第 75 页

Supreme Being as a constitutive (in repugnance to the very nature of

an idea), and not as a regulative principle, is the error of

inactive reason (ignava ratio).* We may so term every principle

which requires us to regard our investigations of nature as absolutely

complete, and allows reason to cease its inquiries, as if it had fully

executed its task. Thus the psychological idea of the ego, when

employed as a constitutive principle for the explanation of the

phenomena of the soul, and for the extension of our knowledge

regarding this subject beyond the limits of experience- even to the

condition of the soul after death- is convenient enough for the

purposes of pure reason, but detrimental and even ruinous to its

interests in the sphere of nature and experience. The dogmatizing

spiritualist explains the unchanging unity of our personality

through all changes of condition from the unity of a thinking

substance, the interest which we take in things and events that can

happen only after our death, from a consciousness of the immaterial

nature of our thinking subject, and so on. Thus he dispenses with

all empirical investigations into the cause of these internal

phenomena, and with all possible explanations of them upon purely

natural grounds; while, at the dictation of a transcendent reason,

he passes by the immanent sources of cognition in experience,

greatly to his own ease and convenience, but to the sacrifice of

all, genuine insight and intelligence. These prejudicial

consequences become still more evident, in the case of the

dogmatical treatment of our idea of a Supreme Intelligence, and the

theological system of nature (physico-theology) which is falsely based

upon it. For, in this case, the aims which we observe in nature, and

often those which we merely fancy to exist, make the investigation

of causes a very easy task, by directing us to refer such and such

phenomena immediately to the unsearchable will and counsel of the

Supreme Wisdom, while we ought to investigate their causes in the

general laws of the mechanism of matter. We are thus recommended to

consider the labour of reason as ended, when we have merely

dispensed with its employment, which is guided surely and safely

only by the order of nature and the series of changes in the world-

which are arranged according to immanent and general laws. This

error may be avoided, if we do not merely consider from the view-point

of final aims certain parts of nature, such as the division and

structure of a continent, the constitution and direction of certain

mountain-chains, or even the organization existing in the vegetable

and animal kingdoms, but look upon this systematic unity of nature

in a perfectly general way, in relation to the idea of a Supreme

Intelligence. If we pursue this advice, we lay as a foundation for all

investigation the conformity to aims of all phenomena of nature in

accordance with universal laws, for which no particular arrangement of

nature is exempt, but only cognized by us with more or less

difficulty; and we possess a regulative principle of the systematic

unity of a teleological connection, which we do not attempt to

anticipate or predetermine. All that we do, and ought to do, is to

follow out the physico-mechanical connection in nature according to

general laws, with the hope of discovering, sooner or later, the

teleological connection also. Thus, and thus only, can the principle

of final unity aid in the extension of the employment of reason in the

sphere of experience, without being in any case detrimental to its

interests.

*This was the term applied by the old dialecticians to a sophistical

argument, which ran thus: If it is your fate to die of this disease,

you will die, whether you employ a physician or not. Cicero says

that this mode of reasoning has received this appellation, because, if

followed, it puts an end to the employment of reason in the affairs of

life. For a similar reason, I have applied this designation to the

sophistical argument of pure reason.

The second error which arises from the misconception of the

principle of systematic unity is that of perverted reason (perversa

ratio, usteron roteron rationis). The idea of systematic unity is

available as a regulative principle in the connection of phenomena

according to general natural laws; and, how far soever we have to

travel upon the path of experience to discover some fact or event,

this idea requires us to believe that we have approached all the

more nearly to the completion of its use in the sphere of nature,

although that completion can never be attained. But this error

reverses the procedure of reason. We begin by hypostatizing the

principle of systematic unity, and by giving an anthropomorphic

determination to the conception of a Supreme Intelligence, and then

proceed forcibly to impose aims upon nature. Thus not only does

teleology, which ought to aid in the completion of unity in accordance

with general laws, operate to the destruction of its influence, but it

hinders reason from attaining its proper aim, that is, the proof, upon

natural grounds, of the existence of a supreme intelligent cause. For,

if we cannot presuppose supreme finality in nature a priori, that

is, as essentially belonging to nature, how can we be directed to

endeavour to discover this unity and, rising gradually through its

different degrees, to approach the supreme perfection of an author

of all- a perfection which is absolutely necessary, and therefore

cognizable a priori? The regulative principle directs us to presuppose

systematic unity absolutely and, consequently, as following from the

essential nature of things- but only as a unity of nature, not

merely cognized empirically, but presupposed a priori, although only

in an indeterminate manner. But if I insist on basing nature upon

the foundation of a supreme ordaining Being, the unity of nature is in

effect lost. For, in this case, it is quite foreign and unessential to

the nature of things, and cannot be cognized from the general laws

of nature. And thus arises a vicious circular argument, what ought

to have been proved having been presupposed.

To take the regulative principle of systematic unity in nature for a

constitutive principle, and to hypostatize and make a cause out of

that which is properly the ideal ground of the consistent and

harmonious exercise of reason, involves reason in inextricable

embarrassments. The investigation of nature pursues its own path under

the guidance of the chain of natural causes, in accordance with the

general laws of nature, and ever follows the light of the idea of an

author of the universe- not for the purpose of deducing the

finality, which it constantly pursues, from this Supreme Being, but to

attain to the cognition of his existence from the finality which it

seeks in the existence of the phenomena of nature, and, if possible,

in that of all things to cognize this being, consequently, as

absolutely necessary. Whether this latter purpose succeed or not,

the idea is and must always be a true one, and its employment, when

merely regulative, must always be accompanied by truthful and

beneficial results.

