Now follows the chapter on the transcendental ideal, which carries us back at once to the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One imagines one is listening to Anselm of Canterbury himself. The ens realissimum, the essence of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions, appears, and indeed claims to be a necessary thought of the reason. I for my part must confess that to my reason such a thought is impossible, and that I am not able to think anything definite in connection with the words which denote it.
Moreover, I do not doubt that Kant was compelled to write this extraordinary chapter, so unworthy of him, simply by his fondness for architectonic symmetry. The three principal objects of the Scholastic philosophy (which, as we have said, if understood in the wider sense, may be regarded as continuing down to Kant), the soul, the world, and God, are supposed to be deduced from the three possible major propositions of syllogisms, though it is plain that they have arisen, and can arise, simply and solely through the unconditioned application of the principle of sufficient reason. Now, after the soul had been forced into the categorical judgment, and the hypothetical was [pg 126] set apart for the world, there remained for the third Idea nothing but the disjunctive major. Fortunately there existed a previous work in this direction, the ens realissimum of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of the existence of God set up in a rudimentary form by Anselm of Canterbury and then perfected by Descartes. This was joyfully made use of by Kant, with some reminiscence also of an earlier Latin work of his youth. However, the sacrifice which Kant makes to his love of architectonic symmetry in this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth, what one must regard as the grotesque idea of an essence of all possible realities is made an essential and necessary thought of the reason. For the deduction of this Kant makes use of the false assertion that our knowledge of particular things arises from a progressive limitation of general conceptions; thus also of a most general conception of all which contains all reality in itself. In this he stands just as much in contradiction with his own teaching as with the truth, for exactly the converse is the case. Our knowledge starts with the particular and is extended to the general, and all general conceptions arise by abstraction from real, particular things known by perception, and this can be carried on to the most general of all conceptions, which includes everything under it, but almost nothing in it. Thus Kant has here placed the procedure of our faculty of knowledge just upside down, and thus might well be accused of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanism that has become famous in our day, which, instead of recognising that conceptions are thoughts abstracted from things, makes, on the contrary the conceptions first, and sees in things only concrete conceptions, thus bringing to market the world turned upside down as a philosophical buffoonery, which of course necessarily found great acceptance.
Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, attain to the conception of God, even without revelation, [pg 127] this clearly takes place only under the guidance of causality. This is so evident that it requires no proof. Therefore Chr. Wolf says (Cosmologia Generalis, prœf., p. 1): Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturæ, una cum impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad Deum ascenditur. And, before him, Leibnitz said, in connection with the law of causality: Sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve de l'existence de Dieu. On the other hand, the thought which is worked out in this chapter is so far from being essential and necessary to reason, that it is rather to be regarded as a veritable masterpiece of the monstrous productions of an age which, through strange circumstances, fell into the most singular aberrations and perversities, such as the age of the Scholastics was—an age which is unparalleled in the history of the world, and can never return again. This Scholasticism, as it advanced to its final form, certainly derived the principal proof of the existence of God from the conception of the ens realissimum, and only then used the other proofs as accessory. This, however, is mere methodology, and proves nothing as to the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant has here taken the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason—a mistake which indeed he has made more than once. If it were true that according to the essential laws of reason the Idea of God proceeds from the disjunctive syllogism under the form of an Idea of the most real being, this Idea would also have existed in the philosophy of antiquity; but of the ens realissimum there is nowhere a trace in any of the ancient philosophers, although some of them certainly teach that there is a Creator of the world, yet only as the giver of form to the matter which exists without him, δεμιουργος, a being whom they yet infer simply and solely in accordance with the law of causality. It is true that Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math., ix. § 88) quotes an argument [pg 128] of Cleanthes, which some have held to be the ontological proof. This, however, it is not, but merely an inference from analogy; because experience teaches that upon earth one being is always better than another, and man, indeed, as the best, closes the series, but yet has many faults; therefore there must exist beings who are still better, and finally one being who is best of all (κρατιστον, αριστον), and this would be God.
