Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason — trans. F. Max Müller

all human cognition. The dogmatical defender of the good cause I should not read at all, because I know beforehand that he will attack the sophistries of the other party simply in order to recommend his own. Besides, a mere defence of the common opinion does not supply so much material for new remarks as a strange and ingeniously contrived theory. The opponent of religion, himself dogmatical in his own way, would give me a [p. 754] valuable opportunity for amending here and there the principles of my own critique of pure reason, while I should not be at all afraid of any danger arising from his theories.

But it may be argued that the youth at least, entrusted to our academical teaching, should be warned against such writings, and kept away from a too early knowledge of such dangerous propositions, before their faculty of judgment, or we should rather say, before the doctrines which we wish to inculcate on them, have taken root, and are able to withstand all persuasion and pressure, from whatever quarter it may proceed.

Yes, if the cause of pure reason is alw^ays to be pleaded dogmatically, and if opponents are to be disposed of polemically, i.e. simply by taking up arms against them and attacking them by means of proofs of opposite opinions, nothing might seem for the moment more advisable, but nothing would prove in the long run more vain and inefficient than to keep the reason of youth in temporary tutelage, and to guard it against temptation for a time at least. If, however, curiosity or the fashion of the age should afterwards make them acquainted with such writings, will their youthful persuasion then hold good .-* He who is furnished with dogmatical weapons only in order to

6o6 Discipline of Pure Reason 2resist the attacks of his opponent, and is not able to analyse that hidden dialectic which is concealed in his own breast quite as much as in that of his opponent, sees sophistries which at all events have the charm of [p. 755] novelty, opposed to other sophistries which possess that charm no longer, and excite the suspicion of having imposed on the natural credulity of youth. He sees no better way of showing that he is no longer a child than by ignoring all well-meant warnings, and, accustomed as he is to dogmatism, he swallows the poison which destroys his principles by a new dogmatism.

The very opposite of this is the right course for academical instruction, provided always that it is founded on a thorough training in the principles of the criticism of pure reason. For, in order to practically apply these principles as soon as possible, and to show their sufficiency even when faced by the strongest dialectical illusion, it is absolutely necessary to allow the attacks, which seem so formidable to the dogmatist, to be directed against the young mind whose reason, though weak as yet, has been enlightened by criticism, so as to let him test by its principles the groundless assertions of his opponents one after the other. He cannot find it very difficult to dissolve them all into mere vapour, and thus alone does he early begin to feel his own power and is able to secure himself against all dangerous illusions which in the end lose all their fascination on him. It is true, the same blows which destroy the strong- [p. 756] hold of his opponent must prove fatal also to his own speculative structures, if he should wish to erect such. But this need not disturb him, because he does not wish to shelter himself beneath them, but looks out for the