CPR Kant-208-476

The Critique of Pure Reason
NOTHING AS
1
As Empty Conception without object, ens rationis
2 3
Empty object of Empty intuition
a conception, without object,
nihil privativum ens imaginarium
4
Empty object without conception, nihil negativum
We see that the ens rationis is distinguished from the nihil negativum or
pure nothing by the consideration that the former must not be reckoned
among possibilities, because it is a mere fiction-though not self-contradic-
tory, while the latter is completely opposed to all possibility, inasmuch as
the conception annihilates itself. Both, however, are empty conceptions.
On the other hand, the nihil privativum and ens imaginarium are empty
data for conceptions. If light be not given to the senses, we cannot repre-
sent to ourselves darkness, and if extended objects are not perceived, we
cannot represent space. Neither the negation, nor the mere form of intu-
ition can, without something real, be an object.
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TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. SECOND DIVISION.
TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC. INTRODUCTION.
I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.
We termed dialectic in general a logic of appearance. This does not signify

a doctrine of probability; for probability is truth, only cognized upon
insufficient grounds, and though the information it gives us is imperfect,
it is not therefore deceitful. Hence it must not be separated from the ana-
lytical part of logic. Still less must phenomenon and appearance be held
to be identical. For truth or illusory appearance does not reside in the
object, in so far as it is intuited, but in the judgement upon the object, in
so far as it is thought. It is, therefore, quite correct to say that the senses do
not err, not because they always judge correctly, but because they do not
judge at all. Hence truth and error, consequently also, illusory appearance
as the cause of error, are only to be found in a judgement, that is, in the
relation of an object to our understanding. In a cognition which com-
pletely harmonizes with the laws of the understanding, no error can exist.
In a representation of the senses—as not containing any judgement—
there is also no error. But no power of nature can of itself deviate from its
own laws. Hence neither the understanding per se (without the influence
of another cause), nor the senses per se, would fall into error; the former
could not, because, if it acts only according to its own laws, the effect (the
judgement) must necessarily accord with these laws. But in accordance
with the laws of the understanding consists the formal element in all truth.
In the senses there is no judgement—neither a true nor a false one. But, as
we have no source of cognition besides these two, it follows that error is
caused solely by the unobserved influence of the sensibility upon the un-
derstanding. And thus it happens that the subjective grounds of a judge-
ment and are confounded with the objective, and cause them to deviate
from their proper determination,* just as a body in motion would always
*Sensibility, subjected to the understanding, as the object upon which the under-
standing employs its functions, is the source of real cognitions. But, in so far as it
exercises an influence upon the action of the understanding and determines it to
judgement, sensibility is itself the cause of error.
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of itself proceed in a straight line, but if another impetus gives to it a

different direction, it will then start off into a curvilinear line of motion.
To distinguish the peculiar action of the understanding from the power
which mingles with it, it is necessary to consider an erroneous judge-
ment as the diagonal between two forces, that determine the judgement
in two different directions, which, as it were, form an angle, and to
resolve this composite operation into the simple ones of the understand-
ing and the sensibility. In pure a priori judgements this must be done by
means of transcendental reflection, whereby, as has been already shown,
each representation has its place appointed in the corresponding faculty
of cognition, and consequently the influence of the one faculty upon
the other is made apparent.
It is not at present our business to treat of empirical illusory appearance
(for example, optical illusion), which occurs in the empirical application
of otherwise correct rules of the understanding, and in which the judge-
ment is misled by the influence of imagination. Our purpose is to speak of
transcendental illusory appearance, which influences principles—that are
not even applied to experience, for in this case we should possess a sure
test of their correctness—but which leads us, in disregard of all the warn-
ings of criticism, completely beyond the empirical employment of the
categories and deludes us with the chimera of an extension of the sphere
of the pure understanding. We shall term those principles the application
of which is confined entirely within the limits of possible experience, im-
manent; those, on the other hand, which transgress these limits, we shall
call transcendent principles. But by these latter I do not understand prin-
ciples of the transcendental use or misuse of the categories, which is in
reality a mere fault of the judgement when not under due restraint from
criticism, and therefore not paying sufficient attention to the limits of the
sphere in which the pure understanding is allowed to exercise its func-
tions; but real principles which exhort us to break down all those barriers,
and to lay claim to a perfectly new field of cognition, which recognizes no
line of demarcation. Thus transcendental and transcendent are not identi-
cal terms. The principles of the pure understanding, which we have al-
ready propounded, ought to be of empirical and not of transcendental
use, that is, they are not applicable to any object beyond the sphere of
experience. A principle which removes these limits, nay, which authorizes
us to overstep them, is called transcendent. If our criticism can succeed in
exposing the illusion in these pretended principles, those which are lim-
ited in their employment to the sphere of experience may be called, in
opposition to the others, immanent principles of the pure understanding.
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Immanuel Kant
Logical illusion, which consists merely in the imitation of the form of

reason (the illusion in sophistical syllogisms), arises entirely from a want
of due attention to logical rules. So soon as the attention is awakened to
the case before us, this illusion totally disappears. Transcendental illusion,
on the contrary, does not cease to exist, even after it has been exposed, and
its nothingness clearly perceived by means of transcendental criticism.
Take, for example, the illusion in the proposition: “The world must have
a beginning in time.” The cause of this is as follows. In our reason, subjec-
tively considered as a faculty of human cognition, there exist fundamental
rules and maxims of its exercise, which have completely the appearance of
objective principles. Now from this cause it happens that the subjective
necessity of a certain connection of our conceptions, is regarded as an
objective necessity of the determination of things in themselves. This illu-
sion it is impossible to avoid, just as we cannot avoid perceiving that the
sea appears to be higher at a distance than it is near the shore, because we
see the former by means of higher rays than the latter, or, which is a still
stronger case, as even the astronomer cannot prevent himself from seeing
the moon larger at its rising than some time afterwards, although he is not
deceived by this illusion.
Transcendental dialectic will therefore content itself with exposing the
illusory appearance in transcendental judgements, and guarding us against
it; but to make it, as in the case of logical illusion, entirely disappear and
cease to be illusion is utterly beyond its power. For we have here to do
with a natural and unavoidable illusion, which rests upon subjective prin-
ciples and imposes these upon us as objective, while logical dialectic, in
the detection of sophisms, has to do merely with an error in the logical
consequence of the propositions, or with an artificially constructed illu-
sion, in imitation of the natural error. There is, therefore, a natural and
unavoidable dialectic of pure reason—not that in which the bungler, from
want of the requisite knowledge, involves himself, nor that which the soph-
ist devises for the purpose of misleading, but that which is an inseparable
adjunct of human reason, and which, even after its illusions have been
exposed, does not cease to deceive, and continually to lead reason into
momentary errors, which it becomes necessary continually to remove.
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II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appear-

ance.
A. OF REASON IN GENERAL.
All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding,

and ends with reason, beyond which nothing higher can be discovered in
the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it
to the highest unity of thought. At this stage of our inquiry it is my duty
to give an explanation of this, the highest faculty of cognition, and I con-
fess I find myself here in some difficulty. Of reason, as of the understand-
ing, there is a merely formal, that is, logical use, in which it makes abstrac-
tion of all content of cognition; but there is also a real use, inasmuch as it
contains in itself the source of certain conceptions and principles, which
it does not borrow either from the senses or the understanding. The former
faculty has been long defined by logicians as the faculty of mediate con-
clusion in contradistinction to immediate conclusions (consequentiae
immediatae); but the nature of the latter, which itself generates concep-
tions, is not to be understood from this definition. Now as a division of
reason into a logical and a transcendental faculty presents itself here, it
becomes necessary to seek for a higher conception of this source of cogni-
tion which shall comprehend both conceptions. In this we may expect,
according to the analogy of the conceptions of the understanding, that
the logical conception will give us the key to the transcendental, and that
the table of the functions of the former will present us with the clue to the
conceptions of reason.
In the former part of our transcendental logic, we defined the under-
standing to be the faculty of rules; reason may be distinguished from un-
derstanding as the faculty of principles.
The term principle is ambiguous, and commonly signifies merely a cog-
nition that may be employed as a principle, although it is not in itself, and
as regards its proper origin, entitled to the distinction. Every general propo-
sition, even if derived from experience by the process of induction, may
serve as the major in a syllogism; but it is not for that reason a principle.
Mathematical axioms (for example, there can be only one straight line
between two points) are general a priori cognitions, and are therefore rightly
denominated principles, relatively to the cases which can be subsumed
under them. But I cannot for this reason say that I cognize this property
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Immanuel Kant
of a straight line from principles—I cognize it only in pure intuition.

Cognition from principles, then, is that cognition in which I cognize
the particular in the general by means of conceptions. Thus every syllo-
gism is a form of the deduction of a cognition from a principle. For the
major always gives a conception, through which everything that is sub-
sumed under the condition thereof is cognized according to a principle.
Now as every general cognition may serve as the major in a syllogism, and
the understanding presents us with such general a priori propositions,
they may be termed principles, in respect of their possible use.
But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding in relation
to their origin, we shall find them to be anything rather than cognitions
from conceptions. For they would not even be possible a priori, if we could
not rely on the assistance of pure intuition (in mathematics), or on that of
the conditions of a possible experience. That everything that happens has a
cause, cannot be concluded from the general conception of that which hap-
pens; on the contrary the principle of causality instructs us as to the mode of
obtaining from that which happens a determinate empirical conception.
Synthetical cognitions from conceptions the understanding cannot sup-
ply, and they alone are entitled to be called principles. At the same time,
all general propositions may be termed comparative principles.
It has been a long-cherished wish—that (who knows how late), may
one day, be happily accomplished—that the principles of the endless vari-
ety of civil laws should be investigated and exposed; for in this way alone
can we find the secret of simplifying legislation. But in this case, laws are
nothing more than limitations of our freedom upon conditions under
which it subsists in perfect harmony with itself; they consequently have
for their object that which is completely our own work, and of which we
ourselves may be the cause by means of these conceptions. But how ob-
jects as things in themselves-how the nature of things is subordinated to
principles and is to be determined, according to conceptions, is a question
which it seems well nigh impossible to answer. Be this, however, as it
may—for on this point our investigation is yet to be made—it is at least
manifest from what we have said that cognition from principles is some-
thing very different from cognition by means of the understanding, which
may indeed precede other cognitions in the form of a principle, but in
itself—in so far as it is synthetical—is neither based upon mere thought,
nor contains a general proposition drawn from conceptions alone.
The understanding may be a faculty for the production of unity of
phenomena by virtue of rules; the reason is a faculty for the production of
unity of rules (of the understanding) under principles. Reason, therefore,
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never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object

is, on the contrary, the understanding, to the manifold cognition of which
it gives a unity a priori by means of conceptions—a unity which may be
called rational unity, and which is of a nature very different from that of
the unity produced by the understanding.
The above is the general conception of the faculty of reason, in so far as
it has been possible to make it comprehensible in the absence of examples.
These will be given in the sequel.
B. OF THE LOGICAL USE OF REASON.
A distinction is commonly made between that which is immediately

cognized and that which is inferred or concluded. That in a figure which
is bounded by three straight lines there are three angles, is an immediate
cognition; but that these angles are together equal to two right angles, is
an inference or conclusion. Now, as we are constantly employing this mode
of thought and have thus become quite accustomed to it, we no longer
remark the above distinction, and, as in the case of the so-called decep-
tions of sense, consider as immediately perceived, what has really been
inferred. In every reasoning or syllogism, there is a fundamental proposi-
tion, afterwards a second drawn from it, and finally the conclusion, which
connects the truth in the first with the truth in the second—and that
infallibly. If the judgement concluded is so contained in the first proposi-
tion that it can be deduced from it without the meditation of a third
notion, the conclusion is called immediate (consequentia immediata); I
prefer the term conclusion of the understanding. But if, in addition to the
fundamental cognition, a second judgement is necessary for the produc-
tion of the conclusion, it is called a conclusion of the reason. In the propo-
sition: All men are mortal, are contained the propositions: Some men are
mortal, Nothing that is not mortal is a man, and these are therefore im-
mediate conclusions from the first. On the other hand, the proposition:
all the learned are mortal, is not contained in the main proposition (for
the conception of a learned man does not occur in it), and it can be de-
duced from the main proposition only by means of a mediating judge-
ment.
In every syllogism I first cogitate a rule (the major) by means of the
understanding. In the next place I subsume a cognition under the condi-
tion of the rule (and this is the minor) by means of the judgement. And
finally I determine my cognition by means of the predicate of the rule
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Immanuel Kant
(this is the conclusio), consequently, I determine it a priori by means of

the reason. The relations, therefore, which the major proposition, as the
rule, represents between a cognition and its condition, constitute the dif-
ferent kinds of syllogisms. These are just threefold—analogously with all
judgements, in so far as they differ in the mode of expressing the relation
of a cognition in the understanding—namely, categorical, hypothetical,
and disjunctive.
When as often happens, the conclusion is a judgement which may fol-
low from other given judgements, through which a perfectly different
object is cogitated, I endeavour to discover in the understanding whether
the assertion in this conclusion does not stand under certain conditions
according to a general rule. If I find such a condition, and if the object
mentioned in the conclusion can be subsumed under the given condition,
then this conclusion follows from a rule which is also valid for other ob-
jects of cognition. From this we see that reason endeavours to subject the
great variety of the cognitions of the understanding to the smallest pos-
sible number of principles (general conditions), and thus to produce in it
the highest unity.
C. OF THE PURE USE OF REASON.
Can we isolate reason, and, if so, is it in this case a peculiar source of

conceptions and judgements which spring from it alone, and through
which it can be applied to objects; or is it merely a subordinate faculty,
whose duty it is to give a certain form to given cognitions—a form which
is called logical, and through which the cognitions of the understanding
are subordinated to each other, and lower rules to higher (those, to wit,
whose condition comprises in its sphere the condition of the others), in so
far as this can be done by comparison? This is the question which we have
at present to answer. Manifold variety of rules and unity of principles is a
requirement of reason, for the purpose of bringing the understanding into
complete accordance with itself, just as understanding subjects the mani-
fold content of intuition to conceptions, and thereby introduces connec-
tion into it. But this principle prescribes no law to objects, and does not
contain any ground of the possibility of cognizing or of determining them
as such, but is merely a subjective law for the proper arrangement of the
content of the understanding. The purpose of this law is, by a comparison
of the conceptions of the understanding, to reduce them to the smallest
possible number, although, at the same time, it does not justify us in
215
demanding from objects themselves such a uniformity as might contrib-

ute to the convenience and the enlargement of the sphere of the under-
standing, or in expecting that it will itself thus receive from them objec-
tive validity. In one word, the question is: “does reason in itself, that is,
does pure reason contain a priori synthetical principles and rules, and
what are those principles?”
The formal and logical procedure of reason in syllogisms gives us suffi-
cient information in regard to the ground on which the transcendental
principle of reason in its pure synthetical cognition will rest.
1. Reason, as observed in the syllogistic process, is not applicable to intui-

tions, for the purpose of subjecting them to rules—for this is the province
of the understanding with its categories—but to conceptions and judge-
ments. If pure reason does apply to objects and the intuition of them, it
does so not immediately, but mediately-through the understanding and
its judgements, which have a direct relation to the senses and their intu-
ition, for the purpose of determining their objects. The unity of reason is
therefore not the unity of a possible experience, but is essentially different
from this unity, which is that of the understanding. That everything which
happens has a cause, is not a principle cognized and prescribed by reason.
This principle makes the unity of experience possible and borrows noth-
ing from reason, which, without a reference to possible experience, could
never have produced by means of mere conceptions any such synthetical
unity.
2. Reason, in its logical use, endeavours to discover the general condition

of its judgement (the conclusion), and a syllogism is itself nothing but a
judgement by means of the subsumption of its condition under a general
rule (the major). Now as this rule may itself be subjected to the same
process of reason, and thus the condition of the condition be sought (by
means of a prosyllogism) as long as the process can be continued, it is very
manifest that the peculiar principle of reason in its logical use is to find for
the conditioned cognition of the understanding the unconditioned whereby
the unity of the former is completed.
But this logical maxim cannot be a principle of pure reason, unless we

admit that, if the conditioned is given, the whole series of conditions sub-
ordinated to one another—a series which is consequently itself uncondi-
tioned—is also given, that is, contained in the object and its connection.
But this principle of pure reason is evidently synthetical; for, analyti-
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Immanuel Kant
cally, the conditioned certainly relates to some condition, but not to the
unconditioned. From this principle also there must originate different
synthetical propositions, of which the pure understanding is perfectly ig-
norant, for it has to do only with objects of a possible experience, the
cognition and synthesis of which is always conditioned. The uncondi-
tioned, if it does really exist, must be especially considered in regard to the
determinations which distinguish it from whatever is conditioned, and
will thus afford us material for many a priori synthetical propositions.
The principles resulting from this highest principle of pure reason will,
however, be transcendent in relation to phenomena, that is to say, it will
be impossible to make any adequate empirical use of this principle. It is
therefore completely different from all principles of the understanding,
the use made of which is entirely immanent, their object and purpose
being merely the possibility of experience. Now our duty in the transcen-
dental dialectic is as follows. To discover whether the principle that the
series of conditions (in the synthesis of phenomena, or of thought in gen-
eral) extends to the unconditioned is objectively true, or not; what conse-
quences result therefrom affecting the empirical use of the understanding,
or rather whether there exists any such objectively valid proposition of
reason, and whether it is not, on the contrary, a merely logical precept
which directs us to ascend perpetually to still higher conditions, to ap-
proach completeness in the series of them, and thus to introduce into our
cognition the highest possible unity of reason. We must ascertain, I say,
whether this requirement of reason has not been regarded, by a misunder-
standing, as a transcendental principle of pure reason, which postulates a
thorough completeness in the series of conditions in objects themselves.
We must show, moreover, the misconceptions and illusions that intrude
into syllogisms, the major proposition of which pure reason has supplied—
a proposition which has perhaps more of the character of a petitio than of
a postulatum—and that proceed from experience upwards to its condi-
tions. The solution of these problems is our task in transcendental dialec-
tic, which we are about to expose even at its source, that lies deep in
human reason. We shall divide it into two parts, the first of which will
treat of the transcendent conceptions of pure reason, the second of tran-
scendent and dialectical syllogisms.
217
BOOK I.
OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.
The conceptions of pure reason—we do not here speak of the possibility

of them—are not obtained by reflection, but by inference or conclusion.
The conceptions of understanding are also cogitated a priori antecedently
to experience, and render it possible; but they contain nothing but the
unity of reflection upon phenomena, in so far as these must necessarily
belong to a possible empirical consciousness. Through them alone are
cognition and the determination of an object possible. It is from them,
accordingly, that we receive material for reasoning, and antecedently to
them we possess no a priori conceptions of objects from which they might
be deduced, On the other hand, the sole basis of their objective reality
consists in the necessity imposed on them, as containing the intellectual
form of all experience, of restricting their application and influence to the
sphere of experience.
But the term, conception of reason, or rational conception, itself indi-
cates that it does not confine itself within the limits of experience, because
its object-matter is a cognition, of which every empirical cognition is but a
part—nay, the whole of possible experience may be itself but a part of it—
a cognition to which no actual experience ever fully attains, although it does
always pertain to it. The aim of rational conceptions is the comprehension,
as that of the conceptions of understanding is the understanding of percep-
tions. If they contain the unconditioned, they relate to that to which all
experience is subordinate, but which is never itself an object of experience—
that towards which reason tends in all its conclusions from experience, and
by the standard of which it estimates the degree of their empirical use, but
which is never itself an element in an empirical synthesis. If, notwithstand-
ing, such conceptions possess objective validity, they may be called concep-
tus ratiocinati (conceptions legitimately concluded); in cases where they do
not, they have been admitted on account of having the appearance of being
correctly concluded, and may be called conceptus ratiocinantes (sophistical
conceptions). But as this can only be sufficiently demonstrated in that part
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Immanuel Kant
of our treatise which relates to the dialectical conclusions of reason, we shall

omit any consideration of it in this place. As we called the pure conceptions
of the understanding categories, we shall also distinguish those of pure rea-
son by a new name and call them transcendental ideas. These terms, how-
ever, we must in the first place explain and justify.
SECTION I—Of Ideas in General.
Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the
thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his
conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible
either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a pretension to legisla-
tion in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken
to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned
languages, with the hope and the probability that we may there meet with
some adequate expression of the notion we have in our minds. In this
case, even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat un-
certain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of
it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even
although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this
sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render
ourselves intelligible.
For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to
express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation, is
thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of which
from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to employ
the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and elegance of
style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It is our duty, on the
contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar signification, as otherwise it eas-
ily happens that when the attention of the reader is no longer particularly
attracted to the expression, and it is lost amid the multitude of other words
of very different import, the thought which it conveyed, and which it
alone conveyed, is lost with it.
Plato employed the expression idea in a way that plainly showed he meant
by it something which is never derived from the senses, but which far tran-
scends even the conceptions of the understanding (with which Aristotle
occupied himself), inasmuch as in experience nothing perfectly correspond-
ing to them could be found. Ideas are, according to him, archetypes of
things themselves, and not merely keys to possible experiences, like the cat-
219
egories. In his view they flow from the highest reason, by which they have
been imparted to human reason, which, however, exists no longer in its
original state, but is obliged with great labour to recall by reminiscence—
which is called philosophy—the old but now sadly obscured ideas. I will
not here enter upon any literary investigation of the sense which this sub-
lime philosopher attached to this expression. I shall content myself with
remarking that it is nothing unusual, in common conversation as well as in
written works, by comparing the thoughts which an author has delivered
upon a subject, to understand him better than he understood himself inas-
much as he may not have sufficiently determined his conception, and thus
have sometimes spoken, nay even thought, in opposition to his own opin-
ions.
Plato perceived very clearly that our faculty of cognition has the feeling
of a much higher vocation than that of merely spelling out phenomena
according to synthetical unity, for the purpose of being able to read them
as experience, and that our reason naturally raises itself to cognitions far
too elevated to admit of the possibility of an object given by experience
corresponding to them-cognitions which are nevertheless real, and are not
mere phantoms of the brain.
This philosopher found his ideas especially in all that is practical,* that
is, which rests upon freedom, which in its turn ranks under cognitions
that are the peculiar product of reason. He who would derive from expe-
rience the conceptions of virtue, who would make (as many have really
done) that, which at best can but serve as an imperfectly illustrative ex-
ample, a model for or the formation of a perfectly adequate idea on the
subject, would in fact transform virtue into a nonentity changeable ac-
cording to time and circumstance and utterly incapable of being employed
as a rule. On the contrary, every one is conscious that, when any one is
held up to him as a model of virtue, he compares this so-called model
with the true original which he possesses in his own mind and values him
according to this standard. But this standard is the idea of virtue, in rela-
tion to which all possible objects of experience are indeed serviceable as
*He certainly extended the application of his conception to speculative cogni-

tions also, provided they were given pure and completely a priori, nay, even to
mathematics, although this science cannot possess an object otherwhere than in
Possible experience. I cannot follow him in this, and as little can I follow him in
his mystical deduction of these ideas, or in his hypostatization of them; although,
in truth, the elevated and exaggerated language which he employed in describing
them is quite capable of an interpretation more subdued and more in accordance
with fact and the nature of things.
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Immanuel Kant
examples—proofs of the practicability in a certain degree of that which

the conception of virtue demands—but certainly not as archetypes. That
the actions of man will never be in perfect accordance with all the require-
ments of the pure ideas of reason, does not prove the thought to be chi-
merical. For only through this idea are all judgements as to moral merit or
demerit possible; it consequently lies at the foundation of every approach
to moral perfection, however far removed from it the obstacles in human
nature-indeterminable as to degree—may keep us.
The Platonic Republic has become proverbial as an example—and a
striking one—of imaginary perfection, such as can exist only in the brain
of the idle thinker; and Brucker ridicules the philosopher for maintaining
that a prince can never govern well, unless he is participant in the ideas.
But we should do better to follow up this thought and, where this admi-
rable thinker leaves us without assistance, employ new efforts to place it in
clearer light, rather than carelessly fling it aside as useless, under the very
miserable and pernicious pretext of impracticability. A constitution of the
greatest possible human freedom according to laws, by which the liberty
of every individual can consist with the liberty of every other (not of the
greatest possible happiness, for this follows necessarily from the former),
is, to say the least, a necessary idea, which must be placed at the founda-
tion not only of the first plan of the constitution of a state, but of all its
laws. And, in this, it not necessary at the outset to take account of the
obstacles which lie in our way—obstacles which perhaps do not necessar-
ily arise from the character of human nature, but rather from the previous
neglect of true ideas in legislation. For there is nothing more pernicious
and more unworthy of a philosopher, than the vulgar appeal to a so-called
adverse experience, which indeed would not have existed, if those institu-
tions had been established at the proper time and in accordance with
ideas; while, instead of this, conceptions, crude for the very reason that
they have been drawn from experience, have marred and frustrated all our
better views and intentions. The more legislation and government are in
harmony with this idea, the more rare do punishments become and thus
it is quite reasonable to maintain, as Plato did, that in a perfect state no
punishments at all would be necessary. Now although a perfect state may
never exist, the idea is not on that account the less just, which holds up
this maximum as the archetype or standard of a constitution, in order to
bring legislative government always nearer and nearer to the greatest pos-
sible perfection. For at what precise degree human nature must stop in its
progress, and how wide must be the chasm which must necessarily exist
between the idea and its realization, are problems which no one can or
221
ought to determine-and for this reason, that it is the destination of free-

dom to overstep all assigned limits between itself and the idea.
But not only in that wherein human reason is a real causal agent and
where ideas are operative causes (of actions and their objects), that is to
say, in the region of ethics, but also in regard to nature herself, Plato saw
clear proofs of an origin from ideas. A plant, and animal, the regular order
of nature—probably also the disposition of the whole universe—give
manifest evidence that they are possible only by means of and according
to ideas; that, indeed, no one creature, under the individual conditions of
its existence, perfectly harmonizes with the idea of the most perfect of its
kind-just as little as man with the idea of humanity, which nevertheless he
bears in his soul as the archetypal standard of his actions; that, notwith-
standing, these ideas are in the highest sense individually, unchangeably,
and completely determined, and are the original causes of things; and that
the totality of connected objects in the universe is alone fully adequate to
that idea. Setting aside the exaggerations of expression in the writings of
this philosopher, the mental power exhibited in this ascent from the ectypal
mode of regarding the physical world to the architectonic connection
thereof according to ends, that is, ideas, is an effort which deserves imita-
tion and claims respect. But as regards the principles of ethics, of legisla-
tion, and of religion, spheres in which ideas alone render experience pos-
sible, although they never attain to full expression therein, he has vindi-
cated for himself a position of peculiar merit, which is not appreciated
only because it is judged by the very empirical rules, the validity of which
as principles is destroyed by ideas. For as regards nature, experience pre-
sents us with rules and is the source of truth, but in relation to ethical laws
experience is the parent of illusion, and it is in the highest degree repre-
hensible to limit or to deduce the laws which dictate what I ought to do,
from what is done.
We must, however, omit the consideration of these important subjects,
the development of which is in reality the peculiar duty and dignity of
philosophy, and confine ourselves for the present to the more humble but
not less useful task of preparing a firm foundation for those majestic edi-
fices of moral science. For this foundation has been hitherto insecure from
the many subterranean passages which reason in its confident but vain
search for treasures has made in all directions. Our present duty is to make
ourselves perfectly acquainted with the transcendental use made of pure
reason, its principles and ideas, that we may be able properly to determine
and value its influence and real worth. But before bringing these intro-
ductory remarks to a close, I beg those who really have philosophy at
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heart—and their number is but small—if they shall find themselves con-
vinced by the considerations following as well as by those above, to exert
themselves to preserve to the expression idea its original signification, and
to take care that it be not lost among those other expressions by which all
sorts of representations are loosely designated—that the interests of sci-
ence may not thereby suffer. We are in no want of words to denominate
adequately every mode of representation, without the necessity of encroach-
ing upon terms which are proper to others. The following is a graduated
list of them. The genus is representation in general (representatio). Under
it stands representation with consciousness (perceptio). A perception which
relates solely to the subject as a modification of its state, is a sensation
(sensatio), an objective perception is a cognition (cognitio). A cognition is
either an intuition or a conception (intuitus vel conceptus). The former
has an immediate relation to the object and is singular and individual; the
latter has but a mediate relation, by means of a characteristic mark which
may be common to several things. A conception is either empirical or
pure. A pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding
alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is called notio.
A conception formed from notions, which transcends the possibility of
experience, is an idea, or a conception of reason. To one who has accus-
tomed himself to these distinctions, it must be quite intolerable to hear
the representation of the colour red called an idea. It ought not even to be
called a notion or conception of understanding.
SECTION II. Of Transcendental Ideas.
Transcendental analytic showed us how the mere logical form of our cog-
nition can contain the origin of pure conceptions a priori, conceptions
which represent objects antecedently to all experience, or rather, indicate
the synthetical unity which alone renders possible an empirical cognition
of objects. The form of judgements—converted into a conception of the
synthesis of intuitions—produced the categories which direct the employ-
ment of the understanding in experience. This consideration warrants us
to expect that the form of syllogisms, when applied to synthetical unity of
intuitions, following the rule of the categories, will contain the origin of
particular a priori conceptions, which we may call pure conceptions of
reason or transcendental ideas, and which will determine the use of the
understanding in the totality of experience according to principles.
The function of reason in arguments consists in the universality of a cog-
223
nition according to conceptions, and the syllogism itself is a judgement

which is determined a priori in the whole extent of its condition. The propo-
sition: “Caius is mortal,” is one which may be obtained from experience by
the aid of the understanding alone; but my wish is to find a conception
which contains the condition under which the predicate of this judgement
is given—in this case, the conception of man—and after subsuming under
this condition, taken in its whole extent (all men are mortal), I determine
according to it the cognition of the object thought, and say: “Caius is mor-
tal.”
Hence, in the conclusion of a syllogism we restrict a predicate to a cer-
tain object, after having thought it in the major in its whole extent under
a certain condition. This complete quantity of the extent in relation to
such a condition is called universality (universalitas). To this corresponds
totality (universitas) of conditions in the synthesis of intuitions. The tran-
scendental conception of reason is therefore nothing else than the concep-
tion of the totality of the conditions of a given conditioned. Now as the
unconditioned alone renders possible totality of conditions, and, con-
versely, the totality of conditions is itself always unconditioned; a pure
rational conception in general can be defined and explained by means of
the conception of the unconditioned, in so far as it contains a basis for the
synthesis of the conditioned.
To the number of modes of relation which the understanding cogitates
by means of the categories, the number of pure rational conceptions will
correspond. We must therefore seek for, first, an unconditioned of the
categorical synthesis in a subject; secondly, of the hypothetical synthesis
of the members of a series; thirdly, of the disjunctive synthesis of parts in
a system.
There are exactly the same number of modes of syllogisms, each of which
proceeds through prosyllogisms to the unconditioned—one to the sub-
ject which cannot be employed as predicate, another to the presupposi-
tion which supposes nothing higher than itself, and the third to an aggre-
gate of the members of the complete division of a conception. Hence the
pure rational conceptions of totality in the synthesis of conditions have a
necessary foundation in the nature of human reason—at least as modes of
elevating the unity of the understanding to the unconditioned. They may
have no valid application, corresponding to their transcendental employ-
ment, in concreto, and be thus of no greater utility than to direct the
understanding how, while extending them as widely as possible, to main-
tain its exercise and application in perfect consistence and harmony.
But, while speaking here of the totality of conditions and of the uncondi-
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Immanuel Kant
tioned as the common title of all conceptions of reason, we again light upon
an expression which we find it impossible to dispense with, and which nev-
ertheless, owing to the ambiguity attaching to it from long abuse, we cannot
employ with safety. The word absolute is one of the few words which, in its
original signification, was perfectly adequate to the conception it was in-
tended to convey—a conception which no other word in the same language
exactly suits, and the loss—or, which is the same thing, the incautious and
loose employment—of which must be followed by the loss of the concep-
tion itself. And, as it is a conception which occupies much of the attention
of reason, its loss would be greatly to the detriment of all transcendental
philosophy. The word absolute is at present frequently used to denote that
something can be predicated of a thing considered in itself and intrinsically.
In this sense absolutely possible would signify that which is possible in itself
(interne)-which is, in fact, the least that one can predicate of an object. On
the other hand, it is sometimes employed to indicate that a thing is valid in
all respects—for example, absolute sovereignty. Absolutely possible would
in this sense signify that which is possible in all relations and in every re-
spect; and this is the most that can be predicated of the possibility of a thing.
Now these significations do in truth frequently coincide. Thus, for example,
that which is intrinsically impossible, is also impossible in all relations, that
is, absolutely impossible. But in most cases they differ from each other toto
caelo, and I can by no means conclude that, because a thing is in itself
possible, it is also possible in all relations, and therefore absolutely. Nay,
more, I shall in the sequel show that absolute necessity does not by any
means depend on internal necessity, and that, therefore, it must not be con-
sidered as synonymous with it. Of an opposite which is intrinsically impos-
sible, we may affirm that it is in all respects impossible, and that, conse-
quently, the thing itself, of which this is the opposite, is absolutely neces-
sary; but I cannot reason conversely and say, the opposite of that which is
absolutely necessary is intrinsically impossible, that is, that the absolute ne-
cessity of things is an internal necessity. For this internal necessity is in cer-
tain cases a mere empty word with which the least conception cannot be
connected, while the conception of the necessity of a thing in all relations
possesses very peculiar determinations. Now as the loss of a conception of
great utility in speculative science cannot be a matter of indifference to the
philosopher, I trust that the proper determination and careful preservation
of the expression on which the conception depends will likewise be not
indifferent to him.
In this enlarged signification, then, shall I employ the word absolute, in
opposition to that which is valid only in some particular respect; for the
225
latter is restricted by conditions, the former is valid without any restric-

tion whatever.
Now the transcendental conception of reason has for its object nothing
else than absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions and does not rest
satisfied till it has attained to the absolutely, that is, in all respects and
relations, unconditioned. For pure reason leaves to the understanding ev-
erything that immediately relates to the object of intuition or rather to
their synthesis in imagination. The former restricts itself to the absolute
totality in the employment of the conceptions of the understanding and
aims at carrying out the synthetical unity which is cogitated in the cat-
egory, even to the unconditioned. This unity may hence be called the
rational unity of phenomena, as the other, which the category expresses,
may be termed the unity of the understanding. Reason, therefore, has an
immediate relation to the use of the understanding, not indeed in so far as
the latter contains the ground of possible experience (for the conception
of the absolute totality of conditions is not a conception that can be em-
ployed in experience, because no experience is unconditioned), but solely
for the purpose of directing it to a certain unity, of which the understand-
ing has no conception, and the aim of which is to collect into an absolute
whole all acts of the understanding. Hence the objective employment of
the pure conceptions of reason is always transcendent, while that of the
pure conceptions of the understanding must, according to their nature,
be always immanent, inasmuch as they are limited to possible experience.
I understand by idea a necessary conception of reason, to which no
corresponding object can be discovered in the world of sense. Accord-
ingly, the pure conceptions of reason at present under consideration are
transcendental ideas. They are conceptions of pure reason, for they regard
all empirical cognition as determined by means of an absolute totality of
conditions. They are not mere fictions, but natural and necessary prod-
ucts of reason, and have hence a necessary relation to the whole sphere of
the exercise of the understanding. And, finally, they are transcendent, and
overstep the limits of all experiences, in which, consequently, no object
can ever be presented that would be perfectly adequate to a transcendental
idea. When we use the word idea, we say, as regards its object (an object of
the pure understanding), a great deal, but as regards its subject (that is, in
respect of its reality under conditions of experience), exceedingly little,
because the idea, as the conception of a maximum, can never be com-
pletely and adequately presented in concreto. Now, as in the merely specu-
lative employment of reason the latter is properly the sole aim, and as in
this case the approximation to a conception, which is never attained in
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Immanuel Kant
practice, is the same thing as if the conception were non-existent—it is

commonly said of the conception of this kind, “it is only an idea.” So we
might very well say, “the absolute totality of all phenomena is only an
idea,” for, as we never can present an adequate representation of it, it
remains for us a problem incapable of solution. On the other hand, as in
the practical use of the understanding we have only to do with action and
practice according to rules, an idea of pure reason can always be given
really in concreto, although only partially, nay, it is the indispensable con-
dition of all practical employment of reason. The practice or execution of
the idea is always limited and defective, but nevertheless within indeter-
minable boundaries, consequently always under the influence of the con-
ception of an absolute perfection. And thus the practical idea is always in
the highest degree fruitful, and in relation to real actions indispensably
necessary. In the idea, pure reason possesses even causality and the power
of producing that which its conception contains. Hence we cannot say of
wisdom, in a disparaging way, “it is only an idea.” For, for the very reason
that it is the idea of the necessary unity of all possible aims, it must be for
all practical exertions and endeavours the primitive condition and rule—
a rule which, if not constitutive, is at least limitative.
Now, although we must say of the transcendental conceptions of reason,
“they are only ideas,” we must not, on this account, look upon them as
superfluous and nugatory. For, although no object can be determined by
them, they can be of great utility, unobserved and at the basis of the edifice
of the understanding, as the canon for its extended and self-consistent exer-
cise—a canon which, indeed, does not enable it to cognize more in an ob-
ject than it would cognize by the help of its own conceptions, but which
guides it more securely in its cognition. Not to mention that they perhaps
render possible a transition from our conceptions of nature and the non-ego
to the practical conceptions, and thus produce for even ethical ideas keep-
ing, so to speak, and connection with the speculative cognitions of reason.
The explication of all this must be looked for in the sequel.
But setting aside, in conformity with our original purpose, the consid-
eration of the practical ideas, we proceed to contemplate reason in its
speculative use alone, nay, in a still more restricted sphere, to wit, in the
transcendental use; and here must strike into the same path which we
followed in our deduction of the categories. That is to say, we shall con-
sider the logical form of the cognition of reason, that we may see whether
reason may not be thereby a source of conceptions which enables us to
regard objects in themselves as determined synthetically a priori, in rela-
tion to one or other of the functions of reason.
227
Reason, considered as the faculty of a certain logical form of cognition,

is the faculty of conclusion, that is, of mediate judgement—by means of
the subsumption of the condition of a possible judgement under the con-
dition of a given judgement. The given judgement is the general rule (ma-
jor). The subsumption of the condition of another possible judgement
under the condition of the rule is the minor. The actual judgement, which
enounces the assertion of the rule in the subsumed case, is the conclusion
(conclusio). The rule predicates something generally under a certain con-
dition. The condition of the rule is satisfied in some particular case. It
follows that what was valid in general under that condition must also be
considered as valid in the particular case which satisfies this condition. It
is very plain that reason attains to a cognition, by means of acts of the
understanding which constitute a series of conditions. When I arrive at
the proposition, “All bodies are changeable,” by beginning with the more
remote cognition (in which the conception of body does not appear, but
which nevertheless contains the condition of that conception), “All com-
pound is changeable,” by proceeding from this to a less remote cognition,
which stands under the condition of the former, “Bodies are compound,”
and hence to a third, which at length connects for me the remote cogni-
tion (changeable) with the one before me, “Consequently, bodies are
changeable”—I have arrived at a cognition (conclusion) through a series
of conditions (premisses). Now every series, whose exponent (of the cat-
egorical or hypothetical judgement) is given, can be continued; conse-
quently the same procedure of reason conducts us to the ratiocinatio
polysyllogistica, which is a series of syllogisms, that can be continued ei-
ther on the side of the conditions (per prosyllogismos) or of the condi-
tioned (per episyllogismos) to an indefinite extent.
But we very soon perceive that the chain or series of prosyllogisms, that is,
of deduced cognitions on the side of the grounds or conditions of a given
cognition, in other words, the ascending series of syllogisms must have a very
different relation to the faculty of reason from that of the descending series,
that is, the progressive procedure of reason on the side of the conditioned by
means of episyllogisms. For, as in the former case the cognition (conclusio) is
given only as conditioned, reason can attain to this cognition only under the
presupposition that all the members of the series on the side of the conditions
are given (totality in the series of premisses), because only under this supposi-
tion is the judgement we may be considering possible a priori; while on the
side of the conditioned or the inferences, only an incomplete and becoming,
and not a presupposed or given series, consequently only a potential progres-
sion, is cogitated. Hence, when a cognition is contemplated as conditioned,
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Immanuel Kant
reason is compelled to consider the series of conditions in an ascending line as

completed and given in their totality. But if the very same condition is consid-
ered at the same time as the condition of other cognitions, which together
constitute a series of inferences or consequences in a descending line, reason
may preserve a perfect indifference, as to how far this progression may extend
a parte posteriori, and whether the totality of this series is possible, because it
stands in no need of such a series for the purpose of arriving at the conclusion
before it, inasmuch as this conclusion is sufficiently guaranteed and deter-
mined on grounds a parte priori. It may be the case, that upon the side of the
conditions the series of premisses has a first or highest condition, or it may not
possess this, and so be a parte priori unlimited; but it must, nevertheless,
contain totality of conditions, even admitting that we never could succeed in
completely apprehending it; and the whole series must be unconditionally
true, if the conditioned, which is considered as an inference resulting from it,
is to be held as true. This is a requirement of reason, which announces its
cognition as determined a priori and as necessary, either in itself—and in this
case it needs no grounds to rest upon—or, if it is deduced, as a member of a
series of grounds, which is itself unconditionally true.
SECTION III. System of Transcendental Ideas.
We are not at present engaged with a logical dialectic, which makes com-
plete abstraction of the content of cognition and aims only at unveiling
the illusory appearance in the form of syllogisms. Our subject is transcen-
dental dialectic, which must contain, completely a priori, the origin of
certain cognitions drawn from pure reason, and the origin of certain de-
duced conceptions, the object of which cannot be given empirically and
which therefore lie beyond the sphere of the faculty of understanding. We
have observed, from the natural relation which the transcendental use of
our cognition, in syllogisms as well as in judgements, must have to the
logical, that there are three kinds of dialectical arguments, corresponding
to the three modes of conclusion, by which reason attains to cognitions
on principles; and that in all it is the business of reason to ascend from the
conditioned synthesis, beyond which the understanding never proceeds,
to the unconditioned which the understanding never can reach.
Now the most general relations which can exist in our representations
are: 1st, the relation to the subject; 2nd, the relation to objects, either as
phenomena, or as objects of thought in general. If we connect this subdi-
vision with the main division, all the relations of our representations, of
229
which we can form either a conception or an idea, are threefold: 1. The

relation to the subject; 2. The relation to the manifold of the object as a
phenomenon; 3. The relation to all things in general.
Now all pure conceptions have to do in general with the synthetical
unity of representations; conceptions of pure reason (transcendental ideas),
on the other hand, with the unconditional synthetical unity of all condi-
tions. It follows that all transcendental ideas arrange themselves in three
classes, the first of which contains the absolute (unconditioned) unity of
the thinking subject, the second the absolute unity of the series of the
conditions of a phenomenon, the third the absolute unity of the condi-
tion of all objects of thought in general.
The thinking subject is the object-matter of Psychology; the sum total
of all phenomena (the world) is the object-matter of Cosmology; and the
thing which contains the highest condition of the possibility of all that is
cogitable (the being of all beings) is the object-matter of all Theology.
Thus pure reason presents us with the idea of a transcendental doctrine of
the soul (psychologia rationalis), of a transcendental science of the world
(cosmologia rationalis), and finally of a transcendental doctrine of God
(theologia transcendentalis). Understanding cannot originate even the
outline of any of these sciences, even when connected with the highest
logical use of reason, that is, all cogitable syllogisms-for the purpose of
proceeding from one object (phenomenon) to all others, even to the ut-
most limits of the empirical synthesis. They are, on the contrary, pure and
genuine products, or problems, of pure reason.
What modi of the pure conceptions of reason these transcendental ideas are
will be fully exposed in the following chapter. They follow the guiding thread
of the categories. For pure reason never relates immediately to objects, but to
the conceptions of these contained in the understanding. In like manner, it
will be made manifest in the detailed explanation of these ideas—how reason,
merely through the synthetical use of the same function which it employs in a
categorical syllogism, necessarily attains to the conception of the absolute unity
of the thinking subject—how the logical procedure in hypothetical ideas nec-
essarily produces the idea of the absolutely unconditioned in a series of given
conditions, and finally—how the mere form of the disjunctive syllogism in-
volves the highest conception of a being of all beings: a thought which at first
sight seems in the highest degree paradoxical.
An objective deduction, such as we were able to present in the case of
the categories, is impossible as regards these transcendental ideas. For they
have, in truth, no relation to any object, in experience, for the very reason
that they are only ideas. But a subjective deduction of them from the
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Immanuel Kant
nature of our reason is possible, and has been given in the present chapter.
It is easy to perceive that the sole aim of pure reason is the absolute totality
of the synthesis on the side of the conditions, and that it does not concern
itself with the absolute completeness on the Part of the conditioned. For of
the former alone does she stand in need, in order to preposit the whole series
of conditions, and thus present them to the understanding a priori. But if
we once have a completely (and unconditionally) given condition, there is
no further necessity, in proceeding with the series, for a conception of rea-
son; for the understanding takes of itself every step downward, from the
condition to the conditioned. Thus the transcendental ideas are available
only for ascending in the series of conditions, till we reach the uncondi-
tioned, that is, principles. As regards descending to the conditioned, on the
other hand, we find that there is a widely extensive logical use which reason
makes of the laws of the understanding, but that a transcendental use thereof
is impossible; and that when we form an idea of the absolute totality of such
a synthesis, for example, of the whole series of all future changes in the
world, this idea is a mere ens rationis, an arbitrary fiction of thought, and
not a necessary presupposition of reason. For the possibility of the condi-
tioned presupposes the totality of its conditions, but not of its consequences.
Consequently, this conception is not a transcendental idea—and it is with
these alone that we are at present occupied.
Finally, it is obvious that there exists among the transcendental ideas a
certain connection and unity, and that pure reason, by means of them,
collects all its cognitions into one system. From the cognition of self to the
cognition of the world, and through these to the supreme being, the pro-
gression is so natural, that it seems to resemble the logical march of reason
from the premisses to the conclusion.* Now whether there lies unobserved
*The science of Metaphysics has for the proper object of its inquiries only three
grand ideas: GOD, FREEDOM, and IMMORTALITY, and it aims at showing,
that the second conception, conjoined with the first, must lead to the third, as a
necessary conclusion. All the other subjects with which it occupies itself, are merely
means for the attainment and realization of these ideas. It does not require these
ideas for the construction of a science of nature, but, on the contrary, for the pur-
pose of passing beyond the sphere of nature. A complete insight into and compre-
hension of them would render Theology, Ethics, and, through the conjunction of
both, Religion, solely dependent on the speculative faculty of reason. In a system-
atic representation of these ideas the above-mentioned arrangement—the syntheti-
cal one—would be the most suitable; but in the investigation which must necessar-
ily precede it, the analytical, which reverses this arrangement, would be better adapted
to our purpose, as in it we should proceed from that which experience immediately
presents to us—psychology, to cosmology, and thence to theology.
231
at the foundation of these ideas an analogy of the same kind as exists

between the logical and transcendental procedure of reason, is another of
those questions, the answer to which we must not expect till we arrive at a
more advanced stage in our inquiries. In this cursory and preliminary
view, we have, meanwhile, reached our aim. For we have dispelled the
ambiguity which attached to the transcendental conceptions of reason,
from their being commonly mixed up with other conceptions in the sys-
tems of philosophers, and not properly distinguished from the concep-
tions of the understanding; we have exposed their origin and, thereby, at
the same time their determinate number, and presented them in a system-
atic connection, and have thus marked out and enclosed a definite sphere
for pure reason.
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Immanuel Kant
BOOK II.
OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE REASON.
It may be said that the object of a merely transcendental idea is something

of which we have no conception, although the idea may be a necessary
product of reason according to its original laws. For, in fact, a conception
of an object that is adequate to the idea given by reason, is impossible. For
such an object must be capable of being presented and intuited in a Pos-
sible experience. But we should express our meaning better, and with less
risk of being misunderstood, if we said that we can have no knowledge of
an object, which perfectly corresponds to an idea, although we may pos-
sess a problematical conception thereof.
Now the transcendental (subjective) reality at least of the pure concep-
tions of reason rests upon the fact that we are led to such ideas by a neces-
sary procedure of reason. There must therefore be syllogisms which con-
tain no empirical premisses, and by means of which we conclude from
something that we do know, to something of which we do not even pos-
sess a conception, to which we, nevertheless, by an unavoidable illusion,
ascribe objective reality. Such arguments are, as regards their result, rather
to be termed sophisms than syllogisms, although indeed, as regards their
origin, they are very well entitled to the latter name, inasmuch as they are
not fictions or accidental products of reason, but are necessitated by its
very nature. They are sophisms, not of men, but of pure reason herself,
from which the Wisest cannot free himself. After long labour he may be
able to guard against the error, but he can never be thoroughly rid of the
illusion which continually mocks and misleads him.
Of these dialectical arguments there are three kinds, corresponding to
the number of the ideas which their conclusions present. In the argument
or syllogism of the first class, I conclude, from the transcendental concep-
tion of the subject contains no manifold, the absolute unity of the subject
itself, of which I cannot in this manner attain to a conception. This dia-
lectical argument I shall call the transcendental paralogism. The second
class of sophistical arguments is occupied with the transcendental concep-
tion of the absolute totality of the series of conditions for a given phenom-
233
enon, and I conclude, from the fact that I have always a self-contradictory
conception of the unconditioned synthetical unity of the series upon one
side, the truth of the opposite unity, of which I have nevertheless no con-
ception. The condition of reason in these dialectical arguments, I shall
term the antinomy of pure reason. Finally, according to the third kind of
sophistical argument, I conclude, from the totality of the conditions of
thinking objects in general, in so far as they can be given, the absolute
synthetical unity of all conditions of the possibility of things in general;
that is, from things which I do not know in their mere transcendental
conception, I conclude a being of all beings which I know still less by
means of a transcendental conception, and of whose unconditioned ne-
cessity I can form no conception whatever. This dialectical argument I
shall call the ideal of pure reason.
CHAPTER I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.
The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in respect of

its form, be the content what it may. But a transcendental paralogism has
a transcendental foundation, and concludes falsely, while the form is cor-
rect and unexceptionable. In this manner the paralogism has its founda-
tion in the nature of human reason, and is the parent of an unavoidable,
though not insoluble, mental illusion.
We now come to a conception which was not inserted in the general list
of transcendental conceptions, and yet must be reckoned with them, but
at the same time without in the least altering, or indicating a deficiency in
that table. This is the conception, or, if the term is preferred, the judge-
ment, “I think.” But it is readily perceived that this thought is as it were
the vehicle of all conceptions in general, and consequently of transcen-
dental conceptions also, and that it is therefore regarded as a transcenden-
tal conception, although it can have no peculiar claim to be so ranked,
inasmuch as its only use is to indicate that all thought is accompanied by
consciousness. At the same time, pure as this conception is from empirical
content (impressions of the senses), it enables us to distinguish two differ-
ent kinds of objects. “I,” as thinking, am an object of the internal sense,
and am called soul. That which is an object of the external senses is called
body. Thus the expression, “I,” as a thinking being, designates the object-
matter of psychology, which may be called “the rational doctrine of the
soul,” inasmuch as in this science I desire to know nothing of the soul but
what, independently of all experience (which determines me in concreto),
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Immanuel Kant
may be concluded from this conception “I,” in so far as it appears in all

thought.
Now, the rational doctrine of the soul is really an undertaking of this
kind. For if the smallest empirical element of thought, if any particular
perception of my internal state, were to be introduced among the grounds
of cognition of this science, it would not be a rational, but an empirical
doctrine of the soul. We have thus before us a pretended science, raised
upon the single proposition, “I think,” whose foundation or want of foun-
dation we may very properly, and agreeably with the nature of a transcen-
dental philosophy, here examine. It ought not to be objected that in this
proposition, which expresses the perception of one’s self, an internal expe-
rience is asserted, and that consequently the rational doctrine of the soul
which is founded upon it, is not pure, but partly founded upon an em-
pirical principle. For this internal perception is nothing more than the
mere apperception, “I think,” which in fact renders all transcendental con-
ceptions possible, in which we say, “I think substance, cause, etc.” For
internal experience in general and its possibility, or perception in general,
and its relation to other perceptions, unless some particular distinction or
determination thereof is empirically given, cannot be regarded as empiri-
cal cognition, but as cognition of the empirical, and belongs to the inves-
tigation of the possibility of every experience, which is certainly transcen-
dental. The smallest object of experience (for example, only pleasure or
pain), that should be included in the general representation of self-con-
sciousness, would immediately change the rational into an empirical psy-
chology.
“I think” is therefore the only text of rational psychology, from which it
must develop its whole system. It is manifest that this thought, when
applied to an object (myself ), can contain nothing but transcendental
predicates thereof; because the least empirical predicate would destroy the
purity of the science and its independence of all experience.
But we shall have to follow here the guidance of the categories-only, as
in the present case a thing, “I,” as thinking being, is at first given, we
shall—not indeed change the order of the categories as it stands in the
table—but begin at the category of substance, by which at the a thing in
itself is represented and proceeds backwards through the series. The topic
of the rational doctrine of the soul, from which everything else it may
contain must be deduced, is accordingly as follows:
235
1 2
The Soul is As regards its quality
SUBSTANCE it is SIMPLE
3
As regards the different
times in which it exists,
it is numerically identical,
that is UNITY, not Plurality.
4
It is in relation to possible objects in space.*
From these elements originate all the conceptions of pure psychology,

by combination alone, without the aid of any other principle. This sub-
stance, merely as an object of the internal sense, gives the conception of
Immateriality; as simple substance, that of Incorruptibility; its identity, as
intellectual substance, gives the conception of Personality; all these three
together, Spirituality. Its relation to objects in space gives us the concep-
tion of connection (commercium) with bodies. Thus it represents think-
ing substance as the principle of life in matter, that is, as a soul (anima),
and as the ground of Animality; and this, limited and determined by the
conception of spirituality, gives us that of Immortality.
Now to these conceptions relate four paralogisms of a transcendental
psychology, which is falsely held to be a science of pure reason, touching
the nature of our thinking being. We can, however, lay at the foundation
of this science nothing but the simple and in itself perfectly contentless
representation “I” which cannot even be called a conception, but merely a
consciousness which accompanies all conceptions. By this “I,” or “He,” or
“It,” who or which thinks, nothing more is represented than a transcen-
dental subject of thought = x, which is cognized only by means of the
*The reader, who may not so easily perceive the psychological sense of these
expressions, taken here in their transcendental abstraction, and cannot guess why
the latter attribute of the soul belongs to the category of existence, will find the
expressions sufficiently explained and justified in the sequel. I have, moreover, to
apologize for the Latin terms which have been employed, instead of their Ger-
man synonyms, contrary to the rules of correct writing. But I judged it better to
sacrifice elegance to perspicuity.
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Immanuel Kant
thoughts that are its predicates, and of which, apart from these, we cannot
form the least conception. Hence in a perpetual circle, inasmuch as we
must always employ it, in order to frame any judgement respecting it.
And this inconvenience we find it impossible to rid ourselves of, because
consciousness in itself is not so much a representation distinguishing a
particular object, as a form of representation in general, in so far as it may
be termed cognition; for in and by cognition alone do I think anything.
It must, however, appear extraordinary at first sight that the condition
under which I think, and which is consequently a property of my subject,
should be held to be likewise valid for every existence which thinks, and that
we can presume to base upon a seemingly empirical proposition a judge-
ment which is apodeictic and universal, to wit, that everything which thinks
is constituted as the voice of my consciousness declares it to be, that is, as a
self-conscious being. The cause of this belief is to be found in the fact that
we necessarily attribute to things a priori all the properties which constitute
conditions under which alone we can cogitate them. Now I cannot obtain
the least representation of a thinking being by means of external experience,
but solely through self-consciousness. Such objects are consequently noth-
ing more than the transference of this consciousness of mine to other things
which can only thus be represented as thinking beings. The proposition, “I
think,” is, in the present case, understood in a problematical sense, not in so
far as it contains a perception of an existence (like the Cartesian “Cogito,
ergo sum”),* but in regard to its mere possibility—for the purpose of dis-
covering what properties may be inferred from so simple a proposition and
predicated of the subject of it.
If at the foundation of our pure rational cognition of thinking beings
there lay more than the mere Cogito—if we could likewise call in aid
observations on the play of our thoughts, and the thence derived natural
laws of the thinking self, there would arise an empirical psychology which
would be a kind of physiology of the internal sense and might possibly be
capable of explaining the phenomena of that sense. But it could never be
available for discovering those properties which do not belong to possible
experience (such as the quality of simplicity), nor could it make any
apodeictic enunciation on the nature of thinking beings: it would there-
fore not be a rational psychology.
Now, as the proposition “I think” (in the problematical sense) contains
the form of every judgement in general and is the constant accompani-
ment of all the categories, it is manifest that conclusions are drawn from it
only by a transcendental employment of the understanding. This use of
*“I think, therefore I am.”

237
the understanding excludes all empirical elements; and we cannot, as has

been shown above, have any favourable conception beforehand of its pro-
cedure. We shall therefore follow with a critical eye this proposition through
all the predicaments of pure psychology; but we shall, for brevity’s sake,
allow this examination to proceed in an uninterrupted connection.
Before entering on this task, however, the following general remark may
help to quicken our attention to this mode of argument. It is not merely
through my thinking that I cognize an object, but only through my deter-
mining a given intuition in relation to the unity of consciousness in which
all thinking consists. It follows that I cognize myself, not through my
being conscious of myself as thinking, but only when I am conscious of
the intuition of myself as determined in relation to the function of thought.
All the modi of self-consciousness in thought are hence not conceptions
of objects (conceptions of the understanding—categories); they are mere
logical functions, which do not present to thought an object to be cognized,
and cannot therefore present my Self as an object. Not the consciousness
of the determining, but only that of the determinable self, that is, of my
internal intuition (in so far as the manifold contained in it can be con-
nected conformably with the general condition of the unity of appercep-
tion in thought), is the object.
1. In all judgements I am the determining subject of that relation which

constitutes a judgement. But that the I which thinks, must be considered
as in thought always a subject, and as a thing which cannot be a predicate
to thought, is an apodeictic and identical proposition. But this proposi-
tion does not signify that I, as an object, am, for myself, a self-subsistent
being or substance. This latter statement-an ambitious one—requires to
be supported by data which are not to be discovered in thought; and are
perhaps (in so far as I consider the thinking self merely as such) not to be
discovered in the thinking self at all.
2. That the I or Ego of apperception, and consequently in all thought, is

singular or simple, and cannot be resolved into a plurality of subjects, and
therefore indicates a logically simple subject—this is self-evident from the
very conception of an Ego, and is consequently an analytical proposition.
But this is not tantamount to declaring that the thinking Ego is a simple
substance-for this would be a synthetical proposition. The conception of
substance always relates to intuitions, which with me cannot be other
than sensuous, and which consequently lie completely out of the sphere
of the understanding and its thought: but to this sphere belongs the affir-
238
Immanuel Kant
mation that the Ego is simple in thought. It would indeed be surprising, if

the conception of “substance,” which in other cases requires so much labour
to distinguish from the other elements presented by intuition—so much
trouble, too, to discover whether it can be simple (as in the case of the
parts of matter)—should be presented immediately to me, as if by revela-
tion, in the poorest mental representation of all.
3. The proposition of the identity of my Self amidst all the manifold rep-
resentations of which I am conscious, is likewise a proposition lying in the
conceptions themselves, and is consequently analytical. But this identity
of the subject, of which I am conscious in all its representations, does not
relate to or concern the intuition of the subject, by which it is given as an
object. This proposition cannot therefore enounce the identity of the per-
son, by which is understood the consciousness of the identity of its own
substance as a thinking being in all change and variation of circumstances.
To prove this, we should require not a mere analysis of the proposition,
but synthetical judgements based upon a given intuition.
4. I distinguish my own existence, as that of a thinking being, from that of

other things external to me—among which my body also is reckoned.
This is also an analytical proposition, for other things are exactly those
which I think as different or distinguished from myself. But whether this
consciousness of myself is possible without things external to me; and
whether therefore I can exist merely as a thinking being (without being
man)—cannot be known or inferred from this proposition.
Thus we have gained nothing as regards the cognition of myself as ob-

ject, by the analysis of the consciousness of my Self in thought. The logi-
cal exposition of thought in general is mistaken for a metaphysical deter-
mination of the object.
Our Critique would be an investigation utterly superfluous, if there
existed a possibility of proving a priori, that all thinking beings are in
themselves simple substances, as such, therefore, possess the inseparable
attribute of personality, and are conscious of their existence apart from
and unconnected with matter. For we should thus have taken a step be-
yond the world of sense, and have penetrated into the sphere of noumena;
and in this case the right could not be denied us of extending our knowl-
edge in this sphere, of establishing ourselves, and, under a favouring star,
appropriating to ourselves possessions in it. For the proposition: “Every
thinking being, as such, is simple substance,” is an a priori synthetical
proposition; because in the first place it goes beyond the conception which
239
is the subject of it, and adds to the mere notion of a thinking being the
mode of its existence, and in the second place annexes a predicate (that of
simplicity) to the latter conception—a predicate which it could not have
discovered in the sphere of experience. It would follow that a priori syn-
thetical propositions are possible and legitimate, not only, as we have
maintained, in relation to objects of possible experience, and as principles
of the possibility of this experience itself, but are applicable to things in
themselves—an inference which makes an end of the whole of this Cri-
tique, and obliges us to fall back on the old mode of metaphysical proce-
dure. But indeed the danger is not so great, if we look a little closer into
the question.
There lurks in the procedure of rational Psychology a paralogism, which
is represented in the following syllogism:
That which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as subject, does not
exist otherwise than as subject, and is therefore substance.
A thinking being, considered merely as such, cannot be cogitated other-
wise than as subject.
Therefore it exists also as such, that is, as substance.
In the major we speak of a being that can be cogitated generally and in
every relation, consequently as it may be given in intuition. But in the
minor we speak of the same being only in so far as it regards itself as
subject, relatively to thought and the unity of consciousness, but not in
relation to intuition, by which it is presented as an object to thought.
Thus the conclusion is here arrived at by a Sophisma figurae dictionis.*
That this famous argument is a mere paralogism, will be plain to any
one who will consider the general remark which precedes our exposition
of the principles of the pure understanding, and the section on noumena.
For it was there proved that the conception of a thing, which can exist per
se—only as a subject and never as a predicate, possesses no objective real-
*Thought is taken in the two premisses in two totally different senses. In the
major it is considered as relating and applying to objects in general, consequently
to objects of intuition also. In the minor, we understand it as relating merely to
self-consciousness. In this sense, we do not cogitate an object, but merely the
relation to the self-consciousness of the subject, as the form of thought. In the
former premiss we speak of things which cannot be cogitated otherwise than as
subjects. In the second, we do not speak of things, but of thought (all objects
being abstracted), in which the Ego is always the subject of consciousness. Hence
the conclusion cannot be, “I cannot exist otherwise than as subject”; but only “I
can, in cogitating my existence, employ my Ego only as the subject of the judge-
ment.” But this is an identical proposition, and throws no light on the mode of
my existence.
240
Immanuel Kant
ity; that is to say, we can never know whether there exists any object to
correspond to the conception; consequently, the conception is nothing
more than a conception, and from it we derive no proper knowledge. If
this conception is to indicate by the term substance, an object that can be
given, if it is to become a cognition, we must have at the foundation of the
cognition a permanent intuition, as the indispensable condition of its
objective reality. For through intuition alone can an object be given. But
in internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the Ego is but the
consciousness of my thought. If then, we appeal merely to thought, we
cannot discover the necessary condition of the application of the concep-
tion of substance—that is, of a subject existing per se—to the subject as a
thinking being. And thus the conception of the simple nature of sub-
stance, which is connected with the objective reality of this conception, is
shown to be also invalid, and to be, in fact, nothing more than the logical
qualitative unity of self-consciousness in thought; whilst we remain per-
fectly ignorant whether the subject is composite or not.
Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the Substantiality

or Permanence of the Soul.
This acute philosopher easily perceived the insufficiency of the common

argument which attempts to prove that the soul—it being granted that it
is a simple being—cannot perish by dissolution or decomposition; he saw
it is not impossible for it to cease to be by extinction, or disappearance.
He endeavoured to prove in his Phaedo, that the soul cannot be annihi-
lated, by showing that a simple being cannot cease to exist. Inasmuch as,
he said, a simple existence cannot diminish, nor gradually lose portions of
its being, and thus be by degrees reduced to nothing (for it possesses no
parts, and therefore no multiplicity), between the moment in which it is,
and the moment in which it is not, no time can be discovered—which is
impossible. But this philosopher did not consider that, granting the soul
to possess this simple nature, which contains no parts external to each
other and consequently no extensive quantity, we cannot refuse to it any
less than to any other being, intensive quantity, that is, a degree of reality
in regard to all its faculties, nay, to all that constitutes its existence. But
this degree of reality can become less and less through an infinite series of
smaller degrees. It follows, therefore, that this supposed substance—this
thing, the permanence of which is not assured in any other way, may, if
not by decomposition, by gradual loss (remissio) of its powers (conse-
241
quently by elanguescence, if I may employ this expression), be changed

into nothing. For consciousness itself has always a degree, which may be
lessened.* Consequently the faculty of being conscious may be dimin-
ished; and so with all other faculties. The permanence of the soul, there-
fore, as an object of the internal sense, remains undemonstrated, nay, even
indemonstrable. Its permanence in life is evident, per se, inasmuch as the
thinking being (as man) is to itself, at the same time, an object of the
external senses. But this does not authorize the rational psychologist to
affirm, from mere conceptions, its permanence beyond life.**
*Clearness is not, as logicians maintain, the consciousness of a representation.

