| Dialectic combines these again into harmony with the necessary rational idea of the unconditioned, and finds that this harmony never results except through the above distinction, which is, therefore, concluded to be just.] |
| But, after we have thus denied the power of speculative reason to make any progress in the sphere of the supersensible, it still remains for our consideration whether data do not exist in practical cognition which may enable us to determine the transcendent conception of the unconditioned, to rise beyond the limits of all possible experience from a practical point of view, and thus to satisfy the great ends of metaphysics. |
| Speculative reason has thus, at least, made room for such an extension of our knowledge; and, if it must leave this space vacant, still it does not rob us of the liberty to fill it up, if we can, by means of practical data--nay, it even challenges us to make the attempt.* |
| [*Footnote; So the central laws of the movements of the heavenly bodies established the truth of that which Copernicus, first, assumed only as a hypothesis, and, at the same time, brought to light that invisible force (Newtonian attraction) which holds the universe together. |
| The latter would have remained forever undiscovered, if Copernicus had not ventured on the experiment--contrary to the senses but still just-- of looking for the observed movements not in the heavenly bodies, but in the spectator. |
| In this Preface I treat the new metaphysical method as a hypothesis with the view of rendering apparent the first attempts at such a change of method, which are always hypothetical. |
| But in the Critique itself it will be demonstrated, not hypothetically, but apodeictically, from the nature of our representations of space and time. |
| and from the elementary conceptions of the understanding.] |
| This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason. |
| It is a treatise on the method to be followed, not a system of the science itself. |
| But, at the same time, it marks out and defines both the external boundaries and the internal structure of this science. |
| For pure speculative reason has this peculiarity, that, in choosing the various objects of thought, it is able to define the limits of its own faculties, and even to give a complete enumeration of the possible modes of proposing problems to itself, and thus to sketch out the entire system of metaphysics. |
| For, on the one hand, in cognition a priori, nothing must be attributed to the objects but what the thinking subject derives from itself; and, on the other hand, reason is, in regard to the principles of cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as in an organized body, every member exists for the sake of the others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the same time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason. |
| Hence, too, metaphysics has this singular advantage--an advantage which falls to the lot of no other science which has to do with objects--that, if once it is conducted into the sure path of science, by means of this criticism, it can then take in the whole sphere of its cognitions, and can thus complete its work, and leave it for the use of posterity, as a capital which can never receive fresh accessions. |
| For metaphysics has to deal only with principles and with the limitations of its own employment as determined by these principles. |
| To this perfection it is, therefore, bound, as the fundamental science, to attain, and to it the maxim may justly be applied: |
| Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum. |
| But, it will be asked, what kind of a treasure is this that we propose to bequeath to posterity? |
| What is the real value of this system of metaphysics, purified by criticism, and thereby reduced to a permanent condition? |
| A cursory view of the present work will lead to the supposition that its use is merely negative, that it only serves to warn us against venturing, with speculative reason, beyond the limits of experience. |
| This is, in fact, its primary use. |