IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) V ^ < ^ A IL %, 1.0 I.I 1.25 l^m 12.5 ^ 1^ lllllio 1.4 1.6 — 6" % ^;. f. i» *. 7 C Hiotographic Sciences Corporation #1^ ^ 23 WfST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14SS0 (716)872-4503 ) CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. I' CIHIVi/ICIVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Inttituta for Historical Microreproductions / institut Canadian de microreproductions historiquas <^ signifie "A SUiVRE". le symbols V signifie "FIN". Maps, plataa, charts, etc., may ba filmad at different reduction ratioa. Those too large to ba entirely included in one exposure ara filmad baginning in tha upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames aa required. The following diagrams illustrate tha method: Les cartas, planches, tableaux, etc., (. ^uvent dtre fiimis d des taux da reduction diffdrents. Lorsque la document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichi, il est fiimA 6 partir da I'angia sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droits, et de haut en bas, an prenant le nombre d'imagas nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrant la mithoda. 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. Pubtishett by JAMES lAIACLEHOSE, GLASGOW. LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. London, . . . Hamilton, Adamt S: Co. Cambridge, . . . ilaemillan st of Kant and Spencer as to the Relativity of Knowledge — Spencer's confusion between Absolute Knowledge and Knowledge of the Absolute — His Absolute an Abstraction — Indefinite Consciousness of the Absolute imposdible — Ex- amii^ation of Spencer'e opposition of Subject and Object — His Proofs of Realism inconclusive — His Universal Postulate no Criterion of Truth — Transfigured Realism a self-contradictory Theory — Imperfection of Spencer's Conoeption of Mind as a Substratum — Ultimate Scientific Ideas not self-contradictory, ..... Paijfs 2S9-328 CHAPTER XI. IMPERFECT DEVELOPMENT OF KANT'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 1. Contrast of the Manifold as given and the Forms as originated untenable — 2. Provisional character of the distincti'^n of a priori and a posteriori Knowledge — 3. Want of logical development in Kant's Theory of Know- ledge — 4. Inter-connexion of the Categories of Substance, Cause and Reciprocity — 5. Imperfection in the opposition of Pure and Mixed Categories, ........ 829-3.'5l CHAPTER XII. EXAMINATION OF KANT'S DISTINCTION OF SENSE, IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 1 . Examination of Kant's view of the Manifold of Sense — Va ious meanings of Sensation — Confusion of the Manifold v/ith immediate Feeling — Confusion of it with Perception as a stage of knowledge — The Manifold properly an element in Knowledge and Existence — 2. Examination of Kant's view of Space and Time — Space and Time not mere Forms of Perception— They are the simplest determinations of Knowledge and Existence — Source of Kant's mistake — 3. Examination of Kant's view of Pure Imagination — Confusion between Imagination as a phase of Knowledge and as an element in Knowledge — The Transcendental Schema really expresses the relation of the Elements of Knowledge — 4. Examination of Kar*'s view of Concep- tion — Various meanings of Conception— Conception as a phase of Ituowledge — Scientific Conception a unity of Analysis and Synthesis — Faiic Contrast of Induction and Deduction — Conceptions as the Product of Abstraction — Contrast of Abstract Conceptions and Categories— 5. Examination of Kant's view of Judgment — His mistaken assimilation of Analytical and Syntheti- cal Judgments — 6. Examination of Kant's view of the Self— The Noumenal Self an Abstraction, ..,,,. 352-40!? KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. CHAPTER I. THE PROBLEM AND METHOD OF THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. — MR. BALFOUR's CRITICISM OF THE TRANSCEN- DENTAL METHOD. TT is no longer possible for any one but a superficial reader of the Critique of Pure Reason to regard Kant as a benighted "a priori" philosopher of the dogmatic type, afflicted with the hallucination that the most impoi tant part of our knowledge consists of innate ideas, lying in the depths of cons'ciousness and capable of being brought to the light by pure intro- spection. The labours of recent commentators have compelled us to see that this short and easy method of disposing of the Critical Philosophy is altogether unsatisfactory. At the same time I cannot help thinking that much of recent criticism rather shows the need on the part of the critics of a closer acquaint- ance with Kant's writings and mode of thought, than calls for direct refutation. I am far from saying that Kant has produced a final system of philosophy, admitting of no development, and demanding only a docile acceptance. All that I mean is, that along with nmch that is imperfectly worked out, and even with some self-contradiction, he has given us a A KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. r I ■i philosophy which must be regarded, not as a rival of English psychology, but rather as above and beyond it. I cannot, therefore, accept so sweeping a condemnation of his system and method as that which is contained in the very strong language of Dr. Hutchison Stirling, who regards the system as "a vast and prodigious failure," and the method as only "a laborious, base- less, inapplicable, futile superfetation." So very harsh a judgment, modified even as it afterwards is by the remark that "Kant nevertheless abides always, both the man and the deed belonging to what is greatest in modern philosophy," * seems to show a plentiful lack of intellectual sympathy on the part of the critic. In spite of the minor contradictions and the incomplete development of his theory, Kant has opened up a "new way of ideas," which should win a general assent the moment it is seen as it really is. I propose, therefore, to state in my own way the main points in his theory of knowledge; and as the critical philosophy is most likely to commend itself to living thinkers when brought into connection with the difficulties they feel in regard to it, I shall interweave with this statement a review of recent criticisms, and an examination of the empirical psychology of our own day. Not long ago Mr. Balfour gave us a vigorous criti- cism of the general method of Kant, \/hich, if conclusive, would virtually foreclose any more detailed inquirj'^ into the merits of the philosophy developed by its aid. That method he regards as radically unsound, and the main propositions to which it conducts us he therefore holds to be unproved assumptions. I am aware that Mr. Balfour directs his artillery rather against those ' Princifon ncvlew, Jan. 1S70, p. 210, I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON~^MR. BALFOUR. 3 :weave IS, and )f our whom he calls Neokantians or Transcendentalists than against Kant himself. I caimot, of course, hold myself responsible for the opinions of all who may be called, or who may call themselves Transcendentalists; but in so far as such writers as Mr. Green and Mr. Caird are concerned, I think I may venture to say that, as they undoubtedly conceive of the problem of philosophy very nmch as Kant conceived of it, and seek to solve it by a method similar, if not identical, with his, whatever applies to Transcendentalism applies in all essential respects to Critical Idealism as well. In opening his battery against Transcendentalism, Mr. Balfour has occasion to state the problem of phil- osophy as he understands it. But unfortunately he has done so in terms that are fatally ambiguous. "The usual way," he says, "in which the Transcendental problem is put is. How is knowledge possible ? " . . . But "the question should rather be stated, How much of what pretends to be knowledge must we accept as such, and why ?" . . . Now, " if we were simply to oflance at Transcendental literature, and seize on the first apparent answers, we should be disposed to think that the philosophers of this school assume to start with the truth of a large part of what is commonly called Science — the very thing which, according to my view of the subject, it is the business of philosophy to prove." . . . Nevertheless " Transcendentalism is philo- sophical, in the sense in which I have ventured to use the term : it does attempt to establish a creed, and, therefore, of necessity it indicates the nature of our premises, and the manner in which the subordinate beliefs may be legitimately derived from them." ^ ' Mind, XII., p 481. Tho article from which I quote is reprinted with little change in Mr. Balfour's Dfftncc of Philosophic Donht. 4 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. Now Kant would certainly have been willing to admit that the problem of philosophy might be thrown into the form, " How much of what pretends to be knowledge must we accept as such 1 " and he would also have admitted timt it is the business of philosophy to prove " what is commonly called science ; " but as certainly he would have insisted at the outset upon defining more exactly what is to be understood by "knowledge" and "science." For, manifestly, Mr. Balfour's words may be taken in two very different senses ; they may mean either (1) that philosophy has to prove the truth of the special facts of ordinary knowledge and the laws embodied in each of the special sciences, or (2) that philosophy must show from the nature of our knowledge that the facts of ordinary knowledge and the laws of the special sciences rest upon certain principles which make them true univer- sally, and not merely for the individual. I cannot help suspecting, from the general tenor of his criticism, that Mr. Balfour has allowed these very different proposi- tions to run into one in his mind, so that, having shown, as he very easily may do, that Kant does not prove the first, he rashly concludes him to have failed in proving the second. Surely Mr. Balfour does not seek to lay so heavy a burden on philosophy as is im- plied in the demand that it should prove the truth of the special facts of observation and the special laws of the natural sciences, or even the generalizations of empirical psycholog3^ No one, I should think, would seriously ask a philosopher to prove it to be a fact that we have experience, say of a ship drifting down a stream, or that the three interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or that bodies attract each other in proportion to their mass and inversely as the square of [chap. I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 6 Uing to J thrown is to be e would ilosophy " but as jet upon itood by tly, Mr. different Dphy has ordinary 1 of the low from ordinary nces rest e univer- inot help ism, that )roposi- having does not v^e failed does not as is im- ;hof the s of the mpirical seriously we have ream, or equal to other in quare of .1 the distance. Manifestly if philosophy is to attempt a task of this kind and magnitude, it must go on for ever without reaching any final conclusion, since the special facts and laws of nature are infinite in number. Philosophy has certainly to do with the proof of know- ledge, but he would be a very foolish philosopher who should attempt to unite in himself the functions dis- charged by all the special sciences. "The sceptic," says Mr. Balfour, " need not put forward any view of the origin of knowledge." The sceptic is a privileged person, and of course need not put forward any view of anything ; but supposing him to be reasonable, he will not dismiss without enquiry the view of those who hold that the question as to "the origin of know- ledge " is the question of philosophy. The follower of Kant, at any rate, must refuse to have the formula, which best expresses the problem of philosophy as he understands it, replaced by the very different formula. How much of what pretends to be knowledge must we accept as such? if by this is meant, How are we to show that this special fact or law is true 1 The special facts of ordinary knowledge and the special laws of the natural sciences, are not propositions which the philoso- pher seeks to prove, but data which he assumes. Of all our knowledge the conclusions r* ached by mathe- matics and physics are those which we have least doubt about; and hence I do not understand how Mr. Balfour can object to the philosopher assuming to start with " the truth of a large part of what is commonly called science." I have no objection to find with Mr. Bal- four's assertion, that a philosophy must consist partly of premises and partly of inferences from premises. I should certainly prefer another mode of expression, from the fact that the process of inference, according 6 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. to the account given of it by formal logic, does not allow of any inferences except those which are purely verbal ; but as Mr. Balfour probably only means to say, tliat there are certain facts which do not stand in need of proof by philosophy, and certain conclusions which it is the business of philosophy to prove, I am content to accept his way of stating the case. My objection lies against what he very strangely supposes to be the "premises" of transcendental philosophy. The actual premises of Kant are the special fticts of ordinary ex- perience in the widest sense, and especially the facts and laws of the mathematical and physical sciences. No doubt the particular philosophical theory we adopt will cast upon these a new light, but it will in no way alter their nature or validity. Should the Critical explana- tion of the essential nature of knowledge be accejDted, a new view of the process by which knowledge has been obtained, and therefore a new view of the general character of the objects of knowledge will grow up, but the facts themselves will remain just as they were before. The philosophical theory, that the existence of concrete objects, apart from the activity of intel- ligence by which they are constituted for us, is an absurdity, does not throw any doubt upon the scientific truth, that bodies are subject to the law of gravitation. The evidence for a scientific law is purely scientific. The philosopher who should attempt, from the general nature of knowledge, to establish a single individual fact, or a single specific law of nature, would justly draw upon himself the censure of taking the "high priori road" which leads only to the kingdom of shadows. From a general principle only a general principle can be inferred: the proof of a special law demands special evidence. If the philosopher, by a mere examination of r.] CRITIQUE OF I U RE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 7 \v up, were istence intel- is an )ntific ;ation. entific. eneral vidual justly "high idows. can be ipecial ion of knowledge, is able to establish a single qualitative fact, why should he not evolve a whole universe out of his individual consciousness ? If, however, the sceptic is so unreasonable as to ask him to prove the truth of any such fact, he will at once transfer the re- sponsibility to the physicist: all that he pretends to do is to show that the law is not a mere fiction of the individual mind, but can be accounted for by the very nature of human intelligence. On the other hand, should the philosophical theory advanced be such as to reduce our knowledge to a mere series of individual feelings, we shall of coui e have to admit that the facts of individual consciousness have no universality or necessity; we shall, in other words, be compelled to say, that there are no facts, in the ordinary sense of the term, but only supposed facts, or, if you will, fictions. It will no longer be safe to say that there is a real connection between objects, but we may at least say that there is for us a connection between what we ordinarily understand by objects. The empirical philosopher, with the fear of Mr. Mill before his eyes, may hesitate to say that two and two are four, but at least he will feel entitled to say that two objects added to other two are for us four. It may be, however, that Mr. Balfour admits all this. In that case the problem of philosophy will be for him, as for Kant, What are the universal principles which are presupposed in the facts of our ordinary and scientific knowledge ? But if so, I must take the strongest exception to Mr. Balfour's way of stating the "premises" of Kant and his followers. The problem being to show how we may justify the knowledge we all believe we possess, by an exhibition of the nature of our intelligence as manifested in actual knowledge, it 8 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ll is manifestly inadequate and misleading to say, that the Transcendcntalist begins by begging the sceptic to admit " that some knowledge, though it may only be of the facts of immediate perception, can be obtained by experience ; that we know and are certain of something — e.