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KANT’S
CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
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TORONTO
KANT’S CRITIQUE OF
JUDGEMENT
TRANSLATED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
J. H. BERNARD, D.D., D.C.L.
BISHOP OF OSSORY
SOMETIME FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND ARCHBISHOP KING’S PROFESSOR
OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
_SECOND EDITION, REVISED_
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1914
COPYRIGHT
_First Edition 1892_
_Second Edition 1914_
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION xi
PREFACE 1
INTRODUCTION 7
I. Of the division of Philosophy 7
II. Of the realm of Philosophy in general 11
III. Of the Critique of Judgement as a means of combining the
two parts of Philosophy into a whole 14
IV. Of Judgement as a faculty legislating _a priori_ 17
V. The principle of the formal purposiveness of nature is a
transcendental principle of Judgement 20
VI. Of the combination of the feeling of pleasure with the
concept of the purposiveness of nature 27
VII. Of the aesthetical representation of the purposiveness of
nature 30
VIII. Of the logical representation of the purposiveness of
nature 35
IX. Of the connexion of the legislation of Understanding with
that of Reason by means of the Judgement 39
FIRST PART.--CRITIQUE OF THE AESTHETICAL JUDGEMENT 43
=First Division.=--Analytic of the Aesthetical Judgement 45
_First Book._--Analytic of the Beautiful 45
_First Moment_ of the judgement of taste, according to quality
45
§ 1. The judgement of taste is aesthetical 45
§ 2. The satisfaction which determines the judgement of taste is
disinterested 46
§ 3. The satisfaction in the pleasant is bound up with interest 48
§ 4. The satisfaction in the good is bound up with interest 50
§ 5. Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of
satisfaction 53
_Second Moment_ of the judgement of taste, viz. according to
quantity 55
§ 6. The Beautiful is that which apart from concepts is
represented as the object of a universal satisfaction 55
§ 7. Comparison of the Beautiful with the Pleasant and the Good
by means of the above characteristic 57
§ 8. The universality of the satisfaction is represented in a
judgement of Taste only as subjective 59
§ 9. Investigation of the question whether in a judgement of
taste the feeling of pleasure precedes or follows the
judging of the object 63
_Third Moment_ of judgements of taste according to the relation
of the purposes which are brought into consideration therein 67
§ 10. Of purposiveness in general 67
§ 11. The judgement of taste has nothing at its basis but the
form of the purposiveness of an object (or of its mode of
representation) 69
§ 12. The judgement of taste rests on _a priori_ grounds 70
§ 13. The pure judgement of taste is independent of charm and
emotion 72
§ 14. Elucidation by means of examples 73
§ 15. The judgement of taste is quite independent of the concept
of perfection 77
§ 16. The judgement of taste, by which an object is declared to
be beautiful under the condition of a definite concept,
is not pure 81
§ 17. Of the Ideal of Beauty 84
_Fourth Moment_ of the judgement of taste, according to the
modality of the satisfaction in the object 91
§ 18. What the modality in a judgement of taste is 91
§ 19. The subjective necessity which we ascribe to the judgement
of taste is conditioned 92
§ 20. The condition of necessity which a judgement of taste
asserts is the Idea of a common sense 92
§ 21. Have we ground for presupposing a common sense? 93
§ 22. The necessity of the universal agreement that is thought
in a judgement of taste is a subjective necessity, which
is represented as objective under the presupposition of a
common sense 94
_General remark_ on the first section of the Analytic 96
_Second Book._--Analytic of the Sublime 101
§ 23. Transition from the faculty which judges of the Beautiful
to that which judges of the Sublime 101
§ 24. Of the divisions of an investigation into the feeling of
the Sublime 105
A.--Of the Mathematically Sublime 106
§ 25. Explanation of the term “Sublime” 106
§ 26. Of that estimation of the magnitude of natural things
which is requisite for the Idea of the Sublime 110
§ 27. Of the quality of the satisfaction in our judgements upon
the Sublime 119
B.--Of the Dynamically Sublime in Nature 123
§ 28. Of Nature regarded as Might 123
§ 29. Of the modality of the judgement upon the sublime in
nature 130
_General remark_ upon the exposition of the aesthetical
reflective Judgement 132
_Deduction_ of [pure] aesthetical judgements 150
§ 30. The Deduction of aesthetical judgements on the objects of
nature must not be directed to what we call Sublime in
nature, but only to the Beautiful 150
§ 31. Of the method of deduction of judgements of taste 152
§ 32. First peculiarity of the judgement of taste 154
§ 33. Second peculiarity of the judgement of taste 157
§ 34. There is no objective principle of taste possible 159
§ 35. The principle of Taste is the subjective principle of
Judgement in general 161
§ 36. Of the problem of a Deduction of judgements of Taste 162
§ 37. What is properly asserted _a priori_ of an object in a
judgement of taste 164
§ 38. Deduction of judgements of taste 165
§ 39. Of the communicability of a sensation 167
§ 40. Of taste as a kind of _sensus communis_ 169
§ 41. Of the empirical interest in the Beautiful 173
§ 42. Of the intellectual interest in the Beautiful 176
§ 43. Of Art in general 183
