Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 6

A n.o.ble thing it is to lie dead, fallen in the front ranks, A brave man in battle for his country. [Footnote 9]

[Footnote 9: [Greek: tethnamenai gar kalon, eni promachoisi pesonta, andr' agathon peri hae patridi marnamenon.]

([Greek: Tyrtaeus apud Lycurg])]

Such a death was taken to be the seal and stamp of the highest fort.i.tude. Nor has Christianity dimmed the glory that invests a soldier's death. Only it points to a brighter glory, and a death in a still n.o.bler cause, the death of the martyr who dies for the faith, and becomes valiant in battle for what is more to him than any earthly city, the Church, the City of G.o.d. Nor must the martyr of charity, who dies in succouring his neighbour, go without the praise of fort.i.tude: nor, in short, any one who braves death, or other heavy affliction, in the discharge of duty, or when forwarding a good cause.

4. A man may brave death in a good cause, and not be doing an act of fort.i.tude. So he may subscribe a large sum to a charitable purpose without any exercise of the virtue of charity. A virtue is then only exercised, when its outward act is performed from the proper motive of the virtue, and not from any lower motive. Thus the proper motive of Fort.i.tude is the conviction that death is an evil, the risk of which is to be left out of count as a circ.u.mstance relatively inconsiderable, when there is question of the defence of certain interests dearer to a good man than life. An improper motive would be anger, which, however useful as an accessory, by itself is not an intellectual motive at all, and therefore no motive of virtue. The recklessness of an angry man is not Fort.i.tude. It is not Fort.i.tude to be brave from ignorance or stupidity, not appreciating the danger: nor again from experience, knowing that the apparent danger is not real, at least to yourself. The brave man looks a real danger in the face, and knows it, and goes on in spite of it, because so it is meet and just, with the cause that he has, to go on.

5. We may notice as _potential_ parts of Fort.i.tude (s. vii., n. 3, p.

92), the three virtues of Magnificence, Magnanimity, and Patience. It is the part of Patience, philosophically to endure all sufferings short of death. It is the part of the former two, to dare wisely, not in a matter of life and death, but in the matter of expense, for Magnificence, and of honour, for Magnanimity. Magnificence, technically understood, observes the right measure in the expenditure of large sums of money. As being conversant with large sums, it differs from Liberality. A poor man may be liberal out of his little store, but never magnificent. It is a virtue in the rich, not to be afraid of spending largely and lavishly on a great occasion, or a grand purpose. The expense may be carried beyond what the occasion warrants: that is one vicious extreme. The other extreme would be to mar a costly work by sordid parsimony on a point of detail. It is not easy to be magnificent: in the first place, because not many are rich; and then because riches are seldom united with greatness of soul and good judgment. Something a.n.a.logous to the virtue of Magnificence is shown in the generous use of great abilities, or, in the supernatural order, of great graces. The destinies of the world lie with those men who have it in their power to be magnificent.

6. We are come to Magnanimity and the Magnanimous Man, the great creation of Aristotle. As Magnanimity ranks under Fort.i.tude, there must be some fear to which the Magnanimous Man rises superior, as the brave man rises superior to the fear of death. What Magnanimity overcomes is the fear of undeserved dishonour. The Magnanimous Man is he who rates himself as worthy of great honours, and is so worthy indeed. When honour is paid to such a one, he makes no great account of it, feeling that it is but his due, or even less than his due. If he is dishonoured and insulted, he despises the insult as an absurdity, offered to a man of his deserts. He is too conscious of his real worth to be much affected by the expression of his neighbour's view of him. For a man is most elated, when complimented on an excellence which he was not very sure of possessing: and most sensibly grieved at an insult, where he half suspects himself of really making a poor figure, whereas he would like to make a good one. It is doubtless the serene and settled conviction that Englishmen generally entertain of the greatness of their country, that enables them to listen with equanimity to abase of England, such as no other people in Europe would endure levelled at themselves.

7. _Proud_ is an epithet pretty freely applied to Englishmen abroad, and it seems to fit the character of the Magnanimous Man. He seems a Pharisee, and worse than a Pharisee. The Pharisee's pride was to some extent mitigated by breaking out into that disease of children and silly persons, vanity: he "did all his works to be seen of men." But here the disease is all driven inwards, and therefore more malignant.

The Magnanimous Man is so much in conceit with himself as to have become a scorner of his fellows. He is self-sufficient, a deity to himself, the very type of Satanic pride. These are the charges brought against him.

