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5. "No state shall interfer by force in the constitution and government of another state".

6. "No state at war with another shall permit such acts of warfare as must make mutual confidence impossible in time of future peace such as the employment of assassins, of poisoners, the violation of articles of surrender, the instigation of treason in the state against which it is making war, etc."

The preliminary articles express Kant's conception of the determination of the will by the categorical imperative on the basis of a priori considerations. The task of achieving peace derives from the transcendental experience of the moral law, not from any accidental constellation of empirical facts.

If the categorical imperative commands the achievement of eternal peace any mental reservations which leaves open the possibility of future conflicts constitutes a violation of the moral law, for which expediency offers no excuse. If the moral sanction of the state resides in its conception of man as an end - expressed in a General Will - then no technical reason exists for treating it as the possession of the ruler. This reduces the state from a moral person to a thing and violates the categorical imperative.

If the moral law commands the treatment of men as an end, no consideration of utility can legalize standing armies. Professional soldiers become mere tools, whose very existence moreover creates a constant state of insecurity. No violations

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of the categorical imperative by other states can serve as an
excuse for war. The very existence of oppression should serve
as a stimulus to others to implement the categorical impera-
tive. To work for peace represents man's noblest duty to be vi-
olated only in self-defense.

The pervasiveness of the moral law in Kant's philosophy
of history now becomes apparent. Conformity to the categorical
imperative contains the moral sanction of the political world.
In this sense, the formulation of diplomatic documents, the
maintenance of armies, the utilization of economic means for
foreign policy, the employment of force all reveal violations
of a moral law, of which even the command for eternal peace
represents but a particular instance. Man's experience of free-
dom in a determined world issues into ethical activity and fur-
nishes humanity's guide on the journey through history.

But Kant realized that the application of the categori-
cal imperative to specific abuses could not provide the ultimate
foundation of eternal peace. Kant's three definitive articles
of the Eternal Peace, embody his conception of the absolute basis
of peace, his recognition that peace implies more than the absence
of war, his affirmation of the supremacy of the moral law in the
political realm.

Kant argues that a true state of peace results, at least
in part, from lawful institutions within nations. If the attain-
ment of peace is a moral law, it can be given effect only by a moral

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personality. But how can the dictates of the categorical imperative operate in social institutions? Just as the moral law contains the objective principle of all actions, so the republican constitution represents the norm of political institutions. What, however, is a republican constitution? Kant applies three criteria: The principle of the freedom of all members of the society as men; the principle of the dependence of all upon a single common legislation as subjects; the principle of equality for all as citizen.

The republican constitution thus institutionalizes Kant's categorical imperative. The assertion of man as intrinsically valuable expresses the transcendental experience of freedom, the principle of dependence upon common legislation reveals the Kingdom of Ends, in which each individual is both subject and legislator. This testifies to the moral attitude, to a feeling of responsibility towards the rights of others, to a motivation that derives from a conception of the common good. A political community based on this apprehension of man as an end in itself, achieves a synthesis of liberty expressed in the right-cousness of the will and equality exemplified by the universal applicability of its laws. Since the republican constitution institutionalizes the categorical imperative the state becomes a moral person and as such subject to the maxims derived from the transcendental experience of freedom. Therefore, too, Kant's

1. Friedrich - The Philosophy of Kant p. 437 (Eternal Peace).

2. This is institutionalized by Rousseau's general Will.

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first definitive article states: "The civil constitution in each state should be republican". ¹

With the state conceived as a moral person, the application of the moral law to political events becomes a reality. The categorical imperative now appears as a positive force guiding relations between nations. To be sure, politics never really succeed in freeing themselves from the pervasive reflection of a moral norm, expressed in the lip service paid to the International law of Grotius, Puffendorf and Vattel. Peace treaties always claim the sanction of abstract justice, wars are ever defended on moral grounds. Humanity's dim apprehension of morality can not, however, bear fruit until its maxims have been institutionalized. ²

The emergence of the republican constitution makes possible the foundation of an eternal peace based on universal principles. Law can now replace the violence of the state of nature, harmony the insecurity of constant strife. The federation of free states contains Kant's vision of the reconciliation of all conflicts. Kant sways between the conception of a union of nations and a federation of states with republican constitutions. Though the vision of all men as ends inclines Kant towards the first alternative, his awareness of political realities makes him accept the latter. He can do so, moreover, without sacrificing the independent validity of his moral maxims, since his

