Thus he is quite contented that if
he says, “Canary wine is pleasant,” another man may correct his
expression and remind him that he ought to say, "It is pleasant
to me.
he says, “Canary wine is pleasant,” another man may correct his
expression and remind him that he ought to say, "It is pleasant
to me.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
He was in all the early part of his life decidedly poor.
By dint of very strict economy he acquired a moderate amount of
property before his death, but he was never rich.
He carefully
avoided all roads to purely worldly position or power. Yet by dint
of intellectual prowess, fortified by a profound moral earnestness,
although one somewhat coldly austere, — he acquired an influence
over the thought, first of his country, and then of Europe, which has
been in many ways transforming. Amongst philosophical thinkers he
stands in the first rank in the very small group of those philosophers
who can be regarded as genuine originators. As an original thinker,
in fact, he is the only modern philosopher who can be put beside
Plato and Aristotle. Other modern thinkers have represented indi-
vidual ideas of more or less independence and importance; Kant
alone has the honor of having transformed by his work some of the
most fundamental tendencies of modern speculation.
Of Kant the man, numerous characterizations have been given
by his friends and admirers. Most of these accounts relate especially
to his appearance and life in his later years. Of his youth we know
much less. On his father's side Kant was of Scottish descent, his
grandparents having emigrated from Scotland to East Prussia. Kant's
parents were members of the Pietistic party in the Lutheran Church,
and Kant's early education was thus under influences decidedly emo-
tional in their religious character,-- although the poverty, the hard
labor, and the sterling character of his parents prevented the wasting
## p. 8478 (#82) ############################################
8478
IMMANUEL KANT
mies
Frid, a1
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and The
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13
of time in devotional extravagances such as often characterized the
Pietistic movement; and the philosopher later looked back upon his
early training not only with a deep feeling of devotion, but with
a genuine intellectual respect. The family was large. There were
three sons and seven daughters. One of Kant's brothers later became
a minister. One of the sisters survived the philosopher. But six of
the children died young; and Immanuel himself inherited a delicate
constitution which had a great deal to do, in later years, both with
the sobriety and with the studious contemplativeness of his life's
routine. At eight years of age, Kant attended the gymnasium called
the Fredericianum, in KönigsbergHere he spent eight years and a
half, much under the eye and the influence of the director of the gym-
nasium, Dr. F. A. Schultz, — Pietist, professor of theology, and pastor.
Schultz was a scholarly, independent, and extremely active man,
severe as a disciplinarian, stimulating as a thinker and worker. As
Kant himself grew into youth, he formed literary ambitions, showed
skill as a Latin writer and reader, but gave no evidences as yet of
philosophical tendencies. He was not regarded as an especially prom-
ising boy: he is said to have been sensitive; he was certainly weak
in body and small in stature. He entered the University in 1740;
struggled with poverty and pedantry for about four years; was influ-
enced by the philosophical teaching, especially of Martin Knutzen;
and earned some necessary means as private tutor. A familiar
anecdote of his university period relates that Kant occasionally was
obliged to borrow clothing from his friends while his own was mend-
ing; and the story adds that on such occasions the friend might be
obliged to stay at home himself. In any case, Kant's university life
is described as one of ew recreations and of pretty constant labor.
Its result was seen at once after graduation, however, in the some-
what ambitious publication with which Kant's literary career opened.
This was a study of the then current problem of the theory of kinetic
forces,— or “living forces, as in the terminology of that time the
title-page of this essay calls them. The essay was at once philo-
sophical and quasi-mathematical. It was not in any positive sense
an important contribution to the discussion; but it was obviously the
work of a man in earnest. It was written in a spirit that combined
in an attractive way ambition and modesty; and it contained in one
passage a somewhat prophetic statement of the course that Kant had
laid out for himself.
Kant's mother died in 1737. In 1746 his father followed. The
years immediately subsequent to his university course, and to the
publication of the foregoing treatise, were passed as private tutor;
and it was at the beginning of this period that Kant traveled farthest
from his native city. Our philosopher's work as tutor in private
uts b
Some
atten
near
der
of
ta
DE
.
## p. 8479 (#83) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
1
8479
families was of considerable advantage for his knowledge of the
world, and brought him into contact with somewhat distinguished
local magnates. Nine years in all were passed in this occupation.
The year 1755 begins a new and important period of Kant's
career. In this year he became tutor, or privat-docent, at the Univer-
sity, defended a dissertation upon metaphysics as he took his place
in the University, and published a treatise on the Natural History
and Theory of the Heavens. In the latter essay he not only showed
in various ways the most important features of his earlier methods
of work, but had the honor of forestalling Lambert and Laplace in a
number of suggestions, which have since become fainous, relating to
the evolution of the solar system. From this moment dates a long-
continued and extremely laborious effort towards self-development.
As a university teacher, Kant was singularly successful. His range
of lectures was large. Physical science, and especially physical ge-
ography, logic, and metaphysics were prominent among his topics.
Affiliated at first with the then current highly formal and dogmatic
Wolffian philosophy of the universities, Kant was from the outset an
essentially independent expositor of doctrine, and soon became more
and more an independent thinker. He united the necessarily some-
what pedantic method due to his own early training, with a marvel-
ous humanity of spirit, and much brilliancy of expression as a lecturer.
Some of his students listened with great enthusiasm. Herder, who
attended his lectures in 1762 and 1763, never forgot, even in the midst
of a bitter opposition which years later grew up in his mind towards
Kant, the early influence of the master upon him. At the time or
near it, the young Herder could hardly use expressions too enthusi-
astic concerning his master. « Heavenly hours” he names the time
spent in such instruction. Kant, he tells us, unites learning and
depth in the finest fashion with something resembling the humor
of "Tristram Shandy. ) » He is a profound observer in the pathology
of our mind,” he shows a creative philosophical imagination,” and
has his own Socratic method of bringing everything into relation with
In æsthetic as in ethical directions Herder finds his teacher
equally great.
Kant is “altogether a social observer, altogether a
finished philosopher, a philosopher of humanity, and in this humane
philosophy a German Shaftesbury. ”
Some amongst Kant's writings belonging to this period show
literary powers which make this enthusiastic characterization more
intelligible than the writings of his later period would serve to do.
Kant had unquestionably the power to become a popular writer of
distinction, if not of extraordinary rank. But he was disposed to
sacrifice his literary gifts for the sake of a cause which as the years
went by became constantly dearer to him. For worldly distinction
»
man.
## p. 8480 (#84) ############################################
8480
IMMANUEL KANT
that
ha
(***
0:
CI
he had small desire. University advancement came
to him very
slowly. Official favor he did not seek. His work as a teacher was
always precious to him. But most of all he prized what he once
called his mistress, namely Metaphysics. At certain central problems
he worked with a constantly increasing devotion and intensity. His
own contributions to philosophy became during the years between
1762 and 1766 somewhat numerous: but he himself, even at the time,
made comparatively little of them; for he found them fragmentary,
and as he himself says, regarded philosophical insight as an ideal
whole, in which very little could be accomplished unless that whole
were surveyed at a glance. Of his own development during these
years, the philosopher himself has given us some indications in notes
preserved among his papers. « Of my science,” he says (namely,
of philosophy), "I taught at first what most appealed to I
attempted to make some contributions of my own to the common
treasury; in other respects I attempted to correct errors: yet all
the while I expected to extend the dogmas of tradition. But when
one attempts with real earnestness to find truth, one spares at last
not even his own productions. One submits everything that one has
learned or has believed to a thorough-going criticism; and so it slowly
came to pass that I found my entire dogmatic theory open to funda-
mental objections. ” Later on, Kant declared that he regarded all
his metaphysical writings as rendered entirely worthless by his later
critical philosophy. Thus unsparingly did the great critic assail his
own thought first and most of all.
He was
aware that in
doing so he deliberately adopted, in his later treatises, a method of
exposition that lacked all literary charms. “My method,” he says
in notes relating to his later style, “is not very much disposed to
enchain the reader or to please him. My writings seem scholastic,
dryly contemplative,- yes, even meagre, and far enough from the
tone of genius. It seems, to be sure, as if there were nothing more
tasteless than metaphysics; but the jewels that are beauty's adorn-
ment lay once in dark mines, or at least were seen only in the dim
workshop of the artist. ”
The fruits of Kant's long labors ripened first in the year 1781,
when he published his Critique of Pure Reason, the most famous
philosophical treatise of the last two centuries. This theoretical trea-
tise was followed by a more popular exposition of a portion of the
doctrine of the Critique' itself in 1783. To this more popular expo-
sition, which also contained extensive replies to critics, Kant gave
the name of Prolegomena to Every Future Metaphysic. ? In 1785
and 1788 he published works bearing on his ethical doctrine; in 1790
a philosophical treatise upon æsthetics, and upon the presence of
design in nature; in 1793 appeared an “Essay upon the Philosophy of
even
1
## p. 8481 (#85) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8481
a very
ner was
де оnсе
Coblems
V. His
etween
time
Larsi
deal
hole
these
notes
namely
me. I
common
: yet all
But when
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it slowly
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arded all
his later
ssail his
that in
-thod of
Religion. During the years between 1781 and 1795 Kant also printed
a large number of philosophical papers upon various subjects, ethical,
historical, and polemical. The long period of preparation had thus
given place to a time of great philosophical activity; but after 1795
the now aged philosopher began to feel the effects of his always deli-
cate constitution with rapidly increasing severity. He grew unable
to follow the current discussions which his own writings had by this
time provoked. He planned a large philosophical work which was
to set the crown upon his systematic labors; but he was unable to
give this treatise any final form. His last few years were beset
with increasing physical infirmity and mental ineffectiveness, although
he preserved to the last his high moral courage and his rigid self-
control. At the end he wasted away, and died of marasmus in 1804.
In person Kant was small and spare, weak of muscle, and scarcely
five feet high. His cheeks were sunken, his cheek-bones high, his
chest was small; his shoulders were slightly deformed. His forehead
was high, narrow at the base and broad at the top. His head was de-
cidedly large in proportion to the rest of his body; and the capacity
of his skull, as measured in 1880 (when his remains were transferred
to a chapel raised in his honor), was declared to be uncommonly
great. The physical details here given are found in much fuller
statement in the excellent life of Kant by Dr. Stuckenberg, published
by Macmillan in 1882. The physical habits of Kant have been often
described in works of literary gossip. What especially attracts atten-
tion is that rigid regularity of routine which was determined by the
philosopher's sensitive health. His constitution was intolerant of
medicine; and he early learned that he could combat his numerous
minor infirmities only by careful diet, by mental self-control (in which
he acquired great skill), and by strict habit of life. His care extended
to his breathing, in an almost Oriental fashion. He cured his pains,
on occasions, by control over his attention; and by the same means
worked successfully against sleeplessness. He was troubled with
defective vision; and in general he narrowly escaped hypochondriac
tendencies by virtue of a genuinely wholesome cheerfulness of intel-
In intellectual matters themselves Kant was always
characterized by an extraordinary power of thoughtful analysis; by
a strenuous disposition to pursue, without haste and without rest,
any line of inquiry which had once engaged his attention; by keen
suspicion of all his instincts and acquired presuppositions; and by a
somewhat fatalistic willingness to wait as long as might be necessary
for light. No thinker ever had originality more obviously thrust upon
him by the situation, and by his unwearied devotion to his task.
From the outset, indeed, he had a sense that his work was destined
to have important results; but this sense was something very far
the says
cosed to
Lolastic,
om the
more
adorn
e dim
lectual temper.
1781,
mous
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f the
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gare
1785
1790
e of
y of
XV-531
## p. 8482 (#86) ############################################
8482
IMMANUEL KANT
shemden
the you
Cats
That co
he net
ci bis
me an
any
中董事.
