Essays

and

Treatises

on Moral, Political, and Various
Philosophical Subjects.

From the German by the Translator of
The Principles of Critical Philosophy.

London:

Printed for the translator:
and sold by William Richardson under the
Royal Exchange. 1798.

…

…

8:275 INTRODUCTION.

The aggregate of even practical rules is denominated theory, when these rules, as principles, are thought in a certain universality, and thereby is abstracted from a multitude of conditions, which necessarily have influence on their exercise. Conversely, not every handicraft, but only that attaining of an end, is named praxis, which is thought as the observance of certain principles of procedure represented in the general.

It is evident, that between the theory and the praxis a medium of connection and of transition from the one to the other is still required, let the theory be ever so complete; for, to the conception of understanding, which comprises the rule, must be superadded an act of judgement, whereby the practitioner discriminates, whether something be the case of the rule or not; and, as rules, by which the judgement could take its measures in the subsumption, cannot always be given (because that would go to the infinite), there may be theorists, who never in their lives can become practitioners, because they want judgement; for instance, physicians, or lawyers, who may have prosecuted their studies successfully, but who, when they are to give advice, do not know how to proceed.—But where this gift of nature is even to be met with, there may yet be a want of premises; that is, the 162theory maybe incomplete and the complement of it obtained perhaps but by experiments and experiences to be made still, from which the physician, the farmer, or the financier, on quitting his school, ought to abstract rules for himself, and render his theory complete. The theory however was not to be blamed, if it did not yet suffice to the praxis, but the fault was, that theory enough did not exist, which the man ought to have learned from experience; and which is real theory, though he is not able to communicate it, and, as a teacher, to propound it systematically in universal positions, consequently can lay no claim to the title of a theoretical physician, 8:276farmer, etc.—Nobody therefore can pretend to be practically versed in a science and at the same time despise the theory, without exposing himself to be held an ignorant in his own province: believing, by groping in experiments and experiences, without collecting for himself certain principles (which constitute that, properly named theory), and without having reflected on his business as a whole (which, when one proceeds in this methodically, is termed a system), to make more progress, than the theory would permit.

It is however more supportable, that an ignorant should give out theory as unnecessary, and which may be dispensed with in his opiniative praxis, than that a sciolist should admit of it and of its use in the schools (in order to exercise the understanding only), but maintain at the same time, that the praxis is quite of another nature; that, when one quits 163the school and goes into the world, one perceives void ideals and philosophical reveries to be followed; in a word, that which is right in theory, is of no validity for the praxis. (It is often expressed thus: this or that proposition is valid, it is true, in thesi, but not in hypothesi). Were empirical machinists, to pronounce in this manner on universal mechanics, or bombardiers, on the mathematical doctrine of the throwing of bombs, that the theory in these sciences is indeed nicely excogitated, but is not at all valid in the praxis, because in the execution experience gives quite other results, they would be but laughed at, (for, if to the former were superadded the theory of friction, to the latter the resistance of the air, consequently, but more theory in general, they would harmonize perfectly with experience). But the case is quite different with a theory, which concerns objects of intuition, than with that, in which objects are represented but by conceptions (with objects of mathematics, and of philosophy): the latter of which perhaps may easily be thought and without censure (on the part of reason), but perhaps not at all given, but may be void ideas merely, of which no use whatsoever would be made in the praxis, or a use, even disadvantageous to it. Therefore that popular judgment may in such cases be perfectly correct.

But in a theory, which bottoms upon the conception of duty, the apprehension on account of the void idealness of this conception, ceases entirely. For it would not be duty to proceed on a certain effect of our 8:277will, if 164this were not possible in experience too (whether it be thought as accomplished or continually approaching to the accomplishment); and this sort of theory only is the subject of the present treatise. For, it is not seldom pretended of it, to the scandal of philosophy, that, what may be right in it, is however not valid for the praxis: and indeed in an imperious disdainful tone, full of presumption, willing by experience to reform reason in that even, in which it places its greatest honour; and with an arrogated wisdom and mole’s eyes, which are fixed on experience, imagining to be able to see farther and better, than with eyes, which have fallen to the share of a being, made to stand erect and to behold the heavens.

This maxim, become very common in our times, rich in sentences, but poor in facts, when it concerns any thing moral (duty of law or of ethics), occasions the greatest mischief. For here we have to do with the canon of reason (in the practical field), where the value of the praxis rests entirely upon its suitableness to the theory upon which it is built, and all is lost, when the empirical and by consequence fortuitous conditions of the execution of the law are made conditions of the law itself, and thus a praxis, which is calculated on a probable issue according to a precedent experience, becomes entitled to master the theory subsisting of itself.

This treatise is divided according to the three different stations, from which the man of honour, accustomed to pronounce so boldly 165on theories and on systems, is wont to judge his object; consequently in a threefold quality: 1. as a private man but a man of business, 2. as a statesman, 3. as a man of the world, (or a citizen of the world in general). These three personages are unanimous in falling upon the schoolman, (who elaborates theory for them all and for their greatest good) in order, as they believe themselves better qualified, to send him to his school (illa se jactet in aula!), as a pedant who, spoiled for the praxis, but stands in the way of their experienced wisdom.