8. To purify and rectify the character of the Magnanimous Man, we need to take a leaf out of the book of Christianity. Not that there is anything essentially Christian and supernatural in what we are about to allege: otherwise it would not belong to philosophy: it is a truth of reason, but a truth generally overlooked, till it found its exponent in the Christian preacher, and its development in the articles of the Christian faith. The truth is this. There is in every human being what theologians have called _man and man_: man as he is of himself, man again as he is by the gift and gracious mercy of G.o.d.

The reasonably Magnanimous Man is saved from pride by this distinction. Of himself, he knows that he is nothing but nothingness, meanness, sinfulness, and a walking sore of mult.i.tudinous actual sins.

"I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is, in my flesh, any good." (Rom. vii. 18.) If he is insulted, he takes it as his due, not any questionable due, for then he would resent the insult, but as being undoubtedly what he deserves. If he is honoured, he smiles at the absurdity of the compliments paid to him. It is as if an old gentleman, a prey to gout and rheumatism, were lauded for his fleetness of foot. He is then truly magnanimous on this side of his character by a kind of obverse magnanimity, that bears insults handsomely, as deserved, and honours modestly, as undeserved.

9. But let us go round to the other side of the reasonably Magnanimous Man. He was defined to be, "one that deems himself worthy of great honours, and is so worthy indeed." Now, nothing is truly worthy of honour but virtue. He must then be a good man, full of all virtues; and all this goodness that he has, he recognises as being in him of G.o.d. He has "received G.o.d's Spirit"--or something a.n.a.logous in the natural order to the gift of the Holy Ghost--"that he may know the things that are given him of G.o.d." (2 Cor. ii. 12.) It is told of St.

Francis of a.s.sisi, the humblest of men, that on one occasion when he and his companions received from some persons extraordinary marks of veneration, he, contrary to his usual wont, took it not at all amiss: and said to his companions, who wondered at his behaviour, "Let them alone: they cannot too much honour the work of G.o.d in us." This magnanimity bears honours gracefully, and insult unflinchingly, from a consciousness of internal worth, which internal worth and goodness however it takes not for its own native excellence, but holds as received from G.o.d, and unto G.o.d it refers all the glory.

10. Thus the genuine Magnanimous Man is a paradox and a prodigy. He despises an insult as undeserved, and he takes it as his due. He is conscious of the vast good that is in him; and he knows that there is no good in him. Highly honoured, he thinks that he gets but his due, while he believes that vials of scorn and ignominy may justly be poured upon him. He will bear the scorn, because he deserves it, and again, because it is wholly undeserved. The Magnanimous Man is the humble man. The secret of his marvellous virtue is his habit of practical discernment between the abyss of misery that he has within himself, as of himself, and the high gifts, also within him, which come of the mercy of G.o.d. Aristotle well says, "Magnanimity is a sort of robe of honour to the rest of the virtues: it both makes them greater and stands not without them: therefore it is hard to be truly magnanimous, for that cannot be without perfect virtue." We may add, that in the present order of Providence none can be magnanimous without supernatural aid, and supernatural considerations of the life of Christ, which however are not in place here.

_Readings_.--Ar., _Eth_., III., vii.; St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 123, art 3, in corp.; Ar., _Eth_., III., viii.; St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 123, art. i, ad 2; Ar., _Eth_., III., vi.; St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 123, art. 4, 5. For the Magnificent and Magnanimous Man, Ar., _Eth_., IV., ii., iii.; St.

Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 129, art. 3, ad 4, 5.

SECTION IX.--_Of Justice_.

1. Justice is a habit residing in the will, prompting that power constantly to render unto everyone his own. The fundamental notion of Justice is some sort of equality. Equality supposes two terms, physically distinct, or capable of existing separately, one from the other. Between such terms alone can equality be properly predicated.

Any less distinction than this leaves room only for equality improperly so called, and therefore no room for what is properly termed Justice. When therefore Plato, going about to find a definition of Justice, which is a main object in his _Republic_, acquiesces in this position, that Justice consists in every part of the soul, rational, irascible, and concupiscible, fulfilling its own proper function, and not taking up the function of another, he fails for this reason, that all Justice is relative to another, but the different parts of one soul are not properly _other_ and _other_, since all go to make up one man: therefore, however much Justice may be identical with doing your own business, and leaving your neighbour free to do his, yet this relation obtaining among the various parts of the soul cannot properly be called Justice. What Plato defines is the beauty, good order, and moral comeliness of the soul, but not Justice in any sense, inasmuch as it is not referred to any being human or divine, collective or individual, outside of the man himself.

