Section 8
Original German
Von den abgeleiteten Formen des obersten Grundsatzes der Kantischen Ethik.
Bekanntlich hat Kant den obersten Grundsatz seiner Ethik noch in einem zweiten, ganz andern Ausdruck aufgestellt, in welchem er nicht, wie im ersten, bloß indirekt, als Anweisung wie er zu suchen sei, sondern direkt ausgesprochen wird. Zu diesem bahnt er sich den Weg von S. 63; — R., S. 55 an, und zwar durch höchst seltsame, geschrobene, ja, verschrobene Definitionen der Begriffe Zweck und Mittel, welche sich doch viel einfacher und richtiger so definiren lassen: Zweck ist das direkte Motiv eines Willensaktes, Mittel das indirekte (simplex sigillum veri). Er aber schleicht durch seine wunderlichen Definitionen zu dem Satz: „Der Mensch, und überhaupt jedes vernünftige Wesen, existirt als Zweck an sich selbst.“ — Allein ich muß geradezu sagen, daß „als Zweck an sich selbst existiren“ ein Ungedanke, eine contradictio in adjecto ist. Zweck seyn, bedeutet gewollt werden. Jeder Zweck ist es nur in Beziehung auf einen Willen, dessen Zweck, d. h., wie gesagt, dessen direktes Motiv er ist. Nur in dieser Relation hat der Begriff Zweck einen Sinn, und verliert diesen, sobald er aus ihr herausgerissen wird. Diese ihm wesentliche Relation schließt aber nothwendig alles „An sich“ aus. „Zweck an sich“ ist gerade wie „Freund an sich“ — Feind an sich, — Oheim an sich, — Nord oder Ost an sich, — Oben oder Unten an sich, u. dgl. m. Im Grunde aber hat es mit dem „Zweck an sich“ die selbe Bewandniß wie mit dem „absoluten Soll“: beiden liegt heimlich, sogar unbewußt, der selbe Gedanke als Bedingung zum Grunde: der theologische. — Nicht besser steht es mit dem „absoluten Werth“, der solchem angeblichen, aber undenkbaren Zweck an sich zukommen soll. Denn auch diesen muß ich, ohne Gnade, als contradictio in adjecto stämpeln. Jeder Werth ist eine Vergleichungsgröße, und sogar steht er nothwendig in doppelter Relation: denn erstlich ist er relativ, indem er für Jemanden ist, und zweitens ist er komparativ, indem er im Vergleich mit etwas Anderem, wonach er geschätzt wird, ist. Aus diesen zwei Relationen hinausgesetzt, verliert der Begriff Werth allen Sinn und Bedeutung. Dies ist zu klar, als daß es noch einer weitern Auseinandersetzung bedürfte. — Wie nun jene zwei Definitionen die Logik beleidigen, so beleidigt die ächte Moral der Satz (S. 65; — R., S. 56), daß die vernunftlosen Wesen (also die Thiere) Sachen wären und daher auch bloß als Mittel, die nicht zugleich Zweck sind, behandelt werden dürften. In Uebereinstimmung hiemit wird, in den „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Tugendlehre“, §. 16, ausdrücklich gesagt: „Der Mensch kann keine Pflicht gegen irgend ein Wesen haben, als bloß gegen den Menschen“; und dann heißt es §. 17: „Die grausame Behandlung der Thiere ist der Pflicht des Menschen gegen sich selbst entgegen; weil sie das Mitgefühl an ihrem Leiden im Menschen abstumpft, wodurch eine der Moralität im Verhältniß zu andern Menschen sehr diensame, natürliche Anlage geschwächt wird.“ — Also bloß zur Uebung soll man mit Thieren Mitleid haben, und sie sind gleichsam das pathologische Phantom zur Uebung des Mitleids mit Menschen. Ich finde, mit dem ganzen nicht-islamisirten (d. h. nicht⸗judaisirten) Asien, solche Sätze empörend und abscheulich. Zugleich zeigt sich hier abermals, wie gänzlich diese philosophische Moral, die, wie oben dargelegt, nur eine verkleidete theologische ist, eigentlich von der biblischen abhängt. Weil nämlich (wovon weiterhin) die christliche Moral die Thiere nicht berücksichtigt; so sind diese sofort auch in der philosophischen Moral vogelfrei, sind bloße „Sachen“, bloße Mittel zu beliebigen Zwecken, also etwan zu Vivisektionen, Parforcejagden, Stiergefechten, Wettrennen, zu Tode peitschen vor dem unbeweglichen Steinkarren u. dgl. — Pfui! über eine solche Parias-, Tschandalas- und Mlekhas-Moral, — die das ewige Wesen verkennt, welches in Allem, was Leben hat, da ist, und aus allen Augen, die das Sonnenlicht sehen, mit unergründlicher Bedeutsamkeit hervorleuchtet. Aber jene Moral kennt und berücksichtigt allein die eigene werthe Species, deren Merkmal Vernunft ihr die Bedingung ist, unter welcher ein Wesen Gegenstand moralischer Berücksichtigung seyn kann.
Auf so holperichtem Wege, ja, per fas et nefas, gelangt dann Kant zum zweiten Ausdruck des Grundprincips seiner Ethik: „Handle so, daß Du die Menschheit, sowohl in deiner Person, als in der Person eines jeden Andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloß als Mittel brauchest.“ Auf sehr künstliche Weise und durch einen weiten Umweg ist hiemit gesagt: „Berücksichtige nicht Dich allein, sondern auch die Andern:“ und dieses wiederum ist eine Umschreibung des Satzes Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris, welcher, wie gesagt, selbst wieder nur die Prämissen enthält zu der Konklusion, die der letzte wahre Zielpunkt aller Moral und alles Moralisirens ist: Neminem laede, imo omnes, quantum potes, juva: welcher Satz, wie alles Schöne, sich nackt am besten ausnimmt. — Nur sind in jene zweite Moralformel Kants die angeblichen Selbstpflichten, absichtlich und schwerfällig genug, mit hineingezogen. Ueber Die habe ich mich oben erklärt.
Einzuwenden wäre übrigens gegen jene Formel, daß der hinzurichtende Verbrecher, und zwar mit Recht und Fug, allein als Mittel und nicht als Zweck behandelt wird, nämlich als unerläßliches Mittel, dem Gesetz, durch seine Erfüllung, die Kraft abzuschrecken zu erhalten, als worin dessen Zweck besteht.