We shall therefore represent the relation in which the theory stands to the praxis in three sections: first, in moral in general (with a view to the good of every man), secondly, in politics (in reference to the good of states), thirdly, in a cosmopolitical consideration (with a view to the good of the human species in general, so far as it is engaged in advancing to that good in the series of generations of 8:278all future times).—But the titles of the sections will be expressed, for reasons which unfold themselves in the treatise itself, by the relation of the theory to the praxis in moral, in the law of state, and in the law of nations.

Before I come to the proper point of dispute, concerning what may be valid in the use of the same conception for the theory merely, or for the praxis; I must compare my theory, as I have represented it elsewhere, with the representation which Mr. Garve gives of it, in order previously to see, whether we understand one another.

A. By way of introduction I explained moral as a science, which teaches, not how we shall become happy, but how we shall 168become worthy of felicity.* At the same time I did not neglect to observe, that it thereby was not required of man, that, when the observance of duty was concerned, he should renounce his natural end, felicity; for he cannot do that, no more than any finite rational being in general; but he must, when the commandment of duty is in question, totally abstract from the consideration of felicity; he must by no means make it the condition of the observance of the law prescribed 8:279to him by reason; nay, as much as it is possible for him, even to endeavour to become conscious to himself, that no springs derived from that source shall imperceptibly mix themselves with the determination of duty: which is effectuated, by representing duty combined rather with sacrifices, which its observance (virtue) costs, than with the advantages, it yields us: in order to represent to ourselves the commandment of duty in its whole consequence or importance, requiring unconditional obedience, enough for itself and standing in need of no other influence whatever.

a. Mr. Garve expresses this my position thus: ‘that I maintained, that observance of 169the moral law is, entirely without consideration of felicity, the only scope of man, that it must he considered as the sole end of the Creator.’ (According to my theory, neither the morality of man of itself, nor felicity of itself only, but the highest good possible in the world, which consists of the union and harmony of both, is the only end of the Creator).

B. I observed farther, that this conception of duty has no occasion to bottom upon any particular end, but rather brings about another end for the will of man, namely, to contribute to the utmost to the highest good possible in the world (universal felicity conjoined with the purest morality, and that felicity conformable to this morality in the universe): which, as it is indeed in our power on one side, but not on both sides taken together, extorts from reason in a practical view the belief in a moral Sovereign of the world and in a future life. Not, as if the universal conception of duty should receive support and stability but on the presupposition of both, that is, a sure ground and the requisite strength of a spring, but that it may receive an object but in that ideal of pure reason.* For duty 170in itself is nothing, but 8:280limitation of the will to the condition of an universal legislation possible by an assumed maxim, let the object, or the end of the will be what it pleases (consequently even felicity); but from which and from every end that one may have, it is hereby totally abstracted. In the question concerning the principle of moral, the doctrine of the chief good, as ultimate end of a will determined by it and suitable to its laws, may then (as episodisal) be passed over in silence; as it will appear in the sequel, that, where the proper point of dispute is concerned, no regard whatever is paid to it, but merely to the universal moral.

171 b. Mr. Garve, reduces these positions to the following expressions: ‘that the virtuous neither can, nor dares lose sight of that point of view (proper felicity),—because otherwise he would totally lose the transition to the invisible world, that to the conviction of the existence of God and of immortality; which however, according to this theory, 8:281is absolutely necessary, to give system support and stability;’ and concludes in order to comprehend in a small space the sum of the assertions ascribed to me: ‘The virtuous in consequence of those principles aspires incessantly to be worthy of felicity, but, so far, as he is really virtuous, never to be happy.’ (The expression so far occasions here an ambiguity, which must first be removed. It may mean: in the act, in which he as virtuous subjects himself to his duty; and in that case this position harmonizes completely with my theory. Or: when he is but virtuous in general, and even where duty is not concerned and impugned, the virtuous shall pay no regard at all to felicity; and that contradicts my assertions entirely).

These objections, therefore, are nothing but misunderstandings (for I do not chuse to hold them misinterpretations); whose possibility would seem very strange, did not the human propensity, to follow the train of thought to which it is once accustomed in even the judgment of other’s thoughts, and thus to transfer that to this, sufficiently explain such a phenomenon.

172 A dogmatical assertion of the opposite follows this polemical treatment of the above moral principle. Mr. Garve concludes analytically thus: ‘In the order of conceptions must precede the perception and distinguishing of states, whereby the preference is given to the one over the other, to the choice of one of them, and thus to the previous determination of a certain end. But a state, which a being, endued with the consciousness of himself and of his state, when this state is present and perceived by him, prefers to other modes of being, is a good state; and a series of such good states is the most general conception, which, the word felicity expresses.’—Again: ‘A law presupposes motives, but motives presuppose a previously perceived difference of a worse state from a better. This difference perceived is the element of the conception of felicity etc.’ Again: ‘From felicity, in the most general sense of the word, spring the motives to every pursuit; therefore to the observance of the moral law. I must first know in general, that something is good, before I can inquire, whether the observance of the moral duties belongs to the rubric of the good; man must have a 8:282spring, that puts him in motion, before an aim can be set up to him,* to which this motion shall be directed.’

