whether it allows it or not): for transcendental idealism, however, “space and time in themselves are not things at all,” and therefore “do not exist apart from our mind;” _i.e._ all these determinations of a beginning in time, and so on, do not really belong to things, to the implicitude of the phenomenal world, which has independent existence outside of our subjective thought. If such determinations belonged to the world, to God, to free agents, there would be an objective contradiction; but this contradiction is not found as absolute, it pertains only to us. Or, in other words, this transcendental idealism lets the contradiction remain, only it is not Being in itself that is thus contradictory, for the contradiction has its source in our thought alone. Thus the same antinomy remains in our mind; and as it was formerly God who had to take upon Himself all contradictions, so now it is self-consciousness. But the Kantian philosophy does not go on to grapple with the fact that it is not things that are contradictory, but self-consciousness itself. Experience teaches that the ego does not melt away by reason of these contradictions, but continues to exist; we need not therefore trouble ourselves about its contradictions, for it can bear them. Nevertheless Kant shows here too much tenderness for things: it would be a pity, he thinks, if they contradicted themselves. But that mind, which is far higher, should be a contradiction—that is not a pity at all. The contradiction is therefore by no means solved by Kant; and since mind takes it upon itself, and contradiction is self-destructive, mind is in itself all derangement and disorder. The true solution would be found in the statement that the categories have no truth in themselves, and the Unconditioned of Reason just as little, but that it lies in the unity of both as concrete, and in that alone.
γ. Kant now goes on to the Idea of God; this third idea is the Being of Beings, which the other ideas presupposed. Kant says (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 441-452), that according to the definition of Wolff, God is the most real of all Beings; the object then comes to be to prove that God is not only Thought, but that He is, that He has reality, Being.
This Kant calls the Ideal of Reason, to distinguish it from the Idea, which is only the sum of all possibility. The Ideal is thus the Idea as existent; just as in art we give the name of ideal to the Idea realized in a sensuous manner. Here Kant takes into consideration the proof of the existence of God, as he asks whether reality can be assigned to this Ideal.
The ontological proof proceeds from the absolute Notion, in order from it to argue up to Being. With Anselm, Descartes, and Spinoza the transition to Being is thus made; and all of them assume in so doing the unity of Being and thought. But Kant says (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp.
458-466): To this Ideal of Reason just as little reality can be assigned: there is no transition from the Notion to Being. “Being is not a real predicate,” like any other, “a Notion of something which might be added to the Notion of a thing. A hundred real dollars do not contain in the very least more than a hundred possible dollars,” they are the same content, _i.e._ the same Notion; they are also a hundred exactly. The one is the Notion, or rather the conception, the other is the object; Being is no new determination of the Notion, otherwise my Notion of a hundred real dollars would contain something different from a hundred real dollars. But “the object, as real, is not contained in my Notion alone; or to my Notion the real hundred dollars are synthetically added.” Being cannot therefore be derived from the Notion, because it is not contained therein, but must be added to it. “We must go out of the Notion in order to arrive at existence. With regard to objects of pure thought, there are no means of coming to know of their existence, because it had to be known _a priori_; but our consciousness of all existence belongs entirely to experience.” That is to say, Kant does not attain to the comprehension of that very synthesis of Notion and Being, or in other words, he does not comprehend existence, _i.e._ he does not attain to the establishment of it as Notion; existence remains for him something absolutely different from a Notion. The content is no doubt the same for him in what exists and in the Notion: but since Being is not involved in the Notion, the attempt to derive the one from the other is unavailing.
Of course the determination of Being is not found as positive and ready-made in the Notion; the Notion is something different from reality and objectivity. If we therefore abide by the Notion, we abide by Being as something different from the Notion, and adhere to the separation of the two; we then have conception, and not Being at all. That a hundred possible dollars are something different from a hundred actual ones is a reflection of a very popular nature, so much so that no proposition has been so well received as the assertion that no transition can be made from the Notion to Being; for though I imagine to myself a hundred dollars, I do not possess them for all that. But in a like popular fashion it might be said that one must leave off imagining, for that is mere conception: _i.e._ what is merely imaginary is untrue, the hundred imaginary dollars are and remain imaginary. Therefore to believe in them is a proof of an unsound understanding, and is of no manner of use; and he is a foolish fellow who indulges in such fancies and wishes.