Wenn nun gleich diese zweite Formel Kants weder für die Begründung der Moral etwas leistet, noch auch für den adäquaten und unmittelbaren Ausdruck ihrer Vorschriften — oberstes Princip — gelten kann; so hat sie andererseits das Verdienst, ein feines psychologisch-moralisches apercu zu enthalten, indem sie den Egoismus durch ein höchst charakteristisches Merkmal bezeichnet, welches wohl verdient, hier näher entwickelt zu werden. Dieser Egoismus nämlich, von dem wir alle strotzen, und welchen als unsere partie honteuse zu verstecken, wir die Höflichkeit erfunden haben, guckt aus allen ihm übergeworfenen Schleiern meistens dadurch hervor, daß wir in Jedem, der uns vorkommt, wie instinktmäßig, zunächst nur ein mögliches Mittel zu irgend einem unserer stets zahlreichen Zwecke suchen. Bei jeder neuen Bekanntschaft ist meistens unser erster Gedanke, ob der Mann uns nicht zu irgend etwas nützlich werden könnte: wenn er dies nun nicht kann; so ist er den Meisten, sobald sie sich hievon überzeugt haben, auch selbst nichts. In jedem Andern ein mögliches Mittel zu unsern Zwecken, also ein Werkzeug zu suchen, liegt beinahe schon in der Natur des menschlichen Blicks: ob nun aber etwan das Werkzeug beim Gebrauche mehr oder weniger zu leiden haben werde, ist ein Gedanke, der viel später und oft gar nicht nachkommt. Daß wir diese Sinnesart bei Andern voraussetzen, zeigt sich an Mancherlei, z. B. daran, daß wenn wir von Jemanden Auskunft oder Rath verlangen, wir alles Vertrauen zu seinen Aussagen verlieren, sobald wir entdecken, daß er irgend ein, wenn auch nur kleines oder entferntes Interesse bei der Sache haben könnte. Denn da setzen wir sogleich voraus, er werde uns zum Mittel seiner Zwecke machen, und seinen Rath daher nicht seiner Einsicht, sondern seiner Absicht gemäß ertheilen; selbst wenn jene auch noch so groß und diese noch so klein seyn sollte. Denn wir wissen nur zu wohl, daß eine Kubiklinie Absicht mehr wiegt, als eine Kubikruthe Einsicht. Andererseits wird in solchem Falle, bei unserer Frage: „Was soll ich thun?“ dem Andern oft gar nichts Anderes einfallen, als was wir seinen Zwecken gemäß zu thun hätten: dieses also wird er alsdann, ohne an unsere Zwecke auch nur zu denken, sogleich und wie mechanisch antworten, indem sein Wille unmittelbar die Antwort diktirt, ehe nur die Frage zum Forum seines wirklichen Urtheils gelangen konnte, und er also uns seinen Zwecken gemäß zu lenken sucht, ohne sich dessen auch nur bewußt zu werden, sondern selbst vermeinend aus Einsicht zu reden, während aus ihm nur die Absicht redet; ja, er kann hierin so weit gehen, ganz eigentlich zu lügen, ohne es selbst zu merken. So überwiegend ist der Einfluß des Willens über den der Erkenntniß. Demzufolge ist darüber, ob Einer aus Einsicht oder aus Absicht redet, nicht ein Mal das Zeugniß seines eigenen Bewußtseyns gültig, meistens aber das seines Interesses. Einen andern Fall zu nehmen: wer von Feinden verfolgt, in Todesangst, einen ihm begegnenden Tabuletkrämer nach einem Seitenwege frägt, kann erleben, daß dieser ihm die Frage entgegnet: „Ob er von seiner Waare nichts brauchen könne?“ Damit soll nicht gesagt seyn, daß es sich stets so verhalte: vielmehr wird allerdings mancher Mensch am Wohl und Wehe des Andern unmittelbar wirklichen Antheil nehmen, oder, in Kants Sprache, ihn als Zweck und nicht als Mittel ansehen. Wie nahe oder fern nun aber jedem Einzelnen der Gedanke liegt, den Andern, statt wie gewöhnlich als Mittel ein Mal als Zweck zu betrachten, — dies ist das Maaß der großen ethischen Verschiedenheit der Charaktere: und worauf es hiebei in letzter Instanz ankomme, — das wird eben das wahre Fundament der Ethik seyn, zu welchem ich erst im folgenden Theile schreite.
Kant hat also, in seiner zweiten Formel, den Egoismus und dessen Gegentheil durch ein höchst charakteristisches Merkmal bezeichnet; welchen Glanzpunkt ich um so lieber hervorgehoben und durch Erläuterung in helles Licht gestellt habe, als ich im Uebrigen von der Grundlage seiner Ethik leider nur wenig gelten lassen kann.
Die dritte und letzte Form, in der Kant sein Moralprincip aufgestellt, ist die Autonomie des Willens: „Der Wille jedes vernünftigen Wesens ist allgemein gesetzgebend für alle vernünftige Wesen.“ Dies folgt freilich aus der ersten Form. Aus der gegenwärtigen soll nun aber (laut S. 71; — R., S. 60) hervorgehen, daß das specifische Unterscheidungszeichen des kategorischen Imperativs dieses sei, daß beim Wollen aus Pflicht der Wille sich von allem Interesse lossage. Alle früheren Moralprincipien wären deshalb verunglückt, „weil sie den Handlungen immer, sei es als Zwang oder Reiz, ein Interesse zum Grunde legten, dies mochte nun ein eigenes, oder ein fremdes Interesse seyn“ (S. 73; — R., S. 62) (auch ein fremdes, welches wohl zu merken bitte). „Hingegen ein allgemein gesetzgebender Wille schreibe Handlungen aus Pflicht vor, die sich auf gar kein Interesse gründen.“ Jetzt aber bitte ich zu bedenken, was das eigentlich sagen will: in der That nichts Geringeres, als ein Wollen ohne Motiv, also eine Wirkung ohne Ursache. Interesse und Motiv sind Wechselbegriffe: heißt nicht Interesse quod mea interest, woran mir gelegen ist? Und ist dies nicht überhaupt Alles, was meinen Willen anregt und bewegt? Was ist folglich ein Interesse Anderes, als die Einwirkung eines Motivs auf den Willen? Wo also ein Motiv den Willen bewegt, da hat er ein Interesse: wo ihn aber kein Motiv bewegt, da kann er wahrlich so wenig handeln, als ein Stein ohne Stoß oder Zug von der Stelle kann. Dies werde ich gelehrten Lesern doch nicht erst zu demonstriren brauchen. Hieraus aber folgt, daß jede Handlung, da sie nothwendig ein Motiv haben muß, auch nothwendig ein Interesse voraussetzt. Kant aber stellt eine zweite, ganz neue Art von Handlungen auf, welche ohne alles Interesse, d. h. ohne Motiv vor sich gehen. Und dies sollten die Handlungen der Gerechtigkeit und Menschenliebe seyn! Zur Widerlegung dieser monstrosen Annahme bedurfte es nur der Zurückführung derselben auf ihren eigentlichen Sinn, der durch das Spiel mit dem Worte Interesse versteckt war. — Inzwischen feiert Kant (S. 74 ff.; — R., S. 62) den Triumph seiner Autonomie des Willens, in der Aufstellung eines moralischen Utopiens, unter dem Namen eines Reiches der Zwecke, welches bevölkert ist von lauter vernünftigen Wesen in abstracto, die sammt und sonders beständig wollen, ohne irgend etwas zu wollen (d. i. ohne Interesse): nur dieses Eine wollen sie: daß Alle stets nach einer Maxime wollen (d. i. Autonomie). Difficile est, satiram non scribere.
