the beauty of nature, as that which we always place at the basis of
an aesthetical judgement, and which allows us to employ, as a ground
of explanation for our representative faculty, no realism of purpose,
is the fact that in judging beauty we invariably seek its gauge in
ourselves _a priori_, and that our aesthetical Judgement is itself
legislative in respect of the judgement whether anything is beautiful
or not. This could not be, on the assumption of the Realism of the
purposiveness of nature; because in that case we must have learned from
nature what we ought to find beautiful, and the aesthetical judgement
would be subjected to empirical principles. For in such an act of
judging the important point is not, what nature is, or even, as a
purpose, is in relation to us, but how we take it. There would be an
objective purposiveness in nature if it had fashioned its forms for our
satisfaction; and not a subjective purposiveness which depended upon
the play of the Imagination in its freedom, where it is we who receive
nature with favour, not nature which shows us favour. The property
of nature that gives us occasion to perceive the inner purposiveness
in the relation of our mental faculties in judging certain of its
products--a purposiveness which is to be explained on supersensible
grounds as necessary and universal--cannot be a natural purpose or be
judged by us as such; for otherwise the judgement hereby determined
would not be free, and would have at its basis heteronomy, and not, as
beseems a judgement of taste, autonomy.
In beautiful Art the principle of the Idealism of purposiveness
is still clearer. As in the case of the beautiful in Nature, an
aesthetical Realism of this purposiveness cannot be perceived by
sensations (for then the art would be only pleasant, not beautiful).
But that the satisfaction produced by aesthetical Ideas must not depend
on the attainment of definite purposes (as in mechanically designed
art), and that consequently, in the very rationalism of the principle,
the ideality of the purposes and not their reality must be fundamental,
appears from the fact that beautiful Art, as such, must not be
considered as a product of Understanding and Science, but of Genius,
and therefore must get its rule through _aesthetical_ Ideas, which are
essentially different from rational Ideas of definite purposes.
Just as the _ideality_ of the objects of sense as phenomena is the only
way of explaining the possibility of their forms being susceptible
of _a priori_ determination, so the _idealism_ of purposiveness, in
judging the beautiful in nature and art, is the only hypothesis under
which Criticism can explain the possibility of a judgement of taste
which demands _a priori_ validity for every one (without grounding on
concepts the purposiveness that is represented in the Object).
§ 59. _Of Beauty as the symbol of Morality_
Intuitions are always required to establish the reality of our
concepts. If the concepts are empirical, the intuitions are called
_examples_. If they are pure concepts of Understanding, the intuitions
are called _schemata_. If we desire to establish the objective reality
of rational concepts, _i.e._ of Ideas, on behalf of theoretical
cognition, then we are asking for something impossible, because
absolutely no intuition can be given which shall be adequate to them.
All _hypotyposis_ (presentation, _subjectio sub adspectum_), or
sensible illustration, is twofold. It is either _schematical_, when to
a concept comprehended by the Understanding the corresponding intuition
is given _a priori_; or it is _symbolical_. In the latter case to a
concept only thinkable by the Reason, to which no sensible intuition
can be adequate, an intuition is supplied with which accords a
procedure of the Judgement analogous to what it observes in schematism:
it accords with it, that is, in respect of the rule of this procedure
merely, not of the intuition itself; consequently in respect of the
form of reflection merely, and not of its content.
There is a use of the word _symbolical_ that has been adopted by modern
logicians, which is misleading and incorrect, _i.e._ to speak of the
_symbolical_ mode of representation as if it were opposed to the
_intuitive_; for the symbolical is only a mode of the intuitive. The
latter (the intuitive), that is, may be divided into the _schematical_
and the _symbolical_ modes of representation. Both are hypotyposes,
_i.e._ presentations (_exhibitiones_); not mere _characterisations_, or
designations of concepts by accompanying sensible signs which contain
nothing belonging to the intuition of the Object, and only serve as a
means for reproducing the concepts, according to the law of association
of the Imagination, and consequently in a subjective point of view.
These are either words, or visible (algebraical, even mimetical) signs,
as mere expressions for concepts.[103]
All intuitions, which we supply to concepts _a priori_, are therefore
either _schemata_ or _symbols_, of which the former contain direct,
the latter indirect, presentations of the concept. The former do
this demonstratively; the latter by means of an analogy (for which
we avail ourselves even of empirical intuitions) in which the
Judgement exercises a double function; first applying the concept
to the object of a sensible intuition, and then applying the mere
rule of the reflection made upon that intuition to a quite different
object of which the first is only the symbol. Thus a monarchical
state is represented by a living body, if it is governed by national
laws, and by a mere machine (like a hand-mill) if governed by an
individual absolute will; but in both cases only _symbolically_.