One possesses a hundred dollars, when they are real only; if a man has therefore so great a desire to possess a hundred dollars, he must put his hand to work in order to obtain them: _i.e._ he must not come to a standstill at the imagination of them, but pass out beyond it. This subjective side is not the ultimate or the absolute; the true is that which is not merely subjective. If I possess a hundred dollars, I have them actually, and at the same time I form a conception of them to myself. But according to Kant’s representation we come to a deadlock at the difference; dualism is ultimate, and each side has independent validity as an absolute. Against this false idea of what is to be absolute and ultimate, the healthy human understanding is directed; every ordinary consciousness rises above it, every action aims at setting aside a subjective conception and making it into something objective. There is no man so foolish as that philosophy; when a man feels hungry, he does not call up the imagination of food, but sets about satisfying his hunger. All activity is a conception which does not yet exist, but whose subjectivity is abrogated. Moreover the imaginary hundred dollars become real, and the real ones imaginary: this is a frequent experience, this is their fate; it depends on circumstances entirely outward whether a hundred dollars become my property or not. Of course the mere conception is of no good, if I obstinately hold by it: for I can imagine what I will, but that does not make it exist. The only important point is what I conceive to myself, and then whether I think or comprehend the subjective and Being; by means of this each passes into the other. Thought, the Notion, of necessity implies that the Notion does not remain subjective; this subjective is on the contrary abrogated and reveals itself as objective. Now that unity is expressly affirmed by Descartes solely in reference to the Notion of God, for it is just that which is God; he speaks of no hundred dollars, as these are not an existence which has a Notion in itself. That opposition does away with itself absolutely and entirely, _i.e._ the finite passes away; it holds good only in the philosophy of finitude. If, therefore, there is not a Notion of existence formed, we have in it a notionless, sensuous object of perception; and what is notionless is certainly not a Notion,—therefore sensation, handling, are not Notions. Such existence has of course no Absolute, no real essence: or such existence has no truth, it is only a vanishing moment. This useless thrashing of the empty grainless straw of the common logic is termed philosophizing: it is like Issachar the strong ass, which could not be made to move from the spot where it was (Gen. xlix. 14).
People of this kind say: We are good for nothing, and because we are good for nothing, we are good for nothing, and wish to be good for nothing.
But it is a very false idea of Christian humility and modesty to desire through one’s abjectness to attain to excellence; this confession of one’s own nothingness is really inward pride and great self-conceit. But for the honour of true humility we must not remain in our misery, but raise ourselves above it by laying hold of the Divine.
The fact to which Kant clings most strongly (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 467) is this, that Being cannot be extracted from the Notion. The result of this is the proposition that to have the thought of the Infinite is certainly Reason; but that from the Idea of Reason is separated determination in general, and especially the determination which is known as Being. The Ideas of Reason cannot be proved from experience, or obtain from it their verification: if they are defined by means of categories, contradictions arise. If the Idea in general is to be defined as existent only, it is nothing more or less than the Notion; and the Being of the existent is still distinguished from it.
This result, however, so highly important with reference to knowledge of the understanding, Kant does not, with reference to Reason, carry further than to say that Reason has on its own account nothing but formal unity for the methodical systematization of the knowledge of the understanding.
Abstract thinking is adhered to; it is said that the understanding can only bring about order in things; but order is nothing in and for itself, it is only subjective. There therefore remains nothing for Reason except the form of its pure identity with itself, and this extends no further than to the arranging of the manifold laws and relations of the understanding, the classes, kinds and species which the understanding discovers.[350] I, as Reason or conception, and the things external to me, are both absolutely different from one another; and that, according to Kant, is the ultimate standpoint. The animal does not stop at this standpoint, but practically brings about unity. This is the critique of theoretical Reason which Kant gives, and in which he states the _a priori_ and determinate character of Reason in itself, without bringing it to the determinateness of individuality.[351] Mention should still be made of the positive philosophy or metaphysics, which Kant sets _a priori_ above objective existence, the content of the object of experience, nature; we have here his natural philosophy, which is a demonstration of the universal conceptions of Nature. But this is on the one hand very scanty and restricted in content, containing as it does sundry general qualities and conceptions of matter and motion, and with regard to the scientific side or the _a priori_, as Kant calls it, it is likewise altogether unsatisfactory. For Kant assumes all such conceptions as that matter has motion and also a power of attraction and repulsion,[352] instead of demonstrating their necessity. The “Principles of Natural Philosophy” have nevertheless been of great service, inasmuch as at the commencement of a philosophy of nature, attention was called to the fact that physical science employs thought-determinations without further investigation; and these determinations constitute the real foundations of its objects. Density, for instance, is looked on by physical science as a variable quantity, as a mere _quantum_ in space: instead of this Kant asserted it to be a certain degree of occupation of space, _i.e._ energy, intensity of action. He demands accordingly (Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, pp. 65-68) a construction of matter from powers and activities, not from atoms; and Schelling still holds to this without getting further. Kant’s work is an attempt to think, _i.e._ to demonstrate the determinations of thought, whose product consists of such conceptions as matter; he has attempted to determine the fundamental Notions and principles of this science, and has given the first impulse to a so-called dynamic theory of Nature.
