your duties; that general doing good may mean doing no good in particular, and so none at all, but rather perhaps the contrary of good. Everybody knows that the setting out, whether in religion, morals, or politics, with the intent to realize an abstraction, is a futile endeavour; and that what it comes to is that either you do nothing at all, or that the particular content which is necessary for action is added to the abstraction by the chance of circumstances or caprice. Everybody suspects, if they do not feel sure, that the acting consciously on and from abstract principles means self-deceit or hypocrisy or both.
(3) A more psychological consideration leads us still to the futility of duty for duty’s sake. A will which does not act is no will, and every act is a particular event: an act is this or that act, and an act in general is nonsense. But how can a formal act be this or that act? Even where the abstraction has been specialized into definite ‘material’ ends and aims to be accomplished, yet even there for the particular volition the special circumstances of time, place, &c. are wanted. They may not be essential to the act; they may make no practical difference to the content. If I have resolved to kill a man in a certain way, the place, time, &c. are psychically necessary for the particular act of killing, but they may not enter into the essence of the act. (So it is with one’s ordinary duties.) The more specialized and materialized the previous intent, the less is added to it by the particular circumstances; and the less specialized the content, the more is added. If I run out into the street to kill a man, chance[1] decides who it is I kill. So with duty. If I intend to do duty generally, chance decides what duty I do; for what falls outside the preconceived intent is chance, and here everything falls outside saving the bare form.
To act you must will something, and something definite. To will in general is impossible, and to will in particular is never to will nothing but a form. It must at best be to will a chance case of the form, and then (speaking psychologically) what moves is chance (desire). The bare form can not move. Will, when one
- ↑ Chance, that is to say, relatively to my intent; because my intent does not essentially involve the particular person killed.
