Part i

., _On the bad principle in Human Nature_, III., where Kant remarks that although war “is not so incurably bad as the deadness of a universal monarchy ... yet, as an ancient observed, it makes more bad men than it takes away.”]

[130] The value of life for us, if it is estimated by that _which we enjoy_ (by the natural purpose of the sum of all inclinations, _i.e._ happiness), is easy to decide. It sinks below zero; for who would be willing to enter upon life anew under the same conditions? who would do so even according to a new, self-chosen plan (yet in conformity with the course of nature), if it were merely directed to enjoyment? We have shown above what value life has in virtue of what it contains in itself, when lived in accordance with the purpose that nature has along with us, and which consists in what we do (not merely what we enjoy), in which, however, we are always but means towards an undetermined final purpose. There remains then nothing but the value which we ourselves give our life, through what we can not only do, but do purposively in such independence of nature that the existence of nature itself can only be a purpose under this condition.

[131] It would be possible that the happiness of rational beings in the world should be a purpose of nature, and then also this would be its _ultimate_ purpose. At least we cannot see _a priori_ why nature should not be so ordered, because by means of its mechanism this effect would be certainly possible, at least so far as we see. But morality, with a causality according to purposes subordinated thereto, is absolutely impossible by means of natural causes; for the principle by which it determines to action is supersensible, and is therefore the only possible principle in the order of purposes that in respect of nature is absolutely unconditioned. Its subject consequently alone is qualified to be the _final purpose_ of creation to which the whole of nature is subordinated.--_Happiness_, on the contrary, as has been shown in the preceding paragraphs by the testimony of experience, is not even a _purpose of nature_ in respect of man in preference to other creatures; much less a _final purpose of creation_. Men may of course make it their ultimate subjective purpose. But if I ask, in reference to the final purpose of creation, why must men exist? then we are speaking of an objective supreme purpose, such as the highest Reason would require for creation. If we answer: These beings exist to afford objects for the benevolence of that Supreme Cause; then we contradict the condition to which the Reason of man subjects even his inmost wish for happiness (viz. the harmony with his own internal moral legislation). This proves that happiness can only be a conditioned purpose, and that it is only as a moral being that man can be the final purpose of creation; but that as concerns his state happiness is only connected with it as a consequence, according to the measure of his harmony with that purpose regarded as the purpose of his being.

[132] [Second Edition.]

[133] I say deliberately under moral laws. It is not man _in accordance with_ moral laws, _i.e._ a being who behaves himself in conformity with them, who is the final purpose of creation. For by using the latter expression we should be asserting more than we know; viz. that it is in the power of an Author of the world to cause man always to behave himself in accordance with moral laws. But this presupposes a concept of freedom and of nature (of which latter we can only think an external author), which would imply an insight into the supersensible substrate of nature and its identity with that which causality through freedom makes possible in the world. And this far surpasses the insight of our Reason. Only of _man under moral laws_ can we say, without transgressing the limits of our insight: his being constitutes the final purpose of the world. This harmonises completely with the judgement of human Reason reflecting morally upon the course of the world. We believe that we perceive in the case of the wicked the traces of a wise purposive reference, if we only see that the wanton criminal does not die before he has undergone the deserved punishment of his misdeeds. According to our concepts of free causality, our good or bad behaviour depends on ourselves; we regard it the highest wisdom in the government of the world to ordain for the first, opportunity, and for both, their consequence, in accordance with moral laws. In the latter properly consists the glory of God, which is hence not unsuitably described by theologians as the ultimate purpose of creation.-- It is further to be remarked that when we use the word creation, we understand nothing more than we have said here, viz. the cause of the _being_ of the world or of the things in it (substances). This is what the concept properly belonging to this word involves (_actuatio substantiae est creatio_); and consequently there is not implied in it the supposition of a freely working, and therefore intelligent, cause (whose being we first of all want to prove).

[134] [Note added in Second Edition.] This moral argument does not supply any _objectively-valid_ proof of the Being of God; it does not prove to the sceptic that there is a God, but proves that if he wishes to think in a way consonant with morality, he must admit the _assumption_ of this proposition under the maxims of his practical Reason.-- We should therefore not say: it is necessary _for morals_ [Sittlichkeit], to assume the happiness of all rational beings of the world in proportion to their morality [Moralität]; but rather, this is necessitated _by_ morality. Accordingly, this is a _subjective_ argument sufficient for moral beings.

[135] [Second Edition.]

[136] [Second Edition.]