For a certain degree of consciousness, which may not, however, be sufficient for
recollection, is to be met with in many dim representations. For without any
consciousness at all, we should not be able to recognize any difference in the
obscure representations we connect; as we really can do with many conceptions,
such as those of right and justice, and those of the musician, who strikes at once
several notes in improvising a piece of music. But a representation is clear, in
which our consciousness is sufficient for the consciousness of the difference of
this representation from others. If we are only conscious that there is a difference,
but are not conscious of the difference—that is, what the difference is-the repre-
sentation must be termed obscure. There is, consequently, an infinite series of
degrees of consciousness down to its entire disappearance.
**There are some who think they have done enough to establish a new possibility
in the mode of the existence of souls, when they have shown that there is no
contradiction in their hypotheses on this subject. Such are those who affirm the
possibility of thought—of which they have no other knowledge than what they
derive from its use in connecting empirical intuitions presented in this our hu-
man life—after this life has ceased. But it is very easy to embarrass them by the
introduction of counter-possibilities, which rest upon quite as good a founda-
tion. Such, for example, is the possibility of the division of a simple substance
into several substances; and conversely, of the coalition of several into one simple
substance. For, although divisibility presupposes composition, it does not neces-
sarily require a composition of substances, but only of the degrees (of the several
faculties) of one and the same substance. Now we can cogitate all the powers and
faculties of the soul—even that of consciousness—as diminished by one half, the
substance still remaining. In the same way we can represent to ourselves without
contradiction, this obliterated half as preserved, not in the soul, but without it;
and we can believe that, as in this case every thing that is real in the soul, and has
a degree—consequently its entire existence—has been halved, a particular sub-
stance would arise out of the soul. For the multiplicity, which has been divided,
formerly existed, but not as a multiplicity of substances, but of every reality as the
quantum of existence in it; and the unity of substance was merely a mode of
existence, which by this division alone has been transformed into a plurality of
subsistence. In the same manner several simple substances might coalesce into
242
Immanuel Kant
If, now, we take the above propositions—as they must be accepted as

valid for all thinking beings in the system of rational psychology—in syn-
thetical connection, and proceed, from the category of relation, with the
proposition: “All thinking beings are, as such, substances,” backwards
through the series, till the circle is completed; we come at last to their
existence, of which, in this system of rational psychology, substances are
held to be conscious, independently of external things; nay, it is asserted
that, in relation to the permanence which is a necessary characteristic of
substance, they can of themselves determine external things. It follows
that idealism—at least problematical idealism, is perfectly unavoidable in
this rationalistic system. And, if the existence of outward things is not
held to be requisite to the determination of the existence of a substance in
time, the existence of these outward things at all, is a gratuitous assump-
tion which remains without the possibility of a proof.
But if we proceed analytically—the “I think” as a proposition contain-
ing in itself an existence as given, consequently modality being the prin-
ciple—and dissect this proposition, in order to ascertain its content, and
discover whether and how this Ego determines its existence in time and
space without the aid of anything external; the propositions of rationalis-
tic psychology would not begin with the conception of a thinking being,
but with a reality, and the properties of a thinking being in general would
be deduced from the mode in which this reality is cogitated, after every-
thing empirical had been abstracted; as is shown in the following table:
one, without anything being lost except the plurality of subsistence, inasmuch as
the one substance would contain the degree of reality of all the former substances.
Perhaps, indeed, the simple substances, which appear under the form of matter,
might (not indeed by a mechanical or chemical influence upon each other, but
by an unknown influence, of which the former would be but the phenomenal
appearance), by means of such a dynamical division of the parent-souls, as inten-
sive quantities, produce other souls, while the former repaired the loss thus sus-
tained with new matter of the same sort. I am far from allowing any value to such
chimeras; and the principles of our analytic have clearly proved that no other
than an empirical use of the categories—that of substance, for example—is pos-
sible. But if the rationalist is bold enough to construct, on the mere authority of
the faculty of thought—without any intuition, whereby an object is given—a
self-subsistent being, merely because the unity of apperception in thought can-
not allow him to believe it a composite being, instead of declaring, as he ought to
do, that he is unable to explain the possibility of a thinking nature; what ought to
hinder the materialist, with as complete an independence of experience, to em-
ploy the principle of the rationalist in a directly opposite manner—still preserv-
ing the formal unity required by his opponent?
243
1
I think,
2 3
as Subject, as simple Subject,
4
as identical Subject, in every state of my thought.
Now, inasmuch as it is not determined in this second proposition,

whether I can exist and be cogitated only as subject, and not also as a
predicate of another being, the conception of a subject is here taken in a
merely logical sense; and it remains undetermined, whether substance is
to be cogitated under the conception or not. But in the third proposition,
the absolute unity of apperception-the simple Ego in the representation
to which all connection and separation, which constitute thought, relate,
is of itself important; even although it presents us with no information
about the constitution or subsistence of the subject. Apperception is some-
thing real, and the simplicity of its nature is given in the very fact of its
possibility. Now in space there is nothing real that is at the same time
simple; for points, which are the only simple things in space, are merely
limits, but not constituent parts of space. From this follows the impossi-
bility of a definition on the basis of materialism of the constitution of my
Ego as a merely thinking subject. But, because my existence is considered
in the first proposition as given, for it does not mean, “Every thinking
being exists” (for this would be predicating of them absolute necessity),
but only, “I exist thinking”; the proposition is quite empirical, and con-
tains the determinability of my existence merely in relation to my repre-
sentations in time. But as I require for this purpose something that is
permanent, such as is not given in internal intuition; the mode of my
existence, whether as substance or as accident, cannot be determined by
means of this simple self-consciousness. Thus, if materialism is inadequate
to explain the mode in which I exist, spiritualism is likewise as insuffi-
cient; and the conclusion is that we are utterly unable to attain to any
knowledge of the constitution of the soul, in so far as relates to the possi-
bility of its existence apart from external objects.
And, indeed, how should it be possible, merely by the aid of the unity of
consciousness—which we cognize only for the reason that it is indispens-
able to the possibility of experience—to pass the bounds of experience
244
Immanuel Kant
(our existence in this life); and to extend our cognition to the nature of all
thinking beings by means of the empirical—but in relation to every sort
of intuition, perfectly undetermined—proposition, “I think”?
There does not then exist any rational psychology as a doctrine furnish-
ing any addition to our knowledge of ourselves. It is nothing more than a
discipline, which sets impassable limits to speculative reason in this region
of thought, to prevent it, on the one hand, from throwing itself into the
arms of a soulless materialism, and, on the other, from losing itself in the
mazes of a baseless spiritualism. It teaches us to consider this refusal of our
reason to give any satisfactory answer to questions which reach beyond
the limits of this our human life, as a hint to abandon fruitless specula-
tion; and to direct, to a practical use, our knowledge of ourselves—which,
although applicable only to objects of experience, receives its principles
from a higher source, and regulates its procedure as if our destiny reached
far beyond the boundaries of experience and life.
From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere
misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the
categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and
the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is noth-
ing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which
therefore the category of substance—which always presupposes a given in-
tuition-cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized.
The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it
cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories;
for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure self-con-
sciousness—the very thing that it wishes to explain and describe. In like
manner, the subject, in which the representation of time has its basis, can-
not determine, for this very reason, its own existence in time. Now, if the
latter is impossible, the former, as an attempt to determine itself by means of
the categories as a thinking being in general, is no less so.*
*The “I think” is, as has been already stated, an empirical proposition, and con-
tains the proposition, “I exist.” But I cannot say, “Everything, which thinks,
exists”; for in this case the property of thought would constitute all beings pos-
sessing it, necessary beings. Hence my existence cannot be considered as an infer-
ence from the proposition, “I think,” as Descartes maintained—because in this
case the major premiss, “Everything, which thinks, exists,” must precede—but
the two propositions are identical. The proposition, “I think,” expresses an unde-
termined empirical intuition, that perception (proving consequently that sensa-
tion, which must belong to sensibility, lies at the foundation of this proposition);
but it precedes experience, whose province it is to determine an object of percep-
245
Thus, then, appears the vanity of the hope of establishing a cognition

which is to extend its rule beyond the limits of experience—a cognition
which is one of the highest interests of humanity; and thus is proved the
futility of the attempt of speculative philosophy in this region of thought.
But, in this interest of thought, the severity of criticism has rendered to
reason a not unimportant service, by the demonstration of the impossibil-
ity of making any dogmatical affirmation concerning an object of experi-
ence beyond the boundaries of experience. She has thus fortified reason
against all affirmations of the contrary. Now, this can be accomplished in
only two ways. Either our proposition must be proved apodeictically; or,
if this is unsuccessful, the sources of this inability must be sought for, and,
if these are discovered to exist in the natural and necessary limitation of
our reason, our opponents must submit to the same law of renunciation
and refrain from advancing claims to dogmatic assertion.
But the right, say rather the necessity to admit a future life, upon prin-
ciples of the practical conjoined with the speculative use of reason, has
lost nothing by this renunciation; for the merely speculative proof has
never had any influence upon the common reason of men. It stands upon
the point of a hair, so that even the schools have been able to preserve it
from falling only by incessantly discussing it and spinning it like a top;
and even in their eyes it has never been able to present any safe foundation
for the erection of a theory. The proofs which have been current among
men, preserve their value undiminished; nay, rather gain in clearness and
unsophisticated power, by the rejection of the dogmatical assumptions of
speculative reason. For reason is thus confined within her own peculiar
province—the arrangement of ends or aims, which is at the same time the
arrangement of nature; and, as a practical faculty, without limiting itself
tion by means of the categories in relation to time; and existence in this proposi-
tion is not a category, as it does not apply to an undetermined given object, but
only to one of which we have a conception, and about which we wish to know
whether it does or does not exist, out of, and apart from this conception. An
undetermined perception signifies here merely something real that has been given,
only, however, to thought in general—but not as a phenomenon, nor as a thing
in itself (noumenon), but only as something that really exists, and is designated
as such in the proposition, “I think.” For it must be remarked that, when I call
the proposition, “I think,” an empirical proposition, I do not thereby mean that
the Ego in the proposition is an empirical representation; on the contrary, it is
purely intellectual, because it belongs to thought in general. But without some
empirical representation, which presents to the mind material for thought, the
mental act, “I think,” would not take place; and the empirical is only the condi-
tion of the application or employment of the pure intellectual faculty.
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Immanuel Kant
to the latter, it is justified in extending the former, and with it our own
existence, beyond the boundaries of experience and life. If we turn our
attention to the analogy of the nature of living beings in this world, in the
consideration of which reason is obliged to accept as a principle that no
organ, no faculty, no appetite is useless, and that nothing is superfluous,
nothing disproportionate to its use, nothing unsuited to its end; but that,
on the contrary, everything is perfectly conformed to its destination in
life—we shall find that man, who alone is the final end and aim of this
order, is still the only animal that seems to be excepted from it. For his
natural gifts—not merely as regards the talents and motives that may in-
cite him to employ them, but especially the moral law in him—stretch so
far beyond all mere earthly utility and advantage, that he feels himself
bound to prize the mere consciousness of probity, apart from all advanta-
geous consequences—even the shadowy gift of posthumous fame—above
everything; and he is conscious of an inward call to constitute himself, by
his conduct in this world—without regard to mere sublunary interests—
the citizen of a better. This mighty, irresistible proof—accompanied by an
ever-increasing knowledge of the conformability to a purpose in every-
thing we see around us, by the conviction of the boundless immensity of
creation, by the consciousness of a certain illimitableness in the possible
extension of our knowledge, and by a desire commensurate therewith—
remains to humanity, even after the theoretical cognition of ourselves has
failed to establish the necessity of an existence after death.
Conclusion of the Solution of the Psychological Paralogism.
The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from our confounding

an idea of reason (of a pure intelligence) with the conception—in every
respect undetermined—of a thinking being in general. I cogitate myself in
behalf of a possible experience, at the same time making abstraction of all
actual experience; and infer therefrom that I can be conscious of myself
apart from experience and its empirical conditions. I consequently con-
found the possible abstraction of my empirically determined existence with
the supposed consciousness of a possible separate existence of my thinking
self; and I believe that I cognize what is substantial in myself as a transcen-
dental subject, when I have nothing more in thought than the unity of
consciousness, which lies at the basis of all determination of cognition.
The task of explaining the community of the soul with the body does
not properly belong to the psychology of which we are here speaking;
247
because it proposes to prove the personality of the soul apart from this
communion (after death), and is therefore transcendent in the proper sense
of the word, although occupying itself with an object of experience—only
in so far, however, as it ceases to be an object of experience. But a suffi-
cient answer may be found to the question in our system. The difficulty
which lies in the execution of this task consists, as is well known, in the
presupposed heterogeneity of the object of the internal sense (the soul)
and the objects of the external senses; inasmuch as the formal condition of
the intuition of the one is time, and of that of the other space also. But if
we consider that both kinds of objects do not differ internally, but only in
so far as the one appears externally to the other—consequently, that what
lies at the basis of phenomena, as a thing in itself, may not be heteroge-
neous; this difficulty disappears. There then remains no other difficulty
than is to be found in the question—how a community of substances is
possible; a question which lies out of the region of psychology, and which
the reader, after what in our analytic has been said of primitive forces and
faculties, will easily judge to be also beyond the region of human cogni-
tion.
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Immanuel Kant
GENERAL REMARK
On the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology.
The proposition, “I think,” or, “I exist thinking,” is an empirical proposi-

tion. But such a proposition must be based on empirical intuition, and
the object cogitated as a phenomenon; and thus our theory appears to
maintain that the soul, even in thought, is merely a phenomenon; and in
this way our consciousness itself, in fact, abuts upon nothing.
Thought, per se, is merely the purely spontaneous logical function which
operates to connect the manifold of a possible intuition; and it does not
represent the subject of consciousness as a phenomenon—for this reason
alone, that it pays no attention to the question whether the mode of intu-
iting it is sensuous or intellectual. I therefore do not represent myself in
thought either as I am, or as I appear to myself; I merely cogitate myself as
an object in general, of the mode of intuiting which I make abstraction.
When I represent myself as the subject of thought, or as the ground of
thought, these modes of representation are not related to the categories of
substance or of cause; for these are functions of thought applicable only to
our sensuous intuition. The application of these categories to the Ego
would, however, be necessary, if I wished to make myself an object of
knowledge. But I wish to be conscious of myself only as thinking; in what
mode my Self is given in intuition, I do not consider, and it may be that I,
who think, am a phenomenon—although not in so far as I am a thinking
being; but in the consciousness of myself in mere thought I am a being,
though this consciousness does not present to me any property of this
being as material for thought.
But the proposition, “I think,” in so far as it declares, “I exist thinking,”
is not the mere representation of a logical function. It determines the
subject (which is in this case an object also) in relation to existence; and it
cannot be given without the aid of the internal sense, whose intuition
presents to us an object, not as a thing in itself, but always as a phenom-
enon. In this proposition there is therefore something more to be found
than the mere spontaneity of thought; there is also the receptivity of intu-
ition, that is, my thought of myself applied to the empirical intuition of
myself. Now, in this intuition the thinking self must seek the conditions
of the employment of its logical functions as categories of substance, cause,
and so forth; not merely for the purpose of distinguishing itself as an
249
object in itself by means of the representation “I,” but also for the purpose
of determining the mode of its existence, that is, of cognizing itself as
noumenon. But this is impossible, for the internal empirical intuition is
sensuous, and presents us with nothing but phenomenal data, which do
not assist the object of pure consciousness in its attempt to cognize itself
as a separate existence, but are useful only as contributions to experience.
But, let it be granted that we could discover, not in experience, but in
certain firmly-established a priori laws of the use of pure reason—laws
relating to our existence, authority to consider ourselves as legislating a
priori in relation to our own existence and as determining this existence;
we should, on this supposition, find ourselves possessed of a spontaneity,
by which our actual existence would be determinable, without the aid of
the conditions of empirical intuition. We should also become aware that
in the consciousness of our existence there was an a priori content, which
would serve to determine our own existence—an existence only sensu-
ously determinable—relatively, however, to a certain internal faculty in
relation to an intelligible world.
But this would not give the least help to the attempts of rational psy-
chology. For this wonderful faculty, which the consciousness of the moral
law in me reveals, would present me with a principle of the determination
of my own existence which is purely intellectual—but by what predicates?
By none other than those which are given in sensuous intuition. Thus I
should find myself in the same position in rational psychology which I
formerly occupied, that is to say, I should find myself still in need of
sensuous intuitions, in order to give significance to my conceptions of
substance and cause, by means of which alone I can possess a knowledge
of myself: but these intuitions can never raise me above the sphere of
experience. I should be justified, however, in applying these conceptions,
in regard to their practical use, which is always directed to objects of expe-
rience—in conformity with their analogical significance when employed
theoretically—to freedom and its subject. At the same time, I should un-
derstand by them merely the logical functions of subject and predicate, of
principle and consequence, in conformity with which all actions are so
determined, that they are capable of being explained along with the laws
of nature, conformably to the categories of substance and cause, although
they originate from a very different principle. We have made these obser-
vations for the purpose of guarding against misunderstanding, to which
the doctrine of our intuition of self as a phenomenon is exposed. We shall
have occasion to perceive their utility in the sequel.
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Immanuel Kant
CHAPTER II. The Antinomy of Pure Reason.
We showed in the introduction to this part of our work, that all transcen-
dental illusion of pure reason arose from dialectical arguments, the schema
of which logic gives us in its three formal species of syllogisms—just as the
categories find their logical schema in the four functions of all judge-
ments. The first kind of these sophistical arguments related to the uncon-
ditioned unity of the subjective conditions of all representations in gen-
eral (of the subject or soul), in correspondence with the categorical syllo-
gisms, the major of which, as the principle, enounces the relation of a
predicate to a subject. The second kind of dialectical argument will there-
fore be concerned, following the analogy with hypothetical syllogisms,
with the unconditioned unity of the objective conditions in the phenom-
enon; and, in this way, the theme of the third kind to be treated of in the
following chapter will be the unconditioned unity of the objective condi-
tions of the possibility of objects in general.
But it is worthy of remark that the transcendental paralogism produced
in the mind only a one-third illusion, in regard to the idea of the subject
of our thought; and the conceptions of reason gave no ground to main-
tain the contrary proposition. The advantage is completely on the side of
Pneumatism; although this theory itself passes into naught, in the cru-
cible of pure reason.
Very different is the case when we apply reason to the objective synthe-
sis of phenomena. Here, certainly, reason establishes, with much plausi-
bility, its principle of unconditioned unity; but it very soon falls into such
contradictions that it is compelled, in relation to cosmology, to renounce
its pretensions.
For here a new phenomenon of human reason meets us—a perfectly
natural antithetic, which does not require to be sought for by subtle soph-
istry, but into which reason of itself unavoidably falls. It is thereby pre-
served, to be sure, from the slumber of a fancied conviction—which a
merely one-sided illusion produces; but it is at the same time compelled,
either, on the one hand, to abandon itself to a despairing scepticism, or,
on the other, to assume a dogmatical confidence and obstinate persistence
in certain assertions, without granting a fair hearing to the other side of
the question. Either is the death of a sound philosophy, although the former
might perhaps deserve the title of the euthanasia of pure reason.
Before entering this region of discord and confusion, which the conflict
251
of the laws of pure reason (antinomy) produces, we shall present the reader
with some considerations, in explanation and justification of the method
we intend to follow in our treatment of this subject. I term all transcen-
dental ideas, in so far as they relate to the absolute totality in the synthesis
of phenomena, cosmical conceptions; partly on account of this uncondi-
tioned totality, on which the conception of the world-whole is based—a
conception, which is itself an idea—partly because they relate solely to the
synthesis of phenomena—the empirical synthesis; while, on the other hand,
the absolute totality in the synthesis of the conditions of all possible things
gives rise to an ideal of pure reason, which is quite distinct from the cosmical
conception, although it stands in relation with it. Hence, as the paralogisms
of pure reason laid the foundation for a dialectical psychology, the anti-
nomy of pure reason will present us with the transcendental principles of
a pretended pure (rational) cosmology—not, however, to declare it valid
and to appropriate it, but—as the very term of a conflict of reason suffi-
ciently indicates, to present it as an idea which cannot be reconciled with
phenomena and experience.
SECTION I. System of Cosmological Ideas.
That We may be able to enumerate with systematic precision these ideas

according to a principle, we must remark, in the first place, that it is from
the understanding alone that pure and transcendental conceptions take
their origin; that the reason does not properly give birth to any concep-
tion, but only frees the conception of the understanding from the un-
avoidable limitation of a possible experience, and thus endeavours to raise
it above the empirical, though it must still be in connection with it. This
happens from the fact that, for a given conditioned, reason demands ab-
solute totality on the side of the conditions (to which the understanding
submits all phenomena), and thus makes of the category a transcendental
idea. This it does that it may be able to give absolute completeness to the
empirical synthesis, by continuing it to the unconditioned (which is not
to be found in experience, but only in the idea). Reason requires this
according to the principle: If the conditioned is given the whole of the
conditions, and consequently the absolutely unconditioned, is also given,
whereby alone the former was possible. First, then, the transcendental
ideas are properly nothing but categories elevated to the unconditioned;
and they may be arranged in a table according to the titles of the latter.
But, secondly, all the categories are not available for this purpose, but only
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Immanuel Kant
those in which the synthesis constitutes a series—of conditions subordi-

nated to, not co-ordinated with, each other. Absolute totality is required
of reason only in so far as concerns the ascending series of the conditions
of a conditioned; not, consequently, when the question relates to the de-
scending series of consequences, or to the aggregate of the co-ordinated
conditions of these consequences. For, in relation to a given conditioned,
conditions are presupposed and considered to be given along with it. On
the other hand, as the consequences do not render possible their condi-
tions, but rather presuppose them—in the consideration of the proces-
sion of consequences (or in the descent from the given condition to the
conditioned), we may be quite unconcerned whether the series ceases or
not; and their totality is not a necessary demand of reason.
Thus we cogitate—and necessarily—a given time completely elapsed
up to a given moment, although that time is not determinable by us. But
as regards time future, which is not the condition of arriving at the present,
in order to conceive it; it is quite indifferent whether we consider future
time as ceasing at some point, or as prolonging itself to infinity. Take, for
example, the series m, n, o, in which n is given as conditioned in relation
to m, but at the same time as the condition of o, and let the series proceed
upwards from the conditioned n to m (l, k, i, etc.), and also downwards
from the condition n to the conditioned o (p, q, r, etc.)—I must presup-
pose the former series, to be able to consider n as given, and n is according
to reason (the totality of conditions) possible only by means of that series.
But its possibility does not rest on the following series o, p, q, r, which for
this reason cannot be regarded as given, but only as capable of being given
(dabilis).
I shall term the synthesis of the series on the side of the conditions—
from that nearest to the given phenomenon up to the more remote—
regressive; that which proceeds on the side of the conditioned, from the
immediate consequence to the more remote, I shall call the progressive
synthesis. The former proceeds in antecedentia, the latter in consequentia.
The cosmological ideas are therefore occupied with the totality of the
regressive synthesis, and proceed in antecedentia, not in consequentia.
When the latter takes place, it is an arbitrary and not a necessary problem
of pure reason; for we require, for the complete understanding of what is
given in a phenomenon, not the consequences which succeed, but the
grounds or principles which precede.
In order to construct the table of ideas in correspondence with the table
of categories, we take first the two primitive quanta of all our intuitions,
time and space. Time is in itself a series (and the formal condition of all
253
series), and hence, in relation to a given present, we must distinguish a

priori in it the antecedentia as conditions (time past) from the consequentia
(time future). Consequently, the transcendental idea of the absolute total-
ity of the series of the conditions of a given conditioned, relates merely to
all past time. According to the idea of reason, the whole past time, as the
condition of the given moment, is necessarily cogitated as given. But, as
regards space, there exists in it no distinction between progressus and
regressus; for it is an aggregate and not a series—its parts existing together
at the same time. I can consider a given point of time in relation to past
time only as conditioned, because this given moment comes into exist-
ence only through the past time rather through the passing of the preced-
ing time. But as the parts of space are not subordinated, but co-ordinated
to each other, one part cannot be the condition of the possibility of the
other; and space is not in itself, like time, a series. But the synthesis of the
manifold parts of space—(the syntheses whereby we apprehend space)—
is nevertheless successive; it takes place, therefore, in time, and contains a
series. And as in this series of aggregated spaces (for example, the feet in a
rood), beginning with a given portion of space, those which continue to
be annexed form the condition of the limits of the former—the measure-
ment of a space must also be regarded as a synthesis of the series of the
conditions of a given conditioned. It differs, however, in this respect from
that of time, that the side of the conditioned is not in itself distinguishable
from the side of the condition; and, consequently, regressus and progressus
in space seem to be identical. But, inasmuch as one part of space is not
given, but only limited, by and through another, we must also consider
every limited space as conditioned, in so far as it presupposes some other
space as the condition of its limitation, and so on. As regards limitation,
therefore, our procedure in space is also a regressus, and the transcenden-
tal idea of the absolute totality of the synthesis in a series of conditions
applies to space also; and I am entitled to demand the absolute totality of
the phenomenal synthesis in space as well as in time. Whether my de-
mand can be satisfied is a question to be answered in the sequel.
Secondly, the real in space—that is, matter—is conditioned. Its internal
conditions are its parts, and the parts of parts its remote conditions; so
that in this case we find a regressive synthesis, the absolute totality of
which is a demand of reason. But this cannot be obtained otherwise than
by a complete division of parts, whereby the real in matter becomes either
nothing or that which is not matter, that is to say, the simple. Conse-
quently we find here also a series of conditions and a progress to the un-
conditioned.
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Immanuel Kant
Thirdly, as regards the categories of a real relation between phenomena,

the category of substance and its accidents is not suitable for the forma-
tion of a transcendental idea; that is to say, reason has no ground, in re-
gard to it, to proceed regressively with conditions. For accidents (in so far
as they inhere in a substance) are co-ordinated with each other, and do not
constitute a series. And, in relation to substance, they are not properly
subordinated to it, but are the mode of existence of the substance itself.
The conception of the substantial might nevertheless seem to be an idea
of the transcendental reason. But, as this signifies nothing more than the
conception of an object in general, which subsists in so far as we cogitate
in it merely a transcendental subject without any predicates; and as the
question here is of an unconditioned in the series of phenomena—it is
clear that the substantial can form no member thereof. The same holds
good of substances in community, which are mere aggregates and do not
form a series. For they are not subordinated to each other as conditions of
the possibility of each other; which, however, may be affirmed of spaces,
the limits of which are never determined in themselves, but always by
some other space. It is, therefore, only in the category of causality that we
can find a series of causes to a given effect, and in which we ascend from
the latter, as the conditioned, to the former as the conditions, and thus
answer the question of reason.
Fourthly, the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary
do not conduct us to any series—excepting only in so far as the contin-
gent in existence must always be regarded as conditioned, and as indicat-
ing, according to a law of the understanding, a condition, under which it
is necessary to rise to a higher, till in the totality of the series, reason arrives
at unconditioned necessity.
There are, accordingly, only four cosmological ideas, corresponding with
the four titles of the categories. For we can select only such as necessarily
furnish us with a series in the synthesis of the manifold.
255
1
The absolute Completeness of the
COMPOSITION
of the given totality of all phenomena.
2
DIVISION
of given totality in a phenomenon.
3
ORIGINATION
of a phenomenon.
4
DEPENDENCE of the EXISTENCE
of what is changeable in a phenomenon.
We must here remark, in the first place, that the idea of absolute totality
relates to nothing but the exposition of phenomena, and therefore not to
the pure conception of a totality of things. Phenomena are here, therefore,
regarded as given, and reason requires the absolute completeness of the
conditions of their possibility, in so far as these conditions constitute a
series-consequently an absolutely (that is, in every respect) complete syn-
thesis, whereby a phenomenon can be explained according to the laws of
the understanding.
Secondly, it is properly the unconditioned alone that reason seeks in
this serially and regressively conducted synthesis of conditions. It wishes,
to speak in another way, to attain to completeness in the series of pre-
misses, so as to render it unnecessary to presuppose others. This un-
conditioned is always contained in the absolute totality of the series,
when we endeavour to form a representation of it in thought. But this
absolutely complete synthesis is itself but an idea; for it is impossible,
at least before hand, to know whether any such synthesis is possible in
the case of phenomena. When we represent all existence in thought by
means of pure conceptions of the understanding, without any condi-
256
Immanuel Kant
tions of sensuous intuition, we may say with justice that for a given
conditioned the whole series of conditions subordinated to each other
is also given; for the former is only given through the latter. But we
find in the case of phenomena a particular limitation of the mode in
which conditions are given, that is, through the successive synthesis of
the manifold of intuition, which must be complete in the regress. Now
whether this completeness is sensuously possible, is a problem. But
the idea of it lies in the reason—be it possible or impossible to connect
with the idea adequate empirical conceptions. Therefore, as in the ab-
solute totality of the regressive synthesis of the manifold in a phenom-
enon (following the guidance of the categories, which represent it as a
series of conditions to a given conditioned) the unconditioned is nec-
essarily contained—it being still left unascertained whether and how
this totality exists; reason sets out from the idea of totality, although
its proper and final aim is the unconditioned—of the whole series, or
of a part thereof.
This unconditioned may be cogitated—either as existing only in the
entire series, all the members of which therefore would be without ex-
ception conditioned and only the totality absolutely unconditioned—
and in this case the regressus is called infinite; or the absolutely uncon-
ditioned is only a part of the series, to which the other members are
subordinated, but which Is not itself submitted to any other condition.*
In the former case the series is a parte priori unlimited (without begin-
ning), that is, infinite, and nevertheless completely given. But the re-
gress in it is never completed, and can only be called potentially infinite.
In the second case there exists a first in the series. This first is called, in
relation to past time, the beginning of the world; in relation to space,
the limit of the world; in relation to the parts of a given limited whole,
the simple; in relation to causes, absolute spontaneity (liberty); and in
relation to the existence of changeable things, absolute physical neces-
sity.
We possess two expressions, world and nature, which are generally in-
terchanged. The first denotes the mathematical total of all phenomena
and the totality of their synthesis—in its progress by means of composi-
*The absolute totality of the series of conditions to a given conditioned is always

unconditioned; because beyond it there exist no other conditions, on which it
might depend. But the absolute totality of such a series is only an idea, or rather
a problematical conception, the possibility of which must be investigated-par-
ticularly in relation to the mode in which the unconditioned, as the transcenden-
tal idea which is the real subject of inquiry, may be contained therein.
257
tion, as well as by division. And the world is termed nature,* when it is

regarded as a dynamical whole—when our attention is not directed to the
aggregation in space and time, for the purpose of cogitating it as a quan-
tity, but to the unity in the existence of phenomena. In this case the con-
dition of that which happens is called a cause; the unconditioned causal-
ity of the cause in a phenomenon is termed liberty; the conditioned cause
is called in a more limited sense a natural cause. The conditioned in exist-
ence is termed contingent, and the unconditioned necessary. The uncon-
ditioned necessity of phenomena may be called natural necessity.
The ideas which we are at present engaged in discussing I have called
cosmological ideas; partly because by the term world is understood the
entire content of all phenomena, and our ideas are directed solely to the
unconditioned among phenomena; partly also, because world, in the tran-
scendental sense, signifies the absolute totality of the content of existing
things, and we are directing our attention only to the completeness of the
synthesis—although, properly, only in regression. In regard to the fact
that these ideas are all transcendent, and, although they do not transcend
phenomena as regards their mode, but are concerned solely with the world
of sense (and not with noumena), nevertheless carry their synthesis to a
degree far above all possible experience—it still seems to me that we can,
with perfect propriety, designate them cosmical conceptions. As regards
the distinction between the mathematically and the dynamically uncon-
ditioned which is the aim of the regression of the synthesis, I should call
the two former, in a more limited signification, cosmical conceptions, the
remaining two transcendent physical conceptions. This distinction does
not at present seem to be of particular importance, but we shall afterwards
find it to be of some value.
*Nature, understood adjective (formaliter), signifies the complex of the determi-

nations of a thing, connected according to an internal principle of causality. On
the other hand, we understand by nature, substantive (materialiter), the sum
total of phenomena, in so far as they, by virtue of an internal principle of causal-
ity, are connected with each other throughout. In the former sense we speak of
the nature of liquid matter, of fire, etc., and employ the word only adjective;
while, if speaking of the objects of nature, we have in our minds the idea of a
subsisting whole.
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Immanuel Kant
SECTION II. Antithetic of Pure Reason.
Thetic is the term applied to every collection of dogmatical propositions.

By antithetic I do not understand dogmatical assertions of the opposite,
but the self-contradiction of seemingly dogmatical cognitions (thesis cum
antithesis), in none of which we can discover any decided superiority.
Antithetic is not, therefore, occupied with one-sided statements, but is
engaged in considering the contradictory nature of the general cognitions
of reason and its causes. Transcendental antithetic is an investigation into
the antinomy of pure reason, its causes and result. If we employ our rea-
son not merely in the application of the principles of the understanding to
objects of experience, but venture with it beyond these boundaries, there
arise certain sophistical propositions or theorems. These assertions have
the following peculiarities: They can find neither confirmation nor con-
futation in experience; and each is in itself not only self-consistent, but
possesses conditions of its necessity in the very nature of reason—only
that, unluckily, there exist just as valid and necessary grounds for main-
taining the contrary proposition.
The questions which naturally arise in the consideration of this dialec-
tic of pure reason, are therefore: 1st. In what propositions is pure reason
unavoidably subject to an antinomy? 2nd. What are the causes of this
antinomy? 3rd. Whether and in what way can reason free itself from this
self-contradiction?
A dialectical proposition or theorem of pure reason must, according to
what has been said, be distinguishable from all sophistical propositions,
by the fact that it is not an answer to an arbitrary question, which may be
raised at the mere pleasure of any person, but to one which human reason
must necessarily encounter in its progress. In the second place, a dialecti-
cal proposition, with its opposite, does not carry the appearance of a merely
artificial illusion, which disappears as soon as it is investigated, but a natu-
ral and unavoidable illusion, which, even when we are no longer deceived
by it, continues to mock us and, although rendered harmless, can never be
completely removed.
This dialectical doctrine will not relate to the unity of understanding in
empirical conceptions, but to the unity of reason in pure ideas. The con-
ditions of this doctrine are—inasmuch as it must, as a synthesis according
to rules, be conformable to the understanding, and at the same time as the
absolute unity of the synthesis, to the reason—that, if it is adequate to the
259
unity of reason, it is too great for the understanding, if according with the
understanding, it is too small for the reason. Hence arises a mutual oppo-
sition, which cannot be avoided, do what we will.
These sophistical assertions of dialectic open, as it were, a battle-field,
where that side obtains the victory which has been permitted to make the
attack, and he is compelled to yield who has been unfortunately obliged
to stand on the defensive. And hence, champions of ability, whether on
the right or on the wrong side, are certain to carry away the crown of
victory, if they only take care to have the right to make the last attack, and
are not obliged to sustain another onset from their opponent. We can
easily believe that this arena has been often trampled by the feet of com-
batants, that many victories have been obtained on both sides, but that
the last victory, decisive of the affair between the contending parties, was
won by him who fought for the right, only if his adversary was forbidden
to continue the tourney. As impartial umpires, we must lay aside entirely
the consideration whether the combatants are fighting for the right or for
the wrong side, for the true or for the false, and allow the combat to be
first decided. Perhaps, after they have wearied more than injured each
other, they will discover the nothingness of their cause of quarrel and part
good friends.
This method of watching, or rather of originating, a conflict of
assertions, not for the purpose of finally deciding in favour of either
side, but to discover whether the object of the struggle is not a mere
illusion, which each strives in vain to reach, but which would be no
gain even when reached—this procedure, I say, may be termed the
sceptical method. It is thoroughly distinct from scepticism—the prin-
ciple of a technical and scientific ignorance, which undermines the
foundations of all knowledge, in order, if possible, to destroy our be-
lief and confidence therein. For the sceptical method aims at cer-
tainty, by endeavouring to discover in a conflict of this kind, con-
ducted honestly and intelligently on both sides, the point of misun-
derstanding; just as wise legislators derive, from the embarrassment
of judges in lawsuits, information in regard to the defective and ill-
defined parts of their statutes. The antinomy which reveals itself in
the application of laws, is for our limited wisdom the best criterion of
legislation. For the attention of reason, which in abstract speculation
does not easily become conscious of its errors, is thus roused to the
momenta in the determination of its principles.
But this sceptical method is essentially peculiar to transcendental
260
Immanuel Kant
philosophy, and can perhaps be dispensed with in every other field of

investigation. In mathematics its use would be absurd; because in it
no false assertions can long remain hidden, inasmuch as its demon-
strations must always proceed under the guidance of pure intuition,
and by means of an always evident synthesis. In experimental phi-
losophy, doubt and delay may be very useful; but no misunderstand-
ing is possible, which cannot be easily removed; and in experience
means of solving the difficulty and putting an end to the dissension
must at last be found, whether sooner or later. Moral philosophy can
always exhibit its principles, with their practical consequences, in con-
creto—at least in possible experiences, and thus escape the mistakes
and ambiguities of abstraction. But transcendental propositions, which
lay claim to insight beyond the region of possible experience, cannot,
on the one hand, exhibit their abstract synthesis in any a priori intu-
ition, nor, on the other, expose a lurking error by the help of experi-
ence. Transcendental reason, therefore, presents us with no other cri-
terion than that of an attempt to reconcile such assertions, and for
this purpose to permit a free and unrestrained conflict between them.
And this we now proceed to arrange.*
*The antinomies stand in the order of the four transcendental ideas above de-
tailed.
261
FIRST CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS.
The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to

space.
PROOF.
Granted that the world has no beginning in time; up to every given mo-
ment of time, an eternity must have elapsed, and therewith passed away
an infinite series of successive conditions or states of things in the world.
Now the infinity of a series consists in the fact that it never can be com-
pleted by means of a successive synthesis. It follows that an infinite series
already elapsed is impossible and that, consequently, a beginning of the
world is a necessary condition of its existence. And this was the first thing
to be proved.
As regards the second, let us take the opposite for granted. In this case,
the world must be an infinite given total of coexistent things. Now we
cannot cogitate the dimensions of a quantity, which is not given within
certain limits of an intuition,* in any other way than by means of the
synthesis of its parts, and the total of such a quantity only by means of a
completed synthesis, or the repeated addition of unity to itself. Accord-
ingly, to cogitate the world, which fills all spaces, as a whole, the successive
synthesis of the parts of an infinite world must be looked upon as com-
pleted, that is to say, an infinite time must be regarded as having elapsed
in the enumeration of all co-existing things; which is impossible. For this
reason an infinite aggregate of actual things cannot be considered as a
given whole, consequently, not as a contemporaneously given whole. The
world is consequently, as regards extension in space, not infinite, but en-
closed in limits. And this was the second thing to be proved.
*We may consider an undetermined quantity as a whole, when it is enclosed

within limits, although we cannot construct or ascertain its totality by measure-
ment, that is, by the successive synthesis of its parts. For its limits of themselves
determine its completeness as a whole.
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Immanuel Kant
ANTITHESIS.
The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in rela-
tion both to time and space, infinite.
PROOF.
For let it be granted that it has a beginning. A beginning is an existence which

is preceded by a time in which the thing does not exist. On the above suppo-
sition, it follows that there must have been a time in which the world did not
exist, that is, a void time. But in a void time the origination of a thing is
impossible; because no part of any such time contains a distinctive condition
of being, in preference to that of non-being (whether the supposed thing
originate of itself, or by means of some other cause). Consequently, many
series of things may have a beginning in the world, but the world itself cannot
have a beginning, and is, therefore, in relation to past time, infinite.
As regards the second statement, let us first take the opposite for granted—
that the world is finite and limited in space; it follows that it must exist in a void
space, which is not limited. We should therefore meet not only with a relation of
things in space, but also a relation of things to space. Now, as the world is an
absolute whole, out of and beyond which no object of intuition, and conse-
quently no correlate to which can be discovered, this relation of the world to a
void space is merely a relation to no object. But such a relation, and conse-
quently the limitation of the world by void space, is nothing. Consequently, the
world, as regards space, is not limited, that is, it is infinite in regard to extension.*
*Space is merely the form of external intuition (formal intuition), and not a real
object which can be externally perceived. Space, prior to all things which determine it
(fill or limit it), or, rather, which present an empirical intuition conformable to it, is,
under the title of absolute space, nothing but the mere possibility of external phe-
nomena, in so far as they either exist in themselves, or can annex themselves to given
intuitions. Empirical intuition is therefore not a composition of phenomena and
space (of perception and empty intuition). The one is not the correlate of the other in
a synthesis, but they are vitally connected in the same empirical intuition, as matter
and form. If we wish to set one of these two apart from the other—space from phe-
nomena—there arise all sorts of empty determinations of external intuition, which
are very far from being possible perceptions. For example, motion or rest of the world
in an infinite empty space, or a determination of the mutual relation of both, cannot
possibly be perceived, and is therefore merely the predicate of a notional entity.
263
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FIRST ANTINOMY.
ON THE THESIS.
In bringing forward these conflicting arguments, I have not been on the

search for sophisms, for the purpose of availing myself of special pleading,
which takes advantage of the carelessness of the opposite party, appeals to
a misunderstood statute, and erects its unrighteous claims upon an unfair
interpretation. Both proofs originate fairly from the nature of the case,
and the advantage presented by the mistakes of the dogmatists of both
parties has been completely set aside.
The thesis might also have been unfairly demonstrated, by the intro-
duction of an erroneous conception of the infinity of a given quantity. A
quantity is infinite, if a greater than itself cannot possibly exist. The quan-
tity is measured by the number of given units-which are taken as a stan-
dard—contained in it. Now no number can be the greatest, because one
or more units can always be added. It follows that an infinite given quan-
tity, consequently an infinite world (both as regards time and extension) is
impossible. It is, therefore, limited in both respects. In this manner I might
have conducted my proof; but the conception given in it does not agree
with the true conception of an infinite whole. In this there is no represen-
tation of its quantity, it is not said how large it is; consequently its concep-
tion is not the conception of a maximum. We cogitate in it merely its
relation to an arbitrarily assumed unit, in relation to which it is greater
than any number. Now, just as the unit which is taken is greater or smaller,
the infinite will be greater or smaller; but the infinity, which consists merely
in the relation to this given unit, must remain always the same, although
the absolute quantity of the whole is not thereby cognized.
The true (transcendental) conception of infinity is: that the successive
synthesis of unity in the measurement of a given quantum can never be
completed.* Hence it follows, without possibility of mistake, that an eter-
nity of actual successive states up to a given (the present) moment cannot
have elapsed, and that the world must therefore have a beginning.
In regard to the second part of the thesis, the difficulty as to an infinite
and yet elapsed series disappears; for the manifold of a world infinite in
*The quantum in this sense contains a congeries of given units, which is greater
than any number—and this is the mathematical conception of the infinite.
264
Immanuel Kant
extension is contemporaneously given. But, in order to cogitate the total

of this manifold, as we cannot have the aid of limits constituting by them-
selves this total in intuition, we are obliged to give some account of our
conception, which in this case cannot proceed from the whole to the de-
termined quantity of the parts, but must demonstrate the possibility of a
whole by means of a successive synthesis of the parts. But as this synthesis
must constitute a series that cannot be completed, it is impossible for us
to cogitate prior to it, and consequently not by means of it, a totality. For
the conception of totality itself is in the present case the representation of
a completed synthesis of the parts; and this completion, and consequently
its conception, is impossible.
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
The proof in favour of the infinity of the cosmical succession and the
cosmical content is based upon the consideration that, in the opposite
case, a void time and a void space must constitute the limits of the world.
Now I am not unaware, that there are some ways of escaping this conclu-
sion. It may, for example, be alleged, that a limit to the world, as regards
both space and time, is quite possible, without at the same time holding
the existence of an absolute time before the beginning of the world, or an
absolute space extending beyond the actual world—which is impossible. I
am quite well satisfied with the latter part of this opinion of the philoso-
phers of the Leibnitzian school. Space is merely the form of external intu-
ition, but not a real object which can itself be externally intuited; it is not
a correlate of phenomena, it is the form of phenomena itself. Space, there-
fore, cannot be regarded as absolutely and in itself something determina-
tive of the existence of things, because it is not itself an object, but only
the form of possible objects. Consequently, things, as phenomena, deter-
mine space; that is to say, they render it possible that, of all the possible
predicates of space (size and relation), certain may belong to reality. But
we cannot affirm the converse, that space, as something self-subsistent,
can determine real things in regard to size or shape, for it is in itself not a
real thing. Space (filled or void)* may therefore be limited by phenomena,
*It is evident that what is meant here is, that empty space, in so far as it is limited
by phenomena—space, that is, within the world—does not at least contradict
transcendental principles, and may therefore, as regards them, be admitted, al-
though its possibility cannot on that account be affirmed.
265
but phenomena cannot be limited by an empty space without them. This

is true of time also. All this being granted, it is nevertheless indisputable,
that we must assume these two nonentities, void space without and void
time before the world, if we assume the existence of cosmical limits, rela-
tively to space or time.
For, as regards the subterfuge adopted by those who endeavour to evade
the consequence—that, if the world is limited as to space and time, the
infinite void must determine the existence of actual things in regard to
their dimensions—it arises solely from the fact that instead of a sensuous
world, an intelligible world—of which nothing is known—is cogitated;
instead of a real beginning (an existence, which is preceded by a period in
which nothing exists), an existence which presupposes no other condition
than that of time; and, instead of limits of extension, boundaries of the
universe. But the question relates to the mundus phaenomenon, and its
quantity; and in this case we cannot make abstraction of the conditions of
sensibility, without doing away with the essential reality of this world it-
self. The world of sense, if it is limited, must necessarily lie in the infinite
void. If this, and with it space as the a priori condition of the possibility of
phenomena, is left out of view, the whole world of sense disappears. In
our problem is this alone considered as given. The mundus intelligibilis is
nothing but the general conception of a world, in which abstraction has
been made of all conditions of intuition, and in relation to which no
synthetical proposition—either affirmative or negative—is possible.
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Immanuel Kant
SECOND CONFLICT OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS.
Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts; and there
exists nothing that is not either itself simple, or composed of simple parts.
PROOF.
For, grant that composite substances do not consist of simple parts;

in this case, if all combination or composition were annihilated in
thought, no composite part, and (as, by the supposition, there do
not exist simple parts) no simple part would exist. Consequently,
no substance; consequently, nothing would exist. Either, then, it is
impossible to annihilate composition in thought; or, after such an-
nihilation, there must remain something that subsists without com-
position, that is, something that is simple. But in the former case
the composite could not itself consist of substances, because with
substances composition is merely a contingent relation, apart from
which they must still exist as self-subsistent beings. Now, as this
case contradicts the supposition, the second must contain the truth-
that the substantial composite in the world consists of simple parts.
It follows, as an immediate inference, that the things in the world are
all, without exception, simple beings—that composition is merely an ex-
ternal condition pertaining to them—and that, although we never can
separate and isolate the elementary substances from the state of composi-
tion, reason must cogitate these as the primary subjects of all composi-
tion, and consequently, as prior thereto—and as simple substances.
ANTITHESIS.
No composite thing in the world consists of simple parts; and there does
not exist in the world any simple substance.
267
PROOF.
Let it be supposed that a composite thing (as substance) consists of simple

parts. Inasmuch as all external relation, consequently all composition of
substances, is possible only in space; the space, occupied by that which is
composite, must consist of the same number of parts as is contained in
the composite. But space does not consist of simple parts, but of spaces.
Therefore, every part of the composite must occupy a space. But the abso-
lutely primary parts of what is composite are simple. It follows that what
is simple occupies a space. Now, as everything real that occupies a space,
contains a manifold the parts of which are external to each other, and is
consequently composite—and a real composite, not of accidents (for these
cannot exist external to each other apart from substance), but of sub-
stances—it follows that the simple must be a substantial composite, which
is self-contradictory.
The second proposition of the antithesis—that there exists in the world
nothing that is simple—is here equivalent to the following: The existence
of the absolutely simple cannot be demonstrated from any experience or
perception either external or internal; and the absolutely simple is a mere
idea, the objective reality of which cannot be demonstrated in any pos-
sible experience; it is consequently, in the exposition of phenomena, with-
out application and object. For, let us take for granted that an object may
be found in experience for this transcendental idea; the empirical intu-
ition of such an object must then be recognized to contain absolutely no
manifold with its parts external to each other, and connected into unity.
Now, as we cannot reason from the non-consciousness of such a manifold
to the impossibility of its existence in the intuition of an object, and as the
proof of this impossibility is necessary for the establishment and proof of
absolute simplicity; it follows that this simplicity cannot be inferred from
any perception whatever. As, therefore, an absolutely simple object can-
not be given in any experience, and the world of sense must be considered
as the sum total of all possible experiences: nothing simple exists in the
world.
This second proposition in the antithesis has a more extended aim than
the first. The first merely banishes the simple from the intuition of the
composite; while the second drives it entirely out of nature. Hence we
were unable to demonstrate it from the conception of a given object of
external intuition (of the composite), but we were obliged to prove it from
the relation of a given object to a possible experience in general.
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Immanuel Kant
OBSERVATIONS ON THE SECOND ANTINOMY.
THESIS.
When I speak of a whole, which necessarily consists of simple parts, I

understand thereby only a substantial whole, as the true composite; that is
to say, I understand that contingent unity of the manifold which is given
as perfectly isolated (at least in thought), placed in reciprocal connection,
and thus constituted a unity. Space ought not to be called a compositum
but a totum, for its parts are possible in the whole, and not the whole by
means of the parts. It might perhaps be called a compositum ideale, but
not a compositum reale. But this is of no importance. As space is not a
composite of substances (and not even of real accidents), if I abstract all
composition therein—nothing, not even a point, remains; for a point is
possible only as the limit of a space—consequently of a composite. Space
and time, therefore, do not consist of simple parts. That which belongs
only to the condition or state of a substance, even although it possesses a
quantity (motion or change, for example), likewise does not consist of
simple parts. That is to say, a certain degree of change does not originate
from the addition of many simple changes. Our inference of the simple
from the composite is valid only of self-subsisting things. But the acci-
dents of a state are not self-subsistent. The proof, then, for the necessity of
the simple, as the component part of all that is substantial and composite,
may prove a failure, and the whole case of this thesis be lost, if we carry the
proposition too far, and wish to make it valid of everything that is com-
posite without distinction—as indeed has really now and then happened.
Besides, I am here speaking only of the simple, in so far as it is necessarily
given in the composite—the latter being capable of solution into the former
as its component parts. The proper signification of the word monas (as
employed by Leibnitz) ought to relate to the simple, given immediately as
simple substance (for example, in consciousness), and not as an element
of the composite. As an clement, the term atomus would be more appro-
priate. And as I wish to prove the existence of simple substances, only in
relation to, and as the elements of, the composite, I might term the an-
tithesis of the second Antinomy, transcendental Atomistic. But as this
word has long been employed to designate a particular theory of corporeal
phenomena (moleculae), and thus presupposes a basis of empirical con-
ceptions, I prefer calling it the dialectical principle of Monadology.
269
ANTITHESIS.
Against the assertion of the infinite subdivisibility of matter whose ground

of proof is purely mathematical, objections have been alleged by the
Monadists. These objections lay themselves open, at first sight, to suspi-
cion, from the fact that they do not recognize the clearest mathematical
proofs as propositions relating to the constitution of space, in so far as it is
really the formal condition of the possibility of all matter, but regard them
merely as inferences from abstract but arbitrary conceptions, which can-
not have any application to real things. Just as if it were possible to imag-
ine another mode of intuition than that given in the primitive intuition of
space; and just as if its a priori determinations did not apply to everything,
the existence of which is possible, from the fact alone of its filling space. If
we listen to them, we shall find ourselves required to cogitate, in addition
to the mathematical point, which is simple—not, however, a part, but a
mere limit of space-physical points, which are indeed likewise simple, but
possess the peculiar property, as parts of space, of filling it merely by their
aggregation. I shall not repeat here the common and clear refutations of
this absurdity, which are to be found everywhere in numbers: every one
knows that it is impossible to undermine the evidence of mathematics by
mere discursive conceptions; I shall only remark that, if in this case phi-
losophy endeavours to gain an advantage over mathematics by sophistical
artifices, it is because it forgets that the discussion relates solely to Phe-
nomena and their conditions. It is not sufficient to find the conception of
the simple for the pure conception of the composite, but we must dis-
cover for the intuition of the composite (matter), the intuition of the
simple. Now this, according to the laws of sensibility, and consequently in
the case of objects of sense, is utterly impossible. In the case of a whole
composed of substances, which is cogitated solely by the pure understand-
ing, it may be necessary to be in possession of the simple before composi-
tion is possible. But this does not hold good of the Totum substantiale
phaenomenon, which, as an empirical intuition in space, possesses the
necessary property of containing no simple part, for the very reason that
no part of space is simple. Meanwhile, the Monadists have been subtle
enough to escape from this difficulty, by presupposing intuition and the
dynamical relation of substances as the condition of the possibility of space,
instead of regarding space as the condition of the possibility of the objects
of external intuition, that is, of bodies. Now we have a conception of
bodies only as phenomena, and, as such, they necessarily presuppose space
270
Immanuel Kant
as the condition of all external phenomena. The evasion is therefore in

vain; as, indeed, we have sufficiently shown in our Aesthetic. If bodies
were things in themselves, the proof of the Monadists would be unexcep-
tionable.
The second dialectical assertion possesses the peculiarity of having op-
posed to it a dogmatical proposition, which, among all such sophistical
statements, is the only one that undertakes to prove in the case of an
object of experience, that which is properly a transcendental idea—the
absolute simplicity of substance. The proposition is that the object of the
internal sense, the thinking Ego, is an absolute simple substance. Without
at present entering upon this subject—as it has been considered at length
in a former chapter-I shall merely remark that, if something is cogitated
merely as an object, without the addition of any synthetical determina-
tion of its intuition—as happens in the case of the bare representation,
I—it is certain that no manifold and no composition can be perceived in
such a representation. As, moreover, the predicates whereby I cogitate this
object are merely intuitions of the internal sense, there cannot be discov-
ered in them anything to prove the existence of a manifold whose parts are
external to each other, and, consequently, nothing to prove the existence
of real composition. Consciousness, therefore, is so constituted that, inas-
much as the thinking subject is at the same time its own object, it cannot
divide itself—although it can divide its inhering determinations. For ev-
ery object in relation to itself is absolute unity. Nevertheless, if the subject
is regarded externally, as an object of intuition, it must, in its character of
phenomenon, possess the property of composition. And it must always be
regarded in this manner, if we wish to know whether there is or is not
contained in it a manifold whose parts are external to each other.
271
THIRD CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS.
THESIS.
Causality according to the laws of nature, is not the only causality operat-
ing to originate the phenomena of the world. A causality of freedom is
also necessary to account fully for these phenomena.
PROOF.
Let it be supposed, that there is no other kind of causality than that ac-
cording to the laws of nature. Consequently, everything that happens pre-
supposes a previous condition, which it follows with absolute certainty, in
conformity with a rule. But this previous condition must itself be some-
thing that has happened (that has arisen in time, as it did not exist before),
for, if it has always been in existence, its consequence or effect would not
thus originate for the first time, but would likewise have always existed.
The causality, therefore, of a cause, whereby something happens, is itself a
thing that has happened. Now this again presupposes, in conformity with
the law of nature, a previous condition and its causality, and this another
anterior to the former, and so on. If, then, everything happens solely in
accordance with the laws of nature, there cannot be any real first begin-
ning of things, but only a subaltern or comparative beginning. There can-
not, therefore, be a completeness of series on the side of the causes which
originate the one from the other. But the law of nature is that nothing can
happen without a sufficient a priori determined cause. The proposition
therefore—if all causality is possible only in accordance with the laws of
nature—is, when stated in this unlimited and general manner, self-con-
tradictory. It follows that this cannot be the only kind of causality.
From what has been said, it follows that a causality must be admitted,
by means of which something happens, without its cause being deter-
mined according to necessary laws by some other cause preceding. That is
to say, there must exist an absolute spontaneity of cause, which of itself
originates a series of phenomena which proceeds according to natural
laws—consequently transcendental freedom, without which even in the
course of nature the succession of phenomena on the side of causes is
never complete.
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Immanuel Kant
ANTITHESIS.
There is no such thing as freedom, but everything in the world happens

solely according to the laws of nature.
PROOF.
Granted, that there does exist freedom in the transcendental sense, as a

peculiar kind of causality, operating to produce events in the world—a
faculty, that is to say, of originating a state, and consequently a series of
consequences from that state. In this case, not only the series originated
by this spontaneity, but the determination of this spontaneity itself to the
production of the series, that is to say, the causality itself must have an
absolute commencement, such that nothing can precede to determine
this action according to unvarying laws. But every beginning of action
presupposes in the acting cause a state of inaction; and a dynamically
primal beginning of action presupposes a state, which has no connec-
tion—as regards causality—with the preceding state of the cause—which
does not, that is, in any wise result from it. Transcendental freedom is
therefore opposed to the natural law of cause and effect, and such a con-
junction of successive states in effective causes is destructive of the possi-
bility of unity in experience and for that reason not to be found in experi-
ence—is consequently a mere fiction of thought.
We have, therefore, nothing but nature to which we must look for con-
nection and order in cosmical events. Freedom—independence of the laws
of nature—is certainly a deliverance from restraint, but it is also a relin-
quishing of the guidance of law and rule. For it cannot be alleged that,
instead of the laws of nature, laws of freedom may be introduced into the
causality of the course of nature. For, if freedom were determined according
to laws, it would be no longer freedom, but merely nature. Nature, there-
fore, and transcendental freedom are distinguishable as conformity to law
and lawlessness. The former imposes upon understanding the difficulty of
seeking the origin of events ever higher and higher in the series of causes,
inasmuch as causality is always conditioned thereby; while it compensates
this labour by the guarantee of a unity complete and in conformity with
law. The latter, on the contrary, holds out to the understanding the promise
of a point of rest in the chain of causes, by conducting it to an uncondi-
tioned causality, which professes to have the power of spontaneous origina-
tion, but which, in its own utter blindness, deprives it of the guidance of
rules, by which alone a completely connected experience is possible.
273
OBSERVATIONS ON THE THIRD ANTINOMY.
ON THE THESIS.
The transcendental idea of freedom is far from constituting the entire

content of the psychological conception so termed, which is for the most
part empirical. It merely presents us with the conception of spontaneity of
action, as the proper ground for imputing freedom to the cause of a cer-
tain class of objects. It is, however, the true stumbling-stone to philoso-
phy, which meets with unconquerable difficulties in the way of its admit-
ting this kind of unconditioned causality. That element in the question of
the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed speculative
reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental, and concerns
the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty of spontaneous
origination of a series of successive things or states. How such a faculty is
possible is not a necessary inquiry; for in the case of natural causality itself,
we are obliged to content ourselves with the a priori knowledge that such
a causality must be presupposed, although we are quite incapable of com-
prehending how the being of one thing is possible through the being of
another, but must for this information look entirely to experience. Now
we have demonstrated this necessity of a free first beginning of a series of
phenomena, only in so far as it is required for the comprehension of an
origin of the world, all following states being regarded as a succession
according to laws of nature alone. But, as there has thus been proved the
existence of a faculty which can of itself originate a series in time—al-
though we are unable to explain how it can exist—we feel ourselves au-
thorized to admit, even in the midst of the natural course of events, a
beginning, as regards causality, of different successions of phenomena,
and at the same time to attribute to all substances a faculty of free action.
But we ought in this case not to allow ourselves to fall into a common
misunderstanding, and to suppose that, because a successive series in the
world can only have a comparatively first beginning—another state or
condition of things always preceding—an absolutely first beginning of a
series in the course of nature is impossible. For we are not speaking here of
an absolutely first beginning in relation to time, but as regards causality
alone. When, for example, I, completely of my own free will, and inde-
pendently of the necessarily determinative influence of natural causes, rise
from my chair, there commences with this event, including its material
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Immanuel Kant
consequences in infinitum, an absolutely new series; although, in relation

to time, this event is merely the continuation of a preceding series. For
this resolution and act of mine do not form part of the succession of
effects in nature, and are not mere continuations of it; on the contrary, the
determining causes of nature cease to operate in reference to this event,
which certainly succeeds the acts of nature, but does not proceed from
them. For these reasons, the action of a free agent must be termed, in
regard to causality, if not in relation to time, an absolutely primal begin-
ning of a series of phenomena.
The justification of this need of reason to rest upon a free act as the first
beginning of the series of natural causes is evident from the fact, that all
philosophers of antiquity (with the exception of the Epicurean school)
felt themselves obliged, when constructing a theory of the motions of the
universe, to accept a prime mover, that is, a freely acting cause, which
spontaneously and prior to all other causes evolved this series of states.
They always felt the need of going beyond mere nature, for the purpose of
making a first beginning comprehensible.
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
The assertor of the all-sufficiency of nature in regard to causality (tran-

scendental Physiocracy), in opposition to the doctrine of freedom, would
defend his view of the question somewhat in the following manner. He
would say, in answer to the sophistical arguments of the opposite party: If
you do not accept a mathematical first, in relation to time, you have no
need to seek a dynamical first, in regard to causality. Who compelled you
to imagine an absolutely primal condition of the world, and therewith an
absolute beginning of the gradually progressing successions of phenom-
ena—and, as some foundation for this fancy of yours, to set bounds to
unlimited nature? Inasmuch as the substances in the world have always
existed—at least the unity of experience renders such a supposition quite
necessary—there is no difficulty in believing also, that the changes in the
conditions of these substances have always existed; and, consequently, that
a first beginning, mathematical or dynamical, is by no means required.
The possibility of such an infinite derivation, without any initial member
from which all the others result, is certainly quite incomprehensible. But,
if you are rash enough to deny the enigmatical secrets of nature for this
reason, you will find yourselves obliged to deny also the existence of many
fundamental properties of natural objects (such as fundamental forces),
275
which you can just as little comprehend; and even the possibility of so
simple a conception as that of change must present to you insuperable
difficulties. For if experience did not teach you that it was real, you never
could conceive a priori the possibility of this ceaseless sequence of being
and non-being.
But if the existence of a transcendental faculty of freedom is granted—
a faculty of originating changes in the world—this faculty must at least
exist out of and apart from the world; although it is certainly a bold as-
sumption, that, over and above the complete content of all possible intui-
tions, there still exists an object which cannot be presented in any possible
perception. But, to attribute to substances in the world itself such a fac-
ulty, is quite inadmissible; for, in this case; the connection of phenomena
reciprocally determining and determined according to general laws, which
is termed nature, and along with it the criteria of empirical truth, which
enable us to distinguish experience from mere visionary dreaming, would
almost entirely disappear. In proximity with such a lawless faculty of free-
dom, a system of nature is hardly cogitable; for the laws of the latter would
be continually subject to the intrusive influences of the former, and the
course of phenomena, which would otherwise proceed regularly and uni-
formly, would become thereby confused and disconnected.
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FOURTH CONFLICT OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL

IDEAS.
THESIS.
There exists either in, or in connection with the world—either as a part of

it, or as the cause of it—an absolutely necessary being.
PROOF.
The world of sense, as the sum total of all phenomena, contains a series of
changes. For, without such a series, the mental representation of the series
of time itself, as the condition of the possibility of the sensuous world,
could not be presented to us.* But every change stands under its condi-
tion, which precedes it in time and renders it necessary. Now the existence
of a given condition presupposes a complete series of conditions up to the
absolutely unconditioned, which alone is absolutely necessary. It follows
that something that is absolutely necessary must exist, if change exists as
its consequence. But this necessary thing itself belongs to the sensuous
world. For suppose it to exist out of and apart from it, the series of cosmical
changes would receive from it a beginning, and yet this necessary cause
would not itself belong to the world of sense. But this is impossible. For,
as the beginning of a series in time is determined only by that which
precedes it in time, the supreme condition of the beginning of a series of
changes must exist in the time in which this series itself did not exist; for
a beginning supposes a time preceding, in which the thing that begins to
be was not in existence. The causality of the necessary cause of changes,
and consequently the cause itself, must for these reasons belong to time—
and to phenomena, time being possible only as the form of phenomena.
Consequently, it cannot be cogitated as separated from the world of sense—
the sum total of all phenomena. There is, therefore, contained in the world,
something that is absolutely necessary—whether it be the whole cosmical
series itself, or only a part of it.
*Objectively, time, as the formal condition of the possibility of change, precedes

all changes; but subjectively, and in consciousness, the representation of time,
like every other, is given solely by occasion of perception.
277
ANTITHESIS.
An absolutely necessary being does not exist, either in the world, or out of
it—as its cause.
PROOF.
Grant that either the world itself is necessary, or that there is contained in
it a necessary existence. Two cases are possible. First, there must either be
in the series of cosmical changes a beginning, which is unconditionally
necessary, and therefore uncaused-which is at variance with the dynamical
law of the determination of all phenomena in time; or, secondly, the series
itself is without beginning, and, although contingent and conditioned in
all its parts, is nevertheless absolutely necessary and unconditioned as a
whole—which is self-contradictory. For the existence of an aggregate can-
not be necessary, if no single part of it possesses necessary existence.
Grant, on the other band, that an absolutely necessary cause exists out
of and apart from the world. This cause, as the highest member in the
series of the causes of cosmical changes, must originate or begin* the exist-
ence of the latter and their series. In this case it must also begin to act, and
its causality would therefore belong to time, and consequently to the sum
total of phenomena, that is, to the world. It follows that the cause cannot
be out of the world; which is contradictory to the hypothesis. Therefore,
neither in the world, nor out of it (but in causal connection with it), does
there exist any absolutely necessary being.
*The word begin is taken in two senses. The first is active—the cause being
regarded as beginning a series of conditions as its effect (infit). The second is
passive—the causality in the cause itself beginning to operate (fit). I reason here
from the first to the second.
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Immanuel Kant
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FOURTH ANTINOMY.
ON THE THESIS.
To demonstrate the existence of a necessary being, I cannot be permitted

in this place to employ any other than the cosmological argument, which
ascends from the conditioned in phenomena to the unconditioned in con-
ception—the unconditioned being considered the necessary condition of
the absolute totality of the series. The proof, from the mere idea of a
supreme being, belongs to another principle of reason and requires sepa-
rate discussion.
The pure cosmological proof demonstrates the existence of a necessary
being, but at the same time leaves it quite unsettled, whether this being is
the world itself, or quite distinct from it. To establish the truth of the
latter view, principles are requisite, which are not cosmological and do not
proceed in the series of phenomena. We should require to introduce into
our proof conceptions of contingent beings—regarded merely as objects
of the understanding, and also a principle which enables us to connect
these, by means of mere conceptions, with a necessary being. But the
proper place for all such arguments is a transcendent philosophy, which
has unhappily not yet been established.
But, if we begin our proof cosmologically, by laying at the foundation
of it the series of phenomena, and the regress in it according to empirical
laws of causality, we are not at liberty to break off from this mode of
demonstration and to pass over to something which is not itself a member
of the series. The condition must be taken in exactly the same significa-
tion as the relation of the conditioned to its condition in the series has
been taken, for the series must conduct us in an unbroken regress to this
supreme condition. But if this relation is sensuous, and belongs to the
possible empirical employment of understanding, the supreme condition
or cause must close the regressive series according to the laws of sensibility
and consequently, must belong to the series of time. It follows that this
necessary existence must be regarded as the highest member of the cosmical
series.
Certain philosophers have, nevertheless, allowed themselves the liberty
of making such a saltus (metabasis eis allo gonos). From the changes in
the world they have concluded their empirical contingency, that is, their
dependence on empirically-determined causes, and they thus admitted an
279
ascending series of empirical conditions: and in this they are quite right.
But as they could not find in this series any primal beginning or any
highest member, they passed suddenly from the empirical conception of
contingency to the pure category, which presents us with a series—not
sensuous, but intellectual—whose completeness does certainly rest upon
the existence of an absolutely necessary cause. Nay, more, this intellectual
series is not tied to any sensuous conditions; and is therefore free from the
condition of time, which requires it spontaneously to begin its causality in
time. But such a procedure is perfectly inadmissible, as will be made plain
from what follows.
In the pure sense of the categories, that is contingent the contradictory
opposite of which is possible. Now we cannot reason from empirical con-
tingency to intellectual. The opposite of that which is changed—the op-
posite of its state—is actual at another time, and is therefore possible.
Consequently, it is not the contradictory opposite of the former state. To
be that, it is necessary that, in the same time in which the preceding state
existed, its opposite could have existed in its place; but such a cognition is
not given us in the mere phenomenon of change. A body that was in
motion = A, comes into a state of rest = non-A. Now it cannot be con-
cluded from the fact that a state opposite to the state A follows it, that the
contradictory opposite of A is possible; and that A is therefore contingent.
To prove this, we should require to know that the state of rest could have
existed in the very same time in which the motion took place. Now we
know nothing more than that the state of rest was actual in the time that
followed the state of motion; consequently, that it was also possible. But
motion at one time, and rest at another time, are not contradictorily op-
posed to each other. It follows from what has been said that the succession
of opposite determinations, that is, change, does not demonstrate the fact
of contingency as represented in the conceptions of the pure understand-
ing; and that it cannot, therefore, conduct us to the fact of the existence of
a necessary being. Change proves merely empirical contingency, that is to
say, that the new state could not have existed without a cause, which be-
longs to the preceding time. This cause—even although it is regarded as
absolutely necessary—must be presented to us in time, and must belong
to the series of phenomena.
ON THE ANTITHESIS.
The difficulties which meet us, in our attempt to rise through the series of
phenomena to the existence of an absolutely necessary supreme cause,
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must not originate from our inability to establish the truth of our mere
conceptions of the necessary existence of a thing. That is to say, our objec-
tions not be ontological, but must be directed against the causal connec-
tion with a series of phenomena of a condition which is itself uncondi-
tioned. In one word, they must be cosmological and relate to empirical
laws. We must show that the regress in the series of causes (in the world of
sense) cannot conclude with an empirically unconditioned condition, and
that the cosmological argument from the contingency of the cosmical
state—a contingency alleged to arise from change—does not justify us in
accepting a first cause, that is, a prime originator of the cosmical series.
The reader will observe in this antinomy a very remarkable contrast.
The very same grounds of proof which established in the thesis the exist-
ence of a supreme being, demonstrated in the antithesis—and with equal
strictness—the non-existence of such a being. We found, first, that a nec-
essary being exists, because the whole time past contains the series of all
conditions, and with it, therefore, the unconditioned (the necessary); sec-
ondly, that there does not exist any necessary being, for the same reason,
that the whole time past contains the series of all conditions—which are
themselves, therefore, in the aggregate, conditioned. The cause of this seem-
ing incongruity is as follows. We attend, in the first argument, solely to
the absolute totality of the series of conditions, the one of which deter-
mines the other in time, and thus arrive at a necessary unconditioned. In
the second, we consider, on the contrary, the contingency of everything
that is determined in the series of time-for every event is preceded by a
time, in which the condition itself must be determined as conditioned—
and thus everything that is unconditioned or absolutely necessary disap-
pears. In both, the mode of proof is quite in accordance with the common
procedure of human reason, which often falls into discord with itself,
from considering an object from two different points of view. Herr von
Mairan regarded the controversy between two celebrated astronomers,
which arose from a similar difficulty as to the choice of a proper stand-
point, as a phenomenon of sufficient importance to warrant a separate
treatise on the subject. The one concluded: the moon revolves on its own
axis, because it constantly presents the same side to the earth; the other
declared that the moon does not revolve on its own axis, for the same
reason. Both conclusions were perfectly correct, according to the point of
view from which the motions of the moon were considered.
281
SECTION III. Of the Interest of Reason in these Self-contradic-

tions.
We have thus completely before us the dialectical procedure of the cosmo-

logical ideas. No possible experience can present us with an object ad-
equate to them in extent. Nay, more, reason itself cannot cogitate them as
according with the general laws of experience. And yet they are not arbi-
trary fictions of thought. On the contrary, reason, in its uninterrupted
progress in the empirical synthesis, is necessarily conducted to them, when
it endeavours to free from all conditions and to comprehend in its uncon-
ditioned totality that which can only be determined conditionally in ac-
cordance with the laws of experience. These dialectical propositions are so
many attempts to solve four natural and unavoidable problems of reason.
There are neither more, nor can there be less, than this number, because
there are no other series of synthetical hypotheses, limiting a priori the
empirical synthesis.
The brilliant claims of reason striving to extend its dominion beyond
the limits of experience, have been represented above only in dry formu-
lae, which contain merely the grounds of its pretensions. They have, be-
sides, in conformity with the character of a transcendental philosophy,
been freed from every empirical element; although the full splendour of
the promises they hold out, and the anticipations they excite, manifests
itself only when in connection with empirical cognitions. In the applica-
tion of them, however, and in the advancing enlargement of the employ-
ment of reason, while struggling to rise from the region of experience and
to soar to those sublime ideas, philosophy discovers a value and a dignity,
which, if it could but make good its assertions, would raise it far above all
other departments of human knowledge—professing, as it does, to present
a sure foundation for our highest hopes and the ultimate aims of all the
exertions of reason. The questions: whether the world has a beginning
and a limit to its extension in space; whether there exists anywhere, or
perhaps, in my own thinking Self, an indivisible and indestructible unity—
or whether nothing but what is divisible and transitory exists; whether I
am a free agent, or, like other beings, am bound in the chains of nature
and fate; whether, finally, there is a supreme cause of the world, or all our
thought and speculation must end with nature and the order of external
things—are questions for the solution of which the mathematician would
willingly exchange his whole science; for in it there is no satisfaction for
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Immanuel Kant
the highest aspirations and most ardent desires of humanity. Nay, it may
even be said that the true value of mathematics-that pride of human rea-
son—consists in this: that she guides reason to the knowledge of nature—
in her greater as well as in her less manifestations—in her beautiful order
and regularity—guides her, moreover, to an insight into the wonderful
unity of the moving forces in the operations of nature, far beyond the
expectations of a philosophy building only on experience; and that she
thus encourages philosophy to extend the province of reason beyond all
experience, and at the same time provides it with the most excellent mate-
rials for supporting its investigations, in so far as their nature admits, by
adequate and accordant intuitions.
Unfortunately for speculation—but perhaps fortunately for the practi-
cal interests of humanity—reason, in the midst of her highest anticipa-
tions, finds herself hemmed in by a press of opposite and contradictory
conclusions, from which neither her honour nor her safety will permit her
to draw back. Nor can she regard these conflicting trains of reasoning
with indifference as mere passages at arms, still less can she command
peace; for in the subject of the conflict she has a deep interest. There is no
other course left open to her than to reflect with herself upon the origin of
this disunion in reason—whether it may not arise from a mere misunder-
standing. After such an inquiry, arrogant claims would have to be given
up on both sides; but the sovereignty of reason over understanding and
sense would be based upon a sure foundation.
We shall at present defer this radical inquiry and, in the meantime,
consider for a little what side in the controversy we should most willingly
take, if we were obliged to become partisans at all. As, in this case, we
leave out of sight altogether the logical criterion of truth, and merely con-
sult our own interest in reference to the question, these considerations,
although inadequate to settle the question of right in either party, will
enable us to comprehend how those who have taken part in the struggle,
adopt the one view rather than the other—no special insight into the
subject, however, having influenced their choice. They will, at the same
time, explain to us many other things by the way—for example, the fiery
zeal on the one side and the cold maintenance of their cause on the other;
why the one party has met with the warmest approbations, and the other
has always been repulsed by irreconcilable prejudices.
There is one thing, however, that determines the proper point of view,
from which alone this preliminary inquiry can be instituted and carried
on with the proper completeness—and that is the comparison of the prin-
ciples from which both sides, thesis and antithesis, proceed. My readers
283
would remark in the propositions of the antithesis a complete uniformity

in the mode of thought and a perfect unity of principle. Its principle was
that of pure empiricism, not only in the explication of the phenomena in
the world, but also in the solution of the transcendental ideas, even of that
of the universe itself. The affirmations of the thesis, on the contrary, were
based, in addition to the empirical mode of explanation employed in the
series of phenomena, on intellectual propositions; and its principles were
in so far not simple. I shall term the thesis, in view of its essential charac-
teristic, the dogmatism of pure reason.
On the side of Dogmatism, or of the thesis, therefore, in the deter-

mination of the cosmological ideas, we find:
1. A practical interest, which must be very dear to every right-thinking

man. That the word has a beginning—that the nature of my thinking self
is simple, and therefore indestructible—that I am a free agent, and raised
above the compulsion of nature and her laws—and, finally, that the entire
order of things, which form the world, is dependent upon a Supreme
Being, from whom the whole receives unity and connection—these are so
many foundation-stones of morality and religion. The antithesis deprives
us of all these supports—or, at least, seems so to deprive us.
2. A speculative interest of reason manifests itself on this side. For, if we

take the transcendental ideas and employ them in the manner which the
thesis directs, we can exhibit completely a priori the entire chain of condi-
tions, and understand the derivation of the conditioned—beginning from
the unconditioned. This the antithesis does not do; and for this reason
does not meet with so welcome a reception. For it can give no answer to
our question respecting the conditions of its synthesis—except such as
must be supplemented by another question, and so on to infinity. Accord-
ing to it, we must rise from a given beginning to one still higher; every
part conducts us to a still smaller one; every event is preceded by another
event which is its cause; and the conditions of existence rest always upon
other and still higher conditions, and find neither end nor basis in some
self-subsistent thing as the primal being.
3. This side has also the advantage of popularity; and this constitutes no
small part of its claim to favour. The common understanding does not
find the least difficulty in the idea of the unconditioned beginning of all
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synthesis—accustomed, as it is, rather to follow our consequences than to

seek for a proper basis for cognition. In the conception of an absolute
first, moreover—the possibility of which it does not inquire into—it is
highly gratified to find a firmly-established point of departure for its at-
tempts at theory; while in the restless and continuous ascent from the
conditioned to the condition, always with one foot in the air, it can find
no satisfaction.
On the side of the antithesis, or Empiricism, in the determination

of the cosmological ideas:
1. We cannot discover any such practical interest arising from pure prin-
ciples of reason as morality and religion present. On the contrary, pure
empiricism seems to empty them of all their power and influence. If there
does not exist a Supreme Being distinct from the world—if the world is
without beginning, consequently without a Creator—if our wills are not
free, and the soul is divisible and subject to corruption just like matter—
the ideas and principles of morality lose all validity and fall with the tran-
scendental ideas which constituted their theoretical support.
2. But empiricism, in compensation, holds out to reason, in its specula-

tive interests, certain important advantages, far exceeding any that the
dogmatist can promise us. For, when employed by the empiricist, un-
derstanding is always upon its proper ground of investigation—the field
of possible experience, the laws of which it can explore, and thus extend
its cognition securely and with clear intelligence without being stopped
by limits in any direction. Here can it and ought it to find and present
to intuition its proper object—not only in itself, but in all its relations;
or, if it employ conceptions, upon this ground it can always present the
corresponding images in clear and unmistakable intuitions. It is quite
unnecessary for it to renounce the guidance of nature, to attach itself to
ideas, the objects of which it cannot know; because, as mere intellectual
entities, they cannot be presented in any intuition. On the contrary, it is
not even permitted to abandon its proper occupation, under the pre-
tence that it has been brought to a conclusion (for it never can be), and
to pass into the region of idealizing reason and transcendent concep-
tions, which it is not required to observe and explore the laws of nature,
but merely to think and to imagine—secure from being contradicted by
facts, because they have not been called as witnesses, but passed by, or
285
perhaps subordinated to the so-called higher interests and considerations

of pure reason.
Hence the empiricist will never allow himself to accept any epoch of
nature for the first—the absolutely primal state; he will not believe that
there can be limits to his outlook into her wide domains, nor pass from
the objects of nature, which he can satisfactorily explain by means of ob-
servation and mathematical thought—which he can determine syntheti-
cally in intuition, to those which neither sense nor imagination can ever
present in concreto; he will not concede the existence of a faculty in na-
ture, operating independently of the laws of nature—a concession which
would introduce uncertainty into the procedure of the understanding,
which is guided by necessary laws to the observation of phenomena; nor,
finally, will he permit himself to seek a cause beyond nature, inasmuch as
we know nothing but it, and from it alone receive an objective basis for all
our conceptions and instruction in the unvarying laws of things.
In truth, if the empirical philosopher had no other purpose in the estab-
lishment of his antithesis than to check the presumption of a reason which
mistakes its true destination, which boasts of its insight and its knowl-
edge, just where all insight and knowledge cease to exist, and regards that
which is valid only in relation to a practical interest, as an advancement of
the speculative interests of the mind (in order, when it is convenient for
itself, to break the thread of our physical investigations, and, under pre-
tence of extending our cognition, connect them with transcendental ideas,
by means of which we really know only that we know nothing)—if, I say,
the empiricist rested satisfied with this benefit, the principle advanced by
him would be a maxim recommending moderation in the pretensions of
reason and modesty in its affirmations, and at the same time would direct
us to the right mode of extending the province of the understanding, by
the help of the only true teacher, experience. In obedience to this advice,
intellectual hypotheses and faith would not be called in aid of our practi-
cal interests; nor should we introduce them under the pompous titles of
science and insight. For speculative cognition cannot find an objective
basis any other where than in experience; and, when we overstep its limits
our synthesis, which requires ever new cognitions independent of experi-
ence, has no substratum of intuition upon which to build.
But if—as often happens—empiricism, in relation to ideas, becomes
itself dogmatic and boldly denies that which is above the sphere of its
phenomenal cognition, it falls itself into the error of intemperance—an
error which is here all the more reprehensible, as thereby the practical
interest of reason receives an irreparable injury.
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Immanuel Kant
And this constitutes the opposition between Epicureanism* and

Platonism.
Both Epicurus and Plato assert more in their systems than they know.
The former encourages and advances science—although to the prejudice
of the practical; the latter presents us with excellent principles for the
investigation of the practical, but, in relation to everything regarding which
we can attain to speculative cognition, permits reason to append idealistic
explanations of natural phenomena, to the great injury of physical inves-
tigation.
3. In regard to the third motive for the preliminary choice of a party in

this war of assertions, it seems very extraordinary that empiricism should
be utterly unpopular. We should be inclined to believe that the common
understanding would receive it with pleasure—promising as it does to
satisfy it without passing the bounds of experience and its connected or-
der; while transcendental dogmatism obliges it to rise to conceptions which
far surpass the intelligence and ability of the most practised thinkers. But
in this, in truth, is to be found its real motive. For the common under-
standing thus finds itself in a situation where not even the most learned
can have the advantage of it. If it understands little or nothing about these
transcendental conceptions, no one can boast of understanding any more;
and although it may not express itself in so scholastically correct a manner
as others, it can busy itself with reasoning and arguments without end,
wandering among mere ideas, about which one can always be very elo-
quent, because we know nothing about them; while, in the observation
*It is, however, still a matter of doubt whether Epicurus ever propounded these
principles as directions for the objective employment of the understanding. If,
indeed, they were nothing more than maxims for the speculative exercise of rea-
son, he gives evidence therein a more genuine philosophic spirit than any of the
philosophers of antiquity. That, in the explanation of phenomena, we must pro-
ceed as if the field of inquiry had neither limits in space nor commencement in
time; that we must be satisfied with the teaching of experience in reference to the
material of which the world is posed; that we must not look for any other mode
of the origination of events than that which is determined by the unalterable laws
of nature; and finally, that we not employ the hypothesis of a cause distinct from
the world to account for a phenomenon or for the world itself—are principles for
the extension of speculative philosophy, and the discovery of the true sources of
the principles of morals, which, however little conformed to in the present day,
are undoubtedly correct. At the same time, any one desirous of ignoring, in mere
speculation, these dogmatical propositions, need not for that reason be accused
of denying them.
287
and investigation of nature, it would be forced to remain dumb and to

confess its utter ignorance. Thus indolence and vanity form of themselves
strong recommendations of these principles. Besides, although it is a hard
thing for a philosopher to assume a principle, of which he can give to
himself no reasonable account, and still more to employ conceptions, the
objective reality of which cannot be established, nothing is more usual
with the common understanding. It wants something which will allow it
to go to work with confidence. The difficulty of even comprehending a
supposition does not disquiet it, because—not knowing what compre-
hending means—it never even thinks of the supposition it may be adopt-
ing as a principle; and regards as known that with which it has become
familiar from constant use. And, at last, all speculative interests disappear
before the practical interests which it holds dear; and it fancies that it
understands and knows what its necessities and hopes incite it to assume
or to believe. Thus the empiricism of transcendentally idealizing reason is
robbed of all popularity; and, however prejudicial it may be to the highest
practical principles, there is no fear that it will ever pass the limits of the
schools, or acquire any favour or influence in society or with the multi-
tude.
Human reason is by nature architectonic. That is to say, it regards all

cognitions as parts of a possible system, and hence accepts only such prin-
ciples as at least do not incapacitate a cognition to which we may have
attained from being placed along with others in a general system. But the
propositions of the antithesis are of a character which renders the comple-
tion of an edifice of cognitions impossible. According to these, beyond
one state or epoch of the world there is always to be found one more
ancient; in every part always other parts themselves divisible; preceding
every event another, the origin of which must itself be sought still higher;
and everything in existence is conditioned, and still not dependent on an
unconditioned and primal existence. As, therefore, the antithesis will not
concede the existence of a first beginning which might be available as a
foundation, a complete edifice of cognition, in the presence of such hy-
pothesis, is utterly impossible. Thus the architectonic interest of reason,
which requires a unity—not empirical, but a priori and rational—forms a
natural recommendation for the assertions of the thesis in our antinomy.
But if any one could free himself entirely from all considerations of
interest, and weigh without partiality the assertions of reason, attending
only to their content, irrespective of the consequences which follow from
them; such a person, on the supposition that he knew no other way out of
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the confusion than to settle the truth of one or other of the conflicting
doctrines, would live in a state of continual hesitation. Today, he would
feel convinced that the human will is free; to-morrow, considering the
indissoluble chain of nature, he would look on freedom as a mere illusion
and declare nature to be all-in-all. But, if he were called to action, the play
of the merely speculative reason would disappear like the shapes of a dream,
and practical interest would dictate his choice of principles. But, as it well
befits a reflective and inquiring being to devote certain periods of time to
the examination of its own reason—to divest itself of all partiality, and
frankly to communicate its observations for the judgement and opinion
of others; so no one can be blamed for, much less prevented from, placing
both parties on their trial, with permission to end themselves, free from
intimidation, before intimidation, before a sworn jury of equal condition
with themselves—the condition of weak and fallible men.
SECTION IV. Of the necessity imposed upon Pure Reason of pre-

senting a Solution of its Transcendental Problems.
To avow an ability to solve all problems and to answer all questions would
be a profession certain to convict any philosopher of extravagant boasting
and self-conceit, and at once to destroy the confidence that might other-
wise have been reposed in him. There are, however, sciences so consti-
tuted that every question arising within their sphere must necessarily be
capable of receiving an answer from the knowledge already possessed, for
the answer must be received from the same sources whence the question
arose. In such sciences it is not allowable to excuse ourselves on the plea of
necessary and unavoidable ignorance; a solution is absolutely requisite.
The rule of right and wrong must help us to the knowledge of what is
right or wrong in all possible cases; otherwise, the idea of obligation or
duty would be utterly null, for we cannot have any obligation to that
which we cannot know. On the other hand, in our investigations of the
phenomena of nature, much must remain uncertain, and many questions
continue insoluble; because what we know of nature is far from being
sufficient to explain all the phenomena that are presented to our observa-
tion. Now the question is: Whether there is in transcendental philosophy
any question, relating to an object presented to pure reason, which is un-
answerable by this reason; and whether we must regard the subject of the
question as quite uncertain, so far as our knowledge extends, and must
give it a place among those subjects, of which we have just so much con-
289
ception as is sufficient to enable us to raise a question—faculty or materi-

als failing us, however, when we attempt an answer.
Now I maintain that, among all speculative cognition, the peculiarity of
transcendental philosophy is that there is no question, relating to an ob-
ject presented to pure reason, which is insoluble by this reason; and that
the profession of unavoidable ignorance-the problem being alleged to be
beyond the reach of our faculties-cannot free us from the obligation to
present a complete and satisfactory answer. For the very conception which
enables us to raise the question must give us the power of answering it;
inasmuch as the object, as in the case of right and wrong, is not to be
discovered out of the conception.
But, in transcendental philosophy, it is only the cosmological questions
to which we can demand a satisfactory answer in relation to the constitu-
tion of their object; and the philosopher is not permitted to avail himself
of the pretext of necessary ignorance and impenetrable obscurity. These
questions relate solely to the cosmological ideas. For the object must be
given in experience, and the question relates to the adequateness of the
object to an idea. If the object is transcendental and therefore itself un-
known; if the question, for example, is whether the object—the some-
thing, the phenomenon of which (internal—in ourselves) is thought—
that is to say, the soul, is in itself a simple being; or whether there is a cause
of all things, which is absolutely necessary—in such cases we are seeking
for our idea an object, of which we may confess that it is unknown to us,
though we must not on that account assert that it is impossible.* The
cosmological ideas alone posses the peculiarity that we can presuppose the
object of them and the empirical synthesis requisite for the conception of
that object to be given; and the question, which arises from these ideas,
relates merely to the progress of this synthesis, in so far as it must contain
absolute totality—which, however, is not empirical, as it cannot be given
*The question, “What is the constitution of a transcendental object?” is unan-

swerable—we are unable to say what it is; but we can perceive that the question
itself is nothing; because it does not relate to any object that can be presented to
us. For this reason, we must consider all the questions raised in transcendental
psychology as answerable and as really answered; for they relate to the transcen-
dental subject of all internal phenomena, which is not itself phenomenon and
consequently not given as an object, in which, moreover, none of the catego-
ries—and it is to them that the question is properly directed—find any condi-
tions of its application. Here, therefore, is a case where no answer is the only
proper answer. For a question regarding the constitution of a something which
cannot be cogitated by any determined predicate, being completely beyond the
sphere of objects and experience, is perfectly null and void.
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Immanuel Kant
in any experience. Now, as the question here is solely in regard to a thing

as the object of a possible experience and not as a thing in itself, the an-
swer to the transcendental cosmological question need not be sought out
of the idea, for the question does not regard an object in itself. The ques-
tion in relation to a possible experience is not, “What can be given in an
experience in concreto” but “what is contained in the idea, to which the
empirical synthesis must approximate.” The question must therefore be
capable of solution from the idea alone. For the idea is a creation of reason
itself, which therefore cannot disclaim the obligation to answer or refer us
to the unknown object.
It is not so extraordinary, as it at first sight appears, that a science should
demand and expect satisfactory answers to all the questions that may arise
within its own sphere (questiones domesticae), although, up to a certain
time, these answers may not have been discovered. There are, in addition
to transcendental philosophy, only two pure sciences of reason; the one
with a speculative, the other with a practical content—pure mathematics
and pure ethics. Has any one ever heard it alleged that, from our complete
and necessary ignorance of the conditions, it is uncertain what exact rela-
tion the diameter of a circle bears to the circle in rational or irrational
numbers? By the former the sum cannot be given exactly, by the latter
only approximately; and therefore we decide that the impossibility of a
solution of the question is evident. Lambert presented us with a demon-
stration of this. In the general principles of morals there can be nothing
uncertain, for the propositions are either utterly without meaning, or must
originate solely in our rational conceptions. On the other hand, there
must be in physical science an infinite number of conjectures, which can
never become certainties; because the phenomena of nature are not given
as objects dependent on our conceptions. The key to the solution of such
questions cannot, therefore, be found in our conceptions, or in pure
thought, but must lie without us and for that reason is in many cases not
to be discovered; and consequently a satisfactory explanation cannot be
expected. The questions of transcendental analytic, which relate to the
deduction of our pure cognition, are not to be regarded as of the same
kind as those mentioned above; for we are not at present treating of the
certainty of judgements in relation to the origin of our conceptions, but
only of that certainty in relation to objects.
We cannot, therefore, escape the responsibility of at least a critical solu-
tion of the questions of reason, by complaints of the limited nature of our
faculties, and the seemingly humble confession that it is beyond the power
of our reason to decide, whether the world has existed from all eternity or
291
had a beginning—whether it is infinitely extended, or enclosed within

certain limits—whether anything in the world is simple, or whether ev-
erything must be capable of infinite divisibility—whether freedom can
originate phenomena, or whether everything is absolutely dependent on
the laws and order of nature—and, finally, whether there exists a being
that is completely unconditioned and necessary, or whether the existence
of everything is conditioned and consequently dependent on something
external to itself, and therefore in its own nature contingent. For all these
questions relate to an object, which can be given nowhere else than in
thought. This object is the absolutely unconditioned totality of the syn-
thesis of phenomena. If the conceptions in our minds do not assist us to
some certain result in regard to these problems, we must not defend our-
selves on the plea that the object itself remains hidden from and unknown
to us. For no such thing or object can be given—it is not to be found out
of the idea in our minds. We must seek the cause of our failure in our idea
itself, which is an insoluble problem and in regard to which we obstinately
assume that there exists a real object corresponding and adequate to it. A
clear explanation of the dialectic which lies in our conception, will very
soon enable us to come to a satisfactory decision in regard to such a ques-
tion.
The pretext that we are unable to arrive at certainty in regard to these
problems may be met with this question, which requires at least a plain
answer: “From what source do the ideas originate, the solution of which
involves you in such difficulties? Are you seeking for an explanation of
certain phenomena; and do you expect these ideas to give you the prin-
ciples or the rules of this explanation?” Let it be granted, that all nature
was laid open before you; that nothing was hid from your senses and your
consciousness. Still, you could not cognize in concreto the object of your
ideas in any experience. For what is demanded is not only this full and
complete intuition, but also a complete synthesis and the consciousness
of its absolute totality; and this is not possible by means of any empirical
cognition. It follows that your question—your idea—is by no means nec-
essary for the explanation of any phenomenon; and the idea cannot have
been in any sense given by the object itself. For such an object can never
be presented to us, because it cannot be given by any possible experience.
Whatever perceptions you may attain to, you are still surrounded by con-
ditions—in space, or in time—and you cannot discover anything uncon-
ditioned; nor can you decide whether this unconditioned is to be placed
in an absolute beginning of the synthesis, or in an absolute totality of the
series without beginning. A whole, in the empirical signification of the
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Immanuel Kant
term, is always merely comparative. The absolute whole of quantity (the

universe), of division, of derivation, of the condition of existence, with
the question—whether it is to be produced by finite or infinite synthesis,
no possible experience can instruct us concerning. You will not, for ex-
ample, be able to explain the phenomena of a body in the least degree
better, whether you believe it to consist of simple, or of composite parts;
for a simple phenomenon—and just as little an infinite series of composi-
tion—can never be presented to your perception. Phenomena require and
admit of explanation, only in so far as the conditions of that explanation
are given in perception; but the sum total of that which is given in phe-
nomena, considered as an absolute whole, is itself a perception—and we
cannot therefore seek for explanations of this whole beyond itself, in other
perceptions. The explanation of this whole is the proper object of the
transcendental problems of pure reason.
Although, therefore, the solution of these problems is unattainable
through experience, we must not permit ourselves to say that it is uncer-
tain how the object of our inquiries is constituted. For the object is in our
own mind and cannot be discovered in experience; and we have only to
take care that our thoughts are consistent with each other, and to avoid
falling into the amphiboly of regarding our idea as a representation of an
object empirically given, and therefore to be cognized according to the
laws of experience. A dogmatical solution is therefore not only unsatisfac-
tory but impossible. The critical solution, which may be a perfectly cer-
tain one, does not consider the question objectively, but proceeds by in-
quiring into the basis of the cognition upon which the question rests.
SECTION V. Sceptical Exposition of the Cosmological Problems

presented in the four Transcendental Ideas.
We should be quite willing to desist from the demand of a dogmatical

answer to our questions, if we understood beforehand that, be the answer
what it may, it would only serve to increase our ignorance, to throw us
from one incomprehensibility into another, from one obscurity into an-
other still greater, and perhaps lead us into irreconcilable contradictions.
If a dogmatical affirmative or negative answer is demanded, is it at all
prudent to set aside the probable grounds of a solution which lie before us
and to take into consideration what advantage we shall gain, if the answer
is to favour the one side or the other? If it happens that in both cases the
answer is mere nonsense, we have in this an irresistible summons to insti-
293
tute a critical investigation of the question, for the purpose of discovering

whether it is based on a groundless presupposition and relates to an idea,
the falsity of which would be more easily exposed in its application and
consequences than in the mere representation of its content. This is the
great utility of the sceptical mode of treating the questions addressed by
pure reason to itself. By this method we easily rid ourselves of the confu-
sions of dogmatism, and establish in its place a temperate criticism, which,
as a genuine cathartic, will successfully remove the presumptuous notions
of philosophy and their consequence—the vain pretension to universal
science.
If, then, I could understand the nature of a cosmological idea and per-
ceive, before I entered on the discussion of the subject at all, that, what-
ever side of the question regarding the unconditioned of the regressive
synthesis of phenomena it favoured—it must either be too great or too
small for every conception of the understanding—I would be able to com-
prehend how the idea, which relates to an object of experience—an expe-
rience which must be adequate to and in accordance with a possible con-
ception of the understanding—must be completely void and without sig-
nificance, inasmuch as its object is inadequate, consider it as we may. And
this is actually the case with all cosmological conceptions, which, for the
reason above mentioned, involve reason, so long as it remains attached to
them, in an unavoidable antinomy. For suppose:
First, that the world has no beginning—in this case it is too large for
our conception; for this conception, which consists in a successive regress,
cannot overtake the whole eternity that has elapsed. Grant that it has a
beginning, it is then too small for the conception of the understanding.
For, as a beginning presupposes a time preceding, it cannot be uncondi-
tioned; and the law of the empirical employment of the understanding
imposes the necessity of looking for a higher condition of time; and the
world is, therefore, evidently too small for this law.
The same is the case with the double answer to the question regarding
the extent, in space, of the world. For, if it is infinite and unlimited, it
must be too large for every possible empirical conception. If it is finite and
limited, we have a right to ask: “What determines these limits?” Void
space is not a self-subsistent correlate of things, and cannot be a final
condition—and still less an empirical condition, forming a part of a pos-
sible experience. For how can we have any experience or perception of an
absolute void? But the absolute totality of the empirical synthesis requires
that the unconditioned be an empirical conception. Consequently, a fi-
nite world is too small for our conception.
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Immanuel Kant
Secondly, if every phenomenon (matter) in space consists of an infinite

number of parts, the regress of the division is always too great for our
conception; and if the division of space must cease with some member of
the division (the simple), it is too small for the idea of the unconditioned.
For the member at which we have discontinued our division still admits a
regress to many more parts contained in the object.
Thirdly, suppose that every event in the world happens in accordance
with the laws of nature; the causality of a cause must itself be an event and
necessitates a regress to a still higher cause, and consequently the unceas-
ing prolongation of the series of conditions a parte priori. Operative na-
ture is therefore too large for every conception we can form in the synthe-
sis of cosmical events.
If we admit the existence of spontaneously produced events, that is, of
free agency, we are driven, in our search for sufficient reasons, on an un-
avoidable law of nature and are compelled to appeal to the empirical law
of causality, and we find that any such totality of connection in our syn-
thesis is too small for our necessary empirical conception.
Fourthly, if we assume the existence of an absolutely necessary being—
whether it be the world or something in the world, or the cause of the
world—we must place it in a time at an infinite distance from any given
moment; for, otherwise, it must be dependent on some other and higher
existence. Such an existence is, in this case, too large for our empirical
conception, and unattainable by the continued regress of any synthesis.
But if we believe that everything in the world—be it condition or con-
ditioned—is contingent; every given existence is too small for our con-
ception. For in this case we are compelled to seek for some other existence
upon which the former depends.
We have said that in all these cases the cosmological idea is either too
great or too small for the empirical regress in a synthesis, and consequently
for every possible conception of the understanding. Why did we not ex-
press ourselves in a manner exactly the reverse of this and, instead of ac-
cusing the cosmological idea of over stepping or of falling short of its true
aim, possible experience, say that, in the first case, the empirical concep-
tion is always too small for the idea, and in the second too great, and thus
attach the blame of these contradictions to the empirical regress? The rea-
son is this. Possible experience can alone give reality to our conceptions;
without it a conception is merely an idea, without truth or relation to an
object. Hence a possible empirical conception must be the standard by
which we are to judge whether an idea is anything more than an idea and
fiction of thought, or whether it relates to an object in the world. If we say
295
of a thing that in relation to some other thing it is too large or too small,
the former is considered as existing for the sake of the latter, and requiring
to be adapted to it. Among the trivial subjects of discussion in the old
schools of dialectics was this question: “If a ball cannot pass through a
hole, shall we say that the ball is too large or the hole too small?” In this
case it is indifferent what expression we employ; for we do not know which
exists for the sake of the other. On the other hand, we cannot say: “The
man is too long for his coat”; but: “The coat is too short for the man.”
We are thus led to the well-founded suspicion that the cosmological
ideas, and all the conflicting sophistical assertions connected with them,
are based upon a false and fictitious conception of the mode in which the
object of these ideas is presented to us; and this suspicion will probably
direct us how to expose the illusion that has so long led us astray from the
truth.
SECTION VI. Transcendental Idealism as the Key to the Solution

of Pure Cosmological Dialectic.
In the transcendental aesthetic we proved that everything intuited in space

and time, all objects of a possible experience, are nothing but phenomena,
that is, mere representations; and that these, as presented to us—as ex-
tended bodies, or as series of changes—have no self-subsistent existence
apart from human thought. This doctrine I call Transcendental Idealism.*
The realist in the transcendental sense regards these modifications of our
sensibility, these mere representations, as things subsisting in themselves.
It would be unjust to accuse us of holding the long-decried theory of
empirical idealism, which, while admitting the reality of space, denies, or
at least doubts, the existence of bodies extended in it, and thus leaves us
without a sufficient criterion of reality and illusion. The supporters of this
theory find no difficulty in admitting the reality of the phenomena of the
internal sense in time; nay, they go the length of maintaining that this
internal experience is of itself a sufficient proof of the real existence of its
object as a thing in itself.
Transcendental idealism allows that the objects of external intuition—
as intuited in space, and all changes in time—as represented by the inter-
*I have elsewhere termed this theory formal idealism, to distinguish it from ma-
terial idealism, which doubts or denies the existence of external things. To avoid
ambiguity, it seems advisable in many cases to employ this term instead of that
mentioned in the text.
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Immanuel Kant
nal sense, are real. For, as space is the form of that intuition which we call
external, and, without objects in space, no empirical representation could
be given us, we can and ought to regard extended bodies in it as real. The
case is the same with representations in time. But time and space, with all
phenomena therein, are not in themselves things. They are nothing but
representations and cannot exist out of and apart from the mind. Nay, the
sensuous internal intuition of the mind (as the object of consciousness),
the determination of which is represented by the succession of different
states in time, is not the real, proper self, as it exists in itself—not the
transcendental subject—but only a phenomenon, which is presented to
the sensibility of this, to us, unknown being. This internal phenomenon
cannot be admitted to be a self-subsisting thing; for its condition is time,
and time cannot be the condition of a thing in itself. But the empirical
truth of phenomena in space and time is guaranteed beyond the possibil-
ity of doubt, and sufficiently distinguished from the illusion of dreams or
fancy—although both have a proper and thorough connection in an ex-
perience according to empirical laws. The objects of experience then are
not things in themselves, but are given only in experience, and have no
existence apart from and independently of experience. That there may be
inhabitants in the moon, although no one has ever observed them, must
certainly be admitted; but this assertion means only, that we may in the
possible progress of experience discover them at some future time. For
that which stands in connection with a perception according to the laws
of the progress of experience is real. They are therefore really existent, if
they stand in empirical connection with my actual or real consciousness,
although they are not in themselves real, that is, apart from the progress of
experience.
There is nothing actually given—we can be conscious of nothing as
real, except a perception and the empirical progression from it to other
possible perceptions. For phenomena, as mere representations, are real
only in perception; and perception is, in fact, nothing but the reality of an
empirical representation, that is, a phenomenon. To call a phenomenon a
real thing prior to perception means either that we must meet with this
phenomenon in the progress of experience, or it means nothing at all. For
I can say only of a thing in itself that it exists without relation to the senses
and experience. But we are speaking here merely of phenomena in space
and time, both of which are determinations of sensibility, and not of things
in themselves. It follows that phenomena are not things in themselves, but
are mere representations, which if not given in us—in perception—are
non-existent.
297
The faculty of sensuous intuition is properly a receptivity—a capacity

of being affected in a certain manner by representations, the relation of
which to each other is a pure intuition of space and time—the pure forms
of sensibility. These representations, in so far as they are connected and
determinable in this relation (in space and time) according to laws of the
unity of experience, are called objects. The non-sensuous cause of these
representations is completely unknown to us and hence cannot be intu-
ited as an object. For such an object could not be represented either in
space or in time; and without these conditions intuition or representation
is impossible. We may, at the same time, term the non-sensuous cause of
phenomena the transcendental object—but merely as a mental correlate
to sensibility, considered as a receptivity. To this transcendental object we
may attribute the whole connection and extent of our possible percep-
tions, and say that it is given and exists in itself prior to all experience. But
the phenomena, corresponding to it, are not given as things in them-
selves, but in experience alone. For they are mere representations, receiv-
ing from perceptions alone significance and relation to a real object, un-
der the condition that this or that perception—indicating an object—is
in complete connection with all others in accordance with the rules of the
unity of experience. Thus we can say: “The things that really existed in
past time are given in the transcendental object of experience.” But these
are to me real objects, only in so far as I can represent to my own mind,
that a regressive series of possible perceptions-following the indications of
history, or the footsteps of cause and effect—in accordance with empirical
laws—that, in one word, the course of the world conducts us to an elapsed
series of time as the condition of the present time. This series in past time
is represented as real, not in itself, but only in connection with a possible
experience. Thus, when I say that certain events occurred in past time, I
merely assert the possibility of prolonging the chain of experience, from
the present perception, upwards to the conditions that determine it ac-
cording to time.
If I represent to myself all objects existing in all space and time, I do not
thereby place these in space and time prior to all experience; on the con-
trary, such a representation is nothing more than the notion of a possible
experience, in its absolute completeness. In experience alone are those
objects, which are nothing but representations, given. But, when I say
they existed prior to my experience, this means only that I must begin
with the perception present to me and follow the track indicated until I
discover them in some part or region of experience. The cause of the em-
pirical condition of this progression—and consequently at what member
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Immanuel Kant
therein I must stop, and at what point in the regress I am to find this
member—is transcendental, and hence necessarily incognizable. But with
this we have not to do; our concern is only with the law of progression in
experience, in which objects, that is, phenomena, are given. It is a matter
of indifference, whether I say, “I may in the progress of experience dis-
cover stars, at a hundred times greater distance than the most distant of
those now visible,” or, “Stars at this distance may be met in space, al-
though no one has, or ever will discover them.” For, if they are given as
things in themselves, without any relation to possible experience, they are
for me non-existent, consequently, are not objects, for they are not con-
tained in the regressive series of experience. But, if these phenomena must
be employed in the construction or support of the cosmological idea of an
absolute whole, and when we are discussing a question that oversteps the
limits of possible experience, the proper distinction of the different theo-
ries of the reality of sensuous objects is of great importance, in order to
avoid the illusion which must necessarily arise from the misinterpretation
of our empirical conceptions.
SECTION VII. Critical Solution of the Cosmological Problem.
The antinomy of pure reason is based upon the following dialectical argu-
ment: “If that which is conditioned is given, the whole series of its condi-
tions is also given; but sensuous objects are given as conditioned; conse-
quently...” This syllogism, the major of which seems so natural and evi-
dent, introduces as many cosmological ideas as there are different kinds of
conditions in the synthesis of phenomena, in so far as these conditions
constitute a series. These ideas require absolute totality in the series, and
thus place reason in inextricable embarrassment. Before proceeding to
expose the fallacy in this dialectical argument, it will be necessary to have
a correct understanding of certain conceptions that appear in it.
In the first place, the following proposition is evident, and indubitably
certain: “If the conditioned is given, a regress in the series of all its condi-
tions is thereby imperatively required.” For the very conception of a con-
ditioned is a conception of something related to a condition, and, if this
condition is itself conditioned, to another condition—and so on through
all the members of the series. This proposition is, therefore, analytical and
has nothing to fear from transcendental criticism. It is a logical postulate
of reason: to pursue, as far as possible, the connection of a conception
with its conditions.
299
If, in the second place, both the conditioned and the condition are things
in themselves, and if the former is given, not only is the regress to the
latter requisite, but the latter is really given with the former. Now, as this
is true of all the members of the series, the entire series of conditions, and
with them the unconditioned, is at the same time given in the very fact of
the conditioned, the existence of which is possible only in and through
that series, being given. In this case, the synthesis of the conditioned with
its condition, is a synthesis of the understanding merely, which represents
things as they are, without regarding whether and how we can cognize
them. But if I have to do with phenomena, which, in their character of
mere representations, are not given, if I do not attain to a cognition of
them (in other words, to themselves, for they are nothing more than em-
pirical cognitions), I am not entitled to say: “If the conditioned is given,
all its conditions (as phenomena) are also given.” I cannot, therefore, from
the fact of a conditioned being given, infer the absolute totality of the
series of its conditions. For phenomena are nothing but an empirical syn-
thesis in apprehension or perception, and are therefore given only in it.
Now, in speaking of phenomena it does not follow that, if the condi-
tioned is given, the synthesis which constitutes its empirical condition is
also thereby given and presupposed; such a synthesis can be established
only by an actual regress in the series of conditions. But we are entitled to
say in this case that a regress to the conditions of a conditioned, in other
words, that a continuous empirical synthesis is enjoined; that, if the con-
ditions are not given, they are at least required; and that we are certain to
discover the conditions in this regress.
We can now see that the major, in the above cosmological syllogism,
takes the conditioned in the transcendental signification which it has in
the pure category, while the minor speaks of it in the empirical significa-
tion which it has in the category as applied to phenomena. There is, there-
fore, a dialectical fallacy in the syllogism—a sophisma figurae dictionis.
But this fallacy is not a consciously devised one, but a perfectly natural
illusion of the common reason of man. For, when a thing is given as con-
ditioned, we presuppose in the major its conditions and their series, un-
perceived, as it were, and unseen; because this is nothing more than the
logical requirement of complete and satisfactory premisses for a given con-
clusion. In this case, time is altogether left out in the connection of the
conditioned with the condition; they are supposed to be given in them-
selves, and contemporaneously. It is, moreover, just as natural to regard
phenomena (in the minor) as things in themselves and as objects pre-
sented to the pure understanding, as in the major, in which complete
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Immanuel Kant
abstraction was made of all conditions of intuition. But it is under these

conditions alone that objects are given. Now we overlooked a remarkable
distinction between the conceptions. The synthesis of the conditioned
with its condition, and the complete series of the latter (in the major) are
not limited by time, and do not contain the conception of succession. On
the contrary, the empirical synthesis and the series of conditions in the
phenomenal world—subsumed in the minor—are necessarily successive
and given in time alone. It follows that I cannot presuppose in the minor,
as I did in the major, the absolute totality of the synthesis and of the series
therein represented; for in the major all the members of the series are
given as things in themselves—without any limitations or conditions of
time, while in the minor they are possible only in and through a successive
regress, which cannot exist, except it be actually carried into execution in
the world of phenomena.
After this proof of the viciousness of the argument commonly employed
in maintaining cosmological assertions, both parties may now be justly
dismissed, as advancing claims without grounds or title. But the process
has not been ended by convincing them that one or both were in the
wrong and had maintained an assertion which was without valid grounds
of proof. Nothing seems to be clearer than that, if one maintains: “The
world has a beginning,” and another: “The world has no beginning,” one
of the two must be right. But it is likewise clear that, if the evidence on
both sides is equal, it is impossible to discover on what side the truth lies;
and the controversy continues, although the parties have been recom-
mended to peace before the tribunal of reason. There remains, then, no
other means of settling the question than to convince the parties, who
refute each other with such conclusiveness and ability, that they are dis-
puting about nothing, and that a transcendental illusion has been mock-
ing them with visions of reality where there is none. The mode of adjust-
ing a dispute which cannot be decided upon its own merits, we shall now
proceed to lay before our readers.
Zeno of Elea, a subtle dialectician, was severely reprimanded by Plato as
a sophist, who, merely from the base motive of exhibiting his skill in dis-
cussion, maintained and subverted the same proposition by arguments as
powerful and convincing on the one side as on the other. He maintained,
for example, that God (who was probably nothing more, in his view, than
the world) is neither finite nor infinite, neither in motion nor in rest,
neither similar nor dissimilar to any other thing. It seemed to those phi-
losophers who criticized his mode of discussion that his purpose was to
deny completely both of two self-contradictory propositions—which is
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absurd. But I cannot believe that there is any justice in this accusation.
The first of these propositions I shall presently consider in a more detailed
manner. With regard to the others, if by the word of God he understood
merely the Universe, his meaning must have been—that it cannot be per-
manently present in one place—that is, at rest—nor be capable of chang-
ing its place—that is, of moving-because all places are in the universe, and
the universe itself is, therefore, in no place. Again, if the universe contains
in itself everything that exists, it cannot be similar or dissimilar to any
other thing, because there is, in fact, no other thing with which it can be
compared. If two opposite judgements presuppose a contingent impos-
sible, or arbitrary condition, both—in spite of their opposition (which is,
however, not properly or really a contradiction)—fall away; because the
condition, which ensured the validity of both, has itself disappeared.
If we say: “Everybody has either a good or a bad smell,” we have omit-
ted a third possible judgement—it has no smell at all; and thus both con-
flicting statements may be false. If we say: “It is either good-smelling or
not good-smelling (vel suaveolens vel non-suaveolens),” both judgements
are contradictorily opposed; and the contradictory opposite of the former
judgement—some bodies are not good-smelling—embraces also those
bodies which have no smell at all. In the preceding pair of opposed judge-
ments (per disparata), the contingent condition of the conception of body
(smell) attached to both conflicting statements, instead of having been
omitted in the latter, which is consequently not the contradictory oppo-
site of the former.
If, accordingly, we say: “The world is either infinite in extension, or it is
not infinite (non est infinitus)”; and if the former proposition is false, its
contradictory opposite—the world is not infinite—must be true. And
thus I should deny the existence of an infinite, without, however affirm-
ing the existence of a finite world. But if we construct our proposition
thus: “The world is either infinite or finite (non-infinite),” both state-
ments may be false. For, in this case, we consider the world as per se
determined in regard to quantity, and while, in the one judgement, we
deny its infinite and consequently, perhaps, its independent existence; in
the other, we append to the world, regarded as a thing in itself, a certain
determination—that of finitude; and the latter may be false as well as the
former, if the world is not given as a thing in itself, and thus neither as
finite nor as infinite in quantity. This kind of opposition I may be allowed
to term dialectical; that of contradictories may be called analytical oppo-
sition. Thus then, of two dialectically opposed judgements both may be
false, from the fact, that the one is not a mere contradictory of the other,
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but actually enounces more than is requisite for a full and complete con-
tradiction.
When we regard the two propositions—“The world is infinite in quan-
tity,” and, “The world is finite in quantity,” as contradictory opposites, we
are assuming that the world—the complete series of phenomena—is a
thing in itself. For it remains as a permanent quantity, whether I deny the
infinite or the finite regress in the series of its phenomena. But if we dis-
miss this assumption—this transcendental illusion—and deny that it is a
thing in itself, the contradictory opposition is metamorphosed into a merely
dialectical one; and the world, as not existing in itself—independently of
the regressive series of my representations—exists in like manner neither
as a whole which is infinite nor as a whole which is finite in itself. The
universe exists for me only in the empirical regress of the series of phe-
nomena and not per se. If, then, it is always conditioned, it is never com-
pletely or as a whole; and it is, therefore, not an unconditioned whole and
does not exist as such, either with an infinite, or with a finite quantity.
What we have here said of the first cosmological idea—that of the abso-
lute totality of quantity in phenomena—applies also to the others. The
series of conditions is discoverable only in the regressive synthesis itself,
and not in the phenomenon considered as a thing in itself—given prior to
all regress. Hence I am compelled to say: “The aggregate of parts in a
given phenomenon is in itself neither finite nor infinite; and these parts
are given only in the regressive synthesis of decomposition—a synthesis
which is never given in absolute completeness, either as finite, or as infi-
nite.” The same is the case with the series of subordinated causes, or of the
conditioned up to the unconditioned and necessary existence, which can
never be regarded as in itself, ind in its totality, either as finite or as infi-
nite; because, as a series of subordinate representations, it subsists only in
the dynamical regress and cannot be regarded as existing previously to this
regress, or as a self-subsistent series of things.
Thus the antinomy of pure reason in its cosmological ideas disappears.
For the above demonstration has established the fact that it is merely the
product of a dialectical and illusory opposition, which arises from the
application of the idea of absolute totality—admissible only as a condi-
tion of things in themselves—to phenomena, which exist only in our rep-
resentations, and—when constituting a series—in a successive regress. This
antinomy of reason may, however, be really profitable to our speculative
interests, not in the way of contributing any dogmatical addition, but as
presenting to us another material support in our critical investigations.
For it furnishes us with an indirect proof of the transcendental ideality of
303
phenomena, if our minds were not completely satisfied with the direct
proof set forth in the Trancendental Aesthetic. The proof would proceed
in the following dilemma. If the world is a whole existing in itself, it must
be either finite or infinite. But it is neither finite nor infinite—as has been
shown, on the one side, by the thesis, on the other, by the antithesis.
Therefore the world—the content of all phenomena—is not a whole ex-
isting in itself. It follows that phenomena are nothing, apart from our
representations. And this is what we mean by transcendental ideality.
This remark is of some importance. It enables us to see that the proofs
of the fourfold antinomy are not mere sophistries—are not fallacious, but
grounded on the nature of reason, and valid—under the supposition that
phenomena are things in themselves. The opposition of the judgements
which follow makes it evident that a fallacy lay in the initial supposition,
and thus helps us to discover the true constitution of objects of sense. This
transcendental dialectic does not favour scepticism, although it presents
us with a triumphant demonstration of the advantages of the sceptical
method, the great utility of which is apparent in the antinomy, where the
arguments of reason were allowed to confront each other in undiminished
force. And although the result of these conflicts of reason is not what we
expected—although we have obtained no positive dogmatical addition to
metaphysical science—we have still reaped a great advantage in the cor-
rection of our judgements on these subjects of thought.
SECTION VIII. Regulative Principle of Pure Reason in relation to

the Cosmological Ideas.
The cosmological principle of totality could not give us any certain knowl-
edge in regard to the maximum in the series of conditions in the world of
sense, considered as a thing in itself. The actual regress in the series is the
only means of approaching this maximum. This principle of pure reason,
therefore, may still be considered as valid—not as an axiom enabling us to
cogitate totality in the object as actual, but as a problem for the under-
standing, which requires it to institute and to continue, in conformity
with the idea of totality in the mind, the regress in the series of the condi-
tions of a given conditioned. For in the world of sense, that is, in space
and time, every condition which we discover in our investigation of phe-
nomena is itself conditioned; because sensuous objects are not things in
themselves (in which case an absolutely unconditioned might be reached
in the progress of cognition), but are merely empirical representations the
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conditions of which must always be found in intuition. The principle of

reason is therefore properly a mere rule—prescribing a regress in the series
of conditions for given phenomena, and prohibiting any pause or rest on
an absolutely unconditioned. It is, therefore, not a principle of the possi-
bility of experience or of the empirical cognition of sensuous objects—
consequently not a principle of the understanding; for every experience is
confined within certain proper limits determined by the given intuition.
Still less is it a constitutive principle of reason authorizing us to extend our
conception of the sensuous world beyond all possible experience. It is
merely a principle for the enlargement and extension of experience as far
as is possible for human faculties. It forbids us to consider any empirical
limits as absolute. It is, hence, a principle of reason, which, as a rule,
dictates how we ought to proceed in our empirical regress, but is unable to
anticipate or indicate prior to the empirical regress what is given in the
object itself. I have termed it for this reason a regulative principle of rea-
son; while the principle of the absolute totality of the series of conditions,
as existing in itself and given in the object, is a constitutive cosmological
principle. This distinction will at once demonstrate the falsehood of the
constitutive principle, and prevent us from attributing (by a transcenden-
tal subreptio) objective reality to an idea, which is valid only as a rule.
In order to understand the proper meaning of this rule of pure reason,
we must notice first that it cannot tell us what the object is, but only how
the empirical regress is to be proceeded with in order to attain to the
complete conception of the object. If it gave us any information in respect
to the former statement, it would be a constitutive principle—a principle
impossible from the nature of pure reason. It will not therefore enable us
to establish any such conclusions as: “The series of conditions for a given
conditioned is in itself finite,” or, “It is infinite.” For, in this case, we
should be cogitating in the mere idea of absolute totality, an object which
is not and cannot be given in experience; inasmuch as we should be attrib-
uting a reality objective and independent of the empirical synthesis, to a
series of phenomena. This idea of reason cannot then be regarded as valid—
except as a rule for the regressive synthesis in the series of conditions,
according to which we must proceed from the conditioned, through all
intermediate and subordinate conditions, up to the unconditioned; al-
though this goal is unattained and unattainable. For the absolutely un-
conditioned cannot be discovered in the sphere of experience.
We now proceed to determine clearly our notion of a synthesis which
can never be complete. There are two terms commonly employed for this
purpose. These terms are regarded as expressions of different and distin-
305
guishable notions, although the ground of the distinction has never been
clearly exposed. The term employed by the mathematicians is progressus
in infinitum. The philosophers prefer the expression progressus in
indefinitum. Without detaining the reader with an examination of the
reasons for such a distinction, or with remarks on the right or wrong use
of the terms, I shall endeavour clearly to determine these conceptions, so
far as is necessary for the purpose in this Critique.
We may, with propriety, say of a straight line, that it may be produced
to infinity. In this case the distinction between a progressus in infinitum
and a progressus in indefinitum is a mere piece of subtlety. For, although
when we say, “Produce a straight line,” it is more correct to say in
indefinitum than in infinitum; because the former means, “Produce it as
far as you please,” the second, “You must not cease to produce it”; the
expression in infinitum is, when we are speaking of the power to do it,
perfectly correct, for we can always make it longer if we please—on to
infinity. And this remark holds good in all cases, when we speak of a
progressus, that is, an advancement from the condition to the conditioned;
this possible advancement always proceeds to infinity. We may proceed
from a given pair in the descending line of generation from father to son,
and cogitate a never-ending line of descendants from it. For in such a case
reason does not demand absolute totality in the series, because it does not
presuppose it as a condition and as given (datum), but merely as condi-
tioned, and as capable of being given (dabile).
Very different is the case with the problem: “How far the regress, which
ascends from the given conditioned to the conditions, must extend”; whether
I can say: “It is a regress in infinitum,” or only “in indefinitum”; and whether,
for example, setting out from the human beings at present alive in the world,
I may ascend in the series of their ancestors, in infinitum—mr whether all
that can be said is, that so far as I have proceeded, I have discovered no
empirical ground for considering the series limited, so that I am justified,
and indeed, compelled to search for ancestors still further back, although I
am not obliged by the idea of reason to presuppose them.
My answer to this question is: “If the series is given in empirical intu-
ition as a whole, the regress in the series of its internal conditions proceeds
in infinitum; but, if only one member of the series is given, from which
the regress is to proceed to absolute totality, the regress is possible only in
indefinitum.” For example, the division of a portion of matter given within
certain limits—of a body, that is—proceeds in infinitum. For, as the con-
dition of this whole is its part, and the condition of the part a part of the
part, and so on, and as in this regress of decomposition an unconditioned
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Immanuel Kant
indivisible member of the series of conditions is not to be found; there are

no reasons or grounds in experience for stopping in the division, but, on
the contrary, the more remote members of the division are actually and
empirically given prior to this division. That is to say, the division pro-
ceeds to infinity. On the other hand, the series of ancestors of any given
human being is not given, in its absolute totality, in any experience, and
yet the regress proceeds from every genealogical member of this series to
one still higher, and does not meet with any empirical limit presenting an
absolutely unconditioned member of the series. But as the members of
such a series are not contained in the empirical intuition of the whole,
prior to the regress, this regress does not proceed to infinity, but only in
indefinitum, that is, we are called upon to discover other and higher mem-
bers, which are themselves always conditioned.
In neither case—the regressus in infinitum, nor the regressus in
indefinitum, is the series of conditions to be considered as actually infinite
in the object itself. This might be true of things in themselves, but it
cannot be asserted of phenomena, which, as conditions of each other, are
only given in the empirical regress itself. Hence, the question no longer is,
“What is the quantity of this series of conditions in itself—is it finite or
infinite?” for it is nothing in itself; but, “How is the empirical regress to be
commenced, and how far ought we to proceed with it?” And here a signal
distinction in the application of this rule becomes apparent. If the whole
is given empirically, it is possible to recede in the series of its internal
conditions to infinity. But if the whole is not given, and can only be given
by and through the empirical regress, I can only say: “It is possible to
infinity, to proceed to still higher conditions in the series.” In the first
case, I am justified in asserting that more members are empirically given
in the object than I attain to in the regress (of decomposition). In the
second case, I am justified only in saying, that I can always proceed fur-
ther in the regress, because no member of the series is given as absolutely
conditioned, and thus a higher member is possible, and an inquiry with
regard to it is necessary. In the one case it is necessary to find other mem-
bers of the series, in the other it is necessary to inquire for others, inas-
much as experience presents no absolute limitation of the regress. For,
either you do not possess a perception which absolutely limits your em-
pirical regress, and in this case the regress cannot be regarded as complete;
or, you do possess such a limitative perception, in which case it is not a
part of your series (for that which limits must be distinct from that which
is limited by it), and it is incumbent you to continue your regress up to
this condition, and so on.
307
These remarks will be placed in their proper light by their application in

the following section.
SECTION IX. Of the Empirical Use of the Regulative Principle of

Reason with regard to the Cosmological Ideas.
We have shown that no transcendental use can be made either of the

conceptions of reason or of understanding. We have shown, likewise, that
the demand of absolute totality in the series of conditions in the world of
sense arises from a transcendental employment of reason, resting on the
opinion that phenomena are to be regarded as things in themselves. It
follows that we are not required to answer the question respecting the
absolute quantity of a series—whether it is in itself limited or unlimited.
We are only called upon to determine how far we must proceed in the
empirical regress from condition to condition, in order to discover, in
conformity with the rule of reason, a full and correct answer to the ques-
tions proposed by reason itself.
This principle of reason is hence valid only as a rule for the extension of
a possible experience—its invalidity as a principle constitutive of phe-
nomena in themselves having been sufficiently demonstrated. And thus,
too, the antinomial conflict of reason with itself is completely put an end
to; inasmuch as we have not only presented a critical solution of the fal-
lacy lurking in the opposite statements of reason, but have shown the true
meaning of the ideas which gave rise to these statements. The dialectical
principle of reason has, therefore, been changed into a doctrinal principle.
But in fact, if this principle, in the subjective signification which we have
shown to be its only true sense, may be guaranteed as a principle of the
unceasing extension of the employment of our understanding, its influ-
ence and value are just as great as if it were an axiom for the a priori
determination of objects. For such an axiom could not exert a stronger
influence on the extension and rectification of our knowledge, otherwise
than by procuring for the principles of the understanding the most widely
expanded employment in the field of experience.
I. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Compo-

sition of Phenomena in the Universe.
Here, as well as in the case of the other cosmological problems, the ground
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Immanuel Kant
of the regulative principle of reason is the proposition that in our empiri-

cal regress no experience of an absolute limit, and consequently no expe-
rience of a condition, which is itself absolutely unconditioned, is discov-
erable. And the truth of this proposition itself rests upon the consider-
ation that such an experience must represent to us phenomena as limited
by nothing or the mere void, on which our continued regress by means of
perception must abut—which is impossible.
Now this proposition, which declares that every condition attained in
the empirical regress must itself be considered empirically conditioned,
contains the rule in terminis, which requires me, to whatever extent I may
have proceeded in the ascending series, always to look for some higher
member in the series—whether this member is to become known to me
through experience, or not.
Nothing further is necessary, then, for the solution of the first cosmo-
logical problem, than to decide, whether, in the regress to the uncondi-
tioned quantity of the universe (as regards space and time), this never
limited ascent ought to be called a regressus in infinitum or indefinitum.
The general representation which we form in our minds of the series of
all past states or conditions of the world, or of all the things which at
present exist in it, is itself nothing more than a possible empirical regress,
which is cogitated—although in an undetermined manner—in the mind,
and which gives rise to the conception of a series of conditions for a given
object.* Now I have a conception of the universe, but not an intuition—
that is, not an intuition of it as a whole. Thus I cannot infer the magni-
tude of the regress from the quantity or magnitude of the world, and
determine the former by means of the latter; on the contrary, I must first
of all form a conception of the quantity or magnitude of the world from
the magnitude of the empirical regress. But of this regress I know nothing
more than that I ought to proceed from every given member of the series
of conditions to one still higher. But the quantity of the universe is not
thereby determined, and we cannot affirm that this regress proceeds in
infinitum. Such an affirmation would anticipate the members of the se-
ries which have not yet been reached, and represent the number of them
as beyond the grasp of any empirical synthesis; it would consequently
determine the cosmical quantity prior to the regress (although only in a
*The cosmical series can neither be greater nor smaller than the possible empirical
regress, upon which its conception is based. And as this regress cannot be a deter-
minate infinite regress, still less a determinate finite (absolutely limited), it is evi-
dent that we cannot regard the world as either finite or infinite, because the regress,
which gives us the representation of the world, is neither finite nor infinite.
309
negative manner)—which is impossible. For the world is not given in its

totality in any intuition: consequently, its quantity cannot be given prior
to the regress. It follows that we are unable to make any declaration re-
specting the cosmical quantity in itself—not even that the regress in it is a
regress in infinitum; we must only endeavour to attain to a conception of
the quantity of the universe, in conformity with the rule which deter-
mines the empirical regress in it. But this rule merely requires us never to
admit an absolute limit to our series—how far soever we may have pro-
ceeded in it, but always, on the contrary, to subordinate every phenom-
enon to some other as its condition, and consequently to proceed to this
higher phenomenon. Such a regress is, therefore, the regressus in
indefinitum, which, as not determining a quantity in the object, is clearly
distinguishable from the regressus in infinitum.
It follows from what we have said that we are not justified in declaring
the world to be infinite in space, or as regards past time. For this concep-
tion of an infinite given quantity is empirical; but we cannot apply the
conception of an infinite quantity to the world as an object of the senses.
I cannot say, “The regress from a given perception to everything limited
either in space or time, proceeds in infinitum,” for this presupposes an
infinite cosmical quantity; neither can I say, “It is finite,” for an absolute
limit is likewise impossible in experience. It follows that I am not entitled
to make any assertion at all respecting the whole object of experience—
the world of sense; I must limit my declarations to the rule according to
which experience or empirical knowledge is to be attained.
To the question, therefore, respecting the cosmical quantity, the first
and negative answer is: “The world has no beginning in time, and no
absolute limit in space.”
For, in the contrary case, it would be limited by a void time on the one
hand, and by a void space on the other. Now, since the world, as a phe-
nomenon, cannot be thus limited in itself for a phenomenon is not a
thing in itself; it must be possible for us to have a perception of this limi-
tation by a void time and a void space. But such a perception—such an
experience is impossible; because it has no content. Consequently, an ab-
solute cosmical limit is empirically, and therefore absolutely, impossible.*
*The reader will remark that the proof presented above is very different from the dog-
matical demonstration given in the antithesis of the first antinomy. In that demonstra-
tion, it was taken for granted that the world is a thing in itself—given in its totality prior
to all regress, and a determined position in space and time was denied to it—if it was not
considered as occupying all time and all space. Hence our conclusion differed from that
given above; for we inferred in the antithesis the actual infinity of the world.
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From this follows the affirmative answer: “The regress in the series of
phenomena—as a determination of the cosmical quantity, proceeds in
indefinitum.” This is equivalent to saying: “The world of sense has no
absolute quantity, but the empirical regress (through which alone the world
of sense is presented to us on the side of its conditions) rests upon a rule,
which requires it to proceed from every member of the series, as condi-
tioned, to one still more remote (whether through personal experience, or
by means of history, or the chain of cause and effect), and not to cease at
any point in this extension of the possible empirical employment of the
understanding.” And this is the proper and only use which reason can
make of its principles.
The above rule does not prescribe an unceasing regress in one kind of
phenomena. It does not, for example, forbid us, in our ascent from an
individual human being through the line of his ancestors, to expect that
we shall discover at some point of the regress a primeval pair, or to admit,
in the series of heavenly bodies, a sun at the farthest possible distance
from some centre. All that it demands is a perpetual progress from phe-
nomena to phenomena, even although an actual perception is not pre-
sented by them (as in the case of our perceptions being so weak as that we
are unable to become conscious of them), since they, nevertheless, belong
to possible experience.
Every beginning is in time, and all limits to extension are in space. But
space and time are in the world of sense. Consequently phenomena in the
world are conditionally limited, but the world itself is not limited, either
conditionally or unconditionally.
For this reason, and because neither the world nor the cosmical series of
conditions to a given conditioned can be completely given, our concep-
tion of the cosmical quantity is given only in and through the regress and
not prior to it—in a collective intuition. But the regress itself is really
nothing more than the determining of the cosmical quantity, and cannot
therefore give us any determined conception of it—still less a conception
of a quantity which is, in relation to a certain standard, infinite. The re-
gress does not, therefore, proceed to infinity (an infinity given), but only
to an indefinite extent, for or the of presenting to us a quantity—realized
only in and through the regress itself.
311
II. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Division

of a Whole given in Intuition.
When I divide a whole which is given in intuition, I proceed from a con-

ditioned to its conditions. The division of the parts of the whole (subdivisio
or decompositio) is a regress in the series of these conditions. The absolute
totality of this series would be actually attained and given to the mind, if
the regress could arrive at simple parts. But if all the parts in a continuous
decomposition are themselves divisible, the division, that is to say, the
regress, proceeds from the conditioned to its conditions in infinitum; be-
cause the conditions (the parts) are themselves contained in the condi-
tioned, and, as the latter is given in a limited intuition, the former are all
given along with it. This regress cannot, therefore, be called a regressus in
indefinitum, as happened in the case of the preceding cosmological idea,
the regress in which proceeded from the conditioned to the conditions
not given contemporaneously and along with it, but discoverable only
through the empirical regress. We are not, however, entitled to affirm of a
whole of this kind, which is divisible in infinitum, that it consists of an
infinite number of parts. For, although all the parts are contained in the
intuition of the whole, the whole division is not contained therein. The
division is contained only in the progressing decomposition—in the re-
gress itself, which is the condition of the possibility and actuality of the
series. Now, as this regress is infinite, all the members (parts) to which it
attains must be contained in the given whole as an aggregate. But the
complete series of division is not contained therein. For this series, being
infinite in succession and always incomplete, cannot represent an infinite
number of members, and still less a composition of these members into a
whole.
To apply this remark to space. Every limited part of space presented to
intuition is a whole, the parts of which are always spaces—to whatever
extent subdivided. Every limited space is hence divisible to infinity.
Let us again apply the remark to an external phenomenon enclosed in
limits, that is, a body. The divisibility of a body rests upon the divisibility
of space, which is the condition of the possibility of the body as an ex-
tended whole. A body is consequently divisible to infinity, though it does
not, for that reason, consist of an infinite number of parts.
It certainly seems that, as a body must be cogitated as substance in
space, the law of divisibility would not be applicable to it as substance.
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For we may and ought to grant, in the case of space, that division or
decomposition, to any extent, never can utterly annihilate composition
(that is to say, the smallest part of space must still consist of spaces); oth-
erwise space would entirely cease to exist-which is impossible. But, the
assertion on the other band that when all composition in matter is annihi-
lated in thought, nothing remains, does not seem to harmonize with the
conception of substance, which must be properly the subject of all com-
position and must remain, even after the conjunction of its attributes in
space-which constituted a body—is annihilated in thought. But this is
not the case with substance in the phenomenal world, which is not a thing
in itself cogitated by the pure category. Phenomenal substance is not an
absolute subject; it is merely a permanent sensuous image, and nothing
more than an intuition, in which the unconditioned is not to be found.
But, although this rule of progress to infinity is legitimate and appli-
cable to the subdivision of a phenomenon, as a mere occupation or filling
of space, it is not applicable to a whole consisting of a number of distinct
parts and constituting a quantum discretum—that is to say, an organized
body. It cannot be admitted that every part in an organized whole is itself
organized, and that, in analysing it to infinity, we must always meet with
organized parts; although we may allow that the parts of the matter which
we decompose in infinitum, may be organized. For the infinity of the
division of a phenomenon in space rests altogether on the fact that the
divisibility of a phenomenon is given only in and through this infinity,
that is, an undetermined number of parts is given, while the parts them-
selves are given and determined only in and through the subdivision; in a
word, the infinity of the division necessarily presupposes that the whole is
not already divided in se. Hence our division determines a number of
parts in the whole—a number which extends just as far as the actual re-
gress in the division; while, on the other hand, the very notion of a body
organized to infinity represents the whole as already and in itself divided.
We expect, therefore, to find in it a determinate, but at the same time,
infinite, number of parts—which is self-contradictory. For we should thus
have a whole containing a series of members which could not be com-
pleted in any regress—which is infinite, and at the same time complete in
an organized composite. Infinite divisibility is applicable only to a quan-
tum continuum, and is based entirely on the infinite divisibility of space,
But in a quantum discretum the multitude of parts or units is always
determined, and hence always equal to some number. To what extent a
body may be organized, experience alone can inform us; and although, so
far as our experience of this or that body has extended, we may not have
313
discovered any inorganic part, such parts must exist in possible experi-
ence. But how far the transcendental division of a phenomenon must
extend, we cannot know from experience—it is a question which experi-
ence cannot answer; it is answered only by the principle of reason which
forbids us to consider the empirical regress, in the analysis of extended
body, as ever absolutely complete.
Concluding Remark on the Solution of the Transcendental Math-

ematical Ideas—and Introductory to the Solution of the Dynami-
cal Ideas.
We presented the antinomy of pure reason in a tabular form, and we