22
When
different from vanity, and was accompanied by none of that personal
longing for brilliancy and originality which has determined for good
or for ill the life work of so many literary men and thinkers. Not
naturally an iconoclast, Kant was driven by his problems to become
one of the most revolutionary of thinkers. Not naturally an enthu-
siast, he was led to results which furnished the principal philosophical
food for the most romantic and emotional age of modern German lit-
erature. Devoted at the outset to the careful exposition of doctrines
which he had accepted from tradition, Kant was led by the purely
inner and normal development of his work to views extraordinarily
independent.
The process of his thought constitutes as it were one long and
connected nature process, working with the fatal necessity of the ebb
and flow of the tide, and is as independent of his personal caprices
as of the merely popular tendencies of the period in which he grew
up. Yet when Frederick Schlegel later classed the thinkers of pure
reason with the French Revolution, as one of the characteristic pro-
cesses of the century, he expressed a view which the student of intel-
lectual life can well appreciate and easily defend. But the expression
suggests not alone the importance of the critical philosophy, but also
its character as a sort of natural development of the whole intellect-
ual situation of that age.
Morally speaking, Kant was characterized by three features. Of
these the first is his relatively cool intellectual attitude towards all
problems. He has no sympathy with romantic tendencies; although
later many a romantic soul came to sympathize profoundly with him.
He is opposed to mysticism of every form; and not so much suspects
the emotions of human nature, as clearly sees what he takes to be
their essential and fundamental capriciousness. The second trait is
a thorough regard for lawfulness of action. Reasonable guidance is
for him the only possible guidance. Emotions must deceive; the
plan of life is as plan alone worthy of consideration. Kant has
small interest in noble sentiments, but very great natural respect for
large and connected personal and social undertakings, when guided
by ideas.
The third characteristic of the philosopher, in this part of
his nature, is that sincerely cheerful indifference to fortune which
made him, amidst all his frequently keen criticism of the weakness
of human nature and of the vanities of life, withal a critic who
just escapes pessimism by dint of his assurance that, after all, reason
must triumph in the universe. Kant was a fine observer of human
nature, and as such was fond of lecturing on what we might call
the comparative psychology of national and social types. He was
widely read in the anthropological literature of his day. Accord.
ingly, his observations on man's moral nature, in his lectures as in his
1
Alle
Issia
20
. و *
1
1
## p. 8483 (#87) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8483
personal
ior good
ers. Not
become
i enthu.
sophical
yan lit.
ctrines
purely
dinarily
long and
of the ebb
al caprices
ch he grew
. ers of pure
teristic pro-
nt of intel
expression
ly, but also
le intellect-
published treatises, often show the breadth of reading and the humane
shrewdness of judgment which were the source of the charm that
the young Herder so richly found in his teaching. Yet Kant's ac-
counts of human nature, without being cynical, always appear some-
what coldly disillusioned. What saves this aspect of his work from
seeming cynical is the genuine tone of moral seriousness with which
he views the more rational aspects of human tasks. In one passage
of his lectures on psychology, in connection with the theory of pleas-
ure and pain, he briefly sums up his view of the happiness possible
to any mortal man. This view at first sight is somewhat uninviting.
From the nature of the case. Kant reasons, every pleasure has to
be attended with a corresponding experience of pain.
Life in gen-
eral seems to be naturally something of a burden. Moreover, every
human desire has by nature other desires opposing it. Our tenden-
cies, as they naturally are, are profoundly deceitful. Yet despite all
this, Kant asserts that life has its very deep comforts. But what are
these? Kant replies:— «The deepest and easiest means of quieting
all pains is the thought that a reasonable man should be expected to
have at his control, - namely, the thought that life in general, so far
as the enjoyment of it goes, has no genuine worth at all; for enjoy-
ment depends upon fortune: but its worth consists alone in the use
of life, in the purposes to which it is directed. And this aspect of
life comes to man not by fortune, but only through wisdom. This
consequently is in man's power. Whoever is much troubled about
losing life will never enjoy life. ”
These three traits of Kant's moral attitude towards life unite to
give some of his more mature historical essays and critical studies
a character which deserves to be better known than it now is, by
students who are less interested in the metaphysical aspect of his
doctrine. In judging the course of human history, Kant sometimes
seems to be accepting the doctrine of Hobbes, that by nature all
men are at war with all. In fact, however, Kant sees deeper. The
situation has another aspect. The warfare is still fundamental.
Every man is at war not only with his fellows, but by nature with
himself. He desires freedom, but he desires also power. Power he
can get only through social subordination. This, man more or less
feels from the outset. His need of his fellow-man is as prominent
in his own mind as is his disposition to war with his fellow. Kant
accordingly speaks of man as a being “who cannot endure his fellow-
inan, and cannot possibly do without him. ” Thus there is that in
man which wars against the very warfare itself; and Kant's general
psychological theory of the inner opposition and division of the nat-
ural man comes to appear somewhat like the Pauline doctrine of the
Epistle to the Romans. But Nature's chaos is Reason's opportunity.
atures. Of
wards all
although
with him.
7 suspects
es to be
d trait is
dance is
ire; the
ant has
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En his
## p. 8484 (#88) ############################################
8484
IMMANUEL KANT
It is
upon
this
very basis that Kant founds his ethical theory; accord-
ing to which the moral law can find in our natures no possible basis
except the fundamental and supreme demand of the Pure Reason,
that this universal but obviously senseless conflict shall cease through
voluntary subordination to what Kant calls the Categorical Impera-
tive. The Categorical Imperative is the principle of consistency in
conduct; stated abstractly, the principle, So act at any time that you
could will the maxim of your act to become a universal law for all
reasonable beings. This maxim a man can obey; because he is not
merely a creature with this nature, so capricious and so inwardly
divided against itself, but a rational being with free-will, capable of
subordinating caprice to reason. The whole moral law is thus summed
up in the maxim, Act now as if your act determined the deed of
every man for all time; or more simply, Act upon absolutely con-
sistent principles. And now, in the course of history, Kant sees the
progressive process of the realization of this one universal principle
of the reason, in the organization of a rational human society.
Kant's true originality as a thinker lies most in his theoretical
philosophy. Of this in the present place it is impossible to give any
really significant account. If one must sum up in the fewest words
the most general idea of this doctrine, one is disposed to say: Kant
found philosophical thought concerned with the problem, how human
knowledge is related to the real world of truth. This problem had
assumed its then customary shape in connection with discussions
both of traditional theology and of science. What we now call the
conflict of religion and science really turned for that age, as for ours,
upon the definition and the solution of this fundamental problem of
the scope and the limits of knowledge. But what philosophers up
to Kant's time had not questioned, was that if human knowledge in
any region, as for instance in the region of natural science, has valid-
ity,- accomplishes what it means to accomplish, — then this valid-
ity and this success must involve a real acquaintance with the world
absolutely real, beyond the boundaries of human experience. Thus
materialistic philosophy had maintained that if natural science is
valid, man knows a world of absolutely real matter, which explains
all things and is the ultimate truth. Theological doctrine had held
in a similar way that if the human reason is valid at all, then the
absolute nature of God, of the soul, or of some other transcendent
truth, must in some respect be within our range. Now Kant under-
took, by virtue of a new analysis of human knowledge, to prove, on
one hand, that human reason cannot know absolute truth of any kind
except moral truth. Herein, to be sure, his doctrine seemed at one
with those skeptical views which had questioned in former times
the validity of human knowledge altogether. But Kant did not agree
## p. 8485 (#89) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8485
accord.
ble basis
Reason,
through
Impera
cener in
at jou
or all
Eis not
wardly
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summed
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utely con
at sees the
1 principle
ety:
Cheoretical
give any
with the skeptics as to their result. On the other hand, he main-
tained that the real success and the genuine validity of human
science depend upon the very fact that we are not able to know, in
theoretical realms, any absolute or transcendent truth whatsoever.
For, as Kant asserts, in dealing with nature as science knows nature,
we are really dealing with the laws of human experience as such, and
not with any absolute or transcendent truth whatever. It is however
the nature of the human understanding, the constitution of human
experience, that is expressed in all natural laws that we are able to
discover; in all the truth that science maintains or that the future
can disclose. Thus, as Kant states the case, it is the understanding
that gives laws to nature. And the limitation of knowledge to the
realm of experience, and our failure to be able to know in theoreti-
cal terms any transcendent truth, are not signs of the failure of
human knowledge in its essential human purposes, but are conditions
upon which depends the very validity of our knowledge within its
own realm. In trying to know more than the world of experience,
we try an experiment which, if successful, could only end in making
all knowledge impossible. Space, time, such fundamental ideas as
the idea of causality,— all these are facts which represent no funda-
mental truth beyond experience whatever. They are facts determined
solely by the facts of human nature. They hold within our range,
and not beyond it. Of things in themselves we know nothing. But
on this very ignorance, Kant maintains, is founded not only the valid-
ity of our natural sciences, but the possibility of retaining, against
the assaults of materialism and of a purely negative skepticism, the
validity of our moral consciousness and the essential spirit of reli-
gious faith. In this unique combination of critical skepticism, of
moral idealism, and of a rationalistic assurance of the validity for all
men of the a priori principles upon which natural science rests, lies
the essential significance of the philosophy of Kant, - a significance
which only a much fuller exposition, and a study of the history of
thought, could make explicit.
Jest words
say: Kant
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times
agret
## p. 8486 (#90) ############################################
8486
IMMANUEL KANT
A COMPARISON OF THE BEAUTIFUL WITH THE PLEASANT
AND THE GOOD
10
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tri
From «The Critique of Judgment
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-
S REGARDS the Pleasant every one is content that his judg-
ment, which he bases upon private feeling, and by which
he says of an object that it pleases him, should be limited
merely to his own person.
Thus he is quite contented that if
he says, “Canary wine is pleasant,” another man may correct his
expression and remind him that he ought to say, "It is pleasant
to me. ” And this is the case not only as regards the taste of the
tongue, the palate, and the throat, but for whatever is pleasant
to any one's
eyes
and ears.
To one, violet color is soft and
lovely; to another, it is washed out and dead. One man likes
the tone of wind instruments, another that of strings. To strive
here with the design of reproving as incorrect another man's
judgment which is different from our own, as if the judgments
were logically opposed, would be folly. As regards the Pleasant,
therefore, the fundamental proposition is valid: Every one has his
own taste, — the taste of Sense.
The case is quite different with the Beautiful. It would on
the contrary be laughable if a man who imagined anything to
his own taste, thought to justify himself by saying, "This object
[the house we see, the coat that person wears, the concert we
hear, the poem submitted to our judgment] is beautiful for
me. ” For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases him.
Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness; no one
troubles himself at that: but if he gives out anything as beauti-
ful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction; he judges not
merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as
if it were a property of things. Hence he says, “The thing is
beautiful;” and he does not count on the agreement of others
with this his judgment of satisfaction, because he has found this
agreement several times before, but he demands it of them.
blames them if they judge otherwise; and he denies them taste,
which he nevertheless requires from them. Here then we cannot
say that each man has his own particular taste.
For this would
be as much as to say that there is no taste whatever; i. e. , no
æsthetical judgment which can make a rightful claim upon every
one's assent.
»
(
He
## p. 8487 (#91) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8487
At the same time we find as regards the Pleasant that there
is an agreement among men in their judgments upon it, in regard
to which we deny taste to some and attribute it to others; by
this not meaning one of our organic senses, but a faculty of judg-
ing in respect of the Pleasant generally. Thus we say of a man
who knows how to entertain his guests with pleasures of enjoy-
ment for all the senses, so that they are all pleased, He has
taste. ” But here the universality is only taken comparatively:
and there emerge rules which are only general, like all empirical
ones, and not universal; which latter the judgment of Taste upon
the Beautiful undertakes or lays claim to. It is a judgment in
reference to sociability, so far as this rests on empirical rules.
