kant’s mechanical explanation the planetary systems and milky ways of the stellar Universe are in a state of constant evolution.

[90] Translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, pp. 244, 249.

[91] Compare also Kant’s “Prol. zu jeder künftigen Metaphysik,” § 46.

[92] We call attention to Kant’s peculiar expression, in this passage, of Auswickelung which has now yielded to the term Entwickelung.

[93] Die in der Natur eines organischen Körpers (Gewächses oder Thieres) liegenden Gründe einer bestimmten Auswickelung heissen, wenn diese Auswickelung besondere Theile betrifft, Keime; betrifft sie aber nur die Grösse oder das Verhältniss der Theile unter einander, so nenne ich sie natürliche Anlagen.

[94] Wir nehmen die Benennungen Naturbeschreibung und Naturgeschichte gemeiniglich in einerlei Sinne. Allein es ist klar, dass die Kenntniss der Naturdinge, wie sie jetzt sind, immer noch die Erkenntniss von demjenigen wünschen lasse, was sie ehedem gewesen sind und durch welche Reihe von Veränderungen sie durchgegangen, um an jedem Ort in ihren gegenwärtigen Zustand zu gelangen. Die Naturgeschichte, woran es uns noch fast gänzlich fehlt, würde uns die Veränderung der Erdgestalt, imgleichen die der Erdgeschöpfe (Pflanzen und Thiere), die sie durch natürliche Wanderungen (sic! I take it as a misprint for Wandelungen) erlitten haben, und ihre daraus entsprungenen Abartungen von dem Urbilde der Stammgattung lehren. Sie würde vermuthlich eine grosse Menge scheinbar verschiedener Arten zu Racen ebenderselben Gattung zurückführen, und das jetzt so weitläuftigte Schulsystem der Naturbeschreibung in ein physisches System für den Verstand verwandeln.

[95] The original of the first sentence reads: “Es ist überall nichts in der Welt, ja überhaupt auch ausser derselben zu denken möglich, was ohne Einschränkung für gut könnte gehalten werden, als allein ein guter Wille.”

[96] Italics are ours.

[97] The phrase “we take it for granted” (in the original “nehmen wir es als Grundsatz an)” reads in the translation quoted by Mr. Spencer: “we take it as a fundamental principle.” Mr. Spencer objects to the passage declaring that there are many organs (such as rudimentary organs) in the construction of organized beings which serve no purpose. This however does not stand in contradiction to Kant’s assumption that organs of organized beings serve a special purpose. The rudimentary organs have under other conditions served a purpose for which they then were fit and well adapted and are disappearing now because no longer used.

[98] Das moralische Sollen ist also ein eigenes nothwendiges Wollen als Gliedes einer intelligiblen Welt, und wird nur sofern von ihm als Sollen gedacht, als er sich zugleich wie ein Glied der Sinnenwelt betrachtet. Ed. Hartenstein vol. IV. p. 303.

[99] The passage referred to is quoted in full on page 16.

[100] Slightly altered from B. W. BALL’S translation in THE OPEN COURT, p. 83.

KANT ON EVOLUTION.

IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM.

It is very strange that Mr. Herbert Spencer will again and again attack the philosophy and ethics of Kant for views which Kant never held.[101] It is possible that there are disciples of Kant who deny the theory of evolution. Yet it is certain that Kant himself is not guilty of this mistake. Thinkers who reject the theory of evolution are in this respect as little entitled to call themselves disciples of Kant as, for instance, the Sadducees were to call themselves followers of Christ. Kantian philosophy was foremost in the recognition of the need of evolution, and that at a time when public interest was not as yet centered upon it.

Mr. Spencer’s merits in the propagation of the theory of evolution are undeniable, and he deserves our warmest respect and thanks for the indefatigable zeal he has shown in the performance of this great work, for the labors he has undergone, and the sacrifices he has made for it. Yet recognising all that Mr. Spencer has done, we should not be blind to the fact that Kant’s conception of evolution is even at the present day more in conformity with the facts of natural science than Mr. Spencer’s philosophy, although the latter commonly goes by the name of the philosophy of evolution.

