of happiness. But it must be observed that the intelligible world is the condition of the world of sense, and, therefore, of the laws of that world. And as the will belongs altogether to the intelligible world, it is the intelligible world that prescribes the laws which the will directly obeys. As an intelligence, I am therefore subject to the law of the intelligible world, that is, to reason, notwithstanding the fact that I belong on the other side of my nature to the world of sense. Now, as subject to reason, which in the idea of freedom contains the law of the intelligible world, I am conscious of being subject to the autonomy of the will. The laws of the intelligible world I must therefore regard as imperatives, and the actions conformable to this principle as duties.

The explanation of the possibility of categorical imperatives, then, is, that the idea of freedom makes me a member of the intelligible world. Were I a member of no other world, all my actions would as a matter of fact always conform to the autonomy of the will. But as I perceive myself to be also a member of the world of sense, I can say only, that my actions ought to conform to the autonomy of the will. The categorical ought is thus an a priori synthetic proposition. To my will as affected by sensuous desires, there is added synthetically the idea of my will as belonging to the intelligible world, and therefore as pure and self-determining. The will as rational is therefore the supreme condition of the will as sensuous. The method of explanation here employed is similar to that by which the categories were deduced. For the a priori synthetic propositions, which make all knowledge of nature possible, depend, as we have seen, upon the addition to perceptions of sense of the pure conceptions of understanding, which, in themselves, are nothing but the form of law in general.

LIMITS OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

Freedom is only an idea of reason, and therefore its objective reality is doubtful. Thus there arises a dialectic of practical reason. The freedom ascribed to the will seems to stand in contradiction with the necessity of nature. It is, therefore, incumbent upon speculative philosophy at least to show that we think

of man in one sense and relation when we call him free, and in another sense and relation when we view him as a part of nature, and as subject to its laws. But this duty is incumbent upon speculative philosophy only in so far as it has to clear the way for practical philosophy.

In thinking itself into the intelligible world, practical reason does not transcend its proper limits, as it would do if it tried to know itself directly by means of perception. In so thinking itself, reason merely conceives of itself negatively as not belonging to the world of sense, without giving any laws to itself in determination of the will. There is but a single point in which it is positive, namely, in the thought that freedom, though it is a negative determination, is yet bound up with a positive faculty, and, indeed, with a causality of reason which is called will. In other words, will is the faculty of so acting that the principle of action should conform to the essential nature of a rational motive, that is, to the condition that the maxim of action should have the universal validity of a law. Were reason, however, to derive an object of will, that is, a motive, from the intelligible world, it would transcend its proper limits, and would make a pretence of knowing something of which it knew nothing. The conception of an intelligible world is therefore merely a point of view beyond the world of sense, at which reason sees itself compelled to take its stand in order to think itself as practical. This conception would not be possible at all if the sensuous desires were sufficient to determine the action of man. It is necessary, because otherwise man would not be conscious of himself as an intelligence, and, therefore, not as a rational cause acting through reason or operating freely. This thought undoubtedly involves the idea of an order and a system of laws other than the order and laws of nature, which concern only the world of sense. Hence it makes necessary the conception of an intelligible world, a world which comprehends the totality of rational beings as things in themselves. Yet it in no way entitles us to think of that world otherwise than in its formal condition, that is, to conceive of the maxims of the will as conformable to universal laws.

Reason would, therefore, completely transcend its proper limits,

if it should undertake to explain how pure reason can be practical, or, what is the same thing, to explain how freedom is possible.

We can explain nothing but that which we can reduce to laws, the object of which can be presented in a possible experience. Freedom, however, is a mere idea, the objective reality of which can in no way be presented in accordance with laws of nature, and, therefore, not in any possible experience. It has merely the necessity of a presupposition of reason, made by a being who believes himself to be conscious of a will, that is, of a faculty distinct from mere desire. The most that we can do is to defend freedom by removing the objections of those who claim to have a deeper insight into the nature of things than we can pretend to have, and who, therefore, declare that freedom is impossible. It would no doubt be a contradiction to say that in its causality the will is entirely separated from all the laws of the sensible world. But the contradiction disappears, if we say, that behind phenomena there are things in themselves, which, though they are hidden from us, are the condition of phenomena; and that the laws of action of things in themselves naturally are not the same as the laws under which their phenomenal manifestations stand.

While, therefore, it is true that we cannot comprehend the practical unconditioned necessity of the moral imperative, it is also true that we can comprehend its incomprehensibility; and this is all that can fairly be demanded of a philosophy which seeks to reach the principles which determine the limits of human

reason.

JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE

(1762-1814)

THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS

Translated from the German* by

A. E. KROEGER

DEDUCTION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF MORALITY

PRELIMINARY

It is asserted that there manifests itself in the soul of man an impulsion to do certain things utterly independent of external purposes, merely for the sake of doing them; and, on the other hand, to leave undone other things equally independent of external purposes, and merely for the sake of leaving them undone. The condition of man, in so far as such an impulsion is necessarily to manifest itself within him, as sure as he is a rational being, is called his moral nature.

The power of cognition, which belongs to man, may relate in a twofold manner to this, his moral nature.

Firstly. When that impulsion is discovered by him in his selfobservation as a fact and it certainly is assumed that each rational being will thus discover it, if he but closely observes himself; man may simply accept it as such fact, may rest content to have discovered that it is thus, without inquiring in what manner and from what grounds it becomes thus. Perhaps he may even freely resolve, from inclination, to place unconditioned faith in the requirements of that impulsion, and actually to think, as his highest destination, what that impulsion represents to him as such; nay, perhaps even to act constantly in conformity with this faith. Thus there arises within him the common, or ordinary, knowledge, as well of his moral nature in general, as also if he

* From J. G. Fichte's Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre, Jena and Leipzig, 1798. Reprinted from J. G. Fichte's The Science of Ethics as based on the Science of Knowledge, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1897.

carefully attends to the dictates of his conscience in the particular phases of his life of his particular duties; which common knowledge is possible from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, and is sufficient for the generation of moral sentiments and a moral behaviour.

Secondly. But man may also not rest content with the immediate perception; he may desire to know the grounds of what he has thus discovered; he may not be content with a partial, but desire a genetical knowledge; or he may desire to know not only that such an impulsion exists within him, but likewise how it arises within him. If he obtains this knowledge, it will be a speculative knowledge, and to attain it he must rise from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness to a higher standpoint.

Now, how is this problem to be solved, or how are the grounds of the moral nature of man to be discovered? The only matter which excludes all asking for a higher ground is this; that we are we, or, in other words, our Egoness, or Rationality, which latter word, however, is not nearly as expressively correct as the former. Everything else, whether it be within us, like the impulsion above mentioned, or for us, like the external world which we assume, is only thus within or for us because we are it, as can indeed be easily proven in general, whereas the particular insight into the manner in which something connects within, or for us, that rationality, is precisely the speculative and scientific knowledge of the grounds of this something whereof we speak. The development of these grounds being deduced, as it is, from the highest and absolute principle of Egoness, and shown to be a necessary result thereof, is a deduction. It is therefore our present task to furnish a deduction of the moral nature or principle in

man.

Instead of enumerating at length the advantages of such a deduction, it is sufficient to remark that only through it does a science of morality arise. And science - no matter whereof — is end in itself.

In relation to a scientific complete philosophy, the present science of morality is connected with the science of knowledge through the present deduction. This deduction is derived from