contradicts either itself or nature, which is equally necessary, it
must in competition with physical necessity be entirely given up.

It would, however, be impossible to escape this contradiction if the
thinking subject, which seems to itself free, conceived itself in
the same sense or in the very same relation when it calls itself
free as when in respect of the same action it assumes itself to be
subject to the law of nature. Hence it is an indispensable problem
of speculative philosophy to show that its illusion respecting the
contradiction rests on this, that we think of man in a different sense
and relation when we call him free and when we regard him as subject
to the laws of nature as being part and parcel of nature. It must
therefore show that not only can both these very well co-exist, but
that both must be thought as necessarily united in the same subject,
since otherwise no reason could be given why we should burden reason
with an idea which, though it may possibly without contradiction be
reconciled with another that is sufficiently established, yet
entangles us in a perplexity which sorely embarrasses reason in its
theoretic employment. This duty, however, belongs only to
speculative philosophy. The philosopher then has no option whether
he will remove the apparent contradiction or leave it untouched; for
in the latter case the theory respecting this would be bonum vacans,
into the possession of which the fatalist would have a right to
enter and chase all morality out of its supposed domain as occupying
it without title.

We cannot however as yet say that we are touching the bounds of
practical philosophy. For the settlement of that controversy does
not belong to it; it only demands from speculative reason that it
should put an end to the discord in which it entangles itself in