//., of a coloured object or a particular taste." The Transcendentalist, unless I am altogether mistaken, would not state the matter in that way at all. Kant at least would not ask anybody to admit that he has just a little knowledge ; much less would he ask him to grant that he has a consciousness of a coloured object or of a particular taste. The difficulty is not at all a quantitative one. Nothing is gained by reducing the facts " postulated" to a minimum, so long as the sceptic is asked to admit a fact at all ; and if he does admit such a fact as the immediate perception of a colour or a taste, why should he refuse to grant the carefully established laws of the special sciences ? Is the evidence for the consciousness of the laws of gravi- tation less cogent than the evidence that a coloured object is perceived ? What the sceptic should object to is not the mere number of facts assumed as true, but that any facts are assumed as true, in the sense of being more than phenomena of the individual consciousness. What I object to, the sceptic would say, is the assump- tion that the particular facts and laws which no doubt exist in our consciousness, are universally and neces- sarily true ; I ask you, therefore, to prove the supposed absoluteness, objectivity or necessity — state it as you please — of these facts and laws. The request is per- fectly reasonable, and the father of Transcendentalism claims that he has in all essential respects resolved the sceptic's doubt. It is in the process by which he en- deavours to prove that there are universal and necessary i'l [chap. I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 9 principles underlying knowledge and making it real or objective, that Kant is led to refer to such simple experiences as the consciousness of a coloured object or of a particular taste ; but he does so, not because he has more faith in such immediate feelings than in the established laws of science, but, on the contrary, because he has no faith in them at all. The argument is indi- rect, and proceeds somewhat in this way : If it is to be maintained that all external concrete objects are without or outside of consciousness, an attempt must be made to account for knowledge from a mere " manifold" or detached series of impressions — as, for example, the impression of a bright colour or a sweet taste ; but from such an attenuated thread of sensation no explanation of the actual facts of our experience can be given. Kant, in other words, argues that we cannot suppose an unrelated feeling to be a constituent of real knowledge. Mr. Balfour completely misses the point of the reasoning, and actually supposes Kant to be begging the sceptic to grant him the fact of a little knowledge, in order that he may go on to extract from it a great deal more. Philosophy presents itself to the mind of Kant with a certain antique largeness and nobility of conception. Psychology, which with us is usually made to bear the whole burden and strain of philosophical thought, he re- gards as a special branch of knowledge, ranking in scien- tific value along with Chemistry and standing below those sciences which, as admitting of mathematical treatment, assume the most precise and the most systematic form.^ Kant's impulse to philosophize arises in the first place from his interest in such purely metaphysical questions as the existence and nature of God, the freedom of the ' Metaphysiache Anfangsgriitide der Xaturwitsenachaft, ed. Hartenstein, 1867, p. 361. 10 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CR/T/CS. [chap. human will, and thu immortality of tho houI. tiiH ultimate aim is, in tho language of Mr. Lowes, to lay tho " foundations of a creed." But he soon discovers that in our common knowledge, and in the mathematical and physical sciences, certain principles are tacitly assumed, which are not less metaphysical than those commonly bearing the name. We are perpetually making use, for example, of the law of causality, and the natural philosopher assumes the truth of such principles as the indestructibility of matter. Thus an examination into the nature of human knowledge is forced upon us, both as a means of determining tlie limits of our real knowledge and of justifying, if that be possible, the universal and necessary principles which are imbedded in ordinary experience and the special sciences. Until we determine the essential conditions of human knowledge, it seems vain to attempt the solution of the more ambitious problem as to the existence of supersensible realities, tlence Kant seeks, by starting from what every one admits, to discover whether or n those purely metaphysical questions are capable of any solution. And it is his special charge against all previous philosophy that, from neglect of this preliminary criticism, it has fallen either into a dogmatism that can give no reason for its existence or into a scepticism that can only be a temporary phase of thought. His aim is thus in one way dogmatic, but his is a dogmatism which comes as the crowning result of a critical investigation of the nature of knowledge, which has enabled us to distinguish demonstrable from indemonstrable or problematic assertions. The Critique of Pure Reason undertakes the preliminary task of determining what are the ultimate constituents of knowledge, and this cannot be done without drawing ' i [chap. I.J CRITIQUE OF PUKE REASON— MR. liALFOUR. 1 1 in outlinu thu sketch of a truo metaphysic, tho details of vvliich, as Kant asserts, can easily be filled in by any one who has firmly apprehended its main features. Hence we are told that " we must have criticism com- pleted as a science before we can think of letting motaphysic appear on the scene."' Metaphysic is thus compelled to undertake a kind of investigation which is not required in other branches of our knowledge. Other sciences may properly occupy themselves with the agreeable task of increasing the sum of knowledge ; uiotaphysic, before it can make a single dogmatic assertion, must first prove its right to exist. Failure to ai)prehend this fact has led in tho past to aimless wandering in tho region of mere conjecture and to tho continual alternation of over -confident dogmatism and shallow scepticism. The first and most important task of philosophy is therefore to prove that there are metaphysical propositions implied in our ordinary knowledge, which can be established upon a secure foundation, and, as it turns out, that the propositions ordinarily known as metaphysical do not, at least by the theoretical reason, admit of either being proved or disproved. Thus the enquiry into the nature of know- ledge proves to be at the same time a discovery of the limits of knowledge. The first problem of critical philosophy — one that is necessarily bound up with the second — is. How can there be any knowledge of real or objective existence ? The question is not, as Mr. Green has pointed out,'' Is there real knowledge ? but. How can there be real knowledge ? It is true that we may accept the first mode of statement if, like Mr. Balfour, we interpret ' Prohjotiiena, Mahaffy's translation, ]». II. - Contemporary Review, xxxi., p. 21). 12 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 11 it to mean, How am I to distinguish real from pre- tended knowledge % but, on Kant's view, this is only another and less definite way of asking how knowledge is possible. For wecan separate re al from apparent knowledge only by pointing out what are the essential conditions of there being any zeal knowledge for us, and this is just another way of asking, How is knowledge at all possible ? By determining what are the condi- tions of real knowledge, we at the same time deter- mine indirectly what is not real knowledge. Now, an enquiry into the nature of knowledge must in some way comprehend all the facts that make up the sum of knowledge, and hence, to find the problem workable at all, we must get these facts into a convenient and port- able shape. But this has in large measure been already done for us. Our common-sense knowledge of the world of nature and the world of mind has been carried up into a higher form in the mathematical and physical sciences on the one hand, and in psychology on the other, and from these we may therefore start as from facts that every one admits. Thus the general and somewhat indefinite question. How is knowledge pos- sible ? breaks up into the two closely connected ques- tions. How is mathematical knowledge possible ? and How is scientific knowledge possible ? We are not here concerned with the special truths of mathematics or physics, or even of psychology, but only with the necessary conditions without which there could be no mathematical or physical or psychological knowledge. The special truths of those sciences we assume to be true : they are the facts from wliich we start, not the conclusions we desire to reach. Our object is to dis- cover, by a consideration of the nature of human intelligence, what are the essential conditions without I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 13 which there could be no sciences of mathematics, physics, and psychology. As to Kant's method of solving this problem, we may say that, like the scientific discoverer, he sought for a hypothesis adequate to account for the facts in their completeness. The only exception which can properly be taken to this way of putting the matter is, that it is not so much a statement of the peculiav method of Kant, as of the method by which all know- ledge is advanced. It is rather a truism than a truth that the discoverer must cast about for some hypothesis that shall harmonize with the facts he is seeking to explain. The merit and characteristic difference of Kant's method lies, not simply in setting up tentatively a hypothesis and testing it by admitted facts, but in the comprehensiveness with which he has stated the problem of philosophy, and in the special solution he proposes. Like all discoverers, he began with certain facts which he sought adequately to explain, and like them he was assisted in making his discovery by observing the failures of his predecessors. This accounts to a great extent for the peculiarities of his mode of statement. All through the Critique, he combines with a statement of his own theory of knowledge a polemic against the theories of others. This union of exposition and criticism makes it peculiarly difficilt to follow the course of his thought. In a sense, iiis method is dialectical ; that is to say, he brings forward certain propositions as if they were precise statements of his own theory, when in reality they are merely stages in the gradual evolution of his thought. Thus he not infrequently speaks of " sensible objects," or ** objects perceived by the senses," as if sense of itself were an independent source of knowledge, instead of being 14 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. MAP. If t merely, in the critical meaning of the term, a logical element in knowledge. So also he speaks of an abstract conception and a category, of an analytical judgment and a synthetical judgment, and of experience in its simple and its philosophical sense, as if each of these terms belonged to the same stage of thought. In truth it must be admitted that Kant was, to some extent at least, the victim of his own mode of statement •. for while he always keeps the ordinary conceptions in regard to knowledge distinct from the purely critical formulation of it, it cannot be said that he has com- pletely harmonized in his own mind the two very different points of view. The distinction, then, between the data from which he starts and the philosophical theory by which he endeavours to account for them, is never absent from Kant's mind. It does not seem to have occurred to him that any one would refuse to admit that mathema- tics, physics and psychology do as a matter of fact contain propositions that are true within their own sphere. Repeatedly he states this assumption in per- fectly definite language. Mr. Balfour himself quotes from the Critique Kant's remark, that, " as pure mathe- matics and pure natural science certainly exist, it may with propriety be asked how they are possible ; for that they must be possible is shown by the fact of their really existing." And many other passages might be cited to the same effect. Thus he remarks in the Prolegomena, that pure mathematics is "a great and well established branch of knowledge," ' and again in speaking of the mistake of supposing mathematical judgments to be analytical, he remarks that had Hume but seen that his onslaught on metaphysics was virtually Troleg. tr. § C, p. 41, 1.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 15 an attack on mathematics as well, " the good company into which metaphysic would thus have been brought would have saved it from the danger of a contemptuous ill-treatment, for the thrust intended for it must have reached mathematics, and this was not, and could not be Hume's intention."^ Kant was mistaken about Hume's intention, a? Mr. Mahaffy and others have noted, but as to his own opinion there can be no pos- sible mistake. But perhaps the clearest passage of all is that in which he says that " pure mathematics and pure science of nature had no occasion for such a deduction, as we have made of both, for their oimi safety and certainty, for the former rests upon its own evidence and the latter upon experience and its thorough con- firmation. Both sciences therefore stood in need of this enquiry, not for themselves, but for the sake of another science, metaphysic."^ Kant therefore invari- ably assumes the truth of the mathematical and physical sciences, and only asks how we are to explain the fact of such knowledge from the nature of knowledge itself. It is true that he qualifies this unlimited statement so far as to admit, that the special sciences are ultimately dependent for their truth upon philosophical criticism, but the qualification applies, not to the special truths which form the body of those sciences, but to the uni- versal principles which they take for granted, and which, strictly speaking, belong to metaphysic. " The possi- bility of mathematics," he says, '* may be conceded, but by no means explained without [philosophical] deduc- tion."^ That is to say, while no one can doubt that mathematical judgments are universal and necessary, this must be an article of faith, until we are shown philosophically the ground of their universality and > Proleg. tr. § 4. p. 29. ^Ibid., § 40, p. 114. «Ibid., § 12, p. 48. 