PREFACES

[3]

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

        So far as morality is based upon the conception of man as a free
agent who, just because he is free, binds himself through his reason to
unconditioned laws, it stands in need neither of the idea of another Being
over him, for him to apprehend his duty, nor of an incentive other than the
law itself, for him to do his duty. At least it is man's own fault if he is
subject to such a need; and if he is, this need can be relieved through
nothing outside himself: for whatever does not originate in himself and his
own freedom in no way compensates for the deficiency of his morality.
Hence for its own sake morality does not need religion at all (whether
objectively, as regards willing, or subjectively, as regards ability [to act]);
by virtue of pure practical reason it is self-sufficient. For since its laws are
binding, as the highest condition (itself unconditioned) of all ends, through
the bare form of universal legality of the maxims, which must be chosen
accordingly, morality requires absolutely no material determining ground of
free choicew,* that is, no end, in order either to know what duty is or to
impel the performance of duty. On the contrary, when it is a question of
duty, morality is perfectly able to ignore all ends, and
[4]
it ought to do so. Thus, for example, in order to know whether I should (or
indeed can) be truthful in my testimony before a court, or whether I should
be faithful in accounting for another man's property entrusted to me, it is
not at all necessary for me to search for an end which I might perhaps
propose to achieve with my declaration, since it matters not at all what sort
of end this is; indeed, the man who finds it needful, when his avowal is
lawfully demanded, to look about him for some kind of [ulterior] end, is,
by this very fact, already contemptible.
        But although for its own sake morality needs no representation of an
end which must precede the determining of the will, it is quite possible that
it is necessarily related to such an end, taken not as the ground but as the
[sum of] inevitable consequences of maxims adopted as conformable to that
end. For in the absence of all reference to an end no determination of the
will can take place in man, since such determination cannot be followed by
no effect whatever; and the representation of the effect must be capable of
being accepted, not, indeed, as the basis for the determination of the willw
and as an end antecedently aimed at, but yet as an end conceived of as the
result ensuing from the will'sw determination through the law (finis in
consequentiam veniens). Without an end of this sort a willw, envisaging to
itself no definite goal1 for a contemplated act, either objective or subjective
(which it has, or ought to have, in view), is indeed informed as to how it
ought to act, but not whither, and so can achieve no satisfaction. It is true,
therefore, that morality requires no end for right conduct; the law, which
contains the formal condition of the use of freedom in general, suffices. Yet
an end does arise out of morality; for how the question, What is to result
from this right conduct of ours? is to be answered, and towards what, as an
end--even granted it may not be wholly subject to our control--we might
direct our actions and abstentions so as at least to be in harmony with that
end: these cannot possibly be matters of indifference to reason. Hence the
end is no more than an idea of an object which takes the formal condition of
all such ends as we ought to have (duty) and combines it with whatever is
conditioned, and in harmony with duty, in all the ends which we do have
(happiness proportioned to obedience to duty)--that is to say, the idea of a
highest good in the world for whose possibility we must postulate a higher,
moral,
[5]
most holy, and omnipotent Being which alone can unite the two elements of
this highest good. Yet (viewed practically) this idea is not an empty one, for
it does meet our natural need to conceive of some sort of final end for all our
actions and abstentions, taken as a whole, an end which can be justified by
reason and the absence of which would be a hindrance to moral decision.
Most important of all, however, this idea arises out of morality and is not its
basis; it is an end the adoption of which as one's own presupposes basic
ethical principles. Therefore it cannot be a matter of unconcern to morality
as to whether or not it forms for itself the concept of a final end of all things
(harmony with which, while not multiplying men's duties, yet provides
them with a special point of focus for the unification of all ends); for only
thereby can objective, practical reality be given to the union of the
purposiveness arising from freedom with the purposiveness of nature, a
union with which we cannot possibly dispense. Take a man who, honoring
the moral law, allows the thought to occur to him (he can scarcely avoid
doing so) of what sort of world he would create, under the guidance of
practical reason, were such a thing in his power, a world into which,
moreover, he would place himself as a member. He would not merely make
the very choice which is determined by that moral idea of the highest good,
were he vouchsafed solely the right to choose; he would also will that
[such] a world should by all means come into existence (because the moral
law demands that the highest good possible through our agency should be
realized) and he would so will even though, in accordance with this idea, he
saw himself in danger of paying in his own person a heavy price in
happiness--it being possible that he might not be adequate to the [moral]
demands of the idea, demands which reason lays down as conditioning
happiness. Accordingly he would feel compelled by reason to avow this
judgment with complete impartiality, as though it were rendered by another
and yet, at the same time, as his own; whereby man gives evidence of the
need, morally effected in him, of also conceiving a final end for his duties,
as their consequence.
        Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends
itself* to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside
[6]
of mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of creation) which at the
same time can and ought to be man's final end.
[7]
        If morality finds in the holiness of its law an object of the greatest
respect, then at the level of religion it presents the ultimate cause, which
consummates those laws, as an object of adoration and thus appears in its
majesty. But anything, even the most sublime, dwindles under the hands of
men when they turn the idea of it to their own use. What can truly be
venerated only so far as respect for it is free must adapt itself to those forms
which can be rendered authoritative only by means of coercive laws; and
what of its own accord exposes itself to the public criticism of everyone
must submit itself to a criticism which has power, i.e., a censorship.
        Meanwhile, since the command, Obey the authorities! is also moral,
and since obedience to it, as to all injunctions of duty, can be drawn into
religion, it is fitting that a treatise which is dedicated to the definite concept
of religion should itself present an example of this obedience, which,
however, can be evinced not through attention merely to law in the form of
a single state regulation and blindness with respect to every other, but only
through combined respect for all [regulations] taken together.
        Now the theologian who passes on books can be appointed either as
one who is to care for the soul's welfare alone or as one who is also to care
for the welfare of the sciences; the first judge is
[8]
appointed merely as a divine; the second, as a scholar also. It rests with the
second, as a member of a public institution to which (under the name of a
university) all the sciences are entrusted for cultivation and defense against
interference, to limit the usurpations of the first by the stipulation that his
censorship shall create no disturbance in the field of the sciences. And when
both judges are Biblical theologians, the superior censorship will pertain to
the second as a member of the university and as belonging to the faculty
which has been charged with the treatment of this theology: for, as regards
the first concern (the welfare of souls), both have a mandate alike; but, as
regards the second (the welfare of the sciences), the theologian in his
capacity as university scholar has, in addition, a special function to perform.
If we depart from this rule things must finally come to the pass to which
they came of yore (for example, at the time of Galileo), where the Biblical
theologian, in order to humble the pride of the sciences and to spare himself
labor in connection with them, might actually venture an invasion into
astronomy, or some other science, as for example the ancient history of the
earth, and -- like those tribes who, finding that they do not have either the
means or the resolution sufficient to defend themselves against threatened
attacks, transform all about them into a wilderness -- might arrest all the
endeavors of human reason.
        Among the sciences, however, there is, over and against Biblical
theology, a philosophical theology, which is an estate entrusted to another
faculty. So long as this philosophical theology remains within the limits of
reason alone, and for the confirmation and exposition of its propositions
makes use of history, sayings, books of all peoples, even the Bible, but
only for itself, without wishing to carry these propositions into Biblical
theology or to change the latter's public doctrines -- a privilege of divines --
it must have complete freedom to expand as far as its science reaches. And
although the right of censorship of the theologian (regarded merely as a
divine)1 cannot be impugned when it has been shown that the philosopher
has really overstepped his limits and committed trespass upon theology, yet,
the instant this is in doubt and a question arises whether, in writing or in
some other public utterance of the philosopher, this trespass has indeed
occurred, the superior censorship can belong only to the Biblical theologian,
and to him as a member of his faculty; for he has been assigned to care
[9]
for the second interest of the commonwealth, namely, the prosperity of the
sciences, and has been appointed just as legally as has the other [the
theologian regarded as a divine].
        And under such circumstances it is indeed to this faculty and not to
the philosophical that the ultimate censorship belongs; for the former alone
is privileged in respect of certain doctrines, while the latter investigates its
doctrines freely and openly; hence only the former can enter a complaint that
its exclusive rights have been violated. But despite the approximation of the
two bodies of doctrine to one another and the anxiety lest the philosophical
faculty overstep its limits, doubt relating to such trespass is easily prevented
if it is borne in mind that the mischief occurs not through the philosopher's
borrowing something from Biblical theology, in order to use it for his
purpose -- even granting that the philosopher uses what he borrows from it
in a meaning suited to naked reason but perhaps not pleasing to his theology
-- but only so far as he imports something into it and thereby seeks to direct
it to ends other than those which its own economy sanctions. For Biblical
theology will itself not want to deny that it contains a great deal in common
with the teachings of unassisted reason and, in addition, much that belongs
to historical and philological lore, and that it is subject to the censorship of
these [disciplines].
        Thus, for example, we cannot say that the teacher of natural rights,
who borrows many a classical expression and formula for his philosophical
doctrine of rights from the codex of the Romans, thereby trespasses -- even
if, as often happens, he does not employ them in exactly the same sense in
which, according to the expositors of Roman Law, they were to be taken --
so long as he does not wish jurists proper, and even the courts of law, also
to use them thus. For were that not within his competence, we could,
conversely, accuse the Biblical theologian or the statutory jurist of
trespassing countless times on the province of philosophy, because both
must borrow from philosophy very often, though only to mutual advantage,
since neither can dispense with reason, nor, where science is concerned,
with philosophy. Were Biblical theology to determine, wherever possible,
to have nothing to do with reason in things religious, we can easily foresee
on which side would be the loss; for a religion which rashly declares war on
reason will not be able to hold out in the long run against it.
        I will even venture to ask whether it would not be beneficial,
[10]
upon completion of the academic instruction in Biblical theology, always to
add, by way of conclusion, as necessary to the complete equipment of the
candidate, a special course of lectures on the purely philosophical theory of
religion (which avails itself of everything, including the Bible), with such a
book as this, perhaps, as the text (or any other, if a better one of the same
kind can be found). For the sciences derive pure benefit from separation, so
far as each first constitutes a whole by itself; and not until they are so
constituted should the attempt be made to survey them in combination. Let
the Biblical theologian, then, be at one with the philosopher, or let him
believe himself obliged to refute him, if only he hears him. Only thus can he
be forearmed against all the difficulties which the philosopher might make
for him. To conceal these, or indeed to decry them as ungodly, is a paltry
device which does not stand the test; while to mix the two -- the Biblical
theologian, for his part, casting but an occasional fleeting glance at
philosophy -- is to lack thoroughness, with the result that in the end no one
really knows how he stands towards the theory of religion as a whole.
        In order to make apparent the relation of religion to human nature
(endowed in part with good, in part with evil predispositions), I represent,
in the four following essays, the relationship of the good and evil principles
as that of two self-subsistent active causes influencing men. The first essay
has already been printed in the Berlinische Monatsschrift of April, 1792, but
could not be omitted here, because of the close coherence of the subject-
matter in this work, which contains, in the three essays now added, the
complete development of the first.
        The reader is asked to forgive the orthography of the first sheets
(which differs from mine) in view of the variety of hands which have
worked on the copy and the shortness of time left me for revision.

[11]

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

        For this Edition nothing has been altered except misprints and a few
expressions which have been improved. New supplementary material,
indicated by a dagger (+), is placed at the foot of the text.
        Regarding the title of this work (for doubts have been expressed
about the intention concealed thereunder) I note: that since, after all,
revelation can certainly embrace the pure religion of reason, while,
conversely, the second cannot include what is historical in the first, I shall
be able [experimentally] to regard the first as the wider sphere of faith,
which includes within itself the second, as a narrower one (not like two
circles external to one another, but like concentric circles). The philosopher,
as a teacher of pure reason (from unassisted principles a priori), must
confine himself within the narrower circle, and, in so doing, must waive
consideration of all experience. From this standpoint I can also make a
second experiment, namely, to start from some alleged revelation or other
and, leaving out of consideration the pure religion of reason (so far as it
constitutes a self-sufficient system), to examine in a fragmentary manner
this revelation, as an historical system, in the light of moral concepts; and
then to see whether it does not lead back to the very same pure rational
system of religion. The latter, though not from the theoretical point of view
(and the technico-practical point of view of pedagogical method, as a
technology, must also be reckoned under this head) may yet, from the
morally practical standpoint, be self-sufficient and adequate for genuine
religion, which, indeed, as a rational concept a priori (remaining over after
everything empirical has been taken away), obtains only in this [morally
practical] relation. If this experiment is successful we shall be able to say
that reason can be found to be not only compatible with Scripture but also at
one with it, so that he who follows one (under guidance of moral concepts)
will not fail to conform to the other. Were this not so, we should have either
two religions in one individual, which is absurd, or else one religion and
one cult,1 in which case, since the second is not (like religion) an end in
itself but only possesses value as a means, they would often have to be
shaken up together [12]
that they might, for a short while, be united; though directly, like oil and
water, they must needs separate from one another, and the purely moral (the
religion of reason) be allowed to float on top.
        I noted in the first Preface that this unification, or the attempt at it, is
a task to which the philosophical investigator of religion has every right,
and is not a trespass upon the exclusive rights of the Biblical theologian.
Since then I have found this assertion made in the Moral (Part I, pp. 5-11)
of the late Michaelis,1 a man well versed in both departments, and applied
throughout his entire work; and the higher faculty did not find therein
anything prejudicial to their rights.
        In this Second Edition I have not been able, as I should have liked,
to take cognizance of the judgments passed upon this book by worthy men,
named and unnamed, since (as with all foreign literary intelligence) these
arrive in our parts very late. This is particularly true of the Annotationes
quaedam theologicae, etc. of the renowned Hr. D. Storr2 in TŸbingen, who
has examined my book with his accustomed sagacity and with an industry
and fairness deserving the greatest thanks. I have it in mind to answer him,
but cannot venture to promise to do so because of the peculiar difficulties
which age sets in the way of working with abstract ideas. But there is a
review in Number 29 of the Neueste Kritische Nachrichten, of
Greifswald,3 which I can despatch as briefly as the reviewer did the book
itself. For the book, in his judgment, is nothing but an answer to the
question which I myself posed: "How is the ecclesiastical system of
dogmatics, in its concepts and doctrines, possible according to pure
(theoretical and practical) reason?" This essay [he claims] does not concern
those4 who have no knowledge and understanding of his (Kant's) system
and have no desire to be able to understand it -- by them it may be looked
upon as non-existent. I answer thus: To understand this book in its essential
content, only common morality is needed, without meddling with the
Critique of Practical Reason, still less with the theoretical Critique. When,
for example, virtue as skill in actions
[13]
conforming to duty (according to their legality) is called virtus
phÏnomenon, and the same virtue as an enduring disposition towards such
actions from duty (because of their morality) is called virtus noumenon,
these expressions are used only because of the schools; while the matter
itself is contained, though in other words, in the most popular children's
instruction and sermons, and is easily understood. Would that as much
could be said for the mysteries concerning the divine nature which are
numbered among religious teachings, mysteries introduced into the
catechism as though they were wholly popular, but which, ultimately, must
first be transformed into moral concepts if they are to become
comprehensible to everyone!

Kšnigsberg, 26 January, 1794.

NOTES:

        w [3] For an explanation of the "w" see the "Preface to the Second
Edition of this Translation," page cxxxix.
        * [3] Those who, in the conception of duty, are not satisfied with the
merely formal determining ground as such (conformity to law) as the basis
of determination, do indeed admit that such a basis cannot be discovered in
self-love directed to one's own comfort. Hence there remain but two
determining grounds: one, which is rational, namely, one's own perfection,
and another, which is empirical, the happiness of others.1 Now if they do
not conceive of the first of these as the moral determining ground (a will,
namely, unconditionally obedient to the law) which is necessarily unique--
and if they so interpreted it they would be expounding in a circle -- they
would have to have in mind man's natural perfection, so far as it is capable
of enhancement, and this can be of many kinds, such as skill in the arts and
sciences, taste, bodily adroitness, etc. But these are always good only on
the condition that their use does not conflict with the moral law (which alone
commands unconditionally); set up as an end, therefore, perfection cannot
be the principle of concepts of duty. The same holds for the end which aims
at the happiness of other men. For an act must, first of all, itself be weighed
according to the moral law before it is directed to the happiness of others.
The requirement laid down by this end, therefore, is a duty only
conditionally and cannot serve as the supreme principle of moral maxims.
        1 [3] [fremde GlŸckseligkeit. We have almost always translated
GlŸckseligkeit as happiness.]
        1 [4] [Gegenstand]
        * [5] If the proposition, There is a God, hence there is a highest
good in the world, is to arise (as a dogma) from morality alone, it is a
synthetic a priori proposition: for even thought accepted only for practical
reference, it does yet
[6]
pass beyond the concept of duty which morality contains (and which
presupposes merely the formal laws, and not the matter, of choicew), and
hence cannot analytically be evolved out of morality. But how is such a
proposition a priori possible? Agreement with the bare idea of a moral
Lawgiver for all men is, indeed, identical with the general moral concept of
duty, and so far the proposition commanding this agreement would be
analytic. But the acknowledgment of His existence asserts more than the
bare possibility of such a thing. The key to the solution of this problem, so
far as I believe myself to understand it, I can only indicate here and not
develop.
        An end is always the object of an inclination, that is, of an immediate
craving for possession of a thing through one's action, just as the law
(which commands practically) is an object of respect. An objective end (i.e.,
the end which we ought to have) is that which is proposed to us as such by
reason alone. The end which embraces the unavoidable and at the same time
sufficient condition of all other ends is the final end. The subjective final
end of rational worldly beings is their own happiness (each of them has this
end by virtue of having a nature dependent upon sensuous objects, and
hence it would be absurd to say that anyone ought to have it) and all
practical propositions which are based on this final end are synthetic, and at
the same time empirical. But that everyone ought to make the highest good
possible in the world a final end is a synthetic practical proposition a priori
(and indeed objectively practical) given by pure reason; for it is a
proposition which goes beyond the concept of duties in this world and adds
a consequence (an effect) thereof which is not contained in the moral laws
and therefore cannot be evolved out of them analytically. For these laws
command absolutely, be the consequence what it will; indeed, they even
require that the consideration of such consequence be completely waived
when a particular act is concerned; and thereby they make duty an object of
highest respect without offering or proposing to us an end (or a final end)
such as would have to constitute duty's recommendation and the incentive
to the fulfilment of our duty. All men could have sufficient incentive if (as
they should) they adhered solely to the dictation of pure reason in the law.
What need have they to know the outcome of their moral actions and
abstentions, an outcome which the world's course will bring about? It
suffices for them that they do their duty; even though all things end with
earthly life and though, in this life, happiness and desert may never meet.
And yet it is one of the inescapable limitations of man and of his faculty of
practical reason (a limitation, perhaps, of all other worldly beings as well) to
have regard, in every action, to the consequence thereof, in order to
discover therein what could serve him as an end and also prove the purity of
his intention--which consequence, though last in practice (nexu effectivo) is
yet first in representation and intention (nexu finali). In this end, if directly
presented to him by reason alone, man seeks something that he can love;
therefore the law, which merely arouses his respect, even
[7]
though it does not acknowledge this object of love as a necessity does yet
extend itself on its behalf by including the moral goal of reason among its
determining grounds. That is, the proposition: Make the highest good
possible in the world your own final end! is a synthetic proposition a priori,
which is introduced by the moral law itself; although practical reason does,
indeed, extend itself therein beyond the law. This extension is possible
because of the moral law's being taken in relation to the natural
characteristic of man, that for all his actions he must conceive of an end over
and above the law (a characteristic which makes man an object of
experience). And further, this extension (as with theoretical propositions a
priori which are synthetic) is possible only because this end embraces the a
priori principle of the knowledge of the determining grounds in experience
of a free willw, so far as this experience, by exhibiting the effects of
morality in its ends, gives objective though merely practical reality to the
concept of morality as causal in the world. But if, now, the strictest
obedience to moral laws is to be considered the cause of the ushering in of
the highest good (as end), then, since human capacity does not suffice for
bringing about happiness in the world proportionate to worthiness to be
happy, an omnipotent moral Being must be postulated as ruler of the world,
under whose care this [balance] occurs. That is, morality leads inevitably to
religion.
        1 [8] [Italics not in the text.]
        1 [11] [Cultus, ceremonial worship]
        1 [12] [Johann David Michaelis, 1717-1791; celebrated Orientalist
and Biblical scholar; the book referred to was published posthumously in
1792.]
        2 [12] Gottlob Christian Storr, 1746-1805, Professor of Theology
in TŸbingen, and later court-preacher in Stuttgart. His Annotationes,
directed against Kant, appeared in 1793, with a German translation in
1794.]
        3 [12] [For 1793; pp. 225-229]
        4 [12] [Reading diejenigen for diejenige, as in Kehrbach's Leipzig
Edition.]

BOOK ONE

[15]
CONCERNING THE INDWELLING OF THE EVIL
PRINCIPLE WITH THE GOOD, OR, ON THE
RADICAL EVIL IN HUMAN NATURE

        That "the world lieth in evil".1 is a plaint as old as history, old even
as the older art, poetry; indeed, as old as that oldest of all fictions, the
religion of priest-craft. All agree that the world began in a good estate,
whether in a Golden Age, a life in Eden, or a yet more happy community
with celestial beings. But they represent that this happiness vanished like a
dream and that a Fall into evil (moral evil, with which physical evil ever
went hand in hand) presently hurried mankind from bad to worse with
accelerated descent;* so that now (this "now" is also as old as history) we
live in the final age, with the Last Day and the destruction of the world at
hand. In some parts of India the Judge and Destroyer of the world, Rudra
(sometimes called Siwa or Siva), already is worshipped as the reigning
God--Vishnu, the Sustainer of the world, having some centuries ago grown
weary and renounced the supreme authority which he inherited from
Brahma, the Creator. More modern, though far less prevalent, is the
contrasted optimistic belief, which indeed has gained a following solely
among philosophers and, of late, especially among those interested in
education--the belief that the world steadily (though almost imperceptibly)
forges in the other direction, to wit, from bad to better; at least that the
predisposition to such a movement is discoverable in human nature. If this
belief, however, is meant to apply to moral goodness and badness (not
simply to the process of civilization), it has certainly not been deduced from
experience; the history of all times cries too loudly against it. The belief, we
[16]
may presume, is a well-intentioned assumption of the moralist, from Seneca
to Rousseau, designed to encourage the sedulous cultivation of that seed of
goodness which perhaps lies in us--if, indeed, we can count on any such
natural basis of goodness in man. We may note that since we take for
granted that man is by nature sound of body (as at birth he usually is), no
reason appears why, by nature, his soul should not be deemed similarly
healthy and free from evil. Is not nature herself, then, inclined to lend her
aid to developing in us this moral predisposition to goodness? In the words
of Seneca: Sanabilibus grotamus malis, nosque in rectum genitos natura, si
sanari velimus, adiuvat.1
        But since it well may be that both sides have erred in their reading of
experience, the question arises whether a middle ground may not at least be
possible, namely, that man as a species is neither good nor bad, or at all
events that he is as much the one as the other, partly good, partly bad. We
call a man evil, however, not because he performs actions that are evil
(contrary to law) but because these actions are of such a nature that we may
infer from them the presence in him of evil maxims. In and through
experience we can observe actions contrary to law, and we can observe (at
least in ourselves) that they are performed in the consciousness that they are
unlawful; but a man's maxims, sometimes2 even his own, are not thus
observable; consequently the judgment that the agent is an evil man cannot
be made with certainty if grounded on experience. In order, then, to call a
man evil, it would have to be possible a priori to infer from several evil acts
done with consciousness of their evil, or from one such act, an underlying
evil maxim; and further, from this maxim to infer the presence in the agent
of an underlying common ground, itself a maxim, of all particular morally-
evil maxims.
        Lest difficulty at once be encountered in the expression nature,
which, if it meant (as it usually does) the opposite of freedom as a basis of
action, would flatly contradict the predicates morally good or evil, let it be
noted that by "nature of man" we here intend only the subjective ground of
the exercise (under objective moral laws) of man's freedom in general; this
ground--whatever is its character--is the necessary antecedent of every act
apparent to the senses. But this subjective ground, again, must itself always
be
[17]
an expression1 of freedom (for otherwise the use or abuse of man's power
of choicew in respect of the moral law could not be imputed to him nor
could the good or bad in him be called moral). Hence the source of evil
cannot lie in an object determining the willw through inclination, nor yet in a
natural impulse; it can lie only in a rule made by the willw for the use of its
freedom, that is, in a maxim. But now it must not be considered permissible
to inquire into the subjective ground in man of the adoption of this maxim
rather than of its opposite. If this ground itself were not ultimately a maxim,
but a mere natural impulse, it would be possible to trace the use of our
freedom wholly to determination by natural causes; this, however, is
contradictory to the very notion of freedom. When we say, then, Man is by
nature good, or, Man is by nature evil, this means only that there is in him
an ultimate ground (inscrutable to us)* of the adoption of good maxims or
of evil maxims (i.e., those contrary to law), and this he has, being a man;
and hence he thereby expresses the character of his species.
        We shall say, therefore, of the character (good or evil)
distinguishing man from other possible rational beings, that it is innate in
him. Yet in doing so we shall ever take the position that nature is not to bear
the blame (if it is evil) or take the credit (if it is good), but that man himself
is its author. But since the ultimate ground of the adoption of our maxims,
which must itself lie in free choicew, cannot be a fact revealed in
experience, it follows that the good or evil in man (as the ultimate subjective
ground of the adoption of this or that maxim with reference to the moral
law) is termed innate only in this sense, that it is posited as the ground
antecedent to every use of freedom in experience (in earliest youth as far
back as birth) and is thus conceived of as present in man at birth--though
birth need not be the cause of it.

Observation
        The conflict between the two hypotheses presented above is based
on a disjunctive proposition: Man is (by nature) either morally good or
morally evil. It might easily occur to any one,
[18]
however, to ask whether this disjunction is valid, and whether some might
not assert that man is by nature neither of the two, others, that man is at
once both, in some respects good, in other respects evil. Experience actually
seems to substantiate the middle ground between the two extremes.
        It is, however, of great consequence to ethics in general to avoid
admitting, so long as it is possible, of anything morally intermediate,
whether in actions (adiophora) or in human characters; for with such
ambiguity all maxims are in danger of forfeiting their precision and stability.
Those who are partial to this strict mode of thinking are usually called
rigorists (a name which is intended to carry reproach, but which actually
praises); their opposites may be called latitudinarians. These latter, again,
are either latitudinarians of neutrality, whom we may call indifferentists, or
else latitudinarians of coalition, whom we may call syncretists.*
        According to the rigoristic diagnosis,** the answer to the question
[19]
at issue rests upon the observation, of great importance to morality, that
freedom of the willw is of a wholly unique nature in that an incentive can
determine the willw to an action only so far as the individual has
incorporated it into his maxim (has made it the general rule in accordance
with which he will conduct himself); only thus can an incentive, whatever it
may be, co-exist with the absolute spontaneity of the willw (i.e., freedom).
But the moral law, in the judgment of reason, is in itself an incentive, and
[20]
whoever makes it his maxim is morally good. If, now, this law does not
determine a person's willw in the case of an action which has reference to
the law, an incentive contrary to it must influence his choicew; and since, by
hypothesis, this can only happen when a man adopts this incentive (and
thereby the deviation from the moral law) into his maxim (in which case he
is an evil man) it follows that his disposition in respect to the moral law is
never indifferent, never neither good nor evil.
        Neither can a man be morally good in some ways and at the same
time morally evil in others. His being good in one way means that he has
incorporated the moral law into his maxim; were he, therefore, at the same
time evil in another way, while his maxim would be universal as based on
the moral law of obedience to duty, which is essentially single and
universal, it would at the same time be only particular; but this is a
contradiction.*
        To have a good or an evil disposition as an inborn natural
constitution does not here mean that it has not been acquired by the to man
who harbors it, that he is not author of it, but rather, that it has not been
acquired in time (that he has always been good, or evil, from his youth up).
The disposition, i.e., the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of
maxims, can be one only and applies universally to the whole use of
freedom. Yet this disposition itself must have been adopted by free
choicew, for otherwise it could not be imputed. But the subjective ground
or cause of this adoption cannot further be known (though it is inevitable
that we should inquire into it),1 since otherwise still another maxim would
have to be adduced in which this disposition must have been
[21]
incorporated, a maxim which itself in turn must have its ground. Since,
therefore, we are unable to derive this disposition, or rather its ultimate
ground, from any original act of the willw in time, we call it a property of
the willw which belongs to it by nature (although actually the disposition is
grounded in freedom). Further, the man of whom we say, "He is by nature
good or evil," is to be understood not as the single individual (for then one
man could be considered as good, by nature, another as evil), but as the
entire race; that we are entitled so to do can only be proved when
anthropological research shows that the evidence, which justifies us in
attributing to a man one of these characters as innate, is such as to give no
ground for excepting anyone, and that the attribution therefore holds for the
race.

        I. Concerning the Original Predisposition to Good in Human Nature
        We may conveniently divide this predisposition, with respect to
function, into three divisions, to be considered as elements in the fixed
character and destiny1 of man:
         (1) The predisposition to animality in man, taken as a living being;
         (2) The predisposition to humanity in man, taken as a living and at
the same time a rational being;
         (3) The predisposition to personality in man, taken as a rational and
at the same time an accountable being.*
[22]
        1. The predisposition to animality in mankind may be brought under
the general title of physical and purely mechanical self-love, wherein no
reason is demanded. It is threefold: first, for self-preservation; second, for
the propagation of the species, through the sexual impulse, and for the care
of offspring so begotten; and third, for community with other men, i.e., the
social impulse. On these three stems can be grafted all kinds of vices
(which, however, do not spring from this predisposition itself as a root).
They may be termed vices of the coarseness1 of nature, and in their greatest
deviation from natural purposes are called the beastly vices of gluttony and
drunkenness,2 lasciviousness and wild lawlessness (in relation to other
men).
        2. The predisposition3 to humanity can be brought under the general
title of a self-love which is physical and yet compares (for which reason is
required); that is to say, we judge ourselves happy or unhappy only by
making comparison with others. Out of this self-love springs the inclination
to acquire worth in the opinion of others. This is originally a desire merely
for equality, to allow no one superiority above oneself, bound up with a
constant care lest others strive to attain such superiority; but from this arises
gradually the unjustifiable craving to win it for oneself over others. Upon
this twin stem of jealousy and rivalry may be grafted the very great vices of
secret and open animosity against all whom we look upon as not belonging
to us--vices, however, which really do not sprout of themselves from nature
as their root; rather are they inclinations, aroused in us by the anxious
endeavors of others to attain a hated superiority over us, to attain for
ourselves as a measure of precaution and for the sake of safety such a
position over others. For nature, indeed, wanted to use the idea of such
rivalry (which in itself does not exclude mutual love) only as a spur to
culture.4 Hence the vices which are grafted upon this inclination might be
their termed vices of culture;4 in highest degree of malignancy, as, for
example, in envy, ingratitude, spitefulness, etc. (where they are simply the
idea of a maximum of evil going beyond what is human), they can be called
the diabolical vices.
        3. The predisposition to personality is the capacity for respect
[23]
for the moral law as in itself a sufficient incentive of the will.w This
capacity for simple respect for the moral law within us would thus be moral
feeling, which in and through itself does not constitute an end of the natural
predisposition except so far as it is the motivating force of the will.w Since
this is possible only when the free willw incorporates such moral feeling
into its maxim, the property of such a willw is good character. The latter,
like every character of the free willw, is something which can only be
acquired; its possibility, however, demands the presence in our nature of a
predisposition on which it is absolutely impossible to graft anything evil.
We cannot rightly call the idea of the moral law, with the respect which is
inseparable from it, a predisposition to personality; it is personality itself
(the idea of humanity considered quite intellectually). But the subjective
ground for the adoption into our maxims of this respect as a motivating
force seems to be an adjunct to our personality, and thus to deserve the
name of a predisposition to its furtherance.
        If we consider the three predispositions named, in terms of the
conditions of their possibility, we find that the first requires no reason, the
second is based on practical reason, but a reason thereby subservient to
other incentives, while the third alone is rooted in reason which is practical
of itself, that is, reason which dictates laws unconditionally. All of these
predispositions are not only good in negative fashion (in that they do not
contradict the moral law); they are also predispositions toward good (they
enjoin the observance of the law). They are original, for they are bound up
with the possibility of human nature. Man can indeed use the first two
contrary to their ends, but he can extirpate none of them. By the
predispositions of a being we understand not only its constituent elements
which are necessary to it, but also the forms of their combination, by which
the being is what it is. They are original if they are involved necessarily in
the possibility of such a being, but contingent if it is possible for the being
to exist of itself without them. Finally, let it be noted that here we treat only
those predispositions which have immediate reference to the faculty of
desire and the exercise of the willw.

II. Concerning the Propensity to Evil in Human Nature
        By propensity (propensio) I understand the subjective ground of the
possibility of an inclination (habitual craving,
[24]
concupiscentia)1 so far as mankind in general is liable to it.  A propensity is
distinguished from a predisposition by the fact that although it can indeed be
innate, it ought not to be represented merely thus; for it can also be regarded
as having been acquired (if it is good), or brought by man upon himself (if
it is evil). Here, however, we are speaking only of the propensity to
genuine, that is, moral evil; for since such evil is possible only as a
determination of the free willw, and since the willw can be appraised as
good or evil only by means of its maxims, this propensity to evil must
consist in the subjective ground of the possibility of the deviation of the
maxims from the moral law. If, then, this propensity can be considered as
belonging universally to mankind (and hence as part of the character of the
race), it may be called a natural propensity in man to evil. We may add
further that the will'sw capacity or incapacity, arising from this natural
propensity, to adopt or not to adopt the moral law into its maxim, may be
called a good or an evil heart.
        In this capacity for evil there can be distinguished three distinct
degrees. First, there is the weakness of the human heart in the general
observance of adopted maxims, or in other words, the frailty of human
nature; second, the propensity for mixing unmoral with moral motivating
causes (even when it is done with good intent and under maxims of the
good), that is, impurity;3 third, the propensity to adopt evil maxims, that is,
the wickedness of human nature or of the human heart.
        First: the frailty (fragilitas) of human nature is expressed even
[25]
in the complaint of an Apostle, "What I would, that I do not!"1 In other
words, I adopt the good (the law) into the maxim of my willw, but this
good, which objectively, in its ideal conception2 (in thesi), is an irresistible
incentive, is subjectively (in hypothesi), when the maxim is to be followed,
the weaker (in comparison with inclination).
        Second: the impurity (impuritas, improbitas) of the human heart
consists in this, that although the maxim is indeed good in respect of its
object (the intended observance of the law) and perhaps even strong enough
for practice, it is yet not purely moral; that is, it has not, as it should have,
adopted the law alone as its all-sufficient incentive: instead, it usually
(perhaps, every time) stands in need of other incentives beyond this, in
determining the willw to do what duty demands; in other words, actions
called for by duty are done not purely for duty's sake.
        Third: the wickedness (vitiositas, pravitas) or, if you like, the
corruption (corruptio) of the human heart is the propensity of the willw to
maxims which neglect the incentives springing from the moral law in favor
of others which are not moral. It may also be called the perversity
(perversitas) of the human heart, for it reverses the ethical order [of priority]
among the incentives of a free willw; and although conduct which is
lawfully good (i.e., legal) may be found with it, yet the cast of mind is
thereby corrupted at its root (so far as the moral disposition is concerned),
and the man is hence designated as evil.
         It will be remarked that this propensity to evil is here ascribed (as
regards conduct) to men in general, even to the best of them; this must be
the case if it is to be proved that the propensity to evil in mankind is
universal, or, what here comes to the same thing, that it is woven into
human nature.
         There is no difference, however, as regards conformity of conduct
to the moral law, between a man of good morals (bene moratus) and a
morally good man (moraliter bonus)--at least there ought to be no
difference, save that the conduct of the one has not always, perhaps has
never, the law as its sole and supreme incentive while the conduct of the
other has it always. Of the former it can be said: He obeys the law according
to the letter (that is, his conduct conforms to what the law commands); but
of the second: He
[26]
obeys the law according to the spirit (the spirit of the moral law consisting
in this, that the law is sufficient in itself as an incentive). Whatever is not of
this faith is sin1 as regards cast of mind). For when incentives other than
the law itself (such as ambition, self-love in general, yes, even a kindly
instinct such as sympathy) are necessary to determine the willw to conduct
conformable to the law, it is merely accidental that these causes coincide
with the law, for they could equally well incite its violation. The maxim,
then, in terms of whose goodness all moral worth of the individual must be
appraised, is thus contrary to the law, and the man, despite all his good
deeds, is nevertheless evil.
        The following explanation is also necessary in order to define the
concept of this propensity. Every propensity is either physical, i.e.,
pertaining to the willw of man as a natural being, or moral, i.e., pertaining
to his willw as a moral being. In the first sense there is no propensity to
moral evil, for such a propensity must spring from freedom; and a physical
propensity (grounded in sensuous2 impulses) towards any use of freedom
whatsoever--whether for good or bad--is a contradiction. Hence a
propensity to evil can inhere only in the moral capacity of the willw. But
nothing is morally evil (i.e., capable of being imputed) but that which is our
own act. On the other hand, by the concept of a propensity we understand a
subjective determining ground of the willw which precedes all acts and
which, therefore, is itself not an act. Hence in the concept of a simple
propensity to evil there would be a contradiction were it not possible to take
the word "act" in two meanings, both of which are reconcilable with the
concept of freedom. The term "act" can apply in general to that exercise of
freedom whereby the supreme maxim (in harmony with the law or contrary
to it) it is adopted by the willw, but also to the exercise of freedom whereby
the actions themselves (considered materially, i.e., with reference to the
objects of volitionw) are performed in accordance with that maxim. The
propensity to evil, then, is an act in the first sense (peccatum originarium),
and at the same time the formal ground of all unlawful conduct in the second
sense, which latter, considered materially, violates the law and is termed
vice (peccatum derivatum); and the first offense remains, even though the
second (from incentives which do not subsist in the law itself) may be
repeatedly avoided. The former is intelligible1
[27]
action, cognizable by means of pure reason alone, apart from every
temporal condition; the latter is sensible1 action, empirical, given in time
(factum phÏnomenon). The former, particularly when compared with the
latter, is entitled a simple propensity and innate, [first] because it cannot be
eradicated (since for such eradication the highest maxim would have to be
that of the good--whereas in this propensity it already has been postulated as
evil), but chiefly because we can no more assign a further cause for the
corruption in us by evil of just this highest maxim, although this is our own
action, than we can assign a cause for any fundamental attribute belonging
to our nature. Now it can be understood, from what has just been said, why
it was that in this section we sought, at the very first, the three sources of
the morally evil solely in what, according to laws of freedom, touches the
ultimate ground of the adoption or the observance of our maxims, and not in
what touches sensibility2 (regarded as receptivity).

         III. Man is Evil by Nature
Vitiis nemo sine nascitur.--Horace3
        In view of what has been said above, the proposition, Man is evil,
can mean only, He is conscious of the moral law but has nevertheless
adopted into his maxim the (occasional) deviation therefrom. He is evil by
nature, means but this, that evil can be predicated of man as a species; not
that such a quality can be inferred from the concept of his species (that is, of
man in general)--for then it would be necessary; but rather that from what
we know of man through experience we cannot judge otherwise of him, or,
that we may presuppose evil to be subjectively necessary to every man,
even to the best. Now this propensity must itself be considered as morally
evil, yet not as a natural predisposition but rather as something that can be
imputed to man, and consequently it must consist in maxims of the willw
which are contrary to the law. Further, for the sake of freedom, these
maxims must in themselves be considered contingent, a circumstance
which, on the other hand, will not tally with the universality of this evil
unless the ultimate subjective ground of all maxims somehow or
[28]
other is entwined with and, as it were, rooted in humanity itself. Hence we
can call this a natural propensity to evil, and as we must, after all, ever hold
man himself responsible for it, we can further call it a radical innate evil in
human nature (yet none the less brought upon us by ourselves).
        That such a corrupt1 propensity must indeed be rooted in man need
not be formally proved in view of the multitude of crying examples which
experience of the actions of men puts before our eyes. If we wish to draw
our examples from that state in which various philosophers hoped
preeminently to discover the natural goodliness of human nature, namely,
from the so-called state of nature, we need but compare with this hypothesis
the scenes of unprovoked cruelty in the murder-dramas enacted in Tofoa,
New Zealand, and in the Navigator Islands, and the unending cruelty (of
which Captain Hearne2 tells) in the wide wastes of northwestern America,
cruelty from which, indeed, not a soul reaps the smallest benefit;* and we
have vices of barbarity3 more than sufficient to draw us from such an
opinion. If, however, we incline to the opinion that human nature can better
be known in the civilized state (in which its predispositions can more
completely develop), we must listen to a long melancholy litany of
indictments against humanity: of secret falsity even in the closest friendship,
so that a limit upon trust in the mutual confidences of even the best friends
is reckoned a universal maxim of prudence in intercourse; of a propensity to
hate him to whom one is indebted, for which
[29]
a benefactor must always be prepared; of a hearty well-wishing which yet
allows of the remark that "in the misfortunes of our best friends there is
something which is not altogether displeasing to us" ;1 and of many other
vices still concealed under the appearance of virtue, to say nothing of the
vices of those who do not conceal them, for we are content to call him good
who is a man bad in a way common to all; and we shall have enough of the
vices of culture and civilization (which are the most offensive of all) to make
us rather turn away our eyes from the conduct of men lest we ourselves
contract another vice, misanthropy. But if we are not yet content, we need
but contemplate a state which is compounded in strange fashion of both the
others, that is, the international situation,2 where civilized nations stand
towards each other in the relation obtaining in the barbarous state of nature
(a state of continuous readiness for war), a state, moreover, from which
they have taken fixedly into their heads never to depart. We then become
aware of the fundamental principles of the great societies called states --
principles which flatly contradict their public pronouncements but can never
be laid aside, and which no philosopher has yet been able to bring into
agreement with morality. Nor (sad to say) has any philosopher been able to
propose
[30]
better principles which at the same time can be brought into harmony with
human nature. The result is that the philosophical millenium, which hopes
for a state of perpetual peace based on a league of peoples, a world-
republic, even as the theological millenium, which tarries for the completed
moral improvement of the entire human race, is universally ridiculed as a
wild fantasy.
        Now the ground of this evil (1) cannot be placed, as is so commonly
done, in man's sensuous nature 1 and the natural inclinations arising
therefrom. For not only are these not directly related to evil (rather do they
afford the occasion for what the moral disposition in its power can manifest,
namely, virtue); we must not even be considered responsible for their
existence (we cannot be, for since they are implanted in us we are not their
authors). We are accountable, however, for the propensity to evil, which,
as it affects the morality of the subject, is to be found in him as a free-acting
being and for which it must be possible to hold him accountable as the
offender--this, too, despite the fact that this propensity is so deeply rooted
in the willw that we are forced to say that it is to be found in man by nature.
Neither can the ground of this evil (2) be placed in a corruption of the
morally legislative reason--as if reason could destroy the authority of the
very law which is its own, or deny the obligation arising therefrom; this is
absolutely impossible. To conceive of oneself as a freely acting being and
yet as exempt from the law which is appropriate to such a being (the moral
law) would be tantamount to conceiving a cause operating without any laws
whatsoever (for determination according to natural laws is excluded by the
fact of freedom); this is a self-contradiction. In seeking, therefore, a ground
of the morally-evil in man, [we find that] sensuous nature comprises too
little, for when the incentives which can spring from freedom are taken
away, man is reduced to a merely animal being. On the other hand, a reason
exempt from the moral law, a malignant reason as it were (a thoroughly evil
will2), comprises too much, for thereby opposition to the law would itself
be set up as an incentive (since in the absence of all incentives the willw
cannot be determined), and thus the subject would be made a devilish being.
Neither of these designations is applicable to man.
        But even if the existence of this propensity to evil in human nature
can be demonstrated by experiential proofs of the real
[31]
opposition, in time, of man's willw to the law, such proofs do not teach us
the essential character of that propensity or the ground of this opposition.
Rather, because this character concerns a relation of the willw, which is free
(and the concept of which is therefore not empirical), to the moral law as an
incentive (the concept of which, likewise, is purely intellectual), it must be
apprehended a priori through the concept of evil, so far as evil is possible
under the laws of freedom (of obligation and accountability). This concept
may be developed in the following manner.
        Man (even the most wicked) does not, under any maxim
whatsoever, repudiate the moral law in the manner of a rebel (renouncing
obedience to it). The law, rather, forces itself upon him irresistibly by virtue
of his moral predisposition; and were no other incentive working in
opposition, he would adopt the law into his supreme maxim as the sufficient
determining ground of his willw; that is, he would be morally good. But by
virtue of an equally innocent natural predisposition he depends upon the
incentives of his sensuous nature and adopts them also (in accordance with
the subjective principle of self-love) into his maxim. If he took the latter into
his maxim as in themselves wholly adequate to the determination of the
willw, without troubling himself about the moral law (which, after all, he
does have in him), he would be morally evil. Now, since he naturally
adopts both into his maxim, and since, further, he would find either, if it
were alone, adequate in itself for the determining of the will,1 it follows that
if the difference between the maxims amounted merely to the difference
between the two incentives (the content of the maxims), that is, if it were
merely a question as to whether the law or the sensuous impulse were to
furnish the incentive, man would be at once good and evil: this, however,
(as we saw in the Introduction) is a contradiction. Hence the distinction
between a good man and one who is evil cannot lie in the difference
between the incentives which they adopt into their maxim (not in the content
of the maxim), but rather must depend upon subordination (the form of the
maxim), i.e., which of the two incentives he makes the condition of the
other. Consequently man (even the best) is evil only in that he reverses the
moral order of the incentives when he adopts them into his maxim. He
adopts, indeed, the moral law along with the law of self-love; yet when he
becomes aware that they cannot remain on a par with each other but that one
must be subordinated
[32]
to the other as its supreme condition, he makes the incentive of self-love and
its inclinations the condition of obedience to the moral law; whereas, on the
contrary, the latter, as the supreme condition of the satisfaction of the
former, ought to have been adopted into the universal maxim of the willw as
the sole incentive.
        Yet, even with this reversal of the ethical order of the incentives in
and through his maxim, a man's actions still may prove to be as much in
conformity to the law as if they sprang from true basic principles. This
happens when reason employs the unity of the maxims in general, a unity
which is inherent in the moral law, merely to bestow upon the incentives of
inclination, under the name of happiness, a unity of maxims which
otherwise they cannot have. (For example, truthfulness, if adopted as a
basic principle, delivers us from the anxiety of making our lies agree with
one another and of not being entangled by their serpent coils.) The empirical
character is then good, but the intelligible character is still evil.
        Now if a propensity to this1 does lie in human nature, there is in
man a natural propensity to evil; and since this very propensity must in the
end be sought in a willw which is free, and can therefore be imputed, it is
morally evil. This evil is radical, because it corrupts the ground of all
maxims; it is, moreover, as a natural propensity, inextirpable by human
powers, since extirpation could occur only through good maxims, and
cannot take place when the ultimate subjective ground of all maxims is
postulated as corrupt; yet at the same time it must be possible to overcome
it, since it is found in man, a being whose actions are free.
        We are not, then, to call the depravity of human nature wickedness 2
taking the word in its strict sense as a disposition (the subjective principle of
the maxims) to adopt evil3 as evil into our maxim as our incentives (for that
is diabolical); we should rather term it the perversity of the heart, which,
then, because of what follows from it, is also called an evil heart. Such a
heart may coexist with a will which in general4 is good: it arises from the
frailty of human nature, the lack of sufficient strength to follow out the
principles it has chosen for itself, joined with its impurity, the failure to
distinguish the incentives (even of well-intentioned
[33]
actions) from each other by the gauge of morality; and so at last, if the
extreme is reached, [it results] from looking only to the squaring of these
actions with the law and not to the derivation of them from the law as the
sole motivating spring. Now even though there does not always follow
therefrom an unlawful act and a propensity thereto, namely, vice, yet the
mode of thought which sets down the absence of such vice as being
conformity of the disposition to the law of duty (as being virtue)--since in
this case no attention whatever is paid to the motivating forces in the maxim
but only to the observance of the letter of the law--itself deserves to be
called a radical perversity in the human heart.
        This innate guilt (reatus), which is so denominated because it may be
discerned in man as early as the first manifestations of the exercise of
freedom, but which, none the less, must have originated in freedom and
hence can be imputed,--this guilt may be judged in its first two stages (those
of frailty and impurity) to be unintentional guilt (culpa), but in the third to be
deliberate guilt (dolus) and to display in its character a certain
insidiousness1 of the human heart (dolus malus), which deceives itself in
regard to its own good and evil dispositions, and, if only its conduct has not
evil consequences--which it might well have, with such maxims--does not
trouble itself about its disposition but rather considers itself justified before
the law. Thence arises the peace of conscience of so many men
(conscientious in their own esteem) when, in the course of conduct
concerning which they did not take the law into their counsel, or at least in
which the law was not the supreme consideration, they merely elude evil
consequences by good fortune. They may even picture themselves as
meritorious, feeling themselves guilty of no such offenses as they see others
burdened with; nor do they ever inquire whether good luck should not have
the credit, or whether by reason of the cast of mind which they could
discover, if they only would, in their own inmost nature, they would not
have practised similar vices, had not inability, temperament, training, and
circumstances of time and place which serve to tempt one (matters which are
not imputable), kept them out of the way of those vices. This dishonesty,
by which we humbug ourselves and which thwarts the establishing of a true
moral disposition in us, extends itself outwardly also to falsehood and
deception of others. If this is not to be termed wickedness, it at least
deserves the name of worthlessness, and is an element in the radical
[34]
evil of human nature, which (inasmuch as it puts out of tune the moral
capacity to judge what a man is to be taken for, and renders wholly
uncertain both internal and external attribution of responsibility) constitutes
the foul taint in our race. So long as we do not eradicate it, it prevents the
seed of goodness from developing as it otherwise would.
        A member of the British Parliament1 once exclaimed, in the heat of
debate, "Every man has his price, for which he sells himself." If this is true
(a question to which each must make his own answer), if there is no virtue
for which some temptation cannot be found capable of overthrowing it, and
if whether the good or evil spirit wins us over to his party depends merely
on which bids the most and pays us most promptly, then certainly it holds
true of men universally,2 as the apostle said:3 "They are all under sin,--
there is none righteous (in the spirit of the law), no, not one."*

