Chapter XVII: Part II: Critique of the Teleological Judgement (6)

The physico-teleological ground of proof does not reach to Theology, because it does not and cannot give any determinate concept, sufficient for this design, of the original Being; but we must derive this from quite another quarter, or must supply its lacuna by an arbitrary addition. You infer, from the great purposiveness of natural forms and their relations, a world-cause endowed with Understanding; but what is the degree of this Understanding? Without doubt you cannot assume that it is the highest possible Understanding; because for that it would be requisite that you should see that a greater Understanding than that of which you perceive proofs in the world, is not thinkable; and this would be to ascribe Omniscience to yourself.[158] In the same way, if you infer from the magnitude of the world the very great might of its Author, you must be content with this having only a comparative significance for your faculty of comprehension; for since you do not know all that is possible, so as to compare it with the magnitude of the world as far as you know it, you cannot infer the Almightiness of its Author from so small a standard, and so on. Now you arrive in this way at no definite concept of an original Being available for a Theology; for this can only be found in the concept of the totality of perfections compatible with intelligence, and you cannot help yourself to this by merely _empirical_ data. But without such a definite concept you cannot infer a _unique_ intelligent original Being; you can only assume it (with whatever motive).--Now it may certainly be conceded that you should arbitrarily add (for Reason has nothing fundamental to say to the contrary): Where so much perfection is found, we may well assume that all perfection is united in a unique Cause of the world, because Reason succeeds better both theoretically and practically with a principle thus definite. But then you cannot regard this concept of the original Being as proved by you, for you have only assumed it on behalf of a better employment of Reason. Hence all lamentation or impotent anger on account of the alleged mischief of rendering doubtful the coherency of your chain of reasoning, is vain pretentiousness, which would fain have us believe that the doubt here freely expressed as to your argument is a doubting of sacred truth, in order that under this cover the shallowness of your argument may pass unnoticed.

Moral Teleology, on the other hand, which is not less firmly based than physical,--which, indeed, rather deserves the preference because it rests _a priori_ on principles inseparable from our Reason--leads to that which is requisite for the possibility of a Theology, viz. to a determinate _concept_ of the supreme Cause, as Cause of the world according to moral laws, and, consequently, to the concept of such a cause as satisfies our moral final purpose. For this are required, as natural properties belonging to it, nothing less than Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and the like, which must be thought as bound up with the moral final purpose which is infinite and thus as adequate to it. Hence moral Teleology alone can furnish the concept of a _unique_ Author of the world, which is available for a Theology.

In this way Theology leads immediately to _Religion_, _i.e._ _the recognition of our duties as divine commands_[159]; because it is only the recognition of our duty and of the final purpose enjoined upon us by Reason which brings out with definiteness the concept of God. This concept, therefore, is inseparable in its origin from obligation to that Being. On the other hand, even if the concept of the original Being could be also found determinately by the merely theoretical path (viz. the concept of it as mere Cause of nature), it would afterwards be very difficult--perhaps impossible without arbitrary interpolation [of elements]--to ascribe to this Being by well-grounded proofs a causality in accordance with moral laws; and yet without this that quasi-theological concept could furnish no foundation for religion. Even if a religion could be established by this theoretical path, it would actually, as regards sentiment (wherein its essence lies) be different from that in which the concept of God and the (practical) conviction of His Being originate from the fundamental Ideas of morality. For if we must suppose the Omnipotence, Omniscience, etc., of an Author of the world as concepts given to us from another quarter, in order afterwards only to apply our concepts of duties to our relation to Him, then these latter concepts must bear very markedly the appearance of compulsion and forced submission. If, instead of this, the respect for the moral law, quite freely, in virtue of the precept of our own Reason, represents to us the final purpose of our destination, we admit among our moral views a Cause harmonising with this and with its accomplishment, with the sincerest reverence, which is quite distinct from pathological fear; and we willingly submit ourselves thereto.[160]

If it be asked why it is incumbent upon us to have any Theology at all, it appears clear that it is not needed for the extension or correction of our cognition of nature or in general for any theory, but simply in a subjective point of view for Religion, _i.e._ the practical or moral use of our Reason. If it is found that the only argument which leads to a definite concept of the object of Theology is itself moral, it is not only not strange, but we miss nothing in respect of its final purpose as regards the sufficiency of belief from this ground of proof, provided that it be admitted that such an argument only establishes the Being of God sufficiently for our moral destination, _i.e._ in a practical point of view, and that here speculation neither shows its strength in any way, nor extends by means of it the sphere of its domain. Our surprise and the alleged contradiction between the possibility of a Theology asserted here and that which the Critique of speculative Reason said of the Categories--viz. that they can only produce knowledge when applied to objects of sense, but in no way when applied to the supersensible--vanish, if we see that they are here used for a cognition of God not in a theoretical point of view (in accordance with what His own nature, inscrutable to us, may be) but simply in a practical.--In order then at this opportunity to make an end of the misinterpretation of that very necessary doctrine of the Critique, which, to the chagrin of the blind dogmatist, refers Reason to its bounds, I add here the following elucidation.