173 This argument is nothing more than a play with the ambiguity of the word the good: as this is either in itself and unconditionally good, in contradiction to that bad in itself; or, never but good in a conditional manner, compared with the better or with the worse, as the state of the choice of the former can be but a comparatively better state, but in itself may be bad.—The maxim of an unconditional observance of a categorically commanding law of the free arbitrament (that is, duty) having no regard at all to ends as a foundation, is essentially, that is, according to the species, different from the maxim, To observe that end (which is named felicity in general) pointed out to us by nature itself, as a motive to a certain mode of action. For the first is good in itself, but the second by no means; it may in the event of the collision with duty, be very bad. Whereas, when a certain end is founded upon, consequently no law commands unconditionally (but only on the condition of this end), thus two opposite actions may be both good in a conditional manner, only, one better than the other (which latter would therefore be named comparatively bad); for, they are not different from one another according to the sort, but merely according to the degree. And of this nature are all actions, whose motive is not the unconditional law of reason (duty), but an end arbitrably laid by us as a foundation: for this belongs to the sum of all ends, whose attainment is denominated felicity; and one action may contribute more, another less, to my felicity, con174sequently be better or worse than the other,—But the preferring of the one state of the determination of the will to the other is an act of liberty merely, (res meræ facultatis, as the jurists, say); in which, it is not at all taken into consideration whether this (determination of the will) be good or bad in itself, therefore it is, in respect of both, equipollent.

8:283 A state of being in connection with a certain given end, which I prefer to every other of the same sort, is a comparatively better state, in the field of felicity (which can be acknowledged as good by reason but in a conditional manner, so far as one is worthy of it). But that state, in which, in case of the collision of any of my ends with the moral law of duty, I am conscious to myself, to prefer this, is not only a better state, but that state only good in itself: a good from a quite other field, where we have no regard at all to ends, which may present themselves to us (consequently to their sum, felicity), and where, not the matter of the arbitrament (an object upon which it bottoms) but the mere form of the universal legality of its maxim, constitutes its determinative.—Therefore it cannot by any means be said, that I can reckon every, state, which I prefer to every other mode of being, to felicity. For I must first be certain that I do not act contrary to my duty; as I am but then allowed to look out for felicity, and to see how much of it I can unite with that my morally (not physically) good state.*

175 The will must certainly have motives; but these are not certain designed objects referred to the physical feeling, as ends, but nothing but the unconditional law itself; for which reason the receptibility of the will, to find itself under that law, as an unconditional necessitalion is termed the moral feeling; which is therefore not the cause, but the effect of the determination of the will, of which we would not have the smallest perception in us, if that necessitation in 8:284us did not precede. Hence the old song, That this feeling, consequently a pleasure, which we make our end, constitutes the first cause of the determination of the will, of course felicity (to which that pleasure belongs as element) the ground of all objective necessity of acting, therefore of all obligation, pertains to the reasoning toyings. When, in alleging a cause to a certain effect, one cannot cease inquiring, thus at last one makes the effect the cause of itself.

At present I come to the point, which properly occupies us here, namely, to try by examples and to prove the interest of the theory and of the praxis opiniatively jarring in philosophy. Mr. G. in his above-mentioned Essay 176gives the best testimony of this. First, says he (speaking of the distinction, which I find between a doctrine, how we shall become happy and that, how we shall become worthy of felicity): ‘I for my part acknowledge, that I perfectly comprehend this partition of ideas in my head, but that, I do not find this partition of the wishes and aspirations in my heart; that it is even incomprehensible to me, how any one person can be conscious to himself of having purely separated his desire for felicity itself, and therefore discharged his duty quite disinterestedly.’

I first reply to the latter, namely, I willingly grant, that no man can with certainty be conscious to himself of having discharged his duty quite disinterestedly: for that belongs to internal experience, and to this consciousness of the state of his mind would belong a throughly clear representation of all the collateral representations and considerations associating themselves with the conception of duty, by imagination, assuetude, and inclination, which cannot be required in any case; the nonexistence of something cannot be an object of experience (consequently an advantage thought in secret cannot). But man is conscious to himself with the greatest distinctness, that he ought to discharge his duty quite disinterestedly, and must totally separate his desire for felicity from the conception of duty, in order to have it quite pure; or, did he believe not to be conscious of this, it can be required of him that he be so, as far as it is in his power; because just in this purity 177is to be met with the real value of morality, and he must therefore be able to be so. Perhaps no man may have ever quite disinterestedly discharged (without a mixture of other 8:285springs) his duty, acknowledged and even honoured by him: perhaps no one, notwithstanding the greatest, efforts, will ever reach so far. But, as much as he can perceive in himself by the most careful self-examination, to be conscious to himself not only of no such cooperating motives, but rather of self-denial with regard to many things opposing the idea of duty, consequently of the maxim, to aspire to that purity: that he is able to do; and that is enough for the observance of his duty. Whereas, to adopt as a maxim the favouring of the influence of such motives, under the pretext, that human nature does not allow such a purity (which however he cannot maintain with certitude), is the death of all morality.

As to the laconic confession of Mr. G. to wit, not to find in his heart that partition (more properly separation); I make no hesitation to contradict him directly in his self-accusation, and to protect his heart against his head. He, honest man, always found it actually in his heart (in the determination of his will); but they would only not accord, for the behoof of speculation and for the comprehending of what is incomprehensible (inexplicable), namely, the possibility of categorical imperatives, (such as those of duty are), in his head with the common principles of psychological explications (which collectively bottom upon the mechanism of the necessity of nature.*

178 But when Mr. G. at last says: ‘Such fine distinctions become obscure in reflecting on particular objects; but they are lost entirely, when acting is in question, 8:286when they are to be applied to appetites and views. The simpler, and quicker the step is, by which we pass from the considerations of the motives to real action, and the more divested of clear representations; the less is it possible to cognise precisely and certainly the determinate weight, which every motive has added, to direct the step so and not otherwise’.—I must be allowed to contradict him flatly, and with an audible voice.

