But as all conceptions
of things in themselves must be referred to intuitions, and with us
men these can never be other than sensible and hence can never
enable us to know objects as things in themselves but only as
appearances, and since the unconditioned can never be found in this
chain of appearances which consists only of conditioned and
conditions; thus from applying this rational idea of the totality of
the conditions (in other words of the unconditioned) to appearances,
there arises an inevitable illusion, as if these latter were things in
themselves (for in the absence of a warning critique they are always
regarded as such). This illusion would never be noticed as delusive if
it did not betray itself by a conflict of reason with itself, when
it applies to appearances its fundamental principle of presupposing
the unconditioned to everything conditioned. By this, however,
reason is compelled to trace this illusion to its source, and search
how it can be removed, and this can only be done by a complete
critical examination of the whole pure faculty of reason; so that
the antinomy of the pure reason which is manifest in its dialectic
is in fact the most beneficial error into which human reason could
ever have fallen, since it at last drives us to search for the key
to escape from this labyrinth; and when this key is found, it
further discovers that which we did not seek but yet had need of,
namely, a view into a higher and an immutable order of things, in
which we even now are, and in which we are thereby enabled by definite
precepts to continue to live according to the highest dictates of
reason.
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