Section IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of Reason

with regard to the Cosmological Ideas

We have shown that no transcendental use can be made either of the

conceptions of reason or of understanding. We have shown, likewise,

that the demand of absolute totality in the series of conditions in the

world of sense arises from a transcendental employment of reason,

resting on the opinion that phenomena are to be regarded as things in

themselves. It follows that we are not required to answer the question

respecting the absolute quantity of a series—whether it is in itself

limited or unlimited. We are only called upon to determine how far we

must proceed in the empirical regress from condition to condition, in

order to discover, in conformity with the rule of reason, a full and

correct answer to the questions proposed by reason itself.

This principle of reason is hence valid only as a rule for the

extension of a possible experience—its invalidity as a principle

constitutive of phenomena in themselves having been sufficiently

demonstrated. And thus, too, the antinomial conflict of reason with

itself is completely put an end to; inasmuch as we have not only

presented a critical solution of the fallacy lurking in the opposite

statements of reason, but have shown the true meaning of the ideas

which gave rise to these statements. The dialectical principle of

reason has, therefore, been changed into a doctrinal principle. But in

fact, if this principle, in the subjective signification which we have

shown to be its only true sense, may be guaranteed as a principle of

the unceasing extension of the employment of our understanding, its

influence and value are just as great as if it were an axiom for the à

priori determination of objects. For such an axiom could not exert a

stronger influence on the extension and rectification of our knowledge,

otherwise than by procuring for the principles of the understanding the

most widely expanded employment in the field of experience.

I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Composition

of Phenomena in the Universe

Here, as well as in the case of the other cosmological problems, the

ground of the regulative principle of reason is the proposition that in

our empirical regress no experience of an absolute limit, and

consequently no experience of a condition, which is itself absolutely

unconditioned, is discoverable. And the truth of this proposition

itself rests upon the consideration that such an experience must

represent to us phenomena as limited by nothing or the mere void, on

which our continued regress by means of perception must abut—which is

impossible.

Now this proposition, which declares that every condition attained in

the empirical regress must itself be considered empirically

conditioned, contains the rule in terminis, which requires me, to

whatever extent I may have proceeded in the ascending series, always to

look for some higher member in the series—whether this member is to

become known to me through experience, or not.

Nothing further is necessary, then, for the solution of the first

cosmological problem, than to decide, whether, in the regress to the

unconditioned quantity of the universe (as regards space and time),

this never limited ascent ought to be called a regressus in infinitum

or indefinitum.

The general representation which we form in our minds of the series of

all past states or conditions of the world, or of all the things which

at present exist in it, is itself nothing more than a possible

empirical regress, which is cogitated—although in an undetermined

manner—in the mind, and which gives rise to the conception of a series

of conditions for a given object.[60] Now I have a conception of the

universe, but not an intuition—that is, not an intuition of it as a

whole. Thus I cannot infer the magnitude of the regress from the

quantity or magnitude of the world, and determine the former by means

of the latter; on the contrary, I must first of all form a conception

of the quantity or magnitude of the world from the magnitude of the

empirical regress. But of this regress I know nothing more than that I

ought to proceed from every given member of the series of conditions to

one still higher. But the quantity of the universe is not thereby

determined, and we cannot affirm that this regress proceeds in

infinitum. Such an affirmation would anticipate the members of the

series which have not yet been reached, and represent the number of

them as beyond the grasp of any empirical synthesis; it would

consequently determine the cosmical quantity prior to the regress

(although only in a negative manner)—which is impossible. For the world

is not given in its totality in any intuition: consequently, its

quantity cannot be given prior to the regress. It follows that we are

unable to make any declaration respecting the cosmical quantity in

itself—not even that the regress in it is a regress in infinitum; we

must only endeavour to attain to a conception of the quantity of the

universe, in conformity with the rule which determines the empirical

regress in it. But this rule merely requires us never to admit an

absolute limit to our series—how far soever we may have proceeded in

it, but always, on the contrary, to subordinate every phenomenon to

some other as its condition, and consequently to proceed to this higher

phenomenon. Such a regress is, therefore, the regressus in indefinitum,

which, as not determining a quantity in the object, is clearly

distinguishable from the regressus in infinitum.

[60] The cosmical series can neither be greater nor smaller than the

possible empirical regress, upon which its conception is based. And as

this regress cannot be a determinate infinite regress, still less a

determinate finite (absolutely limited), it is evident that we cannot

regard the world as either finite or infinite, because the regress,

which gives us the representation of the world, is neither finite nor

infinite.

It follows from what we have said that we are not justified in

declaring the world to be infinite in space, or as regards past time.

For this conception of an infinite given quantity is empirical; but we

cannot apply the conception of an infinite quantity to the world as an

object of the senses. I cannot say, “The regress from a given

perception to everything limited either in space or time, proceeds in

infinitum,” for this presupposes an infinite cosmical quantity; neither

can I say, “It is finite,” for an absolute limit is likewise impossible

in experience. It follows that I am not entitled to make any assertion

at all respecting the whole object of experience—the world of sense; I

must limit my declarations to the rule according to which experience or

empirical knowledge is to be attained.

To the question, therefore, respecting the cosmical quantity, the first

and negative answer is: “The world has no beginning in time, and no

absolute limit in space.”

For, in the contrary case, it would be limited by a void time on the

one hand, and by a void space on the other. Now, since the world, as a

phenomenon, cannot be thus limited in itself for a phenomenon is not a

thing in itself; it must be possible for us to have a perception of

this limitation by a void time and a void space. But such a

perception—such an experience is impossible; because it has no content.

Consequently, an absolute cosmical limit is empirically, and therefore

absolutely, impossible.[61]

[61] The reader will remark that the proof presented above is very

different from the dogmatical demonstration given in the antithesis of

the first antinomy. In that demonstration, it was taken for granted

that the world is a thing in itself—given in its totality prior to all

regress, and a determined position in space and time was denied to

it—if it was not considered as occupying all time and all space. Hence

our conclusion differed from that given above; for we inferred in the

antithesis the actual infinity of the world.

From this follows the affirmative answer: “The regress in the series of

phenomena—as a determination of the cosmical quantity, proceeds in

indefinitum.” This is equivalent to saying: “The world of sense has no

absolute quantity, but the empirical regress (through which alone the

world of sense is presented to us on the side of its conditions) rests

upon a rule, which requires it to proceed from every member of the

series, as conditioned, to one still more remote (whether through

personal experience, or by means of history, or the chain of cause and

effect), and not to cease at any point in this extension of the

possible empirical employment of the understanding.” And this is the

proper and only use which reason can make of its principles.

The above rule does not prescribe an unceasing regress in one kind of

phenomena. It does not, for example, forbid us, in our ascent from an

individual human being through the line of his ancestors, to expect

that we shall discover at some point of the regress a primeval pair, or

to admit, in the series of heavenly bodies, a sun at the farthest

possible distance from some centre. All that it demands is a perpetual

progress from phenomena to phenomena, even although an actual

perception is not presented by them (as in the case of our perceptions

being so weak as that we are unable to become conscious of them), since

they, nevertheless, belong to possible experience.

Every beginning is in time, and all limits to extension are in space.

But space and time are in the world of sense. Consequently phenomena in

the world are conditionally limited, but the world itself is not

limited, either conditionally or unconditionally.

For this reason, and because neither the world nor the cosmical series

of conditions to a given conditioned can be completely given, our

conception of the cosmical quantity is given only in and through the

regress and not prior to it—in a collective intuition. But the regress

itself is really nothing more than the determining of the cosmical

quantity, and cannot therefore give us any determined conception of

it—still less a conception of a quantity which is, in relation to a

certain standard, infinite. The regress does not, therefore, proceed to

infinity (an infinity given), but only to an indefinite extent, for or

the of presenting to us a quantity—realized only in and through the

regress itself.

II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division

of a Whole given in Intuition

When I divide a whole which is given in intuition, I proceed from a

conditioned to its conditions. The division of the parts of the whole

(subdivisio or decompositio) is a regress in the series of these

conditions. The absolute totality of this series would be actually

attained and given to the mind, if the regress could arrive at simple

parts. But if all the parts in a continuous decomposition are

themselves divisible, the division, that is to say, the regress,

proceeds from the conditioned to its conditions in infinitum; because

the conditions (the parts) are themselves contained in the conditioned,

and, as the latter is given in a limited intuition, the former are all

given along with it. This regress cannot, therefore, be called a

regressus in indefinitum, as happened in the case of the preceding

cosmological idea, the regress in which proceeded from the conditioned

to the conditions not given contemporaneously and along with it, but

discoverable only through the empirical regress. We are not, however,

entitled to affirm of a whole of this kind, which is divisible in

infinitum, that it consists of an infinite number of parts. For,

although all the parts are contained in the intuition of the whole, the

whole division is not contained therein. The division is contained only

in the progressing decomposition—in the regress itself, which is the

condition of the possibility and actuality of the series. Now, as this

regress is infinite, all the members (parts) to which it attains must

be contained in the given whole as an aggregate. But the complete

series of division is not contained therein. For this series, being

infinite in succession and always incomplete, cannot represent an

infinite number of members, and still less a composition of these

members into a whole.

To apply this remark to space. Every limited part of space presented to

intuition is a whole, the parts of which are always spaces—to whatever

extent subdivided. Every limited space is hence divisible to infinity.

Let us again apply the remark to an external phenomenon enclosed in

limits, that is, a body. The divisibility of a body rests upon the

divisibility of space, which is the condition of the possibility of the

body as an extended whole. A body is consequently divisible to

infinity, though it does not, for that reason, consist of an infinite

number of parts.

It certainly seems that, as a body must be cogitated as substance in

space, the law of divisibility would not be applicable to it as

substance. For we may and ought to grant, in the case of space, that

division or decomposition, to any extent, never can utterly annihilate

composition (that is to say, the smallest part of space must still

consist of spaces); otherwise space would entirely cease to exist—which

is impossible. But, the assertion on the other hand that when all

composition in matter is annihilated in thought, nothing remains, does

not seem to harmonize with the conception of substance, which must be

properly the subject of all composition and must remain, even after the

conjunction of its attributes in space—which constituted a body—is

annihilated in thought. But this is not the case with substance in the

phenomenal world, which is not a thing in itself cogitated by the pure

category. Phenomenal substance is not an absolute subject; it is merely

a permanent sensuous image, and nothing more than an intuition, in

which the unconditioned is not to be found.