        IV. Concerning the Origin of Evil in Human Nature
        An origin (a first origin) is the derivation of an effect from its first
cause, that is, from that cause which is not in turn the effect of another
cause of the same kind. It can be considered either as an origin in reason or
as an origin in time. In the former sense, regard is had only to the existence
of the effect; in the latter, to its
[35]
occurrence, and hence it is related as an event to its first cause in time. If an
effect is referred to a cause to which it is bound under the laws of freedom,
as is true in the case of moral evil, then the determination of the willw to the
production of this effect is conceived of as bound up with its determining
ground not in time but merely in rational representation; such an effect
cannot be derived from any preceding state whatsoever. Yet derivation of
this sort is always necessary when an evil action, as an event in the world,
is referred to its natural cause. To seek the temporal origin of free acts as
such (as though they were natural effects) is thus a contradiction. Hence it is
also a contradiction to seek the temporal origin of man's moral character,1
so far as it is considered as contingent, since this character signifies the
ground of the exercise of freedom; this ground (like the determining ground
of the free willw generally) must be sought in purely rational
representations.
        However the origin of moral evil in man is constituted, surely of all
the explanations of the spread and propagation of this evil through all
members and generations of our race, the most inept is that which describes
it as descending to us as an inheritance from our first parents; for one can
say of moral evil precisely what the poet said of good:2 genus et proavos, et
quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra puto.* Yet we should note that, in our
search for the origin of this evil, we do not deal first of all with the
propensity thereto (as peccatum in potentia); rather do we direct our
attention to the actual evil of given actions with respect to its inner
possibility--to what must take place within the willw if evil is to be
performed.
[36]
        In the search for the rational origin of evil actions, every such action
must be regarded as though the individual had fallen into it directly from a
state of innocence. For whatever his previous deportment may have been,
whatever natural causes may have been influencing him, and whether these
causes were to be found within him or outside him, his action is yet free and
determined by none of these causes; hence it can and must always be judged
as an original use of his willw. He should have refrained from that action,
whatever his temporal circumstances and entanglements; for through no
cause in the world can he cease to be a freely acting being. Rightly is it said
that to a man's account are set down the consequences arising from his
former free acts which were contrary to the law; but this merely amounts to
saying that man need not involve himself in the evasion of seeking to
establish whether or not these consequences are free, since there exists in
the admittedly free action, which was their cause, ground sufficient for
holding him accountable. However evil a man has been up to the very
moment of an impending free act (so that evil has actually become custom or
second nature) it was not only his duty to have been better [in the past], it is
now still his duty to better himself. To do so must be within his power, and
if he does not do so, he is susceptible of, and subjected to, imputability in
the very moment of that action, just as much as though, endowed with a
predisposition to good (which is inseparable from freedom), he had stepped
out of a state of innocence into evil. Hence we cannot inquire into the
temporal origin of this deed, but solely into its rational origin, if we are
thereby to determine and, wherever possible, to elucidate the propensity, if
it exists, i.e., the general subjective ground of the adoption of transgression
into our maxim.
        The foregoing agrees well with that manner of presentation which
the Scriptures use, whereby the origin of evil in the human
[37]
race is depicted as having a [temporal] beginning, this beginning being
presented in a narrative, wherein what in its essence must be considered as
primary (without regard to the element of time) appears as coming first in
time. According to this account, evil does not start from a propensity thereto
as its underlying basis, for otherwise the beginning of evil would not have
its source in freedom; rather does it start from sin (by which is meant the
transgressing of the moral law as a divine command). The state of man prior
to all propensity to evil is called the state of innocence. The moral law
became known to mankind, as it must to any being not pure but tempted by
desires, in the form of a prohibition (Genesis II, 16-17). Now instead of
straightway following this law as an adequate incentive (the only incentive
which is unconditionally good and regarding which there is no further
doubt), man looked about for other incentives (Genesis III, 6) such as can
be good only conditionally (namely, so far as they involve no infringement
of the law). He then made it his maxim--if one thinks of his action as
consciously springing from freedom--to follow the law of duty, not as duty,
but, if need be, with regard to other aims. Thereupon he began to call in
question the severity of the commandment which excludes the influence of
all other incentives; then by sophistry he reduced* obedience to the law to
the merely conditional character of a means (subject to the principle of self-
love); and finally he adopted into his maxim of conduct the ascendancy of
the sensuous impulse over the incentive which springs from the law--and
thus occurred sin (Genesis III, 6). Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur.1
From all this it is clear that we daily act in the same way, and that therefore
"in Adam all have sinned"2 and still sin; except that in us there is
presupposed an innate propensity to transgression, whereas in the first man,
from the point
[38]
of view of time, there is presupposed no such propensity but rather
innocence; hence transgression on his part is called a fall into sin; but with
us sin is represented as resulting from an already innate wickedness in our
nature. This propensity, however, signifies no more than this, that if we
wish to address ourselves to the explanation of evil in terms of its beginning
in time, we must search for the causes of each deliberate transgression in a
previous period of our lives, far back to that period wherein the use of
reason had not yet developed, and thus back to a propensity to evil (as a
natural ground) which is therefore called innate--the source of evil. But to
trace the causes of evil in the instance of the first man, who is depicted as
already in full command of the use of his reason, is neither necessary nor
feasible, since otherwise this basis (the evil propensity) would have had to
be created in him; therefore his sin is set forth as engendered directly from
innocence. We must not, however, look for an origin in time of a moral
character1 for which we are to be held responsible; though to do so is
inevitable if we wish to explain the contingent existence of this character
(and perhaps it is for this reason that Scripture, in conformity with this
weakness of ours, has thus pictured the temporal origin of evil).
        But the rational origin of this perversion of our willw whereby it
makes lower incentives supreme among its maxims, that is, of the
propensity to evil, remains inscrutable to us, because this propensity itself
must be set down to our account and because, as a result, that ultimate
ground of all maxims would in turn involve the adoption of an evil maxim
[as its basis]. Evil could have sprung only from the morally-evil (not from
mere limitations in our nature); and yet the original predisposition (which no
one other than man himself could have corrupted, if he is to be held
responsible for this corruption) is a predisposition to good; there is then for
us no conceivable ground from which the moral evil in us could originally
have come. This inconceivability, together with a more accurate
specification2 of the wickedness of our race, the Bible
[39]
expresses in the historical narrative as follows.* It finds a place for evil at
the creation of the world, yet not in man, but in a spirit of an originally
loftier destiny.1 Thus is the first beginning of all evil represented as
inconceivable by us (for whence came evil to that spirit?); but man is
represented as having fallen into evil only through seduction, and hence as
being not basically corrupt (even as regards his original predisposition to
good) but rather as still capable of an improvement, in contrast to a seducing
spirit, that is, a being for whom temptation of the flesh cannot be accounted
as an alleviation of guilt. For man, therefore, who despite a corrupted heart
yet possesses a good will,2 there remains hope of a return to the good from
which he has strayed.
[40]

GENERAL OBSERVATION1

        Concerning the Restoration to its Power of the Original
Predisposition to Good

        Man himself must make or have made himself into whatever, in a
moral sense, whether good or evil, he is or is to become. Either condition
must be an effect of his free choicew; for otherwise he could not be held
responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither good nor evil.
When it is said, Man is created good, this can mean nothing more than: He
is created for good and the original predisposition in man is good; not that,
thereby, he is already actually good, but rather that he brings it about that he
becomes good or evil, according to whether he adopts or does not adopt
into his maxim the incentives which this predisposition carries with it ([an
act] which must be left wholly to his own free choice). Granted that some
supernatural cooperation may be necessary to his becoming good, or to his
becoming better, yet, whether this cooperation consists merely in the
abatement of hindrances or indeed in positive assistance, man must first
make himself worthy to receive it, and must lay hold of this aid (which is no
small matter)--that is, he must adopt this positive increase of power into his
maxim, for only thus can good be imputed to him and he be known as a
good man.
        How it is possible for a naturally evil man to make himself a good
man wholly surpasses our comprehension; for how can a bad tree bring
forth good fruit? But since, by our previous acknowledgment, an originally
good tree (good in predisposition) did bring forth evil fruit,* and since the
lapse from good into evil (when one remembers that this originates in
freedom) is no more comprehensible than the re-ascent from evil to good,
the possibility of this last cannot be impugned. For despite the fall, the
injunction that we ought to become better men resounds unabatedly in our
souls; hence this must be within our power, even though what we are able
to do is in itself inadequate and though we thereby only
 [41]
render ourselves susceptible of higher, and for us inscrutable, assistance. It
must indeed be presupposed throughout that a seed of goodness still
remains in its entire purity, incapable of being extirpated or corrupted; and
this seed certainly cannot be self-love* which, when taken as the principle
of all our maxims, is the very source of evil.
[42]
        The restoration of the original predisposition to good in us is
therefore not the acquiring of a lost incentive for good, for the incentive
which consists in respect for the moral law we have never been able to lose,
and were such a thing possible, we could never get it again. Hence the
restoration is but the establishment of the purity of this law as the supreme
ground of all our maxims, whereby it is not merely associated with other
incentives, and certainly is not subordinated to any such (to inclinations) as
its conditions, but instead must be adopted, in its entire purity, as an
incentive adequate in itself for the determination of the willw. Original
goodness is the holiness of maxims in doing one's duty, merely for duty's
sake. The man who adopts this purity into his maxim is indeed not yet holy
by reason of this act (for there is a great gap between the maxim and the
deed). Still he is upon the road of endless progress towards holiness. When
the firm resolve to do one's duty has become habitual, it is also called the
virtue of conformity to law; such conformity is virtue's empirical character
(virtus phÏnomenon). Virtue here has as its steadfast maxim conduct
conforming to law; and it matters not whence come the incentives required
by the willw for such conduct. Virtue in this sense is won little by little and,
for some men, requires long practice (in observance of the law) during
which the individual passes from a tendency to vice, through gradual
reformation of his conduct and strengthening of his maxims, to an opposite
tendency. For this to come to pass a change of heart is not necessary, but
only a change of practices.1 A man accounts himself virtuous if he feels that
he is confirmed in maxims of obedience to his duty, though these do not
spring from the highest ground of all maxims, namely, from duty itself. The
immoderate person, for instance, turns to temperance for the sake of health,
the liar to honesty for the sake of reputation, the unjust man to civic
righteousness for the sake of peace or profit, and so on--all in conformity
with the precious principle of happiness. But if a man is to become not
merely legally, but morally, a good man (pleasing to God), that is, a man
endowed with
[43]
virtue in its intelligible character (virtus noumenon) and one who, knowing
something to be his duty, requires no incentive other than this representation
of duty itself, this cannot be brought about through gradual reformation so
long as the basis of the maxims remains impure, but must be effected
through a revolution in the man's disposition (a going over to the maxim of
holiness of the disposition). He can become a new man only by a kind of
rebirth, as it were a new creation (John III, 5; compare also Genesis I, 2),
and a change of heart.
        But if a man is corrupt in the very ground of his maxims, how can
he possibly bring about this revolution by his own powers and of himself
become a good man? Yet duty bids us do this, and duty demands nothing of
us which we cannot do. There is no reconciliation possible here except by
saying that man is under the necessity of, and is therefore capable of, a
revolution in his cast of mind, but only of a gradual reform in his sensuous
nature1 (which places obstacles in the way of the former). That is, if a man
reverses, by a single unchangeable decision, that highest ground of his
maxims whereby he was an evil man (and thus puts on the new man), he is,
so far as his principle and cast of mind are concerned, a subject susceptible
of goodness, but only in continuous labor and growth is he a good man.
That is, he can hope in the light of that purity of the principle which he has
adopted as the supreme maxim of his willw, and of its stability, to find
himself upon the good (though strait) path of continual progress from bad to
better. For Him who penetrates to the intelligible ground of the heart (the
ground of all maxims of the willw) and for whom this unending progress is
a unity, i.e., for God, this amounts to his being actually a good man
(pleasing to Him); and, thus viewed, this change can be regarded as a
revolution. But in the judgment of men, who can appraise themselves and
the strength of their maxims only by the ascendancy which they win over
their sensuous nature2 in time, this change must be regarded as nothing but
an ever-during struggle toward the better, hence as a gradual reformation of
the propensity to evil, the perverted cast of mind.
        From this it follows that man's moral growth of necessity begins not
in the improvement of his practices but rather in the transforming of his cast
of mind and in the grounding of a character; though customarily man goes
about the matter otherwise
[44]
and fights against vices one by one, leaving undisturbed their common root.
And yet even the man of greatest limitations is capable of being impressed
by respect for an action conforming to duty--a respect which is the greater
the more he isolates it, in thought, from other incentives which, through
self-love, might influence the maxim of conduct. Even children are capable
of detecting the smallest trace of admixture of improper incentives; for an
action thus motivated at once loses, in their eyes, all moral worth. This
predisposition to goodness is cultivated in no better way than by adducing
the actual example of good men (of that which concerns their conformity to
law) and by allowing young students of morals to judge the impurity of
various maxims on the basis of the actual incentives motivating the conduct
of these good men. The predisposition is thus gradually transformed into a
cast of mind, and duty, for its own sake, begins to have a noticeable
importance in their hearts. But to teach a pupil to admire virtuous actions,
however great the sacrifice these may have entailed, is not in harmony with1
preserving his feeling for moral goodness. For be a man never so virtuous,
all the goodness he can ever perform is still his simple duty; and to do his
duty is nothing more than to do what is in the common moral order and
hence in no way deserving of wonder. Such wonder is rather a lowering of
our feeling for duty, as if to act in obedience to it were something
extraordinary and meritorious.
        Yet there is one thing in our soul which we cannot cease from
regarding with the highest wonder, when we view it properly, and for
which admiration is not only legitimate but even exalting, and that is the
original moral predisposition itself2 in us. What is it in us (we can ask
ourselves) whereby we, beings ever dependent upon nature through so
many needs, are at the same time raised so far above these needs by the idea
of an original predisposition (in us) that we count them all as nothing, and
ourselves as unworthy of existence, if we cater to their satisfaction (though
this alone can make life worth desiring) in opposition to the law--a law by
virtue of which our reason commands us potently, yet without making
either promises or threats? The force of this question every man, even one
of the meanest capacity, must feel most deeply--every man, that is, who
previously has been taught the holiness which inheres in the idea of duty but
who has not yet advanced to an
[45]
inquiry into the concept of freedom, which first and foremost emerges from
this law:* and the very incomprehensibility of this predisposition, which
announces a divine origin, acts perforce upon the spirit even to the point of
exaltation, and strengthens it for whatever sacrifice a man's respect for his
duty may demand of him. More frequently to excite in man this feeling of
the sublimity of his moral destiny is especially commendable as a method of
awakening moral sentiments. For to do so works directly against the innate
propensity to invert the incentives in the maxims of our willw and toward
the re-establishment in the human heart, in the form of an unconditioned
respect for the law as the ultimate condition upon which maxims are to be
adopted, of the original
[46]
moral order among the incentives, and so of the predisposition to good in all
its purity.
        But does not this restoration through one's own exertions directly
contradict the postulate1 of the innate corruption of man which unfits him
for all good? Yes, to be sure, as far as the conceivability, i.e., our insight
into the possibility, of such a restoration is concerned. This is true of
everything which is to be regarded as an event in time (as change), and to
that extent as necessary under the laws of nature, while at the same time its
opposite is to be represented as possible through freedom under moral laws.
Yet the postulate in question is not opposed to the possibility of this
restoration itself. For when the moral law commands that we ought now to
be better men, it follows inevitably that we must be able to be better men.
The postulate of innate evil is of no use whatever in moral dogmatics,2 for
the precepts of the latter carry with them the same duties and continue in
identical force whether or not there is in us an innate tendency toward
transgression. But in moral discipline3 this postulate has more to say,
though no more than this: that in the moral development of the
predisposition to good implanted in us, we cannot start from an innocence
natural to us but must begin with the assumption of a wickedness of the
willw in adopting its maxims contrary to the original moral predisposition;
and, since this propensity [to evil] is inextirpable, we must begin with the
incessant counteraction against it. Since this leads only to a progress,
endlessly continuing, from bad to better, it follows that the conversion of
the disposition of a bad man into that of a good one is to be found in the
change of the highest inward ground of the adoption of all his maxims,
conformable to the moral law, so far as this new ground (the new heart) is
now itself unchangeable. Man cannot attain naturally to assurance
concerning such a revolution, however, either by immediate consciousness
or through the evidence furnished by the life which he has hitherto led; for
the deeps of the heart (the subjective first ground of his maxims) are
inscrutable to him. Yet he must be able to hope through his own efforts to
reach the road which leads thither, and which is pointed out to him by a
fundamentally improved disposition, because he ought to become a good
man and is to be adjudged morally good only by virtue of that which can be
imputed to him as performed by himself.
[47]
        Against this expectation of self-improvement, reason, which is by
nature averse to the labor of moral reconstruction, now summons, under the
pretext of natural incapacity, all sorts of ignoble religious ideas (among
which belongs the false ascription to God Himself of the principle of
happiness as the chief condition of His commandments). All religions,
however, can be divided into those which are endeavors to win favor (mere
worship) and moral religions, i.e., religions of good life-conduct. In the
first, man flatters himself by believing either that God can make him
eternally happy (through remission of his sins) without his having to
become a better man, or else, if this seems to him impossible, that God can
certainly make him a better man without his having to do anything more
than to ask for it. Yet since, in the eyes of a Being who sees all, to ask is no
more than to wish, this would really involve doing nothing at all; for were
improvement to be achieved simply by a wish, every man would be good.
But in the moral religion (and of all the public religions which have ever
existed, the Christian alone is moral) it is a basic principle that each must do
as much as lies in his power to become a better man, and that only when he
has not buried his inborn talent (Luke XIX, 12-16) but has made use of his
original predisposition to good in order to become a better man, can he hope
that what is not within his power will be supplied through cooperation from
above. Nor is it absolutely necessary for a man to know wherein this
cooperation consists; indeed, it is perhaps inevitable that, were the way it
occurs revealed at a given time, different people would at some other time
form different conceptions of it, and that with entire sincerity. Even here the
principle is valid: "It is not essential, and hence not necessary, for every one
to know what God does or has done for his salvation;" but it is essential to
know what man himself must do in order to become worthy of this
assistance.
        This1 General Observation is the first of four which are appended,
one to each Book of this work, and which might bear the titles, (l) Works of
Grace, (2) Miracles, (3) Mysteries, and (4) Means of Grace. These matters
are, as it were, parerga to religion within the limits of pure reason; they do
not belong within it but border upon it. Reason, conscious of her inability to
satisfy her moral need, extends herself to high-flown2 ideas capable of
supplying
[48]
this lack, without, however, appropriating these ideas as an extension of her
domain. Reason does not dispute the possibility or the reality of the objects
of these ideas; she simply cannot adopt them into her maxims of thought
and action. She even holds that, if in the inscrutable realm of the
supernatural there is something more than she can explain to herself, which
may yet be necessary as a complement to her moral insufficiency, this will
be, even though unknown, available to her good will. Reason believes this
with a faith which (with respect to the possibility of this supernatural
complement) might be called reflective; for dogmatic faith, which proclaims
itself as a form of knowledge, appears to her dishonest or presumptuous.
To remove the difficulties, then, in the way of that which (for moral
practice) stands firm in and for itself, is merely a by-work (parergon), when
these difficulties have reference to transcendent questions. As regards the
damage resulting from these morally-transcendent ideas, when we seek to
introduce them into religion, the consequences, listed in the order of the
four classes named above, are: (1) [corresponding] to imagined inward
experience (works of grace), [the consequence is] fanaticism; (2) to alleged
external experience (miracles), superstition; (3) to a supposed enlightening
of the understanding with regard to the supernatural (mysteries),
illumination, the illusion of the "adepts"; (4) to hazardous attempts to
operate upon the supernatural (means of grace), thaumaturgy--sheer
aberrations of a reason going beyond its proper limits and that too for a
purpose fancied to be moral (pleasing to God).
        But touching that which especially concerns this General
Observation to Book One of the present treatise, the calling to our assistance
of works of grace is one of these aberrations and cannot be adopted into the
maxims of reason, if she is to remain within her limits; as indeed can
nothing of the supernatural, simply because in this realm all use of reason
ceases. For it is impossible to find a way to define these things theoretically
([showing] that they are works of grace and not inner natural effects)
because our use of the concept of cause and effect cannot be extended
beyond matters of experience, and hence beyond nature. Moreover, even
the hypothesis of a practical application of this idea is wholly self-
contradictory. For the employment of this idea would presuppose a rule
concerning the good which (for a particular end) we ourselves must do in
order to accomplish something, whereas to await
[49]
a work of grace means exactly the opposite, namely, that the good (the
morally good) is not our deed but the deed of another being, and that we
therefore can achieve it only by doing nothing, which contradicts itself.
Hence we can admit a work of grace as something incomprehensible, but
we cannot adopt it into our maxims either for theoretical or for practical use.

NOTES:

        1 [15] [Cf. I John V, 19]
        * [15] Aetas parentum peior avis tulit
                 Nos nequiores, mox daturos
                Progeniem vitiosiorem.
                        Horace [Odes, III, 6.
                  ...Our father's race
           More deeply versed in ill
                Than were their sires, hath borne us yet
                More wicked, duly to beget
            A race more vicious still.
                                                (Martin)]
        1 [16] De ira, II, 13, 1: "We are sick with curable diseases, and if
we wish to be cured, nature comes to our aid, for we were born to health."]
        2 [16] [nicht allemal]
        1 [17] [Aktus]
        * [17] That the ultimate subjective ground of the adoption of moral
maxims is inscrutable is indeed already evident from this, that since this
adoption is free, its ground (why, for example, I have chosen an evil and
not a good maxim) must not be sought in any natural impulse, but always
again in a
[18]
maxim. Now since this maxim also must have its ground, and since apart
from maxims no determining ground of free choicew can or ought to be
adduced, we are referred back endlessly in the series of subjective
determining grounds, without ever being able to reach the ultimate ground.
        * [18] If the good = a, then its diametric opposite is the not-good.
This latter is the result either of a mere absence of a basis of goodness, = 0,
or of a positive ground of the opposite of good, = -a. In the second case the
not-good may also be called positive evil. (As regards pleasure and pain
there is a similar middle term, whereby pleasure = a, pain = -a, and the state
in which neither is to be found, indifference, = 0.) Now if the moral law in
us were not a motivating force of the willw, the morally good (the
agreement of the willw with the law) would = a, and the not-good would =
0; the latter, as merely the result of the absence of a moral motivating force,
would = a ´ 0. In us, however, the law is a motivating force, = a; hence the
absence of agreement of the willw with this law (= 0) is possible only as a
consequence of a real and contrary determination of the willw, i.e., of an
opposition to the law, = -a, i.e., of an evil willw. Between a good and an
evil disposition (inner principle of maxims), according to which the morality
of an action must be judged, there is therefore no middle ground.
        A1 morally indifferent action (adiaphoron morale) would be one
resulting merely from natural laws, and hence standing in no relation
whatsoever to the moral law, which is the law of freedom; for such action is
not a morally significant fact at all and regarding it neither command, nor
prohibition, nor permission (legal privilege) occurs or is necessary.
        1 [18] [Added in the Second Edition.]
        ** [18] Professor Schiller, in his masterly treatise (Thalia, 1793,
Part III) on grace and dignity in morality, objects to this way of representing
obligation,
[19]
as carrying with it a monastic cast of mind. Since, however, we are at one
upon the most important principles, I cannot admit that there is disagreement
here, if only we can make ourselves clear to one another. I freely grant that
by very reason of the dignity of the idea of duty I am unable to associate
grace with it. For the idea of duty involves absolute necessity, to which
grace stands in direct contradiction. The majesty of the moral law (as of the
law on Sinai) instils awe (not dread, which repels, nor yet charm, which
invites familiarity); and in this instance, since the ruler resides within us,
this respect, as of a subject toward his ruler, awakens a sense of the
sublimity of our own destiny which enraptures us more than any beauty.
Virtue, also, i.e., the firmly grounded disposition strictly to fulfil our duty,
is also beneficent in its results, beyond all that nature and art can accomplish
in the world; and the august picture of humanity, as portrayed in this
character, does indeed allow the attendance of the graces. But when duty
alone is the theme, they keep a respectful distance. If we consider, further,
the happy results which virtue, should she gain admittance everywhere,
would spread throughout the world, [we see] morally-directed reason (by
means of the imagination) calling the sensibilities1 into play. Only after
vanquishing monsters did Hercules become Musagetes, leader of the
Muses,--after labors from which those worthy sisters, trembling, draw
back. The attendants of Venus Urania become wantons in the train of Venus
Dione as soon as they meddle in the business of determining duty and try to
provide springs of action therefor.
        Now if one asks, What is the aesthetic character,2 the temperament,
so to speak, of virtue, whether courageous and hence joyous or fear-ridden
and dejected, an answer is hardly necessary. This latter slavish frame of
mind can never occur without a hidden hatred of the law. And a heart which
is happy in the performance of its duty (not merely complacent in the
recognition thereof) is a mark of genuineness in the virtuous disposition--of
genuineness even in piety, which does not consist in the self-inflicted
torment of a repentant sinner (a very ambiguous state of mind, which
ordinarily is nothing but inward regret at having infringed upon the rules of
prudence), but rather in the firm resolve to do better in the future. This
resolve, then, encouraged by good progress, must needs beget a joyous
frame of mind, without which man is never certain of having really attained
a love for the good, i.e., of having incorporated it into his maxim.
        1 [19] [Sinnlichkeit]
        2 [19] [Beschaffenheit]
        * [20] The ancient moral philosophers, who pretty well exhausted all
that can be said upon virtue, have not left untouched the two questions
mentioned above. The first they expressed thus: Must virtue be learned? (Is
man by nature indifferent as regards virtue and vice?) The second they put
thus: Is there more than one virtue (so that man might be virtuous in some
respects, in others vicious)? Both questions were answered by them, with
rigoristic precision, in the negative, and rightly so; for they were
considering virtue as such, as it is in the idea of reason (that which man
ought to be). If, however, we wish to pass moral judgment on this moral
being, man as he appears, i.e., as experience reveals him to us, we can
answer both questions in the affirmative; for in this case we judge him not
according to the standard of pure reason (at a divine tribunal) but by an
empirical standard (before a human judge). This subject will be treated
further in what follows.
        1 [20] [Kant closes this parenthesis at the end of the sentence; our
alteration seems necessitated by the meaning.]
        1 [21] [Our phrase "fixed character and destiny" translates
Bestimmung.]
        * [21] We cannot regard this as included in the concept of the
preceding, but necessarily must treat it as a special predisposition. For from
the fact that a being has reason it by no means follows that this reason, by
the mere representing of the fitness of its maxims to be laid down as
universal laws, is thereby rendered capable of determining the willw
unconditionally, so as to be "practical" of itself; at least, not so far as we can
see. The most rational mortal being in the world might still stand in need of
certain incentives, originating in objects of desire, to determine his choicew.
He might. indeed, bestow the most rational reflection on all that concerns
not only the greatest sum of these incentives in him but also the means of
attaining the end thereby determined, without ever suspecting the possibility
of such a thing as the absolutely imperative moral law which proclaims that
it is itself an incentive, and, indeed, the highest. Were it not given us from
within, we should never by any ratiocination subtilize it into existence or
win over our willw to it; yet this law is the only law which informs us of the
independence of our willw from determination by all other incentives (of
our freedom) and at the same time of the accountability of all our actions.
        1 [22] [Rohigkeit]
        2 [22] [The two English words translate Všllerei.]
        3 [22] [Reading Anlage for Anlagen.]
        4 [22] [Kultur. Cf. below, p. 29, where these vices are referred to
as vices of culture and civilization (Kultur und Zivilisierung).]
        1 [24] [Concupiscentia added in the Second Edition.]
          [24] A propensity (Hang) is really only the predisposition2 to
crave a delight which, when once experienced, arouses in the subject an
inclination to it. Thus all savage peoples have a propensity for intoxicants;
for though many of them are wholly ignorant of intoxication and in
consequence have absolutely no craving for an intoxicant, let them but once
sample it and there is aroused in them an almost inextinguishable craving for
it.
        Between inclination, which presupposes acquaintance with the
object of desire, and propensity there still is instinct, which is a felt want to
do or to enjoy something of which one has as yet no conception (such as the
constructive impulse in animals, or the sexual impulse) . Beyond inclination
there is finally a further stage in the faculty of desire, passion (not emotion,
for this has to do with the feeling of pleasure and pain), which is an
inclination that excludes the mastery over oneself.
        2 [24] [Predisposition; not the usual German word Anlage, which
heretofore we have translated as predisposition.]
        3 [24] [Unlauterkeit, i.e., lack of single-mindedness, integrity.]
        1 [25] [Cf. Romans, VIl, 15]
        2 [25] [in der Idee]
        1 [26] [Cf. Romans XIV, 23]
        2 [26] [sinnliche, i.e., pertaining to sense]
        1 [27] [intelligible and sensible]
        2 [27] [Sinnlichkeit]
        3 [27] [Satires, I, iii, 68: "No one is born free from vices."]
        1 [28] [verderbter; misprinted verdorbener in the First Edition.]
        2 [28] [Samuel Hearne (1745-1792), an English traveller, in the
service of the Hudson Bay Company. His Account of a Journey from
Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northwest was published in
1795. Kant evidently had read the brief account of Hearne's travels in
Douglas's Introduction to Cook's Third Voyage, London, 1784.]
        * [28] Thus the war ceaselessly waged between the Arathapescaw
Indians and the Dog Rib Indians has no other object than mere slaughter.
Bravery in war is, in the opinion of savages, the highest virtue. Even in a
civilized state it is an object of admiration and a basis for the special regard
commanded by that profession in which bravery is the sole merit; and this is
not without rational cause. For that man should be able to possess a thing
(i.e., honor) and make it an end to be valued more than life itself, and
because of it renounce all self-interest, surely bespeaks a certain nobility in
his natural disposition. Yet we recognize in the complacency with which
victors boast their mighty deeds (massacres, butchery without quarter, and
the like) that it is merely their own superiority and the destruction they can
wreak, without any other objective, in which they really take satisfaction.
        3 [28] [Rohigkeit]
        1 [29] [La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, No. 583: "Dans l'adversitŽ de
nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous
deplait pas."]
        2 [29] [den aŸszern Všlkerzustand]
          [29] When we survey the history of these, merely as the
phenomenon of the inner predispositions of mankind which are for the most
part concealed from us, we become aware of a certain machine-like
movement of nature toward ends which are nature's own rather than those
of the nations. Each separate state, so long as it has a neighboring state
which it dares hope to conquer, strives to aggrandize itself through such a
conquest, and thus to attain a world-monarchy, a polity wherein all
freedom, and with it (as a consequence) virtue, taste, and learning, would
necessarily expire. Yet this monster (in which laws gradually lose their
force), after it has swallowed all its neighbors, finally dissolves of itself,
and through rebellion and disunion breaks up into many smaller states.
These, instead of striving toward a league of nations (a republic of federated
free nations), begin the same game over again, each for itself, so that war
(that scourge of humankind) may not be allowed to cease. Although indeed
war is not so incurably evil as that tomb, a universal autocracy (or even as a
confederacy which exists to hasten the weakening of a despotism in any
single state), yet, as one of the ancients put it, war creates more evil men
than it destroys.3
        3 ["This is also cited by Kant in the first Appendix to Section II of
Zum ewigen Frieden. There the quotation is termed 'a saying of that Greek';
unfortunately, its source has not been found." (Note in Berlin Edition.)]
        1 [30] [Sinnlichkeit]
        2 [30] [Wille]
        1 [31] [Our phrase "determining of the will" translates
Willensbestimmung.]
        1 [32] [i.e., to the inversion of the ethical order of the incentives.]
        2 [32] [Bosheit]
        3 [32] [Bšse]
        4 [32] [im Allegemeinen]
        1 [33] [TŸcke]
        1 [34] [Sir Robert Walpole. What he said, however, was not so
universal: "All those men" (referring to certain "patriots") "have their
price."]
        2 [34] [allgemein]
        3 [34] [Cf. Romans III, 9-10]
        * [34] The special proof of this sentence of condemnation by
morally judging reason is to be found in the preceding section rather than in
this one, which contains only the confirmation of it by experience.
Experience, however, never can reveal the root of evil in the supreme
maxim of the free willw relating to the law, a maxim which, as intelligible
act, precedes all experience. Hence from the singleness of the supreme
maxim, together with the singleness of the law to which it relates itself, we
can also understand why, for the pure intellectual judgment of mankind, the
rule of excluding a mean between good and evil must remain fundamental;
yet for the empirical judgment based on sensible conduct4 (actual
performance and neglect) the rule may be laid down that there is a mean
between these extremes--on the one hand a negative mean of indifference
prior to all education, on the other hand a positive, a mixture, partly good
and partly evil. However, this latter is merely a judgment upon the morality
of mankind as appearance, and must give place to the former in a final
judgment.
        4 [34] [sinnlicher That]
        1 [35] [Beschaffenheit]
        2 [35] [Ovid, Metamorphoses, Xlll, 140-141: "Race and ancestors,
and those things which we ourselves have not made, I scarcely account our
own."]
        * [35] The three so-called "higher faculties" (in the universities)
would explain this transmission of evil each in terms of its own specialty, as
inherited disease, inherited debt, or inherited sin. (1) The faculty of
medicine would represent this hereditary evil somewhat as it represents the
tapeworm, concerning which several naturalists actually believe that, since
no specimens have been met with anywhere but in us, not even (of this
particular type) in other animals, it must have existed in our first parents. (2)
The faculty of law would regard this evil as the legitimate consequence of
succeeding to the patrimony bequeathed us by our first parents, [an
inheritance] encumbered, however, with heavy forfeitures (for to be born is
no other than to inherit the use of
[36]
earthly goods so far as they are necessary to our continued existence). Thus
we must fulfil payment (atone) and at the end still be dispossessed (by
death) of the property. How just is legal justice! (3) The theological faculty
would regard this evil as the personal participation by our first parents in the
fall of a condemned rebel, maintaining either that we ourselves then
participated (although now unconscious of having done so), or that even
now, born under the rule of the rebel (as prince of this world), we prefer his
favors to the supreme command of the heavenly Ruler, and do not possess
enough faith to free ourselves; wherefore we must also eventually share his
doom.
        * [37] All homage paid to the moral law is an act of hypocrisy, if, in
one's maxim, ascendancy is not at the same time granted to the law as an
incentive sufficient in itself and higher than all other determining grounds of
the willw. The propensity to do this is inward deceit, i.e., a tendency to
deceive oneself in the interpretation of the moral law, to its detriment
(Genesis III, 5). Accordingly, the Bible (the Christian portion of it)
denominates the author of evil (who is within us) as the liar from the
beginning, and thus characterizes man with respect to what seems to be the
chief ground of evil in him.
        1 [37] [Horace, Satires, I, 1. "Change but the name, of you the tale
is told." (Conington)]
        2 [37] [Cf. Romans V, 12. "The efÕ w panteV hmarton of the Greek
text (= epi toutw oti k. t. l. = 'on this ground, that . .') is rendered in the
Latin translation (the Vulgate) by in quo omnes peccaverunt; and this in quo
was in early times taken as a
[38]
masculine, to mean 'in Adam' (particularly by Augustine, in the interest of
his doctrine of inherited sin: in Adam omnes tunc peccaverunt, quando in
eius natura illa insita vi, qua eos gignere poterat, adhuc omnes ille unus
fuerunt. De pecc. mer. et rem., III, 7, 14). This interpretation continued to
be dominant in the older Protestant exegesis. Indeed, even today critical
interpreters defend the notion that 'in Adam' may be supplied as really in the
thought of Paul." (Note in Berlin Edition.)]
        1 [38] [Beschaffenheit]
        2 [38] [Bestimmung]
        * [39] What is written here must not be read as though intended for
Scriptural exegesis, which lies beyond the limits of the domain of bare
reason. It is possible to explain how an historical account is to be put to a
moral use without deciding whether this is the intention of the author or
merely our interpretation, provided this meaning is true in itself, apart from
all historical proof, and is moreover the only one whereby we can derive
something conducive to our betterment from a passage which otherwise
would be only an unfruitful addition to our historical knowledge. We must
not quarrel unnecessarily over a question or over its historical aspect, when,
however it is understood, it in no way helps us to be better men, and when
that which can afford such help is discovered without historical proof, and
indeed must be apprehended without it. That historical knowledge which
has no inner bearing valid for all men belongs to the class of adiaphora,
which each man is free to hold as he finds edifying.
        1 [39] [Bestimmung]
        2 [39] [Wille]
        1 [40] [In the First Edition this "General Observation" was
designated as section V.]
        * [40] The tree, good in predisposition, is not yet good in actuality,
for were it so, it could certainly not bring forth bad fruit. Only when a man
has adopted into his maxim the incentive implanted in him of allegiance to
the moral law is he to be called a good man (or the tree a thoroughly good
tree).
        * [41] Words which can be taken in two entirely different meanings
frequently delay for a long time the reaching of a conviction even on the
clearest of grounds. Like love in general, so also can self-love be divided
into love of good will and love of good pleasure (benevolentiae et
complacentiae), and both (as is self-evident) must be rational. To adopt the
former into one's maxim is natural (for who will not wish to have it always
go well with him?); it is also rational so far as, on the one hand, that end is
chosen which can accord with the greatest and most abiding welfare, and,
on the other, the fittest means are chosen [to secure] each of the components
of happiness. Here reason holds but the place of a handmaid to natural
inclination; the maxim adopted on such grounds has absolutely no reference
to morality. Let this maxim, however, be made the unconditional principle
of the willw, and it is the source of an incalculably great antagonism to
morality.
        A rational love of good pleasure in oneself can be understood in
either of two ways: first, that we are well pleased with ourselves with
respect to those maxims already mentioned which aim at the gratification of
natural inclination (so far as that end is attained through following those
maxims); and then it is identical with love as good will toward oneself: one
takes pleasure in oneself, just as a merchant whose business speculations
turn out well rejoices in his good discernment regarding the maxims he used
in these transactions. In the second sense, the maxim of self-love as
unqualified good pleasure in oneself (not dependent upon success or failure
as consequences of conduct) would be the inner principle of such a
contentment as is possible to us only on condition that our maxims are
subordinated to the moral law. No man who is not indifferent to morality
can take pleasure in himself, can indeed escape a bitter dissatisfaction with
himself, when he is conscious of maxims which do not agree with the moral
law in him. One might call that a rational self-love which prevents any
adulteration of the incentives of the willw by other causes of happiness such
as come from the consequences of one's actions (under the name of a
thereby attainable happiness). Since, however this denotes an unconditional
respect for the law, why needlessly render difficult the clear understanding
of the principle by using the term rational self-love, when the use of the
term moral self-love is restricted to this very condition, thus going around in
a circle? (For only he can love himself in a moral fashion who knows that it
is his maxim to make reverence for the law the highest incentive of his
willw.) By our nature as beings dependent upon circumstances of
sensibility, we crave happiness first and unconditionally. Yet by this same
nature of ours (if we wish in general so to term that which is innate). as
beings endowed with reason and freedom, this happiness is far from being
first, nor indeed is it unconditionally an object of our maxims; rather this
object is
[42]
worthiness to be happy, i.e., the agreement of all our maxims with the
moral law. That this is objectively the condition whereby alone the wish for
happiness can square with legislative reason--therein consists the whole
precept of morality; and the moral cast of mind consists in the disposition to
harbor no wish except on these terms.
        1 [42] [Sitten]
        1 [43] [Sinnesart]
        2 [43] [Sinnlichkeit]
        1 [44] [die rechte Stimmung]
        2 [44] [Ÿberhaupt]
        * [45] The concept of the freedom of the willw does not precede the
consciousness of the moral law in us but is deduced from the
determinability of our willw by this law as an unconditional command. Of
this we can soon be convinced by asking ourselves whether we are certainly
and immediately conscious of power to overcome, by a firm resolve, every
incentive, however great, to transgression (Phalaris licet imperet, ut sis
falsus et admoto dictet periuria tauro).1 Everyone will have to admit that he
does not know whether, were such a situation to arise, he would not be
shaken in his resolution. Still, duty commands him unconditionally: he
ought to remain true to his resolve; and thence he rightly concludes that he
must be able to do so, and that his willw is therefore free. Those who
fallaciously represent this inscrutable property as quite comprehensible
create an illusion by means of the word determinism (the thesis that the
willw is determined by inner self-sufficient grounds) as though the
difficulty consisted in reconciling this with freedom--which after all never
occurs to one; whereas what we wish to understand, and never shall
understand, is how predeterminism, according to which voluntary2 actions,
as events, have their determining grounds in antecedent time (which, with
what happened in it. is no longer within our power), can he consistent with
freedom, according to which the act as well as its opposite must be within
the power of the subject at the moment of its taking place.
        To3 reconcile the concept of freedom with the idea of God as a
necessary Being raises no difficulty at all: for freedom consists not in the
contingency of the act (that it is determined by no grounds whatever), i.e.,
not in indeterminism (that God must be equally capable of doing good or
evil, if His actions are to be called free), but rather in absolute spontaneity.
Such spontaneity is endangered only by predeterminism, where the
determining ground of the act is in antecedent time, with the result that, the
act being now no longer in my power but in the hands of nature, I am
irresistibly determined; but since in God no temporal sequence is thinkable,
this difficulty vanishes.
        1 [45] [Juvenal, Satires Vlll, 81-82: "though Phalaris himself should
command you to be false and should bring up his bull and dictate
perjuries."]
        2 [45] [willkŸrliche]
        3 [45] [This paragraph added in the Second Edition.]
        1 [46] [Satz]
        2 [46] [Dogmatik]
        3 [46] [Ascetik]
        1 [47] [From here to the end of Book One added in the Second
Edition.]
        2 [47] [Ÿberschwenglich]

BOOK TWO

[50]
CONCERNING THE CONFLICT OF THE GOOD WITH
THE EVIL PRINCIPLE FOR SOVEREIGNTY OVER MAN

        To become morally good it is not enough merely to allow the seed of
goodness implanted in our species to develop without hindrance; there is
also present in us an active and opposing cause of evil to be combatted.
Among the ancient moralists it was pre-eminently the Stoics who called
attention to this fact by their watchword virtue, which (in Greek as well as
in Latin) signifies courage and valor and thus presupposes the presence of
an enemy. In this regard the name virtue is a noble one, and that it has often
been ostentatiously misused and derided (as has of late the word
"Enlightenment") can do it no harm. For simply to make the demand for
courage is to go half-way towards infusing it; on the other hand, the lazy
and pusillanimous cast of mind (in morality and religion) which entirely
mistrusts itself and hangs back waiting for help from without, is relaxing to
all a man's powers and makes him unworthy even of this assistance.
        Yet those valiant men [the Stoics] mistook their enemy: for he is not
to be sought in the merely undisciplined natural inclinations which present
themselves so openly to everyone's consciousness; rather is he, as it were,
an invisible foe who screens himself behind reason and is therefore all the
more dangerous. They called out wisdom against folly, which allows itself
to be deceived by the inclinations through mere carelessness, instead of
summoning her against wickedness (the wickedness of the human heart),
which secretly undermines the disposition with soul-destroying principles.*
[51]
        Natural inclinations, considered in themselves, are good, that is, not
a matter of reproach, and it is not only futile to want to extirpate them but to
do so would also be harmful and blameworthy. Rather, let them be tamed
and instead of clashing with one another they can be brought into harmony
in a wholeness which is called happiness. Now the reason which
accomplishes this is termed prudence. But only what is opposed to the
moral law is evil in itself, absolutely reprehensible, and must be completely
eradicated; and that reason which teaches this truth, and more especially that
which puts it into actual practice, alone deserves the name of wisdom. The
vice corresponding to this may indeed be termed folly, but again only when
reason feels itself strong enough not merely to hate vice as something to be
feared, and to arm itself against it, but to scorn vice (with all its
temptations).
        So when the Stoic regarded man's moral struggle simply as a
conflict with his inclinations, so far as these (innocent in themselves) had to
be overcome as hindrances to the fulfilment of his duty, he could locate the
cause of transgression only in man's neglect to combat these inclinations,
for he admitted no special, positive principle (evil in itself). Yet since this
neglect is itself contrary to duty (a transgression) and no mere lapse of
nature,
[52]
and since the cause thereof cannot be sought once again in the inclinations
(unless we are to argue in a circle) but only in that which determines the
willw as a free willw (that is, in the first and inmost ground of the maxims
which accord with the inclinations), we can well understand how
philosophers for whom the basis of an explanation remained ever hidden in
darkness*--a basis which, though inescapable, is yet unwelcome--could
mistake the real opponent of goodness with whom they believed they had to
carry on a conflict.
        So it is not surprising that an Apostle represents this invisible
enemy, who is known only through his operations upon us and who
destroys basic principles, as being outside us and, indeed, as an evil spirit:
"We wrestle not against flesh and blood (the natural inclinations) but against
principalities and powers--against evil spirits."1 This is an expression
which seems to have been used not to extend our knowledge beyond the
world of sense but only to make clear for practical use the conception of
what is for us unfathomable. As far as its practical value to us is concerned,
moreover, it is all one whether we place the seducer merely within ourselves
or without, for guilt touches us not a whit less in the latter case than in the
former, inasmuch as we would not be led
[53]
astray by him at all were we not already in secret league with him.* We will
treat of this whole subject in two sections.
[54]

SECTION ONE

CONCERNING THE LEGAL CLAIM OF THE GOOD PRINCIPLE TO
SOVEREIGNTY OVER MAN

        A. The Personified Idea of the Good Principle
        Mankind (rational earthly existence in general) in its complete moral
perfection is that which alone can render a world the object of a divine
decree and the end of creation. With such perfection as the prime condition,
happiness is the direct consequence, according to the will of the Supreme
Being. Man so conceived, alone pleasing to God, "is in Him through
eternity";1 the idea of him proceeds from God's very being; hence he is no
created thing but His only-begotten Son, "the Word (the Fiat!) through
which all other things are, and without which nothing is in existence that is
made"2 (since for him, that is, for rational existence in the world, so far as
he may be regarded in the light of his moral destiny, all things were made).
"He is the brightness of His glory."3 "In him God loved the world,"4 and
only in him and through the adoption of his disposition can we hope "to
become the sons of God";5 etc.
        Now it is our universal duty as men to elevate ourselves to this ideal
of moral perfection, that is, to this archetype of the moral disposition in all
its purity--and for this the idea itself, which reason presents to us for our
zealous emulation, can give us power. But just because we are not the
authors of this idea, and because it has established itself in man without our
comprehending how human nature could have been capable of receiving it,
it is more appropriate to say that this archetype has come down to us from
heaven and has assumed our humanity (for it is less possible to conceive
how man, by nature evil, should of himself lay aside evil and raise himself
to the ideal of holiness, than that the latter
[55]
should descend to man and assume a humanity which is, in itself, not evil).
Such union with us may therefore be regarded as a state of humiliation of
the Son of God1 if we represent to ourselves this godly-minded person,
regarded as our archetype, as assuming sorrows in fullest measure in order
to further the world's good, though he himself is holy and therefore is
bound to endure no sufferings whatsoever. Man, on the contrary, who is
never free from guilt even though he has taken on the very same
disposition, can regard as truly merited the sufferings that may overtake
him, by whatever road they come; consequently he must consider himself
unworthy of the union of his disposition with such an idea, even though
this idea serves him as an archetype.
        This ideal of a humanity pleasing to God (hence of such moral
perfection as is possible to an earthly being who is subject to wants and
inclinations) we can represent to ourselves only as the idea of a person who
would be willing not merely to discharge all human duties himself and to
spread about him goodness as widely as possible by precept and example,
but even, though tempted by the greatest allurements, to take upon himself
every affliction, up to the most ignominious death, for the good of the
world and even for his enemies. For man can frame to himself no concept
of the degree and strength of a force like that of a moral disposition except
by picturing it as encompassed by obstacles, and yet, in the face of the
fiercest onslaughts, victorious.
        Man may then hope to become acceptable to God (and so be saved)
through a practical faith in this Son of God (so far as He is represented as
having taken upon Himself man's nature). In other words, he, and he
alone, is entitled to look upon himself as an object not unworthy of divine
approval who is conscious of such a moral disposition as enables him to
have a well-grounded confidence in himself and to believe that, under like
temptations and afflictions (so far as these are made the touchstone of that
idea), he would be loyal unswervingly to the archetype of humanity and, by
faithful imitation, remain true to his exemplar.