§ 44. Of beautiful Art 185
§ 45. Beautiful art is an art in so far as it seems like nature 187
§ 46. Beautiful art is the art of genius 188
§ 47. Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation of
Genius 190
§ 48. Of the relation of Genius to Taste 193
§ 49. Of the faculties of the mind that constitute Genius 197
§ 50. Of the combination of Taste with Genius in the products of
beautiful Art 205
§ 51. Of the division of the beautiful arts 206
§ 52. Of the combination of beautiful arts in one and the same
product 214
§ 53. Comparison of the respective aesthetical worth of the
beautiful arts 215
§ 54. Remark 220
=Second Division.=--Dialectic of the Aesthetical Judgement 229
§ 55. 229
§ 56. Representation of the antinomy of Taste 230
§ 57. Solution of the antinomy of Taste 231
§ 58. Of the Idealism of the purposiveness of both Nature and Art
as the unique principle of the aesthetical Judgement 241
§ 59. Of Beauty as the symbol of Morality 248
§ 60. =Appendix=:--Of the method of Taste 253
SECOND PART.--CRITIQUE OF THE TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT 257
§ 61. Of the objective purposiveness of Nature 259
=First Division.=--Analytic of the Teleological Judgement 262
§ 62. Of the objective purposiveness which is merely formal as
distinguished from that which is material 262
§ 63. Of the relative, as distinguished from the inner,
purposiveness of nature 268
§ 64. Of the peculiar character of things as natural purposes 272
§ 65. Things regarded as natural purposes are organised beings 275
§ 66. Of the principle of judging of internal purposiveness in
organised beings 280
§ 67. Of the principle of the teleological judging of nature in
general as a system of purposes 282
§ 68. Of the principle of Teleology as internal principle of
natural science 287
=Second Division.=--Dialectic of the Teleological Judgement 292
§ 69. What is an antinomy of the Judgement? 292
§ 70. Representation of this antinomy 293
§ 71. Preliminary to the solution of the above antinomy 296
§ 72. Of the different systems which deal with the purposiveness
of Nature 298
§ 73. None of the above systems give what they pretend 302
§ 74. The reason that we cannot treat the concept of a Technic
of nature dogmatically is the fact that a natural purpose
is inexplicable 306
§ 75. The concept of an objective purposiveness of nature is a
critical principle of Reason for the reflective
Judgement 309
§ 76. Remark 313
§ 77. Of the peculiarity of the human Understanding, by means of
which the concept of a natural purpose is possible 319
§ 78. Of the union of the principle of the universal mechanism of
matter with the teleological principle in the Technic of
nature 326
=Appendix.=--Methodology of the Teleological Judgement 334
§ 79. Whether Teleology must be treated as if it belonged to the
doctrine of nature 334
§ 80. Of the necessary subordination of the mechanical to the
teleological principle in the explanation of a thing as
a natural purpose 336
§ 81. Of the association of mechanism with the teleological
principle in the explanation of a natural purpose as a
natural product 342
§ 82. Of the teleological system in the external relations of
organised beings 346
§ 83. Of the ultimate purpose of nature as a teleological system 352
§ 84. Of the final purpose of the existence of a world, _i.e._
of creation itself 359
§ 85. Of Physico-theology 362
§ 86. Of Ethico-theology 370
§ 87. Of the moral proof of the Being of God 377
§ 88. Limitation of the validity of the moral proof 384
§ 89. Of the use of the moral argument 392
§ 90. Of the kind of belief in a teleological proof of the Being
of God 395
§ 91. Of the kind of belief produced by a practical faith 403
_General remark_ on Teleology 414
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
There are not wanting indications that public interest in the Critical
Philosophy has been quickened of recent days in these countries, as
well as in America. To lighten the toil of penetrating through the
wilderness of Kant’s long sentences, the English student has now many
aids, which those who began their studies fifteen or twenty years
ago did not enjoy. Translations, paraphrases, criticisms, have been
published in considerable numbers; so that if it is not yet true that
“he who runs may read,” it may at least be said that a patient student
of ordinary industry and intelligence has his way made plain before
him. And yet the very number of aids is dangerous. Whatever may be the
value of short and easy handbooks in other departments of science,
it is certain that no man will become a philosopher, no man will
even acquire a satisfactory knowledge of the history of philosophy,
without personal and prolonged study of the _ipsissima verba_ of the
great masters of human thought. “Above all,” said Schopenhauer, “my
truth-seeking young friends, beware of letting our professors tell
you what is contained in the Critique of the Pure Reason”; and the
advice has not become less wholesome with the lapse of years. The fact,
however, that many persons have not sufficient familiarity with German
to enable them to study German Philosophy in the original with ease,
makes translations an educational necessity; and this translation of
Kant’s Critique of the faculty of Judgement has been undertaken in the
hope that it may promote a more general study of that masterpiece. If
any reader wishes to follow Schopenhauer’s advice, he has only to omit
the whole of this prefatory matter and proceed at once to the Author’s
laborious Introduction.