For between a despotic state and a hand-mill there is, to be sure,
no similarity; but there is a similarity in the rules according to
which we reflect upon these two things and their causality. This
matter has not been sufficiently analysed hitherto, for it deserves
a deeper investigation; but this is not the place to linger over it.
Our language [_i.e._ German] is full of indirect presentations of
this sort, in which the expression does not contain the proper schema
for the concept, but merely a symbol for reflection. Thus the words
_ground_ (support, basis), _to depend_ (to be held up from above), to
_flow_ from something (instead of, to follow), _substance_ (as _Locke_
expresses it, the support of accidents), and countless others, are not
schematical but symbolical hypotyposes and expressions for concepts,
not by means of a direct intuition, but only by analogy with it,
_i.e._ by the transference of reflection upon an object of intuition
to a quite different concept to which perhaps an intuition can never
directly correspond. If we are to give the name of cognition to a mere
mode of representation (which is quite permissible if the latter is
not a principle of the theoretical determination of what an object is
in itself, but of the practical determination of what the Idea of it
should be for us and for its purposive use), then all our knowledge
of God is merely symbolical; and he who regards it as schematical,
along with the properties of Understanding, Will, etc., which only
establish their objective reality in beings of this world, falls into
Anthropomorphism, just as he who gives up every intuitive element
falls into Deism, by which nothing at all is cognised, not even in a
practical point of view.
Now I say the Beautiful is the symbol of the morally Good, and that it
is only in this respect (a reference which is natural to every man and
which every man postulates in others as a duty) that it gives pleasure
with a claim for the agreement of every one else. By this the mind
is made conscious of a certain ennoblement and elevation above the
mere sensibility to pleasure received through sense, and the worth of
others is estimated in accordance with a like maxim of their Judgement.
That is the _intelligible_, to which, as pointed out in the preceding
paragraph, Taste looks; with which our higher cognitive faculties are
in accord; and without which a downright contradiction would arise
between their nature and the claims made by taste. In this faculty the
Judgement does not see itself, as in empirical judging, subjected to
a heteronomy of empirical laws; it gives the law to itself in respect
of the objects of so pure a satisfaction, just as the Reason does in
respect of the faculty of desire. Hence, both on account of this inner
possibility in the subject and of the external possibility of a nature
that agrees with it, it finds itself to be referred to something within
the subject as well as without him, something which is neither nature
nor freedom, but which yet is connected with the supersensible ground
of the latter. In this supersensible ground, therefore, the theoretical
faculty is bound together in unity with the practical, in a way which
though common is yet unknown. We shall indicate some points of this
analogy, while at the same time we shall note the differences.
(1) The beautiful pleases _immediately_ (but only in reflective
intuition, not, like morality, in its concept). (2) It pleases _apart
from any interest_ (the morally good is indeed necessarily bound up
with an interest, though not with one which precedes the judgement upon
the satisfaction, but with one which is first of all produced by it).
(3) The _freedom_ of the Imagination (and therefore of the sensibility
of our faculty) is represented in judging the beautiful as harmonious
with the conformity to law of the Understanding (in the moral judgement
the freedom of the will is thought as the harmony of the latter with
itself according to universal laws of Reason). (4) The subjective
principle in judging the beautiful is represented as _universal_,
_i.e._ as valid for every man, though not cognisable through any
universal concept. (The objective principle of morality is also
expounded as universal, _i.e._ for every subject and for every action
of the same subject, and thus as cognisable by means of a universal
concept). Hence the moral judgement is not only susceptible of definite
constitutive principles, but is possible _only_ by grounding its maxims
on these in their universality.
A reference to this analogy is usual even with the common Understanding
[of men], and we often describe beautiful objects of nature or art by
names that seem to put a moral appreciation at their basis. We call
buildings or trees majestic and magnificent, landscapes laughing and
gay; even colours are called innocent, modest, tender, because they
excite sensations which have something analogous to the consciousness
of the state of mind brought about by moral judgements. Taste makes
possible the transition, without any violent leap, from the charm of
Sense to habitual moral interest; for it represents the Imagination
in its freedom as capable of purposive determination for the
Understanding, and so teaches us to find even in objects of sense a
free satisfaction apart from any charm of sense.
APPENDIX
§ 60. _Of the method of Taste_
The division of a Critique into Elementology and Methodology, as
preparatory to science, is not applicable to the Critique of taste,
because there neither is nor can be a science of the Beautiful, and
the judgement of taste is not determinable by means of principles. As
for the scientific element in every art, which regards _truth_ in the
presentation of its Object, this is indeed the indispensable condition
(_conditio sine qua non_) of beautiful art, but not beautiful art
itself. There is therefore for beautiful art only a _manner_ (_modus_),
not a _method of teaching_ (_methodus_). The master must show what the
pupil is to do and how he is to do it; and the universal rules, under
which at last he brings his procedure, serve rather for bringing the
main points back to his remembrance when occasion requires, than for
prescribing them to him. Nevertheless regard must be had here to a
certain ideal, which art must have before its eyes, although it cannot
be completely attained in practice. It is only through exciting the
Imagination of the pupil to accordance with a given concept, by making
him note the inadequacy of the expression for the Idea, to which the
concept itself does not attain because it is an aesthetical Idea, and
by severe criticism, that he can be prevented from taking the examples
set before him as types and models for imitation, to be subjected to
no higher standard or independent judgement. It is thus that genius,
and with it the freedom of the Imagination, is stifled by its very
conformity to law; and without these no beautiful art, and not even an
accurately judging individual taste, is possible.