On the detailed refutation of speculative theology which now follows I have only briefly to remark that it, and in general the whole criticism of the three so-called Ideas of reason, thus the whole Dialectic of Pure Reason, is indeed to a certain extent the goal and end of the whole work: yet this polemical part has not really an absolutely universal, permanent, and purely philosophical interest, such as is possessed by the preceding doctrinal part, i.e., the æsthetic and analytic; but rather a temporary and local interest, because it stands in a special relation to the leading points of the philosophy which prevailed in Europe up till the time of Kant, the complete overthrow of which was yet, to his immortal credit, achieved by him through this polemic. He has eliminated theism from philosophy; for in it, as a science and not a system of faith, only that can find a place which is either empirically given or established by valid proofs. Naturally we only mean here the real seriously understood philosophy which is concerned with the truth, and nothing else; and by no means the jest of philosophy taught in the universities, in which, after Kant as before him, speculative theology plays the principal part, and where, also, after as before him, the soul appears without ceremony as a familiar person. For it is the philosophy endowed with salaries and fees, and, indeed, also with titles of Hofrath, which, looking proudly down from its height, remains for forty years entirely unaware of the existence of little people like me, and would be thoroughly [pg 129] glad to be rid of the old Kant with his Critiques, that they might drink the health of Leibnitz with all their hearts. It is further to be remarked here, that as Kant was confessedly led to his doctrine of the a priori nature of the conception of causality by Hume's scepticism with regard to that conception, it may be that in the same way Kant's criticism of all speculative theology had its occasion in Hume's criticism of all popular theology, which he had given in his “Natural History of Religion,” a book so well worth reading, and in the “Dialogues on Natural Religion.” Indeed, it may be that Kant wished to a certain extent to supplement this. For the first-named work of Hume is really a critique of popular theology, the pitiable condition of which it seeks to show; while, on the other hand, it points to rational or speculative theology as the genuine, and that which is worthy of respect. But Kant now discloses the groundlessness of the latter, and leaves, on the other hand, popular theology untouched, nay, even establishes it in a nobler form as a faith based upon moral feeling. This was afterwards distorted by the philosophasters into rational apprehensions, consciousness of God, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, of the divine, &c., &c.; while Kant, as he demolished old and revered errors, and knew the danger of doing so, rather wished through the moral theology merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might not fall on him, but that he might have time to escape.
Now, as regards the performance of the task, no critique of reason was necessary for the refutation of the ontological proof of the existence of God; for without presupposing the æsthetic and analytic, it is quite easy to make clear that that ontological proof is nothing but a subtle playing with conceptions which is quite powerless to produce conviction. There is a chapter in the “Organon” of Aristotle which suffices as fully for the refutation of the ontological proof as if it had been written intentionally with that purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second book of [pg 130] the “Analyt. Post.” Among other things, it is expressly said there: “το δε ειναι ουκ ουσια ουδενι,” i.e., existentia nunquam ad essentiam rei pertinet.
The refutation of the cosmological proof is an application to a given case of the doctrine of the Critique as expounded up to that point, and there is nothing to be said against it. The physico-theological proof is a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and it finds its full refutation only in the “Critique of Judgment.” I refer the reader in this connection to the rubric, “Comparative Anatomy,” in my work on the Will in Nature.
In the criticism of this proof Kant has only to do, as we have already said, with speculative theology, and limits himself to the School. If, on the contrary, he had had life and popular theology also in view, he would have been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he has considered—that proof which is really the effective one with the great mass of men, and which in Kant's technical language might best be called the keraunological. It is the proof which is founded upon the needy, impotent, and dependent condition of man as opposed to natural forces, which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the most part threatening evil; to which is added man's natural inclination to personify everything, and finally the hope of effecting something by prayers and flattery, and even by gifts. In every human undertaking there is something which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. “Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor” is an old and true saying of Petronius. It is principally this proof which is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears as Kant's forerunner in the writings referred to above. But those whom Kant has placed in a position of permanent embarrassment by his criticism of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by Christian governments, they dare not give up the chief article of [pg 131] faith.9 Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves? They simply declare that the existence of God is self-evident. Indeed! After the ancient world, at the expense of its conscience, had worked miracles to prove it, and the modern world, at the expense of its understanding, had brought into the field ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological proofs—to these gentlemen it is self-evident. And from this self-evident God they then explain the world: that is their philosophy.