It is somewhat surprising that the Critique of Judgement has never
yet been made accessible to the English reader. Dr. Watson has indeed
translated a few selected passages, so also has Dr. Caird in his
valuable account of the Kantian philosophy, and I have found their
renderings of considerable service; but the space devoted by both
writers to the Critique of Judgement is very small in comparison
with that given to the Critiques of Pure and Practical Reason. And
yet the work is not an unimportant one. Kant himself regarded it as
the coping-stone of his critical edifice; it even formed the point
of departure for his successors, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, in the
construction of their respective systems. Possibly the reason of
its comparative neglect lies in its repulsive style. Kant was never
careful of style, and in his later years he became more and more
enthralled by those technicalities and refined distinctions which deter
so many from the Critical Philosophy even in its earlier sections.
These “symmetrical architectonic amusements,” as Schopenhauer called
them, encumber every page of Kant’s later writings, and they are a
constant source of embarrassment to his unhappy translator. For, as
every translator knows, no single word in one language exactly covers
any single word in another; and yet if Kant’s distinctions are to be
preserved it is necessary to select with more or less arbitrariness
English equivalents for German technical terms, and retain them all
through. Instances of this will be given later on; I only remark
here on the fact that Kant’s besetting sin of over-technicality is
especially conspicuous in this treatise.
Another fault--an old fault of Kant--apparent after reading even a few
pages, is that repetitions are very frequent of the same thought in but
slightly varied language. Arguments are repeated over and over again
until they become quite wearisome; and then when the reader’s attention
has flagged, and he is glancing cursorily down the page, some important
new point is introduced without emphasis, as if the author were really
anxious to keep his meaning to himself at all hazards. A book written
in such fashion rarely attracts a wide circle of readers. And yet, not
only did Goethe think highly of it, but it received a large measure
of attention in France as well as in Germany on its first appearance.
Originally published at Berlin in 1790, a Second Edition was called
for in 1793; and a French translation was made by Imhoff in 1796. Other
French versions are those by Keratry and Weyland in 1823, and by Barni
in 1846. This last I have had before me while performing my task, but
I have not found it of much service; the older French translations
I have not seen. The existence of these French versions, when taken
in connexion with the absence until very recently of any systematic
account of the Critique of Judgement in English, may be perhaps
explained by the lively interest that was taken on the Continent in the
Philosophy of Art in the early part of the century; whereas scientific
studies on this subject received little attention in England during the
same period.
The student of the Critique of Pure Reason will remember how closely,
in his Transcendental Logic, Kant follows the lines of the ordinary
logic of the schools. He finds his whole plan ready made for him, as
it were; and he proceeds to work out the metaphysical principles which
underlie the process of syllogistic reasoning. And as there are three
propositions in every syllogism, he points out that, in correspondence
with this triplicity, the higher faculties of the soul may be regarded
as threefold. The Understanding or the faculty of concepts gives us our
major premise, as it supplies us in the first instance with a general
notion. By means of the Judgement we see that a particular case comes
under the general rule, and by the Reason we draw our conclusion.
These, as three distinct movements in the process of reasoning,
are regarded by Kant as indicating three distinct faculties, with
which the Analytic of Concepts, the Analytic of Principles, and the
Dialectic are respectively concerned. The full significance of this
important classification does not seem, however, to have occurred
to Kant at the time, as we may see from the order in which he wrote
his great books.[1] The first problem which arrests the attention
of all modern philosophers is, of course, the problem of knowledge,
its conditions and its proper objects. And in the Critique of Pure
Reason this is discussed, and the conclusion is reached that nature
as phenomenon is the only object of which we can hope to acquire any
exact knowledge. But it is apparent that there are other problems which
merit consideration; a complete philosophy includes practice as well
as theory; it has to do not only with logic, but with life. And thus
the Critique of Practical Reason was written, in which is unfolded
the doctrine of man’s freedom standing in sharp contrast with the
necessity of natural law. Here, then, it seems at first sight as if we
had covered the whole field of human activity. For we have investigated
the sources of knowledge, and at the same time have pointed out the
conditions of practical life, and have seen that the laws of freedom
are just as true in their own sphere as are the laws of nature.
But as we reflect on our mental states we find that here no proper
account has been given of the phenomena of _feeling_, which play so
large a part in experience. And this Kant saw before he had proceeded
very far with the Critique of Practical Reason; and in consequence
he adopted a threefold classification of the higher mental faculties
based on that given by previous psychologists. Knowledge, feeling,
desire, these are the three ultimate modes of consciousness, of which
the second has not yet been described. And when we compare this with
the former triple division which we took up from the Aristotelian
logic, we see that the parallelism is significant. Understanding is
_par excellence_ the faculty of knowledge, and Reason the faculty of
desire (these points are developed in Kant’s first two Critiques). And
this suggests that the Judgement corresponds to the feeling of pleasure
and pain; it occupies a position intermediate between Understanding
and Reason, just as, roughly speaking, the feeling of pleasure is
intermediate between our perception of an object and our desire to
possess it.
