Note 34 — Chapter VI · THE IDEAL OF THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE AND THE GOD-IDEAL

I do not however agree with those who regard the shreds of theology remaining in his system as a concession, not wholly ingenuous, to orthodoxy. He was brought up in the pietistic faith, and had probably not entirely outgrown the emotional impressions of those early teachings. The noumena, however, play a part in the system itself distinct from the theology, and are not to be taken as supersensible realities. They are limiting concepts intended to serve as incentives or lures, winning the mind to continue without cessation its advance along certain paths within the field of experience; but they are not supposed to give any clue as to what is beyond experience. That which is beyond the field of experience is simply unknowable. Thus the noumenon called “thing per se” is notice given to the mind not to be deterred in its proper business of unifying the space and time manifold by the difficulties which arise when the time and space manifold is taken as an ultimate account of reality. The thing per se is a welcome to science and not a bar set up in its path.

The noumenon of freedom is an incentive to man urging him to act as if he were capable of practicing the law of universality and necessity. In fact the phrase “as if” plays a leading rôle in the Kantian philosophy. The noumenon of God, as will presently be shown, is afflicted with this conditional “as if” character to even a higher degree. We are to assume God in order to look upon the vast field of possible experience as if it were unified, as if a being who himself stands for unity had been its creator. This assumption is supposed to be necessary in order to encourage the scientist in his search for the thread of unity, lest he flag by the way. As a matter of fact scientists have contented themselves with the simple assumption of the uniformity of nature as necessary to the prosecution of their investigations, and have as a rule troubled themselves little to hypostasize the notion of unity. Nor has recent progress in science been associated with and influenced by the belief in an individual Deity. The noumenon of God is unnecessary for science while in Kant’s ethical application of it it is positively harmful. He introduces the God notion as an artificial device for linking together happiness and virtue, a device quite inconsistent with the noble austerity of his ethical system, whatever its other defects may be.

The noumena, then, are apparitions that appear at the end of certain paths in the field of experience, far off where the sky and the ground seem to meet. These paths run off in different directions. At the end of each is one of these limiting apparitions, and the society of noumena is disconnected internally: there is no relation of unity between the unifiers.