Whatever be the content of our conception of an object, it is necessary

to go beyond it, if we wish to predicate existence of the object. In

the case of sensuous objects, this is attained by their connection

according to empirical laws with some one of my perceptions; but there

is no means of cognizing the existence of objects of pure thought,

because it must be cognized completely à priori. But all our knowledge

of existence (be it immediately by perception, or by inferences

connecting some object with a perception) belongs entirely to the

sphere of experience—which is in perfect unity with itself; and

although an existence out of this sphere cannot be absolutely declared

to be impossible, it is a hypothesis the truth of which we have no

means of ascertaining.

The notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly useful idea;

but for the very reason that it is an idea, it is incapable of

enlarging our cognition with regard to the existence of things. It is

not even sufficient to instruct us as to the possibility of a being

which we do not know to exist. The analytical criterion of possibility,

which consists in the absence of contradiction in propositions, cannot

be denied it. But the connection of real properties in a thing is a

synthesis of the possibility of which an à priori judgement cannot be

formed, because these realities are not presented to us specifically;

and even if this were to happen, a judgement would still be impossible,

because the criterion of the possibility of synthetical cognitions must

be sought for in the world of experience, to which the object of an

idea cannot belong. And thus the celebrated Leibnitz has utterly failed

in his attempt to establish upon à priori grounds the possibility of

this sublime ideal being.

The celebrated ontological or Cartesian argument for the existence of a

Supreme Being is therefore insufficient; and we may as well hope to

increase our stock of knowledge by the aid of mere ideas, as the

merchant to augment his wealth by the addition of noughts to his cash

account.

Section V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the

Existence of God

It was by no means a natural course of proceeding, but, on the

contrary, an invention entirely due to the subtlety of the schools, to

attempt to draw from a mere idea a proof of the existence of an object

corresponding to it. Such a course would never have been pursued, were

it not for that need of reason which requires it to suppose the

existence of a necessary being as a basis for the empirical regress,

and that, as this necessity must be unconditioned and à priori, reason

is bound to discover a conception which shall satisfy, if possible,

this requirement, and enable us to attain to the à priori cognition of

such a being. This conception was thought to be found in the idea of an

ens realissimum, and thus this idea was employed for the attainment of

a better defined knowledge of a necessary being, of the existence of

which we were convinced, or persuaded, on other grounds. Thus reason

was seduced from her natural courage; and, instead of concluding with

the conception of an ens realissimum, an attempt was made to begin with

it, for the purpose of inferring from it that idea of a necessary

existence which it was in fact called in to complete. Thus arose that

unfortunate ontological argument, which neither satisfies the healthy

common sense of humanity, nor sustains the scientific examination of

the philosopher.

The cosmological proof, which we are about to examine, retains the

connection between absolute necessity and the highest reality; but,

instead of reasoning from this highest reality to a necessary

existence, like the preceding argument, it concludes from the given

unconditioned necessity of some being its unlimited reality. The track

it pursues, whether rational or sophistical, is at least natural, and

not only goes far to persuade the common understanding, but shows

itself deserving of respect from the speculative intellect; while it

contains, at the same time, the outlines of all the arguments employed

in natural theology—arguments which always have been, and still will

be, in use and authority. These, however adorned, and hid under

whatever embellishments of rhetoric and sentiment, are at bottom

identical with the arguments we are at present to discuss. This proof,

termed by Leibnitz the argumentum a contingentia mundi, I shall now lay

before the reader, and subject to a strict examination.

It is framed in the following manner: If something exists, an

absolutely necessary being must likewise exist. Now I, at least, exist.

Consequently, there exists an absolutely necessary being. The minor

contains an experience, the major reasons from a general experience to

the existence of a necessary being.[68] Thus this argument really

begins at experience, and is not completely à priori, or ontological.

The object of all possible experience being the world, it is called the

cosmological proof. It contains no reference to any peculiar property

of sensuous objects, by which this world of sense might be

distinguished from other possible worlds; and in this respect it

differs from the physico-theological proof, which is based upon the

consideration of the peculiar constitution of our sensuous world.

[68] This inference is too well known to require more detailed

discussion. It is based upon the spurious transcendental law of

causality, that everything which is contingent has a cause, which, if

itself contingent, must also have a cause; and so on, till the series

of subordinated causes must end with an absolutely necessary cause,

without which it would not possess completeness.

The proof proceeds thus: A necessary being can be determined only in

one way, that is, it can be determined by only one of all possible

opposed predicates; consequently, it must be completely determined in

and by its conception. But there is only a single conception of a thing

possible, which completely determines the thing à priori: that is, the

conception of the ens realissimum. It follows that the conception of

the ens realissimum is the only conception by and in which we can

cogitate a necessary being. Consequently, a Supreme Being necessarily

exists.

In this cosmological argument are assembled so many sophistical

propositions that speculative reason seems to have exerted in it all

her dialectical skill to produce a transcendental illusion of the most

extreme character. We shall postpone an investigation of this argument

for the present, and confine ourselves to exposing the stratagem by

which it imposes upon us an old argument in a new dress, and appeals to

the agreement of two witnesses, the one with the credentials of pure

reason, and the other with those of empiricism; while, in fact, it is

only the former who has changed his dress and voice, for the purpose of

passing himself off for an additional witness. That it may possess a

secure foundation, it bases its conclusions upon experience, and thus

appears to be completely distinct from the ontological argument, which

places its confidence entirely in pure à priori conceptions. But this

experience merely aids reason in making one step—to the existence of a

necessary being. What the properties of this being are cannot be

learned from experience; and therefore reason abandons it altogether,

and pursues its inquiries in the sphere of pure conception, for the

purpose of discovering what the properties of an absolutely necessary

being ought to be, that is, what among all possible things contain the

conditions (requisita) of absolute necessity. Reason believes that it

has discovered these requisites in the conception of an ens

realissimum—and in it alone, and hence concludes: The ens realissimum

is an absolutely necessary being. But it is evident that reason has

here presupposed that the conception of an ens realissimum is perfectly

adequate to the conception of a being of absolute necessity, that is,

that we may infer the existence of the latter from that of the former—a

proposition which formed the basis of the ontological argument, and

which is now employed in the support of the cosmological argument,

contrary to the wish and professions of its inventors. For the

existence of an absolutely necessary being is given in conceptions

alone. But if I say: “The conception of the ens realissimum is a

conception of this kind, and in fact the only conception which is

adequate to our idea of a necessary being,” I am obliged to admit, that

the latter may be inferred from the former. Thus it is properly the

ontological argument which figures in the cosmological, and constitutes

the whole strength of the latter; while the spurious basis of

experience has been of no further use than to conduct us to the

conception of absolute necessity, being utterly insufficient to

demonstrate the presence of this attribute in any determinate existence

or thing. For when we propose to ourselves an aim of this character, we

must abandon the sphere of experience, and rise to that of pure

conceptions, which we examine with the purpose of discovering whether

any one contains the conditions of the possibility of an absolutely

necessary being. But if the possibility of such a being is thus

demonstrated, its existence is also proved; for we may then assert

that, of all possible beings there is one which possesses the attribute

of necessity—in other words, this being possesses an absolutely

necessary existence.

All illusions in an argument are more easily detected when they are

presented in the formal manner employed by the schools, which we now

proceed to do.

If the proposition: “Every absolutely necessary being is likewise an

ens realissimum,” is correct (and it is this which constitutes the

nervus probandi of the cosmological argument), it must, like all

affirmative judgements, be capable of conversion—the conversio per

accidens, at least. It follows, then, that some entia realissima are

absolutely necessary beings. But no ens realissimum is in any respect

different from another, and what is valid of some is valid of all. In

this present case, therefore, I may employ simple conversion, and say:

“Every ens realissimum is a necessary being.” But as this proposition

is determined à priori by the conceptions contained in it, the mere

conception of an ens realissimum must possess the additional attribute

of absolute necessity. But this is exactly what was maintained in the

ontological argument, and not recognized by the cosmological, although

it formed the real ground of its disguised and illusory reasoning.

Thus the second mode employed by speculative reason of demonstrating

the existence of a Supreme Being, is not only, like the first, illusory

and inadequate, but possesses the additional blemish of an ignoratio

elenchi—professing to conduct us by a new road to the desired goal, but

bringing us back, after a short circuit, to the old path which we had

deserted at its call.

I mentioned above that this cosmological argument contains a perfect

nest of dialectical assumptions, which transcendental criticism does

not find it difficult to expose and to dissipate. I shall merely

enumerate these, leaving it to the reader, who must by this time be

well practised in such matters, to investigate the fallacies residing

therein.

The following fallacies, for example, are discoverable in this mode of

proof: 1. The transcendental principle: “Everything that is contingent

must have a cause”—a principle without significance, except in the

sensuous world. For the purely intellectual conception of the

contingent cannot produce any synthetical proposition, like that of

causality, which is itself without significance or distinguishing

characteristic except in the phenomenal world. But in the present case

it is employed to help us beyond the limits of its sphere. 2. “From the

impossibility of an infinite ascending series of causes in the world of

sense a first cause is inferred”; a conclusion which the principles of

the employment of reason do not justify even in the sphere of

experience, and still less when an attempt is made to pass the limits

of this sphere. 3. Reason allows itself to be satisfied upon

insufficient grounds, with regard to the completion of this series. It

removes all conditions (without which, however, no conception of

Necessity can take place); and, as after this it is beyond our power to

form any other conceptions, it accepts this as a completion of the

conception it wishes to form of the series. 4. The logical possibility

of a conception of the total of reality (the criterion of this

possibility being the absence of contradiction) is confounded with the

transcendental, which requires a principle of the practicability of

such a synthesis—a principle which again refers us to the world of

experience. And so on.

The aim of the cosmological argument is to avoid the necessity of

proving the existence of a necessary being priori from mere

conceptions—a proof which must be ontological, and of which we feel

ourselves quite incapable. With this purpose, we reason from an actual

existence—an experience in general, to an absolutely necessary

condition of that existence. It is in this case unnecessary to

demonstrate its possibility. For after having proved that it exists,

the question regarding its possibility is superfluous. Now, when we

wish to define more strictly the nature of this necessary being, we do

not look out for some being the conception of which would enable us to

comprehend the necessity of its being—for if we could do this, an

empirical presupposition would be unnecessary; no, we try to discover

merely the negative condition (conditio sine qua non), without which a

being would not be absolutely necessary. Now this would be perfectly

admissible in every sort of reasoning, from a consequence to its

principle; but in the present case it unfortunately happens that the

condition of absolute necessity can be discovered in but a single

being, the conception of which must consequently contain all that is

requisite for demonstrating the presence of absolute necessity, and

thus entitle me to infer this absolute necessity à priori. That is, it

must be possible to reason conversely, and say: The thing, to which the

conception of the highest reality belongs, is absolutely necessary. But

if I cannot reason thus—and I cannot, unless I believe in the

sufficiency of the ontological argument—I find insurmountable obstacles

in my new path, and am really no farther than the point from which I

set out. The conception of a Supreme Being satisfies all questions à

priori regarding the internal determinations of a thing, and is for

this reason an ideal without equal or parallel, the general conception

of it indicating it as at the same time an ens individuum among all

possible things. But the conception does not satisfy the question

regarding its existence—which was the purpose of all our inquiries;

and, although the existence of a necessary being were admitted, we

should find it impossible to answer the question: What of all things in

the world must be regarded as such?

