Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller
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The translator’s English as printed (F. Max Müller). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
Reason really stands in need of such dialectical strife, and it is much to be wished that it had taken place sooner, and with the unlimited sanction of the public, for, in that case, criticism would sooner have reached complete maturity, and disputes would have come to an end by each party becoming aware of the illusions and prejudices which caused their differences.
There is in human nature a certain disingenuousness which, however, like everything that springs [p. 748] from nature, must contain a useful germ, namely, a tendency to conceal one's own true sentiments, and to give expression to adopted opinions which are supposed to be good and creditable. There is no doubt that this tendency to conceal oneself and to assume a favourable appearance has helped towards the progress of civilisation, nay, to a certain extent, of morality, because others, who could not see through the varnish of respectability, honesty, and correctness, were led to improve themselves by seeing everywhere these examples of goodness which they believed to be genuine. This tendency, however, to show oneself better than one really is, and to utter sentiments which one does not really share, can only serve provisionally to rescue men from a rude state, and to teach
Discipline of Pure Reason 60 1
them to assume at least the appearance of what they knowto be good. Afterwards, when genuine principles have once been developed and become part of our nature, that disingenuousness must be gradually conquered, because it will otherwise deprave the heart and not allow the good seeds of honest conviction to grow up among the tares of fair appearances.
I am sorry to observe the same disingenuousness, concealment, and hypocrisy even in the utterances of speculative thought, though there are here fewer hindrances in uttering our convictions openly and freely as we ought, and no advantage whatever in our not doing [p. 749] so. For what can be more mischievous to the advancement of knowledge than to communicate even our thoughts in a falsified form, to conceal doubts which we feel in our own assertions, and to impart an appearance of conclusiveness to arguments which we know ourselves to be inconclusive .-* So long as those tricks arise from personal vanity only (which is commonly the case with speculative arguments, as touching no particular interests, nor easily capable of apodictic certainty) they are mostly counteracted by the vanity of others, with the f-ull approval of the public at large, and thus the result is generally the same as what would or might have been obtained sooner by means of pure ingenuousness and honesty. But where the public has once persuaded itself that certain subtle speculators aim at nothing less than to shake the very foundations of the common welfare of the people, it is supposed to be not only prudent, but even advisable and honourable, to come to the succour of what is called the good cause, by sophistries, rather than to allow to our supposed antagonists the satisfaction of having lowered
6o2 . Discipline of Pure Reason our tone to that of a purely practical conviction, and having forced us to confess the absence of all speculative and apodictic certainty. I cannot believe this, nor can I admit that the intention of serving a good cause can ever be combined v^ith trickery, misrepresentation, and fraud.
That in v^eighing the arguments of a speculative discussion we ought to be honest, seems the least that [p. 750] can be demanded ; and if v^e could at least depend on this with perfect certainty, the conflict of speculative reason with regard to the important questions of God, the immortality of the soul, and freedom, would long ago have been decided, or would soon be brought to a conclusion.
Thus it often happens that the purity of motives and sentiments stands in an inverse ratio to the goodness of the cause, and that its supposed assailants are more honest and more straightforward than its defenders.
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