The Kantian theory of religion is rationalistic and moralistic.  The fact that religion is based on morality should never be assailed.  But the foundation is not the building, the origin not the content and essence of the thing itself.  As far as the nature of religion is concerned, the Kantian view does not exclude completion in the direction of Schleiermacher’s theory of feeling, just as by its speculative interpretation of the Christian dogmas and its appreciation of the history of religion as a gradual transformation of historical faith into a faith of reason, it points out the path afterward followed by Hegel.  The philosophy of religion of the future must be, as some recent attempts aim to be (O.  Pfleiderer, Biedermann, Lipsius), a synthesis of Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.

While the moral law requires rightness not only of the action, but also of the disposition, the law of right is satisfied when the act enjoined is performed, no matter from what motives.  Legal right, as the sum of the conditions under which the will of the one can consist with the will of others according to a universal law, relates only to enforceable actions, without concerning itself about motives.  Private right includes right in things or property, personal right or right of contract, and real-personal right (marriage right); public right is divided into the right of states, of nations, and of citizens of the world.  Kant’s theory of punishment is original and important.  He bases it not upon prudential regard for the protection of society, or the deterrence or reformation of the criminal, but upon the exalted idea of retaliation (jus talionis), which demands that everyone should meet with what his deeds deserve:  Eye for eye, life for life.  In politics Kant favors democratic theories, though less decidedly than Rousseau and Fichte.  As he followed with interest the efforts after freedom manifested in the American and French Revolutions, so he opposed an hereditary nobility as a hindrance to the natural equality of rights, and demanded freedom for the public expression of opinion as the surest means of guarding against revolutions.  The only legitimate form of the state is the republican, i.e., that in which the executive power is separated from the legislative power, in contrast to despotism, where they are united in one hand.  The best guaranty for just government and civil liberty is offered by constitutional monarchy, in which the people through its representatives exercises the legislative power, the sovereign the executive power, and judges chosen by the people the judicial power.  The contract from which we may conceive the state to have arisen is not to be regarded as an historical fact, but as a rational idea or rule, by which we may judge whether the laws are just or not:  that which the people as a whole cannot prescribe for itself, this cannot be prescribed for it by the ruler (cf. p. 235).  That there is a constant progress—­not only of individuals,