Complete. From the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Haywood’s translation.

OPINION (the “Holding-to-be-True”) is an event in our understanding which may repose upon objective grounds, but requires also subjective causes in the mind of him who then judges. If it be valid for every one, so far as it has only reason, the ground thereof is then objectively sufficient, and the holding of a thing for true is then termed Conviction. If it have only its foundation in the particular quality of the subject, it is then termed persuasion.

  Persuasion is a mere appearance, since the ground of the judgment which lies in the subject only is held to be objective. Consequently, such a judgment has also only private (individual) validity, and the holding of a thing for true cannot be imparted. But Truth reposes upon the accordance with the object, in respect of which, consequently, the judgments of every understanding must be accordant. The touchstone of the holding a thing for true, whether it be conviction or merely persuasion, is, therefore, externally, the possibility of imparting it and of finding this holding for true, valid for the reason of every man; for then it is at least a presumption that the ground of the accordance of all judgments, notwithstanding the difference of subjects with one another, will repose upon the common foundation, namely, the object with which they, consequently, will all accord, and thereby prove the truth of the judgment.

  Hence persuasion cannot certainly be distinguished subjectively from conviction, if the subject have before its eyes the holding for true merely as a phenomenon of its own mind: but the experiment which we make with the grounds of this, which are valid for us, as to another understanding, whether they operate the selfsame effect upon this other reason as upon ours is, nevertheless, a means, although only a subjective one, not assuredly for operating conviction, but, nevertheless, for disclosing the merely private validity of the judgment, that is to say, something in it, which is mere persuasion.

  If, moreover, we can develop the subjective causes of the judgment, which we take for its objective grounds, and, consequently, explain the deceptive holding for true, as an event in our mind, without having need for this of the quality of the object, we thus expose the appearance, and are thereby no longer deceived, although we still are always in a certain degree cajoled, if the subjective cause of the appearance belong to our nature.

  I can maintain nothing (that is, declare it as a necessarily valid judgment for every man), except what produces conviction. Persuasion I can retain for myself, if I am content with it, but I cannot wish, and ought not to wish to make it valid beyond myself.

  The holding for true, or the subjective validity of the judgment, in reference to conviction (which at the same time is objectively valid) has the three following degrees: Opining, Believing, and Knowing. Opining is an insufficient holding for true with consciousness, subjectively equally as objectively. If this last (holding for true) is only sufficient, subjectively, and is at the same time held to be insufficient, objectively, it is then termed Believing. Lastly, the sufficient holding for true, subjectively equally as well as objectively, is termed Knowledge. The subjective sufficiency is termed Conviction (as to myself), the objective certainty (as to every one). I shall not stop for the explanation of such comprehensible conceptions.

  I must never venture to opine without at least knowing something, by means of which the merely problematical judgment in itself receives a connection with truth, which connection, although not complete, is still more than arbitrary fiction. The law, moreover, of such a connection must be certain. For if I in respect of the law have also nothing but opinion, then everything is only a play of the imagination, without the least reference to truth. In judgments from pure reason, it is not at all permitted to opine. For since they are not supported upon reasons of experience, but everything is to be cognized a priori, where everything is necessary, the principle of connection thus requires universality—as otherwise no guide at all to truth is met with. It is, therefore, absurd to opine in pure mathematics; we must know, or abstain from all judgment. The case is just the same with the principles of morality, as we must not hazard an action upon the mere opinion that something is permitted, but we must know it.

  In the transcendental use of reason, on the other hand, to opine is certainly too little, but to know is likewise too much. With mere speculative intention we cannot, therefore, at all judge in this case, since subjective grounds of holding for true, such as those which can effect belief, deserve no approbation in speculative questions, because they do not sustain themselves free of all empirical assistance, nor are imparted to others in equal measure.

  But the theoretical insufficient holding for true may be termed generally belief, merely in practical reference. Now this practical intention is either that of ability, or of morality,—the first for arbitrary and contingent ends, but the second for those absolutely necessary.