It is certainly allowable to admit the existence of an all-sufficient

being—a cause of all possible effects—for the purpose of enabling

reason to introduce unity into its mode and grounds of explanation with

regard to phenomena. But to assert that such a being necessarily

exists, is no longer the modest enunciation of an admissible

hypothesis, but the boldest declaration of an apodeictic certainty; for

the cognition of that which is absolutely necessary must itself possess

that character.

The aim of the transcendental ideal formed by the mind is either to

discover a conception which shall harmonize with the idea of absolute

necessity, or a conception which shall contain that idea. If the one is

possible, so is the other; for reason recognizes that alone as

absolutely necessary which is necessary from its conception. But both

attempts are equally beyond our power—we find it impossible to satisfy

the understanding upon this point, and as impossible to induce it to

remain at rest in relation to this incapacity.

Unconditioned necessity, which, as the ultimate support and stay of all

existing things, is an indispensable requirement of the mind, is an

abyss on the verge of which human reason trembles in dismay. Even the

idea of eternity, terrible and sublime as it is, as depicted by Haller,

does not produce upon the mental vision such a feeling of awe and

terror; for, although it measures the duration of things, it does not

support them. We cannot bear, nor can we rid ourselves of the thought

that a being, which we regard as the greatest of all possible

existences, should say to himself: I am from eternity to eternity;

beside me there is nothing, except that which exists by my will; whence

then am I? Here all sinks away from under us; and the greatest, as the

smallest, perfection, hovers without stay or footing in presence of the

speculative reason, which finds it as easy to part with the one as with

the other.

Many physical powers, which evidence their existence by their effects,

are perfectly inscrutable in their nature; they elude all our powers of

observation. The transcendental object which forms the basis of

phenomena, and, in connection with it, the reason why our sensibility

possesses this rather than that particular kind of conditions, are and

must ever remain hidden from our mental vision; the fact is there, the

reason of the fact we cannot see. But an ideal of pure reason cannot be

termed mysterious or inscrutable, because the only credential of its

reality is the need of it felt by reason, for the purpose of giving

completeness to the world of synthetical unity. An ideal is not even

given as a cogitable object, and therefore cannot be inscrutable; on

the contrary, it must, as a mere idea, be based on the constitution of

reason itself, and on this account must be capable of explanation and

solution. For the very essence of reason consists in its ability to

give an account, of all our conceptions, opinions, and assertions—upon

objective, or, when they happen to be illusory and fallacious, upon

subjective grounds.

Detection and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in all

Transcendental Arguments for the Existence of a Necessary Being.

Both of the above arguments are transcendental; in other words, they do

not proceed upon empirical principles. For, although the cosmological

argument professed to lay a basis of experience for its edifice of

reasoning, it did not ground its procedure upon the peculiar

constitution of experience, but upon pure principles of reason—in

relation to an existence given by empirical consciousness; utterly

abandoning its guidance, however, for the purpose of supporting its

assertions entirely upon pure conceptions. Now what is the cause, in

these transcendental arguments, of the dialectical, but natural,

illusion, which connects the conceptions of necessity and supreme

reality, and hypostatizes that which cannot be anything but an idea?

What is the cause of this unavoidable step on the part of reason, of

admitting that some one among all existing things must be necessary,

while it falls back from the assertion of the existence of such a being

as from an abyss? And how does reason proceed to explain this anomaly

to itself, and from the wavering condition of a timid and reluctant

approbation—always again withdrawn—arrive at a calm and settled insight

into its cause?

It is something very remarkable that, on the supposition that something

exists, I cannot avoid the inference that something exists necessarily.

Upon this perfectly natural—but not on that account reliable—inference

does the cosmological argument rest. But, let me form any conception

whatever of a thing, I find that I cannot cogitate the existence of the

thing as absolutely necessary, and that nothing prevents me—be the

thing or being what it may—from cogitating its non-existence. I may

thus be obliged to admit that all existing things have a necessary

basis, while I cannot cogitate any single or individual thing as

necessary. In other words, I can never complete the regress through the

conditions of existence, without admitting the existence of a necessary

being; but, on the other hand, I cannot make a commencement from this

being.

If I must cogitate something as existing necessarily as the basis of

existing things, and yet am not permitted to cogitate any individual

thing as in itself necessary, the inevitable inference is that

necessity and contingency are not properties of things

themselves—otherwise an internal contradiction would result; that

consequently neither of these principles are objective, but merely

subjective principles of reason—the one requiring us to seek for a

necessary ground for everything that exists, that is, to be satisfied

with no other explanation than that which is complete à priori, the

other forbidding us ever to hope for the attainment of this

completeness, that is, to regard no member of the empirical world as

unconditioned. In this mode of viewing them, both principles, in their

purely heuristic and regulative character, and as concerning merely the

formal interest of reason, are quite consistent with each other. The

one says: “You must philosophize upon nature,” as if there existed a

necessary primal basis of all existing things, solely for the purpose

of introducing systematic unity into your knowledge, by pursuing an

idea of this character—a foundation which is arbitrarily admitted to be

ultimate; while the other warns you to consider no individual

determination, concerning the existence of things, as such an ultimate

foundation, that is, as absolutely necessary, but to keep the way

always open for further progress in the deduction, and to treat every

determination as determined by some other. But if all that we perceive

must be regarded as conditionally necessary, it is impossible that

anything which is empirically given should be absolutely necessary.

It follows from this that you must accept the absolutely necessary as

out of and beyond the world, inasmuch as it is useful only as a

principle of the highest possible unity in experience, and you cannot

discover any such necessary existence in the would, the second rule

requiring you to regard all empirical causes of unity as themselves

deduced.

The philosophers of antiquity regarded all the forms of nature as

contingent; while matter was considered by them, in accordance with the

judgement of the common reason of mankind, as primal and necessary. But

if they had regarded matter, not relatively—as the substratum of

phenomena, but absolutely and in itself—as an independent existence,

this idea of absolute necessity would have immediately disappeared. For

there is nothing absolutely connecting reason with such an existence;

on the contrary, it can annihilate it in thought, always and without

self-contradiction. But in thought alone lay the idea of absolute

necessity. A regulative principle must, therefore, have been at the

foundation of this opinion. In fact, extension and

impenetrability—which together constitute our conception of matter—form

the supreme empirical principle of the unity of phenomena, and this

principle, in so far as it is empirically unconditioned, possesses the

property of a regulative principle. But, as every determination of

matter which constitutes what is real in it—and consequently

impenetrability—is an effect, which must have a cause, and is for this

reason always derived, the notion of matter cannot harmonize with the

idea of a necessary being, in its character of the principle of all

derived unity. For every one of its real properties, being derived,

must be only conditionally necessary, and can therefore be annihilated

in thought; and thus the whole existence of matter can be so

annihilated or suppressed. If this were not the case, we should have

found in the world of phenomena the highest ground or condition of

unity—which is impossible, according to the second regulative

principle. It follows that matter, and, in general, all that forms part

of the world of sense, cannot be a necessary primal being, nor even a

principle of empirical unity, but that this being or principle must

have its place assigned without the world. And, in this way, we can

proceed in perfect confidence to deduce the phenomena of the world and

their existence from other phenomena, just as if there existed no

necessary being; and we can at the same time, strive without ceasing

towards the attainment of completeness for our deduction, just as if

such a being—the supreme condition of all existences—were presupposed

by the mind.

These remarks will have made it evident to the reader that the ideal of

the Supreme Being, far from being an enouncement of the existence of a

being in itself necessary, is nothing more than a regulative principle

of reason, requiring us to regard all connection existing between

phenomena as if it had its origin from an all-sufficient necessary

cause, and basing upon this the rule of a systematic and necessary

unity in the explanation of phenomena. We cannot, at the same time,

avoid regarding, by a transcendental subreptio, this formal principle

as constitutive, and hypostatizing this unity. Precisely similar is the

case with our notion of space. Space is the primal condition of all

forms, which are properly just so many different limitations of it; and

thus, although it is merely a principle of sensibility, we cannot help

regarding it as an absolutely necessary and self-subsistent thing—as an

object given à priori in itself. In the same way, it is quite natural

that, as the systematic unity of nature cannot be established as a

principle for the empirical employment of reason, unless it is based

upon the idea of an ens realissimum, as the supreme cause, we should

regard this idea as a real object, and this object, in its character of

supreme condition, as absolutely necessary, and that in this way a

regulative should be transformed into a constitutive principle. This

interchange becomes evident when I regard this supreme being, which,

relatively to the world, was absolutely (unconditionally) necessary, as

a thing per se. In this case, I find it impossible to represent this

necessity in or by any conception, and it exists merely in my own mind,

as the formal condition of thought, but not as a material and

hypostatic condition of existence.

Section VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof

If, then, neither a pure conception nor the general experience of an

existing being can provide a sufficient basis for the proof of the

existence of the Deity, we can make the attempt by the only other

mode—that of grounding our argument upon a determinate experience of

the phenomena of the present world, their constitution and disposition,

and discover whether we can thus attain to a sound conviction of the

existence of a Supreme Being. This argument we shall term the

physico-theological argument. If it is shown to be insufficient,

speculative reason cannot present us with any satisfactory proof of the

existence of a being corresponding to our transcendental idea.

It is evident from the remarks that have been made in the preceding

sections, that an answer to this question will be far from being

difficult or unconvincing. For how can any experience be adequate with

an idea? The very essence of an idea consists in the fact that no

experience can ever be discovered congruent or adequate with it. The

transcendental idea of a necessary and all-sufficient being is so

immeasurably great, so high above all that is empirical, which is

always conditioned, that we hope in vain to find materials in the

sphere of experience sufficiently ample for our conception, and in vain

seek the unconditioned among things that are conditioned, while

examples, nay, even guidance is denied us by the laws of empirical

synthesis.

If the Supreme Being forms a link in the chain of empirical conditions,

it must be a member of the empirical series, and, like the lower

members which it precedes, have its origin in some higher member of the

series. If, on the other hand, we disengage it from the chain, and

cogitate it as an intelligible being, apart from the series of natural

causes—how shall reason bridge the abyss that separates the latter from

the former? All laws respecting the regress from effects to causes, all

synthetical additions to our knowledge relate solely to possible

experience and the objects of the sensuous world, and, apart from them,

are without significance.