The conception of duty in its whole purity is not only beyond all comparison simpler, more perspicuous, more conceivable to every body for practical use, and more natural, than any motive taken from felicity, or mingled with it and having regard to it (which always requires great art and reflection); but, in the judgment of even the most common human reason, when it is but brought to this, and with separation from, nay, even in opposi179tion to these, to the will of man far more energetical, penetrating, and promises more success, than all the motives borrowed from the latter interested principle.—Let us, for example, put the case: that a certain person has in his hands another’s property which was intrusted to him (depositum), whose prorprietor is dead, and that his heirs neither know, nor can ever hear of that property. Let this case be propounded even to a child, of eight or nine years old; and at the same time, that the detainer of this deposite is (without his fault) exactly at this instant totally ruined in his circumstances, and sees around him a wife and a numerous family of helpless children, melancholy and dejected through want, from which distressing situation he would be immediately relieved, should he appropriate that deposite to himself; let him at the same time be humane and beneficent, but that heir opulent and uncharitable, and in the highest degree luxurious and prodigal, so that this addition to his fortune would be like throwing a drop of water into the ocean. And were it now asked, Whether the detainer, under these circumstances, can be allowed to apply this deposite to his own use? The answer would certainly be: no! and, instead of all grounds, nothing, but that it is wrong, that is, repugnant to duty. Nothing is clearer than this; and indeed not that the detainer promotes his own felicity by giving up the deposite. For, if he expected the fixing of his resolution from the view to felicity, he might reason thus: if I 180return this deposite to its proper owner, without its being demanded, 8:287I shall in all probability be rewarded for my honesty; or, should I not be rewarded, I shall acquire a good reputation, which may be highly advantageous to me. But all this is very uncertain. On the other hand many doubts occur: if I should keep the deposite, in order to relieve my distresses at once, I would, should I make a speedy use of it, incur suspicion, and every body would inquire how I came to better my fortune so suddenly; but were I to proceed in this slowly, the misery would increase to so high a degree, that it would not be possible afterwards to remedy it.—The will therefore according to the maxim of felicity hesitates between its springs, what it shall conclude; for it looks to the consequence and that is very uncertain; it requires a good understanding to disentangle one’s self from the crowd of arguments and counter-arguments and not to deceive one’s self in the summing up. Whereas when one questions one’s self, What is duty here? one is at no loss at all what answer to give, but is immediately certain what ought to be done. Nay, if the conception of duty has any weight with us, we even feel an aversion to enter but on the calculation of advantages, which might arise to us from the transgression of our duty, as if we still had the choice here.

It therefore contradicts, even proper experience, that these distinctions (which, as shown above, are not so fine, as Mr. G. fancies, but are written in the most legible cha181racters in the soul of man) are, as he expresses himself, totally lost, when acting is in question. It does not indeed contradict that experience, which exhibits the history of the maxims drawn from the one or from the other principle: for there it evinces, unfortunately, that they for the most part flow from the latter (self-interest); but the experience, which can be but internal, that no idea elevates the human mind more, and animates it to ecstasy even, than that of a pure moral sentiment revering duty above all, struggling with the innumerable evils of life and even with its seducing allurements, and yet overcoming them (as it is supposed with reason, that man is able to do it). That man is conscious to himself, that he can do this, because he ought to do it, opens in him a depth of godlike predispositions, which makes him feel, in a manner, a solemn shudder and reflect on the grandeur and sublimity of his real 8:288destination. And were he frequently made attentive and accustomed, to disburden virtue totally of all the riches and spoil of the advantages, which it can make from the observance of duty, and to represent it to himself in its whole purity; were it a principle in the private as well as in the public instruction to make constant use of it (a method of inculcating duties, which has almost always been neglected); the morality of men would soon be on a better footing. That the experience of history has not yet had the good consequence, which moralists wished to evince, is the fault of the false presupposition, That the spring derived from the idea of 182duty in itself is far too fine for the common conception, whereas the coarser spring taken from certain advantages to be expected in this would, nay, even in a future, from the observance of the law (without attending to it as spring), would act more forcibly on the mind; and that to give the aspiring to felicity the preference to that, which reason makes the highest condition, namely, the worthiness of being happy, has hitherto been made the principle of education and of the propounding from the pulpit. For precepts, how one may make himself happy, or at least avoid his disadvantage, are no commandments. They bind nobody absolutely; and he, after he has been warned, may chuse what he pleases, when he is content with suffering, whatever may happen to him. He has then no reason to consider the evils, which may arise to him from the neglect of the advice given him, as punishments; for these reach, only the free but the wrongful will; but nature and inclination cannot give laws to liberty. Quite differently circumstanced is the idea of duty, whose transgression, without having regard to the disadvantages arising to men therefrom, acts immediately on the mind, and renders them in their own eyes culpable and punishable.

