228 
PHILO 
for comprehending the feries of events and their totality ; 
but the poflibility of the objective reference of this con¬ 
ception we can neverthelefs underftand. For this is only 
the logical poflibility, according to which the objective 
unity of thinking problematically is populated ; whereas 
the real poflibility of an objeCt requires that it be thought 
as give71, and that the objective unity can be reprefented 
in fomething given. 
But what can be the reafon that induces us to reprefent 
t>he objective reference of this idea as practicable, when 
we cannot at all employ it in a cofmological point of view ? 
Inafmuch as a Caufe is given in experience, it mult have 
an empirical character; and this law, according to which 
it is aCtive and its caufality arifes, mult be taught by 
experience. Attention to circumftances, and the other 
phenomena that furround the Caufe, difcovers the caufes 
of its Caufality, and thereby alfo its empirical character. 
Man is for us an objeCt in the intuition; and, as an 
aCtive being, he is a Caufative phenomenon. As fuch he 
mult always have an empirical character, and every 
individual man mult have his own empirical character. 
This character we difcover by contemplating him in rela¬ 
tion to other phenomena, fince the rules according to 
which he aCts may then be deduced from experience. If 
we fin4 unexpected deviations from thefe rules, then his 
empirical character is not yet fufficiently known to us, 
and each of thefe deviations ferves for the purpofe of 
more correCtly ascertaining it. Nay, if it were poflible 
(which indeed is not the cafe on account of the 
limits of experience) to difclofe completely his empi¬ 
rical character, then we fltould be able to predict each of 
his aCtions with as much certainty as we are able pre- 
vioufly to determine the time and circumftances of a 
lunar eclipfe. For, in the firft place, he always aCts 
under the representation of liberty. In all his aCtions he 
conceives himfelf to be actually free. If he is confcious 
of the influence of external objeCts upon his will that 
determines him to aCt, he mull alfo be confcious of his 
power to aCt otherwife, however great this influence might 
be. Now if he really did not aCt as this influence feemed 
qualified to determine him, the fufflcient determining 
grounds of his will, from which every one of his aCtions 
can be derived, muft (till lie in the preceding time, fo that 
he has in no way infringed upon the mechanifm of nature, 
however freely he may conceive himfelf to have aCted. 
It muft be obferved, however, that Freedom is not an 
arbitrary imagination, ora mere problematical pofition; 
but that man, however much he acknowledge the univer- 
ial neceflity of nature, muft, in his aCtions, always confi- 
der himfelf as a freebeing; and, what is more, acknowledge 
as fucli his cotjnovfnefs of the Moral law. Practical laws, 
in as much as they are empirical, exprefs according to 
their nature, never an abfolute ought, but only a condi¬ 
tioned one, derived from the defire for an objeCt. If I 
completely will or defire an objeCt, it already lies in this 
conception, that I mult do that whereby I can attain this 
objeCt. On the other hand, the Moral law commands 
abfolutely. According to this, I am (ought) to perform 
aCtions, whether I will their effeCt or not. The Moral 
Taw, therefore, bears the ftamp of a practical pofition 
h priori. By means of this law' man knows himfelf from 
a fide which his empirical character does not lay open to 
him. He perceives thereby his intelligible character; 
namely, the law according to which he is to aCt, though 
he does not really aCt up to it. On every aClion which is 
contrary to the moral law, man is not only confcious 
that he ought not to have done it, but alfo that it was in 
his power really to refrain from it. Now in as much as 
w’e are confcious of the power to determine ourfelves 
independently of fenfual motives, and to obey, in oppo- 
fltion to them, the practical law that commands h priori, 
we aferibe to reafon a caufality, and this we do in every 
aClion which we think in relation to morality; though, 
in as far as we merely look to the mechanifm of Nature, 
we find for this very aCtion, which we confider as an 
SOPH Y. 
effeCt of the Caufality of Reafon, a fufiicient determining 
ground in the preceding time. Both references of the 
aCtion, on the one hand, to a caufality which is itfelf an 
event, and is again completely grounded in another cau¬ 
fality, and fo in a feries without end; and, on the other 
hand, to a caufality of reafon itfelf, which is completely 
grounded in itfelf, and by no means prefuppofes another 
caufalityboth of thefe references may be united, and 
co-exilt, if we confider the caufality of reafon as an objeCt 
that is not given in the intuition, but a thing in itfelf, and 
the event as an objeCt in the feries of intuition, (which-it 
really is.) This would be that in which practical reafon is 
given to us as an objeCt, and in which it fhows to us an 
empirical character. _ 
If we therefore confider Man as an objeCt that is given 
to us in the intuition, we find in him only an empirical 
character. In that cafe every one of his aCtions has a 
caufe, whole caufality has again a caufe; and Freedom in 
this way is not at all to be met with. But, befides this, 
we find in ourfelves a law which commands abfolutely; 
and Reafon, in its practical judgment, takes no regard of 
the determining grounds in the given of Man’s empirical 
character. It does not confider how the latter is quali¬ 
fied, and that according to the order of nature it cannot 
be otherwife qualified than it is; but holds this character 
immediately to its law, and pronounces how it ought to 
be qualified, though it really is not. In this determining 
judgment A priori, Man difcovers a part in himfelf which 
muft neceffarily remain hidden from him if the Moral 
Law did not manifeft it to him. By this he knows himfelf 
with refpeft to how he ought to be; he therefore only confi- 
ders himfelf as an object, in fo far as he is not given to 
himfelf, that is, as a thing in itfelf; and accordingly finds 
himfelf connected to quite another order of things from 
that in which he is himfelf a phenomenon. 
However, though in this manner the poflibility of the 
objective reference of the Idea of Liberty has been fhown, 
it ltill by no means follows, that an objeCt fbould really 
correfpond to it. .We have however at leaft been able to 
reprefent as poflible the agreement of the mechanifm of 
Nature with the confcioufnefs of Liberty, as founded upon 
the confcioufnefs of the moral law. But even the pofli¬ 
bility of liberty, that is, the agreement of its objeCt with 
the conditions under which an objeCt can be given, is in 
this manner not to be perceived ; and for this reafon, 
becaufe the thinking of this objeCt is nothing more than 
the problematic thought of the objeftive unity, the inten¬ 
tion of which is to confider the objeCt of the Idea as not 
given. Confequently it would be abfurd to alk why the 
intellectual is not empirical. 
4. Solution of the Cofmological Idea of the Totality of the 
Dependencies of Phenomena in general as to their ex- 
iftence. 
The very fame feries in which Reafon afeends to the 
unconditioned caufality, ferves it alfo to arrive at an 
exiftence thac is equally unconditioned. Each member 
of it (every caufality) is again an event, and prefuppoles 
another caufality. Reafon here forms to itfelf the Cof¬ 
mological idea of Liberty, in order to be able to compre¬ 
hend the whole feries : and, as every member of this feries 
is conditioned with refpeCt to its exiftence, Reafon, which 
feeks totality, creates to itfelf their/eaof an unconditioned 
exiftence, with a view to comprehend the whole feries of 
conditioned exiftence. 
Now it applies as well to this as to the former Dynamic 
idea, that in a cofmological lenfe no objeCt can correfpond 
to it. The given, from which the conclufion that pro¬ 
ceeds to the unconditioned begins, is, in regard to this 
idea, the changeable Hate of the fubftances. Experience 
acquaints us with fubftances whole (late is variable, and 
the empirical fynthefis introduces to us other fubftances 
in whole caufality we find the condition of the variable 
nature of the former ; but this is itfelf equally variable. 
In this manner we never arrive at a fubftance whole coq- 
ditiens 