The world around us opens before our view so magnificent a spectacle of

order, variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that whether we pursue

our observations into the infinity of space in the one direction, or

into its illimitable divisions in the other, whether we regard the

world in its greatest or its least manifestations—even after we have

attained to the highest summit of knowledge which our weak minds can

reach, we find that language in the presence of wonders so

inconceivable has lost its force, and number its power to reckon, nay,

even thought fails to conceive adequately, and our conception of the

whole dissolves into an astonishment without power of expression—all

the more eloquent that it is dumb. Everywhere around us we observe a

chain of causes and effects, of means and ends, of death and birth;

and, as nothing has entered of itself into the condition in which we

find it, we are constantly referred to some other thing, which itself

suggests the same inquiry regarding its cause, and thus the universe

must sink into the abyss of nothingness, unless we admit that, besides

this infinite chain of contingencies, there exists something that is

primal and self-subsistent—something which, as the cause of this

phenomenal world, secures its continuance and preservation.

This highest cause—what magnitude shall we attribute to it? Of the

content of the world we are ignorant; still less can we estimate its

magnitude by comparison with the sphere of the possible. But this

supreme cause being a necessity of the human mind, what is there to

prevent us from attributing to it such a degree of perfection as to

place it above the sphere of all that is possible? This we can easily

do, although only by the aid of the faint outline of an abstract

conception, by representing this being to ourselves as containing in

itself, as an individual substance, all possible perfection—a

conception which satisfies that requirement of reason which demands

parsimony in principles, which is free from self-contradiction, which

even contributes to the extension of the employment of reason in

experience, by means of the guidance afforded by this idea to order and

system, and which in no respect conflicts with any law of experience.

This argument always deserves to be mentioned with respect. It is the

oldest, the clearest, and that most in conformity with the common

reason of humanity. It animates the study of nature, as it itself

derives its existence and draws ever new strength from that source. It

introduces aims and ends into a sphere in which our observation could

not of itself have discovered them, and extends our knowledge of

nature, by directing our attention to a unity, the principle of which

lies beyond nature. This knowledge of nature again reacts upon this

idea—its cause; and thus our belief in a divine author of the universe

rises to the power of an irresistible conviction.

For these reasons it would be utterly hopeless to attempt to rob this

argument of the authority it has always enjoyed. The mind, unceasingly

elevated by these considerations, which, although empirical, are so

remarkably powerful, and continually adding to their force, will not

suffer itself to be depressed by the doubts suggested by subtle

speculation; it tears itself out of this state of uncertainty, the

moment it casts a look upon the wondrous forms of nature and the

majesty of the universe, and rises from height to height, from

condition to condition, till it has elevated itself to the supreme and

unconditioned author of all.

But although we have nothing to object to the reasonableness and

utility of this procedure, but have rather to commend and encourage it,

we cannot approve of the claims which this argument advances to

demonstrative certainty and to a reception upon its own merits, apart

from favour or support by other arguments. Nor can it injure the cause

of morality to endeavour to lower the tone of the arrogant sophist, and

to teach him that modesty and moderation which are the properties of a

belief that brings calm and content into the mind, without prescribing

to it an unworthy subjection. I maintain, then, that the

physico-theological argument is insufficient of itself to prove the

existence of a Supreme Being, that it must entrust this to the

ontological argument—to which it serves merely as an introduction, and

that, consequently, this argument contains the only possible ground of

proof (possessed by speculative reason) for the existence of this

being.

The chief momenta in the physico-theological argument are as follow: 1.

We observe in the world manifest signs of an arrangement full of

purpose, executed with great wisdom, and argument in whole of a content

indescribably various, and of an extent without limits. 2. This

arrangement of means and ends is entirely foreign to the things

existing in the world—it belongs to them merely as a contingent

attribute; in other words, the nature of different things could not of

itself, whatever means were employed, harmoniously tend towards certain

purposes, were they not chosen and directed for these purposes by a

rational and disposing principle, in accordance with certain

fundamental ideas. 3. There exists, therefore, a sublime and wise cause

(or several), which is not merely a blind, all-powerful nature,

producing the beings and events which fill the world in unconscious

fecundity, but a free and intelligent cause of the world. 4. The unity

of this cause may be inferred from the unity of the reciprocal relation

existing between the parts of the world, as portions of an artistic

edifice—an inference which all our observation favours, and all

principles of analogy support.

In the above argument, it is inferred from the analogy of certain

products of nature with those of human art, when it compels Nature to

bend herself to its purposes, as in the case of a house, a ship, or a

watch, that the same kind of causality—namely, understanding and

will—resides in nature. It is also declared that the internal

possibility of this freely-acting nature (which is the source of all

art, and perhaps also of human reason) is derivable from another and

superhuman art—a conclusion which would perhaps be found incapable of

standing the test of subtle transcendental criticism. But to neither of

these opinions shall we at present object. We shall only remark that it

must be confessed that, if we are to discuss the subject of cause at

all, we cannot proceed more securely than with the guidance of the

analogy subsisting between nature and such products of design—these

being the only products whose causes and modes of organization are

completely known to us. Reason would be unable to satisfy her own

requirements, if she passed from a causality which she does know, to

obscure and indemonstrable principles of explanation which she does not

know.

According to the physico-theological argument, the connection and

harmony existing in the world evidence the contingency of the form

merely, but not of the matter, that is, of the substance of the world.

To establish the truth of the latter opinion, it would be necessary to

prove that all things would be in themselves incapable of this harmony

and order, unless they were, even as regards their substance, the

product of a supreme wisdom. But this would require very different

grounds of proof from those presented by the analogy with human art.

This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an

architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities

of the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world,

to whom all things are subject. Thus this argument is utterly

insufficient for the task before us—a demonstration of the existence of

an all-sufficient being. If we wish to prove the contingency of matter,

we must have recourse to a transcendental argument, which the

physico-theological was constructed expressly to avoid.

We infer, from the order and design visible in the universe, as a

disposition of a thoroughly contingent character, the existence of a

cause proportionate thereto. The conception of this cause must contain

certain determinate qualities, and it must therefore be regarded as the

conception of a being which possesses all power, wisdom, and so on, in

one word, all perfection—the conception, that is, of an all-sufficient

being. For the predicates of very great, astonishing, or immeasurable

power and excellence, give us no determinate conception of the thing,

nor do they inform us what the thing may be in itself. They merely

indicate the relation existing between the magnitude of the object and

the observer, who compares it with himself and with his own power of

comprehension, and are mere expressions of praise and reverence, by

which the object is either magnified, or the observing subject

depreciated in relation to the object. Where we have to do with the

magnitude (of the perfection) of a thing, we can discover no

determinate conception, except that which comprehends all possible

perfection or completeness, and it is only the total (omnitudo) of

reality which is completely determined in and through its conception

alone.

Now it cannot be expected that any one will be bold enough to declare

that he has a perfect insight into the relation which the magnitude of

the world he contemplates bears (in its extent as well as in its

content) to omnipotence, into that of the order and design in the world

to the highest wisdom, and that of the unity of the world to the

absolute unity of a Supreme Being. Physico-theology is therefore

incapable of presenting a determinate conception of a supreme cause of

the world, and is therefore insufficient as a principle of theology—a

theology which is itself to be the basis of religion.

The attainment of absolute totality is completely impossible on the

path of empiricism. And yet this is the path pursued in the

physico-theological argument. What means shall we employ to bridge the

abyss?

After elevating ourselves to admiration of the magnitude of the power,

wisdom, and other attributes of the author of the world, and finding we

can advance no further, we leave the argument on empirical grounds, and

proceed to infer the contingency of the world from the order and

conformity to aims that are observable in it. From this contingency we

infer, by the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the existence

of something absolutely necessary; and, still advancing, proceed from

the conception of the absolute necessity of the first cause to the

completely determined or determining conception thereof—the conception

of an all-embracing reality. Thus the physico-theological, failing in

its undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological

argument; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in disguise,

it executes its design solely by the aid of pure reason, although it at

first professed to have no connection with this faculty and to base its

entire procedure upon experience alone.

The physico-theologians have therefore no reason to regard with such

contempt the transcendental mode of argument, and to look down upon it,

with the conceit of clear-sighted observers of nature, as the

brain-cobweb of obscure speculatists. For, if they reflect upon and

examine their own arguments, they will find that, after following for

some time the path of nature and experience, and discovering themselves

no nearer their object, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the

region of pure possibility, where they hope to reach upon the wings of

ideas what had eluded all their empirical investigations. Gaining, as

they think, a firm footing after this immense leap, they extend their

determinate conception—into the possession of which they have come,

they know not how—over the whole sphere of creation, and explain their

ideal, which is entirely a product of pure reason, by illustrations

drawn from experience—though in a degree miserably unworthy of the

grandeur of the object, while they refuse to acknowledge that they have

arrived at this cognition or hypothesis by a very different road from

that of experience.

Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmological, and this

upon the ontological proof of the existence of a Supreme Being; and as

besides these three there is no other path open to speculative reason,

the ontological proof, on the ground of pure conceptions of reason, is

the only possible one, if any proof of a proposition so far

transcending the empirical exercise of the understanding is possible at

all.

Section VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative Principles

of Reason

If by the term theology I understand the cognition of a primal being,

that cognition is based either upon reason alone (theologia rationalis)

or upon revelation (theologia revelata). The former cogitates its

object either by means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens

originarium, realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental

theology; or, by means of a conception derived from the nature of our

own mind, as a supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural

theology. The person who believes in a transcendental theology alone,

is termed a deist; he who acknowledges the possibility of a natural

theology also, a theist. The former admits that we can cognize by pure

reason alone the existence of a Supreme Being, but at the same time

maintains that our conception of this being is purely transcendental,

and that all we can say of it is that it possesses all reality, without

being able to define it more closely. The second asserts that reason is

capable of presenting us, from the analogy with nature, with a more

definite conception of this being, and that its operations, as the

cause of all things, are the results of intelligence and free will. The

former regards the Supreme Being as the cause of the world—whether by

the necessity of his nature, or as a free agent, is left undetermined;

the latter considers this being as the author of the world.

Transcendental theology aims either at inferring the existence of a

Supreme Being from a general experience, without any closer reference

to the world to which this experience belongs, and in this case it is

called cosmotheology; or it endeavours to cognize the existence of such

a being, through mere conceptions, without the aid of experience, and

is then termed ontotheology.

Natural theology infers the attributes and the existence of an author

of the world, from the constitution of, the order and unity observable

in, the world, in which two modes of causality must be admitted to

exist—those of nature and freedom. Thus it rises from this world to a

supreme intelligence, either as the principle of all natural, or of all

moral order and perfection. In the former case it is termed

physico-theology, in the latter, ethical or moral-theology.[69]

[69] Not theological ethics; for this science contains ethical laws,

which presuppose the existence of a Supreme Governor of the world;

while moral-theology, on the contrary, is the expression of a

conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being, founded upon ethical

laws.