And so the Critique of Judgement completes the whole undertaking
of criticism; its endeavour is to show that there are _a priori_
principles at the basis of Judgement just as there are in the case
of Understanding and of Reason; that these principles, like the
principles of Reason, are not constitutive but only regulative of
experience, _i.e._ that they do not teach us anything positive about
the characteristics of objects, but only indicate the conditions under
which we find it necessary to view them; and lastly, that we are thus
furnished with an _a priori_ philosophy of pleasure.
The fundamental principle underlying the procedure of the Judgement is
seen to be that of the purposiveness of Nature; nature is everywhere
adapted to ends or purposes, and thus constitutes a κόσμος, a
well-ordered whole. By this means, nature is regarded by us as if
its particular empirical laws were not isolated and disparate, but
connected and in relation, deriving their unity in seeming diversity
from an intelligence which is at the source of nature. It is only
by the assumption of such a principle that we can construe nature
to ourselves; and the principle is then said to be a transcendental
condition of the exercise of our judging faculty, but valid only for
the reflective, not for the determinant Judgement. It gives us pleasure
to view nature in this way; just as the contemplation of chaos would be
painful.
But this purposiveness may be only formal and subjective, or real
and objective. In some cases the purposiveness resides in the felt
harmony and accordance of the form of the object with the cognitive
faculties; in others the form of the object is judged to harmonise
with the purpose in view in its existence. That is to say, in the one
case we judge the form of the object to be purposive, as in the case
of a flower, but could not explain any purpose served by it; in the
other case we have a definite notion of what it is adapted for. In the
former case the aesthetical Judgement is brought to bear, in the latter
the teleological; and it thus appears that the Critique of Judgement
has two main divisions; it treats first of the philosophy of Taste, the
Beautiful and the Sublime in Nature; and secondly, of the Teleology of
nature’s working. It is a curious literary parallel that St. Augustine
hints (_Confessions_ iv. 15) that he had written a book, _De Pulchro
et Ápto_, in which these apparently distinct topics were combined;
“pulchrum esse, quod per se ipsum; aptum, autem, quod ad aliquid
accommodatum deceret.” A beautiful object has no purpose external to
itself and the observer; but a useful object serves further ends. Both,
however, may be brought under the higher category of things that are
reckoned _purposive_ by the Judgement.
We have here then, in the first place, a basis for an _a priori_
Philosophy of Taste; and Kant works out its details with great
elaboration. He borrowed little from the writings of his predecessors,
but struck out, as was ever his plan, a line of his own. He quotes
with approval from Burke’s _Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful_,
which was accessible to him in a German translation; but is careful to
remark that it is as psychology, not as philosophy, that Burke’s work
has value. He may have read in addition Hutcheson’s _Inquiry_ which
had also been translated into German; and he was complete master of
Hume’s opinions. Of other writers on Beauty, he only names Batteux and
Lessing. Batteux was a French writer of repute who had attempted a
twofold arrangement of the Arts as they may be brought under Space and
under Time respectively, a mode of classification which would naturally
appeal to Kant. He does not seem, however, to have read the ancient
text-book on the subject, Aristotle’s _Poetics_, the principles of
which Lessing declared to be as certain as Euclid.
Following the guiding thread of the categories, he declares that
the aesthetical judgement about Beauty is according to _quality_
disinterested; a point which had been laid down by such different
writers as Hutcheson and Moses Mendelssohn. As to _quantity_, the
judgement about beauty gives universal satisfaction, although it is
based on no definite concept. The universality is only subjective; but
still it is there. The maxim _Trahit sua quemque voluptas_ does not
apply to the pleasure afforded by a pure judgement about beauty. As to
_relation_, the characteristic of the object called beautiful is that
it betrays a purposiveness without definite purpose. The pleasure is
_a priori_, independent on the one hand of the charms of sense or the
emotions of mere feeling, as Winckelmann had already declared; and
on the other hand is a pleasure quite distinct from that taken which
we feel when viewing perfection, with which Wolff and Baumgarten had
identified it. By his distinction between free and dependent beauty,
which we also find in the pages of Hutcheson, Kant further develops
his doctrine of the freedom of the pure judgement of taste from the
thraldom of concepts.
Finally, the satisfaction afforded by the contemplation of a beautiful
object is a necessary satisfaction. This necessity is not, to be sure,
theoretical like the necessity attaching to the Law of Causality; nor
is it a practical necessity as is the need to assume the Moral Law as
the guiding principle of conduct. But it may be called _exemplary_;
that is, we may set up our satisfaction in a beautiful picture as
setting an example to be followed by others. It is plain, however,
that this can only be assumed under certain presuppositions. We must
presuppose the idea of a _sensus communis_ or common sense in which all
men share. As knowledge admits of being communicated to others, so also
does the feeling for beauty. For the relation between the cognitive
faculties requisite for Taste is also requisite for Intelligence or
sound Understanding, and as we always presuppose the latter to be the
same in others as in ourselves, so may we presuppose the former.
