rship," _Censor_) of exactly
determining the concept of the most perfect Being (as a being which through
understanding and freedom contains the first ground of all other things),
of removing from it all impure elements, and of putting an end to all
opposite assertions, whether atheistic, deistic (deism maintains the
possibility of knowing the existence of an original being, but declares all
further determination of this being impossible), or (in the dogmatic
sense) anthropomorphic. Theism is entirely possible apart from a mistaken
anthropomorphism, in so far as through the predicates which we take from
inner experience (understanding and will) we do not determine the concept
of God as he is in himself, but only _analogically_[2] in his relation to
the world. That concept serves only to aid us in our contemplation of
the world,[3] not as a means of knowing the Supreme Being himself. For
speculative purposes it remains a mere ideal, yet a perfectly faultless
one, which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge.

[Footnote 1: "They need favor to supply their lack of legitimate claims."
Of themselves alone, therefore, they are unable to yield any theological
knowledge, but they are fitted to prepare the understanding for it, and to
give emphasis to other possible (moral) proofs.]

[Footnote 2: We halt _at_ the boundary of the legitimate use of reason,
without overstepping it, when we limit our judgment to the relation of
the world to the Supreme Being, and in this allow ourselves a symbolical
anthropomorphism only, which in reality has reference to our language alone
and not to the object.]

[Footnote 3: We are compelled to _look on_ the world _as if_ it were the
work of a supreme intelligence and will. "We may confidently derive the
phenomena of the world and their existence from other (phenomena), as if no
necessary being existed, and yet unceasingly strive after completeness
in the derivation, as though such a being were presupposed as a supreme
ground." In short, physical (mechanical) _explanation_, and a theistic
point of view or teleological _judgment_.]

Thus the value of the Ideas is twofold. By showing the untenable ness of
atheism, fatalism, and naturalism, they I clear the way for the objects of
faith. By providing natural science with the standpoint of a systematical
unity through teleological connection, they make an extension of the use of
the understanding possible within the realm of experience,[1]