else than: _Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva._ But as this sense is only reached by a periphrasis, the formula gains the appearance of having also revealed its own ultimate foundation, its _διότι_; which, however, is not the case, because it does not in the least follow that, if I am unwilling that something be done to myself, I ought not to do it to others. The same is true of every other principle or leading proposition of Ethics that has hitherto been put forward.
If we now return to the above question:--how does the law read, in obeying which, according to Kant, duty consists? and on what is it based?--we shall find that our philosopher, like most others, has in an extremely artificial manner closely connected the principle of Morals with its basis. I again call attention to what I have already examined at the outset--I mean, the Kantian claim that the principle of Ethics must be purely _a priori_ and purely formal, indeed an _a priori_ synthetical proposition, which consequently may not contain anything material, nor rest upon anything empirical, whether objectively in the external world, or subjectively in consciousness, such as any feeling, inclination, impulse, and the like. Kant was perfectly aware of the difficulty of this position; for on p. 60 (R., p. 53) he says: "It will be seen that philosophy has here indeed reached a precarious standpoint, which yet is to be immovable, notwithstanding that it is neither dependent on, nor supported by, anything in heaven or on earth." We shall therefore with all the greater interest and curiosity await the solution of the problem he has set himself, namely, how something is to arise out of nothing, that is, how out of purely _a priori_ conceptions, which contain nothing empirical or material, the laws of material human action are to grow up. This is a process which we may find symbolised in chemistry, where out of three invisible gases (Azote, Hydrogen, and Chlorine[9]), and thus in apparently empty space, solid sal-ammoniac is evolved before our eyes.
I will, however, explain, more clearly than Kant either would or could, the method whereby he accomplishes this difficult task. The demonstration is all the more necessary because what he did appears to be seldom properly understood. Almost all Kant's disciples have fallen into the mistake of supposing that he presents his Categorical Imperative directly as a fact of consciousness. But in that case its origin would be anthropological, and, as resting on experience, although internal, it would have an empirical basis: a position which runs directly counter to the Kantian view, and which he repeatedly rejects. Thus on p. 48 (R., p. 44) he says: "It cannot be empirically determined whether any such Categorical Imperative exists everywhere"; and again, on p. 49 (R., p. 45): "The possibility of the Categorical Imperative must be investigated entirely on _a priori_ grounds, because here we are not helped by any testimony of experience as to its reality." Even Reinhold, his first pupil, missed this point; for in his _Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophie am Anfange des_ 19.
_Jahrhunderts_, No. 2, p. 21, we find him saying: "Kant assumes the moral law to be a direct and certain reality, an original fact of the moral consciousness." But if Kant had wished to make the Categorical Imperative a fact of consciousness, and thus give it an empirical foundation, he certainly would not have failed at least to put it forward as such. And this is precisely what he never does. As far as I know, the Categorical Imperative appears for the first time in the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ (p. 802 of the first, and p. 830 of the fifth edition), entirely ex nunc (unexpectedly), without any preamble, and merely connected with the preceding sentence by an altogether unjustifiable "therefore."; It is only in the _Grundlage zur Metaphysik der Sitten_--a book to which we here devote especial attention--that it is first introduced expressly and formally, as a deduction from certain concepts. Whereas in Reinhold's _Formula concordiae des Kriticismus_,[10] we actually read on p. 122 the following sentence: "We distinguish moral self-consciousness from the =experience= with which it, as an original fact transcending all knowledge, is bound up in the human consciousness; and we understand by such self-consciousness the =direct consciousness of duty=, that is, of the =necessity= we are under of admitting the legitimacy--whether pleasurable or the reverse--of the will, as the stimulus and as the measure of its own operations."
This would of course be "a charming _thesis_, with a very pretty _hypothesis_ to boot."[11] But seriously: into what an outrageous _petitio principii_ do we find Kant's moral law here developed! If =that= were true, Ethics would indubitably have a basis of incomparable solidity, and there would be no need of any questions being set for prize essays, to encourage inquiry in this direction.