2. Going upon the principle that all Justice is of the nature of _equality_, and is therefore relative to _another_, we arrive at the definition of _general justice_, which is all virtue whatsoever, inasmuch as it bears upon another person than him who practises it.

This Justice is perfect social virtue, the crown and perfection of all virtue from a statesman's point of view; and in that aspect, as Aristotle says, "neither morning star nor evening star is so beautiful." Whoever has this virtue behaves well, not by himself merely, but towards others--a great addition. Many a one who has done well enough as an individual, has done badly in a public capacity: whence the proverb, that office shows the man. This Justice may well be called _another man's good_: though not in the sense of the sophists of old, and the altruists of our time, that virtue is a very good thing for everyone else than its possessor. Virtue, like health, may be beneficial to neighbours, but the first benefit of it flows in upon the soul to whom it belongs: for virtue is the health of the soul.

3. Another elementary notion of Justice connects it with Law, taking Justice to be conformity to Law. This notion exhibits _legal justice_, which is the same thing, under another aspect, as the _general justice_ mentioned above, inasmuch as _general justice_ includes the exercise of all virtues in so far as they bear upon the good of others: and the law, to which _legal justice_ conforms a man, enjoins acts of all virtues for the common good. It must be observed, however, that though there is no natural virtue of which the law of man may not prescribe some exercise, still no human law enjoins all acts of all virtues, not even all obligatory acts. A man may fail in his duty though he has kept all the laws of man. In order then that _legal justice_ may include the whole duty of man, it must be referred to that natural and eternal law of G.o.d, revealed or unrevealed, of which we shall speak hereafter. By being conformed to this divine law a man is a _just man_, a _righteous man_. It is this sense of Justice that appears in the theological term, _justification_. In this sense, Zachary and Elizabeth "were both just before G.o.d, walking in all the commandments of the Lord without blame." (St. Luke i. 6.)

4. _General_, or _legal, justice_ is not the cardinal virtue so called, but is in one point of view identical with all virtue.

Distinguished from the other three cardinal virtues is _particular justice_, which is divided into _distributive_ and _commutative justice_. _Distributive justice_ is exercised by the community through its head towards its individual members, so that there be a fair distribution of the common goods, in varying amount and manner, according to the various merits and deserts of the several recipients.

The matters distributed are public emoluments and honours, public burdens, rewards, and also punishments. _Distributive justice_ is the virtue of the king and of the statesman, of the commander-in-chief, of the judge, and of the public functionary generally. It is violated by favouritism, partiality, and jobbery. _Distributive justice_ is the Justice that we adore in the great Governor of the Universe, saying that He is "just in all His works," even though we understand them not. When it takes the form of punis.h.i.+ng, it is called _vindictive justice_. This is what the mult.i.tudes clamoured for, that filled the precincts of the Palace of Whitehall in the days of Charles I. with cries of Justice, Justice, for the head of Strafford.

5. Neither legal nor distributive justice fully answers to the definition of that virtue. Justice disposes us to give _to another his own_. The party towards whom Justice is practised must be wholly other and different from him who practises it. But it is clear that the member of a civil community is not wholly other and different from the State: he is partially identified with the civil community to which he belongs. Therefore neither the tribute of _legal justice_ paid by the individual to the State, nor the grant of _distributive justice_ from the State to the individual, is an exercise of Justice in the strictest sense. Again, what the individual pays to the State because he is legally bound to pay it, does not become the _State's own_ until after payment. If he withhold it, though he do wrong, yet he is not said to be keeping any portion of the public property in his private hands: he only fails to make some of his private property public, which the law bids him abdicate and make over. If this be true of money and goods, it is still more evidently true of honour and services. In like manner, in the matter of _distributive justice_, the emoluments which a subject has a claim to, the rewards which he has merited of the State, does not become _his_ till he actually gets them into his hands. It may be unfair and immoral that they are withheld from him, and in that case, so long as the circ.u.mstances remain the same, the obligation rest with and presses upon the State, and those who represent it, to satisfy his claim: still the State is not keeping the individual from that which is as yet his own. In the language of the Roman lawyers, he has at best a _jus ad rem_, a right that the thing be made his, but not a _jus in re_; that is, the thing is not properly his before he actually gets it.