Aber noch auf etwas Anderes, von beschwerlicheren Folgen, als dieses kleine unschuldige Reich der Zwecke, welches man, als vollkommen harmlos, ruhig liegen lassen kann, leitet Kanten seine Autonomie des Willens, nämlich auf den Begriff der Würde des Menschen. Diese nämlich beruht bloß auf dessen Autonomie, und besteht darin, daß das Gesetz, dem er folgen soll, von ihm selbst gegeben ist, — also er zu demselben in dem Verhältniß steht, wie die konstitutionellen Unterthanen zu dem ihrigen. — Das möchte als Ausschmückung des Kantischen Moralsystems immerhin dastehen. Allein dieser Ausdruck „Würde des Menschen“, ein Mal von Kant ausgesprochen, wurde nachher das Schiboleth aller rath- und gedankenlosen Moralisten, die ihren Mangel an einer wirklichen, oder wenigstens doch irgend etwas sagenden Grundlage der Moral hinter jenen imponirenden Ausdruck „Würde des Menschen“ versteckten, klug darauf rechnend, daß auch ihr Leser sich gern mit einer solchen Würde angethan sehen und demnach damit zufrieden gestellt seyn würde.11 Wir wollen jedoch auch diesen Begriff etwas näher untersuchen und auf Realität prüfen. — Kant (S. 79; — R., S. 66) definirt Würde als „einen unbedingten, unvergleichbaren Werth“. Dies ist eine Erklärung, die durch ihren erhabenen Klang dermaaßen imponirt, daß nicht leicht Einer sich untersteht, heranzutreten, um sie in der Nähe zu untersuchen, wo er dann finden würde, daß eben auch sie nur eine hohle Hyperbel ist, in deren Innerem, als nagender Wurm, die contradictio in adjecto nistet. Jeder Werth ist die Schätzung einer Sache im Vergleich mit einer andern, also ein Vergleichungsbegriff, mithin relativ, und diese Relativität macht eben das Wesen des Begriffes Werth aus. Schon die Stoiker haben (nach Diog. Laert., L. VII, c. 106) richtig gelehrt: τὴν δὲ ἀξίαν εἶναι ἀμοιβὴν δοκιμαστοῦ, ἥν ἄν ὁ ἔμπειρος τῶν πραγμάτων τάξῃ· ὅμοιον εἰπεῖν, ἀμείβεσθαι πυροὺς πρὸς τὰς σὺν ἡμιόνῳ κριθάς (existimationem esse probati remunerationem, quamcunque statuerit peritus rerum; quod hujusmodi est, ac si dicas, commutare cum hordeo, adjecto mulo, triticum). Ein unvergleichbarer, unbedingter, absoluter Werth, dergleichen die Würde seyn soll, ist demnach, wie so Vieles in der Philosophie, die mit Worten gestellte Aufgabe zu einem Gedanken, der sich gar nicht denken läßt, so wenig wie die höchste Zahl, oder der größte Raum.
„Doch eben wo Begriffe fehlen,Da stellt ein Wort zu rechter Zeit sich ein.“
So war denn auch hier an der „Würde des Menschen“ ein höchst willkommenes Wort auf die Bahn geworfen, an welchem nunmehr jede, durch alle Klassen der Pflichten und alle Fälle der Kasuistik ausgesponnene Moral ein breites Fundament fand, von welchem herab sie mit Behagen weiter predigen konnte.