1. Kant - Eternal Peace (Friedrich op. cit. p. 431).

2. Kant - Eternal Peace - calls them miserable consolers (Friedrich op. cit. p. 443).

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first definitive article has already assured the conformity of
the state to the categorical imperative. With the state a moral
person, the maxims of the moral law become universally applic-
able. Now peace emerges from discord, reconciliation from con-
flict. Now a general basis for peace can be created apart from
the incidental existence of empirically favorable condition.
In the majesty of the moral law resides the feasibility of its
maxims. Eternal peace appears as the emanation of man's moral
personality expressed in a republican constitution, organized
in a federalism of states. Thus Kant's second definitive article
states: "The law of nations should be based upon a federalism
of free states".

Kant's conception of man as an end involves the encour-
agement of contacts among nations, but also implies a denial of
the right of conquest. Though Humanity is divided into many com-
ponents, separated by oceans and desert regions, the globe repres-
ents a common possession of mankind. Kant argues that men have
the right to visit everywhere as long as they don't assert their
right by force and as long as they are bound by the principle
of hospitality. The Law of Nations must therefore guarantee
the treatment of all foreigners as ends, while preventing the
exploitation of the indigenous population. This, again, reveals
the pervasiveness of the categorical imperative, which commends
peace as humanity's highest task.

1. Kant - Eternal Peace (Friedrich op. cit. p. 441).

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The experience of the moral law constitutes man's con-
nection with the ultimate reality which he can only feel, never
know. Any violation of its maxims anywhere, affects the dignity
of men in all other parts of the world. Each man is responsible
to humanity for his will gives universal maxims, for good or
evil. And so Kant's third definitive article of eternal peace
states: "The Cosmopolitan or world law shall be limited to
conditions of universal hospitality".

The Essay on Eternal peace continues the symmetrical
effidence of Kant's philosophy. The Critique of Pure Reason had
affirmed the possibility of the experience of freedom, the moral
philosophy had given it meaning. In the Philosophy of History,
the moral law which lifts man above himself stands revealed as
the normative principle governing political events. No conflict
between theory and practice is here conceivable. Indeed, the
categorical imperative represents practice in the objective
sense. Humanity's aspirations disclose history's meaning, be-
cause only through the experience of freedom does man apprehend
the unity which produces all phenomena. The moral law repres-
ents the assumptions underlying all purposive activity; approx-
imation to its maxima constitutes the sole test of moral fitness.
Peace, for Kant, represents a command of the moral law derived
from formal a priori considerations independent of any empirical
conditions. Peace is man's noblest task, humanity's ultimate
purpose.

1. For elaboration of this point see post.

2. Kant - Eternal Peace (Friedrich op. cit. p. 441).

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But in Kant's Philosophy of History, the implications pointed out by Schweitzer's become apparent. The erection of a moral philosophy on the base of epistemological idealism is - according to Schweitzer - doomed to failure. Since ethics become meaningful only if they can affect the noumenal reality, a dangerous confusion of the ethical and the natural arises. If the moral law discloses the numina which govern all appearances, then either everything that occurs is ethical or the moral law has no meaning. Ethics and natural law, the purpose of man and the design of the universe stand equated. 1
2

Though this is by no means a necessary conclusion, the further developments of Kant's philosophy of History lends considerable force to Schweitzer's criticism. For Peace which the categorical imperative had commanded as humanity's duty, is suddenly revealed as the objective principle of historical events. The moral law realizes itself not through the determination of the will, but as an aspect of a hidden plan of nature. Man's volition can assist in producing the inevitable, but in its absence humanity would still be forced to achieve harmony "albeit with much inconvenience". Freedom appears as but a mode of causality, peace as the consequence of an imminent inexorability, harmony as an emanation of nature's mechanism. 4

1. Since phenomena obey natural laws Schweitzer op. cit., p. 186 et. seq.

2. See post for discussion of this point.

3. See ante for discussion of this point.

4. Kant - Eternal Peace (Friedrichop. cit. p. 483).

History is not a task but contains a guarantee for the realization of the moral law. This aspect of Kant's philosophy parallels Toynbee's dilemma, the attempt to wrest certainty from the fatedness of life, the endeavor to conjure phenomena to escape the transitoriness of existence.

