Problems with Religion and Politics 385tous changes were taking place in the history of mankind, and he saw him¬
self as rising to the challenge, addressing the important issues resulting
from the changes, and trying to nurture what was good in them. However
insignificant some of the occasions for these essays were, Kant succeeded
in transcending them and in saying something of lasting importance.
Kant's cosmopolitan ideas were meant to form part of a civil religion
similar to the kind that James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and the other
framers of the American Constitution envisaged. His transcendental ide¬
alism, at least in morality, ultimately is a political idealism, in which at¬
taining the greatest good is not something that will be accomplished in
another world but is a task to be accomplished on this earth. Kant's polit¬
ical writings were an attempt to show how rational (or reasonable) ideas
can be substituted for religious ones, and why indeed it is necessary for the
good of mankind to reinterpret religious ideas to make them fit the needs
of humanity.