BOOK II.

OF THE MORAL DUTIES OWED BY MANKIND TOWARD HIS

FELLOW-MEN.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE DUTY OWED TO OTHERS, CONSIDERED SIMPLY AS MEN.

APOTOME I.

OF THE OFFICES OF CHARITY.

§ 23.

THE principal division of these obligations, may be made, into such duties as oblige our fellow-men, when we discharge them; and, second, into those which, when observed, entail upon the other no obligation of any sort. To fulfil the former is, in respect of others, MERITORIOUS; to fulfil the latter, OF DEBT only. Love and REVERENCE are the emotions, which go hand in hand, with our discharge of these two kinds of offices. These emotions may be considered separately, and in practice they may subsist, each for itself and apart from the other. Love of

our neighbour may take place even while he deserve but little REVERENCE: as, on the contrary, REVERENCE is due to every man, although deemed hardly worth our LOVE. But, properly speaking, they are at bottom, inseparably united by the law, in every duty owed by us, to our neighbour; but this in such a manner, that sometimes the one emotion is the leading principle of the duty of the person, along with which, the other follows as its accessory. Thus we regard ourselves obliged to benefit the poor; but because this favour would imply his dependence for his welfare on my generosity, a case which would be humiliating for the other, it becomes my farther duty so to behave to him who accepts my gift, as to represent this benefit either as a bare incumbent duty upon my part, or as a trifling mark of friendship, and to spare the other such humiliation, and to uphold his selfreverence in its integrity.

§ 24.

When we speak, not of laws of nature, but of laws of duty as regulating the external relation of man to man, we then regard ourselves in a cogitable ethic world, where, by analogy to the physical system, the combination of Intelligents is figured to be effected by the joint action and re-action of attractive and repellent forces. By the principle of mutual love, they are destined for ever to APPROACH, and by that of reverence, to preserve their due ELONGATION from one another; and were either of these mighty moral principles to be suspended, the moral system could not be upheld, and, unable to sustain itself against its own fury, would retrovert to chaos.

§ 25.

But LOVE must not be here understood to mean an emotion of complacency in the perfection of other people, there being no obligation to entertain feelings; but this love must be understood as the practical maxim of goodwill, issuing in beneficence as its result.

The same remark holds of the REVERENCE to be demonstrated towards others, which cannot be understood simply to mean, a feeling emerging from contrasting our own worth with that of another,—such as a child may feel for its parents, a pupil for his ward, or an inferior for his superior in rank,—but must be taken to mean, the practical maxim of circumscribing our own self-esteem, by the representation of the dignity of the humanity resident in the person of another; that is, A PRACTICAL REVERENCE.

This duty of the free reverence owed to other men is properly, negative only, viz. not to exalt ourselves above others. It is in this way analogous to the juridical duty "to do no wrong," and so might be taken for a strict and determinate obligation; but, regarded as a moral duty, and a branch of the offices of charity, it is a duty of indeterminate obligation.

The duty of loving my neighbour may be thus expressed, that it is the duty of making my own the ends and interests of others, in so far as these ends are not immoral. The duty of reverencing my neighbour is expressed in the formula, to lower no man to be a bare means instrumental towards the attaining my own ends, i. e. not to expect from any man that he should abase himself to be the footstool of my views.

By discharging the former duty, I at the same time ob

lige the other; I make myself well-deserving of him. But by the observance of the latter I oblige only myself, and keep myself within my own bounds, so as not to withdraw from the other any of that worth he is entitled as a man to put upon himself.

§ 26. Of Philanthropy in general.

The love of our fellow-men must, because we understand by it practical benevolence, be understood, not as a love of complacency in our species, but as a maxim actively to befriend them. He who takes delight in the welfare of his fellows, considered merely as belonging to his own species, is a PHILANTHROPIST,-a Friend of Mankind in general. He who alone finds delight in the misery and woes of his neighbour, is a MISANTHROPE. An EGOTIST is he who beholds with indifference the good or the bad fortunes of his neighbour. While that person who shuns society because he is unable to regard his fellows with complacency, although he wishes them all well, would be an ÆSTHETIC MISANTHROPE; and his aversion from his kind might be called ANTHROPOPHOBY.

$ 27.

Whether mankind be found worthy of love or not, a practical principle of good-will (active philanthropy) is a duty mutually owed by all men to one another, according to the ethical precept of perfection, love thy neighbour as thyself; for every ethical relation obtaining between man and man is a relation subsisting in the representation of pure reason, i. e. is a relation of mankind's

free actions, according to maxims potentially fit for law universal, which maxims can therefore, in no event, be founded on an emotion of selfishness. The constitution of my nature forces me to desire and will every other person's benevolence; wherefore, conversely, I am beholden to entertain good-will towards others; but, again, because all others, except myself, are not all mankind, a maxim expressing my active good-will towards all others, would want the absolute universality whereby alone the law has ethical virtue to oblige; consequently the ethical law of benevolence must include my own person likewise with others, as the object of the commandment announced by practical reason:--which is not to say, that I thereby become obliged to love myself, such self-love obtaining of its own accord, and inevitably, but states, that legislative reason, which embraces in its idea of humanity the whole race (i. e. me likewise), includes in its universal legislation, myself likewise, under the duty of reciprocal benevolence; and so renders it allowed for me to wish well to myself, under the condition that I cherish good-will towards every other person; my maxim being thus alone fitted for law universal, whereon is based every law of duty whatsoever.

§ 28.

The good-will expressed in universal philanthropy, is extensively the greatest possible, but intensively (in degree) the most contracted; and to say of any one, that he is interested in the welfare of his neighbour, as a general philanthropist, is to say, that the interest he takes in him is just the smallest possible,-he is merely not indifferent.