6. _Commutative justice_ alone is Justice strictly so called: for therein alone the parties to the act are perfectly other and other, and the matter that pa.s.ses between them, if withheld by one of the parties, would make a case of keeping the other out of that which he could still properly call by right his own. _Commutative justice_ runs between two individuals, or two independent States, or between the State and an individual inasmuch as the latter is an independent person, having rights of his own against the former. This justice is called _commutative_, from being concerned with _exchanges_, or contracts, _voluntary_ and _involuntary_. The idea of voluntary contract, like that between buyer and seller, is familiar enough. But the notion of an _involuntary contract_ is technical, and requires explanation. Whoever, then, wrongfully takes that which belongs to another, enters into an involuntary contract, or makes an involuntary exchange, with the party. This he may do by taking away his property, honour, reputation, liberty, or bodily ease and comfort. This is an involuntary transaction, against the will of the party that suffers.

It is a contract, because the party that does the damage takes upon himself, whether he will or no, by the very act of doing it, the obligation of making the damage good, and of restoring what he has taken away. This is the obligation of _rest.i.tution_, which attaches to breaches of _commutative justice_, and, strictly speaking, to them alone. Thus, if a minister has not promoted a deserving officer in face of a clear obligation of _distributive justice_, the obligation indeed remains as that of a duty unfulfilled, so long as he remains minister with the patronage in his hands: but the promotion, if he finally makes it, is not an act of rest.i.tution: it is giving to the officer that which was not his before. And if the opportunity has pa.s.sed, he owes the officer nothing in compensation. But if he has insulted the officer, he owes him an apology for all time to come: he must give back that honour which belonged to the officer, and of which he has robbed him. This is rest.i.tution. In a thousand practical cases it is important, and often a very nice question to decide, whether a particular offence, such as failure to pay taxes, be a sin against _commutative justice_ or only against some more general form of the virtue. If the former, rest.i.tution is due: if the latter, repentance only and purpose of better things in future, but not reparation of the past.

7. The old notion, that Justice is minding your own business, and leaving your neighbour to mind his, furnishes a good rough statement of the obligations of _commutative justice_. They are mainly negative, to leave your neighbour alone in his right of life and limb, of liberty and property, of honour and reputation. But in two ways your neighbour's business may become yours in justice. The first way is, if you have any contract with him, whether a formal contract, as that between a railway company and its pa.s.sengers, or a virtual contract, by reason of some office that you bear, as the office of a bishop and pastor in relation to the souls of his flock. The second way in which commutative justice binds you to positive action, is when undue damage is likely to occur to another from some activity of yours. If, pa.s.sing by, I see my neighbour's house on fire, not having contracted to watch it for him, and not having caused the fire myself, I am not bound in strict justice to warn him of his danger. I am bound indeed by charity, but that is not the point here. But if the fire has broken out from my careless use of fire, _commutative justice_ binds me to raise the alarm.

8. The most notable potential parts of Justice--Religion, Obedience, Truthfulness--enter into the treatise of Natural Law.

_Readings_.--Ar., _Eth_., V., i.; Plato, _Rep_., 433 A; _ib_., 443 C, D, E; St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 58, art. 2, in corp; _ib_., q. 58, art. 5; _ib_., q. 58, art. 6, in corp; _ib_., q. 58, art. 7; _ib_., q. 58, art 9, in corp.; _ib_., q. 61, art. 1, in corp.; _ib_., q. 61, art. 3, in corp.; Ar., _Eth_., V., ii., 12, 13; St. Thos., 2a 2ae, q. 62, art. 1, in corp., ad 2.

PART II. DEONTOLOGY.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE ORIGIN OF MORAL OBLIGATION.

SECTION I.--_Of the natural difference between Good and Evil_.

1. A granite boulder lying on an upland moor stands indifferently the August sun and the January frost, flood and drought. It neither blooms in spring, nor fades in autumn. It is all one to the boulder whether it remain in the picturesque solitude where the glacier dropped it, or be laid in the gutter of a busy street. It has no growth nor development: it is not a subject of evolution: there is no goal of perfection to which it is tending by dint of inward germinal capacity seconded by favourable environment. Therefore it does not matter what you do with it: all things come alike to that lump of rock.