16 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. r, V necessity. But this does not mean that proof is de- manded of the special truths of mathematics, but only that, in accounting for knowledge, we must find out the secret of their universal character. The problem of the Ciitique is, therefore, the purely metaphysical one as to the objective validity of the knowledge we possess, not the scientific problem as to the evidence of the truth of special laws. No doubt Kant would have admitted that a failure to account for the possibility of real knowledge must throw doubt on the absolute truth of the conclusions of mathematics and physics, since these sciences cannot get along without making use of princi- ples which they do not seek to prove. But Kant's attitude towards the scepticism of Hume, and his unwavering faith in the truth of the sciences, shows us that his conclusion in that case would be, not that science has no truth, but that the metaphysical theory propounded is marred by some inherent flaw. The extreme scepticism which Mr. Balfour's language sug- gests, would have seemed to him a voluntary creation of self-tormenting difficulties. The truth of mathemati- cal propositions as such was in his view necessarily mathematical, and of physical propositions physical, and it would have appeared to him mere folly to ask philosophy to prove what no one denies. It is surely enough, he would have said; if I show that my system is consistent, and alone consistent, with the undoubted truths of mathematics and physics. In developing his proof, as has been said, Kant was warned by the utter failure of previous dogmatic systems — a failure which he regards Hume as having proved beyond dispute, so far at least as the principle of causality is concerned — that the mode of explanation must follow a completely new track. The inherent 1.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 17 vice of those systems betrays itself in the double defect (1) that they assume knowable objects to exist, in the fulness of their attributes and in their relation to each other, quite independently of our intelligence, and (2) that, as a consequence, they cuppose that we can, by mere introspection or analysis, obtain judgments which hold good of things in themselves, and which therefore are true not merely subjectively or for us as individuals, but objectively or universally and necessarily. This twofold assumption is a <3haracteristic mark of dogma- tism. In the statement of his own theory Kant starts provisionally from the dualism of knowledge and reality and seeks to develop a true theory by a gradual trans- formation of the false theory. Adopting the objectioi: made by Hume against the ordinary proof of causality, and expressing it, to borrow the language of mathema- ticians, in its utmost generality, he points out that the principle upon which it goes cannot possibly account for the fact of real knowledge. (1) If known objects, as the dogmatist assumes, are without consciousness, and yet are known as they exist, we must, to account for that knowledge, say that we go to them and appre- hend them one by one, and also observe that they are permanent, that they undergo changes, and that they act and react on each other. Our knowledge of concrete things and of their succession and co-existence is thus resolved into a series of particular perceptions. Philo- sophically, therefore, the dogmatist tries to account for our knowledge of real objects by saying that objects are revealed to us in the individual apprehensions or perceptions which come to us from without. Now, if in the meantime we grant that things exist without consciousness just as they are known, it is plain, that so far as our actual knowledge goes, and so far, there- B 1 1« KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. fore, as the dogmatist is entitled to affirm, knowledge will resolve itself into a succession of feelings or ideas in consciousness. But the most that we can philosophi- cally base upon a series of feelings or ideas is a knowledge of particular oujects, particular series of events, and particular co-existencies. This was what Ilunie pointed out, so far as the sequence or causal connection of events is concerned. I observe flame to be attended with the feeling of heat, and finding this particular sequence repeated frequently in my con- sciousness, I infer that flame is actually connected with heat, and that the one cannot exist without the other. The inference, however, is unwarranted. All that I can legitimately say is, that in my past experience as remembered, and in this particular experience I am now having, flame and heat occur successively. Indi- vidual perceptions of such sequences I have, but the inference based upon them, that these could not be otherwise, arises merely frcm the nature of my imagination, which illegitimately leaps beyond the immediate perception and converts it into a universal rule. On perception, as we may say, generalizing Hume, no judgment in regard to the existence of real objects, or of their connection or co-existence, can pro- perly be founded. The affirmation of the reality of the objects, or of the relations of objects, is something that we add to perception, not something actually given in perception. (2) This leads us to ask whether we are more successful when we attempt to prove the per- manence, the causal connection, or the interaction of objects, from conceptions instead of perceptions. Now, conceptions are for the dogmatist simply ideas in the mind, which are completely separated from things without the mind. The conceptions of the permanence. ':. [chap. I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 19 the changes and the mutual influence of substances, are separated by an impassable gulf from the substances themselves. 1l is thus perfectly evident that we cannot legitimately pass over from the conception of a substance to the substance itself. Completely shut up within our own minds, we shall vainly endeavour to break through the walls of our prison. We can certainly frame judgments in regard to the ideas wliicli exist in our minds, but we cannot show them to have any application to real objects or events. Thus, having the conception of substance, we may throw it into the form of the judgment, "Substance is that which is permanent." 8uch a judgment is no doubt correct so far as our conception is concerned, and is even neces- sarily true in the sense that it is free from self- contradiction or conforms to the logical principle of identity, but it has no demonstrable relation to the real substance we suppose to exist without consciousness. All that we have done is to draw out or state explicitly what was contained in the conception with which we started, and however necessary and valuable this pro- cess may be in making our conception clear, it is value- less as a means of proving the reality of an object supposed to correspond to it. The mere analysis of the conception of substance no more shows that there are real substances in rerum natura than the analysis of the conception of a hundred dollars entitles me to say that I have a hundred dollars in my pocket. Now, dogmatism never gets beyond purely analytical or tautological judg- ments of this kind ; the account it gives of the nature of knowledge is such that we cannot understand from it how it is possible to have the experience of real objects or of their connection at all. We may, therefore, summarise Kant's criticism of previous philosophy as I 20 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. follows : — Knowledge of real objects existing beyond the mind, and of their connection and interaction, must be obtained cither from perception or from conception ; but perception cannot take us beyond the consciousness of a particular object as now and here, and conception tells us nothing at all about objects ; hence dogmatism cannot explain the possibility of knowledge at all. So far Kant has closely followed in the wake of Hume, at least as he understood him ; the main differ- ence being, that whereas Hume shows the imperf*" .*on of dogmatism only in regard to the principle of caus- ality, Kant universalizes the criticism and throws it into the comprehensive form : real knowledge cannot be accounted for from mere perceptions or from mere conceptions. It is in fact the great merit of Hume in Kant's eyes, that he shows with such clearness wherein the weakness of dogmatism consists. All a priori judgments, i. e. judgments derived from con- ceptions, seem to be merely analytical, and therefore, however accurately I may analyse the conception of cause, T can never get beyond the conception itself. Hence, as Hume argues, the supposition that the conception of causal connection proves a real connection of objects is a pure assumption. The moment I am asked to explain how I get the knowledge of objects, I must refer to my perceptions, and no perception can entitle me to mnke universal and necessary affirmations. Expressed in the language of Kant, Hume's difficulty is this : How can the conception of cause be thought by the reason a priori, and therefore possess an inner truth independent of all experience ? * And this ques- ' This mode of statement is provisional, and suggests that very abstract opposi- tion of thought and reality which it is the main aim of Kant to overthrow. The required correction ia given afterwards, more particularly in the Analytic. Seo below, Chap. iii. [chap. I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 21 beyond )n, must ception ; iousness iception ^matism ill. wake of n difier- irf'- .*on of 3aus- irows it I cannot m mere Hume learness s. All >m con- erefore, )tion of itself, lat the nection I am jects, I on can lations. fficulty bought inner 3 ques- ct opposi- rerthrow. Analytic. tion, when put universally, assumes the form, How are synthetical judgments a priori possible 1 Hume indeed does not content himself with pointing out the purely subjective character of the notion of causality, but endeavours to explain how we come to suppose a necessity where none exists ; and in this Kant refuses to follow him. A series of perceptions can never yield necessity, for, however frequently one given perception follows another, we cannot thence conclude that the one must follow the other. Our belief in the connec- tion of perceptions is therefore explained by the psy- chological law of frequency or repetition : we naturally suppose that what is often associated is really connected, and thus by the influence of custom we confuse an arbitrary association of our ideas with a real connec- tion of objects. Accepting Hume's criticism of dog- matism, and rejecting his psychological account of the principle of causality, Kant endeavours to show that we can have a synthetical a priori judgment of causality, as well as other judgments of the same kind which Hume altogether overlooked. We can now see why Kant states the problem of philosophy as he does, and what is the general method he is likely to follow in attempting to answer the question. How are synthetical judgments a prion possible ? As the failure of dogmatism evidently arises from the assumption, which no one prior to Kant had questioned, that objects and events exist beyond con- sciousness as they are known, it was only natural to ask whether this assumption may not be a mistake. The general answer therefore given by Kant to the problem he has himself propounded, is that known objects instead of being passively apprehended, are actively constructed by intelligence as operating on the W ^1 m 22 A'AN2' AND JJIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. iimtoiial supplied by the special senses. The existence of things in themselves is not indeed positively denied, but such things are shown to be absolutely distinct from the objects we actually know. The theory that intelligence constitutes known objects instead of pas- sively apprehending them, is held to be the only theory that explains the facts as a whole. In the development of his proof of this theory we find Kant continually seeking to intensify the persuasiveness of his own solution, by showing the inherent imperfection of the dogmatic conceptions previously accepted as conclu- sive. His method of proof thus takes, in many cases, an indirect form. All through the first part of the Cntujue, we find him asserting that unless we admit the activity of intelligence in the constitution of know- ledge, we are reduced to a " mere play of representa- tions," or, what is at bottom the same thing, we are compel.'cd to attempt the impossible feat of extracting reality from subjective conceptions. These two things always go together in Kant's mind : the impossibility of justifying universal and necessary judgments from a mere manifold of sense, i. e. from an arbitrary succes- sion of feelings, and the impossibility of accounting for knowledge on the supposition that known objects are things in themselves independent of our '.ntelligence. When he proposes to show why mathematical judg- ments are apodictic and yet refer to individual objects, Kant points out, on the one hand, that such judgments cannot be obtained by an analysis of conceptions, and on the other hand, that their demonstrative character is unintelligible if we suppose the objects of mathe- matics to be known by particular observations of sense or by empirical measurements. In proving the prin^ ciple that the knowledge of permanent substances is [chap. xistence denied, distinct )ry that of pas- 18 only In the d Kant 3sof his jtion of conclu- y cases, of the 3 admit r know- •esenta- we are racting things sibihty from a succes- ing for cts are igence. judg- bjects, rments LS, and iracter nathe- sense prin-^ ices is I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 23 one of the conditions of a real knowledge of objects in space, he shows, that apart from the schema of the " permanent," we can have only a number of unrelated feelings, which by no possibility can be identified with real substances ; and in confirmation of this criticism he remarks, that the ordinary derivation of permanent things from the conception of substance assumes that an analytical or tautological judgment is capable of bridging the gulf between mere conceptions in the mind and things in themselves. So, in his proof of causality, he seeks to show that our knowledge of a real sequence of events can bo accounted for, neither from an arbitrary train of feelings, coming one after the other without determinate order or connection, nor from the mere conception of cause as we find it lying ready-made in our minds, for in the former case we should not be entitled to say that there are real sequences, but only that there are sequences of our perceptions, and in the latter case we should have no criterion by which to distinguish the conception of cause from an arbitrary creation of the imagination. Again, the existence of a primary self-consciousness he establishes, botti on the ground that a succession of states of consciousness, not bound together by a single identical self, will not account for the systematic coherence and unity of our actual experience, and on the ground that the mere fact that we always think of the self as one does not prove the self to be one in its own nature. Lastly, in the Refutation of Idealism this indirect method of proof assumes an open and explicit form; the argument being, that the " psychological idealist " can never show that the mere sequence of ideas in the individual mind could give us the knowledge of real substances as per- manent ; but that, on the contrary, we could never have I 'i i 94 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. experience of the self as in time, had wo no knowledge of real objects in space. It should be observed, however, that this polemic against dogmatism might bo elimin- ated from Kant's proof without really destroying its intrinsic force. The transcendental proof has assumed this form chiefly from histoi'ical causes, and Kant, in stating it as he does, only intends to commend to the lips of the dogmatist tho ingredients of his own poisoned chalice. The conclusiveness of the theory does not lie in its indirect mode of proof, but in the completeness witli which it accounts for tho facts of experience as a whole. Kant might have stated his proof alto- gether in the affirmative form that known objects must exist in relation to intelligence ; and, having done so, the details of the system would have consisted entirely of a presentation of the essential elements of knowledge in their relation to each other. The " manifold of sense " or " flux of sensations," is not, as Mr. Balfour seems to suppose, a ghost of Kant's raising, but the unlaid ghost of dogmatism itself. Transcendentalism " convinces by threats," only in so far as, like every other system of philosophy, it must tcake some account of accepted systems that differ from it. If the above is at all a correct account of Kant's problem and method, the objectior i of Mr. Balfour have been virtually disposed of beforehand. Those objections seem to me to be rather the difficulties which naturally occur to one who has not seen into the heart of a system, but still looks at it from the outside, than the sympathetic and luminous criticism of one who, by the very act of mastering and thoroughly assimilating the thought of another, is already, as Fichte remarks, to some extent beyond it. This judgment can only be completely justified by an examination of Mr. Balfour's [chap. I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 20 objections to the proofs of Substance and Causality, and to tho Refutation of Idealism ; but even without a special consideration of these we may see that his criticism is destitute of that sureness and lightness of touch which can only come from close familiarity with the subject. What the Trf.nscendental philosophy is called upon to prove is, we ore told, that the principles it asserts to be true are " involved in those simple experiences which everybody must allow to be valid."