The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

Now if Kant, as he here pretends, and also apparently did in earlier cases, had merely inferred the thing in itself, and that with the great inconsistency of an inference absolutely forbidden by himself, what a remarkable accident would it then, be that here, where for the first time he approaches the thing in itself more closely and explains it, he should recognise in it at once the will, the free will showing itself in the world only in temporal manifestations ! I therefore really assume, though it cannot be proved, that whenever Kant spoke of the thing in itself, in the obscure depths of his mind he already always indistinctly thought of the wilL This receives support from a passage in the preface to the second edition of the " Critique of Pure Eeason," pp. xxvii. and xxviii., in Eosenkranz's edition, p. 677 of the Supplement.

For the rest, it is just this predetermined solution of the sham third conflict that affords Kant the opportunity of expressing very beautifully the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. This is the case in the whole of the

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'■ Sixth Section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason ; " b above all, in the exposition of the opposition between tb empirical and the intelligible character, p. 534-550; V.

562-578, which I number amonj the most admirable things that have ever been said by man. (As a supplemental explanation of this passage, compare a parallel passage in the Critique of Practical Reason, p. 169-179 of the fourth edition, or p. 224-231 of Rosenkranz's edition.) It is yet all the more to be regretted that this is here not in its right place, partly because it is not found in the way which the exposition states, and therefore could be otherwise deduced than it is, partly because it does not fulfil the end for which it is there — the solution of the sham antinomy.

The intelligible character, the thing in itself, is inferred from the phenomenon by tflj inconsistent use of the category of causality beyond the sphere of all phenomena, which has already been sufficiently condemned.

In this case the will of man (which Kant entitles reason, most improperly, and with an unpardonable breach of all use of language) is set up as the thing in itself, with an appeal to an unconditioned ough^ the categorical imperative, which is postulated without more ado.

Now, instead of all this, the plain open procedure would have been to start directly from the will, and prove it U be the in-itself of our own phenomenal being, recognisec without any mediation ; and then to give that exposition 0 the empirical and the intelligible character to explain ho? all actions, although necessitated by motives, yet, both b; their author and by the disinterested judge, are necesttSi and absolutely ascribed to the former himself and alone, a depending solely upon him, to whom therefore guilt an merit are attributed in respect of them. This alone w« the straight path to the knowledge of that which is nc phenomenon, and therefore will not be found by the hel of the laws of the phenomenon, but is that which revv] itself through the phenomenon, becomes knowable, obj# I

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