If I ascribe to a body _motive force_ and thus think it by means of the category of _causality_, then I at the same time _cognise_ it by that [category]; _i.e._ I determine the concept of it, as of an Object in general, by means of what belongs to it by itself (as the condition of the possibility of that relation) as an object of sense. If the motive force ascribed to it is repulsive, then there belongs to it (although I do not place near it any other body upon which it may exert force) a place in space, and moreover extension, _i.e._ space in itself, besides the filling up of this by means of the repulsive forces of its parts. In addition there is the law of this filling up (that the ground of the repulsion of the parts must decrease in the same proportion as the extension of the body increases, and as the space, which it fills with the same parts by means of this force, is augmented).--On the contrary, if I think a supersensible Being as the first _mover_, and thus by the category of causality as regards its determination of the world (motion of matter), I must not think it as existing in any place in space nor as extended; I must not even think it as existing in time or simultaneously with other beings. Hence I have no determinations whatever, which could make intelligible to me the condition of the possibility of motion by means of this Being as its ground. Consequently, I do not in the very least cognise it by means of the predicate of Cause (as first mover), for itself; but I have only the representation of a something containing the ground of the motions in the world; and the relation of the latter to it as their cause, since it does not besides furnish me with anything belonging to the constitution of the thing which is cause, leaves its concept quite empty. The reason of this is, that by predicates which only find their Object in the world of sense I can indeed proceed to the being of something which must contain their ground, but not to the determination of its concept as a supersensible being, which excludes all these predicates. By the category of causality, then, if I determine it by the concept of a _first mover_, I do not in the very least cognise what God is. Perhaps, however, I shall have better success if I start from the order of the world, not merely to _think_ its causality as that of a supreme _Understanding_, but to _cognise_ it by means of this determination of the said concept; because here the troublesome condition of space and of extension disappears.--At all events the great purposiveness in the world compels us to _think_ a supreme cause of it, and to _think_ its causality as that of an Understanding; but we are not therefore entitled to _ascribe_ this to it. (_E.g._ we think of the eternity of God as presence in all time, because we can form no other concept of mere being as a quantum, _i.e._ as duration; or we think of the divine Omnipresence as presence in all places in order to make comprehensible to ourselves His immediate presence in things which are external to one another; without daring to ascribe to God any of these determinations, as something cognised in Him.) If I determine the causality of a man, in respect of certain products which are only explicable by designed purposiveness, by thinking it as that of Understanding, I need not stop here, but I can ascribe to him this predicate as a well-known property and cognise him accordingly. For I know that intuitions are given to the senses of men and are brought by the Understanding under a concept and thus under a rule; that this concept only contains the common characteristic (with omission of the particular ones) and is thus discursive; and that the rules for bringing given representations under a consciousness in general are given by Understanding before those intuitions, etc. I therefore ascribe this property to man as a property by means of which I _cognise_ him. However, if I wish to _think_ a supersensible Being (God) as an intelligence, this is not only permissible in a certain aspect of my employment of Reason--it is unavoidable; but to ascribe to Him Understanding and to flatter ourselves that we can _cognise_ Him by means of it as a property of His, is in no way permissible. For I must omit all those conditions under which alone I know an Understanding, and thus the predicate which only serves for determining man cannot be applied at all to a supersensible Object; and therefore by a causality thus determined, I cannot cognise what God is. And so it is with all Categories, which can have no significance for cognition in a theoretical aspect, if they are not applied to objects of possible experience.--However, according to the analogy of an Understanding I can in a certain other aspect think a supersensible being, without at the same time meaning thereby to cognise it theoretically; viz. if this determination of its causality concerns an effect in the world, which contains a design morally necessary but unattainable by a sensible being. For then a cognition of God and of His Being (Theology) is possible by means of properties and determinations of His causality merely thought in Him according to analogy, which has all requisite reality in a practical reference though _only in respect of this_ (as moral).--An Ethical Theology is therefore possible; for though morality can subsist without theology as regards its rule, it cannot do so as regards the final design which this proposes, unless Reason in respect of it is to be renounced. But a Theological Ethic (of pure Reason) is impossible; for laws which Reason itself does not give and whose observance it does not bring about as a pure practical faculty, can not be moral. In the same way a Theological Physic would be a nonentity, for it would propose no laws of nature but ordinances of a Highest Will; while on the other hand a physical (properly speaking a physico-teleological) Theology can serve at least as a propaedeutic to Theology proper, by giving occasion for the Idea of a final purpose which nature cannot present by the observation of natural purposes of which it offers abundant material. It thus makes felt the need of a Theology which shall determine the concept of God adequately for the highest practical use of Reason, but it cannot develop this and base it satisfactorily on its proofs.

THE END

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.

WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY

By IMMANUEL KANT

KANT’S CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY FOR ENGLISH READERS. By J. P. MAHAFFY,
D.D., and The Right Rev. J. H. BERNARD, D.D. Two vols. Crown 8vo.

Vol. I. THE KRITIK OF THE PURE REASON EXPLAINED AND DEFENDED. 7s.
6d.

Vol. II. PROLEGOMENA. Translated, with Notes and Appendices. 6s.

CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. Translated by F. MAX MÜLLER. Second Edition,
Revised. Extra Crown 8vo. 15s. net.

CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. Translated by F. MAX MÜLLER. Vol. 1.
Containing Translator’s Preface; Historical Introduction by LUDWIG
NOIRÉ; and Additions made by KANT in the Second Edition of the
Critique. 8vo. 16s.

By Professor HENRI BERGSON

CREATIVE EVOLUTION. Translated by ARTHUR MITCHELL, Ph.D. 8vo. 10s.
net.

LAUGHTER: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Authorised
Translation from the Sixth Edition by CLOUDESLEY BRERETON, L. ès L.
(Paris), M.A. (Cantab.); and FRED ROTHWELL, B.A. (London). Extra
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

AN INTRODUCTION TO METAPHYSICS. Translated by T. E. HULME. Crown 8vo.
2s. net.

A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF BERGSON’S PHILOSOPHY. By J. McKELLAR
STEWART, B.A., D.Phil. 8vo. 5s. net.