But the greatest marvel would be, that men had been so slow in discovering such a fact of consciousness, considering that for the space of thousands of years a basis for Morals has been sought after with zealous patient toil. How Kant himself is responsible for this deplorable mistake, I shall explain further on; nevertheless, one cannot but wonder at the undisputed predominance of such a radical error among his disciples. Have they never, whilst writing all their numberless books on the Kantian philosophy, noticed the disfigurement which the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ underwent in the second edition, and which made it an incoherent, self-contradictory work?
It seems that this has only now come to light; and, in my opinion, the fact has been quite correctly analysed in Rosenkranz's preface to the second volume of his complete edition of Kant's works. We must, however, remember that many scholars, being unceasingly occupied as teachers and authors, find very little time left for private and exact research. It is certain that _docendo disco_ (I learn by teaching) is not unconditionally true; sometimes indeed one is tempted to parody it by saying: _semper docendo nihil disco_ (by always teaching I learn nothing); and even what Diderot puts into the mouth of Rameau's nephew is not altogether without reason: "'And as for these teachers, do you suppose they understand the sciences they give instruction in? Not a bit of it, my dear sir, not a bit of it. If they possessed sufficient knowledge to be able to teach them, they would not do so.'
'Why?' 'Because they would have devoted their lives to the study of them.'"--(Goethe's translation, p. 104.) Lichtenberg too says: "I have rather observed that professional people are often exactly those who do not know best." But to return to the Kantian Ethics: most persons, provided only the conclusion reached agrees with their moral feelings, immediately assume that there is no flaw to be found in its derivation; and if the process of deduction looks difficult, they do not trouble themselves much about it, but are content to trust the faculty.
Thus the foundation which Kant gave to his moral law by no means consists in its being proved empirically to be a fact of consciousness; neither does he base it on an appeal to moral feeling, nor yet on a _petitio principii_, under its fine modern name of an "absolute Postulate." It is formed rather of a very subtle process of thought, which I shall now proceed to make clear.
Kant, be it observed, ridiculed all empirical stimuli of the will, and began by removing everything, whether subjective or objective, on which a law determining the will's action could be empirically based.
The consequence is, that he has nothing left for the substance of his law but simply its =Form=. Now this can only be the abstract conception of =lawfulness=. But the conception of lawfulness is built up out of what is valid for all persons equally. Therefore the substance of the law consists of the conception of what is universally valid, and its contents are of course nothing else than its =universal validity=. Hence the formula will read as follows: "Act only in accordance with that precept which you can also wish should be a general law for all rational beings." This, then, is the real foundation--for the most part so greatly misunderstood--which Kant constructed for his principle of Morals, and therefore for his whole ethical system. Compare also the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, p.
I pay Kant a tribute of sincere admiration for the great acumen he displayed in carrying out this dexterous feat, but I continue in all seriousness my examination of his position according to the standard of truth. I will only observe--and this point I shall take up again later on--that here =reason=, because, and in so far as, it works out the above explained special ratiocination, receives the name of =practical reason=. Now the Categorical Imperative of Practical Reason is the law which results from this process of thought. Consequently Practical Reason is not in the least what most people, including even Fichte, have regarded it--a special faculty that cannot be traced to its source, a _qualitas occulta_, a sort of moral instinct, like Hutcheson's "moral sense"; but it is (as Kant himself in his preface, p. xii. [R., p. 8], and elsewhere, often enough declares) one and the same with =theoretical reason=--is, in fact, =theoretical reason= itself, in so far as the latter works out the ratiocinative process I have described. It is noticeable that Fichte calls the Categorical Imperative of Kant an =absolute Postulate= 240, Note). This is the modern, more showy, expression for _petitio principii_, and thus we see that he, too, regularly accepted the Categorical Imperative, and consequently must be included among those who have fallen into the mistake above criticised.
