=III. Meaning of Duty for Duty's Sake.=--It is a sound principle to do our duty _as_ our duty, and not for the sake of something else. "Duty for duty's sake" means, in truth, _an act for the act's own sake_; the gift of cold water, the word of encouragement, the sweeping of the room, the learning of the lesson, the selling of the goods, the painting of the picture, because they are the things really called for at a given time, and hence their own excuses for being. _No moral act is a means to anything beyond itself,--not even to morality._ But, upon Kant's theory, duty for duty's sake means a special act not for its own sake, but for the sake of abstract principle. Just as the hedonists regard a special act as a mere means to happiness, so Kant makes the concrete act a mere means to virtue. As there is a "hedonistic paradox," namely that the way to get happiness is to forget it, to devote ourselves to things and persons about us; so there is a "moralistic" paradox, that the way to get goodness is to cease to think of it--as something separate--and to devote ourselves to the realization of the full value of the practical situations in which we find ourselves. Men can really think of their "duty" only when they are thinking of specific things to be done; to think of Duty at large or in the abstract is one of the best ways of avoiding doing it, or of doing it in a partial and perverted way. =Summary of Criticism of Kant.=--To sum up, the theory which regards duty as having its source in a rational self which is independent of and above the self of inclination and affection (1) deprives the habitual desires and affections, which make the difference between one concrete character and another, of moral significance; (2) commits us to an unenlightened performance of what is called duty irrespective of its real goodness; and (3) makes moral principle a remote abstraction, instead of the vivifying soul of a concrete deed. Its strongest point, its insistence upon the _autonomous_ character of duty, or that duty is organically connected with the self in some of its phases or functions, will appear more clearly as we contrast it with the utilitarian theory. § 3. THE UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DUTY