endeavoured to show the ground of this self-contradiction on the part of
reason, and the only means of bringing it to a conclusion—namely, by
declaring both contradictory statements to be false. We represented in
these antinomies the conditions of phenomena as belonging to the condi-
tioned according to relations of space and time-which is the usual suppo-
sition of the common understanding. In this respect, all dialectical repre-
sentations of totality, in the series of conditions to a given conditioned,
were perfectly homogeneous. The condition was always a member of the
series along with the conditioned, and thus the homogeneity of the whole
series was assured. In this case the regress could never be cogitated as com-
plete; or, if this was the case, a member really conditioned was falsely
regarded as a primal member, consequently as unconditioned. In such an
antinomy, therefore, we did not consider the object, that is, the condi-
tioned, but the series of conditions belonging to the object, and the mag-
nitude of that series. And thus arose the difficulty—a difficulty not to be
settled by any decision regarding the claims of the two parties, but simply
by cutting the knot—by declaring the series proposed by reason to be
either too long or too short for the understanding, which could in neither
case make its conceptions adequate with the ideas.
But we have overlooked, up to this point, an essential difference exist-
ing between the conceptions of the understanding which reason endeavours
to raise to the rank of ideas—two of these indicating a mathematical, and
two a dynamical synthesis of phenomena. Hitherto, it was necessary to
signalize this distinction; for, just as in our general representation of all
transcendental ideas, we considered them under phenomenal conditions,
so, in the two mathematical ideas, our discussion is concerned solely with
an object in the world of phenomena. But as we are now about to proceed
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to the consideration of the dynamical conceptions of the understanding,

and their adequateness with ideas, we must not lose sight of this distinc-
tion. We shall find that it opens up to us an entirely new view of the
conflict in which reason is involved. For, while in the first two antinomies,
both parties were dismissed, on the ground of having advanced statements
based upon false hypothesis; in the present case the hope appears of dis-
covering a hypothesis which may be consistent with the demands of rea-
son, and, the judge completing the statement of the grounds of claim,
which both parties had left in an unsatisfactory state, the question may be
settled on its own merits, not by dismissing the claimants, but by a com-
parison of the arguments on both sides. If we consider merely their exten-
sion, and whether they are adequate with ideas, the series of conditions
may be regarded as all homogeneous. But the conception of the under-
standing which lies at the basis of these ideas, contains either a synthesis of
the homogeneous (presupposed in every quantity—in its composition as
well as in its division) or of the heterogeneous, which is the case in the
dynamical synthesis of cause and effect, as well as of the necessary and the
contingent.
Thus it happens that in the mathematical series of phenomena no other
than a sensuous condition is admissible—a condition which is itself a
member of the series; while the dynamical series of sensuous conditions
admits a heterogeneous condition, which is not a member of the series,
but, as purely intelligible, lies out of and beyond it. And thus reason is
satisfied, and an unconditioned placed at the head of the series of phe-
nomena, without introducing confusion into or discontinuing it, con-
trary to the principles of the understanding.
Now, from the fact that the dynamical ideas admit a condition of phe-
nomena which does not form a part of the series of phenomena, arises a
result which we should not have expected from an antinomy. In former
cases, the result was that both contradictory dialectical statements were
declared to be false. In the present case, we find the conditioned in the
dynamical series connected with an empirically unconditioned, but non-
sensuous condition; and thus satisfaction is done to the understanding on
the one hand and to the reason on the other.* While, moreover, the dia-
*For the understanding cannot admit among phenomena a condition which is

itself empirically unconditioned. But if it is possible to cogitate an intelligible
condition—one which is not a member of the series of phenomena—for a con-
ditioned phenomenon, without breaking the series of empirical conditions, such
a condition may be admissible as empirically unconditioned, and the empirical
regress continue regular, unceasing, and intact.
315
lectical arguments for unconditioned totality in mere phenomena fall to

the ground, both propositions of reason may be shown to be true in their
proper signification. This could not happen in the case of the cosmologi-
cal ideas which demanded a mathematically unconditioned unity; for no
condition could be placed at the head of the series of phenomena, except
one which was itself a phenomenon and consequently a member of the
series.
III. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Deduc-

tion of Cosmical Events from their Causes.
There are only two modes of causality cogitable—the causality of nature

or of freedom. The first is the conjunction of a particular state with an-
other preceding it in the world of sense, the former following the latter by
virtue of a law. Now, as the causality of phenomena is subject to condi-
tions of time, and the preceding state, if it had always existed, could not
have produced an effect which would make its first appearance at a par-
ticular time, the causality of a cause must itself be an effect—must itself
have begun to be, and therefore, according to the principle of the under-
standing, itself requires a cause.
We must understand, on the contrary, by the term freedom, in the cos-
mological sense, a faculty of the spontaneous origination of a state; the
causality of which, therefore, is not subordinated to another cause deter-
mining it in time. Freedom is in this sense a pure transcendental idea,
which, in the first place, contains no empirical element; the object of
which, in the second place, cannot be given or determined in any experi-
ence, because it is a universal law of the very possibility of experience, that
everything which happens must have a cause, that consequently the cau-
sality of a cause, being itself something that has happened, must also have
a cause. In this view of the case, the whole field of experience, how far
soever it may extend, contains nothing that is not subject to the laws of
nature. But, as we cannot by this means attain to an absolute totality of
conditions in reference to the series of causes and effects, reason creates
the idea of a spontaneity, which can begin to act of itself, and without any
external cause determining it to action, according to the natural law of
causality.
It is especially remarkable that the practical conception of freedom is
based upon the transcendental idea, and that the question of the possibil-
ity of the former is difficult only as it involves the consideration of the
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Immanuel Kant
truth of the latter. Freedom, in the practical sense, is the independence of

the will of coercion by sensuous impulses. A will is sensuous, in so far as it
is pathologically affected (by sensuous impulses); it is termed animal
(arbitrium brutum), when it is pathologically necessitated. The human
will is certainly an arbitrium sensitivum, not brutum, but liberum; be-
cause sensuousness does not necessitate its action, a faculty existing in
man of self-determination, independently of all sensuous coercion.
It is plain that, if all causality in the world of sense were natural—and
natural only—every event would be determined by another according to
necessary laws, and that, consequently, phenomena, in so far as they de-
termine the will, must necessitate every action as a natural effect from
themselves; and thus all practical freedom would fall to the ground with
the transcendental idea. For the latter presupposes that although a certain
thing has not happened, it ought to have happened, and that, consequently,
its phenomenal cause was not so powerful and determinative as to exclude
the causality of our will—a causality capable of producing effects inde-
pendently of and even in opposition to the power of natural causes, and
capable, consequently, of spontaneously originating a series of events.
Here, too, we find it to be the case, as we generally found in the self-
contradictions and perplexities of a reason which strives to pass the bounds
of possible experience, that the problem is properly not physiological, but
transcendental. The question of the possibility of freedom does indeed
concern psychology; but, as it rests upon dialectical arguments of pure
reason, its solution must engage the attention of transcendental philoso-
phy. Before attempting this solution, a task which transcendental philoso-
phy cannot decline, it will be advisable to make a remark with regard to its
procedure in the settlement of the question.
If phenomena were things in themselves, and time and space forms of
the existence of things, condition and conditioned would always be mem-
bers of the same series; and thus would arise in the present case the anti-
nomy common to all transcendental ideas—that their series is either too
great or too small for the understanding. The dynamical ideas, which we
are about to discuss in this and the following section, possess the peculiar-
ity of relating to an object, not considered as a quantity, but as an exist-
ence; and thus, in the discussion of the present question, we may make
abstraction of the quantity of the series of conditions, and consider merely
the dynamical relation of the condition to the conditioned. The question,
then, suggests itself, whether freedom is possible; and, if it is, whether it
can consist with the universality of the natural law of causality; and, con-
sequently, whether we enounce a proper disjunctive proposition when we
317
say: “Every effect must have its origin either in nature or in freedom,” or
whether both cannot exist together in the same event in different rela-
tions. The principle of an unbroken connection between all events in the
phenomenal world, in accordance with the unchangeable laws of nature,
is a well-established principle of transcendental analytic which admits of
no exception. The question, therefore, is: “Whether an effect, determined
according to the laws of nature, can at the same time be produced by a free
agent, or whether freedom and nature mutually exclude each other?” And
here, the common but fallacious hypothesis of the absolute reality of phe-
nomena manifests its injurious influence in embarrassing the procedure
of reason. For if phenomena are things in themselves, freedom is impos-
sible. In this case, nature is the complete and all-sufficient cause of every
event; and condition and conditioned, cause and effect are contained in the
same series, and necessitated by the same law. If, on the contrary, phenom-
ena are held to be, as they are in fact, nothing more than mere representa-
tions, connected with each other in accordance with empirical laws, they
must have a ground which is not phenomenal. But the causality of such an
intelligible cause is not determined or determinable by phenomena; although
its effects, as phenomena, must be determined by other phenomenal exist-
ences. This cause and its causality exist therefore out of and apart from the
series of phenomena; while its effects do exist and are discoverable in the
series of empirical conditions. Such an effect may therefore be considered to
be free in relation to its intelligible cause, and necessary in relation to the
phenomena from which it is a necessary consequence—a distinction which,
stated in this perfectly general and abstract manner, must appear in the
highest degree subtle and obscure. The sequel will explain. It is sufficient, at
present, to remark that, as the complete and unbroken connection of phe-
nomena is an unalterable law of nature, freedom is impossible—on the
supposition that phenomena are absolutely real. Hence those philosophers
who adhere to the common opinion on this subject can never succeed in
reconciling the ideas of nature and freedom.
Possibility of Freedom in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natu-

ral Necessity.
That element in a sensuous object which is not itself sensuous, I may be

allowed to term intelligible. If, accordingly, an object which must be re-
garded as a sensuous phenomenon possesses a faculty which is not an
object of sensuous intuition, but by means of which it is capable of being
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Immanuel Kant
the cause of phenomena, the causality of an object or existence of this

kind may be regarded from two different points of view. It may be consid-
ered to be intelligible, as regards its action—the action of a thing which is
a thing in itself, and sensuous, as regards its effects—the effects of a phe-
nomenon belonging to the sensuous world. We should accordingly, have
to form both an empirical and an intellectual conception of the causality
of such a faculty or power—both, however, having reference to the same
effect. This twofold manner of cogitating a power residing in a sensuous
object does not run counter to any of the conceptions which we ought to
form of the world of phenomena or of a possible experience. Phenom-
ena—not being things in themselves—must have a transcendental object
as a foundation, which determines them as mere representations; and there
seems to be no reason why we should not ascribe to this transcendental
object, in addition to the property of self-phenomenization, a causality
whose effects are to be met with in the world of phenomena, although it is
not itself a phenomenon. But every effective cause must possess a charac-
ter, that is to say, a law of its causality, without which it would cease to be
a cause. In the above case, then, every sensuous object would possess an
empirical character, which guaranteed that its actions, as phenomena, stand
in complete and harmonious connection, conformably to unvarying natural
laws, with all other phenomena, and can be deduced from these, as condi-
tions, and that they do thus, in connection with these, constitute a series
in the order of nature. This sensuous object must, in the second place,
possess an intelligible character, which guarantees it to be the cause of
those actions, as phenomena, although it is not itself a phenomenon nor
subordinate to the conditions of the world of sense. The former may be
termed the character of the thing as a phenomenon, the latter the charac-
ter of the thing as a thing in itself.
Now this active subject would, in its character of intelligible subject, be
subordinate to no conditions of time, for time is only a condition of phe-
nomena, and not of things in themselves. No action would begin or cease
to be in this subject; it would consequently be free from the law of all
determination of time—the law of change, namely, that everything which
happens must have a cause in the phenomena of a preceding state. In one
word, the causality of the subject, in so far as it is intelligible, would not
form part of the series of empirical conditions which determine and ne-
cessitate an event in the world of sense. Again, this intelligible character of
a thing cannot be immediately cognized, because we can perceive nothing
but phenomena, but it must be capable of being cogitated in harmony
with the empirical character; for we always find ourselves compelled to
319
place, in thought, a transcendental object at the basis of phenomena al-

though we can never know what this object is in itself.
In virtue of its empirical character, this subject would at the same time
be subordinate to all the empirical laws of causality, and, as a phenom-
enon and member of the sensuous world, its effects would have to be
accounted for by a reference to preceding phenomena. Eternal phenom-
ena must be capable of influencing it; and its actions, in accordance with
natural laws, must explain to us how its empirical character, that is, the
law of its causality, is to be cognized in and by means of experience. In a
word, all requisites for a complete and necessary determination of these
actions must be presented to us by experience.
In virtue of its intelligible character, on the other hand (although we
possess only a general conception of this character), the subject must be
regarded as free from all sensuous influences, and from all phenomenal
determination. Moreover, as nothing happens in this subject—for it is a
noumenon, and there does not consequently exist in it any change, de-
manding the dynamical determination of time, and for the same reason
no connection with phenomena as causes—this active existence must in
its actions be free from and independent of natural necessity, for or neces-
sity exists only in the world of phenomena. It would be quite correct to
say that it originates or begins its effects in the world of sense from itself,
although the action productive of these effects does not begin in itself. We
should not be in this case affirming that these sensuous effects began to
exist of themselves, because they are always determined by prior empirical
conditions—by virtue of the empirical character, which is the phenom-
enon of the intelligible character—and are possible only as constituting a
continuation of the series of natural causes. And thus nature and freedom,
each in the complete and absolute signification of these terms, can exist,
without contradiction or disagreement, in the same action.
Exposition of the Cosmological Idea of Freedom in Harmony with

the Universal Law of Natural Necessity.
I have thought it advisable to lay before the reader at first merely a sketch
of the solution of this transcendental problem, in order to enable him to
form with greater ease a clear conception of the course which reason must
adopt in the solution. I shall now proceed to exhibit the several momenta
of this solution, and to consider them in their order.
The natural law that everything which happens must have a cause, that
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Immanuel Kant
the causality of this cause, that is, the action of the cause (which cannot
always have existed, but must be itself an event, for it precedes in time
some effect which it has originated), must have itself a phenomenal cause,
by which it is determined and, and, consequently, all events are empiri-
cally determined in an order of nature—this law, I say, which lies at the
foundation of the possibility of experience, and of a connected system of
phenomena or nature is a law of the understanding, from which no de-
parture, and to which no exception, can be admitted. For to except even a
single phenomenon from its operation is to exclude it from the sphere of
possible experience and thus to admit it to be a mere fiction of thought or
phantom of the brain.
Thus we are obliged to acknowledge the existence of a chain of causes,
in which, however, absolute totality cannot be found. But we need not
detain ourselves with this question, for it has already been sufficiently
answered in our discussion of the antinomies into which reason falls, when
it attempts to reach the unconditioned in the series of phenomena. If we
permit ourselves to be deceived by the illusion of transcendental idealism,
we shall find that neither nature nor freedom exists. Now the question is:
“Whether, admitting the existence of natural necessity in the world of
phenomena, it is possible to consider an effect as at the same time an
effect of nature and an effect of freedom—or, whether these two modes of
causality are contradictory and incompatible?”
No phenomenal cause can absolutely and of itself begin a series. Every
action, in so far as it is productive of an event, is itself an event or occur-
rence, and presupposes another preceding state, in which its cause existed.
Thus everything that happens is but a continuation of a series, and an
absolute beginning is impossible in the sensuous world. The actions of
natural causes are, accordingly, themselves effects, and presuppose causes
preceding them in time. A primal action which forms an absolute begin-
ning, is beyond the causal power of phenomena.
Now, is it absolutely necessary that, granting that all effects are phe-
nomena, the causality of the cause of these effects must also be a phenom-
enon and belong to the empirical world? Is it not rather possible that,
although every effect in the phenomenal world must be connected with
an empirical cause, according to the universal law of nature, this empirical
causality may be itself the effect of a non-empirical and intelligible causal-
ity—its connection with natural causes remaining nevertheless intact? Such
a causality would be considered, in reference to phenomena, as the primal
action of a cause, which is in so far, therefore, not phenomenal, but, by
reason of this faculty or power, intelligible; although it must, at the same
321
time, as a link in the chain of nature, be regarded as belonging to the

sensuous world.
A belief in the reciprocal causality of phenomena is necessary, if we are
required to look for and to present the natural conditions of natural events,
that is to say, their causes. This being admitted as unexceptionably valid,
the requirements of the understanding, which recognizes nothing but na-
ture in the region of phenomena, are satisfied, and our physical explana-
tions of physical phenomena may proceed in their regular course, without
hindrance and without opposition. But it is no stumbling-block in the
way, even assuming the idea to be a pure fiction, to admit that there are
some natural causes in the possession of a faculty which is not empirical,
but intelligible, inasmuch as it is not determined to action by empirical
conditions, but purely and solely upon grounds brought forward by the
understanding—this action being still, when the cause is phenomenized,
in perfect accordance with the laws of empirical causality. Thus the acting
subject, as a causal phenomenon, would continue to preserve a complete
connection with nature and natural conditions; and the phenomenon only
of the subject (with all its phenomenal causality) would contain certain
conditions, which, if we ascend from the empirical to the transcendental
object, must necessarily be regarded as intelligible. For, if we attend, in
our inquiries with regard to causes in the world of phenomena, to the
directions of nature alone, we need not trouble ourselves about the rela-
tion in which the transcendental subject, which is completely unknown
to us, stands to these phenomena and their connection in nature. The
intelligible ground of phenomena in this subject does not concern empiri-
cal questions. It has to do only with pure thought; and, although the
effects of this thought and action of the pure understanding are discover-
able in phenomena, these phenomena must nevertheless be capable of a
full and complete explanation, upon purely physical grounds and in ac-
cordance with natural laws. And in this case we attend solely to their
empirical and omit all consideration of their intelligible character (which
is the transcendental cause of the former) as completely unknown, except
in so far as it is exhibited by the latter as its empirical symbol. Now let us
apply this to experience. Man is a phenomenon of the sensuous world
and, at the same time, therefore, a natural cause, the causality of which
must be regulated by empirical laws. As such, he must possess an empiri-
cal character, like all other natural phenomena. We remark this empirical
character in his actions, which reveal the presence of certain powers and
faculties. If we consider inanimate or merely animal nature, we can dis-
cover no reason for ascribing to ourselves any other than a faculty which is
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Immanuel Kant
determined in a purely sensuous manner. But man, to whom nature re-

veals herself only through sense, cognizes himself not only by his senses,
but also through pure apperception; and this in actions and internal de-
terminations, which he cannot regard as sensuous impressions. He is thus
to himself, on the one hand, a phenomenon, but on the other hand, in
respect of certain faculties, a purely intelligible object—intelligible, be-
cause its action cannot be ascribed to sensuous receptivity. These faculties
are understanding and reason. The latter, especially, is in a peculiar man-
ner distinct from all empirically-conditioned faculties, for it employs ideas
alone in the consideration of its objects, and by means of these determines
the understanding, which then proceeds to make an empirical use of its
own conceptions, which, like the ideas of reason, are pure and non-em-
pirical.
That reason possesses the faculty of causality, or that at least we are
compelled so to represent it, is evident from the imperatives, which in the
sphere of the practical we impose on many of our executive powers. The
words I ought express a species of necessity, and imply a connection with
grounds which nature does not and cannot present to the mind of man.
Understanding knows nothing in nature but that which is, or has been, or
will be. It would be absurd to say that anything in nature ought to be
other than it is in the relations of time in which it stands; indeed, the
ought, when we consider merely the course of nature, has neither applica-
tion nor meaning. The question, “What ought to happen in the sphere of
nature?” is just as absurd as the question, “What ought to be the proper-
ties of a circle?” All that we are entitled to ask is, “What takes place in
nature?” or, in the latter case, “What are the properties of a circle?”
But the idea of an ought or of duty indicates a possible action, the
ground of which is a pure conception; while the ground of a merely natu-
ral action is, on the contrary, always a phenomenon. This action must
certainly be possible under physical conditions, if it is prescribed by the
moral imperative ought; but these physical or natural conditions do not
concern the determination of the will itself, they relate to its effects alone,
and the consequences of the effect in the world of phenomena. Whatever
number of motives nature may present to my will, whatever sensuous
impulses—the moral ought it is beyond their power to produce. They
may produce a volition, which, so far from being necessary, is always con-
ditioned—a volition to which the ought enunciated by reason, sets an
aim and a standard, gives permission or prohibition. Be the object what it
may, purely sensuous—as pleasure, or presented by pure reason—as good,
reason will not yield to grounds which have an empirical origin. Reason
323
will not follow the order of things presented by experience, but, with per-
fect spontaneity, rearranges them according to ideas, with which it com-
pels empirical conditions to agree. It declares, in the name of these ideas,
certain actions to be necessary which nevertheless have not taken place
and which perhaps never will take place; and yet presupposes that it pos-
sesses the faculty of causality in relation to these actions. For, in the ab-
sence of this supposition, it could not expect its ideas to produce certain
effects in the world of experience.
Now, let us stop here and admit it to be at least possible that reason does
stand in a really causal relation to phenomena. In this case it must—pure
reason as it is—exhibit an empirical character. For every cause supposes a
rule, according to which certain phenomena follow as effects from the
cause, and every rule requires uniformity in these effects; and this is the
proper ground of the conception of a cause—as a faculty or power. Now
this conception (of a cause) may be termed the empirical character of
reason; and this character is a permanent one, while the effects produced
appear, in conformity with the various conditions which accompany and
partly limit them, in various forms.
Thus the volition of every man has an empirical character, which is
nothing more than the causality of his reason, in so far as its effects in the
phenomenal world manifest the presence of a rule, according to which we
are enabled to examine, in their several kinds and degrees, the actions of
this causality and the rational grounds for these actions, and in this way to
decide upon the subjective principles of the volition. Now we learn what
this empirical character is only from phenomenal effects, and from the
rule of these which is presented by experience; and for this reason all the
actions of man in the world of phenomena are determined by his empiri-
cal character, and the co-operative causes of nature. If, then, we could
investigate all the phenomena of human volition to their lowest founda-
tion in the mind, there would be no action which we could not anticipate
with certainty, and recognize to be absolutely necessary from its preceding
conditions. So far as relates to this empirical character, therefore, there can
be no freedom; and it is only in the light of this character that we can
consider the human will, when we confine ourselves to simple observa-
tion and, as is the case in anthropology, institute a physiological investiga-
tion of the motive causes of human actions.
But when we consider the same actions in relation to reason—not for
the purpose of explaining their origin, that is, in relation to speculative
reason, but to practical reason, as the producing cause of these actions—
we shall discover a rule and an order very different from those of nature
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Immanuel Kant
and experience. For the declaration of this mental faculty may be that
what has and could not but take place in the course of nature, ought not
to have taken place. Sometimes, too, we discover, or believe that we dis-
cover, that the ideas of reason did actually stand in a causal relation to
certain actions of man; and that these actions have taken place because
they were determined, not by empirical causes, but by the act of the will
upon grounds of reason.
Now, granting that reason stands in a causal relation to phenomena;
can an action of reason be called free, when we know that, sensuously, in
its empirical character, it is completely determined and absolutely neces-
sary? But this empirical character is itself determined by the intelligible
character. The latter we cannot cognize; we can only indicate it by means
of phenomena, which enable us to have an immediate cognition only of
the empirical character.* An action, then, in so far as it is to be ascribed to
an intelligible cause, does not result from it in accordance with empirical
laws. That is to say, not the conditions of pure reason, but only their
effects in the internal sense, precede the act. Pure reason, as a purely intel-
ligible faculty, is not subject to the conditions of time. The causality of
reason in its intelligible character does not begin to be; it does not make
its appearance at a certain time, for the purpose of producing an effect. If
this were not the case, the causality of reason would be subservient to the
natural law of phenomena, which determines them according to time,
and as a series of causes and effects in time; it would consequently cease to
be freedom and become a part of nature. We are therefore justified in
saying: “If reason stands in a causal relation to phenomena, it is a faculty
which originates the sensuous condition of an empirical series of effects.”
For the condition, which resides in the reason, is non-sensuous, and there-
fore cannot be originated, or begin to be. And thus we find—what we
could not discover in any empirical series—a condition of a successive
series of events itself empirically unconditioned. For, in the present case,
the condition stands out of and beyond the series of phenomena—it is
intelligible, and it consequently cannot be subjected to any sensuous con-
dition, or to any time-determination by a preceding cause.
*The real morality of actions—their merit or demerit, and even that of our own
conduct, is completely unknown to us. Our estimates can relate only to their
empirical character. How much is the result of the action of free will, how much
is to be ascribed to nature and to blameless error, or to a happy constitution of
temperament (merito fortunae), no one can discover, nor, for this reason, deter-
mine with perfect justice.
325
But, in another respect, the same cause belongs also to the series of
phenomena. Man is himself a phenomenon. His will has an empirical
character, which is the empirical cause of all his actions. There is no con-
dition—determining man and his volition in conformity with this char-
acter—which does not itself form part of the series of effects in nature,
and is subject to their law—the law according to which an empirically
undetermined cause of an event in time cannot exist. For this reason no
given action can have an absolute and spontaneous origination, all actions
being phenomena, and belonging to the world of experience. But it can-
not be said of reason, that the state in which it determines the will is
always preceded by some other state determining it. For reason is not a
phenomenon, and therefore not subject to sensuous conditions; and, con-
sequently, even in relation to its causality, the sequence or conditions of
time do not influence reason, nor can the dynamical law of nature, which
determines the sequence of time according to certain rules, be applied to
it.
Reason is consequently the permanent condition of all actions of the
human will. Each of these is determined in the empirical character of the
man, even before it has taken place. The intelligible character, of which
the former is but the sensuous schema, knows no before or after; and
every action, irrespective of the time-relation in which it stands with other
phenomena, is the immediate effect of the intelligible character of pure
reason, which, consequently, enjoys freedom of action, and is not dy-
namically determined either by internal or external preceding conditions.
This freedom must not be described, in a merely negative manner, as
independence of empirical conditions, for in this case the faculty of rea-
son would cease to be a cause of phenomena; but it must be regarded,
positively, as a faculty which can spontaneously originate a series of events.
At the same time, it must not be supposed that any beginning can take
place in reason; on the contrary, reason, as the unconditioned condition
of all action of the will, admits of no time-conditions, although its effect
does really begin in a series of phenomena—a beginning which is not,
however, absolutely primal.
I shall illustrate this regulative principle of reason by an example, from
its employment in the world of experience; proved it cannot be by any
amount of experience, or by any number of facts, for such arguments
cannot establish the truth of transcendental propositions. Let us take a
voluntary action—for example, a falsehood—by means of which a man
has introduced a certain degree of confusion into the social life of human-
ity, which is judged according to the motives from which it originated,
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and the blame of which and of the evil consequences arising from it, is
imputed to the offender. We at first proceed to examine the empirical
character of the offence, and for this purpose we endeavour to penetrate
to the sources of that character, such as a defective education, bad com-
pany, a shameless and wicked disposition, frivolity, and want of reflec-
tion—not forgetting also the occasioning causes which prevailed at the
moment of the transgression. In this the procedure is exactly the same as
that pursued in the investigation of the series of causes which determine a
given physical effect. Now, although we believe the action to have been
determined by all these circumstances, we do not the less blame the of-
fender. We do not blame him for his unhappy disposition, nor for the
circumstances which influenced him, nay, not even for his former course
of life; for we presuppose that all these considerations may be set aside,
that the series of preceding conditions may be regarded as having never
existed, and that the action may be considered as completely uncondi-
tioned in relation to any state preceding, just as if the agent commenced
with it an entirely new series of effects. Our blame of the offender is
grounded upon a law of reason, which requires us to regard this faculty as
a cause, which could have and ought to have otherwise determined the
behaviour of the culprit, independently of all empirical conditions. This
causality of reason we do not regard as a co-operating agency, but as com-
plete in itself. It matters not whether the sensuous impulses favoured or
opposed the action of this causality, the offence is estimated according to
its intelligible character—the offender is decidedly worthy of blame, the
moment he utters a falsehood. It follows that we regard reason, in spite of
the empirical conditions of the act, as completely free, and therefore, there-
fore, as in the present case, culpable.
The above judgement is complete evidence that we are accustomed to
think that reason is not affected by sensuous conditions, that in it no
change takes place—although its phenomena, in other words, the mode
in which it appears in its effects, are subject to change—that in it no
preceding state determines the following, and, consequently, that it does
not form a member of the series of sensuous conditions which necessitate
phenomena according to natural laws. Reason is present and the same in
all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself exist in time, and
therefore does not enter upon any state in which it did not formerly exist.
It is, relatively to new states or conditions, determining, but not deter-
minable. Hence we cannot ask: “Why did not reason determine itself in a
different manner?” The question ought to be thus stated: “Why did not
reason employ its power of causality to determine certain phenomena in a
327
different manner?” But this is a question which admits of no answer. For

a different intelligible character would have exhibited a different empiri-
cal character; and, when we say that, in spite of the course which his
whole former life has taken, the offender could have refrained from utter-
ing the falsehood, this means merely that the act was subject to the power
and authority-permissive or prohibitive—of reason. Now, reason is not
subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and a
difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of phenomena
to each other—for these are not things and therefore not causes in them-
selves—but it cannot produce any difference in the relation in which the
action stands to the faculty of reason.
Thus, then, in our investigation into free actions and the causal power
which produced them, we arrive at an intelligible cause, beyond which,
however, we cannot go; although we can recognize that it is free, that is,
independent of all sensuous conditions, and that, in this way, it may be
the sensuously unconditioned condition of phenomena. But for what rea-
son the intelligible character generates such and such phenomena and
exhibits such and such an empirical character under certain circumstances,
it is beyond the power of our reason to decide. The question is as much
above the power and the sphere of reason as the following would be: “Why
does the transcendental object of our external sensuous intuition allow of
no other form than that of intuition in space?” But the problem, which
we were called upon to solve, does not require us to entertain any such
questions. The problem was merely this—whether freedom and natural
necessity can exist without opposition in the same action. To this question
we have given a sufficient answer; for we have shown that, as the former
stands in a relation to a different kind of condition from those of the
latter, the law of the one does not affect the law of the other and that,
consequently, both can exist together in independence of and without
interference with each other.
The reader must be careful to remark that my intention in the above
remarks has not been to prove the actual existence of freedom, as a faculty
in which resides the cause of certain sensuous phenomena. For, not to
mention that such an argument would not have a transcendental charac-
ter, nor have been limited to the discussion of pure conceptions—all at-
tempts at inferring from experience what cannot be cogitated in accor-
dance with its laws, must ever be unsuccessful. Nay, more, I have not even
aimed at demonstrating the possibility of freedom; for this too would
have been a vain endeavour, inasmuch as it is beyond the power of the
mind to cognize the possibility of a reality or of a causal power by the aid
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of mere a priori conceptions. Freedom has been considered in the forego-

ing remarks only as a transcendental idea, by means of which reason aims
at originating a series of conditions in the world of phenomena with the
help of that which is sensuously unconditioned, involving itself, however,
in an antinomy with the laws which itself prescribes for the conduct of the
understanding. That this antinomy is based upon a mere illusion, and
that nature and freedom are at least not opposed—this was the only thing
in our power to prove, and the question which it was our task to solve.
IV. Solution of the Cosmological Idea of the Totality of the Depen-

dence of Phenomenal Existences.
In the preceding remarks, we considered the changes in the world of sense

as constituting a dynamical series, in which each member is subordinated
to another—as its cause. Our present purpose is to avail ourselves of this
series of states or conditions as a guide to an existence which may be the
highest condition of all changeable phenomena, that is, to a necessary
being. Our endeavour to reach, not the unconditioned causality, but the
unconditioned existence, of substance. The series before us is therefore a
series of conceptions, and not of intuitions (in which the one intuition is
the condition of the other).
But it is evident that, as all phenomena are subject to change and condi-
tioned in their existence, the series of dependent existences cannot em-
brace an unconditioned member, the existence of which would be abso-
lutely necessary. It follows that, if phenomena were things in themselves,
and—as an immediate consequence from this supposition-condition and
conditioned belonged to the same series of phenomena, the existence of a
necessary being, as the condition of the existence of sensuous phenomena,
would be perfectly impossible.
An important distinction, however, exists between the dynamical and
the mathematical regress. The latter is engaged solely with the combina-
tion of parts into a whole, or with the division of a whole into its parts;
and therefore are the conditions of its series parts of the series, and to be
consequently regarded as homogeneous, and for this reason, as consisting,
without exception, of phenomena. If the former regress, on the contrary,
the aim of which is not to establish the possibility of an unconditioned
whole consisting of given parts, or of an unconditioned part of a given
whole, but to demonstrate the possibility of the deduction of a certain
state from its cause, or of the contingent existence of substance from that
329
which exists necessarily, it is not requisite that the condition should form
part of an empirical series along with the conditioned.
In the case of the apparent antinomy with which we are at present deal-
ing, there exists a way of escape from the difficulty; for it is not impossible
that both of the contradictory statements may be true in different rela-
tions. All sensuous phenomena may be contingent, and consequently pos-
sess only an empirically conditioned existence, and yet there may also
exist a non-empirical condition of the whole series, or, in other words, a
necessary being. For this necessary being, as an intelligible condition, would
not form a member—not even the highest member—of the series; the
whole world of sense would be left in its empirically determined existence
uninterfered with and uninfluenced. This would also form a ground of
distinction between the modes of solution employed for the third and
fourth antinomies. For, while in the consideration of freedom in the former
antinomy, the thing itself—the cause (substantia phaenomenon)—was
regarded as belonging to the series of conditions, and only its causality to
the intelligible world—we are obliged in the present case to cogitate this
necessary being as purely intelligible and as existing entirely apart from
the world of sense (as an ens extramundanum); for otherwise it would be
subject to the phenomenal law of contingency and dependence.
In relation to the present problem, therefore, the regulative principle of
reason is that everything in the sensuous world possesses an empirically
conditioned existence—that no property of the sensuous world possesses
unconditioned necessity—that we are bound to expect, and, so far as is
possible, to seek for the empirical condition of every member in the series
of conditions—and that there is no sufficient reason to justify us in de-
ducing any existence from a condition which lies out of and beyond the
empirical series, or in regarding any existence as independent and self-
subsistent; although this should not prevent us from recognizing the pos-
sibility of the whole series being based upon a being which is intelligible,
and for this reason free from all empirical conditions.
But it has been far from my intention, in these remarks, to prove the
existence of this unconditioned and necessary being, or even to evidence
the possibility of a purely intelligible condition of the existence or all sen-
suous phenomena. As bounds were set to reason, to prevent it from leav-
ing the guiding thread of empirical conditions and losing itself in tran-
scendent theories which are incapable of concrete presentation; so it was
my purpose, on the other band, to set bounds to the law of the purely
empirical understanding, and to protest against any attempts on its part at
deciding on the possibility of things, or declaring the existence of the
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Immanuel Kant
intelligible to be impossible, merely on the ground that it is not available

for the explanation and exposition of phenomena. It has been shown, at
the same time, that the contingency of all the phenomena of nature and
their empirical conditions is quite consistent with the arbitrary hypothesis
of a necessary, although purely intelligible condition, that no real contra-
diction exists between them and that, consequently, both may be true.
The existence of such an absolutely necessary being may be impossible;
but this can never be demonstrated from the universal contingency and
dependence of sensuous phenomena, nor from the principle which for-
bids us to discontinue the series at some member of it, or to seek for its
cause in some sphere of existence beyond the world of nature. Reason
goes its way in the empirical world, and follows, too, its peculiar path in
the sphere of the transcendental.
The sensuous world contains nothing but phenomena, which are mere
representations, and always sensuously conditioned; things in themselves
are not, and cannot be, objects to us. It is not to be wondered at, there-
fore, that we are not justified in leaping from some member of an empiri-
cal series beyond the world of sense, as if empirical representations were
things in themselves, existing apart from their transcendental ground in
the human mind, and the cause of whose existence may be sought out of
the empirical series. This would certainly be the case with contingent things;
but it cannot be with mere representations of things, the contingency of
which is itself merely a phenomenon and can relate to no other regress
than that which determines phenomena, that is, the empirical. But to
cogitate an intelligible ground of phenomena, as free, moreover, from the
contingency of the latter, conflicts neither with the unlimited nature of
the empirical regress, nor with the complete contingency of phenomena.
And the demonstration of this was the only thing necessary for the solu-
tion of this apparent antinomy. For if the condition of every conditioned—
as regards its existence—is sensuous, and for this reason a part of the same
series, it must be itself conditioned, as was shown in the antithesis of the
fourth antinomy. The embarrassments into which a reason, which postu-
lates the unconditioned, necessarily falls, must, therefore, continue to ex-
ist; or the unconditioned must be placed in the sphere of the intelligible.
In this way, its necessity does not require, nor does it even permit, the
presence of an empirical condition: and it is, consequently, uncondition-
ally necessary.
The empirical employment of reason is not affected by the assumption
of a purely intelligible being; it continues its operations on the principle
of the contingency of all phenomena, proceeding from empirical condi-
331
tions to still higher and higher conditions, themselves empirical. Just as

little does this regulative principle exclude the assumption of an intelli-
gible cause, when the question regards merely the pure employment of
reason—in relation to ends or aims. For, in this case, an intelligible cause
signifies merely the transcendental and to us unknown ground of the pos-
sibility of sensuous phenomena, and its existence, necessary and indepen-
dent of all sensuous conditions, is not inconsistent with the contingency
of phenomena, or with the unlimited possibility of regress which exists in
the series of empirical conditions.
Concluding Remarks on the Antinomy of Pure Reason.
So long as the object of our rational conceptions is the totality of condi-

tions in the world of phenomena, and the satisfaction, from this source,
of the requirements of reason, so long are our ideas transcendental and
cosmological. But when we set the unconditioned-which is the aim of all
our inquiries—in a sphere which lies out of the world of sense and pos-
sible experience, our ideas become transcendent. They are then not merely
serviceable towards the completion of the exercise of reason (which re-
mains an idea, never executed, but always to be pursued); they detach
themselves completely from experience and construct for themselves ob-
jects, the material of which has not been presented by experience, and the
objective reality of which is not based upon the completion of the empiri-
cal series, but upon pure a priori conceptions. The intelligible object of
these transcendent ideas may be conceded, as a transcendental object. But
we cannot cogitate it as a thing determinable by certain distinct predicates
relating to its internal nature, for it has no connection with empirical
conceptions; nor are we justified in affirming the existence of any such
object. It is, consequently, a mere product of the mind alone. Of all the
cosmological ideas, however, it is that occasioning the fourth antinomy
which compels us to venture upon this step. For the existence of phenom-
ena, always conditioned and never self-subsistent, requires us to look for
an object different from phenomena—an intelligible object, with which
all contingency must cease. But, as we have allowed ourselves to assume
the existence of a self-subsistent reality out of the field of experience, and
are therefore obliged to regard phenomena as merely a contingent mode
of representing intelligible objects employed by beings which are them-
selves intelligences—no other course remains for us than to follow anal-
ogy and employ the same mode in forming some conception of intelli-
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Immanuel Kant
gible things, of which we have not the least knowledge, which nature
taught us to use in the formation of empirical conceptions. Experience
made us acquainted with the contingent. But we are at present engaged in
the discussion of things which are not objects of experience; and must,
therefore, deduce our knowledge of them from that which is necessary
absolutely and in itself, that is, from pure conceptions. Hence the first
step which we take out of the world of sense obliges us to begin our sys-
tem of new cognition with the investigation of a necessary being, and to
deduce from our conceptions of it all our conceptions of intelligible things.
This we propose to attempt in the following chapter.
CHAPTER III. The Ideal of Pure Reason.
SECTION I. Of the Ideal in General.
We have seen that pure conceptions do not present objects to the mind,
except under sensuous conditions; because the conditions of objective real-
ity do not exist in these conceptions, which contain, in fact, nothing but the
mere form of thought. They may, however, when applied to phenomena, be
presented in concreto; for it is phenomena that present to them the materi-
als for the formation of empirical conceptions, which are nothing more
than concrete forms of the conceptions of the understanding. But ideas are
still further removed from objective reality than categories; for no phenom-
enon can ever present them to the human mind in concreto. They contain
a certain perfection, attainable by no possible empirical cognition; and they
give to reason a systematic unity, to which the unity of experience attempts
to approximate, but can never completely attain.
But still further removed than the idea from objective reality is the Ideal,
by which term I understand the idea, not in concreto, but in individuo—
as an individual thing, determinable or determined by the idea alone. The
idea of humanity in its complete perfection supposes not only the ad-
vancement of all the powers and faculties, which constitute our concep-
tion of human nature, to a complete attainment of their final aims, but
also everything which is requisite for the complete determination of the
idea; for of all contradictory predicates, only one can conform with the
idea of the perfect man. What I have termed an ideal was in Plato’s phi-
losophy an idea of the divine mind—an individual object present to its
pure intuition, the most perfect of every kind of possible beings, and the
archetype of all phenomenal existences.
333
Without rising to these speculative heights, we are bound to confess

that human reason contains not only ideas, but ideals, which possess, not,
like those of Plato, creative, but certainly practical power—as regulative
principles, and form the basis of the perfectibility of certain actions. Moral
conceptions are not perfectly pure conceptions of reason, because an em-
pirical element—of pleasure or pain—lies at the foundation of them. In
relation, however, to the principle, whereby reason sets bounds to a free-
dom which is in itself without law, and consequently when we attend
merely to their form, they may be considered as pure conceptions of rea-
son. Virtue and wisdom in their perfect purity are ideas. But the wise man
of the Stoics is an ideal, that is to say, a human being existing only in
thought and in complete conformity with the idea of wisdom. As the idea
provides a rule, so the ideal serves as an archetype for the perfect and
complete determination of the copy. Thus the conduct of this wise and
divine man serves us as a standard of action, with which we may compare
and judge ourselves, which may help us to reform ourselves, although the
perfection it demands can never be attained by us. Although we cannot
concede objective reality to these ideals, they are not to be considered as
chimeras; on the contrary, they provide reason with a standard, which
enables it to estimate, by comparison, the degree of incompleteness in the
objects presented to it. But to aim at realizing the ideal in an example in
the world of experience—to describe, for instance, the character of the
perfectly wise man in a romance—is impracticable. Nay more, there is
something absurd in the attempt; and the result must be little edifying, as
the natural limitations, which are continually breaking in upon the per-
fection and completeness of the idea, destroy the illusion in the story and
throw an air of suspicion even on what is good in the idea, which hence
appears fictitious and unreal.
Such is the constitution of the ideal of reason, which is always based
upon determinate conceptions, and serves as a rule and a model for limi-
tation or of criticism. Very different is the nature of the ideals of the imagi-
nation. Of these it is impossible to present an intelligible conception; they
are a kind of monogram, drawn according to no determinate rule, and
forming rather a vague picture—the production of many diverse experi-
ences—than a determinate image. Such are the ideals which painters and
physiognomists profess to have in their minds, and which can serve nei-
ther as a model for production nor as a standard for appreciation. They
may be termed, though improperly, sensuous ideals, as they are declared
to be models of certain possible empirical intuitions. They cannot, how-
ever, furnish rules or standards for explanation or examination.
334
Immanuel Kant
In its ideals, reason aims at complete and perfect determination accord-

ing to a priori rules; and hence it cogitates an object, which must be com-
pletely determinable in conformity with principles, although all empirical
conditions are absent, and the conception of the object is on this account
transcendent.
SECTION II. Of the Transcendental Ideal (Prototypon

Trancendentale).
Every conception is, in relation to that which is not contained in it, unde-
termined and subject to the principle of determinability. This principle is
that, of every two contradictorily opposed predicates, only one can belong
to a conception. It is a purely logical principle, itself based upon the prin-
ciple of contradiction; inasmuch as it makes complete abstraction of the
content and attends merely to the logical form of the cognition.
But again, everything, as regards its possibility, is also subject to the
principle of complete determination, according to which one of all the
possible contradictory predicates of things must belong to it. This prin-
ciple is not based merely upon that of contradiction; for, in addition to
the relation between two contradictory predicates, it regards everything as
standing in a relation to the sum of possibilities, as the sum total of all
predicates of things, and, while presupposing this sum as an a priori con-
dition, presents to the mind everything as receiving the possibility of its
individual existence from the relation it bears to, and the share it possesses
in, the aforesaid sum of possibilities.* The principle of complete determi-
nation relates the content and not to the logical form. It is the principle of
the synthesis of all the predicates which are required to constitute the
complete conception of a thing, and not a mere principle analytical repre-
sentation, which enounces that one of two contradictory predicates must
belong to a conception. It contains, moreover, a transcendental presuppo-
sition—that, namely, of the material for all possibility, which must con-
tain a priori the data for this or that particular possibility.
*Thus this principle declares everything to possess a relation to a common corre-

late—the sum-total of possibility, which, if discovered to exist in the idea of one
individual thing, would establish the affinity of all possible things, from the iden-
tity of the ground of their complete determination. The determinability of every
conception is subordinate to the universality (Allgemeinheit, universalitas) of the
principle of excluded middle; the determination of a thing to the totality (Allheit,
universitas) of all possible predicates.
335
The proposition, everything which exists is completely determined,

means not only that one of every pair of given contradictory attributes,
but that one of all possible attributes, is always predicable of the thing; in
it the predicates are not merely compared logically with each other, but
the thing itself is transcendentally compared with the sum-total of all pos-
sible predicates. The proposition is equivalent to saying: “To attain to a
complete knowledge of a thing, it is necessary to possess a knowledge of
everything that is possible, and to determine it thereby in a positive or
negative manner.” The conception of complete determination is conse-
quently a conception which cannot be presented in its totality in con-
creto, and is therefore based upon an idea, which has its seat in the rea-
son—the faculty which prescribes to the understanding the laws of its
harmonious and perfect exercise.
Now, although this idea of the sum-total of all possibility, in so far as it
forms the condition of the complete determination of everything, is itself
undetermined in relation to the predicates which may constitute this sum-
total, and we cogitate in it merely the sum-total of all possible predi-
cates—we nevertheless find, upon closer examination, that this idea, as a
primitive conception of the mind, excludes a large number of predicates—
those deduced and those irreconcilable with others, and that it is evolved
as a conception completely determined a priori. Thus it becomes the con-
ception of an individual object, which is completely determined by and
through the mere idea, and must consequently be termed an ideal of pure
reason.
When we consider all possible predicates, not merely logically, but tran-
scendentally, that is to say, with reference to the content which may be
cogitated as existing in them a priori, we shall find that some indicate a
being, others merely a non-being. The logical negation expressed in the
word not does not properly belong to a conception, but only to the rela-
tion of one conception to another in a judgement, and is consequently
quite insufficient to present to the mind the content of a conception. The
expression not mortal does not indicate that a non-being is cogitated in
the object; it does not concern the content at all. A transcendental nega-
tion, on the contrary, indicates non-being in itself, and is opposed to tran-
scendental affirmation, the conception of which of itself expresses a be-
ing. Hence this affirmation indicates a reality, because in and through it
objects are considered to be something—to be things; while the opposite
negation, on the other band, indicates a mere want, or privation, or ab-
sence, and, where such negations alone are attached to a representation,
the non-existence of anything corresponding to the representation.
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Immanuel Kant
Now a negation cannot be cogitated as determined, without cogitating

at the same time the opposite affirmation. The man born blind has not
the least notion of darkness, because he has none of light; the vagabond
knows nothing of poverty, because he has never known what it is to be in
comfort;* the ignorant man has no conception of his ignorance, because
he has no conception of knowledge. All conceptions of negatives are ac-
cordingly derived or deduced conceptions; and realities contain the data,
and, so to speak, the material or transcendental content of the possibility
and complete determination of all things.
If, therefore, a transcendental substratum lies at the foundation of the
complete determination of things—a substratum which is to form the
fund from which all possible predicates of things are to be supplied, this
substratum cannot be anything else than the idea of a sum-total of reality
(omnitudo realitatis). In this view, negations are nothing but limitations—
a term which could not, with propriety, be applied to them, if the unlim-
ited (the all) did not form the true basis of our conception.
This conception of a sum-total of reality is the conception of a thing in
itself, regarded as completely determined; and the conception of an ens
realissimum is the conception of an individual being, inasmuch as it is
determined by that predicate of all possible contradictory predicates, which
indicates and belongs to being. It is, therefore, a transcendental ideal which
forms the basis of the complete determination of everything that exists,
and is the highest material condition of its possibility—a condition on
which must rest the cogitation of all objects with respect to their content.
Nay, more, this ideal is the only proper ideal of which the human mind is
capable; because in this case alone a general conception of a thing is com-
pletely determined by and through itself, and cognized as the representa-
tion of an individuum.
The logical determination of a conception is based upon a disjunctive
syllogism, the major of which contains the logical division of the extent of
a general conception, the minor limits this extent to a certain part, while
the conclusion determines the conception by this part. The general con-
ception of a reality cannot be divided a priori, because, without the aid of
experience, we cannot know any determinate kinds of reality, standing
*The investigations and calculations of astronomers have taught us much that is

wonderful; but the most important lesson we have received from them is the
discovery of the abyss of our ignorance in relation to the universe—an ignorance
the magnitude of which reason, without the information thus derived, could
never have conceived. This discovery of our deficiencies must produce a great
change in the determination of the aims of human reason.
337
under the former as the genus. The transcendental principle of the com-
plete determination of all things is therefore merely the representation of
the sum-total of all reality; it is not a conception which is the genus of all
predicates under itself, but one which comprehends them all within itself.
The complete determination of a thing is consequently based upon the
limitation of this total of reality, so much being predicated of the thing,
while all that remains over is excluded—a procedure which is in exact
agreement with that of the disjunctive syllogism and the determination of
the objects in the conclusion by one of the members of the division. It
follows that reason, in laying the transcendental ideal at the foundation of
its determination of all possible things, takes a course in exact analogy
with that which it pursues in disjunctive syllogisms—a proposition which
formed the basis of the systematic division of all transcendental ideas,
according to which they are produced in complete parallelism with the
three modes of syllogistic reasoning employed by the human mind.
It is self-evident that reason, in cogitating the necessary complete deter-
mination of things, does not presuppose the existence of a being corre-
sponding to its ideal, but merely the idea of the ideal-for the purpose of
deducing from the unconditional totality of complete determination, The
ideal is therefore the prototype of all things, which, as defective copies (ectypa),
receive from it the material of their possibility, and approximate to it more
or less, though it is impossible that they can ever attain to its perfection.
The possibility of things must therefore be regarded as derived-except
that of the thing which contains in itself all reality, which must be consid-
ered to be primitive and original. For all negations-and they are the only
predicates by means of which all other things can be distinguished from
the ens realissimum—are mere limitations of a greater and a higher—nay,
the highest reality; and they consequently presuppose this reality, and are,
as regards their content, derived from it. The manifold nature of things is
only an infinitely various mode of limiting the conception of the highest
reality, which is their common substratum; just as all figures are possible
only as different modes of limiting infinite space. The object of the ideal
of reason—an object existing only in reason itself—is also termed the
primal being (ens originarium); as having no existence superior to him,
the supreme being (ens summum); and as being the condition of all other
beings, which rank under it, the being of all beings (ens entium). But
none of these terms indicate the objective relation of an actually existing
object to other things, but merely that of an idea to conceptions; and all
our investigations into this subject still leave us in perfect uncertainty
with regard to the existence of this being.
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Immanuel Kant
A primal being cannot be said to consist of many other beings with an

existence which is derivative, for the latter presuppose the former, and
therefore cannot be constitutive parts of it. It follows that the ideal of the
primal being must be cogitated as simple.
The deduction of the possibility of all other things from this primal
being cannot, strictly speaking, be considered as a limitation, or as a kind
of division of its reality; for this would be regarding the primal being as a
mere aggregate—which has been shown to be impossible, although it was
so represented in our first rough sketch. The highest reality must be re-
garded rather as the ground than as the sum-total of the possibility of all
things, and the manifold nature of things be based, not upon the limita-
tion of the primal being itself, but upon the complete series of effects
which flow from it. And thus all our powers of sense, as well as all phe-
nomenal reality, phenomenal reality, may be with propriety regarded as
belonging to this series of effects, while they could not have formed parts
of the idea, considered as an aggregate. Pursuing this track, and hyposta-
tizing this idea, we shall find ourselves authorized to determine our no-
tion of the Supreme Being by means of the mere conception of a highest
reality, as one, simple, all-sufficient, eternal, and so on—in one word, to
determine it in its unconditioned completeness by the aid of every pos-
sible predicate. The conception of such a being is the conception of God
in its transcendental sense, and thus the ideal of pure reason is the object-
matter of a transcendental theology.
But, by such an employment of the transcendental idea, we should be
over stepping the limits of its validity and purpose. For reason placed it, as
the conception of all reality, at the basis of the complete determination of
things, without requiring that this conception be regarded as the concep-
tion of an objective existence. Such an existence would be purely ficti-
tious, and the hypostatizing of the content of the idea into an ideal, as an
individual being, is a step perfectly unauthorized. Nay, more, we are not
even called upon to assume the possibility of such an hypothesis, as none
of the deductions drawn from such an ideal would affect the complete
determination of things in general—for the sake of which alone is the idea
necessary.
It is not sufficient to circumscribe the procedure and the dialectic of rea-
son; we must also endeavour to discover the sources of this dialectic, that we
may have it in our power to give a rational explanation of this illusion, as a
phenomenon of the human mind. For the ideal, of which we are at present
speaking, is based, not upon an arbitrary, but upon a natural, idea. The
question hence arises: How happens it that reason regards the possibility of
339
all things as deduced from a single possibility, that, to wit, of the highest
reality, and presupposes this as existing in an individual and primal being?
The answer is ready; it is at once presented by the procedure of transcen-
dental analytic. The possibility of sensuous objects is a relation of these
objects to thought, in which something (the empirical form) may be cogi-
tated a priori; while that which constitutes the matter—the reality of the
phenomenon (that element which corresponds to sensation)—must be given
from without, as otherwise it could not even be cogitated by, nor could its
possibility be presentable to the mind. Now, a sensuous object is completely
determined, when it has been compared with all phenomenal predicates,
and represented by means of these either positively or negatively. But, as
that which constitutes the thing itself—the real in a phenomenon, must be
given, and that, in which the real of all phenomena is given, is experience,
one, sole, and all-embracing-the material of the possibility of all sensuous
objects must be presupposed as given in a whole, and it is upon the limita-
tion of this whole that the possibility of all empirical objects, their distinc-
tion from each other and their complete determination, are based. Now, no
other objects are presented to us besides sensuous objects, and these can be
given only in connection with a possible experience; it follows that a thing is
not an object to us, unless it presupposes the whole or sum-total of empiri-
cal reality as the condition of its possibility. Now, a natural illusion leads us
to consider this principle, which is valid only of sensuous objects, as valid
with regard to things in general. And thus we are induced to hold the em-
pirical principle of our conceptions of the possibility of things, as phenom-
ena, by leaving out this limitative condition, to be a transcendental prin-
ciple of the possibility of things in general.
We proceed afterwards to hypostatize this idea of the sum-total of all reality,
by changing the distributive unity of the empirical exercise of the understand-
ing into the collective unity of an empirical whole—a dialectical illusion, and
by cogitating this whole or sum of experience as an individual thing, contain-
ing in itself all empirical reality. This individual thing or being is then, by
means of the above-mentioned transcendental subreption, substituted for our
notion of a thing which stands at the head of the possibility of all things, the
real conditions of whose complete determination it presents.*
*This ideal of the ens realissimum—although merely a mental representation—is first

objectivized, that is, has an objective existence attributed to it, then hypostatized, and finally,
by the natural progress of reason to the completion of unity, personified, as we shall show
presently. For the regulative unity of experience is not based upon phenomena themselves,
but upon the connection of the variety of phenomena by the understanding in a conscious-
ness, and thus the unity of the supreme reality and the complete determinability of all things,
seem to reside in a supreme understanding, and, consequently, in a conscious intelligence.
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Immanuel Kant
SECTION III. Of the Arguments employed by Speculative Reason

in Proof of the Existence of a Supreme Being.
Notwithstanding the pressing necessity which reason feels, to form some

presupposition that shall serve the understanding as a proper basis for the
complete determination of its conceptions, the idealistic and factitious
nature of such a presupposition is too evident to allow reason for a mo-
ment to persuade itself into a belief of the objective existence of a mere
creation of its own thought. But there are other considerations which
compel reason to seek out some resting place in the regress from the con-
ditioned to the unconditioned, which is not given as an actual existence
from the mere conception of it, although it alone can give completeness
to the series of conditions. And this is the natural course of every human
reason, even of the most uneducated, although the path at first entered it
does not always continue to follow. It does not begin from conceptions,
but from common experience, and requires a basis in actual existence. But
this basis is insecure, unless it rests upon the immovable rock of the abso-
lutely necessary. And this foundation is itself unworthy of trust, if it leave
under and above it empty space, if it do not fill all, and leave no room for
a why or a wherefore, if it be not, in one word, infinite in its reality.
If we admit the existence of some one thing, whatever it may be, we
must also admit that there is something which exists necessarily. For what
is contingent exists only under the condition of some other thing, which
is its cause; and from this we must go on to conclude the existence of a
cause which is not contingent, and which consequently exists necessarily
and unconditionally. Such is the argument by which reason justifies its
advances towards a primal being.
Now reason looks round for the conception of a being that may be
admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the attribute of absolute
necessity, not for the purpose of inferring a priori, from the conception of
such a being, its objective existence (for if reason allowed itself to take this
course, it would not require a basis in given and actual existence, but
merely the support of pure conceptions), but for the purpose of discover-
ing, among all our conceptions of possible things, that conception which
possesses no element inconsistent with the idea of absolute necessity. For
that there must be some absolutely necessary existence, it regards as a
truth already established. Now, if it can remove every existence incapable
of supporting the attribute of absolute necessity, excepting one—this must
341
be the absolutely necessary being, whether its necessity is comprehensible

by us, that is, deducible from the conception of it alone, or not.
Now that, the conception of which contains a therefore to every where-
fore, which is not defective in any respect whatever, which is all-sufficient
as a condition, seems to be the being of which we can justly predicate
absolute necessity—for this reason, that, possessing the conditions of all
that is possible, it does not and cannot itself require any condition. And
thus it satisfies, in one respect at least, the requirements of the conception
of absolute necessity. In this view, it is superior to all other conceptions,
which, as deficient and incomplete, do not possess the characteristic of
independence of all higher conditions. It is true that we cannot infer from
this that what does not contain in itself the supreme and complete condi-
tion—the condition of all other things—must possess only a conditioned
existence; but as little can we assert the contrary, for this supposed being
does not possess the only characteristic which can enable reason to cognize
by means of an a priori conception the unconditioned and necessary na-
ture of its existence.
The conception of an ens realissimum is that which best agrees with the
conception of an unconditioned and necessary being. The former con-
ception does not satisfy all the requirements of the latter; but we have no
choice, we are obliged to adhere to it, for we find that we cannot do
without the existence of a necessary being; and even although we admit it,
we find it out of our power to discover in the whole sphere of possibility
any being that can advance well-grounded claims to such a distinction.
The following is, therefore, the natural course of human reason. It be-
gins by persuading itself of the existence of some necessary being. In this
being it recognizes the characteristics of unconditioned existence. It then
seeks the conception of that which is independent of all conditions, and
finds it in that which is itself the sufficient condition of all other things—
in other words, in that which contains all reality. But the unlimited all is
an absolute unity, and is conceived by the mind as a being one and su-
preme; and thus reason concludes that the Supreme Being, as the primal
basis of all things, possesses an existence which is absolutely necessary.
This conception must be regarded as in some degree satisfactory, if we
admit the existence of a necessary being, and consider that there exists a
necessity for a definite and final answer to these questions. In such a case,
we cannot make a better choice, or rather we have no choice at all, but feel
ourselves obliged to declare in favour of the absolute unity of complete
reality, as the highest source of the possibility of things. But if there exists
no motive for coming to a definite conclusion, and we may leave the
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Immanuel Kant
question unanswered till we have fully weighed both sides—in other words,
when we are merely called upon to decide how much we happen to know
about the question, and how much we merely flatter ourselves that we
know-the above conclusion does not appear to be so great advantage, but,
on the contrary, seems defective in the grounds upon which it is sup-
ported.
For, admitting the truth of all that has been said, that, namely, the infer-
ence from a given existence (my own, for example) to the existence of an
unconditioned and necessary being is valid and unassailable; that, in the
second place, we must consider a being which contains all reality, and
consequently all the conditions of other things, to be absolutely uncondi-
tioned; and admitting too, that we have thus discovered the conception of
a thing to which may be attributed, without inconsistency, absolute ne-
cessity—it does not follow from all this that the conception of a limited
being, in which the supreme reality does not reside, is therefore incompat-
ible with the idea of absolute necessity. For, although I do not discover the
element of the unconditioned in the conception of such a being—an ele-
ment which is manifestly existent in the sum-total of all conditions—I am
not entitled to conclude that its existence is therefore conditioned; just as
I am not entitled to affirm, in a hypothetical syllogism, that where a cer-
tain condition does not exist (in the present, completeness, as far as pure
conceptions are concerned), the conditioned does not exist either. On the
contrary, we are free to consider all limited beings as likewise uncondi-
tionally necessary, although we are unable to infer this from the general
conception which we have of them. Thus conducted, this argument is
incapable of giving us the least notion of the properties of a necessary
being, and must be in every respect without result.
This argument continues, however, to possess a weight and an author-
ity, which, in spite of its objective insufficiency, it has never been divested
of. For, granting that certain responsibilities lie upon us, which, as based
on the ideas of reason, deserve to be respected and submitted to, although
they are incapable of a real or practical application to our nature, or, in
other words, would be responsibilities without motives, except upon the
supposition of a Supreme Being to give effect and influence to the practi-
cal laws: in such a case we should be bound to obey our conceptions,
which, although objectively insufficient, do, according to the standard of
reason, preponderate over and are superior to any claims that may be
advanced from any other quarter. The equilibrium of doubt would in this
case be destroyed by a practical addition; indeed, Reason would be com-
pelled to condemn herself, if she refused to comply with the demands of
343
the judgement, no superior to which we know—however defective her

understanding of the grounds of these demands might be.
This argument, although in fact transcendental, inasmuch as it rests
upon the intrinsic insufficiency of the contingent, is so simple and natu-
ral, that the commonest understanding can appreciate its value. We see
things around us change, arise, and pass away; they, or their condition,
must therefore have a cause. The same demand must again be made of the
cause itself—as a datum of experience. Now it is natural that we should
place the highest causality just where we place supreme causality, in that
being, which contains the conditions of all possible effects, and the con-
ception of which is so simple as that of an all-embracing reality. This
highest cause, then, we regard as absolutely necessary, because we find it
absolutely necessary to rise to it, and do not discover any reason for pro-
ceeding beyond it. Thus, among all nations, through the darkest polythe-
ism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism, to which these idolaters
have been led, not from reflection and profound thought, but by the study
and natural progress of the common understanding.
There are only three modes of proving the existence of a Deity, on the
grounds of speculative reason.
All the paths conducting to this end begin either from determinate ex-
perience and the peculiar constitution of the world of sense, and rise,
according to the laws of causality, from it to the highest cause existing
apart from the world—or from a purely indeterminate experience, that is,
some empirical existence—or abstraction is made of all experience, and
the existence of a supreme cause is concluded from a priori conceptions
alone. The first is the physico-theological argument, the second the cos-
mological, the third the ontological. More there are not, and more there
cannot be.
I shall show it is as unsuccessful on the one path—the empirical-as on
the other—the transcendental, and that it stretches its wings in vain, to
soar beyond the world of sense by the mere might of speculative thought.
As regards the order in which we must discuss those arguments, it will be
exactly the reverse of that in which reason, in the progress of its develop-
ment, attains to them—the order in which they are placed above. For it
will be made manifest to the reader that, although experience presents the
occasion and the starting-point, it is the transcendental idea of reason
which guides it in its pilgrimage and is the goal of all its struggles. I shall
therefore begin with an examination of the transcendental argument, and
afterwards inquire what additional strength has accrued to this mode of
proof from the addition of the empirical element.
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Immanuel Kant
SECTION IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the

