POSITIVE BENEFICENCE.—­Comprehending all modes of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in giving pleasure—­modes of conduct that social adaptation has induced and must render ever more general; and which, in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible measure of human happiness.

* * * * *

This completes the long succession of British moralists during the three last centuries.  It has been possible, and even necessary, to present them thus in an unbroken line, because the insular movement in ethical philosophy has been hardly, if at all, affected by anything done abroad.  In the earlier part of the modern period, little of any kind was done in ethics by the great continental thinkers.  Descartes has only a few allusions to the subject; the ‘Ethica’ of Spinoza is chiefly a work of speculative philosophy; Leibnitz has no systematic treatment of moral questions.  The case is very different; in the new German philosophy since the time of Kant; besides Kant himself, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and many later and contemporary thinkers having devoted a large amount of attention to practical philosophy.  But unless it be Kant—­and he not to any great extent—­none of these has influenced the later attempts at ethical speculation amongst ourselves:  nor, again with the exception of Kant, are we as yet in a position properly to deal with them.  One reason, for proceeding to expound the ethical system of the founder of the later German philosophy, without regard to his successors, lies in the fact that he stood, on the practical side, in as definite a relation to the English moralists of last century, as, in his speculative philosophy, to Locke and Hume.

IMMANUEL, KANT. [1724-1804.]

The ethical writings of Kant, in the order of their appearance, are—­Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals (1785); Critique of the Practical Reason (1788); Metaphysic of Morals (1797, in two parts—­(1) Doctrine of Right or Jurisprudence, (2) Doctrine of Virtue or Ethics proper).  The third work contains the details of his system; the general theory is presented in the two others.  Of these we select for analysis the earlier, containing, as it does, in less artificial form, an ampler discussion of the fundamental questions of morals; but towards the end it must be supplemented, in regard to certain characteristic doctrines, from the second, in some respects more developed, work.[26]

In the introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode of treating Ethics.  He announces his intention to depart from the common plan of mixing up the two together, and to attempt for once to set forth the pure moral philosophy that is implied even in the vulgar ideas of duty and moral law.  Because a moral law means an absolute necessity laid on all rational beings whatever, its foundation is to be sought,