[55] Critique of Practical Reason, W. v. p. 32; Abbott’s trans. pp. 120-1.
[56] Op. cit. p. 86; Abbott’s trans. p. 180.
[57] Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse (Werke (Hartenstein), viii. p. 624). Cf. below, pp. 577-8. Kant claims for all men equality of political rights, and in his treatise on Perpetual Peace maintains that wars are not likely to cease until the republican form of government is universally adopted. He distinguishes, however, between republicanism and democracy. By the former he means a genuinely representative system; the latter he interprets as being the (in principle) unlimited despotism of majority rule. Kant accordingly contends that the smaller the staff of the executive, and the more effective the representation of minorities, the more complete will be the approximation to the ideal constitution. In other words, the less government we can get along with, the better.
[58] On the Radical Evil in Human Nature, W. vi. p. 20; Abbott’s trans. p. 326. “This opinion [that the world is constantly advancing from worse to better] is certainly not founded on experience if what is meant is moral good or evil (not civilisation), for the history of all times speaks too powerfully against it. Probably it is merely a good-natured hypothesis ... designed to encourage us in the unwearied cultivation of the germ of good that perhaps lies in us....”
[59] Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, W. iv. p. 407; Abbott’s trans. p. 24.
[60] Critique of Practical Reason, W. v. pp. 84-5; Abbott’s trans. pp. 178-9.
[61] Cf. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, W. iv. p. 463; Abbott’s trans. p. 84: “While we do not comprehend the practical unconditional necessity of the moral imperative, we yet comprehend its incomprehensibility, and this is all that can be fairly demanded of a philosophy which strives to carry its principles up to the very limit of human reason.”
[62] On the Radical Evil in Human Nature, W. vi. pp. 49-50; Abbott’s trans. pp. 357-8.
[63] Cf. Pringle-Pattison: The Idea of God in the Light of Recent Philosophy, p. 25 ff.
[64] Einleitung, i.