The propaedeutic to all beautiful art, regarded in the highest degree
of its perfection, seems to lie, not in precepts, but in the culture
of the mental powers by means of those elements of knowledge called
_humaniora_, probably because _humanity_ on the one side indicates
the universal _feeling of sympathy_, and on the other the faculty
of being able to _communicate_ universally our inmost [feelings].
For these properties taken together constitute the characteristic
social spirit[104] of humanity by which it is distinguished from the
limitations of animal life. The age and peoples, in which the impulse
towards a _law-abiding_ social life, by which a people becomes a
permanent community, contended with the great difficulties presented by
the difficult problem of uniting freedom (and therefore equality also)
with compulsion (rather of respect and submission from a sense of duty
than of fear)--such an age and such a people naturally first found out
the art of reciprocal communication of Ideas between the cultivated
and uncultivated classes and thus discovered how to harmonise the
large-mindedness and refinement of the former with the natural
simplicity and originality of the latter. In this way they first found
that mean between the higher culture and simple nature which furnishes
that true standard for taste as a sense common to all men which no
universal rules can supply.
With difficulty will a later age dispense with those models, because
it will be always farther from nature; and in fine, without having
permanent examples before it, a concept will hardly be possible, in one
and the same people, of the happy union of the law-abiding constraint
of the highest culture with the force and truth of free nature which
feels its own proper worth.
Now taste is at bottom a faculty for judging of the sensible
illustration of moral Ideas (by means of a certain analogy involved
in our reflection upon both these); and it is from this faculty also
and from the greater susceptibility grounded thereon for the feeling
arising from the latter (called moral feeling), that the pleasure is
derived which taste regards as valid for mankind in general and not
merely for the private feeling of each. Hence it appears plain that the
true propaedeutic for the foundation of taste is the development of
moral Ideas and the culture of the moral feeling; because it is only
when sensibility is brought into agreement with this that genuine taste
can assume a definite invariable form.
THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
PART II
CRITIQUE OF THE TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT
§ 61. _Of the objective purposiveness of Nature_
We have on transcendental principles good ground to assume a subjective
purposiveness in nature, in its particular laws, in reference to its
comprehensibility by human Judgement and to the possibility of the
connexion of particular experiences in a system. This may be expected
as possible in many products of nature, which, as if they were devised
quite specially for our Judgement, contain a specific form conformable
thereto; which through their manifoldness and unity serve at once to
strengthen and to sustain the mental powers (that come into play in the
employment of this faculty); and to which therefore we give the name of
_beautiful_ forms.
But that the things of nature serve one another as means to purposes,
and that their possibility is only completely intelligible through
this kind of causality--for this we have absolutely no ground in the
universal Idea of nature, as the complex of the objects of sense. In
the above-mentioned case, the representation of things, because it
is something in ourselves, can be quite well thought _a priori_ as
suitable and useful for the internally purposive determination of our
cognitive faculties; but that purposes, which neither are our own
nor belong to nature (for we do not regard nature as an intelligent
being), could or should constitute a particular kind of causality, at
least a quite special conformity to law,--this we have absolutely no
_a priori_ reason for presuming. Yet more, experience itself cannot
prove to us the actuality of this; there must then have preceded a
rationalising subtlety which only sportively introduces the concept of
purpose into the nature of things, but which does not derive it from
Objects or from their empirical cognition. To this latter it is of
more service to make nature comprehensible according to analogy with
the subjective ground of the connexion of our representations, than to
cognise it from objective grounds.
Further, objective purposiveness, as a principle of the possibility of
things of nature, is so far removed from _necessary_ connexion with
the concept of nature, that it is much oftener precisely that upon
which one relies to prove the contingency of nature and of its form.
When, _e.g._ we adduce the structure of a bird, the hollowness of its
bones, the disposition of its wings for motion and of its tail for
steering, _etc._, we say that all this is contingent in the highest
degree according to the mere _nexus effectivus_ of nature, without
calling in the aid of a particular kind of causality, namely that of
purpose (_nexus finalis_). In other words, nature, considered as mere
mechanism, could have produced its forms in a thousand other ways
without stumbling upon the unity which is in accordance with such a
principle. It is not in the concept of nature but quite apart from it
that we can hope to find the least ground _a priori_ for this.