        B. The Objective Reality of this Idea
        From the practical point of view this idea is completely real in its
own right, for it resides in our morally-legislative reason. We ought to
conform to it; consequently we must be able to do so. Did
[56]
we have to prove in advance the possibility of man's conforming to this
archetype, as is absolutely essential in the case of concepts of nature (if we
are to avoid the danger of being deluded by empty notions), we should have
to hesitate before allowing even to the moral law the authority of an
unconditioned and yet sufficient determining ground of our willw. For how
it is possible that the bare idea of conformity to law, as such,1 should be a
stronger incentive for the will than all the incentives conceivable whose
source is personal gain, can neither be understood by reason nor yet proved
by examples from experience. As regards the former, the law commands
unqualifiedly; and as regards the latter, even though there had never existed
an individual who yielded unqualified obedience to this law, the objective
necessity of being such an one would yet be undiminished and self-evident.
We need, therefore, no empirical example to make the idea of a person
morally well-pleasing to God our archetype; this idea as an archetype is
already present in our reason. Moreover, if anyone, in order to
acknowledge, for his imitation, a particular individual as such an example of
conformity to that idea, demands more than what he sees, more, that is,
than a course of life entirely blameless and as meritorious as one could
wish; and if he goes on to require, as credentials requisite to belief, that this
individual should have performed miracles or had them performed for him--
he who demands this thereby confesses to his own moral unbelief, that is,
to his lack of faith in virtue. This is a lack which no belief that rests upon
miracles (and is merely historical) can repair. For only a faith in the practical
validity of that idea which lies in our reason has moral worth. (Only this
idea, to be sure, can establish the truth of miracles as possible effects of the
good principle; but it can never itself derive from them its own verification.)
        Just for this reason must an experience be possible in which the
example of such a [morally perfect] human being is presented (so far, at
least, as we can expect or demand from any merely external experience the
evidences of an inner moral disposition). According to the law, each man
ought really to furnish an example of this idea in his own person; to this end
does the archetype reside always in the reason: and this, just because no
example in outer experience is adequate to it; for outer experience does not
disclose the inner nature of the disposition but merely allows of an inference
[57]
about it though not one of strict certainty. (For the matter of that, not even
does a man's inner experience with regard to himself enable him so to
fathom the depths of his own heart as to obtain, through self-observation,
quite certain knowledge of the basis of the maxims which he professes, or
of their purity and stability.)
        Now if it were indeed a fact that such a truly godly-minded man at
some particular time had descended, as it were, from heaven to earth and
had given men in his own person, through his teachings, his conduct, and
his sufferings, as perfect an example of a man well-pleasing to God as one
can expect to find in external experience (for be it remembered that the
archetype of such a person is to be sought nowhere but in our own reason),
and if he had, through all this, produced immeasurably great moral good
upon earth by effecting a revolution in the human race--even then we should
have no cause for supposing him other than a man naturally begotten.
(Indeed, the naturally begotten man feels himself under obligation to furnish
just such an example in himself.) This is not, to be sure, absolutely to deny
that he might be a man supernaturally begotten. But to suppose the latter can
in no way benefit us practically, inasmuch as the archetype which we find
embodied in this manifestation must, after all, be sought in ourselves (even
though we are but natural men). And the presence of this archetype in the
human soul is in itself sufficiently incomprehensible without our adding to
its supernatural origin the assumption that it is hypostasized in a particular
individual. The elevation of such a holy person above all the frailties of
human nature would rather, so far as we can see, hinder the adoption of the
idea of such a person for our imitation. For let the nature of this individual
pleasing to God be regarded as human in the sense of being encumbered
with the very same needs as ourselves, hence the same sorrows, with the
very same inclinations, hence with the same temptations to transgress; let it,
however, be regarded as superhuman to the degree that his unchanging
purity of will, not achieved with effort but innate, makes all transgression
on his part utterly impossible: his distance from the natural man would then
be so infinitely great that such a divine person could no longer be held up as
an example to him. Man would say: If I too had a perfectly holy will, all
temptations to evil would of themselves be thwarted in me; if I too had the
most complete inner assurance that, after a short
[58]
life on earth, I should (by virtue of this holiness) become at once a partaker
in all the eternal glory of the kingdom of heaven, I too should take upon
myself not only willingly but joyfully all sorrows, however bitter they
might be, even to the most ignominious death, since I would see before my
eyes the glorious and imminent sequel. To be sure, the thought that this
divine person was in actual possession of this eminence and this bliss from
all eternity (and needed not first of all to earn them through such afflictions),
and that he willingly renounced them for the sake of those absolutely
unworthy, even for the sake of his enemies, to save them from everlasting
perdition--this thought must attune our hearts to admiration, love, and
gratitude. Similarly the idea of a demeanor in accordance with so perfect a
standard of morality would no doubt be valid for us, as a model for us to
copy. Yet he himself could not be represented to us as an example for our
imitation, nor, consequently, as a proof of the feasibility and attainability for
us of so pure and exalted a moral goodness.*
[59]
        Now such a godly-minded teacher, even though he was completely
human, might nevertheless truthfully speak of himself as though the ideal of
goodness were displayed incarnate in him (in his teachings and conduct). In
speaking thus he would be alluding only to the disposition which he makes
the rule of his actions; since he cannot make this disposition visible, as an
example for others, by and through itself, he places it before their eyes only
through his teachings and actions: "Which of you convinceth me of sin?"1
For in the absence of proofs to the contrary it is no more than right to
ascribe the faultless example which a teacher furnishes of his teaching--
when, moreover, this is a matter of duty for all--to the supremely pure
moral disposition of the man himself. When a disposition such as this,
together with all the afflictions assumed for the sake of the world's highest
good, is taken as the ideal of mankind, it is, by standards of supreme
righteousness, a perfectly valid ideal for all men, at all times and in all
worlds, whenever man makes his own disposition like unto it, as he ought
to do. To be sure, such an attainment will ever remain a righteousness not
our own, inasmuch as it would have to consist of a course of life completely
and faultlessly harmonious with that perfect disposition.
[60]
Yet an appropriation of this righteousness for the sake of our own must be
possible when our own disposition is made at one with that of the
archetype, although the greatest difficulties will stand in the way of our
rendering this act of appropriation comprehensible. To these difficulties we
now turn.

        C. Difficulties which Oppose the Reality of this Idea, and their
Solution
        The first difficulty which makes doubtful the realization in us of that
idea of a humanity well-pleasing to God, when we consider the holiness of
the Lawgiver and the lack of a righteousness of our own, is the following.
The law says: "Be ye holy (in the conduct of your lives) even as your Father
in Heaven is holy."1 This is the ideal of the Son of God which is set up
before us as our model. But the distance separating the good which we
ought to effect in ourselves from the evil whence we advance is infinite, and
the act itself, of conforming our course of life to the holiness of the law, is
impossible of execution in any given time. Nevertheless, man's moral
constitution ought to accord with this holiness. This constitution must
therefore be found in his disposition, in the all-embracing and sincere
maxim of conformity of conduct to the law, as the seed from which all
goodness is to be developed. Such a disposition arises, then, from a holy
principle which the individual has made his own highest maxim. A change
of heart such as this must be possible because duty requires it.
        Now the difficulty lies here: How can a disposition count for the act
itself, when the act is always (not eternally,2 but at each instant of time)
defective? The solution rests on these considerations. In our conceptions of
the relation of cause and effect we are unavoidably confined to time-
conditions. According to our mode of estimation, therefore, conduct3 itself,
as a continual and endless advance from a deficient to a better good, ever
remains defective. We must consequently regard the good as it appears in
us, that is, in the guise of an act,3 as being always inadequate to a holy law.
But we may also think of this endless progress of our goodness towards
conformity to the law, even if this progress is conceived in terms of actual
deeds,3 or life-conduct, as being judged by Him who knows the heart,
through a purely intellectual intuition, as a
[61]
completed whole, because of the disposition, supersensible in its nature,
from which this progress itself is derived.* Thus may man, notwithstanding
his permanent deficiency, yet expect to be essentially1 well-pleasing to
God, at whatever instant his existence be terminated.
        The second difficulty emerges when we consider man, as he strives
towards the good, with respect to the relation of his moral goodness to the
divine goodness. This difficulty concerns moral happiness. By this I do not
mean that assurance of the everlasting possession of contentment with one's
physical state (freedom from evils and enjoyment of ever-increasing
pleasures) which is physical happiness; I mean rather the reality and
constancy of a disposition which ever progresses in goodness (and never
falls away from it). For if only one were absolutely assured of the
unchangeableness of a disposition of this sort, the constant "seeking for the
kingdom of God"2 would be equivalent to knowing oneself to be already in
possession of this kingdom, inasmuch as an individual thus minded would
quite of his own accord have confidence that "all things else (i.e., what
relates to physical happiness) would be added unto him."3
        Now a person solicitous on this score might perhaps be rebuked for
his concern, with: "His (God's) Spirit beareth witness to our spirit," etc.;4
that is to say, he who possesses as pure a disposition as is required will feel
of himself that he could never fall so low as again to love evil. And yet to
trust to such feelings, supposedly of
[62]
supersensible origin, is a rather perilous undertaking; man is never more
easily deceived than in what promotes his good opinion of himself.
Moreover it does not even seem advisable to encourage such a state of
confidence; rather is it advantageous (to morality) to "work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling"1 (a hard saying, which, if
misunderstood, is capable of driving a man to the blackest fanaticism). On
the other hand, if a man lacked all confidence in his moral disposition, once
it was acquired, he would scarcely be able to persevere steadfastly in it. He
can gain such confidence, however, without yielding himself up either to
pleasing or to anxious fantasies, by comparing the course of his life hitherto
with the resolution which he has adapted. It is true, indeed, that the man
who, through a sufficiently long course of life, has observed the efficacy of
these principles of goodness, from the time of their adoption, in his
conduct, that is, in the steady improvement of his way of life, can still only
conjecture2 from this that there has been a fundamental improvement in his
inner disposition. Yet he has reasonable grounds for hope2 as well. Since
such improvements, if only their underlying principle is good, ever increase
his strength for future advances, he can hope that he will never forsake this
course during his life on earth but will press on with ever-increasing
courage. Nay, more: if after this life another life awaits him, he may hope to
continue to follow this course still--though to all appearances under other
conditions--in accordance with the very same principle, and to approach
ever nearer to, though he can never reach, the goal of perfection. All this
may he reasonably hope because, on the strength of what he has observed
in himself up to the present, he can look upon his disposition as radically
improved. Just the reverse is true of him who, despite good resolutions
often repeated, finds that he has never stood his ground, who is ever falling
back into evil, or who is constrained to acknowledge that as his life has
advanced he has slipped, as though he were on a declivity, evermore from
bad to worse. Such an individual can entertain no reasonable hope that he
would conduct himself better were he to go on living here on earth, or even
were a future life awaiting him, since, on the strength of his past record, he
would have to regard the corruption as rooted in his very disposition.
[63]
        Now in the first experience we have a glimpse of an immeasurable
future, yet one which is happy and to be desired; in the second, of as
incalculable a misery--either of them being for men, so far as they can
judge, a blessed or cursed eternity. These are representations powerful
enough to bring peace to the one group and strengthen them in goodness,
and to awaken in the other the voice of conscience commanding them still to
break with evil so far as it is possible; hence powerful enough to serve as
incentives without our having to presume to lay down dogmatically the
objective doctrine that man's destiny is an eternity of good or evil.* In
making
[64]
such assertions and pretensions to knowledge, reason simply passes
beyond the limits of its own insight.
[65]
        And so that good and pure disposition of which we are conscious
(and of which we may speak as a good spirit presiding over us) creates in
us, though only indirectly, a confidence in its own permanence and
stability, and is our Comforter (Paraclete) whenever our lapses make us
apprehensive of its constancy. Certainty with regard to it is neither possible
to man, nor, so far as we can see, [would it be] morally beneficial. For, be
it well noted, we cannot base such confidence upon an immediate
consciousness of the unchangeableness of our disposition, for this we
cannot scrutinize: we must always draw our conclusions regarding it solely
from its consequences in our way of life. Since such a conclusion,
however, is drawn merely from objects of perception, as the appearances of
the good or evil disposition, it can least of all reveal the strength of the
disposition with any certainty. This is particularly true when we think that
we have effected an improvement in our disposition only a short while
before we expect to die; because now, in the absence of further conduct
upon which to base a judgment regarding our moral worth, even such
empirical proofs of the genuineness of the new disposition are entirely
lacking. In this case a feeling of wretchedness is the inevitable result of a
rational estimate of our moral state (though, indeed, human nature itself, by
virtue of the obscurity of all its views beyond the limits of this life, prevents
this comfortlessness from turning into wild despair).
        The third and apparently the greatest difficulty, which represents
every man, even after he has entered upon the path of goodness,
[66]
as reprobate when his life-conduct as a whole is judged before a divine
righteousness, may be stated thus: Whatever a man may have done in the
way of adopting a good disposition, and, indeed, however steadfastly he
may have persevered in conduct conformable to such a disposition, he
nevertheless started from evil, and this debt1 he can by no possibility wipe
out. For he cannot regard the fact that he incurs no new debts subsequent to
his change of heart as equivalent to having discharged his old ones. Neither
can he, through future good conduct, produce a surplus over and above
what he is under obligation to perform at every instant, for it is always his
duty to do all the good that lies in his power. This debt which is original, or
prior to all the good a man may do--this, and no more, is what we referred
to in Book One as the radical evil in man--this debt can never be discharged
by another person, so far as we can judge according to the justice of our
human reason. For this is no transmissible liability which can be made over
to another like a financial indebtedness (where it is all one to the creditor
whether the debtor himself pays the debt or whether some one else pays it
for him); rather is it the most personal of all debts, namely a debt of sins,
which only the culprit can bear and which no innocent person can assume
even though he be magnanimous enough to wish to take it upon himself for
the sake of another. Now this moral evil (transgression of the moral law,
called SIN when the law is regarded as a divine command) brings with it
endless violations of the law and so infinite guilt. The extent of this guilt is
due not so much to the infinitude of the Supreme Lawgiver whose authority
is thereby violated2 (for we understand nothing of such transcendent
relationships of man to the Supreme Being) as to the fact that this moral evil
lies in the disposition and the maxims in general, in universal basic
principles rather than in particular transgressions. (The case is different
before a human court of justice, for such a court attends merely to single
offenses and therefore to the deed itself and what is relative thereto, and not
to the general disposition.) It would seem to follow, then, that because of
this infinite guilt all mankind must look forward to endless punishment and
exclusion from the kingdom of God.
[67]
        The solution of this difficulty rests on the following considerations.
The judicial verdict of one who knows the heart must be regarded as based
upon the general disposition of the accused and not upon the appearances of
this disposition, that is, not upon actions at variance or in harmony with the
law. We are assuming, however, that there now exists in man a good
disposition having the upper hand over the evil principle which was
formerly dominant in him. So the question which we are now raising is:
Can the moral consequence of his former disposition, the punishment (or in
other words the effect upon the subject of God's displeasure), be visited
upon his present state, with its bettered disposition, in which he is already
an object of divine pleasure? Since the question is not being raised as to
whether, before his change of heart, the punishment ordained for him
would have harmonized with the divine justice (on this score no one has any
doubts), this punishment must not be thought of (in the present inquiry) as
consummated prior to his reformation. After his change of heart, however,
the penalty cannot be considered appropriate to his new quality (of a man
well-pleasing to God), for he is now leading a new life and is morally
another person; and yet satisfaction must be rendered to Supreme Justice,1
in whose sight no one who is blameworthy can ever be guiltless. Since,
therefore, the infliction of punishment can, consistently with the divine
wisdom, take place neither before nor after the change of heart, and is yet
necessary, we must think of it as carried out during the change of heart
itself, and adapted thereto. Let us see then whether, by means of the concept
of a changed moral attitude, we cannot discover in this very act of
reformation such ills as the new man, whose disposition is now good, may
regard as incurred by himself (in another state) and, therefore, as
constituting punishments* whereby satisfaction is rendered to divine justice.
[68]
        Now a change of heart is a departure from evil and an entrance into
goodness, the laying off of the old man and the putting on of the new,1
since the man becomes dead unto sin (and therefore to all inclinations so far
as they lead thereto) in order to become alive unto righteousness. But in this
change, regarded as an intellectual2 determination, there are not two moral
acts separated by an interval of time but only a single act, for the departure
from evil is possible only through the agency of the good disposition which
effects the individual's entrance into goodness, and vice versa. So the good
principle is present quite as much in the desertion of the evil as in the
adoption of the good disposition, and the pain, which by rights
accompanies the former disposition, ensues wholly from the latter. The
coming forth from the corrupted into the good disposition is, in itself (as
"the death of the old man," "the crucifying of the flesh"),3 a sacrifice and an
entrance upon a long train of life's ills. These the new man undertakes in the
disposition of the Son of God, that is, merely for the sake of the good,
though really they are due as punishments to another, namely to the old man
(for the old man is indeed morally another).
        Although the man (regarded from the point of view of his empirical
nature as a sentient being) is physically the self-same guilty person as before
and must be judged as such before a moral tribunal and hence by himself;
yet, because of his new disposition, he is (regarded as an intelligible being)
morally another in the eyes of a divine judge for whom this disposition
takes the place of action.
[69]
And this moral disposition which in all its purity (like unto the purity of the
Son of God) the man has made his own--or, (if we personify this idea) this
Son of God, Himself -- bears as vicarious substitute the guilt of sin for him,
and indeed for all who believe (practically) in Him; as savior He renders
satisfaction to supreme justice by His sufferings and death; and as advocate
He makes it possible for men to hope to appear before their judge as
justified. Only it must be remembered that (in this mode of representation)
the suffering which the new man, in becoming dead to the old, must accept
throughout life* is pictured as a death endured once for all by the
representative of mankind.
[70]
        Here, then, is that surplus--the need of which was noted
previously1--over the profit from good works, and it is itself a profit which
is reckoned to us by grace. That what in our earthly life (and possibly at all
future times and in all worlds) is ever only a becoming (namely, becoming a
man well-pleasing to God) should be credited to us exactly as if we were
already in full possession of it--to this we really have no legal claim,* that
is, so far as we know ourselves (through that empirical self-knowledge
which yields no immediate insight into the disposition but merely permits of
an estimate based upon our actions); and so the accuser within us would be
more likely to propose a judgment of condemnation. Thus the decree is
always one of grace alone, although fully in accord with eternal justice,
when we come to be cleared of all liability by dint of our faith in such
goodness; for the decree is based upon a giving of satisfaction (a
satisfaction which consists for us only in the idea of an improved
disposition, known only to God).
        Now the question may still be raised: Does this deduction of the idea
of a justification of an individual who is indeed guilty but who has changed
his disposition into one well-pleasing to God posses any practical use
whatever, and what may this use be? One does not perceive what positive
use could be made of it for religion or for the conduct of life, because the
condition underlying the enquiry just conducted is that the individual in
question is already in actual possession of the required good disposition
toward the development and encouragement of which all practical
employment of ethical concepts properly aims; and as regards comfort, a
good disposition already carries with it, for him who is conscious of
possessing it, both comfort and hope (though not certainty). Thus the
deduction of the idea has done no more than answer a speculative question,
which, however, should not be passed over in silence just because it is
speculative. Otherwise reason could be accused of being wholly unable to
reconcile with divine justice man's hope of absolution from his guilt--a
reproach which might be damaging to reason in many ways, but most of all
morally. Indeed the negative benefit to religion and morality which may be
derived, to every
[71]
man's advantage, from the deduction of this idea of justification is very far-
reaching. For we learn from this deduction that only the supposition of a
complete change of heart allows us to think of the absolution, at the bar of
heavenly justice, of the man burdened with guilt; that therefore no
expiations, be they penances or ceremonies, no invocations or expressions
of praise (not even those appealing to the ideal of the vicarious Son of
God), can supply the lack of this change of heart, if it is absent, or, if it is
present, can increase in the least its validity before the divine tribunal, since
that ideal must be adopted into our disposition if it is to stand in place of
conduct.
        Another point is suggested by the question: What at life's close may
a man promise himself, or what has he to fear, on the basis of his way of
life? To answer this question a man must know his own character, at least to
a certain extent. That is, even though he may believe that his disposition has
improved, he must also take into consideration the old (corrupt) disposition
with which he started; he must be able to infer what, and how much, of this
disposition he has cast off, what quality (whether pure or still impure) the
assumed new disposition possesses, as well as its degree of strength to
overcome the old disposition and to guard against a relapse. Thus he will
have to examine his disposition throughout his whole life. Now he can form
no certain and definite concept of his real disposition through an immediate
consciousness thereof and can only abstract it from the way of life he has
actually followed. When, therefore, he considers the verdict of his future
judge (that is, of his own awakening conscience, together with the empirical
knowledge of himself which is summoned to its aid), he will not be able to
conceive any other basis for passing judgment than to have placed before
his eyes at that time his whole life and not a mere segment of it, such as the
last part of it or the part most advantageous to him. He would of his own
accord add to this his prospects in a life continued further (without setting
any limits thereto) were he to live longer. Here he will not be able to let a
previously recognized disposition take the place of action; on the contrary, it
is from the action before him that he must infer his disposition. What, I ask
the reader, will be a man's verdict when someone tells him no more than
that he has reason to believe that he will one day stand before a judge--and
this thought will bring back to his recollection (even though he is not of the
worst) much
[72]
that he has long since light-heartedly forgotten--what verdict, based on the
way of life he has hitherto led, will this thought lead him to pronounce upon
his future destiny?
        If this question is addressed to the judge within a man he will,
pronounce a severe verdict upon himself; for a man cannot bribe his own
reason. Place him, however, before another judge--since there are those
who claim to know of such a judge through other channels of information--
and he will have a store of excuses drawn from human frailty with which to
oppose the severity of that judge, and in general his purpose will be to
circumvent him. He may plan to anticipate his penalties by offering rueful
self-inflicted penances, which do not arise from any genuine disposition
toward improvement; or else to mollify him with prayers and entreaties, or
with formulas and confessions in which he claims to believe. And if he
receives encouragement in all this (in keeping with the proverb, "All's well
that ends well"), he will lay his plans betimes so as not to forfeit needlessly
too much of the enjoyment of life and yet, shortly before the end, to settle
his account in all haste and to his own advantage.*
[73]

SECTION TWO

CONCERNING THE LEGAL CLAIM OF THE EVIL PRINCIPLE TO
SOVEREIGNTY OVER MAN, AND THE CONFLICT OF THE
TWO PRINCIPLES WITH ONE ANOTHER

        Holy Scripture (the Christian portion) sets forth this intelligible
moral relationship in the form of a narrative, in which two principles in
man, as opposed to one another as is heaven to hell, are represented as
persons outside him; who not only pit their strength against each other but
also seek (the one as man's accuser, the other as his advocate) to establish
their claims legally as though before a supreme judge.
        Man was originally constituted the proprietor of all the goods of the
earth (Genesis I, 28), though he was to possess them only in fee (dominium
utile) under his Creator and Master as overlord (dominus directus). At once
an evil being appears (how he became so evil as to prove untrue to his
Master is not known, for he was originally good) who, through his fall, has
been deprived of whatever estate he might have had in heaven and who now
wishes to win another on earth. But since, as a being of a higher order--a
spirit--he can derive no satisfaction from earthly and material objects, he
seeks to acquire a dominion over spiritual natures1 by causing man's first
parents to be disloyal to their Overlord and dependent upon himself. Thus
he succeeds in setting himself up as the lord paramount of all the goods of
the earth, that is, as the prince of this world. Now one might indeed find it
strange that God did not avail Himself of His might* against this traitor, and
prefer to destroy at its inception the kingdom which he had intended to
found. In its dominion over the government of rational beings, however,
Supreme Wisdom deals with them according to
[74]
the principle of their freedom, and the good or evil that befalls them is to be
imputable to themselves. A kingdom of evil was thus set up in defiance of
the good principle, a kingdom to which all men, descended (in natural wise)
from Adam, became subject, and this, too, with their own consent, since
the false show of this world's goods lured their gaze away from the abyss
of destruction for which they were reserved. Because of its legal claim to
sovereignty over man the good principle did, indeed, secure itself through
the establishment (in the Jewish theocracy) of a form of government
instituted solely for the public and exclusive veneration of its name. Yet
since the spiritual natures of the subjects of this government remained
responsive to no incentives other than the goods of this world; since
consequently they chose to be ruled only by rewards and punishments in
this life; and since, therefore, they were suited only for such laws as were
partly prescriptive of burdensome ceremonies and observances, and partly
ethical, but all purely civil, in that external compulsion characterized them all
and the inner essence of the moral disposition was not considered in the
least: this institution did no substantial injury to the realm of darkness and
served merely to keep ever in remembrance the imprescriptible right of the
First Possessor.
        Now there appeared at a certain time among these very people, when
they were feeling in full measure all the ills of an hierarchical constitution,
and when because of this and perhaps also because of the ethical doctrines
of freedom of the Greek sages (doctrines staggering to the slavish mind)
which had gradually acquired an influence over them, they had for the most
part been brought to their senses and were therefore ripe for a revolution,--
there suddenly appeared a person whose wisdom was purer even than that
of previous philosophers, as pure as though it had descended from heaven.
This person proclaimed himself as indeed truly human with respect to his
teachings and example, yet also an as envoy from heaven who, through an
original innocence, was not involved in the bargain with the evil principle
into which, through their representatives, their first parents, the rest of the
human race had entered,* and "in whom, therefore, the prince of this world
had
[75]
no part."1 Hereby the sovereignty of this prince was endangered. For were
this man, well-pleasing to God, to withstand his temptations to enter also
into that bargain, and were other men then devoutly to adopt the same
disposition, the prince would lose just as many subjects and his kingdom
would be in danger of being completely overthrown. The prince accordingly
offered to make this person deputy-governor of his entire kingdom if only
he would pay homage to him as owner thereof. When this attempt failed he
not only took away from this stranger in his house all that could make his
earthly life agreeable (to the point of direst poverty), but he also incited
against him all the persecutions by means of which evil men can embitter
life, [causing him] such sorrows as only the well-disposed can feel deeply,
by slandering the pure intent of his teachings in order to deprive him of all
following--and finally pursuing him to the most ignominious death. Yet he
achieved nothing by this onslaught through the agency of a worthless mob
upon his steadfastness and forthrightness in teaching and example for the
[76]
sake of the good. And now as to the issue of this combat: the event can be
viewed either in its legal1 or in its physical2 aspect. When we regard it as a
physical event (which strikes the senses) the good principle is the worsted
party; having endured many sorrows in this combat, he must give up his
life* because he stirred up a rebellion against a (powerful) foreign
suzerainty. Since, however, the realm in which principles (be they good or
evil) have might is a realm not of nature but of freedom, i.e., a realm in
which one can control events only so far as one can rule hearts and minds6
and where, consequently, no one is a slave (or bondsman) but the man
[77]
who wills to be one, and only so long as he wills: this death (the last
extremity of human suffering) was therefore a manifestation of the good
principle, that is, of humanity in its moral perfection, and an example for
everyone to follow. The account of this death ought to have had, and could
have had, the greatest influence upon human hearts and minds at that time
and, indeed, at all times; for it exhibited the freedom of the children of
heaven in most striking contrast to the bondage of a mere son of earth. Yet
the good principle has descended in mysterious fashion from heaven into
humanity not at one particular time alone but from the first beginnings of the
human race (as anyone must grant who considers the holiness of this
principle, and the incomprehensibility of a union between it and man's
sensible nature in the moral predisposition) and it rightfully has in mankind
its first dwelling place. And since it made its appearance in an actual human
being, as an example to all others, [it may be said that] "he came unto his
own, and his own received him not, but as many as received him, to them
gave he power to be called the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name."1 That is, by example (in and through the moral idea) he opens the
portals of freedom to all who, like him, choose to become dead to
everything that holds them fettered to life on earth to the detriment of
morality; and he gathers together, among them, "a people for his
possession, zealous of good works"2 and under his sovereignty, while he
abandons to their fate all those who prefer moral servitude.
        So the moral outcome of the combat, as regards the hero of this
story (up to the time of his death), is really not the conquering of the evil
principle--for its kingdom still endures, and certainly a new epoch must
arrive before it is overthrown--but merely the breaking of its power to hold,
against their will, those who have so long been its subjects, because another
dominion (for man must be subject to some rule or other), a moral
dominion, is now offered them as an asylum where they can find protection
for their morality if they wish to forsake the former sovereignty.
Furthermore, the evil principle is still designated the prince of this world,
where those who adhere to the good principle should always be prepared
for physical sufferings, sacrifices, and mortifications of self-love
[78]
--[tribulations] to be viewed, in this connection, as persecutions by the evil
principle, since the latter has rewards in his kingdom only for those who
have made earthly well-being their final goal.
        Once this vivid mode of representation, which was in its time
probably the only popular one, is divested of its mystical veil, it is easy to
see that, for practical purposes, its spirit and rational meaning have been
valid and binding for the whole world and for all time, since to each man it
lies so near at hand that he knows his duty towards it. Its meaning is this:
that there exists absolutely no salvation for man apart from the sincerest
adoption of genuinely moral principles into his disposition; that what works
against this adoption is not so much the sensuous nature, which so often
receives the blame, as it is a certain self-incurred perversity, or however else
one may care to designate this wickedness which the human race has
brought upon itself--falsity (faussetŽ), Satanic guile, through which evil
came into the world--a corruption which lies in all men and which can be
overcome only through the idea of moral goodness in its entire purity,
together with the consciousness that this idea really belongs to our original
predisposition and that we need but be assiduous in preserving it free from
all impure admixture and in registering it deeply in our dispositions to be
convinced, by its gradual effect upon the spiritual nature, that the dreaded
powers of evil can in no wise make headway against it ("the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it").1 Finally, lest perchance for want of this
assurance we compensate superstitiously, through expiations which
presuppose no change of heart,1 or fanatically, through pretended (and
merely passive) inner illumination, and so forever be kept distant from the
good that is grounded in activity of the self, we should acknowledge as a
mark of the presence of goodness in us naught but a well-ordered conduct
of life. An attempt such as the present, moreover, to discover in Scripture
that sense* which harmonizes with the most holy teachings of reason is not
only allowable but must be deemed a duty. And we can remind ourselves of
what the wise Teacher said to His disciples regarding someone who went
his own way, by which, however, he was bound eventually to arrive at the
same goal: "Forbid him not; for he that is not against us is for us."3
[79]

GENERAL OBSERVATION

        If a moral religion (which must consist not in dogmas and rites but
in the heart's disposition to fulfil all human duties as divine commands) is to
be established, all miracles which history connects with its inauguration
must themselves in the end render superfluous the belief in miracles in
general; for it bespeaks a culpable degree of moral unbelief not to
acknowledge as completely authoritative the commands of duty--commands
primordially engraved upon the heart of man through reason--unless they
are in addition accredited through miracles: "Except ye see signs and
wonders, ye will not believe."1 Yet, when a religion of mere rites and
observances has run its course, and when one based on the spirit and the
truth (on the moral disposition) is to be established in its stead, it is wholly
conformable to man's ordinary ways of thought, though not strictly
necessary, for the historical introduction of the latter to be accompanied and,
as it were, adorned by miracles, in order to announce the termination of the
earlier religion, which without miracles would never have had any
authority. Indeed, in order to win over the adherents of the older religion to
the new, the new order is interpreted as the fulfilment, at last, of what was
only prefigured in the older religion and has all along been the design of
Providence. If this be so it is quite useless to debate those narratives or
interpretations; the true religion, which in its time needed to be introduced
through such expedients, is now here, and from now on is able to maintain
itself on rational grounds. Otherwise one would have to assume that mere
faith in, and repetition of, things incomprehensible (which any one can do
without thereby being or ever becoming a better man) is a way, and indeed
the only way, of pleasing God--an assertion to be combatted with might and
main. The person of the teacher of the one and only religion, valid for all
worlds, may indeed be a mystery; his appearance on earth, his translation
thence, and his eventful life and his suffering may all be nothing but
miracles; nay, the historical record, which is to authenticate the account of
all these miracles, may itself be a miracle (a supersensible revelation). We
need not call in question any of these miracles and indeed may honor the
[80]
trappings1 which have served to bring into public currency a doctrine
whose authenticity rests upon a record indelibly registered in every soul and
which stands in need of no miracle. But it is essential that, in the use of
these historical accounts, we do not make it a tenet of religion that the
knowing, believing, and professing of them are themselves means whereby
we can render ourselves well-pleasing to God.
        As for miracles in general, it appears that sensible men, while not
disposed to renounce belief in them, never want to allow such belief to
appear in practice; that is to say, they believe in theory that there are such
things as miracles but they do not warrant them in the affairs of life.2 For
this reason wise governments have always granted the proposition, and
indeed legally recorded it among the public doctrines of religion, that
miracles occurred of old, but they have not tolerated new miracles.* The
ancient miracles
[81]
were little by little so defined and so delimited by the authorities that they
could cause no disturbance in the commonwealth; the authorities had to be
concerned, however, over the effects which the new workers of miracles
might have upon the public peace and the established order.
        If one asks: What is to be understood by the word miracle? it may be
explained (since it is really proper for us to know only what miracles are for
us, i.e., for our practical use of reason) by saying that they are events in the
world the operating laws of whose causes are, and must remain, absolutely
unknown to us. Accordingly, one can conceive of either theistic or demonic
miracles; the second are divided into angelic miracles (of good spirits) and
devilish miracles (of bad spirits). Of these only the last really come into
question because the good angels (I know not why) give us little or nothing
to say about them.
        As regards theistic miracles: we can of course frame for ourselves a
concept of the laws of operation of their cause (as an omnipotent, etc., and
therewith a moral Being), but only a general concept, so far as we think of
Him as creator of the world and its ruler according to the order of nature, as
well as the moral order. For we can obtain direct and independent1
knowledge of the laws of the natural order, a knowledge which reason can
then employ for its own use. If we assume, however, that God at times and
under special circumstances allows nature to deviate from its own laws, we
have not, and can never hope to have, the slightest conception of the law
according to which God then brings about such an event (aside from the
general moral concept that whatever He does will be in all things good-
whereby, however, nothing is determined regarding this particular
occurrence). But here reason is, as it were, crippled, for it is impeded in its
dealings with respect to known laws, it is not instructed with anything new,
and it can never in the world hope thus to be instructed. Among miracles,
the demonic are the most completely irreconcilable with the use of our
reason. For as regards theistic miracles, reason would at least have a
negative criterion for its use, namely that even though something is
represented as commanded by God, through a direct manifestation
[82]
of Him, yet, if it flatly contradicts morality, it cannot, despite all
appearances, be of God (for example, were a father ordered to kill his son
who is, so far as he knows, perfectly innocent). But in the presence of what
is taken to be a demonic miracle even this criterion fails; and were we,
instead, to avail ourselves in these instances of the opposite, positive
criterion for reason's use--namely, that, when through such an agency there
comes a bidding to a good act which in itself we already recognize as duty,
this bidding has not issued from an evil spirit--we might still make a false
inference, for the evil spirit often disguises himself, they say, as an angel of
light.
        In the affairs of life, therefore, it is impossible for us to count on
miracles or to take them into consideration at all in our use of reason (and
reason must be used in every incident of life). The judge (however
credulous of miracles he may be in church) listens to the delinquent's claims
to have been tempted of the devil exactly as though nothing has been said;
although, were the judge to regard this diabolical influence as possible, it
would be worthy of some consideration that an ordinary simple-minded
man had been ensnared in the toils of an arch-rogue. Yet the judge cannot
summon the tempter and confront each with the other; in a word, he can
make absolutely nothing rational out of the matter. The wise clergyman will
therefore guard himself well against cramming the heads and debasing the
imaginations of those committed to his pastoral care with anecdotes from
The Hellish Proteus.1 As regards miracles of the good variety, they are
employed by men in the affairs of life as mere phrases. Thus the doctor says
that there is no help for the patient unless a miracle occurs--in other words,
he will certainly die. Among these affairs belongs also the work of the
scientist,2 searching for the causes of events in their own natural laws; in
the natural laws of these events, I say, which he can verify through
experience, even though he must renounce knowledge of what it is in itself
that works according to these laws, or what it might be for us if we had,
possibly, another sense. In like manner, a man's own moral improvement is
one of the tasks incumbent upon him; and heavenly influences may
cooperate with him in this, or may be deemed needful for the explanation of
the
[83]
possibility of such improvement--yet man cannot comprehend them; he can
neither distinguish them with certainty from natural influences, nor draw
them, and thereby, as it were, heaven, down to him. Since, then, he can
make no possible use of them he sanctions* no miracles in this case but
instead, should he attend to the commands of reason, he conducts himself
as though all change of heart and all improvement depended solely upon his
own exertions directed thereto. But to think that, through the gift of a really
firm theoretical faith in miracles, man could himself perform them and so
storm heaven--this is to venture so far beyond the limits of reason that we
are not justified in tarrying long over such a senseless conceit.**

NOTES:

