not confirmed by evidence. Mankind do not universally recognize moral obligations. Moreover, Kant's only way of establishing this assertion is by another assertion without proof: viz, that the theoretical and the practical reason are one and the same; the universality of the former being predicable of the latter. 2d. That the feeling of moral obligation requires the assumption of noumenal freedom, without the comprehension of it. But, as already urged, the conviction of duty belongs to man as phenomenal, and to man as phenomenal must freedom also belong, if duty is to exist at all, but this is contradictory to the theory that man as phenomenal is determined, not free. Moreover, the explanation of the belief in freedom as an effect in human consciousness of the noumenal element as a cause will not hold, because in the Kantian theory, the relation of causality, in the ordinary sense of the word, exists only between phenomena, and if employed as designating a relation between noumena and phenomena, Kant himself says: "The relation of causality which exists between the intelligible and the sensible eludes comprehension."
The next point in criticism is Kant's rejection of material morality. He has shown that all forms of moral theory are reducible to two, the material and the formal. A material theory may be either a science of happiness or a science of the good. Eudæmonism he proves untenable. But although the happiness theory fails, may not a theory which makes the good, or perfection, the end, be accepted? Certainly a theory of action, in which the moral value of an action is held to be determined by its reference to an end suited to the nature of the agent, is preferable to one which makes a man subject to orders which he is to obey, like a soldier, without asking for reasons. If such a material theory is possible, it is true. Now, if there can be discovered the natural end of that primitive and essential tendency of man apart from which human sensibility is inexplicable, and the road be pointed out which one must take, if not to reach, yet to advance toward this end, which is his own, the foundation is laid for a true science of conduct, a science founded on knowledge of the nature and proper direction of the human will, a veritable science containing universal laws. Such a science must show that all activity tends to one sole end the same for all men. But it may be objected that all tendency tends to cancel itself, all endeavors have in view the termination of endeavor, all activity the cessation of activity, desire is extinguished in fruition, we desire the extinction of desire. To this objection it may be replied: The end of will is its end in two senses, termination and accomplishment, the former because of the latter.