Nevertheless the teleological act of judgement is rightly brought to
bear, at least problematically, upon the investigation of nature;
but only in order to bring it under principles of observation and
inquiry according to the _analogy_ with the causality of purpose,
without any pretence to _explain_ it thereby. It belongs therefore to
the reflective and not to the determinant judgement. The concept of
combinations and forms of nature in accordance with purposes is then
at least _one principle more_ for bringing its phenomena under rules
where the laws of simply mechanical causality do not suffice. For we
bring in a teleological ground, where we attribute causality in respect
of an Object to the concept of an Object, as if it were to be found in
nature (not in ourselves); or rather when we represent to ourselves the
possibility of the Object after the analogy of that causality which
we experience in ourselves, and consequently think nature technically
as through a special faculty. If we did not ascribe to it such a
method of action, its causality would have to be represented as blind
mechanism. If, on the contrary, we supply to nature causes acting
_designedly_, and consequently place at its basis teleology, not merely
as a _regulative_ principle for the mere _judging_ of phenomena, to
which nature can be thought as subject in its particular laws, but as a
_constitutive_ principle of the _derivation_ of its products from their
causes; then would the concept of a natural purpose no longer belong
to the reflective but to the determinant Judgement. Then, in fact, it
would not belong specially to the Judgement (like the concept of beauty
regarded as formal subjective purposiveness), but as a rational concept
it would introduce into natural science a new causality, which we only
borrow from ourselves and ascribe to other beings, without meaning to
assume them to be of the same kind with ourselves.
FIRST DIVISION
ANALYTIC OF THE TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT
§ 62. _Of the objective purposiveness which is merely formal as
distinguished from that which is material_
All geometrical figures drawn on a principle display a manifold,
oft admired, objective purposiveness; _i.e._ in reference to
their usefulness for the solution of several problems by a single
principle, or of the same problem in an infinite variety of ways. The
purposiveness is here obviously objective and intellectual, not merely
subjective and aesthetical. For it expresses the suitability of the
figure for the production of many intended figures, and is cognised
through Reason. But this purposiveness does not make the concept of the
object itself possible, _i.e._ it is not regarded as possible merely
with reference to this use.
In so simple a figure as the circle lies the key to the solution of a
multitude of problems, each of which would demand various appliances;
whereas the solution results of itself, as it were, as one of the
infinite number of elegant properties of this figure. Are we, for
example, asked to construct a triangle, being given the base and
vertical angle? The problem is indeterminate, _i.e._ it can be solved
in an infinite number of ways. But the circle embraces them altogether
as the geometrical locus of the vertices of triangles satisfying
the given conditions. Again, suppose that two lines are to cut one
another so that the rectangle under the segments of the one should be
equal to the rectangle under the segments of the other; the solution
of the problem from this point of view presents much difficulty. But
all chords intersecting inside a circle divide one another in this
_proportion_. Other curved lines suggest other purposive solutions
of which nothing was thought in the rule that furnished their
construction. All conic sections in themselves and when compared with
one another are fruitful in principles for the solution of a number of
possible problems, however simple is the definition which determines
their concept.--It is a true joy to see the zeal with which the old
geometers investigated the properties of lines of this class, without
allowing themselves to be led astray by the questions of narrow-minded
persons, as to what use this knowledge would be. Thus they worked out
the properties of the parabola without knowing the law of gravitation,
which would have suggested to them its application to the trajectory of
heavy bodies (for the motion of a heavy body can be seen to be parallel
to the curve of a parabola). Again, they found out the properties
of an ellipse without surmising that any of the heavenly bodies had
weight, and without knowing the law of force at different distances
from the point of attraction, which causes it to describe this curve
in free motion. While they thus unconsciously worked for the science
of the future, they delighted themselves with a purposiveness in
the [essential] being of things which yet they were able to present
completely _a priori_ in its necessity. _Plato_, himself master of
this science, hinted at such an original constitution of things in
the discovery of which we can dispense with all experience, and at
the power of the mind to produce from its supersensible principle the
harmony of beings (where the properties of number come in, with which
the mind plays in music). This [he touches upon] in the inspiration
that raised him above the concepts of experience to Ideas, which seem
to him to be explicable only through an intellectual affinity with the
origin of all beings. No wonder that he banished from his school the
man who was ignorant of geometry, since he thought he could derive
from pure intuition, which has its home in the human spirit, that
which _Anaxagoras_ drew from empirical objects and their purposive
combination. For in the very necessity of that which is purposive,
and is constituted just as if it were designedly intended for our
use,--but at the same time seems to belong originally to the being
of things without any reference to our use--lies the ground of our
great admiration of nature, and that not so much external as in our
own Reason. It is surely excusable that this admiration should through
misunderstanding gradually rise to the height of fanaticism.