1. See post for discussion. The subsequent section on amalgamation of Kant's Idea for a Universal History and his Guarantee for Eternal Peace. Since the latter sharpens the former's implications it forms the core of the analysis.

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The Philosophy of History Conceived as a teleological system.

Kant poses three possible modes for the apprehension of historical events: History can be conceived as the unfolding of a plan (either natural or divine depending on the point-of-view) to develop humanity from the lowest state of animality to the highest level of human freedom. On the other hand the succession of political events may reveal no more than the accidental constellation of power relations which may one day achieve a formation which insures stability. Lastly, one can deny any pattern in history, leaving merely a senseless alternation of strife and truce, a constant rise and decline of empires, a hopeless resignation which can not attain peace. Kant opts for the first alternative. If phenomena required for their cognition the formulation of synthetic a priori judgment, if the moral law derived its validity from a priori considerations of universality, then history can be conceived only on the basis of an a priori principle that reveals its immanence. This principle operates outside the range of human volition and structures the apprehension of events by its own inward necessity.

But how is one to conceive such a philosophy of history?
How is one to reconcile man's experience of purposiveness with
the meaning of occurrences? Kant utilizes the argument of his

1. For the three alternatives see Friedrich op. cit. p. 125. (Idea for a Universal History).

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1. Critique of Judgment that a teleological principle must inhere in nature as a condition for the regularity of phenomena. Only thus can the meaning of history, emerge out of the otherwise senseless recurrence of seemingly accidental events. Man's freedom appears as an aspect of a pervasive mechanism, purposive activity becomes but the tool of an inexorable directedness. Just as the population statistics of major countries reveal a regularity according to stable natural laws, despite the accidents of individual fortunes, so history considered as a totality may contain a pattern apart from the incidental purposes of human beings. Mankind thus promotes an end unknown to them which moreover "they would care little for if they knew".<sup>2</sup>

But what is this end? What is the a priori principle by which historical events become intelligible? Kant maintains that history's purpose is the achievement of peace through law, by states with republican constitutions. This is, however, neither derived from a transcendental experience, nor from the universal obligation of a moral law, but issues from an analysis of the end which the mechanism of nature promotes. Peace becomes a technical task of reconciling empirical conditions with the purpose of existence. The meaning of history is identical with man's aspirations, indeed humanity's norms constitute but a means for the achievement of an immanent aim.<sup>3</sup>

1. See post discussion of this argument.

2. Friedrich op. cit. p. 117 (Ideal for Universal History).

3. See Friedrich op. cit. p. 452 (Eternal Peace) and post.

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Kant lays down nine principles for the apprehension of history. Since history is conceived as subject to a teleology theory which structures its phenomena a priori, the natural faculties of all creatures must be destined to unfold completely according to their end. Thus purpose replaces accident, design a senseless mechanism. The goal of man as the only rational creature is the development of his reason. However, the growth in wisdom requires many trials, and much experience,

1. Kant's nine principles are:

1. All natural aptitudes of a creature are destined to unfold themselves completely and purposefully.

2. As for man (the only rational creature on earth), these natural aptitudes which are directed toward the use of his reason will develop fully in the species, but not in the individual.

3. Nature has willed that man should develop completely by himself everything which goes beyond the mechanical ordering of his animal existence, and that he should not partake of any happiness or perfection except such as he has secured by and for himself through his own reason, independent of instinct.

4. The means which nature employs to produce the development of all man's aptitudes is the antagonism in society, since this antagonism becomes in the end the cause of a lawful order of society.

5. The greatest problem for the species man, the solution of which nature forces upon him, is the establishment of a civil society which generally administers the law.

6. This problem is mankind's most difficult problem and will be the last solved by the species.

7. The problem of the establishment of a perfect civil constitution is dependent upon a lawful external relation between states and cannot be solved without it.

