his goes as far as possible
experience extends. The case is different with the dynamical antinomies,
where thesis and antithesis can both be _true_, in so far as the former
is referred to things in themselves and the latter to phenomena. The
contradiction vanishes if we take that which the thesis asserts and the
antithesis denies in different senses. The fact that in the world of
phenomena the causal nexus proceeds without interruption and without end,
so that there is no room in it either for an absolutely necessary Being or
for freedom, does not conflict with this other, that beyond the world of
sense there may exist an omnipotent, omniscient cause of the world, and an
intelligible freedom as the ground of our empirically necessary actions.
"May exist," since for the critical philosopher, who has learned that every
extension of knowledge beyond the limits of experience is impossible, the
question can concern only the conceivability of the world-ground and of
freedom. This possibility is amply sufficient to give a support for faith,
as, on the other hand, it is indispensable in order to satisfy at once the
demands of the understanding and of reason, especially to satisfy their
practical interests. For if it were not possible to resolve the apparent
contradiction, and to show its members capable of reconciliation, it would
be all over either with the possibility of experiential knowledge or with
the basis of ethics and religion. Without unbroken causal connection, no
nature; without freedom, no morality; and without a Deity, no religion.
Of special interest is the solution of the third antinomy, which is
accomplished by means of the valuable (though in the form in which it is
given by Kant, untenable) conception of the _intelligible character_.[1]
Man is a citizen of two worlds. As a being of the senses (phenomenon) he
is subject in his volition and action to the control of natural necessity,
while as a being of reason (thing in itself) he is free. For science his
acts are the inevitable results of precedent phenomena, which, in turn,
are themselves empirically caused; nevertheless moral judgment holds
him responsible for his acts. In the one case, they are referred to his
empirical character, in the other, to his intelligible character. Man
cannot act otherwise than he does act, if he be what he is, but he need not
be as he is; the moral constitution of the intelligible character, which
reflects itself in the empirical ch