Am Schlusse seiner Darstellung (S. 124; — R., S. 97) sagt Kant: „Wie nun aber reine Vernunft, ohne andere Triebfedern, die irgend woher sonst genommen seyn mögen, für sich selbst praktisch seyn, d. i. wie das bloße Princip der Allgemeingültigkeit aller ihrer Maximen als Gesetze, ohne allen Gegenstand des Willens, woran man zum voraus irgend ein Interesse nehmen dürfte, für sich selbst eine Triebfeder abgeben und ein Interesse, welches rein moralisch heißen würde, bewirken, oder, mit andern Worten, wie reine Vernunft praktisch seyn könne? — Das zu erklären, ist alle menschliche Vernunft unvermögend und alle Mühe und Arbeit verloren.“ — Nun sollte man denken, daß wenn etwas, dessen Daseyn behauptet wird, nicht ein Mal seiner Möglichkeit nach begriffen werden kann, es doch faktisch in seiner Wirklichkeit nachgewiesen seyn müsse: allein der kategorische Imperativ der praktischen Vernunft wird ausdrücklich nicht als eine Thatsache des Bewußtseyns aufgestellt, oder sonst durch Erfahrung begründet. Vielmehr werden wir oft genug verwarnt, daß er nicht auf solchem anthropologisch-empirischen Wege zu suchen sei (z. B. S. VI der Vorrede; — R., S. 5, und S. 59, 60; — R., S. 52). Dazu noch wird uns wiederholt (z. B. S. 48; — R., S. 44) versichert, „daß durch kein Beispiel, mithin empirisch auszumachen sei, ob es überall einen dergleichen Imperativ gebe“. Und S. 49; — R., S. 45, „daß die Wirklichkeit des kategorischen Imperativs nicht in der Erfahrung gegeben sei“. — Wenn man das zusammenfaßt, so könnte man wirklich auf den Verdacht gerathen, Kant habe seine Leser zum Besten. Wenn nun gleich dieses, dem heutigen Deutschen philosophischen Publiko gegenüber, wohl erlaubt und recht seyn möchte; so hatte doch dasselbe sich zu Kants Zeiten noch nicht so, wie seitdem, signalisirt: und außerdem war gerade die Ethik das am wenigsten zum Scherze geeignete Thema. Wir müssen also bei der Ueberzeugung stehenbleiben, daß, was weder als möglich begriffen, noch als wirklich nachgewiesen werden kann, keine Beglaubigung seines Daseyns hat. — Wenn wir nun aber auch nur versuchen, es bloß mittelst der Phantasie zu erfassen und uns einen Menschen vorzustellen, dessen Gemüth von einem in lauter kategorischen Imperativen redenden absoluten Soll, wie von einem Dämon besessen wäre, der, den Neigungen und Wünschen desselben entgegen, dessen Handlungen beständig zu lenken verlangte; — so erblicken wir hierin kein richtiges Bild der Natur des Menschen, oder der Vorgänge unseres Innern: wohl aber erkennen wir ein erkünsteltes Substitut der theologischen Moral, zu welcher es sich verhält, wie ein hölzernes Bein zu einem lebendigen.
Unser Resultat ist also, daß die Kantische Ethik, so gut wie alle früheren, jedes sichern Fundaments entbehrt. Sie ist, wie ich durch die gleich Anfangs angestellte Prüfung ihrer imperativen Form gezeigt habe, im Grunde nur eine Umkehrung der theologischen Moral und eine Vermummung derselben in sehr abstrakte und scheinbar a priori gefundene Formeln. Diese Vermummung mußte um so künstlicher und unkenntlicher seyn, als Kant dabei zuverlässig sogar sich selber täuschte, und wirklich vermeinte, die offenbar nur in der theologischen Moral einen Sinn habenden Begriffe des Pflichtgebots und des Gesetzes unabhängig von aller Theologie feststellen und auf reine Erkenntniß a priori gründen zu können: wogegen ich genugsam nachgewiesen habe, daß jene Begriffe bei ihm, jedes realen Fundaments entbehrend, frei in der Luft schweben. Unter seinen eigenen Händen entschleiert sich denn auch gegen das Ende die verlarvte theologische Moral, in der Lehre vom höchsten Gut, in den Postulaten der praktischen Vernunft und endlich in der Moraltheologie. Doch hat Alles dieses weder ihn noch das Publikum über den wahren Zusammenhang der Sache enttäuscht: vielmehr freueten beide sich, alle diese Glaubensartikel jetzt durch die Ethik (wenn gleich nur idealiter und zum praktischen Behuf) begründet zu sehen. Denn sie nahmen treuherzig die Folge für den Grund und den Grund für die Folge, indem sie nicht sahen, daß jener Ethik alle diese angeblichen Folgerungen aus ihr schon als stillschweigende und versteckte, aber unumgänglich nöthige Voraussetzungen zum Grunde lagen.
Wenn mir jetzt, am Schlusse dieser scharfen und selbst den Leser anstrengenden Untersuchung, zur Aufheiterung, ein scherzhaftes, ja, frivoles Gleichniß gestattet seyn sollte; so würde ich Kanten, in jener Selbstmystifikation, mit einem Manne vergleichen, der, auf einem Maskenball, den ganzen Abend mit einer maskirten Schönen buhlt, im Wahn, eine Eroberung zu machen; bis sie am Ende sich entlarvt und zu erkennen giebt — als seine Frau.
11 Der Erste, der den Begriff der „Würde des Menschen“ ausdrücklich und ausschließlich zum Grundstein der Ethik gemacht und diese demnach ausgeführt hat, scheint gewesen zu seyn G. W. Block, in seiner „Neuen Grundlegung der Philosophie der Sitten“, 1802.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition, including its quotations, author’s notes, prize question and judgment. Source-language reviewed.
On the Derived Forms of the Supreme Principle of Kantian Ethics.
As is well known, Kant also presented the supreme principle of his ethics in a second, entirely different expression, in which it is stated not merely indirectly, as in the first, through instructions on how to find it, but directly. He begins preparing the way for this on S. 63;—R., S. 55, through exceedingly strange, strained, indeed distorted definitions of the concepts of end and means, which can surely be defined far more simply and correctly as follows: an end is the direct motive of an act of will; a means, the indirect one—simplicity is the seal of truth. Yet through his curious definitions he creeps toward the proposition: "The human being, and every rational being in general, exists as an end in itself."—But I must say outright that "existing as an end in itself" is an inconceivable notion, a contradiction in terms. To be an end means to be willed. Every end is such only in relation to a will whose end it is—that is, as just stated, whose direct motive. Only in this relation does the concept of an end have any sense; torn from it, it loses that sense. But this relation, essential to the concept, necessarily excludes anything "in itself." An "end in itself" is exactly like a "friend in himself"—an enemy in himself, an uncle in himself, north or east in itself, above or below in itself, and so on. At bottom, however, the "end in itself" stands on the same footing as the "absolute ought": both secretly, even unconsciously, rest on the same thought as their condition—the theological one.—The "absolute value" supposedly belonging to such an alleged but inconceivable end in itself fares no better. For I must brand this, too, without mercy, a contradiction in terms. Every value is a comparative magnitude, and indeed necessarily stands in a double relation: first, it is relative, since it is for someone; second, it is comparative, since it exists in comparison with something else by which it is assessed. Removed from these two relations, the concept of value loses all sense and meaning. This is too clear to need further explanation.—Just as those two definitions offend logic, so the proposition (S. 65;—R., S. 56) that beings without reason—that is, animals—are things, and may therefore be treated merely as means that are not also ends, offends genuine morality. In keeping with this, the "Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue," §. 16, expressly states: "A human being can have no duty toward any being except a human being"; and then, in §. 17: "Cruel treatment of animals is contrary to a human being's duty to himself, because it deadens in him sympathy with their suffering, thereby weakening a natural disposition very serviceable to morality in his relations with other human beings."—Thus we are to have compassion for animals merely as practice; they are, so to speak, the medical training mannequin for practicing compassion toward human beings. Along with all non-Islamized—that is, non-Judaized—Asia, I find such propositions outrageous and abhorrent. Here again it becomes evident how entirely this philosophical morality, which, as shown above, is merely a disguised theological morality, actually depends on biblical morality. Because Christian morality takes no account of animals—a subject to which I shall return—they are immediately outlawed in philosophical morality as well: mere "things," mere means to whatever ends one pleases, such as vivisection, hunts to exhaustion, bullfights, races, being whipped to death before an immovable cart loaded with stone, and the like.—Shame on such a morality of pariahs, Chandalas, and Mlecchas, which fails to recognize the eternal essence present in everything that has life, shining forth with unfathomable significance from every eye that sees the sunlight! Yet that morality knows and considers only its own precious species, whose defining characteristic, reason, is for it the condition under which a being can be an object of moral consideration.