* Now, in the first place, there is no need, as has already been indicated, to lay special stress on simple rather than on complex experiences. When Kant is speaking of experiences as data he has to explain, ho places scientific truths on the same level as common-sense knowledge, and with the whole body of experience, as thus understood, he con- trasts purely philosophical knowledge as a higher way of dealing with the very same facts. In speaking of the distinction between mathematical and philosophical knowledge, he remarks that the essential difference between them lies in the fact that the former sees the particular in tho universal, and the latter the universal in the particular ; and that those thinkers who propose to distinguish philosophy from mathematics on the ground that the former deals with quality, and the latter with quantity, have confused a difference in the objects of those sciences with the true difference, which consists entirely in the point of view from which the objects are regarded.^ In the second place, Mr. Balfour, unless I misunderstand him, entirely misrepresents the Critical method when he speaks of certain principles — by which he means, as I suppose, such principles as the permanence of sub- II til ■'i ^Mind, xii, p. 483. 3 KrUik, MethodenUhrc, p. 478. 26 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. stances, the causal connection of events, and the like — as " involved in " our simple experiences. We may indeed say that the principle, say of causality, is " involved in " our experience, in the sense that an analysis of our ordinary beliefs will show that as a matter of fact we do suppose events to be really connected together. Every one is "natural philoso- pher " enough to know " that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn ; that good pasture makes fat sheep ; and that a great cause of night is lack of the sun." Mr. Balfour's words may therefore mean, that, while every one has the belief that there is a real con- nection between certain known objects, it is only by a process of abstraction that we learn to throw this belief into the general form of a principle, and to affirm, not that fire is the cause of heat, and rain the cause of wet- ness, but that every event has a cause. I am loth to suppose that Mr. Balfour is under the impression, that the Transcendentalist has no other means of establish- ing his principles than simply taking our ordinary beliefs, abstracting from the concrete or individual element in them, and straightway baptizing the residuum by the name of a " principle." For this is just what Kant means by dogmatism, consisting as it does in the mere explicit statement of what is wrapped up in our ordinary conceptions. By such a process, as he points out, we can only frame analytical juds^^ments that do not take us a single step beyond the assumptions with which we begin. And yet it is difficult to resist the conviction that Mr. Balfour has fallen into this mistake, when we find him saying that the principles of the Critical philosophy are the " casual necessities of our reflective moments," which are supposed to be established by showing that they have "always been J may IS I.] CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON— MR. BALFOUR. 27 thought implicitly ; " and that " to argue from these necessities [the principles] to the truth of things is to repeat the old fallacy about innate ideas in another form."' What these utterances mean, except that Kant and his followers endeavour to prove the truth of their principles by an analysis of our ordinary beliefs and conceptions, I am unable to understand. Kant's doctrine can only be assimilated to "the old fallacy about innate ideas " on the supposition that it assumes certain conceptions as true, and proceeds to " deduce," or set forth in abstract language, what is implied in them. But this is exactly what Kant does not do. If he has one merit more than another, it is, that he has disposed for ever of the supposition that knowledge may be justified by merely analysing the beliefs we happen to possess. Instead of admitting the absolute separation of thought and reality, an assumption under- lying and vitiating the whole procedure of dogmatism, he maintains that reality is meaningless apart from its relations to thought. Mr. Balfour'« mode of state- ment can be regarded as a correct formulation of the method of Transcendentalism, only if we suppose him to mean that the facts and laws of our whole experience imply or presuppose certain principles belonging to the constitution of our intelligence ; and when it is under- stood in this way, his objection loses any force it seemed at first to possess. But let us consider Mr. Balfour's criticism more in detail. Let us suppose the Transcendentalist to be asked by the sceptic, how he proves the absolute truth of such a principle as that of causality. The reply, according to Mr. Balfour, will consist in b'^gging the sceptic to admit ''Mind, xii., p. 489. Cf., p. 484. On this point, see Mr. Caird's remarks, Mind, xiii., 111-114. mi ■ma I' mi fl;' I 11 i Ifi 28 KAJSIT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ,. \ that we " get some knowledge small or great by ex- perience ;" and having obtained this very moderate concession, he will proceed to show, that his transcen- dental necessities or principles are involved in it. To take a concrete instance, the sceptic may be asked whether he admits that we have an experience of change, and if he assents, the Transcendentalist will attempt to show that experience " is not possible unless we assume unchanging substance." Or again, the sceptic, enticed into the admission that we have an experience of real events, will be straightway forced to admit that such an experience is possible only if we virtually think of those events as under the law of causation. The essence, then, of the Transcendental method consists in showing, or attempting to show, that in questioning the truth of such principles as substanti- ality and causality, the sceptic contradicts himself, since he grants the reality of certain experiences and yet " makes an illegitimate abstraction from the relations which constitute an object." He has, therefore, either to rescind his admission of the reality of the object, or to admit that a certain principle is involved in his knowledge of it. " He cannot, in all cases at least, do the first ; he is bound therefore to do the second." ^ I acquit Mr. Balfour entirely of any intentional mis- representation of the Critical method ; but the fact is not the less certain, that he has given, not a fair state- ment, but a travesty of it. I see nothing in his way of stating the case, to distinguish criticism from dogmatism. Mr. Balfour's criticism of the Refutation of Idealism seems to show that he has not carried his scepticism so far a» to doubt the correctness of the ordinary dualism •J/i f c 34 I \ CHAPTER II. THE A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. — MR. SIDGWICK's VIEW OF THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM. TXT'E have seen what the problem of philosophy is, the general method by which it is to be solved, and the direction in which the answer must lie. Unless it can be shown that there are synthetical judgments a priori, no consistent and adequate theory of know- ledge is possible. Now, of all the knowledge which we possess independently of philosophical criticism, none is so sure and free from doubt as that which is embod- ied in the mathematical sciences. The judgments of mathematics are self-evident, universal, and necessary, and they are a priori or independent of all observation of sensuous things. In building up his science the mathematician does not need to verify his conclusions by the perceptions of the senses ; in fact, such percep- tions are for him useless, since they never could give rise to apodictic certainty. No actual measurement of the sides of a triangular object could entitle us to affirm that the two sides of all possible triangles are necessarily greater than the third side. And not only are mathe- matical judgments a iiriori, but they are at the same time synthetical. The ideal objects on which the mathematician operates are always individual, and are II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 35 therefore given in pure perception. Hence mathematical judgments are unlike those of any other science : they rest upon perceptions, and yet they are independent of sensible observation. This is the reason why mathe- matics deals only with quantity to the exclusion of quality ; for only quantity can be constructed or pre- sented a prion in immediate perception. Mathematics is therefore distinguished from other sciences, not by the objects with which it deals, but by the way in which it looks at those objects. For pure perception is at once individual and universal. This is manifest when we consider that the science of mathematics is built up by means of definitions, ^ms, and demon- strations. A definition, in the strictest sense, must be a precise, complete, and primary representation of an ob- ject, and such a definition mathematics alone can give. The object to be defined is directly originated or con- structed, and hence the definition is immediately verified in a pure perception. Axioms, also, are based upon the immediate perception of individual objects, which, as constructed, are universally and necessarily true. And, lastly, mathematical demonstrations are alone self-evident, because they alone are capable of direct verification.^ The judgments of mathematics, Ihen, have these two characteristic marks: (1) They rest upon individual perception, and (2) they are a priori or in- dependent of sensible perception. Now a proper appre- ciation of the nature of mathematics gives us the key to the solution of the special problem of metaphysics. For th' t problem is, as we have seen, to expkin how con- ceptions and perceptions can be brought together in the unity of real knowledge ; in other words, how the mind can be shown to be in actual contact with known 1 Kritlk, Methodenkhre, 478-90. t n H' Ml I ! ! 86 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. i objects. Hume, accepting the ordinary dualism of thought and things, made a divorce between conception and perception. Hence he summarily rejected all universal and necessary judgments, and admitted only particular judgments resting upon an immediate per- ception of concrete objects ; at least, this is the logical consequence of an extension of Hume's criticism of causality to such conceptions as substance and reci- procal actijn. From a mere conception, as he main- tained, no synthetical judgment applicable to real objects, and therefore true universally and necessarily, can be derived. But Hume, while he reasoned correctly on the basis of ordinary dualism, overlooked a conse- quence of it which would certainly have led him to a dif- ferent conclusion had he only taken note of it. If there are no synthetical a pnon judgments, what becomes of the judgments of mathematics, which every one admits to be universal and necessary ? Either those judgments must rest on sensible observation, or they must be derived from mere conceptions ; and while, in the one case, they can have no universality, in the other case they can only be regarded as mere analyses of the conceptions we find in our minds. As a matter of fact, however, mathematical judgments are at once a priori, and yet rest upon individual perceptions. Now, this casts doubt upon the assumption of Hume, that all a priori judgments are necessarily analytical. If mathematics is entitled to form a prion synthetical judgments, we need not despair of showing that there are a priori synthetical judgments of a metaphysical kind. Hume would not have allowed himself to con- demn all metaphj'sical judgments as subjective had he not shared in the common fallacy, that mathematical judgments are analytical. And when we see that 11.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 37 these judgments arc synthetical, and yet a 'priori, the ))roblem of* nietaphysic no longer seems to be on the very face of it insoluble. In mathematics, then, we have instances of a yyriori judgments which yet arc synthetical; but, while mathe- matical judgments are true universally and necessarily, we find, upon looking more closely at them, that they differ from such metaphysical principles as those of substance and cause in one very important point. To entitle us to afhrm that " every event must have a cause," we must be able to show that this judgment is legitimately derived, not from a perception of individual sequences, but from the conception of cause in gene- ral. No mere sequence of perceptions, however often repeated, can entitle us to say that there is an actual connection between real objects. The causal connection of events nmst therefore be proved, if it is capable of proof at all, entirely from the conception of cause. A mathematical judgment, on the other hand, is verifiable in an individual perception constructed by the mind a priori. Thus mathematics, after all, does not seem to help us so much as it at first promised to do, in explaining the possibility of purely metaphysical judgments. There is no great difficulty in showing how mathematical judgments can be synthetical. We have simply to say, that we go directly to perception, although, of course, not to empirical perception or ob- servation, and form our judgments in accordance with the object perceived. To explain philosophically the pos- sibility of mathematical knowledge, it is, however, neces- sary to show, from the nature of our intelligence, hoiu we can have the synthetical judgments of mathematics. And this we seem to do when we say that such judg- ments are derived, not from conceptions, but from mm 'Ih l.