Till Kant came there was a real dilemma between materialism and theism, i.e., between the assumption that a blind chance, or that an intelligence working from without in accordance with purposes and conceptions, had brought about the world, neque dabatur tertium. Therefore atheism and materialism were the same; hence the doubt whether there really could be an atheist, i.e., a man who really could attribute to blind chance the disposition of nature, so full of design, especially organised nature. See, for example, Bacon's Essays (sermones fideles), Essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of men, and of the English, who in such things belong entirely to the great mass (the mob), this is still the case, even with their most celebrated men of learning. One has only to look at Owen's “Ostéologie Comparée,” of 1855, preface, p. 11, 12, where he stands always before the old dilemma between Democritus and Epicurus on the one side, and an intelligence on the other, in which la connaissance [pg 132]d'un être tel que l'homme a existé avant que l'homme fit son apparition. All design must have proceeded from an intelligence; he has never even dreamt of doubting this. Yet in the lecture based upon this now modified preface, delivered in the Académie des Sciences on the 5th September 1853, he says, with childish naivete: “La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique” (Comptes Rendus, Sept. 1853), that is for him precisely the same thing! Is anything in nature designed? then it is a work of intention, of reflection, of intelligence. Yet, certainly, what has such an Englishman and the Académie des Sciences to do with the “Critique of Judgment,” or, indeed, with my book upon the Will in Nature? These gentlemen do not see so far below them. These illustres confrères disdain metaphysics and the philosophie allemande: they confine themselves to the old woman's philosophy. The validity of that disjunctive major, that dilemma between materialism and theism, rests, however, upon the assumption that the present given world is the world of things in themselves; that consequently there is no other order of things than the empirical. But after the world and its order had through Kant become mere phenomenon, the laws of which rest principally upon the forms of our intellect, the existence and nature of things and of the world no longer required to be explained according to the analogy of the changes perceived or effected by us in the world; nor must that which we comprehend as means and end have necessarily arisen as the consequence of a similar knowledge. Thus, inasmuch as Kant, through his important distinction between phenomenon and thing in itself, withdrew the foundation from theism, he opened, on the other hand, the way to entirely different and more profound explanations of existence.
In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural dialectic of reason it is asserted that the three transcendent Ideas are of value as regulative principles for the advancement of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can barely [pg 133] have been serious in making this assertion. At least its opposite, that these assumptions are restrictive and fatal to all investigation of nature, is to every natural philosopher beyond doubt. To test this by an example, let any one consider whether the assumption of the soul as an immaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been necessarily advantageous or in the highest degree impeding to the truths which Cabanis has so beautifully expounded, or to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall Hall, and Ch. Bell. Indeed Kant himself says (Prolegomena, § 44), “The Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to the maxims of the rational knowledge of nature.”
It is certainly not the least merit of Frederick the Great, that under his Government Kant could develop himself, and dared to publish the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Hardly under any other Government would a salaried professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was obliged to promise the immediate successor of the great king that he would write no more.
I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism of the ethical part of the Kantian philosophy here because I have given a detailed and thorough criticism of it twenty-two years later than the present work in the “Beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik.” However, what is here retained from the first edition, and for the sake of completeness must not be omitted, may serve as a suitable introduction to that later and much more thorough criticism, to which in the main I therefore refer the reader.
On account of Kant's love of architectonic symmetry, the theoretical reason had also to have a pendant. The intellectus practicus of the Scholastics, which again springs from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (De Anima, iii. 10, and Polit., vii. c. 14: ὁ μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος, ὁ δε θεωρητικος), provides the word ready made. Yet here something quite different is denoted by it—not as there, [pg 134] 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 so if it were said that His precepts contained all the best directions for a perfectly rational life. Further, that he who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of taking thought for his own future needs, always relieves the greater present wants of others, without further motive, nay, gives all his goods to the poor, in order then, destitute of all means of subsistence, to go and preach to others also the virtue which he practises himself; this every one rightly honours; but who ventures to extol it as the highest pitch of reasonableness? And finally, who praises it as a rational deed that Arnold von Winkelried, with surpassing courage, clasped the hostile spears against his own body in order to gain victory and deliverance for his countrymen? On the other hand, if we see a man who from his youth upwards deliberates with exceptional foresight how he may procure for himself an easy competence, the means for the support of wife and children, a [pg 135] good name among men, outward honour and distinction, and in doing so never allows himself to be led astray or induced to lose sight of his end by the charm of present pleasures or the satisfaction of defying the arrogance of the powerful, or the desire of revenging insults and undeserved humiliations he has suffered, or the attractions of useless aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind, or travels in interesting lands, but with great consistency works towards his one end,—who ventures to deny that such a philistine is in quite an extraordinary degree rational, even if he has made use of some means which are not praiseworthy but are yet without danger? Nay, more, if a bad man, with deliberate shrewdness, through a well-thought-out plan attains to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the acutest cunning gets the better of neighbouring states, overcomes them one by one, and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in doing so is not led astray by any respect for right, any sense of humanity, but with sharp consistency tramples down and dashes to pieces everything that opposes his plan, without compassion plunges millions into misery of every kind, condemns millions to bleed and die, yet royally rewards and always protects his adherents and helpers, never forgetting anything, and thus reaches his end,—who does not see that such a man must go to work in a most rational manner?—that, as a powerful understanding was needed to form the plans, their execution demanded the complete command of the reason, and indeed properly of practical reason? Or are the precepts which the prudent and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiavelli prescribes to the prince irrational?10
[pg 136]As wickedness is quite consistent with reason, and indeed only becomes really terrible in this conjunction, so, conversely, nobleness is sometimes joined with want of reason. To this may be attributed the action of Coriolanus, who, after he had applied all his strength for years to the accomplishment of his revenge upon the Romans, when at length the time came, allowed himself to be softened by the prayers of the Senate and the tears of his mother and wife, gave up the revenge he had so long and so painfully prepared, and indeed, by thus bringing on himself the just anger of the Volscians, died for those very Romans whose thanklessness he knew and desired so intensely to punish. Finally, for the sake of completeness, it may be mentioned that reason may very well exist along with want of understanding. This is the case when a foolish maxim is chosen, but is followed out consistently. An example of this is afforded by the case of the Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II., who vowed that she would not put on a clean chemise so long as Ostend remained unconquered, and kept her word through three years. In general all vows are of this class, whose origin is a want of insight as regards the law of causality, i.e., want of understanding; nevertheless it is rational to fulfil them if one is of such narrow understanding as to make them.
