But, since there is demanded another element within the summum 

 bonum viz., happiness proportioned to the first and principal 

 element, i.e. the morality resulting from the perfect accordance 

 above mentioned, there arises a third postulate of the Pure Prac- 

 tical Reason, and this is the existence of a cause adequate to this 

 effect, or the existence of God. These three postulates are the 

 result of man's practical, or moral, nature; they all proceed, as 

 Kant says, from the principle of morality. Yet they do not extend 

 in any way man's theoretical knowledge, for we do not know the 

 nature of our souls, nor of the intelligible world (where, neverthe- 

 less, freedom is possible), nor of the Supreme Being. 



It must not, however, be supposed that these Ideas are mere 

 phantoms of reason, which tend to lure one away from the true 

 path of knowledge. To be sure, their true function has been 

 often misunderstood and so has resulted that Illusion to the dis- 

 sipation of which Kant devotes his keen intellect. But these un- 

 conditioned Ideas, Ideas of the soul, the world and God, and moral 

 postulates of freedom, immortality and God, which carry us be- 

 yond the sensible objects, perform, in the Kantian philosophy, 

 their true function, so far as theoretical knowledge is concerned, 

 as regulative but not constitutive Ideals for knowledge and as 

 suggestive of a system wherein the data of the understanding and 

 the Ideas of the reason have each a place. 



Such a theory of knowledge and such a philosophic system, 

 even though this latter be but suggested in the critiques, had a 

 wonderful effect upon the existing conditions in the realm of 

 philosophy. By showing the fallacy of giving a sense-content to 

 those objects Kant called Ideas of Reason and by exhibiting the 

 inutility of a merely analytic method, Kant indisputably proved 

 that the rationalism of his day, as theory of knowledge, and dog- 

 matism, as a philosophic theory based thereon, were not only 

 inadequate but were also incorrect. Kant, himself a rationalist, 

 has been, nevertheless, one of the greatest critics of rationalism. 

 His conclusions likewise showed that empiricism, as he under- 

 stood it, needed to be supplemented, and the scepticism, which 

 was based thereon, needed to be corrected by a more careful 

 investigation of human experience. But, notwithstanding his 

 insight, Kant himself was, to a very serious extent, dependent 

 upon and influenced by the errors and presuppositions of his time. 



104 



