II. The Kantian end would not bring about any system in conduct--on the contrary, it would tend to differences and collisions. What is required to give unity to the sphere of conduct is, as we have seen, a principle which shall comprehend all the motives to action, giving each its due place in contributing to the whole--a universal which shall organize the various particular acts into a harmonious system. Now Kant's conception of the good does not lead to such result. We may even say that it makes it impossible. According to Kant each act must be considered independently of every other, and must be capable of generalization on its own account. Each motive of action must be capable of being _itself_ a universal law of nature. Each particular rule of action is thus made absolute, and we are left not with one universal which comprehends all particulars in their relations to one another, but literally with a lot of universals. These not only fail to have a unity, but each, as absolute, must contradict some other. If the principles always to tell the truth and always to preserve life are universal _in themselves_, and not universal simply _through their relation to some total and controlling principle of life_, it must be impossible to reconcile them when they come into conflict. See Caird, Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 187-190, and p. 215. _Cf._ "Treated as universal and without exception, even two such commands as _e. g._, 'Thou shalt not steal,' and 'Thou shalt not kill,' must ultimately come into conflict with each other; for, if all other interests are to be postponed to the maintenance of the rights of property, it is impossible that all other interests should also be postponed to the preservation of human life--and to make either property or life an absolute end is to raise a particular into a universal, to treat a part as if it were a whole. But the true moral vindication of each particular interest cannot be found in elevating it into something universal and absolute, but only in determining its place in relation to the others in a complete system of morality." III. The principle is so empty of all content that it does not enable us to judge of any specific act.