By so rough a road, indeed by fair means and foul, Kant then arrives at the second expression of the fundamental principle of his ethics: "Act so that you always use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other, at the same time as an end, never merely as a means." In an exceedingly artificial way, and by a long detour, this says: "Consider not yourself alone, but others as well." This, in turn, is a paraphrase of the proposition: Do not do to another what you do not wish done to yourself. As already stated, this itself contains only the premises for the conclusion that is the ultimate true goal of all morality and all moralizing: Harm no one; rather, help everyone as much as you can—a proposition that, like everything beautiful, looks best naked.—Only, into this second moral formula of Kant's, the alleged duties to oneself have been dragged as well, deliberately and clumsily enough. I have already given my views on these.
One might also object to this formula that a criminal facing execution is treated, quite rightly and justifiably, solely as a means and not as an end: namely, as the indispensable means of preserving the law's power to deter by carrying it out, for in this deterrence its purpose consists.
Although this second formula of Kant's neither contributes anything to the foundation of morality nor can count as the adequate and immediate expression of its precepts—the supreme principle—it has, on the other hand, the merit of containing a subtle psychological and moral insight. For it identifies egoism by a highly characteristic trait that well deserves fuller development here. This egoism, with which we all overflow, and which we invented politeness to conceal as our private shame, generally peeps out from all the veils thrown over it in this way: almost instinctively, we first look in everyone we encounter for a possible means to one of our ever-numerous ends. With each new acquaintance, our first thought is usually whether the man might prove useful to us in some way; if he cannot, then, once convinced of this, most people find him nothing in himself either. To look in every other person for a possible means to our ends, and thus for a tool, is almost inherent in the human gaze. But whether the tool may have to suffer more or less in being used is a thought that follows much later, and often not at all. That we assume this disposition in others is evident in many ways: for example, when we ask someone for information or advice, we lose all trust in his statements as soon as we discover that he might have some interest in the matter, however small or remote. For we immediately assume that he will make us the means to his ends, and will therefore give his advice in accordance not with his insight but with his intent, however great the former and however small the latter. For we know all too well that a cubic line of intent outweighs a cubic rod of insight. On the other hand, in such a case, when we ask, "What should I do?" the other person often thinks of nothing but what we would have to do to suit his ends. This, then, is what he will answer immediately and mechanically, without even thinking of our ends: his will directly dictates the answer before the question can so much as reach the tribunal of his actual judgment. Thus he seeks to guide us in accordance with his ends without even becoming aware of it, himself believing that he speaks from insight, while only his intent speaks through him. Indeed, he can go so far in this as actually to lie without noticing it himself. So overwhelming is the influence of the will compared with that of knowledge. Accordingly, as to whether someone speaks from insight or from intent, not even the testimony of his own consciousness is valid, but that of his interest generally is. To take another case: someone pursued by enemies, in mortal terror, who asks a peddler he encounters for a side road may find the man answering with the question, "Could you use anything from my stock?" This is not to say that things always happen so. On the contrary, many a person will indeed take a genuine and immediate interest in another's welfare and suffering, or, in Kant's language, regard him as an end and not as a means. But how near to or far from each individual lies the thought of regarding another person, for once, as an end instead of, as usual, a means—this is the measure of the great ethical differences among characters. And what ultimately determines this will be the true foundation of ethics, to which I shall turn only in the following part.
In his second formula, then, Kant has identified egoism and its opposite by a highly characteristic trait. I have been all the more glad to single out this bright point and bring it fully into the light through explanation because, otherwise, I can unfortunately accept very little of the foundation of his ethics.
The third and final form in which Kant presented his moral principle is the autonomy of the will: "The will of every rational being legislates universally for all rational beings." This does, of course, follow from the first form. But from the present one it is now supposed to follow (according to S. 71;—R., S. 60) that the specific distinguishing mark of the categorical imperative is this: in willing from duty, the will renounces all interest. All earlier moral principles are said to have failed because "they always based actions on an interest, whether as constraint or inducement, whether this was one's own interest or another's" (S. 73;—R., S. 62)—another's as well: please note this. "A universally legislating will, by contrast, prescribes actions from duty that are based on no interest at all." But now I ask you to consider what this actually means: in fact, nothing less than willing without a motive, and thus an effect without a cause. Interest and motive are interchangeable concepts: does not interest mean what concerns me, what matters to me? And is this not, in general, everything that stimulates and moves my will? What, then, is an interest but the action of a motive on the will? Wherever a motive moves the will, it has an interest; but where no motive moves it, it can surely no more act than a stone can move from its place without being pushed or pulled. I hardly need to demonstrate this to learned readers. But it follows that every action, since it must necessarily have a motive, also necessarily presupposes an interest. Kant, however, proposes a second, entirely new kind of action, performed without any interest at all—that is, without a motive. And these are supposed to be the actions of justice and human kindness! To refute this monstrous assumption, one need only reduce it to its actual meaning, which a play on the word interest had concealed.—Meanwhile Kant celebrates (S. 74 ff.;—R., S. 62) the triumph of his autonomy of the will by establishing a moral Utopia under the name of a kingdom of ends. It is populated entirely by rational beings in the abstract, who one and all continually will, without willing anything whatever—that is, without an interest. They will only this one thing: that everyone should always will according to a maxim—that is, autonomy. It is difficult not to write satire.