The analysis of the Sublime which follows that of the Beautiful is
interesting and profound; indeed Schopenhauer regarded it as the
best part of the Critique of the Aesthetical Judgement. The general
characteristics of our judgements about the Sublime are similar to
those already laid down in the case of the Beautiful; but there
are marked differences in the two cases. If the pleasure taken in
beauty arises from a feeling of the purposiveness of the object in
its relation to the subject, that in sublimity rather expresses a
purposiveness of the subject in respect of the object. Nothing in
nature is sublime; and the sublimity really resides in the mind and
there alone. Indeed, as true Beauty is found, properly speaking, only
in beauty of form, the idea of sublimity is excited rather by those
objects which are formless and exhibit a violation of purpose.
A distinction not needed in the case of the Beautiful becomes
necessary when we proceed to further analyse the Sublime. For in
aesthetical judgements about the Beautiful the mind is in _restful_
contemplation; but in the case of the Sublime a mental _movement_ is
excited (pp. 105 and 120). This movement, as it is pleasing, must
involve a purposiveness in the harmony of the mental powers; and the
purposiveness may be either in reference to the faculty of cognition
or to that of desire. In the former case the sublime is called the
Mathematically Sublime--the sublime of mere magnitude--the absolutely
great; in the latter it is the sublime of power, the Dynamically
Sublime. Gioberti, an Italian writer on the philosophy of Taste, has
pushed this distinction so far as to find in it an explanation of the
relation between Beauty and Sublimity. “The dynamical Sublime,” he
says, “creates the Beautiful; the mathematical Sublime contains it,” a
remark with which probably Kant would have no quarrel.
In both cases, however, we find that the feeling of the Sublime awakens
in us a feeling of the supersensible destination of man. “The very
capacity of conceiving the sublime,” he tells us, “indicates a mental
faculty that far surpasses every standard of sense.” And to explain
the necessity belonging to our judgements about the sublime, Kant
points out that as we find ourselves compelled to postulate a _sensus
communis_ to account for the agreement of men in their appreciation of
beautiful objects, so the principle underlying their consent in judging
of the sublime is “the presupposition of the moral feeling in man.” The
feeling of the sublimity of our own moral destination is the necessary
prerequisite for forming such judgements. The connexion between Beauty
and Goodness involved to a Greek in the double sense of the word καλόν
is developed by Kant with keen insight. To feel interest in the beauty
of Nature he regards as a mark of a moral disposition, though he will
not admit that the same inference may be drawn as to the character
of the art connoisseur (§ 42). But it is specially with reference to
the connexion between the capacity for appreciating the Sublime, and
the moral feeling, that the originality of Kant’s treatment becomes
apparent.
The objects of nature, he continues, which we call sublime, inspire us
with a feeling of pain rather than of pleasure; as Lucretius has it--
Me quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit atque horror.
But this “horror” must not inspire actual fear. As no extraneous
charm must mingle with the satisfaction felt in a beautiful object,
if the judgement about beauty is to remain pure; so in the case of
the sublime we must not be afraid of the object which yet in certain
aspects is fearful.
This conception of the feelings of sublimity excited by the loneliness
of an Alpine peak or the grandeur of an earthquake is now a familiar
one; but it was not so in Kant’s day. Switzerland had not then become
the recreation-ground of Europe; and though natural beauty was a
familiar topic with poets and painters it was not generally recognised
that taste has also to do with the sublime. De Saussure’s _Travels_,
Haller’s poem _Die Alpen_, and this work of Kant’s mark the beginning
of a new epoch in our ways of looking at the sublime and terrible
aspects of Nature. And it is not a little remarkable that the man who
could write thus feelingly about the emotions inspired by grand and
savage scenery, had never seen a mountain in his life. The power and
the insight of his observations here are in marked contrast to the
poverty of some of his remarks about the characteristics of beauty. For
instance, he puts forward the curious doctrine that colour in a picture
is only an extraneous charm, and does not really add to the beauty
of the form delineated, nay rather distracts the mind from it. His
criticisms on this point, if sound, would make Flaxman a truer artist
than Titian or Paolo Veronese. But indeed his discussion of Painting or
Music is not very appreciative; he was, to the end, a creature of pure
Reason.
Upon the analysis he gives of the Arts, little need be said here. Fine
Art is regarded as the Art of Genius, “that innate mental disposition
through which Nature gives the rule to Art” (§ 46). Art differs
from Science in the absence of definite concepts in the mind of the
artist. It thus happens that the great artist can rarely communicate
his methods; indeed he cannot explain them even to himself. _Poeta
nascitur, non fit_; and the same is true in every form of fine art.