It is painful to note that in many places where Mr. Spencer refers to Kant’s philosophy, he does it slightingly, as though Kant were one of the most irrational of thinkers. Kant’s reasoning is denounced as “abnormal” and “vicious.” I find such phrases as, “It is a vice of Kant’s philosophy ...,” “If Kant had known more of Man than he did ...,” etc. Mr. Spencer characterises Kant’s method as follows:

“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the negative is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of which the affirmation is inconceivable, and proceeds to draw conclusions therefrom.”

These attacks of Mr. Spencer on Kant are not justifiable. Kant is not guilty of the faults for which he is arraigned by Mr. Spencer.

* * * * *

It is, however, fair to state that these misunderstandings appear excusable if the difficulties are borne in mind with which the English student of Kant is confronted. First, Kant cannot be understood without taking into consideration the historical development of his philosophy, and, secondly, most translations of the fundamental terms, he employs, are so misleading that errors can scarcely be avoided.

Kant’s philosophy is by no means a perfected system; it rather represents (as perhaps necessarily all philosophies do) the development of a thinker’s mind. The “Critique of Pure Reason” especially shows traces of the state of Kant’s mind at different periods, and thus it is that we discover passages which closely considered will be found to be contradictory. When reading this remarkable work we feel like travelers walking over the petrified relics of a powerful eruption. There are strata of ideas of the oldest formation close to the thoughts of a recent date. There are also vestiges of intermediate phases. Here they stand in the petrification of printed words, peacefully side by side, as memorials of a great revolution in the development of human thought. It is this state of things which more than anything else makes of Kant’s writings such difficult reading. At the same time it is obvious that we cannot simply take the results of Kant’s philosophy; we must follow him in the paths by which he arrived at any given proposition.

There is no philosopher that has been worse misinterpreted than Kant; and the English interpreters of Kant have succeeded in mutilating his best thoughts so that this hero of progress appears as a stronghold of antiquated views. Mistranslations or misconceptions of his terms are to a great extent the cause of this singular fate. As an instance we mention the errors that attach to Kant’s term Anschauung. Anschauung is the present object of our senses; it is the impression a man has from looking at a thing and might have been translated by “perception” or perhaps “sensation.” It is usually translated by “intuition.” The Anschauung of objects comprises the data of knowledge, and they are previous to our reflection upon them. An intuition in the sense of the English Intuitionalists is defined as “a presentation which can be given previously to all thought,” yet this presentation is supposed to be a kind of revelation, a knowledge that comes to us without our contemplation, a cognition the character of which is immediate as well as mysterious; in short something that is supernatural.

How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his position with reference to time and space is mistaken! “Time and Space are our Anschauung,” Kant says. But his English translators declare: “Kant maintained that space and time are intuitions.” What a difference it makes if intuition is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the English Intuitionalist School instead of its being taken in the original meaning of the word Anschauung.

* * * * *

Any one who knows Kant through Mr. Spencer’s representations only, must look upon him as having the most perverse mind that could possibly exist; and yet it is Kant from whom Spencer has indirectly derived the most characteristic feature of his philosophy. What is Mr. Spencer’s agnosticism but a popularisation of Kant’s view that things in themselves are unknowable?

We conclude from the animosity which Mr. Spencer shows toward Kant that he does not know how much in this respect he agrees with Kant, how much he has unconsciously imbibed from the Zeitgeist which in part was formed under the influence of this huge error of the great philosopher.

I feel confident that any clear thinker who studies Kant and arrives along with him at the “thing in itself” will soon free himself from this error of Kantian thought. Kant himself suggests to us the method by which we are to find the way out of agnosticism. As a proof I quote the views of two independent thinkers; both influenced by Kant’s criticism but neither a blind follower. Professor Mach says:

“I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early in my life, at about the age of fifteen, I happened to find in the library of my father Kant’s ‘Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic.’ The book made at that time a powerful, ineffaceable impression upon me that I never afterwards experienced to the same degree in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or three years later I suddenly discovered the superfluous rôle that ‘the thing in itself’ plays.” The Monist, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 65 and 66.