In agreement with what we have said, we see the writers who appeared just before Kant place the conscience, as the seat of the moral impulses, in opposition to the reason. Thus Rousseau, in the fourth book of “Emile,” says: “La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais;” and further on: “Il est impossible d'expliquer par les conséquences de notre nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison même.” Still further: “Mes sentimens naturels parlaient pour l'intérêt commun, ma raison rapportait tout a moi.... On a beau vouloir etablir la vertu [pg 137]par la raison seul, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner?” In the “Rêveries du Promeneur,” prom. 4 ême, he says: “Dans toutes les questions de morale difficiles je me suis tojours bien trouvé de les résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de la raison.” Indeed Aristotle already says expressly (Eth. Magna, i. 5) that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (in parte irrationali animi), and not in the λογον εχοντι (in parte rationali). In accordance with this, Stobæus says (Ecl., ii, c.7), speaking of the Peripatetics: “Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν ὑπεθεντο την ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ᾽ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαν, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν, και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους; περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην, και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας αρετας.” (Ethicam virtutem circa partem animæ ratione carentem versari putant, cam duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione præditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione prædita collocant ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam, justitiam, fortitadinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant.) And Cicero (De Nat. Deor., iii., c. 26-31) explains at length that reason is the necessary means, the tool, of all crime.
I have explained reason to be the faculty of framing concepts. It is this quite special class of general non-perceptible ideas, which are symbolised and fixed only by words, that distinguishes man from the brutes and gives him the pre-eminence upon earth. While the brute is the slave of the present, and knows only immediate sensible motives, and therefore when they present themselves to it is necessarily attracted or repelled by them, as iron is by the magnet, in man, on the contrary, deliberation has been introduced through the gift of reason.
[pg 138]This enables him easily to survey as a whole his life and the course of the world, looking before and after; it makes him independent of the present, enables him to go to work deliberately, systematically, and with foresight, to do evil as well as to do good. But what he does he does with complete self-consciousness; he knows exactly how his will decides, what in each case he chooses, and what other choice was in the nature of the case possible; and from this self-conscious willing he comes to know himself and mirrors himself in his actions. In all these relations to the conduct of men reason is to be called practical; it is only theoretical so far as the objects with which it is concerned have no relation to the action of the thinker, but have purely a theoretical interest, which very few men are capable of feeling. What in this sense is called practical reason is very nearly what is signified by the Latin word prudentia, which, according to Cicero (De Nat. Deor. ii., 22), is a contraction of providentia; while, on the other hand, ratio, if used of a faculty of the mind, signifies for the most part theoretical reason proper, though the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly. In nearly all men reason has an almost exclusively practical tendency; but if this also is abandoned thought loses the control of action, so that it is then said, “Scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor,” or “Le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises.” Thus the man does not allow his conduct to be guided by his thought, but by the impression of the moment, after the manner of the brute; and so he is called irrational (without thereby imputing to him moral turpitude), although he is not really wanting in reason, but in the power of applying it to his action; and one might to a certain extent say his reason is theoretical and not practical. He may at the same time be a really good man, like many a one who can never see any one in misfortune without helping him, even making sacrifices to do so, and yet leaves his debts unpaid. Such an irrational character is quite incapable of committing great [pg 139] crimes, because the systematic planning, the discrimination and self-control, which this always requires are quite impossible to him. Yet, on the other hand, he will hardly attain to a very high degree of virtue, for, however much inclined to good he may be by nature, those single vicious and wicked emotions to which every one is subject cannot be wanting; and where reason does not manifest itself practically, and oppose to them unalterable maxims and firm principles, they must become deeds.