Here is now a clear proof, that in moral all that is right in theory, must be valid for the praxis, too.—In the quality of a man, as a being subjected to certain duties by his own reason, every one is a man of business; and, as he, as a man, never grows too tall 183for the school of wisdom, he cannot, as opiniatively better versed by experience in what a man is and what can be required of him, with arrogant contempt send back to the school the adherers to the theory. For all this 8:289experience does not help him to avoid the precept of theory, but only to teach, how it, when it is adopted as a principle, may be better and more generally put in execution; but which pragmatical address is not the subject of the present discussion.

…

Let us employ our conceptions ever so sublimely, and thereby abstract ever so much from the sensitive faculty, yet there still adheres to them typical representations, whose proper destination it is, to make them, which are not derived from experience, fit for the use of experience. For how could we procure signification to our conceptions, were they not built upon some one intuition or other (which at last must always be an example from some one possible experience)? When we afterwards leave out from this concrete act of the understanding the mixture of the type, first of the contingent perception by sense, then even the pure sensitive intuition in general; that pure conception of understanding, whose compass is now extended, and contains a rule of thinking in general, remains. In like manner is the universal logic itself brought to pass; and many heuristic methods of thinking lie perhaps still concealed in the experience-use of our understanding and of reason, which methods, if we understood to draw them carefully from that experience, might enrich philosophy, even in abstract cogitation, with many useful maxims.

388 Of this nature is the principle, which the late Mendelssohn expressly professed, as far as I know, but in his last writings (the Morning-hours, page 165–66, and the Letter to Lessing’s Friends p. 38 and 67); namely, the maxim of necessity, in the speculative use of reason (to which with regard to the cognition of supersensible objects he trusted so much, even to the evidence of demonstration) to orient himself by a certain mean of guidance, which he sometimes termed common sense (Morning-hours), sometimes sound reason, and sometimes sound understanding (to Lessing’s Friends). Who had thought, that this acknowledgment of the potency of the speculative use of reason would have been so pernicious in matters of theology (which in fact was inevitable); but even the common 8:134sound reason, on account of the ambiguity, in which he left the exercise of this faculty in contradistinction to speculation, would be in danger of serving as a principle of fanaticism and of the total dethroning of reason? And yet this happened in the dispute between Mendelssohn and Jacobi, chiefly [by the by no means insignificant conclusions of the acute author of the Results;* however, I will not impute to either the intention of producing a cast of mind so pernicious but rather consider]† the 389undertaking of the latter as an argumentum ad hominem, which one is entitled to use as a mere defence, in order to profit by the adversary’s weaknesses to his disadvantage. On the other hand I shall show, That in fact it is reason merely, not a pretended secret sense of truth, no transcendent intuition under the name of belief, upon which tradition or revelation may, without the consent of reason, be grafted, but, as Mendelssohn maintained steadfastly and with a just zeal, merely the proper pure human reason, whereby he found necessary, and recommended to orient one’s self; though the great pretension of the speculative use of it, and chiefly its sole commanding authority (by demonstration), must be dropped, and, so far as it is speculative, nothing further left it, than the business of purifying the common conception of reason from contradictions and the defence against its own sophistical attacks on the maxims of sound reason.—The extended and more precisely determined conception of self-orienting may assist us to exhibit distinctly the maxims of sound reason in their elaborations for the cognition of supersensible objects.

To orient one’s self, in the proper sense of the expression, is, From a given point (into four of which we divide the horizon) to find the other points, or the orient or east, if I see the sun, and know that it is at present twelve o’clock, I know how to find all the cardinal points, south, west, north and east. But for this purpose I absolutely require the feeling of a difference in my own subject, to wit, the 390right and left hand. I name it a feeling; because 8:135these two sides show no sensible difference externally it the intuition. Without this faculty, in the describing of a circle, I could not know, without needing in it some one difference of the objects, to distinguish the motion from the left to the right from that in the opposite direction, and thereby to determine à priori a difference in the situation of objects, nor whether I should put west to the right or to the left of the south point of the horizon, and so complete the circle through north and west to south again. I therefore orient myself geographically in all objective data in the heavens but by a subjective ground of distinction; and, if one day by a miracle all the constellations were altered in their direction, so that what was formerly eastern became western, though they preserved the same figure and the very same situation towards one another, no human eye would the next starlight evening remark the smallest alteration, and even the astronomer, if he attended to that merely, which he sees and not at the same time to what he feels, would unavoidably disorient himself. But the faculty of distinguishing by the feeling of the right and of the left hand, which is indeed bestowed by nature but become familiar by frequent exercise, comes very naturally to his assistance; and he will, when he fixes the polestar, not only remark the alteration which has happened, but that notwithstanding, be able to orient himself. I may now extend this geographical conception of the procedure of orienting one’s 391self, and understand by it, To orient one’s self in a given space in general, therefore merely mathematically. In the dark I orient myself in a room which I know, when I can lay hold of but one single object, whose place I remember. But here it is evident that nothing assists me but the faculty of determining the situations according, to a subjective ground of distinction: for I do not at all see the objects, whose place I must find; and, if any one for the sake of a joke should place on the left side of a room all the objects which were before on the right, though in the same order among themselves, I, were the walls all alike, would not know what to make of the room. But I quickly orient myself by the mere feeling of a difference of my two sides, the right and the left. The same happens at night when I must walk and turn properly in dark streets, which I know, but in which I can distinguish no house. 8:136Finally I may extend this conception still more, where it would then consist in the faculty of orienting one’s self, not merely in space, that is, mathematically, but in thinking in general, that is, logically. It may be easily devined, according to analogy, that this will be an affair of pure reason to direct its use, if it, setting out from known objects (of experience), is to extend itself beyond all bounds of experience, and finds no object of intuition at all, but merely space for it; as it is then no longer able, according to objective grounds of cognition, but merely according to a subjective ground of distinction, in the determination of its own faculty of judg392ing, to bring its judgments under a precise maxim.* This subjective mean, which then remains, is nothing but the feeling of the proper want of reason. One may remain secure from all errour, when one does not undertake to judge, where one knows not so much, as is requisite to a determining judgment. Thus ignorance in itself is the cause of the limits, but not of the errors in our cognation. But, where it is not sο arbitrable, whether one shall judge determinately or not on something, where an actual want and even such a one, as adheres to reason itself, renders judging necessary; and yet want of knowledge in regard to the points requisite to the judgment limits us; a maxim is necessary, according to which we pass our judgment; for reason will be satisfied. When it is then previously made out, that here there can be no intuition of the object, not even something homogenal with it, by which we could exhibit the object suitably to our extended conceptions, and thus secure them their real possibility; nothing farther is left for us to do, than, First to prove well the conception, with which we have a mind to venture beyond all possible experience, whether it be free from contradictions; and then to bring the relation of the object at least to the objects of experience under pure conceptions of understanding, 393whereby we do not at all render it sensible, but yet conceive of something supersensible, suitable at least to the experience-use 8:137of our reason: for without this precaution we could make no use whatever of such a conception, but instead of thinking extravagate.

