康德《纯粹理性批判》英文word版.txt.txt

1781
THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
by Immanuel Kant
translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1781
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to
consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented
by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every
faculty of the mind.
It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. It
begins with principles, which cannot be dispensed with in the field of
experience, and the truth and sufficiency of which are, at the same
time, insured by experience. With these principles it rises, in
obedience to the laws of its own nature, to ever higher and more
remote conditions. But it quickly discovers that, in this way, its
labours must remain ever plete, because new questions never cease
to present themselves; and thus it finds pelled to have
recourse to principles which transcend the region of experience, while
they are regarded mon sense without distrust. It thus falls into
confusion and contradictions, from which it conjectures the presence
of latent errors, which, however, it is unable to discover, because
the principles it employs, transcending the limits of experience,
cannot be tested by that criterion. The arena of these endless
contests is called Metaphysic.
Time was, when she was the queen of all the sciences; and, if we
take the will for the deed, she certainly deserves, so far as
regards the high importance of her object-matter, this title of
honour. Now, it is the fashion of the time to heap contempt and
scorn upon her; and the matron mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like
Hecuba:
Modo maxima rerum,
Tot generis, natisque potens...
Nunc trahor exul, inops.*
Ovid, Metamorphoses. [xiii, "But late on the pinnacle of fame,
strong in my many sons. now exiled, penniless."]
At first, her government, under the administration of the
dogmatists, was an absolute despotism. But, as the legislative
continued to show traces of t