it cannot be proved, that whenever Kant spoke of the thing in itself, in the obscure depths of his mind he already always indistinctly thought of the will. This receives support from a passage in the preface to the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” pp. xxvii. and xxviii., in Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 677 of the Supplement.
For the rest, it is just this predetermined solution of the sham third conflict that affords Kant the opportunity of expressing very beautifully the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. This is the case in the whole of the “Sixth Section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason;” but, above all, in the exposition of the opposition between the empirical and the intelligible character, p. 534-550; V. 562-578, which I number among the most admirable things that have ever been said by man. (As a supplemental explanation of this passage, compare a parallel passage in the Critique of Practical Reason, p. 169-179 of the fourth edition, or p. 224-231 of Rosenkranz’s edition.) It is yet all the more to be regretted that this is here not in its right place, partly because it is not found in the way which the exposition states, and therefore could be otherwise deduced than it is, partly because it does not fulfil the end for which it is there—the solution of the sham antinomy. The intelligible character, the thing in itself, is inferred from the phenomenon by the inconsistent use of the category of causality beyond the sphere of all phenomena, which has already been sufficiently condemned. In this case the will of man (which Kant entitles reason, most improperly, and with an unpardonable breach of all use of language) is set up as the thing in itself, with an appeal to an unconditioned ought, the categorical imperative, which is postulated without more ado.
Now, instead of all this, the plain open procedure would have been to start directly from the will, and prove it to be the in-itself of our own phenomenal being, recognised without any mediation; and then to give that exposition of the empirical and the intelligible character to explain how all actions, although necessitated by motives, yet, both by their author and by the disinterested judge, are necessarily and absolutely ascribed to the former himself and alone, as depending solely upon him, to whom therefore guilt and merit are attributed in respect of them. This alone was the straight path to the knowledge of that which is not phenomenon, and therefore will not be found by the help of the laws of the phenomenon, but is that which reveals itself through the phenomenon, becomes knowable, objectifies itself—the will to live. It would then have had to be exhibited merely by analogy as the inner nature of every phenomenon. Then, however, it certainly could not have been said that in lifeless or even animal nature no faculty can be thought except as sensuously conditioned (p. 546; V. 574), which in Kant’s language is simply saying that the explanation, according to the law of causality, exhausts the inner nature of these phenomena, and thus in their case, very inconsistently, the thing in itself disappears. Through the false position and the roundabout deduction according with it which the exposition of the thing in itself has received from Kant, the whole conception of it has also become falsified. For the will or the thing in itself, found through the investigation of an unconditioned cause, appears here related to the phenomenon as cause to effect. But this relation exists only within the phenomenal world, therefore presupposes it, and cannot connect the phenomenal world itself with what lies outside it, and is _toto genere_ different from it.
Further, the intended end, the solution of the third antinomy by the decision that both sides, each in a different sense, are right, is not reached at all. For neither the thesis nor the antithesis have anything to do with the thing in itself, but entirely with the phenomenon, the objective world, the world as idea. This it is, and absolutely nothing else, of which the thesis tries to show, by means of the sophistry we have laid bare, that it contains unconditioned causes, and it is also this of which the antithesis rightly denies that it contains such causes.
Therefore the whole exposition of the transcendental freedom of the will, so far as it is a thing in itself, which is given here in justification of the thesis, excellent as it is in itself, is yet here entirely a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος. For the transcendental freedom of the will which is expounded is by no means the unconditioned causality of a cause, which the thesis asserts, because it is of the essence of a cause that it must be a phenomenon, and not something which lies beyond all phenomena and is _toto genere_ different.