2. But in a cranny or cleft of the same there is a little flower growing. You cannot do what you will with that flower. It has its exigencies and requirements. Had it a voice, it could say, what the stone never could: "I must have this or that: I must have light, I must have moisture, a certain heat, some soil to grow in." There is a course to be run by this flower and the plant that bears it, a development to be wrought out, a perfection to be achieved. For this end certain conditions are necessary, or helpful: certain others prejudicial, or altogether intolerable. In fact, that plant has a _progressive nature_, and therewith is a subject of good and evil.

Good for that plant is what favours its natural progress, and evil is all that impedes it.

3. All organic natures are progressive: that is, each individual of them is apt to make a certain progress, under certain conditions, from birth to maturity. But man alone has his progress in any degree in his own hands, to make or to mar. Man alone, in the graphic phrase of Appius Claudius, is _faber fortunae suae_, "the shaper of his own destiny." Any other plant or animal, other than man, however miserable a specimen of its kind it finally prove to be, has always done the best for itself under the circ.u.mstances: it has attained the limit fixed for it by its primitive germinal capacity, as modified by the events of its subsequent environment. The miserable animal that howls under your window at night, is the finest dog that could possibly have come of his blood and breeding, nurture and education. But there is no man now on earth that has done all for himself that he might have done. We all fall short in many things of the perfection that is within our reach. Man therefore needs to stir himself, and to be energetic with a free, self-determined energy to come up to the standard of humanity. It is only his free acts that are considered by the moralist. Such is the definition of Moral Science, that it deals with _human acts_; acts, that is, whereof man is master to do or not to do. (c. i., nn. 1, 2.)

4. We have it, then, that a morally good act is an act that makes towards the progress of human nature in him who does it, and which is freely done. Similarly, a morally evil act is a bar to progress, or a diversion of it from the right line, being also a free act. Now, that act only can make for the progress of human nature, which befits and suits human nature, and suits it in its best and most distinctive characteristic. What is best in man, what characterises and makes man, what the old schoolmen called the _form_ of man, is his reason. To be up to reason is to be up to the standard of humanity. Human progress is progress on the lines of reason. To make for that progress, and thereby to be morally good, an act must be done, not blindly, brutishly, sottishly, or on any impulse of pa.s.sion, however beneficial in its effects, but deliberately, and in conscious accordance with the reasonable nature of the doer.

5. Whatever be man's end and highest good, he must go about to compa.s.s it reasonably. He must plan, and be systematic, and act on principle.

For instance, if the public health be the highest good, the laws which govern it must be investigated, and their requirements carried out, without regard to sentiment. If pleasure be the good, we must be artists of pleasure. If, however, as has been seen (c. ii.) the highest good of man is the highest play of reason herself in a life of contemplation, to be prepared for, though it cannot be adequately and worthily lived, in this world, then it is through following reason, through subjecting appet.i.te to reason by temperance, and the will to reason by justice, and reason herself by a "reasonable service" to G.o.d, that this end and consummation must be wrought out. Thus, in Plato's phrase (_Rep._, 589 B), the moral man acts so that "the inner man within him, the rational part of his nature, shall be strongest; while he watches with a husbandman's care over the many-headed beast of appet.i.te, rearing and training the creature's tame heads, and not letting the wild ones grow; for this purpose making an ally of the lion, the irascible part of his nature, and caring for all the parts in common, making them friends to one another and to himself." In this way he will meet the true exigency of his nature _as a whole_, with due regard to the proper order and subordination of the parts. He who lives otherwise, acts in contradiction to his rational self. (c. v., s. iii., n. 3, p. 74).

6. The result of the above reasoning, if result it has, should be to explain and justify the Stoic rule, _naturae convenienter vivere_, to live according to nature. But some one will say: "That is the very ideal of wickedness: all good in man comes of overcoming nature, and doing violence to natural cravings: live according to nature, and you will go straight to the devil." I answer: "Live _according to a part of your nature_, and that the baser and lower, though also the more impetuous and clamorous part, and you will certainly go where you say: but live _up to the whole of your nature_, as explained in the last paragraph, and you will be a man indeed, and will reach the goal of human happiness." But again it may be objected, that our very reason, to which the rest of our nature is naturally subordinate, frequently prompts us to do amiss. The objection is a just one, in so far as it goes upon a repudiation of the old Platonic position, that all moral evil comes of the body, wherein the soul is imprisoned, and of the desires which the body fastens upon the soul. Were that so, all sins would be sins of sensuality. But there are spiritual sins, not prompted by any l.u.s.t or weakness of the body, as pride and mutiny, self-opinionatedness, rejection of Divine revelation. The objection turns on sins such as these. The answer is, that spiritual sins do not arise from any exigency of reason, but from a deficiency of reason; not from that faculty calling upon us, as we are reasonable men, to take a certain course, in accordance with a just and full view of the facts of the case, but from reason failing to look facts fully in the face, and considering only some of them to the neglect of others, the consideration of which would alter the decision. Thus a certain proud creature mentioned in Scripture thought of the magnificence of the throne above the stars of G.o.d, on the mountain of the covenant, on the sides of the north: he did not think how such a pre-eminence would become him as a creature. He had in view a rational good certainly, but not a rational good for him. Partial reason, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing.