\ 38 KANT AND HJS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. j)«)rceptiona. But thus we escape one difKculty only to fall into another not less perplexing. The "synthetical" of a mathematical judgment wo explain simply and satis- factorily by saying that we go to our perceptions and obtain the object on which the judgment rests, but how shall we explain the " a priori 1 " For we have always been accustomed to regard perception as giving us only the individual, not the universal and necessary. A perception certainly implies the immediate presence of the object perceived, and if in mathematics we are dependent upon the actual presence of the object in regard to which we form a judgment, by what right shall we affirm that the object always and necessarily is of a certain nature 1 There is no difficulty in under- standing how we can say that this individual triangle now before us has its interior angles equal to two right angles, but what entitles us to say universally and necessarily that all triangles must have their interior angles equal to two right angles ? The mathematician of course does not require to answer this question, because he is not dealing with the ultimate conditions of knowledge ; but philosophy, having undertaken to explain the possibility of all kinds of knowledge, cannot evade the responsibility of accounting for the univer- sality and necessity of mathematical judgments, as well as for their synthetical character. Now, it is perfectly vain to suppose that this question can be answered on the lines of the dogmatic philosophy hitherto in vogue, according to which judgments and perceptions, thoughts and things, are separated by an impassable gulf. If the objects of mathematics are, as the dogmatist supposes, real existencies, constituted independently of our intelligence, no justification of the universality and necessity of mathematical judgments 11.] A VRIORI COM)ITJONS OF riiRCEPTION. 39 Clin jMjHHibly ])o given. For, in tlio first place, if nuitho- niiiticH deals with leal objects or things in thoniselves existing apart from our consciousness of them, it is evident that, whether such objects exist or no, at least thoy cannot bo known by us as they are in themselves. It is self-evident that the properties of real things can- n(jt at the same time be perceptions in us. But, in the second place, even if we waive this objection, we cannot ex[)lain how the mere succession in which real objects are revealed to us can form the basis of universal and necessary judgments. If the object perceived has a nature of its own, quite apart from any relations to our faculty of perception, wo are necessarily dependent upon the actual perception of the moment for any knowledge of it we may possess. What the object may be when it is not perceived we are utterly unable to say. The only judgments we CJiri form nmst therefore be par- ticular. We may say, This object now perceived is of a certain nature ; but we cannot say. This and all objects of which this is a type must always be of a cer- tain nature. The universality and necessity of mathe- matical judgments must therefore be explained in a very different way from that relied upon by the dog- matist. The first step towards a true theory must consist in denying that the objects of mathematics are either, as Clarke supposed, things in them- selves, or relations of things in themselves, as was held by Leibnitz. The justification of the apodictic character of mathematics we must seek, not in the nature of things lying beyond consciousness, but in the constitution of our intelligence itself. We have to explain how there can be perceptions which yet are a priori, and the explanation, it is manifest, must be of such a character as to revolutionize our t i, /•I 40 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. Lciiap. ordinary conception of the relation of thought to its objects. Now mathematics, as we can at once see, deals with perceptions which are determinations or limitations of space and time. " Geometry is based upon the pure perception of space, mathematics obtains its conception of number by the successive addition of units in time, and pure mechanics at least cannot reach its conception of motion without making use of the idea of time." ^ Philosophy, however, does not concern itself with these specific determinations of space and time, but only with space and time themselves. Can we then, from a consideration of space and time as related to our faculty of perception, account for the universality and necessity, or what is the same thing, the a 'priori character of mathematical judgments? The deter- minations of space and time which are the objet ts of mathematics, cannot, as we have seen, be empirically observed things in themselves, or definite proper- ties of such things, nor can they be mere abstract conceptions, obtained by the grouping of the observed properties common to many concrete objects. " There is therefore only one way in which my perception may anticipate the reality of the object, and yet be a pnori, viz., when perception contains nothing but the form of sensibility, which precedes all the real impressions through which I am affected by objects." ^ Space and time, therefore, Kant regards as pure forms of percep- tion, by which he means, that thej' are logically prior to the impressions of the special senses, and that as belonging to the constitution of our perceptive faculty, they are in themselves mere capacities or potentialities, which come into operation only in relation to those > Prolegomena, tr., § 10, p. 45. * Ibiil, § {>, p. 44. II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION 41 »»i impressions. We can now see generally what is the critical solution of the problem, How are mathematical judgments possible 1 They are possible, Kant answers, because they rjst upon determinations of space and time, of which, as belonging to the very nature of our intelligence on its perceptive side, we cannot possibly divest ourselves. To determine space and time as the mathematician does, without bringing into play these forms of perception, would be to perceive without employing the faculty of perception. The universality and necessity of mathematical judgments is therefore quite compatible with the fact that they are syn- tlietical ; as specifications of the forms of perception they are a priori, and as sjyecijications of those forms they are synthetical.^ This general statement of the answer to the question, How is pure mathematics possible ? will enable us to understand without much difficulty the various points in the Esthetic. In this division of the Critique, Kant, as he tells us, "isolates the sensibility ; " in other words, he does not enquire into the constitution or connection of real concrete objects, but contents himself with pointing out the relation of space and time to our intelligence. The discussion, therefore, is so far of a provisional and incomplete character, certain assump- tion.« being made, which are afterwards shown to require more or less of correction. (I) Kant does not in the first instance question the ordinary view, that individual objects as existing in space and time aie known as individual by the special senses : he merely > Up to this point I have, in this chapter, mainly followed the discussion in the Prolegomftia, and especially §g ()-12. I may here make the general remark, that my interpretation is based throughout on a comparison of the Krltlk itself, witii the other writings of Kant, and particularly the Proleijomfuu, the Ahta- ifiytinclie Au/ani '. \ \l I 5 , ft '■ 46 JCANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. supposes them, and because they are not variable but constant ; and they are perceptions, inasmuch as they neither denote separate individuals, nor connote a defi- nite number of attributes belonging to separate indi- viduals, but are themselves determinate individuals.^ By the application of his peculiar method of seeking to account for the actual knowledge we admittedly possess, Kant has begun that transformation of ordi- nary conceptions as to the nature of known existence which is the result of every earnest effort to apprehend the relations of thought and reality. His way of presenting his thought, as was natural, consists in exposing on the one hand the -vice of ordinary Dualism, and on the other hand in substitutinof for it his own view, that our intelligence has as perceptive an essential part to play in the formation of the objects in regard to which mathematical judgments are formed. So far he has dealt only with the pure perceptions of mathe- matics, leaving the question as to the nature of concrete objects, external and internal, for subsequent considera- tion. Without at present going into the solution of the question, How is the science of nature in the widest sense of that term possible ? we can see that the ordi- nary dualism of thought and things is no longer tenable. If space and time are forms of our perception, it is absurd any longer to speak of known external objects as existing without consciousness. Such a supposition compels us to adopt the self-contradictory view that wo have a series of feelings representative of the properties of real things, which are yet not merely successive but ' For the reasons given tahove (pp. 40-42) the metaphysical exposition re- (juircs some correction even to express Kant's own final view. Cf. Caird's Philosophy of Kant, pp. 264 fF. The transcendental exposition need not be given, as it simply repeats what has already been explained. See especially pp. .19, 40. II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 47 3fi- also co-existent or permanent in time, and that we have a knowledge of objects which by definition are beyond consciousness altogether and yet are identi^^'^l with the objects which we perceive. Such a superfluous doubling of external realitie must be the result of a false theory of knowledge. Kant's own theory seems to himself to have all the simplicity of a true hypo- tliesis, and to have the merit of explaining adequately the necessity and universality of mathematical judg- ments. Instead of a double series of objects, aii object in space and an object in consciousness, and a double faculty of perception, having before it at once states of consciousness and properties of things, we have merely objects in space in essential relation to our perception of them. Kant's charge against dogmatism, or as he calls it in the present reference, psychological Idealism, is that it confuses externality in space with externality to thought. Ileal things are certainly external in the sense of being arranged in relation to each other in space, and our perceptions are internal in so far as they are arranged as successive events in time ; but objects are not external because they are without intelligence, nor are perceptions internal because they alone arc within intelligence. External and internal liave mean- ing only for a being who is conscious of both alike. I call a thing external either because I perceive it to stand apart in space from another thing, or to be distinct from my perceptions as they occur successively in time ; and in both cases I am speaking of externality in the sense of position in space, not in the sense of independence on consciousness. I say my perceptions are internal, on the other hand, because they are not made up of parts that stand out of each other, and because two perceptions do not stand apart from each m V 'I'] m >(i I I I I ^1 48 KANT AND BIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. < r 1 3 If other like two objects in space; in other words, my per- ceptions are internal because they are not in space but only in time. But although I distinguish in conscious- ness objects as external from perceptions as internal, the objects and the perceptions alike exist only for me as a conscious being. What Kant proves, then, is that space and time exist only iti relation to intel- ligence, or in other words, that the opposition of external objects to internal penieptions is a logical distinction within consciousness, not a real separation of consciousness from something without it. And this involves the transformation of the ordinary concep- tion of the self as known. According to the psycho- logical idealist, we are immediately conscious by internal observation or introspection of self as a real subject of knowledge. Hence the self is supposed to be real apart from our knowledge of it. But if the self as it exists is independent of our knowledge of it, what relation does it bear to the self as known ? It can only be revealed to us in the series of our own mental states, and such states as in time imply the determina- tion of the form of time by the faculty of perception. Thus we imve, according to the dogmatist, a self that is given as successive in time and is yet independent of time. Here therefore we get into a difficulty similar to that which we have found to beset the dogmatic theory of our knowledge of external objects. The real self and the self as known fall apart and can by no legitimate process be brought into connection with each other. On Kant's theory, on the other hand, the self is known in the series of its determinations in time, and hence the real and the known self come toQfether in the unity of knowledge. Kant does not indeed deny that there is a noumenal self distinct from the self as II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 49 known ; but he maintains that of such a self nothing whatever can be said, whereas the phenomenal self as within consciousness admits of the fullest knowledge. In illustration of what lias just been said, it nay be well to refer here to Kant's refutation of the charge of Idealism. Mr. Balfour^ maintains that in the Critique Kant confuses the existence of external objects in space with the existence of objects external to the mind, and instead of proving the latter, as he supposes he is doing, only proves the former. This criticism is endorsed by Mr. Sidgwick, who adds in support of it, that a com- parison of the pertinent passages in the Critique and Prolegomena respectively, shows that Kant must have allowed the two meanings of externality to run into one in his mind, since the same or similar Wvirds are used in totally different senses. In the Prolegomena he rejects Idealism on the ground that we are conscious of ourselves in relation to nouraenal things : in the Refutation of Idealism on the ground that we are conscious of ourselves only in relation to phenomenal things. Now " it is more than strange, it is simply incredible, that Kant should in the two replies have used the same cardinal terms in different senses, with a perfect consciousness of their equivocality, and yet without giving a hint of it to the reader." ^ I do not think that the charge of confusion as pre- ferred against Kant by Mr. Balfour and Mr. Sidgwick can be substantiated. Kant, as I understand him, had only one argument against Idealism. The relative passages in the Prolegomena and Critique respectively only differ in so far as the former explicitly refers to m < %A • Mind, xii. 498. ^ Mind, xvii. 113. Compare with what is said below Mr. Caicd's retnarks, Mind, jcvi. 557 ff, xvii. 115. 00 KAN7' AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [C lAP. thinirs in themselves, while the latter allows the reader mentally to supply the reference. Nor do I think that there is such an extraordinary similarity of language, combined with an absolute difference of meaning, as Mr. Sidgwick seems to suppose. Let us first look at the passage in the Pvo^ccjomena} Kant's object here is to repel the charge of Idealism, which had been brought against him by certain critics who had mis- understood the proper bearing of his theory of spact; and time on our conception of the external world. Ho begins by saying that " whatever is given us as object must be given in percei^tion." The first meaning we naturally attach to this saying is, that objects in their determinate properties exist independently of conscious- ness, and that the individual coming to those objects app' ..iiends them thrc ^h his senses and receives them into coiiisciousness. Kant, however, whose aim here is to convince those who accept this dualistic view of their mistake, and at the same time to show that his own tlieory preserves, and alone preserves, the reality of ex- ternal objects, insinuates into the popular language em- ployed a new meaning. Fidly expressed, the remark quoted amounts to thia, that whatever we may say of the relation of the external world to consciousness this at least must be admitted, that external or sensible objects are external not to thought but to perception. That Kant here makes use of dualistic language only provisionally is plain from the fact that he imme- diately adds, that " the senses never and in no manner enable us to know things in themselves, but only their phenomena, which are mcve representations of the sensibility." The dualist, in other words, admits that external objects are revealed to us by sense, and '§13. Remark ii. M.