If what is spoken of is cause and effect, the relation of the will to the manifestation (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must never be introduced, as happens here: for it is entirely different from causal relation. However, here also, in this solution of the antinomy, it is said with truth that the empirical character of man, like that of every other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and therefore that his actions necessarily take place in accordance with the external influences; therefore also, in spite of all transcendental freedom (_i.e._, independence of the will in itself of the laws of the connection of its manifestation), no man has the power of himself to begin a series of actions, which, however, was asserted by the thesis. Thus also freedom has no causality; for only the will is free, and it lies outside nature or the phenomenon, which is just its objectification, but does not stand in a causal relation to it, for this relation is only found within the sphere of the phenomenon, thus presupposes it, and cannot embrace the phenomenon itself and connect it with what is expressly not a phenomenon. The world itself can only be explained through the will (for it is the will itself, so far as it manifests itself), and not through causality. But _in the world_ causality is the sole principle of explanation, and everything happens simply according to the laws of nature. Thus the right lies entirely on the side of the antithesis, which sticks to the question in hand, and uses that principle of explanation which is valid with regard to it; therefore it needs no apology. The thesis, on the other hand, is supposed to be got out of the matter by an apology, which first passes over to something quite different from the question at issue, and then assumes a principle of explanation which is inapplicable to it.
The fourth conflict is, as has already been said, in its real meaning tautological with the third. In its solution Kant develops still more the untenable nature of the thesis; while for its truth, on the other hand, and its pretended consistency with the antithesis, he advances no reason, as conversely he is able to bring no reason against the antithesis. The assumption of the thesis he introduces quite apologetically, and yet calls it himself (p. 562; V. 590) an arbitrary presupposition, the object of which might well in itself be impossible, and shows merely an utterly impotent endeavour to find a corner for it somewhere where it will be safe from the prevailing might of the antithesis, only to avoid disclosing the emptiness of the whole of his once-loved assertion of the necessary antinomy in human reason.
Now follows the chapter on the transcendental ideal, which carries us back at once to the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One imagines one is listening to Anselm of Canterbury himself. The _ens realissimum_, the essence of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions, appears, and indeed claims to be a necessary thought of the reason. I for my part must confess that to my reason such a thought is impossible, and that I am not able to think anything definite in connection with the words which denote it.
Moreover, I do not doubt that Kant was compelled to write this extraordinary chapter, so unworthy of him, simply by his fondness for architectonic symmetry. The three principal objects of the Scholastic philosophy (which, as we have said, if understood in the wider sense, may be regarded as continuing down to Kant), the soul, the world, and God, are supposed to be deduced from the three possible major propositions of syllogisms, though it is plain that they have arisen, and can arise, simply and solely through the unconditioned application of the principle of sufficient reason. Now, after the soul had been forced into the categorical judgment, and the hypothetical was set apart for the world, there remained for the third Idea nothing but the disjunctive major.
Fortunately there existed a previous work in this direction, the _ens realissimum_ of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of the existence of God set up in a rudimentary form by Anselm of Canterbury and then perfected by Descartes. This was joyfully made use of by Kant, with some reminiscence also of an earlier Latin work of his youth.
However, the sacrifice which Kant makes to his love of architectonic symmetry in this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth, what one must regard as the grotesque idea of an essence of all possible realities is made an essential and necessary thought of the reason. For the deduction of this Kant makes use of the false assertion that our knowledge of particular things arises from a progressive limitation of general conceptions; thus also of a most general conception of all which contains all reality _in itself_. In this he stands just as much in contradiction with his own teaching as with the truth, for exactly the converse is the case. Our knowledge starts with the particular and is extended to the general, and all general conceptions arise by abstraction from real, particular things known by perception, and this can be carried on to the most general of all conceptions, which includes everything under it, but almost nothing _in it_. Thus Kant has here placed the procedure of our faculty of knowledge just upside down, and thus might well be accused of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanism that has become famous in our day, which, instead of recognising that conceptions are thoughts abstracted from things, makes, on the contrary the conceptions first, and sees in things only concrete conceptions, thus bringing to market the world turned upside down as a philosophical buffoonery, which of course necessarily found great acceptance.
Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, attain to the conception of God, even without revelation, this clearly takes place only under the guidance of causality. This is so evident that it requires no proof. Therefore Chr. Wolf says (_Cosmologia Generalis, prœf._, p. 1): _Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturæ, una cum impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad Deum ascenditur._ And, before him, Leibnitz said, in connection with the law of causality: _Sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve de l’existence de Dieu_. On the other hand, the thought which is worked out in this chapter is so far from being essential and necessary to reason, that it is rather to be regarded as a veritable masterpiece of the monstrous productions of an age which, through strange circumstances, fell into the most singular aberrations and perversities, such as the age of the Scholastics was—an age which is unparalleled in the history of the world, and can never return again. This Scholasticism, as it advanced to its final form, certainly derived the principal proof of the existence of God from the conception of the _ens realissimum_, and only then used the other proofs as accessory. This, however, is mere methodology, and proves nothing as to the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant has here taken the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason—a mistake which indeed he has made more than once. If it were true that according to the essential laws of reason the Idea of God proceeds from the disjunctive syllogism under the form of an Idea of the most real being, this Idea would also have existed in the philosophy of antiquity; but of the _ens realissimum_ there is nowhere a trace in any of the ancient philosophers, although some of them certainly teach that there is a Creator of the world, yet only as the giver of form to the matter which exists without him, δεμιουργος, a being whom they yet infer simply and solely in accordance with the law of causality. It is true that Sextus Empiricus (_adv. Math._, ix. § 88) quotes an argument of Cleanthes, which some have held to be the ontological proof. This, however, it is not, but merely an inference from analogy; because experience teaches that upon earth one being is always better than another, and man, indeed, as the best, closes the series, but yet has many faults; therefore there must exist beings who are still better, and finally one being who is best of all (κρατιστον, αριστον), and this would be God.
On the detailed refutation of speculative theology which now follows I have only briefly to remark that it, and in general the whole criticism of the three so-called Ideas of reason, thus the whole Dialectic of Pure Reason, is indeed to a certain extent the goal and end of the whole work: yet this polemical part has not really an absolutely universal, permanent, and purely philosophical interest, such as is possessed by the preceding doctrinal part, _i.e._, the æsthetic and analytic; but rather a temporary and local interest, because it stands in a special relation to the leading points of the philosophy which prevailed in Europe up till the time of Kant, the complete overthrow of which was yet, to his immortal credit, achieved by him through this polemic. He has eliminated theism from philosophy; for in it, as a science and not a system of faith, only that can find a place which is either empirically given or established by valid proofs. Naturally we only mean here the real seriously understood philosophy which is concerned with the truth, and nothing else; and by no means the jest of philosophy taught in the universities, in which, after Kant as before him, speculative theology plays the principal part, and where, also, after as before him, the soul appears without ceremony as a familiar person. For it is the philosophy endowed with salaries and fees, and, indeed, also with titles of Hofrath, which, looking proudly down from its height, remains for forty years entirely unaware of the existence of little people like me, and would be thoroughly glad to be rid of the old Kant with his Critiques, that they might drink the health of Leibnitz with all their hearts. It is further to be remarked here, that as Kant was confessedly led to his doctrine of the _a priori_ nature of the conception of causality by Hume’s scepticism with regard to that conception, it may be that in the same way Kant’s criticism of all speculative theology had its occasion in Hume’s criticism of all popular theology, which he had given in his “Natural History of Religion,” a book so well worth reading, and in the “Dialogues on Natural Religion.” Indeed, it may be that Kant wished to a certain extent to supplement this. For the first-named work of Hume is really a critique of popular theology, the pitiable condition of which it seeks to show; while, on the other hand, it points to rational or speculative theology as the genuine, and that which is worthy of respect.
But Kant now discloses the groundlessness of the latter, and leaves, on the other hand, popular theology untouched, nay, even establishes it in a nobler form as a faith based upon moral feeling. This was afterwards distorted by the philosophasters into rational apprehensions, consciousness of God, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, of the divine, &c., &c.; while Kant, as he demolished old and revered errors, and knew the danger of doing so, rather wished through the moral theology merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might not fall on him, but that he might have time to escape.
Now, as regards the performance of the task, no critique of reason was necessary for the refutation of the _ontological_ proof of the existence of God; for without presupposing the æsthetic and analytic, it is quite easy to make clear that that ontological proof is nothing but a subtle playing with conceptions which is quite powerless to produce conviction.
There is a chapter in the “_Organon_” of Aristotle which suffices as fully for the refutation of the ontological proof as if it had been written intentionally with that purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second book of the “_Analyt. Post._” Among other things, it is expressly said there: “το δε ειναι ουκ ουσια ουδενι,” _i.e._, _existentia nunquam ad essentiam rei pertinet_.