And Schiller guided by similar considerations says in one of his Xenions:

“Since Metaphysics, of late, without heirs to her fathers was gathered: Under the hammer are now ‘things in themselves’ to be sold.”

The latest attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kantism is in the article “Our Space-Consciousness,” in Mind, written in reply to Professor Watson. Mr. Spencer there repeats his misconception of Kantism, so that I feel urged to utter a few words of protest against his gross misrepresentation of Kant’s views. I shall confine myself mainly to quotations from Kant’s works—and the passages quoted will speak for themselves. Should there indeed be any disciples of Kant who are, as Mr. Spencer says, “profoundly averse to that evolutionary view which contemplates mind as having had a genesis conforming to laws like those conformed to by the genesis of the body,” these quotations will suffice to prove that they have misconstrued the views of their master. Philosophers hostile to the theory of evolution had better select another patron for their ideas. Kant is too radical a mind to protect those men who in the domains of thought give the signal for retreat.

Mr. Spencer adopted the evolution theory as it was presented by Von Baer, who explains “Entwickelung” as a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.

Baer’s “Developmental History of Animals” was published in 1828. Mr. Spencer adopted the theory in 1854. But the history of the theory of evolution is older than Von Baer’s book. Professor Baer concludes his work with a few corollaries among which near the end we find the following passage:

“If we survey the contents of the whole Scholia, there follows from them a general result. We found that the effect of generation continues to advance from a part to a whole [Schol. 2.]; that in development, self-dependence increases in correspondence with its environment [Schol. 2.], as well as the determinateness of its structure [Schol. 1.]; that in the internal development special parts shape themselves forth from the more general, and their differentiation increases [Schol. 3.]; that the individual, as the possessor of a fixed organic form, changes by degrees from more general forms into more special [Schol. 5.].

“The general result of our inquiry and consideration can now well be declared as follows:

“That the developmental history of the individual is the history of increasing individuality in every relation; that is, Individualisation.

“This general conclusion is, indeed, so plain, that it needs no proof from observation, but seems evident a priori. But we believe that this evidentness is merely the stamp of truth, and therefore is its guarantee. Had the history of development from the outset been perceived as just expressed, it could and should have been inferred, that the individual of a determinate animal type attains to this by changing from a general into a special form. But experience teaches everywhere, that deductions are always safer if their results are discovered beforehand by observation. Mankind would have obtained a still greater intellectual possession than it really has, had this been otherwise.

“But if this general conclusion has truth and contents, it is one fundamental idea which runs through all forms and degrees of animal development, and governs every single relation. It is the same idea that collected in space the distributed particles into spheres and united them in solar systems; which caused the disintegrated dust on the surface of our metallic planet to grow up into living forms; but this idea is nothing else than life itself, and the words and syllables in which it expresses itself, are the different forms of life.”

These corollaries were not inserted by Baer because he intended to proclaim a new truth, but simply to excite a popular interest in a strictly scientific work, in order to extend the circle of its readers. Baer says in the preface:

“So much about the first part. In order to procure for the work readers and buyers, I have added a second part in which I make some general remarks under the title of Scholia and Corollaries. They are intended to be sketches of the confession of my scientific faith concerning the development of animals, as it was formed from the observation of the chick and by other investigations.”

* * * * *

The “Encyclopædia Britannica” says of Baer that he “prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law of all evolution.”[102]

Baer declares that individualisation is “the one fundamental idea that goes through all the forms of cosmic and animal development.” The generality of the law of evolution is clearer in the language employed by Baer, in the full context of the Scholia than appears from the short statement of the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” Nevertheless it is clear enough in the quoted passage that Baer made a statement of universal application. How can such a universal statement be made more general?

We must add here that Mr. Spencer and his disciples overvalue the importance of generalisation. It is not the power of generalisation that makes the philosopher and the scientist but the power of discrimination. The habit of generalising whatever comes under our observation is very common among the uneducated and uncivilised, and almost nine tenths of human errors arise from unwarranted generalisations.

