第 61 页

natural conditions do not concern the determination of the will

itself, they relate to its effects alone, and the consequences of

the effect in the world of phenomena. Whatever number of motives

nature may present to my will, whatever sensuous impulses- the moral

ought it is beyond their power to produce. They may produce a

volition, which, so far from being necessary, is always conditioned- a

volition to which the ought enunciated by reason, sets an aim and a

standard, gives permission or prohibition. Be the object what it

may, purely sensuous- as pleasure, or presented by pure reason- as

good, reason will not yield to grounds which have an empirical origin.

Reason will not follow the order of things presented by experience,

but, with perfect spontaneity, rearranges them according to ideas,

with which it compels empirical conditions to agree. It declares, in

the name of these ideas, certain actions to be necessary which

nevertheless have not taken place and which perhaps never will take

place; and yet presupposes that it possesses the faculty of

causality in relation to these actions. For, in the absence of this

supposition, it could not expect its ideas to produce certain

effects in the world of experience.

Now, let us stop here and admit it to be at least possible that

reason does stand in a really causal relation to phenomena. In this

case it must- pure reason as it is- exhibit an empirical character.

For every cause supposes a rule, according to which certain

phenomena follow as effects from the cause, and every rule requires

uniformity in these effects; and this is the proper ground of the

conception of a cause- as a faculty or power. Now this conception

(of a cause) may be termed the empirical character of reason; and this

character is a permanent one, while the effects produced appear, in

conformity with the various conditions which accompany and partly

limit them, in various forms.

Thus the volition of every man has an empirical character, which

is nothing more than the causality of his reason, in so far as its

effects in the phenomenal world manifest the presence of a rule,

according to which we are enabled to examine, in their several kinds

and degrees, the actions of this causality and the rational grounds

for these actions, and in this way to decide upon the subjective

principles of the volition. Now we learn what this empirical character

is only from phenomenal effects, and from the rule of these which is

presented by experience; and for this reason all the actions of man in

the world of phenomena are determined by his empirical character,

and the co-operative causes of nature. If, then, we could

investigate all the phenomena of human volition to their lowest

foundation in the mind, there would be no action which we could not

anticipate with certainty, and recognize to be absolutely necessary

from its preceding conditions. So far as relates to this empirical

character, therefore, there can be no freedom; and it is only in the

light of this character that we can consider the human will, when we

confine ourselves to simple observation and, as is the case in

anthropology, institute a physiological investigation of the motive

causes of human actions.

But when we consider the same actions in relation to reason- not for

the purpose of explaining their origin, that is, in relation to

speculative reason, but to practical reason, as the producing cause of

these actions- we shall discover a rule and an order very different

from those of nature and experience. For the declaration of this

mental faculty may be that what has and could not but take place in

the course of nature, ought not to have taken place. Sometimes, too,

we discover, or believe that we discover, that the ideas of reason did

actually stand in a causal relation to certain actions of man; and

that these actions have taken place because they were determined,

not by empirical causes, but by the act of the will upon grounds of

reason.

Now, granting that reason stands in a causal relation to

phenomena; can an action of reason be called free, when we know

that, sensuously, in its empirical character, it is completely

determined and absolutely necessary? But this empirical character is

itself determined by the intelligible character. The latter we

cannot cognize; we can only indicate it by means of phenomena, which

enable us to have an immediate cognition only of the empirical

character.* An action, then, in so far as it is to be ascribed to an

intelligible cause, does not result from it in accordance with

empirical laws. That is to say, not the conditions of pure reason, but

only their effects in the internal sense, precede the act. Pure

reason, as a purely intelligible faculty, is not subject to the

conditions of time. The causality of reason in its intelligible

character does not begin to be; it does not make its appearance at a

certain time, for the purpose of producing an effect. If this were not

the case, the causality of reason would be subservient to the

natural law of phenomena, which determines them according to time, and

as a series of causes and effects in time; it would consequently cease

to be freedom and become a part of nature. We are therefore

justified in saying: "If reason stands in a causal relation to

phenomena, it is a faculty which originates the sensuous condition

of an empirical series of effects." For the condition, which resides

in the reason, is non-sensuous, and therefore cannot be originated, or

begin to be. And thus we find- what we could not discover in any

empirical series- a condition of a successive series of events

itself empirically unconditioned. For, in the present case, the

condition stands out of and beyond the series of phenomena- it is

intelligible, and it consequently cannot be subjected to any

sensuous condition, or to any time-determination by a preceding cause.

*The real morality of actions- their merit or demerit, and even that

of our own conduct, is completely unknown to us. Our estimates can

relate only to their empirical character. How much is the result of

the action of free will, how much is to be ascribed to nature and to

blameless error, or to a happy constitution of temperament (merito

fortunae), no one can discover, nor, for this reason, determine with

perfect justice.