[137] In a practical sense that religion is always idolatry which conceives the Supreme Being with properties, according to which something else besides morality can be a fit condition for that which man can do being in accordance with His Will. For however pure and free from sensible images the concept that we have formed may be in a theoretical point of view, yet it will be in a practical point of view still represented as an _idol_, _i.e._ in regard to the character of His Will, anthropomorphically.

[138] [Cf. _Introd. to Logic_, ix. p. 63, “Conviction is opposed to Persuasion, which is a belief from inadequate reasons, of which we do not know whether they are only subjective or are also objective.”]

[139] [Second Edition.]

[140] [_I.e._ _Urtheils_. First Edition had _Urtheilens_, the judging subject.]

[141] _Analogy_ (in a qualitative signification) is the identity of the relation between reasons and consequences (causes and effects), so far as it is to be found, notwithstanding the specific difference of the things or those properties in them which contain the reason for like consequences (_i.e._ considered apart from this relation). Thus we conceive of the artificial constructions of beasts by comparing them with those of men; by comparing the ground of those effects brought about by the former, which we do not know, with the ground of similar effects brought about by men (reason), which we do know; _i.e._ we regard the ground of the former as an analogon of reason. We then try at the same time to show that the ground of the artisan faculty of beasts, which we call instinct, specifically different as it is in fact from reason, has yet a similar relation to its effect (the buildings of the beaver as compared with those of men).--But then I cannot therefore conclude that because man uses _reason_ for his building, the beaver must have the like, and call this a _conclusion_ according to analogy. But from the similarity of the mode of operation of beasts (of which we cannot immediately perceive the ground) to that of men (of which we are immediately conscious), we can quite rightly conclude _according to analogy_, that beasts too act in accordance with _representations_ (not as _Descartes_ has it, that they are machines), and that despite their specific distinction they are yet (as living beings) of the same genus as man. The principle of our right so to conclude consists in the sameness of the ground for reckoning beasts in respect of the said determination in the same genus with men, regarded as men, so far as we can externally compare them with one another in accordance with their

## actions. There is _par ratio_. Just so I can conceive, according to the

analogy of an Understanding, the causality of the supreme World-Cause, by comparing its purposive products in the world with the artificial works of men; but I cannot conclude according to analogy to those properties in it [which are in man], because here the principle of the possibility of such a method of reasoning entirely fails, viz. the _paritas rationis_ for counting the Supreme Being in one and the same genus with man (in respect of the causality of both). The causality of the beings of the world, which is always sensibly conditioned (as is causality through Understanding) cannot be transferred to a Being which has in common with them no generic concept save that of Thing in general.

[142] We thus miss nothing in the representation of the relations of this Being to the world, as far as the consequences, theoretical or practical, of this concept are concerned. To wish to investigate what it is in itself, is a curiosity as purposeless as it is vain.

[143] [Cf. _Introd. to Logic_, p. 76, where the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis are laid down. See also _Critique of Pure Reason_, Methodology, c. i. § 3.]

[144] [This illustration is also given in the _Logic_ (p. 57); where the three _modi_ of belief, Opinion, Faith, and Knowledge, are distinguished from each other. Cf. _Critique of Pure Reason_, Methodology, c. ii. § 3.]

[145] [The speculations of Swedenborg seem to have always had a strange fascination for Kant. He says of two reported cases of Swedenborg’s clairvoyance that he knows not how to disprove them (Rosenkranz vii. 5); but in his _Anthropology_ §§ 35, 37, he attacks Swedenborgianism as folly. So in an early essay, _Dreams of a Visionary explained by Dreams of Metaphysics_, he avows his scepticism as to the value of the information which “psychical research” can supply about the spirit-world, though he is careful not to commit himself to any dogmatic statement on the subject of ghosts. In the _Critique of Pure Reason_ (when discussing the Postulates of Empirical Thought) he gives, as an instance of a concept inconsistent with the canons of possibility, “a power of being in a community of thought with other men, however distant from us.”]

[146] [Cf. _supra_, p. 229.]

[147] I here extend, correctly as it seems to me, the concept of a thing of fact beyond the usual signification of this word. For it is not needful, not even feasible, to limit this expression merely to actual experience, if we are talking of the relation of things to our cognitive faculties; for an experience merely possible is quite sufficient in order that we may speak of them merely as objects of a definite kind of cognition.

[148] [Cf. _introduction to Logic_, p. 59 note.]

[149] [Second Edition.]