But, although this rule of progress to infinity is legitimate and

applicable to the subdivision of a phenomenon, as a mere occupation or

filling of space, it is not applicable to a whole consisting of a

number of distinct parts and constituting a quantum discretum—that is

to say, an organized body. It cannot be admitted that every part in an

organized whole is itself organized, and that, in analysing it to

infinity, we must always meet with organized parts; although we may

allow that the parts of the matter which we decompose in infinitum, may

be organized. For the infinity of the division of a phenomenon in space

rests altogether on the fact that the divisibility of a phenomenon is

given only in and through this infinity, that is, an undetermined

number of parts is given, while the parts themselves are given and

determined only in and through the subdivision; in a word, the infinity

of the division necessarily presupposes that the whole is not already

divided in se. Hence our division determines a number of parts in the

whole—a number which extends just as far as the actual regress in the

division; while, on the other hand, the very notion of a body organized

to infinity represents the whole as already and in itself divided. We

expect, therefore, to find in it a determinate, but at the same time,

infinite, number of parts—which is self-contradictory. For we should

thus have a whole containing a series of members which could not be

completed in any regress—which is infinite, and at the same time

complete in an organized composite. Infinite divisibility is applicable

only to a quantum continuum, and is based entirely on the infinite

divisibility of space, But in a quantum discretum the multitude of

parts or units is always determined, and hence always equal to some

number. To what extent a body may be organized, experience alone can

inform us; and although, so far as our experience of this or that body

has extended, we may not have discovered any inorganic part, such parts

must exist in possible experience. But how far the transcendental

division of a phenomenon must extend, we cannot know from experience—it

is a question which experience cannot answer; it is answered only by

the principle of reason which forbids us to consider the empirical

regress, in the analysis of extended body, as ever absolutely complete.

Concluding Remark on the Solution of the Transcendental Mathematical

Ideas—and Introductory to the Solution of the Dynamical Ideas.

We presented the antinomy of pure reason in a tabular form, and we

endeavoured to show the ground of this self-contradiction on the part

of reason, and the only means of bringing it to a conclusion—namely, by

declaring both contradictory statements to be false. We represented in

these antinomies the conditions of phenomena as belonging to the

conditioned according to relations of space and time—which is the usual

supposition of the common understanding. In this respect, all

dialectical representations of totality, in the series of conditions to

a given conditioned, were perfectly homogeneous. The condition was

always a member of the series along with the conditioned, and thus the

homogeneity of the whole series was assured. In this case the regress

could never be cogitated as complete; or, if this was the case, a

member really conditioned was falsely regarded as a primal member,

consequently as unconditioned. In such an antinomy, therefore, we did

not consider the object, that is, the conditioned, but the series of

conditions belonging to the object, and the magnitude of that series.

And thus arose the difficulty—a difficulty not to be settled by any

decision regarding the claims of the two parties, but simply by cutting

the knot—by declaring the series proposed by reason to be either too

long or too short for the understanding, which could in neither case

make its conceptions adequate with the ideas.

But we have overlooked, up to this point, an essential difference

existing between the conceptions of the understanding which reason

endeavours to raise to the rank of ideas—two of these indicating a

mathematical, and two a dynamical synthesis of phenomena. Hitherto, it

was necessary to signalize this distinction; for, just as in our

general representation of all transcendental ideas, we considered them

under phenomenal conditions, so, in the two mathematical ideas, our

discussion is concerned solely with an object in the world of

phenomena. But as we are now about to proceed to the consideration of

the dynamical conceptions of the understanding, and their adequateness

with ideas, we must not lose sight of this distinction. We shall find

that it opens up to us an entirely new view of the conflict in which

reason is involved. For, while in the first two antinomies, both

parties were dismissed, on the ground of having advanced statements

based upon false hypothesis; in the present case the hope appears of

discovering a hypothesis which may be consistent with the demands of

reason, and, the judge completing the statement of the grounds of

claim, which both parties had left in an unsatisfactory state, the

question may be settled on its own merits, not by dismissing the

claimants, but by a comparison of the arguments on both sides. If we

consider merely their extension, and whether they are adequate with

ideas, the series of conditions may be regarded as all homogeneous. But

the conception of the understanding which lies at the basis of these

ideas, contains either a synthesis of the homogeneous (presupposed in

every quantity—in its composition as well as in its division) or of the

heterogeneous, which is the case in the dynamical synthesis of cause

and effect, as well as of the necessary and the contingent.

Thus it happens that in the mathematical series of phenomena no other

than a sensuous condition is admissible—a condition which is itself a

member of the series; while the dynamical series of sensuous conditions

admits a heterogeneous condition, which is not a member of the series,

but, as purely intelligible, lies out of and beyond it. And thus reason

is satisfied, and an unconditioned placed at the head of the series of

phenomena, without introducing confusion into or discontinuing it,

contrary to the principles of the understanding.

Now, from the fact that the dynamical ideas admit a condition of

phenomena which does not form a part of the series of phenomena, arises

a result which we should not have expected from an antinomy. In former

cases, the result was that both contradictory dialectical statements

were declared to be false. In the present case, we find the conditioned

in the dynamical series connected with an empirically unconditioned,

but non-sensuous condition; and thus satisfaction is done to the

understanding on the one hand and to the reason on the other.[62]

While, moreover, the dialectical arguments for unconditioned totality

in mere phenomena fall to the ground, both propositions of reason may

be shown to be true in their proper signification. This could not

happen in the case of the cosmological ideas which demanded a

mathematically unconditioned unity; for no condition could be placed at

the head of the series of phenomena, except one which was itself a

phenomenon and consequently a member of the series.

[62] For the understanding cannot admit among phenomena a condition

which is itself empirically unconditioned. But if it is possible to

cogitate an intelligible condition—one which is not a member of the

series of phenomena—for a conditioned phenomenon, without breaking the

series of empirical conditions, such a condition may be admissible as

empirically unconditioned, and the empirical regress continue regular,

unceasing, and intact.

III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Deduction

of Cosmical Events from their Causes

There are only two modes of causality cogitable—the causality of nature

or of freedom. The first is the conjunction of a particular state with

another preceding it in the world of sense, the former following the

latter by virtue of a law. Now, as the causality of phenomena is

subject to conditions of time, and the preceding state, if it had

always existed, could not have produced an effect which would make its

first appearance at a particular time, the causality of a cause must

itself be an effect—must itself have begun to be, and therefore,

according to the principle of the understanding, itself requires a

cause.

We must understand, on the contrary, by the term freedom, in the

cosmological sense, a faculty of the spontaneous origination of a

state; the causality of which, therefore, is not subordinated to

another cause determining it in time. Freedom is in this sense a pure

transcendental idea, which, in the first place, contains no empirical

element; the object of which, in the second place, cannot be given or

determined in any experience, because it is a universal law of the very

possibility of experience, that everything which happens must have a

cause, that consequently the causality of a cause, being itself

something that has happened, must also have a cause. In this view of

the case, the whole field of experience, how far soever it may extend,

contains nothing that is not subject to the laws of nature. But, as we

cannot by this means attain to an absolute totality of conditions in

reference to the series of causes and effects, reason creates the idea

of a spontaneity, which can begin to act of itself, and without any

external cause determining it to action, according to the natural law

of causality.

It is especially remarkable that the practical conception of freedom is

based upon the transcendental idea, and that the question of the

possibility of the former is difficult only as it involves the

consideration of the truth of the latter. Freedom, in the practical

sense, is the independence of the will of coercion by sensuous

impulses. A will is sensuous, in so far as it is pathologically

affected (by sensuous impulses); it is termed animal (arbitrium

brutum), when it is pathologically necessitated. The human will is

certainly an arbitrium sensitivum, not brutum, but liberum; because

sensuousness does not necessitate its action, a faculty existing in man

of self-determination, independently of all sensuous coercion.

It is plain that, if all causality in the world of sense were

natural—and natural only—every event would be determined by another

according to necessary laws, and that, consequently, phenomena, in so

far as they determine the will, must necessitate every action as a

natural effect from themselves; and thus all practical freedom would

fall to the ground with the transcendental idea. For the latter

presupposes that although a certain thing has not happened, it ought to

have happened, and that, consequently, its phenomenal cause was not so

powerful and determinative as to exclude the causality of our will—a

causality capable of producing effects independently of and even in

opposition to the power of natural causes, and capable, consequently,

of spontaneously originating a series of events.

Here, too, we find it to be the case, as we generally found in the

self-contradictions and perplexities of a reason which strives to pass

the bounds of possible experience, that the problem is properly not

physiological, but transcendental. The question of the possibility of

freedom does indeed concern psychology; but, as it rests upon

dialectical arguments of pure reason, its solution must engage the

attention of transcendental philosophy. Before attempting this

solution, a task which transcendental philosophy cannot decline, it

will be advisable to make a remark with regard to its procedure in the

settlement of the question.

If phenomena were things in themselves, and time and space forms of the

existence of things, condition and conditioned would always be members

of the same series; and thus would arise in the present case the

antinomy common to all transcendental ideas—that their series is either

too great or too small for the understanding. The dynamical ideas,

which we are about to discuss in this and the following section,

possess the peculiarity of relating to an object, not considered as a

quantity, but as an existence; and thus, in the discussion of the

present question, we may make abstraction of the quantity of the series

of conditions, and consider merely the dynamical relation of the

condition to the conditioned. The question, then, suggests itself,

whether freedom is possible; and, if it is, whether it can consist with

the universality of the natural law of causality; and, consequently,

whether we enounce a proper disjunctive proposition when we say: “Every

effect must have its origin either in nature or in freedom,” or whether

both cannot exist together in the same event in different relations.

The principle of an unbroken connection between all events in the

phenomenal world, in accordance with the unchangeable laws of nature,

is a well-established principle of transcendental analytic which admits

of no exception. The question, therefore, is: “Whether an effect,

determined according to the laws of nature, can at the same time be

produced by a free agent, or whether freedom and nature mutually

exclude each other?” And here, the common but fallacious hypothesis of

the absolute reality of phenomena manifests its injurious influence in

embarrassing the procedure of reason. For if phenomena are things in

themselves, freedom is impossible. In this case, nature is the complete

and all-sufficient cause of every event; and condition and conditioned,

cause and effect are contained in the same series, and necessitated by

the same law. If, on the contrary, phenomena are held to be, as they

are in fact, nothing more than mere representations, connected with

each other in accordance with empirical laws, they must have a ground

which is not phenomenal. But the causality of such an intelligible

cause is not determined or determinable by phenomena; although its

effects, as phenomena, must be determined by other phenomenal

existences. This cause and its causality exist therefore out of and

apart from the series of phenomena; while its effects do exist and are

discoverable in the series of empirical conditions. Such an effect may

therefore be considered to be free in relation to its intelligible

cause, and necessary in relation to the phenomena from which it is a

necessary consequence—a distinction which, stated in this perfectly

general and abstract manner, must appear in the highest degree subtle

and obscure. The sequel will explain. It is sufficient, at present, to

remark that, as the complete and unbroken connection of phenomena is an

unalterable law of nature, freedom is impossible—on the supposition

that phenomena are absolutely real. Hence those philosophers who adhere

to the common opinion on this subject can never succeed in reconciling

the ideas of nature and freedom.