By BENEDETTO CROCE

PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRACTICAL. Economic and Ethic. Translated by
DOUGLAS AINSLIE, B.A. 8vo. 12s. net.

ÆSTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC. Translated
by DOUGLAS AINSLIE, B.A. 8vo. 10s. net.

ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES. Edited by WILHELM
WINDELBAND and ARNOLD RUGE. English Edition under the Editorship of
Sir HENRY JONES. 8vo.

Vol. I. LOGIC. By ARNOLD RUGE, WILHELM WINDELBAND, JOSIAH ROYCE,
LOUIS COUTURAT, BENEDETTO CROCE, FEDERIGO ENRIQUES, and NICOLAJ
LOSSKIJ. 7s. 6d. net.

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY

THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY

A HISTORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT

BY VARIOUS WRITERS

EDITED BY

SIR HENRY JONES

PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY. By Professor JOHN ADAMS, M.A.,
B.Sc., LL.D. 8vo. 10s. net.

THE HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. By Professor JOHN BURNET, LL.D. Vol.
I. From Thales to Plato. [_In the Press._

THE HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY FROM HOBBES TO REID. By Professor
G. F. STOUT. [_In preparation._

_Other volumes to follow._

* * * * *

THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUALITY AND VALUE. The Gifford Lectures for
1911. By BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L. 8vo. 10s. net.

THE VALUE AND DESTINY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. The Gifford Lectures for
1912 By BERNARD BOSANQUET, LL.D., D.C.L. 8vo. 10s. net.

THE CROWNING PHASE OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. A Study in Kant’s
Critique of Judgment. By R. A. C. MACMILLAN, M.A., D.Phil. 8vo.
10s. net.

THE HISTORY AND THEORY OF VITALISM. By Prof. HANS DRIESCH, Ph.D.
Translated by C. K. OGDEN, B.A. Revised throughout and in part
rewritten by the Author for the English Edition. Crown 8vo.
[_In the Press._

THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUALITY. Lectures. By Prof. HANS DRIESCH, Ph.D.
8vo. [_In the Press._

THE FOUNDATIONS OF CHARACTER. Being a Study of the Emotions and
Sentiments. By ALEXANDER F. SHAND, M.A. 8vo. [_In the Press._

THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY. By L. SILBERSTEIN, Ph.D. 8vo.
[_In the Press._

MODERN PHILOSOPHERS. Lectures. By HARALD HÖFFDING. Translated by
ALFRED C. MASON, M.A. Crown 8vo. [_In the Press._

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Dr. Caird (_Critical Philosophy of Kant_, vol. ii. p. 406) has given an instructive account of the gradual development in Kant’s mind of the main idea of the Critique of Judgement.

[2] _Natural Theology and Modern Thought_, p. 158.

[3] I reproduce here in part a paper read before the Victoria Institute in April 1892.

[4] _Critique of Pure Reason._ Dialectic, Bk. ii. chap. i. near the end.

[5] Cf. Kuno Fischer, _A Critique of Kant_, p. 142.

[6] Quoted by Caird, _Critical Philosophy of Kant_, vol. ii. p. 507, who reiterates this criticism all through his account of Kant’s teaching.

[7] _Natural Theology and Modern Thought_, p. 241.

[8] [Reading, with Windelband, _in sicheren alleinigen Besitz_.]

[9] If we have cause for supposing that concepts which we use as empirical principles stand in relationship with the pure cognitive faculty _a priori_, it is profitable, because of this reference, to seek for them a transcendental definition; _i.e._ a definition through pure categories, so far as these by themselves adequately furnish the distinction of the concept in question from others. We here follow the example of the mathematician who leaves undetermined the empirical data of his problem, and only brings their relation in their pure synthesis under the concepts of pure Arithmetic, and thus generalises the solution. Objection has been brought against a similar procedure of mine (cf. the Preface to the Critique of Practical Reason, _Abbott’s Translation_, p. 94), and my definition of the faculty of desire has been found fault with, viz. that it is [the being’s] _faculty of becoming by means of its representations the cause of the actuality of the objects of these representations_; for the desires might be mere _cravings_, and by means of these alone every one is convinced the Object cannot be produced.--But this proves nothing more than that there are desires in man, by which he is in contradiction with himself. For here he strives for the production of the Object by means of the representation _alone_, from which he can expect no result, because he is conscious that his mechanical powers (if I may so call those which are not psychological) which must be determined by that representation to bring about the Object (mediately) are either not competent, or even tend towards what is impossible; e.g. to reverse the past (_O mihi praeteritos_ ... etc.), or to annihilate in the impatience of expectation the interval before the wished for moment.--Although in such fantastic desires we are conscious of the inadequacy (or even the unsuitability) of our representations for being _causes_ of their objects, yet their reference as causes, and consequently the representation of their _causality_, is contained in every _wish_; and this is specially evident if the wish is an affection or _longing_. For these [longings] by their dilatation and contraction of the heart and consequent exhaustion of its powers, prove that these powers are continually kept on the stretch by representations, but that they perpetually let the mind, having regard to the impossibility [of the desire], fall back in exhaustion. Even prayers for the aversion of great and (as far as one can see) unavoidable evils, and many superstitious means for attaining in a natural way impossible purposes, point to the causal reference of representations to their Objects; a reference which cannot at all be checked by the consciousness of the inadequacy of the effort to produce the effect.--As to why there should be in our nature this propensity to desires which are consciously vain, that is an anthropologico-teleological problem. It seems that if we were not determined to the application of our powers before we were assured of the adequacy of our faculties to produce an Object, these powers would remain in great part unused. For we commonly learn to know our powers only by first making trial of them. This deception in the case of vain wishes is then only the consequence of a benevolent ordinance in our nature. [This note was added by Kant in the Second Edition.]

