But in fact, whatever men imagine, no moral principle is based on
any feeling, but such a principle is really nothing else than an
obscurely conceived metaphysic which inheres in every man's
reasoning faculty; as the teacher will easily find who tries to
catechize his pupils in the Socratic method about the imperative of
duty and its application to the moral judgement of his actions. The
mode of stating it need not be always metaphysical, and the language
need not necessarily be scholastic, unless the pupil is to be
trained to be a philosopher. But the thought must go back to the
elements of metaphysics, without which we cannot expect any
certainty or purity, or even motive power in ethics.
If we deviate from this principle and begin from pathological, or
purely sensitive, or even moral feeling (from what is subjectively
practical instead of what is objective), that is, from the matter of
the will, the end, not from its form that is the law, in order from
thence to determine duties; then, certainly, there are no metaphysical
elements of ethics, for feeling by whatever it may be excited is
always physical. But then ethical teaching, whether in schools, or
lecture-rooms, etc., is corrupted in its source. For it is not a
matter of indifference by what motives or means one is led to a good
purpose (the obedience to duty). However disgusting, then, metaphysics
may appear to those pretended philosophers who dogmatize oracularly,
or even brilliantly, about the doctrine of duty, it is,
nevertheless, an indispensable duty for those who oppose it to go back
to its principles even in ethics, and to begin by going to school on
its benches.
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