But his autonomy of the will leads Kant to something else, with more troublesome consequences than this little innocent kingdom of ends, which, being perfectly harmless, may be left undisturbed: namely, the concept of human dignity. This rests solely on a human being's autonomy, and consists in his having himself given the law he is to obey—so that his relation to it is like that of subjects under a constitution to their law.—As an embellishment of the Kantian moral system, this might well be allowed to stand. Yet once Kant had uttered the expression "human dignity," it became the shibboleth of all helpless and thoughtless moralists. They concealed their lack of a real foundation for morality, or at least of one that said anything at all, behind that imposing expression "human dignity," shrewdly counting on their readers' pleasure in seeing themselves clothed in such dignity, and thus being satisfied with it.11 Let us nevertheless examine this concept a little more closely and test its reality.—Kant (S. 79;—R., S. 66) defines dignity as "an unconditional, incomparable value." This is an explanation whose sublime sound is so imposing that scarcely anyone ventures to approach and examine it at close range. If he did, he would find that it, too, is merely a hollow hyperbole, with a contradiction in terms nesting within it like a gnawing worm. Every value is the assessment of one thing in comparison with another, and is thus a comparative concept, hence relative; this relativity constitutes the very essence of the concept of value. The Stoics already taught correctly (according to Diog. Laert., L. VII, c. 106): value is an appraiser's exchange valuation, as determined by someone experienced in such matters; it is like saying that wheat is exchanged for barley together with a mule (valuation is the recompense for something appraised, whatever an expert in such matters may determine; this is like saying that wheat is exchanged for barley with a mule added). An incomparable, unconditional, absolute value, such as dignity is supposed to be, is accordingly, like so much in philosophy, a task set in words for a thought that cannot be thought at all, any more than the highest number or the largest space.
"Yet just where concepts fail,A word arrives at the right time."
So here, too, "human dignity" had put a most welcome word into circulation, on which any moral system, spun out through every class of duties and every case of casuistry, now found a broad foundation from which it could comfortably continue preaching.
At the close of his exposition (S. 124;—R., S. 97), Kant says: "But how pure reason, without other incentives taken from anywhere else, can be practical by itself; that is, how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its maxims as laws, without any object of the will in which one could take an interest in advance, can by itself supply an incentive and produce an interest that would be called purely moral—or, in other words, how pure reason can be practical—this is something all human reason is powerless to explain, and all effort and labor are lost."—Now one would think that if something whose existence is asserted cannot even be conceived as possible, its actuality must at least have been established as a fact. Yet the categorical imperative of practical reason is expressly not put forward as a fact of consciousness or otherwise grounded in experience. On the contrary, we are warned often enough that it is not to be sought by such an anthropological and empirical route—for example, S. VI of the preface;—R., S. 5, and S. 59, 60;—R., S. 52. Furthermore, we are repeatedly assured—for example, S. 48;—R., S. 44—"that no example, and thus no empirical means, can establish whether there is any such imperative at all." And on S. 49;—R., S. 45, "that the actuality of the categorical imperative is not given in experience."—Taking all this together, one really might begin to suspect that Kant is making fools of his readers. Although this might well be permissible and right when dealing with today's German philosophical public, in Kant's time that public had not yet distinguished itself as it has since; and, besides, ethics was precisely the subject least suited to a joke. We must therefore hold to the conviction that what can neither be conceived as possible nor demonstrated as actual has no warrant for its existence.—But even if we merely try to grasp it through imagination, picturing a person whose mind is possessed, as if by a demon, by an absolute ought speaking entirely in categorical imperatives and continually demanding to direct his actions against his inclinations and desires, we see in this no true image of human nature or of what takes place within us. Rather, we recognize an artificial substitute for theological morality, related to it as a wooden leg is to a living one.
Our result, then, is that Kantian ethics, like all earlier ethics, lacks any secure foundation. As I showed by examining its imperative form at the very outset, it is at bottom merely a reversal of theological morality and a disguise of it in highly abstract formulas apparently discovered a priori. This disguise had to be all the more artful and unrecognizable because Kant was assuredly deceiving even himself, and really believed he could establish the concepts of the command of duty and of law—which plainly have meaning only in theological morality—independently of all theology and ground them in pure knowledge a priori. Against this I have sufficiently demonstrated that, in his hands, these concepts float freely in the air, lacking any real foundation. Under his own hands, indeed, the disguised theological morality unveils itself toward the end, in the doctrine of the highest good, in the postulates of practical reason, and finally in moral theology. Yet none of this disabused either him or the public about the true connection of the matter. On the contrary, both rejoiced to see all these articles of faith now grounded in ethics, if only ideally and for practical purposes. For in all innocence they took the consequence for the ground and the ground for the consequence, failing to see that all these alleged deductions from that ethics already underlay it as tacit and hidden, yet indispensable, presuppositions.
If, now, at the close of this searching examination, taxing even for the reader, I may be permitted a playful, indeed frivolous analogy to lighten the mood, I would compare Kant, in his self-mystification, to a man at a masked ball who spends the entire evening courting a masked beauty, imagining he is making a conquest, until at last she unmasks and reveals herself—as his wife.
11 The first to make the concept of "human dignity" expressly and exclusively the cornerstone of ethics, and to develop his ethics accordingly, seems to have been G. W. Block, in his "New Groundwork of Moral Philosophy," 1802.
Plain English translation
Independent, machine-assisted Plain English translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition and its embedded passages. Source-language reviewed.
The derived forms of the highest principle of Kant's ethics.