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 51 therefore he must further admit that thos 3 objects as known are not things in themselves, but o: ly things as relative to our consciousness. The properties of things, as Kant has said before, " cannot migrate into our faculty of representation," ' and hence, unless per- ceived objects were formed by the application of space and time to impressions of sense, external things could not be shown to be more than projections of our imag- ination. " Hence we conclude," says Kant, " that all bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered as being merely representations in us, which exist nowhere but in our thoughts." That is to say, the ordinary view that determinate things are independent of our consciousness, turns out to be a mistake, when we refuse to accept any theory of per- ception but that which is consistent with the real knowledge of determinate *things. Perceived objects are therefore not things in themselves, independent of our perceptive consciousness of them, but objects con- structed out of impressions of sense as brought under the forms of our perception. They are therefore " representations," not in the sense that they are mere ideas of objects existing beyond consciousness, but in the sense that they are objects within consciousness, and yet real because formed by the necessary constitu- tion of our perceptive facult3^ Those who are still unable to rid themselves of the preconception that determinate things exist beyond consciousness or inde- pendently of our faculty of perception will of course say that this is manifest Idealism. Kant's reply is, that whether we call his view Idealism or no, at least it must be carefully distinguished from what ho else- where 2 calls " psychological Idealism." i ' 'f* i • Proleijomena, tr. , § 9, p. 43. ^Kritik, p. 29, note. t; I • I 1 1 03 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. " Idealism," says Kant, " consists in the assertion that there are none but thinking beings, all other things which we suppose to be observed by perception being nothing but representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them really corresponds." The psychological Idealist, in other words, reduces external objects to a mere series of feelings in con- sciousness. " I say on the contrary," continues Kant, " that things as objects of our senses existing outside us are given, but we know nothing of what they are in themselves, knowing only their phenomena, that is, the representations which they cause in us by affecting our senses." That is to say, Kant differs from the ordinary Idealist in holding that what we call sensible or external objects, i.e., determinate objects, are not merely transient feelings or subjective states, but perceptible objects which, as existing in space, are distinct from any mere series of feelings in time. To this Kant adds, to prevent misunderstanding, that he is not denying the existence of things in themselves, but only the existence of such things as known. The objects we know are things in space, or phenomena, not things without consciousness. The force of Kant's reply does not lie, as Mr. Sidgwick seems to suppose, in the assertion of the existence of noumenal objects, but in the affirmation that the objects we know are real, because they exist for us in consciousness and are yet distinguished from the mere sequence of our repre- sentations.^ I am not an Idealii^t, Kant argues, because while I do not deny the existence of things in them- selves without consciousness, I do not, on the other hand, reduce known objects as existing in space to a ' The admission that there arc, in any ordinary sense, things in themselves is provisional. See below, Chap. x. .1 '« II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 53 more Huccession of transient impressions as the Idealist docs. If to this interpretation it bo objected that Kant speaks of " the representations which objects cause in us by affecting our senses," and therefore must be here contrasting states of consciousness with unknown things in themselves, the answer is, that in reasoning with the Idealist, Kant naturally adapts himself so far to the Idealist's point of view, and that, as the whole course of his reasoning shows, he mentally interprets '* repre- sentations" to mean 'phenomenal objects, i.e., objects formed by the action of space and time on detached impressions of sense. Accordingly he goes on to say that he "grants by all means that there are bodies without us, i.e., things wiiich, though quite unknown to us as what they are in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their influence on our sensibility procures us, and which we call bodies, a term signifying merely the a[)pearance of the tiling which is unknown to us but not therefore less real." Here, again, Kant affirms that he is not an Idealist, because, while grant- ing, or rather affirming, that things in themselves cannot be known as they are, he yet holds that there are bodies in space which are known as distinct from the mere series of representations belonging to the phenomenal self. No doubt the phrase about " things in themselves which we yet know by the representa- tions which their influence on our sensibility procures us," might be used by one who accepts the ordinary view that objects as determinate exist beyond con- sciousness and are only known through the perceptions which they excite in an individual mind separate and distinct from them ; but this only shows that, while using common language, Kant infused into it the new meaning which it acquires when viewed in the light of I 5! fiM 1 i « 1 li 6i KANT JND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. fCHAP. his own theory. "Representations" does not here mean, as it would in the mouth of the psychological Idealist, ideas in an individual mind which is cut off from all direct contact with determinate things, but objects determined by the forms of space and time in relation to individual sensations. The contrast of "representations," as informed sensations or pheno- mena to "things quite unknown to us," is perfectly clear and unmistakable to one who reads Kant's words in connection with his general theory and with the immediate context. The refutation of the charge of Idealism is therefore made in the Prolegowna to turn upon the distinction between a mere succession of ideas, which constitutes the whole material from which the psychological Idealist has to explain the knowledge of real existences, and known objects existing in space and contrasted with the series of our perceptions as only in time. The reference to things in themselves is not es- sential to the proof, and is merely introduced to explain the difference between Kant's view of known or pheno- menal objects and the ordinary conception of objects as constituted apart from any influence of our perceptive ^ikculty. The Idealism which is sought to be refuted is that which maintains that we a^'e immediately conscious only of the self as having a series of mental states; and Kant distinguishes his own theory from such Idealism by showing that for the absolute distinction of deter- minate ideas in consciousness, and determinate things as existing beyond consciousness, we must substitute the relative or logical distinction of determinate irleas in time and determinate things in space and time. Let us now look at the argument as stated in the Critique} » Kritih, p. 198. I II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION. 55 The proof is of the nature of an argumentum ad hominem. Kant seeks to convict the IdeaHst out of his ov/n mouth by showing that the consciousness of self, as having a series of states, is bound up with the correlative consciousness of the not-self as a congeries of objects in space ; and this he does by endeavouring to show that the consciousness of our feelings as before, now, and after is possible only on the presupposition of the consciousness of external things as permanent. The thesis to be established is that the " mere consciousness in experience of my own determinate existence proves the existence of determinate objects in space outside of me." The proof begins with a statement of what is granted by the Idealist and everybody else, viz., that I am conscious of my own determinate existence as in time ; in other words, that I am conscious of having a series of mental states. Then follows the proof itself, which contains the following steps : — (1) The conscious- ness of time as determinate can only be accounted for on the supposition that something is known as per- manent; (2) This permanent cannot be found in my mental states per se, i.e., the permanent is not the mere idea of the permanent, and hence it must be] bound up with the consciousness of external things ; (3) Conse- quently the consciousness of my mental states as internal necessarily implies the consciousness of things in space as external. Let us take these steps in order. (1) " All determination of time presupposes something permanent in perception." Kant gives no proof of this assertion, mainly, no doubt, because he had proved it at length in the first analogy of experience.^ It is enough to say here that if we eliminate the permanent altogether, we cannot conceive how there should be a ' For a statement of this proof, see Chap. vi. ,1 n i\ 66 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICr [chap. i^ consciousness of time as before, now and after, since time is the mere form of perception of which we cannot become conscious except in relation to the particulars of sense. Now (2) " this permanent cannot be anything in me, because the only way in which my existence in time can be determined is through this permanent. Hence the perception of this permanent is possible only through a thing outside me {Ding aasser mir) and not through a mere idea {Vorstellung) of a thing outside me." These two sentences really contain the whole of Kant's argument against Idealism, and to fail in under- standing them is to miss the point of the whole refuta- tion. It must be observed that a stronor contrast is drawn between (a) a " permanent in me," which is equivalent to the " idea of a thing outside me," and ())) the permanent as a '* thing outside me." The gist of the argument is, that a " permanent in me " is a " mere idea " or subjective state, and that this is the only per- manent which the psychological Idealist is entitled to speak of. Now, argues Kant, the mere idea of the permanent will not account even for the consciousness of time as determinate. This is further explained in the remarks appended to the Refutation, where it is pointed out that the mere " I " of consciousness must not be identified with the " I " as determinate, because the self as determinate is in time, and therefore the object of inner perception ; and again that the " I " is destitute of even the least determinateness, and hence cannot supply the permanent required as " correlate of the determination of time." In other words, the pure " I " is not a permanent in time, and therefore not a per- manent in contrast to which we can become conscious of the self as in time, or of time as determinate. The permanent, therefore, which we require is a permanent IP. II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION 57 of in time. But there is no permanent in time except the permanent in space, since mere ideas have no perma- nence in themselves, and the pure " I," as the mere abstraction of relation to consciousness, is not in time at all. If there were no permanent in space, but only the idea of the permanent in space, there could be no consciousness of time as determinate, since an idea is in itself a mere transient state. The permanent there- fore is not in me, or is not a mere idea of a thing out- side of me : it i$ a thing outside of me, ?*. e. in space. The Idealist is therefore compelled to admit that the permanent is not outside of consciousness, but only outside of a mere series of mental states ; in other words, external phenomena are known as directly as internal phenomena. Thus the opposition of mere ideas to things without consciousness, is transformed by Kant into the relative distinction of real internal events and ^'eal external things, both alike being, in Kantian language, phenomena, and not the one a phenomenon and the other a thing in itself, as the Cartesian idealist might say; or the internal events real and external things nonentities, as the Berkeleyan idealist might say. Mr. Sidgwick is therefore in error when he supposes' that the "thing outside of me [Dimj ausser mir) " of the Critique is identical with "the un- known but not the less real object {unhekannter aber nichts desto weniger wirklicher Gegenstand) " of the Prolegomena, and is contrasted with the " mere idea of a thing outside of me {hlosse Vorstellung eines Dinges ausser mir) " as a thing external to consciousness with a state of consciousness. The " unknown but not the less real object " of the Prolegomena is distinguished from the " thing outside of me " of the Refutation as » Mind, XV. 410. ' I I 08 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 1: thing in itself from phenomenon, and, as has been shown above, the " thing outside of me " is contrasted, not as a thing external to consciousness with an idea in con- sciousness, but as 11. thing in space with that mere idea of a thing in space, which the Idealist according to Kant is alone entitled to speak of. Mr. Siagwick has mis- understood Kant's argument, from not bearing in mind that it is not direct but indirect. The interpretation I have given is borne out by the conclusion of the proof, which runs thus : " Consequently the determination of my existence in time is possible only through the exis- tence of real things which I perceive as outside of me. Now consciousness in time is necessarily bound up with the consciousness of the possibility of the determination of consciousness in time, and therefore with the exis- tence of things outside of me, which are the condition of the determination of time ; i. e. the consciousness of my own existence is at the same time an immediate consciousnasi? of the existence of other things outside of me." In other words, my own existence in time (my phenomenal existence) is possible only through the existence of things in space (their phenomenal existence) ; for the consciousness of myself as in time can only be explained, as has been shown, on a theory which accounts for the consciousness of determinate time, and this again presupposes the consciousness of things as in space. The Refutation of Idealism there- fore differs from the passage in the Prolegomena simply in omitting any reference to things in themselves, and in containing a complete proof of the correlation of external and internal phenomena instead of a mere assertion of their correlativity. That in the Critique Kant does not explicitly refer to things in themselves, is easily accounted for when we consider, that in the II.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTION 59 remarks added to the ^Esthetic, as well as in several passages both before and after the Refutation, the distinction between thing in itself and phenomenon is clearly drawn, and hence might be assumed to be familiar to the reader. •H 60 CHAPTER III. TJIK A PRIOIU CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGK IN GENERAL.