“Religion within pure Reason” is also a demonstration of dogmas as aspects of Reason, just as in Nature. Thus in the positive dogmas of religion, which the Aufklärung (the clearing-up)—or the Ausklärung (the clearing-out)—made short work of, Kant called to remembrance Ideas of Reason, asking what rational and, first of all, what moral meaning lies in that which men call dogmas of religion, _e.g._ original sin.[353] He is much more reasonable than the _Ausklärung_, which thinks it beneath its dignity to speak of such matters. These are the principal points in respect to the theoretical part of Kant’s philosophy.
2. The second subject of review in Kant’s philosophy is the practical sphere, the nature and principle of the will; this subject is dealt with in the Critique of Practical Reason, in which Kant accepted Rousseau’s conclusion that the will is absolutely free. Kant’s idea of theoretic Reason is that when Reason relates itself to an object, this object must be given to it; but when the object is given by Reason to itself, it has no truth; and Reason in knowledge of this kind does not arrive at independence. As practical, on the contrary, Reason is independent in itself; as a moral Being man is free, raised above all natural law and above all phenomena. As the theoretic Reason had in itself categories, _a priori_ distinctions, so practical Reason has in turn the moral law in general, the further determinations of which are constituted by the notions of duty and right, lawful and unlawful; and here Reason disdains all the given material which was necessary to it on the theoretic side.
The will determines itself within itself; all that is right and moral rests on freedom; in this man has his absolute self-consciousness.[354] On this side self-consciousness finds essential reality in itself, as theoretical Reason found it in an “other”; and in the first place, indeed, the ego in its individuality is immediate reality, universality, objectivity; in the second place subjectivity strives after reality, but not after sensuous reality such as we had before, for here Reason holds itself to be the real. Here we have the Notion which is sensible of its own deficiency; this theoretic Reason could not be, as in it the Notion had to remain the Notion. Thus we have the standpoint of absoluteness revealed, since there is an infinite disclosed within the human breast.
The satisfying part in Kant’s philosophy is that the truth is at least set within the heart; and hence I acknowledge that, and that alone, which is in conformity with my determined nature.
a. Kant divides will into lower and higher faculties of desire; this expression is not inapt. The lower faculties of desire are impulses, inclinations, etc.; the higher faculty is the will as such, which has not external, individual aims, but universal. To the question what the principle of will that should determine man in his actions is, all sorts of answers have been given; for instance, self-love, benevolence, happiness, etc. Such material principles of action, Kant now says, are all reducible to impulses, to happiness; but the rational in itself is purely formal, and consists in the maxim that what is to hold good as law, must be capable of being thought of as a law of universal application, without destroying itself. All morality of action now rests upon the conviction that the act is done with consciousness of the law, for the sake of the law and out of respect for the law and for itself, without any regard to what makes for happiness. As a moral Being man has the moral law in himself, the principle of which is freedom and autonomy of the will; for the will is absolute spontaneity. Determinations which are taken from the inclinations are heterogeneous principles as regards the will; or the will is heteronomy if it takes such determinations as its end and aim; for in that case it takes its determinations from something else than itself. But the essence of the will is to determine itself from itself; for practical Reason gives itself laws. But the empirical will is heteronomous, for it is determined by desires; and they belong to our nature, not to the realm of freedom.[355] It is a highly important point in the Kantian philosophy that what self-consciousness esteems reality, law, and implicit Being, is brought back within itself. While a man is striving after this aim and that, according as he judges the world or history in one way or the other, what is he to take as his ultimate aim? For the will, however, there is no other aim than that derived from itself, the aim of its freedom. It is a great advance when the principle is established that freedom is the last hinge on which man turns, a highest possible pinnacle, which allows nothing further to be imposed upon it; thus man bows to no authority, and acknowledges no obligations, where his freedom is not respected. Great popularity has from one point of view been won for Kantian philosophy by the teaching that man finds in himself an absolutely firm, unwavering centre-point; but with this last principle it has come to a standstill.
