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

ignorance, as the method which contains the secret how we are to fetch the truth from the bottom of the well of Democritus. 'Quod sapio satis est mihiy non ego euro, esse quod Arcesilas aerumnosique Solones' (Pers.), is the motto with which they may lead a happy and honoured life, without meddling with science or muddling it. [p. 856]

As regards those who follow a scientific method, they have the choice to proceed either dogmatically or sceptically^ but at all events, systematically. When I have mentioned in relation to the former the celebrated Wolf^ and in relation to the other David Hume^ I may for my present purpose leave all the rest unnamed.

Th-^ only path that is still open is the critical. If the reader has been kind and patient enough to follow me to the end along this path, he may judge for himself whether, if he will help, as far as in him lies, towards making this footpath a highroad, it may not be possible to achieve, even before the close of the present century, what so many centuries have not been able to achieve, namely, to give complete satisfaction to human reason with regard to those questions which have in all ages exercised its desire for knowledge, though hitherto in vain.

SUPPLEMENT I

MOTTO TO SECOND EDITION

Baco de Verulamio

Instauratio magna : Praefatio

De nobis ipsis silemus : de re autem, quae agitur, petimus, ut homines earn non opinionem, sed opus esse cogitent ; ac pro certo habeant, non sectae nos alicujus aut placiti, sed utilitatis et amplitudinis humanae fundamenta moliri. Deinde ut suis commodis aequi ... in commune consulant, . . . et ipsi in partem veniant. Praeterea, ut bene sperent, neque Instaurationem nostram ut quiddam infinitum et ultra mortale fingant, et animo concipiant ; quum revera sit infiniti erroris finis et terminus legitimus.

p. 687

SUPPLEMENT II

Preface to the Second Edition. 1787. [p. vii]

Whether the treatment of that class of knowledge with which reason is occupied follows the secure method of a science or not, can easily be determined by the result. If, after repeated preparations, it comes to a standstill, as soon as its real goal is approached, or is obliged, in order to reach it, to retrace its steps again and again, and strike into fresh paths ; again, if it is impossible to produce unanimity among those who are engaged in the same work, as to the manner in which their common object should be obtained, we may be convinced that such a study is far from having attained to the secure method of a science, but is groping only in the dark. In that case we are conferring a great benefit on reason, if we only find out the right method, though many things should have to be surrendered as useless, which were comprehended in the original aim that had been chosen without sufficient reflection.

That Logic, from the ' rliest times, has followed that [p. viii] secure method, m^y be seen from the fact that since Aristotle it has not had to retrace a single step, unless we choose to consider as improvements the removal of some unnecessary subtleties, or the clearer definition of its matter, both of which refer to the elegance rather than to the soHdity of the science. It is remarkable also, that to the present day, it has not been able to make one step in advance, so that, to all appearance, it may be considered as completed and perfect. If some modern philosophers thought to enlarge it, by introducing psychological chapters on the different faculties of knowledge (faculty of imagination, wit, etc.), or 7netaphysical chapters on the origin of knowledge, or the dif688

Supplement II 689

ferent degrees of certainty according to the difference of objects (idealism, scepticism, etc.), or lastly, anthropological chapters on prejudices, their causes and remedies, this could only arise fror-> their ignorance of the peculiar nature of logical science. We do not enlarge, but we only disfigure the sciences, if we allow their respective limits to be confounded : and the limits of logic are definitely fixed by the fact, that it is a science which has nothing to do but fully to exhibit and strictly to prove all formal [p. ix] rules of thought (whether it be a priori or empirical, whatever be its origin or its object, and whatever be the impediments, accidental or natural, which it has to encounter in the human mind) .