and consequently useless for finding in the boundless field of
possible reality the greatest amount suitable for us; moreover, in
attempting to distinguish specifically the reality of which we are now
speaking from every other, it inevitably tends to turn in a circle and
cannot avoid tacitly presupposing the morality which it is to explain;
it is nevertheless preferable to the theological view, first,
because we have no intuition of the divine perfection and can only
deduce it from our own conceptions, the most important of which is
that of morality, and our explanation would thus be involved in a
gross circle; and, in the next place, if we avoid this, the only
notion of the Divine will remaining to us is a conception made up of
the attributes of desire of glory and dominion, combined with the
awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of morals
erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality.

However, if I had to choose between the notion of the moral sense
and that of perfection in general (two systems which at least do not
weaken morality, although they are totally incapable of serving as its
foundation), then I should decide for the latter, because it at
least withdraws the decision of the question from the sensibility
and brings it to the court of pure reason; and although even here it
decides nothing, it at all events preserves the indefinite idea (of
a will good in itself free from corruption, until it shall be more
precisely defined.

For the rest I think I may be excused here from a detailed
refutation of all these doctrines; that would only be superfluous
labour, since it is so easy, and is probably so well seen even by
those whose office requires them to decide for one of these theories
(because their hearers would not tolerate suspension of judgement).