The refutation of the _cosmological_ proof is an application to a given case of the doctrine of the Critique as expounded up to that point, and there is nothing to be said against it. The _physico-theological_ proof is a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and it finds its full refutation only in the “Critique of Judgment.” I refer the reader in this connection to the rubric, “Comparative Anatomy,” in my work on the Will in Nature.
In the criticism of this proof Kant has only to do, as we have already said, with speculative theology, and limits himself to the School. If, on the contrary, he had had life and popular theology also in view, he would have been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he has considered—that proof which is really the effective one with the great mass of men, and which in Kant’s technical language might best be called the _keraunological_. It is the proof which is founded upon the needy, impotent, and dependent condition of man as opposed to natural forces, which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the most part threatening evil; to which is added man’s natural inclination to personify everything, and finally the hope of effecting something by prayers and flattery, and even by gifts. In every human undertaking there is something which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. “_Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor_” is an old and true saying of Petronius. It is principally this proof which is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears as Kant’s forerunner in the writings referred to above. But those whom Kant has placed in a position of permanent embarrassment by his criticism of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by Christian governments, they dare not give up the chief article of faith.(9) Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves? They simply declare that the existence of God is self-evident. Indeed! After the ancient world, at the expense of its conscience, had worked miracles to prove it, and the modern world, at the expense of its understanding, had brought into the field ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological proofs—to these gentlemen it is self-evident. And from this self-evident God they then explain the world: that is their philosophy.
Till Kant came there was a real dilemma between materialism and theism, _i.e._, between the assumption that a blind chance, or that an intelligence working from without in accordance with purposes and conceptions, had brought about the world, _neque dabatur tertium_.
Therefore atheism and materialism were the same; hence the doubt whether there really could be an atheist, _i.e._, a man who really could attribute to blind chance the disposition of nature, so full of design, especially organised nature. See, for example, Bacon’s Essays (_sermones fideles_), Essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of men, and of the English, who in such things belong entirely to the great mass (the mob), this is still the case, even with their most celebrated men of learning.
One has only to look at Owen’s “_Ostéologie Comparée_,” of 1855, preface, p. 11, 12, where he stands always before the old dilemma between Democritus and Epicurus on the one side, and an intelligence on the other, in which _la connaissance __ d’un être tel que l’homme a existé avant que l’homme fit son apparition_. All design must have proceeded from an _intelligence_; he has never even dreamt of doubting this. Yet in the lecture based upon this now modified preface, delivered in the _Académie des Sciences_ on the 5th September 1853, he says, with childish naivete: “_La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique_” (_Comptes Rendus_, Sept.
1853), that is for him precisely the same thing! Is anything in nature designed? then it is a work of intention, of reflection, of intelligence.
Yet, certainly, what has such an Englishman and the _Académie des Sciences_ to do with the “Critique of Judgment,” or, indeed, with my book upon the Will in Nature? These gentlemen do not see so far below them.
These _illustres confrères_ disdain metaphysics and the _philosophie allemande_: they confine themselves to the old woman’s philosophy. The validity of that disjunctive major, that dilemma between materialism and theism, rests, however, upon the assumption that the present given world is the world of things in themselves; that consequently there is no other order of things than the empirical. But after the world and its order had through Kant become mere phenomenon, the laws of which rest principally upon the forms of our intellect, the existence and nature of things and of the world no longer required to be explained according to the analogy of the changes perceived or effected by us in the world; nor must that which we comprehend as means and end have necessarily arisen as the consequence of a similar knowledge. Thus, inasmuch as Kant, through his important distinction between phenomenon and thing in itself, withdrew the foundation from theism, he opened, on the other hand, the way to entirely different and more profound explanations of existence.
