tive nature.

swers to them. They are purely transcendental. They remain the peculiar possession of the reason which gave birth to them. Their presence within us is inevitable, whatever our experience, of which they are independent. They go with us, and are pre-supposed in all our investigations; yet they can never be brought down, and made a part of the subject-matter of our inquiries. They stand by themselves, isolated, purely subjective; they involve nothing corresponding to them in the actual world. It Their subjec is an ideal world, an ideal soul, an ideal and subjective God in which they force us to believe. Neither one of these ideas is anything but a regulative principle within the province of the reason itself, and we are cheated with the emptiest possible of illusions if we believe them to involve any reality beyond themselves. We are compelled to entertain the idea of a God, yet this idea furnishes no ground for the belief that God actually exists. While on the one hand it pursues us, and will not let us escape, on the other hand, it equally refuses to go beyond us, or let us pass behind it. It forevermore follows us as an ideal, but we are forbidden to hope that we may ever behold it as actual and real.

Where this Critique leaves us.

Now, it may well be asked, at least so far as

the most precious beliefs of the human race are concerned, whether the Critique of Kant is a whit more valuable than the Essay of Locke. Had it revealed a new region of truth? Yes, but that truth had no objective validity; it was purely subjective and ideal. Did the sage of Königsberg close the door against Hume's scepti cism? Yes, but in doing so he had opened a door of

easy into pantheism. The thinking world was rescued from one source of infidelity only to be exposed to another. Once more philosophers turned from sensuous impressions, and began to build on the intuitions of the reason; but they only exchanged Hume for Spinoza; they recoiled from the rock to be drawn back into the whirlpool. "We see distinctly," says Chalybæus, "how near Kant was to expressing himself in the manner to which Hegel, at a far later period, found himself constrained, when on the same path of inquiry: the absolute God is the mere essence which is thinking and thought of, because it is that in us which thinks; thinking is identical with what is thought; the absolute is the thinking process itself. Thus the ontological proof can succeed only upon the basis of an absolute idealism, or idealistic pantheism." But it would be wrong to infer that Kant intended any such result as that now indicated. broader than At least we must presume, in simple justice to of the reahim, that he saw beyond it another result of a positive nature, to be reached by a different path of inquiry. He certainly leaves the ground of a solid theism, even if he does not tread on the edge of pantheism, when he says that, "for aught we can tell, the unknown base of mind and matter, despite their divergent phenomena, may be the same." But he was no pantheist. It was contrary to his plan, as conceived from the first, to allow his subjective idealism to absorb the whole material of philosophy. As Chalybæus justly says, and as we shall soon see, he could not consent to that line of argument in reference to the infinite God, when he came to lay the basis of our ethical action, and of a practical theology. If, on

Kant's plan

this sphere

son.

the one hand, he had shown the inadequateness of the empiricism of Locke, and on the other hand had struck a blow at the ontology of Anselm and Descartes, it did not therefore follow that he meant to subvert the great truths of the soul, a world-system, and a supreme God. They were indeed subverted, and could by no means be proved true, on the ground of the speculative reason; but Kant had in view another faculty

Another faculty. of the human mind, held back thus far in his reasoning, which he now brings forward as a means of proving the objective validity of those truths. He had not imperilled them at all, as the case stood to his view, for the Practical Reason was that on which he had relied from the beginning to establish their absolute verity. His Critique of the Practical Reason was, as has been charged, the life-boat in which he escaped from the wreck made by his Critique of the Pure Reason. Yet it should be remembered that he had the wreck in view from the outset, and planned the boat with reference to that emergency, regarding it himself, whatever others may think, as an abler and far more important work than the one published before it. Having shown that the realm of ontology cannot be reached by way of pure intelligence, he undertakes to open a way into that sublime region upon an ethical basis. The moral nature of man, in distinction from the purely rational, is the ladder on which he may feel himself ascending and descending. The law of our moral nature, the Practical its Thou shalt and Thou shalt not, Kant calls

Function of

Reason. "the categorical imperative." This voice of command in conscience is just as universal, and just as

Result not

satisfac

tory.

something which, in order to its own integrity, must be realized in experience; and therefore it carries us back of itself to a self-determining soul, and up to a divine executioner, thus planting our foot "upon the unconditioned, absolute, or intelligible world." This categorical imperative, which issues forth from the practical reason, looks only to its own actualization, regardless of such ends as happiness, beneficence, and reward; and it establishes the otherwise unproved being of a supreme God, since it is upon no less a basis than this that its autocracy can be upheld. Now, if Kant had simply meant, in this reasoning, to give us the usual moral argument of theologians, all would have been well enough. Then he would have come clearly out upon the ground of the intuitional philosophy, and might have affirmed, as the truest of all truths, that conviction of man which he says is "not to be called a true knowledge and cognition, but only a belief." Yet such a step, evidently, would have placed him in open antagonism with the doctrines of the speculative reason; and even as the matter stood, such a conflict was apparent to others, though not to himself. If his first Critique was to stand, as its immense popularity had already insured, then must the intelligible world be reached, not by the outward pathway of our moral nature, but by bringing it into the ideas of reason, and in some way identifying it with the processes of rational thought. At least this was the method which the leading minds of Germany, in their efforts to know the absolute, were determined to adopt. However conclusive Kant's argument may have seemed to himself, for them it had an air of constraint, and was so much weaker than what had gone

the one hand, he had shown the inadequateness of the empiricism of Locke, and on the other hand had struck a blow at the ontology of Anselm and Descartes, it did not therefore follow that he meant to subvert the great truths of the soul, a world-system, and a supreme God. They were indeed subverted, and could by no means be proved true, on the ground of the speculative reason; but Kant had in view another faculty

Another faculty. of the human mind, held back thus far in his reasoning, which he now brings forward as a means of proving the objective validity of those truths. He had not imperilled them at all, as the case stood to his view, for the Practical Reason was that on which he had relied from the beginning to establish their absolute verity. His Critique of the Practical Reason was, as has been charged, the life-boat in which he escaped from the wreck made by his Critique of the Pure Reason. Yet it should be remembered that he had the wreck in view from the outset, and planned the boat with reference to that emergency, regarding it himself, whatever others may think, as an abler and far more important work than the one published before it. Having shown that the realm of ontology cannot be reached by way of pure intelligence, he undertakes to open a way into that sublime region upon an ethical basis. The moral nature of man, in distinction from the purely rational, is the ladder on which he may feel himself ascending and descending. The law of our moral nature, the Practical its Thou shalt and Thou shalt not, Kant calls

Function of

Reason. "the categorical imperative." This voice of command in conscience is just as universal, and just as