for the reflective Judgement, we have sufficient cause for judging man
to be, not merely like all organised beings a _natural purpose_, but
also the _ultimate purpose_ of nature here on earth; in reference to
whom all other natural things constitute a system of purposes according
to fundamental propositions of Reason. If now that must be found in
man himself, which is to be furthered as a purpose by means of his
connexion with nature, this purpose must either be of a kind that
can be satisfied by nature in its beneficence; or it is the aptitude
and skill for all kinds of purposes for which nature (external and
internal) can be used by him. The first purpose of nature would be
man’s _happiness_, the second his _culture_.
The concept of happiness is not one that man derives by abstraction
from his instincts and so deduces from his animal nature; but it is a
mere _Idea_ of a state, that he wishes to make adequate to the Idea
under merely empirical conditions (which is impossible). This Idea he
projects in such different ways on account of the complication of his
Understanding with Imagination and Sense, and changes so often, that
nature, even if it were entirely subjected to his elective will, could
receive absolutely no determinate, universal and fixed law, so as to
harmonise with this vacillating concept and thus with the purpose which
each man arbitrarily sets before himself. And even if we reduce this
to the true natural wants as to which our race is thoroughly agreed,
or on the other hand, raise ever so high man’s skill to accomplish his
imagined purposes; yet, even thus, what man understands by happiness,
and what is in fact his proper, ultimate, natural purpose (not purpose
of freedom), would never be attained by him. For it is not his nature
to rest and be contented with the possession and enjoyment of anything
whatever. On the other side, too, there is something wanting. Nature
has not taken him for her special darling and favoured him with benefit
above all animals. Rather, in her destructive operations,--plague,
hunger, perils of waters, frost, assaults of other animals great and
small, etc.,--in these things has she spared him as little as any other
animal. Further, the inconsistency of his own _natural dispositions_
drives him into self-devised torments, and also reduces others of his
own race to misery, by the oppression of lordship, the barbarism of
war, and so forth; he, himself, as far as in him lies, works for the
destruction of his own race; so that even with the most beneficent
external nature, its purpose, if it were directed to the happiness
of our species, would not be attained in an earthly system, because
our nature is not susceptible of it. Man is then always only a link
in the chain of natural purposes; a principle certainly in respect
of many purposes, for which nature seems to have destined him in her
disposition, and towards which he sets himself, but also a means for
the maintenance of purposiveness in the mechanism of the remaining
links. As the only being on earth which has an Understanding and,
consequently, a faculty of setting arbitrary purposes before itself, he
is certainly entitled to be the lord of nature; and if it be regarded
as a teleological system he is, by his destination, the ultimate
purpose of nature. But this is subject to the condition of his having
an Understanding and the Will to give to it and to himself such a
reference to purposes, as can be self-sufficient independently of
nature, and, consequently, can be a final purpose; which, however, must
not be sought in nature itself.
But in order to find out where in man we have to place that _ultimate
purpose_ of nature, we must seek out what nature can supply to prepare
him for what he must do himself in order to be a final purpose, and
we must separate it from all those purposes whose possibility depends
upon things that one can expect only from nature. Of the latter
kind is earthly happiness, by which is understood the complex of all
man’s purposes possible through nature, whether external nature or
man’s nature; _i.e._ the matter of all his earthly purposes, which,
if he makes it his whole purpose, renders him incapable of positing
his own existence as a final purpose, and being in harmony therewith.
There remains therefore of all his purposes in nature only the formal
subjective condition; viz. the aptitude of setting purposes in
general before himself, and (independent of nature in his purposive
determination) of using nature, conformably to the maxims of his free
purposes in general, as a means. This nature can do in regard to the
final purpose that lies outside it, and it therefore may be regarded
as its ultimate purpose. The production of the aptitude of a rational
being for arbitrary purposes in general (consequently in his freedom)
is _culture_. Therefore, culture alone can be the ultimate purpose
which we have cause for ascribing to nature in respect to the human
race (not man’s earthly happiness or the fact that he is the chief
instrument of instituting order and harmony in irrational nature
external to himself).
But all culture is not adequate to this ultimate purpose of nature. The
culture of _skill_ is indeed the chief subjective condition of aptitude
for furthering one’s purposes in general; but it is not adequate to
furthering the _will_[126] in the determination and choice of purposes,
which yet essentially belongs to the whole extent of an aptitude for
purposes. The latter condition of aptitude, which we might call the
culture of training (discipline), is negative, and consists in the
freeing of the will from the despotism of desires. By these, tied as
we are to certain natural things, we are rendered incapable even of
choosing, while we allow those impulses to serve as fetters, which
Nature has given us as guiding threads that we should not neglect or
violate the destination of our animal nature--we being all the time
free enough to strain or relax, to extend or diminish them, according
as the purposes of Reason require.