As we are wont to understand by the term God not merely an eternal

nature, the operations of which are insensate and blind, but a Supreme

Being, who is the free and intelligent author of all things, and as it

is this latter view alone that can be of interest to humanity, we

might, in strict rigour, deny to the deist any belief in God at all,

and regard him merely as a maintainer of the existence of a primal

being or thing—the supreme cause of all other things. But, as no one

ought to be blamed, merely because he does not feel himself justified

in maintaining a certain opinion, as if he altogether denied its truth

and asserted the opposite, it is more correct—as it is less harsh—to

say, the deist believes in a God, the theist in a living God (summa

intelligentia). We shall now proceed to investigate the sources of all

these attempts of reason to establish the existence of a Supreme Being.

It may be sufficient in this place to define theoretical knowledge or

cognition as knowledge of that which is, and practical knowledge as

knowledge of that which ought to be. In this view, the theoretical

employment of reason is that by which I cognize à priori (as necessary)

that something is, while the practical is that by which I cognize à

priori what ought to happen. Now, if it is an indubitably certain,

though at the same time an entirely conditioned truth, that something

is, or ought to happen, either a certain determinate condition of this

truth is absolutely necessary, or such a condition may be arbitrarily

presupposed. In the former case the condition is postulated (per

thesin), in the latter supposed (per hypothesin). There are certain

practical laws—those of morality—which are absolutely necessary. Now,

if these laws necessarily presuppose the existence of some being, as

the condition of the possibility of their obligatory power, this being

must be postulated, because the conditioned, from which we reason to

this determinate condition, is itself cognized à priori as absolutely

necessary. We shall at some future time show that the moral laws not

merely presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being, but also, as

themselves absolutely necessary in a different relation, demand or

postulate it—although only from a practical point of view. The

discussion of this argument we postpone for the present.

When the question relates merely to that which is, not to that which

ought to be, the conditioned which is presented in experience is always

cogitated as contingent. For this reason its condition cannot be

regarded as absolutely necessary, but merely as relatively necessary,

or rather as needful; the condition is in itself and à priori a mere

arbitrary presupposition in aid of the cognition, by reason, of the

conditioned. If, then, we are to possess a theoretical cognition of the

absolute necessity of a thing, we cannot attain to this cognition

otherwise than à priori by means of conceptions; while it is impossible

in this way to cognize the existence of a cause which bears any

relation to an existence given in experience.

Theoretical cognition is speculative when it relates to an object or

certain conceptions of an object which is not given and cannot be

discovered by means of experience. It is opposed to the cognition of

nature, which concerns only those objects or predicates which can be

presented in a possible experience.

The principle that everything which happens (the empirically

contingent) must have a cause, is a principle of the cognition of

nature, but not of speculative cognition. For, if we change it into an

abstract principle, and deprive it of its reference to experience and

the empirical, we shall find that it cannot with justice be regarded

any longer as a synthetical proposition, and that it is impossible to

discover any mode of transition from that which exists to something

entirely different—termed cause. Nay, more, the conception of a cause

likewise that of the contingent—loses, in this speculative mode of

employing it, all significance, for its objective reality and meaning

are comprehensible from experience alone.

When from the existence of the universe and the things in it the

existence of a cause of the universe is inferred, reason is proceeding

not in the natural, but in the speculative method. For the principle of

the former enounces, not that things themselves or substances, but only

that which happens or their states—as empirically contingent, have a

cause: the assertion that the existence of substance itself is

contingent is not justified by experience, it is the assertion of a

reason employing its principles in a speculative manner. If, again, I

infer from the form of the universe, from the way in which all things

are connected and act and react upon each other, the existence of a

cause entirely distinct from the universe—this would again be a

judgement of purely speculative reason; because the object in this

case—the cause—can never be an object of possible experience. In both

these cases the principle of causality, which is valid only in the

field of experience—useless and even meaningless beyond this region,

would be diverted from its proper destination.

Now I maintain that all attempts of reason to establish a theology by

the aid of speculation alone are fruitless, that the principles of

reason as applied to nature do not conduct us to any theological

truths, and, consequently, that a rational theology can have no

existence, unless it is founded upon the laws of morality. For all

synthetical principles of the understanding are valid only as immanent

in experience; while the cognition of a Supreme Being necessitates

their being employed transcendentally, and of this the understanding is

quite incapable. If the empirical law of causality is to conduct us to

a Supreme Being, this being must belong to the chain of empirical

objects—in which case it would be, like all phenomena, itself

conditioned. If the possibility of passing the limits of experience be

admitted, by means of the dynamical law of the relation of an effect to

its cause, what kind of conception shall we obtain by this procedure?

Certainly not the conception of a Supreme Being, because experience

never presents us with the greatest of all possible effects, and it is

only an effect of this character that could witness to the existence of

a corresponding cause. If, for the purpose of fully satisfying the

requirements of Reason, we recognize her right to assert the existence

of a perfect and absolutely necessary being, this can be admitted only

from favour, and cannot be regarded as the result of irresistible

demonstration. The physico-theological proof may add weight to

others—if other proofs there are—by connecting speculation with

experience; but in itself it rather prepares the mind for theological

cognition, and gives it a right and natural direction, than establishes

a sure foundation for theology.

It is now perfectly evident that transcendental questions admit only of

transcendental answers—those presented à priori by pure conceptions

without the least empirical admixture. But the question in the present

case is evidently synthetical—it aims at the extension of our cognition

beyond the bounds of experience—it requires an assurance respecting the

existence of a being corresponding with the idea in our minds, to which

no experience can ever be adequate. Now it has been abundantly proved

that all à priori synthetical cognition is possible only as the

expression of the formal conditions of a possible experience; and that

the validity of all principles depends upon their immanence in the

field of experience, that is, their relation to objects of empirical

cognition or phenomena. Thus all transcendental procedure in reference

to speculative theology is without result.

If any one prefers doubting the conclusiveness of the proofs of our

analytic to losing the persuasion of the validity of these old and time

honoured arguments, he at least cannot decline answering the

question—how he can pass the limits of all possible experience by the

help of mere ideas. If he talks of new arguments, or of improvements

upon old arguments, I request him to spare me. There is certainly no

great choice in this sphere of discussion, as all speculative arguments

must at last look for support to the ontological, and I have,

therefore, very little to fear from the argumentative fecundity of the

dogmatical defenders of a non-sensuous reason. Without looking upon

myself as a remarkably combative person, I shall not decline the

challenge to detect the fallacy and destroy the pretensions of every

attempt of speculative theology. And yet the hope of better fortune

never deserts those who are accustomed to the dogmatical mode of

procedure. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to the simple and

equitable demand that such reasoners will demonstrate, from the nature

of the human mind as well as from that of the other sources of

knowledge, how we are to proceed to extend our cognition completely à

priori, and to carry it to that point where experience abandons us, and

no means exist of guaranteeing the objective reality of our

conceptions. In whatever way the understanding may have attained to a

conception, the existence of the object of the conception cannot be

discovered in it by analysis, because the cognition of the existence of

the object depends upon the object’s being posited and given in itself

apart from the conception. But it is utterly impossible to go beyond

our conception, without the aid of experience—which presents to the

mind nothing but phenomena, or to attain by the help of mere

conceptions to a conviction of the existence of new kinds of objects or

supernatural beings.

But although pure speculative reason is far from sufficient to

demonstrate the existence of a Supreme Being, it is of the highest

utility in correcting our conception of this being—on the supposition

that we can attain to the cognition of it by some other means—in making

it consistent with itself and with all other conceptions of

intelligible objects, clearing it from all that is incompatible with

the conception of an ens summun, and eliminating from it all

limitations or admixtures of empirical elements.

Transcendental theology is still therefore, notwithstanding its

objective insufficiency, of importance in a negative respect; it is

useful as a test of the procedure of reason when engaged with pure

ideas, no other than a transcendental standard being in this case

admissible. For if, from a practical point of view, the hypothesis of a

Supreme and All-sufficient Being is to maintain its validity without

opposition, it must be of the highest importance to define this

conception in a correct and rigorous manner—as the transcendental

conception of a necessary being, to eliminate all phenomenal elements

(anthropomorphism in its most extended signification), and at the same

time to overflow all contradictory assertions—be they atheistic,

deistic, or anthropomorphic. This is of course very easy; as the same

arguments which demonstrated the inability of human reason to affirm

the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove the

invalidity of its denial. For it is impossible to gain from the pure

speculation of reason demonstration that there exists no Supreme Being,

as the ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none of

those properties which we regard as analogical with the dynamical

qualities of a thinking being, or that, as the anthropomorphists would

have us believe, it is subject to all the limitations which sensibility

imposes upon those intelligences which exist in the world of

experience.

A Supreme Being is, therefore, for the speculative reason, a mere

ideal, though a faultless one—a conception which perfects and crowns

the system of human cognition, but the objective reality of which can

neither be proved nor disproved by pure reason. If this defect is ever

supplied by a moral theology, the problematic transcendental theology

which has preceded, will have been at least serviceable as

demonstrating the mental necessity existing for the conception, by the

complete determination of it which it has furnished, and the ceaseless

testing of the conclusions of a reason often deceived by sense, and not

always in harmony with its own ideas. The attributes of necessity,

infinitude, unity, existence apart from the world (and not as a world

soul), eternity (free from conditions of time), omnipresence (free from

conditions of space), omnipotence, and others, are pure transcendental

predicates; and thus the accurate conception of a Supreme Being, which

every theology requires, is furnished by transcendental theology alone.

APPENDIX. Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason

The result of all the dialectical attempts of pure reason not only

confirms the truth of what we have already proved in our Transcendental

Analytic, namely, that all inferences which would lead us beyond the

limits of experience are fallacious and groundless, but it at the same

time teaches us this important lesson, that human reason has a natural

inclination to overstep these limits, and that transcendental ideas are

as much the natural property of the reason as categories are of the

understanding. There exists this difference, however, that while the

categories never mislead us, outward objects being always in perfect

harmony therewith, ideas are the parents of irresistible illusions, the

severest and most subtle criticism being required to save us from the

fallacies which they induce.

Whatever is grounded in the nature of our powers will be found to be in

harmony with the final purpose and proper employment of these powers,

when once we have discovered their true direction and aim. We are

entitled to suppose, therefore, that there exists a mode of employing

transcendental ideas which is proper and immanent; although, when we

mistake their meaning, and regard them as conceptions of actual things,

their mode of application is transcendent and delusive. For it is not

the idea itself, but only the employment of the idea in relation to

possible experience, that is transcendent or immanent. An idea is

employed transcendently, when it is applied to an object falsely

believed to be adequate with and to correspond to it; immanently, when

it is applied solely to the employment of the understanding in the

sphere of experience. Thus all errors of subreptio—of misapplication,

are to be ascribed to defects of judgement, and not to understanding or

reason.