The objection, to which this Kantian basis of Morals is at once and directly exposed, lies in the fact that such an origin of a moral law in us is impossible, because of its assumption that man would quite of his own accord hit on the idea of looking about for, and inquiring after, a law to which his will should be subject, and which should shape its actions. This procedure, however, cannot possibly occur to him of itself; at best it could only be after another moral; stimulus had supplied the first impulse and motive thereto; and such a stimulus would have to be positively operative, and real; and show itself to be such, as well as spontaneously influence, indeed force its presence upon, the mind. But anything of this sort would run counter to Kant's assumption, which, according to the chain of reasoning above described, is to be regarded as itself the origin of all moral conceptions--in fact, the _punctum saliens_ of Morality. Consequently, as long as there is no such antecedent incentive (because, _ex hypothesi_, there exists no other moral stimulus but the process of thought already explained), so long Egoism alone must remain as the plumb-line of human conduct, as the guiding thread of the law of motivation; so long the entirely empirical and egoistic motives of the moment, alone and unchecked, must determine, in each separate case, the conduct of a man; since, on this assumption, there is no voice to arrest him, neither does any reason whatever exist, why he should be minded to inquire after, to say nothing of anxiously searching for, a law which should limit and govern his will. And yet it is only possible on this supposition that he should think out the above remarkable piece of mental legerdemain.
It matters not how far we may care to put a strict and exact interpretation on this Kantian process, or whether we choose to tone it down to some dim, obscurely felt operation of thought. No modification of it can attack the primary truths that out of nothing, nothing comes, and that an effect requires a cause. The moral stimulus, like every motive that effects the will, must in all cases make itself felt spontaneously, and therefore have a positive working, and consequently be real. And because for men the only thing which has reality is the empirical, or else that which is supposed to have a possibly empirical existence, therefore it follows that the moral stimulus cannot but be empirical, and show itself as such of its own accord; and without waiting for us to begin our search, it must come and press itself upon us, and this with such force that it may, at least possibly, overcome the opposing egoistic motives in all their giant strength. For Ethics has to do with actual human conduct, and not with the _a priori_ building of card houses--a performance which yields results that no man would ever turn to in the stern stress and battle of life, and which, in face of the storm of our passions, would be about as serviceable as a syringe in a great fire.
I have already noticed above how Kant considered it a special merit of his moral law that it is founded solely on abstract, pure _a priori_ conceptions, consequently on =pure reason=; whereby its validity obtains (he says) not only for men, but for all rational beings as such. All the more must we regret that pure, abstract conceptions _a priori_, without real contents, and without any kind of empirical basis can never move, at any rate, men; of other rational beings I am of course incapable of speaking. The second defect, then, in Kant's ethical basis is its lack of real substance. So far this has escaped notice, because the real nature of his foundation has in all probability been thoroughly understood only by an exceedingly small number of those who were its enthusiastic propagandists. The second fault, I repeat, is entire want of reality, and hence of possible efficacy. The structure floats in the air, like a web of the subtlest conceptions devoid of all contents; it is based on nothing, and can therefore support nothing, and move nothing. And yet Kant loaded it with a burden of enormous weight, namely, the hypothesis of the Freedom of the Will. In spite of his oft declared conviction that freedom in human action has absolutely no place; that theoretically not even its possibility is thinkable (_Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, p. 168; R., p. 223); that, if the character of a man, and all the motives which work on him were exactly known, his conduct could be calculated as certainly and as precisely as an eclipse of the moon (_ibidem_, p. 177; R., p. 230): he nevertheless makes an assumption of freedom (although only _idealiter_, and as a postulate) by his celebrated conclusion: "You can, because you ought"; and this on the strength of his precious ethical basis, which, as we see, floats in the air incorporeal. But if it has once been clearly recognised that a thing =is not=, and =cannot be=, what is the use of all the postulates in the world?
It would be much more to the purpose to cast away that on which the postulate is based, because it is an impossible supposition; and this course would be justified by the rule _a non posse ad non esse valet consequentia_;[12] and by a _reductio ad absurdum_, which would at the same time be fatal to the Categorical Imperative. Instead of which one false doctrine is built up on the other.