However by the mere conception there is nothing yet effectuated with regard to the existence of this object and to the actual connection of it with the world (the complex of all objects of possible experience). But the right of the want of reason, as a subjective ground of presupposing and assuming something, which it dares not pretend to know by objective grounds, presents itself now; and consequently to orient itself in thinking, in the immense space of the supersensible that is filled for us with dark night, merely by its own want.

Many supersensible things may be conceived (for objects of the senses do not fill up the whole field of all possibility), where reason however feels no want to extend itself to them, and still less to suppose their existence. Reason finds employment enough with the causes in the world, which manifest themselves to the senses, (or at least are of the same sort, as those which manifest themselves to them), not to stand in need, in their behalf, of the influence of pure spiritual beings of nature; whose supposition would rather be detrimental to its use. For, as we know nothing of the laws, according to which such beings may act, but of those, namely, the objects of the senses, we know, at least 394we may hope to discover still, a great deal; the use of reason would rather be injured by such a presupposition. It is therefore by no means a want, it is rather mere curiosity, which tends to nothing but reveries, to search after them, or to play with such phantoms. The conception of a first Being, as supreme intelligence and at the same time as the chief good, is of a totally different nature. For not only, that our reason feels a want to lay as a foundation the conception of the unlimited to the conception of all that is limited, therefore of all other things;* 8:138but this want extends to the 395presupposition of its existence, without which it can give itself no satisfactory ground at all of the contingency of the existence of the things in the world, but least of all of the conformity-to-end and order, which is every-where to be met with in a degree so admirable (in the small, because it is near us, still more, than in the great). Without assuming an intelligent Author, there cannot, without falling into mere absurdities, be assigned the smallest intelligible ground of those; and, though we cannot evince the impossibility of such a conformity-to-end without a first intelligent Cause, (for then we had had sufficient objective grounds of this assertion, and not required to appeal to the 8:139subjective one’s); notwithstanding this want of insight, a sufficient subjective ground of supposition of it remains, namely, that reason requires, To presuppose something, that is intelligible to it, in order to explain by it this given phenomenon, as every thing else, with which it can combine but a conception, doth not supply this want.

396 But the want of reason may be considered as twofold; first, in its theoretical use, and secondly, in its practical. The first want I have just mentioned; but it is obvious that it is but conditional, that is, we must assume the existence of God, if we would judge of the first causes of all that is contingent, chiefly in the order of the ends actually placed in the world. Far more important is the want of reason in its practical use, because it is unconditional, and we are then necessitated to presuppose the existence of God, not only if we would judge, but because we must judge. For the pure practical use of reason consists in the precept of the moral laws. But they all lead to the idea of the chief good, that is possible in the world, so far as it is possible by liberty only, Morality; on the other side, to that, which does not concern human liberty merely, but nature, namely, the greatest felicity, so far as it is distributed in proportion to the first. Reason now requires to suppose such a dependent chief good, and for the behoof of it a supreme Intelligence, a chief independent good; not indeed to deduce from him the commanding authority of the moral laws, or the spring to their observance, (for they would have no moral value, if their motive were derived from any thing, but from the law only, which is of itself apodictically certain); but only, in order to give objective reality to the conception of the chief good, that is, to hinder it together with all morality from being held a mere ideal, if that, whose 397idea inseparably accompanies morality, existed nowhere.

