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that this world is nevertheless connected with a necessary being as its cause (but of
another kind and according to another law). The incompatibility of these propositions
rests entirely upon the mistake of extending what is valid merely of appearances to things
in themselves and in confusing both in one concept.
§ 54. This, then, is the exposition, and this the solution of the whole antinomy in
which reason finds itself involved in the application of its principles to the sensible
world. The former alone (the mere exposition) would be a considerable service in the
cause of our knowledge of human reason, even though the solution might fail fully to
satisfy the reader, who has here to combat a natural illusion which has been but recently
exposed to him and which he had hitherto always regarded as genuine. For one result at
least is unavoidable. As it is quite impossible to prevent this conflict of reason with
itself—so long as the objects of the sensible world are taken for things in themselves
and not for mere appearances, which they are in fact—the reader is thereby compelled
to examine over again the deduction of all our a prioriknowledge and the proof which
I have given of my deduction in order to come to a decision on the question. This is all
I require at present; for when in this occupation he shall have thought himself deep
enough into the nature of pure reason, those concepts by which alone the solution of the
conflict of reason is possible will become sufficiently familiar to him. Without this
preparation, I cannot expect an unreserved assent even from the most attentive reader.III. THE THEOLOGICAL IDEA*§ 55. The third transcendental Idea, which affords matter for the most important but
(if pursued only speculatively) transcendent and thereby dialectical use of reason, is the
Ideal of pure reason. Reason in this case does not, as with the psychological and the
cosmological Ideas, begin from experience and err by exaggerating its grounds in striving
to attain, if possible, the absolute completeness of their series. Rather, it totally breaks with
experience and from mere concepts of what constitutes the absolute completeness of a
thing in general; and thus, by means of the Idea of a most perfect primal Being, it proceeds
to determine the possibility and therefore the actuality of all other things. And so the mere
presupposition of a Being conceived, not in the series of experience yet for the purposes of
experience, for the sake of comprehending its connection, order, and unity—in a word, the
Idea—is more easily distinguished from the concept of the understanding here than in the
former cases. Hence we can easily expose the dialectical illusion which arises from our
making the subjective conditions of our thinking objective conditions of objects
themselves, and from making an hypothesis necessary for the satisfaction of our reason
into a dogma. As the observations of the Critiqueon the pretensions of transcendental
theology are intelligible, clear, and decisive, I have nothing more to add on the subject.General Remark on the Transcendental Ideas§ 56. The objects which are given us by experience are in many respects
incomprehensible, and many questions to which the law of nature leads us when carried
beyond a certain point (though still quite conformably to the laws of nature) admit of no
answer. An example is the question: Why do material things attract one another? But if we
entirely quit nature or, in pursuing its combinations, exceed all possible experience, and so
enter the realm of mere Ideas, we cannot then say that the object is incomprehensible and348
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*Cf. Critique of Pure Reason,“The Transcendental Ideal.”