Reason never has an immediate relation to an object; it relates

immediately to the understanding alone. It is only through the

understanding that it can be employed in the field of experience. It

does not form conceptions of objects, it merely arranges them and gives

to them that unity which they are capable of possessing when the sphere

of their application has been extended as widely as possible. Reason

avails itself of the conception of the understanding for the sole

purpose of producing totality in the different series. This totality

the understanding does not concern itself with; its only occupation is

the connection of experiences, by which series of conditions in

accordance with conceptions are established. The object of reason is,

therefore, the understanding and its proper destination. As the latter

brings unity into the diversity of objects by means of its conceptions,

so the former brings unity into the diversity of conceptions by means

of ideas; as it sets the final aim of a collective unity to the

operations of the understanding, which without this occupies itself

with a distributive unity alone.

I accordingly maintain that transcendental ideas can never be employed

as constitutive ideas, that they cannot be conceptions of objects, and

that, when thus considered, they assume a fallacious and dialectical

character. But, on the other hand, they are capable of an admirable and

indispensably necessary application to objects—as regulative ideas,

directing the understanding to a certain aim, the guiding lines towards

which all its laws follow, and in which they all meet in one point.

This point—though a mere idea (focus imaginarius), that is, not a point

from which the conceptions of the understanding do really proceed, for

it lies beyond the sphere of possible experience—serves,

notwithstanding, to give to these conceptions the greatest possible

unity combined with the greatest possible extension. Hence arises the

natural illusion which induces us to believe that these lines proceed

from an object which lies out of the sphere of empirical cognition,

just as objects reflected in a mirror appear to be behind it. But this

illusion—which we may hinder from imposing upon us—is necessary and

unavoidable, if we desire to see, not only those objects which lie

before us, but those which are at a great distance behind us; that is

to say, when, in the present case, we direct the aims of the

understanding, beyond every given experience, towards an extension as

great as can possibly be attained.

If we review our cognitions in their entire extent, we shall find that

the peculiar business of reason is to arrange them into a system, that

is to say, to give them connection according to a principle. This unity

presupposes an idea—the idea of the form of a whole (of cognition),

preceding the determinate cognition of the parts, and containing the

conditions which determine à priori to every part its place and

relation to the other parts of the whole system. This idea,

accordingly, demands complete unity in the cognition of the

understanding—not the unity of a contingent aggregate, but that of a

system connected according to necessary laws. It cannot be affirmed

with propriety that this idea is a conception of an object; it is

merely a conception of the complete unity of the conceptions of

objects, in so far as this unity is available to the understanding as a

rule. Such conceptions of reason are not derived from nature; on the

contrary, we employ them for the interrogation and investigation of

nature, and regard our cognition as defective so long as it is not

adequate to them. We admit that such a thing as pure earth, pure water,

or pure air, is not to be discovered. And yet we require these

conceptions (which have their origin in the reason, so far as regards

their absolute purity and completeness) for the purpose of determining

the share which each of these natural causes has in every phenomenon.

Thus the different kinds of matter are all referred to earths, as mere

weight; to salts and inflammable bodies, as pure force; and finally, to

water and air, as the vehicula of the former, or the machines employed

by them in their operations—for the purpose of explaining the chemical

action and reaction of bodies in accordance with the idea of a

mechanism. For, although not actually so expressed, the influence of

such ideas of reason is very observable in the procedure of natural

philosophers.

If reason is the faculty of deducing the particular from the general,

and if the general be certain in se and given, it is only necessary

that the judgement should subsume the particular under the general, the

particular being thus necessarily determined. I shall term this the

demonstrative or apodeictic employment of reason. If, however, the

general is admitted as problematical only, and is a mere idea, the

particular case is certain, but the universality of the rule which

applies to this particular case remains a problem. Several particular

cases, the certainty of which is beyond doubt, are then taken and

examined, for the purpose of discovering whether the rule is applicable

to them; and if it appears that all the particular cases which can be

collected follow from the rule, its universality is inferred, and at

the same time, all the causes which have not, or cannot be presented to

our observation, are concluded to be of the same character with those

which we have observed. This I shall term the hypothetical employment

of the reason.

The hypothetical exercise of reason by the aid of ideas employed as

problematical conceptions is properly not constitutive. That is to say,

if we consider the subject strictly, the truth of the rule, which has

been employed as an hypothesis, does not follow from the use that is

made of it by reason. For how can we know all the possible cases that

may arise? some of which may, however, prove exceptions to the

universality of the rule. This employment of reason is merely

regulative, and its sole aim is the introduction of unity into the

aggregate of our particular cognitions, and thereby the approximating

of the rule to universality.

The object of the hypothetical employment of reason is therefore the

systematic unity of cognitions; and this unity is the criterion of the

truth of a rule. On the other hand, this systematic unity—as a mere

idea—is in fact merely a unity projected, not to be regarded as given,

but only in the light of a problem—a problem which serves, however, as

a principle for the various and particular exercise of the

understanding in experience, directs it with regard to those cases

which are not presented to our observation, and introduces harmony and

consistency into all its operations.

All that we can be certain of from the above considerations is that

this systematic unity is a logical principle, whose aim is to assist

the understanding, where it cannot of itself attain to rules, by means

of ideas, to bring all these various rules under one principle, and

thus to ensure the most complete consistency and connection that can be

attained. But the assertion that objects and the understanding by which

they are cognized are so constituted as to be determined to systematic

unity, that this may be postulated à priori, without any reference to

the interest of reason, and that we are justified in declaring all

possible cognitions—empirical and others—to possess systematic unity,

and to be subject to general principles from which, notwithstanding

their various character, they are all derivable,—such an assertion can

be founded only upon a transcendental principle of reason, which would

render this systematic unity not subjectively and logically—in its

character of a method, but objectively necessary.

We shall illustrate this by an example. The conceptions of the

understanding make us acquainted, among many other kinds of unity, with

that of the causality of a substance, which is termed power. The

different phenomenal manifestations of the same substance appear at

first view to be so very dissimilar that we are inclined to assume the

existence of just as many different powers as there are different

effects—as, in the case of the human mind, we have feeling,

consciousness, imagination, memory, wit, analysis, pleasure, desire and

so on. Now we are required by a logical maxim to reduce these

differences to as small a number as possible, by comparing them and

discovering the hidden identity which exists. We must inquire, for

example, whether or not imagination (connected with consciousness),

memory, wit, and analysis are not merely different forms of

understanding and reason. The idea of a fundamental power, the

existence of which no effort of logic can assure us of, is the problem

to be solved, for the systematic representation of the existing variety

of powers. The logical principle of reason requires us to produce as

great a unity as is possible in the system of our cognitions; and the

more the phenomena of this and the other power are found to be

identical, the more probable does it become, that they are nothing but

different manifestations of one and the same power, which may be

called, relatively speaking, a fundamental power. And so with other

cases.

These relatively fundamental powers must again be compared with each

other, to discover, if possible, the one radical and absolutely

fundamental power of which they are but the manifestations. But this

unity is purely hypothetical. It is not maintained, that this unity

does really exist, but that we must, in the interest of reason, that

is, for the establishment of principles for the various rules presented

by experience, try to discover and introduce it, so far as is

practicable, into the sphere of our cognitions.

But the transcendental employment of the understanding would lead us to

believe that this idea of a fundamental power is not problematical, but

that it possesses objective reality, and thus the systematic unity of

the various powers or forces in a substance is demanded by the

understanding and erected into an apodeictic or necessary principle.

For, without having attempted to discover the unity of the various

powers existing in nature, nay, even after all our attempts have

failed, we notwithstanding presuppose that it does exist, and may be,

sooner or later, discovered. And this reason does, not only, as in the

case above adduced, with regard to the unity of substance, but where

many substances, although all to a certain extent homogeneous, are

discoverable, as in the case of matter in general. Here also does

reason presuppose the existence of the systematic unity of various

powers—inasmuch as particular laws of nature are subordinate to general

laws; and parsimony in principles is not merely an economical principle

of reason, but an essential law of nature.

We cannot understand, in fact, how a logical principle of unity can of

right exist, unless we presuppose a transcendental principle, by which

such a systematic unit—as a property of objects themselves—is regarded

as necessary à priori. For with what right can reason, in its logical

exercise, require us to regard the variety of forces which nature

displays, as in effect a disguised unity, and to deduce them from one

fundamental force or power, when she is free to admit that it is just

as possible that all forces should be different in kind, and that a

systematic unity is not conformable to the design of nature? In this

view of the case, reason would be proceeding in direct opposition to

her own destination, by setting as an aim an idea which entirely

conflicts with the procedure and arrangement of nature. Neither can we

assert that reason has previously inferred this unity from the

contingent nature of phenomena. For the law of reason which requires us

to seek for this unity is a necessary law, inasmuch as without it we

should not possess a faculty of reason, nor without reason a consistent

and self-accordant mode of employing the understanding, nor, in the

absence of this, any proper and sufficient criterion of empirical

truth. In relation to this criterion, therefore, we must suppose the

idea of the systematic unity of nature to possess objective validity

and necessity.

We find this transcendental presupposition lurking in different forms

in the principles of philosophers, although they have neither

recognized it nor confessed to themselves its presence. That the

diversities of individual things do not exclude identity of species,

that the various species must be considered as merely different

determinations of a few genera, and these again as divisions of still

higher races, and so on—that, accordingly, a certain systematic unity

of all possible empirical conceptions, in so far as they can be deduced

from higher and more general conceptions, must be sought for, is a

scholastic maxim or logical principle, without which reason could not

be employed by us. For we can infer the particular from the general,

only in so far as general properties of things constitute the

foundation upon which the particular rest.

That the same unity exists in nature is presupposed by philosophers in

the well-known scholastic maxim, which forbids us unnecessarily to

augment the number of entities or principles (entia praeter

necessitatem non esse multiplicanda). This maxim asserts that nature

herself assists in the establishment of this unity of reason, and that

the seemingly infinite diversity of phenomena should not deter us from

the expectation of discovering beneath this diversity a unity of

fundamental properties, of which the aforesaid variety is but a more or

less determined form. This unity, although a mere idea, thinkers have

found it necessary rather to moderate the desire than to encourage it.

It was considered a great step when chemists were able to reduce all

salts to two main genera—acids and alkalis; and they regard this

difference as itself a mere variety, or different manifestation of one

and the same fundamental material. The different kinds of earths

(stones and even metals) chemists have endeavoured to reduce to three,

and afterwards to two; but still, not content with this advance, they

cannot but think that behind these diversities there lurks but one

genus—nay, that even salts and earths have a common principle. It might

be conjectured that this is merely an economical plan of reason, for

the purpose of sparing itself trouble, and an attempt of a purely

hypothetical character, which, when successful, gives an appearance of

probability to the principle of explanation employed by the reason. But

a selfish purpose of this kind is easily to be distinguished from the

idea, according to which every one presupposes that this unity is in

accordance with the laws of nature, and that reason does not in this

case request, but requires, although we are quite unable to determine

the proper limits of this unity.