But, in another respect, the same cause belongs also to the series

of phenomena. Man is himself a phenomenon. His will has an empirical

character, which is the empirical cause of all his actions. There is

no condition- determining man and his volition in conformity with this

character- which does not itself form part of the series of effects in

nature, and is subject to their law- the law according to which an

empirically undetermined cause of an event in time cannot exist. For

this reason no given action can have an absolute and spontaneous

origination, all actions being phenomena, and belonging to the world

of experience. But it cannot be said of reason, that the state in

which it determines the will is always preceded by some other state

determining it. For reason is not a phenomenon, and therefore not

subject to sensuous conditions; and, consequently, even in relation to

its causality, the sequence or conditions of time do not influence

reason, nor can the dynamical law of nature, which determines the

sequence of time according to certain rules, be applied to it.

Reason is consequently the permanent condition of all actions of the

human will. Each of these is determined in the empirical character

of the man, even before it has taken place. The intelligible

character, of which the former is but the sensuous schema, knows no

before or after; and every action, irrespective of the time-relation

in which it stands with other phenomena, is the immediate effect of

the intelligible character of pure reason, which, consequently, enjoys

freedom of action, and is not dynamically determined either by

internal or external preceding conditions. This freedom must not be

described, in a merely negative manner, as independence of empirical

conditions, for in this case the faculty of reason would cease to be a

cause of phenomena; but it must be regarded, positively, as a

faculty which can spontaneously originate a series of events. At the

same time, it must not be supposed that any beginning can take place

in reason; on the contrary, reason, as the unconditioned condition

of all action of the will, admits of no time-conditions, although

its effect does really begin in a series of phenomena- a beginning

which is not, however, absolutely primal.

I shall illustrate this regulative principle of reason by an

example, from its employment in the world of experience; proved it

cannot be by any amount of experience, or by any number of facts,

for such arguments cannot establish the truth of transcendental

propositions. Let us take a voluntary action- for example, a

falsehood- by means of which a man has introduced a certain degree

of confusion into the social life of humanity, which is judged

according to the motives from which it originated, and the blame of

which and of the evil consequences arising from it, is imputed to

the offender. We at first proceed to examine the empirical character

of the offence, and for this purpose we endeavour to penetrate to

the sources of that character, such as a defective education, bad

company, a shameless and wicked disposition, frivolity, and want of

reflection- not forgetting also the occasioning causes which prevailed

at the moment of the transgression. In this the procedure is exactly

the same as that pursued in the investigation of the series of

causes which determine a given physical effect. Now, although we

believe the action to have been determined by all these circumstances,

we do not the less blame the offender. We do not blame him for his

unhappy disposition, nor for the circumstances which influenced him,

nay, not even for his former course of life; for we presuppose that

all these considerations may be set aside, that the series of

preceding conditions may be regarded as having never existed, and that

the action may be considered as completely unconditioned in relation

to any state preceding, just as if the agent commenced with it an

entirely new series of effects. Our blame of the offender is

grounded upon a law of reason, which requires us to regard this

faculty as a cause, which could have and ought to have otherwise

determined the behaviour of the culprit, independently of all

empirical conditions. This causality of reason we do not regard as a

co-operating agency, but as complete in itself. It matters not whether

the sensuous impulses favoured or opposed the action of this

causality, the offence is estimated according to its intelligible

character- the offender is decidedly worthy of blame, the moment he

utters a falsehood. It follows that we regard reason, in spite of

the empirical conditions of the act, as completely free, and

therefore, therefore, as in the present case, culpable.

The above judgement is complete evidence that we are accustomed to

think that reason is not affected by sensuous conditions, that in it

no change takes place- although its phenomena, in other words, the

mode in which it appears in its effects, are subject to change- that

in it no preceding state determines the following, and,

consequently, that it does not form a member of the series of sensuous

conditions which necessitate phenomena according to natural laws.

Reason is present and the same in all human actions and at all

times; but it does not itself exist in time, and therefore does not

enter upon any state in which it did not formerly exist. It is,

relatively to new states or conditions, determining, but not

determinable. Hence we cannot ask: "Why did not reason determine

itself in a different manner?" The question ought to be thus stated:

"Why did not reason employ its power of causality to determine certain

phenomena in a different manner?" "But this is a question which admits

of no answer. For a different intelligible character would have

exhibited a different empirical character; and, when we say that, in

spite of the course which his whole former life has taken, the

offender could have refrained from uttering the falsehood, this

means merely that the act was subject to the power and authority-

permissive or prohibitive- of reason. Now, reason is not subject in

its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and a

difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of

phenomena to each other- for these are not things and therefore not

causes in themselves- but it cannot produce any difference in the

relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason.

Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal

power which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause,

beyond which, however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it

is free, that is, independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in

this way, it may be the sensuously unconditioned condition of

phenomena. But for what reason the intelligible character generates

such and such phenomena and exhibits such and such an empirical

character under certain circumstances, it is beyond the power of our

reason to decide. The question is as much above the power and the

sphere of reason as the following would be: "Why does the

transcendental object of our external sensuous intuition allow of no

other form than that of intuition in space?" But the problem, which we

were called upon to solve, does not require us to entertain any such

questions. The problem was merely this- whether freedom and natural

necessity can exist without opposition in the same action. To this

question we have given a sufficient answer; for we have shown that, as

the former stands in a relation to a different kind of condition

from those of the latter, the law of the one does not affect the law

of the other and that, consequently, both can exist together in

independence of and without interference with each other.