Two standpoints or lines of thought which are characteristic of Renouvier, and whose presence we have already noted in our first chapter, operate also in his ethics and govern his whole treatment of the nature of morality and the problems of the moral life. Briefly stated these are, firstly, his regard for the Critical Philosophy of Kant; secondly, his view of man as “an order, a harmony of functions reciprocally conditioned, and, by this fact, inseparable.”[7] As in his treatment of Certitude, Renouvier showed this to be a psychological complex into which entered elements not only of cognition, but of feeling and will, the same insistence upon this unity of human nature meets us again in his ethics. “Any ethical doctrine which definitely splits up the elements of human nature is erroneous.”[8] Abstraction is necessary and useful for any science, even the science of ethics, but however far we may carry our scientific analysis, we must never lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with abstractions. To lose sight of the relationship of the data under observation or discussion is, indeed, working away from the goal of scientific knowledge. [7] _Science de la Morale_ (first edition, 1869), vol. I, p. 189. [8] _Ibid_. “Nothing,” remarks Renouvier in this connection, “has done more to hinder the spread of Kant’s doctrines in the world than his assertion that the morally good act must be performed absolutely without feeling.” In view of man as he is, and in so far as we understand human nature at all, it seems a vain and foolish statement. For Kant, Duty was supreme, and the sole criterion of a good act was, for him, its being done from a consciousness of Duty. He himself had to confess that he did not know of any act which quite fulfilled this ideal of moral action. With this view of morality Renouvier so heartily disagrees that he is inclined to think that, so far from a purely rational act (if we suppose such an act possible) being praiseworthy, he would almost give greater moral worth to an act purely emotional, whose “motive” lay, not in the idea of cold and stern Duty, but in the warm impulses of the human heart, springing from emotion or feeling alone. Emotion is a part of our nature—it has its role to play; the rational element enters as a guide or controlling power. It is desirable that all acts should be so guided, but that is far from stating, as does Kant, that they should proceed solely from rational considerations. Ultimately reason and sentiment unite in furthering the same ends. No adequate conception of justice can be arrived at which is not accompanied by, and determined by, correlatively, love of humanity. Kant rigorously excluded from operation even the most noble feelings, whose intrusion should dim the worth and glory of his moral act, devoid of feeling. But “without good-will and mutual sympathy of persons, no society could ever have established itself beyond the family, and scarcely the family itself.”[9]