[150] Things of faith are not therefore _articles of faith_; if we understand by the latter things of faith to the _confession_ of which (internal or external) we can be bound. Natural theology contains nothing like this. For since they, as things of faith (like things of fact) cannot be based on theoretical proofs, [they are accepted by] a belief which is free and which only as such is compatible with the morality of the subject.

[151] The final purpose which the moral law enjoins upon us to further, is not the ground of duty; since this lies in the moral law, which, as formal practical principle, leads categorically, independently of the Objects of the faculty of desire (the material of the will) and consequently of any purpose whatever. This formal characteristic of my actions (their subordination under the principle of universal validity), wherein alone consists their inner moral worth, is quite in our power; and I can quite well abstract from the possibility or the unattainableness of purposes which I am obliged to promote in conformity with that law (because in them consists only the external worth of my actions) as something which is never completely in my power, in order only to look to that which is of my doing. But then the design of promoting the final purpose of all rational beings (happiness so far as it is possible for it to be accordant with duty) is even yet prescribed by the law of duty. The speculative Reason, however, does not see at all the attainableness of this (neither on the side of our own physical faculty nor on that of the co-operation of nature). It must rather, so far as we can judge in a rational way, hold the derivation, by the aid of such causes, of such a consequence of our good conduct from mere nature (internal and external) without God and immortality, to be an ungrounded and vain, though well-meant, expectation; and if it could have complete certainty of this judgement, it would regard the moral law itself as the mere deception of our Reason in a practical aspect. But since the speculative Reason fully convinces itself that the latter can never take place, but that on the other hand those Ideas whose object lies outside nature can be thought without contradiction, it must for its own practical law and the problem prescribed thereby, and therefore in a moral aspect, recognise those Ideas as real in order not to come into contradiction with itself.

[152] It is a trust in the promise of the moral law; [not however such as is contained in it, but such as I put into it and that on morally adequate grounds.[153] For a final purpose cannot be commanded by any law of Reason without this latter at the same time promising, however uncertainly, its attainableness; and thus justifying our belief in the special conditions under which alone our Reason can think it as attainable. The word _fides_ expresses this; and it can only appear doubtful, how this expression and this particular Idea came into moral philosophy, since it first was introduced with Christianity, and the adoption of it perhaps might seem to be only a flattering imitation of Christian terminology. But this is not the only case in which this wonderful religion with its great simplicity of statement has enriched philosophy with far more definite and purer concepts of morality, than it had been able to furnish before; but which, once they are there, are _freely_ assented to by Reason and are assumed as concepts to which it could well have come of itself and which it could and should have introduced.]

[153] [Second Edition.]

[154] [Cf. _Introd. to Logic_, ix. p. 60, “That man is morally _unbelieving_ who does not accept that which though _impossible_ to know is _morally necessary_ to suppose.”]

[155] [First Edition.]

[156] [In the _Critique of Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. II. c. iii. §§ 4, 5.]

[157] [H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), the author of the famous _Wolfenbüttel Fragments_, published after the death of Reimarus by Lessing. The book alluded to by Kant is probably the _Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion_ (1754), which had great popularity in its day.]

[158] [These arguments are advanced by Hume, _Inquiry_, § vii. Cf. also _Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. II. c. iii. § 6, and _Practical Reason_, Dialectic, c. ii. § vii.]

[159] [Cf. _Practical Reason_, Dialectic, c. ii. § v.]

[160] The admiration for beauty, and also the emotion aroused by the manifold purposes of nature, which a reflective mind is able to feel even prior to a clear representation of a rational Author of the world, have something in themselves like _religious_ feeling. They seem in the first place by a method of judging analogous to moral to produce an effect upon the moral feeling (gratitude to, and veneration for, the unknown cause); and thus by exciting moral Ideas to produce an effect upon the mind, when they inspire that admiration which is bound up with far more interest than mere theoretical observation can bring about.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Text has three occcurrences of “casuality”, which have been retained, but which may be misprints for “causality”.

These are transliterations of the Greek text for use on devices that cannot display such text:

Page xvii: kosmos.

Page xxii: kalo.

Page xxiv: sôphrosynê.

Page xxxiii: nous.

Page 397: kat’ alêtheian (or) kat’ anthrôpon.

Footnote 79 (originally on page 195): ha gar auta lypêrôs horômen, toutôn tas eikonas tas malista êkribômenas chairomen theôrountes hoion thêriôn te morphas tôn atimotatôn kai nekrôn.

End of Project Gutenberg's Kant's Critique of Judgement, by Immanuel Kant