By way of clearing up the contradiction he arrives at the following thought: "The judgement of taste is founded on a concept (the concept of a general foundation of the subjective teleology of nature through judgement); but it is a concept by which it is impossible to know or demonstrate anything of the object, because the object in itself is indeterminable and unsuited to cognition; on the other hand, it has validity for every one (for every one, I say, in so far as it is an individual judgement, immediately accompanying intuition), since its determining reason reposes, perhaps, in the concept of that which may be regarded as the supersensible substrate of mankind." Beauty, then, is a symbol of morality. "The subjective principle alone, that is the indeterminate idea of the supersensible in us, can be considered the only key able to unlock this faculty springing from a source we cannot fathom: excepting by its aid, no comprehension of it can possibly be reached."[24] These cautious words, and all others here used by Kant to conceal his thoughts, do not hide his tendency to mysticism. A mysticism without conviction or enthusiasm, almost in spite of himself, but very evident nevertheless. His inadequate grasp of the æsthetic activity led him to see double, even triple, and caused the unnecessary multiplication of his explanatory principles. Although he was always ignorant of the genuine nature of the æsthetic activity, he was indebted to it for suggesting to him the pure categories of space and time as the Transcendental Æsthetic; it caused him to develop the theory of imaginative embellishment of intellectual concepts by the work of genius; finally it forced him to acknowledge a mysterious faculty of feeling, midway between theoretical and practical activity, cognitive and yet not cognitive, moral and indifferent to morality, pleasing yet wholly detached from the pleasure of the senses. Great use of this power was made by Kant's immediate successors in Germany who were delighted to find their daring speculations supported by that severe critic of experience, the philosopher of Königsberg.
[1] B. Spaventa, _Prolus. ed introd. alle lezioni di filosofia,_ Naples, 1862 pp. 83-102; _Scritti filosofici,_ ed. Gentile, pp. 139-145, 303-307.