These examples serve to illustrate the point with which we are here concerned, namely, that the presence and operation of undoubted constraints does not establish the existence in all men of the sense of duty on which Kant founds universal moral equality. Kant would indeed object that all these so-called constraints or imperatives are hypothetical, and not really categorical. By an hypothetical imperative he understands one in which the command depends upon an “if”—_if_ there be invisible spirits such as primitive men imagined, then the rules of _tabu_ follow. _If_ the safety of the gang is an object of commanding interest, then gang loyalty is obligatory. _If_ the preservation and prosperity of human society in general (a society superior to that of ants and of bees indeed but like them a product of nature and not radically distinct from them) be regarded as the supreme end of desire and endeavor, then the rules of social behavior are to be obeyed. But, he would say, none of these objects are fit to rank so high. They all are optional ends. An hypothetical imperative is one in which the end pursued is optional, the imperative extending only to the means. If the end be desired, then it is reasonable, and in so far imperative, that we adopt the means that lead to its attainment. An imperative truly categorical, however, is one in which the obligation extends to the end proposed as well as to the means. It is not left to our inclination to embrace or to refuse the end, it being of such a kind as absolutely to constrain us to accept it. But if this be so, then in this first part of our criticism we turn upon Kant and declare that he has nowhere given us reason to believe that the acceptance of an absolute end is implied in the kind of constraints to which the generality of men submit. And again if such acceptance cannot be proved, then the universal moral equality of men based by him on the presence in all of the sense of duty disappears, and his lofty ethical structure breaks down at this point. FOOTNOTES: [19] See II Samuel, VI, 6, 7.