_Possibility of Freedom in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural

Necessity._

That element in a sensuous object which is not itself sensuous, I may

be allowed to term intelligible. If, accordingly, an object which must

be regarded as a sensuous phenomenon possesses a faculty which is not

an object of sensuous intuition, but by means of which it is capable of

being the cause of phenomena, the causality of an object or existence

of this kind may be regarded from two different points of view. It may

be considered to be intelligible, as regards its action—the action of a

thing which is a thing in itself, and sensuous, as regards its

effects—the effects of a phenomenon belonging to the sensuous world. We

should accordingly, have to form both an empirical and an intellectual

conception of the causality of such a faculty or power—both, however,

having reference to the same effect. This twofold manner of cogitating

a power residing in a sensuous object does not run counter to any of

the conceptions which we ought to form of the world of phenomena or of

a possible experience. Phenomena—not being things in themselves—must

have a transcendental object as a foundation, which determines them as

mere representations; and there seems to be no reason why we should not

ascribe to this transcendental object, in addition to the property of

self-phenomenization, a causality whose effects are to be met with in

the world of phenomena, although it is not itself a phenomenon. But

every effective cause must possess a character, that is to say, a law

of its causality, without which it would cease to be a cause. In the

above case, then, every sensuous object would possess an empirical

character, which guaranteed that its actions, as phenomena, stand in

complete and harmonious connection, conformably to unvarying natural

laws, with all other phenomena, and can be deduced from these, as

conditions, and that they do thus, in connection with these, constitute

a series in the order of nature. This sensuous object must, in the

second place, possess an intelligible character, which guarantees it to

be the cause of those actions, as phenomena, although it is not itself

a phenomenon nor subordinate to the conditions of the world of sense.

The former may be termed the character of the thing as a phenomenon,

the latter the character of the thing as a thing in itself.

Now this active subject would, in its character of intelligible

subject, be subordinate to no conditions of time, for time is only a

condition of phenomena, and not of things in themselves. No action

would begin or cease to be in this subject; it would consequently be

free from the law of all determination of time—the law of change,

namely, that everything which happens must have a cause in the

phenomena of a preceding state. In one word, the causality of the

subject, in so far as it is intelligible, would not form part of the

series of empirical conditions which determine and necessitate an event

in the world of sense. Again, this intelligible character of a thing

cannot be immediately cognized, because we can perceive nothing but

phenomena, but it must be capable of being cogitated in harmony with

the empirical character; for we always find ourselves compelled to

place, in thought, a transcendental object at the basis of phenomena

although we can never know what this object is in itself.

In virtue of its empirical character, this subject would at the same

time be subordinate to all the empirical laws of causality, and, as a

phenomenon and member of the sensuous world, its effects would have to

be accounted for by a reference to preceding phenomena. Eternal

phenomena must be capable of influencing it; and its actions, in

accordance with natural laws, must explain to us how its empirical

character, that is, the law of its causality, is to be cognized in and

by means of experience. In a word, all requisites for a complete and

necessary determination of these actions must be presented to us by

experience.

In virtue of its intelligible character, on the other hand (although we

possess only a general conception of this character), the subject must

be regarded as free from all sensuous influences, and from all

phenomenal determination. Moreover, as nothing happens in this

subject—for it is a noumenon, and there does not consequently exist in

it any change, demanding the dynamical determination of time, and for

the same reason no connection with phenomena as causes—this active

existence must in its actions be free from and independent of natural

necessity, for this necessity exists only in the world of phenomena. It

would be quite correct to say that it originates or begins its effects

in the world of sense from itself, although the action productive of

these effects does not begin in itself. We should not be in this case

affirming that these sensuous effects began to exist of themselves,

because they are always determined by prior empirical conditions—by

virtue of the empirical character, which is the phenomenon of the

intelligible character—and are possible only as constituting a

continuation of the series of natural causes. And thus nature and

freedom, each in the complete and absolute signification of these

terms, can exist, without contradiction or disagreement, in the same

action.

_Exposition of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom in Harmony with the

Universal Law of Natural Necessity._

I have thought it advisable to lay before the reader at first merely a

sketch of the solution of this transcendental problem, in order to

enable him to form with greater ease a clear conception of the course

which reason must adopt in the solution. I shall now proceed to exhibit

the several momenta of this solution, and to consider them in their

order.

The natural law that everything which happens must have a cause, that

the causality of this cause, that is, the action of the cause (which

cannot always have existed, but must be itself an event, for it

precedes in time some effect which it has originated), must have itself

a phenomenal cause, by which it is determined and, and, consequently,

all events are empirically determined in an order of nature—this law, I

say, which lies at the foundation of the possibility of experience, and

of a connected system of phenomena or nature is a law of the

understanding, from which no departure, and to which no exception, can

be admitted. For to except even a single phenomenon from its operation

is to exclude it from the sphere of possible experience and thus to

admit it to be a mere fiction of thought or phantom of the brain.

Thus we are obliged to acknowledge the existence of a chain of causes,

in which, however, absolute totality cannot be found. But we need not

detain ourselves with this question, for it has already been

sufficiently answered in our discussion of the antinomies into which

reason falls, when it attempts to reach the unconditioned in the series

of phenomena. If we permit ourselves to be deceived by the illusion of

transcendental idealism, we shall find that neither nature nor freedom

exists. Now the question is: “Whether, admitting the existence of

natural necessity in the world of phenomena, it is possible to consider

an effect as at the same time an effect of nature and an effect of

freedom—or, whether these two modes of causality are contradictory and

incompatible?”

No phenomenal cause can absolutely and of itself begin a series. Every

action, in so far as it is productive of an event, is itself an event

or occurrence, and presupposes another preceding state, in which its

cause existed. Thus everything that happens is but a continuation of a

series, and an absolute beginning is impossible in the sensuous world.

The actions of natural causes are, accordingly, themselves effects, and

presuppose causes preceding them in time. A primal action which forms

an absolute beginning, is beyond the causal power of phenomena.

Now, is it absolutely necessary that, granting that all effects are

phenomena, the causality of the cause of these effects must also be a

phenomenon and belong to the empirical world? Is it not rather possible

that, although every effect in the phenomenal world must be connected

with an empirical cause, according to the universal law of nature, this

empirical causality may be itself the effect of a non-empirical and

intelligible causality—its connection with natural causes remaining

nevertheless intact? Such a causality would be considered, in reference

to phenomena, as the primal action of a cause, which is in so far,

therefore, not phenomenal, but, by reason of this faculty or power,

intelligible; although it must, at the same time, as a link in the

chain of nature, be regarded as belonging to the sensuous world.

A belief in the reciprocal causality of phenomena is necessary, if we

are required to look for and to present the natural conditions of

natural events, that is to say, their causes. This being admitted as

unexceptionably valid, the requirements of the understanding, which

recognizes nothing but nature in the region of phenomena, are

satisfied, and our physical explanations of physical phenomena may

proceed in their regular course, without hindrance and without

opposition. But it is no stumbling-block in the way, even assuming the

idea to be a pure fiction, to admit that there are some natural causes

in the possession of a faculty which is not empirical, but

intelligible, inasmuch as it is not determined to action by empirical

conditions, but purely and solely upon grounds brought forward by the

understanding—this action being still, when the cause is phenomenized,

in perfect accordance with the laws of empirical causality. Thus the

acting subject, as a causal phenomenon, would continue to preserve a

complete connection with nature and natural conditions; and the

phenomenon only of the subject (with all its phenomenal causality)

would contain certain conditions, which, if we ascend from the

empirical to the transcendental object, must necessarily be regarded as

intelligible. For, if we attend, in our inquiries with regard to causes

in the world of phenomena, to the directions of nature alone, we need

not trouble ourselves about the relation in which the transcendental

subject, which is completely unknown to us, stands to these phenomena

and their connection in nature. The intelligible ground of phenomena in

this subject does not concern empirical questions. It has to do only

with pure thought; and, although the effects of this thought and action

of the pure understanding are discoverable in phenomena, these

phenomena must nevertheless be capable of a full and complete

explanation, upon purely physical grounds and in accordance with

natural laws. And in this case we attend solely to their empirical and

omit all consideration of their intelligible character (which is the

transcendental cause of the former) as completely unknown, except in so

far as it is exhibited by the latter as its empirical symbol. Now let

us apply this to experience. Man is a phenomenon of the sensuous world

and, at the same time, therefore, a natural cause, the causality of

which must be regulated by empirical laws. As such, he must possess an

empirical character, like all other natural phenomena. We remark this

empirical character in his actions, which reveal the presence of

certain powers and faculties. If we consider inanimate or merely animal

nature, we can discover no reason for ascribing to ourselves any other

than a faculty which is determined in a purely sensuous manner. But

man, to whom nature reveals herself only through sense, cognizes

himself not only by his senses, but also through pure apperception; and

this in actions and internal determinations, which he cannot regard as

sensuous impressions. He is thus to himself, on the one hand, a

phenomenon, but on the other hand, in respect of certain faculties, a

purely intelligible object—intelligible, because its action cannot be

ascribed to sensuous receptivity. These faculties are understanding and

reason. The latter, especially, is in a peculiar manner distinct from

all empirically-conditioned faculties, for it employs ideas alone in

the consideration of its objects, and by means of these determines the

understanding, which then proceeds to make an empirical use of its own

conceptions, which, like the ideas of reason, are pure and

non-empirical.

That reason possesses the faculty of causality, or that at least we are

compelled so to represent it, is evident from the imperatives, which in

the sphere of the practical we impose on many of our executive powers.

The words I ought express a species of necessity, and imply a

connection with grounds which nature does not and cannot present to the

mind of man. Understanding knows nothing in nature but that which is,

or has been, or will be. It would be absurd to say that anything in

nature ought to be other than it is in the relations of time in which

it stands; indeed, the ought, when we consider merely the course of

nature, has neither application nor meaning. The question, “What ought

to happen in the sphere of nature?” is just as absurd as the question,

“What ought to be the properties of a circle?” All that we are entitled

to ask is, “What takes place in nature?” or, in the latter case, “What

are the properties of a circle?”

