dence, or rules for prudent conduct, belong to this type of imperative. In antithesis to these two kinds of hypothetical commands Kant places the categorical imperative of morality, which is unconditional. It is binding on us without reference to any consequences. It is an absolute imperative.1

§ 6. Duty.

Duty denotes the aggregate of acts prescribed by moral law, everything that I ought to do. Any part of this aggregate may be described as a duty. That part which lies nearest to hand is emphatically" our duty." In a certain sense all moral acts which I can do are duties. But as a matter of fact we usually employ the word to denote those moral acts which we are liable to leave undone. "What duty is cannot be understood without a law," says Locke. It implies conscious reference to an accepted standard of conduct. Obligation is the attitude we hold towards the law; duty indicates the substance of the law itself.

Duties are moral acts sanctioned by pleasures and pains of conscience. They are moral acts viewed as requiring the special stimulus of the moral sanction. This is due to the suggestion underlying the word

Kant's categorical imperative runs in this form:

66

Act only on that maxim [or principle of action] which thou canst will should become a universal law." See his "Metaphysic of Morals," Sect. II. (translated by T. K. Abbott). Professor Sidgwick gives a sufficient account in his "History of Ethics."

"obligation," viz., that we shall not always find our impulses in accordance with reason.

If we look at some act of beneficence to our children as prescribed by reason, and as one which we are likely to be somewhat unwilling to fulfil, we call it a duty. If we look at it as natural and in accordance with our wishes, we do not call it a duty; we do not, in fact, consider it from point of view of morality at all. It is done so easily as not to challenge reflection. Ought never occurs to us in the matter. If we look at it as requiring more than average strength of character and goodness of disposition, we call it a virtuous act. It all depends, then, on the way we look at the act. Viewed sub specie juris, from the judicial or forensic point of view (as it will be if we are tempted to omit it), it is duty; viewed as natural and requiring no special effort, it is thought objectively of without reference to ourselves and is brought under no moral category; viewed sub specie perfectionis, as a difficult and exceptional act, it is virtuous.

Since duty and obligation express the relation of the objective law to our subjective and imperfect wills, they suggest, as has been said, the notion of conflict and effort. Duty is a standard to which we try to rise, but may fail to reach.

Since the content of any moral rule looked at as binding on us may be regarded as a duty, the possibility of a conflict of duties resolves itself into the possibility of a conflict of moral rules. If we pay no regard to the special circumstances of the individual,

two or more courses of action may seem incumbent on him, which may yet be mutually conflicting, “incompossible" as Hamilton would have said. But we must believe that to the ideally wise man, o ppóviμoc, this conflict will disappear. For me here and now only one course is the best, though it may be very little the best, and may involve the omission of some other good or the doing of some evil. Unfortunately in practice the ideal sage is usually absent, and we must content ourselves with only a rough decision, which leaves the conflict prominent. To aim at the highest benevolence within our reach often involves disregard of the highest justice or of truth. We are in the position of a judge forced to decide between apparently contradictory statutes or rules of procedure. We must either ignore one of them entirely, or make an attempt to conciliate the rival principles.

In such cases we cannot come to any satisfactory decision as long as we feel bound to consider the morality sub specie juris. Instead of rules we must have principles; we must have virtues instead of duties. The ideally perfect painter will see that to a given problem of art there is one solution which will give the complete answer. But to any short of the perfect artist, there may seem possible several solutions, none of them entirely satisfactory, because all of them will involve the disregarding of some one excellence in order to secure some other, or several others.

We are under no necessity to regard the moral precepts as rules, but nevertheless this category of

duty is of supreme importance, especially to the young and impulsive. Few, indeed, are the

"Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,

Who do thy work and know it not!"

Most of us feel with the poet the need for the guidance and control which are to be found in rules. Looked at as a code, moral precepts are conceived as clear and explicit. We may break such rules, but we cannot do more than obey. "Thus while virtue is a scale rising indefinitely upwards, duty is the top of a scale descending downwards" (Grote, "Moral Ideals,” ch. vii., p. 85). Again, while virtue is thought of merely as an attribute of the individual who exhibits it, duty is conceived as involving a law, which again seems to imply a law-giver whose command it is. This law-giver may be God, or society, or reason; but in any case the notion of duty is bilateral in a way that the notion of virtue is not. The man who does his duty is, even to Kant, obeying a command; he is as subject obeying himself, or rather impersonal reason, as legislator. The imperfect impulses of the empirical ego are conceived as obeying the law impersonal reason lays down. Indeed, the idea of duty often involves a third person, to whom the duty is owed. But John Grote is wrong in putting this too absolutely, for it only occurs when the conduct inspired by duty is itself essentially bilateral, i.e., implies a patient as well as an agent. To abstain from intoxication may be regarded as a duty, but no third person

seems here involved. To succour the afflicted may be regarded as a duty, but as it involves an afflicted person to be succoured, this conduct, viewed sub specie juris, takes the form of a quasi-debt, which I owe to the sufferer.

It is said that the notions of duty and obligation would not exist for a perfectly good will. "Evidently then with complete adaptation to the social state, that element of the moral consciousness which is expressed by the word 'obligation' will disappear " (Spencer). "A perfectly good will would therefore be equally subject to objective (moral) law, but could not be conceived as obliged thereby to act lawfully.

. Ought is here out of place, because volition is already of itself necessarily in unison with the law" (Kant). But this suggests that the probability of conflict between our higher and lower nature is involved in the idea. No doubt the emotional concomitants of the idea are not entirely pleasant; a long experience has taught us how feeble is reason, and how strong are our other impulses. Still it does not seem necessary to assume that obligation is only possible when such conflict exists or may exist. For instance, pace Kant, it does not appear improper to say that God is obliged to act morally by His very nature. The distinction between the fact of obligation and the feeling which accompanies the recognition of obligation must be observed.

A distinction is sometimes made between duties of perfect and of imperfect obligation. But this is due to