8. It is possible to look upon the history of the human species in the large as the execution of a hidden plan of nature - to bring about a constitution which is perfect internally, and for this purpose also externally - because this is the only state in which nature can develop all aptitudes of man-kind fully.

9. A philosophical attempt to treat general world history according to a plan of nature which aims at the perfect civil association of the human species must be considered possible and as itself promoting this purpose of nature.

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not to be attained in a single life. Consequently man's faculties develop completely in the species not in the individual.

But existence involves strife, life presents a continuous series of problems. Hardship seems the lot of humanity. Kant argues that the mechanism of nature imposes these difficulties on man, in order to force him to create his well-being solely by his own work. Man's real happiness consists of rational self-esteem. Now the eternal violence of history attains new meaning. Man's faculties develop through the antagonism of society and the struggle between nations. The pressure of competition, the insecurity of the state of nature lead to the formation of the civil society, whose invocation of the principle of law testifies to its apprehension, though not immediate attainment, of moral ideals. Man's quarrelsome instincts reveal nature's mechanism, for the optimum development of his skills.

"Man wants concord, but nature knows better what is good for his kind; nature wants discord. Man wants to live comfortably and pleasureably, but nature intends that he should raise himself out of lethargy and inactive contentment into work and trouble and then he should find means of extricating himself adroitly from the latter".

If Society arises in response to the insecurity of constant strife, the organization of the proper constitution must represent mankind's most difficult task. Man can develop his natural faculties to the fullest only under a just civic constitution. Kant considers the reconciliation of freedom with

1. Kant - Idea for a Universal History - Friedrich op. cit. p. 128.

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a monopoly of force humanity's central political problem. The tendency to make exceptions in one's own favor ever fights against the assertion of the supremacy of law. Law, again, suffers from the fact that it is a product of man and at the same time conceived as embodying objective principles of justice. The emergence of a just civic constitution will therefore testify the proper disposition of the will. But this can occur only after many disappointing failures, as the goal of all striving, as the ultimate purpose of history.

The perfect civic constitution, moreover, presupposes lawful relations among states. There is no use in working for domestic peace if war constantly threatens from across the borders. The ceaseless preparation for conflict, the feeling of insecurity engendered by armies, the ravages of never-ending strife, all teach humanity what reason alone would have indicated without all this suffering. Just as the experience of the state of nature among individuals led to the formation of civil society, so the eternal tensions between states reveal nature's mechanism for the attainment of peace. The eventual creation of a just civic constitution, which will forever banish war and begin the era of harmony among mankind therefore constitutes the purpose of history. The unfolding of events will force the emergence of this constitution, even if moral precepts fail. A philosophy of history based on these assumptions must be

1. Kant - Idea for a Universal History - Friedrich - op. cit., p. 128.

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possible, according to Kant; a task bequeathed to succeeding generations.

Schweitzer's criticism is thus validated by Kant's "Idea for a Universal History". The meaning of history derived from the categorical imperative is identical with the design of nature. History regarded as a phenomena discloses the same immanence that the transcendental experience of freedom postulated. The confusion of the ethical and the natural is complete. It makes little difference whether morality claims the sanction of reality or vice versa, in this scheme both are reduced to parallel appearance of the same inexorability. The aspirations of humanity represent but a mode of nature's mechanism.

The sublimity of Kant's moral philosophy derived from his intuition that ethics depended on a direct relation to the infinite, a transcendental experience that sets its own conditions. The distinction between numina and phenomena represented the resolve of a soul which wanted to escape the determined inevitability of the physical world and impart its own purposiveness to the causal unfolding of events. The postulates of God, freedom and immortality testify to a vision which had experienced the numeral reality and recognized no obstacles in the empirical world. The nine articles of the essay on Eternal Peace reveal the pervasiveness of this moral experience and its determining effect on all political manifestations. The true meaning

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of existence was seen to result from the content ascribed to the
categorical imperative, from the feeling of responsibility to-
wards man as an end, from the duty to create peace out of dis-
cord and reconciliation out of strife.

