moral aim. Outside the domain of first causes there lies a domain of moral aims, and this latter domain is the inheritance of mankind. The complete science of existence is a linking together of first causes until the first cause of all is reached, and a complete science of "oughts" leads to a union of all in one great aim, the culminating moral imperative.
He who rates sympathy as a positive moral factor has treated as moral something that is a feeling, not an act. Sympathy may be an ethical phenomenon, the expression of something ethical, but it is no more an ethical act than are the senses of shame and pride; we must clearly distinguish between an ethical act and an ethical phenomenon. Nothing must be considered an ethical act that is not a confirmation of the ethical idea by action; ethical phenomena are unpremeditated, involuntary signs of a permanent tendency of the disposition towards the moral idea. It is in the struggle between motives that the idea presses in and seeks to make the decision; the empirical mixture of ethical and unethical feelings, sympathy and malice, self-confidence and presumption, gives no help towards a conclusion. Sympathy is, perhaps, the surest sign of a disposition, but it is not the moral purpose inspiring an action. Morality must imply conscious knowledge of the moral purpose and of value as opposed to worthlessness. Socrates was right in this, and Kant is the only modern philosopher who has followed him. Sympathy is a non-logical sensation, and has no claim to respect.
The question now before us is to consider how far a man can act morally with regard to his fellow men.
It is certainly not by unsolicited help which obtrudes itself on the solitude of another and pierces the limits that he has set for himself; not by compassion but rather by respect. This respect we owe only to man, as Kant showed; for man is the only creature in the universe who is a purpose to himself.
But how can I show a man my contempt, and how