Finally, reason manifests itself very specially as practical in those exceedingly rational characters who on this account are called in ordinary life practical philosophers, and who are distinguished by an unusual equanimity in disagreeable as in pleasing circumstances, an equable disposition, and a determined perseverance in resolves once made. In fact, it is the predominance of reason in them, i.e., the more abstract than intuitive knowledge, and therefore the survey of life by means of conceptions, in general and as a whole, which has enabled them once for all to recognise the deception of the momentary impression, the fleeting nature of all things, the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasures, the fickleness of fortune, and the great and little tricks of chance. Therefore nothing comes to them unexpectedly, and what they know in the abstract does not surprise nor disturb them when it meets them in the actual and in the particular case, though it does so in the case of those less reasonable characters upon whom the present, the perceptible, the actual, exerts such an influence that the cold, colourless conceptions are thrown quite into the background of consciousness, and forgetting principles and maxims, they are abandoned to emotions and passions of every kind. I have already explained at the end of the first book that in my opinion the ethics of Stoicism were simply a guide to a truly reasonable life, in this sense. Such a life is also repeatedly praised by Horace in very many passages. This is the significance of his nil admirari, and also of the [pg 140] Delphic Μηδεν αγαν. To translate nil admirari “to admire nothing” is quite wrong. This Horatian maxim does not concern the theoretical so much as the practical, and its real meaning is: “Prize no object unconditionally. Do not fall in love with anything; do not believe that the possession of anything can give you happiness. Every intense longing for an object is only a delusive chimera, which one may just as well, and much more easily, get quit of by fuller knowledge as by attained possession.” Cicero also uses admirari in this sense (De Divinatione, ii. 2). What Horace means is thus the αθαμβια and ακαταπληξις, also αθαυμασια, which Democritus before him prized as the highest good (see Clem. Alex. Strom., ii. 21, and cf. Strabo, i. p. 98 and 105). Such reasonableness of conduct has properly nothing to do with virtue and vice; but this practical use of reason is what gives man his pre-eminence over the brute, and only in this sense has it any meaning and is it permissible to speak of a dignity of man.
In all the cases given, and indeed in all conceivable cases, the distinction between rational and irrational action runs back to the question whether the motives are abstract conceptions or ideas of perception. Therefore the explanation which I have given of reason agrees exactly with the use of language at all times and among all peoples—a circumstance which will not be regarded as merely accidental or arbitrary, but will be seen to arise from the distinction of which every man is conscious, of the different faculties of the mind, in accordance with which consciousness he speaks, though certainly he does not raise it to the distinctness of an abstract definition. Our ancestors did not make the words without attaching to them a definite meaning, in order, perhaps, that they might lie ready for philosophers who might possibly come centuries after and determine what ought to be thought in connection with them; but they denoted by them quite definite conceptions. Thus the words are no [pg 141] longer unclaimed, and to attribute to them an entirely different sense from that which they have hitherto had means to misuse them, means to introduce a licence in accordance with which every one might use any word in any sense he chose, and thus endless confusion would necessarily arise. Locke has already shown at length that most disagreements in philosophy arise from a false use of words. For the sake of illustration just glance for a moment at the shameful misuse which philosophers destitute of thoughts make at the present day of the words substance, consciousness, truth, and many others. Moreover, the utterances and explanations concerning reason of all philosophers of all ages, with the exception of the most modern, agree no less with my explanation of it than the conceptions which prevail among all nations of that prerogative of man. Observe what Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic, and in innumerable scattered passages, calls the λογιμον, or λογιστικον της ψυχης, what Cicero says (De Nat. Deor., iii. 26-31), what Leibnitz and Locke say upon this in the passages already quoted in the first book. There would be no end to the quotations here if one sought to show how all philosophers before Kant have spoken of reason in general in my sense, although they did not know how to explain its nature with complete definiteness and distinctness by reducing it to one point. What was understood by reason shortly before Kant's appearance is shown in general by two essays of Sulzer in the first volume of his miscellaneous philosophical writings, the one entitled “Analysis of the Conception of Reason,” the other, “On the Reciprocal Influence of Reason and Language.” If, on the other hand, we read how reason is spoken about in the most recent times, through the influence of the Kantian error, which after him increased like an avalanche, we are obliged to assume that the whole of the wise men of antiquity, and also all philosophers before Kant, had absolutely no reason at all; for the immediate perceptions, intuitions, apprehensions, presentiments of the [pg 142] reason now discovered were as utterly unknown to them as the sixth sense of the bat is to us. And as far as I am concerned, I must confess that I also, in my weakness, cannot comprehend or imagine that reason which directly perceives or apprehends, or has an intellectual intuition of the super-sensible, the absolute, together with long yarns that accompany it, in any other way than as the sixth sense of the bat. This, however, must be said in favour of the invention or discovery of such a reason, which at once directly perceives whatever you choose, that it is an incomparable expedient for withdrawing oneself from the affair in the easiest manner in the world, along with one's favourite ideas, in spite of all Kants, with their Critiques of Reason. The invention and the reception it has met with do honour to the age.
