ill, are elements to be reckoned with.
And reality is not as transparent as the Enlightenment assumed it to
be; existence divided by reason leaves a remainder, as Goethe had put
it.

It was Immanuel Kant who tried to arbitrate between the conflicting
tendencies of his age. He was an _Aufklaerer_ in so far as he brought
reason itself to the bar of reason and sat in judgment upon its
claims, and, likewise, in so far as he insisted on the objective
validity of physics and mathematics. But he was as much opposed to
the pretentiousness of dogmatic metaphysics as to the pusillanimity
of scepticism and the _Schwaermerei_ of mysticism. He repudiated the
shallow proofs of the existence of God, freedom, and immortality
no less emphatically than he rejected materialism with its
atheism, fatalism, and hedonism. He tried to save everything worth
saving--rational knowledge, modern science, the basal truths of
the old metaphysics, and the most precious human values. For
the scientific intelligence, so he held, nature and the self are
absolutely determined; every physical occurrence and every human act
are necessary links in a causal chain. But such knowledge is
possible only in the field of phenomena (_Erscheinungen_); through
sense-perception and the discursive understanding we cannot reach the
inner core of reality; nor can we pierce the veil of appearances by
means of intellectual intuitions, mystical visions, feeling, or faith,
i.e., through the emotional and instinctive parts of our nature. It is
the presence of the moral law or categorical imperative within us that
points to a spiritual world beyond the phenomenal causal order and
assures us of our freedom, immortality, and God. It is because we
possess this deeper source of truth in practical reason that freedom
and an ideal kingdom in which purpose reigns are vouchsafed to us, and
that we can free ourselves from the mechanism of the natural order.
It is moral truth that both sets us free and demonstrates our freedom,
and that makes harmony possible between the mechanical theory of
science and the teleological conception of philosophy. The scientific
understanding would plunge us into determinism and agnosticism; from
these, faith in the moral law alone can deliver us. In this sense
Kant destroyed knowledge to make room for a rational faith in a
supersensible world, to save the independence and dignity of the human
self and the spiritual values of his people. In claiming a pla