The inadmissibility of a basis for Morals consisting of a few entirely abstract and empty conceptions must have been apparent to Kant himself in secret. For in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, where (as I have already said) he is not so strict and methodical in his work, and where we find him becoming bolder on account of the fame he had gained, it is remarkable how the ethical basis gradually changes its nature, and almost forgets that it is a mere web of abstract ideas; in fact, it seems distinctly desirous of becoming more substantial. Thus, for instance, on p. 81 (R., p. 163) of the above work are the words: "The Moral Law =in some sort a fact of Pure Reason=." What is one to think of this extraordinary expression? In every other place that which is fact is opposed to what is knowable by pure reason. Similarly on p. 83 (R., p. 164) we read of "a Reason which directly determines the Will"; and so on.
Now let us remember that in laying his foundation Kant expressly and repeatedly rejects every anthropological basis, everything that could prove the Categorical Imperative to be a fact of consciousness, because such a proof would be empirical. Nevertheless, his successors were so emboldened by incidental utterances like the above that they went to much greater lengths. Fichte in his work, _System der Sittenlehre_, p. 49, warns us expressly "not to allow ourselves to be misled into trying to explain, and derive from external sources, the consciousness that we have duties, because this would be detrimental to the dignity and absoluteness of the law." A very nice excuse! Again on p. 66 he says: "The principle of Morality is a thought which is based on the =intellectual intuition= of the absolute activity of the intelligence, and which is directly conceived by the pure intelligence of its own accord." What a fine flourish to conceal the helplessness of this clap-trap! Whoever may like to convince himself how Kant's disciples, little by little, totally forgot and ignored the real nature of the foundation and derivation which their master originally gave to the moral law, should read a very interesting essay in Reinhold's _Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophie im Anfange des_ 19. _Jahrhunderts_, No. 2, 1801. In it, on pp. 105 and 106, it is maintained "that in the Kantian philosophy Autonomy (which is the same thing as the Categorical Imperative) is a fact of consciousness, and cannot be traced further back, inasmuch as it declares itself by means of a direct consciousness."
But in this case, it would have an anthropological, and consequently empirical, foundation--a position which is diametrically opposed to Kant's explicit and repeated utterances. Again, on p. 108 we find: "Both in the practical philosophy of criticism, and in the whole of the purified or higher transcendental philosophy, Autonomy is that which is founded, and which founds, by itself alone; and which is neither capable of, nor requires, any other foundation; it is that which is absolutely original, true and certain _per se;_ the primal truth; the _prius κατ' ἐξοχήν (par excellence)_; the absolute principle. Whoever, therefore, imagines, requires, or seeks any basis for this Autonomy external to itself, can only be regarded by the Kantian School as wanting in moral consciousness;[13] or else as failing to interpret this consciousness correctly, through the employment of false first principles in his speculations. The School of Fichte and Schelling declares him to be afflicted with a dulness of intellect that renders him incapable of being a philosopher, and forms the characteristic of the unholy _canaille_, and the sluggish brute, or (to use Schelling's more veiled expression) of the _profanum vulgus_ and the _ignavum pecus_." Every one will understand how much truth there can be in a doctrine which it is sought to uphold by such defiant and dogmatic rhetoric. Meanwhile, we must doubtless explain by the respect that this language inspired, the really childish credulity with which Kant's followers accepted the Categorical Imperative, and at once treated it as a matter beyond dispute. The truth is that in this case any objections raised to a theoretical assertion might easily be confounded with moral obliquity; so that every one, although he had no very clear idea in his own mind of the Categorical Imperative, yet preferred to be silent, believing, as he did, in secret, that others were probably better off, and had succeeded in evolving a clearer and more definite mental picture of it. For no one likes to turn his conscience inside out.