Existence of God.
It is evident from what has been said that the conception of an absolutely
necessary being is a mere idea, the objective reality of which is far from
being established by the mere fact that it is a need of reason. On the
contrary, this idea serves merely to indicate a certain unattainable perfec-
tion, and rather limits the operations than, by the presentation of new
objects, extends the sphere of the understanding. But a strange anomaly
meets us at the very threshold; for the inference from a given existence in
general to an absolutely necessary existence seems to be correct and un-
avoidable, while the conditions of the understanding refuse to aid us in
forming any conception of such a being.
Philosophers have always talked of an absolutely necessary being, and
have nevertheless declined to take the trouble of conceiving whether—
and how—a being of this nature is even cogitable, not to mention that its
existence is actually demonstrable. A verbal definition of the conception is
certainly easy enough: it is something the non-existence of which is im-
possible. But does this definition throw any light upon the conditions
which render it impossible to cogitate the non-existence of a thing—con-
ditions which we wish to ascertain, that we may discover whether we think
anything in the conception of such a being or not? For the mere fact that
I throw away, by means of the word unconditioned, all the conditions
which the understanding habitually requires in order to regard anything
as necessary, is very far from making clear whether by means of the con-
ception of the unconditionally necessary I think of something, or really of
nothing at all.
Nay, more, this chance-conception, now become so current, many have
endeavoured to explain by examples which seemed to render any inquiries
regarding its intelligibility quite needless. Every geometrical proposition—
a triangle has three angles—it was said, is absolutely necessary; and thus
people talked of an object which lay out of the sphere of our understand-
ing as if it were perfectly plain what the conception of such a being meant.
All the examples adduced have been drawn, without exception, from
judgements, and not from things. But the unconditioned necessity of a
judgement does not form the absolute necessity of a thing. On the con-
trary, the absolute necessity of a judgement is only a conditioned necessity
of a thing, or of the predicate in a judgement. The proposition above-
345
mentioned does not enounce that three angles necessarily exist, but, upon
condition that a triangle exists, three angles must necessarily exist—in it.
And thus this logical necessity has been the source of the greatest delu-
sions. Having formed an a priori conception of a thing, the content of
which was made to embrace existence, we believed ourselves safe in con-
cluding that, because existence belongs necessarily to the object of the
conception (that is, under the condition of my positing this thing as given),
the existence of the thing is also posited necessarily, and that it is therefore
absolutely necessary—merely because its existence has been cogitated in
the conception.
If, in an identical judgement, I annihilate the predicate in thought, and
retain the subject, a contradiction is the result; and hence I say, the former
belongs necessarily to the latter. But if I suppress both subject and predi-
cate in thought, no contradiction arises; for there is nothing at all, and
therefore no means of forming a contradiction. To suppose the existence
of a triangle and not that of its three angles, is self-contradictory; but to
suppose the non-existence of both triangle and angles is perfectly admis-
sible. And so is it with the conception of an absolutely necessary being.
Annihilate its existence in thought, and you annihilate the thing itself
with all its predicates; how then can there be any room for contradiction?
Externally, there is nothing to give rise to a contradiction, for a thing
cannot be necessary externally; nor internally, for, by the annihilation or
suppression of the thing itself, its internal properties are also annihilated.
God is omnipotent—that is a necessary judgement. His omnipotence can-
not be denied, if the existence of a Deity is posited—the existence, that is,
of an infinite being, the two conceptions being identical. But when you
say, God does not exist, neither omnipotence nor any other predicate is
affirmed; they must all disappear with the subject, and in this judgement
there cannot exist the least self-contradiction.
You have thus seen that when the predicate of a judgement is annihi-
lated in thought along with the subject, no internal contradiction can
arise, be the predicate what it may. There is no possibility of evading the
conclusion—you find yourselves compelled to declare: There are certain
subjects which cannot be annihilated in thought. But this is nothing more
than saying: There exist subjects which are absolutely necessary—the very
hypothesis which you are called upon to establish. For I find myself un-
able to form the slightest conception of a thing which when annihilated in
thought with all its predicates, leaves behind a contradiction; and contra-
diction is the only criterion of impossibility in the sphere of pure a priori
conceptions.
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Immanuel Kant
Against these general considerations, the justice of which no one can dis-
pute, one argument is adduced, which is regarded as furnishing a satisfactory
demonstration from the fact. It is affirmed that there is one and only one
conception, in which the non-being or annihilation of the object is self-con-
tradictory, and this is the conception of an ens realissimum. It possesses, you
say, all reality, and you feel yourselves justified in admitting the possibility of
such a being. (This I am willing to grant for the present, although the exist-
ence of a conception which is not self-contradictory is far from being suffi-
cient to prove the possibility of an object.)* Now the notion of all reality
embraces in it that of existence; the notion of existence lies, therefore, in the
conception of this possible thing. If this thing is annihilated in thought, the
internal possibility of the thing is also annihilated, which is self-contradictory.
I answer: It is absurd to introduce—under whatever term disguised—
into the conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference
to its possibility, the conception of its existence. If this is admitted, you
will have apparently gained the day, but in reality have enounced nothing
but a mere tautology. I ask, is the proposition, this or that thing (which I
am admitting to be possible) exists, an analytical or a synthetical proposi-
tion? If the former, there is no addition made to the subject of your thought
by the affirmation of its existence; but then the conception in your minds
is identical with the thing itself, or you have supposed the existence of a
thing to be possible, and then inferred its existence from its internal pos-
sibility—which is but a miserable tautology. The word reality in the con-
ception of the thing, and the word existence in the conception of the
predicate, will not help you out of the difficulty. For, supposing you were
to term all positing of a thing reality, you have thereby posited the thing
with all its predicates in the conception of the subject and assumed its
actual existence, and this you merely repeat in the predicate. But if you
confess, as every reasonable person must, that every existential proposi-
tion is synthetical, how can it be maintained that the predicate of exist-
ence cannot be denied without contradiction?—a property which is the
characteristic of analytical propositions, alone.
*A conception is always possible, if it is not self-contradictory. This is the logical

criterion of possibility, distinguishing the object of such a conception from the
nihil negativum. But it may be, notwithstanding, an empty conception, unless the
objective reality of this synthesis, but which it is generated, is demonstrated; and a
proof of this kind must be based upon principles of possible experience, and not
upon the principle of analysis or contradiction. This remark may be serviceable as
a warning against concluding, from the possibility of a conception—which is logi-
cal—the possibility of a thing—which is real.
347
I should have a reasonable hope of putting an end for ever to this so-
phistical mode of argumentation, by a strict definition of the conception
of existence, did not my own experience teach me that the illusion arising
from our confounding a logical with a real predicate (a predicate which
aids in the determination of a thing) resists almost all the endeavours of
explanation and illustration. A logical predicate may be what you please,
even the subject may be predicated of itself; for logic pays no regard to the
content of a judgement. But the determination of a conception is a predi-
cate, which adds to and enlarges the conception. It must not, therefore, be
contained in the conception.
Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of some-
thing which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely
the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. Logically, it is
merely the copula of a judgement. The proposition, God is omnipotent,
contains two conceptions, which have a certain object or content; the
word is, is no additional predicate—it merely indicates the relation of the
predicate to the subject. Now, if I take the subject (God) with all its predi-
cates (omnipotence being one), and say: God is, or, There is a God, I add
no new predicate to the conception of God, I merely posit or affirm the
existence of the subject with all its predicates—I posit the object in rela-
tion to my conception. The content of both is the same; and there is no
addition made to the conception, which expresses merely the possibility
of the object, by my cogitating the object—in the expression, it is—as
absolutely given or existing. Thus the real contains no more than the pos-
sible. A hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible
dollars. For, as the latter indicate the conception, and the former the ob-
ject, on the supposition that the content of the former was greater than
that of the latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole
object, and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it. But in
reckoning my wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real
dollars than in a hundred possible dollars—that is, in the mere concep-
tion of them. For the real object—the dollars—is not analytically con-
tained in my conception, but forms a synthetical addition to my concep-
tion (which is merely a determination of my mental state), although this
objective reality—this existence—apart from my conceptions, does not in
the least degree increase the aforesaid hundred dollars.
By whatever and by whatever number of predicates—even to the com-
plete determination of it—I may cogitate a thing, I do not in the least
augment the object of my conception by the addition of the statement:
This thing exists. Otherwise, not exactly the same, but something more
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Immanuel Kant
than what was cogitated in my conception, would exist, and I could not
affirm that the exact object of my conception had real existence. If I cogi-
tate a thing as containing all modes of reality except one, the mode of
reality which is absent is not added to the conception of the thing by the
affirmation that the thing exists; on the contrary, the thing exists—if it
exist at all—with the same defect as that cogitated in its conception; oth-
erwise not that which was cogitated, but something different, exists. Now,
if I cogitate a being as the highest reality, without defect or imperfection,
the question still remains—whether this being exists or not? For, although
no element is wanting in the possible real content of my conception, there
is a defect in its relation to my mental state, that is, I am ignorant whether
the cognition of the object indicated by the conception is possible a pos-
teriori. And here the cause of the present difficulty becomes apparent. If
the question regarded an object of sense merely, it would be impossible for
me to confound the conception with the existence of a thing. For the
conception merely enables me to cogitate an object as according with the
general conditions of experience; while the existence of the object permits
me to cogitate it as contained in the sphere of actual experience. At the
same time, this connection with the world of experience does not in the
least augment the conception, although a possible perception has been
added to the experience of the mind. But if we cogitate existence by the
pure category alone, it is not to be wondered at, that we should find our-
selves unable to present any criterion sufficient to distinguish it from mere
possibility.
Whatever be the content of our conception of an object, it is necessary
to go beyond it, if we wish to predicate existence of the object. In the case
of sensuous objects, this is attained by their connection according to em-
pirical laws with some one of my perceptions; but there is no means of
cognizing the existence of objects of pure thought, because it must be
cognized completely a priori. But all our knowledge of existence (be it
immediately by perception, or by inferences connecting some object with
a perception) belongs entirely to the sphere of experience—which is in
perfect unity with itself; and although an existence out of this sphere can-
not be absolutely declared to be impossible, it is a hypothesis the truth of
which we have no means of ascertaining.
The notion of a Supreme Being is in many respects a highly useful idea;
but for the very reason that it is an idea, it is incapable of enlarging our
cognition with regard to the existence of things. It is not even sufficient to
instruct us as to the possibility of a being which we do not know to exist.
The analytical criterion of possibility, which consists in the absence of
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contradiction in propositions, cannot be denied it. But the connection of

real properties in a thing is a synthesis of the possibility of which an a
priori judgement cannot be formed, because these realities are not pre-
sented to us specifically; and even if this were to happen, a judgement
would still be impossible, because the criterion of the possibility of syn-
thetical cognitions must be sought for in the world of experience, to which
the object of an idea cannot belong. And thus the celebrated Leibnitz has
utterly failed in his attempt to establish upon a priori grounds the possi-
bility of this sublime ideal being.
The celebrated ontological or Cartesian argument for the existence of a
Supreme Being is therefore insufficient; and we may as well hope to in-
crease our stock of knowledge by the aid of mere ideas, as the merchant to
augment his wealth by the addition of noughts to his cash account.
SECTION V. Of the Impossibility of a Cosmological Proof of the

Existence of God.
It was by no means a natural course of proceeding, but, on the contrary,

an invention entirely due to the subtlety of the schools, to attempt to
draw from a mere idea a proof of the existence of an object corresponding
to it. Such a course would never have been pursued, were it not for that
need of reason which requires it to suppose the existence of a necessary
being as a basis for the empirical regress, and that, as this necessity must
be unconditioned and a priori, reason is bound to discover a conception
which shall satisfy, if possible, this requirement, and enable us to attain to
the a priori cognition of such a being. This conception was thought to be
found in the idea of an ens realissimum, and thus this idea was employed
for the attainment of a better defined knowledge of a necessary being, of
the existence of which we were convinced, or persuaded, on other grounds.
Thus reason was seduced from her natural courage; and, instead of con-
cluding with the conception of an ens realissimum, an attempt was made
to begin with it, for the purpose of inferring from it that idea of a neces-
sary existence which it was in fact called in to complete. Thus arose that
unfortunate ontological argument, which neither satisfies the healthy com-
mon sense of humanity, nor sustains the scientific examination of the
philosopher.
The cosmological proof, which we are about to examine, retains the
connection between absolute necessity and the highest reality; but, in-
stead of reasoning from this highest reality to a necessary existence, like
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the preceding argument, it concludes from the given unconditioned ne-

cessity of some being its unlimited reality. The track it pursues, whether
rational or sophistical, is at least natural, and not only goes far to persuade
the common understanding, but shows itself deserving of respect from
the speculative intellect; while it contains, at the same time, the outlines
of all the arguments employed in natural theology—arguments which
always have been, and still will be, in use and authority. These, however
adorned, and hid under whatever embellishments of rhetoric and senti-
ment, are at bottom identical with the arguments we are at present to
discuss. This proof, termed by Leibnitz the argumentum a contingentia
mundi, I shall now lay before the reader, and subject to a strict examina-
tion.
It is framed in the following manner: If something exists, an absolutely
necessary being must likewise exist. Now I, at least, exist. Consequently,
there exists an absolutely necessary being. The minor contains an experi-
ence, the major reasons from a general experience to the existence of a
necessary being.* Thus this argument really begins at experience, and is
not completely a priori, or ontological. The object of all possible experi-
ence being the world, it is called the cosmological proof. It contains no
reference to any peculiar property of sensuous objects, by which this world
of sense might be distinguished from other possible worlds; and in this
respect it differs from the physico-theological proof, which is based upon
the consideration of the peculiar constitution of our sensuous world.
The proof proceeds thus: A necessary being can be determined only in
one way, that is, it can be determined by only one of all possible opposed
predicates; consequently, it must be completely determined in and by its
conception. But there is only a single conception of a thing possible, which
completely determines the thing a priori: that is, the conception of the ens
realissimum. It follows that the conception of the ens realissimum is the
only conception by and in which we can cogitate a necessary being. Con-
sequently, a Supreme Being necessarily exists.
In this cosmological argument are assembled so many sophistical propo-
sitions that speculative reason seems to have exerted in it all her dialectical
skill to produce a transcendental illusion of the most extreme character.
We shall postpone an investigation of this argument for the present, and
*This inference is too well known to require more detailed discussion. It is based
upon the spurious transcendental law of causality, that everything which is con-
tingent has a cause, which, if itself contingent, must also have a cause; and so on,
till the series of subordinated causes must end with an absolutely necessary cause,
without which it would not possess completeness.
351
confine ourselves to exposing the stratagem by which it imposes upon us

an old argument in a new dress, and appeals to the agreement of two
witnesses, the one with the credentials of pure reason, and the other with
those of empiricism; while, in fact, it is only the former who has changed
his dress and voice, for the purpose of passing himself off for an additional
witness. That it may possess a secure foundation, it bases its conclusions
upon experience, and thus appears to be completely distinct from the
ontological argument, which places its confidence entirely in pure a priori
conceptions. But this experience merely aids reason in making one step—
to the existence of a necessary being. What the properties of this being are
cannot be learned from experience; and therefore reason abandons it alto-
gether, and pursues its inquiries in the sphere of pure conception, for the
purpose of discovering what the properties of an absolutely necessary be-
ing ought to be, that is, what among all possible things contain the condi-
tions (requisita) of absolute necessity. Reason believes that it has discov-
ered these requisites in the conception of an ens realissimum—and in it
alone, and hence concludes: The ens realissimum is an absolutely neces-
sary being. But it is evident that reason has here presupposed that the
conception of an ens realissimum is perfectly adequate to the conception
of a being of absolute necessity, that is, that we may infer the existence of
the latter from that of the former—a proposition which formed the basis
of the ontological argument, and which is now employed in the support
of the cosmological argument, contrary to the wish and professions of its
inventors. For the existence of an absolutely necessary being is given in
conceptions alone. But if I say: “The conception of the ens realissimum is
a conception of this kind, and in fact the only conception which is ad-
equate to our idea of a necessary being,” I am obliged to admit, that the
latter may be inferred from the former. Thus it is properly the ontological
argument which figures in the cosmological, and constitutes the whole
strength of the latter; while the spurious basis of experience has been of no
further use than to conduct us to the conception of absolute necessity,
being utterly insufficient to demonstrate the presence of this attribute in
any determinate existence or thing. For when we propose to ourselves an
aim of this character, we must abandon the sphere of experience, and rise
to that of pure conceptions, which we examine with the purpose of dis-
covering whether any one contains the conditions of the possibility of an
absolutely necessary being. But if the possibility of such a being is thus
demonstrated, its existence is also proved; for we may then assert that, of
all possible beings there is one which possesses the attribute of necessity—
in other words, this being possesses an absolutely necessary existence.
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All illusions in an argument are more easily detected when they are
presented in the formal manner employed by the schools, which we now
proceed to do.
If the proposition: “Every absolutely necessary being is likewise an ens
realissimum,” is correct (and it is this which constitutes the nervus probandi
of the cosmological argument), it must, like all affirmative judgements, be
capable of conversion—the conversio per accidens, at least. It follows,
then, that some entia realissima are absolutely necessary beings. But no
ens realissimum is in any respect different from another, and what is valid
of some is valid of all. In this present case, therefore, I may employ simple
conversion, and say: “Every ens realissimum is a necessary being.” But as
this proposition is determined a priori by the conceptions contained in it,
the mere conception of an ens realissimum must possess the additional
attribute of absolute necessity. But this is exactly what was maintained in
the ontological argument, and not recognized by the cosmological, al-
though it formed the real ground of its disguised and illusory reasoning.
Thus the second mode employed by speculative reason of demonstrat-
ing the existence of a Supreme Being, is not only, like the first, illusory
and inadequate, but possesses the additional blemish of an ignoratio elen-
chi—professing to conduct us by a new road to the desired goal, but
bringing us back, after a short circuit, to the old path which we had de-
serted at its call.
I mentioned above that this cosmological argument contains a perfect
nest of dialectical assumptions, which transcendental criticism does not
find it difficult to expose and to dissipate. I shall merely enumerate these,
leaving it to the reader, who must by this time be well practised in such
matters, to investigate the fallacies residing therein.
The following fallacies, for example, are discoverable in this mode of
proof: 1. The transcendental principle: “Everything that is contingent must
have a cause”—a principle without significance, except in the sensuous
world. For the purely intellectual conception of the contingent cannot
produce any synthetical proposition, like that of causality, which is itself
without significance or distinguishing characteristic except in the phe-
nomenal world. But in the present case it is employed to help us beyond
the limits of its sphere. 2. “From the impossibility of an infinite ascending
series of causes in the world of sense a first cause is inferred”; a conclusion
which the principles of the employment of reason do not justify even in
the sphere of experience, and still less when an attempt is made to pass the
limits of this sphere. 3. Reason allows itself to be satisfied upon insuffi-
cient grounds, with regard to the completion of this series. It removes all
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conditions (without which, however, no conception of Necessity can take

place); and, as after this it is beyond our power to form any other concep-
tions, it accepts this as a completion of the conception it wishes to form of
the series. 4. The logical possibility of a conception of the total of reality
(the criterion of this possibility being the absence of contradiction) is con-
founded with the transcendental, which requires a principle of the practi-
cability of such a synthesis—a principle which again refers us to the world
of experience. And so on.
The aim of the cosmological argument is to avoid the necessity of prov-
ing the existence of a necessary being priori from mere conceptions—a
proof which must be ontological, and of which we feel ourselves quite
incapable. With this purpose, we reason from an actual existence—an
experience in general, to an absolutely necessary condition of that exist-
ence. It is in this case unnecessary to demonstrate its possibility. For after
having proved that it exists, the question regarding its possibility is super-
fluous. Now, when we wish to define more strictly the nature of this nec-
essary being, we do not look out for some being the conception of which
would enable us to comprehend the necessity of its being—for if we could
do this, an empirical presupposition would be unnecessary; no, we try to
discover merely the negative condition (conditio sine qua non), without
which a being would not be absolutely necessary. Now this would be per-
fectly admissible in every sort of reasoning, from a consequence to its
principle; but in the present case it unfortunately happens that the condi-
tion of absolute necessity can be discovered in but a single being, the
conception of which must consequently contain all that is requisite for
demonstrating the presence of absolute necessity, and thus entitle me to
infer this absolute necessity a priori. That is, it must be possible to reason
conversely, and say: The thing, to which the conception of the highest
reality belongs, is absolutely necessary. But if I cannot reason thus—and I
cannot, unless I believe in the sufficiency of the ontological argument—I
find insurmountable obstacles in my new path, and am really no farther
than the point from which I set out. The conception of a Supreme Being
satisfies all questions a priori regarding the internal determinations of a
thing, and is for this reason an ideal without equal or parallel, the general
conception of it indicating it as at the same time an ens individuum among
all possible things. But the conception does not satisfy the question re-
garding its existence—which was the purpose of all our inquiries; and,
although the existence of a necessary being were admitted, we should find
it impossible to answer the question: What of all things in the world must
be regarded as such?
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Immanuel Kant
It is certainly allowable to admit the existence of an all-sufficient be-

ing—a cause of all possible effects—for the purpose of enabling reason to
introduce unity into its mode and grounds of explanation with regard to
phenomena. But to assert that such a being necessarily exists, is no longer
the modest enunciation of an admissible hypothesis, but the boldest dec-
laration of an apodeictic certainty; for the cognition of that which is abso-
lutely necessary must itself possess that character.
The aim of the transcendental ideal formed by the mind is either to
discover a conception which shall harmonize with the idea of absolute
necessity, or a conception which shall contain that idea. If the one is pos-
sible, so is the other; for reason recognizes that alone as absolutely neces-
sary which is necessary from its conception. But both attempts are equally
beyond our power—we find it impossible to satisfy the understanding
upon this point, and as impossible to induce it to remain at rest in relation
to this incapacity.
Unconditioned necessity, which, as the ultimate support and stay of all
existing things, is an indispensable requirement of the mind, is an abyss
on the verge of which human reason trembles in dismay. Even the idea of
eternity, terrible and sublime as it is, as depicted by Haller, does not pro-
duce upon the mental vision such a feeling of awe and terror; for, al-
though it measures the duration of things, it does not support them. We
cannot bear, nor can we rid ourselves of the thought that a being, which
we regard as the greatest of all possible existences, should say to himself: I
am from eternity to eternity; beside me there is nothing, except that which
exists by my will; whence then am I? Here all sinks away from under us;
and the greatest, as the smallest, perfection, hovers without stay or footing
in presence of the speculative reason, which finds it as easy to part with
the one as with the other.
Many physical powers, which evidence their existence by their effects,
are perfectly inscrutable in their nature; they elude all our powers of ob-
servation. The transcendental object which forms the basis of phenom-
ena, and, in connection with it, the reason why our sensibility possesses
this rather than that particular kind of conditions, are and must ever re-
main hidden from our mental vision; the fact is there, the reason of the
fact we cannot see. But an ideal of pure reason cannot be termed mysteri-
ous or inscrutable, because the only credential of its reality is the need of it
felt by reason, for the purpose of giving completeness to the world of
synthetical unity. An ideal is not even given as a cogitable object, and
therefore cannot be inscrutable; on the contrary, it must, as a mere idea,
be based on the constitution of reason itself, and on this account must be
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capable of explanation and solution. For the very essence of reason con-
sists in its ability to give an account, of all our conceptions, opinions, and
assertions—upon objective, or, when they happen to be illusory and falla-
cious, upon subjective grounds.
Detection and Explanation of the Dialectical Illusion in all Tran-

scendental Arguments for the Existence of a Necessary Being.
Both of the above arguments are transcendental; in other words, they do

not proceed upon empirical principles. For, although the cosmological
argument professed to lay a basis of experience for its edifice of reasoning,
it did not ground its procedure upon the peculiar constitution of experi-
ence, but upon pure principles of reason—in relation to an existence given
by empirical consciousness; utterly abandoning its guidance, however, for
the purpose of supporting its assertions entirely upon pure conceptions.
Now what is the cause, in these transcendental arguments, of the dialecti-
cal, but natural, illusion, which connects the conceptions of necessity and
supreme reality, and hypostatizes that which cannot be anything but an
idea? What is the cause of this unavoidable step on the part of reason, of
admitting that some one among all existing things must be necessary,
while it falls back from the assertion of the existence of such a being as
from an abyss? And how does reason proceed to explain this anomaly to
itself, and from the wavering condition of a timid and reluctant approba-
tion—always again withdrawn—arrive at a calm and settled insight into
its cause?
It is something very remarkable that, on the supposition that something
exists, I cannot avoid the inference that something exists necessarily. Upon
this perfectly natural—but not on that account reliable—inference does
the cosmological argument rest. But, let me form any conception what-
ever of a thing, I find that I cannot cogitate the existence of the thing as
absolutely necessary, and that nothing prevents me—be the thing or be-
ing what it may—from cogitating its non-existence. I may thus be obliged
to admit that all existing things have a necessary basis, while I cannot
cogitate any single or individual thing as necessary. In other words, I can
never complete the regress through the conditions of existence, without
admitting the existence of a necessary being; but, on the other hand, I
cannot make a commencement from this being.
If I must cogitate something as existing necessarily as the basis of exist-
ing things, and yet am not permitted to cogitate any individual thing as in
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Immanuel Kant
itself necessary, the inevitable inference is that necessity and contingency

are not properties of things themselves-otherwise an internal contradic-
tion would result; that consequently neither of these principles are objec-
tive, but merely subjective principles of reason—the one requiring us to
seek for a necessary ground for everything that exists, that is, to be satis-
fied with no other explanation than that which is complete a priori, the
other forbidding us ever to hope for the attainment of this completeness,
that is, to regard no member of the empirical world as unconditioned. In
this mode of viewing them, both principles, in their purely heuristic and
regulative character, and as concerning merely the formal interest of rea-
son, are quite consistent with each other. The one says: “You must phi-
losophize upon nature,” as if there existed a necessary primal basis of all
existing things, solely for the purpose of introducing systematic unity into
your knowledge, by pursuing an idea of this character—a foundation which
is arbitrarily admitted to be ultimate; while the other warns you to con-
sider no individual determination, concerning the existence of things, as
such an ultimate foundation, that is, as absolutely necessary, but to keep
the way always open for further progress in the deduction, and to treat
every determination as determined by some other. But if all that we per-
ceive must be regarded as conditionally necessary, it is impossible that
anything which is empirically given should be absolutely necessary.
It follows from this that you must accept the absolutely necessary as out
of and beyond the world, inasmuch as it is useful only as a principle of the
highest possible unity in experience, and you cannot discover any such
necessary existence in the would, the second rule requiring you to regard
all empirical causes of unity as themselves deduced.
The philosophers of antiquity regarded all the forms of nature as con-
tingent; while matter was considered by them, in accordance with the
judgement of the common reason of mankind, as primal and necessary.
But if they had regarded matter, not relatively—as the substratum of phe-
nomena, but absolutely and in itself—as an independent existence, this
idea of absolute necessity would have immediately disappeared. For there
is nothing absolutely connecting reason with such an existence; on the
contrary, it can annihilate it in thought, always and without self-contra-
diction. But in thought alone lay the idea of absolute necessity. A regula-
tive principle must, therefore, have been at the foundation of this opin-
ion. In fact, extension and impenetrability—which together constitute
our conception of matter—form the supreme empirical principle of the
unity of phenomena, and this principle, in so far as it is empirically un-
conditioned, possesses the property of a regulative principle. But, as every
357
determination of matter which constitutes what is real in it—and conse-

quently impenetrability—is an effect, which must have a cause, and is for
this reason always derived, the notion of matter cannot harmonize with
the idea of a necessary being, in its character of the principle of all derived
unity. For every one of its real properties, being derived, must be only
conditionally necessary, and can therefore be annihilated in thought; and
thus the whole existence of matter can be so annihilated or suppressed. If
this were not the case, we should have found in the world of phenomena
the highest ground or condition of unity—which is impossible, according
to the second regulative principle. It follows that matter, and, in general,
all that forms part of the world of sense, cannot be a necessary primal
being, nor even a principle of empirical unity, but that this being or prin-
ciple must have its place assigned without the world. And, in this way, we
can proceed in perfect confidence to deduce the phenomena of the world
and their existence from other phenomena, just as if there existed no nec-
essary being; and we can at the same time, strive without ceasing towards
the attainment of completeness for our deduction, just as if such a be-
ing—the supreme condition of all existences—were presupposed by the
mind.
These remarks will have made it evident to the reader that the ideal of
the Supreme Being, far from being an enouncement of the existence of a
being in itself necessary, is nothing more than a regulative principle of
reason, requiring us to regard all connection existing between phenomena
as if it had its origin from an all-sufficient necessary cause, and basing
upon this the rule of a systematic and necessary unity in the explanation
of phenomena. We cannot, at the same time, avoid regarding, by a tran-
scendental subreptio, this formal principle as constitutive, and hyposta-
tizing this unity. Precisely similar is the case with our notion of space.
Space is the primal condition of all forms, which are properly just so many
different limitations of it; and thus, although it is merely a principle of
sensibility, we cannot help regarding it as an absolutely necessary and self-
subsistent thing—as an object given a priori in itself. In the same way, it is
quite natural that, as the systematic unity of nature cannot be established
as a principle for the empirical employment of reason, unless it is based
upon the idea of an ens realissimum, as the supreme cause, we should
regard this idea as a real object, and this object, in its character of supreme
condition, as absolutely necessary, and that in this way a regulative should
be transformed into a constitutive principle. This interchange becomes
evident when I regard this supreme being, which, relatively to the world,
was absolutely (unconditionally) necessary, as a thing per se. In this case,
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Immanuel Kant
I find it impossible to represent this necessity in or by any conception,

and it exists merely in my own mind, as the formal condition of thought,
but not as a material and hypostatic condition of existence.
SECTION VI. Of the Impossibility of a Physico-Theological Proof.
If, then, neither a pure conception nor the general experience of an exist-
ing being can provide a sufficient basis for the proof of the existence of the
Deity, we can make the attempt by the only other mode—that of ground-
ing our argument upon a determinate experience of the phenomena of
the present world, their constitution and disposition, and discover whether
we can thus attain to a sound conviction of the existence of a Supreme
Being. This argument we shall term the physico-theological argument. If
it is shown to be insufficient, speculative reason cannot present us with
any satisfactory proof of the existence of a being corresponding to our
transcendental idea.
It is evident from the remarks that have been made in the preceding
sections, that an answer to this question will be far from being difficult or
unconvincing. For how can any experience be adequate with an idea? The
very essence of an idea consists in the fact that no experience can ever be
discovered congruent or adequate with it. The transcendental idea of a
necessary and all-sufficient being is so immeasurably great, so high above
all that is empirical, which is always conditioned, that we hope in vain to
find materials in the sphere of experience sufficiently ample for our con-
ception, and in vain seek the unconditioned among things that are condi-
tioned, while examples, nay, even guidance is denied us by the laws of
empirical synthesis.
If the Supreme Being forms a link in the chain of empirical conditions,
it must be a member of the empirical series, and, like the lower members
which it precedes, have its origin in some higher member of the series. If,
on the other hand, we disengage it from the chain, and cogitate it as an
intelligible being, apart from the series of natural causes—how shall rea-
son bridge the abyss that separates the latter from the former? All laws
respecting the regress from effects to causes, all synthetical additions to
our knowledge relate solely to possible experience and the objects of the
sensuous world, and, apart from them, are without significance.
The world around us opens before our view so magnificent a spectacle
of order, variety, beauty, and conformity to ends, that whether we pursue
our observations into the infinity of space in the one direction, or into its
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illimitable divisions in the other, whether we regard the world in its great-
est or its least manifestations-even after we have attained to the highest
summit of knowledge which our weak minds can reach, we find that lan-
guage in the presence of wonders so inconceivable has lost its force, and
number its power to reckon, nay, even thought fails to conceive adequately,
and our conception of the whole dissolves into an astonishment without
power of expression—all the more eloquent that it is dumb. Everywhere
around us we observe a chain of causes and effects, of means and ends, of
death and birth; and, as nothing has entered of itself into the condition in
which we find it, we are constantly referred to some other thing, which
itself suggests the same inquiry regarding its cause, and thus the universe
must sink into the abyss of nothingness, unless we admit that, besides this
infinite chain of contingencies, there exists something that is primal and
self-subsistent—something which, as the cause of this phenomenal world,
secures its continuance and preservation.
This highest cause—what magnitude shall we attribute to it? Of the
content of the world we are ignorant; still less can we estimate its magni-
tude by comparison with the sphere of the possible. But this supreme
cause being a necessity of the human mind, what is there to prevent us
from attributing to it such a degree of perfection as to place it above the
sphere of all that is possible? This we can easily do, although only by the
aid of the faint outline of an abstract conception, by representing this
being to ourselves as containing in itself, as an individual substance, all
possible perfection—a conception which satisfies that requirement of rea-
son which demands parsimony in principles, which is free from self-con-
tradiction, which even contributes to the extension of the employment of
reason in experience, by means of the guidance afforded by this idea to
order and system, and which in no respect conflicts with any law of expe-
rience.
This argument always deserves to be mentioned with respect. It is the
oldest, the clearest, and that most in conformity with the common reason
of humanity. It animates the study of nature, as it itself derives its existence
and draws ever new strength from that source. It introduces aims and ends
into a sphere in which our observation could not of itself have discovered
them, and extends our knowledge of nature, by directing our attention to a
unity, the principle of which lies beyond nature. This knowledge of nature
again reacts upon this idea—its cause; and thus our belief in a divine author
of the universe rises to the power of an irresistible conviction.
For these reasons it would be utterly hopeless to attempt to rob this
argument of the authority it has always enjoyed. The mind, unceasingly
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Immanuel Kant
elevated by these considerations, which, although empirical, are so re-

markably powerful, and continually adding to their force, will not suffer
itself to be depressed by the doubts suggested by subtle speculation; it
tears itself out of this state of uncertainty, the moment it casts a look upon
the wondrous forms of nature and the majesty of the universe, and rises
from height to height, from condition to condition, till it has elevated
itself to the supreme and unconditioned author of all.
But although we have nothing to object to the reasonableness and util-
ity of this procedure, but have rather to commend and encourage it, we
cannot approve of the claims which this argument advances to demon-
strative certainty and to a reception upon its own merits, apart from favour
or support by other arguments. Nor can it injure the cause of morality to
endeavour to lower the tone of the arrogant sophist, and to teach him that
modesty and moderation which are the properties of a belief that brings
calm and content into the mind, without prescribing to it an unworthy
subjection. I maintain, then, that the physico-theological argument is in-
sufficient of itself to prove the existence of a Supreme Being, that it must
entrust this to the ontological argument—to which it serves merely as an
introduction, and that, consequently, this argument contains the only
possible ground of proof (possessed by speculative reason) for the exist-
ence of this being.
The chief momenta in the physico-theological argument are as follow:
1. We observe in the world manifest signs of an arrangement full of pur-
pose, executed with great wisdom, and argument in whole of a content
indescribably various, and of an extent without limits. 2. This arrange-
ment of means and ends is entirely foreign to the things existing in the
world—it belongs to them merely as a contingent attribute; in other words,
the nature of different things could not of itself, whatever means were
employed, harmoniously tend towards certain purposes, were they not
chosen and directed for these purposes by a rational and disposing prin-
ciple, in accordance with certain fundamental ideas. 3. There exists, there-
fore, a sublime and wise cause (or several), which is not merely a blind, all-
powerful nature, producing the beings and events which fill the world in
unconscious fecundity, but a free and intelligent cause of the world. 4.
The unity of this cause may be inferred from the unity of the reciprocal
relation existing between the parts of the world, as portions of an artistic
edifice—an inference which all our observation favours, and all principles
of analogy support.
In the above argument, it is inferred from the analogy of certain prod-
ucts of nature with those of human art, when it compels Nature to bend
361
herself to its purposes, as in the case of a house, a ship, or a watch, that the
same kind of causality—namely, understanding and will—resides in na-
ture. It is also declared that the internal possibility of this freely-acting
nature (which is the source of all art, and perhaps also of human reason) is
derivable from another and superhuman art—a conclusion which would
perhaps be found incapable of standing the test of subtle transcendental
criticism. But to neither of these opinions shall we at present object. We
shall only remark that it must be confessed that, if we are to discuss the
subject of cause at all, we cannot proceed more securely than with the
guidance of the analogy subsisting between nature and such products of
design—these being the only products whose causes and modes of orga-
nization are completely known to us. Reason would be unable to satisfy
her own requirements, if she passed from a causality which she does know,
to obscure and indemonstrable principles of explanation which she does
not know.
According to the physico-theological argument, the connection and
harmony existing in the world evidence the contingency of the form merely,
but not of the matter, that is, of the substance of the world. To establish
the truth of the latter opinion, it would be necessary to prove that all
things would be in themselves incapable of this harmony and order, un-
less they were, even as regards their substance, the product of a supreme
wisdom. But this would require very different grounds of proof from those
presented by the analogy with human art. This proof can at most, there-
fore, demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose efforts
are limited by the capabilities of the material with which he works, but
not of a creator of the world, to whom all things are subject. Thus this
argument is utterly insufficient for the task before us—a demonstration
of the existence of an all-sufficient being. If we wish to prove the contin-
gency of matter, we must have recourse to a transcendental argument,
which the physico-theological was constructed expressly to avoid.
We infer, from the order and design visible in the universe, as a disposi-
tion of a thoroughly contingent character, the existence of a cause propor-
tionate thereto. The conception of this cause must contain certain deter-
minate qualities, and it must therefore be regarded as the conception of a
being which possesses all power, wisdom, and so on, in one word, all
perfection—the conception, that is, of an all-sufficient being. For the predi-
cates of very great, astonishing, or immeasurable power and excellence,
give us no determinate conception of the thing, nor do they inform us
what the thing may be in itself. They merely indicate the relation existing
between the magnitude of the object and the observer, who compares it
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with himself and with his own power of comprehension, and are mere
expressions of praise and reverence, by which the object is either magni-
fied, or the observing subject depreciated in relation to the object. Where
we have to do with the magnitude (of the perfection) of a thing, we can
discover no determinate conception, except that which comprehends all
possible perfection or completeness, and it is only the total (omnitudo) of
reality which is completely determined in and through its conception alone.
Now it cannot be expected that any one will be bold enough to declare
that he has a perfect insight into the relation which the magnitude of the
world he contemplates bears (in its extent as well as in its content) to
omnipotence, into that of the order and design in the world to the highest
wisdom, and that of the unity of the world to the absolute unity of a
Supreme Being. Physico-theology is therefore incapable of presenting a
determinate conception of a supreme cause of the world, and is therefore
insufficient as a principle of theology—a theology which is itself to be the
basis of religion.
The attainment of absolute totality is completely impossible on the path
of empiricism. And yet this is the path pursued in the physico-theological
argument. What means shall we employ to bridge the abyss?
After elevating ourselves to admiration of the magnitude of the power,
wisdom, and other attributes of the author of the world, and finding we
can advance no further, we leave the argument on empirical grounds, and
proceed to infer the contingency of the world from the order and confor-
mity to aims that are observable in it. From this contingency we infer, by
the help of transcendental conceptions alone, the existence of something
absolutely necessary; and, still advancing, proceed from the conception of
the absolute necessity of the first cause to the completely determined or
determining conception thereof—the conception of an all-embracing re-
ality. Thus the physico-theological, failing in its undertaking, recurs in its
embarrassment to the cosmological argument; and, as this is merely the
ontological argument in disguise, it executes its design solely by the aid of
pure reason, although it at first professed to have no connection with this
faculty and to base its entire procedure upon experience alone.
The physico-theologians have therefore no reason to regard with such
contempt the transcendental mode of argument, and to look down upon
it, with the conceit of clear-sighted observers of nature, as the brain-cob-
web of obscure speculatists. For, if they reflect upon and examine their
own arguments, they will find that, after following for some time the path
of nature and experience, and discovering themselves no nearer their ob-
ject, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the region of pure possi-
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bility, where they hope to reach upon the wings of ideas what had eluded
all their empirical investigations. Gaining, as they think, a firm footing
after this immense leap, they extend their determinate conception—into
the possession of which they have come, they know not how—over the
whole sphere of creation, and explain their ideal, which is entirely a prod-
uct of pure reason, by illustrations drawn from experience—though in a
degree miserably unworthy of the grandeur of the object, while they refuse
to acknowledge that they have arrived at this cognition or hypothesis by a
very different road from that of experience.
Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmological, and this
upon the ontological proof of the existence of a Supreme Being; and as
besides these three there is no other path open to speculative reason, the
ontological proof, on the ground of pure conceptions of reason, is the
only possible one, if any proof of a proposition so far transcending the
empirical exercise of the understanding is possible at all.
SECTION VII. Critique of all Theology based upon Speculative

Principles of Reason.
If by the term theology I understand the cognition of a primal being, that

cognition is based either upon reason alone (theologia rationalis) or upon
revelation (theologia revelata). The former cogitates its object either by
means of pure transcendental conceptions, as an ens originarium,
realissimum, ens entium, and is termed transcendental theology; or, by
means of a conception derived from the nature of our own mind, as a
supreme intelligence, and must then be entitled natural theology. The
person who believes in a transcendental theology alone, is termed a deist;
he who acknowledges the possibility of a natural theology also, a theist.
The former admits that we can cognize by pure reason alone the existence
of a Supreme Being, but at the same time maintains that our conception
of this being is purely transcendental, and that all we can say of it is that it
possesses all reality, without being able to define it more closely. The sec-
ond asserts that reason is capable of presenting us, from the analogy with
nature, with a more definite conception of this being, and that its opera-
tions, as the cause of all things, are the results of intelligence and free will.
The former regards the Supreme Being as the cause of the world—whether
by the necessity of his nature, or as a free agent, is left undetermined; the
latter considers this being as the author of the world.
Transcendental theology aims either at inferring the existence of a Su-
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preme Being from a general experience, without any closer reference to

the world to which this experience belongs, and in this case it is called
cosmotheology; or it endeavours to cognize the existence of such a being,
through mere conceptions, without the aid of experience, and is then
termed ontotheology.
Natural theology infers the attributes and the existence of an author of
the world, from the constitution of, the order and unity observable in, the
world, in which two modes of causality must be admitted to exist—those
of nature and freedom. Thus it rises from this world to a supreme intelli-
gence, either as the principle of all natural, or of all moral order and per-
fection. In the former case it is termed physico-theology, in the latter,
ethical or moral-theology.*
As we are wont to understand by the term God not merely an eternal
nature, the operations of which are insensate and blind, but a Supreme
Being, who is the free and intelligent author of all things, and as it is this
latter view alone that can be of interest to humanity, we might, in strict
rigour, deny to the deist any belief in God at all, and regard him merely as
a maintainer of the existence of a primal being or thing—the supreme
cause of all other things. But, as no one ought to be blamed, merely be-
cause he does not feel himself justified in maintaining a certain opinion,
as if he altogether denied its truth and asserted the opposite, it is more
correct—as it is less harsh—to say, the deist believes in a God, the theist in
a living God (summa intelligentia). We shall now proceed to investigate
the sources of all these attempts of reason to establish the existence of a
Supreme Being.
It may be sufficient in this place to define theoretical knowledge or
cognition as knowledge of that which is, and practical knowledge as knowl-
edge of that which ought to be. In this view, the theoretical employment
of reason is that by which I cognize a priori (as necessary) that something
is, while the practical is that by which I cognize a priori what ought to
happen. Now, if it is an indubitably certain, though at the same time an
entirely conditioned truth, that something is, or ought to happen, either a
certain determinate condition of this truth is absolutely necessary, or such
a condition may be arbitrarily presupposed. In the former case the condi-
tion is postulated (per thesin), in the latter supposed (per hypothesin).
There are certain practical laws—those of morality—which are absolutely
*Not theological ethics; for this science contains ethical laws, which presuppose
the existence of a Supreme Governor of the world; while moral-theology, on the
contrary, is the expression of a conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being,
founded upon ethical laws.
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necessary. Now, if these laws necessarily presuppose the existence of some

being, as the condition of the possibility of their obligatory power, this
being must be postulated, because the conditioned, from which we reason
to this determinate condition, is itself cognized a priori as absolutely nec-
essary. We shall at some future time show that the moral laws not merely
presuppose the existence of a Supreme Being, but also, as themselves ab-
solutely necessary in a different relation, demand or postulate it—although
only from a practical point of view. The discussion of this argument we
postpone for the present.
When the question relates merely to that which is, not to that which
ought to be, the conditioned which is presented in experience is always
cogitated as contingent. For this reason its condition cannot be regarded
as absolutely necessary, but merely as relatively necessary, or rather as need-
ful; the condition is in itself and a priori a mere arbitrary presupposition
in aid of the cognition, by reason, of the conditioned. If, then, we are to
possess a theoretical cognition of the absolute necessity of a thing, we
cannot attain to this cognition otherwise than a priori by means of con-
ceptions; while it is impossible in this way to cognize the existence of a
cause which bears any relation to an existence given in experience.
Theoretical cognition is speculative when it relates to an object or cer-
tain conceptions of an object which is not given and cannot be discovered
by means of experience. It is opposed to the cognition of nature, which
concerns only those objects or predicates which can be presented in a
possible experience.
The principle that everything which happens (the empirically contin-
gent) must have a cause, is a principle of the cognition of nature, but not
of speculative cognition. For, if we change it into an abstract principle,
and deprive it of its reference to experience and the empirical, we shall
find that it cannot with justice be regarded any longer as a synthetical
proposition, and that it is impossible to discover any mode of transition
from that which exists to something entirely different—termed cause. Nay,
more, the conception of a cause likewise that of the contingent—loses, in
this speculative mode of employing it, all significance, for its objective
reality and meaning are comprehensible from experience alone.
When from the existence of the universe and the things in it the exist-
ence of a cause of the universe is inferred, reason is proceeding not in the
natural, but in the speculative method. For the principle of the former
enounces, not that things themselves or substances, but only that which
happens or their states—as empirically contingent, have a cause: the asser-
tion that the existence of substance itself is contingent is not justified by
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experience, it is the assertion of a reason employing its principles in a

speculative manner. If, again, I infer from the form of the universe, from
the way in which all things are connected and act and react upon each
other, the existence of a cause entirely distinct from the universe—this
would again be a judgement of purely speculative reason; because the
object in this case—the cause—can never be an object of possible experi-
ence. In both these cases the principle of causality, which is valid only in
the field of experience—useless and even meaningless beyond this region,
would be diverted from its proper destination.
Now I maintain that all attempts of reason to establish a theology by the
aid of speculation alone are fruitless, that the principles of reason as ap-
plied to nature do not conduct us to any theological truths, and, conse-
quently, that a rational theology can have no existence, unless it is founded
upon the laws of morality. For all synthetical principles of the understand-
ing are valid only as immanent in experience; while the cognition of a
Supreme Being necessitates their being employed transcendentally, and of
this the understanding is quite incapable. If the empirical law of causality
is to conduct us to a Supreme Being, this being must belong to the chain
of empirical objects—in which case it would be, like all phenomena, itself
conditioned. If the possibility of passing the limits of experience be ad-
mitted, by means of the dynamical law of the relation of an effect to its
cause, what kind of conception shall we obtain by this procedure? Cer-
tainly not the conception of a Supreme Being, because experience never
presents us with the greatest of all possible effects, and it is only an effect
of this character that could witness to the existence of a corresponding
cause. If, for the purpose of fully satisfying the requirements of Reason,
we recognize her right to assert the existence of a perfect and absolutely
necessary being, this can be admitted only from favour, and cannot be
regarded as the result or irresistible demonstration. The physico-theologi-
cal proof may add weight to others—if other proofs there are—by con-
necting speculation with experience; but in itself it rather prepares the
mind for theological cognition, and gives it a right and natural direction,
than establishes a sure foundation for theology.
It is now perfectly evident that transcendental questions admit only of
transcendental answers—those presented a priori by pure conceptions
without the least empirical admixture. But the question in the present
case is evidently synthetical—it aims at the extension of our cognition
beyond the bounds of experience—it requires an assurance respecting the
existence of a being corresponding with the idea in our minds, to which
no experience can ever be adequate. Now it has been abundantly proved
367
that all a priori synthetical cognition is possible only as the expression of

the formal conditions of a possible experience; and that the validity of all
principles depends upon their immanence in the field of experience, that
is, their relation to objects of empirical cognition or phenomena. Thus all
transcendental procedure in reference to speculative theology is without
result.
If any one prefers doubting the conclusiveness of the proofs of our ana-
lytic to losing the persuasion of the validity of these old and time honoured
arguments, he at least cannot decline answering the question—how he
can pass the limits of all possible experience by the help of mere ideas. If
he talks of new arguments, or of improvements upon old arguments, I
request him to spare me. There is certainly no great choice in this sphere
of discussion, as all speculative arguments must at last look for support to
the ontological, and I have, therefore, very little to fear from the argumen-
tative fecundity of the dogmatical defenders of a non-sensuous reason.
Without looking upon myself as a remarkably combative person, I shall
not decline the challenge to detect the fallacy and destroy the pretensions
of every attempt of speculative theology. And yet the hope of better for-
tune never deserts those who are accustomed to the dogmatical mode of
procedure. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to the simple and equitable
demand that such reasoners will demonstrate, from the nature of the hu-
man mind as well as from that of the other sources of knowledge, how we
are to proceed to extend our cognition completely a priori, and to carry it
to that point where experience abandons us, and no means exist of guar-
anteeing the objective reality of our conceptions. In whatever way the
understanding may have attained to a conception, the existence of the
object of the conception cannot be discovered in it by analysis, because
the cognition of the existence of the object depends upon the object’s
being posited and given in itself apart from the conception. But it is ut-
terly impossible to go beyond our conception, without the aid of experi-
ence—which presents to the mind nothing but phenomena, or to attain
by the help of mere conceptions to a conviction of the existence of new
kinds of objects or supernatural beings.
But although pure speculative reason is far from sufficient to demonstrate
the existence of a Supreme Being, it is of the highest utility in correcting our
conception of this being—on the supposition that we can attain to the
cognition of it by some other means—in making it consistent with itself
and with all other conceptions of intelligible objects, clearing it from all that
is incompatible with the conception of an ens summun, and eliminating
from it all limitations or admixtures of empirical elements.
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Transcendental theology is still therefore, notwithstanding its objective

insufficiency, of importance in a negative respect; it is useful as a test of
the procedure of reason when engaged with pure ideas, no other than a
transcendental standard being in this case admissible. For if, from a prac-
tical point of view, the hypothesis of a Supreme and All-sufficient Being is
to maintain its validity without opposition, it must be of the highest im-
portance to define this conception in a correct and rigorous manner—as
the transcendental conception of a necessary being, to eliminate all phe-
nomenal elements (anthropomorphism in its most extended signification),
and at the same time to overflow all contradictory assertions—be they
atheistic, deistic, or anthropomorphic. This is of course very easy; as the
same arguments which demonstrated the inability of human reason to
affirm the existence of a Supreme Being must be alike sufficient to prove
the invalidity of its denial. For it is impossible to gain from the pure specu-
lation of reason demonstration that there exists no Supreme Being, as the
ground of all that exists, or that this being possesses none of those proper-
ties which we regard as analogical with the dynamical qualities of a think-
ing being, or that, as the anthropomorphists would have us believe, it is
subject to all the limitations which sensibility imposes upon those intelli-
gences which exist in the world of experience.
A Supreme Being is, therefore, for the speculative reason, a mere ideal,
though a faultless one—a conception which perfects and crowns the sys-
tem of human cognition, but the objective reality of which can neither be
proved nor disproved by pure reason. If this defect is ever supplied by a
moral theology, the problematic transcendental theology which has pre-
ceded, will have been at least serviceable as demonstrating the mental ne-
cessity existing for the conception, by the complete determination of it
which it has furnished, and the ceaseless testing of the conclusions of a
reason often deceived by sense, and not always in harmony with its own
ideas. The attributes of necessity, infinitude, unity, existence apart from
the world (and not as a world soul), eternity (free from conditions of
time), omnipresence (free from conditions of space), omnipotence, and
others, are pure transcendental predicates; and thus the accurate concep-
tion of a Supreme Being, which every theology requires, is furnished by
transcendental theology alone.
369
APPENDIX.
Of the Regulative Employment of the Ideas of Pure Reason.
The result of all the dialectical attempts of pure reason not only confirms
the truth of what we have already proved in our Transcendental Analytic,
namely, that all inferences which would lead us beyond the limits of expe-
rience are fallacious and groundless, but it at the same time teaches us this
important lesson, that human reason has a natural inclination to overstep
these limits, and that transcendental ideas are as much the natural prop-
erty of the reason as categories are of the understanding. There exists this
difference, however, that while the categories never mislead us, outward
objects being always in perfect harmony therewith, ideas are the parents
of irresistible illusions, the severest and most subtle criticism being re-
quired to save us from the fallacies which they induce.
Whatever is grounded in the nature of our powers will be found to be in
harmony with the final purpose and proper employment of these powers,
when once we have discovered their true direction and aim. We are en-
titled to suppose, therefore, that there exists a mode of employing tran-
scendental ideas which is proper and immanent; although, when we mis-
take their meaning, and regard them as conceptions of actual things, their
mode of application is transcendent and delusive. For it is not the idea
itself, but only the employment of the idea in relation to possible experi-
ence, that is transcendent or immanent. An idea is employed transcen-
dently, when it is applied to an object falsely believed to be adequate with
and to correspond to it; imminently, when it is applied solely to the em-
ployment of the understanding in the sphere of experience. Thus all errors
of subreptio—of misapplication, are to be ascribed to defects of judge-
ment, and not to understanding or reason.
Reason never has an immediate relation to an object; it relates immedi-
ately to the understanding alone. It is only through the understanding
that it can be employed in the field of experience. It does not form con-
ceptions of objects, it merely arranges them and gives to them that unity
which they are capable of possessing when the sphere of their application
has been extended as widely as possible. Reason avails itself of the concep-
tion of the understanding for the sole purpose of producing totality in the
different series. This totality the understanding does not concern itself
with; its only occupation is the connection of experiences, by which series
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of conditions in accordance with conceptions are established. The object

of reason is, therefore, the understanding and its proper destination. As
the latter brings unity into the diversity of objects by means of its concep-
tions, so the former brings unity into the diversity of conceptions by means
of ideas; as it sets the final aim of a collective unity to the operations of the
understanding, which without this occupies itself with a distributive unity
alone.
I accordingly maintain that transcendental ideas can never be employed
as constitutive ideas, that they cannot be conceptions of objects, and that,
when thus considered, they assume a fallacious and dialectical character.
But, on the other hand, they are capable of an admirable and indispens-
ably necessary application to objects—as regulative ideas, directing the
understanding to a certain aim, the guiding lines towards which all its
laws follow, and in which they all meet in one point. This point—though
a mere idea (focus imaginarius), that is, not a point from which the con-
ceptions of the understanding do really proceed, for it lies beyond the
sphere of possible experience—serves, notwithstanding, to give to these
conceptions the greatest possible unity combined with the greatest pos-
sible extension. Hence arises the natural illusion which induces us to be-
lieve that these lines proceed from an object which lies out of the sphere of
empirical cognition, just as objects reflected in a mirror appear to be be-
hind it. But this illusion—which we may hinder from imposing upon
us—is necessary and unavoidable, if we desire to see, not only those ob-
jects which lie before us, but those which are at a great distance behind us;
that is to say, when, in the present case, we direct the aims of the under-
standing, beyond every given experience, towards an extension as great as
can possibly be attained.
If we review our cognitions in their entire extent, we shall find that the
peculiar business of reason is to arrange them into a system, that is to say,
to give them connection according to a principle. This unity presupposes
an idea—the idea of the form of a whole (of cognition), preceding the
determinate cognition of the parts, and containing the conditions which
determine a priori to every part its place and relation to the other parts of
the whole system. This idea, accordingly, demands complete unity in the
cognition of the understanding—not the unity of a contingent aggregate,
but that of a system connected according to necessary laws. It cannot be
affirmed with propriety that this idea is a conception of an object; it is
merely a conception of the complete unity of the conceptions of objects,
in so far as this unity is available to the understanding as a rule. Such
conceptions of reason are not derived from nature; on the contrary, we
371
employ them for the interrogation and investigation of nature, and regard
our cognition as defective so long as it is not adequate to them. We admit
that such a thing as pure earth, pure water, or pure air, is not to be discov-
ered. And yet we require these conceptions (which have their origin in the
reason, so far as regards their absolute purity and completeness) for the
purpose of determining the share which each of these natural causes has in
every phenomenon. Thus the different kinds of matter are all referred to
earths, as mere weight; to salts and inflammable bodies, as pure force; and
finally, to water and air, as the vehicula of the former, or the machines
employed by them in their operations—for the purpose of explaining the
chemical action and reaction of bodies in accordance with the idea of a
mechanism. For, although not actually so expressed, the influence of such
ideas of reason is very observable in the procedure of natural philoso-
phers.
If reason is the faculty of deducing the particular from the general, and
if the general be certain in se and given, it is only necessary that the judge-
ment should subsume the particular under the general, the particular be-
ing thus necessarily determined. I shall term this the demonstrative or
apodeictic employment of reason. If, however, the general is admitted as
problematical only, and is a mere idea, the particular case is certain, but
the universality of the rule which applies to this particular case remains a
problem. Several particular cases, the certainty of which is beyond doubt,
are then taken and examined, for the purpose of discovering whether the
rule is applicable to them; and if it appears that all the particular cases
which can be collected follow from the rule, its universality is inferred,
and at the same time, all the causes which have not, or cannot be pre-
sented to our observation, are concluded to be of the same character with
those which we have observed. This I shall term the hypothetical employ-
ment of the reason.
The hypothetical exercise of reason by the aid of ideas employed as
problematical conceptions is properly not constitutive. That is to say, if
we consider the subject strictly, the truth of the rule, which has been em-
ployed as an hypothesis, does not follow from the use that is made of it by
reason. For how can we know all the possible cases that may arise? some of
which may, however, prove exceptions to the universality of the rule. This
employment of reason is merely regulative, and its sole aim is the intro-
duction of unity into the aggregate of our particular cognitions, and thereby
the approximating of the rule to universality.
The object of the hypothetical employment of reason is therefore the
systematic unity of cognitions; and this unity is the criterion of the truth
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Immanuel Kant
of a rule. On the other hand, this systematic unity—as a mere idea—is in

fact merely a unity projected, not to be regarded as given, but only in the
light of a problem—a problem which serves, however, as a principle for
the various and particular exercise of the understanding in experience,
directs it with regard to those cases which are not presented to our obser-
vation, and introduces harmony and consistency into all its operations.
All that we can be certain of from the above considerations is that this
systematic unity is a logical principle, whose aim is to assist the under-
standing, where it cannot of itself attain to rules, by means of ideas, to
bring all these various rules under one principle, and thus to ensure the
most complete consistency and connection that can be attained. But the
assertion that objects and the understanding by which they are cognized
are so constituted as to be determined to systematic unity, that this may be
postulated a priori, without any reference to the interest of reason, and
that we are justified in declaring all possible cognitions—empirical and
others—to possess systematic unity, and to be subject to general prin-
ciples from which, notwithstanding their various character, they are all
derivable such an assertion can be founded only upon a transcendental
principle of reason, which would render this systematic unity not subjec-
tively and logically—in its character of a method, but objectively neces-
sary.
We shall illustrate this by an example. The conceptions of the under-
standing make us acquainted, among many other kinds of unity, with
that of the causality of a substance, which is termed power. The different
phenomenal manifestations of the same substance appear at first view to
be so very dissimilar that we are inclined to assume the existence of just as
many different powers as there are different effects—as, in the case of the
human mind, we have feeling, consciousness, imagination, memory, wit,
analysis, pleasure, desire and so on. Now we are required by a logical maxim
to reduce these differences to as small a number as possible, by comparing
them and discovering the hidden identity which exists. We must inquire,
for example, whether or not imagination (connected with consciousness),
memory, wit, and analysis are not merely different forms of understand-
ing and reason. The idea of a fundamental power, the existence of which
no effort of logic can assure us of, is the problem to be solved, for the
systematic representation of the existing variety of powers. The logical
principle of reason requires us to produce as great a unity as is possible in
the system of our cognitions; and the more the phenomena of this and the
other power are found to be identical, the more probable does it become,
that they are nothing but different manifestations of one and the same
373
power, which may be called, relatively speaking, a fundamental power.

And so with other cases.
These relatively fundamental powers must again be compared with each
other, to discover, if possible, the one radical and absolutely fundamental
power of which they are but the manifestations. But this unity is purely
hypothetical. It is not maintained, that this unity does really exist, but
that we must, in the interest of reason, that is, for the establishment of
principles for the various rules presented by experience, try to discover
and introduce it, so far as is practicable, into the sphere of our cognitions.
But the transcendental employment of the understanding would lead
us to believe that this idea of a fundamental power is not problematical,
but that it possesses objective reality, and thus the systematic unity of the
various powers or forces in a substance is demanded by the understanding
and erected into an apodeictic or necessary principle. For, without having
attempted to discover the unity of the various powers existing in nature,
nay, even after all our attempts have failed, we notwithstanding presup-
pose that it does exist, and may be, sooner or later, discovered. And this
reason does, not only, as in the case above adduced, with regard to the
unity of substance, but where many substances, although all to a certain
extent homogeneous, are discoverable, as in the case of matter in general.
Here also does reason presuppose the existence of the systematic unity of
various powers—inasmuch as particular laws of nature are subordinate to
general laws; and parsimony in principles is not merely an economical
principle of reason, but an essential law of nature.
We cannot understand, in fact, how a logical principle of unity can of
right exist, unless we presuppose a transcendental principle, by which such
a systematic unit—as a property of objects themselves—is regarded as
necessary a priori. For with what right can reason, in its logical exercise,
require us to regard the variety of forces which nature displays, as in effect
a disguised unity, and to deduce them from one fundamental force or
power, when she is free to admit that it is just as possible that all forces
should be different in kind, and that a systematic unity is not conform-
able to the design of nature? In this view of the case, reason would be
proceeding in direct opposition to her own destination, by setting as an
aim an idea which entirely conflicts with the procedure and arrangement
of nature. Neither can we assert that reason has previously inferred this
unity from the contingent nature of phenomena. For the law of reason
which requires us to seek for this unity is a necessary law, inasmuch as
without it we should not possess a faculty of reason, nor without reason a
consistent and self-accordant mode of employing the understanding, nor,
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in the absence of this, any proper and sufficient criterion of empirical

truth. In relation to this criterion, therefore, we must suppose the idea of
the systematic unity of nature to possess objective validity and necessity.
We find this transcendental presupposition lurking in different forms
in the principles of philosophers, although they have neither recognized it
nor confessed to themselves its presence. That the diversities of individual
things do not exclude identity of species, that the various species must be
considered as merely different determinations of a few genera, and these
again as divisions of still higher races, and so on—that, accordingly, a
certain systematic unity of all possible empirical conceptions, in so far as
they can be deduced from higher and more general conceptions, must be
sought for, is a scholastic maxim or logical principle, without which rea-
son could not be employed by us. For we can infer the particular from the
general, only in so far as general properties of things constitute the foun-
dation upon which the particular rest.
That the same unity exists in nature is presupposed by philosophers in
the well-known scholastic maxim, which forbids us unnecessarily to aug-
ment the number of entities or principles (entia praeter necessitatem non
esse multiplicanda). This maxim asserts that nature herself assists in the
establishment of this unity of reason, and that the seemingly infinite di-
versity of phenomena should not deter us from the expectation of discov-
ering beneath this diversity a unity of fundamental properties, of which
the aforesaid variety is but a more or less determined form. This unity,
although a mere idea, thinkers have found it necessary rather to moderate
the desire than to encourage it. It was considered a great step when chem-
ists were able to reduce all salts to two main genera—acids and alkalis; and
they regard this difference as itself a mere variety, or different manifesta-
tion of one and the same fundamental material. The different kinds of
earths (stones and even metals) chemists have endeavoured to reduce to
three, and afterwards to two; but still, not content with this advance, they
cannot but think that behind these diversities there lurks but one genus—
nay, that even salts and earths have a common principle. It might be con-
jectured that this is merely an economical plan of reason, for the purpose
of sparing itself trouble, and an attempt of a purely hypothetical charac-
ter, which, when successful, gives an appearance of probability to the prin-
ciple of explanation employed by the reason. But a selfish purpose of this
kind is easily to be distinguished from the idea, according to which every
one presupposes that this unity is in accordance with the laws of nature,
and that reason does not in this case request, but requires, although we are
quite unable to determine the proper limits of this unity.
375
If the diversity existing in phenomena—a diversity not of form (for in

this they may be similar) but of content—were so great that the subtlest
human reason could never by comparison discover in them the least simi-
larity (which is not impossible), in this case the logical law of genera would
be without foundation, the conception of a genus, nay, all general con-
ceptions would be impossible, and the faculty of the understanding, the
exercise of which is restricted to the world of conceptions, could not exist.
The logical principle of genera, accordingly, if it is to be applied to nature
(by which I mean objects presented to our senses), presupposes a tran-
scendental principle. In accordance with this principle, homogeneity is
necessarily presupposed in the variety of phenomena (although we are
unable to determine a priori the degree of this homogeneity), because
without it no empirical conceptions, and consequently no experience,
would be possible.
The logical principle of genera, which demands identity in phenomena,
is balanced by another principle—that of species, which requires variety
and diversity in things, notwithstanding their accordance in the same ge-
nus, and directs the understanding to attend to the one no less than to the
other. This principle (of the faculty of distinction) acts as a check upon
the reason and reason exhibits in this respect a double and conflicting
interest—on the one hand, the interest in the extent (the interest of gener-
ality) in relation to genera; on the other, that of the content (the interest of
individuality) in relation to the variety of species. In the former case, the
understanding cogitates more under its conceptions, in the latter it cogi-
tates more in them. This distinction manifests itself likewise in the habits
of thought peculiar to natural philosophers, some of whom—the remark-
ably speculative heads—may be said to be hostile to heterogeneity in phe-
nomena, and have their eyes always fixed on the unity of genera, while
others—with a strong empirical tendency—aim unceasingly at the analy-
sis of phenomena, and almost destroy in us the hope of ever being able to
estimate the character of these according to general principles.
The latter mode of thought is evidently based upon a logical principle,
the aim of which is the systematic completeness of all cognitions. This
principle authorizes me, beginning at the genus, to descend to the various
and diverse contained under it; and in this way extension, as in the former
case unity, is assured to the system. For if we merely examine the sphere of
the conception which indicates a genus, we cannot discover how far it is
possible to proceed in the division of that sphere; just as it is impossible,
from the consideration of the space occupied by matter, to determine how
far we can proceed in the division of it. Hence every genus must contain
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Immanuel Kant
different species, and these again different subspecies; and as each of the
latter must itself contain a sphere (must be of a certain extent, as a concep-
tus communis), reason demands that no species or sub-species is to be
considered as the lowest possible. For a species or sub-species, being al-
ways a conception, which contains only what is common to a number of
different things, does not completely determine any individual thing, or
relate immediately to it, and must consequently contain other concep-
tions, that is, other sub-species under it. This law of specification may be
thus expressed: entium varietates non temere sunt minuendae.
But it is easy to see that this logical law would likewise be without sense
or application, were it not based upon a transcendental law of specifica-
tion, which certainly does not require that the differences existing phe-
nomena should be infinite in number, for the logical principle, which
merely maintains the indeterminateness of the logical sphere of a concep-
tion, in relation to its possible division, does not authorize this statement;
while it does impose upon the understanding the duty of searching for
subspecies to every species, and minor differences in every difference. For,
were there no lower conceptions, neither could there be any higher. Now
the understanding cognizes only by means of conceptions; consequently,
how far soever it may proceed in division, never by mere intuition, but
always by lower and lower conceptions. The cognition of phenomena in
their complete determination (which is possible only by means of the
understanding) requires an unceasingly continued specification of con-
ceptions, and a progression to ever smaller differences, of which abstrac-
tion bad been made in the conception of the species, and still more in that
of the genus.
This law of specification cannot be deduced from experience; it can
never present us with a principle of so universal an application. Empirical
specification very soon stops in its distinction of diversities, and requires
the guidance of the transcendental law, as a principle of the reason—a law
which imposes on us the necessity of never ceasing in our search for differ-
ences, even although these may not present themselves to the senses. That
absorbent earths are of different kinds could only be discovered by obey-
ing the anticipatory law of reason, which imposes upon the understand-
ing the task of discovering the differences existing between these earths,
and supposes that nature is richer in substances than our senses would
indicate. The faculty of the understanding belongs to us just as much
under the presupposition of differences in the objects of nature, as under
the condition that these objects are homogeneous, because we could not
possess conceptions, nor make any use of our understanding, were not the
377
phenomena included under these conceptions in some respects dissimilar,

as well as similar, in their character.
Reason thus prepares the sphere of the understanding for the operations
of this faculty: 1. By the principle of the homogeneity of the diverse in
higher genera; 2. By the principle of the variety of the homogeneous in
lower species; and, to complete the systematic unity, it adds, 3. A law of
the affinity of all conceptions which prescribes a continuous transition
from one species to every other by the gradual increase of diversity. We
may term these the principles of the homogeneity, the specification, and
the continuity of forms. The latter results from the union of the two former,
inasmuch as we regard the systematic connection as complete in thought,
in the ascent to higher genera, as well as in the descent to lower species.
For all diversities must be related to each other, as they all spring from one
highest genus, descending through the different gradations of a more and
more extended determination.
We may illustrate the systematic unity produced by the three logical
principles in the following manner. Every conception may be regarded as
a point, which, as the standpoint of a spectator, has a certain horizon,
which may be said to enclose a number of things that may be viewed, so to
speak, from that centre. Within this horizon there must be an infinite
number of other points, each of which has its own horizon, smaller and
more circumscribed; in other words, every species contains sub-species,
according to the principle of specification, and the logical horizon con-
sists of smaller horizons (subspecies), but not of points (individuals), which
possess no extent. But different horizons or genera, which include under
them so many conceptions, may have one common horizon, from which,
as from a mid-point, they may be surveyed; and we may proceed thus, till
we arrive at the highest genus, or universal and true horizon, which is
determined by the highest conception, and which contains under itself all
differences and varieties, as genera, species, and subspecies.
To this highest standpoint I am conducted by the law of homogeneity,
as to all lower and more variously-determined conceptions by the law of
specification. Now as in this way there exists no void in the whole extent
of all possible conceptions, and as out of the sphere of these the mind can
discover nothing, there arises from the presupposition of the universal
horizon above mentioned, and its complete division, the principle: Non
datur vacuum formarum. This principle asserts that there are not differ-
ent primitive and highest genera, which stand isolated, so to speak, from
each other, but all the various genera are mere divisions and limitations of
one highest and universal genus; and hence follows immediately the prin-
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ciple: Datur continuum formarum. This principle indicates that all dif-
ferences of species limit each other, and do not admit of transition from
one to another by a saltus, but only through smaller degrees of the differ-
ence between the one species and the other. In one word, there are no
species or sub-species which (in the view of reason) are the nearest pos-
sible to each other; intermediate species or sub-species being always pos-
sible, the difference of which from each of the former is always smaller
than the difference existing between these.
The first law, therefore, directs us to avoid the notion that there exist
different primal genera, and enounces the fact of perfect homogeneity;
the second imposes a check upon this tendency to unity and prescribes
the distinction of sub-species, before proceeding to apply our general con-
ceptions to individuals. The third unites both the former, by enouncing
the fact of homogeneity as existing even in the most various diversity, by
means of the gradual transition from one species to another. Thus it indi-
cates a relationship between the different branches or species, in so far as
they all spring from the same stem.
But this logical law of the continuum specierum (formarum logicarum)
presupposes a transcendental principle (lex continui in natura), without
which the understanding might be led into error, by following the guid-
ance of the former, and thus perhaps pursuing a path contrary to that
prescribed by nature. This law must, consequently, be based upon pure
transcendental, and not upon empirical, considerations. For, in the latter
case, it would come later than the system; whereas it is really itself the
parent of all that is systematic in our cognition of nature. These principles
are not mere hypotheses employed for the purpose of experimenting upon
nature; although when any such connection is discovered, it forms a solid
ground for regarding the hypothetical unity as valid in the sphere of na-
ture—and thus they are in this respect not without their use. But we go
farther, and maintain that it is manifest that these principles of parsimony
in fundamental causes, variety in effects, and affinity in phenomena, are
in accordance both with reason and nature, and that they are not mere
methods or plans devised for the purpose of assisting us in our observa-
tion of the external world.
But it is plain that this continuity of forms is a mere idea, to which no
adequate object can be discovered in experience. And this for two reasons.
First, because the species in nature are really divided, and hence form
quanta discreta; and, if the gradual progression through their affinity were
continuous, the intermediate members lying between two given species
must be infinite in number, which is impossible. Secondly, because we
379
cannot make any determinate empirical use of this law, inasmuch as it

does not present us with any criterion of affinity which could aid us in
determining how far we ought to pursue the graduation of differences: it
merely contains a general indication that it is our duty to seek for and, if
possible, to discover them.
When we arrange these principles of systematic unity in the order con-
formable to their employment in experience, they will stand thus: Variety,
Affinity, Unity, each of them, as ideas, being taken in the highest degree of
their completeness. Reason presupposes the existence of cognitions of the
understanding, which have a direct relation to experience, and aims at the
ideal unity of these cognitions—a unity which far transcends all experi-
ence or empirical notions. The affinity of the diverse, notwithstanding the
differences existing between its parts, has a relation to things, but a still
closer one to the mere properties and powers of things. For example, im-
perfect experience may represent the orbits of the planets as circular. But
we discover variations from this course, and we proceed to suppose that
the planets revolve in a path which, if not a circle, is of a character very
similar to it. That is to say, the movements of those planets which do not
form a circle will approximate more or less to the properties of a circle,
and probably form an ellipse. The paths of comets exhibit still greater
variations, for, so far as our observation extends, they do not return upon
their own course in a circle or ellipse. But we proceed to the conjecture
that comets describe a parabola, a figure which is closely allied to the
ellipse. In fact, a parabola is merely an ellipse, with its longer axis pro-
duced to an indefinite extent. Thus these principles conduct us to a unity
in the genera of the forms of these orbits, and, proceeding farther, to a
unity as regards the cause of the motions of the heavenly bodies—that is,
gravitation. But we go on extending our conquests over nature, and en-
deavour to explain all seeming deviations from these rules, and even make
additions to our system which no experience can ever substantiate—for
example, the theory, in affinity with that of ellipses, of hyperbolic paths of
comets, pursuing which, these bodies leave our solar system and, passing
from sun to sun, unite the most distant parts of the infinite universe,
which is held together by the same moving power.
The most remarkable circumstance connected with these principles is
that they seem to be transcendental, and, although only containing ideas
for the guidance of the empirical exercise of reason, and although this
empirical employment stands to these ideas in an asymptotic relation alone
(to use a mathematical term), that is, continually approximate, without
ever being able to attain to them, they possess, notwithstanding, as a priori
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Immanuel Kant
synthetical propositions, objective though undetermined validity, and are

available as rules for possible experience. In the elaboration of our experi-
ence, they may also be employed with great advantage, as heuristic* prin-
ciples. A transcendental deduction of them cannot be made; such a de-
duction being always impossible in the case of ideas, as has been already
shown.
We distinguished, in the Transcendental Analytic, the dynamical prin-
ciples of the understanding, which are regulative principles of intuition,
from the mathematical, which are constitutive principles of intuition. These
dynamical laws are, however, constitutive in relation to experience, inas-
much as they render the conceptions without which experience could not
exist possible a priori. But the principles of pure reason cannot be consti-
tutive even in regard to empirical conceptions, because no sensuous schema
corresponding to them can be discovered, and they cannot therefore have
an object in concreto. Now, if I grant that they cannot be employed in the
sphere of experience, as constitutive principles, how shall I secure for them
employment and objective validity as regulative principles, and in what
way can they be so employed?
The understanding is the object of reason, as sensibility is the object of
the understanding. The production of systematic unity in all the empiri-
cal operations of the understanding is the proper occupation of reason;
just as it is the business of the understanding to connect the various con-
tent of phenomena by means of conceptions, and subject them to empiri-
cal laws. But the operations of the understanding are, without the sche-
mata of sensibility, undetermined; and, in the same manner, the unity of
reason is perfectly undetermined as regards the conditions under which,
and the extent to which, the understanding ought to carry the systematic
connection of its conceptions. But, although it is impossible to discover in
intuition a schema for the complete systematic unity of all the concep-
tions of the understanding, there must be some analogon of this schema.
This analogon is the idea of the maximum of the division and the connec-
tion of our cognition in one principle. For we may have a determinate
notion of a maximum and an absolutely perfect, all the restrictive condi-
tions which are connected with an indeterminate and various content
having been abstracted. Thus the idea of reason is analogous with a sensu-
ous schema, with this difference, that the application of the categories to
the schema of reason does not present a cognition of any object (as is the
case with the application of the categories to sensuous schemata), but
*From the Greek, eurhioko.

