M ETAP 
"Unintelligible and ufelefs, fmce it can never ferve as a 
foundation for Religion and Morals. If Anthropomor- 
phifm be unavoidable, whatever proofs of the exiltence 
of a higheft. Being may be adduced, {till it will be impol- 
fible to determine the conception of this Being without 
entangling ourfelves in contradictions. 
When we combine the principle, to avoid all tran¬ 
scendent Judgments of pure Reafon, with the command 
that ftands in apparent contradiction to it, namely, to af- 
cend to conceptions which lie beyond the field of expe¬ 
rience, we find that they may confiit together, but merely 
on the boundary of the permitted ufe of Reafon ; for this 
boundary belongs equally to the field of experience and 
to that of intellectual beings. We fee here the ufe of 
thefelDEAS in determining the bounds of Reafon; which 
initruCt us, on the one hand, not to ovetflrain the faculty 
of experience by attempting to comprife every thing 
within the lphere of nature, and on the other, not to ex¬ 
ceed the bounds of experience, and to pretend to judge of 
the things in themfelves. 
We do but reft upon this boundary when we limit our 
judgment to the relation which the world may have to a 
being without it. For, in that cafe, we attribute to this 
Being none of the properties by which we think objeCls 
of experience ; and thus avoid the Dogmatical Anthro- 
pomorphifm, but apply thefe properties with lafety to the 
relation of that being to the world, and thus indulge our¬ 
felves in a J'ymbolical Anthropomorphifm, which indeed 
refers only to language, and not to the objeCl itfelf. 
When I fay, we are compelled to confider the world 
as if it were the work of a higheft underftandingand will, 
I mean really no more than that, as a watch, a fhip, an 
army, is related to the artificer, to the Ihiphuilder, to the 
'Commander, to is tbefenfible world, or all that which con- 
ftitutes the bafis of this whole of phenomena, related to 
that Being whom I know only in his relation to the world 
of which I form a part. 
This is a knowledge according to analogy, which does 
not mean, according to theufual acceptation of the word, 
an imperfeCt fimilarity of two things, but a perfekl Jimi- 
larity of two relations between two completely lieterqge- 
neous things. 
There is, for inltance, an analogy between the Moral 
Relation of human actions and the Mechanical Relation of 
moving powers : I can never do any thing to another without 
giving him the right under Jimilar circumjiances to do the 
fame thing to me. In like manner, one body can never aCt 
upon another by its moving power, without caufing the 
other to aCt equally upon it. 
Right and Moving Power are perfectly heterogene¬ 
ous things ; but in their Relation there is a complete Jimili- 
tude. By means of fuch an analogy, I can therefore form 
a conception of the Relation of things abfolutely unknown 
to me. For inltance, As the promotion of the happinefs 
of Children, — a, is to the love of Parents, =: b, fo is the 
welfare of the human race, = c, to fomething unknown in 
God, —x, which I call love, not as if it had the lead limi- 
litude with any human inclination, but becaufe we are 
able to fix the relation of this love to the world as equal to 
that which beings in the world have to one another. But 
the conception of Relation is here a mere Category, 
namely, the conception of Caufe. 
By means of this analogy, we have, however, a Conception 
of the higheft' Being fulficiently determinate for us, al¬ 
though we have omitted'-every thing that could determine 
it abfolutely and in itfelf. Hume’s cenfure upon thole 
who attempt to determine this conception abfolutely, by 
materials taken from themfelves and from the world, does 
not apply this relation, nor can he riiake the reproach to us, 
that, when we are deprived of the objective Anthropomor- 
phifirn of the conception of the higheft Being, we have 
nothing left. 