In Kant’s time the interest in the theory of evolution was confined to a few minds. It is well known that Goethe was one of its most enthusiastic supporters.[103] In the middle of the eighteenth century there were three views proposed to explain the origin and the development of organised beings: (1) Occasionalism, (2) the theory of Evolution, and (3) the theory of Epigenesis. Occasionalism maintained that God created on each new occasion a new animal. The word evolution was used in a different sense from that in which it is now understood: evolutionism, as maintained by Bonnet, Haller, and others, was the view that the sperma contained a very small specimen of the animal that was to grow from it. The hen’s egg was supposed to contain an excessively minute but complete chicken. The theory of epigenesis, however, propounded in 1759 by Caspar Friedrich Wolff in his “Theoria Generationis,” explained development by additional growth, and it is this theory of epigenesis which later on, after the total defeat of the old evolutionism, was called (but improperly) the evolution theory. The word “evolution” has thus again admitted the erroneous idea of an unfolding.

In Kant’s time the battle between the occasionalists, the evolutionists, and the adherents of the epigenesis theory was hot indeed; and Kant unquestionably gave preference to the epigenesis theory. The most important passage on the subject appears in his “Critique of Judgment.” It is as follows:

“If now the teleological principle of the generation of organised beings be accepted, as it would be, we can account for their internally adapted form either by Occasionalism or by Prestabilism.[104] According to the first, the supreme world-cause would, in agreement with its idea, on the occasion of every coition directly give the proper organic form to the material thereby blended; according to the second, it would have implanted into the original products of its designing wisdom merely the power by means of which an organic being produces its like and the species itself is constantly maintained and likewise the death of individuals is continually replaced by their own nature, which is operating at the same time for their destruction.

“If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded, and with it the use of reasoning in determining the possibility of such kinds of products; therefore, it cannot be supposed that this system is accepted by any one who has had to do with philosophy.”

“As to Prestabilism, it can proceed in a two-fold manner, namely, it considers every organic being produced by its like, either as the educt or as the product of the first. The system which considers generated beings as mere educts is called that of individual preformation, or also the theory of evolution; that which makes generated beings products is named the system of epigenesis. The latter can also be called a system of generic preformation, because the productive power of those generating was virtually preformed to agree with the internal adapted arrangements that fell to the lot of their race. The opposing theory to this view should be named that of individual preformation, or still better, the theory of evolution.”

“The defenders of the theory of evolution, who exempt each individual from the formative power of nature, in order to derive the same directly from the hand of the Creator, would not dare to permit this to happen in accordance with the hypothesis of occasionalism, so that coition would be a mere formality, a supreme national world-cause having decided to form every particular fœtus by direct interference, and to resign to the mother only its development and nourishment. They declared themselves in favor of preformation, as though it were not the same to make the required forms arise in a supernatural manner at the beginning of the world, as during its progress; and as if a great multitude of supernatural arrangements would not rather be dispensed with through occasional creation which were necessary in order that the embryo formed at the beginning of the world should, throughout the long period up to its development, not suffer from the destructive forces of nature, but endure and maintain itself intact; moreover, an immensely greater number of such preformed beings would be made than ever would be developed, and with them as many creations be thus rendered unnecessary and purposeless. They still, however, resign at least something to nature, in order not to fall in with complete hyperphysics, which can dispense with explanation from nature. They still held fast indeed, to their hyperphysics; even finding in monsters (which it must be impossible to regard as designs of nature) cases of adaptation which call for admiration, although the only purpose of that adaptedness might be to make an anatomist take offence at it as a purposeless adaptedness, and have a sense of melancholy admiration. Yet they could not well fit the generation of hybrids into the system of preformation, but were obliged still further to endow the sperm of male creatures with a designedly acting power, whereas they had otherwise accorded it nothing except mechanical force to serve as the first means of nourishment of the embryo; yet this designedly acting force, in the case of the products of generation between two creatures of the same kind, they would grant to neither of them.