What lessons can be derived from the empirical world
in such a context? The Critique of Pure Reason had realized
that knowledge had to be limited to achieve belief. The cate-
gorical imperative universalized a personal relation to the
ultimate reality which underlies all phenomena. But this im-
plied that the numina are approachable only by way of a direct
experience of the moral law. The mode of their operation in
phenomena can not be decided by pure reason, nor really affirmed
by the teleological judgment. The transcendental intuition of
freedom does not necessarily reveal the objective mode of numeral
operation but only its relationship to Man. It lifts man above
himself and attaches him to a higher world order by means of
a vision, that is essentially incommunicable and certainly un-
classifiable teleologically. The categorical imperative repres-
ents its only meaningful principle when it issues into action.

If Kant were basing his Ideas for a Universal History
and his Guarantee for the achievement of Eternal Peace on the
categorical imperative, a different situation would arise. He
could then assert that the command for peace is an emanation of
a transcendental experience which in its very conception contains
its possibility. The implementation of moral maxims would then

1. See post for my brief discussion of Critique of Judgment.

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become a consequence of the determination of the will out of
a conception of the moral law, not a technical problem of man-
ipulating the mechanism of nature. This, indeed, forms the
foundation for the nine articles for the Eternal Peace. It
can not be asserted that their obligation depends on empirical
conditions. On the contrary, Kant repeatedly rejects the argu-
ment that the categorical imperative and its application to
the problem of peace can take any account of the accidental
constellation of political events. The moral law reveals the
objective principle that guides humanity's quest for a meaning
of history. It reveals peace as man's noblest task, to be
achieved through the institutionalization of the categorical
imperative in a republican constitution.

The Idea for a Universal History derives the sanction
for its political maxims from an inexorable development, however.
In its view peace results not from the determination of the will
by the moral law, but from the proper evaluation of technical
requirements. The vision of universal reconciliation arises as
but the revolt of a frustrated soul against the dark uncertainties
of constant warfare. Discord may produce harmony, but only through

1. For example see this quotation. Kant - Theory and Practice (Friedrich op. cit. p. 414):
"The maxim abbut Theory and Practice which has become common in our wordy and deedless times causes very great damage if applied to moral questions. For the cannon of practical reason is involved in this realm. Here the value of a given practice depends upon its appropriateness to the theory upon which it is based. All is lost if empirical, and consequently accidental, conditions of the execution of the law are made conditions of the law itself. Then a practice which is valuated in relation to the probable result of previous experience is accorded the right of determining the theory itself.

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an analysis of its conditions, not from a conception of duty.
Experience now produces morality, instead of the categorical
imperative supplying norms the approximation to which reveals
the moral content of an action. This becomes very apparent in
the following quotation from the Guarantee of Eternal Peace:
> "The problem of establishing a state is solvable even for a
people of devils, if only they have intelligence though this
may sound harsh. It may be stated thus. (Then Kant formulates
a hypothetical technical question on the proper balancing of
selfish tendencies). Such a problem must (Author's italics)
be solvable. For it is not the moral perfection of mankind,
but merely the mechanism of nature, which this task seeks to
know how to use in order to arrange the conflict of unpecific
attitudes in a given people in such a way that they impel each
other to compulsory laws and thus bring about the state of peace
in which such laws are enforced......... In short we can say
that nature wants irresistibly that law achieve superior force.
If one neglects to do this, it will be accomplished anyhow,
albeit with much inconvenience".
The transcendental experience
of morality has disappeared as a guide to action. A mechanism
replaces the categorical imperative as a motive force. Freedom

1. Friedrich op. cit. p. 452 - (Eternal Peace) In view of Kant's sharp criticism of merely technical solutions in the Appendix one would be inclined to consider this statement as in the vein of gentle irony which permeats Eternal Peace. The correspondence of this view to the Idea for a Universal History makes this impossible, however.

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becomes but a mode of causality. Volition operates as a tool
of an inexorable necessity.

It can be maintained, of course, that Kant formulates
this teleology, as a thought one adds to, but does not really
find in nature. ¹ But this distinction is more apparent than
real. The tentativeness of a hypothesis applies only to its
conclusions, not to the possibility of solving the problem. Its
very existence testifies to a belief in the efficacy of its en-
deavor. The hypothetical nature of Kant's teleology can not
hide the fact that he considered a conception of specific pur-
poses in the mechanical course of nature both possible and
necessary. The tentativeness of the formulation allows a crit-
icism of the specific purpose which Kant finds in history. It
can not affect, however, the basic argument of this discussion
that an ascription of any purpose is neither necessary nor pos-
sible, if Kant's original analysis is valid.