381
merely provides us with a rule or principle for the systematic unity of the
exercise of the understanding. Now, as every principle which imposes upon
the exercise of the understanding a priori compliance with the rule of
systematic unity also relates, although only in an indirect manner, to an
object of experience, the principles of pure reason will also possess objec-
tive reality and validity in relation to experience. But they will not aim at
determining our knowledge in regard to any empirical object; they will
merely indicate the procedure, following which the empirical and deter-
minate exercise of the understanding may be in complete harmony and
connection with itself—a result which is produced by its being brought
into harmony with the principle of systematic unity, so far as that is pos-
sible, and deduced from it.
I term all subjective principles, which are not derived from observation
of the constitution of an object, but from the interest which Reason has in
producing a certain completeness in her cognition of that object, maxims
of reason. Thus there are maxims of speculative reason, which are based
solely upon its speculative interest, although they appear to be objective
principles.
When principles which are really regulative are regarded as constitutive,
and employed as objective principles, contradictions must arise; but if
they are considered as mere maxims, there is no room for contradictions
of any kind, as they then merely indicate the different interests of reason,
which occasion differences in the mode of thought. In effect, Reason has
only one single interest, and the seeming contradiction existing between
her maxims merely indicates a difference in, and a reciprocal limitation of,
the methods by which this interest is satisfied.
This reasoner has at heart the interest of diversity—in accordance with
the principle of specification; another, the interest of unity—in accor-
dance with the principle of aggregation. Each believes that his judgement
rests upon a thorough insight into the subject he is examining, and yet it
has been influenced solely by a greater or less degree of adherence to some
one of the two principles, neither of which are objective, but originate
solely from the interest of reason, and on this account to be termed max-
ims rather than principles. When I observe intelligent men disputing about
the distinctive characteristics of men, animals, or plants, and even of min-
erals, those on the one side assuming the existence of certain national
characteristics, certain well-defined and hereditary distinctions of family,
race, and so on, while the other side maintain that nature has endowed all
races of men with the same faculties and dispositions, and that all differ-
ences are but the result of external and accidental circumstances—I have
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Immanuel Kant
only to consider for a moment the real nature of the subject of discussion,
to arrive at the conclusion that it is a subject far too deep for us to judge
of, and that there is little probability of either party being able to speak
from a perfect insight into and understanding of the nature of the subject
itself. Both have, in reality, been struggling for the twofold interest of
reason; the one maintaining the one interest, the other the other. But this
difference between the maxims of diversity and unity may easily be recon-
ciled and adjusted; although, so long as they are regarded as objective
principles, they must occasion not only contradictions and polemic, but
place hinderances in the way of the advancement of truth, until some
means is discovered of reconciling these conflicting interests, and bring-
ing reason into union and harmony with itself.
The same is the case with the so-called law discovered by Leibnitz, and
supported with remarkable ability by Bonnet—the law of the continuous
gradation of created beings, which is nothing more than an inference from
the principle of affinity; for observation and study of the order of nature
could never present it to the mind as an objective truth. The steps of this
ladder, as they appear in experience, are too far apart from each other, and
the so-called petty differences between different kinds of animals are in
nature commonly so wide separations that no confidence can be placed in
such views (particularly when we reflect on the great variety of things, and
the ease with which we can discover resemblances), and no faith in the
laws which are said to express the aims and purposes of nature. On the
other hand, the method of investigating the order of nature in the light of
this principle, and the maxim which requires us to regard this order—it
being still undetermined how far it extends—as really existing in nature,
is beyond doubt a legitimate and excellent principle of reason—a prin-
ciple which extends farther than any experience or observation of ours
and which, without giving us any positive knowledge of anything in the
region of experience, guides us to the goal of systematic unity.
383
Of the Ultimate End of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason.
The ideas of pure reason cannot be, of themselves and in their own na-
ture, dialectical; it is from their misemployment alone that fallacies and
illusions arise. For they originate in the nature of reason itself, and it is
impossible that this supreme tribunal for all the rights and claims of specu-
lation should be itself undeserving of confidence and promotive of error.
It is to be expected, therefore, that these ideas have a genuine and legiti-
mate aim. It is true, the mob of sophists raise against reason the cry of
inconsistency and contradiction, and affect to despise the government of
that faculty, because they cannot understand its constitution, while it is to
its beneficial influences alone that they owe the position and the intelli-
gence which enable them to criticize and to blame its procedure.
We cannot employ an a priori conception with certainty, until we have
made a transcendental deduction therefore. The ideas of pure reason do
not admit of the same kind of deduction as the categories. But if they are
to possess the least objective validity, and to represent anything but mere
creations of thought (entia rationis ratiocinantis), a deduction of them
must be possible. This deduction will complete the critical task imposed
upon pure reason; and it is to this part Of our labours that we now pro-
ceed.
There is a great difference between a thing’s being presented to the mind
as an object in an absolute sense, or merely as an ideal object. In the
former case I employ my conceptions to determine the object; in the latter
case nothing is present to the mind but a mere schema, which does not
relate directly to an object, not even in a hypothetical sense, but which is
useful only for the purpose of representing other objects to the mind, in a
mediate and indirect manner, by means of their relation to the idea in the
intellect. Thus I say the conception of a supreme intelligence is a mere
idea; that is to say, its objective reality does not consist in the fact that it
has an immediate relation to an object (for in this sense we have no means
of establishing its objective validity), it is merely a schema constructed
according to the necessary conditions of the unity of reason—the schema
of a thing in general, which is useful towards the production of the high-
est degree of systematic unity in the empirical exercise of reason, in which
we deduce this or that object of experience from the imaginary object of
this idea, as the ground or cause of the said object of experience. In this
way, the idea is properly a heuristic, and not an ostensive, conception; it
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Immanuel Kant
does not give us any information respecting the constitution of an object,

it merely indicates how, under the guidance of the idea, we ought to inves-
tigate the constitution and the relations of objects in the world of experi-
ence. Now, if it can be shown that the three kinds of transcendental ideas
(psychological, cosmological, and theological), although not relating di-
rectly to any object nor determining it, do nevertheless, on the supposi-
tion of the existence of an ideal object, produce systematic unity in the
laws of the empirical employment of the reason, and extend our empirical
cognition, without ever being inconsistent or in opposition with it-it must
be a necessary maxim of reason to regulate its procedure according to
these ideas. And this forms the transcendental deduction of all speculative
ideas, not as constitutive principles of the extension of our cognition be-
yond the limits of our experience, but as regulative principles of the sys-
tematic unity of empirical cognition, which is by the aid of these ideas
arranged and emended within its own proper limits, to an extent unat-
tainable by the operation of the principles of the understanding alone.
I shall make this plainer. Guided by the principles involved in these ideas,
we must, in the first place, so connect all the phenomena, actions, and
feelings of the mind, as if it were a simple substance, which, endowed with
personal identity, possesses a permanent existence (in this life at least), while
its states, among which those of the body are to be included as external
conditions, are in continual change. Secondly, in cosmology, we must inves-
tigate the conditions of all natural phenomena, internal as well as external,
as if they belonged to a chain infinite and without any prime or supreme
member, while we do not, on this account, deny the existence of intelligible
grounds of these phenomena, although we never employ them to explain
phenomena, for the simple reason that they are not objects of our cogni-
tion. Thirdly, in the sphere of theology, we must regard the whole system of
possible experience as forming an absolute, but dependent and sensuously-
conditioned unity, and at the same time as based upon a sole, supreme, and
all-sufficient ground existing apart from the world itself—a ground which
is a self-subsistent, primeval and creative reason, in relation to which we so
employ our reason in the field of experience, as if all objects drew their
origin from that archetype of all reason. In other words, we ought not to
deduce the internal phenomena of the mind from a simple thinking sub-
stance, but deduce them from each other under the guidance of the regula-
tive idea of a simple being; we ought not to deduce the phenomena, order,
and unity of the universe from a supreme intelligence, but merely draw
from this idea of a supremely wise cause the rules which must guide reason
in its connection of causes and effects.
385
Now there is nothing to hinder us from admitting these ideas to possess

an objective and hyperbolic existence, except the cosmological ideas, which
lead reason into an antinomy: the psychological and theological ideas are
not antinomial. They contain no contradiction; and how, then, can any
one dispute their objective reality, since he who denies it knows as little
about their possibility as we who affirm? And yet, when we wish to admit
the existence of a thing, it is not sufficient to convince ourselves that there
is no positive obstacle in the way; for it cannot be allowable to regard mere
creations of thought, which transcend, though they do not contradict, all
our conceptions, as real and determinate objects, solely upon the author-
ity of a speculative reason striving to compass its own aims. They cannot,
therefore, be admitted to be real in themselves; they can only possess a
comparative reality—that of a schema of the regulative principle of the
systematic unity of all cognition. They are to be regarded not as actual
things, but as in some measure analogous to them. We abstract from the
object of the idea all the conditions which limit the exercise of our under-
standing, but which, on the other hand, are the sole conditions of our
possessing a determinate conception of any given thing. And thus we cogi-
tate a something, of the real nature of which we have not the least concep-
tion, but which we represent to ourselves as standing in a relation to the
whole system of phenomena, analogous to that in which phenomena stand
to each other.
By admitting these ideal beings, we do not really extend our cognitions
beyond the objects of possible experience; we extend merely the empirical
unity of our experience, by the aid of systematic unity, the schema of
which is furnished by the idea, which is therefore valid—not as a constitu-
tive, but as a regulative principle. For although we posit a thing corre-
sponding to the idea—a something, an actual existence—we do not on
that account aim at the extension of our cognition by means of transcen-
dent conceptions. This existence is purely ideal, and not objective; it is the
mere expression of the systematic unity which is to be the guide of reason
in the field of experience. There are no attempts made at deciding what
the ground of this unity may be, or what the real nature of this imaginary
being.
Thus the transcendental and only determinate conception of God, which
is presented to us by speculative reason, is in the strictest sense deistic. In
other words, reason does not assure us of the objective validity of the
conception; it merely gives us the idea of something, on which the su-
preme and necessary unity of all experience is based. This something we
cannot, following the analogy of a real substance, cogitate otherwise than
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Immanuel Kant
as the cause of all things operating in accordance with rational laws, if we

regard it as an individual object; although we should rest contented with
the idea alone as a regulative principle of reason, and make no attempt at
completing the sum of the conditions imposed by thought. This attempt
is, indeed, inconsistent with the grand aim of complete systematic unity
in the sphere of cognition—a unity to which no bounds are set by reason.
Hence it happens that, admitting a divine being, I can have no concep-
tion of the internal possibility of its perfection, or of the necessity of its
existence. The only advantage of this admission is that it enables me to
answer all other questions relating to the contingent, and to give reason
the most complete satisfaction as regards the unity which it aims at attain-
ing in the world of experience. But I cannot satisfy reason with regard to
this hypothesis itself; and this proves that it is not its intelligence and
insight into the subject, but its speculative interest alone which induces it
to proceed from a point lying far beyond the sphere of our cognition, for
the purpose of being able to consider all objects as parts of a systematic
whole.
Here a distinction presents itself, in regard to the way in which we may
cogitate a presupposition—a distinction which is somewhat subtle, but of
great importance in transcendental philosophy. I may have sufficient
grounds to admit something, or the existence of something, in a relative
point of view (suppositio relativa), without being justified in admitting it
in an absolute sense (suppositio absoluta). This distinction is undoubt-
edly requisite, in the case of a regulative principle, the necessity of which
we recognize, though we are ignorant of the source and cause of that
necessity, and which we assume to be based upon some ultimate ground,
for the purpose of being able to cogitate the universality of the principle in
a more determinate way. For example, I cogitate the existence of a being
corresponding to a pure transcendental idea. But I cannot admit that this
being exists absolutely and in itself, because all of the conceptions by which
I can cogitate an object in a determinate manner fall short of assuring me
of its existence; nay, the conditions of the objective validity of my concep-
tions are excluded by the idea—by the very fact of its being an idea. The
conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that of necessity in
existence, have no significance out of the sphere of empirical cognition,
and cannot, beyond that sphere, determine any object. They may, accord-
ingly, be employed to explain the possibility of things in the world of
sense, but they are utterly inadequate to explain the possibility of the uni-
verse itself considered as a whole; because in this case the ground of expla-
nation must lie out of and beyond the world, and cannot, therefore, be an
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object of possible experience. Now, I may admit the existence of an in-

comprehensible being of this nature—the object of a mere idea, relatively
to the world of sense; although I have no ground to admit its existence
absolutely and in itself. For if an idea (that of a systematic and complete
unity, of which I shall presently speak more particularly) lies at the foun-
dation of the most extended empirical employment of reason, and if this
idea cannot be adequately represented in concreto, although it is indis-
pensably necessary for the approximation of empirical unity to the high-
est possible degree—I am not only authorized, but compelled, to realize
this idea, that is, to posit a real object corresponding thereto. But I cannot
profess to know this object; it is to me merely a something, to which, as
the ground of systematic unity in cognition, I attribute such properties as
are analogous to the conceptions employed by the understanding in the
sphere of experience. Following the analogy of the notions of reality, sub-
stance, causality, and necessity, I cogitate a being, which possesses all these
attributes in the highest degree; and, as this idea is the offspring of my
reason alone, I cogitate this being as self-subsistent reason, and as the
cause of the universe operating by means of ideas of the greatest possible
harmony and unity. Thus I abstract all conditions that would limit my
idea, solely for the purpose of rendering systematic unity possible in the
world of empirical diversity, and thus securing the widest possible exten-
sion for the exercise of reason in that sphere. This I am enabled to do, by
regarding all connections and relations in the world of sense, as if they
were the dispositions of a supreme reason, of which our reason is but a
faint image. I then proceed to cogitate this Supreme Being by conceptions
which have, properly, no meaning or application, except in the world of
sense. But as I am authorized to employ the transcendental hypothesis of
such a being in a relative respect alone, that is, as the substratum of the
greatest possible unity in experience—I may attribute to a being which I
regard as distinct from the world, such properties as belong solely to the
sphere of sense and experience. For I do not desire, and am not justified in
desiring, to cognize this object of my idea, as it exists in itself; for I possess
no conceptions sufficient for or task, those of reality, substance, causality,
nay, even that of necessity in existence, losing all significance, and becom-
ing merely the signs of conceptions, without content and without appli-
cability, when I attempt to carry them beyond the limits of the world of
sense. I cogitate merely the relation of a perfectly unknown being to the
greatest possible systematic unity of experience, solely for the purpose of
employing it as the schema of the regulative principle which directs rea-
son in its empirical exercise.
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It is evident, at the first view, that we cannot presuppose the reality of

this transcendental object, by means of the conceptions of reality, sub-
stance, causality, and so on, because these conceptions cannot be applied
to anything that is distinct from the world of sense. Thus the supposition
of a Supreme Being or cause is purely relative; it is cogitated only in behalf
of the systematic unity of experience; such a being is but a something, of
whose existence in itself we have not the least conception. Thus, too, it
becomes sufficiently manifest why we required the idea of a necessary
being in relation to objects given by sense, although we can never have the
least conception of this being, or of its absolute necessity.
And now we can clearly perceive the result of our transcendental dialec-
tic, and the proper aim of the ideas of pure reason—which become dialec-
tical solely from misunderstanding and inconsiderateness. Pure reason is,
in fact, occupied with itself, and not with any object. Objects are not
presented to it to be embraced in the unity of an empirical conception; it
is only the cognitions of the understanding that are presented to it, for the
purpose of receiving the unity of a rational conception, that is, of being
connected according to a principle. The unity of reason is the unity of
system; and this systematic unity is not an objective principle, extending
its dominion over objects, but a subjective maxim, extending its authority
over the empirical cognition of objects. The systematic connection which
reason gives to the empirical employment of the understanding not only
advances the extension of that employment, but ensures its correctness,
and thus the principle of a systematic unity of this nature is also objective,
although only in an indefinite respect (principium vagum). It is not, how-
ever, a constitutive principle, determining an object to which it directly
relates; it is merely a regulative principle or maxim, advancing and strength-
ening the empirical exercise of reason, by the opening up of new paths of
which the understanding is ignorant, while it never conflicts with the laws
of its exercise in the sphere of experience.
But reason cannot cogitate this systematic unity, without at the same
time cogitating an object of the idea—an object that cannot be presented
in any experience, which contains no concrete example of a complete
systematic unity. This being (ens rationis ratiocinatae) is therefore a mere
idea and is not assumed to be a thing which is real absolutely and in itself.
On the contrary, it forms merely the problematical foundation of the con-
nection which the mind introduces among the phenomena of the sensu-
ous world. We look upon this connection, in the light of the above-men-
tioned idea, as if it drew its origin from the supposed being which corre-
sponds to the idea. And yet all we aim at is the possession of this idea as a
389
secure foundation for the systematic unity of experience—a unity indis-

pensable to reason, advantageous to the understanding, and promotive of
the interests of empirical cognition.
We mistake the true meaning of this idea when we regard it as an
enouncement, or even as a hypothetical declaration of the existence of a
real thing, which we are to regard as the origin or ground of a systematic
constitution of the universe. On the contrary, it is left completely unde-
termined what the nature or properties of this so-called ground may be.
The idea is merely to be adopted as a point of view, from which this unity,
so essential to reason and so beneficial to the understanding, may be re-
garded as radiating. In one word, this transcendental thing is merely the
schema of a regulative principle, by means of which Reason, so far as in
her lies, extends the dominion of systematic unity over the whole sphere
of experience.
The first object of an idea of this kind is the ego, considered merely as a
thinking nature or soul. If I wish to investigate the properties of a think-
ing being, I must interrogate experience. But I find that I can apply none
of the categories to this object, the schema of these categories, which is the
condition of their application, being given only in sensuous intuition. But
I cannot thus attain to the cognition of a systematic unity of all the phe-
nomena of the internal sense. Instead, therefore, of an empirical concep-
tion of what the soul really is, reason takes the conception of the empirical
unity of all thought, and, by cogitating this unity as unconditioned and
primitive, constructs the rational conception or idea of a simple substance
which is in itself unchangeable, possessing personal identity, and in con-
nection with other real things external to it; in one word, it constructs the
idea of a simple self-subsistent intelligence. But the real aim of reason in
this procedure is the attainment of principles of systematic unity for the
explanation of the phenomena of the soul. That is, reason desires to be
able to represent all the determinations of the internal sense as existing in
one subject, all powers as deduced from one fundamental power, all changes
as mere varieties in the condition of a being which is permanent and al-
ways the same, and all phenomena in space as entirely different in their
nature from the procedure of thought. Essential simplicity (with the other
attributes predicated of the ego) is regarded as the mere schema of this
regulative principle; it is not assumed that it is the actual ground of the
properties of the soul. For these properties may rest upon quite different
grounds, of which we are completely ignorant; just as the above predicates
could not give us any knowledge of the soul as it is in itself, even if we
regarded them as valid in respect of it, inasmuch as they constitute a mere
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idea, which cannot be represented in concreto. Nothing but good can

result from a psychological idea of this kind, if we only take proper care
not to consider it as more than an idea; that is, if we regard it as valid
merely in relation to the employment of reason, in the sphere of the phe-
nomena of the soul. Under the guidance of this idea, or principle, no
empirical laws of corporeal phenomena are called in to explain that which
is a phenomenon of the internal sense alone; no windy hypotheses of the
generation, annihilation, and palingenesis of souls are admitted. Thus the
consideration of this object of the internal sense is kept pure, and un-
mixed with heterogeneous elements; while the investigation of reason aims
at reducing all the grounds of explanation employed in this sphere of
knowledge to a single principle. All this is best effected, nay, cannot be
effected otherwise than by means of such a schema, which requires us to
regard this ideal thing as an actual existence. The psychological idea is,
therefore, meaningless and inapplicable, except as the schema of a regula-
tive conception. For, if I ask whether the soul is not really of a spiritual
nature—it is a question which has no meaning. From such a conception
has been abstracted, not merely all corporeal nature, but all nature, that is,
all the predicates of a possible experience; and consequently, all the condi-
tions which enable us to cogitate an object to this conception have disap-
peared. But, if these conditions are absent, it is evident that the concep-
tion is meaningless.
The second regulative idea of speculative reason is the conception of the
universe. For nature is properly the only object presented to us, in regard
to which reason requires regulative principles. Nature is twofold—think-
ing and corporeal nature. To cogitate the latter in regard to its internal
possibility, that is, to determine the application of the categories to it, no
idea is required—no representation which transcends experience. In this
sphere, therefore, an idea is impossible, sensuous intuition being our only
guide; while, in the sphere of psychology, we require the fundamental idea
(I), which contains a priori a certain form of thought namely, the unity of
the ego. Pure reason has, therefore, nothing left but nature in general, and
the completeness of conditions in nature in accordance with some prin-
ciple. The absolute totality of the series of these conditions is an idea,
which can never be fully realized in the empirical exercise of reason, while
it is serviceable as a rule for the procedure of reason in relation to that
totality. It requires us, in the explanation of given phenomena (in the
regress or ascent in the series), to proceed as if the series were infinite in
itself, that is, were prolonged in indefinitum,; while on the other hand,
where reason is regarded as itself the determining cause (in the region of
391
freedom), we are required to proceed as if we had not before us an object

of sense, but of the pure understanding. In this latter case, the conditions
do not exist in the series of phenomena, but may be placed quite out of
and beyond it, and the series of conditions may be regarded as if it had an
absolute beginning from an intelligible cause. All this proves that the cos-
mological ideas are nothing but regulative principles, and not constitu-
tive; and that their aim is not to realize an actual totality in such series.
The full discussion of this subject will be found in its proper place in the
chapter on the antinomy of pure reason.
The third idea of pure reason, containing the hypothesis of a being
which is valid merely as a relative hypothesis, is that of the one and all-
sufficient cause of all cosmological series, in other words, the idea of God.
We have not the slightest ground absolutely to admit the existence of an
object corresponding to this idea; for what can empower or authorize us
to affirm the existence of a being of the highest perfection—a being whose
existence is absolutely necessary—merely because we possess the concep-
tion of such a being? The answer is: It is the existence of the world which
renders this hypothesis necessary. But this answer makes it perfectly evi-
dent that the idea of this being, like all other speculative ideas, is essen-
tially nothing more than a demand upon reason that it shall regulate the
connection which it and its subordinate faculties introduce into the phe-
nomena of the world by principles of systematic unity and, consequently,
that it shall regard all phenomena as originating from one all-embracing
being, as the supreme and all-sufficient cause. From this it is plain that the
only aim of reason in this procedure is the establishment of its own formal
rule for the extension of its dominion in the world of experience; that it
does not aim at an extension of its cognition beyond the limits of experi-
ence; and that, consequently, this idea does not contain any constitutive
principle.
The highest formal unity, which is based upon ideas alone, is the unity
of all things—a unity in accordance with an aim or purpose; and the
speculative interest of reason renders it necessary to regard all order in the
world as if it originated from the intention and design of a supreme rea-
son. This principle unfolds to the view of reason in the sphere of experi-
ence new and enlarged prospects, and invites it to connect the phenom-
ena of the world according to teleological laws, and in this way to attain to
the highest possible degree of systematic unity. The hypothesis of a su-
preme intelligence, as the sole cause of the universe—an intelligence which
has for us no more than an ideal existence—is accordingly always of the
greatest service to reason. Thus, if we presuppose, in relation to the figure
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of the earth (which is round, but somewhat flattened at the poles),* or

that of mountains or seas, wise designs on the part of an author of the
universe, we cannot fail to make, by the light of this supposition, a great
number of interesting discoveries. If we keep to this hypothesis, as a prin-
ciple which is purely regulative, even error cannot be very detrimental.
For, in this case, error can have no more serious consequences than that,
where we expected to discover a teleological connection (nexus finalis),
only a mechanical or physical connection appears. In such a case, we merely
fail to find the additional form of unity we expected, but we do not lose
the rational unity which the mind requires in its procedure in experience.
But even a miscarriage of this sort cannot affect the law in its general and
teleological relations. For although we may convict an anatomist of an
error, when he connects the limb of some animal with a certain purpose,
it is quite impossible to prove in a single case that any arrangement of
nature, be it what it may, is entirely without aim or design. And thus
medical physiology, by the aid of a principle presented to it by pure rea-
son, extends its very limited empirical knowledge of the purposes of the
different parts of an organized body so far that it may be asserted with the
utmost confidence, and with the approbation of all reflecting men, that
every organ or bodily part of an animal has its use and answers a certain
design. Now, this is a supposition which, if regarded as of a constitutive
character, goes much farther than any experience or observation of ours
can justify. Hence it is evident that it is nothing more than a regulative
principle of reason, which aims at the highest degree of systematic unity,
by the aid of the idea of a causality according to design in a supreme
cause—a cause which it regards as the highest intelligence.
If, however, we neglect this restriction of the idea to a purely regulative
influence, reason is betrayed into numerous errors. For it has then left the
ground of experience, in which alone are to be found the criteria of truth,
and has ventured into the region of the incomprehensible and unsearchable,
*The advantages which a circular form, in the case of the earth, has over every
other, are well known. But few are aware that the slight flattening at the poles,
which gives it the figure of a spheroid, is the only cause which prevents the eleva-
tions of continents or even of mountains, perhaps thrown up by some internal
convulsion, from continually altering the position of the axis of the earth—and
that to some considerable degree in a short time. The great protuberance of the
earth under the Equator serves to overbalance the impetus of all other masses of
earth, and thus to preserve the axis of the earth, so far as we can observe, in its
present position. And yet this wise arrangement has been unthinkingly explained
from the equilibrium of the formerly fluid mass.
393
on the heights of which it loses its power and collectedness, because it has
completely severed its connection with experience.
The first error which arises from our employing the idea of a Supreme
Being as a constitutive (in repugnance to the very nature of an idea), and
not as a regulative principle, is the error of inactive reason (ignava ratio).*
We may so term every principle which requires us to regard our investiga-
tions of nature as absolutely complete, and allows reason to cease its in-
quiries, as if it had fully executed its task. Thus the psychological idea of
the ego, when employed as a constitutive principle for the explanation of
the phenomena of the soul, and for the extension of our knowledge re-
garding this subject beyond the limits of experience—even to the condi-
tion of the soul after death—is convenient enough for the purposes of
pure reason, but detrimental and even ruinous to its interests in the sphere
of nature and experience. The dogmatizing spiritualist explains the un-
changing unity of our personality through all changes of condition from
the unity of a thinking substance, the interest which we take in things and
events that can happen only after our death, from a consciousness of the
immaterial nature of our thinking subject, and so on. Thus he dispenses
with all empirical investigations into the cause of these internal phenom-
ena, and with all possible explanations of them upon purely natural
grounds; while, at the dictation of a transcendent reason, he passes by the
immanent sources of cognition in experience, greatly to his own ease and
convenience, but to the sacrifice of all, genuine insight and intelligence.
These prejudicial consequences become still more evident, in the case of
the dogmatical treatment of our idea of a Supreme Intelligence, and the
theological system of nature (physico-theology) which is falsely based upon
it. For, in this case, the aims which we observe in nature, and often those
which we merely fancy to exist, make the investigation of causes a very
easy task, by directing us to refer such and such phenomena immediately
to the unsearchable will and counsel of the Supreme Wisdom, while we
ought to investigate their causes in the general laws of the mechanism of
matter. We are thus recommended to consider the labour of reason as
ended, when we have merely dispensed with its employment, which is
guided surely and safely only by the order of nature and the series of
*This was the term applied by the old dialecticians to a sophistical argument, which
ran thus: If it is your fate to die of this disease, you will die, whether you employ a
physician or not. Cicero says that this mode of reasoning has received this appella-
tion, because, if followed, it puts an end to the employment of reason in the affairs
of life. For a similar reason, I have applied this designation to the sophistical argu-
ment of pure reason.
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Immanuel Kant
changes in the world-which are arranged according to immanent and gen-

eral laws. This error may be avoided, if we do not merely consider from
the view-point of final aims certain parts of nature, such as the division
and structure of a continent, the constitution and direction of certain
mountain-chains, or even the organization existing in the vegetable and
animal kingdoms, but look upon this systematic unity of nature in a per-
fectly general way, in relation to the idea of a Supreme Intelligence. If we
pursue this advice, we lay as a foundation for all investigation the confor-
mity to aims of all phenomena of nature in accordance with universal
laws, for which no particular arrangement of nature is exempt, but only
cognized by us with more or less difficulty; and we possess a regulative
principle of the systematic unity of a teleological connection, which we do
not attempt to anticipate or predetermine. All that we do, and ought to
do, is to follow out the physico-mechanical connection in nature accord-
ing to general laws, with the hope of discovering, sooner or later, the te-
leological connection also. Thus, and thus only, can the principle of final
unity aid in the extension of the employment of reason in the sphere of
experience, without being in any case detrimental to its interests.
The second error which arises from the misconception of the principle
of systematic unity is that of perverted reason (perversa ratio, usteron
roteron rationis). The idea of systematic unity is available as a regulative
principle in the connection of phenomena according to general natural
laws; and, how far soever we have to travel upon the path of experience to
discover some fact or event, this idea requires us to believe that we have
approached all the more nearly to the completion of its use in the sphere
of nature, although that completion can never be attained. But this error
reverses the procedure of reason. We begin by hypostatizing the principle
of systematic unity, and by giving an anthropomorphic determination to
the conception of a Supreme Intelligence, and then proceed forcibly to
impose aims upon nature. Thus not only does teleology, which ought to
aid in the completion of unity in accordance with general laws, operate to
the destruction of its influence, but it hinders reason from attaining its
proper aim, that is, the proof, upon natural grounds, of the existence of a
supreme intelligent cause. For, if we cannot presuppose supreme finality
in nature a priori, that is, as essentially belonging to nature, how can we be
directed to endeavour to discover this unity and, rising gradually through
its different degrees, to approach the supreme perfection of an author of
all—a perfection which is absolutely necessary, and therefore cognizable a
priori? The regulative principle directs us to presuppose systematic unity
absolutely and, consequently, as following from the essential nature of
395
things—but only as a unity of nature, not merely cognized empirically,

but presupposed a priori, although only in an indeterminate manner. But
if I insist on basing nature upon the foundation of a supreme ordaining
Being, the unity of nature is in effect lost. For, in this case, it is quite
foreign and unessential to the nature of things, and cannot be cognized
from the general laws of nature. And thus arises a vicious circular argu-
ment, what ought to have been proved having been presupposed.
To take the regulative principle of systematic unity in nature for a con-
stitutive principle, and to hypostatize and make a cause out of that which
is properly the ideal ground of the consistent and harmonious exercise of
reason, involves reason in inextricable embarrassments. The investigation
of nature pursues its own path under the guidance of the chain of natural
causes, in accordance with the general laws of nature, and ever follows the
light of the idea of an author of the universe—not for the purpose of
deducing the finality, which it constantly pursues, from this Supreme Be-
ing, but to attain to the cognition of his existence from the finality which
it seeks in the existence of the phenomena of nature, and, if possible, in
that of all things to cognize this being, consequently, as absolutely neces-
sary. Whether this latter purpose succeed or not, the idea is and must
always be a true one, and its employment, when merely regulative, must
always be accompanied by truthful and beneficial results.
Complete unity, in conformity with aims, constitutes absolute perfec-
tion. But if we do not find this unity in the nature of the things which go
to constitute the world of experience, that is, of objective cognition, con-
sequently in the universal and necessary laws of nature, how can we infer
from this unity the idea of the supreme and absolutely necessary perfec-
tion of a primal being, which is the origin of all causality? The greatest
systematic unity, and consequently teleological unity, constitutes the very
foundation of the possibility of the most extended employment of human
reason. The idea of unity is therefore essentially and indissolubly con-
nected with the nature of our reason. This idea is a legislative one; and
hence it is very natural that we should assume the existence of a legislative
reason corresponding to it, from which the systematic unity of nature-the
object of the operations of reason—must be derived.
In the course of our discussion of the antinomies, we stated that it is
always possible to answer all the questions which pure reason may raise;
and that the plea of the limited nature of our cognition, which is unavoid-
able and proper in many questions regarding natural phenomena, cannot
in this case be admitted, because the questions raised do not relate to the
nature of things, but are necessarily originated by the nature of reason
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Immanuel Kant
itself, and relate to its own internal constitution. We can now establish
this assertion, which at first sight appeared so rash, in relation to the two
questions in which reason takes the greatest interest, and thus complete
our discussion of the dialectic of pure reason.
If, then, the question is asked, in relation to transcendental theology,*
first, whether there is anything distinct from the world, which contains
the ground of cosmical order and connection according to general laws?
The answer is: Certainly. For the world is a sum of phenomena; there
must, therefore, be some transcendental basis of these phenomena, that is,
a basis cogitable by the pure understanding alone. If, secondly, the ques-
tion is asked whether this being is substance, whether it is of the greatest
reality, whether it is necessary, and so forth? I answer that this question is
utterly without meaning. For all the categories which aid me in forming a
conception of an object cannot be employed except in the world of sense,
and are without meaning when not applied to objects of actual or possible
experience. Out of this sphere, they are not properly conceptions, but the
mere marks or indices of conceptions, which we may admit, although
they cannot, without the help of experience, help us to understand any
subject or thing. If, thirdly, the question is whether we may not cogitate
this being, which is distinct from the world, in analogy with the objects of
experience? The answer is: Undoubtedly, but only as an ideal, and not as a
real object. That is, we must cogitate it only as an unknown substratum of
the systematic unity, order, and finality of the world—a unity which rea-
son must employ as the regulative principle of its investigation of nature.
Nay, more, we may admit into the idea certain anthropomorphic ele-
ments, which are promotive of the interests of this regulative principle.
For it is no more than an idea, which does not relate directly to a being
distinct from the world, but to the regulative principle of the systematic
unity of the world, by means, however, of a schema of this unity—the
schema of a Supreme Intelligence, who is the wisely-designing author of
the universe. What this basis of cosmical unity may be in itself, we know
not—we cannot discover from the idea; we merely know how we ought to
employ the idea of this unity, in relation to the systematic operation of
reason in the sphere of experience.
*After what has been said of the psychological idea of the ego and its proper
employment as a regulative principle of the operations of reason, I need not enter
into details regarding the transcendental illusion by which the systematic unity
of all the various phenomena of the internal sense is hypostatized. The procedure
is in this case very similar to that which has been discussed in our remarks on the
theological ideal.
397
But, it will be asked again, can we on these grounds, admit the existence
of a wise and omnipotent author of the world? Without doubt; and not
only so, but we must assume the existence of such a being. But do we thus
extend the limits of our knowledge beyond the field of possible experi-
ence? By no means. For we have merely presupposed a something, of which
we have no conception, which we do not know as it is in itself; but, in
relation to the systematic disposition of the universe, which we must pre-
suppose in all our observation of nature, we have cogitated this unknown
being in analogy with an intelligent existence (an empirical conception),
that is to say, we have endowed it with those attributes, which, judging
from the nature of our own reason, may contain the ground of such a
systematic unity. This idea is therefore valid only relatively to the employ-
ment in experience of our reason. But if we attribute to it absolute and
objective validity, we overlook the fact that it is merely an ideal being that
we cogitate; and, by setting out from a basis which is not determinable by
considerations drawn from experience, we place ourselves in a position
which incapacitates us from applying this principle to the empirical em-
ployment of reason.
But, it will be asked further, can I make any use of this conception and
hypothesis in my investigations into the world and nature? Yes, for this
very purpose was the idea established by reason as a fundamental basis.
But may I regard certain arrangements, which seemed to have been made
in conformity with some fixed aim, as the arrangements of design, and
look upon them as proceeding from the divine will, with the intervention,
however, of certain other particular arrangements disposed to that end?
Yes, you may do so; but at the same time you must regard it as indifferent,
whether it is asserted that divine wisdom has disposed all things in confor-
mity with his highest aims, or that the idea of supreme wisdom is a regu-
lative principle in the investigation of nature, and at the same time a prin-
ciple of the systematic unity of nature according to general laws, even in
those cases where we are unable to discover that unity. In other words, it
must be perfectly indifferent to you whether you say, when you have dis-
covered this unity: God has wisely willed it so; or: Nature has wisely ar-
ranged this. For it was nothing but the systematic unity, which reason
requires as a basis for the investigation of nature, that justified you in
accepting the idea of a supreme intelligence as a schema for a regulative
principle; and, the farther you advance in the discovery of design and
finality, the more certain the validity of your idea. But, as the whole aim of
this regulative principle was the discovery of a necessary and systematic
unity in nature, we have, in so far as we attain this, to attribute our success
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Immanuel Kant
to the idea of a Supreme Being; while, at the same time, we cannot, with-
out involving ourselves in contradictions, overlook the general laws of
nature, as it was in reference to them alone that this idea was employed.
We cannot, I say, overlook the general laws of nature, and regard this
conformity to aims observable in nature as contingent or hyperphysical in
its origin; inasmuch as there is no ground which can justify us in the
admission of a being with such properties distinct from and above nature.
All that we are authorized to assert is that this idea may be employed as a
principle, and that the properties of the being which is assumed to corre-
spond to it may be regarded as systematically connected in analogy with
the causal determination of phenomena.
For the same reasons we are justified in introducing into the idea of the
supreme cause other anthropomorphic elements (for without these we
could not predicate anything of it); we may regard it as allowable to cogi-
tate this cause as a being with understanding, the feelings of pleasure and
displeasure, and faculties of desire and will corresponding to these. At the
same time, we may attribute to this being infinite perfection—a perfec-
tion which necessarily transcends that which our knowledge of the order
and design in the world authorize us to predicate of it. For the regulative
law of systematic unity requires us to study nature on the supposition that
systematic and final unity in infinitum is everywhere discoverable, even in
the highest diversity. For, although we may discover little of this cosmical
perfection, it belongs to the legislative prerogative of reason to require us
always to seek for and to expect it; while it must always be beneficial to
institute all inquiries into nature in accordance with this principle. But it
is evident that, by this idea of a supreme author of all, which I place as the
foundation of all inquiries into nature, I do not mean to assert the exist-
ence of such a being, or that I have any knowledge of its existence; and,
consequently, I do not really deduce anything from the existence of this
being, but merely from its idea, that is to say, from the nature of things in
this world, in accordance with this idea. A certain dim consciousness of
the true use of this idea seems to have dictated to the philosophers of all
times the moderate language used by them regarding the cause of the
world. We find them employing the expressions wisdom and care of na-
ture, and divine wisdom, as synonymous—nay, in purely speculative dis-
cussions, preferring the former, because it does not carry the appearance
of greater pretensions than such as we are entitled to make, and at the
same time directs reason to its proper field of action—nature and her
phenomena.
Thus, pure reason, which at first seemed to promise us nothing less
399
than the extension of our cognition beyond the limits of experience, is

found, when thoroughly examined, to contain nothing but regulative prin-
ciples, the virtue and function of which is to introduce into our cognition
a higher degree of unity than the understanding could of itself. These
principles, by placing the goal of all our struggles at so great a distance,
realize for us the most thorough connection between the different parts of
our cognition, and the highest degree of systematic unity. But, on the
other hand, if misunderstood and employed as constitutive principles of
transcendent cognition, they become the parents of illusions and contra-
dictions, while pretending to introduce us to new regions of knowledge.
Thus all human cognition begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence
to conceptions, and ends with ideas. Although it possesses, in relation to
all three elements, a priori sources of cognition, which seemed to tran-
scend the limits of all experience, a thoroughgoing criticism demonstrates
that speculative reason can never, by the aid of these elements, pass the
bounds of possible experience, and that the proper destination of this
highest faculty of cognition is to employ all methods, and all the prin-
ciples of these methods, for the purpose of penetrating into the innermost
secrets of nature, by the aid of the principles of unity (among all kinds of
which teleological unity is the highest), while it ought not to attempt to
soar above the sphere of experience, beyond which there lies nought for us
but the void inane. The critical examination, in our Transcendental Ana-
lytic, of all the propositions which professed to extend cognition beyond
the sphere of experience, completely demonstrated that they can only con-
duct us to a possible experience. If we were not distrustful even of the
clearest abstract theorems, if we were not allured by specious and inviting
prospects to escape from the constraining power of their evidence, we
might spare ourselves the laborious examination of all the dialectical argu-
ments which a transcendent reason adduces in support of its pretensions;
for we should know with the most complete certainty that, however hon-
est such professions might be, they are null and valueless, because they
relate to a kind of knowledge to which no man can by any possibility
attain. But, as there is no end to discussion, if we cannot discover the true
cause of the illusions by which even the wisest are deceived, and as the
analysis of all our transcendent cognition into its elements is of itself of no
slight value as a psychological study, while it is a duty incumbent on every
philosopher—it was found necessary to investigate the dialectical proce-
dure of reason in its primary sources. And as the inferences of which this
dialectic is the parent are not only deceitful, but naturally possess a pro-
found interest for humanity, it was advisable at the same time, to give a
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full account of the momenta of this dialectical procedure, and to deposit

it in the archives of human reason, as a warning to all future metaphysi-
cians to avoid these causes of speculative error.
401
II.
TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF METHOD.
If we regard the sum of the cognition of pure speculative reason as an

edifice, the idea of which, at least, exists in the human mind, it may be
said that we have in the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements examined
the materials and determined to what edifice these belong, and what its
height and stability. We have found, indeed, that, although we had pur-
posed to build for ourselves a tower which should reach to Heaven, the
supply of materials sufficed merely for a habitation, which was spacious
enough for all terrestrial purposes, and high enough to enable us to survey
the level plain of experience, but that the bold undertaking designed nec-
essarily failed for want of materials—not to mention the confusion of
tongues, which gave rise to endless disputes among the labourers on the
plan of the edifice, and at last scattered them over all the world, each to
erect a separate building for himself, according to his own plans and his
own inclinations. Our present task relates not to the materials, but to the
plan of an edifice; and, as we have had sufficient warning not to venture
blindly upon a design which may be found to transcend our natural pow-
ers, while, at the same time, we cannot give up the intention of erecting a
secure abode for the mind, we must proportion our design to the material
which is presented to us, and which is, at the same time, sufficient for all
our wants.
I understand, then, by the transcendental doctrine of method, the de-
termination of the formal conditions of a complete system of pure reason.
We shall accordingly have to treat of the discipline, the canon, the archi-
tectonic, and, finally, the history of pure reason. This part of our Critique
will accomplish, from the transcendental point of view, what has been
usually attempted, but miserably executed, under the name of practical
logic. It has been badly executed, I say, because general logic, not being
limited to any particular kind of cognition (not even to the pure cogni-
tion of the understanding) nor to any particular objects, it cannot, with-
out borrowing from other sciences, do more than present merely the titles
or signs of possible methods and the technical expressions, which are em-
ployed in the systematic parts of all sciences; and thus the pupil is made
acquainted with names, the meaning and application of which he is to
learn only at some future time.
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Immanuel Kant
CHAPTER I. The Discipline of Pure Reason.
Negative judgements—those which are so not merely as regards their logical

form, but in respect of their content—are not commonly held in especial
respect. They are, on the contrary, regarded as jealous enemies of our insa-
tiable desire for knowledge; and it almost requires an apology to induce us
to tolerate, much less to prize and to respect them.
All propositions, indeed, may be logically expressed in a negative form;
but, in relation to the content of our cognition, the peculiar province of
negative judgements is solely to prevent error. For this reason, too, nega-
tive propositions, which are framed for the purpose of correcting false
cognitions where error is absolutely impossible, are undoubtedly true, but
inane and senseless; that is, they are in reality purposeless and, for this
reason, often very ridiculous. Such is the proposition of the schoolman
that Alexander could not have subdued any countries without an army.
But where the limits of our possible cognition are very much contracted,
the attraction to new fields of knowledge great, the illusions to which the
mind is subject of the most deceptive character, and the evil consequences
of error of no inconsiderable magnitude—the negative element in knowl-
edge, which is useful only to guard us against error, is of far more impor-
tance than much of that positive instruction which makes additions to the
sum of our knowledge. The restraint which is employed to repress, and
finally to extirpate the constant inclination to depart from certain rules, is
termed discipline. It is distinguished from culture, which aims at the for-
mation of a certain degree of skill, without attempting to repress or to
destroy any other mental power, already existing. In the cultivation of a
talent, which has given evidence of an impulse towards self-development,
discipline takes a negative,* culture and doctrine a positive, part.
That natural dispositions and talents (such as imagination and wit),
which ask a free and unlimited development, require in many respects the
corrective influence of discipline, every one will readily grant. But it may
*I am well aware that, in the language of the schools, the term discipline is usually
employed as synonymous with instruction. But there are so many cases in which
it is necessary to distinguish the notion of the former, as a course of corrective
training, from that of the latter, as the communication of knowledge, and the
nature of things itself demands the appropriation of the most suitable expressions
for this distinction, that it is my desire that the former terms should never be
employed in any other than a negative signification.
403
well appear strange that reason, whose proper duty it is to prescribe rules
of discipline to all the other powers of the mind, should itself require this
corrective. It has, in fact, hitherto escaped this humiliation, only because,
in presence of its magnificent pretensions and high position, no one could
readily suspect it to be capable of substituting fancies for conceptions, and
words for things.
Reason, when employed in the field of experience, does not stand in
need of criticism, because its principles are subjected to the continual test
of empirical observations. Nor is criticism requisite in the sphere of math-
ematics, where the conceptions of reason must always be presented in
concreto in pure intuition, and baseless or arbitrary assertions are discov-
ered without difficulty. But where reason is not held in a plain track by the
influence of empirical or of pure intuition, that is, when it is employed in
the transcendental sphere of pure conceptions, it stands in great need of
discipline, to restrain its propensity to overstep the limits of possible expe-
rience and to keep it from wandering into error. In fact, the utility of the
philosophy of pure reason is entirely of this negative character. Particular
errors may be corrected by particular animadversions, and the causes of
these errors may be eradicated by criticism. But where we find, as in the
case of pure reason, a complete system of illusions and fallacies, closely
connected with each other and depending upon grand general principles,
there seems to be required a peculiar and negative code of mental legisla-
tion, which, under the denomination of a discipline, and founded upon
the nature of reason and the objects of its exercise, shall constitute a sys-
tem of thorough examination and testing, which no fallacy will be able to
withstand or escape from, under whatever disguise or concealment it may
lurk.
But the reader must remark that, in this the second division of our
transcendental Critique the discipline of pure reason is not directed to the
content, but to the method of the cognition of pure reason. The former
task has been completed in the doctrine of elements. But there is so much
similarity in the mode of employing the faculty of reason, whatever be the
object to which it is applied, while, at the same time, its employment in
the transcendental sphere is so essentially different in kind from every
other, that, without the warning negative influence of a discipline spe-
cially directed to that end, the errors are unavoidable which spring from
the unskillful employment of the methods which are originated by reason
but which are out of place in this sphere.
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Immanuel Kant
SECTION I. The Discipline of Pure Reason in the Sphere of Dog-

matism.
The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of the

extension of the sphere of pure reason without the aid of experience. Ex-
amples are always contagious; and they exert an especial influence on the
same faculty, which naturally flatters itself that it will have the same good
fortune in other case as fell to its lot in one fortunate instance. Hence pure
reason hopes to be able to extend its empire in the transcendental sphere
with equal success and security, especially when it applies the same method
which was attended with such brilliant results in the science of mathemat-
ics. It is, therefore, of the highest importance for us to know whether the
method of arriving at demonstrative certainty, which is termed mathemati-
cal, be identical with that by which we endeavour to attain the same de-
gree of certainty in philosophy, and which is termed in that science dog-
matical.
Philosophical cognition is the cognition of reason by means of concep-
tions; mathematical cognition is cognition by means of the construction
of conceptions. The construction of a conception is the presentation a
priori of the intuition which corresponds to the conception. For this pur-
pose a non-empirical intuition is requisite, which, as an intuition, is an
individual object; while, as the construction of a conception (a general
representation), it must be seen to be universally valid for all the possible
intuitions which rank under that conception. Thus I construct a triangle,
by the presentation of the object which corresponds to this conception,
either by mere imagination, in pure intuition, or upon paper, in empirical
intuition, in both cases completely a priori, without borrowing the type
of that figure from any experience. The individual figure drawn upon
paper is empirical; but it serves, notwithstanding, to indicate the concep-
tion, even in its universality, because in this empirical intuition we keep
our eye merely on the act of the construction of the conception, and pay
no attention to the various modes of determining it, for example, its size,
the length of its sides, the size of its angles, these not in the least affecting
the essential character of the conception.
Philosophical cognition, accordingly, regards the particular only in the
general; mathematical the general in the particular, nay, in the individual.
This is done, however, entirely a priori and by means of pure reason, so
that, as this individual figure is determined under certain universal condi-
405
tions of construction, the object of the conception, to which this indi-

vidual figure corresponds as its schema, must be cogitated as universally
determined.
The essential difference of these two modes of cognition consists, there-
fore, in this formal quality; it does not regard the difference of the matter
or objects of both. Those thinkers who aim at distinguishing philosophy
from mathematics by asserting that the former has to do with quality
merely, and the latter with quantity, have mistaken the effect for the cause.
The reason why mathematical cognition can relate only to quantity is to
be found in its form alone. For it is the conception of quantities only that
is capable of being constructed, that is, presented a priori in intuition;
while qualities cannot be given in any other than an empirical intuition.
Hence the cognition of qualities by reason is possible only through con-
ceptions. No one can find an intuition which shall correspond to the
conception of reality, except in experience; it cannot be presented to the
mind a priori and antecedently to the empirical consciousness of a reality.
We can form an intuition, by means of the mere conception of it, of a
cone, without the aid of experience; but the colour of the cone we cannot
know except from experience. I cannot present an intuition of a cause,
except in an example which experience offers to me. Besides, philosophy,
as well as mathematics, treats of quantities; as, for example, of totality,
infinity, and so on. Mathematics, too, treats of the difference of lines and
surfaces—as spaces of different quality, of the continuity of extension—as
a quality thereof. But, although in such cases they have a common object,
the mode in which reason considers that object is very different in phi-
losophy from what it is in mathematics. The former confines itself to the
general conceptions; the latter can do nothing with a mere conception, it
hastens to intuition. In this intuition it regards the conception in con-
creto, not empirically, but in an a priori intuition, which it has constructed;
and in which, all the results which follow from the general conditions of
the construction of the conception are in all cases valid for the object of
the constructed conception.
Suppose that the conception of a triangle is given to a philosopher and
that he is required to discover, by the philosophical method, what relation
the sum of its angles bears to a right angle. He has nothing before him but
the conception of a figure enclosed within three right lines, and, conse-
quently, with the same number of angles. He may analyse the conception
of a right line, of an angle, or of the number three as long as he pleases, but
he will not discover any properties not contained in these conceptions.
But, if this question is proposed to a geometrician, he at once begins by
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Immanuel Kant
constructing a triangle. He knows that two right angles are equal to the
sum of all the contiguous angles which proceed from one point in a straight
line; and he goes on to produce one side of his triangle, thus forming two
adjacent angles which are together equal to two right angles. He then
divides the exterior of these angles, by drawing a line parallel with the
opposite side of the triangle, and immediately perceives that he has thus
got an exterior adjacent angle which is equal to the interior. Proceeding in
this way, through a chain of inferences, and always on the ground of intu-
ition, he arrives at a clear and universally valid solution of the question.
But mathematics does not confine itself to the construction of quanti-
ties (quanta), as in the case of geometry; it occupies itself with pure quan-
tity also (quantitas), as in the case of algebra, where complete abstraction
is made of the properties of the object indicated by the conception of
quantity. In algebra, a certain method of notation by signs is adopted, and
these indicate the different possible constructions of quantities, the ex-
traction of roots, and so on. After having thus denoted the general con-
ception of quantities, according to their different relations, the different
operations by which quantity or number is increased or diminished are
presented in intuition in accordance with general rules. Thus, when one
quantity is to be divided by another, the signs which denote both are
placed in the form peculiar to the operation of division; and thus algebra,
by means of a symbolical construction of quantity, just as geometry, with
its ostensive or geometrical construction (a construction of the objects
themselves), arrives at results which discursive cognition cannot hope to
reach by the aid of mere conceptions.
Now, what is the cause of this difference in the fortune of the philoso-
pher and the mathematician, the former of whom follows the path of
conceptions, while the latter pursues that of intuitions, which he repre-
sents, a priori, in correspondence with his conceptions? The cause is evi-
dent from what has been already demonstrated in the introduction to this
Critique. We do not, in the present case, want to discover analytical propo-
sitions, which may be produced merely by analysing our conceptions—
for in this the philosopher would have the advantage over his rival; we aim
at the discovery of synthetical propositions—such synthetical proposi-
tions, moreover, as can be cognized a priori. I must not confine myself to
that which I actually cogitate in my conception of a triangle, for this is
nothing more than the mere definition; I must try to go beyond that, and
to arrive at properties which are not contained in, although they belong
to, the conception. Now, this is impossible, unless I determine the object
present to my mind according to the conditions, either of empirical, or of
407
pure, intuition. In the former case, I should have an empirical proposition

(arrived at by actual measurement of the angles of the triangle), which
would possess neither universality nor necessity; but that would be of no
value. In the latter, I proceed by geometrical construction, by means of
which I collect, in a pure intuition, just as I would in an empirical intu-
ition, all the various properties which belong to the schema of a triangle in
general, and consequently to its conception, and thus construct syntheti-
cal propositions which possess the attribute of universality.
It would be vain to philosophize upon the triangle, that is, to reflect on
it discursively; I should get no further than the definition with which I
had been obliged to set out. There are certainly transcendental synthetical
propositions which are framed by means of pure conceptions, and which
form the peculiar distinction of philosophy; but these do not relate to any
particular thing, but to a thing in general, and enounce the conditions
under which the perception of it may become a part of possible experi-
ence. But the science of mathematics has nothing to do with such ques-
tions, nor with the question of existence in any fashion; it is concerned
merely with the properties of objects in themselves, only in so far as these
are connected with the conception of the objects.
In the above example, we merely attempted to show the great difference
which exists between the discursive employment of reason in the sphere of
conceptions, and its intuitive exercise by means of the construction of
conceptions. The question naturally arises: What is the cause which ne-
cessitates this twofold exercise of reason, and how are we to discover whether
it is the philosophical or the mathematical method which reason is pursu-
ing in an argument?
All our knowledge relates, finally, to possible intuitions, for it is these
alone that present objects to the mind. An a priori or non-empirical con-
ception contains either a pure intuition—and in this case it can be con-
structed; or it contains nothing but the synthesis of possible intuitions,
which are not given a priori. In this latter case, it may help us to form
synthetical a priori judgements, but only in the discursive method, by
conceptions, not in the intuitive, by means of the construction of concep-
tions.
The only a priori intuition is that of the pure form of phenomena-space
and time. A conception of space and time as quanta may be presented a
priori in intuition, that is, constructed, either alone with their quality
(figure), or as pure quantity (the mere synthesis of the homogeneous), by
means of number. But the matter of phenomena, by which things are
given in space and time, can be presented only in perception, a posteriori.
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Immanuel Kant
The only conception which represents a priori this empirical content of

phenomena is the conception of a thing in general; and the a priori syn-
thetical cognition of this conception can give us nothing more than the
rule for the synthesis of that which may be contained in the correspond-
ing a posteriori perception; it is utterly inadequate to present an a priori
intuition of the real object, which must necessarily be empirical.
Synthetical propositions, which relate to things in general, an a priori
intuition of which is impossible, are transcendental. For this reason tran-
scendental propositions cannot be framed by means of the construction
of conceptions; they are a priori, and based entirely on conceptions them-
selves. They contain merely the rule, by which we are to seek in the world
of perception or experience the synthetical unity of that which cannot be
intuited a priori. But they are incompetent to present any of the concep-
tions which appear in them in an a priori intuition; these can be given
only a posteriori, in experience, which, however, is itself possible only
through these synthetical principles.
If we are to form a synthetical judgement regarding a conception, we
must go beyond it, to the intuition in which it is given. If we keep to what
is contained in the conception, the judgement is merely analytical—it is
merely an explanation of what we have cogitated in the conception. But I
can pass from the conception to the pure or empirical intuition which
corresponds to it. I can proceed to examine my conception in concreto,
and to cognize, either a priori or a posterio, what I find in the object of the
conception. The former—a priori cognition—is rational-mathematical
cognition by means of the construction of the conception; the latter—a
posteriori cognition—is purely empirical cognition, which does not pos-
sess the attributes of necessity and universality. Thus I may analyse the
conception I have of gold; but I gain no new information from this analy-
sis, I merely enumerate the different properties which I had connected
with the notion indicated by the word. My knowledge has gained in logi-
cal clearness and arrangement, but no addition has been made to it. But if
I take the matter which is indicated by this name, and submit it to the
examination of my senses, I am enabled to form several synthetical—
although still empirical-propositions. The mathematical conception of a
triangle I should construct, that is, present a priori in intuition, and in
this way attain to rational-synthetical cognition. But when the transcen-
dental conception of reality, or substance, or power is presented to my
mind, I find that it does not relate to or indicate either an empirical or
pure intuition, but that it indicates merely the synthesis of empirical in-
tuitions, which cannot of course be given a priori. The synthesis in such a
409
conception cannot proceed a priori—without the aid of experience—to

the intuition which corresponds to the conception; and, for this reason,
none of these conceptions can produce a determinative synthetical propo-
sition, they can never present more than a principle of the synthesis* of
possible empirical intuitions. A transcendental proposition is, therefore, a
synthetical cognition of reason by means of pure conceptions and the
discursive method, and it renders possible all synthetical unity in empiri-
cal cognition, though it cannot present us with any intuition a priori.
There is thus a twofold exercise of reason. Both modes have the proper-
ties of universality and an a priori origin in common, but are, in their
procedure, of widely different character. The reason of this is that in the
world of phenomena, in which alone objects are presented to our minds,
there are two main elements—the form of intuition (space and time),
which can be cognized and determined completely a priori, and the mat-
ter or content—that which is presented in space and time, and which,
consequently, contains a something—an existence corresponding to our
powers of sensation. As regards the latter, which can never be given in a
determinate mode except by experience, there are no a priori notions which
relate to it, except the undetermined conceptions of the synthesis of pos-
sible sensations, in so far as these belong (in a possible experience) to the
unity of consciousness. As regards the former, we can determine our con-
ceptions a priori in intuition, inasmuch as we are ourselves the creators of
the objects of the conceptions in space and time-these objects being re-
garded simply as quanta. In the one case, reason proceeds according to
conceptions and can do nothing more than subject phenomena to these—
which can only be determined empirically, that is, a posteriori—in con-
formity, however, with those conceptions as the rules of all empirical syn-
thesis. In the other case, reason proceeds by the construction of concep-
tions; and, as these conceptions relate to an a priori intuition, they may be
given and determined in pure intuition a priori, and without the aid of
empirical data. The examination and consideration of everything that ex-
ists in space or time—whether it is a quantum or not, in how far the
particular something (which fills space or time) is a primary substratum,
*In the case of the conception of cause, I do really go beyond the empirical con-
ception of an event—but not to the intuition which presents this conception in
concreto, but only to the time-conditions, which may be found in experience to
correspond to the conception. My procedure is, therefore, strictly according to
conceptions; I cannot in a case of this kind employ the construction of concep-
tions, because the conception is merely a rule for the synthesis of perceptions,
which are not pure intuitions, and which, therefore, cannot be given a priori.
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Immanuel Kant
or a mere determination of some other existence, whether it relates to

anything else—either as cause or effect, whether its existence is isolated or
in reciprocal connection with and dependence upon others, the possibil-
ity of this existence, its reality and necessity or opposites—all these form
part of the cognition of reason on the ground of conceptions, and this
cognition is termed philosophical. But to determine a priori an intuition
in space (its figure), to divide time into periods, or merely to cognize the
quantity of an intuition in space and time, and to determine it by num-
ber—all this is an operation of reason by means of the construction of
conceptions, and is called mathematical.
The success which attends the efforts of reason in the sphere of math-
ematics naturally fosters the expectation that the same good fortune will
be its lot, if it applies the mathematical method in other regions of mental
endeavour besides that of quantities. Its success is thus great, because it
can support all its conceptions by a priori intuitions and, in this way,
make itself a master, as it were, over nature; while pure philosophy, with
its a priori discursive conceptions, bungles about in the world of nature,
and cannot accredit or show any a priori evidence of the reality of these
conceptions. Masters in the science of mathematics are confident of the
success of this method; indeed, it is a common persuasion that it is ca-
pable of being applied to any subject of human thought. They have hardly
ever reflected or philosophized on their favourite science—a task of great
difficulty; and the specific difference between the two modes of employ-
ing the faculty of reason has never entered their thoughts. Rules current in
the field of common experience, and which common sense stamps every-
where with its approval, are regarded by them as axiomatic. From what
source the conceptions of space and time, with which (as the only primi-
tive quanta) they have to deal, enter their minds, is a question which they
do not trouble themselves to answer; and they think it just as unnecessary
to examine into the origin of the pure conceptions of the understanding
and the extent of their validity. All they have to do with them is to employ
them. In all this they are perfectly right, if they do not overstep the limits
of the sphere of nature. But they pass, unconsciously, from the world of
sense to the insecure ground of pure transcendental conceptions (instabilis
tellus, innabilis unda), where they can neither stand nor swim, and where
the tracks of their footsteps are obliterated by time; while the march of
mathematics is pursued on a broad and magnificent highway, which the
latest posterity shall frequent without fear of danger or impediment.
As we have taken upon us the task of determining, clearly and certainly,
the limits of pure reason in the sphere of transcendentalism, and as the
411
efforts of reason in this direction are persisted in, even after the plainest
and most expressive warnings, hope still beckoning us past the limits of
experience into the splendours of the intellectual world—it becomes nec-
essary to cut away the last anchor of this fallacious and fantastic hope. We
shall, accordingly, show that the mathematical method is unattended in
the sphere of philosophy by the least advantage—except, perhaps, that it
more plainly exhibits its own inadequacy—that geometry and philosophy
are two quite different things, although they go band in hand in hand in
the field of natural science, and, consequently, that the procedure of the
one can never be imitated by the other.
The evidence of mathematics rests upon definitions, axioms, and dem-
onstrations. I shall be satisfied with showing that none of these forms can
be employed or imitated in philosophy in the sense in which they are
understood by mathematicians; and that the geometrician, if he employs
his method in philosophy, will succeed only in building card-castles, while
the employment of the philosophical method in mathematics can result
in nothing but mere verbiage. The essential business of philosophy, in-
deed, is to mark out the limits of the science; and even the mathematician,
unless his talent is naturally circumscribed and limited to this particular
department of knowledge, cannot turn a deaf ear to the warnings of phi-
losophy, or set himself above its direction.
1. Of Definitions. A definition is, as the term itself indicates, the represen-

tation, upon primary grounds, of the complete conception of a thing within
its own limits.* Accordingly, an empirical conception cannot be defined,
it can only be explained. For, as there are in such a conception only a
certain number of marks or signs, which denote a certain class of sensuous
objects, we can never be sure that we do not cogitate under the word
which indicates the same object, at one time a greater, at another a smaller
number of signs. Thus, one person may cogitate in his conception of gold,
in addition to its properties of weight, colour, malleability, that of resist-
ing rust, while another person may be ignorant of this quality. We employ
certain signs only so long as we require them for the sake of distinction;
*The definition must describe the conception completely that is, omit none of
the marks or signs of which it composed; within its own limits, that is, it must be
precise, and enumerate no more signs than belong to the conception; and on
primary grounds, that is to say, the limitations of the bounds of the conception
must not be deduced from other conceptions, as in this case a proof would be
necessary, and the so-called definition would be incapable of taking its place at
the bead of all the judgements we have to form regarding an object.
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new observations abstract some and add new ones, so that an empirical
conception never remains within permanent limits. It is, in fact, useless to
define a conception of this kind. If, for example, we are speaking of water
and its properties, we do not stop at what we actually think by the word
water, but proceed to observation and experiment; and the word, with the
few signs attached to it, is more properly a designation than a conception
of the thing. A definition in this case would evidently be nothing more
than a determination of the word. In the second place, no a priori concep-
tion, such as those of substance, cause, right, fitness, and so on, can be
defined. For I can never be sure, that the clear representation of a given
conception (which is given in a confused state) has been fully developed,
until I know that the representation is adequate with its object. But, inas-
much as the conception, as it is presented to the mind, may contain a
number of obscure representations, which we do not observe in our analysis,
although we employ them in our application of the conception, I can
never be sure that my analysis is complete, while examples may make this
probable, although they can never demonstrate the fact. Instead of the
word definition, I should rather employ the term exposition—a more
modest expression, which the critic may accept without surrendering his
doubts as to the completeness of the analysis of any such conception. As,
therefore, neither empirical nor a priori conceptions are capable of defini-
tion, we have to see whether the only other kind of conceptions—arbi-
trary conceptions—can be subjected to this mental operation. Such a con-
ception can always be defined; for I must know thoroughly what I wished
to cogitate in it, as it was I who created it, and it was not given to my mind
either by the nature of my understanding or by experience. At the same
time, I cannot say that, by such a definition, I have defined a real object.
If the conception is based upon empirical conditions, if, for example, I
have a conception of a clock for a ship, this arbitrary conception does not
assure me of the existence or even of the possibility of the object. My
definition of such a conception would with more propriety be termed a
declaration of a project than a definition of an object. There are no other
conceptions which can bear definition, except those which contain an
arbitrary synthesis, which can be constructed a priori. Consequently, the
science of mathematics alone possesses definitions. For the object here
thought is presented a priori in intuition; and thus it can never contain
more or less than the conception, because the conception of the object has
been given by the definition—and primarily, that is, without deriving the
definition from any other source. Philosophical definitions are, therefore,
merely expositions of given conceptions, while mathematical definitions
413
are constructions of conceptions originally formed by the mind itself; the