But the idea of an ought or of duty indicates a possible action, the

ground of which is a pure conception; while the ground of a merely

natural action is, on the contrary, always a phenomenon. This action

must certainly be possible under physical conditions, if it is

prescribed by the moral imperative ought; but these physical or natural

conditions do not concern the determination of the will itself, they

relate to its effects alone, and the consequences of the effect in the

world of phenomena. Whatever number of motives nature may present to my

will, whatever sensuous impulses—the moral ought it is beyond their

power to produce. They may produce a volition, which, so far from being

necessary, is always conditioned—a volition to which the ought

enunciated by reason, sets an aim and a standard, gives permission or

prohibition. Be the object what it may, purely sensuous—as pleasure, or

presented by pure reason—as good, reason will not yield to grounds

which have an empirical origin. Reason will not follow the order of

things presented by experience, but, with perfect spontaneity,

rearranges them according to ideas, with which it compels empirical

conditions to agree. It declares, in the name of these ideas, certain

actions to be necessary which nevertheless have not taken place and

which perhaps never will take place; and yet presupposes that it

possesses the faculty of causality in relation to these actions. For,

in the absence of this supposition, it could not expect its ideas to

produce certain effects in the world of experience.

Now, let us stop here and admit it to be at least possible that reason

does stand in a really causal relation to phenomena. In this case it

must—pure reason as it is—exhibit an empirical character. For every

cause supposes a rule, according to which certain phenomena follow as

effects from the cause, and every rule requires uniformity in these

effects; and this is the proper ground of the conception of a cause—as

a faculty or power. Now this conception (of a cause) may be termed the

empirical character of reason; and this character is a permanent one,

while the effects produced appear, in conformity with the various

conditions which accompany and partly limit them, in various forms.

Thus the volition of every man has an empirical character, which is

nothing more than the causality of his reason, in so far as its effects

in the phenomenal world manifest the presence of a rule, according to

which we are enabled to examine, in their several kinds and degrees,

the actions of this causality and the rational grounds for these

actions, and in this way to decide upon the subjective principles of

the volition. Now we learn what this empirical character is only from

phenomenal effects, and from the rule of these which is presented by

experience; and for this reason all the actions of man in the world of

phenomena are determined by his empirical character, and the

co-operative causes of nature. If, then, we could investigate all the

phenomena of human volition to their lowest foundation in the mind,

there would be no action which we could not anticipate with certainty,

and recognize to be absolutely necessary from its preceding conditions.

So far as relates to this empirical character, therefore, there can be

no freedom; and it is only in the light of this character that we can

consider the human will, when we confine ourselves to simple

observation and, as is the case in anthropology, institute a

physiological investigation of the motive causes of human actions.

But when we consider the same actions in relation to reason—not for the

purpose of explaining their origin, that is, in relation to speculative

reason, but to practical reason, as the producing cause of these

actions—we shall discover a rule and an order very different from those

of nature and experience. For the declaration of this mental faculty

may be that what has and could not but take place in the course of

nature, ought not to have taken place. Sometimes, too, we discover, or

believe that we discover, that the ideas of reason did actually stand

in a causal relation to certain actions of man; and that these actions

have taken place because they were determined, not by empirical causes,

but by the act of the will upon grounds of reason.

Now, granting that reason stands in a causal relation to phenomena; can

an action of reason be called free, when we know that, sensuously, in

its empirical character, it is completely determined and absolutely

necessary? But this empirical character is itself determined by the

intelligible character. The latter we cannot cognize; we can only

indicate it by means of phenomena, which enable us to have an immediate

cognition only of the empirical character.[63] An action, then, in so

far as it is to be ascribed to an intelligible cause, does not result

from it in accordance with empirical laws. That is to say, not the

conditions of pure reason, but only their effects in the internal

sense, precede the act. Pure reason, as a purely intelligible faculty,

is not subject to the conditions of time. The causality of reason in

its intelligible character does not begin to be; it does not make its

appearance at a certain time, for the purpose of producing an effect.

If this were not the case, the causality of reason would be subservient

to the natural law of phenomena, which determines them according to

time, and as a series of causes and effects in time; it would

consequently cease to be freedom and become a part of nature. We are

therefore justified in saying: “If reason stands in a causal relation

to phenomena, it is a faculty which originates the sensuous condition

of an empirical series of effects.” For the condition, which resides in

the reason, is non-sensuous, and therefore cannot be originated, or

begin to be. And thus we find—what we could not discover in any

empirical series—a condition of a successive series of events itself

empirically unconditioned. For, in the present case, the condition

stands out of and beyond the series of phenomena—it is intelligible,

and it consequently cannot be subjected to any sensuous condition, or

to any time-determination by a preceding cause.

[63] The real morality of actions—their merit or demerit, and even

that of our own conduct, is completely unknown to us. Our estimates

can relate only to their empirical character. How much is the result

of the action of free will, how much is to be ascribed to nature and

to blameless error, or to a happy constitution of temperament (merito

fortunae), no one can discover, nor, for this reason, determine with

perfect justice.

But, in another respect, the same cause belongs also to the series of

phenomena. Man is himself a phenomenon. His will has an empirical

character, which is the empirical cause of all his actions. There is no

condition—determining man and his volition in conformity with this

character—which does not itself form part of the series of effects in

nature, and is subject to their law—the law according to which an

empirically undetermined cause of an event in time cannot exist. For

this reason no given action can have an absolute and spontaneous

origination, all actions being phenomena, and belonging to the world of

experience. But it cannot be said of reason, that the state in which it

determines the will is always preceded by some other state determining

it. For reason is not a phenomenon, and therefore not subject to

sensuous conditions; and, consequently, even in relation to its

causality, the sequence or conditions of time do not influence reason,

nor can the dynamical law of nature, which determines the sequence of

time according to certain rules, be applied to it.

Reason is consequently the permanent condition of all actions of the

human will. Each of these is determined in the empirical character of

the man, even before it has taken place. The intelligible character, of

which the former is but the sensuous schema, knows no before or after;

and every action, irrespective of the time-relation in which it stands

with other phenomena, is the immediate effect of the intelligible

character of pure reason, which, consequently, enjoys freedom of

action, and is not dynamically determined either by internal or

external preceding conditions. This freedom must not be described, in a

merely negative manner, as independence of empirical conditions, for in

this case the faculty of reason would cease to be a cause of phenomena;

but it must be regarded, positively, as a faculty which can

spontaneously originate a series of events. At the same time, it must

not be supposed that any beginning can take place in reason; on the

contrary, reason, as the unconditioned condition of all action of the

will, admits of no time-conditions, although its effect does really

begin in a series of phenomena—a beginning which is not, however,

absolutely primal.

I shall illustrate this regulative principle of reason by an example,

from its employment in the world of experience; proved it cannot be by

any amount of experience, or by any number of facts, for such arguments

cannot establish the truth of transcendental propositions. Let us take

a voluntary action—for example, a falsehood—by means of which a man has

introduced a certain degree of confusion into the social life of

humanity, which is judged according to the motives from which it

originated, and the blame of which and of the evil consequences arising

from it, is imputed to the offender. We at first proceed to examine the

empirical character of the offence, and for this purpose we endeavour

to penetrate to the sources of that character, such as a defective

education, bad company, a shameless and wicked disposition, frivolity,

and want of reflection—not forgetting also the occasioning causes which

prevailed at the moment of the transgression. In this the procedure is

exactly the same as that pursued in the investigation of the series of

causes which determine a given physical effect. Now, although we

believe the action to have been determined by all these circumstances,

we do not the less blame the offender. We do not blame him for his

unhappy disposition, nor for the circumstances which influenced him,

nay, not even for his former course of life; for we presuppose that all

these considerations may be set aside, that the series of preceding

conditions may be regarded as having never existed, and that the action

may be considered as completely unconditioned in relation to any state

preceding, just as if the agent commenced with it an entirely new

series of effects. Our blame of the offender is grounded upon a law of

reason, which requires us to regard this faculty as a cause, which

could have and ought to have otherwise determined the behaviour of the

culprit, independently of all empirical conditions. This causality of

reason we do not regard as a co-operating agency, but as complete in

itself. It matters not whether the sensuous impulses favoured or

opposed the action of this causality, the offence is estimated

according to its intelligible character—the offender is decidedly

worthy of blame, the moment he utters a falsehood. It follows that we

regard reason, in spite of the empirical conditions of the act, as

completely free, and therefore, as in the present case,

culpable.

The above judgement is complete evidence that we are accustomed to

think that reason is not affected by sensuous conditions, that in it no

change takes place—although its phenomena, in other words, the mode in

which it appears in its effects, are subject to change—that in it no

preceding state determines the following, and, consequently, that it

does not form a member of the series of sensuous conditions which

necessitate phenomena according to natural laws. Reason is present and

the same in all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself

exist in time, and therefore does not enter upon any state in which it

did not formerly exist. It is, relatively to new states or conditions,

determining, but not determinable. Hence we cannot ask: “Why did not

reason determine itself in a different manner?” The question ought to

be thus stated: “Why did not reason employ its power of causality to

determine certain phenomena in a different manner?” But this is a

question which admits of no answer. For a different intelligible

character would have exhibited a different empirical character; and,

when we say that, in spite of the course which his whole former life

has taken, the offender could have refrained from uttering the

falsehood, this means merely that the act was subject to the power and

authority—permissive or prohibitive—of reason. Now, reason is not

subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and

a difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of

phenomena to each other—for these are not things and therefore not

causes in themselves—but it cannot produce any difference in the

relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason.

Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal power

which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause, beyond which,

however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it is free, that

is, independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in this way, it

may be the sensuously unconditioned condition of phenomena. But for

what reason the intelligible character generates such and such

phenomena and exhibits such and such an empirical character under

certain circumstances, it is beyond the power of our reason to decide.

The question is as much above the power and the sphere of reason as the

following would be: “Why does the transcendental object of our external

sensuous intuition allow of no other form than that of intuition in

space?” But the problem, which we were called upon to solve, does not

require us to entertain any such questions. The problem was merely

this—whether freedom and natural necessity can exist without opposition

in the same action. To this question we have given a sufficient answer;

for we have shown that, as the former stands in a relation to a

different kind of condition from those of the latter, the law of the

one does not affect the law of the other and that, consequently, both

can exist together in independence of and without interference with

each other.

