154 
PHILOSOPHY. 
that time which (lie ought to employ in urging the facul¬ 
ties to obferve, and to compare, and to comprehend, the 
obje£ls within its territory. 
“ To this great and fundamental work of Kant’s are re¬ 
lated two others, namely: The Prolegomena, or Preliminary 
TreatiJ'e to all Metuphyfics that can hereafter pretend to the 
name of a Science; (this work re-confiders the fubjeft of 
the £ Critic,' and treats it analytically ;) and The Meta- 
pliyfical Principles of Natural Pkilofophy. To thefe mu ft 
be added another great work of this extraordinary man, 
The Critic of Practical Reason; that is to fay, an 
expofition of the procedure and the laws ofReafon, fo far 
as it exercifes a legiflative power in the territory of moral 
liberty. In this laft work Kant points out the link that 
con ne£ls man to the invifible world; namely, the confciouf- 
nefs of the moral Law, the grand and fublime fource of the 
feniiment of Duty. As this branch of Reafon contains 
certain abfolute principles which regulate the will and 
theaflions of man, Kant has denominated it Practical 
Reason. In this fanfluary of his moral being, man im¬ 
mediately recognizes that he is free, and that he is a moral 
or refponfible perfon with regard to his actions. Here 
two principal laws difcover themfelves, as the regulators 
of the will: one which urges man to purfue Happinefs; 
and another which imperatively commands him to be 
virtuous, even though it fhould be at the expenfe of hap¬ 
pinefs itfelf. This law', which obliges the being endowed 
with reafon to do good, Kant denominates the Catego¬ 
rical Imperative of Confcience, and expreffes it by 
this formulary: ‘ Conftder always the rational being as an 
end in himfelf, and never as a mean for the ends of others.' 
And by this other formulary: 1 Adi always in fuch a 
manner that the maxims of thy will may become a univerfal 
law fur all rational beings.' Thefe principles are called 
formal practical Laws, becaufe they are not derived from 
experience, and propofe to the will no material end, that 
is, no pleafure refulting from external objefls, or from 
the modifications of internal fenfe. The univerfal and 
obligatory law of our Will is only an application of the 
Form of Reafon itfelf to human aftions. This form con- 
lifts in the idea of an abfolute unity of our defires, and in 
the faculty of fubordinating every thing to it. Hence it 
follows, that Reafon, exerciiing its ideal influence, pre- 
feribes to the Will the neceflity of realizing an unity 
among its defires; that is, of not valuing the affeflions, 
inclinations, wifhes, advantages, interefts, and neceflities, 
arifing from our fenfible nature, or the peculiar condition 
of intelligent beings; in fliort, of not being influenced by 
material principles drawn from external impreflions, but 
of conforming in all our determinations to views appli¬ 
cable to the interefts of all rational beings, and which 
may ferve as univerfally-legiflative principles. Reafon, 
therefore, prefents its own form, or mode of a£lion,tothe 
Will, as the only truly moral motive of its decilions; 
and becomes practical by occafioning the human will to 
adopt its principle of univerfality, as a law of the free will. 
The phylical organization of man, being one of the con¬ 
ditions on which were originally founded the awakening 
of felf-confcioufnefs, the exciting of the intelleflual 
powers, and the exercife of the functions of practical 
reafon, the aft by which this reafon reveals to man the 
exiftence of the moral laws, ought to be confidered as a 
promulgation of that law enafted by our Maker, and as a 
manifeftation of his Divine Will. As to the other fun¬ 
damental law of our nature, which induces us to fearch 
after happinefs, Kant obferves, that the fecret voice of 
confcience decides that the virtuous man is alone worthy 
of happinefs; and he confiders that ftate of exiftence as 
the fovereign good, where Virtue and Happinefs are united 
in the fame individual. But as, in the order of things to 
which we at prefent belong, thefe two fundamental laws 
of our fenfible and moral nature are perpetually in oppo- 
fition, and it often happens, that virtue and happinefs are 
not found united in a juft proportion, Kant hence con¬ 
cludes the abfolute neceflity of a future ftate where thefe 
x 
laws will be equally fatisfied; and, as an immediate co¬ 
rollary, the neceftity of the exiftence of an Arbiter en¬ 
dowed with omnifcience and omnipotence, who will aflign 
to each that portion of happinefs of w'hich he has rendered 
himfelf worthy. 
