The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

inter eligere or elicere, to choose, to attract to self interiorly, and by sympathy. The etymology of the word expresses exactly the use of the faculty.

» Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, s. 662, 731 ; De G^rando, Hist, des Systâm., t. ii., p. 230.

Examinations of the Golden Verses 215

be"; and that even one's own Self, considered as a subject, is also for one only a phenomenon, an appearance, concerning the intimate essence of which one can learn nothing.* Kant felt indeed the terrible contradiction into which he had fallen; but instead of retracing courageously his steps, and seeking above reason for the principles of knowledge that it did not possess, he continued his descending movement which he called transcendental, and finally discovered beneath this pure Reason, a certain practical Reason, to which he confided the destinies of the greatest subjects with which man can be occupied: God, nature, and himself. This practical reason, which is no other than common sense, ought, according to him, to bring man to believe what is not given him to know,' and to engage him, through the need of his own felicity, to follow the paths of virtue, and to admit the system of recompense which proceeds from the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Thus, this common sense, already invoked to aid the existence of the physical subjects which Berkeley reduced to nothingness, was called, under another name, to sustain that of the spiritual beings which Kant admitted baffling the action of his pure reason; but this faculty, vainly proposed by Shaftesbury,"* by Hutcheson,' by Reid,' by Oswald,* by the celebrated Pascal himself,* to give a support to the first truths, and to furnish the principles of our moral and physical knowledge; this faculty, I say, whose seat is in the instinct, has been easily challenged as incompetent to pronounce upon the subjects which are outside the jurisdiction of its judgments ;

"Krit. der Reinen Vernunft, s. 306, 518, 527, etc. * Ibid., s. 135, 137, 399, etc.

c Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique de la Raison pratique), s. 5, 22, 219, 233, etc.

<* Characteristics, London, 1737.

' A System of Moral Philosophy, t. i., ch. 4.

/ Enquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principle of Common Sense.

i An Appeal to Common Sense, etc., Edinburgh, 1765.

I> Pensees, § 21.

21 6 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras for it has been keenly felt that it was abandoning these subjects to the prejudices of the vulgar, to their erroneous opinions, to their blind passions; and that practical philosophy or common sense, acting in each man according to the extent of his views, would only embarrass relative truths and would create as many principles as indiAdduals. Furthermore was it not to run counter to common sense itself, to submit intelligence and reason to it? Was it not subverting Nature, and, as it were, causing light to spring upward from below, seeking in the particular, the law which rules the Universal?

The skeptics who saw all these things triumphed, but their triumph only proved their weakness; for Reason, by which they demonstrated nothingness, is the sole weapon of which they can make use. This faculty overthrown in Kant, leaves them powerless, and delivers them defenceless to the irresistible axioms that the intelligence places a priori upon the primordial truths and the fundamental principles of the Universe, even as the sequel of these Examinations will demonstrate.

24. Meditate upon my counsels, love them; follow them: To the divine virtues will they know how to lead thee.