“If on the contrary the great advantage was not at once recognised which the theory of epigenesis possessed over the former in view of the experimental foundation on which the proof of it rested; yet reason would be especially favorably predisposed from the outset for this mode, of explanation, inasmuch as it regards nature—with reference to the things which originally can be conceived as possible only in accordance with the theory of causality and design, at least so far as propagation is concerned—as self-producing and not merely as developing, and thus with the least possible employment of the supernatural, leaves all that comes afterwards, from the very beginning on, to nature: without concerning itself with the original beginning, with regard to the explanation of which physics in general miscarries, try with what chain of causes it may.”

Kant recognises neither the stability of species nor any fixed limits between them. And this one maxim alone suffices to prove that he was of the same opinion as the great biologist who wrote the “Origin of Species.” Kant says (Ed. Hart. III. p. 444):

“Non datur vacuum formarum, that is, there are not different original and primitive species, which were, so to say, isolated and separated by an empty space from one another, but all the manifold species are only divisions of a single, chief, and general species; and from this principle results again this immediate inference: datur continuum formarum, that is, all differences of species border on each other, and allow no transition to one another by a leap, but only through very small degrees of difference, by which we can arrive at one from another; in one word, there are no species or sub-species which, according to reason, would be next each other in affinity, but intermediate species are always possible, whose difference from the first and second is less than their difference from one another.”

In Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” (§. 80) we find the following passage:

“The agreement of so many species of animals, with reference to a definite, common scheme, which appears not only to be at the foundation of their bony structure, but also of the arrangement of their other parts, in which, by abridgment of one and prolongation of another, by envelopment of this and unfolding of that, a wonderful simplicity of plan has been able to produce so great a diversity of species—this agreement casts a ray of hope, although a weak one, in the mind, that here, indeed, something might be accomplished with the principle of the mechanism of nature, without which in general there can be no physical science.

“This analogy of forms, so far as they appear, notwithstanding all their diversity, to be produced after the model of a common prototype, strengthens the conjecture of a real relationship between the same by generation from a common ancestral source, through the gradual approach of one animal species to another, from man, in whom the principle of design appears to be best proved, to the polyp, from this to the moss and lichen, and finally to the lowest stage of nature perceptible to us, to crude matter, from which and its forces, according to mechanical laws (like those which work in the production of crystals), the whole technic of nature (which is so incomprehensible to us in organised beings that we imagine another principle is necessitated for their explanation) appears to be derived.[105]

“The Archæologist of nature is now free to make that great family of beings (for such we must conceive it, if the uninterrupted relationship is to have a foundation) arise out of the extant vestiges of the oldest revolutions, following every mechanism known to him or which he can suppose.”

Kant adds in a foot-note:

“An hypothesis of such a kind can be named a daring venture of reason, and there may be few of the most sagacious naturalists, through whose minds it has not sometimes passed. For it is not absurd, as the generatio equivoca, by which is understood the production of an organised being through the mechanical action of crude unorganised matter. But it would still be generatio univoca in the common understanding of the word, in so far only as something organic was produced out of another organic body, although specifically distinguished from it; for instance, if certain aquatic animals by and by formed into amphibia, and from these after some generations into land animals. A priori this does not contradict the judgment of pure reason. Only experience shows no example thereof; according to it, rather, all generation which we know is generatio homonyma (not mere univoca in opposition to production out of unorganised material), that is, the bringing forth of a product homogeneous in organisation, with the generator; and generatio heteronyma, so far as our actual experience of nature goes is nowhere met with.”

The treatise “Presumable Origin of Humanity,” Kant sums up in the following sentence:

“From this representation of the earliest human history it results, that the departure of man from what, as the first abode of his kind, his judgment represented as Paradise, was no other than the transition of mere animal creatures out of barbarism into man, out of the leading-strings of instinct into the guidance of reason, in a word, out of the guardianship of nature into the state of freedom.”

In his work “Upon the Different Races of Mankind,” Kant discusses the origin of the species of man in a way which would do honor to a follower of Darwin. It is written in a spirit which recognises the difference of conditions as the causes that produce different species. We select a few passages from this work.

