aracter, is his own work, and its
radical transformation (moral regeneration) his duty, the fulfillment of
which is demanded, and, hence, of necessity possible.

[Footnote 1: On the difficulties in the way of this theory and the
possibility of their removal cf. R. Falckenberg, _Ueber den intelligiblen
Character, zur Kritik der Kantischen Freiheitslehre_ (from the _Zeitschrift
fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxv.), Halle, 1879.]

(3) _Speculative Theology_. The principle of complete determination,
according to which of all the possible predicates of things, as compared
with their opposites, one must belong to each thing, relates the thing to
be determined to the sum of all possible predicates or the _Idea of an ens
realissimum_, which, since it is the representation of a single being, may
be called the _Ideal_ of pure reason. From this prototype things, as its
imperfect copies, derive the material of their possibility; all their
manifold determinations are simply so many modes of limiting the concept of
the highest reality, which is their common substratum, just as all figures
are possible only as different ways of limiting infinite space. Or better:
the derivative beings are not related to the ideal of the original Being as
limitations to the sum of the highest reality (on which view the Supreme
Being would be conceived as an aggregate consisting of the derivative
beings, whereas these presuppose it, and hence cannot constitute it), but
as consequences to a ground. But reason does not remain content with this
entirely legitimate thought of the dependence of finite things on the ideal
of the Being of all beings, as a relation of concepts to the Idea, but,
dazzled by an irresistible illusion, proceeds to realize, to hypostatize,
and to personify this ideal, and, since she herself is dimly conscious of
the illegitimacy of such a transformation of the mere Idea into a given
object, devises _arguments for the existence of God_. Reason, moreover,
would scarcely be induced to regard a mere creation of its thought as a
real being, if it were not compelled from another direction to seek a
resting place somewhere in the regress of conditions, and to think the
empirical reality of the contingent world as founded upon the rock of
something absolutely necessary. There is no being, however, which appears
more fit for the prerogative of absolute necessity than that one the
concept of which contains the therefore to every wherefore, and is in