While the highest pinnacle of the theoretic Reason is abstract identity, because it can furnish only a canon, a rule for abstract classifications,[356] practical Reason, as law-giving, is immediately regarded as concrete; the law which it gives to itself is the moral law.
But even if it is stated that it is concrete in itself, there is the further consideration that this freedom is at first only the negative of everything else; no bond, nothing external, lays me under an obligation.
It is to this extent indeterminate; it is the identity of the will with itself, its at-homeness with itself. But what is the content of this law? Here we at once come back to the lack of content. For the sole form of this principle is nothing more or less than agreement with itself, universality; the formal principle of legislation in this internal solitude comes to no determination, or this is abstraction only. The universal, the non-contradiction of self, is without content, something which comes to be reality in the practical sphere just as little as in the theoretical. The universal moral law Kant therefore expresses thus (and the setting up of such a universal form was at all times the demand of the abstract understanding): “Act from maxims” (the law is also to be my particular law), “which are capable of becoming universal laws.”[357] Thus for the determination of duty (for the question which meets us is, what is duty for the free will) Kant has contributed nothing but the form of identity, which is the law of abstract Understanding. To defend one’s fatherland, to promote the happiness of another, is a duty, not because of the content, but because it is duty; as with the Stoics, what was thought was true for the very reason that, and in so far as it was thought (Vol. II., pp. 254, 260, 263). The content as such is indeed not what holds good universally in the moral law, because it contradicts itself. For benevolence, for instance, enjoins: “Give your possessions to the poor,” but if all give away what they have, beneficence is done away with (Vol. I., pp. 417, 418). Even with abstract identity, however, we do not get a step further, for every content which is put into this form is by being so put freed from self-contradiction. But nothing would be lost if it were not put into this form at all. With regard to property, for instance, the law of my actions is this: Property ought to be respected, for the opposite of this cannot be universal law. That is correct, but it is quite a formal determination: If property is, then it is. Property is here presupposed, but this determination may also in the same way be omitted, and then there is no contradiction involved in theft: If there is no such thing as property, then it is not respected. This is the defect in the principle of Kant and Fichte, that it is really formal; chill duty is the final undigested lump left within the stomach, the revelation given to Reason.
The first postulate in practical Reason is thus free, independent will which determines itself, but this concrete is still abstract. The second and third are forms which remind us that the will is concrete in a higher sense.
b. The second point is the connection of the Notion of the will with the particular will of the individual; the concrete is here the fact that my particular will and the universal will are identical, or that I am a moral human being. The unity, that man should be moral, is postulated; but beyond the “should” and this talk of morality, no advance is made.
It is not said what is moral; and no thought is given to a system of the self-realizing spirit. For really, as theoretic Reason stands opposed to the objective of the senses, so practical Reason stands opposed to the practical sensuousness, to impulses and inclinations. Perfected morality must remain a Beyond; for morality presupposes the difference of the particular and universal will. It is a struggle, the determination of the sensuous by the universal; the struggle can only take place when the sensuous will is not yet in conformity with the universal. The result is, therefore, that the aim of the moral will is to be attained in infinite progress only; on this Kant founds (Kritik der prakt.
Vernunft, pp. 219-223) the postulate of the immortality of the soul, as the endless progress of the subject in his morality, because morality itself is incomplete, and must advance into infinitude. The particular will is certainly something other than the universal will; but it is not ultimate or really permanent.
c. The third point is the highest concrete, the Notion of the freedom of all men, or the natural world has to be in harmony with the Notion of freedom. That is the postulate of the existence of God, whom Reason, however, does not recognize. Will has the whole world, the whole of the sensuous, in opposition to it, and yet Reason insists on the unity of Nature or the moral law, as the Idea of the Good, which is the ultimate end of the world. Since, however, it is formal, and therefore has no content on its own account, it stands opposed to the impulses and inclinations of a subjective and an external independent Nature. Kant reconciles the contradiction of the two (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 198-200) in the thought of the highest Good, in which Nature is conformed to rational will, and happiness to virtue;—a harmony which does not enter into the question at all, although practical reality consists therein. For happiness is only one’s own sensuous consciousness, or the actuality of a particular individual, not universal reality in itself.