Thus in the Kantian School Practical Reason with its Categorical Imperative appears more and more as a hyperphysical fact, as a Delphian temple in the human soul, out of whose dark recesses proceed oracles that infallibly declare not, alas! what will, but what ought to, happen. This doctrine of Practical Reason, as a direct and immediate fact, once it had been adopted, or rather introduced by artifice combined with defiance, was unhappily later on extended also to Theoretical Reason; and not unnaturally: for Kant himself had often said that both are but one and the same Reason (_e.g_., Preface, p.
xii; R., p. 8). After it had been once admitted that in the domain of the Practical there is a Reason which dictates _ex tripode_,[14] it was an easy step to concede the same privilege to Theoretical Reason also, closely related as the latter is to the former--indeed, consubstantial with it. The one was thus pronounced to be just as immediate as the other, the advantage of this being no less immense than obvious.
Then it was that all philosophasters and fancy-mongers, with J.H.
Jacobi--the denouncer of atheists--at their head, came crowding to this postern which was so unexpectedly opened to them. They wanted to bring their small wares to market, or at least to save what they most valued of the old heirlooms which Kant's teaching threatened to pulverise. As in the life of the individual a single youthful mistake often ruins the whole career; so when Kant made that one false assumption of a Practical Reason furnished with credentials exclusively transcendent, and (like the supreme courts of appeal) with powers of decision "without grounds," the result was that out of the austere gravity of the Critical Philosophy was evolved a teaching utterly heterogeneous to it. We hear of a Reason at first only dimly "surmising," then clearly "comprehending" the "Supersensuous," and at last endowed with a perfect "intellectual intuition" of it. Every dreamer could now promulgate his mental freaks as the "absolute," _i.e._, officially issued, deliverances, and revelations of this Reason. Nor need we be surprised if the new privilege was fully taken advantage of.
Here, then, is the origin of that philosophical method which appeared immediately after Kant, and which is made up of clap-trap, of mystification, of imposture, of deception, and of throwing dust in the eyes. This era will be known one day in the History of Philosophy as "The Period of Dishonesty." For it was signalised by the disappearance of the characteristic of honesty, of searching after truth in common with the reader, which was well marked in the writings of all previous philosophers. The philosophaster's object was not to instruct, but to befool his hearers, as every page attests. At first Fichte and Schelling shine as the heroes of this epoch; to be followed by the man who is quite unworthy even of them, and greatly their inferior in point of talent--I mean the stupid and clumsy charlatan Hegel. The Chorus is composed of a mixed company of professors of philosophy, who in solemn fashion discourse to their public about the Endless, the Absolute, and many other matters of which they can know absolutely nothing.
As a stepping-stone to raise Reason to her prophetic throne a wretched _jeu d'esprit_ was actually dragged in, and made to serve.
It was asserted that, as the word _Vernunft_ (Reason) comes from _vernehmen_ (to comprehend), therefore _Vernunft_ means a capacity to =comprehend= the so-called "Supersensuous," _i.e._, _Νεϕελοκοκκυγία_,[15] or Cloud-cuckoo-town. This pretty notion met with boundless, approval, and for the space of thirty years was constantly repeated in Germany with immense satisfaction; indeed, it was made the foundation of philosophic manuals. And yet it is as clear as noon-day that of course _Vernunft_ (Reason) comes from. _vernehmen_ (to comprehend), but only because Reason makes man superior to animals, so that he not only hears, but also =comprehends= (_vernimmt_)--by no means, what is going on in Cloud-cuckoo-town--but what is said, as by one reasonable person to another, the words spoken being =comprehended= (_vernommen_) by the listener; and this capacity is Such is the interpretation that all peoples, ages, and languages have put on the word Reason. It has always been understood to mean the possession of general, abstract, non-intuitive ideas, named =concepts=, which are denoted and fixed by means of words. This faculty alone it is which in reality gives to men their advantage over animals. For these abstract ideas, or concepts, that is, mental impressions formed of the sum of many separate things, are the condition of =language= and through it of actual =thought=; through which again they determine the consciousness not only of the present (which animals also have), but of the past and the future as such; whence it results that they are the _modulus_, so to say, of clear recollection, of circumspection, of foresight, and of intention; the constant factor in the evolution of systematic co-operation, of the state, of trades, arts, sciences, religions, and philosophies, in short, of everything that so sharply distinguishes human from animal life. Beasts have only intuitive ideas, and therefore also only intuitive motives; consequently the dependence of their volition on motives is manifest. With man this dependence is no less a fact; he, too (with due allowance for individual character), is affected by motives under the strictest law of necessity. Only these are for the most part not _intuitive_ but _abstract_ ideas, that is, conceptions, or thoughts, which nevertheless are the result of previous intuitions, hence of external influences. This, however, gives him a relative freedom--relative, that is, as compared with an animal.