The reader must be careful to remark that my intention in the above

remarks has not been to prove the actual existence of freedom, as a

faculty in which resides the cause of certain sensuous phenomena. For,

not to mention that such an argument would not have a transcendental

character, nor have been limited to the discussion of pure

conceptions—all attempts at inferring from experience what cannot be

cogitated in accordance with its laws, must ever be unsuccessful. Nay,

more, I have not even aimed at demonstrating the possibility of

freedom; for this too would have been a vain endeavour, inasmuch as it

is beyond the power of the mind to cognize the possibility of a reality

or of a causal power by the aid of mere à priori conceptions. Freedom

has been considered in the foregoing remarks only as a transcendental

idea, by means of which reason aims at originating a series of

conditions in the world of phenomena with the help of that which is

sensuously unconditioned, involving itself, however, in an antinomy

with the laws which itself prescribes for the conduct of the

understanding. That this antinomy is based upon a mere illusion, and

that nature and freedom are at least not opposed—this was the only

thing in our power to prove, and the question which it was our task to

solve.

IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Dependence

of Phenomenal Existences

In the preceding remarks, we considered the changes in the world of

sense as constituting a dynamical series, in which each member is

subordinated to another—as its cause. Our present purpose is to avail

ourselves of this series of states or conditions as a guide to an

existence which may be the highest condition of all changeable

phenomena, that is, to a necessary being. Our endeavour to reach, not

the unconditioned causality, but the unconditioned existence, of

substance. The series before us is therefore a series of conceptions,

and not of intuitions (in which the one intuition is the condition of

the other).

But it is evident that, as all phenomena are subject to change and

conditioned in their existence, the series of dependent existences

cannot embrace an unconditioned member, the existence of which would be

absolutely necessary. It follows that, if phenomena were things in

themselves, and—as an immediate consequence from this

supposition—condition and conditioned belonged to the same series of

phenomena, the existence of a necessary being, as the condition of the

existence of sensuous phenomena, would be perfectly impossible.

An important distinction, however, exists between the dynamical and the

mathematical regress. The latter is engaged solely with the combination

of parts into a whole, or with the division of a whole into its parts;

and therefore are the conditions of its series parts of the series, and

to be consequently regarded as homogeneous, and for this reason, as

consisting, without exception, of phenomena. If the former regress, on

the contrary, the aim of which is not to establish the possibility of

an unconditioned whole consisting of given parts, or of an

unconditioned part of a given whole, but to demonstrate the possibility

of the deduction of a certain state from its cause, or of the

contingent existence of substance from that which exists necessarily,

it is not requisite that the condition should form part of an empirical

series along with the conditioned.

In the case of the apparent antinomy with which we are at present

dealing, there exists a way of escape from the difficulty; for it is

not impossible that both of the contradictory statements may be true in

different relations. All sensuous phenomena may be contingent, and

consequently possess only an empirically conditioned existence, and yet

there may also exist a non-empirical condition of the whole series, or,

in other words, a necessary being. For this necessary being, as an

intelligible condition, would not form a member—not even the highest

member—of the series; the whole world of sense would be left in its

empirically determined existence uninterfered with and uninfluenced.

This would also form a ground of distinction between the modes of

solution employed for the third and fourth antinomies. For, while in

the consideration of freedom in the former antinomy, the thing

itself—the cause (substantia phaenomenon)—was regarded as belonging to

the series of conditions, and only its causality to the intelligible

world—we are obliged in the present case to cogitate this necessary

being as purely intelligible and as existing entirely apart from the

world of sense (as an ens extramundanum); for otherwise it would be

subject to the phenomenal law of contingency and dependence.

In relation to the present problem, therefore, the regulative principle

of reason is that everything in the sensuous world possesses an

empirically conditioned existence—that no property of the sensuous

world possesses unconditioned necessity—that we are bound to expect,

and, so far as is possible, to seek for the empirical condition of

every member in the series of conditions—and that there is no

sufficient reason to justify us in deducing any existence from a

condition which lies out of and beyond the empirical series, or in

regarding any existence as independent and self-subsistent; although

this should not prevent us from recognizing the possibility of the

whole series being based upon a being which is intelligible, and for

this reason free from all empirical conditions.

But it has been far from my intention, in these remarks, to prove the

existence of this unconditioned and necessary being, or even to

evidence the possibility of a purely intelligible condition of the

existence of all sensuous phenomena. As bounds were set to reason, to

prevent it from leaving the guiding thread of empirical conditions and

losing itself in transcendent theories which are incapable of concrete

presentation; so it was my purpose, on the other hand, to set bounds to

the law of the purely empirical understanding, and to protest against

any attempts on its part at deciding on the possibility of things, or

declaring the existence of the intelligible to be impossible, merely on

the ground that it is not available for the explanation and exposition

of phenomena. It has been shown, at the same time, that the contingency

of all the phenomena of nature and their empirical conditions is quite

consistent with the arbitrary hypothesis of a necessary, although

purely intelligible condition, that no real contradiction exists

between them and that, consequently, both may be true. The existence of

such an absolutely necessary being may be impossible; but this can

never be demonstrated from the universal contingency and dependence of

sensuous phenomena, nor from the principle which forbids us to

discontinue the series at some member of it, or to seek for its cause

in some sphere of existence beyond the world of nature. Reason goes its

way in the empirical world, and follows, too, its peculiar path in the

sphere of the transcendental.

The sensuous world contains nothing but phenomena, which are mere

representations, and always sensuously conditioned; things in

themselves are not, and cannot be, objects to us. It is not to be

wondered at, therefore, that we are not justified in leaping from some

member of an empirical series beyond the world of sense, as if

empirical representations were things in themselves, existing apart

from their transcendental ground in the human mind, and the cause of

whose existence may be sought out of the empirical series. This would

certainly be the case with contingent things; but it cannot be with

mere representations of things, the contingency of which is itself

merely a phenomenon and can relate to no other regress than that which

determines phenomena, that is, the empirical. But to cogitate an

intelligible ground of phenomena, as free, moreover, from the

contingency of the latter, conflicts neither with the unlimited nature

of the empirical regress, nor with the complete contingency of

phenomena. And the demonstration of this was the only thing necessary

for the solution of this apparent antinomy. For if the condition of

every conditioned—as regards its existence—is sensuous, and for this

reason a part of the same series, it must be itself conditioned, as was

shown in the antithesis of the fourth antinomy. The embarrassments into

which a reason, which postulates the unconditioned, necessarily falls,

must, therefore, continue to exist; or the unconditioned must be placed

in the sphere of the intelligible. In this way, its necessity does not

require, nor does it even permit, the presence of an empirical

condition: and it is, consequently, unconditionally necessary.

The empirical employment of reason is not affected by the assumption of

a purely intelligible being; it continues its operations on the

principle of the contingency of all phenomena, proceeding from

empirical conditions to still higher and higher conditions, themselves

empirical. Just as little does this regulative principle exclude the

assumption of an intelligible cause, when the question regards merely

the pure employment of reason—in relation to ends or aims. For, in this

case, an intelligible cause signifies merely the transcendental and to

us unknown ground of the possibility of sensuous phenomena, and its

existence, necessary and independent of all sensuous conditions, is not

inconsistent with the contingency of phenomena, or with the unlimited

possibility of regress which exists in the series of empirical

conditions.

Concluding Remarks on the Antinomy of Pure Reason.

So long as the object of our rational conceptions is the totality of

conditions in the world of phenomena, and the satisfaction, from this

source, of the requirements of reason, so long are our ideas

transcendental and cosmological. But when we set the

unconditioned—which is the aim of all our inquiries—in a sphere which

lies out of the world of sense and possible experience, our ideas

become transcendent. They are then not merely serviceable towards the

completion of the exercise of reason (which remains an idea, never

executed, but always to be pursued); they detach themselves completely

from experience and construct for themselves objects, the material of

which has not been presented by experience, and the objective reality

of which is not based upon the completion of the empirical series, but

upon pure à priori conceptions. The intelligible object of these

transcendent ideas may be conceded, as a transcendental object. But we

cannot cogitate it as a thing determinable by certain distinct

predicates relating to its internal nature, for it has no connection

with empirical conceptions; nor are we justified in affirming the

existence of any such object. It is, consequently, a mere product of

the mind alone. Of all the cosmological ideas, however, it is that

occasioning the fourth antinomy which compels us to venture upon this

step. For the existence of phenomena, always conditioned and never

self-subsistent, requires us to look for an object different from

phenomena—an intelligible object, with which all contingency must

cease. But, as we have allowed ourselves to assume the existence of a

self-subsistent reality out of the field of experience, and are

therefore obliged to regard phenomena as merely a contingent mode of

representing intelligible objects employed by beings which are

themselves intelligences—no other course remains for us than to follow

analogy and employ the same mode in forming some conception of

intelligible things, of which we have not the least knowledge, which

nature taught us to use in the formation of empirical conceptions.

Experience made us acquainted with the contingent. But we are at

present engaged in the discussion of things which are not objects of

experience; and must, therefore, deduce our knowledge of them from that

which is necessary absolutely and in itself, that is, from pure

conceptions. Hence the first step which we take out of the world of

sense obliges us to begin our system of new cognition with the

investigation of a necessary being, and to deduce from our conceptions

of it all our conceptions of intelligible things. This we propose to

attempt in the following chapter.

Chapter III. The Ideal of Pure Reason

Section I. Of the Ideal in General

We have seen that pure conceptions do not present objects to the mind,

except under sensuous conditions; because the conditions of objective

reality do not exist in these conceptions, which contain, in fact,

nothing but the mere form of thought. They may, however, when applied

to phenomena, be presented in concreto; for it is phenomena that

present to them the materials for the formation of empirical

conceptions, which are nothing more than concrete forms of the

conceptions of the understanding. But ideas are still further removed

from objective reality than categories; for no phenomenon can ever

present them to the human mind in concreto. They contain a certain

perfection, attainable by no possible empirical cognition; and they

give to reason a systematic unity, to which the unity of experience

attempts to approximate, but can never completely attain.

But still further removed than the idea from objective reality is the

Ideal, by which term I understand the idea, not in concreto, but in

individuo—as an individual thing, determinable or determined by the

idea alone. The idea of humanity in its complete perfection supposes

not only the advancement of all the powers and faculties, which

constitute our conception of human nature, to a complete attainment of

their final aims, but also everything which is requisite for the

complete determination of the idea; for of all contradictory

predicates, only one can conform with the idea of the perfect man. What

I have termed an ideal was in Plato’s philosophy an idea of the divine

mind—an individual object present to its pure intuition, the most

perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the archetype of all

phenomenal existences.