If the diversity existing in phenomena—a diversity not of form (for in

this they may be similar) but of content—were so great that the

subtlest human reason could never by comparison discover in them the

least similarity (which is not impossible), in this case the logical

law of genera would be without foundation, the conception of a genus,

nay, all general conceptions would be impossible, and the faculty of

the understanding, the exercise of which is restricted to the world of

conceptions, could not exist. The logical principle of genera,

accordingly, if it is to be applied to nature (by which I mean objects

presented to our senses), presupposes a transcendental principle. In

accordance with this principle, homogeneity is necessarily presupposed

in the variety of phenomena (although we are unable to determine à

priori the degree of this homogeneity), because without it no empirical

conceptions, and consequently no experience, would be possible.

The logical principle of genera, which demands identity in phenomena,

is balanced by another principle—that of species, which requires

variety and diversity in things, notwithstanding their accordance in

the same genus, and directs the understanding to attend to the one no

less than to the other. This principle (of the faculty of distinction)

acts as a check upon the reason and reason exhibits in this respect a

double and conflicting interest—on the one hand, the interest in the

extent (the interest of generality) in relation to genera; on the

other, that of the content (the interest of individuality) in relation

to the variety of species. In the former case, the understanding

cogitates more under its conceptions, in the latter it cogitates more

in them. This distinction manifests itself likewise in the habits of

thought peculiar to natural philosophers, some of whom—the remarkably

speculative heads—may be said to be hostile to heterogeneity in

phenomena, and have their eyes always fixed on the unity of genera,

while others—with a strong empirical tendency—aim unceasingly at the

analysis of phenomena, and almost destroy in us the hope of ever being

able to estimate the character of these according to general

principles.

The latter mode of thought is evidently based upon a logical principle,

the aim of which is the systematic completeness of all cognitions. This

principle authorizes me, beginning at the genus, to descend to the

various and diverse contained under it; and in this way extension, as

in the former case unity, is assured to the system. For if we merely

examine the sphere of the conception which indicates a genus, we cannot

discover how far it is possible to proceed in the division of that

sphere; just as it is impossible, from the consideration of the space

occupied by matter, to determine how far we can proceed in the division

of it. Hence every genus must contain different species, and these

again different subspecies; and as each of the latter must itself

contain a sphere (must be of a certain extent, as a conceptus

communis), reason demands that no species or sub-species is to be

considered as the lowest possible. For a species or sub-species, being

always a conception, which contains only what is common to a number of

different things, does not completely determine any individual thing,

or relate immediately to it, and must consequently contain other

conceptions, that is, other sub-species under it. This law of

specification may be thus expressed: entium varietates non temere sunt

minuendae.

But it is easy to see that this logical law would likewise be without

sense or application, were it not based upon a transcendental law of

specification, which certainly does not require that the differences

existing in phenomena should be infinite in number, for the logical

principle, which merely maintains the indeterminateness of the logical

sphere of a conception, in relation to its possible division, does not

authorize this statement; while it does impose upon the understanding

the duty of searching for subspecies to every species, and minor

differences in every difference. For, were there no lower conceptions,

neither could there be any higher. Now the understanding cognizes only

by means of conceptions; consequently, how far soever it may proceed in

division, never by mere intuition, but always by lower and lower

conceptions. The cognition of phenomena in their complete determination

(which is possible only by means of the understanding) requires an

unceasingly continued specification of conceptions, and a progression

to ever smaller differences, of which abstraction had been made in the

conception of the species, and still more in that of the genus.

This law of specification cannot be deduced from experience; it can

never present us with a principle of so universal an application.

Empirical specification very soon stops in its distinction of

diversities, and requires the guidance of the transcendental law, as a

principle of the reason—a law which imposes on us the necessity of

never ceasing in our search for differences, even although these may

not present themselves to the senses. That absorbent earths are of

different kinds could only be discovered by obeying the anticipatory

law of reason, which imposes upon the understanding the task of

discovering the differences existing between these earths, and supposes

that nature is richer in substances than our senses would indicate. The

faculty of the understanding belongs to us just as much under the

presupposition of differences in the objects of nature, as under the

condition that these objects are homogeneous, because we could not

possess conceptions, nor make any use of our understanding, were not

the phenomena included under these conceptions in some respects

dissimilar, as well as similar, in their character.

Reason thus prepares the sphere of the understanding for the operations

of this faculty: 1. By the principle of the homogeneity of the diverse

in higher genera; 2. By the principle of the variety of the homogeneous

in lower species; and, to complete the systematic unity, it adds, 3. A

law of the affinity of all conceptions which prescribes a continuous

transition from one species to every other by the gradual increase of

diversity. We may term these the principles of the homogeneity, the

specification, and the continuity of forms. The latter results from the

union of the two former, inasmuch as we regard the systematic

connection as complete in thought, in the ascent to higher genera, as

well as in the descent to lower species. For all diversities must be

related to each other, as they all spring from one highest genus,

descending through the different gradations of a more and more extended

determination.

We may illustrate the systematic unity produced by the three logical

principles in the following manner. Every conception may be regarded as

a point, which, as the standpoint of a spectator, has a certain

horizon, which may be said to enclose a number of things that may be

viewed, so to speak, from that centre. Within this horizon there must

be an infinite number of other points, each of which has its own

horizon, smaller and more circumscribed; in other words, every species

contains sub-species, according to the principle of specification, and

the logical horizon consists of smaller horizons (subspecies), but not

of points (individuals), which possess no extent. But different

horizons or genera, which include under them so many conceptions, may

have one common horizon, from which, as from a mid-point, they may be

surveyed; and we may proceed thus, till we arrive at the highest genus,

or universal and true horizon, which is determined by the highest

conception, and which contains under itself all differences and

varieties, as genera, species, and subspecies.

To this highest standpoint I am conducted by the law of homogeneity, as

to all lower and more variously-determined conceptions by the law of

specification. Now as in this way there exists no void in the whole

extent of all possible conceptions, and as out of the sphere of these

the mind can discover nothing, there arises from the presupposition of

the universal horizon above mentioned, and its complete division, the

principle: Non datur vacuum formarum. This principle asserts that there

are not different primitive and highest genera, which stand isolated,

so to speak, from each other, but all the various genera are mere

divisions and limitations of one highest and universal genus; and hence

follows immediately the principle: Datur continuum formarum. This

principle indicates that all differences of species limit each other,

and do not admit of transition from one to another by a saltus, but

only through smaller degrees of the difference between the one species

and the other. In one word, there are no species or sub-species which

(in the view of reason) are the nearest possible to each other;

intermediate species or sub-species being always possible, the

difference of which from each of the former is always smaller than the

difference existing between these.

The first law, therefore, directs us to avoid the notion that there

exist different primal genera, and enounces the fact of perfect

homogeneity; the second imposes a check upon this tendency to unity and

prescribes the distinction of sub-species, before proceeding to apply

our general conceptions to individuals. The third unites both the

former, by enouncing the fact of homogeneity as existing even in the

most various diversity, by means of the gradual transition from one

species to another. Thus it indicates a relationship between the

different branches or species, in so far as they all spring from the

same stem.

But this logical law of the continuum specierum (formarum logicarum)

presupposes a transcendental principle (lex continui in natura),

without which the understanding might be led into error, by following

the guidance of the former, and thus perhaps pursuing a path contrary

to that prescribed by nature. This law must, consequently, be based

upon pure transcendental, and not upon empirical, considerations. For,

in the latter case, it would come later than the system; whereas it is

really itself the parent of all that is systematic in our cognition of

nature. These principles are not mere hypotheses employed for the

purpose of experimenting upon nature; although when any such connection

is discovered, it forms a solid ground for regarding the hypothetical

unity as valid in the sphere of nature—and thus they are in this

respect not without their use. But we go farther, and maintain that it

is manifest that these principles of parsimony in fundamental causes,

variety in effects, and affinity in phenomena, are in accordance both

with reason and nature, and that they are not mere methods or plans

devised for the purpose of assisting us in our observation of the

external world.

But it is plain that this continuity of forms is a mere idea, to which

no adequate object can be discovered in experience. And this for two

reasons. First, because the species in nature are really divided, and

hence form quanta discreta; and, if the gradual progression through

their affinity were continuous, the intermediate members lying between

two given species must be infinite in number, which is impossible.

Secondly, because we cannot make any determinate empirical use of this

law, inasmuch as it does not present us with any criterion of affinity

which could aid us in determining how far we ought to pursue the

graduation of differences: it merely contains a general indication that

it is our duty to seek for and, if possible, to discover them.

When we arrange these principles of systematic unity in the order

conformable to their employment in experience, they will stand thus:

Variety, Affinity, Unity, each of them, as ideas, being taken in the

highest degree of their completeness. Reason presupposes the existence

of cognitions of the understanding, which have a direct relation to

experience, and aims at the ideal unity of these cognitions—a unity

which far transcends all experience or empirical notions. The affinity

of the diverse, notwithstanding the differences existing between its

parts, has a relation to things, but a still closer one to the mere

properties and powers of things. For example, imperfect experience may

represent the orbits of the planets as circular. But we discover

variations from this course, and we proceed to suppose that the planets

revolve in a path which, if not a circle, is of a character very

similar to it. That is to say, the movements of those planets which do

not form a circle will approximate more or less to the properties of a

circle, and probably form an ellipse. The paths of comets exhibit still

greater variations, for, so far as our observation extends, they do not

return upon their own course in a circle or ellipse. But we proceed to

the conjecture that comets describe a parabola, a figure which is

closely allied to the ellipse. In fact, a parabola is merely an

ellipse, with its longer axis produced to an indefinite extent. Thus

these principles conduct us to a unity in the genera of the forms of

these orbits, and, proceeding farther, to a unity as regards the cause

of the motions of the heavenly bodies—that is, gravitation. But we go

on extending our conquests over nature, and endeavour to explain all

seeming deviations from these rules, and even make additions to our

system which no experience can ever substantiate—for example, the

theory, in affinity with that of ellipses, of hyperbolic paths of

comets, pursuing which, these bodies leave our solar system and,

passing from sun to sun, unite the most distant parts of the infinite

universe, which is held together by the same moving power.

The most remarkable circumstance connected with these principles is

that they seem to be transcendental, and, although only containing

ideas for the guidance of the empirical exercise of reason, and

although this empirical employment stands to these ideas in an

asymptotic relation alone (to use a mathematical term), that is,

continually approximate, without ever being able to attain to them,

they possess, notwithstanding, as à priori synthetical propositions,

objective though undetermined validity, and are available as rules for

possible experience. In the elaboration of our experience, they may

also be employed with great advantage, as heuristic[70] principles. A

transcendental deduction of them cannot be made; such a deduction being

always impossible in the case of ideas, as has been already shown.