For his action is not determined (as it is in all other creatures) by the surroundings of the moment as intuitively perceived, but by the thoughts he has derived from experience, or gained by instruction.
Consequently the motive, by which he, too, is necessarily swayed, is not always at once obvious to the looker-on simultaneously with the act; it lies concealed in the brain. It is this that lends to all his movements, as well as to his conduct and work as a whole, a character manifestly different from that observable in the habits of beasts. He seems as though guided by finer, invisible threads; whence all his acts bear the stamp of deliberation and premeditation, thus gaining an appearance of independence, which sufficiently distinguishes them from those of animals. All these great differences, however, spring solely out of the capacity for =abstract ideas, concepts=. This capacity is therefore the essential part of =Reason=, that is, of the faculty peculiar to man, and it is called _το λόγιμον_,[16] _το λογιστικον,_ =ratio, la ragione, il discorso, raison, reason, discourse of reason=. If I were asked what the distinction is between it and =Verstand=, _νοῡς_, =intellectus, entendement, understanding=; I should reply thus: The latter is that capacity for knowledge which animals also possess in varying degrees, and which is seen in us at its highest development; in other words, it is the direct consciousness of the law of =Causality=--a consciousness which precedes all experience, being constituted by the very form of the understanding, whose essential nature is, in fact, therein contained. On it depends in the first place the intuitive perception of the external world; for the senses by themselves are only capable of =impression=, a thing which is very far from being =intuitive perception=; indeed, the former is nothing but the material of the latter: _νοῡς ὁρᾷ, καὶ νοῡς ἀκούει, τ'ἄλλα κωϕὰ καὶ τυϕλά._ (The mind sees, the mind hears; everything else is deaf and blind.) =Intuitive perception= is the result of our directly referring the impressions of the sense-organs to their cause, which, exactly because of this act of the intelligence, presents itself as an =external object= under the mode of intuition proper to us, _i.e._, in =space=.
This is a proof that the Law of Causality is known to us _a priori_, and does not arise from experience, since experience itself, inasmuch as it presupposes intuitive perception, is only possible through the same law. All the higher qualities of the intellect, all cleverness, sagacity, penetration, acumen are directly proportional to the exactness and fulness with which the workings of Causality in all its relations are grasped; for all knowledge of the =connection= of things, in the widest sense of the word, is based on the comprehension of this law, and the clearness and accuracy with which it is understood is the measure of one man's superiority to another in =understanding=, shrewdness, cunning. On the other hand, the epithet =reasonable= has at all times been applied to the man who does not allow himself to be guided by intuitive impressions, but by =thoughts= and =conceptions=, and who therefore always sets to work logically after due reflection and forethought. Conduct of this sort is everywhere known as =reasonable=. Not that this by any means implies uprightness and love for one's fellows. On the contrary, it is quite possible to act in the most reasonable way, that is, according to conclusions scientifically deduced, and weighed with the nicest exactitude; and yet to follow the most selfish, unjust, and even iniquitons maxims. So that never before Kant did it occur to any one to identify just, virtuous, and noble conduct with =reasonable=; the two lines of behaviour have always been completely separated, and kept apart. The one depends on the =kind of motivation=; the other on the difference in fundamental principles. Only after Kant (because he taught that virtue has its source in Pure Reason) did the virtuous and the reasonable become one and the same thing, despite the usage of these words which all languages have adopted--a usage which is not fortuitous, but the work of universal, and therefore uniform, human judgment. "Reasonable" and "vicious" are terms that go very well together; indeed great, far-reaching crimes are only possible from their union. Similarly, "unreasonable" and "noble-minded" are often found associated; _e.g._, if I give to-day to the needy man what I shall myself require to-morrow more urgently than he; or, if I am so far affected as to hand over to one in distress the sum which my creditor is waiting for; and such cases could be multiplied indefinitely.
