The commonest judgement of healthy human Reason completely accords
with this, that it is only as a moral being that man can be a final
purpose of creation; if we but direct men’s attention to the question
and incite them to investigate it. What does it avail, one will say,
that this man has so much talent, that he is so active therewith, and
that he exerts thereby a useful influence over the community, thus
having a great worth both in relation to his own happy condition and
to the benefit of others, if he does not possess a good will? He is a
contemptible Object considered in respect of his inner self; and if the
creation is not to be without any final purpose at all, he, who as man
belongs to it, must, in a world under moral laws, inasmuch as he is a
bad man, forfeit his subjective purpose (happiness). This is the only
condition under which his existence can accord with the final purpose.
If now we meet with purposive arrangements in the world and, as Reason
inevitably requires, subordinate the purposes that are only conditioned
to an unconditioned, supreme, _i.e._ final, purpose; then we easily see
in the first place that we are thus concerned not with a purpose of
nature (internal to itself), so far as it exists, but with the purpose
of its existence along with all its ordinances, and, consequently, with
the ultimate _purpose of creation_, and specially with the supreme
condition under which can be posited a final purpose (_i.e._ the ground
which determines a supreme Understanding to produce the beings of the
world).
Since now it is only as a moral being that we recognise man as the
purpose of creation, we have in the first place a ground (at least, the
chief condition) for regarding the world as a whole connected according
to purposes, and as a _system_ of final causes. And, more especially,
as regards the reference (necessary for us by the constitution of our
Reason) of natural purposes to an intelligent World Cause, we have _one
principle_ enabling us to think the nature and properties of this First
Cause as supreme ground in the kingdom of purposes, and to determine
its concept. This physical Teleology could not do; it could only lead
to indeterminate concepts thereof, unserviceable alike in theoretical
and in practical use.