Without rising to these speculative heights, we are bound to confess

that human reason contains not only ideas, but ideals, which possess,

not, like those of Plato, creative, but certainly practical power—as

regulative principles, and form the basis of the perfectibility of

certain actions. Moral conceptions are not perfectly pure conceptions

of reason, because an empirical element—of pleasure or pain—lies at the

foundation of them. In relation, however, to the principle, whereby

reason sets bounds to a freedom which is in itself without law, and

consequently when we attend merely to their form, they may be

considered as pure conceptions of reason. Virtue and wisdom in their

perfect purity are ideas. But the wise man of the Stoics is an ideal,

that is to say, a human being existing only in thought and in complete

conformity with the idea of wisdom. As the idea provides a rule, so the

ideal serves as an archetype for the perfect and complete determination

of the copy. Thus the conduct of this wise and divine man serves us as

a standard of action, with which we may compare and judge ourselves,

which may help us to reform ourselves, although the perfection it

demands can never be attained by us. Although we cannot concede

objective reality to these ideals, they are not to be considered as

chimeras; on the contrary, they provide reason with a standard, which

enables it to estimate, by comparison, the degree of incompleteness in

the objects presented to it. But to aim at realizing the ideal in an

example in the world of experience—to describe, for instance, the

character of the perfectly wise man in a romance—is impracticable. Nay

more, there is something absurd in the attempt; and the result must be

little edifying, as the natural limitations, which are continually

breaking in upon the perfection and completeness of the idea, destroy

the illusion in the story and throw an air of suspicion even on what is

good in the idea, which hence appears fictitious and unreal.

Such is the constitution of the ideal of reason, which is always based

upon determinate conceptions, and serves as a rule and a model for

limitation or of criticism. Very different is the nature of the ideals

of the imagination. Of these it is impossible to present an

intelligible conception; they are a kind of monogram, drawn according

to no determinate rule, and forming rather a vague picture—the

production of many diverse experiences—than a determinate image. Such

are the ideals which painters and physiognomists profess to have in

their minds, and which can serve neither as a model for production nor

as a standard for appreciation. They may be termed, though improperly,

sensuous ideals, as they are declared to be models of certain possible

empirical intuitions. They cannot, however, furnish rules or standards

for explanation or examination.

In its ideals, reason aims at complete and perfect determination

according to à priori rules; and hence it cogitates an object, which

must be completely determinable in conformity with principles, although

all empirical conditions are absent, and the conception of the object

is on this account transcendent.

Section II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon Trancendentale)

Every conception is, in relation to that which is not contained in it,

undetermined and subject to the principle of determinability. This

principle is that, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates,

only one can belong to a conception. It is a purely logical principle,

itself based upon the principle of contradiction; inasmuch as it makes

complete abstraction of the content and attends merely to the logical

form of the cognition.

But again, everything, as regards its possibility, is also subject to

the principle of complete determination, according to which one of all

the possible contradictory predicates of things must belong to it. This

principle is not based merely upon that of contradiction; for, in

addition to the relation between two contradictory predicates, it

regards everything as standing in a relation to the sum of

possibilities, as the sum total of all predicates of things, and, while

presupposing this sum as an à priori condition, presents to the mind

everything as receiving the possibility of its individual existence

from the relation it bears to, and the share it possesses in, the

aforesaid sum of possibilities.[64] The principle of complete

determination relates the content and not to the logical form. It is

the principle of the synthesis of all the predicates which are required

to constitute the complete conception of a thing, and not a mere

principle analytical representation, which enounces that one of two

contradictory predicates must belong to a conception. It contains,

moreover, a transcendental presupposition—that, namely, of the material

for all possibility, which must contain à priori the data for this or

that particular possibility.

[64] Thus this principle declares everything to possess a relation to

a common correlate—the sum-total of possibility, which, if discovered

to exist in the idea of one individual thing, would establish the

affinity of all possible things, from the identity of the ground of

their complete determination. The determinability of every conception

is subordinate to the universality (Allgemeinheit, universalitas) of

the principle of excluded middle; the determination of a thing to the

totality (Allheit, universitas) of all possible predicates.

The proposition, everything which exists is completely determined,

means not only that one of every pair of given contradictory

attributes, but that one of all possible attributes, is always

predicable of the thing; in it the predicates are not merely compared

logically with each other, but the thing itself is transcendentally

compared with the sum-total of all possible predicates. The proposition

is equivalent to saying: “To attain to a complete knowledge of a thing,

it is necessary to possess a knowledge of everything that is possible,

and to determine it thereby in a positive or negative manner.” The

conception of complete determination is consequently a conception which

cannot be presented in its totality in concreto, and is therefore based

upon an idea, which has its seat in the reason—the faculty which

prescribes to the understanding the laws of its harmonious and perfect

exercise.

Now, although this idea of the sum-total of all possibility, in so far

as it forms the condition of the complete determination of everything,

is itself undetermined in relation to the predicates which may

constitute this sum-total, and we cogitate in it merely the sum-total

of all possible predicates—we nevertheless find, upon closer

examination, that this idea, as a primitive conception of the mind,

excludes a large number of predicates—those deduced and those

irreconcilable with others, and that it is evolved as a conception

completely determined à priori. Thus it becomes the conception of an

individual object, which is completely determined by and through the

mere idea, and must consequently be termed an ideal of pure reason.

When we consider all possible predicates, not merely logically, but

transcendentally, that is to say, with reference to the content which

may be cogitated as existing in them à priori, we shall find that some

indicate a being, others merely a non-being. The logical negation

expressed in the word not does not properly belong to a conception, but

only to the relation of one conception to another in a judgement, and

is consequently quite insufficient to present to the mind the content

of a conception. The expression not mortal does not indicate that a

non-being is cogitated in the object; it does not concern the content

at all. A transcendental negation, on the contrary, indicates non-being

in itself, and is opposed to transcendental affirmation, the conception

of which of itself expresses a being. Hence this affirmation indicates

a reality, because in and through it objects are considered to be

something—to be things; while the opposite negation, on the other hand,

indicates a mere want, or privation, or absence, and, where such

negations alone are attached to a representation, the non-existence of

anything corresponding to the representation.

Now a negation cannot be cogitated as determined, without cogitating at

the same time the opposite affirmation. The man born blind has not the

least notion of darkness, because he has none of light; the vagabond

knows nothing of poverty, because he has never known what it is to be

in comfort;[65] the ignorant man has no conception of his ignorance,

because he has no conception of knowledge. All conceptions of negatives

are accordingly derived or deduced conceptions; and realities contain

the data, and, so to speak, the material or transcendental content of

the possibility and complete determination of all things.

[65] The investigations and calculations of astronomers have taught us

much that is wonderful; but the most important lesson we have received

from them is the discovery of the abyss of our ignorance in relation

to the universe—an ignorance the magnitude of which reason, without

the information thus derived, could never have conceived. This

discovery of our deficiencies must produce a great change in the

determination of the aims of human reason.

If, therefore, a transcendental substratum lies at the foundation of

the complete determination of things—a substratum which is to form the

fund from which all possible predicates of things are to be supplied,

this substratum cannot be anything else than the idea of a sum-total of

reality (omnitudo realitatis). In this view, negations are nothing but

limitations—a term which could not, with propriety, be applied to them,

if the unlimited (the all) did not form the true basis of our

conception.

This conception of a sum-total of reality is the conception of a thing

in itself, regarded as completely determined; and the conception of an

ens realissimum is the conception of an individual being, inasmuch as

it is determined by that predicate of all possible contradictory

predicates, which indicates and belongs to being. It is, therefore, a

transcendental ideal which forms the basis of the complete

determination of everything that exists, and is the highest material

condition of its possibility—a condition on which must rest the

cogitation of all objects with respect to their content. Nay, more,

this ideal is the only proper ideal of which the human mind is capable;

because in this case alone a general conception of a thing is

completely determined by and through itself, and cognized as the

representation of an individuum.

The logical determination of a conception is based upon a disjunctive

syllogism, the major of which contains the logical division of the

extent of a general conception, the minor limits this extent to a

certain part, while the conclusion determines the conception by this

part. The general conception of a reality cannot be divided à priori,

because, without the aid of experience, we cannot know any determinate

kinds of reality, standing under the former as the genus. The

transcendental principle of the complete determination of all things is

therefore merely the representation of the sum-total of all reality; it

is not a conception which is the genus of all predicates under itself,

but one which comprehends them all within itself. The complete

determination of a thing is consequently based upon the limitation of

this total of reality, so much being predicated of the thing, while all

that remains over is excluded—a procedure which is in exact agreement

with that of the disjunctive syllogism and the determination of the

objects in the conclusion by one of the members of the division. It

follows that reason, in laying the transcendental ideal at the

foundation of its determination of all possible things, takes a course

in exact analogy with that which it pursues in disjunctive syllogisms—a

proposition which formed the basis of the systematic division of all

transcendental ideas, according to which they are produced in complete

parallelism with the three modes of syllogistic reasoning employed by

the human mind.

It is self-evident that reason, in cogitating the necessary complete

determination of things, does not presuppose the existence of a being

corresponding to its ideal, but merely the idea of the ideal—for the

purpose of deducing from the unconditional totality of complete

determination, The ideal is therefore the prototype of all things,

which, as defective copies (ectypa), receive from it the material of

their possibility, and approximate to it more or less, though it is

impossible that they can ever attain to its perfection.

The possibility of things must therefore be regarded as derived—except

that of the thing which contains in itself all reality, which must be

considered to be primitive and original. For all negations—and they are

the only predicates by means of which all other things can be

distinguished from the ens realissimum—are mere limitations of a

greater and a higher—nay, the highest reality; and they consequently

presuppose this reality, and are, as regards their content, derived

from it. The manifold nature of things is only an infinitely various

mode of limiting the conception of the highest reality, which is their

common substratum; just as all figures are possible only as different

modes of limiting infinite space. The object of the ideal of reason—an

object existing only in reason itself—is also termed the primal being

(ens originarium); as having no existence superior to him, the supreme

being (ens summum); and as being the condition of all other beings,

which rank under it, the being of all beings (ens entium). But none of

these terms indicate the objective relation of an actually existing

object to other things, but merely that of an idea to conceptions; and

all our investigations into this subject still leave us in perfect

uncertainty with regard to the existence of this being.

A primal being cannot be said to consist of many other beings with an

existence which is derivative, for the latter presuppose the former,

and therefore cannot be constitutive parts of it. It follows that the

ideal of the primal being must be cogitated as simple.

The deduction of the possibility of all other things from this primal

being cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as a limitation, or as a

kind of division of its reality; for this would be regarding the primal

being as a mere aggregate—which has been shown to be impossible,

although it was so represented in our first rough sketch. The highest

reality must be regarded rather as the ground than as the sum-total of

the possibility of all things, and the manifold nature of things be

based, not upon the limitation of the primal being itself, but upon the

complete series of effects which flow from it. And thus all our powers

of sense, as well as all phenomenal reality, may be with propriety

regarded as belonging to this series of effects, while they could not

have formed parts of the idea, considered as an aggregate. Pursuing

this track, and hypostatizing this idea, we shall find ourselves

authorized to determine our notion of the Supreme Being by means of the

mere conception of a highest reality, as one, simple, all-sufficient,

eternal, and so on—in one word, to determine it in its unconditioned

completeness by the aid of every possible predicate. The conception of

such a being is the conception of God in its transcendental sense, and

thus the ideal of pure reason is the object-matter of a transcendental

theology.