In a foot-note we read:

“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science (Naturbeschreibung) and natural history in one and the same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural phenomena, as they now are, always leaves to be desired the knowledge of that which they have been before now, and through what succession of modifications they have passed in order to have arrived, in every respect, at their present state. Natural History, which at present we almost entirely lack, would teach us the changes that have effected the form of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the earth (plants and animals) that they have suffered by natural transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the prototype of the original species that they have experienced. It would probably trace a great number of apparently different varieties back to a species of one and the same kind, and would convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”

We adduce another passage, no less remarkable in clearness, which proves that Kant has a very definite idea, not only of the gradual evolution of man, but also of the survival of the fittest:

“The cry which a child scarcely born utters, has not the tone of misery, but of irritation, and violent rage; not the result of pain, but of vexation about something; probably for the reason that it wishes to move itself and feels its incapacity, like a captive when freedom is taken from him. What purpose can nature have in providing that a child shall come with a loud cry into the world, which for it and the mother is, in the rude natural state, full of danger? Since a wolf, a pig even, would in the absence of the mother, or through her feebleness owing to her delivery, be thus attracted to devour it. But no animal except man as he now is announces with noise its new-born existence; which in the wisdom of nature appears to be arranged in order that the species shall be preserved. We must also assume that in what was an early epoch of nature for this class of animals (namely in the period of barbarism) this outcry of the child at its birth did not exist; consequently only later on a second epoch appeared, after both parents had arrived at that degree of civilisation which was required for home-life; yet without knowing how and by what interweaving causes nature arranges such a development. This remark leads us far; for example, to the thought whether after the same epoch, still a third did not follow accompanied by great natural revolutions, during which an orang-outang or a chimpanzee perfected the organs which serve for walking, for feeling objects, and for speech, and thus evolved the limb-structure of man; in which animals was contained an organ for the exercise of the function of reason, which by social cultivation was gradually perfected and developed.”

Kant’s view concerning the origin of the biped man from quadruped animal ancestors is most unequivocally stated.

In a review of Dr. Moscati’s Lecture upon the difference of structure in animals and in men, Kant says:

“Dr. Moscati proves that the upright walk of man is constrained and unnatural; that he is indeed so constructed that he may be able to maintain and move in this position, but that, although by needful and constant habit he formed himself thus, inconvenience and disease arise therefrom, which sufficiently prove, that he was misled by reason and imitation to deviate from the first animal arrangement. Man is not constructed internally different from other animals that go on all fours. When now he raises himself his intestines, particularly the embryo of pregnant individuals, come into a pendulous situation and a half reversed condition, which, if it often alternates with the lying position or that on all-fours, cannot precisely produce specially evil consequences, but, by constant continuance, causes deformities and numerous diseases. Thus, for example, the heart, because it is compelled to hang free, elongates the blood vessels to which it is attached, assumes an oblique position since it is supported by the diaphragm and slides with its end against the left side—a position wherein man, especially at full growth, differs from all other animals, and thereby receives an inevitable inclination to aneurism, palpitation, asthma, chest-dropsy, etc., etc. With the upright position of man the mesentery, pulled down by the weight of the intestines, sinks perpendicularly thereunder, is elongated and weakened, and prepared for numerous ruptures. In the mesenteric vein which has no valves, the blood moves slowly and with greater difficulty (it having to ascend against the course of gravity) than would happen with the horizontal position of the trunk....”

“We could add considerably to the reasons just adduced to show that our animal nature is really quadrupedal. Among all four-footed animals there is not a single one that could not swim if it accidentally fell into the water. Man alone drowns, except in cases where he has learned to swim. The reason is because he has laid aside the habit of going on all-fours; for it is by this motion that he would keep himself up in the water without the exercise of any art, and by which all four-footed creatures, who otherwise shun the water, swim....”

“It will be seen, accordingly, that the first care of nature was that man should be preserved as animal for himself and his species, and for that end the position best adapted to his internal structure, to the lay of the fœtus, and to his preservation in danger, was the quadrupedal position; we see, moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby, after the development of the same, he is destined for social intercourse, and by the aid of which he assumes the position which is in every case the most fitted for this, namely, the bipedal position,—thus gaining upon the one hand infinite advantages over animals, but also being obliged to put up with many inconveniences that result from his holding his head so proudly above his old companions.”