Skill cannot be developed in the human race except by means of
inequality among men; for the great majority provide the necessities
of life, as it were, mechanically, without requiring any art in
particular, for the convenience and leisure of others who work at the
less necessary elements of culture, science and art. In an oppressed
condition they have hard work and little enjoyment, although much of
the culture of the higher classes gradually spreads to them. Yet with
the progress of this culture (the height of which is called luxury,
reached when the propensity to what can be done without begins to be
injurious to what is indispensable), their calamities increase equally
in two directions, on the one hand through violence from without, on
the other hand through internal discontent; but still this splendid
misery is bound up with the development of the natural capacities of
the human race, and the purpose of nature itself, although not our
purpose, is thus attained. The formal condition under which nature
can alone attain this its final design, is that arrangement of men’s
relations to one another, by which lawful authority in a whole,
which we call a _civil community_, is opposed to the abuse of their
conflicting freedoms; only in this can the greatest development
of natural capacities take place. For this also there would be
requisite,--if men were clever enough to find it out and wise enough
to submit themselves voluntarily to its constraint,--a _cosmopolitan_
whole, _i.e._ a system of all states that are in danger of acting
injuriously upon each other.[127] Failing this, and with the obstacles
which ambition, lust of dominion, and avarice, especially in those
who have the authority in their hands, oppose even to the possibility
of such a scheme, there is, inevitably, _war_ (by which sometimes
states subdivide and resolve themselves into smaller states, sometimes
a state annexes other smaller states and strives to form a greater
whole). Though war is an undesigned enterprise of men (stirred up by
their unbridled passions), yet is it [perhaps][128] a deep-hidden
and designed enterprise of supreme wisdom for preparing, if not for
establishing, conformity to law amid the freedom of states, and with
this a unity of a morally grounded system of those states. In spite of
the dreadful afflictions with which it visits the human race, and the
perhaps greater afflictions with which the constant preparation for it
in time of peace oppresses them, yet is it (although the hope for a
restful state of popular happiness is ever further off) a motive for
developing all talents serviceable for culture, to the highest possible
pitch.[129]
As concerns the discipline of the inclinations,--for which our
natural capacity in regard of our destination as an animal race is
quite purposive, but which render the development of humanity very
difficult,--there is manifest in respect of this second requirement for
culture a purposive striving of nature to a cultivation which makes us
receptive of higher purposes than nature itself can supply. We cannot
strive against the preponderance of evil, which is poured out upon us
by the refinement of taste pushed to idealisation, and even by the
luxury of science as affording food for pride, through the insatiable
number of inclinations thus aroused. But yet we cannot mistake the
purpose of nature--ever aiming to win us away from the rudeness and
violence of those inclinations (inclinations to enjoyment) which belong
rather to our animality, and for the most part are opposed to the
cultivation of our higher destiny, and to make way for the development
of our humanity. The beautiful arts and the sciences which, by their
universally-communicable pleasure, and by the polish and refinement
of society, make man more civilised, if not morally better, win us in
large measure from the tyranny of sense-propensions, and thus prepare
men for a lordship, in which Reason alone shall have authority;
whilst the evils with which we are visited, partly by nature, partly
by the intolerant selfishness of men, summon, strengthen, and harden
the powers of the soul not to submit to them, and so make us feel an
aptitude for higher purposes, which lies hidden in us.[130]
§ 84. _Of the final purpose of the existence of a world, i.e. of
creation itself_
A _final purpose_ is that purpose which needs no other as condition of
its possibility.
If the mere mechanism of nature be assumed as the ground of explanation
of its purposiveness, we cannot ask: what are things in the world
there for? For according to such an idealistic system it is only the
physical possibility of things (to think which as purposes would be
mere subtlety without any Object) that is under discussion; whether we
refer this form of things to chance or to blind necessity, in either
case the question would be vain. If, however, we assume the purposive
combination in the world to be real and to be [brought about] by a
particular kind of causality, viz. that of a _designedly-working_
cause, we cannot stop at the question: why have things of the world
(organised beings) this or that form? why are they placed by nature
in this or that relation to one another? But once an Understanding
is thought that must be regarded as the cause of the possibility of
such forms as are actually found in things, it must be also asked
on objective grounds: Who could have determined this productive
Understanding to an operation of this kind? This being is then the
final purpose in reference to which such things are there.
