(2) Critique of the Practical Reason. — Neither the name nor the conception of the practical reason was a novelty; both occur in Aristotle {Be Anim. iii, 10; 6 /uj' yiip SEwpj/riKoc vovg o'uMv votl irpoKruv, ibid. c. ix\ They are found in Acpiinas (Summ. Theol. ii, 1, 00, and especially 91,3), in Roger Bacon {Opus Majus, p. 35, 44), and in most philosophers, mediaeval and modern, who have accepted the Aristotelian doctrine. What- ever systems have recognised a moral sense, whatever theories have admitted a sustaining and guiding illumi- nation of the conscience, whatever schemes acknowl- edge the inworking spirit, and whatever exi:)ositions of the mysteries of man assume an abidnig faith as the foundation of moral action, entertain substantially the same fundamental doctrine as Kant's, though it is dif- ferently expanded and applied by them. The charac- teristic feature of Kant's ethical system is what he terms the " Cdtefforical Imperative." Speculative philosophy aflFords neither absolute truth nor certain guidance. Practical philosophy rests upon the enlightened con- science— enlightened by its own indwelling light. Tlie " categorical imperative" is a rule of action — a moral law deriving its authority from itself — intuitively received — determining action by the idea — governing by the ra- tional form, not by the matter — thus advancing to the realm of the absolute, the unconditional, the noumenal, and passing from the shadows of sjieci'Iation to the real- ities of action and duty. The formula of this " categor- ical imperative" is. Act so that your action ma}' be ap- plied as a universal rule. It is obvious that a precept so vague and so abstract may represent an essential characteristic or property of right conduct, but cannot be accepted as its principle. It is indefinite, and it wants the authority of sovereign command. It would require the omniscient comprehension of all contempo- raneous relations, and all possible consequences for the regulation of e\-ery act, and at best would result in transcendental utilitarianism. It is too abstruse to be promptly and habitually applied to all the occurrences of life, and by all grades of men. It is limited to finite intelligences, and is sufficiently elastic to allow each one's ignorance or obtuse conscience to be alleged as the individual rule of right. It might easily be stretched so as to sanction the Donatist thesis, " (Juicquid libet, licet." On such a scheme, to employ the expression of Lyly's Euphues, " it is the disposition of the mind that altereth the nature of the thing." Our morals would be shifting and casuistical. The wish would continually be the father to the thought; and all enthusiasm, all fa- naticism, all monomania might be presented as the can- on of order. The conception of duty is the touchstone and stumliling-block of pliilnsojihy, and against it is shattered every scheme which does not rest upon the acceptance of revelation, and the acknowledgment of God, '' in whom we live, and move, and ha\'e our being." There is no other mode of passing the chasm which sep- arates the negative results of sjieculative inipiiry from the positive requirements of practical action. Specula- tive |>hil()S(>]iliy discusses the l)iiuiidaries of tlie mind; practical jiliilosophy is concerned with actions which are infinite in their consequences, and whose eH'ects " wan- der through eternity."
(3) T/ie Critique of the ,Tu(lfjmenC{Urtheihh-aft — Fac- ulty of .Judgment). — This is the tliird of the systematic treatises devoted to the construction of the critical phi-
losophy. The designation is infelicitous and ambigu- ous. The Iwaf/iiiation would be more appropriate, but would scarcely be applicable without some violence to the whole scope of the inquiry proposed. The depart- ment corresponds to the tTrictr/j/u?/ TroirjTiKi}, or construc- tive science of the peripatetic distribution of knowledge- and connects the domain of the pure with that of the practical reason. The imagination is the faculty of con- ciliation— of re-creation — uniting in emotional delight the obligations of action with the highest discoveries of speculation. In Kant's critique of the judgment are included the doctrine of the beautiful and the sublime, or a;sthetics, and the doctrine of final causes, or teleology. His theory of beauty accords in substance with that of Plato, or rather that of Plotinus, but from his own singu- lar defect of imagination, and consequent limitartion of view, it is denied the completeness, splend( r, and fulness of far-reaching suggestion which illustrate that magnif- icent exposition of the grandest and most recondite sub- ject of metaphysical speculation. In beauty. Kant con- templates only the latent beneficent design, the harmony of means and ends, without dwelling upon the more sig- nificant conception of the primordial plan, the archety- pal perfection, from which the whole creation has de- clined, but towards which man's ideal ever strives to re- turn. The terms in which the doctrine is expounded are often confused and indistinct, but the essential prin- ciple of beauty, which is not in things, but in the mind, is the intuitive perception of the concord between the ideal perfection suggested and the order of the universe observed. The principle of the sublime is the intuition of the discrepance between the finite powers of man and the infinite towards which he aspires, producing pain from the sense of lunitation, but exaltation from yearn- ing towards the limitless, beyond sense and conception, which is felt to be his natural home, his ultimate desti- nation. In the discussion of teleology proper Kant en- deavors to restore some efficacy to that reasoning from final causes which in earlier treatises he had repudiated. This part of the subject is inadequately unfolded, but it presents many vast and suggestive views, and in some sort prepares the way for the last of Kant's treatises which can be specially noticed here.