In respect to the Good it is true that judgments make rightful
claim to validity for every one; but the Good is represented only
by means of a concept as the object of a universal satisfaction,
which is the case neither with the Pleasant nor with the Beauti.
ful.
-
This particular determination of the universality of an æstheti-
cal judgment, which is to be met with in a judgment of taste,
is noteworthy, not indeed for the logician, but for the transcend-
ental philosopher. It requires no small trouble to discover its
origin; but we thus detect a property of our cognitive faculty
which without this analysis would remain unknown.
First we must be fully convinced of the fact that in a judg-
ment of taste about the Beautiful, the satisfaction in the object
is imputed to everyone, - without being based on a concept,
for then it would be the Good. Further, this claim to universal
validity so essentially belongs to a judgment by which we de.
scribe anything as beautiful, that if this were not thought in it,
it would never come into our thoughts to use the expression
at all, but everything which pleases without a concept would be
counted as pleasant. In respect of the latter, every one has his
own opinion; and no one assumes in another, agreement with his
judgment of taste, which is always the case in a judgment of
taste about beauty.
He who fears can form no judgment about the Sublime in
nature; just as he who is seduced by inclination and appetite
can form no judgment about the Beautiful. The former flies
from the sight of an object which inspires him with awe; and
it is impossible to find satisfaction in a terror that is seriously
Hence the pleasurableness arising from the cessation of an
## p. 8488 (#92) ############################################
8488
IMMANUEL KANT
or abang
sublime
outatio
proper
TH
that
spintis
in the
facult
of 0:1
tende
men
ther
to i
sub
of
uneasiness is a state of joy. But this, on account of the deliver-
ance from danger which is involved, is a state of joy when con-
joined with the resolve that we shall no more be exposed to the
danger; we cannot willingly look back upon our sensations of
danger, much less seek the occasion for them again,
Bold, overhanging, and as it were threatening, rocks; clouds
piled up in the sky, moving with lightning flashes and thunder
peals; volcanoes in all their violence of destruction; hurricanes
with their track of devastation; the boundless ocean in a state of
tumult; the lofty waterfall of a mighty river; and such like,-
these exhibit our faculty of resistance as insignificantly small in
comparison with their might. But the sight of them is the more
attractive, the more fearful it is, provided only that we are in
security; and we willingly call these objects sublime, because
they raise the energies of the soul above their accustomed height,
and discover in us a faculty of resistance of a quite different
kind, which gives us courage to measure ourselves against the
apparent almightiness of nature.
Now, in the immensity of nature, and in the insufficiency of
our faculties to take in a standard proportionate to the æstheti-
cal estimation of the magnitude of its realm, we find our own
limitation; although at the same time in our rational faculty we
find a different, non-sensuous standard, which has that infinity
itself under it as a unity, in comparison with which everything in
nature is small, and thus in our mind we find a superiority to
nature even in its immensity. And so also the irresistibility of
its might, while making us recognize our own physical impo-
tence, considered as beings of nature, discloses to us a faculty
of judging independently of, and a superiority over, nature; on
which is based a kind of self-preservation, entirely different from
that which can be attacked and brought into danger by exter-
nal nature. Thus humanity in our person remains unhumiliated,
though the individual might have to submit to this dominion.
In this way nature is not judged to be sublime in our
thetical judgments in so far as it excites fear; but because it
calls up that power in us, which is not nature, of regarding
small the things about which we are solicitous (goods, health,
and life), and of regarding its might, to which we are no doubt
subjected in respect of these things, as nevertheless without any
dominion over us and our personality, to which we must bow
where our highest fundamental propositions, and their assertion
op
01a
es
LE
bo
æs-
as
## p. 8489 (#93) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8489
or abandonment, are concerned. Therefore nature is here called
sublime merely because it elevates the imagination to a pres-
entation of those cases in which the mind can make felt the
proper sublimity of its destination, in comparison with nature
itself.
This estimation of ourselves loses nothing through the fact
that we must regard ourselves as safe in order to feel this in-
spiriting satisfaction; and that hence, as there is no seriousness
in the danger, there might be also (as might seem to be the
case) just as little seriousness in the sublimity of our spiritual
faculty. For the satisfaction here concerns only the destination
of our faculty which discloses itself in such a case, so far as the
tendency to this destination lies in our nature, whilst its develop-
ment and exercise remain incumbent and obligatory. And in this
there is truth and reality, however conscious the man may be
of his present actual powerlessness when he turns his reflection
to it.
No doubt this principle seems to be too far-fetched and too
subtly reasoned, and consequently seems to go beyond the scope
of an aesthetical judgment; but observation of men proves the
opposite, and shows that it may lie at the root of the most ordi-
nary judgments, although we are not always conscious of it. For
what is that which is, even to the savage, an object of the great-
est admiration ? It is a man who shrinks from nothing, who
fears nothing, and therefore does not yield to danger, but rather
goes to face it vigorously with the most complete deliberation.
Even in the most highly civilized state this peculiar veneration
for the soldier remains, though only under the condition that he
exhibit all the virtues of peace, gentleness, compassion, and even
a becoming care for his own person; because even by these it is
recognized that his mind is unsubdued by danger. Hence what-
ever disputes there may be about the superiority of the respect
which is to be accorded them, in the comparison of a statesman
and a general, the æsthetical judgment decides for the latter.
War itself, if it is carried on with order and with a sacred
respect for the rights of citizens, has something sublime in it,
and makes the disposition of the people who carry it on thus,
only the more sublime, the more numerous are the dangers to
which they are exposed, and in respect of which they behave
with courage. On the other hand, a long peace generally brings
about a predominant commercial spirit, and along with it, low
## p. 8490 (#94) ############################################
8490
IMMANUEL KANT
faros
ife.
onlis
are
Out
fer
fo:
SHOE
ca
d
IC
selfishness, cowardice, and effeminacy; and debases the disposition
of the people.
It appears to conflict with this solution of the concept of the
sublime, so far as sublimity is ascribed to might, that we are
accustomed to represent God as presenting himself in his wrath
and yet in his sublimity, in the tempest, the storm, the earth-
quake, etc. ; and that it would be foolish and criminal to imagine
a superiority of our minds over these works of his, and as it
seems, even over the designs of such might. Hence it would
appear that no feeling of the sublimity of our own nature, but
rather subjection, abasement, and a feeling of complete power-
lessness, is a fitting state of mind in the presence of such an
object; and this is generally bound up with the idea of it during
natural phenomena of this kind. In religion in general, prostra-
tion, adoration with bent head, with contrite, anxious demeanor
and voice, seems to be the only fitting behavior in presence of
the Godhead; and hence most peoples have adopted and still
observe it. But this state of mind is far from being necessarily
bound up with the idea of the sublimity of a religion and its
object. The man who is actually afraid, because he finds reasons
for fear in himself, whilst conscious by his culpable disposition
of offending against a Might whose will is irresistible and at the
same time just, is not in the frame of mind for admiring the
Divine greatness. For this a mood of calm contemplation and a
quite free judgment are needed. Only if he is conscious of an
upright disposition pleasing to God, do those operations of might
serve to awaken in him the idea of the sublimity of this Being,
for then he recognizes in himself a sublimity of disposition con-
formable to his will; and thus he is raised above the fear of
such operations of nature, which he no longer regards as out-
bursts of His wrath. Even humility, in the shape of a stern judg-
ment upon his own faults,— which otherwise, with a consciousness
of good intentions, could be easily palliated from the frailty of
human nature,- is a sublime state of mind, consisting in a vol-
untary subjection of himself to the pain of remorse, in order
that the causes of this may be gradually removed. In this way
religion is essentially distinguished from superstition. The lat-
ter establishes in the mind, not reverence for the sublime, but
fear and apprehension of the all-powerful Being to whose will
the terrified man sees himself subject, without according him
any high esteem. From this nothing can arise but a seeking of
## p. 8491 (#95) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8491
favor and flattery, instead of a religion which consists in a good
life.
Sublimity therefore does not reside in anything of nature, but
only in our mind, in so far as we can become conscious that we
are superior to nature within, and therefore also to nature with-
out us, so far as it influences us. Everything that excites this
feeling in us,-4. 8. , the might of nature which calls forth our
forces, - is called then, although improperly, sublime. Only by
supposing this idea in ourselves, and in reference to it, are we
capable of attaining to the idea of the sublimity of that Being
which produces respect in us, not merely by the might that it
displays in nature, but rather by means of the faculty which
resides in us of judging it fearlessly and of regarding our des-
tination as sublime in respect of it.
Translation of J. H. Bernard.
OF REASON IN GENERAL
From "The Critique of Pure Reason)
A
LL our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to
the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing
higher than reason, for working up the material of intuition
and comprehending it under the highest unity of thought. As
it here becomes necessary to give a definition of that highest
faculty of knowledge, Ï begin to feel considerable misgivings.
There is of reason, as there is of the understanding, a purely
formal — that is, logical— use, in which no account is taken of
the contents of knowledge; but there is also a real use, in so far
as reason itself contains the origin of certain concepts and princi-
ples, which it has not borrowed either from the senses or from
the understanding. The former faculty has been long defined by
logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusions, in contradistinc-
tion to immediate ones (consequentia immediate); but this does
not help us to understand the latter, which itself produces con-
cepts. As this brings us face to face with the division of reason
into a logical and à transcendental faculty, we must look for a
higher concept for this source of knowledge, to comprehend both
concepts; though, according to the analogy of the concepts of
the understanding, we may expect that the logical concept will
give us the key to the transcendental, and that the table of the
## p. 8492 (#96) ############################################
8492
IMMANUEL KANT
It:
ant na
Serie:
Such
.
somhet
OUISCI
sobie
CUK
care
thai
fere
for
ME
functions of the former will give us the genealogical outline of
the concepts of reason.
In the first part of our transcendental logic we defined the
understanding as the faculty of rules; and we now distinguish
reason from it by calling it the faculty of principles.
The term “principle” is ambiguous, and signifies commonly
some kind of knowledge only that may be used as a principle;
though in itself, and according to its origin, it is no principle
at all. Every general proposition, even though it may have been
derived from experience by induction, may serve as a major in
a syllogism of reason; but it is not on that account a principle.
Mathematical axioms - as for instance, that between two points
there can be only one straight line — constitute even general
knowledge a priori; and may therefore, with reference to the
cases which can be brought under them, rightly be called prin-
ciples. Nevertheless it would be wrong to say that this prop-
erty of a straight line, in general and by itself, is known to us
from principles, for it is known from pure intuition only.
I shall therefore call it knowledge from principles, whenever
we know the particular in the general by means of concepts.
Thus every syllogism of reason is a form of deducing some kind
of knowledge from a principle; because the major always contains
a concept which enables us to know, according to a principle,
everything that can be comprehended under the conditions of
that concept. As every general knowledge may serve as a major
in such a syllogism, and as the understanding supplies such gen-
eral propositions a priori, these no doubt may, with reference to
their possible use, be called principles.
But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding
in themselves, and according to their origin, we find that they
are anything rather than knowledge from concepts. They would
not even be possible a priori, unless we relied on pure intuition
(in mathematics) or on conditions of a possible experience in
general. That everything which happens has a cause, can by no
means be concluded from the concept of that which happens; on
the contrary, that very principle shows in what manner alone
we can form a definite empirical concept of that which happens.
It is impossible therefore for the understanding to supply us
with synthetical knowledge from concepts; and it is really that
kind of knowledge which I call principles absolutely; while all
general propositions may be called principles relatively.