        * [50] These philosophers derived their universal ethical principle
from the dignity of human nature, that is, from its freedom (regarded as an
independence from the power of the inclinations), and they could not have
used as their foundation a better or nobler principle. They then derived the
moral laws directly from reason, which alone legislates morally and whose
command, through these laws, is absolute. Thus everything was quite
correctly defined--objectively, with regard to the rule, and subjectively, with
reference to the incentive--provided one ascribes to man an uncorrupted will
to incorporate these laws unhesitatingly into his maxims. Now it was just in
the latter presupposition that their error lay. For no matter how early we
direct our attention to our moral state, we find that this state is no longer a
res
[51]
integra, but that we must start by dislodging from its stronghold the evil
which has already entered in (and it could never have done so, had we not
ourselves adopted it into our maxims); that is, the first really good act that a
man can perform is to forsake the evil, which is to be sought not in his
inclinations, but in his perverted maxim, and so in freedom itself. Those
inclinations merely make difficult the execution of the good maxim which
opposes them; whereas genuine evil consists in this, that a man does not
will to withstand those inclinations when they tempt him to transgress--so it
is really this disposition that is the true enemy. The inclinations are but the
opponents of basic principles in general (be they good or evil); and so far
that high-minded principle of morality [of the Stoics] is of value as an
initiatory lesson (a general discipline of the inclinations) in allowing oneself
to be guided by basic principles. But so far as specific principles of moral
goodness ought to be present but are not present, as maxims, we must
assume the presence in the agent of some other opponent with whom virtue
must join combat. In the absence of such an opponent all virtues would not,
indeed, be splendid vices, as the Church Father1 has it; yet they would
certainly be splendid frailties. For though it is true that thus the rebellion is
often stilled, the rebel himself is not being conquered and exterminated.
        1 [50] ["Augustine, to whom tradition ascribes the saying, not
traceable, indeed, in any of the works extant to us but corresponding to a
tendency of his thought, virtutes gentium splendida vitia." (Note in Berlin
Edition.)]
* [52] It is a very common assumption of moral philosophy that the
existence of moral evil in man may easily be explained by the power of the
motivating springs of his sensuous nature on the one hand, and the
impotence of his rational impulses (his respect for the law) on the other, that
is, by weakness. But then the moral goodness in him (his moral
predisposition) would have to allow of a still easier explanation, for to
comprehend the one apart from comprehending the other is quite
unthinkable. Now reason's ability to master all opposing motivating forces
through the bare idea of a law is utterly inexplicable; it is also inconceivable,
therefore, how the motivating forces of the sensuous nature should be able
to gain the ascendancy over a reason which commands with such authority.
For if all the world were to proceed in conformity with the precepts of the
law, we should say that everything came to pass according to natural order,
and no one would think of so much as inquiring after the cause.
        1 [52] [Several of Kant's quotations from the Bible, and this among
them, are not accurate reproductions of Luther's translation. Where such
discrepancies occur we have given, in the text, a direct translation of Kant's
words, using, so far as possible, the language of the King James version,
and adding, in a footnote, the King James version of the entire passage
which Kant seems to have had in mind. Cf. Ephesians VI, 12: "For we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places."]
        * [53] It is a peculiarity of Christian ethics to represent moral
goodness as differing from moral evil not as heaven from earth but as
heaven from hell. Though this representation is figurative, and, as such,
disturbing, it is none the less philosophically correct in meaning. That is, it
serves to prevent us from regarding good and evil, the realm of light and the
realm of darkness, as bordering on each other and as losing themselves in
one another by gradual steps (of greater and lesser brightness); but rather to
represent those realms as being separated from one another by an
immeasurable gulf. The complete dissimilarity of the basic principles, by
which one can become a subject of this realm or that, and the danger, too,
which attends the notion of a close relationship between the characteristics
which fit an individual for one or for the other, justify this manner of
representation--which, though containing an element of horror, is none the
less very exalting.
        1 [54] [Cf. John I, 1-2: "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God."]
        2 [54] [Cf. John I, 3: "All things were made by him; and without
him was not anything made that was made.Ó]
        3 [54] [Cf. Hebrews I, 3]
        4 [54] [Cf. John III, 16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." Cf. also I John IV, 9-10.]
        5 [54] [Cf. John I, 12: "But as many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name."]
        1 [55] [Cf. Philippians II, 6 ff.]
        1 [56] [Ÿberhaupt]
        * [58] It is indeed a limitation of human reason, and one which is
ever inseparable from it, that we can conceive of no considerable moral
worth in the actions of a personal being without representing that person, or
his manifestation, in human guise. This is not to assert that such worth is in
itself (katÕ alhqeian) so conditioned, but merely that we must always resort
to some analogy to natural existences to render supersensible qualities
intelligible to ourselves. Thus a philosophical poet assigns a higher place in
the moral gradation of beings to man, so far as he has to fight a propensity
to evil within himself, nay, just in consequence of this fact, if only he is
able to master the propensity, than to the inhabitants of heaven themselves
who, by reason of the holiness of their nature, are placed above the
possibility of going astray:
        "The world with all its faults
         Is better than a realm of will-less angels." (Haller)1
The Scriptures too accommodate themselves to this mode of representation
when, in order to make us comprehend the degree of God's love for the
human race, they ascribe to Him the very highest sacrifice which a loving
being can make, a sacrifice performed in order that even those who are
unworthy may be made happy ("For God so loved the world ...,");2 though
we cannot indeed rationally conceive how an all-sufficient Being could
sacrifice a part of what belongs to His state of bliss or rob Himself of a
possession. Such is the schematism of analogy, with which (as a means of
explanation) we cannot dispense. But to transform it into a schematism of
objective determination (for the extension of our knowledge) is
anthropomorphism, which has, from the moral point of view (in religion),
most injurious consequences.
[59]
        At this point let me remark incidentally that while, in the ascent from
the sensible to the supersensible, it is indeed allowable to schematize (that
is, to render a concept intelligible by the help of an analogy to something
sensible), it is on no account permitted us to infer (and thus to extend our
concept), by this analogy, that what holds of the former must also be
attributed to the latter. Such an inference is impossible, for the simple
reason that it would run directly counter to all analogy to conclude that,
because we absolutely need a schema to render a concept intelligible to
ourselves (to support it with an example), it therefore follows that this
schema must necessarily belong to the object itself as its predicate. Thus, I
cannot say: I can make comprehensible to myself the cause of a plant (or of
any organic creature, or indeed of the whole purposive world) only by
attributing intelligence to it, on the analogy of an artificer in his relation to
his work (say a watch); therefore the cause (of the plant and of the world in
general) must itself possess intelligence. That is, I cannot say that this
postulated intelligence of the cause conditions not merely my
comprehending it but also conditions the possibility of its being a cause. On
the contrary, between the relation of a schema to its concept and the relation
of this same schema of a concept to the objective fact itself there is no
analogy, but rather a mighty chasm, the overleaping of which (metabasiV
eiV allo genoV) leads at once to anthropomorphism. The proof of this I
have given elsewhere.
        1 [58] [Albrecht Haller, in his poem †ber den Ursprung des †bels
(1734), ii, 33-34.]
        2 [58] [John III, 16 ff.]
        1 [59] [John VIII, 46]
        1 [60] [Matthew V, 48; Leviticus XI, 44; and I Peter I, 16]
        2 [60] [Ÿberhaupt]
        3 [60] [That]
        * [61] Yet the following must not be overlooked. I do not mean by
the above statement that the disposition shall serve to compensate for failure
in allegiance to duty, or, consequently, for the actual evil in this endless
course [of progress] (rather is it presupposed that a moral character in man,
which is pleasing to God, is actually to be met with in this temporal series).
What I do mean is that the disposition, which stands in the place of the
totality of this series of approximations carried on without end, makes up
for only that failure which is inseparable from the existence of a temporal
being as such, the failure, namely, ever wholly to be what we have in mind
to become. The question of compensation for actual transgressions
occurring in this course of progress will be considered in connection with
the solution of the third difficulty.
        1 [61] [Ÿberhaupt]
        2 [61] [Cf. Matthew VI, 33; Luke XII, 31]
        3 [61] [Cf. Matthew VI, 33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."]
        4 [61] [Cf. Romans VIII, 16, ff. "The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of God."]
        1 [62] [Cf. Philippians II, 12]
        2 [62] [Translators' italics.]
        * [63] Among those questions which might well be entitled childish,
since even if an answer were forthcoming the questioner would be none the
wiser, is this: Will the punishments of hell be terminable or everlasting?
Were the former alternative to be taught, there would be cause for fear that
many (and indeed all who believe in purgatory) would say with the sailor in
Moore's Travels,1 "Then I hope that I can stand it out!" If, however, the
other alternative were to be affirmed and counted as an article of faith,2
there might arise the hope of complete immunity from punishment after a
most abandoned life, though the purpose of the doctrine would be directly
opposed to such a hope. For a clergyman, sought for advice and
consolation by a man in moments of tardy repentance at the end of such a
wicked life, must find it gruesome and inhuman to have to announce to the
sinner his eternal condemnation. And since between this and complete
absolution he recognizes no middle ground (but rather that men are
punished either through all eternity or not at all), he will have to hold out to
the sinner hope of the latter alternative. That is to say, he will have to
promise to transform him on the spur of the moment into a man well-
pleasing to God. Moreover, since there is now no more time to enter upon a
good course of life, avowals of penitence, confessions of faith, nay, even
solemn vows to lead a new life in the event of a further postponement of
death, must serve as the means to this transformation. Such is the inevitable
result when the eternity of man's future destiny, conformable to the way of
life here led, is set forth as a dogma. When, on the contrary, a man is taught
to frame for himself a concept of his future state from his moral condition
up to the present, as the natural and foreseeable result of it, the
immeasurableness of this series of consequences under the sway of evil will
have upon him the same beneficial moral effect (i.e., of impelling him
before his life ends to undo so far as possible what he has done, by
reparation or compensation proportionate to his actions) as can be expected
from proclaiming the eternity of his doom, but without entailing the
disadvantages of that dogma (which, moreover, neither rational insight nor
Scriptural exegesis warrants). For the consequences of this dogma are that
the wicked man either counts in advance, even during the course of life,
upon this pardon so easily
[64]
obtainable, or else, at life's close, believes that it is merely a question of the
claims of divine justice upon him, and that these claims may be satisfied
with mere words. The rights of humanity meanwhile are disregarded and no
one gets back what belongs to him. (This is a sequel so common to this
form of expiation that an instance to the contrary is almost unheard of.)
Furthermore, if anyone is apprehensive that his reason, through his
conscience, will judge him too leniently, he errs, I believe, very seriously.
For just because reason is free, and must pass judgment even upon the man
himself, it is not to be bribed; and if we tell a man under such circumstances
that it is at least possible that he will soon have to stand before a judge, we
need but leave him to his own reflections, which will in all probability pass
sentence upon him with the greatest severity.
        I will add here one or two further observations. The common
proverb, "All's well that ends well," may indeed be applied to moral
situations, but only if by ending well is meant the individual's becoming a
genuinely good person. Yet wherein is he to recognize himself as such,
since he can make this inference only from subsequent persistently good
conduct for which, at the end of life, no time remains? The application of
this saying to happiness may be more easily admitted, but, even here, only
relatively to the position from which a man looks upon his life--that is, not
if he looks ahead from its beginning but only if he reviews it from its close.
Griefs that have been endured leave behind them no tormenting
recollections, once we recognize that we are now delivered from them, but
rather a feeling of gladness which but enhances the enjoyment of the good
fortune which is now becoming ours: for both pleasure and pain are
included in the temporal series (as belonging to the world of sense') and so
disappear with it; they do not enter into the totality of the present enjoyment
of life, but are displaced by it as their successor. If, finally, this proverb is
applied in estimating the moral worth of the life we have led up to the
present, we may go very far wrong if we accept its truth, even though our
conduct at the end of life be perfectly good. For the subjective moral
principle of the disposition, according to which alone our life must be
judged, is of such a nature (being something supersensible) that its
existence is not susceptible to division into periods of time, but can only be
thought of as an absolute unity. And since we can arrive at a conclusion
regarding the disposition only on the basis of actions (which are its
appearances), our life must come to be viewed, for the purpose of such a
judgment, as a temporal unity, a whole; in which case the reproaches [of
conscience] arising from the earlier portion of life (before the improvement
began) might well speak as loudly as the approbation from the latter portion,
and might considerably repress the triumphant note of "All's well that ends
well!"
        In conclusion, there is another tenet, closely related to this doctrine
regarding the duration of punishments in another world, though not
identical with it; namely, that "All sins must be forgiven here," that at the
end of life our account must be completely closed, and that none may hope
somehow to
[65]
retrieve there what has been neglected here. This teaching can no more
proclaim itself to us as a dogma than could the previous one. It is only a
principle by means of which practical reason regulates its use of its own
concepts of the supernatural, while granting that it knows nothing of the
objective character of this supersensible realm. That is, practical reason
says: We can draw an inference as to whether or not we are persons well-
pleasing to God only from the way in which we have conducted our lives;
but since such life-conduct ends with life, the reckoning, whose sum total
alone can tell us whether we may regard ourselves as justified or not, also
closes for us at death.
        In general, if we limited our judgment to regulative principles, which
content themselves with their own possible application to the moral life,
instead of aiming at constitutive principles of a knowledge of supersensible
objects, insight into which, after all, is forever impossible to us, human
wisdom would be better off in a great many ways, and there would be no
breeding of a presumptive knowledge of that about which, in the last
analysis, we know nothing at all-- a groundless sophistry that glitters indeed
for a time but only, as in the end becomes apparent, to the detriment of
morality.
        [1 63] [Francis Moore, A New Collection of Voyages and Travels,
1745; translated into the German in 1748 by G.J. Schwabe in Allgemeine
Historie der Reisen, III.]
        2 [63] [zum Glaubensymbol]
        1 [64] [Sinnlichkeit]
        1 [66] [Verschuldung, which, as well as the term Schuld, might
have been translated throughout this passage as "offense" or '"guilt."
"Debt" seems suitable to the legalistic nature of Kant's thought .]
        2 [66] ["This is the scholastic-dogmatic view, which had already
received classic interpretation in Anselm's discourse, Cur deus homo?"
(Note in Berlin Edition.)]
        1 [67] ["This is also the basic principle of the orthodox ecclesiastical
'satisfaction-theory' from which Anselm, mistaking the essence of the
Christian belief in God, had already deduced the following alternative: aut
poena aut satisfactio." (Note in Berlin Edition.)]
        * [67] The hypothesis that all the ills in the world are uniformly to be
regarded as punishments for past transgressions cannot be thought of as
devised for the sake of a theodicy or as a contrivance useful to the religion
of priest-craft (or formal worship2) for it is a conception too commonly held
to have been excogitated in so artificial a manner); rather, it lies in all
probability very near to human reason, which is inclined to knit up the
course of nature with
[68]
the laws of morality and therefore very naturally conceives the idea that we
are to seek to become better men before we can expect to be freed from the
ills of life or to be compensated for these by preponderating goods. Hence
the first man is represented (in Holy Scripture) as condemned to work if he
would eat, his wife to bear children in pain, and both to die, all on account
of their transgressions, although we cannot see how animal creatures
supplied with such bodily members could have expected any other destiny
even had these transgressions never been committed. To the Hindus men
are nothing but spirits (called devas) who are imprisoned in animal bodies in
punishment for old offenses. Even a philosopher, Malebranche,4 chose to
deny to non-rational animals a soul, and therefore feelings, rather than to
admit that horses had to endure so much misery "without ever having eaten
of forbidden hay."
        2 [67] [Cultus]
        1 [68] [Cf. Colossians III, 9-10: "Lie not one to another, seeing that
ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man,
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."
Also Ephesians IV, 22, 24]
        2 [68] [intellectueller, i.e., supersensible, intelligible]
        3 [68] [Cf. Romans VI, 2, 6, and Galatians V, 24]
        4 [68] [De la recherche de la vŽritŽ, IV, 11]
        * [69] In terms of the actions which are met with in the world of
sense, even the purest moral disposition brings about in man, regarded as
an earthly creature, nothing more than a continual becoming of a subject
pleasing to God. In quality, indeed, this disposition (since it must be
conceived as grounded supersensibly) ought to be and can be holy and
conformable to that of its archetype; but in degree [of manifestation], as
revealed in conduct, it ever remains deficient and infinitely removed
therefrom. Nevertheless, because this disposition contains the basis for
continual progress in the reparation of this deficiency, it does, as an
intellectual unity of the whole, take the place of action carried to its perfect
consummation. But now the question arises: Can he "in whom there is no
condemnation,"1 and in whom there must be none, believe himself justified
and at the same time count as punishment the miseries which befall him on
his way to an ever greater goodness, thus acknowledging blameworthiness
and a disposition that is displeasing to God? Yes, but only in his quality of
the man whom he is continually putting off. Everything (and this comprises
all the miseries and ills of life in general) that would be due him as
punishment in that quality (of the old man) he gladly takes upon himself in
his quality of new man simply for the sake of the good. So far as he is a
new man, consequently, these sufferings are not ascribed to him as
punishments at all. The use of the term "punishment" signifies merely that,
in his quality of new man, he now willingly takes upon himself, as so many
opportunities for the testing and exercising of his disposition to goodness,
all the ills and miseries that assail him, which the old man would have had
to regard as punishments and which he too, so far as he is still in the
process of becoming dead to the old man, accepts as such. This
punishment, indeed, is simultaneously the effect and also the cause of such
moral activity and consequently of that contentment and moral happiness
which consists of a consciousness of progress in goodness (and this is one
and the same act as the forsaking of evil). While possessed of the old
disposition, on the other hand, he would not only have had to count the
very same ills as punishments but he would also have had to feel them as
such, since, even though they are regarded as mere ills, they are the direct
opposite of what, in the form of physical happiness, an individual in this
state of mind makes his sole objective.
        1 [69] [Cf. Romans VIII, 1]
        1 [70] [See above, p.66]
        * [70] But only a capability of receiving, which is all that we, for
our part, can credit to ourselves; and a superior's decree conferring a good
for which the subordinate possesses nothing but the (moral) receptivity is
called grace.
        * [72] The purpose of those who at the end of life have a clergyman
summoned is usually that they want him as a comforter -- not for the
physical suffering brought on by the last illness or even for the fear which
naturally precedes death (death itself, which ends these ills, can here be the
comforter), but for their moral anguish, the reproaches of conscience. At
such a time, however, conscience should rather be stirred up and
sharpened, in order that the dying man may not neglect to do what good he
still may, or (through reparation) to wipe out, so far as he can, the
remaining consequences of his evil actions. This is in accordance with the
warning: "Agree with thine adversary" (with him who has a claim against
thee) "quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him" (that is, so long as thou
art still alive), "lest he deliver thee to the judge" (after death) etc.1 But,
instead of this, to administer a sort of opium to the conscience is an offense
both against the man himself and against those who survive him, and is
wholly contrary to the purpose for which such an aid to conscience at life's
close can be considered necessary.
        1 [72] [Cf. Matthew V, 25]
        1 [73] [GemŸther, translated here and elsewhere as spiritual natures;
but on p. 76, below, as hearts and minds.]
        * [73] Father Charlevoix2 reports that when he recounted to the
Iroquois, to whom he was teaching the catechism, all the evil which the
wicked spirit had brought into a world created good, and how he still
persistently sought to frustrate the best divine arrangements, his pupil asked
indignantly, "But why doesn't God strike the devil dead?"--a question for
which the priest candidly admits he could, at the moment, find no answer.
        2 [73] [Pierre-Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, 1682-1761, Jesuit
missionary in Canada, who wrote Histoire et description gŽnŽrale de la
Nouvelle-France, Paris, 1744.]
        * [74] To conceive the possibility of a person free from innate
propensity to evil by having him born of a virgin mother is an idea of reason
accommodating itself to an instinct which is hard to explain, yet which
cannot be disowned, and is moral, too. For we regard natural generation,
since it cannot occur
[75]
without sensual pleasure on both sides and since it also seems to relate us to
the common animal species far too closely for the dignity of humanity, as
something of which we should be ashamed (it is certainly this idea which
gave rise to the notion that the monastic state is holy) and which therefore
signifies for us something unmoral, irreconcilable with perfection in man,
and yet ingrafted in man's nature and so inherited also by his descendants as
an evil predisposition. Well suited to this confused view (on one side
merely sensuous, yet on the other moral, and therefore intellectual) is this
idea of a birth, dependent upon no sexual intercourse (a virgin birth), of a
child encumbered with no moral blemish. The idea, however, is not without
difficulty in theory (though a decision on this score is not at all necessary
from the practical point of view). For according to the hypothesis of
epigenesis the mother, who was descended from her parents through natural
generation, would be infected with this moral blemish and would bequeath
it to her child at least to the extent of a half [of his nature], even though he
had been supernaturally begotten. To avoid this conclusion, we should have
to adopt the theory that the seed [of evil] pre-existed in the parents but that it
did not develop on the part of the female (for otherwise that conclusion is
not avoided) but only on the part of the male (not in the ova but in the
spermatazoa), for the male has no share in supernatural pregnancy. This
mode of representation could thus be defended as reconcilable theoretically
with that idea.
        Yet of what use is all this theory pro or con when it suffices for
practical purposes to place before us as a pattern this idea taken as a symbol
of mankind raising itself above temptation to evil (and withstanding it
victoriously)?
        1 [75] [Cf. John XIV, 30: "...for the prince of this world cometh,
and hath nothing in me."]
        1 [76] [rechtlicher]
        2 [76] [physischer]
        * [76] Not that (as D. Bahrdt3 fancifully imagined) he sought death
to further a worthy design through a brilliant and sensational example; that
would have been suicide. For one may indeed attempt something at the risk
of losing one's life, or even suffer death at the hands of another, when one
cannot avoid it without becoming faithless to an irremissible duty; but one
may not dispose of oneself and of one's life as a means, to any end
whatever, and so be the author of one's own death.
        Nor yet (as the writer of the WolfenbŸttel Fragmente4 suspects) did
he stake his life without moral but merely with political (and unlawful)
intent, to the end, perhaps, of overthrowing the priests' rule and
establishing himself in worldly supremacy in their stead. This conflicts with
his exhortation delivered, after he had already given up hope of such an
achievement, to his disciples at the supper, "to do this in remembrance"5 of
him. Intended as a reminder of a worldly design that had miscarried, this
would have been a mortifying admonition, provocative of ill-will toward its
author and therefore self-contradictory. But it might well refer to the failure
of a very good and purely moral design of the Master, namely, the
achievement during his lifetime of a public revolution (in religion) through
the overthrow of a ceremonial faith, which wholly crowded out the moral
disposition, and of the authority of its priests. (The preparations for the
gathering together at Easter of his disciples, scattered over the land, may
have had this purpose.) We may indeed even now regret that this revolution
did not succeed; yet it really was not frustrated, for it developed, after his
death, into a religious transformation which quietly, despite many
misfortunes, continued to spread.
        3 [76] [Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, 1741-1792, a rationalist. Cf.
Chapters IX and X, "Upon the Authority of Jesus, Philosophically
Judged," in his System der moralischen Religion zur endlichen Beruhigung
fŸr Zweifler und Denker, Berlin, 1787.]
        4 [76] [The main deistic work of Hermann Samuel Reimarus, 1694-
1768, written about 1743, and published by Lessing in 1774-8 under the
above title. These "fragments" were selections from a book which Reimarus
left in manuscript, entitled, Apologie oder Schutzschrift fŸr die vernŸnftigen
Verehrer Gottes ("Apology or Defense for the Rational Worshippers of
God"). Lessing first issued these anonymously, announcing that he had
discovered them in the WolfenbŸttel library where he was at the time
engaged.]
        5 [76] [Cf. Luke XXII, 19]
        6 [76] [GemŸther]
        1 [77] [Cf. John I, 11-12. Kant has changed slightly the order of
words and the tenses, and has put heiszen = called (the sons of God)
instead of werden = become.]
        2 [77] [Cf. Titus II, 14: "that he might redeem us from all iniquity
and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good
works."]
        1 [78] [Cf. Matthew XVI, 18]
        1 [78] [SinnesŠnderung]
        * [78] And it may be admitted that it is not the only one.
        3 [78] [Cf. Mark IX, 39-40]
        1 [79] [Cf. John IV, 48]
        1 [80] [HŸlle]
        2 [80] [GeschŠfte]
        * [80] Even the teachers of religion who link their articles of faith to
the authority of the government (i.e., the orthodox) follow, like it, this same
maxim. Hence Hr. Pfenninger,3 in defending his friend Hr. Lavater, for
declaring that belief in miracles was still possible, rightly charged these
orthodox theologians with inconsistency (since he specifically excepted
those who think naturalistically on this topic) in that, while they insisted that
there had really been workers of miracles in the Christian community some
seventeen hundred years ago, they were unwilling to authenticate any such
at the present time; yet without being able to prove from Scripture either that
miracles were wholly to cease or at what date they were to cease (for the
over-subtle argument that they are no longer necessary involves a
presumption of greater insight than man should attribute to himself). Such
proof they never gave. The refusal to admit or to tolerate contemporary
miracles was therefore merely a maxim of reason and not [an expression of]
objective knowledge that there are none. But is not this same maxim, which
in this instance is applied to a threatened disorder in the civic life, equally
valid for the fear of a similar disorder in the philosophical, and the whole
rational contemplative commonwealth? Those who do not admit great
(sensational) miracles but who freely allow little ones under the name of
special Providence4 (since this last, as mere guidance, requires only a little
application of force on the part of the supernatural cause) do not bear in
mind that what matters herein is not the effect, or its magnitude, but rather
the form of the course of earthly events,5 that is, the way in which the effect
occurs, whether naturally or
[81]
supernaturally; and that for God no distinction of easy and difficult is to be
thought of. But as regards the mystery of supernatural influences, thus
deliberately to conceal the importance of such an occurrence is still less
proper.
        3 [80] [Johann Konrad Pfenninger, 1747-1792, a pastor at ZŸrich,
author of Apellation an den Menschenverstand, gewisse VorfŠlle, Schriften
und Personen betreffend, Hamburg 1776.]
        4 [80] [ausserordentliche Direktion]
        5 [80] [Weltlauf]
        1 [81] [fŸr sich]
        1 [82] [Der hšllische Proteus oder tausend-kŸnstige Versteller
(nebenst vorberichtlichen Grundbeweis der Gewissheit, dass es wirklich
Gespenster gebe) abgebildet durch Erasmum Francisci, NŸrnberg, 1708.]
        2 [82] [Naturforscher]
        * [83] That is to say, he does not incorporate belief in miracles into
his maxims (either of theoretical or practical reason), though, indeed, he
does not impugn their possibility or reality.
        ** [83] It is a common subterfuge of those who deceive the gullible
with magic arts, or at least who want to render such people credulous in
general, to appeal to the scientists' confession of their ignorance. After all,
they say, we do not know the cause of gravity, of magnetic force, and the
like! Yet we are acquainted with the laws of these [phenomena] with
sufficient thoroughness [to know] within definite limits the conditions under
which alone certain effects occur; and this suffices both for an assured
rational use of these forces and for the explanation of their manifestations,
secundum quid, downwards to the use of these laws in the ordering of
experiences thereunder, though not indeed simpliciter and upwards, to the
comprehension of the very causes of the forces which operate according to
these laws.
        From this an inner phenomenon of the human mind becomes
comprehensible--why so-called natural wonders, i.e., sufficiently attested,
though irrational appearances, or unexpected qualities of things emerging
and not conforming to laws of nature previously known, are eagerly seized
upon and exhilarate the spirit so long as they are still held to be natural;
whereas the spirit is dejected by the announcement of a real miracle. For the
first opens up the prospect of a new acquisition for the nourishment of
reason; that is, it awakens the hope of discovering new laws of nature: the
second, in contrast, arouses the fear that confidence shall be lost in what has
been hitherto accepted as known. For when reason is severed from the laws
of experience it is of no use whatsoever in such a bewitched world, not
even, in such a world, for moral application toward fulfilment of duty; for
we no longer know whether, without our being aware, changes may not be
occurring, through miracles, among our moral incentives, changes
regarding which no one can decide whether they should be ascribed to
ourselves or to another, inscrutable cause.
        Those whose judgment in these matters is so inclined that they
suppose themselves to be helpless without miracles, believe that they soften
the blow which reason suffers from them by holding that they happen but
seldom. If thereby they want to say that this is already implicit in the
concept of a
[84]
miracle (for, were such an event to occur commonly, it would not be
accounted a miracle), one can indeed make them a present of this sophistry
(of transforming an objective question of what the thing is into the
subjective question of what the word, by which we signify the thing,
means) and still ask: How seldom? Once in a hundred years? Or in ancient
times but never now? Here we can determine nothing on the basis of
knowledge of the object (which, by our own admission, transcends our
understanding) but only on the basis of the maxims which are necessary to
the use of our reason. Thus, miracles must be admitted as [occurring] daily
(though indeed hidden under the guise of natural events) or else never, and
in the latter case they underlie neither our explanations by reason nor the
guiding rules of our conduct; and since the former alternative [that they
occur daily] is not at all compatible with reason, nothing remains but to
adopt the latter maxim--for this principle remains ever a mere maxim for
making judgments, not a theoretical assertion. No one can have such a good
conceit of his insight as to wish to assert definitely that, for example, the
most admirable conservation of the species in the plant and animal
kingdoms, whereby each new generation represents, every spring, its
original, anew and undiminished, with all the inner perfection of mechanism
and (as in the plant kingdom) even with their delicate beauty of color,
without the forces of inorganic nature, otherwise so destructive, in the bad
weather of autumn and winter being able to harm their seed at all in this
respect--no one, I say, will assert that this is a mere result of natural laws;
no one, indeed, can claim to comprehend whether or not the direct influence
of the Creator is required on each occasion.
        We do, however, experience all these things; they are for us,
therefore, nothing but natural effects and ought never to be adjudged
otherwise; for such [a distinction] the modesty of reason demands in its
pronouncements. To venture beyond these limits is rashness and
immodesty, although those who support miracles frequently pretend to
exhibit a humble and self-renouncing way of thought.

BOOK THREE

[85]
THE VICTORY OF THE GOOD OVER THE EVIL PRINCIPLE,
AND THE FOUNDING OF A KINGDOM OF
GOD ON EARTH

        The combat which every morally well-disposed man must sustain in
this life, under the leadership of the good principle, against the attacks of the
evil principle, can procure him, however much he exerts himself, no greater
advantage than freedom from the sovereignty of evil. To become free, "to
be freed from bondage under the law of sin, to live for righteousness"1--
this is the highest prize he can win. He continues to be exposed, none the
less, to the assaults of the evil principle; and in order to assert his freedom,
which is perpetually being attacked, he must ever remain armed for the fray.
        Now man is in this perilous state through his own fault; hence he is
bound at the very least to strive with all his might to extricate himself from
it. But how? That is the question. When he looks around for the causes and
circumstances which expose him to this danger and keep him in it, he can
easily convince himself that he is subject to these not because of his own
gross nature, so far as he is here a separate individual, but because of
mankind to whom he is related and bound. It is not at the instigation of the
former that what should properly be called the passions, which cause such
havoc in his original good predisposition, are aroused. His needs are but
few and his frame of mind in providing for them is temperate and tranquil.
He is poor (or considers himself so) only in his anxiety lest other men
consider him poor and despise him on that account. Envy, the lust for
power, greed, and the malignant inclinations bound up with these, besiege
his nature, contented within itself, as soon as he is among men. And it is
not even necessary to assume that these are men sunk in evil and examples
to lead him astray; it suffices that they are at hand, that they surround him,
and that they are men, for them mutually to corrupt each other's
predispositions and make one another evil. If no means could be discovered
for the forming of an alliance uniquely designed as a
[86]
protection against this evil and for the furtherance of goodness in man--of a
society, enduring, ever extending itself, aiming solely at the maintenance of
morality, and counteracting evil with united forces--this association with
others would keep man, however much, as a single individual, he may have
done to throw off the sovereignty of evil, incessantly in danger of falling
back under its dominion. As far as we can see, therefore, the sovereignty of
the good principle is attainable, so far as men can work toward it, only
through the establishment and spread of a society in accordance with, and
for the sake of, the laws of virtue, a society whose task and duty it is
rationally to impress these laws in all their scope upon the entire human
race. For only thus can we hope for a victory of the good over the evil
principle. In addition to prescribing laws to each individual, morally
legislative reason also unfurls a banner of virtue as a rallying point for all
who love the good, that they may gather beneath it and thus at the very start
gain the upper hand over the evil which is attacking them without rest.
         A union of men under merely moral laws, patterned on the above
idea, may be called an ethical, and so far as these laws are public, an ethico-
civil (in contrast to a juridico-civil) society or an ethical commonwealth. It
can exist in the midst of a political commonwealth and may even be made up
of all its members; (indeed, unless it is based upon such a commonwealth it
can never be brought into existence by man). It has, however, a special and
unique principle of union (virtue), and hence a form and constitution, which
fundamentally distinguish it from the political commonwealth.
        At the same time there is a certain analogy between them, regarded
as two commonwealths, in view of which the former may also be called an
ethical state, i.e., a kingdom of virtue (of the good principle). The idea of
such a state possesses a thoroughly well-grounded objective reality in
human reason (in man's duty to join such a state), even though,
subjectively, we can never hope that man's good will will lead mankind to
decide to work with unanimity towards this goal.
[87]

DIVISION ONE

PHILOSOPHICAL ACCOUNT OF THE VICTORY OF THE
GOOD PRINCIPLE IN THE FOUNDING OF A
KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH
 
        I. Concerning the Ethical State of Nature
         A juridico-civil (political) state1 is the relation of men to each other
in which they all alike stand socially under public juridical laws (which are,
as a class, laws of coercion). An ethico-civil state1 is that in which they are
united under non-coercive laws, i.e., laws of virtue alone.
        Now just as the rightful (but not therefore always righteous), i.e.,
the juridical, state of Nature is opposed to the first, the ethical state of
Nature is distinguished from the second. In both, each individual prescribes
the law for himself, and there is no external law to which he, along with all
others, recognizes himself to be subject. In both, each individual is his own
judge, and there exists no powerful public authority to determine with legal
power according to laws, what is each man's duty in every situation that
arises, and to bring about the universal performance of duty.
        In an already existing political commonwealth all the political
citizens, as such, are in an ethical state of nature and are entitled to remain
therein; for it would be a contradiction (in adjecto) for the political
commonwealth to compel its citizens to enter into an ethical commonwealth,
since the very concept of the latter involves freedom from coercion. Every
political commonwealth may indeed wish to be possessed of a sovereignty,
according to laws of virtue, over the spirits [of its citizens]; for then, when
its methods of compulsion do not avail (for the human judge cannot
penetrate into the depths of other men) their dispositions to virtue would
bring about what was required. But woe to the legislator who wishes to
establish through force a polity directed to ethical ends! For in so doing he
would not merely achieve the very opposite of an ethical polity but also
undermine his political state and make it insecure. The citizen of the political
commonwealth remains therefore, so far as its legislative function is
concerned, completely free
[88]
to enter with his fellow-citizens into an ethical union in addition [to the
political] or to remain in this kind of state of nature, as he may wish. Only
so far as an ethical commonwealth must rest on public laws and possess a
constitution based on these laws are those who freely pledge themselves to
enter into this ethical state bound, not indeed] to accept orders from the
political power as to how they shall or shall not fashion this ethical
constitution internally, but to agree to limitations, namely, to the condition
that this constitution shall contain nothing which contradicts the duty of its
members as citizens of the state--although when the ethical pledge is of the
genuine sort the political limitation need cause no anxiety.
        Further, because the duties of virtue apply to the entire human race,
the concept of an ethical commonwealth is extended ideally to the whole of
mankind, and thereby distinguishes itself from the concept of a political
commonwealth. Hence even a large number of men united in that purpose
can be called not the ethical commonwealth itself but only a particular
society which strives towards harmony with all men (yes, finally with all
rational beings) in order to form an absolute ethical whole of which every
partial society is only a representation or schema; for each of these societies
in turn, in its relation to others of the same kind, can be represented as in the
ethical state of nature and subject to all the defects thereof. (This is precisely
the situation with separate political states which are not united through a
public international law.)

        II. Man ought to leave his Ethical State of nature-in order to become
a Member of an Ethical COMMONWEALTH
        Just as the juridical state of nature is one of war of every man against
every other, so too is the ethical state of nature one in which the good
principle, which resides in each man, is continually attacked by the evil
which is found in him and also in everyone else. Men (as was noted above)
mutually corrupt one another's moral predispositions; despite the good will
of each individual, yet, because they lack a principle which unites them,
they recede, through their dissensions, from the common goal of goodness
and, just as though they were instruments of evil, expose one another to the
risk of falling once again under the sovereignty of the evil principle. Again,
just as the state of a lawless external (brutish) freedom and independence
from coercive laws is a state of
[89]
injustice and of war, each against each, which a man ought to leave in order
to enter into a politico-civil state*: so is the ethical state of nature one of
open conflict between principles of virtue and a state of inner immorality
which the natural man ought to bestir himself to leave as soon as possible.
        Now here we have a duty which is sui generis, not of men toward
men, but of the human race toward itself. For the species of rational beings
is objectively, in the idea of reason, destined for a social goal, namely, the
promotion of the highest as a social good. But because the highest moral
good cannot be achieved merely by the exertions of the single individual
toward his own moral perfection, but requires rather a union of such
individuals into a whole toward the same goal--into a system of well-
disposed men, in which and through whose unity alone the highest moral
good can come to pass--the idea of such a whole, as a universal republic
based on laws of virtue, is an idea completely distinguished from all moral
laws (which concern what we know to lie in our own power); since it
involves working toward a whole regarding which we do not know
whether, as such, it lies in our power or not. Hence this duty is
distinguished from all others both in kind and in principle. We can already
foresee that this duty will require the presupposition of another idea,
namely, that of a higher moral Being through whose universal dispensation
the forces of separate individuals, insufficient in themselves, are united for a
common end.1 First of all, however, we must follow up the clue of that
moral need [for social union] and see whither this will lead us.
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        III. The Concept of an Ethical Commonwealth is the Concept of a
PEOPLE OF GOD under Ethical Laws
        If an ethical commonwealth is to come into being, all single
individuals must be subject to a public legislation, and all the laws which
bind them must be capable of being regarded as commands of a common
law-giver. Now if the commonwealth to be established is to be juridical, the
mass of people uniting itself into a whole would itself have to be the law
giver (of constitutional laws), because legislation proceeds from the
principle of limiting the freedom of each to those conditions under which it
can be consistent with the freedom of everyone else according to a common
law,* and because, as a result, the general will sets up an external legal
control. But if the commonwealth is to be ethical, the people, as a people,
cannot itself be regarded as the law-giver. For in such a commonwealth all
the laws are expressly designed to promote the morality of actions (which is
something inner, and hence cannot be subject to public human laws)
whereas, in contrast, these public laws--and this would go to constitute a
juridical commonwealth--are directed only toward the legality of actions,
which meets the eye, and not toward (inner) morality, which alone is in
question here. There must therefore be someone other than the populace
capable of being specified as the public law-giver for an ethical
commonwealth. And yet, ethical laws cannot be thought of as emanating
originally merely from the will of this superior being (as statutes, which,
had he not first commanded them, would perhaps not be binding), for then
they would not be ethical laws and the duty proper to them would not be the
free duty of virtue but the coercive duty of law. Hence only he can be
thought of as highest law-giver of an ethical commonwealth with respect to
whom all true duties, hence also the ethical,** must be represented as at the
same
[91]
time his commands; he must therefore also be "one who knows the heart,"1
in order to see into the innermost parts of the disposition of each individual
and, as is necessary in every commonwealth, to bring it about that each
receives whatever his actions are worth. But this is the concept of God as
moral ruler of the world. Hence an ethical commonwealth can be thought of
only as a people under divine commands, i.e., as a people of God,2 and
indeed under laws of virtue.
        We might indeed conceive of a people of God under statutory laws,
under such laws that obedience to them would concern not the morality but
merely the legality of acts. This would be a juridical commonwealth, of
which, indeed, God would be the lawgiver (hence the constitution of this
state would be theocratic); but men, as priests receiving His behests from
Him directly, would build up an aristocratic government. Such a
constitution, however, whose existence and form rest wholly on an
historical basis, cannot settle the problem of the morally-legislative reason,
the solution of which alone we are to effect; as an institution under politico-
civil laws, whose lawgiver, though God, is yet external, it will come under
review in the historical section. Here we have to do only with an institution
whose laws are purely inward--a republic under laws of virtue, i.e., a
people of God "zealous of good works."3
        To such a people of God we can oppose the idea of a rabble of the
evil principle, the union of those who side with it for the propagation of
evil, and whose interest it is to prevent the realization of that other union--
although here again the principle which combats virtuous dispositions lies in
our very selves and is represented only figuratively as an external power.

        IV. The Idea of a People of God can be Realized (through Human
Organization) only in the Form of a Church
        The sublime, yet never wholly attainable, idea of an ethical
commonwealth dwindles markedly under men's hands. It becomes an
institution which, at best capable of representing only the pure
[92]
form of such a commonwealth, is, by the conditions of sensuous human
nature, greatly circumscribed in its means for establishing such a whole.
How indeed can one expect something perfectly straight to be framed out of
such crooked wood?
        To found a moral people of God is therefore a task whose
consummation can be looked for not from men but only from God Himself.
Yet man is not entitled on this account to be idle in this business and to let
Providence rule, as though each could apply himself exclusively to his own
private moral affairs and relinquish to a higher wisdom all the affairs of the
human race (as regards its moral destiny). Rather must man proceed as
though everything depended upon him; only on this condition dare he hope
that higher wisdom will grant the completion of his well-intentioned
endeavors.
        The wish of all well-disposed people is, therefore, "that the kingdom
of God come, that His will be done on earth."1 But what preparations must
they now make that it shall come to pass?
An ethical commonwealth under divine moral legislation is a church which,
so far as it is not an object of possible experience, is called the church
invisible (a mere idea of the union of all the righteous under direct and moral
divine world-government, and idea serving all as the archetype of what is to
be established by men. The visible church is the actual union of men into a
whole which harmonizes with that ideal. So far as each separate society
maintains, under public laws, an order among its members (in the relation
of those who obey its laws to those who direct their obedience) the group,
united into a whole (the church), is a congregation under authorities, who
(called teachers or shepherds of souls) merely administer the affairs of the
invisible supreme head thereof. In this function they are all called servants
of the church,) just as, in the political commonwealth, the visible overlord
occasionally calls himself the highest servant of the state even though he
recognizes no single individual over him (and ordinarily not even the people
as a whole). The true (visible) church is that which exhibits the moral
kingdom of God on earth So far as it can be brought to pass by men. The
requirements upon, and hence the tokens of, the true church are the
following:
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        1. Universality, and hence its numerical oneness; for which it must
possess this characteristic,1 that, although divided and at variance in
unessential opinions, it is none the less, with respect to its fundamental
intention, founded upon such basic principles as must necessarily lead to a
general unification in a single church (thus, no sectarian divisions).
        2. Its nature (quality); i.e., purity, union under no motivating forces
other than moral ones (purified of the stupidity of superstition and the
madness of fanaticism).
        3. Its relation under the principle of freedom; both the internal
relation of its members to one another, and the external relation of the
church to political power--both relations as in a republic (hence neither a
hierarchy, nor an illuminatism, which is a kind of democracy through
special inspiration, where the inspiration of one man can differ from that of
another, according to the whim of each).
        4. Its modality, the unchangeableness of its constitution, yet with the
reservation that incidental regulations, concerning merely its administration,
may be changed according to time and circumstance; to this end, however, it
must already contain within itself a priori (in the idea of its purpose) settled
principles. (Thus [it operates] under primordial laws, once [for all] laid
down, as it were out of a book of laws, for guidance; not under arbitrary
symbols which, since they lack authenticity, are fortuitous, exposed to
contradiction, and changeable.)
        An ethical commonwealth, then, in the form of a church, i.e., as a
mere representative of a city of God, really has, as regards its basic
principles, nothing resembling a political constitution. For its constitution is
neither monarchical (under a pope or patriarch), nor aristocratic (under
bishops and prelates), nor democratic (as of sectarian illuminati). It could
best of all be likened to that of a household (family) under a common,
though invisible, moral Father, whose holy Son, knowing His will and yet
standing in blood relation with all members of the household, takes His
place in making His will better known to them; these accordingly honor the
Father in him and so enter with one another into a voluntary, universal, and
enduring union of hearts.
[94]
        V. The Constitution of every Church Originates always in some
Historical (Revealed) Faith which we can Call Ecclesiastical Faith; and this
is best Founded on a Holy Scripture
        Pure religious faith alone can found a universal church; for only
[such] rational faith can be believed in and shared by everyone, whereas an
historical faith, grounded solely on facts, can extend its influence no further
than tidings of it can reach, subject to circumstances of time and place and
dependent upon the capacity [of men] to judge the credibility of such
tidings. Yet, by reason of a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith
can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, a church cannot be
established on it alone.
        Men are conscious of their inability to know supersensible things;
and although they allow all honor to be paid to faith in such things (as the
faith which must be universally convincing to them), they are yet not easily
convinced that steadfast diligence in morally good life-conduct is all that
God requires of men, to be subjects in His kingdom and well-pleasing to
Him. They cannot well think of their obligation except as an obligation to
some service or other which they must offer to God--wherein what matters
is not so much the inner moral worth of the actions as the fact that they are
offered to God--to the end that, however morally indifferent men may be in
themselves, they may at least please God through passive obedience. It does
not enter their heads that when they fulfil their duties to men (themselves
and others) they are, by these very acts, performing God's commands and
are therefore in all their actions and abstentions, so far as these concern
morality, perpetually in the service of God, and that it is absolutely
impossible to serve God more directly in any other way (since they can
affect and have an influence upon earthly beings alone, and not upon God).
Because each great worldly lord stands in special need of being honored by
his subjects and glorified through protestations of submissiveness, without
which he cannot expect from them as much compliance with his behests as
he requires to be able to rule them, and since, in addition, however gifted
with reason a man may be, he always finds an immediate satisfaction in
attestations of honor, we treat duty, so far as it is also a divine command, as
the prosecution of a transaction with God, not with man. Thus arises the
concept of a religion of divine worship instead of the concept of a religion
purely moral.
[95]
        Since all religion consists in this, that in all our duties we look upon
God as the lawgiver universally to be honored, the determining of religion,
so far as the conformity of our attitude with it is concerned, hinges upon
knowing how God wishes to be honored (and obeyed). Now a divine
legislative will commands either through laws in themselves merely
statutory or through purely moral laws. As to the latter, each individual can
know of himself, through his own reason, the will of God which lies at the
basis of his religion; for the concept of the Deity really arises solely from
consciousness of these laws and from the need of reason to postulate a
might which can procure for these laws, as their final end, all the results
conformable to them and possible in a world. The concept of a divine will,
determined according to pure moral laws alone, allows us to think of only
one religion which is purely moral, as it did of only one God. But if we
admit statutory laws of such a will and make religion consist of our
obedience to them, knowledge of such laws is possible not through our
own reason alone but only through revelation, which, be it given publicly or
to each individual in secret, would have to be an historical and not a pure
rational faith in order to be propagated among men by tradition or writ. And
even admitting divine statutory laws (laws which do not in themselves
appear to us as obligatory but can be known as such only when taken as the
revelation of God's will), pure moral legislation, through which the will of
God is primordially engraved in our hearts, is not only the ineluctable
condition of all true religion whatsoever but is also that which really
constitutes such religion; statutory religion can merely comprise the means
to its furtherance and spread.
        If, then, the question: How does God wish to be honored? is to be
answered in a way universally valid for each man, regarded merely as man,
there can be no doubt that the legislation of His will ought to be solely
moral; for statutory legislation (which presupposes a revelation) can be
regarded merely as contingent and as something which never has applied or
can apply to every man, hence as not binding upon all men universally.
Thus, "not they who say Lord! Lord! but they who do the will of God,"1
they who seek to become well-pleasing to Him not by praising Him (or His
envoy, as a being of divine origin) according to revealed concepts
[96]
which not every man can have, but by a good course of life, regarding
which everyone knows His will--these are they who offer Him the true
veneration which He desires.
        But when we regard ourselves as obliged to behave not merely as
men but also as citizens in a divine state on earth, and to work for the
existence of such a union, under the name of a church, then the question:
How does God wish to be honored in a church (as a congregation of God)?
appears to be unanswerable by reason alone and to require statutory
legislation of which we become cognizant only through revelation, i.e., an
historical faith which, in contradistinction to pure religious faith, we can call
ecclesiastical faith.
        For pure religious faith is concerned only with what constitutes the
essence1 of reverence for God, namely, obedience, ensuing from the moral
disposition, to all duties as His commands; a church, on the other hand, as
the union of many men with such dispositions into a moral commonwealth,
requires a public covenant,2 a certain ecclesiastical form dependent upon the
conditions of experience. This form is in itself contingent and manifold, and
therefore cannot be apprehended as duty without divine statutory laws. But
the determination of this form must not be regarded forthwith as the concern
of the divine Lawgiver; rather are we justified in assuming that it is the
divine will that we should ourselves carry into effect the rational idea of
such a commonwealth and that, although men may have tried many a type
of church with unhappy result, yet on no account should they cease to strive
after this goal, with new attempts if necessary, avoiding so far as possible
the mistakes of the earlier ones--inasmuch as this task, which is for them a
duty as well, is entirely committed to them alone. We therefore have no
reason straightway to take the laws constituting the basis and form of any
church as divine statutory laws; rather is it presumptuous to declare them to
be such, in order to save ourselves the trouble of still further improving the
church's form, and it is a usurpation of higher authority to seek, under
pretense of a divine commission, to lay a yoke upon the multitude by means
of ecclesiastical dogmas. Yet it would be as great self-conceit to deny
peremptorily that the way in which a church is organized may perhaps be a
special divine arrangement, if, so far as we can see, it is completely
harmonious with the moral religion--and if, in addition, we cannot
[97]
conceive how it could have appeared all at once without the requisite
initiatory progress of the public in religious conceptions.
        In the indecision over the problem of whether God or men
themselves should found a church, there is evidenced man's propensity to a
religion of divine worship (cultus) and--since such a religion rests upon
arbitrary precepts--to belief in divine statutory laws, on the assumption that
some divine legislation, not to be discovered through reason but calling for
revelation, must supplement the best life-conduct (conduct which man is
always free to adopt under the guidance of the pure moral religion). Herein
consideration is given to the veneration of the Highest Being directly (and
not by way of that obedience to His laws which is already prescribed to us
by reason). Thus it happens that men will regard neither union into a
church, nor agreement with respect to the form which it is to take, nor yet
public institutions, as in themselves necessary for the promotion of the
moral element in religion, but only, as they say, for the service of their
God, through ceremonies, confessions of faith in revealed laws, and
observance of the ordinances requisite to the form of the church (which is
itself, after all, only a means). All these observances are at bottom morally
indifferent actions; yet, just because they are to be performed merely for His
sake, they are held to be all the more pleasing to Him. In men's striving
towards an ethical commonwealth, ecclesiastical faith thus naturally
precedes  pure religious faith; temples (buildings consecrated to the public
worship of God) were before churches (meeting-places for the instruction
and quickening of moral dispositions), priests (consecrated stewards of
pious rites) before divines (teachers of the purely moral religion); and for
the most part they still are first in the rank and value ascribed to them by the
great mass of people. Since, then, it remains true once for all that a statutory
ecclesiastical faith is associated with pure religious faith as its vehicle and as
the means of public union of men for its promotion, one must grant that the
preservation of pure religious faith unchanged, its propagation in the same
form everywhere, and even a respect for the revelation assumed therein, can
hardly be provided for adequately through tradition, but only through
scripture; which, again, as a revelation to contemporaries and posterity,
must itself be an object of esteem, for the necessities of men require this in
order that they may be sure of their duty in
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divine service. A holy book arouses the greatest respect even among those
(indeed, most of all among those) who do not read it, or at least those who
can form no coherent religious concept therefrom; and the most sophistical
reasoning avails nothing in the face of the decisive assertion, which beats
down every objection: Thus it is written. It is for this reason that the
passages in it which are to lay down an article of faith are called simply
texts.1 The appointed expositors of such a scripture are themselves, by
virtue of their occupation, like unto consecrated persons; and history proves
that it has never been possible to destroy a faith grounded in scripture, even
with the most devastating revolutions in the state, whereas the faith
established upon tradition and ancient public observances has promptly met
its downfall when the state was overthrown. How fortunate,* when such a
book, fallen into men's hands, contains, along with its statutes, or laws of
faith, the purest moral doctrine of religion in its completeness--a doctrine
which can be brought into perfect harmony with such statutes ([which
serve] as vehicles for its introduction). In this event, both because of the
end thereby to be attained and because of the difficulty of rendering
intelligible according to natural laws the origin of such enlightenment of the
human race as proceeds from it, such a book can command an esteem like
that accorded to revelation.