As is well known, Kant also stated the highest principle of his ethics in a second, entirely different form. Unlike the first, this states the principle directly, instead of indirectly telling us how to look for it. Starting on S. 63;—R., S. 55, he prepares the way with extremely strange, strained, indeed distorted definitions of ends and means. These concepts can be defined much more simply and correctly: an end is the direct motive of an act of will; a means is its indirect motive (simplicity is the seal of truth). But through his odd definitions he slips toward this proposition: "A human being, and in general every rational being, exists as an end in itself."—I must say outright that "existing as an end in itself" is not a coherent thought. It is a contradiction in terms. To be an end means to be willed. Every end is an end only in relation to a will whose end it is—that is, as I said, whose direct motive it is. Only within this relation does the concept of an end have any meaning. It loses that meaning as soon as it is torn out of the relation. But this essential relation necessarily rules out anything "in itself." An "end in itself" is just like a "friend in itself," an enemy in itself, an uncle in itself, north or east in itself, up or down in itself, and so on. At bottom, though, the "end in itself" is in the same position as the "absolute ought." Both secretly, even unconsciously, rest on the same underlying thought as their condition: a theological one.—The "absolute value" supposedly belonging to this alleged but unthinkable end in itself is no better off. I must label this too, without mercy, a contradiction in terms. Every value is a comparative quantity. Indeed, it necessarily stands in a double relation. First, it is relative, since it is for someone. Second, it is comparative, since it exists in comparison with something else by which it is measured. Take it out of these two relations, and the concept of value loses all sense and meaning. This is too clear to need further explanation.—Those two definitions offend logic. In the same way, the statement on S. 65;—R., S. 56, offends genuine morality: beings without reason, meaning animals, are things and may therefore be treated merely as means that are not also ends. In line with this, the Metaphysical Foundations of the Doctrine of Virtue, §. 16, expressly says: "A human being can have a duty to no being except a human being." Then §. 17 says: "Cruel treatment of animals conflicts with a person's duty to himself, because it dulls his sympathy with their suffering. This weakens a natural tendency that is very useful to morality in relations with other human beings."—So we are to feel compassion for animals merely for practice. They are, so to speak, the medical dummy on which we practice compassion for human beings. Along with all of Asia that has not been Islamized—that is, not Judaized—I find such statements outrageous and disgusting. This also shows once again how completely this philosophical morality depends on biblical morality. As shown above, it is only theological morality in disguise. Christian morality takes no account of animals, a point I will discuss later. So philosophical morality immediately leaves them without protection too. They are mere "things," mere means to any ends one chooses: for instance, vivisection, hunts in which they are chased to exhaustion, bullfights, races, being whipped to death in front of a cart that is loaded with stone and will not move, and the like.—Shame on such a morality of pariahs, Chandalas, and Mlecchas! It fails to recognize the eternal being present in everything that lives, shining with unfathomable significance from every eye that sees the sunlight. That morality recognizes and considers only its own precious species. It makes that species' distinguishing feature, reason, the condition that a being must meet to receive moral consideration.
By this rough road, indeed by fair means and foul, Kant reaches the second statement of the basic principle of his ethics: "Act so that you always use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of everyone else, at the same time as an end, never merely as a means." In a highly artificial way, and by a long detour, this says: "Consider not only yourself, but others too." This in turn is a roundabout statement of the rule, "Do not do to another what you do not want done to yourself." As I said, this itself contains only the premises for the conclusion that is the true final goal of all morality and all moral instruction: "Harm no one; instead, help everyone as much as you can." Like everything beautiful, this proposition looks best naked.—But Kant's second moral formula deliberately and rather clumsily drags in the supposed duties to oneself as well. I have already said what I think about them.
There is also this objection to the formula: a criminal who is to be executed is treated, quite rightly and justly, only as a means, not as an end. He is the indispensable means of preserving the law's power to deter by carrying it out. That power is the law's purpose.
Although this second formula of Kant's does nothing to establish a foundation for morality, and cannot count as an adequate, direct statement of its rules—that is, as its highest principle—it does have another merit. It contains a subtle psychological and moral insight. It identifies egoism by a highly characteristic feature that is worth developing further here. We are all bursting with this egoism. To hide it as our shameful part, we invented politeness. Yet it usually peeps out from under all the veils thrown over it in this way: almost instinctively, in everyone we meet, we first look only for a possible means to one of our always numerous ends. When we make a new acquaintance, our first thought is usually whether the man might be useful to us for something. If he cannot be, then for most people he himself becomes nothing as soon as they are sure of this. Looking in everyone else for a possible means to our ends, and thus for a tool, is almost part of the natural way we look at people. Whether the tool might suffer more or less in being used is a thought that comes much later, and often never comes at all. Many things show that we assume this attitude in others. For example, when we ask someone for information or advice, we lose all trust in what he says as soon as we discover that he might have some interest in the matter, however small or remote. We immediately assume that he will make us a means to his ends. His advice will then follow his intentions rather than his understanding, however great that understanding may be and however small his personal aim. For we know only too well that a cubic line of intention weighs more than a cubic rod of understanding. On the other hand, in such a case, when we ask, "What should I do?" the other person will often think of nothing except what we would have to do to serve his ends. Without even thinking of our ends, he will answer that way at once, almost mechanically. His will immediately dictates the answer before the question can even reach the court of his actual judgment. So he tries to steer us toward his ends without even becoming aware of it. He believes he is speaking from understanding, when only his intention is speaking through him. Indeed, he can go so far as actually to lie without noticing it himself. So much stronger is the influence of the will than that of knowledge. As a result, even someone's own consciousness is not a valid witness to whether he is speaking from understanding or from intention. His personal interest, however, usually is. Take another case. Someone pursued by enemies, terrified for his life, asks a peddler he meets about a side road. He may get the question in return, "Could you use any of my goods?" This is not to say it always happens this way. On the contrary, many people certainly do take a direct, genuine interest in another person's well-being and suffering. In Kant's language, they see that person as an end, not as a means. But how readily the thought occurs to each person to treat another, for once, as an end rather than, as usual, a means—this measures the great ethical differences between characters. What ultimately determines this will be the true foundation of ethics, which I will approach only in the next part.
So, in his second formula, Kant has identified egoism and its opposite by a highly characteristic feature. I have been all the more glad to point out this bright spot and bring it into clear light by explaining it, since unfortunately I can otherwise accept very little of the foundation of his ethics.