CE
PE
0
2
## p. 8493 (#97) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8493
It is an old desideratum, which at some time however dis-
tant may be realized, that instead of the endless variety of civil
laws, their principles might be discovered; for thus alone the
secret might be found of what is called simplifying legislation.
Such laws, however, are only limitations of our freedom under
conditions by which it always agrees with itself; they refer to
something which is entirely our own work, and of which we
ourselves are the cause, by means of these concepts. But that
objects in themselves, as for instance material nature, should be
subject to principles, and be determined according to mere con-
cepts, is something, if not impossible, at all events extremely
contradictory. But be that as it may,—for on this point we
have still all investigations before us,--so much at least is clear,
that knowledge from principles by itself is something totally dif-
ferent from mere knowledge of the understanding; which in the
form of a principle may no doubt precede other knowledge, but
which by itself, in so far as it is synthetical, is not based on
mere thought, nor contains anything general according to con-
cepts.
If the understanding is a faculty for producing unity among
phenomena according to rules, reason is the faculty for produ-
cing unity among the rules of the understanding according to
principles. Reason therefore never looks directly to experience
or to any object, but to the understanding; in order to impart
a priori, through concepts, to its manifold kinds of knowledge,
a unity that may be called the unity of reason, and is very dif-
ferent from the unity which can be produced by the under-
standing
This is a general definition of the faculty of reason, so far as
it was possible to make it intelligible without the help of illustra-
tions.
Translation of F. Max Müller.
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE ?
From the Prolegomena)
as
M
ETAPHYSICS
a natural disposition of the reason is real;
but it is also in itself dialectical and deceptive, as was
proved in the analytical solution of the third main prob-
lem.
Hence to attempt to draw our principles from it, and in
## p. 8494 (#98) ############################################
8494
IMMANUEL KANT
but i
prese
Tema:
ice :
knout
itse
the
bah
dec
Th
the
SC
al
a
€
their employment to follow this natural but none the less falla-
cious illusion, can never produce science, but only an empty dia-
lectical art; in which one school may indeed outdo the other, but
none can ever attain a justifiable and lasting success. In order
that as science it may lay claim not merely to deceptive per-
suasion, but to insight and conviction, a critique of the reason
must exhibit in a complete system the whole stock of concep-
tions a priori, arranged according to their different sources, -
the sensibility, the understanding, and the reason; it must pre-
sent a complete table of these conceptions, together with their
analysis and all that can be deduced from them, but more espe-
cially the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori by means
of their deduction, the principles of its use, and finally their
boundaries. Thus criticism contains, and it alone contains, the
whole plan well tested and approved — indeed, all the means -
whereby metaphysics may be perfected as a science; by other
ways and means this is impossible. The question now is not,
however, how this business is possible, but only how we are to
set about it; how good heads are to be turned from their pre-
vious mistaken and fruitless path to a non-deceptive treatment;
and how such a combination may be best directed towards the
common end.
This much is certain: he who has once tried criticism will be
sickened forever of all the dogmatic trash he was compelled to
content himself with before because his reason, requiring some-
thing, could find nothing better for its occupation. Criticism
stands to the ordinary school metaphysics exactly in the same
relation as chemistry to alchemy, or as astronomy to fortune-telling
astrology. I guarantee that no one who has comprehended and
thought out the conclusions of criticism, even in these Prole-
gomena,' will ever return to the old sophistical pseudo-science.
He will rather look forward with a kind of pleasure to a meta-
physics, certainly now within his power, which requires no more
preparatory discoveries, and which alone can procure for the
reason permanent satisfaction. For this is an advantage upon
which metaphysics alone can reckon with confidence, among all
possible sciences; namely, that it can be brought to completion
and to a durable position, as it cannot change any further, nor
is it susceptible of any increase through new discoveries: since
the reason does not here find the sources of its knowledge in
objects and in their intuition, which cannot teach it anything,
## p. 8495 (#99) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8495
9
(
»
but in itself; so that when the principles of its possibility are
presented completely, and without any misunderstanding, nothing
remains for pure reason to know a priori, or even with just-
ice to ask. The certain prospect of so definite and perfect a
knowledge has a special attraction about it, even if all its uses
(of which I shall hereafter speak) be set aside.
All false art, all empty wisdom, lasts its time; but it destroys
itself in the end, and its highest cultivation is at the same time
the moment of its decline. That as regards metaphysics this
time has now come, is proved by the state to which it has
declined among all cultivated nations, notwithstanding the zeal
with which every other kind of science is being worked out.
The old arrangement of the university studies preserves its out-
lines still; a single academy of sciences bestirs itself now and
then, by holding out prizes, to induce another attempt to be
made therein: but it is no longer counted among fundamental
sciences; and any one may judge for himself how an intellectu-
ally gifted man to whom the term “great metaphysician” were
applied, would take this well-meant, but scarcely by any one cov-
eted, compliment.
But although the period of the decline of all dogmatic meta-
physics is undoubtedly come, there are many things wanting to
enable us to say that the time of its re-birth by means of a thor-
ough and complete critique of the reason has already appeared.
All transitional phases from one tendency to its opposite pass
through the state of indifference; and this moment is the most
dangerous for an author, but as it seems to me the most favor-
able for the science. For when, through the complete dissolu-
tion of previous combinations, party spirit is extinguished, men's
minds are in the best mood for listening gradually to propos-
als for a combination on another plan. If I say that I hope
that these Prolegomena' will perhaps make research in the
field of criticism more active, and will offer to the general spirit
of philosophy, which seems to be wanting in nourishment on its
speculative side, a new and very promising field for its occupa-
tion, I can already foresee that every one who has trodden unwill-
ingly and with vexation the thorny way I have led him in the
Critique) will ask me on what I ground this hope. I answer,
On the irresistible law of necessity.
That the spirit of man will ever wholly give up metaphysical
investigations, is just as little to be expected as that in order
(
## p. 8496 (#100) ###########################################
8496
IMMANUEL KANT
not always to be breathing bad air we should stop breathing
altogether. Metaphysics will always exist in the world, then;
and what is more, exist with every one, but more especially with
reflecting men, who in default of a public standard will each
fashion it in his own way. Now, what has hitherto been termed
metaphysics can satisfy no acute mind; but to renounce it entirely
is impossible: hence a critique of the pure reason itself must be
at last attempted, and when obtained must be investigated and
subjected to a universal test; because otherwise there are no
means of relieving this pressing requirement, which means some-
thing more than mere thirst for knowledge.
Translation of Ernest Belford Bax.
## p. 8496 (#101) ###########################################
-
语
## p. 8496 (#102) ###########################################
«Եր)
ՆԱԵՒ
ԵԹ
TOUT
14
JOHN KEATS.
## p. 8496 (#103) ###########################################
$147
11
JOIIN KEITS
11745 1821)
BY LOUISE VOGEY GUINEY
܀ ;i"; »
HTY 1! 1 people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keets;
die is in many reupects the p 'pular hero o. Eglish liter-
ature. He was young, ni ch'virussly devoted to his art;
lie has a mastery of expression almost ur part. ! It is neither
oscure lot plemie, are le has had froin tikili 2! 1,(? trag
iuulemas on other irinds: in Ilv. ), in Terti, rt, in Rimini wd Wila
the VI:1::3'*? . 11 Lanier and Lowril, in Yüts Porn
til Breath, and touch of Keats like an incant":? l'. ! sllat mellom
tij prozira! genius that it shall nid in t.
tie triture of its race: it it slizll byen essenti, ir tt by! "Li’octi.
Viwmi says vulnewhere in his ever 111. 6i ma? ? ? (+1: "How is it
"! ' good! , but reprochet fod; this is one of its attribute
? ? ? :is excellent, hefuful, poiftet, desirable, for its own sake, but
it over iss, and spreads the likenes vi itself uil rould it.
a great gol will impart great good. And as hie mix, 11t have added,
it wi'l hatte derived it. Keats first woke and knew hirsli reiling
Speiser's world of fairy, where abstract harmones Wandt t,
And thri'm livine is all areting,
A: 112! lth is the rossy grouri. ”
TIK
.
Tint Wits really his operring event.
Ilis vlter story is scontri d.
Irtit count as it can that Keats was of commonplace Stoak, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, hainig
Pince Wilste prematurely ilirough the fault of stipri
lefill schooling in his boyfcond and kind frien is the ti
friend's iter to suur him on to achieve his bizonte Pin
funt in a universiiy save as a passing guest, that I
to a country surzen, and got absorbed, liit! . . 1:1. te with
fydusive postai 1:2. in literature; that he was ir pers. ), but
P. : Tiarly wain, with a head and files of dirt ad serious beauty:
21714] that his behaviur in all the relatius von bis was cheerful, dis-
1. . . TESTU! , nieciest, honorable, kind: that his burit brokt. -- but not
"Die of lis anxieties, of which a fevered in vendir was chief,-
6? ! ? *llat le died in exile at Rone on the 24 of Fibruary, 1821, agedi
1. 12-13'-twenty, incertain of the fate of his third and last brok, in
1-532
## p. 8496 (#104) ###########################################
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## p. 8497 (#105) ###########################################
8497
1
JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)
BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
N
EARLY all people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keats;
he is in many respects the popular hero of English liter-
ature. He was young, and chivalrously devoted to his art;
he has a mastery of expression almost unparalleled; he is neither
obscure nor polemic; and he has had from the first a most fecundating
influence on other minds: in Hood, in Tennyson, in Rossetti and Mat-
thew Arnold, in Lanier and Lowell, in Yeats and Watson, one feels
the breath and touch of Keats like an incantation. It is a test of the
truly original genius that it shall stand in line with the past and
the future of its race; that it shall be essentially filial and paternal.
Newman says somewhere in his ever lucid manner: “Good is not
only good, but reproductive of good; this is one of its attributes;
nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect, desirable, for its own sake, but
it overflows, and spreads the likeness of itself all around it.
A great good will impart great good. ” And as he might have added,
it will have derived it. Keats first woke and knew himself reading,
Spenser's world of faëry, where abstract harmonies wander,
.
“And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground. ”
That was really his opening event. His outer story is soon told.
Let it count as it can that Keats was of commonplace stock, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, having a small com-
petence wasted prematurely through the fault of others; that he had
careful schooling in his boyhood, and kind friends then and famous
friends after to spur him on to achieve his best, never having set
foot in a university save as a passing guest; that he was apprenticed
to a country surgeon, and got absorbed, little by little and with
exclusive passion, in literature; that he was small in person, but
muscularly made, with a head and face of alert and serious beauty;
and that his behavior in all the relations of life was cheerful, dis-
interested, modest, honorable, kind; that his health broke,— but not
because of his anxieties, of which a fevered love-affair was chief,–
and that he died in exile at Rome on the 23d of February, 1821, aged
five-and-twenty, uncertain of the fate of his third and last book, in
XV-532
## p. 8498 (#106) ###########################################
8498
JOHN KEATS
stard
endom
aut :0 $
caligero
ship is
such bi
Words
cres he
Shelleu
unike
ben
bealth
able,
amo
TUTT
insta
tica
which lay his whole gathered force, his brave bid for human remem-
brance.
Keats's early attempts were certainly over-colored. Endymion,'
despite its soft graces and two enchanting lyric interludes, is a dis-
quieting performance. Yet it turned out to be, as he knew, a rock
under his feet whence he could make a progress, and not a quick-
sand which he had to abandon in order to be saved.
By dint of very strict economy he acquired a moderate amount of
property before his death, but he was never rich.