  If once an end be proposed, the conditions for its attainment are thus hypothetically necessary. The necessity is subjective, but still only comparatively sufficient, if I know no other conditions at all by which the end was to be attained; but it is absolute and sufficient for every one, if I know certainly that no one can be acquainted with other conditions that lead to the proposed end. In the first case, my presupposition and the holding for true of certain conditions, is mere contingent belief, but in the second case, a necessary one. The physician is compelled to do something for his patient who is in danger; but he is not acquainted with the disease. He looks at symptoms, and judges, since he knows nothing better, that it is a phthisis. His belief in his own judgment even is merely contingent; another perhaps might better hit upon it. I term such belief contingent, but what lies at the foundation of the real use of means for certain actions is the pragmatical belief.

  The usual touchstone, whether something is mere persuasion, or at least subjective conviction, that is, firm belief, which a certain one maintains, is Wagering. Frequently a man states his propositions with such confident and inflexible defiance that he seems wholly to have laid aside all apprehension of error. A wager startles him. Sometimes it appears that he certainly possesses enough persuasion as may be estimated at a ducat in value, but not at ten. For as to the first ducat he, indeed, stakes readily, but at ten he is then for the first time aware, which previously he had not remarked, namely, that it is nevertheless very possible he is in error. Provided we represented to our mind that we were to wager the happiness of a whole life upon this, our exulting judgment would then give way very much and we should be exceedingly alarmed, and so discover for the first time that our belief did not extend thus far. The pragmatic belief has in this way only a degree, which, according to the difference of interest that is at stake therein, may be great or yet small.

  But as, although in relation to an object we can undertake nothing at all, and therefore the holding for true is merely theoretical, still in many cases we may embrace and imagine to ourselves in thought an undertaking for which we fancy we possess sufficient grounds, provided there is a means for constituting certainty of the thing, so there is, in mere theoretical judgments, an analogon of what is practical, the holding of which for true, the word Believing suits, and which we may term Doctrinal Belief. If it were possible to decide through an experience, so might I very well wager, as to this point, all that is mine, that, at least in some one of the planets that we see, there were inhabitants. Consequently, I say it is not mere opinion but a firm belief (as to the correctness of which I would, to begin with, hazard many advantages in life) that there are also inhabitants of other worlds.

  Now we must confess that the doctrine of the existence of God belongs to doctrinal belief. For, although in respect of theoretical cognition of the world, I have nothing to arrange which necessarily presupposes this idea, as the condition of my explanations of the phenomena of the world, but rather am compelled so to make use of my reason as if everything were merely nature, still, the unity conformable to its end is so great a condition of the application of reason to nature, that since experience moreover furnishes me freely with examples of it, I cannot at all pass it by. But for this unity I know no other condition which it made to me, as a clew for my investigation of nature, but when I presuppose that a supreme intelligence has thus ordered everything according to the wisest ends. Consequently, it is a condition, certainly of a casual, but yet not unimportant intention, namely, in order to have a guide in the investigation of nature, to presuppose a wise Creator of the world. The result of my researches, likewise, so frequently confirms the utility of this presupposition, and nothing can decidedly be adduced in opposition, that I say much too little, if I desire to term my holding for true, merely an opining, for it may even be said in this theoretic relationship, that I firmly believe in God—but this belief, however, in strict signification, is then, nevertheless, not practical, but must be termed a doctrinal belief, which the theology of nature (physico-theology) must everywhere necessarily operate. In respect of this selfsame wisdom, in regard of the excellent endowment of human nature, and the shortness of life so badly adapted to it, an equally satisfactory cause for a doctrinal belief in the future life of the human soul may be met with.