The third and last form in which Kant stated his moral principle is the autonomy of the will: "The will of every rational being lays down universal laws for all rational beings." This certainly follows from the first form. But the present form is now supposed to show, according to S. 71;—R., S. 60, that the distinctive mark of the categorical imperative is this: in willing from duty, the will renounces every interest. All earlier moral principles supposedly failed "because they always based actions on an interest, whether as a constraint or an attraction, and whether the interest was one's own or someone else's" (S. 73;—R., S. 62). Someone else's too—please note that. "By contrast, a will that lays down universal laws prescribes actions from duty that are not based on any interest at all." But now please consider what this actually means. It means nothing less than willing without a motive, and thus an effect without a cause. Interest and motive are interchangeable concepts. Does interest not mean "what concerns me," what matters to me? And is that not, in general, everything that stimulates and moves my will? So what else is an interest but the effect of a motive on the will? Wherever a motive moves the will, it has an interest. But where no motive moves it, it can no more act than a stone can move from its place without a push or a pull. Surely I do not need to prove this to learned readers. It follows that every action necessarily presupposes an interest, since it must necessarily have a motive. Yet Kant proposes a second, entirely new kind of action that takes place without any interest, meaning without a motive. And these are supposed to be actions of justice and human kindness! To refute this monstrous assumption, we needed only to reduce it to its actual meaning, which the play on the word interest had concealed.—Meanwhile, Kant celebrates the triumph of his autonomy of the will (S. 74 ff.;—R., S. 62) by setting up a moral utopia called a kingdom of ends. Its population consists entirely of abstract rational beings. Every one of them constantly wills without willing anything—that is, without an interest. They will only this one thing: that everyone should always will according to a maxim—that is, autonomy. It is hard not to write satire.
But Kant's autonomy of the will leads him to something else, with more troublesome consequences than this little innocent kingdom of ends. Being entirely harmless, that kingdom can be left alone. The other thing is the concept of human dignity. This rests solely on human autonomy and consists in this: the law a person is to follow is one he has given himself. So he stands in the same relation to it as subjects under a constitution stand to their own law.—We might let this pass as an ornament to Kant's moral system. But once Kant had uttered the expression "human dignity," it became the watchword of all helpless and thoughtless moralists. They hid their lack of a real foundation of morality, or at least one that said anything at all, behind that impressive expression, "human dignity." They shrewdly counted on the reader's also liking to see himself clothed in such dignity, and thus being satisfied with it.11 Still, let us examine this concept a little more closely and test whether it has any reality.—Kant defines dignity (S. 79;—R., S. 66) as "an unconditional, incomparable value." The lofty sound of this definition is so impressive that hardly anyone dares approach and inspect it closely. If he did, he would find that it too is only an empty exaggeration, with a contradiction in terms nesting inside it like a gnawing worm. Every value is an estimate of one thing compared with another. It is therefore a comparative concept, and thus relative. This relativity is precisely what makes up the nature of the concept of value. The Stoics already correctly taught, according to Diog. Laert., L. VII, c. 106: "Value is an appraiser's exchange valuation, whatever an expert in the goods sets; for example, exchanging wheat for barley together with a mule" ("Valuation is the return for something appraised, whatever an expert in the goods has set; it is like saying: exchange wheat for barley with a mule added"). An incomparable, unconditional, absolute value, such as dignity is supposed to be, is therefore like so much else in philosophy: a task set in words, asking us to think a thought that cannot be thought, any more than the highest number or the largest space.
"But just where concepts are missing,A word turns up at the right time."
So here too, "human dignity" put a most welcome word into circulation. Every morality spun out through all the classes of duties and every case requiring a moral decision now found in it a broad foundation from which it could comfortably keep preaching.
At the end of his account (S. 124;—R., S. 97), Kant says: "But how can pure reason, without any other incentives drawn from anywhere else, be practical all by itself? That is, how can the mere principle of the universal validity of all its maxims as laws, without any object of the will in which one might take an interest beforehand, by itself provide an incentive and produce an interest that could be called purely moral? Or, in other words, how can pure reason be practical?—All human reason is unable to explain this, and all effort and work are wasted."—Now one would think that if something is claimed to exist, yet cannot even be understood as possible, it must at least have been demonstrated to be a fact. But the categorical imperative of practical reason is expressly not presented as a fact of consciousness, nor is it otherwise established through experience. On the contrary, we are warned often enough not to look for it by this anthropological, experience-based route: for example, S. VI of the preface;—R., S. 5, and S. 59, 60;—R., S. 52. We are also repeatedly assured, for example on S. 48;—R., S. 44, "that no example, and thus no empirical means, can establish whether any such imperative exists at all." And on S. 49;—R., S. 45, "that the reality of the categorical imperative is not given in experience."—Put all this together, and one might really suspect that Kant is making fools of his readers. This might well be permissible and proper with today's German philosophical public. But in Kant's day that public had not yet distinguished itself as it has since. Besides, ethics was the least suitable subject for joking. So we must hold to this conviction: something that can neither be understood as possible nor demonstrated as actual has no evidence for its existence.—But suppose we merely try to grasp it through imagination. We picture a person whose mind is possessed, as if by a demon, by an absolute ought speaking in nothing but categorical imperatives. This ought constantly demands to direct his actions against his inclinations and wishes. Here we see no accurate picture of human nature or of what happens within us. What we do recognize is an artificial substitute for theological morality, standing in the same relation to it as a wooden leg to a living one.
Our result, then, is that Kant's ethics, like all earlier systems, lacks any secure foundation. As I showed by examining its imperative form at the very beginning, it is basically only theological morality turned around and disguised in very abstract formulas apparently discovered independently of experience. This disguise had to be all the more elaborate and unrecognizable because Kant certainly deceived even himself in the process. He really thought he could establish the concepts of a command of duty and a law independently of all theology and base them on pure knowledge independent of experience, although these concepts plainly have meaning only in theological morality. Against this, I have shown well enough that in his system these concepts have no real foundation and float freely in the air. Toward the end, the disguised theological morality even unveils itself under his own hands: in the doctrine of the highest good, in the postulates of practical reason, and finally in moral theology. Yet none of this freed either him or the public from their illusion about the true connection of things. Instead, both were pleased to see all these articles of faith now established through ethics, even if only in thought and for practical purposes. They innocently mistook the consequence for the ground and the ground for the consequence. They failed to see that all these supposed conclusions from that ethics were already its underlying assumptions—unspoken and hidden, but absolutely necessary.
Now, at the end of this sharp examination, which has been tiring even for the reader, perhaps I may be allowed a playful, even frivolous comparison to lighten things up. I would compare Kant, in this self-deception, to a man at a masked ball who spends the whole evening courting a masked beauty, imagining that he is making a conquest, until at the end she takes off her mask and reveals herself—as his wife.
11 The first person to make the concept of "human dignity" expressly and exclusively the cornerstone of ethics, and to develop his ethics accordingly, seems to have been G. W. Block, in his New Groundwork of the Philosophy of Morals, 1802.
About this section
Section 8 is part of On the Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 9 of 24 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.