It was therefore not cognition, but a felt* want of reason, by which Mendelssohn oriented himself (without his knowledge) in speculative cogitation. And, as this mean of guidance is not an 8:140objective principle of reason, a principle of introspections, but a merely subjective one (that is, a maxim) of the use allowed it by its limits only, a consequent of the want, and constitutes of itself only the whole determinative of our judgment on the existence of the supreme Being, of which it is but a casual use, to orient one's self in the speculative essays on the same object; so he no doubt failed in confiding so much in the faculty of this speculation, to effectuate every thing of itself only by the way of demonstration. The necessity of the former mean could have place but when the insufficiency of the latter was fully acknowledged: an acknowledgment, to which his acuteness would at last have brought him, if together with a longer life had been granted him the phansy of mind more peculiar to juvenile years, to alter easily an old familiar cast of mind according to the alteration of the state of the sciences. However the merit remains to him of maintaining, that the last touchstone of the admissible398ness of a judgment here, as well as elsewhere, is nowhere to be sought, but in reason only, whether it be guided in the choice of its positions by insight or mere want and the maxim of its own profitableness. He denominated reason in its latter use the common reason of man; for this has always its own interest first in view, but one must have wandered from the natural track, to forget that, and idly to explore conceptions in an objective view, in order to enlarge one’s knowledge merely, whether it be necessary or not.

But as the expression, Decision of sound reason, in the question on the carpet is still ambiguous, and may be taken, either, as Mendelssohn himself misunderstood it, to be a judgment from insight of reason, or, as the author of the Results seems to take it, a judgment from inspiration of reason; it will be necessary to distinguish this source of judgment by another denomination, and none is more apposite to it, than that of a belief of reason. Every belief, even the historical, must be rational (for the last test of truth is always reason); but a 8:141belief of reason is that which is built upon no other data, than what are comprised in pure reason. Belief is however a subjectively sufficient holding-true, but objectively with consciousness an insufficient one: it is therefore opposed to knowing (scire). On the other hand, when something from objective, though with consciousness insufficient, grounds is holden-true, consequently opined merely; this opining may nevertheless by a gradual completion in the same sort of grounds 399finally become a knowing. Whereas when the grounds of holding-true, according to their species, are not at all objectively valid, the belief can never become a knowing by any use of reason. The historical belief, exempli gratia, of the death of a great man, of which several letters give, notice, may become a knowing, when the magistrate of the place makes mention of it, of his burial, testament etc. Hence it is perfectly consistent, that something historical is held-true from testimony merely, that is, believed, for instance, that there is a city named Rome: and yet he, who never was there, may say, I know, and not merely, I believe, there exists a Rome. On the other hand, the pure belief of reason can never be transformed into a knowing by all the natural data of reason and of experience, because here the ground of holding-true is subjective merely, namely, a necessary want of reason, (and, as long as we are men, will ever remain) only to presuppose the existence of a supreme Being, but not to demonstrate. This want of reason for its theoretical use satisfying itself would be nothing else than a pure hypothesis of reason, that is, an opinion, that were sufficient to holding-true from subjective grounds; because another ground can never be expected to explain given effects, and yet reason stands in need of a ground of explanation. Whereas the belief of reason, which rests upon the want of its use in a practical view, may be named a postulate of reason; not as if it were an insight, which satisfied to a certainty every logical demand, but because 400this holding-true (when in man all is but morally well-disposed) according to the degree is inferior to no knowing,* though according to the species it is totally distinct from it.

8:142 A pure belief of reason is therefore the way-mark or the compass by which the speculative thinker may orient himself in his excursions of reason in the field of supersensible objects, but it can point out to the man of common yet (morally) sound reason his way, in a theoretical as well as a practical view, fully suitable to the whole end of his destination; and it is this belief of reason, which must form the basis of every other belief, nay, every revelation.

The belief in God, and even the conviction of his existence, can be met with in reason only, can arise but from it, and can be first awaked in us, neither by inspiration, nor by an account given, however great the authority may be. Should an immediate intuition happen to me of such a sort, as nature, as far as I know it, cannot at all yield; a conception of God must however serve as a rule to judge whether this phænomenon agree with all that which is requisite to characterise a divinity. I by no means introspect, how it is possible, 401that any one phenomenon should, even but according to the quality, exhibit that, which can be cogitated only, but never intuited; yet so much at least is clear that, in order but to judge whether that, which appears to me, which acts internally or externally on my feeling, be God, I must compare it with my idea of God and prove it accordingly, not whether it be adequate to this, but merely whether it be not inconsistent with it. In the same manner, if in all, whereby he discovered himself immediately to me, nothing repugnant to that conception were to be met with; yet, this phenomenon, intuition, immediate revelation, or however such an exhibition may be named, can never evince the existence of a Being, whose conception (if it shall not be insecurely determined, and thereby subjected to the mixture of every possible fancy) requires infinity as to greatness for the distinction from all creatures, but to which conception no experience or intuition whatever can be adequate, consequently can never prove unambiguously the existence 8:143of such a Being. Nobody can therefore be first convinced of the existence of the supreme Being by any one intuition; the belief of reason must precede, and then perhaps certain phenomena or discoveries may give occasion to investigate, whether we are entitled to hold a divinity what either speaks to us, or presents itself to our view, and, according to circumstances, to confirm that belief.