If the categorical imperative derives from a transcen-
dental experience of freedom that lifts man above the determined
inevitability of phenomena, the mechanical course of nature can
have no bearing on its applicability. If the necessary unfold-
ing of events automatically produces the proper disposition of
the will, the experience of freedom becomes meaningless and the
categorical imperative a more technical problem. No compromise

1. Friedrich op. cit. p. 448 (Eternal Peace).

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between these two positions is possible. Either ethical activ-
ity can be meaningful out of an apprehension of its principle
or it is reduced to a function of nature's mechanism. Though
a contemplation of the regularity of phenomena may yield an
intuition of a design as the very condition of appearances,
purposiveness can not be equated with specific purposes. One
can grant the existence of a higher world-order, in which one
participates through the experience of freedom, without at the
same time defining its conditions.

Again, in order to resolve these difficulties one might
draw the inference that the physical world did contain a limit-
ing condition to the universal applicability of the categorical
imperative from the following statement in the Metaphysics of
Morals, "It is our duty to act according to the idea of such
an end which reason commands (namely peace) even if there is not
the least probability that it can be achieved, provided its im-
possibility can not be demonstrated." This represents Friedrich's
view who considers Kant's qualifying clause a fundamental con-
dition of his moral philosophy, an important connecting link be-
tween the realm of freedom and the realm of necessity: "No one
was more clearly aware....of the necessity of testing hypothe-
tical judgment by experience than Kant. No work of Kant's shows
this more conclusively than Eternal Peace. In the Appendix he

1. See post for distinction between purposiveness and purposes.

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insisted (as of course he had often done before) that only what
is possible can be morally required and he recites the dictum
of the law ultra posse nemo obligatur. This is precisely the
reason for showing the possibility that in peace-making, as in
other human affairs, we learn by doing." Thus fact and norm
are reconciled, the course of history reveals man's aspirations.

This solution is not completely satisfactory, however.
Its validity depends on what Kant meant by a proof for impossibility. Friedrich Implies that the applicability of Kant's moral
depends on their attainability in the empirical realm. But the
whole tendency of Kant's argument denies this. For Kant did
not insist on a proof of the feasibility of the moral law.
This indeed would make the empirical world the determining principle of the categorical imperative. On the contrary, he affirmed the obligation of the categorical imperative even if
there is not the slightest probability of its being achieved.
But how can a law be binding in the face of all probability and
still not be obligatory if its impossibility is demonstrated?

The apparent contradiction is resolved if we consider
that Kant was quite aware of the fact that an absolute proof
of impossibility is out of the question. For what methodology
could such an effort utilize? If the particular constellation
of political circumstances does not suffice to negate the duty
to work for eternal peace, if the reconciliation of all conflict
is commanded against "all probability" (and probability implies

1. Friedrich Inevitable Peace p. 52.

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an evaluation of existing relations), then no proof for the impossibility of moral maxims is conceivable. Only an infinite mind, encompassing all possible conditions, could make this demonstration.

2

But God speaks to man through the categorical imperative. It commands through a priori considerations and by its own in-ward necessity. It expresses man's experience of that ultimate reality which lies beyond mere phenomenal manifestations. The transcendental import of that moral experience recognizes no limits. Wherever its maxims seem to be in conflict with the empirical world, Kant postulates entities which override all considerations of phenomenal reality. God, freedom and immortal-ity reveal the strength of an intuition which has perceived a higher world order and will not let itself be denied by the con-structions of pure reason.

To be sure, Kant often discusses the question of the "possibility" of his moral maxims. But this feasibility did

1. Though it may well be that a methodology that disproves impossibility affirms possibility, a psychological difference, exists nevertheless. A strict proof of impossibility in the empirical world and particularly in the political realm seems out of the question since it would involve a grasp of all possible conditions. In the case of logical constructions such as mathematics in which all conditions are previously defined, the situation is, of course, different. A demonstration of possibility, on the other hand, involves only the evaluation of a particular set of circumstances. This is essentially the procedure of the scientist who affirms first the possibility and then through an assumption of uniformity gives it universality. But Kant specifically required a proof of impossibility.