[10] One of the various pretended contradictions in this whole distinction of the causality of nature from that of freedom is this. It is objected that if I speak of _obstacles_ which nature opposes to causality according to (moral) laws of freedom or of the _assistance_ it affords, I am admitting an _influence_ of the former upon the latter. But if we try to understand what has been said, this misinterpretation is very easy to avoid. The opposition or assistance is not between nature and freedom, but between the former as phenomenon and the _effects_ of the latter as phenomena in the world of sense. The causality of freedom itself (of pure and practical Reason) is the causality of a natural cause subordinated to freedom (_i.e._ of the subject considered as man and therefore as phenomenon). The intelligible, which is thought under freedom, contains the ground of the _determination_ of this [natural cause] in a way not explicable any further (just as that intelligible does which constitutes the supersensible substrate of nature).

[11] It has been thought a doubtful point that my divisions in pure Philosophy should always be threefold. But that lies in the nature of the thing. If there is to be an _a priori_ division it must be either _analytical_, according to the law of contradiction, which is always twofold (_quodlibet ens est aut A aut non A_); or it is _synthetical_. And if in this latter case it is to be derived from _a priori concepts_ (not as in Mathematic from the intuition corresponding to the concept), the division must necessarily be trichotomy. For according to what is requisite for synthetical unity in general there must be (1) a condition, (2) a conditioned, and (3) the concept which arises from the union of the conditioned with its condition.

[12] The definition of taste which is laid down here is that it is the faculty of judging of the beautiful. But the analysis of judgements of taste must show what is required in order to call an object beautiful. The moments, to which this Judgement has regard in its reflection, I have sought in accordance with the guidance of the logical functions of judgement (for in a judgement of taste a reference to the Understanding is always involved). I have considered the moment of quality first, because the aesthetical judgement upon the beautiful first pays attention to it.

[13] A judgement upon an object of satisfaction may be quite _disinterested_, but yet very _interesting_, _i.e._ not based upon an interest, but bringing an interest with it; of this kind are all pure moral judgements. Judgements of taste, however, do not in themselves establish any interest. Only in society is it _interesting_ to have taste: the reason of this will be shown in the sequel.

[14] [Second Edition.]

[15] An obligation to enjoyment is a manifest absurdity. Thus the obligation to all actions which have merely enjoyment for their aim can only be a pretended one; however spiritually it may be conceived (or decked out), even if it is a mystical, or so-called heavenly, enjoyment.

[16] [Second Edition.]

[17] [Second Edition.]

[18] [Ueberweg points out (_Hist. of Phil._, ii. 528, Eng. Trans.) that Mendelssohn had already called attention to the disinterestedness of our satisfaction in the Beautiful. “It appears,” says Mendelssohn, “to be a particular mark of the beautiful, that it is contemplated with quiet satisfaction, that it pleases, even though it be not in our possession, and even though we be never so far removed from the desire to put it to our use.” But, of course, as Ueberweg remarks, Kant’s conception of disinterestedness extends far beyond the absence of a desire to possess the object.]

[19] [Reading _besondere_ with Windelband; Hartenstein reads _bestimmte_.]

[20] [_I.e._ _The Critique of Pure Reason_, Analytic, bk. ii. c. i.]

[21] [Second Edition. Spencer expresses much more concisely what Kant has in his mind here. “Pleasure ... is a feeling which we seek to bring into consciousness and retain there; pain is ... a feeling which we seek to get out of consciousness and to keep out.” _Principles of Psychology_, § 125.]

[22] [The editions of Hartenstein and Kirchmann omit _ohne_ before _zweck_, which makes havoc of the sentence. It is correctly printed by Rosenkranz and Windelband.]

[23] [First Edition.]

[24] [Cf. _Metaphysic of Morals_, Introd. I. “The pleasure which is necessarily bound up with the desire (of the object whose representation affects feeling) may be called _practical_ pleasure, whether it be cause or effect of the desire. On the contrary, the pleasure which is not necessarily bound up with the desire of the object, and which, therefore, is at bottom not a pleasure in the existence of the Object of the representation, but clings to the representation only, may be called mere contemplative pleasure or _passive satisfaction_. The feeling of the latter kind of pleasure we call _taste_.”]

[25] [Second Edition.]

[26] [First Edition has _gleiche_; Second Edition has _solche_.]

[27] [First and Second Editions have _sehr zweifle_; but this was corrected to _nicht zweifle_ in the Third Edition of 1799.]

[28] [_Belebt machen_; First Edition had _beliebt_.]

[29] [Second Edition.]

[30] [Kant probably alludes here to Baumgarten (1714-1762), who was the first writer to give the name of Aesthetics to the Philosophy of Taste. He defined beauty as “perfection apprehended through the senses.” Kant is said to have used as a text-book at lectures a work by Meier, a pupil of Baumgarten’s, on this subject.]

[31] [Cf. Preface to the _Metaphysical Elements of Ethics_, v.: “The word _perfection_ is liable to many misconceptions. It is sometimes understood as a concept belonging to Transcendental Philosophy; viz. the concept of the _totality_ of the manifold, which, taken together, constitutes a Thing; sometimes, again, it is understood as belonging to _Teleology_, so that it signifies the agreement of the characteristics of a thing with a _purpose_. Perfection in the former sense might be called _quantitative_ (material), in the latter _qualitative_ (formal) perfection.”]

[32] [The words _even if ... general_ were added in the Second Edition.]

[33] [Second Edition.]