He carefully
avoided all roads to purely worldly position or power. Yet by dint
of intellectual prowess, fortified by a profound moral earnestness,
although one somewhat coldly austere, — he acquired an influence
over the thought, first of his country, and then of Europe, which has
been in many ways transforming. Amongst philosophical thinkers he
stands in the first rank in the very small group of those philosophers
who can be regarded as genuine originators. As an original thinker,
in fact, he is the only modern philosopher who can be put beside
Plato and Aristotle. Other modern thinkers have represented indi-
vidual ideas of more or less independence and importance; Kant
alone has the honor of having transformed by his work some of the
most fundamental tendencies of modern speculation.
Of Kant the man, numerous characterizations have been given
by his friends and admirers. Most of these accounts relate especially
to his appearance and life in his later years. Of his youth we know
much less. On his father's side Kant was of Scottish descent, his
grandparents having emigrated from Scotland to East Prussia. Kant's
parents were members of the Pietistic party in the Lutheran Church,
and Kant's early education was thus under influences decidedly emo-
tional in their religious character,-- although the poverty, the hard
labor, and the sterling character of his parents prevented the wasting
## p. 8478 (#82) ############################################
8478
IMMANUEL KANT
mies
Frid, a1
na ma
The
sit, def
is the l'
and The
of TOT
Lamber
the evc
Walau
As a 1
di lect
graph
11
تونية
13
of time in devotional extravagances such as often characterized the
Pietistic movement; and the philosopher later looked back upon his
early training not only with a deep feeling of devotion, but with
a genuine intellectual respect. The family was large. There were
three sons and seven daughters. One of Kant's brothers later became
a minister. One of the sisters survived the philosopher. But six of
the children died young; and Immanuel himself inherited a delicate
constitution which had a great deal to do, in later years, both with
the sobriety and with the studious contemplativeness of his life's
routine. At eight years of age, Kant attended the gymnasium called
the Fredericianum, in KönigsbergHere he spent eight years and a
half, much under the eye and the influence of the director of the gym-
nasium, Dr. F. A. Schultz, — Pietist, professor of theology, and pastor.
Schultz was a scholarly, independent, and extremely active man,
severe as a disciplinarian, stimulating as a thinker and worker. As
Kant himself grew into youth, he formed literary ambitions, showed
skill as a Latin writer and reader, but gave no evidences as yet of
philosophical tendencies. He was not regarded as an especially prom-
ising boy: he is said to have been sensitive; he was certainly weak
in body and small in stature. He entered the University in 1740;
struggled with poverty and pedantry for about four years; was influ-
enced by the philosophical teaching, especially of Martin Knutzen;
and earned some necessary means as private tutor. A familiar
anecdote of his university period relates that Kant occasionally was
obliged to borrow clothing from his friends while his own was mend-
ing; and the story adds that on such occasions the friend might be
obliged to stay at home himself. In any case, Kant's university life
is described as one of ew recreations and of pretty constant labor.
Its result was seen at once after graduation, however, in the some-
what ambitious publication with which Kant's literary career opened.
This was a study of the then current problem of the theory of kinetic
forces,— or “living forces, as in the terminology of that time the
title-page of this essay calls them. The essay was at once philo-
sophical and quasi-mathematical. It was not in any positive sense
an important contribution to the discussion; but it was obviously the
work of a man in earnest. It was written in a spirit that combined
in an attractive way ambition and modesty; and it contained in one
passage a somewhat prophetic statement of the course that Kant had
laid out for himself.
Kant's mother died in 1737. In 1746 his father followed. The
years immediately subsequent to his university course, and to the
publication of the foregoing treatise, were passed as private tutor;
and it was at the beginning of this period that Kant traveled farthest
from his native city. Our philosopher's work as tutor in private
uts b
Some
atten
near
der
of
ta
DE
.
## p. 8479 (#83) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
1
8479
families was of considerable advantage for his knowledge of the
world, and brought him into contact with somewhat distinguished
local magnates. Nine years in all were passed in this occupation.
The year 1755 begins a new and important period of Kant's
career. In this year he became tutor, or privat-docent, at the Univer-
sity, defended a dissertation upon metaphysics as he took his place
in the University, and published a treatise on the Natural History
and Theory of the Heavens. In the latter essay he not only showed
in various ways the most important features of his earlier methods
of work, but had the honor of forestalling Lambert and Laplace in a
number of suggestions, which have since become fainous, relating to
the evolution of the solar system. From this moment dates a long-
continued and extremely laborious effort towards self-development.
As a university teacher, Kant was singularly successful. His range
of lectures was large. Physical science, and especially physical ge-
ography, logic, and metaphysics were prominent among his topics.
Affiliated at first with the then current highly formal and dogmatic
Wolffian philosophy of the universities, Kant was from the outset an
essentially independent expositor of doctrine, and soon became more
and more an independent thinker. He united the necessarily some-
what pedantic method due to his own early training, with a marvel-
ous humanity of spirit, and much brilliancy of expression as a lecturer.
Some of his students listened with great enthusiasm. Herder, who
attended his lectures in 1762 and 1763, never forgot, even in the midst
of a bitter opposition which years later grew up in his mind towards
Kant, the early influence of the master upon him. At the time or
near it, the young Herder could hardly use expressions too enthusi-
astic concerning his master. « Heavenly hours” he names the time
spent in such instruction. Kant, he tells us, unites learning and
depth in the finest fashion with something resembling the humor
of "Tristram Shandy. ) » He is a profound observer in the pathology
of our mind,” he shows a creative philosophical imagination,” and
has his own Socratic method of bringing everything into relation with
In æsthetic as in ethical directions Herder finds his teacher
equally great.
Kant is “altogether a social observer, altogether a
finished philosopher, a philosopher of humanity, and in this humane
philosophy a German Shaftesbury. ”
Some amongst Kant's writings belonging to this period show
literary powers which make this enthusiastic characterization more
intelligible than the writings of his later period would serve to do.
Kant had unquestionably the power to become a popular writer of
distinction, if not of extraordinary rank. But he was disposed to
sacrifice his literary gifts for the sake of a cause which as the years
went by became constantly dearer to him. For worldly distinction
»
man.
## p. 8480 (#84) ############################################
8480
IMMANUEL KANT
that
ha
(***
0:
CI
he had small desire. University advancement came
to him very
slowly. Official favor he did not seek. His work as a teacher was
always precious to him. But most of all he prized what he once
called his mistress, namely Metaphysics. At certain central problems
he worked with a constantly increasing devotion and intensity. His
own contributions to philosophy became during the years between
1762 and 1766 somewhat numerous: but he himself, even at the time,
made comparatively little of them; for he found them fragmentary,
and as he himself says, regarded philosophical insight as an ideal
whole, in which very little could be accomplished unless that whole
were surveyed at a glance. Of his own development during these
years, the philosopher himself has given us some indications in notes
preserved among his papers. « Of my science,” he says (namely,
of philosophy), "I taught at first what most appealed to I
attempted to make some contributions of my own to the common
treasury; in other respects I attempted to correct errors: yet all
the while I expected to extend the dogmas of tradition. But when
one attempts with real earnestness to find truth, one spares at last
not even his own productions. One submits everything that one has
learned or has believed to a thorough-going criticism; and so it slowly
came to pass that I found my entire dogmatic theory open to funda-
mental objections. ” Later on, Kant declared that he regarded all
his metaphysical writings as rendered entirely worthless by his later
critical philosophy. Thus unsparingly did the great critic assail his
own thought first and most of all.
He was
aware that in
doing so he deliberately adopted, in his later treatises, a method of
exposition that lacked all literary charms. “My method,” he says
in notes relating to his later style, “is not very much disposed to
enchain the reader or to please him. My writings seem scholastic,
dryly contemplative,- yes, even meagre, and far enough from the
tone of genius. It seems, to be sure, as if there were nothing more
tasteless than metaphysics; but the jewels that are beauty's adorn-
ment lay once in dark mines, or at least were seen only in the dim
workshop of the artist. ”
The fruits of Kant's long labors ripened first in the year 1781,
when he published his Critique of Pure Reason, the most famous
philosophical treatise of the last two centuries. This theoretical trea-
tise was followed by a more popular exposition of a portion of the
doctrine of the Critique' itself in 1783. To this more popular expo-
sition, which also contained extensive replies to critics, Kant gave
the name of Prolegomena to Every Future Metaphysic. ? In 1785
and 1788 he published works bearing on his ethical doctrine; in 1790
a philosophical treatise upon æsthetics, and upon the presence of
design in nature; in 1793 appeared an “Essay upon the Philosophy of
even
1
## p. 8481 (#85) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8481
a very
ner was
де оnсе
Coblems
V. His
etween
time
Larsi
deal
hole
these
notes
namely
me. I
common
: yet all
But when
-s at last
- one has
it slowly
to funda
arded all
his later
ssail his
that in
-thod of
Religion. During the years between 1781 and 1795 Kant also printed
a large number of philosophical papers upon various subjects, ethical,
historical, and polemical. The long period of preparation had thus
given place to a time of great philosophical activity; but after 1795
the now aged philosopher began to feel the effects of his always deli-
cate constitution with rapidly increasing severity. He grew unable
to follow the current discussions which his own writings had by this
time provoked. He planned a large philosophical work which was
to set the crown upon his systematic labors; but he was unable to
give this treatise any final form. His last few years were beset
with increasing physical infirmity and mental ineffectiveness, although
he preserved to the last his high moral courage and his rigid self-
control. At the end he wasted away, and died of marasmus in 1804.
In person Kant was small and spare, weak of muscle, and scarcely
five feet high. His cheeks were sunken, his cheek-bones high, his
chest was small; his shoulders were slightly deformed. His forehead
was high, narrow at the base and broad at the top. His head was de-
cidedly large in proportion to the rest of his body; and the capacity
of his skull, as measured in 1880 (when his remains were transferred
to a chapel raised in his honor), was declared to be uncommonly
great. The physical details here given are found in much fuller
statement in the excellent life of Kant by Dr. Stuckenberg, published
by Macmillan in 1882. The physical habits of Kant have been often
described in works of literary gossip. What especially attracts atten-
tion is that rigid regularity of routine which was determined by the
philosopher's sensitive health. His constitution was intolerant of
medicine; and he early learned that he could combat his numerous
minor infirmities only by careful diet, by mental self-control (in which
he acquired great skill), and by strict habit of life. His care extended
to his breathing, in an almost Oriental fashion. He cured his pains,
on occasions, by control over his attention; and by the same means
worked successfully against sleeplessness. He was troubled with
defective vision; and in general he narrowly escaped hypochondriac
tendencies by virtue of a genuinely wholesome cheerfulness of intel-
In intellectual matters themselves Kant was always
characterized by an extraordinary power of thoughtful analysis; by
a strenuous disposition to pursue, without haste and without rest,
any line of inquiry which had once engaged his attention; by keen
suspicion of all his instincts and acquired presuppositions; and by a
somewhat fatalistic willingness to wait as long as might be necessary
for light. No thinker ever had originality more obviously thrust upon
him by the situation, and by his unwearied devotion to his task.
From the outset, indeed, he had a sense that his work was destined
to have important results; but this sense was something very far
the says
cosed to
Lolastic,
om the
more
adorn
e dim
lectual temper.
1781,
mous
trea-
f the
expo-
gare
1785
1790
e of
y of
XV-531
## p. 8482 (#86) ############################################
8482
IMMANUEL KANT
shemden
the you
Cats
That co
he net
ci bis
me an
any
中董事.
22
When
different from vanity, and was accompanied by none of that personal
longing for brilliancy and originality which has determined for good
or for ill the life work of so many literary men and thinkers. Not
naturally an iconoclast, Kant was driven by his problems to become
one of the most revolutionary of thinkers. Not naturally an enthu-
siast, he was led to results which furnished the principal philosophical
food for the most romantic and emotional age of modern German lit-
erature. Devoted at the outset to the careful exposition of doctrines
which he had accepted from tradition, Kant was led by the purely
inner and normal development of his work to views extraordinarily
independent.
