What warrant then has Kant for introducing the foreign notion of end into a world of pure self-consistency? When we use the term Necessity in relation to physical phenomena, as of cause and effect, we assert unalterable sequence, unity of temporal and spatial differentiæ. When we use the same term as Kant uses it, we assert the unity of a thing with itself. But this in the nature of the case does not admit the intrusion of the alien concept of the outside. The spiritual society or pattern to which human society ought to be conformed, is according to Kant a society of ends, of ends _per se_. This is his great pronouncement. But the very idea on which he lays so much stress, the idea of end, on closer scrutiny of his premises disappears. The entities composing that society are self-sufficing, and moreover intrinsically unrelated to each other. Rational self-preservation is the only character that can be predicated of any of them. I have laid stress on the fact that Kant derived his ethical principle from his physics. The passage in which he speaks of the ethical order as a universal and necessary order like that of nature is to my mind conclusive. I now urge in addition that this sort of second nature superimposed upon existing nature would not have to our contemplating minds a dignity superior to that of physical nature. The moral order as thus exhibited would not possess the worth we attribute to it as exalted above what is called the natural order. The falling stone is a perfect illustration of physical necessity. Necessity passed through human consciousness, or bathed in human consciousness, is not on that account a more eligible principle. Nay, since human consciousness interferes and causes contingent actions, due to passion, appetite, etc., the moral order constructed by men should be even less worth while than the physical order of nature, if indeed necessity be the touchstone of worth.[22] To summarize: according to Kant man as an object is unfit to warrant the claim of unconditional obligation on the part of others toward himself. An abstract principle must be sought. This principle is universality, and necessity based on universality. Respect for this purely abstract notion is that which alone imparts a moral quality to so-called moral acts. We start, according to Kant, with the declaration that man is an end _per se_. But we reject him as an object, and take refuge in a formal principle. We then assume that every human being is conscious of the working within himself of this formal principle and acknowledges his subjection to it, whether he is able to analyze it out or not. And thus indirectly we derive out of emptiness a ray of glory which we allow to fall upon each and every man. The question now is, since this approach to the ethical problem manifestly fails, must we not begin at the opposite end, and take the attribution of worth to men, however unworthy they may actually be, as our starting-point? FOOTNOTES: