| The idea of transcendental freedom, on the contrary, requires that reason--in relation to its causal power of commencing a series of phenomena--should be independent of all sensuous determining causes; and thus it seems to be in opposition to the law of nature and to all possible experience. |
| It therefore remains a problem for the human mind. |
| But this problem does not concern reason in its practical use; and we have, therefore, in a canon of pure reason, to do with only two questions, which relate to the practical interest of pure reason; Is there a God? |
| and, Is there a future life? |
| The question of transcendental freedom is purely speculative, and we may therefore set it entirely aside when we come to treat of practical reason. |
| Besides, we have already discussed this subject in the antinomy of pure reason. |
| SECTION II. Of the Ideal of the Summum Bonum as a Determining Ground of the Ultimate End of Pure Reason. |
| Reason conducted us, in its speculative use, through the field of experience and, as it can never find complete satisfaction in that sphere, from thence to speculative ideas--which, however, in the end brought us back again to experience, and thus fulfilled the purpose of reason, in a manner which, though useful, was not at all in accordance with our expectations. |
| It now remains for us to consider whether pure reason can be employed in a practical sphere, and whether it will here conduct us to those ideas which attain the highest ends of pure reason, as we have just stated them. |
| We shall thus ascertain whether, from the point of view of its practical interest, reason may not be able to supply us with that which, on the speculative side, it wholly denies us. |
| The whole interest of reason, speculative as well as practical, is centred in the three following questions: |
| 1. WHAT CAN I KNOW? |
| 2. WHAT OUGHT I TO DO? |
| 3. WHAT MAY I HOPE? |
| The first question is purely speculative. |
| We have, as I flatter myself, exhausted all the replies of which it is susceptible, and have at last found the reply with which reason must content itself, and with which it ought to be content, so long as it pays no regard to the practical. |
| But from the two great ends to the attainment of which all these efforts of pure reason were in fact directed, we remain just as far removed as if we had consulted our ease and declined the task at the outset. |
| So far, then, as knowledge is concerned, thus much, at least, is established, that, in regard to those two problems, it lies beyond our reach. |
| The second question is purely practical. |
| As such it may indeed fall within the province of pure reason, but still it is not transcendental, but moral, and consequently cannot in itself form the subject of our criticism. |
| The third question; If I act as I ought to do, what may I then hope?--is at once practical and theoretical. |