We could not hope to find this
connections in actions actually given in experience as events of the
sensible world, since causality with freedom must always be sought
outside the world of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of
sense of sense in the world of intelligence. But things of sense are
the only things offered to our perception and observation. Hence,
nothing remained but to find an incontestable objective principle of
causality which excludes all sensible conditions: that is, a principle
in which reason does not appeal further to something else as a
determining ground of its causality, but contains this determining
ground itself by means of that principle, and in which therefore it is
itself as pure reason practical. Now, this principle had not to be
searched for or discovered; it had long been in the reason of all men,
and incorporated in their nature, and is the principle of morality.
Therefore, that unconditioned causality, with the faculty of it,
namely, freedom, is no longer merely indefinitely and
problematically thought (this speculative reason could prove to be
feasible), but is even as regards the law of its causality
definitely and assertorially known; and with it the fact that a
being (I myself), belonging to the world of sense, belongs also to the
supersensible world, this is also positively known, and thus the
reality of the supersensible world is established and in practical
respects definitely given, and this definiteness, which for
theoretical purposes would be transcendent, is for practical
purposes immanent.
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