the relation between reasons and consequences (causes and effects), so
far as it is to be found, notwithstanding the specific difference of
the things or those properties in them which contain the reason for
like consequences (_i.e._ considered apart from this relation). Thus we
conceive of the artificial constructions of beasts by comparing them
with those of men; by comparing the ground of those effects brought
about by the former, which we do not know, with the ground of similar
effects brought about by men (reason), which we do know; _i.e._ we
regard the ground of the former as an analogon of reason. We then try
at the same time to show that the ground of the artisan faculty of
beasts, which we call instinct, specifically different as it is in fact
from reason, has yet a similar relation to its effect (the buildings of
the beaver as compared with those of men).--But then I cannot therefore
conclude that because man uses _reason_ for his building, the beaver
must have the like, and call this a _conclusion_ according to analogy.
But from the similarity of the mode of operation of beasts (of which
we cannot immediately perceive the ground) to that of men (of which we
are immediately conscious), we can quite rightly conclude _according
to analogy_, that beasts too act in accordance with _representations_
(not as _Descartes_ has it, that they are machines), and that despite
their specific distinction they are yet (as living beings) of the same
genus as man. The principle of our right so to conclude consists in
the sameness of the ground for reckoning beasts in respect of the said
determination in the same genus with men, regarded as men, so far as we
can externally compare them with one another in accordance with their
actions. There is _par ratio_. Just so I can conceive, according to the
analogy of an Understanding, the causality of the supreme World-Cause,
by comparing its purposive products in the world with the artificial
works of men; but I cannot conclude according to analogy to those
properties in it [which are in man], because here the principle of the
possibility of such a method of reasoning entirely fails, viz. the
_paritas rationis_ for counting the Supreme Being in one and the same
genus with man (in respect of the causality of both). The causality
of the beings of the world, which is always sensibly conditioned (as
is causality through Understanding) cannot be transferred to a Being
which has in common with them no generic concept save that of Thing in
general.
[142] We thus miss nothing in the representation of the relations of
this Being to the world, as far as the consequences, theoretical or
practical, of this concept are concerned. To wish to investigate what
it is in itself, is a curiosity as purposeless as it is vain.
[143] [Cf. _Introd. to Logic_, p. 76, where the conditions of a
legitimate hypothesis are laid down. See also _Critique of Pure
Reason_, Methodology, c. i. § 3.]
[144] [This illustration is also given in the _Logic_ (p. 57);
where the three _modi_ of belief, Opinion, Faith, and Knowledge,
are distinguished from each other. Cf. _Critique of Pure Reason_,
Methodology, c. ii. § 3.]
[145] [The speculations of Swedenborg seem to have always had a strange
fascination for Kant. He says of two reported cases of Swedenborg’s
clairvoyance that he knows not how to disprove them (Rosenkranz vii.
5); but in his _Anthropology_ §§ 35, 37, he attacks Swedenborgianism
as folly. So in an early essay, _Dreams of a Visionary explained
by Dreams of Metaphysics_, he avows his scepticism as to the value
of the information which “psychical research” can supply about the
spirit-world, though he is careful not to commit himself to any
dogmatic statement on the subject of ghosts. In the _Critique of Pure
Reason_ (when discussing the Postulates of Empirical Thought) he
gives, as an instance of a concept inconsistent with the canons of
possibility, “a power of being in a community of thought with other
men, however distant from us.”]
[146] [Cf. _supra_, p. 229.]
[147] I here extend, correctly as it seems to me, the concept of a
thing of fact beyond the usual signification of this word. For it is
not needful, not even feasible, to limit this expression merely to
actual experience, if we are talking of the relation of things to
our cognitive faculties; for an experience merely possible is quite
sufficient in order that we may speak of them merely as objects of a
definite kind of cognition.
[148] [Cf. _introduction to Logic_, p. 59 note.]
[149] [Second Edition.]
[150] Things of faith are not therefore _articles of faith_; if we
understand by the latter things of faith to the _confession_ of which
(internal or external) we can be bound. Natural theology contains
nothing like this. For since they, as things of faith (like things of
fact) cannot be based on theoretical proofs, [they are accepted by]
a belief which is free and which only as such is compatible with the
morality of the subject.