Thus, although what is essential in reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις, ratio, raison, Vernunft) was, on the whole and in general, rightly understood by all philosophers of all ages, though not sharply enough defined nor reduced to one point, yet it was not so clear to them what the understanding (νους, διανοια, intellectus, esprit, Verstand) is. Therefore they often confuse it with reason, and just on this account they did not attain to a thoroughly complete, pure, and simple explanation of the nature of the latter. With the Christian philosophers the conception of reason received an entirely extraneous, subsidiary meaning through the opposition of it to revelation. Starting, then, from this, many are justly of opinion that the knowledge of the duty of virtue is possible from mere reason, i.e., without revelation. Indeed this aspect of the matter certainly had influence upon Kant's exposition and language. But this opposition is properly of positive, historical significance, and is therefore for philosophy a foreign element, from which it must keep itself free.
We might have expected that in his critiques of theoretical and practical reason Kant would have started with an exposition of the nature of reason in general, and, after [pg 143] he had thus defined the genus, would have gone on to the explanation of the two species, showing how one and the same reason manifests itself in two such different ways, and yet, by retaining its principal characteristic, proves itself to be the same. But we find nothing of all this. I have already shown how inadequate, vacillating, and inconsistent are the explanations of the faculty he is criticising, which he gives here and there by the way in the “Critique of Pure Reason.” The practical reason appears in the “Critique of Pure Reason” without any introduction, and afterwards stands in the “Critique” specially devoted to itself as something already established. No further account of it is given, and the use of language of all times and peoples, which is treated with contempt, and the definitions of the conception given by the greatest of earlier philosophers, dare not lift up their voices. In general, we may conclude from particular passages that Kant's opinion amounts to this: the knowledge of principles a priori is the essential characteristic of reason: since now the knowledge of the ethical significance of action is not of empirical origin, it also is an a priori principle, and accordingly proceeds from the reason, and therefore thus far the reason is practical. I have already spoken enough of the incorrectness of this explanation of reason. But, independently of this, how superficial it is, and what a want of thoroughness it shows, to make use here of the single quality of being independent of experience in order to combine the most heterogeneous things, while overlooking their most essential and immeasurable difference in other respects. For, even assuming, though we do not admit it, that the knowledge of the ethical significance of action springs from an imperative lying in us, an unconditioned ought, yet how fundamentally different would such an imperative be from those universal forms of knowledge of which, in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant proves that we are conscious a priori, and by virtue of which consciousness we can assert beforehand an unconditioned [pg 144] must, valid for all experience possible for us. But the difference between this must, this necessary form of all objects which is already determined in the subject, and that ought of morality is so infinitely great and palpable that the mere fact that they agree in the one particular that neither of them is empirically known may indeed be made use of for the purpose of a witty comparison, but not as a philosophical justification for regarding their origin as the same.