I have said above that the final purpose is not a purpose which nature
would be competent to bring about and to produce in conformity with
its Idea, because it is unconditioned. For there is nothing in nature
(regarded as a sensible being) for which the determining ground present
in itself would not be always conditioned; and this holds not merely of
external (material) nature, but also of internal (thinking) nature--it
being of course understood that I only am considering that in myself
which is nature. But a thing that is to exist necessarily, on account
of its objective constitution, as the final purpose of an intelligent
cause, must be of the kind that in the order of purposes it is
dependent on no further condition than merely its Idea.
Now we have in the world only one kind of beings whose causality
is teleological, _i.e._ is directed to purposes and is at the same
time so constituted that the law according to which they have to
determine purposes for themselves is represented as unconditioned and
independent of natural conditions, and yet as in itself necessary. The
being of this kind is man, but man considered as noumenon; the only
natural being in which we can recognise, on the side of its peculiar
constitution, a supersensible faculty (_freedom_) and also the law of
causality, together with its Object, which this faculty may propose to
itself as highest purpose (the highest good in the world).
Now of man (and so of every rational creature in the World) as a moral
being it can no longer be asked: why (_quem in finem_) he exists? His
existence involves the highest purpose to which, as far as is in his
power, he can subject the whole of nature; contrary to which at least
he cannot regard himself as subject to any influence of nature.--If now
things of the world, as beings dependent in their existence, need a
supreme cause acting according to purposes, man is the final purpose of
creation; since without him the chain of mutually subordinated purposes
would not be complete as regards its ground. Only in man, and only in
him as subject of morality, do we meet with unconditioned legislation
in respect of purposes, which therefore alone renders him capable of
being a final purpose, to which the whole of nature is teleologically
subordinated.[131]
§ 85. _Of Physico-theology_
_Physico-theology_ is the endeavour of Reason to infer the Supreme
Cause of nature and its properties from the _purposes_ of nature (which
can only be empirically known). _Moral theology_ (ethico-theology)
would be the endeavour to infer that Cause and its properties from
the moral purpose of rational beings in nature (which can be known _a
priori_).
The former naturally precedes the latter. For if we wish to infer a
World Cause _teleologically_ from the things in the world, purposes
of nature must first be given, for which we afterwards have to seek
a final purpose, and for this the principle of the causality of this
Supreme Cause.
Many investigations of nature can and must be conducted according to
the teleological principle, without our having cause to inquire into
the ground of the possibility of purposive working with which we meet
in various products of nature. But if we wish to have a concept of this
we have absolutely no further insight into it than the maxim of the
reflective Judgement affords: viz. if only a single organic product of
nature were given to us, by the constitution of our cognitive faculty
we could think no other ground for it than that of a cause of nature
itself (whether the whole of nature or only this bit of it) which
contains the causality for it through Understanding. This principle of
judging, though it does not bring us any further in the explanation of
natural things and their origin, yet discloses to us an outlook over
nature, by which perhaps we may be able to determine more closely the
concept, otherwise so unfruitful, of an Original Being.
Now I say that Physico-theology, however far it may be pursued, can
disclose to us nothing of a _final purpose_ of creation; for it does
not even extend to the question as to this. It can, it is true, justify
the concept of an intelligent World Cause, as a subjective concept
(only available for the constitution of our cognitive faculty) of
the possibility of things that we can make intelligible to ourselves
according to purposes; but it cannot determine this concept further,
either in a theoretical or a practical point of view. Its endeavour
does not come up to its design of being the basis of a Theology, but
it always remains only a physical Teleology; because the purposive
reference therein is and must be always considered only as conditioned
in nature, and it consequently cannot inquire into the purpose for
which nature itself exists (for which the ground must be sought outside
nature),--notwithstanding that it is upon the determinate Idea of this
that the determinate concept of that Supreme Intelligent World Cause,
and the consequent possibility of a Theology, depend.
What the things in the world are mutually useful for; what good the
manifold in a thing does for the thing; how we have ground to assume
that nothing in the world is in vain, but that everything _in nature_
is good for something,--the condition being granted that certain things
are to exist (as purposes), whence our Reason has in its power for
the Judgement no other principle of the possibility of the Object,
which it inevitably judges teleologically, than that of subordinating
the mechanism of nature to the Architectonic of an intelligent Author
of the world--all this the teleological consideration of the world
supplies us with excellently and to our extreme admiration. But
because the data, and so the principles, for _determining_ that concept
of an intelligent World Cause (as highest artist) are merely empirical,
they do not enable us to infer any of its properties beyond those which
experience reveals in its effects. Now experience, since it can never
embrace collective nature as a system, must often (apparently) happen
upon this concept (and by mutually conflicting grounds of proof); but
it can never, even if we had the power of surveying empirically the
whole system as far as it concerns mere nature, raise us above nature
to the purpose of its existence, and so to the determinate concept of
that supreme Intelligence.