  The expression of belief is in such cases an expression of modesty as to objective intention, but, at the same time, of the firmness of confidence as to subjective. If I wished to term here the mere theoretical holding for true (hypothesis only), which I was justified in admitting, I should thereby already find myself pledged to have a conception, more as to the quality of a cause of the world and of another world than I really can show—for what I assume likewise only as hypothesis, of this must I, according to its properties, at least, still know so much, that I must not invent its conception, but only its existence. But the word Belief refers only to the guide which an idea gives me, and to the subjective influence upon the advancement of my actions of reason, which keeps me fast to the same guide, although as to this I am not in a state to give an account with a speculative view.

  But the mere doctrinal belief has something unsteady about it; one is often turned from this, through difficulties which present themselves in speculation, although we certainly always infallibly return back again thereto.

  It is quite otherwise with moral belief. For there it is absolutely necessary that something must happen, namely, that I should in all points fulfill the moral law. The object is here indispensably established, and there is only one single condition, according to my introspection, possible, under which this end coheres with all ends together, and thereby possesses objective validity, namely, that there is a God and a future world:—I also know quite certainly that no one is acquainted with other conditions that lead to this unity of ends under the moral law. But as the moral precept, therefore, is at the same time my maxim (as reason then commands that it is to be so), I shall thus infallibly believe the existence of God and a future life, and I am sure that nothing can render this belief vacillating, since thereby my moral principles themselves would be subverted, which I cannot relinquish without being detestable in my own eyes.

  In such a way there still remains to us enough, after the disappointment of all the ambitious views of a reason wandering about beyond the limits of experience, that we have cause to be satisfied therewith in a practical point of view. Certainly, no one is able to boast that he knows there is a God, and that there is a future life, for if he knows this, he is then exactly the man whom I long have sought after. All knowing (if it concern an object of pure reason) can be imparted, and I should likewise, therefore, be able to hope through his instruction to see my knowledge extended in so wonderful a manner. But no, the conviction is not logical but moral certitude, and as it reposes upon subjective grounds (moral sentiment), so must I not ever state that it is morally certain there is a God, etc., but that I am morally certain. That is, the belief in a God and another world is so interwoven with my moral sentiment, that as little as I run the danger of losing the first, just so little do I fear that the second can ever be torn from me.

  The only difficulty which is met with in this case is that this reason-belief is founded upon the presupposition of moral sentiments. If we depart from this, and adopt a belief that would be quite indifferent as to moral laws, the question then which reason proposes becomes merely a problem for speculation, and may then certainly be still supported by strong grounds from analogy, but never by those to which the stubbornest skepticism must surrender. But in these questions no man is free from all interest. For although he might be severed from the moral one by the want of good sentiments, still there yet remains enough besides, in this case, in order to cause that he should fear a divine existence and a futurity. For nothing further is required for this purpose than that he is not able to plead certainty, that no such being and no future life is to be met with; for which effect, inasmuch as this must be shown through mere reason,—consequently, apodeictically,—he would have to demonstrate the impossibility of both, which certainly no rational being can undertake. This would be a negative belief, which certainly could not produce morality and good sentiments, but yet the analogon of the same, that is, could restrain powerfully the outbreak of what is bad.

  But it will be said, is this all which Pure Reason executes in opening out views beyond the limits of experience? Nothing more than two articles of belief? The common understanding without, as to this, consulting philosophers, would have been able also, in fact, to execute as much!

  I will not here boast of the merit which philosophy has, as to human reason, by means of the laborious effort of its critique—though it be granted that such merit also in the result were to be found merely negative; for as to this, something more will appear in the following section. But do you require, then, that a cognition which concerns all men should transcend the common understanding, and should only be discovered to you by philosophers? That very thing which you blame is the best confirmation of the correctness of the previous assertions, since it discovers what in the beginning we could not foresee, namely, that nature in respect of that which affects all men without distinction has not to be charged with any partial distribution of its gifts, and that the highest philosophy, in respect of the essential ends of human nature, cannot advance any further than the guide which nature likewise conferred upon the most common understanding.