In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural dialectic of reason it is asserted that the three transcendent Ideas are of value as regulative principles for the advancement of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can barely have been serious in making this assertion. At least its opposite, that these assumptions are restrictive and fatal to all investigation of nature, is to every natural philosopher beyond doubt. To test this by an example, let any one consider whether the assumption of the soul as an immaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been necessarily advantageous or in the highest degree impeding to the truths which Cabanis has so beautifully expounded, or to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall Hall, and Ch. Bell. Indeed Kant himself says (_Prolegomena_, § 44), “The Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to the maxims of the rational knowledge of nature.”
It is certainly not the least merit of Frederick the Great, that under his Government Kant could develop himself, and dared to publish the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Hardly under any other Government would a salaried professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was obliged to promise the immediate successor of the great king that he would write no more.
I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism of the ethical part of the Kantian philosophy here because I have given a detailed and thorough criticism of it twenty-two years later than the present work in the “_Beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik_.” However, what is here retained from the first edition, and for the sake of completeness must not be omitted, may serve as a suitable introduction to that later and much more thorough criticism, to which in the main I therefore refer the reader.
On account of Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry, the theoretical reason had also to have a _pendant_. The _intellectus practicus_ of the Scholastics, which again springs from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (_De Anima_, iii. 10, and _Polit._, vii. c. 14: ὁ μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος, ὁ δε θεωρητικος), provides the word ready made. Yet here something quite different is denoted by it—not as there, the reason directed to technical skill. Here the practical reason appears as the source and origin of the undeniable ethical significance of human action, and of all virtue, all nobleness, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this accordingly should come from mere _reason_, and demand nothing but this. To act rationally and to act virtuously, nobly, holily, would be one and the same; and to act selfishly, wickedly, viciously, would be merely to act irrationally. However, all times and peoples and languages have distinguished the two, and held them to be quite different things; and so does every one even at the present day who knows nothing of the language of the new school, _i.e._, the whole world, with the exception of a small company of German _savants_. Every one but these last understands by virtuous conduct and a rational course of life two entirely different things. To say that the sublime founder of the Christian religion, whose life is presented to us as the pattern of all virtue, was _the most rational_ of all men would be called a very unbecoming and even a blasphemous way of speaking; and almost as much so if it were said that His precepts contained all the best directions for a perfectly _rational life_. Further, that he who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of taking thought for his own future needs, always relieves the greater present wants of others, without further motive, nay, gives all his goods to the poor, in order then, destitute of all means of subsistence, to go and preach to others also the virtue which he practises himself; this every one rightly honours; but who ventures to extol it as the highest pitch of _reasonableness_? And finally, who praises it as a _rational_ deed that Arnold von Winkelried, with surpassing courage, clasped the hostile spears against his own body in order to gain victory and deliverance for his countrymen? On the other hand, if we see a man who from his youth upwards deliberates with exceptional foresight how he may procure for himself an easy competence, the means for the support of wife and children, a good name among men, outward honour and distinction, and in doing so never allows himself to be led astray or induced to lose sight of his end by the charm of present pleasures or the satisfaction of defying the arrogance of the powerful, or the desire of revenging insults and undeserved humiliations he has suffered, or the attractions of useless aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind, or travels in interesting lands, but with great consistency works towards his one end,—who ventures to deny that such a philistine is in quite an extraordinary degree _rational_, even if he has made use of some means which are not praiseworthy but are yet without danger? Nay, more, if a bad man, with deliberate shrewdness, through a well-thought-out plan attains to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the acutest cunning gets the better of neighbouring states, overcomes them one by one, and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in doing so is not led astray by any respect for right, any sense of humanity, but with sharp consistency tramples down and dashes to pieces everything that opposes his plan, without compassion plunges millions into misery of every kind, condemns millions to bleed and die, yet royally rewards and always protects his adherents and helpers, never forgetting anything, and thus reaches his end,—who does not see that such a man must go to work in a most rational manner?—that, as a powerful understanding was needed to form the plans, their execution demanded the complete command of the _reason_, and indeed properly of _practical reason_? Or are the precepts which the prudent and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiavelli prescribes to the prince _irrational_?(10) As wickedness is quite consistent with reason, and indeed only becomes really terrible in this conjunction, so, conversely, nobleness is sometimes joined with want of reason. To this may be attributed the action of Coriolanus, who, after he had applied all his strength for years to the accomplishment of his revenge upon the Romans, when at length the time came, allowed himself to be softened by the prayers of the Senate and the tears of his mother and wife, gave up the revenge he had so long and so painfully prepared, and indeed, by thus bringing on himself the just anger of the Volscians, died for those very Romans whose thanklessness he knew and desired so intensely to punish. Finally, for the sake of completeness, it may be mentioned that reason may very well exist along with want of understanding. This is the case when a foolish maxim is chosen, but is followed out consistently. An example of this is afforded by the case of the Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II., who vowed that she would not put on a clean chemise so long as Ostend remained unconquered, and kept her word through three years. In general all vows are of this class, whose origin is a want of insight as regards the law of causality, _i.e._, want of understanding; nevertheless it is rational to fulfil them if one is of such narrow understanding as to make them.
