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

It is very remarkable, though naturally it could not well have been otherwise, that in the very infancy of philosophy men began where we should like to end, namely, with studying the knowledge of God and the hope or even the nature of a future world. However crude the religious concepts might be which owed their origin to the old customs, as remnants of the savage state of humanity, this did not prevent the more enlightened classes from devoting themselves to free investigations of these matters, and they soon perceived that there could be no better and surer way of pleasing that invisible power which governs the world, in order to be happy at least in another world, than good conduct. Thus theology and morals [p. 853] became the two springs, or rather the points of attraction for all abstract enquiries of reason in later times, though

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684 History of Pure Reason it was chiefly the former which gradually drew speculative reason into those labours which afterwards became so celebrated under the name of metaphysic.

I shall not attempt at present to distinguish the periods of history in which this or that change of metaphysic took place, but only draw a rapid sketch of the difference of the ideas which caused the principal revolutions in metaphysic. And here I find three aims with which the most important changes on this arena were brought about.

1. With reference to the object of all knowledge of our reason, some philosophers were mere sensualists, others mere intellectualists. Epicurus may be regarded as the first among the form'er, Plato as the first among the latter. The distinction of these two schools, subtle as it is, dates from the earliest days, and has long been maintained. Those who belong to the former school maintained that reality exists in the objects of the senses alone, everything else being imagination ; those of the second school, on the contrary, maintained, that in the senses there is nothing but illusion, and that the true is known by the [p. 854] understanding only. The former did not, therefore, deny all reality to the concepts of the understanding, but that reality was with them logical only, with the others it was mystical. The former admitted intellectual concepts, but accepted sensible objects only. The latter required that true objects should be intelligible only, and maintained an intuition peculiar to the understanding, separated from the senses which, in their opinion, could only confuse it.

2. With reference to the origin of the pure concepts of reason, and whether they are derived from experience, or have their origin independent of experience, in reason. Aristotle may be considered as the head of the empiricists,

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Plato as that of the noologists. Locke, who in modern times followed Aristotle, and Leibnis, who followed Plato (though at a sufficient distance from his mystical system), have not been able to bring this dispute to any conclusion. Epicurus at least was far more consistent in his sensual system (for he never allowed his syllogisms to go beyond the limits of experience) than Aristotle and Locke, more particularly the latter, who, after having derived all concepts and principles from experience, goes so far in their application as to maintain that the existence of God and the immortality of the soul (though both lie entirely outside the limits of all possible experience) could [p. 855] be proved with the same evidence as any mathematical proposition.

3. With reference to method. If anything is to be called method, it must be a procedure according to principles. The method at present prevailing in this field of enquiry may be divided into the naturalistic and the scientific. The naturalist of pure reason lays it down as his principle that, with reference to the highest questions which form the problems of metaphysic, more can be achieved by means of common reason without science (which he calls sound reason), than through speculation. This is the same as if we should maintain that the magnitude and distance of the moon can be better determined by the naked eye than by roundabout mathematical calculations. This is pure misology reduced to principles, and, what is the most absurd, the neglect of all artificial means is recommended as the best way of enlarging our knowledge. As regards those who are naturalists because they know no better, they are really not to be blamed. They simply follow ordinary reason, but they do not boast of their

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