[34] Models of taste as regards the arts of speech must be composed in a dead and learned language. The first, in order that they may not suffer that change which inevitably comes over living languages, in which noble expressions become flat, common ones antiquated, and newly created ones have only a short currency. The second, because learned languages have a grammar which is subject to no wanton change of fashion, but the rules of which are preserved unchanged.

[35] [This distinction between an _Idea_ and an _Ideal_, as also the further contrast between Ideals of the Reason and Ideals of the Imagination, had already been given by Kant in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. ii. c. iii. § 1.]

[36] [Polycletus of Argos flourished about 430 B.C. His statue of the _Spearbearer_ (_Doryphorus_), afterwards became known as the _Canon_; because in it the artist was supposed to have embodied a perfect representation of the ideal of the human figure.]

[37] [This was a celebrated statue executed by Myron, a Greek sculptor, contemporary with Polycletus. It is frequently mentioned in the Greek Anthology.]

[38] It will be found that a perfectly regular countenance, such as a painter might wish to have for a model, ordinarily tells us nothing; because it contains nothing characteristic, and therefore rather expresses the Idea of the race than the specific [traits] of a person. The exaggeration of a characteristic of this kind, _i.e._ such as does violence to the normal Idea (the purposiveness of the race) is called _caricature_. Experience also shows that these quite regular countenances commonly indicate internally only a mediocre man; presumably (if it may be assumed that external nature expresses the proportions of internal) because, if no mental disposition exceeds that proportion which is requisite in order to constitute a man free from faults, nothing can be expected of what is called _genius_, in which nature seems to depart from the ordinary relations of the mental powers on behalf of some special one.

[39] It might be objected to this explanation that there are things, in which we see a purposive form without cognising any [definite] purpose in them, like the stone implements often got from old sepulchral tumuli with a hole in them as if for a handle. These, although they plainly indicate by their shape a purposiveness of which we do not know the purpose, are nevertheless not described as beautiful. But if we regard a thing as a work of art, that is enough to make us admit that its shape has reference to some design and definite purpose. And hence there is no immediate satisfaction in the contemplation of it. On the other hand a flower, _e.g._ a tulip, is regarded as beautiful; because in perceiving it we find a certain purposiveness which, in our judgement, is referred to no purpose at all.

[40] [Cp. p. 170, _infra_.]

[41] [See _The History of Sumatra_, by W. Marsden (London, 1783), p. 113.]

[42] [Cf. § 42, _infra_.]

[43] [Second Edition.]

[44] [Second Edition.]

[45] [_Lettres sur l’Égypte_, par M. Savary, Amsterdam, 1787.]

[46] [Second Edition.]

[47] [With this should be compared the similar discussion in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, Dialectic, bk. ii. c. ii. § 1, _On the System of Cosmological Ideas_.]

[48] [Second Edition.]

[49] [Cf. § 83, _infra_.]

[50] [In the _Philosophical Theory of Religion_, pt. i. _sub fin._ (Abbott’s Translation, p. 360), Kant, as here, divides “all religions into two classes--_favour-seeking_ religion (mere worship) and _moral_ religion, that is, the religion _of a good life_;” and he concludes that “amongst all the public religions that have ever existed the Christian alone is moral.”]

[51] [_Voyages dans les Alpes_, par H. B. de Saussure; vol. i. was published at Neuchatel in 1779; vol. ii. at Geneva in 1786.]

[52] [Second Edition.]

[53] [_Als Vermögen der Independenz der absoluten Totalität_, a curious phrase.]

[54] [Second Edition.]

[55] _Affections_ are specifically different from _passions_. The former are related merely to feeling; the latter belong to the faculty of desire, and are inclinations which render difficult or impossible all determination of the [elective] will by principles. The former are stormy and unpremeditated; the latter are steady and deliberate; thus indignation in the form of wrath is an affection, but in the form of hatred (revenge) is a passion. The latter can never and in no reference be called sublime; because while in an affection the freedom of the mind is _hindered_, in a passion it is abolished. [Cf. Preface to the _Metaphysical Elements of Ethics_, § xvi., where this distinction is more fully drawn out. Affection is described as _hasty_; and passion is defined as the sensible _appetite_ grown into a permanent inclination.]

[56] [In the Preface to the _Metaphysical Elements of Ethics_, § xvii., Kant gives the term _moral apathy_ to that freedom from the sway of the affections, which is distinguished from indifference to them.]

[57] [Reading _weiche_ with Rosenkranz and Windelband; Hartenstein and Kirchmann have _weise_, which yields no sense.]

[58] [Cf. p. 129, _supra_.]

[59] [Kirchmann has _positiv_; but this is probably a mere misprint.]

[60] [L.c. vol. ii. p. 181.]

[61] [See Burke, _On the Sublime and Beautiful_, Part IV., Sect. vii. “If the pain and terror are so modified as not to be actually noxious; if the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror; which, as it belongs to self-preservation, is one of the strongest of all the passions.” Kant quotes from the German version published at Riga in 1773. This was a free translation made from Burke’s fifth edition.]

[62] [See Burke, l.c., Part IV., Sect. xix. “Beauty acts by relaxing the solids of the whole system. There are all the appearances of such a relaxation; and a relaxation somewhat below the natural tone seems to me to be the cause of all positive pleasure. Who is a stranger to that manner of expression so common in all times and in all countries, of being softened, relaxed, enervated, dissolved, melted away by pleasure?”]

[63] [Reading _Gebot_; Kirchmann has _Gesetz_.]

[64] [Second Edition.]

[65] [Second Edition.]

[66] [Cf. _Critique of Pure Reason_, Methodology, c. 1, § 1. “The construction of a concept is the _a priori_ presentation of the corresponding intuition.”]