We have seen that this exaltation of Reason to be the source of all virtue rests on two assertions. First, as =Practical Reason=, it is said to issue, like an oracle, peremptory Imperatives purely _a priori._ Secondly, taken in connection with the false explanation of =Theoretical Reason=, as given in the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_, it is presented as a certain faculty essentially concerned with the =Unconditioned=, as manifested in three alleged Ideas[17] (the impossibility of which the intellect at the same time recognises _a priori_). And we found that this position, as an _exemplar vitiis imitabile_,[18] led our muddy-headed philosophers, Jacobi at their head, from bad to worse. They talked of =Reason= (_Vernunft_) as directly comprehending (_vernehmend_) the "=Supersensuous=," and absurdly declared that it is a certain mental property which has to do essentially with things transcending all experience, _i.e._, with metaphysics; and that it perceives directly and intuitively the ultimate causes of all things, and of all Being, the Supersensuous, the Absolute, the Divine, etc. Now, had it been wished to use Reason, instead of deifying it, such assertions as these must long ago have been met by the simple remark that, if man, by virtue of a special organ, furnished by his Reason, for solving the riddle of the world, possessed an innate metaphysics that only required development; in that case there would have to be just as complete agreement on metaphysical matters as on the truths of arithmetic and geometry; and this would make it totally impossible that there should exist on the earth a large number of radically different religions, and a still larger number of radically different systems of philosophy. Indeed, we may rather suppose that, if any one were found to differ from the rest in his religious or philosophical views, he would be at once regarded as a subject for mental pathology. Nor would the following plain reflection have failed to present itself. If we discovered a species of apes which intentionally prepared instruments for fighting, or building, or for any other purpose; we should immediately admit that it was endowed with Reason. On the other hand, if we meet with savages destitute of all metaphysics, or of all religion (and there are such); it does not occur to us to deny them Reason on that account.
The Reason that =proves= its pretended supersensuous knowledge was duly brought back to bounds by Kant's critique; but Jacobi's wonderful Reason, that directly =comprehends= the supersensuous, he must indeed have thought =beneath= all criticism. Meanwhile, a certain imperious and oracular Reason of the same kind is still, at the Universities, fastened on the shoulders of our innocent youth.
NOTE.
If we wish to reach the real origin of this hypothesis of Practical Reason, we must trace its descent a little further back. We shall find that it is derived from a doctrine, which Kant totally confuted, but which nevertheless, in this connection, lies secretly (indeed he himself is not aware of it) at the root of his assumption of a Practical Reason with its Imperatives and its Autonomy--a reminiscence of a former mode of thought. I mean the so-called Rational Psychology, according to which man is composed of two entirely heterogeneous substances--the material body, and the immaterial soul. Plato was the first to formulate this dogma, and he endeavoured to prove it as an objective truth. But it was Descartes who, by working it out with scientific exactness, perfectly developed and completed it. And this is just what brought its fallacy to light, as demonstrated by Spinoza, Locke, and Kant successively. It was demonstrated by Spinoza; because his philosophy consists chiefly in the refutation of his master's twofold dualism, and because he entirely and expressly denied the two Substances of Descartes, and took as his main principle the following proposition: "_Substantia cogitans et substantia externa una eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam sub illo attribute comprehenditur._"[19] It was demonstrated by Locke; for he combated the theory of innate ideas, derived all knowledge from the sensuous, and taught that it is not impossible that Matter should think. And lastly, it was demonstrated by Kant, in his _Kritik der Rationalen Psychologie_, as given in the first edition. Leibnitz and Wolff were the champions on the bad side; and this brought Leibnitz the undeserved honour of being compared to the great Plato, who was really so unlike him.
But to enter into details here would be out of place. According to