Genius is, in short, the faculty of presenting aesthetical Ideas; an
aesthetical Idea being an intuition of the Imagination, to which no
concept is adequate. And it is by the excitation of such ineffable
Ideas that a great work of art affects us. As Bacon tells us, “that is
the best part of Beauty which a picture cannot express; no, nor the
first sight of the eye.” This characteristic of the artistic genius
has been noted by all who have thought upon art; more is present in
its productions than can be perfectly expressed in language. As Pliny
said of Timanthus the painter of Iphigenia, “In omnibus ejus operibus
intelligitur plus super quam pingitur.” But this genius requires to be
kept in check by taste; quite in the spirit of the σωφροσύνη of the
best Greek art, Kant remarks that if in a work of art some feature must
be sacrificed, it is better to lose something of genius than to violate
the canons of taste. It is in this self-mastery that “the sanity of
true genius” expresses itself.
The main question with which the Critique of Judgement is concerned
is, of course, the question as to the purposiveness, the
_Zweckmässigkeit_, exhibited by nature. That nature appears to be
full of purpose is mere matter of fact. It displays purposiveness
in respect of our faculties of cognition, in those of its phenomena
which we designate beautiful. And also in its organic products we
observe methods of operation which we can only explain by describing
them as processes in which means are used to accomplish certain
ends, as processes that are _purposive_. In our observation of
natural phenomena, as Kuno Fischer puts it, we judge their _forms_
aesthetically, and their _life_ teleologically.
As regards the first kind of _Zweckmässigkeit_, that which is _ohne
Zweck_--the purposiveness of a beautiful object which does not seem to
be directed to any external end--there are two ways in which we may
account for it. We may either say that it was actually designed to
be beautiful by the Supreme Force behind Nature, or we may say that
purposiveness is not really resident in nature, but that our perception
of it is due to the subjective needs of our judging faculty. We have
to contemplate beautiful objects _as if_ they were purposive, but they
may not be so in reality. And this latter idealistic doctrine is what
Kant falls back upon. He appeals in support of it, to the phenomena of
crystallisation (pp. 243 _sqq._), in which many very beautiful forms
seem to be produced by merely mechanical processes. The beauty of a
rock crystal is apparently produced without any forethought on the
part of nature, and he urges that we are not justified in asserting
dogmatically that any laws distinct from those of mechanism are needed
to account for beauty in other cases. Mechanism can do so much; may it
not do all? And he brings forward as a consideration which ought to
settle the question, the fact that in judging of beauty “we invariably
seek its gauge _in ourselves a priori_”; we do not learn from nature,
but from ourselves, what we are to find beautiful. Mr. Kennedy in his
Donnellan Lectures has here pointed out several weak spots in Kant’s
armour. In the first place, the fact that we seek the gauge of beauty
in our own mind “may be shown from his own definition to be a necessary
result of the very nature of beauty.”[2] For Kant tells us that the
aesthetical judgement about beauty always involves “a reference of the
representation to the subject”; and this applies equally to judgements
about the beautiful in Art and the beautiful in Nature. But no one
could maintain that from this definition it follows that we are not
compelled to postulate design in the mind of the artist who paints a
beautiful picture. And thus as the fact that “we always seek the gauge
of beauty” in ourselves does not do away with the belief in a designing
mind when we are contemplating works of art, it cannot be said to
exclude the belief in a Master Hand which moulded the forms of Nature.
As Cicero has it, nature is “non artificiosa solum, sed plane artifex.”
But the cogency of this reasoning, for the details of which I must
refer the reader to Mr. Kennedy’s pages, becomes more apparent when
we reflect on that second form of purposiveness, viz. adaptation to
definite ends, with which we meet in the phenomena of organic life.
If we watch, _e.g._ the growth of a tree we perceive that its various
parts are not isolated and unconnected, but that on the contrary they
are only possible by reference to the idea of the whole. Each limb
affects every other, and is reciprocally affected by it; in short “in
such a product of nature every part not only exists _by means of_ the
other parts, but is thought as existing _for the sake of_ the others
and the whole” (p. 277). The operations of nature in organised bodies
seem to be of an entirely different character from mere mechanical
processes; we cannot construe them to ourselves except under the
hypothesis that nature in them is working towards a designed end.
The distinction between nature’s “Technic” or purposive operation,
and nature’s Mechanism is fundamental for the explanation of natural
law. The language of biology eloquently shows the impossibility of
eliminating at least the _idea_ of purpose from our investigations into
the phenomena of life, growth, and reproduction. And Kant dismisses
with scant respect that cheap and easy philosophy which would fain
deny the distinctiveness of nature’s purposive operation. A doctrine,
like that of Epicurus, in which every natural phenomenon is regarded
as the result of the blind drifting of atoms in accordance with purely
mechanical laws, really explains nothing, and least of all explains
that illusion in our teleological judgements which leads us to assume
purpose where really there is none.
