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 earthquake, 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 powerlessness, 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, prostration, 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 conformable to his will; and thus he is raised above the fear of such operations of nature, which he no longer regards as outbursts 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 voluntary 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 latter 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

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 without us, so far as it influences us. Everything that excites this feeling in us,-e. g., 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 destination as sublime in respect of it.

Translation of J. H. Bernard.

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OF REASON IN GENERAL

From The Critique of Pure Reason'

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, I 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 principles, 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 contradistinction to immediate ones (consequentiæ immediata); but this does not help us to understand the latter, which itself produces concepts. As this brings us face to face with the division of reason into a logical and a 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

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 principles. Nevertheless it would be wrong to say that this property 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 general 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.

It is an old desideratum, which at some time however distant 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 concepts, 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 concepts.

If the understanding is a faculty for producing unity among phenomena according to rules, reason is the faculty for producing 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 different from the unity which can be produced by the understanding.

This is a general definition of the faculty of reason, so far as it was possible to make it intelligible without the help of illustrations.

Translation of F. Max Müller.

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HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE?

From the Prolegomena ›

ETAPHYSICS as 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 problem. Hence to attempt to draw our principles from it, and in

their employment to follow this natural but none the less fallacious illusion, can never produce science, but only an empty dialectical 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 persuasion, but to insight and conviction, a critique of the reason must exhibit in a complete system the whole stock of conceptions a priori, arranged according to their different sources,the sensibility, the understanding, and the reason; it must present a complete table of these conceptions, together with their analysis and all that can be deduced from them, but more especially 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 previous 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 something, 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 'Prolegomena,' will ever return to the old sophistical pseudo-science. He will rather look forward with a kind of pleasure to a metaphysics, 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,