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Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Introduction by
Translated by
Andrews Reath
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Summary

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent regionv beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense and extends the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into the unbounded times of their periodic motion, their beginning and their duration. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and presents me in a world which has true infinity but which can be discovered only by the understanding, and I cognize that my connection with that world (and thereby with all those visible worlds as well) is not merely contingent, as in the first case, but universal and necessary. The first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital force (one knows not how) must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the universe) the matter from which it came. The second, on the contrary, infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as this may be inferred from the purposive determinationw of my existence by this law, a determination not restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the infinite.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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  • Conclusion
  • Introduction by Andrews Reath, University of California, Riverside
  • Translated by Mary Gregor
  • Book: Kant: Critique of Practical Reason
  • Online publication: 05 February 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316136478.012
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  • Conclusion
  • Introduction by Andrews Reath, University of California, Riverside
  • Translated by Mary Gregor
  • Book: Kant: Critique of Practical Reason
  • Online publication: 05 February 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316136478.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • Introduction by Andrews Reath, University of California, Riverside
  • Translated by Mary Gregor
  • Book: Kant: Critique of Practical Reason
  • Online publication: 05 February 2015
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316136478.012
Available formats
×