* * * * * * * * * * *

And now a few words touching this concept of a belief in revelation.
        There is only one (true) religion; but there can be faiths of several
kinds. We can say further that even in the various churches, severed from
one another by reason of the diversity of their modes of belief, one and the
same true religion can yet be found.
        It is therefore more fitting (as it is more customary in actual practice)
to say: This man is of this or that faith (Jewish, Mohammed, Christian,
Catholic, Lutheran), than: He is of this or that religion. The second
expression ought in justice never to be used in addressing the general public
(in catechisms and sermons), for it
[99]
is too learned and unintelligible for them; indeed, the more modern
languages possess no word of equivalent meaning. The common man
always takes it to mean his ecclesiastical faith, which appeals to his senses,
whereas religion is hidden within and has to do with moral dispositions.
        One does too great honor to most people by saying of them: They
profess this or that religion. For they know none and desire none--statutory
ecclesiastical faith is all that they understand by the word. The so-called
religious wars which have so often shaken the world and bespattered it with
blood, have never been anything but wrangles over ecclesiastical faith; and
the oppressed have complained not that they were hindered from adhering to
their religion (for no external power can do this) but that they were not
permitted publicly to observe their ecclesiastical faith.
        Now when, as usually happens, a church proclaims itself to be the
one church universal (even though it is based upon faith in a special
revelation, which, being historical, can never be required of everyone), he
who refuses to acknowledge its (peculiar) ecclesiastical faith is called by it
an unbeliever and is hated wholeheartedly; he who diverges therefrom only
in part (in non-essentials) is called heterodox and is at least shunned as a
source of infection. But he who avows [allegiance to] this church and yet
diverges from it on essentials of its faith (namely, regarding the practices
connected with it), is called, especially if he spreads abroad his false belief,
a heretic,* and, as a rebel, such a man is held more culpable than a foreign
foe, is expelled from the church with an anathema (like that which the
Romans pronounced on him who crossed the
[100]
Rubicon against the Senate's will) and is given over to all the gods of hell.
The exclusive correctness of belief in matters of ecclesiastical faith claimed
by the church's teachers or heads is called orthodoxy. This could be sub-
divided into despotic (brutal) or liberal orthodoxy.
         If a church which claims that its ecclesiastical faith is universally
binding is called a catholic church, and if that which protests against such
claims on the part of others (even though oftentimes it would gladly advance
similar claims itself, if it could) is called a protestant church, an alert
observer will come upon many laudable examples of Protestant Catholics
and, on the other hand, still more examples, and offensive ones, of arch-
catholic Protestants: the first, men of a cast of mind (even though it is not
that of their church) leading to self-expansion; to which the second, with
their circumscribed cast of mind, stand in sharp contrast--not at all to their
own advantage.

        VI. Ecclesiastical Faith Has Pure Religious Faith as its Highest
Interpreter
        We have noted that a church dispenses with the most important mark
of truth, namely, a rightful claim to universality, when it bases itself upon a
revealed faith. For such a faith, being historical (even though it be far more
widely disseminated and more completely secured for remotest posterity
through the agency of scripture) can never be universally communicated so
as to produce conviction. Yet, because of the natural need and desire of all
men for something sensibly tenable, and for a confirmation of some sort
from experience of the highest concepts and grounds of reason (a need
which really must be taken into account when the universal dissemination of
a faith is contemplated), some historical ecclesiastical faith or other, usually
to be found at hand, must be utilized.
        If such an empirical faith, which chance, it would seem, has tossed
into our hands, is to be united with the basis of a moral faith (be the first an
end or merely a means), an exposition of the revelation which has come into
our possession is required, that is, a thorough-going interpretation of it in a
sense agreeing with the universal practical rules of a religion of pure reason.
For the theoretical part of ecclesiastical faith cannot interest us morally if it
does not conduce to the performance of all human duties as divine
commands (that which constitutes the essence of all religion).
[101]
Frequently this interpretation may, in the light of the text (of the revelation),
appear forced--it may often really be forced; and yet if the text can possibly
support it, it must be preferred to a literal interpretation which either
contains nothing at all [helpful] to morality or else actually works counter to
moral incentives.
        We shall find, too, that this has always been done with all types of
faith, old and new, some of them recorded in holy books, and that wise and
thoughtful teachers of the people kept on interpreting them until, gradually,
they brought them, as regards their essential content, into line with the
universal moral dogmas. The moral philosophers among the Greeks, and
later among the Romans, did exactly this with the fabulous accounts of the
gods. They were able in the end to interpret the grossest polytheism as mere
symbolic representation of the attributes of the single divine Being, and to
supply the various wicked actions [of the gods] and the wild yet lovely
fancies of the poets with a mystical meaning which made a popular faith
(which it would have been very inadvisable
[102]
to destroy, since atheism, still more dangerous to the state, might perhaps
have resulted) approach a moral doctrine intelligible to all men and wholly
salutary. The later Judaism, and even Christianity itself, consist of such
interpretations, often very forced, but in both instances for ends
unquestionably good and needful for all men. The Mohammedans (as
Reland1 shows) know very well how to ascribe a spiritual meaning to the
description of their paradise, which is dedicated to sensuality of every kind;
the Indians do exactly the same thing in the interpretation of their Vedas, at
least for the enlightened portion of their people.
        That this can be done without ever and again offending greatly
against the literal meaning of the popular faith is due to the fact that, earlier
by far than this faith, the predisposition to the moral religion lay hidden in
human reason; and though its first rude manifestations took the form merely
of practices of divine worship, and for this very purpose gave rise to those
alleged revelations, yet these manifestations have infused even into the
myths, though unintentionally, something from the nature of their
supersensible origin. Nor can we charge such interpretations with
dishonesty, provided we are not disposed to assert that the meaning which
we ascribe to the symbols of the popular faith, even to the holy books, is
exactly as intended by them, but rather allow this question to be left
undecided and merely admit the possibility that their authors may be so
understood. For the final purpose even of reading these holy scriptures, or
of investigating their content, is to make men better; the historical element,
which contributes nothing to this end, is something which is in itself quite
indifferent, and we can do with it what we like. (Historical faith "is dead,
being alone";2 that is, of itself, regarded as a creed, it contains nothing, and
leads to nothing, which could have any moral value for us.)
        Hence, even if a document is accepted as a divine revelation, the
highest criterion of its being of divine origin will be: "All scripture given by
inspiration of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for improvement,
etc.";3 and since this last, to wit, the moral improvement of men, constitutes
the real end of all religion of reason, it will comprise the highest principle of
all Scriptural exegesis.
[103]
This religion is "the Spirit of God, who guides us into all truth";1 and this it
is which in instructing us also animates us with basic principles for action,
and wholly subjects whatever scripture may contain for historical faith to the
rules and incentives of pure moral faith, which alone constitutes the element
of genuine religion in each ecclesiastical faith. All investigation and
interpretation of Scripture must from the start be based on a search for this
Spirit in it, and "eternal life can be found therein only so far as it [Scripture]
testifies of this principle."2
        Now placed beside this Scriptural interpreter, but subordinated to
him, is another, namely, the Scriptural scholar. The authority of Scripture,
as the most worthy instrument, and at present the only instrument in the
most enlightened portion of the world, for the union of all men into one
church, constitutes the ecclesiastical faith, which, as the popular faith,
cannot be neglected, because no doctrine based on reason alone seems to the
people qualified to serve as an unchangeable norm. They demand divine
revelation, and hence also an historical certification of its authority through
the tracing back of its origin. Now human skill and wisdom cannot ascend
so far as heaven in order itself to inspect the credentials validating the
mission of the first Teacher. It must be content with evidence that can be
elicited, apart from the content, as to the way in which such a faith has been
introduced--that is, with human reports which must be searched out little by
little from very ancient times, and from languages now dead, for evaluation
as to their historical credibility. Hence Scriptural scholarship will [ever] be
required to maintain in authority a church founded upon Holy Scripture,
([though] not a religion, which, to be universal, must always be founded
upon reason alone), even though this scholarship settles no more than that
there is nothing in the origin of Scripture to render impossible its acceptance
as direct divine revelation; for this would suffice to provide security for
those who fancy that they find in this idea [of a revealed Scripture] special
fortification of their moral faith, and who therefore gladly accept it. Yet not
only the authentication of Holy Scripture, but its interpretation as well,
stands in need of scholarship, and for the same reason. For how are the
unlearned, who can read it only in translation,
[104]
to be certain of its meaning? Hence the expositor, in addition to being
familiar with the original tongue, must also be a master of extended
historical knowledge and criticism, in order that from the conditions,
customs, and opinions (the popular faith) of the times in question he may be
able to derive the means wherewith to enlighten the understanding of the
ecclesiastical commonwealth.
        Rational religion and Scriptural learning are thus the properly
qualified interpreters and trustees of a sacred document. It is obvious that
they must on no account be hindered by the secular arm in the public use of
their judgments and discoveries in this field, or bound to certain dogmas;
for otherwise the laity would compel the clergy to concur in their opinion,
which, after all, they have acquired only from the clergy's instruction. So
long as the state takes care that there is no dearth of scholars and of men in
morally good repute who have authority in the entire church body and to
whose consciences the state entrusts this commission, it has done all that its
duty and capacity require. But to insist that the legislator should carry this
matter into the schools and concern himself with their quarrels (which, if
they are not proclaimed from the pulpit, leave the church-public quite
undisturbed)--such a burden the public cannot thrust upon him without
arrogance, for it is beneath his dignity.
        A third claimant contests the office of interpreter, the man who needs
neither reason nor scholarship, but merely an inner feeling, to recognize the
true meaning of Scripture as well as its divine origin. Now we certainly
cannot deny that "he who follows its teachings and does what it commands
will surely find that it is of God,"1 and that the very impulse to good actions
and to uprightness in the conduct of life, which the man who reads
Scripture or hears it expounded must feel, cannot but convince him of its
divine nature; for this impulse is but the operation of the moral law which
fills man with fervent respect and hence deserves to be regarded as a divine
command. A knowledge of laws, and of their morality, can scarcely be
derived from any sort of feeling; still less can there be inferred or discovered
from a feeling certain evidence of a direct divine influence; for the same
effect can have more than one cause. In this case, however, the bare
morality of the law (and the doctrine), known through reason, is the source
[of the law's validity];
[105]
and even if this origin were no more than barely possible, duty demands
that it be thus construed unless we wish to open wide the gates to every
kind of fanaticism, and even cause the unequivocal moral feeling to lose its
dignity through affiliation with fantasy of every sort. Feeling is private to
every individual and cannot be demanded of others [even] when the law,
from which and according to which this feeling arises, is known in advance;
therefore one cannot urge it as a touchstone for the genuineness of a
revelation, for it teaches absolutely nothing, but is merely the way in which
the subject is affected as regards pleasure or displeasure--and on this basis
can be established no knowledge whatever.
        There is therefore no norm of ecclesiastical faith other than
Scripture, and no expositor thereof other than pure religion of reason and
Scriptural scholarship (which deals with the historical aspect of that
religion). Of these, the first alone is authentic and valid for the whole world;
the second is merely doctrinal, having as its end the transformation of
ecclesiastical faith for a given people at a given time into a definite and
enduring system. Under this system, historical faith must finally become
mere faith in Scriptural scholars and their insight. This does not, indeed,
particularly redound to the honor of human nature; yet it is a situation which
can be corrected through public freedom of thought--and such freedom is
the more justified since only if scholars submit their interpretations to public
examination, while they themselves ever hope for and remain open and
receptive to better insight, can they count on the community's confidence in
their decisions.

        VII. The Gradual Transition of Ecclesiastical Faith to the Exclusive
Sovereignty of Pure Religious Faith is the Coming of the Kingdom of God
        The token of the true church is its universality; the sign of this, in
turn, is its necessity and its determinability in only one possible way.
Historical faith (which is based upon revelation, regarded as an experience)
has only particular validity, to wit, for those who have had access to the
historical record upon which this faith rests; and like all empirical
knowledge it carries with it the consciousness not that the object believed in
must be so and not otherwise, but merely that it is so; hence it involves as
well the consciousness of its contingency. Thus historical faith can become
an ecclesiastical faith (of which there can be several), whereas only
[106]
pure religious faith, which bases itself wholly upon reason, can be accepted
as necessary and therefore as the only one which signalizes the true church.
        When, therefore, (in conformity with the unavoidable limitation of
human reason) an historical faith attaches itself to pure religion, as its
vehicle, but with the consciousness that it is only a vehicle, and when this
faith, having become ecclesiastical, embraces the principle of a continual
approach to pure religious faith, in order finally to be able to dispense with
the historical vehicle, a church thus characterized can at any time be called
the true church; but, since conflict over historical dogmas can never be
avoided, it can be spoken of only as the church militant, though with the
prospect of becoming finally the changeless and all-unifying church
triumphant! We call the faith of every individual who possesses moral
capacity (worthiness) for eternal happiness a saving faith. This also can be
but a single faith; amid all diversity of ecclesiastical faiths [or creeds] it is
discoverable in each of these in which, moving toward the goal of pure
religious faith, it is practical. The faith of a religion of divine worship, in
contrast, is a drudging and mercenary faith (fides mercenaria, servilis) and
cannot be regarded as saving because it is not moral. For a moral faith must
be free and based upon an ingenuous disposition of the heart (fides
ingenua). Ecclesiastical faith fancies it possible to become well-pleasing to
God through actions (of worship) which (though irksome) yet possess in
themselves no moral worth and hence are merely acts induced by fear or
hope--acts which an evil man also can perform. Moral faith, in contrast,
presupposes that a morally good disposition is requisite.
        Saving faith involves two elements, upon which hope of salvation is
conditioned, the one having reference to what man himself cannot
accomplish, namely, undoing lawfully (before a divine judge) actions which
he has performed, the other to what he himself can and ought to do, that is,
leading a new life conformable to his duty. The first is the faith in an
atonement (reparation for his debt, redemption, reconciliation with God);
the second, the faith that we can become well-pleasing to God through a
good course of life in the future. Both conditions constitute but one faith
and necessarily belong together. Yet we can comprehend the necessity of
their union only by assuming that one can be derived from the other, that is,
either that the faith in the absolution from the debt
[107]
resting upon us will bring forth good life-conduct, or else that the genuine
and active disposition ever to pursue a good course of life will engender the
faith in such absolution according to the law of morally operating causes.
Here now appears a remarkable antinomy of human reason with itself,
whose solution, or, were this not possible, at least whose adjustment can
alone determine whether an historical (ecclesiastical) faith must always be
present as an essential element of saving faith, over and above pure
religious faith, or whether it is only a vehicle which finally--however distant
this future event may be--can pass over into pure religious faith.
        l. If it is assumed that atonement has been made for the sins of
mankind, it is indeed conceivable that every sinner would gladly have it
applied to himself and that were it merely a matter of belief (which means no
more than an avowal that he wishes the atonement to be rendered for him
also), he would not for an instant suffer misgivings on this score.
However, it is quite impossible to see how a reasonable man, who knows
himself to merit punishment, can in all seriousness believe that he needs
only to credit the news of an atonement rendered for him, and to accept this
atonement utiliter (as the lawyers say), in order to regard his guilt as
annihilated,--indeed, so completely annihilated (to the very root) that good
life-conduct, for which he has hitherto not taken the least pains, will in the
future be the inevitable consequence of this faith and this acceptance of the
proffered favor. No thoughtful person can bring himself to believe this,
even though self-love often does transform the bare wish for a good, for
which man does nothing and can do nothing, into a hope, as though one's
object were to come of itself, elicited by mere longing. Such a persuasion
can be regarded as possible only if the individual regards this belief as itself
instilled in him by heaven and hence as something concerning which he
need render no further account to his reason. If he cannot think this, or if he
is still too sincere artificially to produce in himself such a confidence, as a
mere means of ingratiation, he can only, with all respect for such a
transcendent1 atonement, and with every wish that it be available for him
also, regard it as conditioned. That is, he must believe that he must first
improve his way of life, so far as improvement lies in his power, if he is to
have even the slightest ground for hope of such a higher gain. Wherefore,
[108]
since historical knowledge of the atonement belongs to ecclesiastical faith,
while the improved way of life, as a condition, belongs to pure moral faith,
the latter must take precedence over the former.
        2. But if men are corrupt by nature, how can a man believe that by
himself, try as hard as he will, he can make himself a new man well-
pleasing to God, when--conscious of the transgressions of which up to the
present he has been guilty--he still stands in the power of the evil principle
and finds in himself no capacity adequate for future improvement? If he
cannot regard justice, which he has provoked against himself, as satisfied
through atonement by another,1 and cannot regard himself reborn, so to
speak, through this faith and so for the first time able to enter upon a new
course of life--and this would follow from his union with the good
principle--upon what is he to base his hope of becoming a man pleasing to
God? Thus faith in a merit not his own, whereby he is reconciled with God,
must precede every effort to good works. But this goes counter to the
previous proposition, [that good works must precede faith in divine
atonement]. This contradiction cannot be resolved through insight into the
causal determination of the freedom of a human being, i.e., into the causes
which bring it about that a man becomes good or bad; hence it cannot be
resolved theoretically, for it is a question wholly transcending the
speculative capacity of our reason. But practically, the question arises:
What, in the use of our free willw, comes first, (not physically2 but
morally)? Where shall we start, i.e., with a faith in what God has done on
our behalf, or with what we are to do to become worthy of God's assistance
(whatever this may be)? In answering this question we cannot hesitate in
deciding for the second alternative.
        The acceptance of the first requisite for salvation, namely, faith in a
vicarious atonement, is in any case necessary only for the theoretical
concept; in no other way can we make comprehensible to ourselves such
absolution. In contrast, the necessity for the second principle is practical
and, indeed, purely moral. We can certainly hope to partake in the
appropriation of another's atoning merit, and so of salvation, only by
qualifying for it through our own efforts to fulfil every human duty--and
this obedience must be the effect of our own action and not, once again, of a
foreign
[109]
influence in the presence of which we are passive. For since the command
to do our duty is unconditioned, it is also necessary that man shall make it,
as maxim, the basis of his belief, that is to say that he shall begin with the
improvement of his life as the supreme condition under which alone a
saving faith can exist.
        Ecclesiastical faith, being historical, rightly starts with the belief in
atonement; but since it merely constitutes the vehicle for pure religious faith
(in which lies the real end), the maxim of action, which in religious faith
(being practical) is the condition, must take the lead, and the maxim of
knowledge, or theoretical faith, must merely bring about the strengthening
and consummation of the maxim of action.
        In this connection it might also be remarked that, according to the
ecclesiastical principle, the faith in a vicarious atonement would be imputed
to man as a duty, whereas faith in good life conduct, as being effected
through a higher agency, would be reckoned to him as of grace. According
to the other principle the order is reversed. For according to it the good
course of life, as the highest condition of grace, is unconditioned duty,
whereas atonement from on high1 is purely a matter of grace. Against the
first faith is charged (often not unjustly) the superstitious belief of divine
worship, which knows how to combine a blameworthy course of life with
religion; against the second, naturalistic unbelief, which unites with a course
of life, perhaps otherwise exemplary, indifference or even antagonism to all
revelation. This [latter attitude] would constitute cutting the knot (by means
of a practical maxim) instead of disentangling it (theoretically)--a procedure
which is after all permitted in religious questions. However, the theoretical
demand can be satisfied in the following manner.
        The living faith in the archetype of humanity well-pleasing to God
(in the Son of God) is bound up, in itself, with a moral idea of reason so far
as this serves us not only as a guide-line but also as an incentive; hence it
matters not whether I start with it as a rational faith, or with the principle of
a good course of life. In contrast, the faith in the self-same archetype in its
[phenomenal appearance (faith in the God-Man), as an empirical (historical)
faith, is not interchangeable with the principle of the good course of life
(which must be wholly rational), and it would be quite a
[110]
different matter to wish to start with such a faith  and to deduce the good
course of life from it. To this extent then, there would be a contradiction
between the two propositions above. And yet, in the appearance of the God-
Man [on earth], it is not that in him which strikes the senses and can be
known through experience, but rather the archetype, lying in our reason,
that we attribute to him (since, so far as his example can be known, he is
found to conform thereto), which is really the object of saving faith, and
such a faith does not differ from the principle of a course of life well-
pleasing to God.
        Here, then, are not two principles which in themselves so differ that
to begin with the one, or the other, would be to enter upon opposing paths,
but only one and the same practical idea from which we take our start, this
idea representing the archetype now as found in God and proceeding from
Him, and now, as found in us, but in both instances as the gauge for our
course of life. The antinomy is therefore only apparent, since, through a
misunderstanding, it regards the self-same practical idea, taken merely in
different references, as two different principles. If one wished, however, to
make the historical faith in the reality of such an appearance, taking place in
the world on a single occasion, the condition of the only saving faith, there
would, indeed, be two quite different principles (the one empirical, the other
rational) regarding which a real conflict of maxims would arise--whether
one should begin with and start out from the one or the other This conflict
no reason would ever be able to resolve.
        The proposition: We must believe that there was once a man (of
whom reason tells us nothing) who through his holiness and merit rendered
satisfaction both for himself (with reference to his duty) and for all others
(with their shortcomings, in the light of their duty), if we are to hope that
we ourselves, though in a good course of life, will be saved by virtue of
that faith alone--this proposition says something very different from the
following: With all our strength we must strive after the holy disposition of
a course of life well-pleasing to God, to be able to believe that the love
(already assured us through reason) of God toward man, so far as man does
endeavor with all his strength to do the will of God, will make good, in
consideration of an upright disposition, the deficiency of the deed, whatever
this deficiency may be. The first
[111]
belief is not in the power of everyone (even of the unlearned). History
testifies that in all forms of religion this conflict between two principles of
faith has existed; for all religions have involved expiation, on whatever
basis they put it, and the moral predisposition in each individual has not
failed, on its side, to let its claims be heard. Yet at all times the priests have
complained more than the moralists: the former (with summons to the
authorities to check the mischief) protesting loudly against the neglect of
divine worship, which was instituted to reconcile the people with heaven
and to ward off misfortune from the state; the latter complaining, on the
other hand, about the decline of morals, a decline which they zealously set
to the account of those means of absolution whereby the priests made it easy
for anyone to make his peace with the Deity over the grossest vices. In point
of fact, if an inexhaustible fund is already at hand for the payment of debts
incurred or still to be incurred, so that man has merely to reach out (and at
every claim which conscience makes one would be sure, first of all, to reach
out) in order to free himself of sin, while he can postpone resolving upon a
good course of life until he is first clear of those debts--if this were possible
it is not easy to conceive any other consequences of such a faith. Yet were
this faith to be portrayed as having so peculiar a power and so mystical (or
magical) an influence, that although merely historical, so far as we can see,
it is yet competent to better the whole man from the ground up (to make a
new man of him) if he yields himself to it and to the feelings bound up with
it, such a faith would have to be regarded as imparted and inspired directly
by heaven (together with, and in, the historical faith), and everything
connected even with the moral constitution of man would resolve itself into
an unconditioned decree of God: "He hath mercy on whom he will, and
whom he will he hardeneth,"1* which, taken according to the letter, is the
salto mortale of human reason.
[112]
        Hence a necessary consequence of the physical and, at the same
time, the moral predisposition in us, the latter being the basis and the
interpreter of all religion, is that in the end religion will gradually be freed
from all empirical determining grounds and from all statutes which rest on
history and which through the agency of ecclesiastical faith provisionally
unite men for the requirements of the good; and thus at last the pure religion
of reason will rule over all, "so that God may be all in all."1 The
integuments within which the embryo first developed into a human being
must be laid aside when he is to come into the light of day. The leading-
string of holy tradition with its appendages of statutes and observances,
which in its time did good service, becomes bit by bit dispensable, yea,
finally, when man enters upon his adolescence, it becomes a fetter. While
he (the human race) "was a child he understood as a child"2 and managed to
combine a certain amount of erudition, and even a philosophy ministering to
the church, with the propositions which were bestowed on him without his
cooperation: "but when he becomes a man he puts away childish things."2
The humiliating distinction between laity and clergy disappears, and equality
arises from true freedom, yet without anarchy, because, though each obeys
the (non-statutory) law which he prescribes to himself, he must at the same
time regard this law as the will of a World-Ruler revealed to him through
reason, a will which by invisible means unites all under one common
government into one state--a state previously and inadequately represented
and prepared for by the visible church. All this is not to be expected from an
external revolution, because such an upheaval produces its effect
tempestuously and violently, an effect, quite dependent on circumstances.
Moreover whatever mistake has once been made in the establishment of a
new constitution, is regretfully retained
[113]
throughout hundreds of years, since it can no longer be changed or at least
only through a new (and at any time dangerous) revolution. The basis for
the transition to that new order of affairs must lie in the principle that the
pure religion of reason is a continually occurring divine (though not
empirical) revelation for all men. Once this basis has been grasped with
mature reflection, it is carried into effect, so far as this is destined to be a
human task, through gradually advancing reform. As for revolutions which
might hasten this progress, they rest in the hands of Providence and cannot
be ushered in according to plan without damage to freedom.
        We have good reason to say, however, that "the kingdom of God is
come unto us"1 once the principle of the gradual transition of ecclesiastical
faith to the universal religion of reason, and so to a (divine) ethical state on
earth, has become general and has also gained somewhere a public
foothold, even though the actual establishment of this state is still infinitely
removed from us. For since this principle contains the basis for a continual
approach towards such a consummation, there lies in it (invisibly), as in a
seed which is self-developing and in due time self-fertilizing, the whole,
which one day is to illumine and to rule the world. But truth and goodness--
and in the natural predisposition of every man there lies a basis of insight
into these as well as a basis of heartfelt sympathy with them--do not fail to
communicate themselves far and wide once they have become public,
thanks to their natural affinity with the moral predisposition of rational
beings generally. The obstacles, arising from political and civil causes,
which may from time to time hinder their spread, serve rather to make all the
closer the union of men's spirits with the good (which never leaves their
thoughts after they have once cast their eyes upon it).*
*       *       *       *       *       *
[114]
        Such, therefore, is the activity of the good principle, unnoted by
human eyes but ever continuing--erecting for itself in the human race,
regarded as a commonwealth under laws of virtue, a power and kingdom
which sustains the victory over evil and, under its own dominion, assures
the world of an eternal peace.
[115]
DIVISION TWO

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE GRADUAL ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE GOOD PRINCIPLE ON EARTH

        We can expect no universal history of religion (in the strictest
meaning of the word) among men on earth; for, since it is based upon pure
moral faith, it has no public status,1 and each man can become aware only
in and for himself of the advances which he has made in it. Hence it is only
of ecclesiastical faith that we can expect a universal historical account, in
which its varied and changing form is compared with the single,
unchanging, pure religious faith. At the point where the first of these
publicly recognizes its dependence upon the qualifying conditions of the
second and the necessity of conformity to them, the church universal
commences to fashion itself into an ethical state of God and to march toward
the consummation of this state under a steadfast principle which is one and
the same for all men and for all times. We can see in advance that this
history will be nothing but the narrative of the enduring conflict between the
faith of divine worship and the moral faith of religion, the first of which, as
historical faith, man is continually inclined to put foremost, while, on the
other hand, the second has never relinquished its claim to the priority to
which it is entitled as the only faith bettering the soul--a claim which it will
certainly, in the end, make good.
        Now this historical account can have unity only if it is confined
wholly to that portion of the human race in which the predisposition to the
unity of the universal church is already approaching its [complete]
development, that is, when the problem of the difference between the faiths
of reason and of history has already been publicly propounded and its
solution made a matter of the greatest moral importance; for an historical
account merely of the dogmas of diverse peoples, whose faiths stand in no
connection with one another, can reveal no [such example of] church unity.
It cannot be taken as an instance of this unity that in one and the same
people a certain new faith once arose and distinguished itself by name from
the faith previously dominant, even though the latter afforded the occasional
causes of the new product. For there must exist a unity of principle if we are
to construe the succession of different types of belief following one another
as modifications of
[116]
one and the same church; and it is really with the history of this church that
we are now concerned.
        So we can deal, under this heading, only with the history of that
church which contained within itself, from its first beginning, the seed and
the principles of the objective unity of the true and universal religious faith,
to which it is gradually brought nearer. And first of all it is evident that the
Jewish faith stands in no essential connection whatever, i.e., in no unity of
concepts, with this ecclesiastical faith whose history we wish to consider,
though the Jewish immediately preceded this (the Christian) church and
provided the physical occasion for its establishment.
        The Jewish faith was, in its original form, a collection of mere
statutory laws upon which was established a political organization; for
whatever moral additions were then or later appended to it in no way
whatever belong to Judaism as such. Judaism is really not a religion at all
but merely a union of a number of people who, since they belonged to a
particular stock, formed themselves into a commonwealth under purely
political laws, and not into a church; nay, it was intended to be merely an
earthly state so that, were it possibly to be dismembered through adverse
circumstances, there would still remain to it (as part of its very essence) the
political faith in its eventual re-establishment (with the advent of the
Messiah). That this political organization has a theocracy as its basis
(visibly, an aristocracy of priests or leaders, who boast of instructions
imparted directly by God), and that therefore the name of God, who after all
is here merely an earthly regent making absolutely no claims upon, and no
appeals to, conscience, is respected--this does not make it a religious
organization. The proof that Judaism has not allowed its organization to
become religious is clear. First, all its commands are of the kind which a
political organization can insist upon and lay down as coercive laws, since
they relate merely to external acts; and although the Ten Commandments
are, to the eye of reason, valid as ethical commands even had they not been
given publicly, yet in that legislation they are not so prescribed as to induce
obedience by laying requirements upon the moral disposition (Christianity
later placed its main emphasis here); they are directed to absolutely nothing
but outer observance. From this it is also clear that, second, all the
consequences of fulfilling or transgressing these laws, all rewards or
punishments, are limited to those alone which can
[117]
be allotted to all men in this world, and not even these [are distributed]
according to ethical concepts, since both rewards and punishments were to
reach a posterity which has taken no practical part in these deeds or
misdeeds. In a political organization this may indeed be a prudent device for
creating docility, but in an ethical organization it would be contrary to all
right. Furthermore, since no religion can be conceived of which involves no
belief in a future life, Judaism, which, when taken in its purity is seen to
lack this belief, is not a religious faith at all. This can be further supported
by the following remark. We can hardly question that the Jews, like other
peoples, even the most savage, ought [normally] to have had a belief in a
future life, and therefore in a heaven and a hell; for this belief automatically
obtrudes itself upon everyone by virtue of the universal moral
predisposition in human nature. Hence it certainly came about
intentionally that the law-giver of this people, even though he is represented
as God Himself, wished to pay not the slightest regard to the future life.
This shows that he must have wanted to found merely a political, not an
ethical commonwealth; and to talk, in a political state, of rewards and
punishments which cannot become apparent here in this life-would have
been, on that premise, a wholly inconsequential and unsuitable procedure.
And though, indeed, it cannot be doubted that the Jews may, subsequently,
and each for himself, have framed some sort of religious faith which was
mingled with the articles of their statutory belief, such religious faith has
never been part and parcel of the legislation of Judaism. Third, Judaism
fell so far short of constituting an era suited to the requirements of the
church universal, or of setting up this universal church itself during its time,
as actually to exclude from its communion the entire human race, on the
ground that it was a special people chosen by God for Himself--[an
exclusiveness] which showed enmity toward all other peoples and which,
therefore, evoked the enmity of all. In this connection, we should not rate
too highly the fact that this people set up, as universal Ruler of the world, a
one and only God who could be represented through no visible image. For
we find that the religious doctrines of most other peoples tended in the same
direction and that these made themselves suspected of polytheism only by
the veneration of certain mighty undergods subordinated to Him. For a
God who desires merely obedience to commands for which absolutely no
improved moral
[118]
disposition is requisite is, after all, not really the moral Being the concept of
whom we need for a religion. Religion would be more likely to arise from a
belief in many mighty invisible beings of this order, provided a people
conceived of these as all agreeing, amid their "departmental" differences, to
bestow their good pleasure only upon the man who cherishes virtue with all
his heart--more likely, I say, than when faith is bestowed upon but one
Being, who, however, attaches prime importance to mechanical worship.
        We cannot, therefore, do otherwise than begin general church
history, if it is to constitute a system, with the origin of Christianity, which,
completely forsaking the Judaism from which it sprang, and grounded upon
a wholly new principle, effected a thoroughgoing revolution in doctrines of
faith. The pains which teachers of Christianity take now, and may have
taken in the beginning, to join Judaism and Christianity with a connecting
strand by trying to have men regard the new faith as a mere continuation of
the old (which, they allege, contained in prefiguration all the events of the
new)--these efforts reveal most clearly that their problem is and was merely
the discovery of the most suitable means of introducing a purely moral
religion in place of the old worship, to which the people were all too well
habituated, without directly offending the people's prejudices. The
subsequent dispensing with the corporal sign which served wholly to
separate this people from others warrants the judgment that the new faith,
not bound to the statutes of the old, nor, indeed, to any statutes whatever,
was to comprise a religion valid for the world and not for one single people.
        Thus Christianity arose suddenly, though not unprepared for, from
Judaism. The latter, however, was no longer patriarchal and unmixed,
standing solely upon its political constitution (for even this was by that time
sorely unsettled), but was already interfused, by reason of moral doctrines
gradually made public within it, with a religious faith--for this otherwise
ignorant people had been able to receive much foreign (Greek) wisdom.
This wisdom presumably had the further effect of enlightening Judaism
with concepts of virtue and, despite the pressing weight of its dogmatic
faith, of preparing it for revolution, the opportunity being afforded by the
diminished power of the priests, who had been subjugated to the rule of a
people1 which regarded all foreign popular beliefs
[119]
with indifference. The Teacher of the Gospel announced himself to be an
ambassador from heaven. As one worthy of such a mission, he declared
that servile belief (taking the form of confessions and practices on days of
divine worship) is essentially vain and that moral faith, which alone renders
men holy "as their Father in Heaven is holy"1 and which proves its
genuineness by a good course of life, is the only saving faith. After he had
given, in his own person, through precept and suffering even to unmerited
yet meritorious death,* an example conforming to the archetype of a
[120]
humanity alone pleasing to God, he is represented as returning to heaven,
whence he came. He left behind him, by word of mouth, his last will (as in
a testament); and, trusting in the power of the memory of his merit,
teaching, and example, he was able to say that "he (the ideal of humanity
well-pleasing to God) would still be with his disciples, even to the end of
the world."1 Were it a question of historical belief concerning the derivation
and the rank, possibly supermundane, of his person, this doctrine would
indeed stand in need of verification through miracles; although, as merely
belonging to moral soul-improving faith, it can dispense with all such
proofs of its truth. Hence, in a holy book miracles and mysteries find a
place; the manner of making these known, in turn, is also miraculous, and
demands a faith in history; which, finally, can be authenticated, and assured
as to meaning and import, only by scholarship.
        Every faith which, as an historical faith, bases itself upon books,
needs for its security a learned public for whom it can be controlled, as it
were, by writers who lived in those times, who are not suspected of a
special agreement with the first disseminators of the faith, and with whom
our present-day scholarship is connected by a continuous tradition. The
pure faith of reason, in contrast, stands in need of no such documentary
authentication, but proves itself. Now at the time of the revolution in
question there was present among the people (the Romans), who ruled the
Jews and who had spread into their very domain, a learned public from
whom the history of the political events of that period has indeed been
handed down to us through an unbroken series of writers. And although the
Romans concerned themselves but little with the religious beliefs of their
non-Roman subjects, they were by no means incredulous of the miracles
alleged to have taken place publicly in their midst. Yet they made no
mention, as contemporaries, either of these miracles or of the revolution
which the miracles produced (in respect to religion) in the people under their
dominion, though the revolution had taken place quite as publicly. Only
later, after more than a generation, did they institute inquiries into the nature
of this change of faith which had
[121]
remained unknown to them hitherto (but which had occurred not without
public commotion), but they did not inquire into the history of its first
beginning, in order to learn this history from its own records. So from this
period to the time when Christendom could furnish a learned public of its
own, its history is obscure and we remain ignorant of what effect the
teaching of Christianity had upon the morality of its adherents whether the
first Christians actually were morally improved men or just people of the
common run. At any rate, the history of Christendom, from the time that it
became a learned public itself, or at least part of the universal learned public,
has served in no way to recommend it on the score of the beneficent effect
which can justly be expected of a moral religion.
        For history tells how the mystical fanaticism in the lives of hermits
and monks, and the glorification of the holiness of celibacy, rendered great
masses of people useless to the world; how alleged miracles accompanying
all this weighed down the people with heavy chains under a blind
superstitution; how, with a hierarchy forcing itself upon free men, the
dreadful voice of orthodoxy was raised, out of the mouths of
presumptuous, exclusively "called," Scriptural expositors, and divided the
Christian world into embittered parties over credal opinions on matters of
faith (upon which absolutely no general agreement can be reached without
appeal to pure reason as the expositor); how in the East, where the state
meddled in an absurd manner with the religious statutes of the priests and
with priestdom, instead of holding them within the narrow confines of a
teacher's status (out of which they are at all times inclined to pass over into
that of ruler)--how, I say, this state had finally to become, quite
inescapably, the prey of foreign enemies, who at last put an end to its
prevailing faith; how, in the West, where faith had erected its own throne,
independent of worldly power, the civil order together with the sciences
(which maintain this order) were thrown into confusion and rendered
impotent by a self-styled viceroy of God; how both Christian portions of the
world became overrun by barbarians, just as plants and animals, near death
from some disease, attract destructive insects to complete their dissolution;
how, in the West, the spiritual head ruled over and disciplined kings like
children by means of the magic wand of his threatened excommunication,
and incited them to depopulating foreign wars in another portion of the
[122]
world (the Crusades), to the waging of war with one another, to the
rebellion of subjects against those in authority over them, and to
bloodthirsty hatred against their otherwise-minded colleagues in one and the
same universal Christendom so-called; how the root of this discord, which
even now is kept from violent outbreaks only through political interest, lies
hidden in the basic principle of a despotically commanding ecclesiastical
faith and still gives cause for dread of events like unto these--this history of
Christendom (which indeed could not eventuate otherwise if erected upon
an historical faith), when surveyed in a single glance, like a painting, might
well justify the exclamation: tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,1 did not
the fact still shine forth clearly from its founding that Christianity's first
intention was really no other than to introduce a pure religious faith, over
which no conflict of opinions can prevail; whereas that turmoil, through
which the human race was disrupted and is still set at odds, arises solely
from this, that what, by reason of an evil propensity of human nature, was
in the beginning to serve merely for the introduction of pure religious faith,
i.e., to win over for the new faith the nation habituated to the old historical
belief through its own prejudices, was in the sequel made the foundation of
a universal world-religion.
        If now one asks, What period in the entire known history of the
church up to now is the best? I have no scruple in answering, the present.
And this, because, if the seed of the true religious faith, as it is now being
publicly sown in Christendom, though only by a few, is allowed more and
more to grow unhindered, we may look for a continuous approximation to
that church, eternally uniting all men, which constitutes the visible
representation (the schema) of an invisible kingdom of God on earth. For
reason has freed itself, in matters which by their nature ought to be moral
and soul-improving, from the weight of a faith forever dependent upon the
arbitrary willw of the expositors, and has among true reverers of religion in
all the lands of this portion of the world universally (though indeed not in all
places publicly) laid down the following principles. The first is the principle
of reasonable modesty in pronouncements regarding all that goes by the
name of revelation. For no one can deny the possibility that a scripture
which, in practical content, contains much that is godly, may (with respect
to what is historical in it) be regarded as a genuinely divine revelation.
[123]
It is also possible that the union of men into one religion cannot feasibly be
brought about or made abiding without a holy book and an ecclesiastical
faith based upon it. Moreover, the contemporary state of human insight
being what it is, one can hardly expect a new revelation, ushered in with
new miracles. Hence the most intelligent and most reasonable thing to do is
from how on to use the book already at hand as the basis for ecclesiastical
instruction and not to lessen its value through useless or mischievous
attacks, yet meanwhile not forcing belief in it, as requisite to salvation, upon
any man. The second principle is this: that, since the sacred narrative, which
is employed solely on behalf of ecclesiastical faith, can have and, taken by
itself, ought to have absolutely no influence upon the adoption of moral
maxims, and since it is given to ecclesiastical faith only for the vivid
presentation of its true object (virtue striving toward holiness), it follows
that this narrative must at all times be taught and expounded in the interest of
morality; and yet (because the common man especially has an enduring
propensity within him to sink into passive* belief) it must be inculcated
painstakingly and repeatedly that true religion is to consist not in the
knowing or considering of what God does or has done for our salvation but
in what we must do to become worthy of it. This last can never be anything
but what possesses in itself undoubted and unconditional worth, what
therefore can alone make us well-pleasing to God, and of whose necessity
every man can become wholly certain without any Scriptural learning
whatever. Now it is the duty of rulers not to hinder these basic principles
from becoming public. On the contrary, very much is risked and a great
responsibility assumed by one who intrudes upon the process of divine
Providence and, for the sake of certain historical ecclesiastical doctrines
which at best have in their favor only a probability discoverable by scholars,
exposes to
[124]
temptation* the consciences of the subjects through the offer, or denial, of
certain civil advantages otherwise open to all: all this, apart from the damage
done thereby to a freedom which in this case is holy, can scarcely produce
good citizens for the state. Who among those proffering themselves to
hinder such a free development of godly predispositions to the world's
highest good, or even proposing such a hindrance, would wish, after
thinking it over in communion with his conscience, to answer for all the evil
which might arise from such forcible encroachments, whereby the advance
in goodness intended by the Governor of the world, though it can never be
wholly destroyed through human might or human contrivance, may perhaps
be checked for a long time, yea, even turned into a retrogression!
        As regards its guidance by Providence, the kingdom of heaven is
represented in this historical account not only as being brought ever nearer,
in an approach delayed at certain times yet never
[125]
wholly interrupted, but also as arriving. When to this narrative is added (in
the Apocalypse) a prophecy (like those in the Sibylline books) of the
consummation of this great world-change, in the image of a visible kingdom
of God on earth (under the government of His representative and viceroy,
again descended to earth), and of the happiness which is to be enjoyed
under him in this world after the separation and expulsion of the rebels who
once again seek to withstand him, and also of the complete extirpation of
these rebels and their leader, and when, thus, the account closes with the
end of the world, all this may be interpreted as a symbolical representation
intended merely to enliven hope and courage and to increase our endeavors
to that end. The Teacher of the Gospel revealed to his disciples the kingdom
of God on earth only in its glorious, soul-elevating moral aspect, namely, in
terms of the value of citizenship in a divine state, and to this end he
informed them of what they had to do, not only to achieve it themselves but
to unite with all others of the same mind and, so far as possible, with the
entire human race. Concerning happiness, however, which constitutes the
other part of what man inevitably wishes, he told them in advance not to
count on it in their life on earth. Instead he bade them be prepared for the
greatest tribulations and sacrifices; yet he added (since man cannot be
expected, while he is alive, wholly to renounce what is physical in
happiness): "Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in
heaven."1 The supplement, added to the history of the church, dealing with
man's future and final destiny, pictures men as ultimately triumphant, i.e.,
as crowned with happiness while still here on earth, after all obstacles have
been overcome. The separation of the good from the evil, which, during the
progress of the church toward its consummation, would not have conduced
to this end (since their mixture with one another was needed, partly to spur
the good on to virtue, partly to withdraw the bad from evil through the
others' example), is represented as following upon the completed
establishment of the divine state and as its last consequence; whereto is
added, as the final proof of the state's stability and might, its victory over all
external foes who are also regarded as forming a state (the state of hell).
With this all earthly life comes to an end, in that "the last enemy (of good
men), death, is
[126]
destroyed";1 and immortality commences for both parties, to the salvation
of one, the damnation of the other. The very form of a church is dissolved,
the viceroy becomes at one with man who is raised up to his level as a
citizen of heaven, and so God is all in all.*
        This sketch of a history of after-ages, which themselves are not yet
history, presents a beautiful ideal of the moral world-epoch, brought about
by the introduction of true universal religion and in faith foreseen even to its
culmination--which we cannot conceive as a culmination in experience, but
can merely anticipate, i.e., prepare for, in continual progress and
approximation toward the highest good possible on earth (and in all of this
there is nothing mystical, but everything moves quite naturally in a moral
fashion). The appearance of the Antichrist, the milennium, and the news of
the proximity of the end of the world--all these can take on, before reason,
their right symbolic meaning; and to represent the last of these as an event
not to be seen in advance (like the end of life, be it far or near) admirably
expresses the necessity of standing ready at all times for the end and indeed
(if one attaches the intellectual meaning to this symbol) really to consider
ourselves always as chosen citizens of a divine (ethical) state. "When,
therefore, cometh the kingdom of God?"2 "The kingdom of God cometh
not in visible form. Neither shall they say, Lo here; or lo there! For, behold,
the kingdom of God is within you," (Luke XVII, 21-2).**
[129]

