fact that the individual to be preserved is not an isolated self, but a social self, and that the end to be realized is not a particular, but a universal, end. So far we have been concerned in the main with setting forth how the nature of the individual is conceived as a complete self-unity. It must be further noted how the relation between the individual and his fellows is equally organic. It has already been mentioned how, from the fact of the existence of social principles in our 'inward frame,' Butler demonstrates that the individual does not stand alone. As in the case of the individual, he argued from an organic subject to an organic end, so from the natural relations between the individual and his fellows, he argues to a common end which reveals the true self as universal. In the Kantian ethics, the only ground on which duties to others can be obligatory lies in the fact that the individual rational self, regarding himself as an end in himself, must also view every other rational self equally as an end in himself. Such a principle is purely rationalistic, and has no reference to man as a sentient subject. For Butler, however, social duties appeal to man's en- tire nature, and all our inward principles bear witness to the validity of such obligations.
| Albert Lefevre |
| Cornell University. |