But, by such an employment of the transcendental idea, we should be

over stepping the limits of its validity and purpose. For reason placed

it, as the conception of all reality, at the basis of the complete

determination of things, without requiring that this conception be

regarded as the conception of an objective existence. Such an existence

would be purely fictitious, and the hypostatizing of the content of the

idea into an ideal, as an individual being, is a step perfectly

unauthorized. Nay, more, we are not even called upon to assume the

possibility of such an hypothesis, as none of the deductions drawn from

such an ideal would affect the complete determination of things in

general—for the sake of which alone is the idea necessary.

It is not sufficient to circumscribe the procedure and the dialectic of

reason; we must also endeavour to discover the sources of this

dialectic, that we may have it in our power to give a rational

explanation of this illusion, as a phenomenon of the human mind. For

the ideal, of which we are at present speaking, is based, not upon an

arbitrary, but upon a natural, idea. The question hence arises: How

happens it that reason regards the possibility of all things as deduced

from a single possibility, that, to wit, of the highest reality, and

presupposes this as existing in an individual and primal being?

The answer is ready; it is at once presented by the procedure of

transcendental analytic. The possibility of sensuous objects is a

relation of these objects to thought, in which something (the empirical

form) may be cogitated à priori; while that which constitutes the

matter—the reality of the phenomenon (that element which corresponds to

sensation)—must be given from without, as otherwise it could not even

be cogitated by, nor could its possibility be presentable to the mind.

Now, a sensuous object is completely determined, when it has been

compared with all phenomenal predicates, and represented by means of

these either positively or negatively. But, as that which constitutes

the thing itself—the real in a phenomenon, must be given, and that, in

which the real of all phenomena is given, is experience, one, sole, and

all-embracing—the material of the possibility of all sensuous objects

must be presupposed as given in a whole, and it is upon the limitation

of this whole that the possibility of all empirical objects, their

distinction from each other and their complete determination, are

based. Now, no other objects are presented to us besides sensuous

objects, and these can be given only in connection with a possible

experience; it follows that a thing is not an object to us, unless it

presupposes the whole or sum-total of empirical reality as the

condition of its possibility. Now, a natural illusion leads us to

consider this principle, which is valid only of sensuous objects, as

valid with regard to things in general. And thus we are induced to hold

the empirical principle of our conceptions of the possibility of

things, as phenomena, by leaving out this limitative condition, to be a

transcendental principle of the possibility of things in general.

We proceed afterwards to hypostatize this idea of the sum-total of all

reality, by changing the distributive unity of the empirical exercise

of the understanding into the collective unity of an empirical whole—a

dialectical illusion, and by cogitating this whole or sum of experience

as an individual thing, containing in itself all empirical reality.

This individual thing or being is then, by means of the above-mentioned

transcendental subreption, substituted for our notion of a thing which

stands at the head of the possibility of all things, the real

conditions of whose complete determination it presents.[66]

[66] This ideal of the ens realissimum—although merely a mental

representation—is first objectivized, that is, has an objective

existence attributed to it, then hypostatized, and finally, by the

natural progress of reason to the completion of unity, personified, as

we shall show presently. For the regulative unity of experience is not

based upon phenomena themselves, but upon the connection of the

variety of phenomena by the understanding in a consciousness, and thus

the unity of the supreme reality and the complete determinability of

all things, seem to reside in a supreme understanding, and,

consequently, in a conscious intelligence.

Section III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason in Proof

of the Existence of a Supreme Being

Notwithstanding the pressing necessity which reason feels, to form some

presupposition that shall serve the understanding as a proper basis for

the complete determination of its conceptions, the idealistic and

factitious nature of such a presupposition is too evident to allow

reason for a moment to persuade itself into a belief of the objective

existence of a mere creation of its own thought. But there are other

considerations which compel reason to seek out some resting place in

the regress from the conditioned to the unconditioned, which is not

given as an actual existence from the mere conception of it, although

it alone can give completeness to the series of conditions. And this is

the natural course of every human reason, even of the most uneducated,

although the path at first entered it does not always continue to

follow. It does not begin from conceptions, but from common experience,

and requires a basis in actual existence. But this basis is insecure,

unless it rests upon the immovable rock of the absolutely necessary.

And this foundation is itself unworthy of trust, if it leave under and

above it empty space, if it do not fill all, and leave no room for a

why or a wherefore, if it be not, in one word, infinite in its reality.

If we admit the existence of some one thing, whatever it may be, we

must also admit that there is something which exists necessarily. For

what is contingent exists only under the condition of some other thing,

which is its cause; and from this we must go on to conclude the

existence of a cause which is not contingent, and which consequently

exists necessarily and unconditionally. Such is the argument by which

reason justifies its advances towards a primal being.

Now reason looks round for the conception of a being that may be

admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the attribute of

absolute necessity, not for the purpose of inferring à priori, from the

conception of such a being, its objective existence (for if reason

allowed itself to take this course, it would not require a basis in

given and actual existence, but merely the support of pure

conceptions), but for the purpose of discovering, among all our

conceptions of possible things, that conception which possesses no

element inconsistent with the idea of absolute necessity. For that

there must be some absolutely necessary existence, it regards as a

truth already established. Now, if it can remove every existence

incapable of supporting the attribute of absolute necessity, excepting

one—this must be the absolutely necessary being, whether its necessity

is comprehensible by us, that is, deducible from the conception of it

alone, or not.

Now that, the conception of which contains a therefore to every

wherefore, which is not defective in any respect whatever, which is

all-sufficient as a condition, seems to be the being of which we can

justly predicate absolute necessity—for this reason, that, possessing

the conditions of all that is possible, it does not and cannot itself

require any condition. And thus it satisfies, in one respect at least,

the requirements of the conception of absolute necessity. In this view,

it is superior to all other conceptions, which, as deficient and

incomplete, do not possess the characteristic of independence of all

higher conditions. It is true that we cannot infer from this that what

does not contain in itself the supreme and complete condition—the

condition of all other things—must possess only a conditioned

existence; but as little can we assert the contrary, for this supposed

being does not possess the only characteristic which can enable reason

to cognize by means of an à priori conception the unconditioned and

necessary nature of its existence.

The conception of an ens realissimum is that which best agrees with the

conception of an unconditioned and necessary being. The former

conception does not satisfy all the requirements of the latter; but we

have no choice, we are obliged to adhere to it, for we find that we

cannot do without the existence of a necessary being; and even although

we admit it, we find it out of our power to discover in the whole

sphere of possibility any being that can advance well-grounded claims

to such a distinction.

The following is, therefore, the natural course of human reason. It

begins by persuading itself of the existence of some necessary being.

In this being it recognizes the characteristics of unconditioned

existence. It then seeks the conception of that which is independent of

all conditions, and finds it in that which is itself the sufficient

condition of all other things—in other words, in that which contains

all reality. But the unlimited all is an absolute unity, and is

conceived by the mind as a being one and supreme; and thus reason

concludes that the Supreme Being, as the primal basis of all things,

possesses an existence which is absolutely necessary.

This conception must be regarded as in some degree satisfactory, if we

admit the existence of a necessary being, and consider that there

exists a necessity for a definite and final answer to these questions.

In such a case, we cannot make a better choice, or rather we have no

choice at all, but feel ourselves obliged to declare in favour of the

absolute unity of complete reality, as the highest source of the

possibility of things. But if there exists no motive for coming to a

definite conclusion, and we may leave the question unanswered till we

have fully weighed both sides—in other words, when we are merely called

upon to decide how much we happen to know about the question, and how

much we merely flatter ourselves that we know—the above conclusion does

not appear to be so great advantage, but, on the contrary, seems

defective in the grounds upon which it is supported.

For, admitting the truth of all that has been said, that, namely, the

inference from a given existence (my own, for example) to the existence

of an unconditioned and necessary being is valid and unassailable;

that, in the second place, we must consider a being which contains all

reality, and consequently all the conditions of other things, to be

absolutely unconditioned; and admitting too, that we have thus

discovered the conception of a thing to which may be attributed,

without inconsistency, absolute necessity—it does not follow from all

this that the conception of a limited being, in which the supreme

reality does not reside, is therefore incompatible with the idea of

absolute necessity. For, although I do not discover the element of the

unconditioned in the conception of such a being—an element which is

manifestly existent in the sum-total of all conditions—I am not

entitled to conclude that its existence is therefore conditioned; just

as I am not entitled to affirm, in a hypothetical syllogism, that where

a certain condition does not exist (in the present, completeness, as

far as pure conceptions are concerned), the conditioned does not exist

either. On the contrary, we are free to consider all limited beings as

likewise unconditionally necessary, although we are unable to infer

this from the general conception which we have of them. Thus conducted,

this argument is incapable of giving us the least notion of the

properties of a necessary being, and must be in every respect without

result.

This argument continues, however, to possess a weight and an authority,

which, in spite of its objective insufficiency, it has never been

divested of. For, granting that certain responsibilities lie upon us,

which, as based on the ideas of reason, deserve to be respected and

submitted to, although they are incapable of a real or practical

application to our nature, or, in other words, would be

responsibilities without motives, except upon the supposition of a

Supreme Being to give effect and influence to the practical laws: in

such a case we should be bound to obey our conceptions, which, although

objectively insufficient, do, according to the standard of reason,

preponderate over and are superior to any claims that may be advanced

from any other quarter. The equilibrium of doubt would in this case be

destroyed by a practical addition; indeed, Reason would be compelled to

condemn herself, if she refused to comply with the demands of the

judgement, no superior to which we know—however defective her

understanding of the grounds of these demands might be.

This argument, although in fact transcendental, inasmuch as it rests

upon the intrinsic insufficiency of the contingent, is so simple and

natural, that the commonest understanding can appreciate its value. We

see things around us change, arise, and pass away; they, or their

condition, must therefore have a cause. The same demand must again be

made of the cause itself—as a datum of experience. Now it is natural

that we should place the highest causality just where we place supreme

causality, in that being, which contains the conditions of all possible

effects, and the conception of which is so simple as that of an

all-embracing reality. This highest cause, then, we regard as

absolutely necessary, because we find it absolutely necessary to rise

to it, and do not discover any reason for proceeding beyond it. Thus,

among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint

sparks of monotheism, to which these idolaters have been led, not from

reflection and profound thought, but by the study and natural progress

of the common understanding.