The process of his thought constitutes as it were one long and
connected nature process, working with the fatal necessity of the ebb
and flow of the tide, and is as independent of his personal caprices
as of the merely popular tendencies of the period in which he grew
up. Yet when Frederick Schlegel later classed the thinkers of pure
reason with the French Revolution, as one of the characteristic pro-
cesses of the century, he expressed a view which the student of intel-
lectual life can well appreciate and easily defend. But the expression
suggests not alone the importance of the critical philosophy, but also
its character as a sort of natural development of the whole intellect-
ual situation of that age.
Morally speaking, Kant was characterized by three features. Of
these the first is his relatively cool intellectual attitude towards all
problems. He has no sympathy with romantic tendencies; although
later many a romantic soul came to sympathize profoundly with him.
He is opposed to mysticism of every form; and not so much suspects
the emotions of human nature, as clearly sees what he takes to be
their essential and fundamental capriciousness. The second trait is
a thorough regard for lawfulness of action. Reasonable guidance is
for him the only possible guidance. Emotions must deceive; the
plan of life is as plan alone worthy of consideration. Kant has
small interest in noble sentiments, but very great natural respect for
large and connected personal and social undertakings, when guided
by ideas.
The third characteristic of the philosopher, in this part of
his nature, is that sincerely cheerful indifference to fortune which
made him, amidst all his frequently keen criticism of the weakness
of human nature and of the vanities of life, withal a critic who
just escapes pessimism by dint of his assurance that, after all, reason
must triumph in the universe. Kant was a fine observer of human
nature, and as such was fond of lecturing on what we might call
the comparative psychology of national and social types. He was
widely read in the anthropological literature of his day. Accord.
ingly, his observations on man's moral nature, in his lectures as in his
1
Alle
Issia
20
. و *
1
1
## p. 8483 (#87) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8483
personal
ior good
ers. Not
become
i enthu.
sophical
yan lit.
ctrines
purely
dinarily
long and
of the ebb
al caprices
ch he grew
. ers of pure
teristic pro-
nt of intel
expression
ly, but also
le intellect-
published treatises, often show the breadth of reading and the humane
shrewdness of judgment which were the source of the charm that
the young Herder so richly found in his teaching. Yet Kant's ac-
counts of human nature, without being cynical, always appear some-
what coldly disillusioned. What saves this aspect of his work from
seeming cynical is the genuine tone of moral seriousness with which
he views the more rational aspects of human tasks. In one passage
of his lectures on psychology, in connection with the theory of pleas-
ure and pain, he briefly sums up his view of the happiness possible
to any mortal man. This view at first sight is somewhat uninviting.
From the nature of the case. Kant reasons, every pleasure has to
be attended with a corresponding experience of pain.
Life in gen-
eral seems to be naturally something of a burden. Moreover, every
human desire has by nature other desires opposing it. Our tenden-
cies, as they naturally are, are profoundly deceitful. Yet despite all
this, Kant asserts that life has its very deep comforts. But what are
these? Kant replies:— «The deepest and easiest means of quieting
all pains is the thought that a reasonable man should be expected to
have at his control, - namely, the thought that life in general, so far
as the enjoyment of it goes, has no genuine worth at all; for enjoy-
ment depends upon fortune: but its worth consists alone in the use
of life, in the purposes to which it is directed. And this aspect of
life comes to man not by fortune, but only through wisdom. This
consequently is in man's power. Whoever is much troubled about
losing life will never enjoy life. ”
These three traits of Kant's moral attitude towards life unite to
give some of his more mature historical essays and critical studies
a character which deserves to be better known than it now is, by
students who are less interested in the metaphysical aspect of his
doctrine. In judging the course of human history, Kant sometimes
seems to be accepting the doctrine of Hobbes, that by nature all
men are at war with all. In fact, however, Kant sees deeper. The
situation has another aspect. The warfare is still fundamental.
Every man is at war not only with his fellows, but by nature with
himself. He desires freedom, but he desires also power. Power he
can get only through social subordination. This, man more or less
feels from the outset. His need of his fellow-man is as prominent
in his own mind as is his disposition to war with his fellow. Kant
accordingly speaks of man as a being “who cannot endure his fellow-
inan, and cannot possibly do without him. ” Thus there is that in
man which wars against the very warfare itself; and Kant's general
psychological theory of the inner opposition and division of the nat-
ural man comes to appear somewhat like the Pauline doctrine of the
Epistle to the Romans. But Nature's chaos is Reason's opportunity.
atures. Of
wards all
although
with him.
7 suspects
es to be
d trait is
dance is
ire; the
ant has
Pect for
guided
part of
which
eakness
C who
((
reason
uman
t call
Was
ccord.
En his
## p. 8484 (#88) ############################################
8484
IMMANUEL KANT
It is
upon
this
very basis that Kant founds his ethical theory; accord-
ing to which the moral law can find in our natures no possible basis
except the fundamental and supreme demand of the Pure Reason,
that this universal but obviously senseless conflict shall cease through
voluntary subordination to what Kant calls the Categorical Impera-
tive. The Categorical Imperative is the principle of consistency in
conduct; stated abstractly, the principle, So act at any time that you
could will the maxim of your act to become a universal law for all
reasonable beings. This maxim a man can obey; because he is not
merely a creature with this nature, so capricious and so inwardly
divided against itself, but a rational being with free-will, capable of
subordinating caprice to reason. The whole moral law is thus summed
up in the maxim, Act now as if your act determined the deed of
every man for all time; or more simply, Act upon absolutely con-
sistent principles. And now, in the course of history, Kant sees the
progressive process of the realization of this one universal principle
of the reason, in the organization of a rational human society.
Kant's true originality as a thinker lies most in his theoretical
philosophy. Of this in the present place it is impossible to give any
really significant account. If one must sum up in the fewest words
the most general idea of this doctrine, one is disposed to say: Kant
found philosophical thought concerned with the problem, how human
knowledge is related to the real world of truth. This problem had
assumed its then customary shape in connection with discussions
both of traditional theology and of science. What we now call the
conflict of religion and science really turned for that age, as for ours,
upon the definition and the solution of this fundamental problem of
the scope and the limits of knowledge. But what philosophers up
to Kant's time had not questioned, was that if human knowledge in
any region, as for instance in the region of natural science, has valid-
ity,- accomplishes what it means to accomplish, — then this valid-
ity and this success must involve a real acquaintance with the world
absolutely real, beyond the boundaries of human experience. Thus
materialistic philosophy had maintained that if natural science is
valid, man knows a world of absolutely real matter, which explains
all things and is the ultimate truth. Theological doctrine had held
in a similar way that if the human reason is valid at all, then the
absolute nature of God, of the soul, or of some other transcendent
truth, must in some respect be within our range. Now Kant under-
took, by virtue of a new analysis of human knowledge, to prove, on
one hand, that human reason cannot know absolute truth of any kind
except moral truth. Herein, to be sure, his doctrine seemed at one
with those skeptical views which had questioned in former times
the validity of human knowledge altogether. But Kant did not agree
## p. 8485 (#89) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8485
accord.
ble basis
Reason,
through
Impera
cener in
at jou
or all
Eis not
wardly
pable oi
summed
- deed of
utely con
at sees the
1 principle
ety:
Cheoretical
give any
with the skeptics as to their result. On the other hand, he main-
tained that the real success and the genuine validity of human
science depend upon the very fact that we are not able to know, in
theoretical realms, any absolute or transcendent truth whatsoever.
For, as Kant asserts, in dealing with nature as science knows nature,
we are really dealing with the laws of human experience as such, and
not with any absolute or transcendent truth whatever. It is however
the nature of the human understanding, the constitution of human
experience, that is expressed in all natural laws that we are able to
discover; in all the truth that science maintains or that the future
can disclose. Thus, as Kant states the case, it is the understanding
that gives laws to nature. And the limitation of knowledge to the
realm of experience, and our failure to be able to know in theoreti-
cal terms any transcendent truth, are not signs of the failure of
human knowledge in its essential human purposes, but are conditions
upon which depends the very validity of our knowledge within its
own realm. In trying to know more than the world of experience,
we try an experiment which, if successful, could only end in making
all knowledge impossible. Space, time, such fundamental ideas as
the idea of causality,— all these are facts which represent no funda-
mental truth beyond experience whatever. They are facts determined
solely by the facts of human nature. They hold within our range,
and not beyond it. Of things in themselves we know nothing. But
on this very ignorance, Kant maintains, is founded not only the valid-
ity of our natural sciences, but the possibility of retaining, against
the assaults of materialism and of a purely negative skepticism, the
validity of our moral consciousness and the essential spirit of reli-
gious faith. In this unique combination of critical skepticism, of
moral idealism, and of a rationalistic assurance of the validity for all
men of the a priori principles upon which natural science rests, lies
the essential significance of the philosophy of Kant, - a significance
which only a much fuller exposition, and a study of the history of
thought, could make explicit.
Jest words
say: Kant
ow human
blem had
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call the
for ours
oblem of
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world
Thus
Josiah Royse.
erice is
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d hec
en the
endezt
under-
se, 00
kind
at one
times
agret
## p. 8486 (#90) ############################################
8486
IMMANUEL KANT
A COMPARISON OF THE BEAUTIFUL WITH THE PLEASANT
AND THE GOOD
10
E: 5
tri
From «The Critique of Judgment
>
111
A
1.
id
au
,
02
it
1:
W
fin
C
-
S REGARDS the Pleasant every one is content that his judg-
ment, which he bases upon private feeling, and by which
he says of an object that it pleases him, should be limited
merely to his own person.
Thus he is quite contented that if
he says, “Canary wine is pleasant,” another man may correct his
expression and remind him that he ought to say, "It is pleasant
to me. ” And this is the case not only as regards the taste of the
tongue, the palate, and the throat, but for whatever is pleasant
to any one's
eyes
and ears.
To one, violet color is soft and
lovely; to another, it is washed out and dead. One man likes
the tone of wind instruments, another that of strings. To strive
here with the design of reproving as incorrect another man's
judgment which is different from our own, as if the judgments
were logically opposed, would be folly. As regards the Pleasant,
therefore, the fundamental proposition is valid: Every one has his
own taste, — the taste of Sense.
The case is quite different with the Beautiful. It would on
the contrary be laughable if a man who imagined anything to
his own taste, thought to justify himself by saying, "This object
[the house we see, the coat that person wears, the concert we
hear, the poem submitted to our judgment] is beautiful for
me. ” For he must not call it beautiful if it merely pleases him.
Many things may have for him charm and pleasantness; no one
troubles himself at that: but if he gives out anything as beauti-
ful, he supposes in others the same satisfaction; he judges not
merely for himself, but for every one, and speaks of beauty as
if it were a property of things. Hence he says, “The thing is
beautiful;” and he does not count on the agreement of others
with this his judgment of satisfaction, because he has found this
agreement several times before, but he demands it of them.
blames them if they judge otherwise; and he denies them taste,
which he nevertheless requires from them. Here then we cannot
say that each man has his own particular taste.
For this would
be as much as to say that there is no taste whatever; i. e. , no
æsthetical judgment which can make a rightful claim upon every
one's assent.
