Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian — Kant — John Shaqi
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
On a first survey, nothing appears more opposed than these two
impulsions; one having for its object change, the other
immutability, and yet it is these two notions that exhaust the
notion of humanity, and a third FUNDAMENTAL IMPULSION, holding a
medium between them, is quite inconceivable. How then shall we re-
establish the unity of human nature, a unity that appears completely
destroyed by this primitive and radical opposition?
I admit these two tendencies are contradictory, but it should be
noticed that they are not so in the SAME OBJECTS. But things that do
not meet cannot come into collision. No doubt the sensuous impulsion
desires change; but it does not wish that it should extend to
personality and its field, nor that there should be a change of
principles. The formal impulsion seeks unity and permanence, but it
does not wish the condition to remain fixed with the person, that
there should be identity of feeling. Therefore these two impulsions
are not divided by nature, and if, nevertheless, they appear so, it
is because they have become divided by transgressing nature freely,
by ignoring themselves, and by confounding their spheres. The office
of culture is to watch over them and to secure to each one its
proper LIMITS; therefore culture has to give equal justice to both,
and to defend not only the rational impulsion against the sensuous,
but also the latter against the former. Hence she has to act a
twofold part: first, to protect sense against the attacks of
freedom; secondly, to secure personality against the power of
sensations. One of these ends is attained by the cultivation of the
sensuous, the other by that of the reason.