but as a postulate in a practical point of view; and admitting that
the pure moral law inexorably binds every man as a command (not as a
rule of prudence), the righteous man may say: "I will that there be
a God, that my existence in this world be also an existence outside
the chain of physical causes and in a pure world of the understanding,
and lastly, that my duration be endless; I firmly abide by this, and
will not let this faith be taken from me; for in this instance alone
my interest, because I must not relax anything of it, inevitably
determines my judgement, without regarding sophistries, however unable
I may be to answer them or to oppose them with others more
plausible. *(2)
* But even here we should not be able to allege a requirement of
reason, if we had not before our eyes a problematical, but yet
inevitable, conception of reason, namely, that of an absolutely
necessary being. This conception now seeks to be defined, and this, in
addition to the tendency to extend itself, is the objective ground
of a requirement of speculative reason, namely, to have a more precise
definition of the conception of a necessary being which is to serve as
the first cause of other beings, so as to make these latter knowable
by some means. Without such antecedent necessary problems there are no
requirements- at least not of pure reason- the rest are requirements
of inclination.
{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 90}
*(2) In the Deutsches Museum, February, 1787, there is a
dissertation by a very subtle and clear-headed man, the late
Wizenmann, whose early death is to be lamented, in which he disputes
the right to argue from a want to the objective reality of its object,
and illustrates the point by the example of a man in love, who
having fooled himself into an idea of beauty, which is merely a
chimera of his own brain, would fain conclude that such an object
really exists somewhere. I quite agree with him in this, in all
cases where the want is founded on inclination, which cannot
necessarily postulate the existence of its object even for the man
that is affected by it, much less can it contain a demand valid for
everyone, and therefore it is merely a subjective ground of the
wish. But in the present case we have a want of reason springing
from an objective determining principle of the will, namely, the moral
law, which necessarily binds every rational being, and therefore
justifies him in assuming a priori in nature the conditions proper for
it, and makes the latter inseparable from the complete practical use
of reason. It is a duty to realize the summum bonum to the utmost of
our power, therefore it must be possible, consequently it is
unavoidable for every rational being in the world to assume what is
necessary for its objective possibility. The assumption is as
necessary as the moral law, in connection with which alone it is
valid.