Preface

Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species ofits cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problemsb by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacit of human reason.

Reason falls into this perplexity through no fault of its own. It begins
om principles whose use is unavoidable in the course of experience
and at the same time su ciently warranted by it. With these principles it rises (as its nature also requires) ever higher, to more remote condi­tons. But since it becomes aware in this way that its business must always remain incomplete because the questions never cease, reason sees itself necessitated to take re ge in principles that overstep all possible use in experience, and yet seem so unsuspicious that even ordinary common sense agrees with them. But it thereby falls into obscurity and contradictions, from which it can indeed surmise that it must some­ where be proceeding on the ground of hidden errors; but it cannot dis­ cover them, for the principles on which it is proceeding, since they surpass the bounds of all experience, no longer recognize any touch­ stone of experience. The battle eld of these endless controversies is called metaphysics.

Come sono i tuoi abituali pensieri così sarà l'indole della tua mente; perché l'anima prende le impressioni dal pensiero.