“ In order to complete the (ketch of the mod important 
confiderations which eftablifli the indifloluble union of 
moral and religious principles, according to Kant’s 
fyftem, we mult here give an account of its refults in 
favour of the hope of an infinite duration of our moral 
being, founded on the neceflity of progreflive perfection, 
which practical reafon indifpenfably impofes on man,and 
which he can never complete, notwithftanding all his 
efforts. Thus Kant fecures our internal confcience 
from the attacks of fophiftry, and derives immediately 
from our very nature the certainty of the immortality of 
the foul and of the exiftence of God, by founding this 
certainty, not upon fcience and argument, but upon the 
neceflity of the accompliftiment of the moral law. 
“The expofition of the principles upon which theCRiTic 
of Practical Reason is founded, and of their appli¬ 
cation to morality, is given in Kant’s Fundamental Prin¬ 
ciples of Morals, and his Metaphyfical Principles of Virtue. 
“The Critic of Judgment. —It is by the Judging 
Faculty that we decide on all agreement of the means 
with the end; on final caufes; on the agreement of the 
laws and the things in nature ; on the agreement of our 
aCtions with the rules of juftice and propriety; on the 
degree of pleafure or pain which accompanies our fenfa- 
tions and fentiments, which is indeed merely the degree 
of their harmony or their difcordance, with the play of 
our faculties, with the development of our vital energies, 
with the fun£Iionsof all our powers aided or retarded in 
their exercife by thefe fentiments and fenfations. In 
fliort, the fublime and beautiful in nature and in art, ac¬ 
cording to the Critical Syftem, belong to the Judging 
Faculty, a faculty at once fpeculative and practical. Its 
laws and effeflual forms are clearly difplayed in the 
Critic of Judgment. The introduftion to this 
work exhibits, more clearly than any other of Kant’s 
writings, the whole of his philofophical fpeculations in 
one view, with the connexion between the different parts 
of his fyftem, which he has often been accufed of having 
omitted to eftablifli. 
“ There is one part of the ‘ Critic of Judgment’ which, 
notwithftanding the novelty of its views, has obtained the 
fuft’rages of the nioft decided adverfaries of the Kantefian 
doctrines; it is that which comprehends the theory of 
l’afte, and the analyfis of thofe fentiments which art pro- 
pofes to awaken. That an object ftiould excite the fen- 
timent of the beautiful, its aftion upon our fenfes mult 
put the imagination in play, fo as to produce a fponta- 
neous agreement of the exercife of this faculty with fome 
rule of the underftanding, without requiring an effort of 
the judgment to conftrain the imagination to conform 
itfelf to the rule. The rare and unexpefled difeovery of 
this agreement, which prefents to us the idea of a pre- 
ellabliflied harmony between thefe two powers, is, accord¬ 
ing to this theory, the fource of the pleafure occafioned by 
the beautiful, which is ever accompanied with a moil 
lively feeling, becaufe every freeand harmonious exercife 
of our faculties increafes the confidence which we delight 
to place in the wifdom and (lability of our organization. 
The element of which Kant compofes the fentimentof 
the fublime are of a more elevated nature. He difeovered 
their fource in the harmony of the imagination with 
Reafon, exerting themfelves alternately, but with unequal 
fuccefs, upon an object of unlimited magnitude. The 
imagination firft vainly attempting- to embrace its whole 
extent, and compelled to relinquifh the attempt with a 
painful fenfe of its own impotence, calls to its aid the fa¬ 
culty of conceiving infinity; this faculty is Reafon, 
whole operation inftantly awakens the confcioufnefs of 
our moral dignity; and the intelleflual being, rifing 
with energy to (hake off the defpair that had begun to 
feize 