In the perfon of Philo againft Cleanthes, he admits the 
necelfary hypothefis of the Deift, in which we think God 
merely by ontological predicates, Subjiance, CauJ’e, See. and 
Vol. XV. No. 1038, 
I Y S I C S. 233 
which is indeed neccffary, becaufe Reafon, in the fenfible 
world, driven on by conditions which are always again 
conditioned, can obtain no fatisfaftion without this Idea; 
and this we mayJafely do, without falling into Anthropo¬ 
morphifm ; for, the predicates we attribute to God are 
the Categories, which indeed give no determinate Con¬ 
ception of the original Being, but on that very account 
preferve him from lenfible qualities. Nothing then can 
prevent us from predicating of this Being a CauJ'ality 
through Reafon with refpeCt to the world ; and thus pal¬ 
ling to Theifm, without being obliged to apply Reafon 
itfelf to the Deity, as a property inherent in him. 
We hereby confefs that the higlujl Jiving is abfolutely in- 
fcrutable ; and thus refrain entirely from the tranfeendent 
ufe of Reafon, which might otherwife tempt us to repre- 
fent God as a Caufe operating by a Will, idly hoping to 
determine the Divine Nature by properties borrowed from 
the human, and thus lofing ourlelves in grofs and fantal- 
tical conceptions. Another advantage we derive is, that 
we are thus prevented from overloading Natural Philofo- 
phy with hyperphyjical explanations ; turning it alide from 
the legitimate lludy of nature, and convening it into a 
prelumptuous derivation of natural phenomena from an 
imagined higheft Reafon. Man then can only conceive 
of the world as if it proceeded from a higheft Reafon 5 
thus, on the one hand, determining in fome meafure the 
nature of the world itfelf, but without prefnming to fix 
that of its cause, and on the other eftablilhing the rela¬ 
tion of the higheft Caufe to the world, as the ground of 
that rational form of which otherwife the world mull; be 
judged incapable. 
I may fairly fay, that the Higheft Caufe is that, with re- 
fpedt to the world, which human Reafon is with refpeCt to 
works of art. Thus I leave its nature ftill undetermined. 
I do but compare its effeft, namely, the rational order of 
the world, with the effects of human Reafon ; and therefore 
attribute, as it were, a Reafon to the Deity, without im¬ 
plying that it is a Reafon Jimilar to my own, or in fait 
pretending to know Him by any one intrinfic quality. 
The difficulties then, which feem to oppofe Theifm, dif- 
appear, when we conneCI with the principle of Hume, not 
to pufh the ufe of Reafon dogmatically beyond the field of 
all poffible experience, another principle which Hume en¬ 
tirely overlooked, namely, to confuler thefield of all poljible 
experience as bounded in the eye of Reafon by another fttld. 
The Critic of Pure Reafon points out the true mean be¬ 
tween Dogmatijm, which Hume contefted, and Scepticifm, 
which he wilhed to introduce in its Head ; a mean, how¬ 
ever, not produced by a mixture of the two extremes ; an 
attempt which in this cafe mult occafion the greateit con- 
fulion. 
In the commencement of thefe obfervations, I have 
availed myfelf of the fimile of a boundary, in order to fix 
the limits of Reafon. The fenfible world contains merely 
phenomena, which certainly are not the things in themfelves; 
that is, not nonmena. Thefe, however, the underfund¬ 
ing is compelled to adopt, or the term phenomena, ap¬ 
plied to objects of experience, would have no meaning. 
Reafon admits of both thefe fields, and the queftion now 
is, How does it proceed to limit the underftanding with 
refpeft to them ? Experience, which comprehends every 
thing that belongs to the lenfible world, does not bound 
itfelf: it proceeds indefinitely from one conditioned 
thing to another. That which is to form the boundary 
of Experience mull be entirely without it, and can be no 
other than the field of pure intellectual beings. But this, 
to the underftanding of Man, is an empty Space. As, 
however, a boundary is fomething politive, belonging 
equally to that which is contained within it, and to the 
1’pace that lies without, the knowledge of-fuch a boundary 
is ftill a real and politive knowledge. The boundary of 
experience, therefore, though by fomething not other- 
wife known to Reafon than as a mere boundary, is a politive' 
knowledge, which places Reafon in the fituation not to 
be abfolutely narrowed and confined within the fenfible 
3 O world. 