[70] From the Greek, eurhioko.

We distinguished, in the Transcendental Analytic, the dynamical

principles of the understanding, which are regulative principles of

intuition, from the mathematical, which are constitutive principles of

intuition. These dynamical laws are, however, constitutive in relation

to experience, inasmuch as they render the conceptions without which

experience could not exist possible à priori. But the principles of

pure reason cannot be constitutive even in regard to empirical

conceptions, because no sensuous schema corresponding to them can be

discovered, and they cannot therefore have an object in concreto. Now,

if I grant that they cannot be employed in the sphere of experience, as

constitutive principles, how shall I secure for them employment and

objective validity as regulative principles, and in what way can they

be so employed?

The understanding is the object of reason, as sensibility is the object

of the understanding. The production of systematic unity in all the

empirical operations of the understanding is the proper occupation of

reason; just as it is the business of the understanding to connect the

various content of phenomena by means of conceptions, and subject them

to empirical laws. But the operations of the understanding are, without

the schemata of sensibility, undetermined; and, in the same manner, the

unity of reason is perfectly undetermined as regards the conditions

under which, and the extent to which, the understanding ought to carry

the systematic connection of its conceptions. But, although it is

impossible to discover in intuition a schema for the complete

systematic unity of all the conceptions of the understanding, there

must be some analogon of this schema. This analogon is the idea of the

maximum of the division and the connection of our cognition in one

principle. For we may have a determinate notion of a maximum and an

absolutely perfect, all the restrictive conditions which are connected

with an indeterminate and various content having been abstracted. Thus

the idea of reason is analogous with a sensuous schema, with this

difference, that the application of the categories to the schema of

reason does not present a cognition of any object (as is the case with

the application of the categories to sensuous schemata), but merely

provides us with a rule or principle for the systematic unity of the

exercise of the understanding. Now, as every principle which imposes

upon the exercise of the understanding à priori compliance with the

rule of systematic unity also relates, although only in an indirect

manner, to an object of experience, the principles of pure reason will

also possess objective reality and validity in relation to experience.

But they will not aim at determining our knowledge in regard to any

empirical object; they will merely indicate the procedure, following

which the empirical and determinate exercise of the understanding may

be in complete harmony and connection with itself—a result which is

produced by its being brought into harmony with the principle of

systematic unity, so far as that is possible, and deduced from it.

I term all subjective principles, which are not derived from

observation of the constitution of an object, but from the interest

which Reason has in producing a certain completeness in her cognition

of that object, maxims of reason. Thus there are maxims of speculative

reason, which are based solely upon its speculative interest, although

they appear to be objective principles.

When principles which are really regulative are regarded as

constitutive, and employed as objective principles, contradictions must

arise; but if they are considered as mere maxims, there is no room for

contradictions of any kind, as they then merely indicate the different

interests of reason, which occasion differences in the mode of thought.

In effect, Reason has only one single interest, and the seeming

contradiction existing between her maxims merely indicates a difference

in, and a reciprocal limitation of, the methods by which this interest

is satisfied.

This reasoner has at heart the interest of diversity—in accordance with

the principle of specification; another, the interest of unity—in

accordance with the principle of aggregation. Each believes that his

judgement rests upon a thorough insight into the subject he is

examining, and yet it has been influenced solely by a greater or less

degree of adherence to some one of the two principles, neither of which

are objective, but originate solely from the interest of reason, and on

this account to be termed maxims rather than principles. When I observe

intelligent men disputing about the distinctive characteristics of men,

animals, or plants, and even of minerals, those on the one side

assuming the existence of certain national characteristics, certain

well-defined and hereditary distinctions of family, race, and so on,

while the other side maintain that nature has endowed all races of men

with the same faculties and dispositions, and that all differences are

but the result of external and accidental circumstances—I have only to

consider for a moment the real nature of the subject of discussion, to

arrive at the conclusion that it is a subject far too deep for us to

judge of, and that there is little probability of either party being

able to speak from a perfect insight into and understanding of the

nature of the subject itself. Both have, in reality, been struggling

for the twofold interest of reason; the one maintaining the one

interest, the other the other. But this difference between the maxims

of diversity and unity may easily be reconciled and adjusted; although,

so long as they are regarded as objective principles, they must

occasion not only contradictions and polemic, but place hinderances in

the way of the advancement of truth, until some means is discovered of

reconciling these conflicting interests, and bringing reason into union

and harmony with itself.

The same is the case with the so-called law discovered by Leibnitz, and

supported with remarkable ability by Bonnet—the law of the continuous

gradation of created beings, which is nothing more than an inference

from the principle of affinity; for observation and study of the order

of nature could never present it to the mind as an objective truth. The

steps of this ladder, as they appear in experience, are too far apart

from each other, and the so-called petty differences between different

kinds of animals are in nature commonly so wide separations that no

confidence can be placed in such views (particularly when we reflect on

the great variety of things, and the ease with which we can discover

resemblances), and no faith in the laws which are said to express the

aims and purposes of nature. On the other hand, the method of

investigating the order of nature in the light of this principle, and

the maxim which requires us to regard this order—it being still

undetermined how far it extends—as really existing in nature, is beyond

doubt a legitimate and excellent principle of reason—a principle which

extends farther than any experience or observation of ours and which,

without giving us any positive knowledge of anything in the region of

experience, guides us to the goal of systematic unity.

_Of the Ultimate End of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason._

The ideas of pure reason cannot be, of themselves and in their own

nature, dialectical; it is from their misemployment alone that

fallacies and illusions arise. For they originate in the nature of

reason itself, and it is impossible that this supreme tribunal for all

the rights and claims of speculation should be itself undeserving of

confidence and promotive of error. It is to be expected, therefore,

that these ideas have a genuine and legitimate aim. It is true, the mob

of sophists raise against reason the cry of inconsistency and

contradiction, and affect to despise the government of that faculty,

because they cannot understand its constitution, while it is to its

beneficial influences alone that they owe the position and the

intelligence which enable them to criticize and to blame its procedure.

We cannot employ an à priori conception with certainty, until we have

made a transcendental deduction therefore. The ideas of pure reason do

not admit of the same kind of deduction as the categories. But if they

are to possess the least objective validity, and to represent anything

but mere creations of thought (entia rationis ratiocinantis), a

deduction of them must be possible. This deduction will complete the

critical task imposed upon pure reason; and it is to this part Of our

labours that we now proceed.

There is a great difference between a thing’s being presented to the

mind as an object in an absolute sense, or merely as an ideal object.

In the former case I employ my conceptions to determine the object; in

the latter case nothing is present to the mind but a mere schema, which

does not relate directly to an object, not even in a hypothetical

sense, but which is useful only for the purpose of representing other

objects to the mind, in a mediate and indirect manner, by means of

their relation to the idea in the intellect. Thus I say the conception

of a supreme intelligence is a mere idea; that is to say, its objective

reality does not consist in the fact that it has an immediate relation

to an object (for in this sense we have no means of establishing its

objective validity), it is merely a schema constructed according to the

necessary conditions of the unity of reason—the schema of a thing in

general, which is useful towards the production of the highest degree

of systematic unity in the empirical exercise of reason, in which we

deduce this or that object of experience from the imaginary object of

this idea, as the ground or cause of the said object of experience. In

this way, the idea is properly a heuristic, and not an ostensive,

conception; it does not give us any information respecting the

constitution of an object, it merely indicates how, under the guidance

of the idea, we ought to investigate the constitution and the relations

of objects in the world of experience. Now, if it can be shown that the

three kinds of transcendental ideas (psychological, cosmological, and

theological), although not relating directly to any object nor

determining it, do nevertheless, on the supposition of the existence of

an ideal object, produce systematic unity in the laws of the empirical

employment of the reason, and extend our empirical cognition, without

ever being inconsistent or in opposition with it—it must be a necessary

maxim of reason to regulate its procedure according to these ideas. And

this forms the transcendental deduction of all speculative ideas, not

as constitutive principles of the extension of our cognition beyond the

limits of our experience, but as regulative principles of the

systematic unity of empirical cognition, which is by the aid of these

ideas arranged and emended within its own proper limits, to an extent

unattainable by the operation of the principles of the understanding

alone.

I shall make this plainer. Guided by the principles involved in these

ideas, we must, in the first place, so connect all the phenomena,

actions, and feelings of the mind, as if it were a simple substance,

which, endowed with personal identity, possesses a permanent existence

(in this life at least), while its states, among which those of the

body are to be included as external conditions, are in continual

change. Secondly, in cosmology, we must investigate the conditions of

all natural phenomena, internal as well as external, as if they

belonged to a chain infinite and without any prime or supreme member,

while we do not, on this account, deny the existence of intelligible

grounds of these phenomena, although we never employ them to explain

phenomena, for the simple reason that they are not objects of our

cognition. Thirdly, in the sphere of theology, we must regard the whole

system of possible experience as forming an absolute, but dependent and

sensuously-conditioned unity, and at the same time as based upon a

sole, supreme, and all-sufficient ground existing apart from the world

itself—a ground which is a self-subsistent, primeval and creative

reason, in relation to which we so employ our reason in the field of

experience, as if all objects drew their origin from that archetype of

all reason. In other words, we ought not to deduce the internal

phenomena of the mind from a simple thinking substance, but deduce them

from each other under the guidance of the regulative idea of a simple

being; we ought not to deduce the phenomena, order, and unity of the

universe from a supreme intelligence, but merely draw from this idea of

a supremely wise cause the rules which must guide reason in its

connection of causes and effects.

Now there is nothing to hinder us from admitting these ideas to possess

an objective and hyperbolic existence, except the cosmological ideas,

which lead reason into an antinomy: the psychological and theological

ideas are not antinomial. They contain no contradiction; and how, then,

can any one dispute their objective reality, since he who denies it

knows as little about their possibility as we who affirm? And yet, when

we wish to admit the existence of a thing, it is not sufficient to

convince ourselves that there is no positive obstacle in the way; for

it cannot be allowable to regard mere creations of thought, which

transcend, though they do not contradict, all our conceptions, as real

and determinate objects, solely upon the authority of a speculative

reason striving to compass its own aims. They cannot, therefore, be

admitted to be real in themselves; they can only possess a comparative

reality—that of a schema of the regulative principle of the systematic

unity of all cognition. They are to be regarded not as actual things,

but as in some measure analogous to them. We abstract from the object

of the idea all the conditions which limit the exercise of our

understanding, but which, on the other hand, are the sole conditions of

our possessing a determinate conception of any given thing. And thus we

cogitate a something, of the real nature of which we have not the least

conception, but which we represent to ourselves as standing in a

relation to the whole system of phenomena, analogous to that in which

phenomena stand to each other.