[151] The final purpose which the moral law enjoins upon us to further,
is not the ground of duty; since this lies in the moral law, which,
as formal practical principle, leads categorically, independently
of the Objects of the faculty of desire (the material of the will)
and consequently of any purpose whatever. This formal characteristic
of my actions (their subordination under the principle of universal
validity), wherein alone consists their inner moral worth, is quite
in our power; and I can quite well abstract from the possibility or
the unattainableness of purposes which I am obliged to promote in
conformity with that law (because in them consists only the external
worth of my actions) as something which is never completely in my
power, in order only to look to that which is of my doing. But then
the design of promoting the final purpose of all rational beings
(happiness so far as it is possible for it to be accordant with duty)
is even yet prescribed by the law of duty. The speculative Reason,
however, does not see at all the attainableness of this (neither on
the side of our own physical faculty nor on that of the co-operation
of nature). It must rather, so far as we can judge in a rational way,
hold the derivation, by the aid of such causes, of such a consequence
of our good conduct from mere nature (internal and external) without
God and immortality, to be an ungrounded and vain, though well-meant,
expectation; and if it could have complete certainty of this judgement,
it would regard the moral law itself as the mere deception of our
Reason in a practical aspect. But since the speculative Reason fully
convinces itself that the latter can never take place, but that on the
other hand those Ideas whose object lies outside nature can be thought
without contradiction, it must for its own practical law and the
problem prescribed thereby, and therefore in a moral aspect, recognise
those Ideas as real in order not to come into contradiction with itself.
[152] It is a trust in the promise of the moral law; [not however such
as is contained in it, but such as I put into it and that on morally
adequate grounds.[153] For a final purpose cannot be commanded by any
law of Reason without this latter at the same time promising, however
uncertainly, its attainableness; and thus justifying our belief in
the special conditions under which alone our Reason can think it as
attainable. The word _fides_ expresses this; and it can only appear
doubtful, how this expression and this particular Idea came into moral
philosophy, since it first was introduced with Christianity, and the
adoption of it perhaps might seem to be only a flattering imitation
of Christian terminology. But this is not the only case in which this
wonderful religion with its great simplicity of statement has enriched
philosophy with far more definite and purer concepts of morality, than
it had been able to furnish before; but which, once they are there, are
_freely_ assented to by Reason and are assumed as concepts to which
it could well have come of itself and which it could and should have
introduced.]
[153] [Second Edition.]
[154] [Cf. _Introd. to Logic_, ix. p. 60, “That man is morally
_unbelieving_ who does not accept that which though _impossible_ to
know is _morally necessary_ to suppose.”]
[155] [First Edition.]
[156] [In the _Critique of Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. II. c. iii. §§
4, 5.]
[157] [H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768), the author of the famous
_Wolfenbüttel Fragments_, published after the death of Reimarus by
Lessing. The book alluded to by Kant is probably the _Abhandlungen von
den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion_ (1754), which had
great popularity in its day.]
[158] [These arguments are advanced by Hume, _Inquiry_, § vii. Cf. also
_Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. II. c. iii. § 6, and _Practical Reason_,
Dialectic, c. ii. § vii.]
[159] [Cf. _Practical Reason_, Dialectic, c. ii. § v.]
[160] The admiration for beauty, and also the emotion aroused by the
manifold purposes of nature, which a reflective mind is able to feel
even prior to a clear representation of a rational Author of the world,
have something in themselves like _religious_ feeling. They seem in the
first place by a method of judging analogous to moral to produce an
effect upon the moral feeling (gratitude to, and veneration for, the
unknown cause); and thus by exciting moral Ideas to produce an effect
upon the mind, when they inspire that admiration which is bound up with
far more interest than mere theoretical observation can bring about.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Text has three occcurrences of “casuality”, which have been retained,
but which may be misprints for “causality”.
These are transliterations of the Greek text for use on devices that
cannot display such text:
Page xvii: kosmos.
Page xxii: kalo.
Page xxiv: sôphrosynê.
Page xxxiii: nous.
Page 397: kat’ alêtheian (or) kat’ anthrôpon.
Footnote 79 (originally on page 195): ha gar auta lypêrôs horômen,
toutôn tas eikonas tas malista êkribômenas chairomen theôrountes
hoion thêriôn te morphas tôn atimotatôn kai nekrôn.
End of Project Gutenberg's Kant's Critique of Judgement, by Immanuel Kant