- CATEGORIES AND SCHEMATA. -THE ■la 1 k ^I'^HE first question of critical philosophy, viz., How is matheiiiatical knowledge possible 1 has been answered by showing that space and time, on which mathematics rests, are pure forms of perception. One inference from this is that external objects are not out- side of consciousness, but are products of the perceptive forms as applied to our impressions of sense. As the external objects we know are thus, contrary to our com- mon-sense view of the world, not things in themselves but phenomena, we may expect that the second ques- tion of critical philosophy, viz.. How is a science of nature possible ? will be answered in a similar way. And indeed it is easy to show that if by nature we understand things in themselves, there can be no science of nature. A scientific knowledge of things that exist in complete independence of our intelligence can neither be accounted for on the supposition that things are known a priori, nor on the supposition that they are known a posteriori. (1) If things exist independently of thought, they must have an unchangeable nature of their own, irrespective altogether of their relation to our faculties of knowledge. It is therefore impossible III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 01 to pass from thought to things. By hypothesis our conceptions are completely separated from real things, and however perfectly we may analyse them, and ex- press what is implicit in them in the form of judgments, we are at the end of our labour no nearer to real things than at the start. Analytical judgments, valuable as they are in giving clearness to our conceptions, do not, and cannot, carry us over to things assumed to be independent of all relation to thought ; only synthetical judgments, taking us beyond conceptions to realities, are of any avail, and such judgments cannot be shown to be a priori, so long as we assume the independent existence of real things. The difficulty here is, there- fore, to explain how there can be a priori judgments that are not merely analytical. (2) Equally impossible is it to account for a science of things in themselves by observation. Real things must evidently have a ne- cessary nature of their own, or they would not be real. But if we begin by saying that they are complete in themselves apart from any relation to our intelligence, we can only obtain knowledge of them by coming directly into their presence. We are thus dependent for our knowledge of things upon the extent to which car observation has gone, so that we can say nothing about objects except what our special observations enable us to say. But a science of nature must con- tain laws that are necessary and universal, and hence it cannot rest on mere observation. In other words, by observation we cannot know things as they really are. As before we saw that assuming things to be completely independent of thought, our judgments might possibly be a p)riori but could not be syntheti- cal, so now we find that admitting them to be synthetical they cannot possibly be a priori. -J '/'I ..1 62 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. !'■■ A I i I 1' And yet there must be some way of showing that we are capable of making judgments that are not merely analyses of assumed conceptions, but hold of Nature herself. For that there is a science of Physics resting upon certain universal and necessary principles is uni- versally admitted. Physics is no doubt based upoji observation, in so far as its concrete content is con- cerned, but it also presupposes certain elements that no mere observation can supply. Not only does the physical investi- i c' lake use of the necessary trutlis of mathematics, \a.\- i -so assumes the truth of certain discursive principi . ; resri' -t on pure conceptions. Of course Physics is not based t^ntirely upon jDure percep- tions and pure conceptions , for such conceptions as motion, inertia, and impenetrahility have an element due to sensible perception and therefore cannot be called pure. Besides, Physics is not the science of Nature in the widest sense, for it deals only with facts of the external world, to the exclusion of internal or psycho- logical facts, while by Nature we properly mean to embrace both classes of facts. Notwithstanding these limitations, however, Physics does contain, or rather rest upon, certain necessary and universal principles, such as these : that Substance is permanent, and that Every event depends on a cause. Confining our atten- tion, then, to these a priori principles, the truth of which alone makes a science of Physics possible, we get the conception of a pure science of Nature, and the problem we have to solve is to explain how such a science, containing a body of necessary and universal principles, can be accounted for. Nature therefore must mean the sum of knowable objects, and the Science of Nature the necessary principles making them knowable. We may, in fact, say that our pro- III.] A PR/OKI CONDI! IONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 03 blem is to justify, if that be possible, those necessary and universal propositions which the scientific man assumes to be true, and which, without such justifica- tion, can only be a matter of faith. Now the objects to which a science of Nature applies cannot be things the nature of which is in no way dependent on our thought, for this assumption, as we saw above, either prevents us from accounting for our knowledge of reality or from accounting for the reality of our know- ledge. But while of things in themselves we can have no experience, it does not follow that everything which conies within our experience is real. Because only phenomena are capable of being known, it d^es not follow that all that appears to be true really, la true. There are real phenomena, and phenomen tht are mere illusions, and again phenomena that j > 1 '"o only for the sensitive individual. These distinct '41p, however, do not in any way affect the quest) * a« to the conditions of real knowledge. Whether a, judg- ment is true only when limited to the individual as sensitive, or applies to objects as external ; or whether again a judgment about a matter of fact is only pro- bable or certain ; these are questions for the scientific specialist to determine : our concern is solely to show the possibility of apodictic judgments in regard to nature from an examination of the conditions of there being any real knowledge. It will, however, aid us in solving our special problem, if we first consider the difference between those judgments which the scientific man regards as existing laws of nature, and those which have not reached this degree of scientific cer- tainty. The former we may call Judgments of Ex- perience, the latter Judgments of Perception. Ileal experience always consists in judgments as to objects .'■V I h I ll u ^ I I hcnomena are not really connected with each other but only happen to follow each other in my observation. Until, therefore, I have proved by scientific observation that the heat in tho stone is com- municated by the sun, I am only entitled to say : So far as I can sec, the sun is the cause of the stone grow- ing warm ; I cannot say, Tlu sun is tho cause of the stone growing warm. In the one case, I make a judg- ment of perception ; in tho other, a judgment of experi- ence. Now it will be seen that in passing from a judgment of perception to a judgment of experience, I bring into play a connecting conception — in the cases mentioned, the conception of cause. The ques- tion, therefore, for transcendental philosophy is to show of what nature such conceptions must be, if we are to account for necessary and universal judgments. There can be no doubt that science does suppose itself to be entitled to make such judgments, and that in doing so, it brings into operation certain conceptions. The ques- tion, therefore, for us is to show, if we can, how there can be conceptions entitling us to make judgments about real objects, i.e., to form a priori synthetical judgments of experience.^ We have seen, then, that by Nature is to be under- stood the sum of knowable objects as determined by certain universal and necessary judgments. Nature, in so far as it is external nature, means not determinate • So far the Prolegomena, §§ 14-20, is in this chapter followed. With the above account of the distinction between judgments of perce]ition and judgments of experience compare Caird's Philosophy of Kant, pp. 354 ff. ^ III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE, 07 things existing apart from our intelligence, but those real objects connected by apodictic judgments with which physical science has to do. Kant, in other words, accepts the judgments of science as distinguished from the non-scientific judgments of ordinary conscious- ness, and, pointing out, in accordance with the conclu- sions established in the Esthetic, that all known objects, and therefore the objects of science, are pheno- mena, he translates the question, " How is a pure science of Nature possible ? " into the form, " How are judgments of experience possible ? " His problem, therefore, is not to estal^'^h the fact that there are j.>.dgments of experience — ^judgments whicJi, as neces- sarily and universally true, are " objective," in his sense of the term — but to explain if possible, how we can have such judgments. This is the same question in a more specific form than that with which he started, viz., How are synthetical judgments a priori possible ? All these ways of putting his problem he has : How is real knowledge possible ? How are synthetic judg- ments a prion possible ? How is a science of Nature possible 1 How are judgments of experience possible ? and even, How are objects possible? Put the problem as we please, it always comes back to this, How can we justify the conviction held by every one, and empha- sized by science, that our knowledge is not a mere combination of coherent fictions, but a knowledge of actual existences ? Now the especial difficulty in answering this ques- tion arises : rom the apparent impossibility of showing that judgments which rest upon conceptions can yet apply to real things. But, taking the hint from what we have already discovered as to the basis of mathe- matics, we may expect to find the solution in explainiiig \M 68 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 'I t^ things from the nature of thought, not thought from the nature of things. In any case, our proh'eui is to account for real or objective judgments, and hence an analysis of our faculty of judgment ought to give us the clue to the a pnori conceptions of thought, if there are such, as we cannot doubt there are. I need Vardly say that Kant, accepting so far the analysis of ordinary logic, endeavours to reason b?.ck from the distinctions he thus obtains to the pure conceptions or categories which are to serve as the basis of objective judgments. This way of discovering the categories is evidently in harmony with Kant's general method of seeking for a hypothesis which shall adequately explain the facts of experience. Jus!) as the judgments of mathematics and physics are made the starting point from which phil- osophy has to work back to the ultimate conditions of knowledge, so the common analysis of judgments, which is assumed to be correct within its own sphere, is used as the stepping-stone to the pure conceptions which express the ultimate nature of thouglit. That we do make real judgments no one doubts ; and that there are certain formal rules or lawi to which thought must conform, formal logic has shown ; and hence we may state the special problem now to be solved in this way, What are the ultim.ate forms of unity belonging to the constitution of our intelligence, in so far as it is not perceptive but thinking ? In the ^Esthetic, the neces- sary element implied in our knowledge of individual things considered as simply existing in space and time was determined ; now we vrish to know what is the necessary element which introduces unity into all our kjiowledge. And this element must of course be sup- plied by thought, not by sense. Now as all acts of thought may be reduced to judgment, an analysis of III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 69 the various forms of judgment must enable us to find out the pure conceptions which bring unity into real knowledge. This analysis we find ready to our hands in formal logic. Concentrating itself upon tho faculty of thought, and leaving'to metaphysic the determination of the supreme conditions of knowledge, formal logic asks what ore the laws by which the understanding is guided, consciously or unconsciously, in the actual pro- cess of knowing. Now judgment is the act of thought by which various representations are reduced to unity by being brought under a common representation. And unity of representation may be brought about either in the way of (1) quantity, (2) qualit3''^ (3) relation, or (4) modality. (1) Every conception is capable of being made the predicate in a judgment, and as a uni\'ersal, it is a possible predicate of various judgments. And as in judging we may either bring the whole of the indi- viduals denoted by the subject, or only some of them, or again a single concrete individual, under the concep- tion taken as predicate, judgments in respect of quantity are either universal, or particular, or individual. It is true that formal logic practically treats the individual judgment as universal, and therefore divides judg- ments into those whose quantity is universal and those whose quantity is particular ; but this elimination of the individual judgment, which is perfectly justifiable when we abstract from all he content of knowledge and deal only with the relat on of whole and part, is not admissible when we use the functions of judgment as a clue to all the modes of unity belonging to the constitution of thought. In real knowledge the indi- vidual cannot be identified with the universal, and hence there must belong to thought a form correspond- ing to the individual. In the universal judgment, then. I if % i I i"> 70 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. Ml' If Ml the sphere of one conception is completely enclosed by the sphere of another conception ; in the particular, a part of the one is within the sphere of the other ; and in the individual, a conception which, as indivisible, has no sphere of its own, is enclosed within the sphere of another conception. (2) As to quality, judgments are affirmative, negative, or infinite. Here again formal logic rejects, and rightly rejects, the infinite judgment, because there is nothing gained by distinguishing the infinite from the affirmative judgment when we are not determining the conditions of real knowledge. In the affirmative judgment, the subject is thought of as within the sphere of the predicate ; in the negative as without the sphere of the predicate ; while in the infinite judg- ment, the subject is placed within the sphere of one con- ception and at the same time 13 excluded from the sphere of another conception. The distinction of affirmative and negative judgments is familiar to every one ; but a word may be said about the negative judgment. In the proi^osition, '' The soul is not mortal," the subject " soul" is placed within the class " not mortal," and is therefore so far affirmative ; but on the other hand, it is excluded from the class " mortal," and is therefore in a sense negative. The infinite judgment thus depends upon a function of thought distinct from those functions manifested in the affirmative and negative judgments ; and hence it must be taken note of in our attempt to discover all the pure conceptions which the functions of thought in judgment presuppose. (3) Besides quantity and quality, judgments are distinguished as to relation, i.e., as categorical, hypothetical and disjunctive. In the first, we have the relation of two conceptions ; in the second, of two judgments, and in the third of several judgments, separate from each other and yet combined in.] A PRIORI C0NDI7Y0NS OF KNOWLEDGE. 