Moreover, the birthplace of this child of practical reason, the absolute ought or the categorical imperative, is not in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” but in that of “Pure Reason,” p. 802; V. 830. The birth is violent, and is only accomplished by means of the forceps of a therefore, which stands boldly and audaciously, indeed one might say shamelessly, between two propositions which are utterly foreign to each other and have no connection, in order to combine them as reason and consequent. Thus, that not merely perceptible but also abstract motives determine us, is the proposition from which Kant starts, expressing it in the following manner: “Not merely what excites, i.e., what affects the senses directly, determines human will, but we have a power of overcoming the impressions made upon our sensuous appetitive faculty through ideas of that which is itself in a more remote manner useful or hurtful. These deliberations as to what is worthy of desire, with reference to our whole condition, i.e., as to what is good and useful, rest upon reason.” (Perfectly right; would that he only always spoke so rationally of reason!) “Reason therefore gives! also laws, which are imperatives, i.e., objective laws of freedom, and say what ought to take place, though perhaps it never does take place”! Thus, without further authentication, the categorical imperative comes into the world, in order to rule there with its unconditioned ought—a sceptre of wooden iron. For in the conception “ought” there lies always and essentially the reference to threatened punishment, or [pg 145] promised reward, as a necessary condition, and cannot be separated from it without abolishing the conception itself and taking all meaning from it. Therefore an unconditioned ought is a contradictio in adjecto. It was necessary to censure this mistake, closely as it is otherwise connected with Kant's great service to ethics, which consists in this, that he has freed ethics from all principles of the world of experience, that is, from all direct or indirect doctrines of happiness, and has shown in a quite special manner that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world. This service is all the greater because all ancient philosophers, with the single exception of Plato, thus the Peripatetics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, sought by very different devices either to make virtue and happiness dependent on each other in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, or to identify them in accordance with the principle of contradiction. This charge applies with equal force to all modern philosophers down to Kant. His merit in this respect is therefore very great; yet justice demands that we should also remember here first that his exposition and elaboration often does not correspond with the tendency and spirit of his ethics, and secondly that, even so, he is not really the first who separated virtue from all principles of happiness. For Plato, especially in the “Republic,” the principal tendency of which is just this, expressly teaches that virtue is to be chosen for itself alone, even if unhappiness and ignominy are inevitably connected with it. Still more, however, Christianity preaches a perfectly unselfish virtue, which is practised not on account of the reward in a life after death, but quite disinterestedly from love to God, for works do not justify, but only faith, which accompanies virtue, so to speak, as its symptom, and therefore appears quite irrespective of reward and of its own accord. See Luther's “De Libertate Christiana.” I will not take into account at all the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reward for our works is everywhere described as the way [pg 146] of darkness, which can never lead to blessedness. Kant's doctrine of virtue, however, we do not find so pure; or rather the exposition remains far behind the spirit of it, and indeed falls into inconsistency. In his highest good, which he afterwards discussed, we find virtue united to happiness. The ought originally so unconditioned does yet afterwards postulate one condition, in order to escape from the inner contradiction with which it is affected and with which it cannot live. Happiness in the highest good is not indeed really meant to be the motive for virtue; yet there it is, like a secret article, the existence of which reduces all the rest to a mere sham contract. It is not really the reward of virtue, but yet it is a voluntary gift for which virtue, after work accomplished, stealthily opens the hand. One may convince oneself of this from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (p. 223-266 of the fourth, or p. 264-295 of Rosenkranz's, edition). The whole of Kant's moral theology has also the same tendency, and just on this account morality really destroys itself through moral theology. For I repeat that all virtue which in any way is practised for the sake of a reward is based upon a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism.
The content of the absolute ought, the fundamental principle of the practical reason, is the famous: “So act that the maxim of your will might always be also valid as the principle of a universal legislation.” This principle presents to him who desires a rule for his own will the task of seeking such a rule for the wills of all. Then the question arises how such a rule is to be found. Clearly, in order to discover the rule of my conduct, I ought not to have regard to myself alone, but to the sum of all individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the well-being of all without distinction becomes my aim. Yet the aim still always remains well-being. I find, then, that all can be equally well off only if each limits his own egoism by that of others. From this it certainly follows that I must injure no one, because, since this principle is [pg 147] assumed to be universal, I also will not be injured. This, however, is the sole ground on account of which I, who do not yet possess a moral principle, but am only seeking one, can wish this to be a universal law. But clearly in this way the desire of well-being, i.e., egoism, remains the source of this ethical principle. As the basis of politics it would be excellent, as the basis of ethics it is worthless. For he who seeks to establish a rule for the wills of all, as is demanded by that moral principle, necessarily stands in need of a rule himself; otherwise everything would be alike to him. But this rule can only be his own egoism, since it is only this that is affected by the conduct of others; and therefore it is only by means of this egoism, and with reference to it, that each one can have a will concerning the conduct of others, and that it is not a matter of indifference to him. Kant himself very naively intimates this (p. 123 of the “Critique of Practical Reason;” Rosenkranz's edition, p. 192), where he thus prosecutes the search for maxims for the will: “If every one regarded the need of others with complete indifference, and thou also didst belong to such an order of things, wouldst thou consent thereto?” Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam! would be the rule of the consent inquired after. So also in the “Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals” (p. 56 of the third, and p. 50 of Rosenkranz's, edition): “A will which resolved to assist no one in distress would contradict itself, for cases might arise in which it required the love and sympathy of others,” &c. &c. This principle of ethics, which when light is thrown upon it is therefore nothing else than an indirect and disguised expression of the old, simple principle, “Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris,” is related first and directly to passivity, suffering, and then only by means of this to action. Therefore, as we have said, it would be thoroughly serviceable as a guide for the constitution of the State, which aims at the prevention of the suffering of wrong, and also desires to procure for all and each the [pg 148] greatest sum of well-being. But in ethics, where the object of investigation is action as action, and in its direct significance for the actor—not its consequences, suffering, or its relation to others—in this reference, I say, it is altogether inadmissible, because at bottom it really amounts to a principle of happiness, thus to egoism.