If we lessen the problem with the solution of which Physico-theology
has to do, its solution appears easy. If we reduce the concept of a
_Deity_ to that of an intelligent being thought by us, of which there
may be one or more, which possesses many and very great properties,
but not all the properties which are requisite for the foundation of a
nature in harmony with the greatest possible purpose; or if we do not
scruple in a theory to supply by arbitrary additions what is deficient
in the grounds of proof, and so, where we have only ground for assuming
_much_ perfection (and what is “much” for us?), consider ourselves
entitled to presuppose _all possible_ perfection; thus indeed physical
Teleology may make weighty claims to the distinction of being the basis
of a Theology. But if we are desired to point out what impels and
moreover authorises us to add these supplements, then we shall seek in
vain for a ground of justification in the principles of the theoretical
use of Reason, which is ever desirous in the explanation of an Object
of experience to ascribe to it no more properties than those for which
empirical data of possibility are to be found. On closer examination
we should see that properly speaking an Idea of a Supreme Being, which
rests on a quite different use of Reason (the practical use), lies in
us fundamentally _a priori_, impelling us to supplement, by the concept
of a Deity, the defective representation, supplied by a physical
Teleology, of the original ground of the purposes in nature; and we
should not falsely imagine that we had worked out this Idea, and with
it a Theology by means of the theoretical use of Reason in the physical
cognition of the world--much less that we had proved its reality.
One cannot blame the ancients much, if they thought of their gods as
differing much from each other both as regards their faculties and as
regards their designs and volitions, but yet thought of all of them,
the Supreme One not excepted, as always limited after human fashion.
For if they considered the arrangement and the course of things in
nature, they certainly found ground enough for assuming something
more than mechanism as its cause, and for conjecturing behind the
machinery of this world designs of certain higher causes, which they
could not think otherwise than superhuman. But because they met with
good and evil, the purposive and the unpurposive, mingled together (at
least as far as our insight goes), and could not permit themselves
to assume nevertheless that wise and benevolent purposes of which
they saw no proof lay hidden at bottom, on behalf of the arbitrary
Idea of a supremely perfect original Author, their judgement upon
the supreme World Cause could hardly have been other than it was, so
long as they proceeded consistently according to maxims of the mere
theoretical use of Reason. Others, who wished to be theologians as
well as physicists, thought to find contentment for the Reason by
providing for the absolute unity of the principle of natural things
which Reason demands, the Idea of a Being of which as sole Substance
the things would be all only inherent determinations. This Substance
would not be Cause of the World by means of intelligence, but in it all
the intelligences of the beings in the world would be comprised. This
Being consequently would produce nothing according to purposes; but in
it all things, on account of the unity of the subject of which they are
mere determinations, must necessarily relate themselves purposively to
one another, though without purpose and design. Thus they introduced
the Idealism of final causes, by changing the unity (so difficult to
explain) of a number of purposively combined substances, from being
the unity of causal dependence _on one_ Substance to be the unity of
inherence _in one_. This system--which in the sequel, considered on the
side of the inherent world beings, becomes _Pantheism_, and (later) on
the side of the Subject subsisting by itself as Original Being, becomes
_Spinozism_,--does not so much resolve as explain away into nothing the
question of the first ground of the purposiveness of nature; because
this latter concept, bereft of all reality, must be taken for a mere
misinterpretation of a universal ontological concept of a thing in
general.
Hence the concept of a Deity, which would be adequate for our
teleological judging of nature, can never be derived from mere
theoretical principles of the use of Reason (on which Physico-theology
alone is based). For as one alternative we may explain all Teleology
as a mere deception of the Judgement in its judging of the causal
combination of things, and fly to the sole principle of a mere
mechanism of nature, which merely seems to us, on account of the unity
of the Substance of whose determinations nature is but the manifold,
to contain a universal reference to purposes. Or if, instead of this
Idealism of final causes, we wish to remain attached to the principle
of the Realism of this particular kind of causality, we may set
beneath natural purposes many intelligent original beings or only a
single one. But so far as we have for the basis of this concept [of
Realism] only empirical principles derived from the actual purposive
combination in the world, we cannot on the one hand find any remedy for
the discordance that nature presents in many examples in respect of
unity of purpose; and on the other hand, as to the concept of a single
intelligent Cause, so far as we are authorised by mere experience, we
can never draw it therefrom in a manner sufficiently determined for any
serviceable Theology whatever (whether theoretical or practical).