GENERAL OBSERVATION

        Investigation into the inner nature of all kinds of faith which concern
religion invariably encounters a mystery, i.e., something holy which may
indeed be known by each single individual but cannot be made known
publicly, that is, shared universally. Being something holy, it must be
moral, and so an object of reason, and it must be capable of being known
from within adequately for practical use, and yet, as something mysterious,
not for theoretical use, since in this case it would have to be capable of
being shared with everyone and made known publicly.
        Belief in what we are yet to regard as a holy mystery can be looked
upon as divinely prompted or as a pure rational faith. Unless we are
impelled by the greatest need to adopt the first of these views, we shall
make it our maxim to abide by the second. Feelings are not knowledge and
so do not indicate [the presence of] a mystery; and since the latter is related
to reason, yet cannot be shared universally, each individual will have to
search for it (if ever there is such a thing) solely in his own reason.
        It is impossible to settle, a priori and objectively, whether there are
such mysteries or not. We must therefore search directly in the inner, the
subjective, part of our moral predisposition to see whether any such thing is
to be found in us. Yet we shall not be entitled to number among the holy
mysteries the grounds of morality, which are inscrutable to us; for we can
thus classify only that which we can know but which is incapable of being
communicated publicly, whereas, though morality can indeed be
communicated publicly, its cause remains unknown to us. Thus freedom,
an attribute of which man becomes aware through the determinability of his
willw by the unconditioned moral law, is no mystery, because the
knowledge of it can be shared with everyone; but the ground, inscrutable to
us, of this attribute is a mystery because this ground is not given us as an
object of knowledge. Yet it is this very freedom which, when applied to the
final object of practical reason (the realization of the idea of the moral end),
alone leads us inevitably to holy mysteries.*
[130]
        The idea of the highest good, inseparably bound up with the purely
moral disposition, cannot be realized by man himself (not only in the matter
of the happiness pertaining thereto, but also in the matter of the union of
men necessary for the end in its entirety); yet he discovers within himself
the duty to work for this end. Hence he finds himself impelled to believe in
the cooperation or management of a moral Ruler of the world, by means of
which alone this goal can be reached. And now there opens up before him
the abyss of a mystery regarding what God may do [toward the realization
of this end], whether indeed anything in general, and if so, what in
particular should be ascribed to God. Meanwhile man knows concerning
each duty nothing but what he must himself do in order to be worthy of that
supplement, unknown, or at least incomprehensible, to him.
        This idea of a moral Governor of the world is a task presented to our
practical reason. It concerns us not so much to know what God is in
Himself (His nature) as what He is for us as moral beings; although in order
to know the latter we must conceive and comprehend all the attributes of the
divine nature (for instance, the unchangeableness, omniscience,
omnipotence, etc. of such a Being) which, in their totality, are requisite to
the carrying out of
[131]
the divine will in this regard. Apart from this context we can know nothing
about Him.
        Now the universal true religious belief conformable to this
requirement of practical reason is belief in God (1) as the omnipotent
Creator of heaven and earth, i.e., morally as holy Legislator, (2) as
Preserver of the human race, its benevolent Ruler and moral Guardian, (3)
as Administrator of His own holy laws, i.e., as righteous Judge.
        This belief really contains no mystery, because it merely expresses
the moral relation of God to the human race; it also presents itself
spontaneously to human reason everywhere and is therefore to be met with
in the religion of most civilized peoples.* It is present likewise in the
concept of a people regarded as a commonwealth, in which such a threefold
higher power (pouvoir) will always be descried, except that this
commonwealth is here represented as ethical: hence this threefold quality of
the moral Governor of the human race, which in a juridico-civil state must
of necessity be divided among three different departments [legislative,
executive, and judicial], can be thought of as combined in one and the same
Being.  
[132]
        And since this faith which, on behalf of religion in general, has
cleansed the moral relation of men to the Supreme Being from harmful
anthropomorphism, and has harmonized it with the genuine morality of a
people of God, was first set forth in a particular (the Christian) body of
doctrine and only therein made public to the world, we can call the
promulgation of these doctrines a revelation of the faith which had hitherto
remained hidden from men through their own fault.
        These doctrines assert, first, that we are to look upon the Supreme
Lawgiver as one who commands not mercifully or with forbearance
(indulgently) for men's weakness, or despotically and merely according to
His unlimited right; and we are to look upon His laws not as arbitrary and
as wholly unrelated to our concepts of morality, but as laws addressed to
man's holiness. Second, we must place His beneficence not in an
unconditioned good-will toward His creatures but in this, that He first looks
upon their moral character, through which they can be well-pleasing to
Him, and only then makes good their inability to fulfil this requirement of
themselves. Third, His justice cannot be represented as beneficent and
exorable (for this involves a contradiction); even less can it be represented
as dispensed by Him in his character of holy Lawgiver (before Whom no
man is righteous); rather, it must be thought of as beneficence which is
limited by being conditioned upon men's agreement with the holy law so far
as they, as sons of men, may be able to measure up to its requirement. In a
word, God wills to be served under three specifically different moral
aspects. The naming of the different (not physically, but morally different)
persons of one and the same Being expresses this not ineptly. This symbol
of faith gives expression also to the whole of
[133]
pure moral religion which, without this differentiation, runs the risk of
degenerating into an anthropomorphic servile faith, by reason of men's
propensity to think of the Godhead as a human overlord (because in man's
government rulers usually do not separate these three qualities from one
another but often mix and interchange them).
        But if this very faith (in a divine tri-unity) were to be regarded not
merely as a representation of a practical idea but as a faith which is to
describe what God is in Himself, it would be a mystery transcending all
human concepts, and hence a mystery of revelation, unsuited to man's
powers of comprehension; in this account, therefore, we can declare it to be
such. Faith in it, regarded as an extension of the theoretical knowledge of
the divine nature, would be merely the acknowledgment of a symbol of
ecclesiastical faith which is quite incomprehensible to men or which, if they
think they can understand it, would be anthropomorphic, and therefore
nothing whatever would be accomplished for moral betterment. Only that
which, in a practical context, can be thoroughly understood and
comprehended, but which, taken theologically (for the determining of the
nature of the object in itself), transcends all our concepts, is a mystery (in
one respect) and can yet (in another) be revealed. To this type belongs what
has just been mentioned; and this can be divided into three mysteries
revealed to us through our reason.
        1. The mystery of the divine call (of men, as citizens, to an
ethical state). We can conceive of the universal unconditioned subjection of
men to the divine legislation only so far as we likewise regard ourselves as
God's creatures; just as God can be regarded as the ultimate source of all
natural laws only because He is the creator of natural objects. But it is
absolutely incomprehensible to our reason how beings can be created to a
free use of their powers; for according to the principle of causality we can
assign to a being, regarded as having been brought forth, no inner
ground for his actions other than that which the producing cause has placed
there, by which, then, (and so by an external cause) his every act would be
determined, and such a being would therefore not be free. So the legislation
which is divine and holy, and therefore concerns free beings only, cannot
through the insight of our reason be reconciled with the concept of the
creation of such beings; rather must one regard them even now as existing
free beings who
[134]
are determined not through their dependence upon nature by virtue of their
creation but through a purely moral necessitation possible according to laws
of freedom, i.e., a call to citizenship in a divine state. Thus the call to this
end is morally quite clear, while for speculation the possibility of such a
calling is an impenetrable mystery.
        2. The mystery of atonement. Man, as we know him, is corrupt and
of himself not in the least suited to that holy law. And yet, if the goodness
of God has called him, as it were, into being, i.e., to exist in a particular
manner (as a member of the kingdom of Heaven), He must also have a
means of supplementing, out of the fullness of His own holiness, man's
lack of requisite qualifications therefor. But this contradicts spontaneity
(which is assumed in all the moral good or evil which a man can have
within himself), according to which such a good cannot come from another
but must arise from man himself, if it is to be imputable to him. Therefore,
so far as reason can see, no one can, by virtue of the superabundance of his
own good conduct and through his own merit, take another's place; or, if
such vicarious atonement is accepted, we would have to assume it only
from the moral point of view, since for ratiocination it is an unfathomable
mystery.
        3. The mystery of election. Even if that vicarious atonement be
admitted as possible, still a morally-believing acceptance of it is a
determination of the will toward good that already presupposes in man a
disposition which is pleasing to God; yet man, by reason of his natural
depravity, cannot produce this within himself through his own efforts. But
that a heavenly grace should work in man and should accord this assistance
to one and not to another, and this not according to the merit of works but
by an unconditioned decree; and that one portion of our race should be
destined for salvation, the other for eternal reprobation--this again yields no
concept of a divine justice but must be referred to a wisdom whose rule is
for us an absolute mystery.
        As to these mysteries, so far as they touch the moral life-history of
every man--how it happens that there is a moral good or evil at all in the
world, and (if the evil is present in all men and at all times) how out of evil
good could spring up and be established in any man whatever, or why,
when this occurs in some, others remain deprived thereof--of this God has
revealed to us nothing and can reveal nothing since we would not
understand
[135]
it.  It is as though we wished to explain and to render comprehensible to
ourselves in terms of a man's freedom what happens to him; on this
question God has indeed revealed His will through the moral law in us, but
the causes due to which a free action on earth occurs or does not occur He
has left in that obscurity in which human investigation must leave whatever
(as an historical occurrence, though yet springing from freedom) ought to
be conceived of according to the laws of cause and effect.   But all that we
need concerning the objective rule of our behavior is adequately revealed to
us (through reason and Scripture), and this revelation is at the same time
comprehensible to every man.
        That, through the moral law, man is called to a good course of life;
that, through unquenchable respect for this law lying in him, he finds in
himself justification for confidence in this good spirit and for hope that,
however it may come about, he will be able to satisfy this spirit; finally,
that, comparing the last-named expectation with the stern command of the
law, he must continually test himself as though summoned to account
before a judge--reason, heart, and conscience all teach this and urge its
fulfilment. To demand that more than this be revealed to us is
presumptuous, and
[136]
were such a revelation to occur, it could not rightly be reckoned among
man's universal needs.
        Although that great mystery, comprising in one formula all that we
have mentioned, can be made comprehensible to each man through his
reason as a practical and necessary religious idea, we can say that, in order
to become The moral basis of religion, and particularly of a public religion,
it was, at that time, first revealed when it was publicly taught and made the
symbol of a wholly new religious epoch. Ceremonial formulas are usually
couched in a language of their own, intended only for those who belong to a
particular union (a guild or society), a language at times mystical and not
understood by everyone, which properly (out of respect) ought to BC made
use of only for a ceremonial act (as, for instance, when some one is to be
initiated as a member of a society which is exclusive) But theca highest goal
of moral perfection of finite creatures--a goal to which man can never
completely attain--is love of the law.
        The equivalent in religion of this idea would be an article of faith,
"God is love": in Him we can revere the loving One (whose love is that of
moral approbation of men so far as they measure up to His holy law) the
Father; in Him also, so far as He reveals Himself in His all-inclusive idea,
the archetype of humanity reared and beloved by Him, we can revere His
Son; and finally, so far as He makes this approbation dependent upon
men's agreement with the condition of that approving love, and so reveals
love as based upon wisdom, we can revere the Holy Ghost.* Not that we
[137]
should actually invoke Him in terms of this multiform personality (for to do
so would suggest a diversity of entities, whereas He is ever but single); but
we can call upon Him in the name of that object loved of Him, which He
Himself esteems above all else, with which to enter into moral union is
[our] desire and also [our] duty. Over and above this, the theoretical avowal
of faith in the
[138]
divine nature under this threefold character is part of what is merely the
classic formula of an ecclesiastical faith, to be used for the distinguishing of
this faith from other modes of belief deriving from historical sources. Few
men are in the position of being able to combine with this faith a concept [of
the Trinity] which is clear and definite (open to no misinterpretation); and its
exposition concerns, rather, teachers in their relation to one another (as
philosophical and scholarly expositors of a Holy Book), that they may agree
as to its interpretation, since not everything in it is suited to the common
capacity of comprehension, nor to the needs of the present, and since a bare
literal faith in it hurts rather than improves the truly religious disposition.

NOTES:

        1 [85] [Cf. Romans Vl, 18: "Being then made free from sin, ye
became the servants of righteousness."]
        1 [87] [Zustand, condition]
        * [89] Hobbes' statement, status hominum naturalis est bellum
omnium in omnes, is correct except that it should read, est status belli, etc.
For even if one does not concede that actual hostilities are continually in
progress between men who do not stand under eternal and public laws, yet
the state (status iuridicus) is the same; i.e., the relationship in and through
which men are fitted for the acquisition and maintenance of rights--a state in
which each wants to be the judge of what shall be his rights against others,
but for which rights he has no security against others, and gives others no
security: each has only his private strength. This is a state of war in which
everyone must be perpetually armed against everyone else. Hobbes' second
statement, exeundum esse e statu naturali, follows from the first; for this
state is a continual infringement upon the rights of all others through man's
arrogant insistence on being the judge in his own affairs and giving other
men no security in their affairs save his own arbitrary willw.
        1 [Wirkung]
        * [90] This is the principle of all external rights.
        ** [90] As soon as anything is recognized as a duty, even if it
should be a duty imposed through the arbitrary willw of a human law-giver,
obedience to it is also a divine command. Of course one cannot call statutory
civil laws divine commands; yet, when they are just,1 obedience to them is
still a divine command. The saying: "We ought to obey God rather than
men,"2 signifies merely that when men command anything which in itself is
evil (directly opposed to the law of morality) we dare not, and ought not,
obey them. But conversely, when a politico-civil law, itself not immoral, is
opposed to what is held to be a divine statutory law, there are grounds for
[91]
regarding the latter as spurious, since it contradicts a plain duty and since
[the notion] that it is actually a divine command can never, by any empirical
token, be accredited adequately enough to allow an otherwise established
duty to be neglected on its account.
        1 [90] [rechtmŠssig]
        2 [90] [Cf. Acts V, 29]
        1 [91] [Cf. Acts I, 24; XV, 8; Luke XVI, 15]
        2 [91] [Cf. I Peter II, 10]
        3 [Cf. Titus II, 14]
        1 [92] [Cf. Matthew Vl, 10; Luke Xl, 2]
        1 [93] [Anlage]
        1 [95] [Matthew VII, ^I: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven."]
        1 [96] [Materie]
        2 [96] [Verpflichtung]
          [97] Morally, this order ought to be reversed.
        1 [98] [SprŸche]
        * [98] An expression for everything wished for, or worthy of being
wished for, which we can neither foresee nor bring about through our own
endeavors according to the laws of experience; for which, therefore, if we
wish to name its source, we can offer none other than a gracious
Providence.
        * [99] According to the Alphabetum Tibetanum of Georgius,1
Mongols call Tibet "Tangut-Chazar," or the land of the house-dwellers, to
distinguish its inhabitants from themselves as nomads living in the desert
under tents. From this has originated the name Chazars, and from this name
that of a Ketzer [= heretic], since the Mongols adhered to the Tibetan faith
(of the Lamas) which agrees with Manicheanism, perhaps even arose from
it, and spread it in Europe during their invasions; whence, too, for a long
time the names H¾retici and Manich¾i were synonymous in usage.2
        1 [99] [AIphabetum Tibetanum missionum apostolicarum commodo
editum ... studio et labore Fr. Augustini Antonii Georgii eremitae
Augustinui, Romae, 1762.]
        2 [99] ["This etymological explanation is certainly incorrect. In all
probability, Ketzer is related to Gazzari, the Lombardish word for Kathari =
kaqaroi. The Kathari (the "pure ones") were the most important heretical
sect with which the church in the Middle Ages (especially in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries) had to deal. The Manichaean element in the movement
is unmistakable." (Note in Berlin Edition.)]
          [101] As an illustration of this, take Psalm LIX, 11-16, where we
find a prayer for revenge which goes to terrifying extremes. Michaelis
(Moral, Part II, p. 202) approves of this prayer, and adds: "The Psalms are
inspired; if in them punishment is prayed for, it cannot be wrong, and we
must have no morality holier than the Bible." Restricting myself to this last
expression, I raise the question as to whether morality should be expounded
according to the Bible or whether the Bible should not rather be expounded
according to morality. Without considering how the passage in the New
Testament,1 "It was said to them of old times, etc.... But I say unto you,
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, etc...," which is also
inspired, can agree with the other, I should try, as a first alternative, to
bring the New Testament passage into conformity with my own self-
subsistent moral principles (that perhaps the reference is here not to enemies
in the flesh but rather to invisible enemies which are symbolized by them
and are far more dangerous to us, namely, evil inclinations which we must
desire to bring wholly under foot). Or, if this cannot be managed, I shall
rather have it that this passage is not to be understood in a moral sense at all
but only as applying to the relation in which the Jews conceived themselves
to stand to God as their political regent. This latter interpretation applies to
still another passage in the Bible, where it is written: "Vengeance is mine. I
will repay, saith the Lord."2 This is commonly interpreted as a moral
warning against private revenge, though probably it merely refers to the
law, valid for every state, that satisfaction for injury shall be sought in the
courts of justice of the overlord, where the judge's permission to the
complainant to ask for a punishment as severe as he desires is not to be
taken as approval of the complainant's craving for revenge.
        1 [101] [Cf. Matthew V, 21 ff., 44 ff.]
        2 [101] [Cf. Romans XII, 19: Deuteronomy XXXII, 35]
        1 [102] [Adrian Reland (1676-1718),a Dutch Orientalist, wrote De
religione mohammedica ibri duo, second edition, 1717; cf. II, xvii.]
        2 [102] [Cf. James II, 17]
        3 [102] [Cf. II Timothy III, 16]
        1 [103] [Cf. John XVI, 13: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he will guide , you into all truth, etc."]
        2 [103] [Cf. John V, 39: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think
ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."]
        1 [104] [Cf. John VII, 17: "If any man will do his will, he shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God...."]
        1 [107] [Ÿberschwenglich]
        1 [108] [fremde]
        2 [108] [i.e., not in time.]
        1 [109] [hšhere]
          [110] Which must base the existence of such a person on historical
evidence.
        * [111] This can, indeed, be interpreted as follows. No one can say
with certainty why this man becomes good, that man evil (both
comparatively), because the predisposition to one of these characters or the
other often seems to be discoverable at birth, and because contingencies of
life as well, which no one can foresee, seem to tip the scale. No more can
one say what a man may develop into. In all this therefore we must entrust
judgment to the All-Seeing; but this is expressed in the text as though His
decree, pronounced upon men
[112]
before they were born, had prescribed to each the role which he was some
day to play. Prevision regarding the order of appearances is at the same time
predestination for a World-Creator, when, in this connection, He is
conceived of in terms of human senses.3 But in the supersensible order of
things, according to the laws of freedom, where time drops out, it is only an
all-seeing knowledge; and yet it is impossible to explain why one man
conducts himself in one way, and another according to opposite principles
and to harmonize [this knowledge of causes] with the freedom of the will.
        1 [111] [Cf. Romans IX, 18]
        1 [112] [Cf. I Corinthians XV, 28]
        2 [112] [Cf. I Corinthians XlII, 11]
        3 [112] [anthropopathisch]
        * [113] Without either renouncing the service of ecclesiastical faith
or attacking it, one can recognize its useful influence as a vehicle and at the
same time deny to it, taken as the illusory duty of divine worship, all
influence upon the concept of genuine (that is, moral) religion. Thus, amid
the diversity of statutory forms of belief, a mutual compatibility of the
adherents to these forms can be established through the basic principles of
the one and only religion of reason, toward which the teachers of all such
dogmas and observances should direct their interpretations; until, in time,
by virtue of the true enlightenment (conformity to law, proceeding from
moral freedom) which has
[114]
now prevailed, the form of a debasing means of constraint can be
exchanged, by unanimous consent, for an ecclesiastical form which squares
with the dignity of a moral religion, to wit, the religion of a free faith. To
combine a unity of ecclesiastical belief with freedom in matters of faith is a
problem toward whose solution the idea of the objective unity of the religion
of reason continually urges us, through the moral interest which we take in
this religion; although, when we take human nature into account, there
appears small hope of bringing this to pass in a visible church. It is an idea
of reason which we cannot represent through any [sensuous] intuition
adequate to it, but which, as a practical regulative principle, does have
objective reality, enabling it to work toward this end, i.e. the unity of the
pure religion of reason. In this it is like the political idea of the rights of a
state so far as these are meant to relate to an international law which is
universal and possessed of power. Here experience bids us give over all
hope. A propensity seems to have been implanted (perhaps designedly) in
the human race causing every single state to strive if possible to subjugate
every other state and to erect a universal monarchy, but, when it has reached
a certain size, to break up, of its own accord, into smaller states. In like
manner every single church cherishes the proud pretension of becoming a
church universal; yet as soon as it has extended itself and commenced to
rule, a principle of dissolution and schism into different sects at once shows
itself.
          [114] The premature and therefore (since it comes before men have
become morally better) the harmful fusion of states into one is chiefly
hindered--if we are permitted here to assume a design of Providence--
through two mightily effective causes, namely, difference of tongues, and
difference of religions.
        1 [113] [Cf. Matthew XII, 28]
        1 [115] [Zustand]
        1 [118] [i.e., the Romans]
        1 [119] [Cf. Matthew V, 48; also I Peter I, 16]
        * [119] With which the public record of his life ends (a record
which, as public, might serve universally as an example for imitation). The
more secret records, added as a sequel, of his resurrection and ascension,
which took place before the eyes only of his intimates, cannot be used in the
interest of religion within the limits of reason alone without doing violence
to their historical valuation. (If one takes these events merely as ideas of
reason, they would signify the commencement of another life and entrance
into the seat of salvation, i.e., into the society of all the good.) This is so
not merely because this added sequel is an historical narrative (for the story
which precedes it is that also) but because, taken literally, it involves a
concept, i.e., of the materiality of all worldly beings, which is, indeed, very
well suited to man's mode of sensuous representation but which is most
burdensome to reason in its faith regarding the future. This concept involves
both the materialism of personality in men (psychological materialism),
which asserts that a personality can exist only as always conditioned by the
same body, as well as the materialism of necessary existence in a world, a
world which, according to this principle, must be spatial (cosmological
materialism). In contrast, the hypothesis of the spirituality of rational world-
beings asserts that the body can remain dead in the earth while the same
person is still alive, and that man, as a spirit (in his non-sensuous quality),
can reach the seat of the blessed without having to be transported to some
portion or other of the endless space which surrounds the earth (and which
is also called heaven). This hypothesis is more congenial to reason, not only
because of the impossibility of making comprehensible a matter which
thinks, but especially because of the contingency to which materialism
exposes our existence after death by claiming that such existence depends
solely upon the cohering of a certain lump of matter in a certain form, and
denying the possibility of thinking that a simple substance can persist based
upon its [own] nature. On the latter supposition (of spirituality) reason can
neither take an interest in dragging along, through eternity, a body which,
however purified, must yet (if the personality is to rest upon the body's
identity) consist of the self-same stuff which constitutes the basis of its
organization and for which, in life, it never achieved any great love; nor can
it render conceivable that this calcareous earth, of which the body is
composed, should be in heaven, i.e., in another region of the universe,
where presumably other
[120]
materials might constitute the condition of the existence and maintenance of
living beings.
        1 [120] [Cf. Matthew XXVIII, 20]
        1 [122] [Lucretius, De rerum natura, I, 101: "Such evil deeds could
religion prompt!"]
        * [123] One of the causes of this propensity lies in the principle of
security; that the defects of a religion in which I am born and brought up,
instruction therein not having been chosen by me nor in any way altered
through my own ratiocination, are charged not to my account but to that of
my instructors or teachers publicly appointed for the task. This is also a
ground for our not easily giving our approval to a man's public change of
religion: although here, no doubt, there is another (and deeper) ground,
namely, that amid the uncertainty which every man feels within himself as
to which among the historical faiths is the right one, while the moral faith is
everywhere the same, it seems highly unnecessary to create a stir about the
matter.
        * [124] When a government wishes to be regarded as not coercing
man's conscience because it merely prohibits the public utterance of his
religious opinions and hinders no one from thinking to himself in secrecy
whatever he sees fit, we usually jest about it and say that in this the
government grants no freedom at all, for it cannot in any case hinder
thinking. Yet what the greatest secular power cannot do, spiritual power
can--that is, forbid thought itself and really hinder it; it can even lay such a
compulsion--the prohibition even to think other than it prescribes--upon
those in temporal authority over it. For because of men's propensity to the
servile faith of divine worship, which they are automatically inclined not
only to endow with an importance greater than that of moral faith (wherein
man serves God truly through the performance of his duties) but also to
regard as unique and compensating for every other deficiency, it is always
easy for the custodians of orthodoxy, the shepherds of souls, to instil into
their flock a pious terror of the slightest swerving from certain dogmas
resting on history, and even of all investigation--a terror so great that they
do not trust themselves to allow a doubt concerning the doctrines forced
upon them to arise, even in their thoughts, for this would be tantamount to
lending an ear to the evil spirit. True, to become free from this compulsion
one needs but to will (which is not the case when the sovereign compels
public confessions); but it is precisely this willing against which a rule has
been interposed internally. Such forcing of conscience is indeed bad enough
(for it leads to inner hypocrisy); yet it is not as bad as the restriction of
external freedom of belief. For the inner compulsion must of itself gradually
disappear through the progress of moral insight and the consciousness of
one's own freedom, from which alone true respect for duty can arise,
whereas this external pressure hinders all spontaneous advances in the
ethical community of believers--which constitutes the being of the true
church--and subjects its form to purely political ordinances.
        1 [125] [Cf. Matthew V, 12. Luther's translation reads belohnet
instead of Kant's vergolten]
        1 [126] [Cf. I Corinthians, XV, 26]
        * [126] This expression (if one sets aside what is mysterious, what
reaches out beyond the limits of all possible experience, and what belongs
merely to sacred history and so in no way applies to us practically) can be
taken to mean that historical faith, which, as ecclesiastical, stands in need of
a sacred book as a leading-string for men, but, for that very reason, hinders
the unity and universality of the church, will itself cease and pass over into a
pure religious faith equally obvious to the whole world. To this end we
ought even now to labor industriously, by way of continuously setting free
the pure religion from its present shell, which as yet cannot be spared.
          [126] Not that it is to cease (for as a vehicle it may perhaps always
be useful and necessary) but that it be able to cease; whereby is indicated
merely the inner stability of the pure moral faith.
        2 [126] [Cf. Luke XVII, 20-21: "And when he was demanded of the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and
said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall, etc."]
        ** [127] Here a kingdom of God is represented not according to a
particular covenant (i.e., not Messianic) but moral (knowable through
unassisted reason). The former (regnum divinum pactitium) had to draw its
proofs from history; and there it is divided into the Messianic kingdom
according to the old and according to the new covenant. Now it is worthy of
notice that the followers of the former (the Jews) have continued to maintain
themselves as such, though scattered throughout the world; whereas the
faith of other religious fellowships has usually been fused with the faith of
the people among whom they have been scattered. This phenomenon strikes
many as so remarkable that they judge it to be impossible according to the
nature of things, but to be an extraordinary dispensation for a special divine
purpose. Yet a people which has a written religion (sacred books) never
fuses together in one faith with a people (like the Roman Empire, then the
entire civilized world) possessing no such books but only rites; instead,
sooner or later it makes proselytes. This is the reason why, after the
Babylonian captivity (following which, it seems, their sacred books were
for the first time read publicly), the Jews were no longer chargeable with
their propensity to run after strange gods; though the Alexandrian culture,
which must also have had an influence upon them, could have been
favorable to their giving this propensity a systematic form. Thus also the
Parsees, followers of the religion of Zoroaster, have kept their faith up to
the present despite their dispersion; for their dustoors1 possessed the
Zendavesta. These Hindus, on the other hand, who under the name of
gipsies are scattered far and wide, have not escaped a mixture with foreign
faiths, for they came from the dregs of the people (the Pariahs) who are
forbidden even to read in the sacred books of the Hindus. What the Jews
would not have achieved of themselves, the Christian and later the
Mohammedan religions brought about- especially the former; for these
religions presupposed the Jewish faith and the sacred books belonging to it
(even though Mohammedanism declares that these books have been
falsified). For the Jews could ever and again seek out their old documents
among the Christians (who had issued forth from them) whenever, in their
wanderings, the skill in reading these books, and so the desire to possess
them, was lost, as may often have happened, and when they merely retained
the memory of having formerly possessed them. Hence we find no Jews
outside the countries referred to, if we except the few on the coast of
Malabar and possibly a community in China (and of these the first could
have been in continual commercial relation with their co-religionists in
Arabia). Although it cannot be doubted that they spread throughout those
rich lands,2 yet, because of the lack of all kinship between their faith and
the types of belief found there, they came wholly to forget their own. To
base edifying remarks upon this preservation of the Jewish people, together
with their religion, under circumstances so disadvantageous to them, is very
hazardous, for both sides believe that they find in it [confirmation of] their
own opinions.
[128]
One man sees in the continuation of the people to which he belongs, and in
his ancient faith which remained unmixed despite the dispersion among
such diverse nations, the proof of a special beneficent Providence saving
this people for a future kingdom on earth; the other sees nothing but the
warning ruins of a disrupted state which set itself against the coming of the
kingdom of heaven --ruins, however, which a special Providence still
sustains, partly to preserve in memory the ancient prophecy of a Messiah
arising from this people, partly to offer, in this people, an example of
punitive justice [visited upon it] because it stiff-neckedly sought to create a
political and not a moral concept of the Messiah.
        1 [127] [High priests]
        2 [127] [i.e., lands not Christian or Mohammedan.]
        * [129] Similarly, the cause of the universal gravity of all matter in
the world is unknown to us, so much so, indeed, that we can even see that
we shall never know it: for the very concept of gravity presupposes a
primary motive force
[130]
unconditionally inhering in it. Yet gravity is no mystery but can be made
public to all, for its law is adequately known. When Newton represents it as
similar to divine omnipresence in the [world of] appearance (omnipr¾sentia
ph¾nomenon), this is not an attempt to explain it (for the existence of God
in space involves a contradiction), but a sublime analogy which has regard
solely to the union of corporeal beings with a world-whole, an incorporeal
cause being here attributed to this union. The same result would follow
upon an attempt to comprehend the self-sufficing principle of the union of
rational beings in the world into an ethical state, and to explain this in terms
of that principle. All we know is the duty which draws us toward such a
union; the possibility of the achievement held in view when we obey that
duty lies wholly beyond the limits of our insight.
        There are mysteries which are hidden things in nature (arcana), and
there can be mysteries (secrecies, secreta) in politics which ought not to be
known publicly; but both can, after all, become known to us, inasmuch as
they rest on empirical causes. There can be no mystery with respect to what
all men are in duty bound to know (i.e., what is moral); only with respect to
that which God alone can do and the performance of which exceeds our
capacity, and therefore our duty, can there be a genuine, that is, a holy
mystery (mysterium) of religion; and it may well be expedient for us merely
to know and understand that there is such a mystery, not to comprehend it.
        * [131] In the sacred prophetic story of "the last things," the judge
of the world (really he who will separate out and take under his dominion,
as his own, those who belong to the kingdom of the good principle) is not
represented and spoken of as God but as the Son of Man. This seems to
indicate that humanity itself, knowing its limitation and its frailty, will
pronounce the sentence in this selection [of the good from the bad]--a
benevolence which yet does not offend against justice. In contrast, the
Judge of men, represented in His divinity (the Holy Ghost), i.e., as He
speaks to our conscience according to the holy law which we know, and in
terms of our own reckoning, can be thought of only as passing judgment
according to the rigor of the law. For we ourselves are wholly ignorant of
how much can be credited, in our behalf, to the account of our frailty, and
have moreover before our eyes nothing but our transgression, together with
the consciousness of our freedom, and the violation of duty for which we
are wholly to blame; hence we have no ground for assuming benevolence in
the judgment passed upon us.
          [131] We cannot discover the cause for the agreement of so many
ancient peoples in this idea, unless it is that the idea is present universally in
human reason whenever man wants to conceive of civil government or (by
analogy therewith) of world government. The religion of Zoroaster had
these three divine persons, Ormazd, Mithra, and Ahriman; that of the
Hindus had Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva--but with this difference, that
Zoroastrians represent the third person as creator, not only of evil so far as
it is punishment, but even of moral evil for which man is punished, whereas
the Hindus represent
[132]
him as merely judging and punishing. The religion of Egypt had its Ptah,
Kneph, and Neith, of whom, so far as the obscurity of the earliest records
of this people allows of conjecture, the first was intended to represent spirit,
distinguished from matter, as World-Creator, the second, a principle of
sustaining and ruling benevolence, the third, wisdom setting limits to this
benevolence, i.e., justice. The Goths honored their Odin (father of all), their
Freya (also Freyer, beneficence), and Thor, the judging (punishing) god.
Even the Jews seem to have followed these ideas during the last period of
their hierarchical constitution. For in the complaint of the Pharisees that
Christ had called himself a Son of God, they seem to have attached no
special weight of blame to the doctrine that God had a son, but merely to
Christ's having wished to be this son of God.
          [135] We commonly have no misgivings in requiring of novices in
religion a belief in mysteries; for the fact that we do not comprehend them,
i.e., that we cannot see into the possibility of their objective existence,1
could no more justify our refusal to accept them than it could justify our not
accepting, say, the procreative capacity of organisms, which likewise no
man comprehends yet which we cannot on that account refuse to admit,
even though it is and will remain a mystery to us. But we understand very
well what this expression means to convey and we have an empirical
concept of this capacity, together with the consciousness that it harbors no
contradiction. Now we can with justice require of every mystery offered for
belief that we understand what it is supposed to mean; and this does not
happen when we merely understand the words by which it is designated one
by one, i.e., attaching a meaning to each word--rather, these words, taken
together in one concept, must admit of another meaning and not, thus taken
in conjunction, frustrate all thought. It is unthinkable that God could allow
this knowledge to come to us through inspiration whenever we on our part
wish earnestly for it; for such knowledge cannot inhere in us at all because
our understanding is by nature unsuited to it.
           [135] Hence we understand perfectly well what freedom is,
practically (when it is a question of duty), whereas we cannot without
contradiction even think of wishing to understand theoretically the causality
of freedom (or its nature).
        1 [135] [Gegenstand]
        * [136] This Spirit, in and through which the love of God, as the
Author of salvation (really our own responding love proportioned to His),
is combined with the fear of God as Lawgiver, i.e., the conditioned with the
condition, and which can therefore be represented as "issuing forth from
both,"1 not only "leads to all truth"2 (obedience to duty), but is also the real
Judge of men (at the bar of conscience). For judgment can be interpreted in
two ways, as concerning either merit and lack of merit, or guilt and absence
of guilt. God, regarded as love (in His son), judges men so far as merit is
attributable to them over and above their indebtedness, and here the verdict
is: worthy, or unworthy. He separates out as His own those to whom such
merit can still be accredited. Those who are left depart empty-handed. On
the other hand the sentence of the Judge in terms of justice3 (of the Judge
properly so called,
[137]
under the name of the Holy Ghost) upon those for whom no merit is
forthcoming, is guilty or not guilty, i.e., condemnation or acquittal. This
judging signifies first of all the separation of the deserving from the
undeserving, both parties competing for a prize (salvation). By desert is
here meant moral excellence, not in relation to the law (for in the eyes of the
law no balance of obedience to duty over and above our indebtedness can
accrue to us), but only in comparison with other men on the score of their
moral disposition. And worthiness always has a merely negative meaning
(not unworthiness), that is, the moral receptivity for such goodness.
        Hence he who judges in the first capacity (as brabeuta1) pronounces
a judgment of choice between two persons (or parties) striving for the prize
(of salvation); while he who judges in the second capacity (the real judge)
passes sentence upon one and the same person before a court (conscience)
which declares the final verdict between the prosecution and the defense. If
now it is admitted that, though indeed all men are guilty of sin, some among
them may be able to achieve merit, then the verdict of Him who judges from
love becomes effective. In the absence of this judgment, only a verdict of
rejection could follow, whose inescapable consequence would be the
judgment of condemnation (since the man now falls into the hands of Him
who judges in righteousness). It is thus, in my opinion, that the apparently
contradictory passages, "The Son will come again to judge the quick and the
dead,"2 and, "God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved" (John III, 17), can be
reconciled, and they can agree with the other passage which reads, "He that
believeth not in him is condemned already" (John III, 18), namely, by the
Spirit, of whom it is said: "He will judge the world because of sin and
righteousness."3 Anxious solicitude over such distinctions in the domain of
bare reason, for whose sake they have really been instituted here, might
well be regarded as a useless and burdensome subtlety; and it would indeed
be such if it were directed to an inquiry into the divine nature. But since men
are ever prone, in matters of religion, to appeal, respecting their
transgressions, to divine benignity, though they cannot circumvent His
righteousness, and since a benign judge, as one and the same person, is a
contradiction in terms, it is very evident that, even from a practical point of
view, men's concepts on this subject must be very wavering and lacking in
internal coherence, and that the correction and precise determination of these
concepts is of great practical importance.
        1 [136] ["As it is expressed in the Western (Augustinian) form of the
doctrine of the Trinity; whereas the Eastern form asserts the emanance of the
Holy Ghost from the Father alone. Cf. John XV, 26." (Note in the Berlin
Edition.)]
        2 [136] [Cf. John XVI, 13]
        3 [136] [Berechtigkeit]; where the context is theological, we have
usually translated this word as righteousness; otherwise, as justice.]
        1 [137] [One who presided at public games and assigned the prizes.]
        2 [137] [Cf. II Timothy IV, l]
        3 [137] [Cf. John XVI, 8; "... he will reprove the world of sin and
of righteousness and of judgment."]

BOOK FOUR

[139]
CONCERNING SERVICE AND PSEUDO-SERVICE
UNDER THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE GOOD
PRINCIPLE, OR, CONCERNING RELIGION
AND CLERICALISM

        The dominion of the good principle begins, and a sign that "the
kingdom of God is at hand"1 appears, as soon as the basic principles of its
constitution first become public; for (in the realm of the understanding) that
is already here whose causes, which alone can bring it to pass, have
generally taken root, even though the complete development of its
appearance in the sensuous world is still immeasurably distant. We have
seen that it is a duty of a peculiar kind (officium sui generis) to unite oneself
with an ethical commonwealth, and that, if everyone alike heeded his own
private duty, we could indeed infer therefrom an accidental agreement of all
in a common good, even without the necessity of a special organization; yet,
[we must admit] that such a general agreement cannot be hoped for unless a
special business be made of their union with one another for the self-same
end, and of the establishment of a COMMONWEALTH under moral laws,
as a federated and therefore stronger power to withstand the assaults of the
evil principle (for otherwise men are tempted, even by one another, to serve
this principle as its tools). We have also seen that such a commonwealth,
being a KINGDOM OF GOD, can be undertaken by men only through
religion, and, finally, in order that this religion be public (and this is
requisite to a commonwealth), that it must be represented in the visible form
of a church; hence the establishment of a church devolves upon men as a
task which is committed to them and can be required of them.
        To found a church as a commonwealth under religious laws seems,
however, to call for more wisdom (both of insight and of good disposition)
than can well be expected of men, especially since it seems necessary to
presuppose the presence in them, for this purpose, of the moral goodness
which the establishment of such a church has in view. Actually it is
nonsensical to say that men ought to found a kingdom of God (one might as
well say
[140]
of them that they could set up the kingdom of a human monarch); God
himself must be the founder of His kingdom. Yet, since we do not know
what God may do directly to translate into actuality the idea of His
kingdom--and we find within ourselves the moral destiny to become citizens
and subjects in this kingdom--and since we do know how we must act to fit
ourselves to become members thereof, this idea, whether it was discovered
and made public to the human race by reason or by Scripture, will yet
obligate us to the establishment of a church of whose constitution, in the last
analysis, God Himself, as Founder of the kingdom, is the Author, while
men, as members and free citizens of this kingdom, are in all cases the
creators of the organization Then those among them who, in accordance
with this organization, manage its public business, compose its
administration, as servants of the church, while the rest constitute a co-
partnership, the congregation, subject to their laws.
        Now since a pure religion of reason, as public religious faith,
permits only the bare idea of a church (that is, an invisible church), and
since only the visible church, which is grounded upon dogmas, needs and
is susceptible of organization by men, it follows that service under the
sovereignty of the good principle cannot, in the invisible church, be
regarded as ecclesiastical service, and that this religion has no legal
servants, acting as officials of an ethical commonwealth; every member of
this commonwealth receives his orders directly from the supreme legislator.
But since, with respect to all our duties (which, collectively, we must at the
same time look upon as divine commands); we also stand at all times in the
service of God, the pure religion of reason will have, as its servants (yet
without their being officials) all right-thinking men; except that, so far, they
cannot be called servants of a church (that is, of a visible church, which
alone is here under discussion). Meanwhile, because every church erected
upon statutory laws can be the true church only so far as it contains within
itself a principle of steadily approximating to pure rational faith (which,
when it is practical, really constitutes the religion in every faith) and of
becoming able, in time, to dispense with the churchly faith (that in it which
is historical), we shall be able to regard these laws, and the officials of the
church established upon them, as constituting a [true] service of the church
(cultus) so far as these officials steadily direct their teachings and
regulations toward that final end (a
[141]
public religious faith). On the other hand, the servants of a church who do
not at all have this in view, who rather interpret the maxim of continual
approximation thereto as damnable, and allegiance to the historical and
statutory element of ecclesiastical faith as alone bringing salvation, can
rightly be blamed for the pseudo- service of the church or of what is
represented through this church, namely, the ethical commonwealth under
the dominion of the good principle. By a pseudo-service (cultus spurius) is
meant the persuasion that some one can be served by deeds which in fact
frustrate the very ends of him who is being served. This occurs in a
commonwealth when that which is of value only indirectly, as a means of
complying with the will of a superior, is proclaimed to be, and is substituted
for, what would make us directly well-pleasing to him. Hereby his ends are
frustrated.
[142]

PART ONE

CONCERNING THE SERVICE OF GOD IN RELIGION IN GENERAL

        Religion is (subjectively regarded) the recognition of all duties as
divine commands.* That religion in which I must know in advance that
something is a divine command in order to recognize
[143]
it as my duty, is the revealed religion (or the one standing in need of a
revelation); in contrast, that religion in which I must first know that
something is my duty before I can accept it as a divine injunction is the
natural religion. He who interprets the natural religion alone as morally
necessary, i.e., as duty, can be called the rationalist (in matters of belief; if
he denies the reality of all supernatural divine revelation he is called a
naturalist; if he recognizes revelation, but asserts that to know and accept it
as real is not a necessary requisite to religion, he could be named a pure
rationalist; but if he holds that belief in it is necessary to universal religion,
he could be named the pure supernaturalist in matters of faith.
        The rationalist, by virtue of his very title, must of his own accord
restrict himself within the limits of human insight. Hence he will never, as a
naturalist, dogmatize, and will never contest either the inner possibility of
revelation in general or the necessity of a revelation as a divine means for
the introduction of true religion; for these matters no man can determine
through reason. Hence the question at issue can concern only the reciprocal
claims of the pure rationalist and the supernaturalist in matters of faith,
namely, what the one or the other holds as necessary and sufficient, or as
merely incidental, to the unique true religion.
        When religion is classified not with reference to its first origin and
its inner possibility (here it is divided into natural and revealed religion) but
with respect to its characteristics which make it capable of being shared
widely with others, it can be of two kinds: either the natural religion, of
which (once it has arisen) everyone can be convinced through his own
reason, or a learned religion, of which one can convince others only
through the agency of learning (in and through which they must be guided).
This distinction is very important: for no inference regarding a religion's
qualification or disqualification to be the universal religion of mankind can
be drawn merely from its origin, whereas such an inference is possible from
its capacity or incapacity for general dissemination, and it is this capacity
which constitutes the essential character of that religion which ought to be
binding upon every man.
        Such a religion, accordingly, can be natural, and at the same time
revealed, when it is so constituted that men could and ought to have
discovered it of themselves merely through the use of their reason, although
they would not have come upon it so early, or
[144]
over so wide an area, as is required! Hence a revelation thereof at a given
time and in a given place might well be wise and very advantageous to the
human race, in that, when once the religion thus introduced is here, and has
been made known publicly, everyone can henceforth by himself and with
his own reason convince himself of its truth. In this event the religion is
objectively a natural religion, though subjectively one that has been
revealed; hence it is really entitled to the former name. For, indeed, the
occurrence of such a supernatural revelation might subsequently be entirely
forgotten without the slightest loss to that religion either of
comprehensibility, or of certainty, or of power over human hearts. It is
different with that religion which, on account of its inner nature, can be
regarded only as revealed. Were it not preserved in a completely secure
tradition or in holy books, as records, it would disappear from the world,
and there must needs transpire a supernatural revelation, either publicly
repeated from time to time or else enduring continuously within each
individual, for without it the spread and propagation of such a faith would
be impossible.
        Yet in part at least every religion, even if revealed, must contain
certain principles of the natural religion. For only through reason can
thought add revelation to the concept of a religion, since this very concept,
as though deduced from an obligation to the will of a moral legislator, is a
pure concept of reason. Therefore we shall be able to look upon even a
revealed religion on the one hand as a natural, on the other as a learned
religion, and thus to test it and decide what and how much has come to it
from one or the other source.
        If we intend to talk about a revealed religion (at least one so
regarded) we cannot do so without selecting some specimen or other from
history, for we must devise instances as examples in order to be intelligible,
and unless we take these from history their possibility might be disputed.
We cannot do better than to adopt, as the medium for the elucidation of our
idea of revealed religion in general, some book or other which contains such
examples, especially one which is closely interwoven with doctrines that are
ethical and consequently related to reason. We can then examine it, as one
of a variety of books which deal with religion and virtue on the credit of a
revelation, thus exemplifying the procedure, useful in itself, of searching
out whatever in it may be for us a
[145]
pure and therefore a universal religion of reason. Yet we do not wish
thereby to encroach upon the business of those to whom is entrusted the
exegesis of this book, regarded as the summary of positive doctrines of
revelation, or to contest their interpretation based upon scholarship. Rather
is it advantageous to scholarship, since scholars and philosophers aim at
one and the same goal, to wit, the morally good, to bring scholarship,
through its own rational principles, to the very point which it already
expects to reach by another road. Here the New Testament, considered as
the source of the Christian doctrine, can be the book chosen. In accordance
with our intention we shall now offer our demonstration in two sections,
first, the Christian religion as a natural religion, and, second, as a learned
religion, with reference to its content and to the principles which are found
in it.