It has been urged by Kirchmann and others that this distinction
between Technic and Mechanism, on which Kant lays so much stress,
has been disproved by the progress of modern science. The doctrines,
usually associated with the name of Darwin, of Natural Selection and
Survival of the Fittest, quite sufficiently explain, it is said, on
mechanical principles the semblance of purpose with which nature mocks
us. The presence of order is not due to any purpose behind the natural
operation, but to the inevitable disappearance of the disorderly. It
would be absurd, of course, to claim for Kant that he anticipated the
Darwinian doctrines of development; and yet passages are not wanting
in his writings in which he takes a view of the continuity of species
with which modern science would have little fault to find. “Nature
organises itself and its organised products in every species, no
doubt after one general pattern but yet with suitable deviations,
which self-preservation demands according to circumstances” (p. 279).
“The analogy of forms, which with all their differences seem to have
been produced according to a common original type, strengthens our
suspicions of an actual relationship between them in their production
from a common parent, through the gradual approximation of one animal
genus to another--from those in which the principle of purposes seems
to be best authenticated, _i.e._ from man, down to the polype and again
from this down to mosses and lichens, and finally to crude matter.
And so the whole Technic of nature, which is so incomprehensible to
us in organised beings that we believe ourselves compelled to think a
different principle for it, seems to be derived from matter and its
powers according to mechanical laws (like those by which it works in
the formation of crystals)” (p. 337). Such a theory he calls “a daring
venture of reason,” and its coincidences with modern science are real
and striking. But he is careful to add that such a theory, even if
established, would not eliminate purpose from the universe; it would
indeed suggest that certain special processes having the semblance of
purpose may be elucidated on mechanical principles, but on the whole,
purposive operation on the part of Mother Nature it would still be
needful to assume (p. 338). “No finite Reason can hope to understand
the production of even a blade of grass by mere mechanical causes”
(p. 326). “It is absurd to hope that another Newton will arise in the
future who shall make comprehensible by us the production of a blade of
grass according to natural laws which no design has ordered” (p. 312).
Crude materialism thus affording no explanation of the purposiveness
in nature, we go on to ask what other theories are logically possible.
We may dismiss at once the doctrine of Hylozoism, according to which
the purposes in nature are explained in reference to a world-soul,
which is the inner principle of the material universe and constitutes
its life. For such a doctrine is self-contradictory, inasmuch as
lifelessness, _inertia_, is the essential characteristic of matter,
and to talk of living matter is absurd (p. 304). A much more plausible
system is that of Spinoza, who aimed at establishing the ideality
of the principle of natural purposes. He regarded the world whole
as a complex of manifold determinations inhering in a single simple
substance; and thus reduced our concepts of the purposive in nature to
our own consciousness of existing in an all-embracing Being. But on
reflection we see that this does not so much explain as explain away
the purposiveness of nature; it gives us an unity of inherence _in_ one
Substance, but not an unity of causal dependence _on_ one Substance (p.
303). And this latter would be necessary in order to explain the unity
of purpose which nature exhibits in its phenomenal working. Spinozism,
therefore, does not give what it pretends to give; it puts us off with
a vague and unfruitful unity of ground, when what we seek is a unity
that shall itself contain the causes of the differences manifest in
nature.
We have left then as the only remaining possible doctrine, Theism,
which represents natural purposes as produced in accordance with the
Will and Design of an Intelligent Author and Governor of Nature.
This theory is, in the first place, “superior to all other grounds
of explanation” (p. 305), for it gives a full solution of the
problem before us and enables us to maintain the reality of the
_Zweckmässigkeit_ of nature. “Teleology finds the consummation of its
investigations only in Theology” (p. 311). To represent the world
and the natural purposes therein as produced by an intelligent Cause
is “completely satisfactory from every human point of view for both
the speculative and practical use of our Reason” (p. 312). Thus the
contemplation of natural purposes, _i.e._ the common Argument from
Design, enables us to reach a highest Understanding as Cause of the
world “in accordance with the principles of the reflective Judgement,
_i.e._ _in accordance with the constitution of our human faculty of
cognition_” (p. 416).
It is in this qualifying clause that Kant’s negative attitude in
respect of Theism betrays itself. He regards it as a necessary
assumption for the guidance of scientific investigation, no less than
for the practical needs of morals; but he does not admit that we can
claim for it objective validity. In the language of the Critique of
Pure Reason, the Idea of God furnishes a regulative, not a constitutive
principle of Reason; or as he prefers to put it in the present work, it
is valid only for the reflective, not for the determinant Judgement. We
are not justified, Kant maintains, in asserting dogmatically that God
exists; there is only permitted to us the limited formula “We cannot
otherwise conceive the purposiveness which must lie at the basis of our
cognition of the internal possibility of many natural things, than by
representing it and the world in general as produced by an intelligent
cause, _i.e._ a God” (p. 312).
We ask then, whence arises this impossibility of objective statement?
It is in the true Kantian spirit to assert that no synthetical
proposition can be made with reference to what lies above and behind
the world of sense; but there is a difficulty in carrying out this
principle into details. Kant’s refusal to infer a designing Hand behind
the apparent order of nature is based, he tells us, on the fact that
the concept of a “natural purpose” is one that cannot be justified to
the speculative Reason. For all we know it may only indicate our way of
looking at things, and may point to no corresponding objective reality.