The unification spoken of itself therefore remains only a Beyond, a thought, which is not actually in existence, but only ought to be. Kant (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 205-209) thus agrees entirely with the talk which alleges that in this world it often fares ill with the good, and well with the wicked, and so on; and he postulates further the existence of God as the Being, the causality, through whom this harmony comes to pass, on behalf both of the sanctity of the moral law, and of the rational end to be attained in Nature, but only in infinite progress; which postulate, like that of the immortality of the soul, allows the contradiction to remain as it is all the time, and expresses only in the abstract that the reconciliation ought to come about. The postulate itself is always there, because the Good is a Beyond with respect to Nature; the law of necessity and the law of liberty are different from one another, and placed in this dualism. Nature would remain Nature no longer, if it were to become conformed to the Notion of the Good; and thus there remains an utter opposition between the two sides, because they cannot unite. It is likewise necessary to establish the unity of the two; but this is never actual, for their separation is exactly what is presupposed. Kant employs popular language thus: evil ought to be overcome, but yet must not have been overcome. God is to him, therefore, only a faith, an opinion, which is only subjectively, and not absolutely true.[358] This result is also of a very popular character.
These postulates express nothing but the synthesis, devoid of thought, of the different moments which contradict each other on every hand; they are therefore a “nest”[359] of contradictions. For instance, the immortality of the soul is postulated on account of imperfect morality, _i.e._ because it is infected with sensuousness. But the sensuous is implied in moral self-consciousness; the end, perfection, is what really destroys morality as such. Similarly the other aim, the harmony of the sensuous and the rational, to an equal extent abrogates morality; for that consists in this very opposition of Reason to the sensuous. The actuality of the God who produces harmony is of such a character that it does not enter into consciousness at all; it is accepted by consciousness for the sake of harmony, just as children make some kind of scarecrow, and then agree with each other to pretend to be afraid of it. The ground on which God is accepted—that by the conception of a holy law-giver the moral law may acquire additional reverence—contradicts the fact that morality really consists in reverence for the law simply for its own sake.[360] In Practical Reason self-consciousness esteems itself to be implicit Being, as contrasted with theoretic Reason, which assigns implicitude to objective existence, but the one, we see, attains just as little as the other to unity and actuality in itself. It is hard for man to believe that Reason actually exists: but there is nothing real except Reason; it is the absolute power. The vanity of man aspires to have an ideal before him, in order to be able to find fault with everything alike. We possess all wisdom, it is within us, but is not forthcoming. That is the ultimate standpoint; it is a high standpoint, no doubt, but in it the truth is never reached. The absolute Good remains “what ought to be,” or without objectivity; and there it has to remain.
3. There is still left for us to consider the third side in Kant’s philosophy, the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, in which the demand for the concrete comes in, the demand that the Idea of unity spoken of before should be established not as a Beyond, but as present; and this side is of special importance. Kant says that the understanding no doubt regulates in the theoretic sphere and produces categories; but these remain mere general determinations, beyond which lies the particular (the other element which belongs to every item of knowledge). The two are distinguished from one another for the understanding; for its distinctions remain in universality. In the practical sphere Reason is certainly the implicit, but its free independence, its law-giving freedom in higher form, is opposed to Nature in its freedom or to Nature’s own laws. “In the theoretic sphere Reason can draw conclusions from given laws through syllogisms, only by means of the understanding, and these conclusions never get beyond Nature; it is only in the practical sphere that Reason itself gives laws. Understanding and” (practical) “Reason have two different regulative systems on one and the same ground of experience, without the one being detrimental to the other. For if the Notion of Nature has but little influence on the giving of laws by the Notion of Freedom, just as little does the latter interfere with the legislation of Nature. The possibility of the existence side by side of the two regulative systems and of the powers belonging to them was proved in the Critique of pure Reason.” (!?) “Now if a unity is not constituted by these two different spheres, which certainly do not put a limit on each other in their regulative action, but do so incessantly in their operations in the sensuous world” (_i.e._ where they encounter each other), “the reason is this, that the Notion of Nature represents its objects in perception, not as things in themselves, but as mere phenomena, while the Notion of Freedom, on the other hand, represents in its object a thing in itself, no doubt, but not in perception.