By admitting these ideal beings, we do not really extend our cognitions

beyond the objects of possible experience; we extend merely the

empirical unity of our experience, by the aid of systematic unity, the

schema of which is furnished by the idea, which is therefore valid—not

as a constitutive, but as a regulative principle. For although we posit

a thing corresponding to the idea—a something, an actual existence—we

do not on that account aim at the extension of our cognition by means

of transcendent conceptions. This existence is purely ideal, and not

objective; it is the mere expression of the systematic unity which is

to be the guide of reason in the field of experience. There are no

attempts made at deciding what the ground of this unity may be, or what

the real nature of this imaginary being.

Thus the transcendental and only determinate conception of God, which

is presented to us by speculative reason, is in the strictest sense

deistic. In other words, reason does not assure us of the objective

validity of the conception; it merely gives us the idea of something,

on which the supreme and necessary unity of all experience is based.

This something we cannot, following the analogy of a real substance,

cogitate otherwise than as the cause of all things operating in

accordance with rational laws, if we regard it as an individual object;

although we should rest contented with the idea alone as a regulative

principle of reason, and make no attempt at completing the sum of the

conditions imposed by thought. This attempt is, indeed, inconsistent

with the grand aim of complete systematic unity in the sphere of

cognition—a unity to which no bounds are set by reason.

Hence it happens that, admitting a divine being, I can have no

conception of the internal possibility of its perfection, or of the

necessity of its existence. The only advantage of this admission is

that it enables me to answer all other questions relating to the

contingent, and to give reason the most complete satisfaction as

regards the unity which it aims at attaining in the world of

experience. But I cannot satisfy reason with regard to this hypothesis

itself; and this proves that it is not its intelligence and insight

into the subject, but its speculative interest alone which induces it

to proceed from a point lying far beyond the sphere of our cognition,

for the purpose of being able to consider all objects as parts of a

systematic whole.

Here a distinction presents itself, in regard to the way in which we

may cogitate a presupposition—a distinction which is somewhat subtle,

but of great importance in transcendental philosophy. I may have

sufficient grounds to admit something, or the existence of something,

in a relative point of view (suppositio relativa), without being

justified in admitting it in an absolute sense (suppositio absoluta).

This distinction is undoubtedly requisite, in the case of a regulative

principle, the necessity of which we recognize, though we are ignorant

of the source and cause of that necessity, and which we assume to be

based upon some ultimate ground, for the purpose of being able to

cogitate the universality of the principle in a more determinate way.

For example, I cogitate the existence of a being corresponding to a

pure transcendental idea. But I cannot admit that this being exists

absolutely and in itself, because all of the conceptions by which I can

cogitate an object in a determinate manner fall short of assuring me of

its existence; nay, the conditions of the objective validity of my

conceptions are excluded by the idea—by the very fact of its being an

idea. The conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that

of necessity in existence, have no significance out of the sphere of

empirical cognition, and cannot, beyond that sphere, determine any

object. They may, accordingly, be employed to explain the possibility

of things in the world of sense, but they are utterly inadequate to

explain the possibility of the universe itself considered as a whole;

because in this case the ground of explanation must lie out of and

beyond the world, and cannot, therefore, be an object of possible

experience. Now, I may admit the existence of an incomprehensible being

of this nature—the object of a mere idea, relatively to the world of

sense; although I have no ground to admit its existence absolutely and

in itself. For if an idea (that of a systematic and complete unity, of

which I shall presently speak more particularly) lies at the foundation

of the most extended empirical employment of reason, and if this idea

cannot be adequately represented in concreto, although it is

indispensably necessary for the approximation of empirical unity to the

highest possible degree—I am not only authorized, but compelled, to

realize this idea, that is, to posit a real object corresponding

thereto. But I cannot profess to know this object; it is to me merely a

something, to which, as the ground of systematic unity in cognition, I

attribute such properties as are analogous to the conceptions employed

by the understanding in the sphere of experience. Following the analogy

of the notions of reality, substance, causality, and necessity, I

cogitate a being, which possesses all these attributes in the highest

degree; and, as this idea is the offspring of my reason alone, I

cogitate this being as self-subsistent reason, and as the cause of the

universe operating by means of ideas of the greatest possible harmony

and unity. Thus I abstract all conditions that would limit my idea,

solely for the purpose of rendering systematic unity possible in the

world of empirical diversity, and thus securing the widest possible

extension for the exercise of reason in that sphere. This I am enabled

to do, by regarding all connections and relations in the world of

sense, as if they were the dispositions of a supreme reason, of which

our reason is but a faint image. I then proceed to cogitate this

Supreme Being by conceptions which have, properly, no meaning or

application, except in the world of sense. But as I am authorized to

employ the transcendental hypothesis of such a being in a relative

respect alone, that is, as the substratum of the greatest possible

unity in experience—I may attribute to a being which I regard as

distinct from the world, such properties as belong solely to the sphere

of sense and experience. For I do not desire, and am not justified in

desiring, to cognize this object of my idea, as it exists in itself;

for I possess no conceptions sufficient for this task, those of

reality, substance, causality, nay, even that of necessity in

existence, losing all significance, and becoming merely the signs of

conceptions, without content and without applicability, when I attempt

to carry them beyond the limits of the world of sense. I cogitate

merely the relation of a perfectly unknown being to the greatest

possible systematic unity of experience, solely for the purpose of

employing it as the schema of the regulative principle which directs

reason in its empirical exercise.

It is evident, at the first view, that we cannot presuppose the reality

of this transcendental object, by means of the conceptions of reality,

substance, causality, and so on, because these conceptions cannot be

applied to anything that is distinct from the world of sense. Thus the

supposition of a Supreme Being or cause is purely relative; it is

cogitated only in behalf of the systematic unity of experience; such a

being is but a something, of whose existence in itself we have not the

least conception. Thus, too, it becomes sufficiently manifest why we

required the idea of a necessary being in relation to objects given by

sense, although we can never have the least conception of this being,

or of its absolute necessity.

And now we can clearly perceive the result of our transcendental

dialectic, and the proper aim of the ideas of pure reason—which become

dialectical solely from misunderstanding and inconsiderateness. Pure

reason is, in fact, occupied with itself, and not with any object.

Objects are not presented to it to be embraced in the unity of an

empirical conception; it is only the cognitions of the understanding

that are presented to it, for the purpose of receiving the unity of a

rational conception, that is, of being connected according to a

principle. The unity of reason is the unity of system; and this

systematic unity is not an objective principle, extending its dominion

over objects, but a subjective maxim, extending its authority over the

empirical cognition of objects. The systematic connection which reason

gives to the empirical employment of the understanding not only

advances the extension of that employment, but ensures its correctness,

and thus the principle of a systematic unity of this nature is also

objective, although only in an indefinite respect (principium vagum).

It is not, however, a constitutive principle, determining an object to

which it directly relates; it is merely a regulative principle or

maxim, advancing and strengthening the empirical exercise of reason, by

the opening up of new paths of which the understanding is ignorant,

while it never conflicts with the laws of its exercise in the sphere of

experience.

But reason cannot cogitate this systematic unity, without at the same

time cogitating an object of the idea—an object that cannot be

presented in any experience, which contains no concrete example of a

complete systematic unity. This being (ens rationis ratiocinatae) is

therefore a mere idea and is not assumed to be a thing which is real

absolutely and in itself. On the contrary, it forms merely the

problematical foundation of the connection which the mind introduces

among the phenomena of the sensuous world. We look upon this

connection, in the light of the above-mentioned idea, as if it drew its

origin from the supposed being which corresponds to the idea. And yet

all we aim at is the possession of this idea as a secure foundation for

the systematic unity of experience—a unity indispensable to reason,

advantageous to the understanding, and promotive of the interests of

empirical cognition.

We mistake the true meaning of this idea when we regard it as an

enouncement, or even as a hypothetical declaration of the existence of

a real thing, which we are to regard as the origin or ground of a

systematic constitution of the universe. On the contrary, it is left

completely undetermined what the nature or properties of this so-called

ground may be. The idea is merely to be adopted as a point of view,

from which this unity, so essential to reason and so beneficial to the

understanding, may be regarded as radiating. In one word, this

transcendental thing is merely the schema of a regulative principle, by

means of which Reason, so far as in her lies, extends the dominion of

systematic unity over the whole sphere of experience.

The first object of an idea of this kind is the ego, considered merely

as a thinking nature or soul. If I wish to investigate the properties

of a thinking being, I must interrogate experience. But I find that I

can apply none of the categories to this object, the schema of these

categories, which is the condition of their application, being given

only in sensuous intuition. But I cannot thus attain to the cognition

of a systematic unity of all the phenomena of the internal sense.

Instead, therefore, of an empirical conception of what the soul really

is, reason takes the conception of the empirical unity of all thought,

and, by cogitating this unity as unconditioned and primitive,

constructs the rational conception or idea of a simple substance which

is in itself unchangeable, possessing personal identity, and in

connection with other real things external to it; in one word, it

constructs the idea of a simple self-subsistent intelligence. But the

real aim of reason in this procedure is the attainment of principles of

systematic unity for the explanation of the phenomena of the soul. That

is, reason desires to be able to represent all the determinations of

the internal sense as existing in one subject, all powers as deduced

from one fundamental power, all changes as mere varieties in the

condition of a being which is permanent and always the same, and all

phenomena in space as entirely different in their nature from the

procedure of thought. Essential simplicity (with the other attributes

predicated of the ego) is regarded as the mere schema of this

regulative principle; it is not assumed that it is the actual ground of

the properties of the soul. For these properties may rest upon quite

different grounds, of which we are completely ignorant; just as the

above predicates could not give us any knowledge of the soul as it is

in itself, even if we regarded them as valid in respect of it, inasmuch

as they constitute a mere idea, which cannot be represented in

concreto. Nothing but good can result from a psychological idea of this

kind, if we only take proper care not to consider it as more than an

idea; that is, if we regard it as valid merely in relation to the

employment of reason, in the sphere of the phenomena of the soul. Under

the guidance of this idea, or principle, no empirical laws of corporeal

phenomena are called in to explain that which is a phenomenon of the

internal sense alone; no windy hypotheses of the generation,

annihilation, and palingenesis of souls are admitted. Thus the

consideration of this object of the internal sense is kept pure, and

unmixed with heterogeneous elements; while the investigation of reason

aims at reducing all the grounds of explanation employed in this sphere

of knowledge to a single principle. All this is best effected, nay,

cannot be effected otherwise than by means of such a schema, which

requires us to regard this ideal thing as an actual existence. The

psychological idea is, therefore, meaningless and inapplicable, except

as the schema of a regulative conception. For, if I ask whether the

soul is not really of a spiritual nature—it is a question which has no

meaning. From such a conception has been abstracted, not merely all

corporeal nature, but all nature, that is, all the predicates of a

possible experience; and consequently, all the conditions which enable

us to cogitate an object to this conception have disappeared. But, if

these conditions are absent, it is evident that the conception is

meaningless.