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

ternal commands, traces the design of nature to grounds which must be inseparably connected a priori with the internal possibility of things, and leads thus to a transcendental theology, which takes the ideal of the highest ontological perfection as the principle of systematical unity which connects all things according to general and necessary laws of nature, because they all have their origin in the absolute necessity of the one original Being.

What use can we make of our understanding, even in respect to experience, if we have not aims before us ? The highest aims, however, are those of morality, and these we can only know by means of pure reason. Even with their help and guidance, however, we could make no proper use of the knowledge of nature, unless nature itself had established a unity of design : for without this we should ourselves have no reason, [p. 817] because there would be no school for it, nor any culture derived from objects which supply the material for such concepts. This unity of design is necessary and founded on the essence of free-will, which must, therefore, as containing the condition of its application in cojicreto, be so likewise ; so that, in reality, the transcendental development of the knowledge obtained by our reason would be, not the cause, but only the effect of that practical order and design which pure reason imposes upon us.

We find therefore in the history of human reason also that, before the moral concepts were sufficiently purified and refined, and before the systematical unity of the ends was clearly understood, according to such concepts and in accordance with necessary principles, the then existing knowledge of nature and even a considerable amount of the culture of reason in many other branches of science

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could only produce crude and vague conceptions of the Deity, or allow of an astonishing indifference with regard to that question.

A greater cultivation of moral ideas, which became necessary through the extremely pure moral law of our religion, directed our reason to that object through the interest which it forced us to take in it, and without the help either of a more extended knowledge of nature, or of more correct and trustworthy transcendental views (which have been wanting in all ages).

A concept of the Divine Being was elaborated [p. 8i8] which we now hold to be correct, not because speculative reason has convinced us of its correctness, but because it fully agrees with the moral principles of reason.

And thus, after all, it is pure reason only, but pure reason in its practical employment, which may claim the merit of connecting with our highest interest that knowledge which pure speculation could only guess at without being able to establish its validity, and of having made it, not indeed a demonstrated dogma, but a supposition absolutely necessary to the most essential ends of reason.

But after practical reason has reached this high point, namely, the concept of a sole original Being as the supreme good, it must not imagine that it has raised itself above all empirical traditions of its application and soared up to an immediate knowledge of new objects, and thus venture to start from that concept and to deduce from it the moral laws themselves.

For it was these very laws the internal practical necessity of which led us to the admission of an independent cause, or of a wise ruler of the world that should give effect to them. We ought not, therefore, to consider them afterwards again as accidental and derived from the mere will of the ruler, particularly as

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we could have no concept of such a will, if we had not formed it in accordance with those laws. So [p. 819] far as practical reason is entitled to lead us we shall not look upon actions as obligatory because they are the commands of God, but look upon them as divine commands because we feel an inner obligation to follow them. We shall study freedom according to the unity of design determined by the principles of reason, and we shall believe ourselves to be acting in accordance with the Divine will in so far only as we hold sacred the moral law which reason teaches us from the nature of actions themselves. We shall believe ourselves to be serving Him only by promoting everything that is best in the world, both in ourselves and in others. Moral theology is, therefore, of immanent use only, teaching us to fulfil our destiny here in the world by adapting ourselves to the general system of ends, without either fanatically or even criminally abandoning the guidance of reason and her moral laws for our proper conduct in life, in order to connect it directly with the idea of the Supreme Being. This would be a transcendent use of moral theology which, like a transcendent use of mere speculation, must inevitably pervert and frustrate the ultimate aims of reason.

CANON OF PURE REASON [p. 820]

Section III Of Trowing^ Knoiving, and Believing

The holding a thing to be true is an event in our understanding which, though it may rest on objective grounds,

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Canon of Pu7'e Reason