[67] [Charles Batteux (1713-1780), author of _Les Beaux Arts reduits à un même principe_.]

[68] [Essay XVIII, _The Sceptic_. “Critics can reason and dispute more plausibly than cooks or perfumers. We may observe, however, that this uniformity among human kind, hinders not, but that there is a considerable diversity in the sentiments of beauty and worth, and that education, custom, prejudice, caprice, and humour, frequently vary our taste of this kind.... Beauty and worth are merely of a relative nature, and consist in an agreeable sentiment, produced by an object in a particular mind, according to the peculiar structure and constitution of that mind.”]

[69] [For the distinction, an important one in Kant, between judgements of experience and judgements of perception, see his _Prolegomena_, § 18. Cf. _Kant’s Critical Philosophy for English Readers_, vol. i. p. 116.]

[70] [First Edition has “limited.”]

[71] In order to be justified in claiming universal assent for an aesthetical judgement that rests merely on subjective grounds, it is sufficient to assume, (1) that the subjective conditions of the Judgement, as regards the relation of the cognitive powers thus put into activity to a cognition in general, are the same in all men. This must be true, because otherwise men would not be able to communicate their representations or even their knowledge. (2) The judgement must merely have reference to this relation (consequently to the _formal condition_ of the Judgement) and be pure, _i.e._ not mingled either with concepts of the Object or with sensations, as determining grounds. If there has been any mistake as regards this latter condition, then there is only an inaccurate application of the privilege, which a law gives us, to a particular case; but that does not destroy the privilege itself in general.

[72] [Kant lays down these three maxims in his _Introduction to Logic_, § vii., as “general rules and conditions of the avoidance of error.”]

[73] We soon see that although enlightenment is easy _in thesi_, yet _in hypothesi_ it is difficult and slow of accomplishment. For not to be passive as regards Reason, but to be always self-legislative, is indeed quite easy for the man who wishes only to be in accordance with his essential purpose, and does not desire to know what is beyond his Understanding. But since we can hardly avoid seeking this, and there are never wanting others who promise with much confidence that they are able to satisfy our curiosity, it must be very hard to maintain in or restore to the mind (especially the mind of the public) that bare negative which properly constitutes enlightenment.

[74] We may designate Taste as _sensus communis aestheticus_, common Understanding as _sensus communis logicus_.

[75] [Peter Camper (1722-1789), a celebrated naturalist and comparative anatomist; for some years professor at Groningen.]

[76] In my country a common man, if you propose to him such a problem as that of Columbus with his egg, says, _that is not art, it is only science_. _I.e._ if we _know_ how, we can _do_ it; and he says the same of all the pretended arts of jugglers. On the other hand, he will not refuse to apply the term art to the performance of a rope-dancer.

[77] [Kant was accustomed to say that the talk at a dinner table should always pass through these three stages--narrative, discussion, and jest; and punctilious in this, as in all else, he is said to have directed the conversation at his own table accordingly (Wallace’s _Kant_, p. 39).]

[78] [Second Edition.]

[79] [Cf. Aristotle’s _Poetics_, c. iv. p. 1448 b: ἃ γὰρ αὐτὰ λυπηρῶς ὁρῶμεν, τούτων τὰς εἰκόνας τὰς μάλιστα ἠκριβωμένας χαίρομεν θεωροῦντες οἷον θηρίων τε μορφὰς τῶν ἀτιμοτάτων καὶ νεκρῶν. Cf. also _Rhetoric_, I. 11, p. 1371 b; and Burke on the _Sublime and Beautiful_, Part I. § 16. Boileau (_L’art poétique_, chant 3), makes a similar observation:

“Il n’est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l’art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux.
D’un pinceau délicat l’artifice agréable
Du plus affreux objet fait un objet aimable.”
]

[80] [Second Edition.]

[81] [Cf. p. 199, _infra_.]

[82] [In English we would rather say “without _soul_”; but I prefer to translate _Geist_ consistently by _spirit_, to avoid the confusion of it with _Seele_.]

[83] [These lines occur in one of Frederick the Great’s French poems: Épître au maréchal Keith XVIII., “sur les vaines terreurs de la mort et les frayeurs d’une autre vie.” Kant here translates them into German.]

[84] [Withof, whose “Moral Poems” appeared in 1755. This reference was supplied by H. Krebs in _Notes and Queries_ 5th January 1895.]

[85] Perhaps nothing more sublime was ever said and no sublimer thought ever expressed than the famous inscription on the Temple of _Isis_ (Mother _Nature_): “I am all that is and that was and that shall be, and no mortal hath lifted my veil.” _Segner_ availed himself of this Idea in a _suggestive_ vignette prefixed to his Natural Philosophy, in order to inspire beforehand the pupil whom he was about to lead into that temple with a holy awe, which should dispose his mind to serious attention. [J. A. de Segner (1704-1777) was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Göttingen, and the author of several scientific works of repute.]

[86] [Second Edition.]

[87] The three former faculties are _united_ in the first instance by means of the fourth. Hume gives us to understand in his _History of England_ that although the English are inferior in their productions to no people in the world as regards the evidences they display of the three former properties, _separately_ considered, yet they must be put after their neighbours the French as regards that which unites these properties. [In his _Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime_, § iv. _sub init._, Kant remarks that the English have the keener sense of the _sublime_, the French of the _beautiful_.]

[88] The reader is not to judge this scheme for a possible division of the beautiful arts as a deliberate theory. It is only one of various attempts which we may and ought to devise.

[89] [Second Edition.]