[[106] In the double-leaded quotation on pages 43 and 44 Kant speaks about the explanation of organised life from man down to the polyp “according to mechanical laws like those which work in the production of crystals,” and he adds, in organised beings the whole technic of nature is so incomprehensible to us “that we imagine another principle is necessitated for their explanation.”

This “other principle” would be the principle of design, or the teleological explanation of phenomena. In his old age Kant inclined more to teleology than in his younger years, and it is for this reason that Professor Ernst Haeckel accuses Kant of inconsistency.

After having pointed out that “Kant is one of the few philosophers that combine a well-founded knowledge of the natural sciences with extraordinary precision and depth of speculation” and further that “he was the first who taught ‘the principle of the struggle for existence’ and ‘the theory of selection.’” Haeckel says in his “Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte,” 8th edition, p. 91:

“Wir würden daher unbedingt in der Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre unserem gewaltigen Königsberger Philosophen den ersten Platz einräumen müssen, wenn nicht leider diese bewundernswürdigen monistischen Ideen des jungen Kant später durch den überwältigenden Einfluss der dualistisch christlichen Weltanschauung ganz zurückgedrängt worden wären.”

This “influence of the dualistic Christian world-conception” is according to Haeckel, Kant’s recognition of a teleological causation in the realm of organised life. Haeckel says on the same place:

“Er behauptet, dass sich im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur unbedingt sämmtliche Erscheinungen aus mechanischen Ursachen, aus bewegenden Kräften der Materie selbst, erklären lassen, im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur dagegen nicht.”

Haeckel does not stand alone in denouncing the old Kant. Schopenhauer distinguishes between the author of the first and the author of the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” regarding the former only as the real Kant. These accusations are not without foundation, but we believe with Max Müller that they have been unduly exaggerated.

As to teleology for which Kant’s preference appears to be more strongly marked in his later than in his younger years we should say that it is a problem that should, in an historical investigation, as to whether or not Kant was a consistent evolutionist, be treated independently. No one can deny that there is an adaptation to ends in the domain of organised life. It is not so much required to deny teleology in the domain of organised nature as to purify and critically sift our views of teleology. There is a kind of teleology which does not stand in contradiction to the causation of efficient causes so called.

Mr. Spencer’s denunciations of Kant would have some foundation, if he had reference to the old Kant alone. But everyone who censures Kant for the errors of his later period is bound to qualify his statement, and indeed whenever such strictures of Kantism appear I find them expressly stated as having reference to “the old Kant.”

That Kant who is a living power even to-day is the young Kant, it is the author of the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason.” He is generally called “the young Kant,” although he was not young; he was, as we say, in his best years. The old Kant who proclaimed that he “must abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith” is a dead weight in our colleges and universities. The young Kant is positive, the old Kant is agnostic. The young Kant was an investigator and naturalist of the first degree; he gave an impetus to investigation that it had never before received from philosophy. The old Kant, I should not exactly say reverted but certainly, neglected the principles of his younger years and thus became the leader of a reactionary movement from which sprang two offshoots very unlike each other but children of the same father; the Oxford transcendentalism as represented by Green and the English agnosticism as represented by Mr. Spencer.

It is strange that Mr. Spencer has so little knowledge concerning the evolution of the views he holds. If he were more familiar with the history of the idea “that the world-problem is insolvable,” he would show more reverence toward the old Kant and his mystical inclinations; for Kant, whatever Mr. Spencer may say against it, is the father of modern agnosticism.[107]]

* * * * *

The history of Mr. Spencer’s philosophical development shows that the first idea which took possession of his mind and formed the centre of crystalisation for all his later views was M. Condorcet’s optimism. Condorcet believed in progress; he was convinced that in spite of all the tribulations and anxieties of the present, man would at last arrive at a state of perfection. He saw a millennium in his prophetic mind, which alas!—if the law of evolution be true—can never be realised. Condorcet died a martyr to his ideals. He poisoned himself in 1799 to escape death by the Guillotine.