That we are forced by the limited nature of our faculties to view
nature as working towards ends, as purposive, does not prove that it is
really so. We cannot justify such pretended insight into what is behind
the veil.
It is to be observed, however, that precisely similar arguments might
be urged against our affirmation of purpose, design, will, as the
spring of the actions of other human beings.[3] For let us consider
why it is that, mind being assumed as the basis of our own individual
consciousness, we go on to attribute minds of like character to other
men. We see that the external behaviour of other men is similar to our
own, and that the most reasonable way of accounting for such behaviour
is to suppose that they have minds like ourselves, that they are
possessed of an active and spontaneously energising faculty, which is
the seat of their personality. But it is instructive to observe that
neither on Kantian principles nor on any other can we _demonstrate_
this; to cross the chasm which separates one man’s personality from
another’s requires a venture of faith just as emphatically as any
theological formula. I can by no means _prove_ to the determinant
Judgement that the complex of sensations which I constantly experience,
and which I call the Prime Minister, is anything more than a
well-ordered machine. It is improbable that this is the case--highly
improbable; but the falsity of such an hypothesis cannot be proved in
the same way that we would prove the falsity of the assertion that two
and two make five. But then though the hypothesis cannot be thus ruled
out of court by demonstration of its absurdity, it is not the simplest
hypothesis, nor is it that one which best accounts for the facts. The
assumption, on the other hand, that the men whom I meet every day have
minds like my own, perfectly accounts for all the facts, and is a very
simple assumption. It merely extends by induction the sphere of a force
which I already know to exist. Or in other words, crude materialism not
giving me an intelligent account of my own individual consciousness,
I recognise mind, νοῦς, as a _vera causa_, as something which really
does produce effects in the field of experience, and which therefore I
may legitimately put forward as the cause of those actions of other
men which externally so much resemble my own. But, as has been said
before, this argument, though entirely convincing to any sane person,
is not demonstrative; in Kantian language and on Kantian principles
the reasoning here used would seem to be valid only for the reflective
and not for the determinant Judgement. If the principle of design or
conscious adaptation of means to ends be not a constitutive principle
of experience, but only a regulative principle introduced to account
for the facts, what right have we to put it forward dogmatically as
affording an explanation of the actions of other human beings?
It cannot be said that Kant’s attempted answer to such a defence of
the Design Argument is quite conclusive. In § 90 of the _Methodology_
(p. 399) he pleads that though it is perfectly legitimate to argue by
analogy from our own minds to the minds of other men,--nay further,
although we may conclude from those actions of the lower animals
which display plan, that they are not, as Descartes alleged, mere
machines--yet it is not legitimate to conclude from the apparent
presence of design in the operations of nature that a conscious mind
directs those operations. For, he argues, that in comparing the actions
of men and the lower animals, or in comparing the actions of one man
with those of another, we are not pressing our analogy beyond the
limits of experience. Men and beasts alike are finite living beings,
subject to the limitations of finite existence; and hence the law which
governs the one series of operations may be regarded by analogy as
sufficiently explaining the other series. But the power at the basis of
Nature is utterly above definition or comprehension, and we are going
beyond our legitimate province if we venture to ascribe to it a mode
of operation with which we are only conversant in the case of beings
subject to the conditions of space and time. He urges in short that
when speaking about man and his mind we thoroughly understand what we
are talking about; but in speaking of the Mind of Deity we are dealing
with something of which we have no experience, and of which therefore
we have no right to predicate anything.
But it is apparent that, as has been pointed out, even when we infer
the existence of another finite mind from certain observed operations,
we are making an inference about something which is as mysterious an
_x_ as anything can be. Mind is not a thing that is subject to the
laws and conditions of the world of sense; it is “_in_ the world but
not _of_ the world.” And so to infer the existence of the mind of any
individual except myself is a quite different kind of inference from
that by which, for example, we infer the presence of an electro-magnet
in a given field. The action of the latter we understand to a large
extent; but we do not understand the action of mind, which yet we
know from daily experience of ourselves does produce effects in the
phenomenal world, often permanent and important effects. Briefly,
the action of mind upon matter (to use the ordinary phraseology for
the sake of clearness) is--we may assume for our present purpose--an
established fact. Hence the causality of mind is a _vera causa_; we
bring it in to account for the actions of other human beings, and by
precisely the same process of reasoning we invoke it to explain the
operations of nature.
And it is altogether beside the point to urge, as Kant does
incessantly, that in the latter case the intelligence inferred is
_infinite_; in the former only _finite_. All that the Design Argument
undertakes to prove is that mind lies at the basis of nature. It
is quite beyond its province to say whether this mind is finite or
infinite; and thus Kant’s criticisms on p. 364 are somewhat wide of
the mark. There is always a difficulty in any argument which tries to
establish the operation of mind anywhere, for mind cannot be seen or
touched or felt; but the difficulty is not peculiar to that particular
form of argument with which theological interests are involved.