00001
00002
PREFACE TO ~IRST EDITION Avii-
HUMAN reason has this peculiar fate that in one species
of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as pre-
scribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to
ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also
not able to answer.
The perplexity into which it thus falls is not due to any
fault of its own. It begins with principles which it has no
option save to employ in the course of experience, and which
this experience at the same time abundantly justifies it in
using. Rising with their aid (since it is determined to this
also by its own nature) to ever higher, ever more remote,
conditions, it soon becomes aware that in this way---the A viii.
questions never ceasing ---its work must always remain
incomplete; and it therefore finds itself compelled to resort
to principles which overstep all possible empirical employ-
ment, and which yet seem so unobjectionable that even
ordinary consciousness readily acce . . .