In agreement with what we have said, we see the writers who appeared just before Kant place the conscience, as the seat of the moral impulses, in opposition to the reason. Thus Rousseau, in the fourth book of “_Emile_,” says: “_La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais_;” and further on: “_Il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison même_.” Still further: “_Mes sentimens naturels parlaient pour l’intérêt commun, ma raison rapportait tout a moi...On a beau vouloir etablir la vertu __ par la raison seul, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner_?” In the “_Rêveries du Promeneur_,” prom. 4 ême, he says: “_Dans toutes les questions de morale difficiles je me suis tojours bien trouvé de les résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de la raison_.” Indeed Aristotle already says expressly (_Eth. Magna_, i. 5) that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (_in parte irrationali animi_), and not in the λογον εχοντι (_in parte rationali_).
In accordance with this, Stobæus says (Ecl., ii, c.7), speaking of the Peripatetics: “Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν ὑπεθεντο την ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ᾽ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαν, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν, και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους; περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην, και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας αρετας.” (_Ethicam virtutem circa partem animæ ratione carentem versari putant, cam duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione præditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione prædita collocant ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam, justitiam, fortitadinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant._) And Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._, iii., c. 26-31) explains at length that reason is the necessary means, the tool, of all crime.
I have explained _reason_ to be the _faculty of framing concepts_. It is this quite special class of general non-perceptible ideas, which are symbolised and fixed only by words, that distinguishes man from the brutes and gives him the pre-eminence upon earth. While the brute is the slave of the present, and knows only immediate sensible motives, and therefore when they present themselves to it is necessarily attracted or repelled by them, as iron is by the magnet, in man, on the contrary, deliberation has been introduced through the gift of reason.
This enables him easily to survey as a whole his life and the course of the world, looking before and after; it makes him independent of the present, enables him to go to work deliberately, systematically, and with foresight, to do evil as well as to do good. But what he does he does with complete self-consciousness; he knows exactly how his will decides, what in each case he chooses, and what other choice was in the nature of the case possible; and from this self-conscious willing he comes to know himself and mirrors himself in his actions. In all these relations to the conduct of men reason is to be called _practical_; it is only theoretical so far as the objects with which it is concerned have no relation to the action of the thinker, but have purely a theoretical interest, which very few men are capable of feeling. What in this sense is called _practical reason_ is very nearly what is signified by the Latin word _prudentia_, which, according to Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ ii., 22), is a contraction of _providentia_; while, on the other hand, _ratio_, if used of a faculty of the mind, signifies for the most part theoretical reason proper, though the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly. In nearly all men reason has an almost exclusively practical tendency; but if this also is abandoned thought loses the control of action, so that it is then said, “_Scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor_,” or “_Le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises_.” Thus the man does not allow his conduct to be guided by his thought, but by the impression of the moment, after the manner of the brute; and so he is called irrational (without thereby imputing to him moral turpitude), although he is not really wanting in reason, but in the power of applying it to his action; and one might to a certain extent say his reason is theoretical and not practical. He may at the same time be a really good man, like many a one who can never see any one in misfortune without helping him, even making sacrifices to do so, and yet leaves his debts unpaid. Such an irrational character is quite incapable of committing great crimes, because the systematic planning, the discrimination and self-control, which this always requires are quite impossible to him. Yet, on the other hand, he