We cannot, therefore, share Kant's satisfaction that his principle of ethics is not a material one, i.e., one which sets up an object as a motive, but merely formal, whereby it corresponds symmetrically to the formal laws with which the “Critique of Pure Reason” has made us familiar. Certainly it is, instead of a law, merely a formula for finding such a law. But, in the first place, we had this formula already more briefly and clearly in the “Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris;” and, secondly, the analysis of this formula shows that it is simply and solely the reference to one's own happiness that gives it content, and therefore it can only be serviceable to a rational egoism, to which also every legal constitution owes its origin.
Another mistake which, because it offends the feelings of every one, has often been condemned, and was satirised by Schiller in an epigram, is the pedantic rule that for an act to be really good and meritorious it must be done simply and solely out of respect for the known law and the conception of duty, and in accordance with a maxim known to the reason in abstracto, and not from any inclination, not from benevolence felt towards others, not from tender-hearted compassion, sympathy, or emotion of the heart, which (according to the “Critique of Practical Reason,” p. 213; Rosenkranz's edition, p. 257) to right-thinking persons are indeed very burdensome, as confusing their deliberate maxims. The act must be performed unwillingly and with self-compulsion. Remember that nevertheless the hope of reward is not allowed to enter, and estimate the great absurdity of the demand. But, what is saying more, this is directly opposed to the true spirit of virtue; not the [pg 149] act, but the willingness to do it, the love from which it proceeds, and without which it is a dead work, constitutes its merit. Therefore Christianity rightly teaches that all outward works are worthless if they do not proceed from that genuine disposition which consists in true goodwill and pure love, and that what makes blessed and saves is not the works done (opera operata), but the faith, the genuine disposition, which is the gift of the Holy Ghost alone, and which the free, deliberative will, having only the law in view, does not produce. This demand of Kant's, that all virtuous conduct shall proceed from pure, deliberate respect for the law and in accordance with its abstract maxims, coldly and without inclination, nay, opposed to all inclination, is just the same thing as if he asserted that every work of art must be accomplished by a well-considered application of æsthetical rules. The one is just as perverse as the other. The question, already handled by Plato and Seneca, whether virtue can be taught, is to be answered in the negative. We must finally make up our minds to see, what indeed was the source of the Christian doctrine of election by grace, that as regards its chief characteristic and its inner nature, virtue, like genius, is to a certain extent inborn; and that just as little as all the professors of æsthetics could impart to any one the power of producing works of genius, i.e., genuine works of art, so little could all the professors of ethics and preachers of virtue transform an ignoble into a virtuous and noble character, the impossibility of which is very much more apparent than that of turning lead into gold. The search for a system of ethics and a first principle of the same, which would have practical influence and would actually transform and better the human race, is just like the search for the philosopher's stone. Yet I have spoken at length at the end of the fourth book of the possibility of an entire change of mind or conversion of man (new birth), not by means of abstract (ethics) but of intuitive knowledge (the work of grace). The contents [pg 150] of that book relieve me generally of the necessity of dwelling longer upon this point.
That Kant by no means penetrated to the real significance of the ethical content of actions is shown finally by his doctrine of the highest good as the necessary combination of virtue and happiness, a combination indeed in which virtue would be that which merits happiness. He is here involved in the logical fallacy that the conception of merit, which is here the measure or test, already presupposes a theory of ethics as its own measure, and thus could not be deducible from it. It appeared in our fourth book that all genuine virtue, after it has attained to its highest grade, at last leads to a complete renunciation in which all willing finds an end. Happiness, on the other hand, is a satisfied wish; thus the two are essentially incapable of being combined. He who has been enlightened by my exposition requires no further explanation of the complete perverseness of this Kantian view of the highest good. And, independent of my positive exposition, I have no further negative exposition to give.
Kant's love of architectonic symmetry meets us also in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” for he has given it the shape of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and has again introduced the same titles and forms with manifest intention, which becomes specially apparent in the table of the categories of freedom.