7. As it is not in the power of G.o.d to bring it about, that the angles of a triangle taken together shall amount to anything else than two right angles, so it is not within the compa.s.s of Divine omnipotence to create a man for whom it shall be a good and proper thing, and befitting his nature, to blaspheme, to perjure himself, to abandon himself recklessly to l.u.s.t, or anger, or any other pa.s.sion. G.o.d need not have created man at all, but He could not have created him with other than human exigencies. The reason is, because G.o.d can only create upon the pattern of His own essence, which is imitable, outside of G.o.d, in certain definite lines of possibility. These possibilities, founded upon the Divine essence and discerned by the Divine intelligence, are the Archetype Ideas, among which the Divine will has to choose, when it proceeds to create. The denial of this doctrine in the Nominalist and Cartesian Schools, and their reference to the arbitrary will of G.o.d of the eternal, immutable, and absolutely necessary relations of possible things, is the subversion of all science and philosophy.

8. Still less are moral distinctions between good and evil to be set down to the law of the State, or the fas.h.i.+on of society. Human convention can no more const.i.tute moral good than it can physical good, or mathematical or logical truth. It is only in cases where two or more courses are tolerable, and one of them needs to be chosen and adhered to for the sake of social order, that human authority steps in to elect and prescribe one of those ways of action, and brand the others as illegitimate, which would otherwise be lawful. This is called the making of a _positive law_.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 18, art. 5, in corp.; 1a 2ae, q. 71, art. 2; Plato, _Rep_., 588 B to end of bk. ix.; Ar., _Eth_., IX., iv., nn. 4-10; Suarez, _De Legibus_, II., vi., nn. 4, 11; Cicero, _De Legibus_, i., cc. 15-17.

SECTION II.--_How Good becomes bounden Duty, and Evil is advanced to Sin_.

1. The great problem of Moral Philosophy is the explanation of the idea, _I ought_, (c. i., n. 6). We are now come close up to the solution of that problem. The word _ought_ denotes the necessary bearing of means upon end. To every _ought_ there is a pendent _if_.

The means _ought_ to be taken, _if_ the end is to be secured. Thus we say: "You _ought_ to start betimes, _if_ you are to catch your train."

"You _ought_ to study harder, _if_ you are to pa.s.s your examination."

The person spoken to might reply: "But what if I do miss my train, and fail in my examination?" He might be met with another _ought_: "You _ought_ not to miss the one, _if_ you are to keep your appointment: or to fail in the other, _if_ you are to get into a profession." Thus the train of _oughts_ and _ifs_ extends, until we come finally to a concatenation like the following: "You _ought_ not to break your word, or to give needless pain to your parents, _if_ you don't want to do violence to that nature which is yours as a reasonable being," or "to thwart your own moral development,"--and so on in a variety of phrases descriptive of the argument of the last section. Here it seems the chain is made fast to a staple in the wall. If a person goes on to ask, "Well, what if I do contradict my rational self?" we can only tell him that he is a fool for his question. The _oughts_, such as those wherewith our ill.u.s.tration commenced, Kant calls the _hypothetical imperative_, the form being, "You must, unless:" but the _ought_ wherein it terminated, he calls the _categorical imperative_, the alternative being such as no rational man can accept, and therefore no alternative at all.

2. This doctrine of the Categorical Imperative is correct and valuable so far as it goes. But then it does not go far enough. The full notion of what a man _ought_, is what he _must do under pain of sin_. Sin is more than folly, more than a breach of reason. It is mild reproach to a great criminal to tell him that he is a very foolish person, a walking unreasonableness. If he chooses to contradict his rational self, is not that his own affair? Is he not his own master, and may he not play the fool if he likes? The answer is, "No, he is not his own master; he is under law, and his folly and self-abuse becomes criminal and sinful, by being in contravention of the law that forbids him to throw himself away thus wantonly."