| They have, besides, in conformity with the character of a transcendental philosophy, been freed from every empirical element; although the full splendour of the promises they hold out, and the anticipations they excite, manifests itself only when in connection with empirical cognitions. |
| In the application of them, however, and in the advancing enlargement of the employment of reason, while struggling to rise from the region of experience and to soar to those sublime ideas, philosophy discovers a value and a dignity, which, if it could but make good its assertions, would raise it far above all other departments of human knowledge--professing, as it does, to present a sure foundation for our highest hopes and the ultimate aims of all the exertions of reason. |
| The questions; whether the world has a beginning and a limit to its extension in space; whether there exists anywhere, or perhaps, in my own thinking Self, an indivisible and indestructible unity--or whether nothing but what is divisible and transitory exists; whether I am a free agent, or, like other beings, am bound in the chains of nature and fate; whether, finally, there is a supreme cause of the world, or all our thought and speculation must end with nature and the order of external things--are questions for the solution of which the mathematician would willingly exchange his whole science; for in it there is no satisfaction for the highest aspirations and most ardent desires of humanity. |
| Nay, it may even be said that the true value of mathematics- that pride of human reason--consists in this; that she guides reason to the knowledge of nature--in her greater as well as in her less manifestations--in her beautiful order and regularity--guides her, moreover, to an insight into the wonderful unity of the moving forces in the operations of nature, far beyond the expectations of a philosophy building only on experience; and that she thus encourages philosophy to extend the province of reason beyond all experience, and at the same time provides it with the most excellent materials for supporting its investigations, in so far as their nature admits, by adequate and accordant intuitions. |
| Unfortunately for speculation--but perhaps fortunately for the practical interests of humanity--reason, in the midst of her highest anticipations, finds herself hemmed in by a press of opposite and contradictory conclusions, from which neither her honour nor her safety will permit her to draw back. |
| Nor can she regard these conflicting trains of reasoning with indifference as mere passages at arms, still less can she command peace; for in the subject of the conflict she has a deep interest. |
| There is no other course left open to her than to reflect with herself upon the origin of this disunion in reason--whether it may not arise from a mere misunderstanding. |
| After such an inquiry, arrogant claims would have to be given up on both sides; but the sovereignty of reason over understanding and sense would be based upon a sure foundation. |
| We shall at present defer this radical inquiry and, in the meantime, consider for a little what side in the controversy we should most willingly take, if we were obliged to become partisans at all. |
| As, in this case, we leave out of sight altogether the logical criterion of truth, and merely consult our own interest in reference to the question, these considerations, although inadequate to settle the question of right in either party, will enable us to comprehend how those who have taken part in the struggle, adopt the one view rather than the other--no special insight into the subject, however, having influenced their choice. |
| They will, at the same time, explain to us many other things by the way--for example, the fiery zeal on the one side and the cold maintenance of their cause on the other; why the one party has met with the warmest approbations, and the other has always been repulsed by irreconcilable prejudices. |
| There is one thing, however, that determines the proper point of view, from which alone this preliminary inquiry can be instituted and carried on with the proper completeness--and that is the comparison of the principles from which both sides, thesis and antithesis, proceed. |
| My readers would remark in the propositions of the antithesis a complete uniformity in the mode of thought and a perfect unity of principle. |
| Its principle was that of pure empiricism, not only in the explication of the phenomena in the world, but also in the solution of the transcendental ideas, even of that of the universe itself. |
| The affirmations of the thesis, on the contrary, were based, in addition to the empirical mode of explanation employed in the series of phenomena, on intellectual propositions; and its principles were in so far not simple. |
| I shall term the thesis, in view of its essential characteristic, the dogmatism of pure reason. |
| On the side of Dogmatism, or of the thesis, therefore, in the determination of the cosmological ideas, we find: |
| 1. A practical interest, which must be very dear to every right-thinking man. |
| That the word has a beginning--that the nature of my thinking self is simple, and therefore indestructible--that I am a free agent, and raised above the compulsion of nature and her laws--and, finally, that the entire order of things, which form the world, is dependent upon a Supreme Being, from whom the whole receives unity and connection--these are so many foundation-stones of morality and religion. |
| The antithesis deprives us of all these supports--or, at least, seems so to deprive us. |
| 2. A speculative interest of reason manifests itself on this side. |