2. This is based on Kant's later writings see N. Kemp Smith - op. cit. p. 608.

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not depend on evaluation of phenomenal reality. On the contrary, Kant repeatedly asserts that the possibility of the categorical imperative is given in its very conception. For if the experience of the moral law elevates man out of the phenomenal world and shows him a vision of the infinite, if his experience of freedom reveals a glimpse of the numina which underlie all visible workings, what obstacle can the physical world possibly provide?

Friedrich draws the inference from Kant's philosophy that we learn by experience. This undoubtedly exhibits the implications of the Idea for a Universal History, and the Guarantee for Eternal Peace. But it merely restates the dilemma of how to reconcile man's experience of freedom with an immanent necessity. For what exactly does man learn by experience? It can not be the formulation of the categorical imperative for

1. Two quotations will illustrate this point. The first is from Theory and Practice. Friedrich - The Philosophy of Kant - p. 429.
"....There exists a concept which may be expressed by the words constitutional law. If this concept has binding force ....it has objective practical reality without our considering what good or ill may result; for the knowledge of these results is based purely on experience. If this be so, then constitutional law is based upon principles a priori since what is right can not be taught by experience. A theory of constitutional law exists with which practice just agree in order to be valid".

The second quotation is from the Critique of Practical Reason: Friedrich op. cit. p. 262: "The second view (the moral experience) raises my value infinitely, as an intelligence, through my personality; for in this personality the moral law reveals a life independent of animality and even of the entire world of sense...... This is not restricted to the conditions and limits of this life but radiates into the infinite."

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that derives from a priori considerations. If he learns the
technical implementation of the moral law then indeed experience
is useful, though only as a counsel of prudence and not as a
test of the validity of judgments. Historical necessity can
never supply a guarantee for the actualizing of a command de-
rived from a transcendental experience. Even granting that
the demonstrations for 'not impossible' and 'possible' are iden-
tical, they can never be made to imply 'inevitable'.
1

Kant has expressed the nature of the obligation of the
moral law, as a guide to the meaning of history, as a norm which
validates all striving: "In order to harmonize practical philos-
ophy within itself, it is necessary first to decide the question
whether in tasks of practical reason we should start from the
material (i.e. substantive) principle, from its end, or from its
formal one.... which states: Act in such a way that you could
want your maxim to become a general law (whatever its purpose
might be). Without a doubt the latter principle must take pre-
cedence; for as a principle of right it possesses absolute nec-
essity, whereas the material principle is compelling only on con-
dition that the empirical conditions for its realization exist.....
The first principle (which conceives peace as a material end),
that of the political moralist is a mere technical task; the
second which is the principle of the moral politician as an

1. The fact that this historical necessity is hypothetical does not affect the argument. See ante. I am not arguing against a specific purpose but against the possibility of making any such determination in the light of Kant's previous analysis.

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ethical task.... which is now decided not merely as a physical good, but as a condition resulting from the recognition of duty. Much knowledge of nature is required for the solution of the first problem of political prudence, in order to utilize its mechanism for this purpose and yet it is all rather uncertain as far as the result, eternal peace is concerned... By contrast the solution of the second problem of political wisdom readily presents itself, is evident to everyone, confounds all artifice and leads directly to the end..."

The incommensurability of Kant's critical philosophy and his teleological philosophy of history can not be overcome by considering the latter a demonstration for the possibility of the moral law. It may be argued however that Kant's Idea for a Universal History merely reveals another aspect of a methodology which attempts to attain knowledge by means of a priori principles. But again the similarity is misleading. The categories represent forms that explain the process of cognition. The categorical imperative derives from a transcendental experience of freedom and reconciles a personal experience with universal applicability. The content of both the categories and the categorical imperative depends, however, upon subsequent experience.

1. Kant's Eternal Peace - Friedrich op. cit. p. 466. These quotations are presented at such length because the difference is one of interpretation which can only be resolved by a reading of the text not by disproving one interpretation by another one.