»
(
He
## p. 8487 (#91) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8487
At the same time we find as regards the Pleasant that there
is an agreement among men in their judgments upon it, in regard
to which we deny taste to some and attribute it to others; by
this not meaning one of our organic senses, but a faculty of judg-
ing in respect of the Pleasant generally. Thus we say of a man
who knows how to entertain his guests with pleasures of enjoy-
ment for all the senses, so that they are all pleased, He has
taste. ” But here the universality is only taken comparatively:
and there emerge rules which are only general, like all empirical
ones, and not universal; which latter the judgment of Taste upon
the Beautiful undertakes or lays claim to. It is a judgment in
reference to sociability, so far as this rests on empirical rules.
In respect to the Good it is true that judgments make rightful
claim to validity for every one; but the Good is represented only
by means of a concept as the object of a universal satisfaction,
which is the case neither with the Pleasant nor with the Beauti.
ful.
-
This particular determination of the universality of an æstheti-
cal judgment, which is to be met with in a judgment of taste,
is noteworthy, not indeed for the logician, but for the transcend-
ental philosopher. It requires no small trouble to discover its
origin; but we thus detect a property of our cognitive faculty
which without this analysis would remain unknown.
First we must be fully convinced of the fact that in a judg-
ment of taste about the Beautiful, the satisfaction in the object
is imputed to everyone, - without being based on a concept,
for then it would be the Good. Further, this claim to universal
validity so essentially belongs to a judgment by which we de.
scribe anything as beautiful, that if this were not thought in it,
it would never come into our thoughts to use the expression
at all, but everything which pleases without a concept would be
counted as pleasant. In respect of the latter, every one has his
own opinion; and no one assumes in another, agreement with his
judgment of taste, which is always the case in a judgment of
taste about beauty.
He who fears can form no judgment about the Sublime in
nature; just as he who is seduced by inclination and appetite
can form no judgment about the Beautiful. The former flies
from the sight of an object which inspires him with awe; and
it is impossible to find satisfaction in a terror that is seriously
Hence the pleasurableness arising from the cessation of an
## p. 8488 (#92) ############################################
8488
IMMANUEL KANT
or abang
sublime
outatio
proper
TH
that
spintis
in the
facult
of 0:1
tende
men
ther
to i
sub
of
uneasiness is a state of joy. But this, on account of the deliver-
ance from danger which is involved, is a state of joy when con-
joined with the resolve that we shall no more be exposed to the
danger; we cannot willingly look back upon our sensations of
danger, much less seek the occasion for them again,
Bold, overhanging, and as it were threatening, rocks; clouds
piled up in the sky, moving with lightning flashes and thunder
peals; volcanoes in all their violence of destruction; hurricanes
with their track of devastation; the boundless ocean in a state of
tumult; the lofty waterfall of a mighty river; and such like,-
these exhibit our faculty of resistance as insignificantly small in
comparison with their might. But the sight of them is the more
attractive, the more fearful it is, provided only that we are in
security; and we willingly call these objects sublime, because
they raise the energies of the soul above their accustomed height,
and discover in us a faculty of resistance of a quite different
kind, which gives us courage to measure ourselves against the
apparent almightiness of nature.
Now, in the immensity of nature, and in the insufficiency of
our faculties to take in a standard proportionate to the æstheti-
cal estimation of the magnitude of its realm, we find our own
limitation; although at the same time in our rational faculty we
find a different, non-sensuous standard, which has that infinity
itself under it as a unity, in comparison with which everything in
nature is small, and thus in our mind we find a superiority to
nature even in its immensity. And so also the irresistibility of
its might, while making us recognize our own physical impo-
tence, considered as beings of nature, discloses to us a faculty
of judging independently of, and a superiority over, nature; on
which is based a kind of self-preservation, entirely different from
that which can be attacked and brought into danger by exter-
nal nature. Thus humanity in our person remains unhumiliated,
though the individual might have to submit to this dominion.
In this way nature is not judged to be sublime in our
thetical judgments in so far as it excites fear; but because it
calls up that power in us, which is not nature, of regarding
small the things about which we are solicitous (goods, health,
and life), and of regarding its might, to which we are no doubt
subjected in respect of these things, as nevertheless without any
dominion over us and our personality, to which we must bow
where our highest fundamental propositions, and their assertion
op
01a
es
LE
bo
æs-
as
## p. 8489 (#93) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8489
or abandonment, are concerned. Therefore nature is here called
sublime merely because it elevates the imagination to a pres-
entation of those cases in which the mind can make felt the
proper sublimity of its destination, in comparison with nature
itself.
This estimation of ourselves loses nothing through the fact
that we must regard ourselves as safe in order to feel this in-
spiriting satisfaction; and that hence, as there is no seriousness
in the danger, there might be also (as might seem to be the
case) just as little seriousness in the sublimity of our spiritual
faculty. For the satisfaction here concerns only the destination
of our faculty which discloses itself in such a case, so far as the
tendency to this destination lies in our nature, whilst its develop-
ment and exercise remain incumbent and obligatory. And in this
there is truth and reality, however conscious the man may be
of his present actual powerlessness when he turns his reflection
to it.
No doubt this principle seems to be too far-fetched and too
subtly reasoned, and consequently seems to go beyond the scope
of an aesthetical judgment; but observation of men proves the
opposite, and shows that it may lie at the root of the most ordi-
nary judgments, although we are not always conscious of it. For
what is that which is, even to the savage, an object of the great-
est admiration ? It is a man who shrinks from nothing, who
fears nothing, and therefore does not yield to danger, but rather
goes to face it vigorously with the most complete deliberation.
Even in the most highly civilized state this peculiar veneration
for the soldier remains, though only under the condition that he
exhibit all the virtues of peace, gentleness, compassion, and even
a becoming care for his own person; because even by these it is
recognized that his mind is unsubdued by danger. Hence what-
ever disputes there may be about the superiority of the respect
which is to be accorded them, in the comparison of a statesman
and a general, the æsthetical judgment decides for the latter.
War itself, if it is carried on with order and with a sacred
respect for the rights of citizens, has something sublime in it,
and makes the disposition of the people who carry it on thus,
only the more sublime, the more numerous are the dangers to
which they are exposed, and in respect of which they behave
with courage. On the other hand, a long peace generally brings
about a predominant commercial spirit, and along with it, low
## p. 8490 (#94) ############################################
8490
IMMANUEL KANT
faros
ife.
onlis
are
Out
fer
fo:
SHOE
ca
d
IC
selfishness, cowardice, and effeminacy; and debases the disposition
of the people.
It appears to conflict with this solution of the concept of the
sublime, so far as sublimity is ascribed to might, that we are
accustomed to represent God as presenting himself in his wrath
and yet in his sublimity, in the tempest, the storm, the earth-
quake, etc. ; and that it would be foolish and criminal to imagine
a superiority of our minds over these works of his, and as it
seems, even over the designs of such might. Hence it would
appear that no feeling of the sublimity of our own nature, but
rather subjection, abasement, and a feeling of complete power-
lessness, is a fitting state of mind in the presence of such an
object; and this is generally bound up with the idea of it during
natural phenomena of this kind. In religion in general, prostra-
tion, adoration with bent head, with contrite, anxious demeanor
and voice, seems to be the only fitting behavior in presence of
the Godhead; and hence most peoples have adopted and still
observe it. But this state of mind is far from being necessarily
bound up with the idea of the sublimity of a religion and its
object. The man who is actually afraid, because he finds reasons
for fear in himself, whilst conscious by his culpable disposition
of offending against a Might whose will is irresistible and at the
same time just, is not in the frame of mind for admiring the
Divine greatness. For this a mood of calm contemplation and a
quite free judgment are needed. Only if he is conscious of an
upright disposition pleasing to God, do those operations of might
serve to awaken in him the idea of the sublimity of this Being,
for then he recognizes in himself a sublimity of disposition con-
formable to his will; and thus he is raised above the fear of
such operations of nature, which he no longer regards as out-
bursts of His wrath. Even humility, in the shape of a stern judg-
ment upon his own faults,— which otherwise, with a consciousness
of good intentions, could be easily palliated from the frailty of
human nature,- is a sublime state of mind, consisting in a vol-
untary subjection of himself to the pain of remorse, in order
that the causes of this may be gradually removed. In this way
religion is essentially distinguished from superstition. The lat-
ter establishes in the mind, not reverence for the sublime, but
fear and apprehension of the all-powerful Being to whose will
the terrified man sees himself subject, without according him
any high esteem. From this nothing can arise but a seeking of
## p. 8491 (#95) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8491
favor and flattery, instead of a religion which consists in a good
life.
Sublimity therefore does not reside in anything of nature, but
only in our mind, in so far as we can become conscious that we
are superior to nature within, and therefore also to nature with-
out us, so far as it influences us. Everything that excites this
feeling in us,-4. 8. , the might of nature which calls forth our
forces, - is called then, although improperly, sublime. Only by
supposing this idea in ourselves, and in reference to it, are we
capable of attaining to the idea of the sublimity of that Being
which produces respect in us, not merely by the might that it
displays in nature, but rather by means of the faculty which
resides in us of judging it fearlessly and of regarding our des-
tination as sublime in respect of it.
Translation of J. H. Bernard.
OF REASON IN GENERAL
From "The Critique of Pure Reason)
A
LL our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to
the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing
higher than reason, for working up the material of intuition
and comprehending it under the highest unity of thought. As
it here becomes necessary to give a definition of that highest
faculty of knowledge, Ï begin to feel considerable misgivings.
There is of reason, as there is of the understanding, a purely
formal — that is, logical— use, in which no account is taken of
the contents of knowledge; but there is also a real use, in so far
as reason itself contains the origin of certain concepts and princi-
ples, which it has not borrowed either from the senses or from
the understanding. The former faculty has been long defined by
logicians as the faculty of mediate conclusions, in contradistinc-
tion to immediate ones (consequentia immediate); but this does
not help us to understand the latter, which itself produces con-
cepts. As this brings us face to face with the division of reason
into a logical and à transcendental faculty, we must look for a
higher concept for this source of knowledge, to comprehend both
concepts; though, according to the analogy of the concepts of
the understanding, we may expect that the logical concept will
give us the key to the transcendental, and that the table of the
## p. 8492 (#96) ############################################
8492
IMMANUEL KANT
It:
ant na
Serie:
Such
.
somhet
OUISCI
sobie
CUK
care
thai
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for
ME
functions of the former will give us the genealogical outline of
the concepts of reason.
In the first part of our transcendental logic we defined the
understanding as the faculty of rules; and we now distinguish
reason from it by calling it the faculty of principles.
The term “principle” is ambiguous, and signifies commonly
some kind of knowledge only that may be used as a principle;
though in itself, and according to its origin, it is no principle
at all. Every general proposition, even though it may have been
derived from experience by induction, may serve as a major in
a syllogism of reason; but it is not on that account a principle.
Mathematical axioms - as for instance, that between two points
there can be only one straight line — constitute even general
knowledge a priori; and may therefore, with reference to the
cases which can be brought under them, rightly be called prin-
ciples. Nevertheless it would be wrong to say that this prop-
erty of a straight line, in general and by itself, is known to us
from principles, for it is known from pure intuition only.
I shall therefore call it knowledge from principles, whenever
we know the particular in the general by means of concepts.
Thus every syllogism of reason is a form of deducing some kind
of knowledge from a principle; because the major always contains
a concept which enables us to know, according to a principle,
everything that can be comprehended under the conditions of
that concept. As every general knowledge may serve as a major
in such a syllogism, and as the understanding supplies such gen-
eral propositions a priori, these no doubt may, with reference to
their possible use, be called principles.
But if we consider these principles of the pure understanding
in themselves, and according to their origin, we find that they
are anything rather than knowledge from concepts. They would
not even be possible a priori, unless we relied on pure intuition
(in mathematics) or on conditions of a possible experience in
general. That everything which happens has a cause, can by no
means be concluded from the concept of that which happens; on
the contrary, that very principle shows in what manner alone
we can form a definite empirical concept of that which happens.
