ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to trace how different individuals react Upon the same normative factor—the ecclesiastical institution—in different ways as illustrated in the Emphases by Pre-Kantians and Kant as to the Basis of Conduct. The main problems herein dealt with are as to how the community first impresses the individual, who meanwhile begins to express himself out of inner self-determination in reaction upon it; then how by his available means the individual attempts to transform his community; and finally what are the emphases made by different individuals who propound competing remedial measures for the existing social institutions repudiated. Certain pioneers during the early modern period laid down new ideas rather in fragmentary condition, which were gradually systematized by such great thinkers as Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Kant. It will be noticed that considerable attention is devoted to Kant, since he, synthesizing all preceding trends of thought and developing his practical teachings on the bases of his metaphysical principles, has exercised tremendous influence upon the subsequent intellectual channels, though not in the same directions.