Complete unity, in conformity with aims, constitutes absolute

perfection. But if we do not find this unity in the nature of the

things which go to constitute the world of experience, that is, of

objective cognition, consequently in the universal and necessary

laws of nature, how can we infer from this unity the idea of the

supreme and absolutely necessary perfection of a primal being, which

is the origin of all causality? The greatest systematic unity, and

consequently teleological unity, constitutes the very foundation of

the possibility of the most extended employment of human reason. The

idea of unity is therefore essentially and indissolubly connected with

the nature of our reason. This idea is a legislative one; and hence it

is very natural that we should assume the existence of a legislative

reason corresponding to it, from which the systematic unity of nature-

the object of the operations of reason- must be derived.

In the course of our discussion of the antinomies, we stated that it

is always possible to answer all the questions which pure reason may

raise; and that the plea of the limited nature of our cognition, which

is unavoidable and proper in many questions regarding natural

phenomena, cannot in this case be admitted, because the questions

raised do not relate to the nature of things, but are necessarily

originated by the nature of reason itself, and relate to its own

internal constitution. We can now establish this assertion, which at

first sight appeared so rash, in relation to the two questions in

which reason takes the greatest interest, and thus complete our

discussion of the dialectic of pure reason.

If, then, the question is asked, in relation to transcendental

theology,* first, whether there is anything distinct from the world,

which contains the ground of cosmical order and connection according

to general laws? The answer is: Certainly. For the world is a sum of

phenomena; there must, therefore, be some transcendental basis of

these phenomena, that is, a basis cogitable by the pure

understanding alone. If, secondly, the question is asked whether

this being is substance, whether it is of the greatest reality,

whether it is necessary, and so forth? I answer that this question

is utterly without meaning. For all the categories which aid me in

forming a conception of an object cannot be employed except in the

world of sense, and are without meaning when not applied to objects of

actual or possible experience. Out of this sphere, they are not

properly conceptions, but the mere marks or indices of conceptions,

which we may admit, although they cannot, without the help of

experience, help us to understand any subject or thing. If, thirdly,

the question is whether we may not cogitate this being, which is

distinct from the world, in analogy with the objects of experience?

The answer is: Undoubtedly, but only as an ideal, and not as a real

object. That is, we must cogitate it only as an unknown substratum

of the systematic unity, order, and finality of the world- a unity

which reason must employ as the regulative principle of its

investigation of nature. Nay, more, we may admit into the idea certain

anthropomorphic elements, which are promotive of the interests of this

regulative principle. For it is no more than an idea, which does not

relate directly to a being distinct from the world, but to the

regulative principle of the systematic unity of the world, by means,

however, of a schema of this unity- the schema of a Supreme

Intelligence, who is the wisely-designing author of the universe. What

this basis of cosmical unity may be in itself, we know not- we

cannot discover from the idea; we merely know how we ought to employ

the idea of this unity, in relation to the systematic operation of

reason in the sphere of experience.

*After what has been said of the psychological idea of the ego and

its proper employment as a regulative principle of the operations of

reason, I need not enter into details regarding the transcendental

illusion by which the systematic unity of all the various phenomena of

the internal sense is hypostatized. The procedure is in this case very

similar to that which has been discussed in our remarks on the

theological ideal.

But, it will be asked again, can we on these grounds, admit the

existence of a wise and omnipotent author of the world? Without doubt;

and not only so, but we must assume the existence of such a being. But

do we thus extend the limits of our knowledge beyond the field of

possible experience? By no means. For we have merely presupposed a

something, of which we have no conception, which we do not know as

it is in itself; but, in relation to the systematic disposition of the

universe, which we must presuppose in all our observation of nature,

we have cogitated this unknown being in analogy with an intelligent

existence (an empirical conception), that is to say, we have endowed

it with those attributes, which, judging from the nature of our own

reason, may contain the ground of such a systematic unity. This idea

is therefore valid only relatively to the employment in experience

of our reason. But if we attribute to it absolute and objective

validity, we overlook the fact that it is merely an ideal being that

we cogitate; and, by setting out from a basis which is not

determinable by considerations drawn from experience, we place

ourselves in a position which incapacitates us from applying this

principle to the empirical employment of reason.

But, it will be asked further, can I make any use of this conception

and hypothesis in my investigations into the world and nature? Yes,

for this very purpose was the idea established by reason as a

fundamental basis. But may I regard certain arrangements, which seemed

to have been made in conformity with some fixed aim, as the

arrangements of design, and look upon them as proceeding from the

divine will, with the intervention, however, of certain other

particular arrangements disposed to that end? Yes, you may do so;

but at the same time you must regard it as indifferent, whether it

is asserted that divine wisdom has disposed all things in conformity

with his highest aims, or that the idea of supreme wisdom is a

regulative principle in the investigation of nature, and at the same

time a principle of the systematic unity of nature according to

general laws, even in those cases where we are unable to discover that

unity. In other words, it must be perfectly indifferent to you whether

you say, when you have discovered this unity: God has wisely willed it

so; or: Nature has wisely arranged this. For it was nothing but the

systematic unity, which reason requires as a basis for the

investigation of nature, that justified you in accepting the idea of a

supreme intelligence as a schema for a regulative principle; and,

the farther you advance in the discovery of design and finality, the