former are produced by analysis, the completeness of which is never de-
monstratively certain, the latter by a synthesis. In a mathematical defini-
tion the conception is formed, in a philosophical definition it is only ex-
plained. From this it follows:
(a) That we must not imitate, in philosophy, the mathematical usage of

commencing with definitions—except by way of hypothesis or experiment.
For, as all so-called philosophical definitions are merely analyses of given
conceptions, these conceptions, although only in a confused form, must
precede the analysis; and the incomplete exposition must precede the com-
plete, so that we may be able to draw certain inferences from the character-
istics which an incomplete analysis has enabled us to discover, before we
attain to the complete exposition or definition of the conception. In one
word, a full and clear definition ought, in philosophy, rather to form the
conclusion than the commencement of our labours.* In mathematics, on
the contrary, we cannot have a conception prior to the definition; it is the
definition which gives us the conception, and it must for this reason form
the commencement of every chain of mathematical reasoning.
(b) Mathematical definitions cannot be erroneous. For the conception is

given only in and through the definition, and thus it contains only what
has been cogitated in the definition. But although a definition cannot be
incorrect, as regards its content, an error may sometimes, although sel-
dom, creep into the form. This error consists in a want of precision. Thus
the common definition of a circle—that it is a curved line, every point in
which is equally distant from another point called the centre—is faulty,
from the fact that the determination indicated by the word curved is su-
perfluous. For there ought to be a particular theorem, which may be easily
proved from the definition, to the effect that every line, which has all its
*Philosophy abounds in faulty definitions, especially such as contain some of the

elements requisite to form a complete definition. If a conception could not be
employed in reasoning before it had been defined, it would fare ill with all philo-
sophical thought. But, as incompletely defined conceptions may always be em-
ployed without detriment to truth, so far as our analysis of the elements con-
tained in them proceeds, imperfect definitions, that is, propositions which are
properly not definitions, but merely approximations thereto, may be used with
great advantage. In mathematics, definition belongs ad esse, in philosophy ad
melius esse. It is a difficult task to construct a proper definition. Jurists are still
without a complete definition of the idea of right.
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Immanuel Kant
points at equal distances from another point, must be a curved line—that

is, that not even the smallest part of it can be straight. Analytical defini-
tions, on the other hand, may be erroneous in many respects, either by the
introduction of signs which do not actually exist in the conception, or by
wanting in that completeness which forms the essential of a definition. In
the latter case, the definition is necessarily defective, because we can never
be fully certain of the completeness of our analysis. For these reasons, the
method of definition employed in mathematics cannot be imitated in
philosophy.
2. Of Axioms. These, in so far as they are immediately certain, are a priori

synthetical principles. Now, one conception cannot be connected syn-
thetically and yet immediately with another; because, if we wish to pro-
ceed out of and beyond a conception, a third mediating cognition is nec-
essary. And, as philosophy is a cognition of reason by the aid of concep-
tions alone, there is to be found in it no principle which deserves to be
called an axiom. Mathematics, on the other hand, may possess axioms,
because it can always connect the predicates of an object a priori, and
without any mediating term, by means of the construction of conceptions
in intuition. Such is the case with the proposition: Three points can al-
ways lie in a plane. On the other hand, no synthetical principle which is
based upon conceptions, can ever be immediately certain (for example,
the proposition: Everything that happens has a cause), because I require a
mediating term to connect the two conceptions of event and cause-namely,
the condition of time-determination in an experience, and I cannot cognize
any such principle immediately and from conceptions alone. Discursive
principles are, accordingly, very different from intuitive principles or axi-
oms. The former always require deduction, which in the case of the latter
may be altogether dispensed with. Axioms are, for this reason, always self-
evident, while philosophical principles, whatever may be the degree of
certainty they possess, cannot lay any claim to such a distinction. No
synthetical proposition of pure transcendental reason can be so evident, as
is often rashly enough declared, as the statement, twice two are four. It is
true that in the Analytic I introduced into the list of principles of the pure
understanding, certain axioms of intuition; but the principle there dis-
cussed was not itself an axiom, but served merely to present the principle
of the possibility of axioms in general, while it was really nothing more
than a principle based upon conceptions. For it is one part of the duty of
transcendental philosophy to establish the possibility of mathematics it-
self. Philosophy possesses, then, no axioms, and has no right to impose its
415
a priori principles upon thought, until it has established their authority

and validity by a thoroughgoing deduction.
3. Of Demonstrations. Only an apodeictic proof, based upon intuition,

can be termed a demonstration. Experience teaches us what is, but it can-
not convince us that it might not have been otherwise. Hence a proof
upon empirical grounds cannot be apodeictic. A priori conceptions, in
discursive cognition, can never produce intuitive certainty or evidence,
however certain the judgement they present may be. Mathematics alone,
therefore, contains demonstrations, because it does not deduce its cogni-
tion from conceptions, but from the construction of conceptions, that is,
from intuition, which can be given a priori in accordance with concep-
tions. The method of algebra, in equations, from which the correct an-
swer is deduced by reduction, is a kind of construction—not geometrical,
but by symbols-in which all conceptions, especially those of the relations
of quantities, are represented in intuition by signs; and thus the conclu-
sions in that science are secured from errors by the fact that every proof is
submitted to ocular evidence. Philosophical cognition does not possess
this advantage, it being required to consider the general always in ab-
stracto (by means of conceptions), while mathematics can always consider
it in concreto (in an individual intuition), and at the same time by means
of a priori representation, whereby all errors are rendered manifest to the
senses. The former—discursive proofs—ought to be termed acroamatic
proofs, rather than demonstrations, as only words are employed in them,
while demonstrations proper, as the term itself indicates, always require a
reference to the intuition of the object.
It follows from all these considerations that it is not consonant with the
nature of philosophy, especially in the sphere of pure reason, to employ
the dogmatical method, and to adorn itself with the titles and insignia of
mathematical science. It does not belong to that order, and can only hope
for a fraternal union with that science. Its attempts at mathematical evi-
dence are vain pretensions, which can only keep it back from its true aim,
which is to detect the illusory procedure of reason when transgressing its
proper limits, and by fully explaining and analysing our conceptions, to
conduct us from the dim regions of speculation to the clear region of
modest self-knowledge. Reason must not, therefore, in its transcendental
endeavours, look forward with such confidence, as if the path it is pursu-
ing led straight to its aim, nor reckon with such security upon its pre-
misses, as to consider it unnecessary to take a step back, or to keep a strict
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Immanuel Kant
watch for errors, which, overlooked in the principles, may be detected in

the arguments themselves—in which case it may be requisite either to
determine these principles with greater strictness, or to change them en-
tirely.
I divide all apodeictic propositions, whether demonstrable or immedi-
ately certain, into dogmata and mathemata. A direct synthetical proposi-
tion, based on conceptions, is a dogma; a proposition of the same kind,
based on the construction of conceptions, is a mathema. Analytical judge-
ments do not teach us any more about an object than what was contained
in the conception we had of it; because they do not extend our cognition
beyond our conception of an object, they merely elucidate the concep-
tion. They cannot therefore be with propriety termed dogmas. Of the two
kinds of a priori synthetical propositions above mentioned, only those
which are employed in philosophy can, according to the general mode of
speech, bear this name; those of arithmetic or geometry would not be
rightly so denominated. Thus the customary mode of speaking confirms
the explanation given above, and the conclusion arrived at, that only those
judgements which are based upon conceptions, not on the construction
of conceptions, can be termed dogmatical.
Thus, pure reason, in the sphere of speculation, does not contain a single
direct synthetical judgement based upon conceptions. By means of ideas,
it is, as we have shown, incapable of producing synthetical judgements,
which are objectively valid; by means of the conceptions of the under-
standing, it establishes certain indubitable principles, not, however, di-
rectly on the basis of conceptions, but only indirectly by means of the
relation of these conceptions to something of a purely contingent nature,
namely, possible experience. When experience is presupposed, these prin-
ciples are apodeictically certain, but in themselves, and directly, they can-
not even be cognized a priori. Thus the given conceptions of cause and
event will not be sufficient for the demonstration of the proposition: Ev-
ery event has a cause. For this reason, it is not a dogma; although from
another point of view, that of experience, it is capable of being proved to
demonstration. The proper term for such a proposition is principle, and
not theorem (although it does require to be proved), because it possesses
the remarkable peculiarity of being the condition of the possibility of its
own ground of proof, that is, experience, and of forming a necessary pre-
supposition in all empirical observation.
If then, in the speculative sphere of pure reason, no dogmata are to be
found; all dogmatical methods, whether borrowed from mathematics, or
invented by philosophical thinkers, are alike inappropriate and inefficient.
417
They only serve to conceal errors and fallacies, and to deceive philosophy,
whose duty it is to see that reason pursues a safe and straight path. A
philosophical method may, however, be systematical. For our reason is,
subjectively considered, itself a system, and, in the sphere of mere concep-
tions, a system of investigation according to principles of unity, the mate-
rial being supplied by experience alone. But this is not the proper place for
discussing the peculiar method of transcendental philosophy, as our present
task is simply to examine whether our faculties are capable of erecting an
edifice on the basis of pure reason, and how far they may proceed with the
materials at their command.
SECTION II. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Polemics.
Reason must be subject, in all its operations, to criticism, which must

always be permitted to exercise its functions without restraint; otherwise
its interests are imperilled and its influence obnoxious to suspicion. There
is nothing, however useful, however sacred it may be, that can claim ex-
emption from the searching examination of this supreme tribunal, which
has no respect of persons. The very existence of reason depends upon this
freedom; for the voice of reason is not that of a dictatorial and despotic
power, it is rather like the vote of the citizens of a free state, every member
of which must have the privilege of giving free expression to his doubts,
and possess even the right of veto.
But while reason can never decline to submit itself to the tribunal of
criticism, it has not always cause to dread the judgement of this court.
Pure reason, however, when engaged in the sphere of dogmatism, is not so
thoroughly conscious of a strict observance of its highest laws, as to ap-
pear before a higher judicial reason with perfect confidence. On the con-
trary, it must renounce its magnificent dogmatical pretensions in philoso-
phy.
Very different is the case when it has to defend itself, not before a judge,
but against an equal. If dogmatical assertions are advanced on the nega-
tive side, in opposition to those made by reason on the positive side, its
justification kat authrhopon is complete, although the proof of its propo-
sitions is kat aletheian unsatisfactory.
By the polemic of pure reason I mean the defence of its propositions
made by reason, in opposition to the dogmatical counter-propositions
advanced by other parties. The question here is not whether its own state-
ments may not also be false; it merely regards the fact that reason proves
418
Immanuel Kant
that the opposite cannot be established with demonstrative certainty, nor

even asserted with a higher degree of probability. Reason does not hold
her possessions upon sufferance; for, although she cannot show a perfectly
satisfactory title to them, no one can prove that she is not the rightful
possessor.
It is a melancholy reflection that reason, in its highest exercise, falls into
an antithetic; and that the supreme tribunal for the settlement of differ-
ences should not be at union with itself. It is true that we had to discuss
the question of an apparent antithetic, but we found that it was based
upon a misconception. In conformity with the common prejudice, phe-
nomena were regarded as things in themselves, and thus an absolute com-
pleteness in their synthesis was required in the one mode or in the other
(it was shown to be impossible in both); a demand entirely out of place in
regard to phenomena. There was, then, no real self-contradiction of rea-
son in the propositions: The series of phenomena given in themselves has
an absolutely first beginning; and: This series is absolutely and in itself
without beginning. The two propositions are perfectly consistent with
each other, because phenomena as phenomena are in themselves nothing,
and consequently the hypothesis that they are things in themselves must
lead to self-contradictory inferences.
But there are cases in which a similar misunderstanding cannot be pro-
vided against, and the dispute must remain unsettled. Take, for example,
the theistic proposition: There is a Supreme Being; and on the other hand,
the atheistic counter-statement: There exists no Supreme Being; or, in
psychology: Everything that thinks possesses the attribute of absolute and
permanent unity, which is utterly different from the transitory unity of
material phenomena; and the counter-proposition: The soul is not an
immaterial unity, and its nature is transitory, like that of phenomena. The
objects of these questions contain no heterogeneous or contradictory ele-
ments, for they relate to things in themselves, and not to phenomena.
There would arise, indeed, a real contradiction, if reason came forward
with a statement on the negative side of these questions alone. As regards
the criticism to which the grounds of proof on the affirmative side must
be subjected, it may be freely admitted, without necessitating the surren-
der of the affirmative propositions, which have, at least, the interest of
reason in their favour—an advantage which the opposite party cannot lay
claim to.
I cannot agree with the opinion of several admirable thinkers—Sulzer
among the rest—that, in spite of the weakness of the arguments hitherto
in use, we may hope, one day, to see sufficient demonstrations of the two
419
cardinal propositions of pure reason—the existence of a Supreme Being,

and the immortality of the soul. I am certain, on the contrary, that this
will never be the case. For on what ground can reason base such syntheti-
cal propositions, which do not relate to the objects of experience and their
internal possibility? But it is also demonstratively certain that no one will
ever be able to maintain the contrary with the least show of probability.
For, as he can attempt such a proof solely upon the basis of pure reason, he
is bound to prove that a Supreme Being, and a thinking subject in the
character of a pure intelligence, are impossible. But where will he find the
knowledge which can enable him to enounce synthetical judgements in
regard to things which transcend the region of experience? We may, there-
fore, rest assured that the opposite never will be demonstrated. We need
not, then, have recourse to scholastic arguments; we may always admit
the truth of those propositions which are consistent with the speculative
interests of reason in the sphere of experience, and form, moreover, the
only means of uniting the speculative with the practical interest. Our op-
ponent, who must not be considered here as a critic solely, we can be ready
to meet with a non liquet which cannot fail to disconcert him; while we
cannot deny his right to a similar retort, as we have on our side the advan-
tage of the support of the subjective maxim of reason, and can therefore
look upon all his sophistical arguments with calm indifference.
From this point of view, there is properly no antithetic of pure reason.
For the only arena for such a struggle would be upon the field of pure
theology and psychology; but on this ground there can appear no com-
batant whom we need to fear. Ridicule and boasting can be his only weap-
ons; and these may be laughed at, as mere child’s play. This consideration
restores to Reason her courage; for what source of confidence could be
found, if she, whose vocation it is to destroy error, were at variance with
herself and without any reasonable hope of ever reaching a state of perma-
nent repose?
Everything in nature is good for some purpose. Even poisons are ser-
viceable; they destroy the evil effects of other poisons generated in our
system, and must always find a place in every complete pharmacopoeia.
The objections raised against the fallacies and sophistries of speculative
reason, are objections given by the nature of this reason itself, and must
therefore have a destination and purpose which can only be for the good
of humanity. For what purpose has Providence raised many objects, in
which we have the deepest interest, so far above us, that we vainly try to
cognize them with certainty, and our powers of mental vision are rather
excited than satisfied by the glimpses we may chance to seize? It is very
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Immanuel Kant
doubtful whether it is for our benefit to advance bold affirmations regard-

ing subjects involved in such obscurity; perhaps it would even be detri-
mental to our best interests. But it is undoubtedly always beneficial to
leave the investigating, as well as the critical reason, in perfect freedom,
and permit it to take charge of its own interests, which are advanced as
much by its limitation, as by its extension of its views, and which always
suffer by the interference of foreign powers forcing it, against its natural
tendencies, to bend to certain preconceived designs.
Allow your opponent to say what he thinks reasonable, and combat
him only with the weapons of reason. Have no anxiety for the practical
interests of humanity—these are never imperilled in a purely speculative
dispute. Such a dispute serves merely to disclose the antinomy of reason,
which, as it has its source in the nature of reason, ought to be thoroughly
investigated. Reason is benefited by the examination of a subject on both
sides, and its judgements are corrected by being limited. It is not the mat-
ter that may give occasion to dispute, but the manner. For it is perfectly
permissible to employ, in the presence of reason, the language of a firmly
rooted faith, even after we have been obliged to renounce all pretensions
to knowledge.
If we were to ask the dispassionate David Hume—a philosopher en-
dowed, in a degree that few are, with a well-balanced judgement: What
motive induced you to spend so much labour and thought in undermin-
ing the consoling and beneficial persuasion that reason is capable of assur-
ing us of the existence, and presenting us with a determinate conception
of a Supreme Being?—his answer would be: Nothing but the desire of
teaching reason to know its own powers better, and, at the same time, a
dislike of the procedure by which that faculty was compelled to support
foregone conclusions, and prevented from confessing the internal weak-
nesses which it cannot but feel when it enters upon a rigid self-examina-
tion. If, on the other hand, we were to ask Priestley—a philosopher who
had no taste for transcendental speculation, but was entirely devoted to
the principles of empiricism—what his motives were for overturning those
two main pillars of religion—the doctrines of the freedom of the will and
the immortality of the soul (in his view the hope of a future life is but the
expectation of the miracle of resurrection)-this philosopher, himself a zeal-
ous and pious teacher of religion, could give no other answer than this: I
acted in the interest of reason, which always suffers, when certain objects
are explained and judged by a reference to other supposed laws than those
of material nature—the only laws which we know in a determinate man-
ner. It would be unfair to decry the latter philosopher, who endeavoured
421
to harmonize his paradoxical opinions with the interests of religion, and

to undervalue an honest and reflecting man, because he finds himself at a
loss the moment he has left the field of natural science. The same grace
must be accorded to Hume, a man not less well-disposed, and quite as
blameless in his moral character, and who pushed his abstract specula-
tions to an extreme length, because, as he rightly believed, the object of
them lies entirely beyond the bounds of natural science, and within the
sphere of pure ideas.
What is to be done to provide against the danger which seems in the
present case to menace the best interests of humanity? The course to be
pursued in reference to this subject is a perfectly plain and natural one.
Let each thinker pursue his own path; if he shows talent, if he gives evi-
dence of profound thought, in one word, if he shows that he possesses the
power of reasoning—reason is always the gainer. If you have recourse to
other means, if you attempt to coerce reason, if you raise the cry of treason
to humanity, if you excite the feelings of the crowd, which can neither
understand nor sympathize with such subtle speculations—you will only
make yourselves ridiculous. For the question does not concern the advan-
tage or disadvantage which we are expected to reap from such inquiries;
the question is merely how far reason can advance in the field of specula-
tion, apart from all kinds of interest, and whether we may depend upon
the exertions of speculative reason, or must renounce all reliance on it.
Instead of joining the combatants, it is your part to be a tranquil spectator
of the struggle—a laborious struggle for the parties engaged, but attended,
in its progress as well as in its result, with the most advantageous conse-
quences for the interests of thought and knowledge. It is absurd to expect
to be enlightened by Reason, and at the same time to prescribe to her
what side of the question she must adopt. Moreover, reason is sufficiently
held in check by its own power, the limits imposed on it by its own nature
are sufficient; it is unnecessary for you to place over it additional guards,
as if its power were dangerous to the constitution of the intellectual state.
In the dialectic of reason there is no victory gained which need in the least
disturb your tranquility.
The strife of dialectic is a necessity of reason, and we cannot but wish
that it had been conducted long ere this with that perfect freedom which
ought to be its essential condition. In this case, we should have had at an
earlier period a matured and profound criticism, which must have put an
end to all dialectical disputes, by exposing the illusions and prejudices in
which they originated.
There is in human nature an unworthy propensity—a propensity which,
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Immanuel Kant
like everything that springs from nature, must in its final purpose be con-
ducive to the good of humanity—to conceal our real sentiments, and to
give expression only to certain received opinions, which are regarded as at
once safe and promotive of the common good. It is true, this tendency,
not only to conceal our real sentiments, but to profess those which may
gain us favour in the eyes of society, has not only civilized, but, in a certain
measure, moralized us; as no one can break through the outward covering
of respectability, honour, and morality, and thus the seemingly-good ex-
amples which we which we see around us form an excellent school for
moral improvement, so long as our belief in their genuineness remains
unshaken. But this disposition to represent ourselves as better than we are,
and to utter opinions which are not our own, can be nothing more than a
kind of provisionary arrangement of nature to lead us from the rudeness
of an uncivilized state, and to teach us how to assume at least the appear-
ance and manner of the good we see. But when true principles have been
developed, and have obtained a sure foundation in our habit of thought,
this conventionalism must be attacked with earnest vigour, otherwise it
corrupts the heart, and checks the growth of good dispositions with the
mischievous weed of air appearances.
I am sorry to remark the same tendency to misrepresentation and hy-
pocrisy in the sphere of speculative discussion, where there is less tempta-
tion to restrain the free expression of thought. For what can be more preju-
dicial to the interests of intelligence than to falsify our real sentiments, to
conceal the doubts which we feel in regard to our statements, or to main-
tain the validity of grounds of proof which we well know to be insuffi-
cient? So long as mere personal vanity is the source of these unworthy
artifices—and this is generally the case in speculative discussions, which
are mostly destitute of practical interest, and are incapable of complete
demonstration—the vanity of the opposite party exaggerates as much on
the other side; and thus the result is the same, although it is not brought
about so soon as if the dispute had been conducted in a sincere and up-
right spirit. But where the mass entertains the notion that the aim of
certain subtle speculators is nothing less than to shake the very founda-
tions of public welfare and morality—it seems not only prudent, but even
praise worthy, to maintain the good cause by illusory arguments, rather
than to give to our supposed opponents the advantage of lowering our
declarations to the moderate tone of a merely practical conviction, and of
compelling us to confess our inability to attain to apodeictic certainty in
speculative subjects. But we ought to reflect that there is nothing, in the
world more fatal to the maintenance of a good cause than deceit, misrep-
423
resentation, and falsehood. That the strictest laws of honesty should be

observed in the discussion of a purely speculative subject is the least re-
quirement that can be made. If we could reckon with security even upon
so little, the conflict of speculative reason regarding the important ques-
tions of God, immortality, and freedom, would have been either decided
long ago, or would very soon be brought to a conclusion. But, in general,
the uprightness of the defence stands in an inverse ratio to the goodness of
the cause; and perhaps more honesty and fairness are shown by those who
deny than by those who uphold these doctrines.
I shall persuade myself, then, that I have readers who do not wish to see
a righteous cause defended by unfair arguments. Such will now recognize
the fact that, according to the principles of this Critique, if we consider
not what is, but what ought to be the case, there can be really no polemic
of pure reason. For how can two persons dispute about a thing, the reality
of which neither can present in actual or even in possible experience? Each
adopts the plan of meditating on his idea for the purpose of drawing from
the idea, if he can, what is more than the idea, that is, the reality of the
object which it indicates. How shall they settle the dispute, since neither is
able to make his assertions directly comprehensible and certain, but must
restrict himself to attacking and confuting those of his opponent? All state-
ments enounced by pure reason transcend the conditions of possible ex-
perience, beyond the sphere of which we can discover no criterion of truth,
while they are at the same time framed in accordance with the laws of the
understanding, which are applicable only to experience; and thus it is the
fate of all such speculative discussions that while the one party attacks the
weaker side of his opponent, he infallibly lays open his own weaknesses.
The critique of pure reason may be regarded as the highest tribunal for all
speculative disputes; for it is not involved in these disputes, which have an
immediate relation to certain objects and not to the laws of the mind, but is
instituted for the purpose of determining the rights and limits of reason.
Without the control of criticism, reason is, as it were, in a state of na-
ture, and can only establish its claims and assertions by war. Criticism, on
the contrary, deciding all questions according to the fundamental laws of
its own institution, secures to us the peace of law and order, and enables
us to discuss all differences in the more tranquil manner of a legal process.
In the former case, disputes are ended by victory, which both sides may
claim and which is followed by a hollow armistice; in the latter, by a sen-
tence, which, as it strikes at the root of all speculative differences, ensures
to all concerned a lasting peace. The endless disputes of a dogmatizing
reason compel us to look for some mode of arriving at a settled decision
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by a critical investigation of reason itself; just as Hobbes maintains that

the state of nature is a state of injustice and violence, and that we must
leave it and submit ourselves to the constraint of law, which indeed limits
individual freedom, but only that it may consist with the freedom of oth-
ers and with the common good of all.
This freedom will, among other things, permit of our openly stating the
difficulties and doubts which we are ourselves unable to solve, without
being decried on that account as turbulent and dangerous citizens. This
privilege forms part of the native rights of human reason, which recog-
nizes no other judge than the universal reason of humanity; and as this
reason is the source of all progress and improvement, such a privilege is to
be held sacred and inviolable. It is unwise, moreover, to denounce as dan-
gerous any bold assertions against, or rash attacks upon, an opinion which
is held by the largest and most moral class of the community; for that
would be giving them an importance which they do not deserve. When I
hear that the freedom of the will, the hope of a future life, and the exist-
ence of God have been overthrown by the arguments of some able writer,
I feel a strong desire to read his book; for I expect that he will add to my
knowledge and impart greater clearness and distinctness to my views by
the argumentative power shown in his writings. But I am perfectly cer-
tain, even before I have opened the book, that he has not succeeded in a
single point, not because I believe I am in possession of irrefutable dem-
onstrations of these important propositions, but because this transcen-
dental critique, which has disclosed to me the power and the limits of
pure reason, has fully convinced me that, as it is insufficient to establish
the affirmative, it is as powerless, and even more so, to assure us of the
truth of the negative answer to these questions. From what source does
this free-thinker derive his knowledge that there is, for example, no Su-
preme Being? This proposition lies out of the field of possible experience,
and, therefore, beyond the limits of human cognition. But I would not
read at, all the answer which the dogmatical maintainer of the good cause
makes to his opponent, because I know well beforehand, that he will merely
attack the fallacious grounds of his adversary, without being able to estab-
lish his own assertions. Besides, a new illusory argument, in the construc-
tion of which talent and acuteness are shown, is suggestive of new ideas
and new trains of reasoning, and in this respect the old and everyday
sophistries are quite useless. Again, the dogmatical opponent of religion
gives employment to criticism, and enables us to test and correct its prin-
ciples, while there is no occasion for anxiety in regard to the influence and
results of his reasoning.
425
But, it will be said, must we not warn the youth entrusted to academical
care against such writings, must we not preserve them from the knowl-
edge of these dangerous assertions, until their judgement is ripened, or
rather until the doctrines which we wish to inculcate are so firmly rooted
in their minds as to withstand all attempts at instilling the contrary dog-
mas, from whatever quarter they may come?
If we are to confine ourselves to the dogmatical procedure in the sphere
of pure reason, and find ourselves unable to settle such disputes otherwise
than by becoming a party in them, and setting counter-assertions against
the statements advanced by our opponents, there is certainly no plan more
advisable for the moment, but, at the same time, none more absurd and
inefficient for the future, than this retaining of the youthful mind under
guardianship for a time, and thus preserving it—for so long at least—
from seduction into error. But when, at a later period, either curiosity, or
the prevalent fashion of thought places such writings in their hands, will
the so-called convictions of their youth stand firm? The young thinker,
who has in his armoury none but dogmatical weapons with which to
resist the attacks of his opponent, and who cannot detect the latent dialec-
tic which lies in his own opinions as well as in those of the opposite party,
sees the advance of illusory arguments and grounds of proof which have
the advantage of novelty, against as illusory grounds of proof destitute of
this advantage, and which, perhaps, excite the suspicion that the natural
credulity of his youth has been abused by his instructors. He thinks he can
find no better means of showing that he has out grown the discipline of
his minority than by despising those well-meant warnings, and, knowing
no system of thought but that of dogmatism, he drinks deep draughts of
the poison that is to sap the principles in which his early years were trained.
Exactly the opposite of the system here recommended ought to be pur-
sued in academical instruction. This can only be effected, however, by a
thorough training in the critical investigation of pure reason. For, in order
to bring the principles of this critique into exercise as soon as possible, and
to demonstrate their perfect even in the presence of the highest degree of
dialectical illusion, the student ought to examine the assertions made on
both sides of speculative questions step by step, and to test them by these
principles. It cannot be a difficult task for him to show the fallacies inher-
ent in these propositions, and thus he begins early to feel his own power of
securing himself against the influence of such sophistical arguments, which
must finally lose, for him, all their illusory power. And, although the same
blows which overturn the edifice of his opponent are as fatal to his own
speculative structures, if such he has wished to rear; he need not feel any
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Immanuel Kant
sorrow in regard to this seeming misfortune, as he has now before him a

fair prospect into the practical region in which he may reasonably hope to
find a more secure foundation for a rational system.
There is, accordingly, no proper polemic in the sphere of pure reason.
Both parties beat the air and fight with their own shadows, as they pass
beyond the limits of nature, and can find no tangible point of attack—no
firm footing for their dogmatical conflict. Fight as vigorously as they may,
the shadows which they hew down, immediately start up again, like the
heroes in Walhalla, and renew the bloodless and unceasing contest.
But neither can we admit that there is any proper sceptical employment
of pure reason, such as might be based upon the principle of neutrality in
all speculative disputes. To excite reason against itself, to place weapons in
the hands of the party on the one side as well as in those of the other, and
to remain an undisturbed and sarcastic spectator of the fierce struggle that
ensues, seems, from the dogmatical point of view, to be a part fitting only
a malevolent disposition. But, when the sophist evidences an invincible
obstinacy and blindness, and a pride which no criticism can moderate,
there is no other practicable course than to oppose to this pride and obsti-
nacy similar feelings and pretensions on the other side, equally well or ill
founded, so that reason, staggered by the reflections thus forced upon it,
finds it necessary to moderate its confidence in such pretensions and to
listen to the advice of criticism. But we cannot stop at these doubts, much
less regard the conviction of our ignorance, not only as a cure for the
conceit natural to dogmatism, but as the settlement of the disputes in
which reason is involved with itself. On the contrary, scepticism is merely
a means of awakening reason from its dogmatic dreams and exciting it to
a more careful investigation into its own powers and pretensions. But, as
scepticism appears to be the shortest road to a permanent peace in the
domain of philosophy, and as it is the track pursued by the many who aim
at giving a philosophical colouring to their contemptuous dislike of all
inquiries of this kind, I think it necessary to present to my readers this
mode of thought in its true light.
Scepticism not a Permanent State for Human Reason.
The consciousness of ignorance—unless this ignorance is recognized to

be absolutely necessary ought, instead of forming the conclusion of my
inquiries, to be the strongest motive to the pursuit of them. All ignorance
is either ignorance of things or of the limits of knowledge. If my ignorance
427
is accidental and not necessary, it must incite me, in the first case, to a
dogmatical inquiry regarding the objects of which I am ignorant; in the
second, to a critical investigation into the bounds of all possible knowl-
edge. But that my ignorance is absolutely necessary and unavoidable, and
that it consequently absolves from the duty of all further investigation, is
a fact which cannot be made out upon empirical grounds—from observa-
tion—but upon critical grounds alone, that is, by a thoroughgoing inves-
tigation into the primary sources of cognition. It follows that the determi-
nation of the bounds of reason can be made only on a priori grounds;
while the empirical limitation of reason, which is merely an indeterminate
cognition of an ignorance that can never be completely removed, can take
place only a posteriori. In other words, our empirical knowledge is limited
by that which yet remains for us to know. The former cognition of our
ignorance, which is possible only on a rational basis, is a science; the latter
is merely a perception, and we cannot say how far the inferences drawn
from it may extend. If I regard the earth, as it really appears to my senses,
as a flat surface, I am ignorant how far this surface extends. But experience
teaches me that, how far soever I go, I always see before me a space in
which I can proceed farther; and thus I know the limits—merely visual—
of my actual knowledge of the earth, although I am ignorant of the limits
of the earth itself. But if I have got so far as to know that the earth is a
sphere, and that its surface is spherical, I can cognize a priori and deter-
mine upon principles, from my knowledge of a small part of this sur-
face—say to the extent of a degree—the diameter and circumference of
the earth; and although I am ignorant of the objects which this surface
contains, I have a perfect knowledge of its limits and extent.
The sum of all the possible objects of our cognition seems to us to be a
level surface, with an apparent horizon—that which forms the limit of its
extent, and which has been termed by us the idea of unconditioned total-
ity. To reach this limit by empirical means is impossible, and all attempts
to determine it a priori according to a principle, are alike in vain. But all
the questions raised by pure reason relate to that which lies beyond this
horizon, or, at least, in its boundary line.
The celebrated David Hume was one of those geographers of human
reason who believe that they have given a sufficient answer to all such
questions by declaring them to lie beyond the horizon of our knowledge—
a horizon which, however, Hume was unable to determine. His attention
especially was directed to the principle of causality; and he remarked with
perfect justice that the truth of this principle, and even the objective valid-
ity of the conception of a cause, was not commonly based upon clear
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Immanuel Kant
insight, that is, upon a priori cognition. Hence he concluded that this law
does not derive its authority from its universality and necessity, but merely
from its general applicability in the course of experience, and a kind of
subjective necessity thence arising, which he termed habit. From the in-
ability of reason to establish this principle as a necessary law for the acqui-
sition of all experience, he inferred the nullity of all the attempts of reason
to pass the region of the empirical.
This procedure of subjecting the facta of reason to examination, and, if
necessary, to disapproval, may be termed the censura of reason. This censura
must inevitably lead us to doubts regarding all transcendent employment
of principles. But this is only the second step in our inquiry. The first step
in regard to the subjects of pure reason, and which marks the infancy of
that faculty, is that of dogmatism. The second, which we have just men-
tioned, is that of scepticism, and it gives evidence that our judgement has
been improved by experience. But a third step is necessary—indicative of
the maturity and manhood of the judgement, which now lays a firm foun-
dation upon universal and necessary principles. This is the period of criti-
cism, in which we do not examine the facta of reason, but reason itself, in
the whole extent of its powers, and in regard to its capability of a priori
cognition; and thus we determine not merely the empirical and ever-shift-
ing bounds of our knowledge, but its necessary and eternal limits. We
demonstrate from indubitable principles, not merely our ignorance in re-
spect to this or that subject, but in regard to all possible questions of a
certain class. Thus scepticism is a resting place for reason, in which it may
reflect on its dogmatical wanderings and gain some knowledge of the re-
gion in which it happens to be, that it may pursue its way with greater
certainty; but it cannot be its permanent dwelling-place. It must take up
its abode only in the region of complete certitude, whether this relates to
the cognition of objects themselves, or to the limits which bound all our
cognition.
Reason is not to be considered as an indefinitely extended plane, of the
bounds of which we have only a general knowledge; it ought rather to be
compared to a sphere, the radius of which may be found from the curva-
ture of its surface—that is, the nature of a priori synthetical propositions—
and, consequently, its circumference and extent. Beyond the sphere of
experience there are no objects which it can cognize; nay, even questions
regarding such supposititious objects relate only to the subjective prin-
ciples of a complete determination of the relations which exist between
the understanding-conceptions which lie within this sphere.
We are actually in possession of a priori synthetical cognitions, as is
429
proved by the existence of the principles of the understanding, which an-

ticipate experience. If any one cannot comprehend the possibility of these
principles, he may have some reason to doubt whether they are really a
priori; but he cannot on this account declare them to be impossible, and
affirm the nullity of the steps which reason may have taken under their
guidance. He can only say: If we perceived their origin and their authen-
ticity, we should be able to determine the extent and limits of reason; but,
till we can do this, all propositions regarding the latter are mere random
assertions. In this view, the doubt respecting all dogmatical philosophy,
which proceeds without the guidance of criticism, is well grounded; but
we cannot therefore deny to reason the ability to construct a sound phi-
losophy, when the way has been prepared by a thorough critical investiga-
tion. All the conceptions produced, and all the questions raised, by pure
reason, do not lie in the sphere of experience, but in that of reason itself,
and hence they must be solved, and shown to be either valid or inadmis-
sible, by that faculty. We have no right to decline the solution of such
problems, on the ground that the solution can be discovered only from
the nature of things, and under pretence of the limitation of human facul-
ties, for reason is the sole creator of all these ideas, and is therefore bound
either to establish their validity or to expose their illusory nature.
The polemic of scepticism is properly directed against the dogmatist,
who erects a system of philosophy without having examined the funda-
mental objective principles on which it is based, for the purpose of evi-
dencing the futility of his designs, and thus bringing him to a knowledge
of his own powers. But, in itself, scepticism does not give us any certain
information in regard to the bounds of our knowledge. All unsuccessful
dogmatical attempts of reason are facia, which it is always useful to sub-
mit to the censure of the sceptic. But this cannot help us to any decision
regarding the expectations which reason cherishes of better success in fu-
ture endeavours; the investigations of scepticism cannot, therefore, settle
the dispute regarding the rights and powers of human reason.
Hume is perhaps the ablest and most ingenious of all sceptical philoso-
phers, and his writings have, undoubtedly, exerted the most powerful in-
fluence in awakening reason to a thorough investigation into its own pow-
ers. It will, therefore, well repay our labours to consider for a little the
course of reasoning which he followed and the errors into which he strayed,
although setting out on the path of truth and certitude.
Hume was probably aware, although he never clearly developed the
notion, that we proceed in judgements of a certain class beyond our con-
ception if the object. I have termed this kind of judgement synthetical. As
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Immanuel Kant
regard the manner in which I pass beyond my conception by the aid of

experience, no doubts can be entertained. Experience is itself a synthesis
of perceptions; and it employs perceptions to increment the conception,
which I obtain by means of another perception. But we feel persuaded
that we are able to proceed beyond a conception, and to extend our cog-
nition a priori. We attempt this in two ways—either, through the pure
understanding, in relation to that which may become an object of experi-
ence, or, through pure reason, in relation to such properties of things, or
of the existence of things, as can never be presented in any experience.
This sceptical philosopher did not distinguish these two kinds of judge-
ments, as he ought to have done, but regarded this augmentation of con-
ceptions, and, if we may so express ourselves, the spontaneous generation
of understanding and reason, independently of the impregnation of expe-
rience, as altogether impossible. The so-called a priori principles of these
faculties he consequently held to be invalid and imaginary, and regarded
them as nothing but subjective habits of thought originating in experi-
ence, and therefore purely empirical and contingent rules, to which we
attribute a spurious necessity and universality. In support of this strange
assertion, he referred us to the generally acknowledged principle of the
relation between cause and effect. No faculty of the mind can conduct us
from the conception of a thing to the existence of something else; and
hence he believed he could infer that, without experience, we possess no
source from which we can augment a conception, and no ground suffi-
cient to justify us in framing a judgement that is to extend our cognition
a priori. That the light of the sun, which shines upon a piece of wax, at the
same time melts it, while it hardens clay, no power of the understanding
could infer from the conceptions which we previously possessed of these
substances; much less is there any a priori law that could conduct us to
such a conclusion, which experience alone can certify. On the other hand,
we have seen in our discussion of transcendental logic, that, although we
can never proceed immediately beyond the content of the conception which
is given us, we can always cognize completely a priori—in relation, how-
ever, to a third term, namely, possible experience—the law of its connec-
tion with other things. For example, if I observe that a piece of wax melts,
I can cognize a priori that there must have been something (the sun’s heat)
preceding, which this law; although, without the aid of experience, I could
not cognize a priori and in a determinate manner either the cause from
the effect, or the effect from the cause. Hume was, therefore, wrong in
inferring, from the contingency of the determination according to law,
the contingency of the law itself; and the passing beyond the conception
431
of a thing to possible experience (which is an a priori proceeding, consti-

tuting the objective reality of the conception), he confounded with our
synthesis of objects in actual experience, which is always, of course, em-
pirical. Thus, too, he regarded the principle of affinity, which has its seat
in the understanding and indicates a necessary connection, as a mere rule
of association, lying in the imitative faculty of imagination, which can
present only contingent, and not objective connections.
The sceptical errors of this remarkably acute thinker arose principally
from a defect, which was common to him with the dogmatists, namely, that
he had never made a systematic review of all the different kinds of a priori
synthesis performed by the understanding. Had he done so, he would have
found, to take one example among many, that the principle of permanence
was of this character, and that it, as well as the principle of causality, antici-
pates experience. In this way he might have been able to describe the deter-
minate limits of the a priori operations of understanding and reason. But he
merely declared the understanding to be limited, instead of showing what
its limits were; he created a general mistrust in the power of our faculties,
without giving us any determinate knowledge of the bounds of our neces-
sary and unavoidable ignorance; he examined and condemned some of the
principles of the understanding, without investigating all its powers with
the completeness necessary to criticism. He denies, with truth, certain pow-
ers to the understanding, but he goes further, and declares it to be utterly
inadequate to the a priori extension of knowledge, although he has not fully
examined all the powers which reside in the faculty; and thus the fate which
always overtakes scepticism meets him too. That is to say, his own declara-
tions are doubted, for his objections were based upon facta, which are con-
tingent, and not upon principles, which can alone demonstrate the neces-
sary invalidity of all dogmatical assertions.
As Hume makes no distinction between the well-grounded claims of
the understanding and the dialectical pretensions of reason, against which,
however, his attacks are mainly directed, reason does not feel itself shut
out from all attempts at the extension of a priori cognition, and hence it
refuses, in spite of a few checks in this or that quarter, to relinquish such
efforts. For one naturally arms oneself to resist an attack, and becomes
more obstinate in the resolve to establish the claims he has advanced. But
a complete review of the powers of reason, and the conviction thence
arising that we are in possession of a limited field of action, while we must
admit the vanity of higher claims, puts an end to all doubt and dispute,
and induces reason to rest satisfied with the undisturbed possession of its
limited domain.
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Immanuel Kant
To the uncritical dogmatist, who has not surveyed the sphere of his
understanding, nor determined, in accordance with principles, the limits
of possible cognition, who, consequently, is ignorant of his own powers,
and believes he will discover them by the attempts he makes in the field of
cognition, these attacks of scepticism are not only dangerous, but destruc-
tive. For if there is one proposition in his chain of reasoning which be he
cannot prove, or the fallacy in which he cannot evolve in accordance with
a principle, suspicion falls on all his statements, however plausible they
may appear.
And thus scepticism, the bane of dogmatical philosophy, conducts us to
a sound investigation into the understanding and the reason. When we
are thus far advanced, we need fear no further attacks; for the limits of our
domain are clearly marked out, and we can make no claims nor become
involved in any disputes regarding the region that lies beyond these limits.
Thus the sceptical procedure in philosophy does not present any solution
of the problems of reason, but it forms an excellent exercise for its powers,
awakening its circumspection, and indicating the means whereby it may
most fully establish its claims to its legitimate possessions.
SECTION III. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Hypothesis.
This critique of reason has now taught us that all its efforts to extend the
bounds of knowledge, by means of pure speculation, are utterly fruitless.
So much the wider field, it may appear, lies open to hypothesis; as, where
we cannot know with certainty, we are at liberty to make guesses and to
form suppositions.
Imagination may be allowed, under the strict surveillance of reason, to
invent suppositions; but, these must be based on something that is per-
fectly certain—and that is the possibility of the object. If we are well as-
sured upon this point, it is allowable to have recourse to supposition in
regard to the reality of the object; but this supposition must, unless it is
utterly groundless, be connected, as its ground of explanation, with that
which is really given and absolutely certain. Such a supposition is termed
a hypothesis.
It is beyond our power to form the least conception a priori of the
possibility of dynamical connection in phenomena; and the category of
the pure understanding will not enable us to excogitate any such connec-
tion, but merely helps us to understand it, when we meet with it in expe-
rience. For this reason we cannot, in accordance with the categories, imagine
433
or invent any object or any property of an object not given, or that may
not be given in experience, and employ it in a hypothesis; otherwise, we
should be basing our chain of reasoning upon mere chimerical fancies,
and not upon conceptions of things. Thus, we have no right to assume the
existence of new powers, not existing in nature—for example, an under-
standing with a non-sensuous intuition, a force of attraction without con-
tact, or some new kind of substances occupying space, and yet without
the property of impenetrability—and, consequently, we cannot assume
that there is any other kind of community among substances than that
observable in experience, any kind of presence than that in space, or any
kind of duration than that in time. In one word, the conditions of pos-
sible experience are for reason the only conditions of the possibility of
things; reason cannot venture to form, independently of these conditions,
any conceptions of things, because such conceptions, although not self-
contradictory, are without object and without application.
The conceptions of reason are, as we have already shown, mere ideas,
and do not relate to any object in any kind of experience. At the same
time, they do not indicate imaginary or possible objects. They are purely
problematical in their nature and, as aids to the heuristic exercise of the
faculties, form the basis of the regulative principles for the systematic
employment of the understanding in the field of experience. If we leave
this ground of experience, they become mere fictions of thought, the pos-
sibility of which is quite indemonstrable; and they cannot, consequently,
be employed as hypotheses in the explanation of real phenomena. It is
quite admissible to cogitate the soul as simple, for the purpose of enabling
ourselves to employ the idea of a perfect and necessary unity of all the
faculties of the mind as the principle of all our inquiries into its internal
phenomena, although we cannot cognize this unity in concreto. But to
assume that the soul is a simple substance (a transcendental conception)
would be enouncing a proposition which is not only indemonstrable—as
many physical hypotheses are—but a proposition which is purely arbi-
trary, and in the highest degree rash. The simple is never presented in
experience; and, if by substance is here meant the permanent object of
sensuous intuition, the possibility of a simple phenomenon is perfectly
inconceivable. Reason affords no good grounds for admitting the exist-
ence of intelligible beings, or of intelligible properties of sensuous things,
although—as we have no conception either of their possibility or of their
impossibility—it will always be out of our power to affirm dogmatically
that they do not exist. In the explanation of given phenomena, no other
things and no other grounds of explanation can be employed than those
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Immanuel Kant
which stand in connection with the given phenomena according to the

known laws of experience. A transcendental hypothesis, in which a mere
idea of reason is employed to explain the phenomena of nature, would
not give us any better insight into a phenomenon, as we should be trying
to explain what we do not sufficiently understand from known empirical
principles, by what we do not understand at all. The principles of such a
hypothesis might conduce to the satisfaction of reason, but it would not
assist the understanding in its application to objects. Order and confor-
mity to aims in the sphere of nature must be themselves explained upon
natural grounds and according to natural laws; and the wildest hypoth-
eses, if they are only physical, are here more admissible than a hyperphysi-
cal hypothesis, such as that of a divine author. For such a hypothesis would
introduce the principle of ignava ratio, which requires us to give up the
search for causes that might be discovered in the course of experience and
to rest satisfied with a mere idea. As regards the absolute totality of the
grounds of explanation in the series of these causes, this can be no hin-
drance to the understanding in the case of phenomena; because, as they
are to us nothing more than phenomena, we have no right to look for
anything like completeness in the synthesis of the series of their condi-
tions.
Transcendental hypotheses are therefore inadmissible; and we cannot use
the liberty of employing, in the absence of physical, hyperphysical grounds
of explanation. And this for two reasons; first, because such hypothesis do
not advance reason, but rather stop it in its progress; secondly, because this
licence would render fruitless all its exertions in its own proper sphere, which
is that of experience. For, when the explanation of natural phenomena hap-
pens to be difficult, we have constantly at hand a transcendental ground of
explanation, which lifts us above the necessity of investigating nature; and
our inquiries are brought to a close, not because we have obtained all the
requisite knowledge, but because we abut upon a principle which is incom-
prehensible and which, indeed, is so far back in the track of thought as to
contain the conception of the absolutely primal being.
The next requisite for the admissibility of a hypothesis is its sufficiency.
That is, it must determine a priori the consequences which are given in
experience and which are supposed to follow from the hypothesis itself. If
we require to employ auxiliary hypotheses, the suspicion naturally arises
that they are mere fictions; because the necessity for each of them requires
the same justification as in the case of the original hypothesis, and thus
their testimony is invalid. If we suppose the existence of an infinitely per-
fect cause, we possess sufficient grounds for the explanation of the confor-
435
mity to aims, the order and the greatness which we observe in the uni-
verse; but we find ourselves obliged, when we observe the evil in the world
and the exceptions to these laws, to employ new hypothesis in support of
the original one. We employ the idea of the simple nature of the human
soul as the foundation of all the theories we may form of its phenomena;
but when we meet with difficulties in our way, when we observe in the
soul phenomena similar to the changes which take place in matter, we
require to call in new auxiliary hypotheses. These may, indeed, not be
false, but we do not know them to be true, because the only witness to
their certitude is the hypothesis which they themselves have been called in
to explain.
We are not discussing the above-mentioned assertions regarding the
immaterial unity of the soul and the existence of a Supreme Being as
dogmata, which certain philosophers profess to demonstrate a priori, but
purely as hypotheses. In the former case, the dogmatist must take care
that his arguments possess the apodeictic certainty of a demonstration.
For the assertion that the reality of such ideas is probable is as absurd as a
proof of the probability of a proposition in geometry. Pure abstract rea-
son, apart from all experience, can either cognize nothing at all; and hence
the judgements it enounces are never mere opinions, they are either
apodeictic certainties, or declarations that nothing can be known on the
subject. Opinions and probable judgements on the nature of things can
only be employed to explain given phenomena, or they may relate to the
effect, in accordance with empirical laws, of an actually existing cause. In
other words, we must restrict the sphere of opinion to the world of expe-
rience and nature. Beyond this region opinion is mere invention; unless
we are groping about for the truth on a path not yet fully known, and
have some hopes of stumbling upon it by chance.
But, although hypotheses are inadmissible in answers to the questions
of pure speculative reason, they may be employed in the defence of these
answers. That is to say, hypotheses are admissible in polemic, but not in
the sphere of dogmatism. By the defence of statements of this character, I
do not mean an attempt at discovering new grounds for their support, but
merely the refutation of the arguments of opponents. All a priori syntheti-
cal propositions possess the peculiarity that, although the philosopher who
maintains the reality of the ideas contained in the proposition is not in
possession of sufficient knowledge to establish the certainty of his state-
ments, his opponent is as little able to prove the truth of the opposite.
This equality of fortune does not allow the one party to be superior to the
other in the sphere of speculative cognition; and it is this sphere, accord-
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Immanuel Kant
ingly, that is the proper arena of these endless speculative conflicts. But we
shall afterwards show that, in relation to its practical exercise, Reason has
the right of admitting what, in the field of pure speculation, she would
not be justified in supposing, except upon perfectly sufficient grounds;
because all such suppositions destroy the necessary completeness of specu-
lation—a condition which the practical reason, however, does not con-
sider to be requisite. In this sphere, therefore, Reason is mistress of a pos-
session, her title to which she does not require to prove—which, in fact,
she could not do. The burden of proof accordingly rests upon the oppo-
nent. But as he has just as little knowledge regarding the subject discussed,
and is as little able to prove the non-existence of the object of an idea, as
the philosopher on the other side is to demonstrate its reality, it is evident
that there is an advantage on the side of the philosopher who maintains
his proposition as a practically necessary supposition (melior est conditio
possidentis). For he is at liberty to employ, in self-defence, the same weap-
ons as his opponent makes use of in attacking him; that is, he has a right
to use hypotheses not for the purpose of supporting the arguments in
favour of his own propositions, but to show that his opponent knows no
more than himself regarding the subject under ‘discussion and cannot
boast of any speculative advantage.
Hypotheses are, therefore, admissible in the sphere of pure reason only
as weapons for self-defence, and not as supports to dogmatical assertions.
But the opposing party we must always seek for in ourselves. For specula-
tive reason is, in the sphere of transcendentalism, dialectical in its own
nature. The difficulties and objections we have to fear lie in ourselves.
They are like old but never superannuated claims; and we must seek them
out, and settle them once and for ever, if we are to expect a permanent
peace. External tranquility is hollow and unreal. The root of these contra-
dictions, which lies in the nature of human reason, must be destroyed;
and this can only be done by giving it, in the first instance, freedom to
grow, nay, by nourishing it, that it may send out shoots, and thus betray
its own existence. It is our duty, therefore, to try to discover new objec-
tions, to put weapons in the bands of our opponent, and to grant him the
most favourable position in the arena that he can wish. We have nothing
to fear from these concessions; on the contrary, we may rather hope that
we shall thus make ourselves master of a possession which no one will ever
venture to dispute.
The thinker requires, to be fully equipped, the hypotheses of pure rea-
son, which, although but leaden weapons (for they have not been steeled
in the armoury of experience), are as useful as any that can be employed
437
by his opponents. If, accordingly, we have assumed, from a non-specula-

tive point of view, the immaterial nature of the soul, and are met by the
objection that experience seems to prove that the growth and decay of our
mental faculties are mere modifications of the sensuous organism—we
can weaken the force of this objection by the assumption that the body is
nothing but the fundamental phenomenon, to which, as a necessary con-
dition, all sensibility, and consequently all thought, relates in the present
state of our existence; and that the separation of soul and body forms the
conclusion of the sensuous exercise of our power of cognition and the
beginning of the intellectual. The body would, in this view of the ques-
tion, be regarded, not as the cause of thought, but merely as its restrictive
condition, as promotive of the sensuous and animal, but as a hindrance to
the pure and spiritual life; and the dependence of the animal life on the
constitution of the body, would not prove that the whole life of man was
also dependent on the state of the organism. We might go still farther, and
discover new objections, or carry out to their extreme consequences those
which have already been adduced.
Generation, in the human race as well as among the irrational animals,
depends on so many accidents—of occasion, of proper sustenance, of the
laws enacted by the government of a country of vice even, that it is diffi-
cult to believe in the eternal existence of a being whose life has begun
under circumstances so mean and trivial, and so entirely dependent upon
our own control. As regards the continuance of the existence of the whole
race, we need have no difficulties, for accident in single cases is subject to
general laws; but, in the case of each individual, it would seem as if we
could hardly expect so wonderful an effect from causes so insignificant.
But, in answer to these objections, we may adduce the transcendental
hypothesis that all life is properly intelligible, and not subject to changes
of time, and that it neither began in birth, nor will end in death. We may
assume that this life is nothing more than a sensuous representation of
pure spiritual life; that the whole world of sense is but an image, hovering
before the faculty of cognition which we exercise in this sphere, and with
no more objective reality than a dream; and that if we could intuite our-
selves and other things as they really are, we should see ourselves in a
world of spiritual natures, our connection with which did not begin at
our birth and will not cease with the destruction of the body. And so on.
We cannot be said to know what has been above asserted, nor do we
seriously maintain the truth of these assertions; and the notions therein
indicated are not even ideas of reason, they are purely fictitious concep-
tions. But this hypothetical procedure is in perfect conformity with the
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Immanuel Kant
laws of reason. Our opponent mistakes the absence of empirical condi-

tions for a proof of the complete impossibility of all that we have asserted;
and we have to show him that he has not exhausted the whole sphere of
possibility and that he can as little compass that sphere by the laws of
experience and nature, as we can lay a secure foundation for the opera-
tions of reason beyond the region of experience. Such hypothetical de-
fences against the pretensions of an opponent must not be regarded as
declarations of opinion. The philosopher abandons them, so soon as the
opposite party renounces its dogmatical conceit. To maintain a simply
negative position in relation to propositions which rest on an insecure
foundation, well befits the moderation of a true philosopher; but to up-
hold the objections urged against an opponent as proofs of the opposite
statement is a proceeding just as unwarrantable and arrogant as it is to
attack the position of a philosopher who advances affirmative proposi-
tions regarding such a subject.
It is evident, therefore, that hypotheses, in the speculative sphere, are
valid, not as independent propositions, but only relatively to opposite
transcendent assumptions. For, to make the principles of possible experi-
ence conditions of the possibility of things in general is just as transcen-
dent a procedure as to maintain the objective reality of ideas which can be
applied to no objects except such as lie without the limits of possible expe-
rience. The judgements enounced by pure reason must be necessary, or
they must not be enounced at all. Reason cannot trouble herself with
opinions. But the hypotheses we have been discussing are merely prob-
lematical judgements, which can neither be confuted nor proved; while,
therefore, they are not personal opinions, they are indispensable as an-
swers to objections which are liable to be raised. But we must take care to
confine them to this function, and guard against any assumption on their
part of absolute validity, a proceeding which would involve reason in in-
extricable difficulties and contradictions.
SECTION IV. The Discipline of Pure Reason in Relation to Proofs.
It is a peculiarity, which distinguishes the proofs of transcendental syn-

thetical propositions from those of all other a priori synthetical cogni-
tions, that reason, in the case of the former, does not apply its conceptions
directly to an object, but is first obliged to prove, a priori, the objective
validity of these conceptions and the possibility of their syntheses. This is
not merely a prudential rule, it is essential to the very possibility of the
439
proof of a transcendental proposition. If I am required to pass, a priori,

beyond the conception of an object, I find that it is utterly impossible
without the guidance of something which is not contained in the concep-
tion. In mathematics, it is a priori intuition that guides my synthesis; and,
in this case, all our conclusions may be drawn immediately from pure
intuition. In transcendental cognition, so long as we are dealing only with
conceptions of the understanding, we are guided by possible experience.
That is to say, a proof in the sphere of transcendental cognition does not
show that the given conception (that of an event, for example) leads di-
rectly to another conception (that of a cause)—for this would be a saltus
which nothing can justify; but it shows that experience itself, and conse-
quently the object of experience, is impossible without the connection
indicated by these conceptions. It follows that such a proof must demon-
strate the possibility of arriving, synthetically and a priori, at a certain
knowledge of things, which was not contained in our conceptions of these
things. Unless we pay particular attention to this requirement, our proofs,
instead of pursuing the straight path indicated by reason, follow the tor-
tuous road of mere subjective association. The illusory conviction, which
rests upon subjective causes of association, and which is considered as
resulting from the perception of a real and objective natural affinity, is
always open to doubt and suspicion. For this reason, all the attempts which
have been made to prove the principle of sufficient reason, have, accord-
ing to the universal admission of philosophers, been quite unsuccessful;
and, before the appearance of transcendental criticism, it was considered
better, as this principle could not be abandoned, to appeal boldly to the
common sense of mankind (a proceeding which always proves that the
problem, which reason ought to solve, is one in which philosophers find
great difficulties), rather than attempt to discover new dogmatical proofs.
But, if the proposition to be proved is a proposition of pure reason, and
if I aim at passing beyond my empirical conceptions by the aid of mere
ideas, it is necessary that the proof should first show that such a step in
synthesis is possible (which it is not), before it proceeds to prove the truth
of the proposition itself. The so-called proof of the simple nature of the
soul from the unity of apperception, is a very plausible one. But it con-
tains no answer to the objection, that, as the notion of absolute simplicity
is not a conception which is directly applicable to a perception, but is an
idea which must be inferred—if at all—from observation, it is by no means
evident how the mere fact of consciousness, which is contained in all
thought, although in so far a simple representation, can conduct me to
the consciousness and cognition of a thing which is purely a thinking
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Immanuel Kant
substance. When I represent to my mind the power of my body as in

motion, my body in this thought is so far absolute unity, and my repre-
sentation of it is a simple one; and hence I can indicate this representation
by the motion of a point, because I have made abstraction of the size or
volume of the body. But I cannot hence infer that, given merely the mov-
ing power of a body, the body may be cogitated as simple substance, merely
because the representation in my mind takes no account of its content in
space, and is consequently simple. The simple, in abstraction, is very dif-
ferent from the objectively simple; and hence the Ego, which is simple in
the first sense, may, in the second sense, as indicating the soul itself, be a
very complex conception, with a very various content. Thus it is evident
that in all such arguments there lurks a paralogism. We guess (for without
some such surmise our suspicion would not be excited in reference to a
proof of this character) at the presence of the paralogism, by keeping ever
before us a criterion of the possibility of those synthetical propositions
which aim at proving more than experience can teach us. This criterion is
obtained from the observation that such proofs do not lead us directly
from the subject of the proposition to be proved to the required predicate,
but find it necessary to presuppose the possibility of extending our cogni-
tion a priori by means of ideas. We must, accordingly, always use the
greatest caution; we require, before attempting any proof, to consider how
it is possible to extend the sphere of cognition by the operations of pure
reason, and from what source we are to derive knowledge, which is not
obtained from the analysis of conceptions, nor relates, by anticipation, to
possible experience. We shall thus spare ourselves much severe and fruit-
less labour, by not expecting from reason what is beyond its power, or
rather by subjecting it to discipline, and teaching it to moderate its vehe-
ment desires for the extension of the sphere of cognition.
The first rule for our guidance is, therefore, not to attempt a transcen-
dental proof, before we have considered from what source we are to derive
the principles upon which the proof is to be based, and what right we
have to expect that our conclusions from these principles will be vera-
cious. If they are principles of the understanding, it is vain to expect that
we should attain by their means to ideas of pure reason; for these prin-
ciples are valid only in regard to objects of possible experience. If they are
principles of pure reason, our labour is alike in vain. For the principles of
reason, if employed as objective, are without exception dialectical and
possess no validity or truth, except as regulative principles of the system-
atic employment of reason in experience. But when such delusive proof
are presented to us, it is our duty to meet them with the non liquet of a
441
matured judgement; and, although we are unable to expose the particular

sophism upon which the proof is based, we have a right to demand a
deduction of the principles employed in it; and, if these principles have
their origin in pure reason alone, such a deduction is absolutely impos-
sible. And thus it is unnecessary that we should trouble ourselves with the
exposure and confutation of every sophistical illusion; we may, at once,
bring all dialectic, which is inexhaustible in the production of fallacies,
before the bar of critical reason, which tests the principles upon which all
dialectical procedure is based. The second peculiarity of transcendental
proof is that a transcendental proposition cannot rest upon more than a
single proof. If I am drawing conclusions, not from conceptions, but from
intuition corresponding to a conception, be it pure intuition, as in math-
ematics, or empirical, as in natural science, the intuition which forms the
basis of my inferences presents me with materials for many synthetical
propositions, which I can connect in various modes, while, as it is allow-
able to proceed from different points in the intention, I can arrive by
different paths at the same proposition.
But every transcendental proposition sets out from a conception, and
posits the synthetical condition of the possibility of an object according to
this conception. There must, therefore, be but one ground of proof, be-
cause it is the conception alone which determines the object; and thus the
proof cannot contain anything more than the determination of the object
according to the conception. In our Transcendental Analytic, for example,
we inferred the principle: Every event has a cause, from the only condi-
tion of the objective possibility of our conception of an event. This is that
an event cannot be determined in time, and consequently cannot form a
part of experience, unless it stands under this dynamical law. This is the
only possible ground of proof; for our conception of an event possesses
objective validity, that is, is a true conception, only because the law of
causality determines an object to which it can refer. Other arguments in
support of this principle have been attempted—such as that from the
contingent nature of a phenomenon; but when this argument is consid-
ered, we can discover no criterion of contingency, except the fact of an
event—of something happening, that is to say, the existence which is pre-
ceded by the non-existence of an object, and thus we fall back on the very
thing to be proved. If the proposition: “Every thinking being is simple,” is
to be proved, we keep to the conception of the ego, which is simple, and
to which all thought has a relation. The same is the case with the transcen-
dental proof of the existence of a Deity, which is based solely upon the
harmony and reciprocal fitness of the conceptions of an ens realissimum
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Immanuel Kant
and a necessary being, and cannot be attempted in any other manner.