Consequently neither of them can attain to a theoretic knowledge of its object (and even of the thinking subject) as a thing-in-itself, which last would be the supersensuous, an unlimited and inaccessible realm for our whole faculty of knowledge. Now truly there is fixed a gulf over which the eye cannot reach, between the realm of the Notion of Nature, as the sensuous, and the realm of the Notion of Freedom, as the supersensuous, so that it is not possible to pass from the one to the other, since it is just as if there were two different worlds, the first of which could have no influence on the second. Nevertheless the latter is conceived as having an influence on the former, or, in other words, freedom is conceived as having for its mission the realization in the sensuous world of the end indicated by the laws of freedom. Consequently Nature must be so conceived that, while in form it realizes its own laws, there may yet be a possibility of ends being realized in it according to the laws of freedom. Therefore there must surely be some ground for the unity of the supersensuous which lies at the foundation of Nature with that which the Notion of Freedom practically contains, the Notion of which ground of unity, although it attains neither theoretically nor practically to a knowledge of the same, and consequently has no peculiar province, yet makes possible the transition from the mode of thought in accordance with the principles of the one, to the mode of thought in accordance with the principles of the other. Between Understanding and Reason there now comes the Faculty of Judgment, as between the powers of knowledge and desire there come pleasure and its opposite; in this faculty must therefore lie the transition from the province of the Notions of Nature to the province of the Notion of Freedom.”[361] Adaptation to ends has its place here, _i.e._ a particular reality, which is determined only through the universal, the end. The understanding is the ground of this unity of the manifold; the sensuous is therefore here determined by means of the supersensuous. This idea of a universal which implicitly contains the particular is according to Kant the precise object of the faculty of judgment, which he divides as follows:—“If the universal (the rule, principle, law) is given, the faculty of judgment which subsumes the particular under that universal, is determinative,”—the immediate faculty of judgment. But here there is also a particular which is not determined by species. “If, however, only the particular is given, for which the faculty of judgment has to find the universal, it is reflective.” The reflective judgment has as its principle the unity of particularity and the abstract universal of the understanding, the idea of a legal necessity which is at the same time free, or of a freedom which is directly one with its content.
“This principle can be no other but the fact that since universal laws of Nature have their foundation in our understanding, which prescribes them to nature, although only according to their general conception, the particular, empirical laws, in so far as they are undetermined by universal laws, must be viewed as containing that unity which they would contain if they had been given by some intelligence—other, it may be, than our own—with express reference to our cognitive faculties, in order to render possible a system of experience according to particular natural laws. It is not as if such an intelligence must be assumed (for it is only the reflective faculty of judgment to which this idea serves as principle): this faculty gives a law only to itself, not to Nature in addition. Now the conception of an object (if it at the same time contains the ground of the reality of this object), the end, and the harmony of a thing with that quality of things which is only possible in conformity with ends, are termed the adaptation to purpose of the form; therefore the principle of the faculty of judgment in respect to the form of the things of Nature under empirical laws in general is the adaptability to purpose of Nature in its multiplicity. That is to say, Nature is represented by this Notion as if an intelligence contained the ground of the unity in multiplicity of Nature’s empirical laws.”[362] Aristotle already regarded Nature as in itself showing this adaptation to end, and as having in itself νοῦς, intelligence, the Universal, so that in undivided unity one element is moment of another (_v._ Vol.
II. pp. 156-162). Purpose is the Notion, and immanent; not external form and abstraction as distinguished from a fundamental material, but penetrating, so that all that is particular is determined by this universal itself. According to Kant this is Understanding: no doubt the laws of the Understanding, which it implicitly has in knowledge, leave the objective still undetermined, but because this manifold itself must have a connection in itself, which is yet contingent for human intelligence, “the faculty of judgment must assume as a principle for its own use that what is contingent for us contains a unity, which for us indeed is not knowable, but yet thinkable, in the connection of the manifold with an implicitly possible experience.”[363] This principle hereby at once falls back again into the subjectivity of a thought, and is only a maxim of our reflection, by which nothing is to be expressed regarding the objective nature of the object,[364] because Being-in-itself is once for all fixed outside of self-consciousness, and the Understanding is conceived only in the form of the self-conscious, not in its becoming another.
Now this principle of the reflective faculty of judgment is in itself a two-fold adaptation to end, the formal and the material; the faculty of judgment is thus either æsthetic or teleological: of these the former has to do with subjective, the latter with objective, logical adaptation to end. There are thus two objects of the faculty of judgment—the beautiful in works of art and the natural products of organic life—which make known to us the unity of the Notion of Nature and the Notion of Freedom.[365]