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But the conception of a definite purpose in the unfolding of events goes beyond these limits. It does not reveal a method for apprehending phenomena, but prescribes their essence. Instead of obtaining its sanction from a direct relationship to numeral reality, it attempts to claim the sanction of phenomena for its aspirations. Peace or a Civic Constitution is therefore not analogous as an a priori principle to either the categories or the moral law. The categories are truly a priori in that they merely provide the structure for subsequent experience. The categorical imperative is beyond dispute as soon as one admits man's transcendental experience of morality. But peace or a civic constitution (which implies lawful external relations) constitutes the instantiation of a general principle, not a necessary mode of historical apprehension. As a specific purpose (since it does not represent a truly a priori principle) it can be refuted by any other postulation of hypothetical goals.

What then is this general principle? Kant's Critique of Judgment addresses itself to the problem of a teleological conception of phenomenal reality. Kant argues that the regularity exhibited by phenomena implies a design in nature. Just as the appearance of a hexagonal on a deserted island could not be explained by an accidental constellation of events, but would involve a principle of purposiveness, so man can postulate a teleology in the unfolding of phenomena. It provides the condition for the regularity of appearances and makes intelligible

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1. the consistency of natural laws. But a general principle of purposiveness does not necessarily imply a knowledge of specific purposes. Kant admits this and draws a sharp distinction between a determinative and a reflective purposiveness, 2 between a derivative and a constitutive design. A determinative purposiveness describes the claims of a rationality which attempts to impose its aspirations as a pattern of objective reality. A constitutive design invokes its principles as the objective immanence of phenomenal occurrences. Kant, on the other hand, obtains his teleology from the reflective judgment which is led to this conclusion through an intuition that a mechanistic conception of the universe can not account for the organic aspects of growth. The design he postulates is derivative because it conceives the world as a process of becoming only to make meaningful the reality revealed by pure reason.

Kant's Critique of Judgment thus completes his meta-physics and his moral philosophy. The numina for the cognition of which the Critique of Pure Reason provided necessary forms and whose pervasiveness was affirmed by the moral philosophy, now appear as the principle which make causal knowledge possible. Kant calls attention to the fact that a mechanistic conception of the universe can not suffice for its understanding and that reason must add a teleology, not indeed known by the methods of the first two Critiques but nonetheless certain. Yet this

1. Bernard - Critique of Judgment, p. 28.

2. Bernard - op. cit. p. 259 et seq

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judgment limits itself to ascribing an intrinsic purposiveness, ¹
the embodiment of which in specific purposes remains a mystery.
Causality explains the incidental appearances, teleology the
underlying unity of organic growth. ²

But the consistency of Kant's philosophy begins to be
destroyed by his subsequent introduction of the concept of ex-
trinsic purposiveness. ³ Since man, he argues, is the only
 creature capable of forming an idea of teleology he is also the
final purpose of the universe. Yet this again mistakes a personal

1. The following quotation illustrates Kant's distinction between purposiveness and purposes between an intrinsic and an extrinsic teleology. Bernard - op. cit. p. 272.
"We can see that external purposiveness can be regarded as an external natural purpose only under the condition that the existence of that being to which it is immediately or distantly advantageous is in itself a purpose of nature. Since that can never be completely determined by a mere contemplation of nature it follows that relative purposiveness, although it hypothetically gives indications of natural purposes yet justifies no absolute teleological judgment. Snow in cold countries protects the crops from the frost; it makes human intercourse easier by means of sleighs. (Here follows an enumeration of conditions that make existence in arctic countries possible). Here is a wonderful concurrence of many references of nature to one purpose.... But then we do not see why generally men must live there at all. Therefore to say that vapour falls out of the atmosphere in the form of snow, that the sea has its currents which float down the mood which has grown in warmer lands, and that there are in it great sea monsters filled with oil, because (author's italics) the idea of advantage for certain poor creatures is fundamental for the cause which collects all these natural products would be a very venturesome and arbitrary judgment." It is interesting to note that despite this refutation Kant uses almost exactly the same argument in his Guarantee for Eternal Peace (see Friedrich op. cit. p. 449 et. seq.)

2. Note similarity to Spengler's morphology.

3. Bernard op. cit. p. 361 et. seq.