This caution serves to simplify very much the criticism of all proposi-
tions of reason. When reason employs conceptions alone, only one proof
of its thesis is possible, if any. When, therefore, the dogmatist advances
with ten arguments in favour of a proposition, we may be sure that not
one of them is conclusive. For if he possessed one which proved the propo-
sition he brings forward to demonstration-as must always be the case with
the propositions of pure reason-what need is there for any more? His in-
tention can only be similar to that of the advocate who had different
arguments for different judges; this availing himself of the weakness of
those who examine his arguments, who, without going into any profound
investigation, adopt the view of the case which seems most probable at
first sight and decide according to it.
The third rule for the guidance of pure reason in the conduct of a proof
is that all transcendental proofs must never be apagogic or indirect, but
always ostensive or direct. The direct or ostensive proof not only estab-
lishes the truth of the proposition to be proved, but exposes the grounds
of its truth; the apagogic, on the other hand, may assure us of the truth of
the proposition, but it cannot enable us to comprehend the grounds of its
possibility. The latter is, accordingly, rather an auxiliary to an argument,
than a strictly philosophical and rational mode of procedure. In one re-
spect, however, they have an advantage over direct proofs, from the fact
that the mode of arguing by contradiction, which they employ, renders
our understanding of the question more clear, and approximates the proof
to the certainty of an intuitional demonstration.
The true reason why indirect proofs are employed in different sciences
is this. When the grounds upon which we seek to base a cognition are too
various or too profound, we try whether or not we may not discover the
truth of our cognition from its consequences. The modus ponens of rea-
soning from the truth of its inferences to the truth of a proposition would
be admissible if all the inferences that can be drawn from it are known to
be true; for in this case there can be only one possible ground for these
inferences, and that is the true one. But this is a quite impracticable pro-
cedure, as it surpasses all our powers to discover all the possible inferences
that can be drawn from a proposition. But this mode of reasoning is em-
ployed, under favour, when we wish to prove the truth of an hypothesis;
in which case we admit the truth of the conclusion-which is supported by
analogy—that, if all the inferences we have drawn and examined agree
with the proposition assumed, all other possible inferences will also agree
with it. But, in this way, an hypothesis can never be established as a dem-
443
onstrated truth. The modus tollens of reasoning from known inferences

to the unknown proposition, is not only a rigorous, but a very easy mode
of proof. For, if it can be shown that but one inference from a proposition
is false, then the proposition must itself be false. Instead, then, of examin-
ing, in an ostensive argument, the whole series of the grounds on which
the truth of a proposition rests, we need only take the opposite of this
proposition, and if one inference from it be false, then must the opposite
be itself false; and, consequently, the proposition which we wished to prove
must be true.
The apagogic method of proof is admissible only in those sciences where
it is impossible to mistake a subjective representation for an objective cog-
nition. Where this is possible, it is plain that the opposite of a given propo-
sition may contradict merely the subjective conditions of thought, and
not the objective cognition; or it may happen that both propositions con-
tradict each other only under a subjective condition, which is incorrectly
considered to be objective, and, as the condition is itself false, both propo-
sitions may be false, and it will, consequently, be impossible to conclude
the truth of the one from the falseness of the other.
In mathematics such subreptions are impossible; and it is in this sci-
ence, accordingly, that the indirect mode of proof has its true place. In the
science of nature, where all assertion is based upon empirical intuition,
such subreptions may be guarded against by the repeated comparison of
observations; but this mode of proof is of little value in this sphere of
knowledge. But the transcendental efforts of pure reason are all made in
the sphere of the subjective, which is the real medium of all dialectical
illusion; and thus reason endeavours, in its premisses, to impose upon us
subjective representations for objective cognitions. In the transcendental
sphere of pure reason, then, and in the case of synthetical propositions, it
is inadmissible to support a statement by disproving the counter-state-
ment. For only two cases are possible; either, the counter-statement is
nothing but the enouncement of the inconsistency of the opposite opin-
ion with the subjective conditions of reason, which does not affect the real
case (for example, we cannot comprehend the unconditioned necessity of
the existence of a being, and hence every speculative proof of the existence
of such a being must be opposed on subjective grounds, while the possi-
bility of this being in itself cannot with justice be denied); or, both propo-
sitions, being dialectical in their nature, are based upon an impossible
conception. In this latter case the rule applies: non entis nulla sunt predicata;
that is to say, what we affirm and what we deny, respecting such an object,
are equally untrue, and the apagogic mode of arriving at the truth is in
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Immanuel Kant
this case impossible. If, for example, we presuppose that the world of
sense is given in itself in its totality, it is false, either that it is infinite, or
that it is finite and limited in space. Both are false, because the hypothesis
is false. For the notion of phenomena (as mere representations) which are
given in themselves (as objects) is self-contradictory; and the infinitude of
this imaginary whole would, indeed, be unconditioned, but would be
inconsistent (as everything in the phenomenal world is conditioned) with
the unconditioned determination and finitude of quantities which is pre-
supposed in our conception.
The apagogic mode of proof is the true source of those illusions which
have always had so strong an attraction for the admirers of dogmatical
philosophy. It may be compared to a champion who maintains the honour
and claims of the party he has adopted by offering battle to all who doubt
the validity of these claims and the purity of that honour; while nothing
can be proved in this way, except the respective strength of the combat-
ants, and the advantage, in this respect, is always on the side of the attack-
ing party. Spectators, observing that each party is alternately conqueror
and conquered, are led to regard the subject of dispute as beyond the
power of man to decide upon. But such an opinion cannot be justified;
and it is sufficient to apply to these reasoners the remark:
Non defensoribus istis

Tempus eget.
Each must try to establish his assertions by a transcendental deduction of

the grounds of proof employed in his argument, and thus enable us to see
in what way the claims of reason may be supported. If an opponent bases
his assertions upon subjective grounds, he may be refuted with ease; not,
however to the advantage of the dogmatist, who likewise depends upon
subjective sources of cognition and is in like manner driven into a corner
by his opponent. But, if parties employ the direct method of procedure,
they will soon discover the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of proving
their assertions, and will be forced to appeal to prescription and prece-
dence; or they will, by the help of criticism, discover with ease the dog-
matical illusions by which they had been mocked, and compel reason to
renounce its exaggerated pretensions to speculative insight and to confine
itself within the limits of its proper sphere—that of practical principles.
445
CHAPTER II. The Canon of Pure Reason.
It is a humiliating consideration for human reason that it is incompetent

to discover truth by means of pure speculation, but, on the contrary, stands
in need of discipline to check its deviations from the straight path and to
expose the illusions which it originates. But, on the other hand, this con-
sideration ought to elevate and to give it confidence, for this discipline is
exercised by itself alone, and it is subject to the censure of no other power.
The bounds, moreover, which it is forced to set to its speculative exercise,
form likewise a check upon the fallacious pretensions of opponents; and
thus what remains of its possessions, after these exaggerated claims have
been disallowed, is secure from attack or usurpation. The greatest, and
perhaps the only, use of all philosophy of pure reason is, accordingly, of a
purely negative character. It is not an organon for the extension, but a
discipline for the determination, of the limits of its exercise; and without
laying claim to the discovery of new truth, it has the modest merit of
guarding against error.
At the same time, there must be some source of positive cognitions
which belong to the domain of pure reason and which become the causes
of error only from our mistaking their true character, while they form the
goal towards which reason continually strives. How else can we account
for the inextinguishable desire in the human mind to find a firm footing
in some region beyond the limits of the world of experience? It hopes to
attain to the possession of a knowledge in which it has the deepest inter-
est. It enters upon the path of pure speculation; but in vain. We have some
reason, however, to expect that, in the only other way that lies open to
it—the path of practical reason—it may meet with better success.
I understand by a canon a list of the a priori principles of the proper
employment of certain faculties of cognition. Thus general logic, in its
analytical department, is a formal canon for the faculties of understand-
ing and reason. In the same way, Transcendental Analytic was seen to be a
canon of the pure understanding; for it alone is competent to enounce
true a priori synthetical cognitions. But, when no proper employment of
a faculty of cognition is possible, no canon can exist. But the synthetical
cognition of pure speculative reason is, as has been shown, completely
impossible. There cannot, therefore, exist any canon for the speculative
exercise of this faculty—for its speculative exercise is entirely dialectical;
and, consequently, transcendental logic, in this respect, is merely a disci-
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Immanuel Kant
pline, and not a canon. If, then, there is any proper mode of employing
the faculty of pure reason—in which case there must be a canon for this
faculty—this canon will relate, not to the speculative, but to the practical
use of reason. This canon we now proceed to investigate.
SECTION I. Of the Ultimate End of the Pure Use of Reason.
There exists in the faculty of reason a natural desire to venture beyond the
field of experience, to attempt to reach the utmost bounds of all cognition
by the help of ideas alone, and not to rest satisfied until it has fulfilled its
course and raised the sum of its cognitions into a self-subsistent system-
atic whole. Is the motive for this endeavour to be found in its speculative,
or in its practical interests alone?
Setting aside, at present, the results of the labours of pure reason in its
speculative exercise, I shall merely inquire regarding the problems the so-
lution of which forms its ultimate aim, whether reached or not, and in
relation to which all other aims are but partial and intermediate. These
highest aims must, from the nature of reason, possess complete unity;
otherwise the highest interest of humanity could not be successfully pro-
moted.
The transcendental speculation of reason relates to three things: the
freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God.
The speculative interest which reason has in those questions is very small;
and, for its sake alone, we should not undertake the labour of transcen-
dental investigation—a labour full of toil and ceaseless struggle. We should
be loth to undertake this labour, because the discoveries we might make
would not be of the smallest use in the sphere of concrete or physical
investigation. We may find out that the will is free, but this knowledge
only relates to the intelligible cause of our volition. As regards the phe-
nomena or expressions of this will, that is, our actions, we are bound, in
obedience to an inviolable maxim, without which reason cannot be em-
ployed in the sphere of experience, to explain these in the same way as we
explain all the other phenomena of nature, that is to say, according to its
unchangeable laws. We may have discovered the spirituality and immor-
tality of the soul, but we cannot employ this knowledge to explain the
phenomena of this life, nor the peculiar nature of the future, because our
conception of an incorporeal nature is purely negative and does not add
anything to our knowledge, and the only inferences to be drawn from it
are purely fictitious. If, again, we prove the existence of a supreme intelli-
447
gence, we should be able from it to make the conformity to aims existing

in the arrangement of the world comprehensible; but we should not be
justified in deducing from it any particular arrangement or disposition, or
inferring any where it is not perceived. For it is a necessary rule of the
speculative use of reason that we must not overlook natural causes, or
refuse to listen to the teaching of experience, for the sake of deducing
what we know and perceive from something that transcends all our knowl-
edge. In one word, these three propositions are, for the speculative reason,
always transcendent, and cannot be employed as immanent principles in
relation to the objects of experience; they are, consequently, of no use to
us in this sphere, being but the valueless results of the severe but unprofit-
able efforts of reason.
If, then, the actual cognition of these three cardinal propositions is per-
fectly useless, while Reason uses her utmost endeavours to induce us to
admit them, it is plain that their real value and importance relate to our
practical, and not to our speculative interest.
I term all that is possible through free will, practical. But if the condi-
tions of the exercise of free volition are empirical, reason can have only a
regulative, and not a constitutive, influence upon it, and is serviceable
merely for the introduction of unity into its empirical laws. In the moral
philosophy of prudence, for example, the sole business of reason is to
bring about a union of all the ends, which are aimed at by our inclina-
tions, into one ultimate end—that of happiness—and to show the agree-
ment which should exist among the means of attaining that end. In this
sphere, accordingly, reason cannot present to us any other than pragmatical
laws of free action, for our guidance towards the aims set up by the senses,
and is incompetent to give us laws which are pure and determined com-
pletely a priori. On the other hand, pure practical laws, the ends of which
have been given by reason entirely a priori, and which are not empirically
conditioned, but are, on the contrary, absolutely imperative in their na-
ture, would be products of pure reason. Such are the moral laws; and these
alone belong to the sphere of the practical exercise of reason, and admit of
a canon.
All the powers of reason, in the sphere of what may be termed pure
philosophy, are, in fact, directed to the three above-mentioned problems
alone. These again have a still higher end—the answer to the question,
what we ought to do, if the will is free, if there is a God and a future world.
Now, as this problem relates to our in reference to the highest aim of
humanity, it is evident that the ultimate intention of nature, in the consti-
tution of our reason, has been directed to the moral alone.
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We must take care, however, in turning our attention to an object which

is foreign* to the sphere of transcendental philosophy, not to injure the
unity of our system by digressions, nor, on the other hand, to fail in clear-
ness, by saying too little on the new subject of discussion. I hope to avoid
both extremes, by keeping as close as possible to the transcendental, and
excluding all psychological, that is, empirical, elements.
I have to remark, in the first place, that at present I treat of the concep-
tion of freedom in the practical sense only, and set aside the correspond-
ing transcendental conception, which cannot be employed as a ground of
explanation in the phenomenal world, but is itself a problem for pure
reason. A will is purely animal (arbitrium brutum) when it is determined
by sensuous impulses or instincts only, that is, when it is determined in a
pathological manner. A will, which can be determined independently of
sensuous impulses, consequently by motives presented by reason alone, is
called a free will (arbitrium liberum); and everything which is connected
with this free will, either as principle or consequence, is termed practical.
The existence of practical freedom can be proved from experience alone.
For the human will is not determined by that alone which immediately
affects the senses; on the contrary, we have the power, by calling up the
notion of what is useful or hurtful in a more distant relation, of overcom-
ing the immediate impressions on our sensuous faculty of desire. But these
considerations of what is desirable in relation to our whole state, that is, is
in the end good and useful, are based entirely upon reason. This faculty,
accordingly, enounces laws, which are imperative or objective laws of free-
dom and which tell us what ought to take place, thus distinguishing them-
selves from the laws of nature, which relate to that which does take place.
The laws of freedom or of free will are hence termed practical laws.
Whether reason is not itself, in the actual delivery of these laws, deter-
mined in its turn by other influences, and whether the action which, in
relation to sensuous impulses, we call free, may not, in relation to higher
and more remote operative causes, really form a part of nature—these are
questions which do not here concern us. They are purely speculative ques-
tions; and all we have to do, in the practical sphere, is to inquire into the
rule of conduct which reason has to present. Experience demonstrates to
*All practical conceptions relate to objects of pleasure and pain, and conse-
quently—in an indirect manner, at least—to objects of feeling. But as feeling is
not a faculty of representation, but lies out of the sphere of our powers of cogni-
tion, the elements of our judgements, in so far as they relate to pleasure or pain,
that is, the elements of our practical judgements, do not belong to transcendental
philosophy, which has to do with pure a priori cognitions alone.
449
us the existence of practical freedom as one of the causes which exist in

nature, that is, it shows the causal power of reason in the determination of
the will. The idea of transcendental freedom, on the contrary, requires
that reason—in relation to its causal power of commencing a series of
phenomena—should be independent of all sensuous determining causes;
and thus it seems to be in opposition to the law of nature and to all pos-
sible experience. It therefore remains a problem for the human mind. But
this problem does not concern reason in its practical use; and we have,
therefore, in a canon of pure reason, to do with only two questions, which
relate to the practical interest of pure reason: Is there a God? and, Is there
a future life? The question of transcendental freedom is purely specula-
tive, and we may therefore set it entirely aside when we come to treat of
practical reason. Besides, we have already discussed this subject in the
antinomy of pure reason.
SECTION II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determin-

ing Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason.
Reason conducted us, in its speculative use, through the field of experi-
ence and, as it can never find complete satisfaction in that sphere, from
thence to speculative ideas—which, however, in the end brought us back
again to experience, and thus fulfilled the purpose of reason, in a manner
which, though useful, was not at all in accordance with our expectations.
It now remains for us to consider whether pure reason can be employed in
a practical sphere, and whether it will here conduct us to those ideas which
attain the highest ends of pure reason, as we have just stated them. We
shall thus ascertain whether, from the point of view of its practical inter-
est, reason may not be able to supply us with that which, on the specula-
tive side, it wholly denies us.
The whole interest of reason, speculative as well as practical, is centred
in the three following questions:
1. WHAT CAN I KNOW?

2. WHAT OUGHT I TO DO?
3. WHAT MAY I HOPE?
The first question is purely speculative. We have, as I flatter myself,

exhausted all the replies of which it is susceptible, and have at last found
the reply with which reason must content itself, and with which it ought
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to be content, so long as it pays no regard to the practical. But from the

two great ends to the attainment of which all these efforts of pure reason
were in fact directed, we remain just as far removed as if we had consulted
our ease and declined the task at the outset. So far, then, as knowledge is
concerned, thus much, at least, is established, that, in regard to those two
problems, it lies beyond our reach.
The second question is purely practical. As such it may indeed fall within
the province of pure reason, but still it is not transcendental, but moral,
and consequently cannot in itself form the subject of our criticism.
The third question: If I act as I ought to do, what may I then hope?—is
at once practical and theoretical. The practical forms a clue to the answer
of the theoretical, and—in its highest form-speculative question. For all
hoping has happiness for its object and stands in precisely the same rela-
tion to the practical and the law of morality as knowing to the theoretical
cognition of things and the law of nature. The former arrives finally at the
conclusion that something is (which determines the ultimate end), be-
cause something ought to take place; the latter, that something is (which
operates as the highest cause), because something does take place.
Happiness is the satisfaction of all our desires; extensive, in regard to
their multiplicity; intensive, in regard to their degree; and protensive, in
regard to their duration. The practical law based on the motive of happi-
ness I term a pragmatical law (or prudential rule); but that law, assuming
such to exist, which has no other motive than the worthiness of being
happy, I term a moral or ethical law. The first tells us what we have to do,
if we wish to become possessed of happiness; the second dictates how we
ought to act, in order to deserve happiness. The first is based upon em-
pirical principles; for it is only by experience that I can learn either what
inclinations exist which desire satisfaction, or what are the natural means
of satisfying them. The second takes no account of our desires or the
means of satisfying them, and regards only the freedom of a rational be-
ing, and the necessary conditions under which alone this freedom can
harmonize with the distribution of happiness according to principles. This
second law may therefore rest upon mere ideas of pure reason, and may be
cognized a priori.
I assume that there are pure moral laws which determine, entirely a
priori (without regard to empirical motives, that is, to happiness), the
conduct of a rational being, or in other words, to use which it makes of its
freedom, and that these laws are absolutely imperative (not merely hypo-
thetically, on the supposition of other empirical ends), and therefore in all
respects necessary. I am warranted in assuming this, not only by the argu-
451
ments of the most enlightened moralists, but by the moral judgement of

every man who will make the attempt to form a distinct conception of
such a law.
Pure reason, then, contains, not indeed in its speculative, but in its prac-
tical, or, more strictly, its moral use, principles of the possibility of experi-
ence, of such actions, namely, as, in accordance with ethical precepts, might
be met with in the history of man. For since reason commands that such
actions should take place, it must be possible for them to take place; and
hence a particular kind of systematic unity—the moral—must be pos-
sible. We have found, it is true, that the systematic unity of nature could
not be established according to speculative principles of reason, because,
while reason possesses a causal power in relation to freedom, it has none in
relation to the whole sphere of nature; and, while moral principles of
reason can produce free actions, they cannot produce natural laws. It is,
then, in its practical, but especially in its moral use, that the principles of
pure reason possess objective reality.
I call the world a moral world, in so far as it may be in accordance with
all the ethical laws—which, by virtue of the freedom of reasonable beings,
it can be, and according to the necessary laws of morality it ought to be.
But this world must be conceived only as an intelligible world, inasmuch
as abstraction is therein made of all conditions (ends), and even of all
impediments to morality (the weakness or pravity of human nature). So
far, then, it is a mere idea-though still a practical idea—which may have,
and ought to have, an influence on the world of sense, so as to bring it as
far as possible into conformity with itself. The idea of a moral world has,
therefore, objective reality, not as referring to an object of intelligible intu-
ition—for of such an object we can form no conception whatever—but
to the world of sense—conceived, however, as an object of pure reason in
its practical use—and to a corpus mysticum of rational beings in it, in so
far as the liberum arbitrium of the individual is placed, under and by
virtue of moral laws, in complete systematic unity both with itself and
with the freedom of all others.
That is the answer to the first of the two questions of pure reason which
relate to its practical interest: Do that which will render thee worthy of
happiness. The second question is this: If I conduct myself so as not to be
unworthy of happiness, may I hope thereby to obtain happiness? In order
to arrive at the solution of this question, we must inquire whether the
principles of pure reason, which prescribe a priori the law, necessarily also
connect this hope with it.
I say, then, that just as the moral principles are necessary according to
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Immanuel Kant
reason in its practical use, so it is equally necessary according to reason in

its theoretical use to assume that every one has ground to hope for happi-
ness in the measure in which he has made himself worthy of it in his
conduct, and that therefore the system of morality is inseparably (though
only in the idea of pure reason) connected with that of happiness.
Now in an intelligible, that is, in the moral world, in the conception of
which we make abstraction of all the impediments to morality (sensuous
desires), such a system of happiness, connected with and proportioned to
morality, may be conceived as necessary, because freedom of volition—
partly incited, and partly restrained by moral laws—would be itself the
cause of general happiness; and thus rational beings, under the guidance
of such principles, would be themselves the authors both of their own
enduring welfare and that of others. But such a system of self-rewarding
morality is only an idea, the carrying out of which depends upon the
condition that every one acts as he ought; in other words, that all actions
of reasonable beings be such as they would be if they sprung from a Su-
preme Will, comprehending in, or under, itself all particular wills. But
since the moral law is binding on each individual in the use of his freedom
of volition, even if others should not act in conformity with this law,
neither the nature of things, nor the causality of actions and their relation
to morality, determine how the consequences of these actions will be re-
lated to happiness; and the necessary connection of the hope of happiness
with the unceasing endeavour to become worthy of happiness, cannot be
cognized by reason, if we take nature alone for our guide. This connection
can be hoped for only on the assumption that the cause of nature is a
supreme reason, which governs according to moral laws.
I term the idea of an intelligence in which the morally most perfect will,
united with supreme blessedness, is the cause of all happiness in the world,
so far as happiness stands in strict relation to morality (as the worthiness
of being happy), the ideal of the supreme Good. It is only, then, in the
ideal of the supreme original good, that pure reason can find the ground
of the practically necessary connection of both elements of the highest
derivative good, and accordingly of an intelligible, that is, moral world.
Now since we are necessitated by reason to conceive ourselves as belong-
ing to such a world, while the senses present to us nothing but a world of
phenomena, we must assume the former as a consequence of our conduct
in the world of sense (since the world of sense gives us no hint of it), and
therefore as future in relation to us. Thus God and a future life are two
hypotheses which, according to the principles of pure reason, are insepa-
rable from the obligation which this reason imposes upon us.
453
Morality per se constitutes a system. But we can form no system of

happiness, except in so far as it is dispensed in strict proportion to moral-
ity. But this is only possible in the intelligible world, under a wise author
and ruler. Such a ruler, together with life in such a world, which we must
look upon as future, reason finds itself compelled to assume; or it must
regard the moral laws as idle dreams, since the necessary consequence
which this same reason connects with them must, without this hypoth-
esis, fall to the ground. Hence also the moral laws are universally regarded
as commands, which they could not be did they not connect a priori
adequate consequences with their dictates, and thus carry with them prom-
ises and threats. But this, again, they could not do, did they not reside in
a necessary being, as the Supreme Good, which alone can render such a
teleological unity possible.
Leibnitz termed the world, when viewed in relation to the rational be-
ings which it contains, and the moral relations in which they stand to each
other, under the government of the Supreme Good, the kingdom of Grace,
and distinguished it from the kingdom of Nature, in which these rational
beings live, under moral laws, indeed, but expect no other consequences
from their actions than such as follow according to the course of nature in
the world of sense. To view ourselves, therefore, as in the kingdom of
grace, in which all happiness awaits us, except in so far as we ourselves
limit our participation in it by actions which render us unworthy of hap-
piness, is a practically necessary idea of reason.
Practical laws, in so far as they are subjective grounds of actions, that is,
subjective principles, are termed maxims. The judgements of moral ac-
cording to in its purity and ultimate results are framed according ideas;
the observance of its laws, according to according to maxims.
The whole course of our life must be subject to moral maxims; but this
is impossible, unless with the moral law, which is a mere idea, reason
connects an efficient cause which ordains to all conduct which is in con-
formity with the moral law an issue either in this or in another life, which
is in exact conformity with our highest aims. Thus, without a God and
without a world, invisible to us now, but hoped for, the glorious ideas of
morality are, indeed, objects of approbation and of admiration, but can-
not be the springs of purpose and action. For they do not satisfy all the
aims which are natural to every rational being, and which are determined
a priori by pure reason itself, and necessary.
Happiness alone is, in the view of reason, far from being the complete
good. Reason does not approve of it (however much inclination may de-
sire it), except as united with desert. On the other hand, morality alone,
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Immanuel Kant
and with it, mere desert, is likewise far from being the complete good. To
make it complete, he who conducts himself in a manner not unworthy of
happiness, must be able to hope for the possession of happiness. Even
reason, unbiased by private ends, or interested considerations, cannot judge
otherwise, if it puts itself in the place of a being whose business it is to
dispense all happiness to others. For in the practical idea both points are
essentially combined, though in such a way that participation in happi-
ness is rendered possible by the moral disposition, as its condition, and
not conversely, the moral disposition by the prospect of happiness. For a
disposition which should require the prospect of happiness as its neces-
sary condition would not be moral, and hence also would not be worthy
of complete happiness—a happiness which, in the view of reason, recog-
nizes no limitation but such as arises from our own immoral conduct.
Happiness, therefore, in exact proportion with the morality of rational
beings (whereby they are made worthy of happiness), constitutes alone
the supreme good of a world into which we absolutely must transport
ourselves according to the commands of pure but practical reason. This
world is, it is true, only an intelligible world; for of such a systematic unity
of ends as it requires, the world of sense gives us no hint. Its reality can be
based on nothing else but the hypothesis of a supreme original good. In it
independent reason, equipped with all the sufficiency of a supreme cause,
founds, maintains, and fulfils the universal order of things, with the most
perfect teleological harmony, however much this order may be hidden
from us in the world of sense.
This moral theology has the peculiar advantage, in contrast with specu-
lative theology, of leading inevitably to the conception of a sole, perfect,
and rational First Cause, whereof speculative theology does not give us
any indication on objective grounds, far less any convincing evidence. For
we find neither in transcendental nor in natural theology, however far
reason may lead us in these, any ground to warrant us in assuming the
existence of one only Being, which stands at the head of all natural causes,
and on which these are entirely dependent. On the other band, if we take
our stand on moral unity as a necessary law of the universe, and from this
point of view consider what is necessary to give this law adequate effi-
ciency and, for us, obligatory force, we must come to the conclusion that
there is one only supreme will, which comprehends all these laws in itself.
For how, under different wills, should we find complete unity of ends?
This will must be omnipotent, that all nature and its relation to morality
in the world may be subject to it; omniscient, that it may have knowledge
of the most secret feelings and their moral worth; omnipresent, that it
455
may be at hand to supply every necessity to which the highest weal of the
world may give rise; eternal, that this harmony of nature and liberty may
never fail; and so on.
But this systematic unity of ends in this world of intelligences-which, as
mere nature, is only a world of sense, but, as a system of freedom of voli-
tion, may be termed an intelligible, that is, moral world (regnum gratiae)—
leads inevitably also to the teleological unity of all things which constitute
this great whole, according to universal natural laws—just as the unity of
the former is according to universal and necessary moral laws—and unites
the practical with the speculative reason. The world must be represented
as having originated from an idea, if it is to harmonize with that use of
reason without which we cannot even consider ourselves as worthy of
reason-namely, the moral use, which rests entirely on the idea of the su-
preme good. Hence the investigation of nature receives a teleological di-
rection, and becomes, in its widest extension, physico-theology. But this,
taking its rise in moral order as a unity founded on the essence of free-
dom, and not accidentally instituted by external commands, establishes
the teleological view of nature on grounds which must be inseparably
connected with the internal possibility of things. This gives rise to a tran-
scendental theology, which takes the ideal of the highest ontological per-
fection as a principle of systematic unity; and this principle connects all
things according to universal and necessary natural laws, because all things
have their origin in the absolute necessity of the one only Primal Being.
What use can we make of our understanding, even in respect of experi-
ence, if we do not propose ends to ourselves? But the highest ends are
those of morality, and it is only pure reason that can give us the knowledge
of these. Though supplied with these, and putting ourselves under their
guidance, we can make no teleological use of the knowledge of nature, as
regards cognition, unless nature itself has established teleological unity.
For without this unity we should not even possess reason, because we
should have no school for reason, and no cultivation through objects which
afford the materials for its conceptions. But teleological unity is a neces-
sary unity, and founded on the essence of the individual will itself. Hence
this will, which is the condition of the application of this unity in con-
creto, must be so likewise. In this way the transcendental enlargement of
our rational cognition would be, not the cause, but merely the effect of
the practical teleology which pure reason imposes upon us.
Hence, also, we find in the history of human reason that, before the
moral conceptions were sufficiently purified and determined, and before
men had attained to a perception of the systematic unity of ends accord-
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Immanuel Kant
ing to these conceptions and from necessary principles, the knowledge of

nature, and even a considerable amount of intellectual culture in many
other sciences, could produce only rude and vague conceptions of the
Deity, sometimes even admitting of an astonishing indifference with re-
gard to this question altogether. But the more enlarged treatment of moral
ideas, which was rendered necessary by the extreme pure moral law of our
religion, awakened the interest, and thereby quickened the perceptions of
reason in relation to this object. In this way, and without the help either of
an extended acquaintance with nature, or of a reliable transcendental in-
sight (for these have been wanting in all ages), a conception of the Divine
Being was arrived at, which we now bold to be the correct one, not be-
cause speculative reason convinces us of its correctness, but because it
accords with the moral principles of reason. Thus it is to pure reason, but
only in its practical use, that we must ascribe the merit of having con-
nected with our highest interest a cognition, of which mere speculation
was able only to form a conjecture, but the validity of which it was unable
to establish—and of having thereby rendered it, not indeed a demon-
strated dogma, but a hypothesis absolutely necessary to the essential ends
of reason.
But if practical reason has reached this elevation, and has attained to the
conception of a sole Primal Being as the supreme good, it must not, there-
fore, imagine that it has transcended the empirical conditions of its appli-
cation, and risen to the immediate cognition of new objects; it must not
presume to start from the conception which it has gained, and to deduce
from it the moral laws themselves. For it was these very laws, the internal
practical necessity of which led us to the hypothesis of an independent
cause, or of a wise ruler of the universe, who should give them effect.
Hence we are not entitled to regard them as accidental and derived from
the mere will of the ruler, especially as we have no conception of such a
will, except as formed in accordance with these laws. So far, then, as prac-
tical reason has the right to conduct us, we shall not look upon actions as
binding on us, because they are the commands of God, but we shall re-
gard them as divine commands, because we are internally bound by them.
We shall study freedom under the teleological unity which accords with
principles of reason; we shall look upon ourselves as acting in conformity
with the divine will only in so far as we hold sacred the moral law which
reason teaches us from the nature of actions themselves, and we shall be-
lieve that we can obey that will only by promoting the weal of the universe
in ourselves and in others. Moral theology is, therefore, only of immanent
use. It teaches us to fulfil our destiny here in the world, by placing our-
457
selves in harmony with the general system of ends, and warns us against
the fanaticism, nay, the crime of depriving reason of its legislative author-
ity in the moral conduct of life, for the purpose of directly connecting this
authority with the idea of the Supreme Being. For this would be, not an
immanent, but a transcendent use of moral theology, and, like the tran-
scendent use of mere speculation, would inevitably pervert and frustrate
the ultimate ends of reason.
SECTION III. Of Opinion, Knowledge, and Belief.
The holding of a thing to be true is a phenomenon in our understanding

which may rest on objective grounds, but requires, also, subjective causes
in the mind of the person judging. If a judgement is valid for every ratio-
nal being, then its ground is objectively sufficient, and it is termed a con-
viction. If, on the other hand, it has its ground in the particular character
of the subject, it is termed a persuasion.
Persuasion is a mere illusion, the ground of the judgement, which lies
solely in the subject, being regarded as objective. Hence a judgement of
this kind has only private validity—is only valid for the individual who
judges, and the holding of a thing to be true in this way cannot be com-
municated. But truth depends upon agreement with the object, and con-
sequently the judgements of all understandings, if true, must be in agree-
ment with each other (consentientia uni tertio consentiunt inter se). Con-
viction may, therefore, be distinguished, from an external point of view,
from persuasion, by the possibility of communicating it and by showing
its validity for the reason of every man; for in this case the presumption, at
least, arises that the agreement of all judgements with each other, in spite
of the different characters of individuals, rests upon the common ground
of the agreement of each with the object, and thus the correctness of the
judgement is established.
Persuasion, accordingly, cannot be subjectively distinguished from con-
viction, that is, so long as the subject views its judgement simply as a
phenomenon of its own mind. But if we inquire whether the grounds of
our judgement, which are valid for us, produce the same effect on the
reason of others as on our own, we have then the means, though only
subjective means, not, indeed, of producing conviction, but of detecting
the merely private validity of the judgement; in other words, of discover-
ing that there is in it the element of mere persuasion.
If we can, in addition to this, develop the subjective causes of the judge-
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Immanuel Kant
ment, which we have taken for its objective grounds, and thus explain the
deceptive judgement as a phenomenon in our mind, apart altogether from
the objective character of the object, we can then expose the illusion and
need be no longer deceived by it, although, if its subjective cause lies in
our nature, we cannot hope altogether to escape its influence.
I can only maintain, that is, affirm as necessarily valid for every one,
that which produces conviction. Persuasion I may keep for myself, if it is
agreeable to me; but I cannot, and ought not, to attempt to impose it as
binding upon others.
Holding for true, or the subjective validity of a judgement in relation to
conviction (which is, at the same time, objectively valid), has the three
following degrees: opinion, belief, and knowledge. Opinion is a consciously
insufficient judgement, subjectively as well as objectively. Belief is subjec-
tively sufficient, but is recognized as being objectively insufficient. Knowl-
edge is both subjectively and objectively sufficient. Subjective sufficiency
is termed conviction (for myself ); objective sufficiency is termed certainty
(for all). I need not dwell longer on the explanation of such simple con-
ceptions.
I must never venture to be of opinion, without knowing something, at
least, by which my judgement, in itself merely problematical, is brought
into connection with the truth—which connection, although not perfect,
is still something more than an arbitrary fiction. Moreover, the law of
such a connection must be certain. For if, in relation to this law, I have
nothing more than opinion, my judgement is but a play of the imagina-
tion, without the least relation to truth. In the judgements of pure reason,
opinion has no place. For, as they do not rest on empirical grounds and as
the sphere of pure reason is that of necessary truth and a priori cognition,
the principle of connection in it requires universality and necessity, and
consequently perfect certainty—otherwise we should have no guide to
the truth at all. Hence it is absurd to have an opinion in pure mathemat-
ics; we must know, or abstain from forming a judgement altogether. The
case is the same with the maxims of morality. For we must not hazard an
action on the mere opinion that it is allowed, but we must know it to be
so. In the transcendental sphere of reason, on the other hand, the term
opinion is too weak, while the word knowledge is too strong. From the
merely speculative point of view, therefore, we cannot form a judgement
at all. For the subjective grounds of a judgement, such as produce belief,
cannot be admitted in speculative inquiries, inasmuch as they cannot stand
without empirical support and are incapable of being communicated to
others in equal measure.
459
But it is only from the practical point of view that a theoretically insuf-
ficient judgement can be termed belief. Now the practical reference is
either to skill or to morality; to the former, when the end proposed is
arbitrary and accidental, to the latter, when it is absolutely necessary.
If we propose to ourselves any end whatever, the conditions of its at-
tainment are hypothetically necessary. The necessity is subjectively, but
still only comparatively, sufficient, if I am acquainted with no other con-
ditions under which the end can be attained. On the other hand, it is
sufficient, absolutely and for every one, if I know for certain that no one
can be acquainted with any other conditions under which the attainment
of the proposed end would be possible. In the former case my supposi-
tion—my judgement with regard to certain conditions—is a merely acci-
dental belief; in the latter it is a necessary belief. The physician must pur-
sue some course in the case of a patient who is in danger, but is ignorant of
the nature of the disease. He observes the symptoms, and concludes, ac-
cording to the best of his judgement, that it is a case of phthisis. His belief
is, even in his own judgement, only contingent: another man might, per-
haps come nearer the truth. Such a belief, contingent indeed, but still
forming the ground of the actual use of means for the attainment of cer-
tain ends, I term Pragmatical belief.
The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is merely his
persuasion, or his subjective conviction at least, that is, his firm belief, is a
bet. It frequently happens that a man delivers his opinions with so much
boldness and assurance, that he appears to be under no apprehension as to
the possibility of his being in error. The offer of a bet startles him, and
makes him pause. Sometimes it turns out that his persuasion may be val-
ued at a ducat, but not at ten. For he does not hesitate, perhaps, to venture
a ducat, but if it is proposed to stake ten, he immediately becomes aware
of the possibility of his being mistaken—a possibility which has hitherto
escaped his observation. If we imagine to ourselves that we have to stake
the happiness of our whole life on the truth of any proposition, our judge-
ment drops its air of triumph, we take the alarm, and discover the actual
strength of our belief. Thus pragmatical belief has degrees, varying in pro-
portion to the interests at stake.
Now, in cases where we cannot enter upon any course of action in refer-
ence to some object, and where, accordingly, our judgement is purely
theoretical, we can still represent to ourselves, in thought, the possibility
of a course of action, for which we suppose that we have sufficient grounds,
if any means existed of ascertaining the truth of the matter. Thus we find
in purely theoretical judgements an analogon of practical judgements, to
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which the word belief may properly be applied, and which we may term
doctrinal belief. I should not hesitate to stake my all on the truth of the
proposition-if there were any possibility of bringing it to the test of expe-
rience—that, at least, some one of the planets, which we see, is inhabited.
Hence I say that I have not merely the opinion, but the strong belief, on
the correctness of which I would stake even many of the advantages of life,
that there are inhabitants in other worlds.
Now we must admit that the doctrine of the existence of God belongs
to doctrinal belief. For, although in respect to the theoretical cognition of
the universe I do not require to form any theory which necessarily in-
volves this idea, as the condition of my explanation of the phenomena
which the universe presents, but, on the contrary, am rather bound so to
use my reason as if everything were mere nature, still teleological unity is
so important a condition of the application of my reason to nature, that it
is impossible for me to ignore it—especially since, in addition to these
considerations, abundant examples of it are supplied by experience. But
the sole condition, so far as my knowledge extends, under which this
unity can be my guide in the investigation of nature, is the assumption
that a supreme intelligence has ordered all things according to the wisest
ends. Consequently, the hypothesis of a wise author of the universe is
necessary for my guidance in the investigation of nature—is the condi-
tion under which alone I can fulfil an end which is contingent indeed, but
by no means unimportant. Moreover, since the result of my attempts so
frequently confirms the utility of this assumption, and since nothing deci-
sive can be adduced against it, it follows that it would be saying far too
little to term my judgement, in this case, a mere opinion, and that, even in
this theoretical connection, I may assert that I firmly believe in God. Still,
if we use words strictly, this must not be called a practical, but a doctrinal
belief, which the theology of nature (physico-theology) must also produce
in my mind. In the wisdom of a Supreme Being, and in the shortness of
life, so inadequate to the development of the glorious powers of human
nature, we may find equally sufficient grounds for a doctrinal belief in the
future life of the human soul.
The expression of belief is, in such cases, an expression of modesty from
the objective point of view, but, at the same time, of firm confidence,
from the subjective. If I should venture to term this merely theoretical
judgement even so much as a hypothesis which I am entitled to assume; a
more complete conception, with regard to another world and to the cause
of the world, might then be justly required of me than I am, in reality, able
to give. For, if I assume anything, even as a mere hypothesis, I must, at
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least, know so much of the properties of such a being as will enable me,
not to form the conception, but to imagine the existence of it. But the
word belief refers only to the guidance which an idea gives me, and to its
subjective influence on the conduct of my reason, which forces me to
hold it fast, though I may not be in a position to give a speculative ac-
count of it.
But mere doctrinal belief is, to some extent, wanting in stability. We
often quit our hold of it, in consequence of the difficulties which occur in
speculation, though in the end we inevitably return to it again.
It is quite otherwise with moral belief. For in this sphere action is abso-
lutely necessary, that is, I must act in obedience to the moral law in all
points. The end is here incontrovertibly established, and there is only one
condition possible, according to the best of my perception, under which
this end can harmonize with all other ends, and so have practical valid-
ity—namely, the existence of a God and of a future world. I know also, to
a certainty, that no one can be acquainted with any other conditions which
conduct to the same unity of ends under the moral law. But since the
moral precept is, at the same time, my maxim (as reason requires that it
should be), I am irresistibly constrained to believe in the existence of God
and in a future life; and I am sure that nothing can make me waver in this
belief, since I should thereby overthrow my moral maxims, the renuncia-
tion of which would render me hateful in my own eyes.
Thus, while all the ambitious attempts of reason to penetrate beyond
the limits of experience end in disappointment, there is still enough left to
satisfy us in a practical point of view. No one, it is true, will be able to
boast that he knows that there is a God and a future life; for, if he knows
this, he is just the man whom I have long wished to find. All knowledge,
regarding an object of mere reason, can be communicated; and I should
thus be enabled to hope that my own knowledge would receive this won-
derful extension, through the instrumentality of his instruction. No, my
conviction is not logical, but moral certainty; and since it rests on subjec-
tive grounds (of the moral sentiment), I must not even say: It is morally
certain that there is a God, etc., but: I am morally certain, that is, my
belief in God and in another world is so interwoven with my moral nature
that I am under as little apprehension of having the former torn from me
as of losing the latter.
The only point in this argument that may appear open to suspicion is
that this rational belief presupposes the existence of moral sentiments. If
we give up this assumption, and take a man who is entirely indifferent
with regard to moral laws, the question which reason proposes, becomes
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then merely a problem for speculation and may, indeed, be supported by

strong grounds from analogy, but not by such as will compel the most
obstinate scepticism to give way.* But in these questions no man is free
from all interest. For though the want of good sentiments may place him
beyond the influence of moral interests, still even in this case enough may
be left to make him fear the existence of God and a future life. For he
cannot pretend to any certainty of the non-existence of God and of a
future life, unless-since it could only be proved by mere reason, and there-
fore apodeictically—he is prepared to establish the impossibility of both,
which certainly no reasonable man would undertake to do. This would be
a negative belief, which could not, indeed, produce morality and good
sentiments, but still could produce an analogon of these, by operating as a
powerful restraint on the outbreak of evil dispositions.
But, it will be said, is this all that pure reason can effect, in opening up
prospects beyond the limits of experience? Nothing more than two ar-
ticles of belief? Common sense could have done as much as this, without
taking the philosophers to counsel in the matter!
I shall not here eulogize philosophy for the benefits which the laborious
efforts of its criticism have conferred on human reason-even granting that
its merit should turn out in the end to be only negative—for on this point
something more will be said in the next section. But, I ask, do you require
that that knowledge which concerns all men, should transcend the com-
mon understanding, and should only be revealed to you by philosophers?
The very circumstance which has called forth your censure, is the best
confirmation of the correctness of our previous assertions, since it dis-
closes, what could not have been foreseen, that Nature is not chargeable
with any partial distribution of her gifts in those matters which concern
all men without distinction and that, in respect to the essential ends of
human nature, we cannot advance further with the help of the highest
philosophy, than under the guidance which nature has vouchsafed to the
meanest understanding.
*The human mind (as, I believe, every rational being must of necessity do) takes a
natural interest in morality, although this interest is not undivided, and may not be
practically in preponderance. If you strengthen and increase it, you will find the
reason become docile, more enlightened, and more capable of uniting the specula-
tive interest with the practical. But if you do not take care at the outset, or at least
midway, to make men good, you will never force them into an honest belief.
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CHAPTER III. The Architectonic of Pure Reason.
By the term architectonic I mean the art of constructing a system. With-

out systematic unity, our knowledge cannot become science; it will be an
aggregate, and not a system. Thus architectonic is the doctrine of the
scientific in cognition, and therefore necessarily forms part of our meth-
odology.
Reason cannot permit our knowledge to remain in an unconnected and
rhapsodistic state, but requires that the sum of our cognitions should con-
stitute a system. It is thus alone that they can advance the ends of reason.
By a system I mean the unity of various cognitions under one idea. This
idea is the conception—given by reason—of the form of a whole, in so far
as the conception determines a priori not only the limits of its content,
but the place which each of its parts is to occupy. The scientific idea con-
tains, therefore, the end and the form of the whole which is in accordance
with that end. The unity of the end, to which all the parts of the system
relate, and through which all have a relation to each other, communicates
unity to the whole system, so that the absence of any part can be immedi-
ately detected from our knowledge of the rest; and it determines a priori
the limits of the system, thus excluding all contingent or arbitrary addi-
tions. The whole is thus an organism (articulatio), and not an aggregate
(coacervatio); it may grow from within (per intussusceptionem), but it
cannot increase by external additions (per appositionem). It is, thus, like
an animal body, the growth of which does not add any limb, but, without
changing their proportions, makes each in its sphere stronger and more
active.
We require, for the execution of the idea of a system, a schema, that is,
a content and an arrangement of parts determined a priori by the prin-
ciple which the aim of the system prescribes. A schema which is not pro-
jected in accordance with an idea, that is, from the standpoint of the
highest aim of reason, but merely empirically, in accordance with acciden-
tal aims and purposes (the number of which cannot be predetermined),
can give us nothing more than technical unity. But the schema which is
originated from an idea (in which case reason presents us with aims a
priori, and does not look for them to experience), forms the basis of
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architectonical unity. A science, in the proper acceptation of that term,

cannot be formed technically, that is, from observation of the similarity
existing between different objects, and the purely contingent use we make
of our knowledge in concreto with reference to all kinds of arbitrary exter-
nal aims; its constitution must be framed on architectonical principles,
that is, its parts must be shown to possess an essential affinity, and be
capable of being deduced from one supreme and internal aim or end,
which forms the condition of the possibility of the scientific whole. The
schema of a science must give a priori the plan of it (monogramma), and
the division of the whole into parts, in conformity with the idea of the
science; and it must also distinguish this whole from all others, according
to certain understood principles.
No one will attempt to construct a science, unless he have some idea to
rest on as a proper basis. But, in the elaboration of the science, he finds
that the schema, nay, even the definition which he at first gave of the
science, rarely corresponds with his idea; for this idea lies, like a germ, in
our reason, its parts undeveloped and hid even from microscopical obser-
vation. For this reason, we ought to explain and define sciences, not ac-
cording to the description which the originator gives of them, but accord-
ing to the idea which we find based in reason itself, and which is suggested
by the natural unity of the parts of the science already accumulated. For it
will of ten be found that the originator of a science and even his latest
successors remain attached to an erroneous idea, which they cannot ren-
der clear to themselves, and that they thus fail in determining the true
content, the articulation or systematic unity, and the limits of their sci-
ence.
It is unfortunate that, only after having occupied ourselves for a long
time in the collection of materials, under the guidance of an idea which
lies undeveloped in the mind, but not according to any definite plan of
arrangement—nay, only after we have spent much time and labour in the
technical disposition of our materials, does it become possible to view the
idea of a science in a clear light, and to project, according to architectonical
principles, a plan of the whole, in accordance with the aims of reason.
Systems seem, like certain worms, to be formed by a kind of generatio
aequivoca—by the mere confluence of conceptions, and to gain com-
pleteness only with the progress of time. But the schema or germ of all lies
in reason; and thus is not only every system organized according to its
own idea, but all are united into one grand system of human knowledge,
of which they form members. For this reason, it is possible to frame an
architectonic of all human cognition, the formation of which, at the present
465
time, considering the immense materials collected or to be found in the

ruins of old systems, would not indeed be very difficult. Our purpose at
present is merely to sketch the plan of the architectonic of all cognition
given by pure reason; and we begin from the point where the main root of
human knowledge divides into two, one of which is reason. By reason I
understand here the whole higher faculty of cognition, the rational being
placed in contradistinction to the empirical.
If I make complete abstraction of the content of cognition, objectively
considered, all cognition is, from a subjective point of view, either histori-
cal or rational. Historical cognition is cognitio ex datis, rational, cognitio
ex principiis. Whatever may be the original source of a cognition, it is, in
relation to the person who possesses it, merely historical, if he knows only
what has been given him from another quarter, whether that knowledge
was communicated by direct experience or by instruction. Thus the Per-
son who has learned a system of philosophy—say the Wolfian—although
he has a perfect knowledge of all the principles, definitions, and argu-
ments in that philosophy, as well as of the divisions that have been made
of the system, possesses really no more than an historical knowledge of the
Wolfian system; he knows only what has been told him, his judgements
are only those which he has received from his teachers. Dispute the valid-
ity of a definition, and he is completely at a loss to find another. He has
formed his mind on another’s; but the imitative faculty is not the produc-
tive. His knowledge has not been drawn from reason; and although, ob-
jectively considered, it is rational knowledge, subjectively, it is merely his-
torical. He has learned this or that philosophy and is merely a plaster cast
of a living man. Rational cognitions which are objective, that is, which
have their source in reason, can be so termed from a subjective point of
view, only when they have been drawn by the individual himself from the
sources of reason, that is, from principles; and it is in this way alone that
criticism, or even the rejection of what has been already learned, can spring
up in the mind.
All rational cognition is, again, based either on conceptions, or on the
construction of conceptions. The former is termed philosophical, the lat-
ter mathematical. I have already shown the essential difference of these
two methods of cognition in the first chapter. A cognition may be objec-
tively philosophical and subjectively historical—as is the case with the
majority of scholars and those who cannot look beyond the limits of their
system, and who remain in a state of pupilage all their lives. But it is
remarkable that mathematical knowledge, when committed to memory,
is valid, from the subjective point of view, as rational knowledge also, and
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Immanuel Kant
that the same distinction cannot be drawn here as in the case of philo-
sophical cognition. The reason is that the only way of arriving at this
knowledge is through the essential principles of reason, and thus it is al-
ways certain and indisputable; because reason is employed in concreto—
but at the same time a priori—that is, in pure and, therefore, infallible
intuition; and thus all causes of illusion and error are excluded. Of all the
a priori sciences of reason, therefore, mathematics alone can be learned.
Philosophy—unless it be in an historical manner—cannot be learned; we
can at most learn to philosophize.
Philosophy is the system of all philosophical cognition. We must use
this term in an objective sense, if we understand by it the archetype of all
attempts at philosophizing, and the standard by which all subjective phi-
losophies are to be judged. In this sense, philosophy is merely the idea of
a possible science, which does not exist in concreto, but to which we en-
deavour in various ways to approximate, until we have discovered the
right path to pursue—a path overgrown by the errors and illusions of
sense—and the image we have hitherto tried in vain to shape has become
a perfect copy of the great prototype. Until that time, we cannot learn
philosophy—it does not exist; if it does, where is it, who possesses it, and
how shall we know it? We can only learn to philosophize; in other words,
we can only exercise our powers of reasoning in accordance with general
principles, retaining at the same time, the right of investigating the sources
of these principles, of testing, and even of rejecting them.
Until then, our conception of philosophy is only a scholastic concep-
tion—a conception, that is, of a system of cognition which we are trying
to elaborate into a science; all that we at present know being the system-
atic unity of this cognition, and consequently the logical completeness of
the cognition for the desired end. But there is also a cosmical conception
(conceptus cosmicus) of philosophy, which has always formed the true
basis of this term, especially when philosophy was personified and pre-
sented to us in the ideal of a philosopher. In this view philosophy is the
science of the relation of all cognition to the ultimate and essential aims of
human reason (teleologia rationis humanae), and the philosopher is not
merely an artist—who occupies himself with conceptions—but a law-
giver, legislating for human reason. In this sense of the word, it would be
in the highest degree arrogant to assume the title of philosopher, and to
pretend that we had reached the perfection of the prototype which lies in
the idea alone.
The mathematician, the natural philosopher, and the logician—how
far soever the first may have advanced in rational, and the two latter in
467
philosophical knowledge—are merely artists, engaged in the arrangement

and formation of conceptions; they cannot be termed philosophers. Above
them all, there is the ideal teacher, who employs them as instruments for
the advancement of the essential aims of human reason. Him alone can
we call philosopher; but he nowhere exists. But the idea of his legislative
power resides in the mind of every man, and it alone teaches us what kind
of systematic unity philosophy demands in view of the ultimate aims of
reason. This idea is, therefore, a cosmical conception.*
In view of the complete systematic unity of reason, there can only be
one ultimate end of all the operations of the mind. To this all other aims
are subordinate, and nothing more than means for its attainment. This
ultimate end is the destination of man, and the philosophy which relates
to it is termed moral philosophy. The superior position occupied by moral
philosophy, above all other spheres for the operations of reason, suffi-
ciently indicates the reason why the ancients always included the idea—
and in an especial manner—of moralist in that of philosopher. Even at the
present day, we call a man who appears to have the power of self-govern-
ment, even although his knowledge may be very limited, by the name of
philosopher.
The legislation of human reason, or philosophy, has two objects-nature
and freedom—and thus contains not only the laws of nature, but also
those of ethics, at first in two separate systems, which, finally, merge into
one grand philosophical system of cognition. The philosophy of nature
relates to that which is, that of ethics to that which ought to be.
But all philosophy is either cognition on the basis of pure reason, or the
cognition of reason on the basis of empirical principles. The former is
termed pure, the latter empirical philosophy.
The philosophy of pure reason is either propaedeutic, that is, an inquiry
into the powers of reason in regard to pure a priori cognition, and is termed
critical philosophy; or it is, secondly, the system of pure reason—a science
containing the systematic presentation of the whole body of philosophical
knowledge, true as well as illusory, given by pure reason—and is called
metaphysic. This name may, however, be also given to the whole system of
pure philosophy, critical philosophy included, and may designate the in-
vestigation into the sources or possibility of a priori cognition, as well as
the presentation of the a priori cognitions which form a system of pure
*By a cosmical conception, I mean one in which all men necessarily take an
interest; the aim of a science must accordingly be determined according to scho-
lastic conceptions, if it is regarded merely as a means to certain arbitrarily pro-
posed ends.
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Immanuel Kant
philosophy—excluding, at the same time, all empirical and mathematical

elements.
Metaphysic is divided into that of the speculative and that of the prac-
tical use of pure reason, and is, accordingly, either the metaphysic of na-
ture, or the metaphysic of ethics. The former contains all the pure rational
principles—based upon conceptions alone (and thus excluding mathemat-
ics)—of all theoretical cognition; the latter, the principles which deter-
mine and necessitate a priori all action. Now moral philosophy alone con-
tains a code of laws—for the regulation of our actions—which are de-
duced from principles entirely a priori. Hence the metaphysic of ethics is
the only pure moral philosophy, as it is not based upon anthropological or
other empirical considerations. The metaphysic of speculative reason is
what is commonly called metaphysic in the more limited sense. But as
pure moral philosophy properly forms a part of this system of cognition,
we must allow it to retain the name of metaphysic, although it is not
requisite that we should insist on so terming it in our present discussion.
It is of the highest importance to separate those cognitions which differ
from others both in kind and in origin, and to take great care that they are
not confounded with those with which they are generally found connected.
What the chemist does in the analysis of substances, what the mathemati-
cian in pure mathematics, is, in a still higher degree, the duty of the phi-
losopher, that the value of each different kind of cognition, and the part it
takes in the operations of the mind, may be clearly defined. Human rea-
son has never wanted a metaphysic of some kind, since it attained the
power of thought, or rather of reflection; but it has never been able to
keep this sphere of thought and cognition pure from all admixture of
foreign elements. The idea of a science of this kind is as old as speculation
itself; and what mind does not speculate—either in the scholastic or in
the popular fashion? At the same time, it must be admitted that even
thinkers by profession have been unable clearly to explain the distinction
between the two elements of our cognition—the one completely a priori,
the other a posteriori; and hence the proper definition of a peculiar kind
of cognition, and with it the just idea of a science which has so long and so
deeply engaged the attention of the human mind, has never been estab-
lished. When it was said: “Metaphysic is the science of the first principles
of human cognition,” this definition did not signalize a peculiarity in
kind, but only a difference in degree; these first principles were thus de-
clared to be more general than others, but no criterion of distinction from
empirical principles was given. Of these some are more general, and there-
fore higher, than others; and—as we cannot distinguish what is completely
469
a priori from that which is known to be a posteriori—where shall we draw

the line which is to separate the higher and so-called first principles, from
the lower and subordinate principles of cognition? What would be said if
we were asked to be satisfied with a division of the epochs of the world
into the earlier centuries and those following them? “Does the fifth, or the
tenth century belong to the earlier centuries?” it would be asked. In the
same way I ask: Does the conception of extension belong to metaphysics?
You answer, “Yes.” Well, that of body too? “Yes.” And that of a fluid body?
You stop, you are unprepared to admit this; for if you do, everything will
belong to metaphysics. From this it is evident that the mere degree of
subordination—of the particular to the general—cannot determine the
limits of a science; and that, in the present case, we must expect to find a
difference in the conceptions of metaphysics both in kind and in origin.
The fundamental idea of metaphysics was obscured on another side by
the fact that this kind of a priori cognition showed a certain similarity in
character with the science of mathematics. Both have the property in com-
mon of possessing an a priori origin; but, in the one, our knowledge is
based upon conceptions, in the other, on the construction of conceptions.
Thus a decided dissimilarity between philosophical and mathematical
cognition comes out—a dissimilarity which was always felt, but which
could not be made distinct for want of an insight into the criteria of the
difference. And thus it happened that, as philosophers themselves failed
in the proper development of the idea of their science, the elaboration of
the science could not proceed with a definite aim, or under trustworthy
guidance. Thus, too, philosophers, ignorant of the path they ought to
pursue and always disputing with each other regarding the discoveries
which each asserted he had made, brought their science into disrepute
with the rest of the world, and finally, even among themselves.
All pure a priori cognition forms, therefore, in view of the peculiar fac-
ulty which originates it, a peculiar and distinct unity; and metaphysic is
the term applied to the philosophy which attempts to represent that cog-
nition in this systematic unity. The speculative part of metaphysic, which
has especially appropriated this appellation—that which we have called
the metaphysic of nature—and which considers everything, as it is (not as
it ought to be), by means of a priori conceptions, is divided in the follow-
ing manner.
Metaphysic, in the more limited acceptation of the term, consists of
two parts—transcendental philosophy and the physiology of pure reason.
The former presents the system of all the conceptions and principles be-
longing to the understanding and the reason, and which relate to objects
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Immanuel Kant
in general, but not to any particular given objects (Ontologia); the latter
has nature for its subject-matter, that is, the sum of given objects—whether
given to the senses, or, if we will, to some other kind of intuition—and is
accordingly physiology, although only rationalis. But the use of the fac-
ulty of reason in this rational mode of regarding nature is either physical
or hyperphysical, or, more properly speaking, immanent or transcendent.
The former relates to nature, in so far as our knowledge regarding it may
be applied in experience (in concreto); the latter to that connection of the
objects of experience, which transcends all experience. Transcendent physi-
ology has, again, an internal and an external connection with its object,
both, however, transcending possible experience; the former is the physi-
ology of nature as a whole, or transcendental cognition of the world, the
latter of the connection of the whole of nature with a being above nature,
or transcendental cognition of God.
Immanent physiology, on the contrary, considers nature as the sum of
all sensuous objects, consequently, as it is presented to us—but still ac-
cording to a priori conditions, for it is under these alone that nature can
be presented to our minds at all. The objects of immanent physiology are
of two kinds: 1. Those of the external senses, or corporeal nature; 2. The
object of the internal sense, the soul, or, in accordance with our funda-
mental conceptions of it, thinking nature. The metaphysics of corporeal
nature is called physics; but, as it must contain only the principles of an a
priori cognition of nature, we must term it rational physics. The meta-
physics of thinking nature is called psychology, and for the same reason is
to be regarded as merely the rational cognition of the soul.
Thus the whole system of metaphysics consists of four principal parts: 1.
Ontology; 2. Rational Physiology; 3. Rational cosmology; and 4. Rational
theology. The second part—that of the rational doctrine of nature—may be
subdivided into two, physica rationalis* and psychologia rationalis.
The fundamental idea of a philosophy of pure reason of necessity dic-
tates this division; it is, therefore, architectonical—in accordance with the
*It must not be supposed that I mean by this appellation what is generally called
physica general is, and which is rather mathematics than a philosophy of nature.
For the metaphysic of nature is completely different from mathematics, nor is it
so rich in results, although it is of great importance as a critical test of the appli-
cation of pure understanding-cognition to nature. For want of its guidance, even
mathematicians, adopting certain common notions-which are, in fact, metaphysi-
cal—have unconsciously crowded their theories of nature with hypotheses, the
fallacy of which becomes evident upon the application of the principles of this
metaphysic, without detriment, however, to the employment of mathematics in
this sphere of cognition.
471
highest aims of reason, and not merely technical, or according to certain

accidentally-observed similarities existing between the different parts of
the whole science. For this reason, also, is the division immutable and of
legislative authority. But the reader may observe in it a few points to which
he ought to demur, and which may weaken his conviction of its truth and
legitimacy.
In the first place, how can I desire an a priori cognition or metaphysic of
objects, in so far as they are given a posteriori? and how is it possible to
cognize the nature of things according to a priori principles, and to attain
to a rational physiology? The answer is this. We take from experience
nothing more than is requisite to present us with an object (in general) of
the external or of the internal sense; in the former case, by the mere con-
ception of matter (impenetrable and inanimate extension), in the latter,
by the conception of a thinking being—given in the internal empirical
representation, I think. As to the rest, we must not employ in our
metaphysic of these objects any empirical principles (which add to the
content of our conceptions by means of experience), for the purpose of
forming by their help any judgements respecting these objects.
Secondly, what place shall we assign to empirical psychology, which has
always been considered a part of metaphysics, and from which in our time
such important philosophical results have been expected, after the hope
of constructing an a priori system of knowledge had been abandoned? I
answer: It must be placed by the side of empirical physics or physics proper;
that is, must be regarded as forming a part of applied philosophy, the a
priori principles of which are contained in pure philosophy, which is there-
fore connected, although it must not be confounded, with psychology.
Empirical psychology must therefore be banished from the sphere of meta-
physics, and is indeed excluded by the very idea of that science. In confor-
mity, however, with scholastic usage, we must permit it to occupy a place
in metaphysics—but only as an appendix to it. We adopt this course from
motives of economy; as psychology is not as yet full enough to occupy our
attention as an independent study, while it is, at the same time, of too
great importance to be entirely excluded or placed where it has still less
affinity than it has with the subject of metaphysics. It is a stranger who has
been long a guest; and we make it welcome to stay, until it can take up a
more suitable abode in a complete system of anthropology—the pendant
to empirical physics.
The above is the general idea of metaphysics, which, as more was ex-
pected from it than could be looked for with justice, and as these pleasant
expectations were unfortunately never realized, fell into general disrepute.
472
Immanuel Kant
Our Critique must have fully convinced the reader that, although meta-
physics cannot form the foundation of religion, it must always be one of
its most important bulwarks, and that human reason, which naturally
pursues a dialectical course, cannot do without this science, which checks
its tendencies towards dialectic and, by elevating reason to a scientific and
clear self-knowledge, prevents the ravages which a lawless speculative rea-
son would infallibly commit in the sphere of morals as well as in that of
religion. We may be sure, therefore, whatever contempt may be thrown
upon metaphysics by those who judge a science not by its own nature, but
according to the accidental effects it may have produced, that it can never
be completely abandoned, that we must always return to it as to a beloved
one who has been for a time estranged, because the questions with which
it is engaged relate to the highest aims of humanity, and reason must
always labour either to attain to settled views in regard to these, or to
destroy those which others have already established.
Metaphysic, therefore—that of nature, as well as that of ethics, but in
an especial manner the criticism which forms the propaedeutic to all the
operations of reason—forms properly that department of knowledge which
may be termed, in the truest sense of the word, philosophy. The path
which it pursues is that of science, which, when it has once been discov-
ered, is never lost, and never misleads. Mathematics, natural science, the
common experience of men, have a high value as means, for the most
part, to accidental ends—but at last also, to those which are necessary and
essential to the existence of humanity. But to guide them to this high goal,
they require the aid of rational cognition on the basis of pure conceptions,
which, be it termed as it may, is properly nothing but metaphysics.
For the same reason, metaphysics forms likewise the completion of the
culture of human reason. In this respect, it is indispensable, setting aside
altogether the influence which it exerts as a science. For its subject-matter
is the elements and highest maxims of reason, which form the basis of the
possibility of some sciences and of the use of all. That, as a purely specu-
lative science, it is more useful in preventing error than in the extension of
knowledge, does not detract from its value; on the contrary, the supreme
office of censor which it occupies assures to it the highest authority and
importance. This office it administers for the purpose of securing order,
harmony, and well-being to science, and of directing its noble and fruitful
labours to the highest possible aim—the happiness of all mankind.
473
CHAPTER IV. The History of Pure Reason.
This title is placed here merely for the purpose of designating a division of
the system of pure reason of which I do not intend to treat at present. I
shall content myself with casting a cursory glance, from a purely transcen-
dental point of view—that of the nature of pure reason—on the labours
of philosophers up to the present time. They have aimed at erecting an
edifice of philosophy; but to my eye this edifice appears to be in a very
ruinous condition.
It is very remarkable, although naturally it could not have been other-
wise, that, in the infancy of philosophy, the study of the nature of God
and the constitution of a future world formed the commencement, rather
than the conclusion, as we should have it, of the speculative efforts of the
human mind. However rude the religious conceptions generated by the
remains of the old manners and customs of a less cultivated time, the
intelligent classes were not thereby prevented from devoting themselves to
free inquiry into the existence and nature of God; and they easily saw that
there could be no surer way of pleasing the invisible ruler of the world,
and of attaining to happiness in another world at least, than a good and
honest course of life in this. Thus theology and morals formed the two
chief motives, or rather the points of attraction in all abstract inquiries.
But it was the former that especially occupied the attention of speculative
reason, and which afterwards became so celebrated under the name of
metaphysics.
I shall not at present indicate the periods of time at which the greatest
changes in metaphysics took place, but shall merely give a hasty sketch of
the different ideas which occasioned the most important revolutions in
this sphere of thought. There are three different ends in relation to which
these revolutions have taken place.
1. In relation to the object of the cognition of reason, philosophers may

be divided into sensualists and intellectualists. Epicurus may be regarded
as the head of the former, Plato of the latter. The distinction here signal-
ized, subtle as it is, dates from the earliest times, and was long maintained.
The former asserted that reality resides in sensuous objects alone, and that
474
Immanuel Kant
everything else is merely imaginary; the latter, that the senses are the par-
ents of illusion and that truth is to be found in the understanding alone.
The former did not deny to the conceptions of the understanding a cer-
tain kind of reality; but with them it was merely logical, with the others it
was mystical. The former admitted intellectual conceptions, but declared
that sensuous objects alone possessed real existence. The latter maintained
that all real objects were intelligible, and believed that the pure under-
standing possessed a faculty of intuition apart from sense, which, in their
opinion, served only to confuse the ideas of the understanding.
2. In relation to the origin of the pure cognitions of reason, we find one

school maintaining that they are derived entirely from experience, and
another that they have their origin in reason alone. Aristotle may be re-
garded as the bead of the empiricists, and Plato of the noologists. Locke,
the follower of Aristotle in modern times, and Leibnitz of Plato (although
he cannot be said to have imitated him in his mysticism), have not been
able to bring this question to a settled conclusion. The procedure of
Epicurus in his sensual system, in which he always restricted his conclu-
sions to the sphere of experience, was much more consequent than that of
Aristotle and Locke. The latter especially, after having derived all the con-
ceptions and principles of the mind from experience, goes so far, in the
employment of these conceptions and principles, as to maintain that we
can prove the existence of God and the existence of God and the immor-
tality of them objects lying beyond the soul—both of them of possible
experience—with the same force of demonstration as any mathematical
proposition.
3. In relation to method. Method is procedure according to principles.

We may divide the methods at present employed in the field of inquiry
into the naturalistic and the scientific. The naturalist of pure reason lays it
down as his principle that common reason, without the aid of science—
which he calls sound reason, or common sense—can give a more satisfac-
tory answer to the most important questions of metaphysics than specula-
tion is able to do. He must maintain, therefore, that we can determine the
content and circumference of the moon more certainly by the naked eye,
than by the aid of mathematical reasoning. But this system is mere miso-
logy reduced to principles; and, what is the most absurd thing in this
doctrine, the neglect of all scientific means is paraded as a peculiar method
of extending our cognition. As regards those who are naturalists because
they know no better, they are certainly not to be blamed. They follow
475
common sense, without parading their ignorance as a method which is to

teach us the wonderful secret, how we are to find the truth which lies at
the bottom of the well of Democritus.
Quod sapio satis est mihi, non ego curo Esse quod
Arcesilas aerumnosique Solones.
PERSIUS
— Satirae, iii. 78-79.
is their motto, under which they may lead a pleasant and praiseworthy
life, without troubling themselves with science or troubling science with
them.
As regards those who wish to pursue a scientific method, they have now
the choice of following either the dogmatical or the sceptical, while they
are bound never to desert the systematic mode of procedure. When I
mention, in relation to the former, the celebrated Wolf, and as regards the
latter, David Hume, I may leave, in accordance with my present inten-
tion, all others unnamed. The critical path alone is still open. If my reader
has been kind and patient enough to accompany me on this hitherto
untravelled route, he can now judge whether, if he and others will con-
tribute their exertions towards making this narrow footpath a high road of
thought, that which many centuries have failed to accomplish may not be
executed before the close of the present—namely, to bring Reason to per-
fect contentment in regard to that which has always, but without perma-
nent results, occupied her powers and engaged her ardent desire for knowl-
edge.
476

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The Critique of Pure Reason

TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC. SECOND DIVISION.

TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC. INTRODUCTION.

I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance.

We termed dialectic in general a logic of appearance. This does not signify

of itself proceed in a straight line, but if another impetus gives to it a

Logical illusion, which consists merely in the imitation of the form of

II. Of Pure Reason as the Seat of Transcendental Illusory Appear-

All our knowledge begins with sense, proceeds thence to understanding,

of a straight line from principles—I cognize it only in pure intuition.

never applies directly to experience, or to any sensuous object; its object

B. OF THE LOGICAL USE OF REASON.

A distinction is commonly made between that which is immediately

(this is the conclusio), consequently, I determine it a priori by means of

C. OF THE PURE USE OF REASON.

Can we isolate reason, and, if so, is it in this case a peculiar source of

demanding from objects themselves such a uniformity as might contrib-

1. Reason, as observed in the syllogistic process, is not applicable to intui-

2. Reason, in its logical use, endeavours to discover the general condition

But this logical maxim cannot be a principle of pure reason, unless we

OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF PURE REASON.

The conceptions of pure reason—we do not here speak of the possibility

of our treatise which relates to the dialectical conclusions of reason, we shall

SECTION I—Of Ideas in General.

*He certainly extended the application of his conception to speculative cogni-

examples—proofs of the practicability in a certain degree of that which

ought to determine-and for this reason, that it is the destination of free-

SECTION II. Of Transcendental Ideas.

nition according to conceptions, and the syllogism itself is a judgement

latter is restricted by conditions, the former is valid without any restric-

practice, is the same thing as if the conception were non-existent—it is

Reason, considered as the faculty of a certain logical form of cognition,

reason is compelled to consider the series of conditions in an ascending line as

SECTION III. System of Transcendental Ideas.

which we can form either a conception or an idea, are threefold: 1. The

at the foundation of these ideas an analogy of the same kind as exists

OF THE DIALECTICAL PROCEDURE OF PURE REASON.

It may be said that the object of a merely transcendental idea is something

CHAPTER I. Of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason.

The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of an argument in respect of

may be concluded from this conception “I,” in so far as it appears in all

From these elements originate all the conceptions of pure psychology,

*“I think, therefore I am.”

the understanding excludes all empirical elements; and we cannot, as has

1. In all judgements I am the determining subject of that relation which

2. That the I or Ego of apperception, and consequently in all thought, is

mation that the Ego is simple in thought. It would indeed be surprising, if

4. I distinguish my own existence, as that of a thinking being, from that of

Thus we have gained nothing as regards the cognition of myself as ob-

Refutation of the Argument of Mendelssohn for the Substantiality

This acute philosopher easily perceived the insufficiency of the common

quently by elanguescence, if I may employ this expression), be changed

*Clearness is not, as logicians maintain, the consciousness of a representation.

If, now, we take the above propositions—as they must be accepted as

Now, inasmuch as it is not determined in this second proposition,

Thus, then, appears the vanity of the hope of establishing a cognition

Conclusion of the Solution of the Psychological Paralogism.

The dialectical illusion in rational psychology arises from our confounding

On the Transition from Rational Psychology to Cosmology.