A world-famous individual is not so unwise as to indulge a variety of wishes to divide his regards. He is devoted to the one aim, regardless of all else. It is even possible that such men may treat other great, even sacred interests, inconsiderately--conduct which is deserving of moral reprehension. But so mighty a form must trample down many innocent flowers and crush to pieces many an object in its path.
The special interest of passion is thus inseparable from the active development of a general principle; for it is from the special and determinate, and from its negation, that the universal results. Particularity contends with its like, and some loss is involved in the issue. It is not the general idea that is implicated in opposition and combat, and that is exposed to danger. It remains in the background, untouched and uninjured. This may be called the cunning of reason--that it sets the passions to work for itself, while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the penalty and suffers loss. For it is _phenomenal_ being that is so treated, and, of this, a portion is of no value, another is positive and real. The particular is, for the most part, of too trifling value as compared with the general; individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but from the passions of individuals.
But though we might tolerate the idea that individuals, their desires, and the gratification of them, are thus sacrificed, and their happiness given up to the empire of chance, to which it belongs, and that, as a general rule, individuals come under the category of means to an ulterior end, there is one aspect of human individuality which we should hesitate to regard in that subordinate light, even in relation to the highest, since it is absolutely no subordinate element, but exists in those individuals as inherently eternal and divine--I mean morality, ethics, religion. Even when speaking of the realization of the great ideal aim by means of individuals, the subjective element in them--their interest and that of their cravings and impulses, their views and judgments, though exhibited as the merely formal side of their existence--was spoken of as having an infinite right to be consulted. The first idea that presents itself in speaking of means is that of something external to the object, yet having no share in the object itself. But merely natural things--even the commonest lifeless objects--used as means, must be of such a kind as adapts them to their purpose; they must possess something in common with it. Human beings, least of all, sustain the bare external relation of mere means to the great ideal aim. Not only do they, in the very act of realizing it, make it the occasion of satisfying personal desires whose purport is diverse from that aim, but they share in that ideal aim itself, and are, for that very reason, objects of their own existence--not formally merely, as the world of living beings generally is, whose individual life is essentially subordinate to that of man and its properly used up as an instrument. Men, on the contrary, are objects of existence to themselves, as regards the intrinsic import of the aim in question. To this order belongs that in them which we would exclude from the category of mere means--morality, ethics, religion. That is to say, man is an object of existence in himself only in virtue of the Divine that is in him--the quality that was designated at the outset as Reason, which, in view of its activity and power of self-determination, was called freedom. And we affirm--without entering at present on the proof of the assertion--that religion, morality, etc., have their foundation and source in that principle, and so are essentially elevated above all alien necessity and chance. And here we must remark that individuals, to the extent of their freedom, are responsible for the depravation and enfeeblement of morals and religion. This is the seal of the absolute and sublime destiny of man--that he knows what is good and what is evil; that his destiny is his very ability to will either good or evil--in one word, that he is the subject of moral imputation, imputation not only of evil, but of good, and not only concerning this or that particular matter, and all that happens _ab extra_, but also the good and evil attaching to his individual freedom. The brute alone is simply innocent. It would, however, demand an extensive explanation--as extensive as the analysis of moral freedom itself--to preclude or obviate all the misunderstandings which the statement that what is called innocence imports the entire unconsciousness of evil--is wont to occasion.