SECTION ONE

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AS A NATURAL RELIGION

        Natural religion, as morality (in its relation to the freedom of the
agent) united with the concept of that which can make actual its final end
(with the concept of God as moral Creator of theca world), and referred to a
continuance of man which is suited to this end in its completeness (to
immortality), is a pure practical idea of reason which, despite its
inexhaustible fruitfulness, presupposes so very little capacity for theoretical
reason that one can convince every man of it sufficiently for practical
purposes and can at least require of all men as a duty that which is its effect.
This religion possesses the prime essential of the true church, namely, the
qualification for universality, so far as one understands by that a validity for
everyone (universitas vel omnitudo distributiva), i.e., universal unanimity.
To spread it, in this sense, as a world religion, and to maintain it, there is
needed, no doubt, a body of servants (ministerium) of the invisible church,
but not officials (officiales), in other words, teachers but not dignitaries,
because in the rational religion of every individual there does not yet exist a
church as a universal union (omnitudo collectiva), nor is this really
contemplated in the above idea.
        Yet such unanimity could not be maintained of itself and hence could
not, unless it became a visible church, be propagated in its universality;
rather is this possible only when a collective unanimity, in other words a
union of believers in a (visible) church
[146]
under the principles of a pure religion of reason, is added; though this
church does not automatically arise out of that unanimity nor, indeed, were
it already established, would it be brought by its free adherents (as was
shown above) to a permanent status as a community of the faithful (because
in such a religion none of those who has seen the light believes himself to
require, for his religious sentiments, fellowship with others). Therefore it
follows that unless there are added to the natural laws, apprehensible
through unassisted reason, certain statutory ordinances attended by
legislative prestige (authority), that will still be lacking which constitutes a
special duty of men, and a means to their highest end, namely, their
enduring union into a universal visible church; and the authority mentioned
above, in order to be a founder of such a church, presupposes a realm of
fact1 and not merely the pure concepts of reason.
        Let us suppose there was a teacher of whom an historical record (or,
at least, a widespread belief which is not basically disputable) reports that he
was the first to expound publicly a pure and searching religion,
comprehensible to the whole world (and thus natural). His teachings, as
preserved to us, we can in this case test for ourselves. Suppose that all he
did was done even in the face of a dominant ecclesiastical faith which was
onerous and not conducive to moral ends (a faith whose perfunctory
worship can serve as a type of all the other faiths, at bottom merely
statutory, which were current in the world at the time). Suppose, further,
we find that he had made this universal religion of reason the highest and
indispensable condition of every religious faith whatsoever, and then had
added to it certain statutes which provided forms and observances designed
to serve as means of bringing into existence a church founded upon those
principles. Now, in spite of the adventitiousness of his ordinances directed
to this end, and the elements of arbitrariness2 in them, and though we can
deny the name of true universal church to these, we cannot deny to him
himself the prestige due the one who called men to union in this church; and
this without further adding to this faith burdensome new ordinances or
wishing to transform acts which he had initiated into peculiar holy practices,
required in themselves as being constituent elements of religion.
        After this description one will not fail to recognize the person
[147]
who can be reverenced, not indeed as the founder of the religion which, free
from every dogma, is engraved in all men's hearts (for it does not have its
origin in an arbitrary will),1 but as the founder of the first true church. For
attestation of his dignity as of divine mission we shall adduce several of his
teachings as indubitable evidence of religion in general, let historical records
be what they may (since in the idea itself is present adequate ground for its
acceptance); these teachings, to be sure, can be no other than those of pure
reason, for such alone carry their own proof, and hence upon them must
chiefly depend the attestation of the others.
        First, he claims that not the observance of outer civil or statutory
churchly duties but the pure moral disposition of the heart alone can make
man well-pleasing to God (Matthew V, 20-48); that sins in thought are
regarded, in the eyes of God, as tantamount to action (V, 28) and that, in
general, holiness is the goal toward which man should strive (V, 48); that,
for example, to hate in one's heart is equivalent to killing (V, 22); that injury
done one's neighbor can be repaired only through satisfaction rendered to
the neighbor himself, not through acts of divine worship (V, 24), and that,
on the point of truthfulness, the civil device for extorting it, by oath,* does
violence to respect for truth itself (V, 34-37); that the natural but evil
propensity of the human heart
[148]
is to be completely reversed, that the sweet sense of revenge must be
transformed into tolerance (V, 39, 40) and the hatred of one's enemies into
charity (V, 44). Thus, he says, does he intend to do full justice to the
Jewish law (V, 17); whence it is obvious that not scriptural scholarship but
the pure religion of reason must be the law's interpreter, for taken according
to the letter, it allowed the very opposite of all this. Furthermore, he does
not leave unnoticed, in his designations of the strait gate and the narrow
way, the misconstruction of the law which men allow themselves in order to
evade their truce moral duty and, holding themselves immune through
having fulfilled their churchly duty (VII, 13).* He further requires of these
pure dispositions that they manifest themselves also in works (VII, 16) and,
on the other hand, denies the insidious hope of those who imagine that,
through invocation and praise of the Supreme Lawgiver in the person of His
envoy, they will make up for their lack of good works and ingratiate
themselves into favor (VII, 21). Regarding these works he declares that
they ought to be performed publicly, as an example for imitation (V, 16),
and in a cheerful mood, not as actions extorted from slaves (VI, 16); and
that thus, from a small beginning in the sharing and spreading of such
dispositions, religion, like a grain of seed in good soil, or a ferment of
goodness, would gradually, through its inner power, grow into a kingdom
of God (XIII, 31-33). Finally, he combines all duties (1) in one universal
rule (which includes within itself both the inner and the outer moral relations
of men), namely: Perform your duty for no motive1 other than
unconditioned esteem for duty itself, i.e., love God (the Legislator of all
duties) above all else; and (2) in a particular rule, that, namely, which
concerns man's external relation to other men as universal duty: Love every
one as yourself, i.e., further his welfare from good-will that is immediate
and not derived from motives of self-advantage. These commands are not
mere laws of virtue but precepts of holiness which we ought to pursue, and
the very pursuit of them is called virtue.
[149]
        Accordingly he destroys the hope of all who intend to wait upon this
moral goodness quite passively, with their hands in their laps, as though it
were a heavenly gift which descends from on high. He who leaves unused
the natural predisposition to goodness which lies in human nature (like a
talent entrusted to him) in lazy confidence that a higher moral influence will
no doubt supply the moral character and completeness which he lacks, is
confronted with the threat that even the good which, by virtue of his natural
predisposition, he may have done, will not be allowed to stand him in stead
because of this neglect (XXV, 29).
        As regards men's very natural expectation of an allotment of
happiness proportional to a man's moral conduct, especially in view of the
many sacrifices of the former which must be undergone for the sake of the
latter, he promises (V,11, 12) a reward for these sacrifices in a future
world, but one in accordance with the differences of disposition in this
conduct between those who did their duty for the sake of the reward (or for
release from deserved punishment) and the better men who performed it
merely for its own sake; the latter will be dealt with in a different manner.
When the man governed by self-interest, the god of this world, does not
renounce it but merely refines it by the use of reason and extends it beyond
the constricting boundary of the present, he is represented (Luke XVI, 3-9)
as one who, in his very person [as servant], defrauds his master [self-
interest] and wins from him sacrifices in behalf of "duty." For when he
comes to realize that sometime, perhaps soon, the world must be forsaken,
and that he can take along into the other world nothing of what he here
possessed, he may well resolve to strike off from the account what he or his
master, self-interest, has a legal right to exact from the indigent, and, as it
were, thereby to acquire for himself bills of exchange, payable in another
world. Herein he acts, no doubt, cleverly rather than morally, as regards the
motives of such charitable actions, and yet in conformity with the moral
law, at least according to the letter of that law; and he can hope that for this
too he may not stand unrequited in the future.* Compare with
[150]
this what is said of charity toward the needy from sheer motives of duty
(Matthew XXV, 35-40), where those, who gave succor to the needy
without the idea even entering their minds that such action was worthy of a
reward or that they thereby obligated heaven, as it were, to recompense
them, are, for this very reason, because they acted thus without attention to
reward, declared by the Judge of the world to be those really chosen for His
kingdom, and it becomes evident that when the Teacher of the Gospel spoke
of rewards in the world to come he wished to make them thereby not an
incentive to action but merely (as a soul-elevating representation of the
consummation of the divine benevolence and wisdom in the guidance of the
human race) an object of the purest respect and of the greatest moral
approval when reason reviews human destiny in its entirety.
        Here then is a complete religion, which can be presented to all men
comprehensibly and convincingly through their own reason; while the
possibility and even the necessity of its being an archetype for us to imitate
(so far as men are capable of that imitation) have, be it noted, been made
evident by means of an example without either the truth of those teachings
nor the authority and the worth of the Teacher requiring any external
certification (for which scholarship or miracles, which are not matters for
everyone, would be required). When appeals are here made to older
(Mosaic) legislation and prefiguration, as though these were to serve the
Teacher as means of confirmation, they are presented not in support of the
truth of his teachings but merely for the introduction of these among people
who clung wholly, and blindly, to the old. This introduction, among men
whose heads, filled with statutory dogmas, have been almost entirely
unfitted for the religion of reason, must always be more difficult than when
this religion is to be brought to the reason of people uninstructed but also
unspoiled. For this reason no one should be astonished to find an
exposition, that adapted itself to the prejudices of those times, now puzzling
and in need of pains-taking exegesis; though indeed
[151]
it everywhere permits a religious doctrine to shine forth and, in addition,
frequently points explicitly to that which must be comprehensible and,
without any expenditure of learning, convincing to all men.

SECTION TWO

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION AS A LEARNED RELIGION

        To the extent to which a religion propounds, as necessary, dogmas
which cannot be known to be so through reason, but which are none the
less to be imparted uncorrupted (as regards essential content) to all men in
all future ages, it must be viewed (if we do not wish to assume a continuous
miracle of revelation) as a sacred charge entrusted to the guardianship of the
learned. For even though at first, accompanied by miracles and deeds, this
religion, even in that which finds no confirmation in reason, could obtain
entry everywhere, yet the very report of these miracles, together with the
doctrines which stand in need of confirmation through this report, requires
with the passage of time the written, authoritative, and unchanging
instruction of posterity.
        The acceptance of the fundamental principles of a religion is faith par
excellence (fides sacra). We shall therefore have to examine the Christian
faith on the one hand as a pure rational faith, on the other, as a revealed faith
(fides statutaria). The first may be regarded as a faith freely assented to by
everyone (fides elicita), the second, as a faith which is commanded (fides
imperata). Everyone can convince himself, through his own reason, of the
evil which lies in human hearts and from which no one is free; of the
impossibility of ever holding himself to be justified before God through his
own life-conduct, and, at the same time, of the necessity for such a
justification valid in His eyes; of the futility of substituting churchly
observances and pious compulsory services for the righteousness which is
lacking, and, over and against this, of the inescapable obligation to become
a new man: and to become convinced of all this is part of religion.
        But from the point where the Christian teaching is built not upon
bare concepts of reason but upon facts, it is no longer called merely the
Christian religion, but the Christian faith, which has been made the basis of
a church. The service of a church consecrated to such a faith is therefore
twofold: what, on the one hand, must be rendered the church according to
the historical faith, and,
[152]
on the other, what is due it in accordance with the practical and moral faith
of reason. In the Christian church neither of these can be separated from the
other as adequate in itself; the second is indispensable to the first because
the Christian faith is a religious faith, and the first is indispensable to the
second because it is a learned faith.
        The Christian faith, as a learned faith, relies upon history and, so far
as erudition (objectively) constitutes its foundation, it is not in itself a free
faith (fides elicita) or one which is deduced from insight into adequate
theoretical proofs. Were it a pure rational faith it would have to be thought
of as a free faith even though the moral laws upon which it, as a belief in a
divine Legislator, is based, command unconditionally--and it was thus
presented in Section One. Indeed, if only this believing were not made a
duty, it could be a free theoretical faith even when taken as an historical
faith, provided all men were learned. But if it is to be a valid for all men,
including the unlearned, it is not only a faith which is commanded but also
one which obeys the command blindly (fides servilis), i.e., without
investigation as to whether it really is a divine command.
        In the revealed doctrines of Christianity, however, one cannot by
any means start with unconditional belief in revealed propositions (in
themselves hidden from reason) and then let the knowledge of erudition
follow after, merely as a defense, as it were, against an enemy attacking it
from the rear; for if this were done the Christian faith would be not merely a
fides imperata, but actually servilis. It must therefore always be taught as at
least a fides historice elicita; that is learning should certainly constitute in it,
regarded as a revealed credal doctrine, not the rearguard but the vanguard,
and then the small body of textual scholars (the clerics), who, incidentally,
could not at all dispense with secular learning, would drag along behind
itself the long train of the unlearned (the laity) who, of themselves, are
ignorant of the Scripture (and to whose number belong even the rulers of
world-states). But if this, in turn, is to be prevented from happening,
recognition and respect must be accorded, in Christian dogmatic, to
universal human reason as the supremely commanding principle in a natural
religion, and the revealed doctrine, upon which a church is founded and
which stands in need of the learned as interpreters and conservers, must be
cherished and cultivated as merely a means, but a most
[153]
precious means, of making this doctrine comprehensible, even to the
ignorant, as well as widely diffused and permanent.
        This is the true service of the church under the dominion of the good
principle; whereas that in which revealed faith is to precede religion is
pseudo-service. In it the moral order is wholly reversed and what is merely
means is commanded unconditionally (as an end).! Belief in propositions of
which the unlearned can assure themselves neither through reason nor
through Scripture (inasmuch as the latter would first have to be
authenticated) would here be made an absolute duty (fides imperata) and,
along with other related observances, it would be elevated, as a compulsory
service, to the rank of a saving faith even though this faith lacked moral
determining grounds of action. A church founded upon this latter principle
does not really have servants (ministri), like those of the other organization,
but commanding high officials (officiales). Even when (as in a Protestant
church) these officials do not appear in hierarchical splendor as spiritual
officers clothed with external power--even when, indeed, they protest
verbally against all this--they yet actually wish to feel themselves regarded
as the only chosen interpreters of a Holy Scripture, having robbed pure
rational religion of its merited office (that of being at all times Scripture's
highest interpreter) and having commanded that Scriptural learning be used
solely in the interest of the churchly faith. They transform, in this way, the
service of the church (ministerium) into a domination of its members
(imperium) although, in order to conceal this usurpation, they make use of
the modest title of the former. But this domination, which would have been
easy for reason, costs the church dearly, namely, in the expenditure of great
learning. For, "blind with respect to nature, it brings down upon its head
the whole of antiquity and buries itself beneath it."1
        The course of affairs, once brought to this pass, is as follows. First,
that procedure, wisely adopted by the first propagators of the teaching of
Christ in order to achieve its introduction among the people, is taken as a
part of religion itself, valid for all times and peoples, with the result that one
is obliged to believe that every Christian must be a Jew whose Messiah has
come. Yet this does not harmonize with the fact that a Christian is really
bound by no law of Judaism (as statutory), though the entire Holy Book of
this people is none the less supposed to be accepted faithfully
[154]
as a divine revelation given to all men.  Yet the authenticity of this Book
involves great difficulty (an authenticity which is certainly not proved
merely by the fact that passages in it, and indeed the entire sacred history
appearing in the books of the Christians, are used for the sake of this
proof). Prior to the beginning of Christianity, and even prior to its
considerable progress, Judaism had not gained a foothold among the
learned public, that is, was not yet known to its learned contemporaries
among other peoples; its historical recording was therefore not yet subjected
to control and so its sacred Book had not, on account of its antiquity, been
brought into historical credibility. Meanwhile, apart from this, it is not
enough to know it in translations and to pass it on to posterity in this form;
rather, the certainty of churchly faith based thereon requires that in all future
times and among all peoples
[155]
there be scholars who are familiar--with the Hebrew language (so far as
knowledge is possible of a language in which we have only a single book).
And it must be regarded as not merely a concern of historical scholarship in
general but one upon which hangs the salvation of mankind, that there
should be men sufficiently familiar with Hebrew to assure the true religion
for the world.
        The Christian religion has had a similar fate, in that, even though its
sacred events occurred openly under the very eyes of a learned people, its
historical recording was delayed for more than a generation before this
religion gained a foothold among this people's learned public; hence the
authentication of the record must dispense with the corroboration of
contemporaries. Yet Christianity possesses the great advantage over
Judaism of being represented as coming from the mouth of the first Teacher
not as a statutory but as a moral religion, and as thus entering into the
closest relation with reason so that, through reason, it was able of itself,
without historical learning, to be spread at all times and among all peoples
with the greatest trustworthiness. But the first founders of the Christian
communities1 did find it necessary to entwine the history of Judaism with it;
this was managed wisely in view of the situation at the time, and perhaps
with reference to that situation alone; thus this history too has come down to
us in the sacred legacy of Christianity. But the founders of the church
incorporated these episodical means of recommendation among the essential
articles of faith and multiplied them either with tradition, or with
interpretations, which acquired legal force from the Councils or were
authenticated by means of scholarship. As for this scholarship, or its
extreme opposite, the inner light to which every layman can pretend, it is
impossible to know how many changes the faith will still have to undergo
through these agencies; but this cannot be avoided so long as we seek
religion without and not within us.
[156]

PART TWO

CONCERNING THE PSEUDO-SERVICE OF GOD IN A STATUTORY
RELIGION

        The one true religion comprises nothing but laws, that is, those
practical principles of whose unconditioned necessity we can become
aware, and which we therefore recognize as revealed through pure reason
(not empirically). Only for the sake of a church, of which there can be
different forms, all equally good, can there be statutes, i.e., ordinances held
to be divine, which are arbitrary and contingent as viewed by our pure
moral judgment. To deem this statutory faith (which in any case is restricted
to one people and cannot comprise the universal world-religion) as essential
to the service of God generally, and to make it the highest condition of the
divine approval of man, is religious illusion* whose consequence is
pseudo-service, that is, pretended honoring of God through which we work
directly counter to the service demanded by God Himself.

        1. Concerning the Universal Subjective Ground of the Religious
Illusion
        Anthropomorphism, scarcely to be avoided by men in the theoretical
representation of God and His being, but yet harmless enough (so long as it
does not influence concepts of duty), is highly dangerous in connection
with our practical relation to His will, and
[157]
even for our morality; for here we create a God for ourselves,  and we
create Him in the form in which we believe we shall be able most easily to
win Him over to our advantage and ourselves escape from the wearisome
uninterrupted effort of working upon the innermost part of our moral
disposition. The basic principle which man usually formulates for himself in
this connection is that everything which we do solely in order to be well-
pleasing to the Godhead (provided it does not actually run counter to
morality, though it may not contribute to it in the very least) manifests to
God our willingness to serve Him as obedient servants, well-pleasing to
Him through this very obedience; and that thus we also serve God (in
potentia). Not only through sacrifices, man believes, can he render this
service to God; festivals and even public games, as among the Greeks and
Romans, have often had to perform this function, and still suffice,
according to men's illusion, to make the Godhead propitious to a people or
even to a single individual. Yet the former (penances, castigations,
pilgrimages, and the like) were always held to be more powerful, more
efficacious upon the the favor of heaven, and more apt to purify of sin,
because they serve to testify more forcefully to unbounded (though not
moral subjection to His will. The more useless such self-castigations are
and the less they are designed for the general moral improvement of the
man, the holier they seem to be; just because they are of no use whatsoever
in the world and yet cost painful effort they seem to be directly solely to the
attestation of devotion to God. Even though God has not in any respect
been served by by the act, men say, He yet sees herein the good will, the
heart, which is indeed too weak to obey His moral commands but which,
through its attested willingness on this score, makes good that deficiency.
Now here is apparent the propensity to a procedure
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which has no moral value in itself, except perhaps as a means of elevating
the powers of sense-imagery to comport with intellectual ideas of the end,
or of suppressing them* when they might work counter to these ideas. For
in our thinking we attribute to this procedure the worth of the end itself, or
what amounts to the same thing, we ascribe to the frame of mind (called
devotion) attuned to acquiring dispositions dedicated to God the worth
belonging to those dispositions themselves. Such a procedure, therefore, is
merely a religious illusion which can assume various forms, in some of
which it appears more moral than in others; but in all forms it is not merely
an inadvertent deception but is rather a maxim of attributing to a means an
intrinsic value instead of the value deriving from the end. Hence the
illusion, because of this maxim, is equally absurd in all these forms and, as
a hidden bias toward deception, it is reprehensible.

        2. The Moral Principle of Religion Opposed to the Religious Illusion
        To begin with, I take the following proposition to be a principle
requiring no proof :Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man
fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious
illusion and pseudo-service of God. I say, what man believes that he can
do; for here it is not denied that beyond all that we can do there may be
something in the mysteries of the highest wisdom that God alone can do to
transform us into men well-pleasing to
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Him. Yet even should the church proclaim such a mystery as revealed, the
notion that belief in such a revelation, as the sacred history recounts it to us,
and acknowledgment of it (whether inwardly or outwardly) are in
themselves means whereby we render ourselves well-pleasing to God,
would be a dangerous religious illusion. For this belief, as an inner
confession of his steadfast conviction, is so genuinely an action which is
compelled by fear that an upright man might agree to any other condition
sooner than to this; for in the case of all other compulsory services he would
at most be doing something merely superfluous, whereas here, in a
declaration, of whose truth he is not convinced, he would be doing violence
to his conscience. The confession, then, regarding which man persuades
himself that in and of itself (as acceptance of a good proffered him) it can
make him well-pleasing to God, is something which he fancies he can
render over and above good life-conduct in obedience to moral laws which
are to be put into practice on earth, on the ground that in this service [of
confession] he turns directly to God.
        In the first place, reason does not leave us wholly without
consolation with respect to our lack of righteousness valid before God. It
says that whoever, with a disposition genuinely devoted to duty, does as
much as lies in his power to satisfy his obligation (at least in a continual
approximation to complete harmony with the law), may hope that what is
not in his power will be supplied by the supreme Wisdom in some way or
other (which can make permanent the disposition to this unceasing
approximation). Reason says this, however, without presuming to
determine the manner in which this aid will be given or to know wherein it
will consist; it may be so mysterious that God can reveal it to us at best in a
symbolic representation in which only what is practical is comprehensible to
us, and that we, meanwhile, can not at all grasp theoretically what this
relation of God to man might be, or apply concepts to it, even did He desire
to reveal such a mystery to us. Suppose, now, that a particular church were
to assert that it knows with certainty the manner in which God supplies that
moral lack in the human race, and were also to consign to eternal damnation
all men who are not acquainted with that means of justification which is
unknown to reason in a natural way, and who, on this account, do not
accept and confess it as a religious principle: who, indeed, is now the
unbeliever? Is it he who trusts,
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without knowing how that for which he hopes will come to pass; or he who
absolutely insists on knowing the way in which man is released from evil
and, if he cannot know this, gives up all hope of this release?
Fundamentally the latter is not really so much concerned to know this
mystery (for his own reason already teaches him that it is of no use to him
to know that regarding which he can do nothing); he merely wishes to know
it so that he can make for himself (even if it be but inwardly) a divine
service out of the belief, acceptance, confession, and cherishing of all that
has been revealed--a service which could earn him the favor of heaven prior
to all expenditure of his own powers toward a good life conduct, in a word,
quite gratuitously; a service which could produce such conduct, mayhap, in
supernatural fashion, or, where he may have acted in opposition, could at
least make amends for his transgression.
        Second: if man departs in the very least from the above maxim, the
pseudo-service of God (superstition) has no other limits, for once beyond
this maxim everything (except what directly contradicts morality) is
arbitrary. He proffers everything to God, from lip-offerings? which cost
him the least, to the donation of earthly goods, which might better be used
for the advantage of mankind, yea, even to the immolation of his own
person, becoming lost to the world (as a hermit, fakir, or monk)--
everything except his moral disposition; and when he says that he also gives
his heart to God he means by this not the disposition to a course of life well-
pleasing to Him but the heart-felt wish that those sacrifices may be accepted
in lieu of that disposition. (Natio gratis adhelans, multa agendo nihil agens.
Phaedrus.1)
        Finally, when once a man has gone over to the maxim of a service
presumed to be in itself well-pleasing to God, and even, if need be,
propitiating Him, yet not purely moral, there is no essential difference
among the ways of serving Him, as it were, mechanically, which would
give one way a priority over another. They are all alike in worth (or rather
worthlessness), and it is mere affectation to regard oneself as more
excellent, because of a subtler
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deviation from the one and only intellectual principle of genuine respect for
God, than those who allow themselves to become guilty of an assumedly
coarser degradation to sensuality. Whether the devotee betakes himself to
church according to rule or whether he undertakes a pilgrimage to the
sanctuaries in Loretto or in Palestine; whether he brings his formulas of
prayer to the court of heaven with his lips, or by means of a prayer-wheel,
like the Tibetan (who believes that his wishes will reach their goal just as
well if they are set down in writing, provided only they be moved by
something or other, by the wind, for example, if they are written on flags,
or by the hand, if they are enclosed in a sort of revolving cylinder)--
whatever be substituted for the moral service of God, it is all one and all
equal in value. What matters here is not a difference in the external form;
everything depends upon the adoption or rejection of the unique principle of
becoming well-pleasing to God--upon whether we rely on the moral
disposition alone, so far as this disposition exhibits its vitality in actions
which are its appearances, or on pious playthings and on inaction.* But is
there not also perhaps a dizzying illusion of virtue, soaring above the
bounds of human capacity, which might be reckoned, along with the
cringing religious illusion, in the general class of self-deceptions? No! The
disposition of virtue occupies itself with something real which of itself is
well-pleasing to God and which harmonizes with the world's highest
good.1 True, an illusion of self-sufficiency may attach itself thereto, an
illusion of regarding oneself as measuring up to the idea of one's holy duty;
but this is merely contingent. To ascribe the highest worth to that
disposition is not an illusion, like faith in the devotional exercises of the
church, but is a direct contribution which promotes the highest good of the
world.
        Furthermore, it is customary (at least in the church) to give
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the name of nature to that which men can do by dint of the principle of
virtue, and the name of grace to that which alone serves to supplement the
deficiency of all our moral powers and yet, because sufficiency of these
powers is also our duty, can only be wished for, or hoped for, and
solicited; to regard both together as active causes of a disposition adequate
for a course of life well-pleasing to God; and not only to distinguish them
from one another but even to set them over against one another.
        The persuasion that we can distinguish the effects of grace from
those of nature (virtue) or can actually produce the former within ourselves,
is fanaticism; for we cannot, by any token, recognize a supersensible object
in experience, still less can we exert an influence upon it to draw it down to
us; though, to be sure, at times there do arise stirrings of the heart making
for morality, movements which we cannot explain and regarding which we
must confess our ignorance: "The wind bloweth where it listeth ... but thou
canst not tell whence it cometh, etc."1 To wish to observe such heavenly
influences in ourselves is a kind of madness, in which, no doubt, there can
be method (since those supposed inner revelations must always be attached
to moral, and hence to rational, ideas), but which none the less remains a
self-deception prejudicial to religion. To believe that there may be works of
grace and that perhaps these may even be necessary to supplement the
incompleteness of our struggle toward virtue--that is all we can say on this
subject; beyond this we are incapable of determining anything concerning
their distinctive marks and still less are we able to do anything to produce
them.
        The illusion of being able to accomplish anything in the way of
justifying ourselves before God through religious acts of worship is
religious superstition, just as the illusion of wishing to accomplish this by
striving for what is supposed to be communion with God is religious
fanaticism. It is a superstitious illusion to wish to become well-pleasing to
God through actions which anyone can perform without even needing to be
a good man (for example, through profession of statutory articles of faith,
through conformity to churchly observance and discipline, etc.). And it is
called superstitious because it selects merely natural (not moral) means
which in themselves can have absolutely no effect upon what is not nature
(i.e., on the morally good). But an illusion is called
[163]
fanatical when the very means it contemplates, as supersensible, are not
within man's power, leaving out of account the inaccessibility of the
supersensible end aimed at by these means; for this feeling of the immediate
presence of the Supreme Being and the distinguishing of this from every
other, even from the moral feeling, would constitute a receptivity for an
intuition for which there is no sensory provision in man's nature. Because
the superstitious illusion contains the means, available to many an
individual, enabling him at least to work against the obstacles in the way of
a disposition well-pleasing to God, it is indeed thus far allied to reason, and
is only contingently objectionable in transforming what is no more than a
means into an object immediately well-pleasing to God. The fanatical
religious illusion, in contrast, is the moral death of reason; for without
reason, after all, no religion is possible, since, like all morality in general, it
must be established upon basic principles.
        So the basic principle of an ecclesiastical faith, a principle that
remedies or prevents all religious illusion, is this, that such a faith must
contain within itself, along with the statutory articles with which it cannot as
yet wholly dispense, still another principle, of setting up the religion of
good life-conduct as the real end, in order, at some future time, to be able
entirely to dispense with the statutory articles.

        3. Concerning Clericalism  as a Government in the Pseudo-Service
of the Good Principle
        The veneration of mighty invisible beings, which was extorted from
helpless man through natural fear rooted in the sense of his
[164]
impotence, did not begin with a religion but rather with a slavish worship of
a god (or of idols). When this worship had achieved a certain publicly
legalized form it was a temple service,1 and it became a church worship1
only after the moral culture of men was gradually united with its laws. An
historical faith constituted the basis of both of these, until man finally came
to regard such a faith as merely provisional, and to see in it the symbolic
presentation, and the means of promotion, of a pure religious faith.
        We can indeed recognize a tremendous difference in manner, but not
in principle, between a shaman of the Tunguses and a European prelate
ruling over church and state alike, or (if we wish to consider not the heads
and leaders but merely the adherents of the faith, according to their own
mode of representation) between the wholly sensuous Wogulite who in the
morning places the paw of a bearskin upon his head with the short prayer,
"Strike me not dead!" and the sublimated Puritan and Independent in
Connecticut: for, as regards principle, they both belong to one and the same
class, namely, the class of those who let their worship of God consist in
what in itself can never make man better (in faith in certain statutory dogmas
or celebration of certain arbitrary observances). Only those who mean to
find the service of God solely in the disposition to good life-conduct
distinguish themselves from those others, by virtue of having passed over
to a wholly different principle and one which is far nobler than the other, the
principle, namely, whereby they confess themselves members of an
(invisible) church which includes within itself all right-thinking people and,
by its essential nature, can alone be the true church universal.
        The intention of all of them is to manage to their own advantage the
invisible Power which presides over the destiny of men; they differ merely
in their conceptions of how to undertake this feat. If they hold that Power to
be an intelligent Being and thus ascribe to Him a will from which they await
their lot, their efforts can consist only in choosing the manner in which, as
creatures subjected to His will, they can become pleasing to Him through
what they do or refrain from doing. If they think of Him as a moral Being
they easily convince themselves through their own reason that the condition
of earning His favor must be their morally good life-conduct, and especially
the pure disposition as the
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subjective principle of such conduct. But perhaps the Supreme Being may
wish, in addition, to be served in a manner which cannot become known to
us through unassisted reason, namely, by actions wherein, in themselves,
we can indeed discover nothing moral, but which we freely1 undertake,
either because He commanded them or else in order to convince Him of our
submissiveness to Him. Under either mode of procedure, if it provides for
us a unified whole of systematically ordered activities, our acts constitute in
general a service of God. Now if the two are to be united, then each of them
must be regarded as a way in which one may be well-pleasing to God
directly, or else one of them must be regarded as but a means to the other,
the real service of God. It is self-evident that the moral service of God
(officium liberum) is directly well-pleasing to Him. But this service cannot
be recognized as the highest condition of divine approval of man (this
approval is already contained in the concept of morality) if it be possible for
hired service officium mercenarium) to be regarded as, alone and of itself,
well-pleasing to God; for then no one could know which service was
worthier in a given situation, in order to decide thereby regarding his duty,
or how they supplemented each other. Hence actions which have no moral
value in themselves will have to be accepted as well-pleasing to Him only so
far as they serve as means to the furtherance of what, in the way of conduct,
is immediately good (i.e., so far as they promote morality), or in other
words, so far as they are performed for the sake of the moral service of
God.
        Now the man who does make use of actions, as means, which in
themselves contain nothing pleasing to God (i.e., nothing moral), in order
to earn thereby immediate divine approval of himself and therewith the
attainment of his desires, labors under the illusion that he possesses an art
of bringing about a supernatural effect through wholly natural means. Such
attempts we are wont to entitle sorcery. But (since this term carries with it
the attendant concept of commerce with the evil principle, whereas the
above-mentioned attempt can be conceived to be undertaken, through
misunderstanding, with good moral intent) we desire to use in place of it the
word fetishism, familiar in other connections. A supernatural effect induced
by a man would be one whose possibility would rest, as he conceives the
matter, upon a supposition that he works on God and uses Him as a means
to bring about a
[166]
result in the world for which his own powers, yea, even his insight into
whether this result may be well-pleasing to God, would, of themselves, not
avail. But this involves an absurdity even in his own conception of it.
        But if a man, not only by means which render him immediately an
object of divine favor (by the active disposition to good life conduct) but
also through certain formalities, seeks to make himself worthy of the
supplementation of his impotence through supernatural assistance, and if he
thinks that he is merely making himself capable of receiving the object of his
good moral desires by conforming, with this intent, to observances which
indeed have no immediate value but yet serve as means to the furthering of
the moral disposition--then, to be sure, he is counting on something
supernatural to supplement his natural impotence, yet not on what is
effected by man (through influence upon the divine will) but on what is
received, on what he can hope for but can not bring to pass. But if it is his
idea that actions, which in themselves, so far as we can see, contain nothing
moral or well-pleasing to God, are to serve as a means, nay as a condition,
whereby he can expect the satisfaction of his wishes directly from God,
then he is a victim of illusion; viz., the illusion that, though he possesses
neither physical control over, nor yet moral receptivity for, this supernatural
assistance, he can yet produce it through natural acts, which in themselves
are in no way related to morality (and the performance of which calls for no
disposition well-pleasing to God, and which can be put into practice by the
most wicked man quite as well as by the best)--through formulas of
invocation, through profession of a mercenary faith, through churchly
observances, and so on--and that he can thus, as it were, conjure up divine
assistance by magic. For between solely physical means and a morally
efficacious cause there is no connection whatsoever according to any law of
which reason can conceive, in terms of which the moral cause could be
represented as determinable to specific activities through the physical.
        Hence whoever assigns priority to obedience to statutory laws,
requiring a revelation, as being necessary to religion, and regards this
obedience not merely as a means to the moral disposition but as the
objective condition of becoming immediately well-pleasing to God, and
whoever thus places endeavor toward a good course of life below this
historical faith (instead of requiring the latter,
[167]
which can be well-pleasing to God only conditionally, to adapt itself to the
former, which alone is intrinsically well-pleasing to Him)--whoever does
this transforms the service of God into a mere fetishism and practises a
pseudo-service which is subversive to all endeavors toward true religion.
So much depends, when we wish to unite two good things, upon the order
in which they are united ! True enlightenment lies in this very distinction;
therein the service of God becomes first and foremost a free and hence a
moral service. If man departs from it there is laid upon him, in place of the
freedom of the children of God,1 the yoke of a law (the statutory law), and
this yoke, as an unconditional requirement of belief in what can only be
known historically and therefore cannot be an object of conviction for
everyone, is for a conscientious man a far heavier yoke* than all the lumber
of piously ordained observances could ever be. For the solemnization of
these suffices to secure a man's conformity with an established churchly
commonwealth, and he need not either inwardly or outwardly profess the
belief that he regards them as institutions founded by God; and it is by
confession of the latter sort that conscience is really burdened.
        Clericalism, therefore, is the constitution of a church to the extent to
which a fetish-worship dominates it; and this condition is always found
wherever, instead of principles of morality, statutory
[168]
commands, rules of faith, and observances constitute the basis and the
essence of the church. Now there are, indeed, various types of church in
which the fetishism is so manifold and so mechanical that it appears to
crowd out nearly all of morality, and therefore religion as well, and to seek
to occupy their place; such fetishism borders very closely on paganism. But
it is not a question of more or less here, where worth or worthlessness rests
on the nature of the principle which is supremely binding. When this
principle imposes not free homage, as that which first and foremost must be
paid to the moral law, but submission to precepts as a compulsory service;
then, however few the imposed observances, so long as these are laid down
as unconditionally necessary the faith remains a fetish-faith through which
the masses are ruled and robbed of their moral freedom by subservience to a
church (not to religion). The structure of this hierarchy can be monarchical
or aristocratic or democratic; this is merely a matter of organization; its
constitution is and ever remains despotic in all these forms. Wherever credal
statutes find a place among the laws of the constitution, a clergy rules which
believes that it can actually dispense with reason and even, finally, with
Scriptural learning, because it has authority, as the uniquely authorized
guardian and interpreter of the will of the invisible Legislator, exclusively to
administer the prescriptions of belief and so, furnished with this power,
needs not convince but merely command. But since aside from the clergy all
that remains is the laity (the head of the political commonwealth not
excepted), the church in the end rules the state not exactly with force but
through its influence upon men's hearts, and in addition through a dazzling
promise of the advantage which the state is supposed to be able to draw
from an unconditioned obedience to which a spiritual discipline has inured
the very thought of the people. Thus, however, the habit of hypocrisy
undermines, unnoticed, the integrity and loyalty of the subjects, renders
them cunning in the simulation of service even in civil duties and, like all
erroneously accepted principles, brings about the very opposite of what was
intended.

* * * * * * * * * * *

        Now all this is the inevitable consequence of what at first sight
appears to be a harmless transposition of the principles of the uniquely
saving religious faith, since it was a question of which
[169]
one should be assigned first place as the highest condition (to which the
other is subordinated). It is fair, it is reasonable, to assume that not only
"wise men after the flesh,"1 the learned or sophisticated, will be called to
this enlightenment touching their true welfare--for the entire human race is
to be susceptible of this faith; "the foolish things of the world"2 as well,
even those who are most ignorant and most circumscribed conceptually,
must be able to lay claim to such instruction and inner conviction. It does
indeed seem as though an historical faith, especially if the concepts which it
requires for the understanding of its documents are wholly anthropological
and markedly suited to sense-perception, satisfies this description perfectly.
For what is easier than to take in so sensuously depicted and simple a
narrative and to share it with others, or to repeat the words of mysteries
when there is no necessity whatsoever to attach a meaning to them! How
easily does such a faith gain universal entrance, especially in connection
with great promised advantage, and how deeply rooted does belief in the
truth of such a narrative become, when it bases itself, moreover, upon a
report accepted as authentic for a long time past! Such a faith, therefore, is
indeed suited even to the commonest human capacities. Now even though
the announcement of such an historical event, as well as the faith in rules of
conduct based upon it, cannot be said to have been vouchsafed solely or
primarily to the learned or the wise of the world, these latter are yet not
excluded from it; consequently there arise so many doubts, in part touching
its truth, and in part touching the sense in which its exposition is to be
taken, that to adopt such a belief as this, subjected as it is to so many
controversies (however sincerely intentioned), as the supreme condition of a
universal faith alone leading to salvation, is the most absurd course of action
that can be conceived of.
        There exists meanwhile a practical knowledge which, while resting
solely upon reason and requiring no historical doctrine, lies as close to
every man, even the most simple, as though it were engraved upon his
heart--a law, which we need but name to find ourselves at once in
agreement with everyone else regarding its authority, and which carries with
it in everyone's consciousness unconditioned binding force, to wit, the law
of morality. What is
[170]
more, this knowledge either leads, alone and of itself, to belief in God, or at
least determines the concept of Him as that of a moral Legislator; hence it
guides us to a pure religious faith which not only can be comprehended by
every man but also is in the highest degree worthy of respect. Yea, it leads
thither so naturally that, if we care to try the experiment we shall find that it
can be elicited in its completeness from anyone without his ever having been
instructed in it. Hence to start off with this knowledge, and to let the
historical faith which harmonizes with it follow, is not only an act of
prudence; it is also our duty to make such knowledge the supreme condition
under which alone we can hope to become participants in whatever salvation
a religious faith may promise. So true is this that only as warranted by the
interpretation which pure religious faith gives to the historical can we hold
the latter to be universally binding or are we entitled to allow its validity (for
it does contain universally valid teaching); meanwhile the moral believer is
ever open to historical faith so far as he finds it furthering the vitality of his
pure religious disposition. Only thus does historical faith possess a pure
moral worth, because here it is free and not coerced through any threat (for
then it can never be honest).
        Now even when the service of God in a church is directed
preeminently to the pure moral veneration of God in accordance with the
laws prescribed to humanity in general, we can still ask whether, in such a
service, the doctrine of godliness alone or that of virtue as well, or
peculiarly the one or the other, should constitute the content of religious
teaching. The first of these appellations, that is, the doctrine of godliness,
perhaps best expresses the meaning of the word religio (as it is understood
today) in an objective sense.
        Godliness comprises two determinations of the moral disposition in
relation to God: fear of God is this disposition in obedience to His
commands from bounden duty (the duty of a subject), i.e., from respect for
the law; love of God, on the other hand, is the disposition to obedience
from one's own free choice and from approval of the law (the duty of a
son). Both involve, therefore, over and above morality, the concept of a
supersensible Being provided with the attributes which are requisite to the
carrying out of that highest good which is aimed at by morality but which
transcends our powers. Now if we go beyond the moral relation of the idea
of this Being to us, to a concept of His nature, there is
[171]
always a danger that we shall think of it anthropomorphically and hence in a
manner directly hurtful to our basic moral principles. Thus the idea of such
a Being cannot subsist of itself in speculative; reason; even its origin, and
still more its power, are wholly grounded in its relation to our self-
subsistent determination to duty. Which, now, is the more natural in the
first instruction of youth and even in discourses from the pulpit: to expound
the doctrine of virtue before the doctrine of godliness, or that of godliness
before that of virtue (without perhaps even mentioning the doctrine of virtue
at all)? Both obviously stand in necessary connection with one another. But,
since they are not of a kind, this is possible only if one of them is conceived
of and explained as end, the other merely as means. The doctrine of virtue,
however, subsists of itself (even without the concept of God), whereas the
doctrine of godliness involves the concept of an object which we represent
to ourselves, in relation to our morality, as the cause supplementing our
incapacity with respect to the final moral end. Hence the doctrine of
godliness cannot of itself constitute the final goal of moral endeavor but can
merely serve as a means of strengthening that which in itself goes to make a
better man, to wit, the virtuous disposition, since it reassures and
guarantees this endeavor (as a striving for goodness, and even for holiness)
in its expectation of the final goal with respect to which it is impotent. The
doctrine of virtue, in contrast, derives from the soul of man. He is already
in full possession of it, undeveloped, no doubt, but not needing, like the
religious concept, to be rationalized into being by means of logistics. In the
purity of this concept of virtue, in the awakening of consciousness to a
capacity which otherwise we would never surmise (a capacity of becoming
able to master the greatest obstacles within ourselves), in the dignity of
humanity which man must respect in his own person and human destiny,
toward which he strives, if he is to attain it--in all this there is something
which so exalts the soul, and so leads it to the very Deity, who is worthy of
adoration only because of His holiness and as Legislator for virtue, that
man, even when he is still far from allowing to this concept the power of
influencing his maxims, is yet not unwillingly sustained by it because he
feels himself to a certain extent ennobled by this idea already, even while the
concept of a World-Ruler who transforms this duty into a command to us,
still lies far from him. But to commence with this latter
[172]
concept would incur the danger of dashing man's courage (which goes to
constitute the essence of virtue) and transforming godliness into a fawning
slavish subjection to a despotically commanding might. The courage to
stand on one's own feet is itself strengthened by the doctrine of atonement,
when it follows the ethical doctrine, in that this doctrine portrays as wiped
out what cannot be altered, and opens up to man the path to a new mode of
life; whereas, when this doctrine is made to come first, the futile endeavor
to render undone what has been done (expiation), the fear regarding
appropriation of this atonement, the idea of his complete incapacity for
goodness, and the anxiety lest he slip back into evil must rob* a man of his
courage and reduce him to a state of sighing moral passivity in which
nothing great or good is undertaken
[173]
and everything is expected from the mere wishing for it. In that which
concerns the moral disposition everything depends upon the highest concept
under which one subsumes one's duties. When reverence for God is put
first, with virtue therefore subordinated to it, this object [of reverence]
becomes an idol, that is, He is thought of as a Being whom we may hope to
please not through morally upright conduct on earth but through adoration
and ingratiation; and religion is then idolatry. But godliness is not a
surrogate for virtue, whereby we may dispense with the latter; rather is it
virtue's consummation, enabling us to be crowned with the hope of the
ultimate achievement of all our good ends.