The influence of Condorcet’s work Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain is traceable not only in Mr. Spencer’s first book, “Social Statics,” published in 1850, but in all his later writings. How can a true evolutionist believe in the Utopia of a state of perfect adaptation? Does not each progress demand new adaptations? Take as an instance the change from walking on four feet to an upright gait. Did not this progress itself involve man in new difficulties, to which he had to adapt himself? Let a labor-saving machine be invented, how many laborers lose their work and how many others are in demand! The transition from one state to the other is not easy, and as soon as it is perfected new wants have arisen which inexorably drive humanity onward on the infinite path of progress which can never be limited by any state of perfection. There is a constant readjustment necessary, and if we really could reach a state of perfect adaptation human life would drop into the unconsciousness of mere reflex motions.

Any one who understands the principle of evolution and its universal applicability, will recognise that there can be no standstill in the world, no state of perfect adaptation. Our solar system has evolved, as Kant explained in his “General Cosmogony and Theory of the Heavens,” out of a nebula, and is going to dissolve again into a nebular state. So our social development consists in a constant realisation of ideals. We may think that if we but attain our next and dearest ideal, humanity will be satisfied forever. But as soon as we have realised that ideal, we quickly get accustomed to its benefits. It becomes a matter of course and another ideal higher still than that just realised appears before our mental gaze.

Herder, in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” not unlike Mr. Spencer, was also under the spell of the Utopian ideal, that humanity will reach at last a state of perfect happiness. Kant, in his review of Herder’s book, discusses the relativity of happiness and its insufficiency as a final aim of life. He says:

“First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence to one class of men or to one generation over another.... If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheiti had never been visited by more civilised peoples and were ordained to live in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they should exist at all, and whether it would not have been just as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only through pure enjoyment?”

“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual member of all the offspring of the human race, but that only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole is unceasing progress, and the perfection (Vollendung) of this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a very useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.”

It is indubitable that Kant’s views of evolution agree better with the present state of scientific investigation, than does Mr. Spencer’s philosophy, which has never been freed from Condorcet’s ingenuous optimism. The assumption of a final state of perfection by absolute adaptation is irreconcilable with the idea of unceasing progress, which must be true, if evolution is a universal law of nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] See Mr. Spencer’s article in Mind, No. LIX, p. 313.

[102] The passage in the Encyclopædia Britannica on Baer runs as follows:

“In his Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere, p. 264, he distinctly tells us that the law of growing individuality is ‘the fundamental thought which goes through all forms and degrees of animal development and all single relations. It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic space solar systems; the same which caused the weather-beaten dust on the surface of our metallic planet to spring forth living beings.’ Von Baer thus prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law of all evolution.”

[103] See Haeckel, Goethe on Evolution, No. 131 of The Open Court.

[104] Præstabilismus, that is, the theory that the phenomena of nature are the result of pre-established law.

[105] The proposition that Kant is no easy reading found an unexpected and strong opposition. Immediately after the publication of this article, Sept. 4th, 1890, Mr. Charles S. Peirce made the following incidental remark in a letter to the author dated Sept. 6th, 1890: “I have heard too much of Kant’s being hard reading. I think he is one of the easiest of philosophers; for he generally knows what he wants to say, which is more than half the battle, and he says it in terms which are very clear. Of course, it is quite absurd to try to read Kant without preliminary studies of Leibnizian and English philosophers, as well as of the terminology of which Kant’s is a modification or transmogrification. But there is a way of making out what he meant, while such writers as Hume and J. S. Mill, the more you study them the more they puzzle you.”

[106] This passage on pages 48, 49, and 50 which is enclosed in brackets did not appear in The Open Court. It has been added since and is published here for the first time.

[107] In this connection we call attention to a book, Kant und Darwin, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre, Jena, 1875, by Fritz Schultze, formerly Privat docent in Jena, now Professor of philosophy at the Polytechnic Institute in Dresden. This little book is a collection of the most important passages of Kant’s views concerning evolution, the struggle for existence, and the theory of selection, and it is astonishing to find how much Kant had to say on the subject and how strongly he agrees with and anticipates Darwin. If Kant had not lived before Darwin one might be tempted to conclude that he was familiar with his Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.

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