If then the right to speak first belonging to reason in matters, which concern super402sensible objects, as the existence of God and the world to come, be impugned; a wide gate is opened to all sorts of fanaticism, superstition, nay, even atheism. And yet every thing in the dispute between Jacobi and Mendelssohn seems to aim at this overthrow, I do not well know, whether merely the insight of reason, and of knowing (by opiniative strength in speculation), or even of the belief of reason, and on the contrary aims at the establishment of another belief, which every one may form at pleasure. One would almost conclude the latter, when he sees display’d Spinoza’s conception of God, as the only one harmonizing with all principles of reason,* and 8:144yet 403rejectable. For though it is perfectly consonant to reason to grant, That speculative reason is not able to perspect the possibility even of a Being, such as we must conceive God: it cannot be consistent with any belief or with any holding-true of an existence, that reason can perspect the very impossibility of an object, and yet cognise from other sources its actuality.

Men of abilities and of enlarged sentiments! I honour your talents and love your feeling for humanity. But have ye well reflected on what ye are doing, and on what may be the tendency of your attacks on reason. No doubt ye are willing that the liberty of thinking shall be maintained unvexed; for without this there were soon an end of your free soarings of genius. Let us see what must naturally be the consequence of this liberty of thought, if such a procedure, as ye are beginning, should prevail.

The liberty of thinking is first opposed to the civil coaction. It is said, The liberty of speaking, or of writing, may indeed be taken from us by the chief power, but the 404liberty of thinking, by no means. But, how much and with what justness would we think, if we did not think in a manner, in a community with others, to whom we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs to us! Therefore it may well be said, that that external power, which robs men of the liberty of communicating their thoughts publicly, deprives them likewise of the liberty of thinking, the only jewel that, notwithstanding all the civil burdens, remains to us, and by which only counsel can be procured against all the evils of this situation.

Secondly, the liberty of thinking is taken in the signification too, that the coaction of conscience is opposed to it; where without 8:145any external power citizens in matters of religion set themselves up as guardians of others, and, instead of arguments, know, by means of prescribed formules of faith accompanied with anxious fear of the danger of a proper investigation, to banish by an early impression on the minds every trial of reason.

Thirdly, liberty in thinking signifies also the subjection of reason to no other laws, than those it gives itself; and its opposite is the maxim of a lawless use of reason (in order thereby, as genius fancies, to see farther, than under the restriction by laws). The consequence of which is naturally this, that, if reason will not be subjected to the law, which it gives itself, it must bend under the yoke of laws, which another gives it; for without some one law or other, nothing at all, not even the greatest nonsense, can play its part long. 405Therefore the explained lawlessness in thinking (an exemption from the limitations by reason) is this, That liberty of thinking is thereby lost at last, and, as it is not the fault of misfortune, but of true presumptuousness, in the proper sense of the word, trifled away.

The course of things is pretty nearly this: In the first place genius, as it has run out the clew by which it formerly directed reason, is very much pleased with its daring soar. It soon bewitches others by decisions of authority and great expectations, and seems now to have placed itself upon a throne, which slow unwieldy reason graced so ill; though it always continues to speak the language of reason. The then adopted maxim of the invalidity of a chief legislative reason we denominate; common fanaticism of men; but the minions of bountiful nature, illumines. As however a confusion of tongues must soon happen even among these, since every one, as reason only can command with validity for everybody, follows at present his own inspiration; so there must arise at last from internal inspirations by testimonies of facts externally proved, from traditions, which were chosen in the beginning by one’s self, in process of time obtruded records, in a word, the total subjection of reason to facts, that is, superstition, because this may be reduced to a legal form at least and thereby to a state of rest.

But as human reason still aspires to liberty; its first use, of a long disaccustomed liberty, when it once breaks the fetters, 8:146must degene406rate into abuse and audacious confidence in the independence of its faculty on all limitation, in a persuasion of the sole dominion of speculative reason, which supposes nothing, but what can be justified by objective grounds and dogmatical conviction, but boldly denies every thing else. The maxim of the independence of reason on its own want (renunciation of the belief of reason) is named unbelief: not a historical unbelief; for one cannot at all conceive it as designed, therefore not as capable of imputation (because every one must believe, just as much as a mathematical demonstration, a fact that is sufficiently verified); but an unbelief of reason, a dangerous state of the human mind, which first deprives the moral laws of all the power of springs on the heart, and in process of time, even devests them of every authority, and gives occasion to the cast of mind, which is termed free-thinking, that is, the principle, To acknowledge no duty whatever. Here now the magistrate interferes; in order that civil affairs may not fall into the greatest disorder; and, as the promptest and yet most energetic mean is directly the best for him, he totally annuls the liberty Of thinking, and subjects it, like other trades, to the laws of the land. And thus liberty in thinking, when it is resolved to proceed independently on laws of reason, ultimately destroys itself.

Friends of the human species and of that which is the most sacred to it! Assume what appears to you the worthiest of belief after the most careful and most sincere trial, whether 407it be facts, or whether it be grounds of reason; but do not dispute reason out of that, which it makes the chief good on earth, namely, the prerogative of being the last test of truth.* Else ye will be unworthy of this liberty, 8:147will certainly lose it too, and besides, will bring this misfortune on the innocent part of mankind, who had otherwise been well-minded enough to use their liberty legally, and thereby conformably to the end of the public good!

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Essays

and

Treatises

on Moral, Political, and Various
Philosophical Subjects.

From the German by the Translator of
The Principles of Critical Philosophy.

London:

Printed for the translator:
and sold by William Richardson under the
Royal Exchange. 1799.

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