There are only three modes of proving the existence of a Deity, on the

grounds of speculative reason.

All the paths conducting to this end begin either from determinate

experience and the peculiar constitution of the world of sense, and

rise, according to the laws of causality, from it to the highest cause

existing apart from the world—or from a purely indeterminate

experience, that is, some empirical existence—or abstraction is made of

all experience, and the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from

à priori conceptions alone. The first is the physico-theological

argument, the second the cosmological, the third the ontological. More

there are not, and more there cannot be.

I shall show it is as unsuccessful on the one path—the empirical—as on

the other—the transcendental, and that it stretches its wings in vain,

to soar beyond the world of sense by the mere might of speculative

thought. As regards the order in which we must discuss those arguments,

it will be exactly the reverse of that in which reason, in the progress

of its development, attains to them—the order in which they are placed

above. For it will be made manifest to the reader that, although

experience presents the occasion and the starting-point, it is the

transcendental idea of reason which guides it in its pilgrimage and is

the goal of all its struggles. I shall therefore begin with an

examination of the transcendental argument, and afterwards inquire what

additional strength has accrued to this mode of proof from the addition

of the empirical element.

Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the

Existence of God

It is evident from what has been said that the conception of an

absolutely necessary being is a mere idea, the objective reality of

which is far from being established by the mere fact that it is a need

of reason. On the contrary, this idea serves merely to indicate a

certain unattainable perfection, and rather limits the operations than,

by the presentation of new objects, extends the sphere of the

understanding. But a strange anomaly meets us at the very threshold;

for the inference from a given existence in general to an absolutely

necessary existence seems to be correct and unavoidable, while the

conditions of the understanding refuse to aid us in forming any

conception of such a being.

Philosophers have always talked of an absolutely necessary being, and

have nevertheless declined to take the trouble of conceiving

whether—and how—a being of this nature is even cogitable, not to

mention that its existence is actually demonstrable. A verbal

definition of the conception is certainly easy enough: it is something

the non-existence of which is impossible. But does this definition

throw any light upon the conditions which render it impossible to

cogitate the non-existence of a thing—conditions which we wish to

ascertain, that we may discover whether we think anything in the

conception of such a being or not? For the mere fact that I throw away,

by means of the word unconditioned, all the conditions which the

understanding habitually requires in order to regard anything as

necessary, is very far from making clear whether by means of the

conception of the unconditionally necessary I think of something, or

really of nothing at all.

Nay, more, this chance-conception, now become so current, many have

endeavoured to explain by examples which seemed to render any inquiries

regarding its intelligibility quite needless. Every geometrical

proposition—a triangle has three angles—it was said, is absolutely

necessary; and thus people talked of an object which lay out of the

sphere of our understanding as if it were perfectly plain what the

conception of such a being meant.

All the examples adduced have been drawn, without exception, from

judgements, and not from things. But the unconditioned necessity of a

judgement does not form the absolute necessity of a thing. On the

contrary, the absolute necessity of a judgement is only a conditioned

necessity of a thing, or of the predicate in a judgement. The

proposition above-mentioned does not enounce that three angles

necessarily exist, but, upon condition that a triangle exists, three

angles must necessarily exist—in it. And thus this logical necessity

has been the source of the greatest delusions. Having formed an à

priori conception of a thing, the content of which was made to embrace

existence, we believed ourselves safe in concluding that, because

existence belongs necessarily to the object of the conception (that is,

under the condition of my positing this thing as given), the existence

of the thing is also posited necessarily, and that it is therefore

absolutely necessary—merely because its existence has been cogitated in

the conception.

If, in an identical judgement, I annihilate the predicate in thought,

and retain the subject, a contradiction is the result; and hence I say,

the former belongs necessarily to the latter. But if I suppress both

subject and predicate in thought, no contradiction arises; for there is

nothing at all, and therefore no means of forming a contradiction. To

suppose the existence of a triangle and not that of its three angles,

is self-contradictory; but to suppose the non-existence of both

triangle and angles is perfectly admissible. And so is it with the

conception of an absolutely necessary being. Annihilate its existence

in thought, and you annihilate the thing itself with all its

predicates; how then can there be any room for contradiction?

Externally, there is nothing to give rise to a contradiction, for a

thing cannot be necessary externally; nor internally, for, by the

annihilation or suppression of the thing itself, its internal

properties are also annihilated. God is omnipotent—that is a necessary

judgement. His omnipotence cannot be denied, if the existence of a

Deity is posited—the existence, that is, of an infinite being, the two

conceptions being identical. But when you say, God does not exist,

neither omnipotence nor any other predicate is affirmed; they must all

disappear with the subject, and in this judgement there cannot exist

the least self-contradiction.

You have thus seen that when the predicate of a judgement is

annihilated in thought along with the subject, no internal

contradiction can arise, be the predicate what it may. There is no

possibility of evading the conclusion—you find yourselves compelled to

declare: There are certain subjects which cannot be annihilated in

thought. But this is nothing more than saying: There exist subjects

which are absolutely necessary—the very hypothesis which you are called

upon to establish. For I find myself unable to form the slightest

conception of a thing which when annihilated in thought with all its

predicates, leaves behind a contradiction; and contradiction is the

only criterion of impossibility in the sphere of pure à priori

conceptions.

Against these general considerations, the justice of which no one can

dispute, one argument is adduced, which is regarded as furnishing a

satisfactory demonstration from the fact. It is affirmed that there is

one and only one conception, in which the non-being or annihilation of

the object is self-contradictory, and this is the conception of an ens

realissimum. It possesses, you say, all reality, and you feel

yourselves justified in admitting the possibility of such a being.

(This I am willing to grant for the present, although the existence of

a conception which is not self-contradictory is far from being

sufficient to prove the possibility of an object.)[67] Now the notion

of all reality embraces in it that of existence; the notion of

existence lies, therefore, in the conception of this possible thing. If

this thing is annihilated in thought, the internal possibility of the

thing is also annihilated, which is self-contradictory.

[67] A conception is always possible, if it is not self-contradictory.

This is the logical criterion of possibility, distinguishing the

object of such a conception from the nihil negativum. But it may be,

notwithstanding, an empty conception, unless the objective reality of

this synthesis, but which it is generated, is demonstrated; and a

proof of this kind must be based upon principles of possible

experience, and not upon the principle of analysis or contradiction.

This remark may be serviceable as a warning against concluding, from

the possibility of a conception—which is logical—the possibility of a

thing—which is real.

I answer: It is absurd to introduce—under whatever term disguised—into

the conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference

to its possibility, the conception of its existence. If this is

admitted, you will have apparently gained the day, but in reality have

enounced nothing but a mere tautology. I ask, is the proposition, this

or that thing (which I am admitting to be possible) exists, an

analytical or a synthetical proposition? If the former, there is no

addition made to the subject of your thought by the affirmation of its

existence; but then the conception in your minds is identical with the

thing itself, or you have supposed the existence of a thing to be

possible, and then inferred its existence from its internal

possibility—which is but a miserable tautology. The word reality in the

conception of the thing, and the word existence in the conception of

the predicate, will not help you out of the difficulty. For, supposing

you were to term all positing of a thing reality, you have thereby

posited the thing with all its predicates in the conception of the

subject and assumed its actual existence, and this you merely repeat in

the predicate. But if you confess, as every reasonable person must,

that every existential proposition is synthetical, how can it be

maintained that the predicate of existence cannot be denied without

contradiction?—a property which is the characteristic of analytical

propositions, alone.

I should have a reasonable hope of putting an end for ever to this

sophistical mode of argumentation, by a strict definition of the

conception of existence, did not my own experience teach me that the

illusion arising from our confounding a logical with a real predicate

(a predicate which aids in the determination of a thing) resists almost

all the endeavours of explanation and illustration. A logical predicate

may be what you please, even the subject may be predicated of itself;

for logic pays no regard to the content of a judgement. But the

determination of a conception is a predicate, which adds to and

enlarges the conception. It must not, therefore, be contained in the

conception.

Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of

something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is

merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it.

Logically, it is merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition, God

is omnipotent, contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or

content; the word is, is no additional predicate—it merely indicates

the relation of the predicate to the subject. Now, if I take the

subject (God) with all its predicates (omnipotence being one), and say:

God is, or, There is a God, I add no new predicate to the conception of

God, I merely posit or affirm the existence of the subject with all its

predicates—I posit the object in relation to my conception. The content

of both is the same; and there is no addition made to the conception,

which expresses merely the possibility of the object, by my cogitating

the object—in the expression, it is—as absolutely given or existing.

Thus the real contains no more than the possible. A hundred real

dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the

latter indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the

supposition that the content of the former was greater than that of the

latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole object,

and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it. But in

reckoning my wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real

dollars than in a hundred possible dollars—that is, in the mere

conception of them. For the real object—the dollars—is not analytically

contained in my conception, but forms a synthetical addition to my

conception (which is merely a determination of my mental state),

although this objective reality—this existence—apart from my

conceptions, does not in the least degree increase the aforesaid

hundred dollars.

By whatever and by whatever number of predicates—even to the complete

determination of it—I may cogitate a thing, I do not in the least

augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement:

This thing exists. Otherwise, not exactly the same, but something more

than what was cogitated in my conception, would exist, and I could not

affirm that the exact object of my conception had real existence. If I

cogitate a thing as containing all modes of reality except one, the

mode of reality which is absent is not added to the conception of the

thing by the affirmation that the thing exists; on the contrary, the

thing exists—if it exist at all—with the same defect as that cogitated

in its conception; otherwise not that which was cogitated, but

something different, exists. Now, if I cogitate a being as the highest

reality, without defect or imperfection, the question still

remains—whether this being exists or not? For, although no element is

wanting in the possible real content of my conception, there is a

defect in its relation to my mental state, that is, I am ignorant

whether the cognition of the object indicated by the conception is

possible à posteriori. And here the cause of the present difficulty

becomes apparent. If the question regarded an object of sense merely,

it would be impossible for me to confound the conception with the

existence of a thing. For the conception merely enables me to cogitate

an object as according with the general conditions of experience; while

the existence of the object permits me to cogitate it as contained in

the sphere of actual experience. At the same time, this connection with

the world of experience does not in the least augment the conception,

although a possible perception has been added to the experience of the

mind. But if we cogitate existence by the pure category alone, it is

not to be wondered at, that we should find ourselves unable to present

any criterion sufficient to distinguish it from mere possibility.