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

In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural * lectic of reason it is asserted that the three transeen ': Ideas are of value as regulative principles for the adva J* ment of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can be Jp. 133 ave been serious in making this assertion. At least its pposite, that these assumptions are restrictive and fatal d all investigation of nature, is to every natural philoDpher beyond doubt. To test this by an example, let any ne consider whether the assumption of the soul as an nmaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been ecessarily advantageous or in the highest degree impeding ) the truths which Cabanis has so beautifully expounded, r to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall Hall, and Ch. •ell. Indeed Kant himself says (Prolegomena, § 44), The Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to le maxims of the rational knowlege of nature." It is certainly not the least merit of Frederick the -reat, that under his Government Kant could develop imself, and dared to publish the " Critique of Pure ,eason." Hardly under any other Government would a daried professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was bliged to promise the immediate successor of the great ing that he would write no mora

I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism ? the ethical part of the Kantian philosophy here because have given a detailed and thorough criticism of it venty-two years later than the present work in the Beiden Grundproblemen der Fthik." However, what is 3re retained from the first edition, and for the sake of impleteness must not be omitted, may serve as a suitable traduction to that later and much more thorough critism, to which in the main I therefore refer the reader.

On account of Kant's love of architectonic symmetry, ie theoretical reason had also to have a pendant. The Mlectus practicus of the Scholastics, which again springs om the vov$ TrpatcTiicos of Aristotle (De Anima, iii. 10, id Polit., vii. c. 14 : 6 p.ev yap Trpa/cTiicos eari X070?, 6 8e opyTiKos), provides the word ready made. Yet here mething quite different is denoted by it — not as there,

134 CRITICISM OF THE KANtlAN PHILOSOPHY.

the reason directed to technical skill. Here the practical reason appears as the source and origin of the undeniable ethical significance of human action, and of all virtue, all nobleness, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this accordingly should come from mere reason, and demand nothing but this.

To act rationally and to act virtuously; nobly, holily, would be one and the same ; and to act selfishly, wickedly, viciously, would be merely to act irrationally.

However, all times and peoples and languages have distinguished the two, and held them to be quite different things ; and so does every one even at the present day who knows nothing of the language of the new school, i.e., the whole world, with the exception of a small company of German savants. Every one but these last understands by virtuous conduct and a rational course of life two entirely different things.

To say that the sublime founder of the Christian religion, whose life is presented to us as the pattern of all virtue, was the most rational of all men would be called a very unbecoming and even a blasphemous way of speaking; and almost as much sc if it were said that His precepts contained all the best directions for a perfectly rational life.

Further, that h( who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of taking thought for his own future needs, always relieves th< greater present wants of others, without further motive nay, gives all his goods to the poor, in order then, desti tute of all means of subsistence, to go and preach fr others also the virtue which he practises himself; thi «very one rightly honours ; but who ventures to extol i \ / as the highest pitch of reasonableness f And finally, wh praises it as a rational deed that Arnold von Winkelriec with surpassing courage, clasped the hostile spears again.' his own body in order to gain victory and deliverance ft his countrymen ?

On the other hand, if we see a ma who from his youth upwards deliberates with exception! foresight how he may procure for himself an easy comp<