        4. Concerning the Guide of Conscience in Matters of Faith
        The question here is not, how conscience ought to be guided (for
conscience needs no guide; to have a conscience suffices), but how it itself
can serve as a guide in the most perplexing moral decisions.
        Conscience is a state of consciousness which in itself is duty. But
how is it possible to conceive of such a state of consciousness, since the
consciousness of all our representations seems to be necessary only for
logical purposes and therefore only in a conditioned manner (when we want
to clarify our representations), and so cannot be unconditioned duty?
        It is a basic moral principle, which requires no proof, that one ought
to hazard nothing that may be Wrong (quod dubitas, ne feceris! Pliny1).
Hence the consciousness that an action which I intend to
[174]
perform is right, is unconditioned duty. The understanding, not conscience,
judges whether an action is really right or wrong. Nor is it absolutely
necessary to know, concerning all possible actions, whether they are right
or wrong. But concerning the act which I propose to perform I must not
only judge and form an opinion, but I must be sure that it is not wrong; and
this requirement is a postulate of conscience, to which is opposed
probabilism,1 i.e., the principle that the mere opinion that an action may
well be right warrants its being performed. Hence conscience might also be
defined as follows: it is the moral faculty of judgment, passing judgment
upon itself; only this definition would stand in great need of a prior
elucidation of the concepts contained in it. Conscience does not pass
judgment upon actions as cases which fall under the law; for this is what
reason does so far as it is subjectively practical (hence the casus conscientiae
and casuistry, as a kind of dialectic of conscience). Rather, reason here
judges itself, as to whether it has really undertaken that appraisal of actions
(as to whether they are right or wrong) with all diligence, and it calls the
man himself to witness for or against himself whether this diligent appraisal
did or did not take place.
        Take, for instance, an inquisitor, who clings fast to the uniqueness
of his statutory faith even to the point of [imposing] martyrdom, and who
has to pass judgment upon a so-called heretic (otherwise a good citizen)
charged with unbelief. Now I ask whether, if he condemns him to death,
one might say that he has judged according to his conscience (erroneous
though it be), or whether one might not rather accuse him of absolute lack
of conscience, be it that he merely erred, or consciously did wrong; for we
can tell him to his face that in such a case he could never be quite certain that
by so acting he was not possibly doing wrong. Presumably he was firm in
the belief that a supernaturally revealed Divine Will (perhaps in accord with
the saying, compellite intrare1) permitted him, if it did not actually impose it
as a duty, to extirpate
[175]
presumptive disbelief together with the disbelievers. But was he really
strongly enough assured of such a revealed doctrine, and of this
interpretation of it, to venture, on this basis, to destroy a human being? That
it is wrong to deprive a man of his life because of his religious faith is
certain, unless (to allow for the most remote possibility) a Divine Will,
made known in extraordinary fashion, has ordered it otherwise. But that
God has ever uttered this terrible injunction can be asserted only on the
basis of historical documents and is never apodictically certain. After all, the
revelation has reached the inquisitor only through men and has been
interpreted by men, and even did it appear to have come to him from God
Himself (like the command delivered to Abraham to slaughter his own son
like a sheep) it is at least possible that in this instance a mistake has
prevailed. But if this is so, the inquisitor would risk the danger of doing
what would be wrong in the highest degree; and in this very act he is
behaving unconscientiously. This is the case with respect to all historical
and visionary faith; that is, the possibility ever remains that an error may be
discovered in it. Hence it is unconscientious to follow such a faith with the
possibility that perhaps what it commands or permits may be wrong, i.e.,
with the danger of disobedience to a human duty which is certain in and of
itself.
        And further: even were an act commanded by (what is held to be)
such a positive revealed law allowable in itself, the question arises whether
spiritual rulers or teachers, after presumably becoming convinced of it
themselves, should impose it upon the people as an article of faith for their
acceptance (on penalty of forfeiting their status). Since assurance on this
score rests on no grounds of proof other than the historical, and since there
ever will remain in the judgment of the people (if it subjects itself to the
slightest test) the absolute possibility of an error which has crept in through
their interpretation or through previous classical exegesis, the clergyman
would be requiring the people at least inwardly to confess something to be
as true as is their belief in God, i.e., to confess, as though in the presence
of God, something which they do not know with certainty. Such, for
instance, would be the acknowledgment, as a part of religion directly
commanded by God, of the setting aside of a certain day for the periodic
public cultivation of godliness; or, again, the confession of firm belief in a
mystery which the layman does not even understand. Here the
[176]
layman's spiritual superior would himself go counter to conscience in
forcing others to believe that of which he himself can never be wholly
convinced; he should therefore in justice consider well what he does, for he
must answer for all abuse arising out of such a compulsory faith. Thus there
may, perhaps, be truth in what is believed but at the same time
untruthfulness1 in the belief (or even in the mere inner confession thereof),
and this is in itself damnable.
        Although, as was noted above,2 men who have made but the merest
beginning in the freedom of thought,* because previously they were under a
slavish yoke of belief (e.g., the Protestants), forthwith hold themselves to
be, as it were, the more ennobled the less they need to believe (of what is
positive and what belongs to clerical precepts); the exact contrary holds
concerning those who have so far not been able, or have not wished, to
make an attempt of this kind, for their principle is: It is expedient to believe
too much rather than too little, on the ground that what we do over and
above what we owe will at least do no harm and might even help. Upon this
illusion, which makes dishonesty in religious confessions a basic principle
(to which one subscribes the more easily since religion makes good every
mistake, and hence that of dishonesty along with the rest), is based the so-
called maxim of certainty in matters of faith (argumentum a tuto): If that
which I profess regarding God is true, I have hit the mark; if it is untrue,
[177]
and in addition not something in itself forbidden, I have merely believed it
superfluously and have burdened myself with what was indeed not
necessary but was after all only an inconvenience, not a transgression. The
hypocrite regards as a mere nothing the danger arising from the dishonesty
of his profession, the violation of conscience, involved in proclaiming even
before God that something is certain, when he is aware that, its nature being
what it is, it cannot be asserted with unconditional assurance. The genuine
maxim of certainty, which alone is compatible with religion, is just the
reverse of the former: Whatever, as the means or the condition of salvation,
I can know not through my own reason but only through revelation, and
can incorporate into my confession only through the agency of an historical
faith, and which, in addition, does not contradict pure moral principles--this
I cannot, indeed, believe and profess as certain, but I can as little reject it as
being surely false; nevertheless, without determining anything on this score,
I may expect that whatever therein is salutary will stand me in good stead so
far as I do not render myself unworthy of it through defect of the moral
disposition in good life-conduct. In this maxim there is genuine moral
certainty, namely, certainty in the eye of conscience (and more than this
cannot be required of a man); on the other hand, the greatest danger and
uncertainty attend the supposedly prudential device of craftily evading the
harmful consequences which might accrue to me from non-profession, in
that, through seeking the favor of both parties, I am liable to incur the
disfavor of both.
        Let the author of a creed, or the teacher of a church, yea, let every
man, so far as he is inwardly to acknowledge a conviction regarding
dogmas as divine revelations, ask himself: Do you really trust yourself to
assert the truth of these dogmas in the sight of Him who knows the heart
and at the risk of losing all that is valuable and holy to you? I must needs
have a very disparaging conception of human nature (which is, after all, not
wholly unsusceptible of goodness) not to anticipate that even the boldest
teacher
[178]
of faith would have to tremble at such a question.  But if this is so, how is
it consistent with conscientiousness to insist, none the less, upon such a
declaration of faith as admits of no reservation, and even to proclaim that the
very audacity of such an asseveration is in itself a duty and a service to
God, when thereby human freedom, which is absolutely required in all
moral matters (such as the adoption of a religion) is wholly crushed under
foot and no place is even left for the good will, which says: "Lord, I
believe; help thou my unbelief!"1  
[179]

GENERAL OBSERVATION

        Whatever good man is able to do through his own efforts, under
laws of freedom, in contrast to what he can do only with supernatural
assistance, can be called nature, as distinguished from grace. Not that we
understand by the former expression a physical property distinguished from
freedom; we use it merely because we are at least acquainted with the laws
of this capacity (laws of virtue), and because reason thus possesses a visible
and comprehensible clue to it, considered as analogous to [physical] nature;
on the other hand, we remain wholly in the dark as to when, what, or how
much, grace will accomplish in us, and reason is left, on this score, as with
the supernatural in general (to which morality, if regarded as holiness,
belongs), without any knowledge of the laws according to which it might
occur.
        The concept of a supernatural accession to our moral, though
deficient, capacity and even to our not wholly purified and certainly weak
disposition to perform our entire duty, is a transcendent concept, and is a
bare idea, of whose reality no experience can assure us. Even when
accepted as an idea in nothing but a practical context it is very hazardous,
and hard to reconcile with reason, since that which is to be accredited to us
as morally good conduct must take place not through foreign influence but
solely through the best possible use of our own powers. And yet the
impossibility thereof (i.e., of both these things occurring side by side)
cannot really be proved, because freedom itself, though containing nothing
supernatural in its conception, remains, as regards its possibility, just as
incomprehensible to us as is the supernatural factor which we would like to
regard as a supplement to the spontaneous but deficient determination of
freedom.
        Now we at least know the laws of freedom (the moral laws),
according to which it is to be determined. But we cannot know anything at
all about supernatural aid--whether a certain moral power, perceptible to us,
really comes from above or, indeed, on what occasions and under what
conditions it may be expected. Hence, apart from the general assumption
that grace will effect in us what nature cannot, provided only we have made
the maximum use of our own powers, we will not be able to make any
further use of this idea, either as to how (beyond a constant striving after a
[180]
good life) we might draw down to us its cooperation, or how we might
determine on what occasions to expect it. This idea is wholly transcendent;
and it is even salutary to hold it, as a sacred thing, at a respectful distance,
lest, under the illusion of performing miracles ourselves or observing
miracles within us, we render ourselves unfit for all use of reason or allow
ourselves to fall into the indolence of awaiting from above, in passive
leisure, what we should seek within.
        Now means are all the intermediate causes, which man has in his
power, whereby a certain purpose may be achieved. There is no other
means (and there can be no other) of becoming worthy of heavenly
assistance than earnest endeavor to better in every possible way our moral
nature and thus render ourselves susceptible of having the fitness of this
nature perfected for divine approval, so far as this perfecting is not in our
power; for that divine aid, which we await, itself really aims at nothing but
our morality. It was already to be expected a priori that the impure man
would not seek this aid here but rather in certain sensuous contrivances
(which he does, indeed, have in his power but which, in themselves, cannot
make a man better, and yet herein are supposed to achieve this very result in
supernatural fashion); and this is what actually happens. The concept of a
so-called means of grace, although it is internally self-contradictory (in
accordance with what has just been said), serves here none the less as a
means of self-deception which is as common as it is detrimental to true
religion.
        The true (moral) service of God, which the faithful must render as
subjects belonging to His kingdom but no less as citizens thereof (under
laws of freedom), is itself, indeed, like the kingdom, invisible, i.e., a
service of the heart (in spirit and in truth). It can consist solely in the
disposition of obedience to all true duties as divine commands, not in
actions directed exclusively to God. Yet for man the invisible needs to be
represented through the visible (the sensuous); yea, what is more, it needs
to be accompanied by the visible in the interest of practicability and, though
it is intellectual, must be made, as it were (according to a certain analogy),
perceptual. This is a means of simply picturing to ourselves our duty in the
service of God, a means which, although really indispensable, is extremely
liable to the danger of misconstruction; for, through an illusion that steals
over us, it is easily held to be the service of God itself, and is, indeed,
commonly thus spoken of.
[181]
        This alleged service of God, when brought back to its spirit and its
true meaning, namely, to a disposition dedicating itself to the kingdom of
God within us and without us, can be divided, even by reason, into four
observances of duty; and certain corresponding rites, which do not stand in
a necessary relation to these observances, have yet been associated with
them, because the rites are deemed to serve as schemata1 for the duties and
thus, for ages past, have been regarded as useful means for sensuously
awakening and sustaining our attention to the true service of God. They
base themselves, one and all, upon the intention to further the morally good
and are: (l) (private prayer)--firmly to establish this goodness in ourselves,
and repeatedly to awaken the disposition of goodness in the heart; (2)
(church-going)--the spreading abroad of goodness through public assembly
on days legally dedicated thereto, in order that religious doctrines and
wishes (together with corresponding dispositions) may be expressed there
and thus be generally shared; (3) (in the Christian religion, baptism)--the
propagation of goodness in posterity through the reception of newly
entering members into the fellowship of faith, as a duty; also their
instruction in such goodness; (4) (communion)--the maintenance of this
fellowship through a repeated public formality which makes enduring the
union of these members into an ethical body and this, indeed, according to
the principle of the mutual equality of their rights and joint participation in
all the fruits of moral goodness.
        Every initiatory step in the realm of religion, which we do not take in
a purely moral manner but rather have recourse to as in itself a means of
making us well-pleasing to God and thus, through Him, of satisfying all
our wishes, is fetish-faith. This is the persuasion that what can produce no
effect at all according either to natural laws or to moral laws of reason, will
yet, of itself, bring about what is wished for, if only we firmly believe that
it will do so, and if we accompany this belief with certain formalities. Even
where the conviction has taken hold that everything in religion depends
upon moral goodness, which can arise only from action, the sensuous man
still searches for a secret path by which to evade that arduous condition,
with the notion, namely, that if
[182]
only he honors the custom (the formality), God will surely accept it in lieu
of the act itself. This would certainly have to be called an instance of
transcendent grace on God's part, were it not rather a grace dreamed of in
slothful trust, or even in a trust which is itself feigned. Thus in every type
of public belief man has devised for himself certain practices, as means of
grace, though, to be sure, in all these types the practices are not, as they are
in the Christian, related to practical concepts of reason and to dispositions
conformable to them. (There are, for instance, the five great commands in
the Mohammedan type of belief: washing, praying, fasting, almsgiving, and
pilgrimage to Mecca. Of these, almsgiving alone would deserve to be
excepted were it to take place from a truly virtuous and at the same time
religious disposition, as a human duty, and would thus really merit regard
as a genuine means of grace; but the fact is, on the contrary, that it does not
deserve to be thus distinguished from the rest because, under this faith,
almsgiving can well go hand in hand with the extortion from others of what,
as a sacrifice, is offered to God in the person of the poor.)
        There can, indeed, be three kinds of illusory faith that involve the
possibility of our overstepping the bounds of our reason in the direction of
the supernatural (which is not, according to the laws of reason, an object
either of theoretical or practical use). First, the belief in knowing through
experience something whose occurrence, as under objective laws of
experience, we ourselves can recognize to be impossible (the faith in
miracles). Second, the illusion of having to include among our rational
concepts, as necessary to our best moral interests, that of which we
ourselves can form, through reason, no concept (the faith in mysteries).
Third, the illusion of being able to bring about, through the use of merely
natural means, an effect which is, for us, a mystery, namely, the influence
of God upon our morality (the faith in means of grace). We have dealt with
the first two of these artificial modes of belief in the General Observations
following the two immediately preceding Books of this work. It still
remains, therefore, for us to treat of the means of grace (which are further
distinguished from works of grace,  i.e., supernatural moral influences in
relation to which we are merely passive; but the imagined experience of
these is a fanatical illusion pertaining entirely to the emotions).
        1. Praying, thought of as an inner formal service of God and
[183]
hence as a means of grace, is a superstitious illusion (a fetish-making); for it
is no more than a stated wish directed to a Being who needs no such
information regarding the inner disposition of the wisher; therefore nothing
is accomplished by it, and it discharges none of the duties to which, as
commands of God, we are obligated; hence God is not really served. A
heart-felt wish to be well-pleasing to God in our every act and abstention, or
in other words, the disposition, accompanying all our actions, to perform
these as though they were being executed in the service of God, is the spirit
of prayer which can, and should, be present in us "without ceasing."1 But
to clothe* this wish (even though it be but inwardly) in words
[184]
and formulas can, at best, possess only the value of a means where-
[185]
by that disposition within us may be repeatedly quickened, and can have no
direct bearing upon the divine approval; and for this very reason it cannot be
a duty for everyone. For a means can be prescribed only to him who needs
it for certain ends; but certainly not all men stand in need of this means (of
conversing within and really with oneself, but ostensibly of speaking the
more intelligibly with God). Rather must one labor to this end through
continued clarification and elevation of the moral disposition, in order that
this spirit of prayer alone be sufficiently quickened within us and that the
letter of it (at least as directed to our own advantage) finally fall away. For
the letter, like everything which is aimed at a given end indirectly, rather
weakens the effect of the moral idea (which, taken subjectively, is called
devotion). Thus the contemplation of the profound wisdom of the divine
creation in the smallest things, and of its majesty in the great--which may
indeed have already been recognized by men in the past, but in more recent
times has grown into the highest wonder--this contemplation is a power
which cannot only transport the mind into that sinking mood, called
adoration, annihilating men, as it were, in their own eyes; it is also, in
respect of its own moral determination, so soul-elevating a power that
words, in comparison, even were they those of the royal suppliant David
(who knew little of all those marvels),
[186]
must needs pass away as empty sound because the emotion arising from
such a vision of the hand of God is inexpressible. Men, are prone,
moreover, when their hearts are disposed to religion, to transform what
really has reference solely to their own moral improvement into a courtly
service, wherein the humiliations and glorifications usually are the less felt
in a moral way the more volubly they are expressed. It is therefore the more
necessary carefully to inculcate set forms of prayer in children (who still
stand in need of the letter), even in their earliest years, so that the language
(even language spoken inwardly, yea, even the attempts to attune the mind
to the comprehension of the idea of God, which is to be brought nearer to
intuition) may possess here no value in itself but may be used merely to
quicken the disposition to a course of life well-pleasing to God, those
words being but an aid to the imagination. Otherwise all these devout
attestations of awe involve the danger of producing nothing but hypocritical
veneration of God instead of a practical service of Him--a service which
never consists in mere feelings.
        2. Church-going, thought of as the ceremonial public service of God
in a church, in general, is, considered as a sensuous representation of the
community of believers, not only a means to be valued by each individual
for his own edification* but also a duty
[187]
directly obligating them as a group, as citizens of a divine state which is to
appear here on earth; provided, that this church contains no formalities
which might lead to idolatry and so burden the conscience, e.g., certain
prayers to God, with His infinite mercy personified under the name of a
man--for such sensuous representation of God is contrary to the command
of reason: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, etc."1 But to
wish to use it as, in itself, a means of grace, as though thereby God were
directly served and as though He had attached special favors to the
celebration of this solemnity (which is merely a sensuous representation of
the universality of religion), is an illusion which does, indeed, well comport
with the cast of mind of a good citizen in a political commonwealth, and
with external propriety, yet which not only contributes nothing to the
character of such a man, as a citizen in the kingdom of God, but rather
debases it, and serves, by means of a deceptive veneer, to conceal the bad
moral content of his disposition from the eyes of others, and even from his
own eyes.
        3. The ceremonial initiation, taking place but once, into the church-
community, that is, one's first acceptance as a member of a church (in the
Christian church through baptism) is a highly significant ceremony which
lays a grave obligation either upon the initiate, if he is in a position himself
to confess his faith, or upon the witnesses who pledge themselves to take
care of his education in this faith. This aims at something holy (the
development of a man into a citizen in a divine state) but this act performed
by others is not in itself holy or productive of holiness and receptivity for
the divine grace in this individual; hence it is no means of grace, however
exaggerated the esteem in which it was held in the early Greek church,
where it was believed capable, in an instant, of washing away all sins--and
here this illusion publicly revealed its affinity to an almost more than
heathenish superstition.
        4. The oft-repeated ceremony (communion of a renewal,
continuation, and propagation of this churchly community under laws of
equality, a ceremony which indeed can be performed, after the example of
the Founder of such a church (and, at the same time, in memory of him),
through the formality of a common partaking at the same table, contains
within itself something great, expanding the narrow, selfish, and unsociable
cast of mind among men,
[188]
especially in matters of religion, toward the idea of a cosmopolitan moral
community; and it is a good means of enlivening a community to the moral
disposition of brotherly love which it represents. But to assert that God has
attached special favors to the celebration of this solemnity, and to
incorporate among the articles of faith the proposition that this ceremony,
which is after all but a churchly act, is, in addition, a means of grace--this is
a religious illusion which can do naught but work counter to the spirit of
religion. Clericalism in general would therefore be the dominion of the
clergy over men's hearts, usurped by dint of arrogating to themselves the
prestige attached to) exclusive possession of means of grace.

* * * * * * * * * * *

        All such artificial self-deceptions in religious matters have a common
basis. Among the three divine moral attributes, holiness, mercy, and justice,
man habitually turns directly to the second in order thus to avoid the
forbidding condition of conforming to the requirements of the first. It is
tedious to be a good servant (here one is forever hearing only about one's
duties); man would therefore rather be a favorite, where much is overlooked
or else, when duty has been too grossly violated, everything is atoned for
through the agency of some one or other favored in the highest degree--
man, meanwhile, remaining the servile knave he ever was. But in order to
satisfy himself, with some color of truth, concerning the feasibility of this
intention of his, he has the habit of transferring his concept of a man
(including his faults) to the Godhead; and just as, even in the best ruler of
our race, legislative rigor, beneficent grace, and scrupulous justice do not
(as they should) operate separately, each by itself, to produce a moral effect
upon the actions of the subject, but mingle with one another in the thinking
of the human ruler when he is making his decisions, so that one need only
seek to circumvent one of these attributes, the fallible wisdom of the human
will, in order to determine the other two to compliance; even so does man
hope to accomplish the same thing with God by applying himself solely to
His grace. (For this reason it was important for religion that the attributes,
or rather the relations of God to man, which were conceived of, should be
separated through the idea of a triune personality, wherein God is to be
thought of analogously to this idea in order that each attribute or relation be
[189]
made specifically cognizable.) To this end man busies himself with every
conceivable formality, designed to indicate how greatly he respects the
divine commands, in order that it may not be necessary for him to obey
them; and, that his idle wishes may serve also to make good the
disobedience of these commands, he cries: "Lord, Lord," so as not to have
to "do the will of his heavenly Father."1 Thus he comes to conceive of the
ceremonies, wherein certain means are used to quicken truly practical
dispositions, as in themselves means of grace; he even proclaims the belief,
that they are such, to be itself an essential part of religion (the common man
actually regards it as the whole of religion); and he leaves it to all-gracious
Providence to make a better man of him, while he busies himself with piety
(a passive respect for the law of God) rather than with virtue (the application
of one's own powers in discharging the duty which one respects)--and,
after all, it is only the latter, combined with the former, that can give us the
idea which one intends by the word godliness (true religious disposition).
        When the illusion of this supposed favorite of heaven mounts to the
point where he fanatically imagines that he feels special works of grace
within himself (or even where he actually presumes to be confident of a
fancied occult intercourse with God), virtue comes at last actually to arouse
his loathing, and becomes for him an object of contempt. Hence it is no
wonder that the complaint is made publicly, that religion still contributes so
little to men's improvement, and that the inner light ("under a bushel"2) of
these favored ones does not shine forth outwardly in good works also, yea,
(as, in view of their pretensions, one could rightly demand) preeminently,
above other men of native honesty who, in brief, take religion unto
themselves not as a substitute for, but as a furtherance of, the virtuous
disposition which shows itself through actions, in a good course of life. Yet
the Teacher of the Gospel has himself put into our hands these external
evidences of outer experience as a touchstone, [by telling us that] we can
know men by their fruits and that every man can know himself. But thus far
we do not see that those who, in their own opinion, are extraordinarily
favored (the chosen ones) surpass in the very least the naturally
[190]
honest man, who can be relied upon in social intercourse, in business, or in
trouble; on the contrary, taken as a whole, the chosen ones can scarcely
abide comparison with him, which proves that the right course is not to go
from grace to virtue but rather progress from virtue to pardoning grace.

NOTES:

        1 [139] [Cf. Matthew VI, 20; Luke XI, 2]
        * [142] By means of this definition many an erroneous interpretation
of the concept of a religion in general is obviated. First, in religion, as
regards the theoretical apprehension and avowal of belief, no assertorial
knowledge is required (even of God's existence), since, with our lack of
insight into supersensible objects, such avowal might well be dissembled;
rather is it merely a problematical assumption (hypothesis) regarding the
highest cause of things that is presupposed speculatively, yet with an eye to
the object toward which our morally legislative reason bids us strive--an
assertorial faith, practical and therefore free, and giving promise of the
realization of this its ultimate aim. This faith needs merely the idea of God,
to which all morally earnest (and therefore confident) endeavor for the good
must inevitably lead; it need not presume that it can certify the objective
reality of this idea through theoretical apprehension. Indeed, the minimum
of knowledge (it is possible that there may be a God) must suffice,
subjectively, for whatever can be made the duty of every man. Second, this
definition of a religion in general obviates the erroneous representation of
religion as an aggregate of special duties having reference directly to God;
thus it prevents our taking on (as men are otherwise very much inclined to
do) courtly obligations over and above the ethico-civil duties of humanity
(of man to man) and our seeking, perchance, even to make good the
deficiency of the latter by means of the former. There are no special duties
to God in a universal religion, for God can receive nothing from us; we
cannot act for Him, nor yet upon Him. To wish to transform a guilty awe of
Him into a duty of the sort described is to forget that awe is not a special act
of religion but rather the religious temper in all our actions done in
conformity with duty. And when it is said: "We ought to obey God rather
than men,"1 this means only that when statutory commands, regarding
which men can be legislators and judges, come into conflict with duties
which reason prescribes unconditionally, concerning whose observance or
transgression God alone can be the judge, the former must yield precedence
to the latter. But were we willing to regard the statutory commands, which
are given out by a church as coming from God, as constituting that wherein
God must be obeyed more than man, such a principle might easily become
the war-cry, often heard, of hypocritical and ambitious clerics in revolt
against their civil superiors. For that which is permissible, i.e., which the
civil authorities command, is certainly duty; but whether something which is
indeed permissible in itself, but cognizable by us only through divine
revelation, is really commanded by God--that is (at least for the most part)
highly uncertain.
        1 [Cf. Acts V, 29]
        1 [146] [ein Factum]
        2 [146] [WillkŸrlichen]
        1 [147] [Our phrase "arbitrary will" translates "willkŸrlichen
Ursprunge"]
        * [147] It is hard to understand why this clear prohibition against
this method of forcing confession before a civil tribunal of religious
teachers--a method based upon mere superstition, not upon
conscientiousness--is held as so unimportant. For that it is superstition
whose efficacy is here most relied on is evident from the fact that the man
whom one does not trust to tell the truth in a solemn statement, on the
truthfulness of which depends a decision concerning the rights of a human
being (the holiest of beings in this world) is yet expected to be persuaded to
speak truly, by the use of a formula through which, over and above that
statement, he simply calls down upon himself divine punishments (which in
any event, with such a lie, he cannot escape) just as though it rested with
him whether or not to render account to this supreme tribunal. In the
passage of Scripture cited above, the mode of confirmation by oath is
represented as an absurd presumption, the attempt to make actual, as though
with magical words, what is really not in our power. But it is clearly evident
that the wise Teacher who here says that whatever goes beyond Yea, Yea,
and Nay, Nay, in the asseveration of truth comes of evil, had in view the
bad effect which oaths bring in their train--namely, that the greater
importance attached to them almost sanctions the common lie.
        * [148] The strait gate and the narrow way, which leads to life, is
that of good life-conduct; the wide gale and the broad way, found by many,
is the church. Not that the church and its doctrines are responsible for men
being lost, but that the entrance into it and the knowledge of its statutes or
celebration of its rites are regarded as the manner in which God really
wishes to be served.
        1 [148] [Triebfeder]
        * [149] We know nothing of the future, and we ought not to seek to
know more than what is rationally bound up with the incentives of morality
and their end. Here belongs the belief that there are no good actions which
will not, in the next world, have their good consequences for him who
performs them; that, therefore, however reprehensible a man may find
himself at the end of
[150]
his life, he must not on that account refrain from doing at least one more
good deed which is in his power, and that, in so doing, he has reason to
hope that, in proportion as he possesses in this action a purely good intent,
the act will be of greater worth than those actionless absolutions which are
supposed to compensate for the deficiency of good deeds without providing
anything for the lessening of the guilt.
        1 [153] [The source of this quotation has not been found.]
          [154] Mendelssohn1 very ingeniously makes use of this weak spot
in the customary presentation of Christianity wholly to reject every demand
upon a son of Israel that he change his religion. For, he says, since the
Jewish faith itself is, according to the avowal of Christians, the substructure
upon which the superstructure of Christianity rests, the demand that it be
abandoned is equivalent to expecting someone to demolish the ground floor
of a house in order to take up his abode in the second story. His real
intention is fairly clear. He means to say: First wholly remove Judaism itself
out of your religion (it can always remain, as an antiquity, in the historical
account of the faith); we can then take your proposal under advisement.
(Actually nothing would then be left but pure moral religion unencumbered
by statutes.) Our burden will not be lightened in the least by throwing off
the yoke of outer observances if, in its place, another yoke, namely
confession of faith in sacred history--a yoke which rests far more heavily
upon the conscientious--is substituted in its place.
        In any case, the sacred books of this people will doubtless always be
preserved and will continue to possess value for scholarship even if not for
the benefit of religion: since the history of no other people dates back, with
some color of credibility, so far as does this, into epochs of antiquity (even
to the beginning of the world) in which all secular history known to us can
be arranged; and thus the great hiatus, which must be left by the latter, is
filled by the former.
        1 [154] [Moses Mendelssohn, 1729-1786, (father of Felix
Mendelssohn, the composer) was a prominent Jewish philosopher and
theologian. Kant and Mendelssohn were familiar, over a long period of
years, with each other's writings, and in 1763 both submitted essays for a
prize offered by the Royal Academy in Berlin; Mendelssohn won the prize,
Kant having been given second place, and their two essays were published
together in 1764
        Kant here refers to Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, oder Ÿber religišse
Macht und Judenthum, ("Jerusalem, or concerning Religious Power and
Judaism"). Cf. Kant's Streit der FacultŠten, Berlin Edition, 1907, p. 52 n.]
        1 [155] [Gemeinde, congregations]
        * [156] Illusion [Wahn] is the deception of regarding the mere
representation of a thing as equivalent to the thing itself. Thus a rich miser is
subject to the covetous illusion of holding the idea of being able sometime
or other to make use of his riches, when he may wish to do so, as an
adequate substitute for never using them. The illusion of honor ascribes to
praise by others, which is at bottom merely the outward expression of their
regard (perhaps inwardly not entertained by them at all) the worth which
ought to be attached solely to the regard itself. Here too belongs the passion
for titles and orders, since these are but outward representations of a
superiority over others. Even madness is so named [Wahnsinn] because it
commonly takes a mere representation (of the imagination) for the presence
of the thing itself and values it accordingly. Now the consciousness of
possessing a means to some end or other (before one has availed oneself of
this means) is the possession of the end in representation only; hence to
content oneself with the former, just as though it could take the place of the
latter, is a practical illusion, which is all we are speaking of here.
          [157] Though it does indeed sound dangerous, it is in no way
reprehensible to say that every man creates a God for himself, nay, must
make himself such a God according to moral concepts (and must add those
infinitely great attributes which characterize a Being capable of exhibiting, in
the world, an object commensurate with Himself), in order to honor in Him
the 0ne who created him. For in whatever manner a being has been made
known to him by another and described as God, yea, even if such a being
had appeared to him (if this is possible), he must first of all compare this
representation with his ideal in order to judge whether he is entitled to
regard it and to honor it as a divinity. Hence there can be no religion
springing from revelation alone, i.e., without first positing that concept, in
its purity, as a touchstone. Without this all reverence for God would be
idolatry.
        * [158] For those who believe that the critique of pure reason
contradicts itself whenever my distinctions between the sensuous and the
intellectual are not wholly congenial to them, I here remark that, when
mention is made of sensuous means furthering what is intellectual (of the
pure moral disposition), or of the former opposing the latter, the influence
of two such heterogeneous principles must not be thought of as direct. That
is, as sensuous beings we can work against the law, or for its behoof, only
in the appearances of the intellectual principle, i.e., in the determination of
our physical powers through free choicew which expresses itself in actions;
so that cause and effect may be represented as actually homogeneous. But in
what concerns the supersensible (the subjective principle of morality in us,
that which lies hidden in the incomprehensible attribute of freedom), for
example, the pure religious disposition, we have insight only into its law
(though this, indeed. suffices) touching the relation of cause and effect in
man; that is, we cannot explain to ourselves the possibility of actions, as
events in the sensuous world, in terms of the moral constitution of man, as
imputable to him, just because these are free acts and because the grounds
of explanation of all events must be derived from the sensuous world.
        1 [160] [Fables II, 5. Kant draws upon this passage (lines 1-3):
Est ardelionum quaedam Romae natio
Trepide concursans, occupata in otio
Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nil agens.
"There is a certain set of busybodies at Rome, hurriedly running to and fro,
busily engaged in idleness, out of breath for no reason, doing much but
achieving naught."]
        * [161] It is a psychological phenomenon that the adherents of a
denomination wherein somewhat less of the statutory is offered for belief,
feel themselves, by virtue of this fact, somewhat ennobled and more
enlightened, even though they have still retained so much of this statutory
belief that they are not entitled to look down with contempt (as they actually
do), from their fancied heights of purity, upon their brothers in churchly
illusion. The reason for this is that, because of this difference of belief,
however slight it be, they find themselves a little nearer to pure moral
religion, even though they remain attached to the illusion of wishing to
supplement it by means of pious observances in which reason is only less
passive.
        1 [161] [Weltbesten]
        1 [162] [Cf. John III, 8]
          [163] This name (Pfaffentum), signifying merely the authority of a
spiritual father1 (pappa), possesses a censorious meaning as well, only
because of the attendant concept of a spiritual despotism, to be found in all
forms of ecclesiasticism, however unpretentious and popular they may
declare themselves. I do not by any means want to be understood as
desiring, in my comparison of the sects, to treat with contempt one of them,
with its practices and ordinances, as contrasted with another. All deserve the
same respect so far as their forms are the attempts of poor mortals to render
perceptible to the senses the kingdom of God on earth, but also the same
blame when they take the form of the representation of this idea (in a visible
church) to be the thing itself.
         1 [163] [Papacy would, in this context, best translate Pfaffentum,
but we have used clericalism here and elsewhere since Kant is referring to
the Protestant as well as to the Roman Catholic clergy.]
        1 [164] [Tempeldienst, Kirchendienst]
        1 [165] [willkŸrlich]
        1 [167] [Cf. Romans VIII, 21]
        * [167] "That yoke is easy, and the burden is light"2 where the duty,
which binds every man, can be regarded as imposed on him by himself and
through his own reason; and that yoke he therefore so far takes upon
himself freely as his own. Only the moral laws, however, taken as divine
commands, are of this sort; of these alone the Founder of the true church
could say, "My commandments are not grievous."3 This expression merely
means that these commands are not burdensome because everyone of
himself perceives the necessity of their obedience and so nothing is here
forced upon him; whereas despotically imperative ordinances, in which we
can see no use, though they are imposed upon us for our best interests (yet
not through our own reason), are a kind of vexation (drudgery) to which we
subject ourselves only under compulsion. In themselves, however, the
actions, regarded in the purity of their source, which are commanded by
those moral laws, are precisely those which man finds the hardest, and in
place of which he would gladly undertake the most burdensome pious
drudgery were it possible to offer this in payment for the other.
        2 [167] [Cf. Matthew XI, 30]
        3 [167] [Cf. I John V, 3]
        1 [169] [Cf. I Corinthians I, 26]
        2 [169] [Cf. I Corinthians I, 27]
        * [172] The various kinds of belief among peoples seem to give
them, after a time, a character, revealing itself outwardly in civil relations,
which is later attributed to them as though it were universally a
temperamental trait. Thus Judaism in its original economy, under which a
people was to separate itself from all other peoples by means of every
conceivable, and some arduous, observances and was to refrain from all
intermingling with them, drew down upon itself the charge of misanthropy.
Mohammedanism is characterized by arrogant pride because it finds
confirmation of its faith not in miracles but in victories and the subjugation
of many peoples, and because its devotional practices are all of the spirited
sort.  The Hindu faith gives its adherents the character of pusillanimity for
reasons which are directly
[173]
opposed to those productive of the temper just mentioned [the
Mohammedan].
        Now surely it is not because of the inner nature of the Christian faith
but because of the manner in which it is presented to the heart and mind,
that a similar charge can be brought against it with respect to those who
have the most heartfelt intentions toward it but who, starting with human
corruption, and despairing of all virtue, place their religious principle solely
in piety (whereby is meant the principle of a passive attitude toward a
godliness which is to be awaited from a power above). Such men never
place any reliance in themselves, but look about them, in perpetual anxiety,
for a supernatural assistance, and in this very self-abnegation (which is not
humility) fancy themselves to possess a means of obtaining favor. The
outward expression of this (in pietism or in spurious devotion) signalizes a
slavish cast of mind.
          [172] This remarkable phenomenon (of the pride of an ignorant
though intelligent people in its faith) may also originate from the fancy of its
founder that he alone had once again renewed on earth the concept of God's
unity and of His supersensible nature. He would indeed have ennobled his
people by release from image-worship and the anarchy of polytheism could
he with justice have credited himself with this achievement. As regards the
characteristic of the third type of religious fellowship [the Christian], which
is based upon a misconceived humility, the depreciation of self-conceit in
the evaluation of one's own moral worth, through consideration of the
holiness of the law, should bring about not contempt for oneself but rather
the resolution, conformable to this noble predisposition in us, to approach
ever nearer to agreement with this law. Instead of this, however, virtue,
which really consists in the courage for this improvement, has, as a name
already suspected of self-conceit, been exiled into paganism, and
sycophantic courting of favor is extolled in its place.
        Devotional hypocrisy (bigotry, devotia spuria) consists in the habit
of identifying the practice of piety not with well-pleasing actions (in the
performance of all human duties) but with direct commerce with God
through manifestations of awe. This practice must then be classed as
compulsory service (opus operatum), except that it adds to this superstition
the fanatical illusion of imagined supersensible (heavenly) feelings.
        1 [173] [Epistles, I, 18: Si tutius putas illud cautissimi cuiusque
pr¾ceptum: quod dubites, ne feceris. "... if you consider more safe that rule
of a certain extremely cautious man: 'What you have doubts about, do not
do.' "]
        1 [174] ["As it was methodically developed by the Jesuits and the
Redemptorists (Alphons Liguori). The classical formula of probabilism--
laid down as early as 1577 by the Dominican Bartholomew Medina--runs as
follows: si est opinio probabilis, licitum est eam sequi, licet opposita est
probabilior." (Note in Berlin Edition.) The Latin may be translated: "If an
opinion is probable, to follow it is allowable, even granted that the opposite
opinion is more probable."]
        1 [174] ["Compel them to come in." Cf. Luke XIV, 23: "Go out into
the highways and hedges and compel them to come in." "This phrase (coge
intrare) Augustine early used (Epistles 93 and 185) as evidencing the duty
of states to support the church in coercive measures against idolaters,
heretics, and schismatics." (Note in Berlin Edition.)]
        1 [176] [Unwahrhaftigkeit, i.e., insincerity.]
        2 [176] [See p. 161 n.]
        * [176] I grant that I cannot really reconcile myself to the following
expressions made use of even by clever men: "A certain people (engaged in
a struggle for civil freedom) is not yet ripe for freedom"; "The bondmen of a
landed proprietor are not yet ready for freedom"; and hence, likewise;
"Mankind in general is not yet ripe for freedom of belief." For according to
such a presupposition, freedom will never arrive, since we cannot ripen to
this freedom if we are not first of all placed therein (we must be free in order
to be able to make purposive use of our powers in freedom). The first
attempts will indeed be crude and usually will be attended by a more painful
and more dangerous state than that in which we are still under the orders
and also the care of others; yet we never ripen with respect to reason except
through our own efforts (which we can make only when we are free). I
raise no protest when those who hold power in their hands, being
constrained by the circumstances of the times, postpone far, very far, into
the future the sundering of these three3 bonds. But to proceed on the
principle that those who are once
[177]
subjected to these bonds are essentially unfit for freedom and that one is
justified in continually removing them farther from it is to usurp the
prerogatives of Divinity itself, which created men for freedom. It is certainly
more convenient to rule in state, household, and church if one is able to
carry out such a principle. But is it also more just?
        3 [176] [Civil, economic or domestic, and religious, corresponding
to the quoted expressions at the opening of the note.]
          [178] The very man who has the temerity to say: He who does not
believe in this or that historical doctrine as a sacred truth, that man is
damned, ought to be able to say also: If what I am now telling you is not
true, let me be damned! Were there anyone who could make such a dreadful
declaration, I should advise the conduct toward him suggested by the
Persian proverb concerning a hadji: If a man has been in Mecca once (as a
pilgrim), move out of the house in which he is living; if he has been there
twice, leave the street on which he is to be found; but if he has been there
three times, forsake the city, or even the land, which he inhabits!
        1 [178] [Cf. Mark IX, 24]
           [178] O sincerity! Thou Astraea, that hast fled from earth to
heaven, how mayst thou (the basis of conscience, and hence of all inner
religion) be drawn down thence to us again? I can admit, though it is much
to be deplored, that candor (in speaking the whole truth which one knows)
is not to be found in human nature. But we must be able to demand sincerity
(that all that one says be said with truthfulness), and indeed if there were in
our nature no predisposition to sincerity, whose cultivation merely is
neglected, the human race must needs be, in its own eyes, an object of the
deepest contempt. Yet this sought for quality of mind is such that it is
exposed to many temptations and entails many a sacrifice, and hence calls
for moral strength, or virtue (which must be won); moreover it must be
guarded and cultivated earlier than any other, because the opposed
propensity is the hardest to extirpate if it has been allowed firmly to root
itself. And if now we compare with the kind of instruction here
recommended our usual mode of upbringing, especially in the matter of
religion, or better, in doctrines of faith, where fidelity of memory in
answering questions relating to these doctrines, without regard to the
fidelity of the confession itself (which is never put to the test) is accepted as
sufficient to make a believer of him who does not even understand what he
declares to be holy, no longer shall we wonder at the lack of sincerity which
produces nothing but inward hypocrites.
        1 [181] [A schema is a spatio-temporal or sensuous form of what, in
its essence, does not possess this character. The "certain analogy,"
parenthetically referred to above, is presumably the doctrine of the schema
in the Critique of Pure Reason (Transcendental Analytic, Book II, Chap.
I).]
          [182] See the General Observation at the end of Book One.
        1 [183] [Cf. I Thessalonians V, 17]
        * [183] In the heart-felt wish which is the spirit of prayer, man seeks
but to work upon himself (for the quickening of his disposition by means of
the idea of God); whereas, in the other, where he declares himself in words,
and so outwardly, he tries to work upon God. In the first sense, a prayer
can be offered with perfect sincerity even though the man praying does not
presume to be able to affirm that the existence of God is wholly certain; in
its second form, as an address, he supposes this Supreme Being to be
present in person, or at least he adopts an attitude (even inwardly) as though
he were convinced of His presence, with the idea that, even if this be not
so, his acting thus can at least do him no harm and is more likely to get him
favor. Hence such complete sincerity cannot be found in the latter (verbal)
prayer as it can in the former (the pure spirit of prayer).
        Anyone will find the truth of this last remark confirmed if he
conceives of a pious and well-meaning man, but one who is circumscribed
in respect of these purified religious concepts, whom some one else takes
unawares, I will not say in praying aloud, but merely in behavior indicative
of prayer. Everyone will of himself, of course, without my saying so,
expect a man thus surprised to fall into confusion or embarrassment, as
though in a situation whereof he should of ashamed. But why? It is because
a man caught talking aloud to himself is suspected for the moment of having
a slight attack of madness; and thus do we also judge a man (and not
altogether unjustly) when we find him, all alone, in an occupation or attitude
which can properly belong only to one who sees some one else before him--
and in the example we have given this is not the case.
        Now the Teacher of the Gospel has expressed the spirit of prayer
most admirably in a formula which has at once rendered dispensable not
only all this, but also the prayer itself (as a verbal utterance). One finds in it
nothing but the resolution to good life-conduct which, taken with the
consciousness of our frailty, carries with it the persistent desire to be a
worthy member in the kingdom of God. Hence it contains no actual request
for something which God in His wisdom might well refuse us, but simply a
wish which, if it is genuine (active), of itself achieves its object (to become
a man well-pleasing to God). Even the wish for the means of sustaining our
existence (for bread) for one
[184]
day, since this wish is expressly not directed to its continuance but is the
effect of a felt need which is merely animal, is more a confession of what
nature in us demands than a special deliberate request for what the man [in
us] wills. The latter's request would be for bread for another day; but this is
here clearly enough ruled out.
        A prayer of the kind described above arises in the moral disposition
(animated solely by the idea of God), and, as the moral spirit of prayer,
brings about its object (being well-pleasing to God) of itself. Only such a
prayer can be prayed with faith, and by this faith we mean the assurance that
the prayer will be heard. But only morality in us gives rise to this assurance,
for even were the petition to be for this day's bread alone, no one can be
assured that it will be heard, i.e., that its granting stands in necessary
conjunction with God's wisdom; it may perhaps comport better with this
wisdom to let the suppliant die today for lack of bread. It is, further, not
only a preposterous but also a presumptuous illusion to try to divine
whether, through the persistent importunity of one's request, God cannot be
diverted (to our present advantage) from the plan of His wisdom. Hence we
cannot hold that any prayer which is for a non-moral object is sure to be
heard, that is, we cannot pray for such an object in faith. Nay, more: even
were the object indeed moral, but yet possible only through supernatural
influence (or at least awaited by us from this source alone because we do
not wish to trouble ourselves to bring it about--as, for example, the change
of heart, the putting on of the new man, called rebirth) it is at least so very
uncertain that God will find it conformable to His wisdom to supplement in
supernatural fashion our (self-incurred) deficiency that we have reason,
rather, to expect the opposite. Man cannot therefore pray even for this in
faith.
        In the light of the foregoing we can explain what might be the status
of a miracle-working faith (which would at the same time always be united
with an inner prayer). Since God can lend man no power to bring about
effects supernaturally (for that is a contradiction), and since man, on his
part, cannot determine, according to the concepts which he forms for
himself of good ends possible on earth, what the divine Wisdom judges in
these matters, and so cannot, by means of the wish he himself nurtures
within him, make use of the divine Power for his purposes, it follows that a
gift of miracles, I mean, a gift wherein it rests with man himself whether he
has it or not ("If ye had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, etc."1), is, taken
literally, not to be thought of. Such a faith, therefore, if it is to mean
anything at all, is simply an idea of the overwhelming importance of man's
moral nature, were he to possess it in its entire God-pleasing completeness
(which, indeed, he never does), greater than all other moving causes which
God in His supreme wisdom may have [at His disposal]; it is therefore a
basis upon which we can be confident that, were we now, or eventually, to
become wholly what we ought to be and (in continued approximation) could
be, nature would have to heed our wishes, which, under these
circumstances, however, would by the same token never be unwise.
[185]
        As regards the edification sought in attendance at church, here too
public prayer is indeed no means of grace, yet it is a moral ceremony,
whether it consists in united singing of the hymn of faith, or in the address
formally directed to God, through the mouth of the clergyman and in the
name of the whole congregation, and embracing all the moral concerns of
men. Such an address, since it presents these last as a public concern,
wherein the wish of each individual ought to be represented as united with
the wishes of all toward the same ends (the ushering in of the kingdom of
God), cannot only raise the feelings to the point of moral exaltation
(whereas private prayers, because they are uttered without this sublime idea,
lose little by little, through habituation, their influence upon the heart); it
also possesses in itself a more rational basis than does private prayer for
clothing the moral wish, which constitutes the spirit of prayer, in a formal
mode of address--and it does this without picturing the Supreme Being as
present, or thinking of the special power of this rhetorical device as a means
of grace. For here there is a special purpose, namely, to set in more active
motion the moral motivating forces of each individual through a public
ceremony, representing the union of all men in a common desire for the
kingdom of God; and this cannot be accomplished more appropriately than
by speaking to the Head of this kingdom just as though He were specially
present in that very place.
        1 [184] [Cf. Matthew XVII, 20; Luke XVII, 6]
        * [186] If we seek for a meaning proper to this term, probably none
can be ascribed to it other than that it is to be understood as the moral result
produced upon the subject by devotion. Now this result does not consist in
feelings (this is already comprised in the very concept of devotion), even
though most men, presumed to be devout (and therefore called devotees),
identify it entirely with such feelings; hence the word edification [Erbauung]
must signify the result of devotion in the actual improvement of the man.
But this improvement becomes actual only if man systematically sets to
work, lays deep in his heart firm basic principles squaring with well-
understood concepts, erects thereupon dispositions measurable to the
differing weight of the duties connected with these principles, strengthens
and secures them against the onslaughts of the desires, and thus, as it were,
builds up a new man as a temple of God.1 One can easily see that this
building can progress but slowly; yet it must at least be possible to see that
something has been accomplished. But men believe themselves to be
mightily edified [erbaut] (through listening or reading and singing) while
absolutely nothing has been built up [gebauet], yea, where no hand has
been put to the work. They believe this, presumably, because they hope that
this moral edifice will rise up of itself, like the walls of Thebes, to the music
of sighs and yearning wishes.
        1 [186] [Cf. Ephesians II, 21-22]
        1 [187] [Cf. Exodus XX, 4]
        1 [189] [Cf. Matthew VII, 21. "Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the
will of my Father which is in heaven."]
        2 [189] [Cf. Matthew V, 15]