It is impossible therefore for the understanding to supply us
with synthetical knowledge from concepts; and it is really that
kind of knowledge which I call principles absolutely; while all
general propositions may be called principles relatively.
CE
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0
2
## p. 8493 (#97) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8493
It is an old desideratum, which at some time however dis-
tant may be realized, that instead of the endless variety of civil
laws, their principles might be discovered; for thus alone the
secret might be found of what is called simplifying legislation.
Such laws, however, are only limitations of our freedom under
conditions by which it always agrees with itself; they refer to
something which is entirely our own work, and of which we
ourselves are the cause, by means of these concepts. But that
objects in themselves, as for instance material nature, should be
subject to principles, and be determined according to mere con-
cepts, is something, if not impossible, at all events extremely
contradictory. But be that as it may,—for on this point we
have still all investigations before us,--so much at least is clear,
that knowledge from principles by itself is something totally dif-
ferent from mere knowledge of the understanding; which in the
form of a principle may no doubt precede other knowledge, but
which by itself, in so far as it is synthetical, is not based on
mere thought, nor contains anything general according to con-
cepts.
If the understanding is a faculty for producing unity among
phenomena according to rules, reason is the faculty for produ-
cing unity among the rules of the understanding according to
principles. Reason therefore never looks directly to experience
or to any object, but to the understanding; in order to impart
a priori, through concepts, to its manifold kinds of knowledge,
a unity that may be called the unity of reason, and is very dif-
ferent from the unity which can be produced by the under-
standing
This is a general definition of the faculty of reason, so far as
it was possible to make it intelligible without the help of illustra-
tions.
Translation of F. Max Müller.
HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE ?
From the Prolegomena)
as
M
ETAPHYSICS
a natural disposition of the reason is real;
but it is also in itself dialectical and deceptive, as was
proved in the analytical solution of the third main prob-
lem.
Hence to attempt to draw our principles from it, and in
## p. 8494 (#98) ############################################
8494
IMMANUEL KANT
but i
prese
Tema:
ice :
knout
itse
the
bah
dec
Th
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SC
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their employment to follow this natural but none the less falla-
cious illusion, can never produce science, but only an empty dia-
lectical art; in which one school may indeed outdo the other, but
none can ever attain a justifiable and lasting success. In order
that as science it may lay claim not merely to deceptive per-
suasion, but to insight and conviction, a critique of the reason
must exhibit in a complete system the whole stock of concep-
tions a priori, arranged according to their different sources, -
the sensibility, the understanding, and the reason; it must pre-
sent a complete table of these conceptions, together with their
analysis and all that can be deduced from them, but more espe-
cially the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori by means
of their deduction, the principles of its use, and finally their
boundaries. Thus criticism contains, and it alone contains, the
whole plan well tested and approved — indeed, all the means -
whereby metaphysics may be perfected as a science; by other
ways and means this is impossible. The question now is not,
however, how this business is possible, but only how we are to
set about it; how good heads are to be turned from their pre-
vious mistaken and fruitless path to a non-deceptive treatment;
and how such a combination may be best directed towards the
common end.
This much is certain: he who has once tried criticism will be
sickened forever of all the dogmatic trash he was compelled to
content himself with before because his reason, requiring some-
thing, could find nothing better for its occupation. Criticism
stands to the ordinary school metaphysics exactly in the same
relation as chemistry to alchemy, or as astronomy to fortune-telling
astrology. I guarantee that no one who has comprehended and
thought out the conclusions of criticism, even in these Prole-
gomena,' will ever return to the old sophistical pseudo-science.
He will rather look forward with a kind of pleasure to a meta-
physics, certainly now within his power, which requires no more
preparatory discoveries, and which alone can procure for the
reason permanent satisfaction. For this is an advantage upon
which metaphysics alone can reckon with confidence, among all
possible sciences; namely, that it can be brought to completion
and to a durable position, as it cannot change any further, nor
is it susceptible of any increase through new discoveries: since
the reason does not here find the sources of its knowledge in
objects and in their intuition, which cannot teach it anything,
## p. 8495 (#99) ############################################
IMMANUEL KANT
8495
9
(
»
but in itself; so that when the principles of its possibility are
presented completely, and without any misunderstanding, nothing
remains for pure reason to know a priori, or even with just-
ice to ask. The certain prospect of so definite and perfect a
knowledge has a special attraction about it, even if all its uses
(of which I shall hereafter speak) be set aside.
All false art, all empty wisdom, lasts its time; but it destroys
itself in the end, and its highest cultivation is at the same time
the moment of its decline. That as regards metaphysics this
time has now come, is proved by the state to which it has
declined among all cultivated nations, notwithstanding the zeal
with which every other kind of science is being worked out.
The old arrangement of the university studies preserves its out-
lines still; a single academy of sciences bestirs itself now and
then, by holding out prizes, to induce another attempt to be
made therein: but it is no longer counted among fundamental
sciences; and any one may judge for himself how an intellectu-
ally gifted man to whom the term “great metaphysician” were
applied, would take this well-meant, but scarcely by any one cov-
eted, compliment.
But although the period of the decline of all dogmatic meta-
physics is undoubtedly come, there are many things wanting to
enable us to say that the time of its re-birth by means of a thor-
ough and complete critique of the reason has already appeared.
All transitional phases from one tendency to its opposite pass
through the state of indifference; and this moment is the most
dangerous for an author, but as it seems to me the most favor-
able for the science. For when, through the complete dissolu-
tion of previous combinations, party spirit is extinguished, men's
minds are in the best mood for listening gradually to propos-
als for a combination on another plan. If I say that I hope
that these Prolegomena' will perhaps make research in the
field of criticism more active, and will offer to the general spirit
of philosophy, which seems to be wanting in nourishment on its
speculative side, a new and very promising field for its occupa-
tion, I can already foresee that every one who has trodden unwill-
ingly and with vexation the thorny way I have led him in the
Critique) will ask me on what I ground this hope. I answer,
On the irresistible law of necessity.
That the spirit of man will ever wholly give up metaphysical
investigations, is just as little to be expected as that in order
(
## p. 8496 (#100) ###########################################
8496
IMMANUEL KANT
not always to be breathing bad air we should stop breathing
altogether. Metaphysics will always exist in the world, then;
and what is more, exist with every one, but more especially with
reflecting men, who in default of a public standard will each
fashion it in his own way. Now, what has hitherto been termed
metaphysics can satisfy no acute mind; but to renounce it entirely
is impossible: hence a critique of the pure reason itself must be
at last attempted, and when obtained must be investigated and
subjected to a universal test; because otherwise there are no
means of relieving this pressing requirement, which means some-
thing more than mere thirst for knowledge.
Translation of Ernest Belford Bax.
## p. 8496 (#101) ###########################################
-
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## p. 8496 (#102) ###########################################
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14
JOHN KEATS.
## p. 8496 (#103) ###########################################
$147
11
JOIIN KEITS
11745 1821)
BY LOUISE VOGEY GUINEY
܀ ;i"; »
HTY 1! 1 people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keets;
die is in many reupects the p 'pular hero o. Eglish liter-
ature. He was young, ni ch'virussly devoted to his art;
lie has a mastery of expression almost ur part. ! It is neither
oscure lot plemie, are le has had froin tikili 2! 1,(? trag
iuulemas on other irinds: in Ilv. ), in Terti, rt, in Rimini wd Wila
the VI:1::3'*? . 11 Lanier and Lowril, in Yüts Porn
til Breath, and touch of Keats like an incant":? l'. ! sllat mellom
tij prozira! genius that it shall nid in t.
tie triture of its race: it it slizll byen essenti, ir tt by! "Li’octi.
Viwmi says vulnewhere in his ever 111. 6i ma? ? ? (+1: "How is it
"! ' good! , but reprochet fod; this is one of its attribute
? ? ? :is excellent, hefuful, poiftet, desirable, for its own sake, but
it over iss, and spreads the likenes vi itself uil rould it.
a great gol will impart great good. And as hie mix, 11t have added,
it wi'l hatte derived it. Keats first woke and knew hirsli reiling
Speiser's world of fairy, where abstract harmones Wandt t,
And thri'm livine is all areting,
A: 112! lth is the rossy grouri. ”
TIK
.
Tint Wits really his operring event.
Ilis vlter story is scontri d.
Irtit count as it can that Keats was of commonplace Stoak, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, hainig
Pince Wilste prematurely ilirough the fault of stipri
lefill schooling in his boyfcond and kind frien is the ti
friend's iter to suur him on to achieve his bizonte Pin
funt in a universiiy save as a passing guest, that I
to a country surzen, and got absorbed, liit! . . 1:1. te with
fydusive postai 1:2. in literature; that he was ir pers. ), but
P. : Tiarly wain, with a head and files of dirt ad serious beauty:
21714] that his behaviur in all the relatius von bis was cheerful, dis-
1. . . TESTU! , nieciest, honorable, kind: that his burit brokt. -- but not
"Die of lis anxieties, of which a fevered in vendir was chief,-
6? ! ? *llat le died in exile at Rone on the 24 of Fibruary, 1821, agedi
1. 12-13'-twenty, incertain of the fate of his third and last brok, in
1-532
## p. 8496 (#104) ###########################################
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## p. 8497 (#105) ###########################################
8497
1
JOHN KEATS
(1795-1821)
BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
N
EARLY all people who read poetry have a favoritism for Keats;
he is in many respects the popular hero of English liter-
ature. He was young, and chivalrously devoted to his art;
he has a mastery of expression almost unparalleled; he is neither
obscure nor polemic; and he has had from the first a most fecundating
influence on other minds: in Hood, in Tennyson, in Rossetti and Mat-
thew Arnold, in Lanier and Lowell, in Yeats and Watson, one feels
the breath and touch of Keats like an incantation. It is a test of the
truly original genius that it shall stand in line with the past and
the future of its race; that it shall be essentially filial and paternal.
Newman says somewhere in his ever lucid manner: “Good is not
only good, but reproductive of good; this is one of its attributes;
nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect, desirable, for its own sake, but
it overflows, and spreads the likeness of itself all around it.
A great good will impart great good. ” And as he might have added,
it will have derived it. Keats first woke and knew himself reading,
Spenser's world of faëry, where abstract harmonies wander,
.
“And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground. ”
That was really his opening event. His outer story is soon told.
Let it count as it can that Keats was of commonplace stock, born
on the 31st of October, 1795, early orphaned, having a small com-
petence wasted prematurely through the fault of others; that he had
careful schooling in his boyhood, and kind friends then and famous
friends after to spur him on to achieve his best, never having set
foot in a university save as a passing guest; that he was apprenticed
to a country surgeon, and got absorbed, little by little and with
exclusive passion, in literature; that he was small in person, but
muscularly made, with a head and face of alert and serious beauty;
and that his behavior in all the relations of life was cheerful, dis-
interested, modest, honorable, kind; that his health broke,— but not
because of his anxieties, of which a fevered love-affair was chief,–
and that he died in exile at Rome on the 23d of February, 1821, aged
five-and-twenty, uncertain of the fate of his third and last book, in
XV-532
## p. 8498 (#106) ###########################################
8498
JOHN KEATS
stard
endom
aut :0 $
caligero
ship is
such bi
Words
cres he
Shelleu
unike
ben
bealth
able,
amo
TUTT
insta
tica
which lay his whole gathered force, his brave bid for human remem-
brance.
Keats's early attempts were certainly over-colored. Endymion,'
despite its soft graces and two enchanting lyric interludes, is a dis-
quieting performance. Yet it turned out to be, as he knew, a rock
under his feet whence he could make a progress, and not a quick-
sand which he had to abandon in order to be saved.
