It follows that every action, inasmuch as it necessarily must have a motive, necessarily also presupposes an interest. Kant, however, propounds a second entirely new class of actions which are performed without any interest, _i.e._, without motive. And these actions are--all deeds of justice and loving-kindness! It will be seen that this monstrous assumption, to be refuted, needed only to be reduced to its real meaning, which was concealed through the word "interest" being trifled with. Meanwhile Kant celebrates (p. 74 sqq.; R., p. 62) the triumph of his Autonomy of the Will by setting up a moral Utopia called the Kingdom of Ends, which is peopled with nothing but =rational beings= _in abstracto_. These, one and all, are always willing, without willing any actual =thing= (_i.e._, without interest): the only thing that they will is that they may all perpetually will in accordance with one maxim (_i.e._, Autonomy). _Difficile est satiram non scribere_[5] (it is difficult to refrain from writing a satire). But there is something else to which Kant is led by his autonomy of the will; and it involves more serious consequences than the little innocent Kingdom of Ends, which is perfectly harmless and may be left in peace. I mean the conception of =human dignity=. Now this "dignity" is made to rest solely on man's autonomy, and to lie in the fact that the law which he ought to obey is his own work, his relation to it thus being the same as that of the subjects of a constitutional government to their statutes. As an ornamental finish to the Kantian system of morals such a theory might after all be passed over. Only this expression "=Human Dignity=," once it was uttered by Kant, became the shibboleth of all perplexed and empty-headed moralists. For behind that imposing formula they concealed their lack, not to say, of a real ethical basis, but of any basis at all which was possessed of an intelligible meaning; supposing cleverly enough that their readers would be so pleased to see themselves invested with such a "dignity" that they would be quite satisfied.[6] Let us, however, look at this conception a little more carefully, and submit it to the test of reality. Kant (p. 79; R., p. 66) defines =dignity= as "an unconditioned, incomparable value." This is an explanation which makes such an effect by its magnificent sound that one does not readily summon up courage to examine it at close quarters; else we should find that it too is nothing but a hollow hyperbole, within which there lurks like a gnawing worm, the _contradictio in adjecto_. Every value is the estimation of one thing compared with another; it is thus a conception of comparison, and consequently relative; and this relativity is precisely that which forms the essence of the idea. According to Diogenes Laertius (Book VII., chap. 106),[7] this was already correctly taught by the Stoics. He says: _τὴn δὲ ἀξίαν εἶναι ἀμοιβὴν δοκιμάστου, ἢν ἂν ὁ ἔμπειρος τῶν Πραγμάτων τάξῃ ὅμοιον εἐπεῑν,