Reason is consequently the permanent condition of all actions of the human will.Each of these is determined in the empirical character of the man, even before it has taken place.The intelligible character, of which the former is but the sensuous schema, knows no before or after; and every action, irrespective of the time-relation in which it stands with other phenomena, is the immediate effect of the intelligible character of pure reason, which, consequently, enjoys freedom of action, and is not dynamically determined either by internal or external preceding conditions.This freedom must not be described, in a merely negative manner, as independence of empirical conditions, for in this case the faculty of reason would cease to be a cause of phenomena; but it must be regarded, positively, as a faculty which can spontaneously originate a series of events.At the same time, it must not be supposed that any beginning can take place in reason; on the contrary, reason, as the unconditioned condition of all action of the will, admits of no time-conditions, although its effect does really begin in a series of phenomena- a beginning which is not, however, absolutely primal.
I shall illustrate this regulative principle of reason by an example, from its employment in the world of experience; proved it cannot be by any amount of experience, or by any number of facts, for such arguments cannot establish the truth of transcendental propositions.Let us take a voluntary action- for example, a falsehood- by means of which a man has introduced a certain degree of confusion into the social life of humanity, which is judged according to the motives from which it originated, and the blame of which and of the evil consequences arising from it, is imputed to the offender.We at first proceed to examine the empirical character of the offence, and for this purpose we endeavour to penetrate to the sources of that character, such as a defective education, bad company, a shameless and wicked disposition, frivolity, and want of reflection- not forgetting also the occasioning causes which prevailed at the moment of the transgression.In this the procedure is exactly the same as that pursued in the investigation of the series of causes which determine a given physical effect.Now, although we believe the action to have been determined by all these circumstances, we do not the less blame the offender.We do not blame him for his unhappy disposition, nor for the circumstances which influenced him, nay, not even for his former course of life; for we presuppose that all these considerations may be set aside, that the series of preceding conditions may be regarded as having never existed, and that the action may be considered as completely unconditioned in relation to any state preceding, just as if the agent commenced with it an entirely new series of effects.Our blame of the offender is grounded upon a law of reason, which requires us to regard this faculty as a cause, which could have and ought to have otherwise determined the behaviour of the culprit, independently of all empirical conditions.This causality of reason we do not regard as a co-operating agency, but as complete in itself.It matters not whether the sensuous impulses favoured or opposed the action of this causality, the offence is estimated according to its intelligible character- the offender is decidedly worthy of blame, the moment he utters a falsehood.It follows that we regard reason, in spite of the empirical conditions of the act, as completely free, and therefore, therefore, as in the present case, culpable.
The above judgement is complete evidence that we are accustomed to think that reason is not affected by sensuous conditions, that in it no change takes place- although its phenomena, in other words, the mode in which it appears in its effects, are subject to change- that in it no preceding state determines the following, and, consequently, that it does not form a member of the series of sensuous conditions which necessitate phenomena according to natural laws.
Reason is present and the same in all human actions and at all times; but it does not itself exist in time, and therefore does not enter upon any state in which it did not formerly exist.It is, relatively to new states or conditions, determining, but not determinable.Hence we cannot ask: "Why did not reason determine itself in a different manner?" The question ought to be thus stated:
"Why did not reason employ its power of causality to determine certain phenomena in a different manner?" "But this is a question which admits of no answer.For a different intelligible character would have exhibited a different empirical character; and, when we say that, in spite of the course which his whole former life has taken, the offender could have refrained from uttering the falsehood, this means merely that the act was subject to the power and authority-permissive or prohibitive- of reason.Now, reason is not subject in its causality to any conditions of phenomena or of time; and a difference in time may produce a difference in the relation of phenomena to each other- for these are not things and therefore not causes in themselves- but it cannot produce any difference in the relation in which the action stands to the faculty of reason.