[90] [_I.e._ the case of Plastic art, with its subdivisions of Architecture and Sculpture, as is explained in the next paragraph.]

[91] That landscape gardening may be regarded as a species of the art of painting, although it presents its forms corporeally, seems strange. But since it actually takes its forms from nature (trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers from forest and field--at least in the first instance), and so far is not an art like Plastic; and since it also has no concept of the object and its purpose (as in Architecture) conditioning its arrangements, but involves merely the free play of the Imagination in contemplation, it so far agrees with mere aesthetical painting which has no definite theme (which arranges sky, land, and water, so as to entertain us by means of light and shade only).--In general the reader is only to judge of this as an attempt to combine the beautiful arts under one principle, viz. that of the expression of aesthetical Ideas (according to the analogy of speech), and not to regard it as a definitive analysis of them.

[92] I must admit that a beautiful poem has always given me a pure gratification; whilst the reading of the best discourse, whether of a Roman orator or of a modern parliamentary speaker or of a preacher, has always been mingled with an unpleasant feeling of disapprobation of a treacherous art, which means to move men in important matters like machines to a judgement that must lose all weight for them on quiet reflection. Readiness and accuracy in speaking (which taken together constitute Rhetoric) belong to beautiful art; but the art of the orator (_ars oratoria_), the art of availing oneself of the weaknesses of men for one’s own designs (whether these be well meant or even actually good does not matter) is worthy of no _respect_. Again, this art only reached its highest point, both at Athens and at Rome, at a time when the state was hastening to its ruin and true patriotic sentiment had disappeared. The man who along with a clear insight into things has in his power a wealth of pure speech, and who with a fruitful Imagination capable of presenting his Ideas unites a lively sympathy with what is truly good, is the _vir bonus discendi peritus_, the orator without art but of great impressiveness, as _Cicero_ has it; though he may not always remain true to this ideal.

[93] [From this to the end of the paragraph, and the next note, were added in the Second Edition.]

[94] Those who recommend the singing of spiritual songs at family prayers do not consider that they inflict a great hardship upon the public by such _noisy_ (and therefore in general pharisaical) devotions; for they force the neighbours either to sing with them or to abandon their meditations. [Kant suffered himself from such annoyances, which may account for the asperity of this note. At one period he was disturbed by the devotional exercises of the prisoners in the adjoining jail. In a letter to the burgomaster “he suggested the advantage of closing the windows during these hymn-singings, and added that the warders of the prison might probably be directed to accept less sonorous and neighbour-annoying chants as evidence of the penitent spirit of their captives” (Wallace’s _Kant_, p. 42).]

[95] [Cf. “Parturiunt montes, nascitur _ridiculus_ mus.”]

[96] [The First Edition adds “as in the case of a man who gets the news of a great commercial success.”]

[97] [The jest may have been taken from Steele’s play, “The Funeral or Grief _à la mode_,” where it occurs verbatim. This play was published in 1702.]

[98] [_Henriade_, _Chant 7_, sub init.

“Du Dieu qui nous créa la clémence infinie,
Pour adoucir les maux de cette courte vie,
A placé parmi nous deux êtres bienfaisants,
De la terre à jamais aimables habitants,
Soutiens dans les travaux, trésors dans l’indigence:
L’un est le doux sommeil, et l’autre est l’espérance.”
]

[99] We may describe as a rationalising judgement (_judicium ratiocinans_) one which proclaims itself as universal, for as such it can serve as the major premise of a syllogism. On the other hand, we can only speak of a judgement as rational (_judicium ratiocinatum_) which is thought as the conclusion of a syllogism, and consequently as grounded _a priori_.

[100] [Cf. p. 241, _infra_.]

[101] [Second Edition.]

[102] [Antiparos is a small island in the Cyclades, remarkable for a splendid stalactite cavern near the southern coast.]

[103] The intuitive in cognition must be opposed to the discursive (not to the symbolical). The former is either _schematical_, by _demonstration_; or _symbolical_ as a representation in accordance with a mere _analogy_.

[104] [I read _Geselligkeit_ with Rosenkranz and Windelband; Hartenstein and Kirchmann have _Glückseligkeit_.]

[105] As in pure mathematics we can never talk of the existence, but only of the possibility of things, viz. of an intuition corresponding to a concept, and so never of cause and effect, it follows that all purposiveness observed there must be considered merely as formal and never as a natural purpose.

[106] [The allusion is to _Vitruvius de Architectura_, Bk. vi. Praef. “Aristippus philosophus Socraticus, naufragio cum eiectus ad Rhodiensium litus animadvertisset geometrica schemata descripta, exclamavisse ad comites ita dicitur, Bene speremus, hominum enim vestigia video.”]

[107] [Second Edition.]

[108] We can conversely throw light upon a certain combination, much more often met with in Idea than in actuality, by means of an analogy to the so-called immediate natural purposes. In a recent complete transformation of a great people into a state the word _organisation_ for the regulation of magistracies, etc., and even of the whole body politic, has often been fitly used. For in such a whole every member should surely be purpose as well as means, and, whilst all work together towards the possibility of the whole, each should be determined as regards place and function by means of the Idea of the whole. [Kant probably alludes here to the organisation of the United States of America.]

[109] [These words are inserted by Rosenkranz and Windelband, but omitted by Hartenstein and Kirchmann.]

[110] In the aesthetical part [§ 58, p. 247] it was said: _We view beautiful nature with favour_, whilst we have a quite free (disinterested) satisfaction in its form. For in this mere judgement of taste no consideration is given to the purpose for which these natural beauties exist; whether to excite pleasure in us, or as purposes without any reference to us at all. But in a teleological judgement we pay attention to this reference, and here we can _regard it as a favour of nature_ that it has been willing to minister to our culture by the exhibition of so many beautiful figures.

