THE ALLEGED SCEPTICISM OF KANT. 199 
plausibility of the sceptic’s position, that Kant regarded the cognitive 
faculty or “ the pure reason,” as incompetent to prove or demonstrate, 
as the propositions of Huclid are demonstrated, the problems of 
religion and ethics. But those who regarded such demonstrations 
as possible have always been few among believers. Believers 
have rested their faith on the probability, the strong moral proba- 
bility, of the truthof these great fundamental propositions. The 
support which the “ 
necessary, or indeed desirable, to make them reasonable. ‘To give 
to them a demonstrable certitude would have been to paralyse them 
as tests of moral character. He who wills to will the will of God 
will find in Kant abundant evidence in support of the truth of 
these doctrines. 
It must also not be forgotten that if Kant has made it clear 
that the truth of these doctrines cannot be demonstrated, he has 
made it equally clear that their falsity cannot be demonstrated. 
The cognitive faculty is equally incompetent to disprove them. 
This uncertainty in which the pure reason leaves these problems 
is not to the Christian a matter of grief—except so far as it is 
wrested by the infidel to his own ruin. The Christian regards it 
as a special provision of God for the good of man that these pro- 
blems should rest only on a reasonable probability. Kant so 
regarded it. This fact protects him on the one hand from super- 
stitious fanaticism and on the other from religious self-abandon- 
ment, in addition to the moral tonic which it supplies to his whole 
nature. Hence the warm cordial language which Kant uses in 
regard to those very arguments which he regards, when tested by 
pure reason, as insufiicient. Here is an illustration :—‘ This 
proof” (that founded on design) “deserves to be named always 
with reverence. It is the oldest, the clearest, and the most suited 
to our common understanding. It animates the study of nature, 
which gives existence to it, and acquires thereby ever new power. 
It shows ends and intentions where our own observation would 
never of itself have discovered them, and extends our knowledge 
of nature through guidance of a peculiar unity, the principle of 
which is above nature. The new knowledge acts back again, 
towards its cause, its originating idea, and exalts our belief in a 
Supreme Originator into an irresistible conviction.” R., ii, 
p. 485.* 
practical reason” gives them is all that is 
* In R. &S.’s Edition, see note, page 200. 