[111] The German word _vermessen_ is a good word and full of meaning. A judgement in which we forget to consider the extent of our powers (our Understanding) may sometimes sound very humble, and yet make great pretensions, and so be very presumptuous. Of this kind are most of those by which we pretend to extol the divine wisdom by ascribing to it designs in the works of creation and preservation which are really meant to do honour to the private wisdom of the reasoner.

[112] We thus see that in most speculative things of pure Reason, as regards dogmatic assertions, the philosophical schools have commonly tried all possible solutions of a given question. To explain the purposiveness of nature men have tried either _lifeless matter_ or a _lifeless God_, or again, _living matter_ or a _living God_. It only remains for us, if the need should arise, to abandon all these objective _assertions_ and to examine critically our judgement merely in reference to our cognitive faculties, in order to supply to their principle a validity which, if not dogmatic, shall at least be that of a maxim sufficient for the sure employment of Reason.

[113] [That is, the wider concept serves as a universal, under which the particular may be brought; cognition from principles, in Kant’s phrase, is the process of knowing the particular in the universal by means of concepts.]

[114] [This distinction will be familiar to the student of the _Critique of Pure Reason_. See Dialectic, bk. i., _Of the Concepts of Pure Reason_.]

[115] [Second Edition.]

[116] [This principle, that for our intellect, the conception of an organised body is impossible except by the aid of the Idea of design, is frequently insisted on by Kant. Professor Wallace points out (_Kant_, p. 110) that as far back as 1755, in his _General Physiogony and Theory of the Heavens_, Kant classed the origin of animals and plants with the secrets of Providence and the mystical number 666 “as one of the topics on which ingenuity and thought are occasionally wasted.”]

[117] [Second Edition.]

[118] [Second Edition.]

[119] [This is marked as an _Appendix_ in the Second Edition.]

[120] We may call a hypothesis of this kind a daring venture of reason, and there may be few even of the most acute naturalists through whose head it has not sometimes passed. For it is not absurd, like that _generatio aequivoca_ by which is understood the production of an organised being through the mechanics of crude unorganised matter. It would always remain _generatio univoca_ in the most universal sense of the word, for it only considers one organic being as derived from another organic being, although from one which is specifically different; _e.g._ certain water-animals transform themselves gradually into marsh-animals and from these, after some generations, into land-animals. _A priori_, in the judgement of Reason alone, there is no contradiction here. Only experience gives no example of it; according to experience all generation that we know is _generatio homonyma_. This is not merely _univoca_ in contrast to the generation out of unorganised material, but in the organisation the product is of like kind to that which produced it; and _generation heteronyma_, so far as our empirical knowledge of nature extends, is nowhere found.

[121] [It is probable that Kant alludes here to Hume’s Essay _On a Providence and a Future State_, § xi of the _Inquiry_. Hume argues that though the inference from an effect to an intelligent cause may be valid in the case of human contrivance, it is not legitimate to rise by a like argument to Supreme Intelligence. “In human nature there is a certain experienced coherence of designs and inclinations; so that when from any fact we have discovered one intention of any man, it may often be reasonable from experience to infer another, and draw a long chain of conclusions concerning his past or future conduct. But this method of reasoning can never have place with regard to a being so remote and incomprehensible, who bears much less analogy to any other being in the universe than the sun to a waxen taper, and who discovers himself only by some faint traces or outlines, beyond which we have no authority to ascribe to him any attribute or perfection.”]

[122] [J. F. Blumenbach (1752-1840), a German naturalist and professor at Göttingen; the author of _Institutiones Physiologicae_ (1787) and other works. An interesting account of him is given in Lever’s novel _Adventures of Arthur O’Leary_, ch. xix.]

[123] [Carl von Linné (1707-1778), Knight of the Polar Star, the celebrated Swedish botanist.]

[124] If the once adopted name _Natural history_ is to continue for the description of nature, we may in contrast with art, give the title of _Archaeology of nature_ to that which the former literally indicates, viz. a representation of the _old_ condition of the earth, about which, although we cannot hope for certainty, we have good ground for conjecture. As sculptured stones, etc., belong to the province of art, so petrefactions belong to the archaeology of nature. And since work is actually being done in this [science] (under the name of the Theory of the Earth), constantly, although of course slowly, this name is not given to a merely imaginary investigation of nature, but to one to which nature itself leads and invites us.

[125] [See p. 184 above.]

[126] [First Edition has _freedom_.]

[127] [These views are set forth by Kant more fully in the essay _Zum ewigen Frieden_ (1795).]

[128] [Second Edition.]

[129] [Cf. _The Philosophical Theory of Religion_, Part i., _On the bad principle in Human Nature_, III., where Kant remarks that although war “is not so incurably bad as the deadness of a universal monarchy ... yet, as an ancient observed, it makes more bad men than it takes away.”]

[130] The value of life for us, if it is estimated by that _which we enjoy_ (by the natural purpose of the sum of all inclinations, _i.e._ happiness), is easy to decide. It sinks below zero; for who would be willing to enter upon life anew under the same conditions? who would do so even according to a new, self-chosen plan (yet in conformity with the course of nature), if it were merely directed to enjoyment? We have shown above what value life has in virtue of what it contains in itself, when lived in accordance with the purpose that nature has along with us, and which consists in what we do (not merely what we enjoy), in which, however, we are always but means towards an undetermined final purpose. There remains then nothing but the value which we ourselves give our life, through what we can not only do, but do purposively in such independence of nature that the existence of nature itself can only be a purpose under this condition.