71 into a whole. (4) Modality is a distinction of judg- ments that has reference merely to the relation be- tween our knowledge and reality. Here judgments are classified as problematic, assertative and apodictic, according as they affirm possibility, actuality, or neces- sity of the objects of thought.^ Starting, then, from the forms of judgment as syste- matized by formal logic, we are enabled to discover the pure conceptions which they presuppose. Whatever differences there may be in the objects judged of, thought must conform to certain general rules, on pain of falling into contradiction with itself, and destroying even the possibility of true judgments. We cannot, indeed, from a consideration of the forms of judgment, tell whether a given conception represents a real or a fictitious object, but we can tell what relations it bears to another conception also given to us. The conception of " body," e.g., as the product of comparison, reflection and abstraction, we may bring into relation with the conception " metal," and so determine the judgment thus formed in respect of quantity and quality. Now the fact that in such analytical judgments we determine abstract conceptions to certain relations, shows us that our understanding has these functions as belonging to its constitution or inner nature. The "matter" of con- ceptions and judgments must no doubt be given to thought, but the rules observed by thought in combin- ing conceptions into judgments must belong to thought itself. It is therefore plain that in these functions of judgment we have the key to the explanation of the conditions of knowledge, so far as knowledge is related to thought as distinguished from sense. All real know- ledge must at the very least conform to the laws ' Proleyomtna, § 21 . Kritik, § i). Loijik, §§ 20-25. I i'S-'i-i ft n H M I ! ,.i r r 72 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. binding upon thought as displayed in judgments. Hence, just as formal logic, by an analysis of the judg- ments we make in our ordinary and scientific knowledge, is able to discover the functions by which unity is pro- duced in our conceptions ; so, by reasoning back from these functions of judgment, we may discover all the ultimate conceptions which are essential to the consti- tution of real knowledge ; we may, in other words, reach to the pure conceptions which such knowledge presupposes. While the combination of conceptions in the analytical judgment is quite a different thing from the combination of the manifold of sense by which real objects are at first made knowable, it is not less true that the functions of judgment manifested in each of these modes of combination, do not vary, but are neces- sarily the same in both. " The same function," says Kant, " which gives unity to the various representations in a judgment^ also gives unity to the mere synthesis of various representations in a perception ; and this unity, expressed generally, is a pure conception of thought. Thought at once gives analytical unity to conceptions, and synthetical unity to the man;'''.! ol perception in general ; and indeed the logical form, of judgment presupposes and rests uj n the very same acts of thought as tho, u by wbicl! . transcendental content is given to our various representations. Hence it is that the pure conceptions of thought, as they are appropriately called, apply a priori to objects." ^ That is to say, the act by which, in an analytical judgment, we subsume one conception under another of higher generality, implies the exercise of a function of unity belonging to the nature of thought itself; and having, by analysis of our actual judgments, discovered this ' Kritik, § 10, p. 99. It I I i III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 73 function to belong to our understanding, we may be j sure that in the actual process of knowing real objects the same function has been exercised. Now, as the \ content of our judgments must have been obtained by synthesis, and not by analysis — since analysis does not supply or add to our knowledge, but merely brings into clearness what we already know — we at once see that there are certain pure conceptions belonging to the form of thought, which are the necessary conditions of unity in our knowledge of real objects and of their con- nexions. The functions of unity in judgments, as systematized in formal logic, therefore point unerringly to the pure conceptions or categories by which the unity of the known world is produced. The table of categor- ies, as we may be sure, is complete, because it is ob- tained from an analysis of all the functions of thought as exhibited in judgments. It was because Aristotle did not deduce his categories from the nature of thought itself, but simply gathered together those conceptions which struck him, and which seemed to him to be prim ary, that his list is at once redundant and defective. Con- tenting himself with simply gathering together those conceptions which he happened to hit upon, and which seemed to be primary, it is not surprising that he should omit some categories altogether, and include others that are not primary but derivative (action, passion), as well as an empirical conception (motion), anc- acre modes of time (when, where, position). Let - see, then, what are the pure conceptions or categories, as implied in the various functions of judgment. These will, of course, like judgments themselves, c ne under the heads of quantity, quality, relation, and modality. (1) Judgments, as we said, are in quantity universal, particular, or individual. Now the corresponding cate- m ^^f:>i ¥i :m I I > 74 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. i I ! '£ gories are pure forms of thought, by the application of which to the mere multipHcity of sense, concrete indi- viduals and specific connections of individuals, are con- stituted. By reducing to the unity of quantity the manifold of sense, objects are constituted as unities, pluralities, or totalities. The categories of quantity therefore are unity,j)lurality, totality. (2) The qiialittj of judgments is affirmative, negative, or infinite. The categories presupposed, as conditions of unity in real existence in so far as it is knowable, must account for the affirmation, the denial or the partial affirmation and partial denial of objects ; and hence we have as categor- ies, reality (existence to be affirmed), negation (existence to be denied), and limitation (existence partly to be affirmed, partly denied). (3) As to relation, judgments are categorical, hypothetical, and disjunctive. Now a categorical proposition affirms the relation of a given predicate to a given subject ; and if we regard this relation as real, and not simply logical, we have the relation of a real subject to a rea' predicate, i.e., we have the categority of substance and accident. In the hypothetical judgment, we have the logical relation of antecedent and consequent ; and this, wlien viewed as a relation between real objects or events, ife the category of cause and effecl. Agc^in, in a disjunctive judgment, we have the logical distiiiction of the different parts of a conception and at the same time their combination ; and this relation of parts and whole, when taken as applying to real existence, yields the category of recip- rocity. (4) As to ^i?ocZ(t/iV(7, judgments are problematic, assertative, or apodictic. And a problematic judgment as to real objects presupposes the category, possibility — impossibility ; an assertion as to reality may be either affirmative or negative, and hence the category, actu- III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 75 ality— non-actuality ; and, lastly, an apodictic judg- ment, applicable to the real world, either asserts that something must be, or denies that it is necessary, and accordingly, the category is necessity — contingency.^ Assuming, then, that these are the categories, and all the categories, the next point is to justify them, i.e. to show how they serve to unify knowledge. This justification or "deduction" of the categories constitutes che very heart of Kant's theory of knowledge. The misconception that determinate objects exist as they are known independently of any relation to our faculty of knowing, and are simply taken up into our minds from without, has been partly dissipated in the Esthetic. It was there shown that known objects are not independent of our perceptive faculty, but are the product of the pure forms of space and time as applied to impressions of sense. Now this transforms our ordi- nary view of things. When it is seen that known objects are not independent of our perceptive faculty, the dualism of consciousness and nature is replaced by the logical distinction of internal and external percep- tions. For individual objects we substitute individual or separate impressions of sense, only existing for us as perceptive beings. Similarly, for space and time as realities beyond consciousness we substitute space and time as mere potential forms belonging to the con- stitution of our perceptive faculty. Thus perception has two elements : impressions of sense as the " matter " of perception, and space and time as the "forms" of perception. Determinate things independent of con- sciousness, and apprehended as they are in their own nature, transform themselves under criticism into a *' matter " and a " form " that have a meaning only for ' Kritik, § 10. i\\ Jf: (.4 f? A' II 1.1 J f I i.i J ■ i i IF . Ii| 76 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. us as conscious and perceptive. For this reason Kant says that perceived objects become for the critical philosopher "simply the way in which the subject is affected." A still further transformation takes place, when we examine critically into the relation of our thinking faculty to objects. For all thinking or judging is a purely spontaneous act of combination {conjunctio), as distinguished from perception, which is universally held to be receptive. On the ordinary view, thought or understanding combines the real things which the : :;nses reveal to us, or the real lines, figures, &c., dealt with by mathematics, and this act of combination is judgment. Even from the ordinary point of view, therefore, thinking is a process of combining multi- plicity so as to produce unity. The critical philosophy likewise holds that thinking or judging consists in combining multiplicity, but of course the multiplicity combined assumes a different aspect. We cannot say that thought combines individual objects having a nature independent of our knowledge, for the main result of our critical investigation in the Esthetic is to show that the objects which we know are not independent of per- ception, ' ut are resolvable into a "matter" of sense and two potential "forms " of sense, and that the whole per- ceived object exists only in relation to consciousness. It may perhaps be thought that the forms of sense contain in themselves a faculty of combination, and that in co- alescing with the impressions of sense they yield objects known as arranged in space and time. But this is to attribute to a mere receptive faculty a power of com- binatim it cannot possibly possess. Moreover, the forms of perception are in themselves mere potentiali- ties ; they must not be confounded even with mathe- matical figures — which are not forms of perception but (1 ^■i III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 77 deteiininations of those forms — and hence they are not of themselves capable of arranging sensations in space and time. The only combining faculty is the under- standing, and the ''manifold" which is to be combined is either impressions of sense or determinations of space and time. Into this manifold or multiplicity — this mere diftcrence — the understanding by its combining activity introduces unity. Now this leads to a still further transformation of the common-sense view of things than that effected in the /Esthetic. If known objects, in so far as their perceptive element is con- cerned, are resolvable into an uncombined manifold, thought must have been at work combining that mani- . fold before objects can bo known as objects at all. Tims, whether we take an individual object as a sum of properties, or two or more individual objects as con- nected in experience, we must, to account for our knowledge, suppose thought to have combined the mere manifold of perception into unity. "Nothing," as Kant says, "is thought as combined in any object which the understanding has not itself previously combined." TIius the ordinary theory of perception which supposes individual things to be given independently of thought, is an inversion of the truth, and equally the ordinary view of judgment as a mere analysis of perceptions or conceptions. Analysis presupposes synthesis, and licnce the combining activity of thought is exercised even in tl)e unconscious combinations which take place in the growth of our knowledge, and not merely, as common logic supposes, in the conscious or reflective combina- tion of perceptions under abst'^nct conceptions. Now this combining of multiplicity by thought must imply that thought is in its own nature essentially a uniti/. From the uncritical point of view, the combinations of » i ill ill T . h i ill 78 ar^A'T AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. \ thought are simply the external comparing of two or more individual things supposed to bo known in percep- tion as individuals prior to the comparison, or the arbitrary arranging of one conception under another of greater extension. The product of such external com- bination can only be contingent. I combine objects in a certain way, but I might combine them in any other way I pleased. The only unity therefore is one which our individual reflection must be supposed arbitrarily to impose. We never can show that the unity which we suppose to exist is a real or necessary unity. Our judgments cannot be proved to be objective. The only way therefore in which the unity of known objects, either taken separately or in their connection, can be established, is by regarding thought as in its very nature a unity, and as therefore capable of producing unity in known existence. That this must be so is evident from what has already been said. For when known objects, in so far as they are relative to percep- tion, are reduced to a mere multiplicity, the only other source from which unity can come is thought or under- standing. The unity, then, must belong to the very nature of thought ; and, as all knowledge, even the simplest and least reflective, has been shown to imply the combining activity of thought, it follows that thought possesses the faculty of producing unity, be- cause it is itself essentially a unity. It should be observed that we are not here speaking of the category of unity. That category is a special application of the unity of thought in relation to objects, not the unity of thought itself. Can we then show hoio thought is a unity? The answer to this question will give us the principle on which the deduction of the categories must proceed.^ i ill. J A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 79 In our ordinary or uncritical consciouRness, wo do not rr^f^ct that the unity of thought must be the neces- sary condition of our knowledge of real things. We suppose on the contrary that things as they nre in themselves are immediately revealed to our senses. Wo have an immediate consciousness, as wo suppose, of individual things, irrespective altogether of any unity introduced by our consciousness into things. " The empirical consciousness, which accompanies different ideas, is in itself scattered and without relation to the identity of the subject." In other words, we do not in our ordinal"' ^' .vledge know ivhai is the principle which maki a a connected knowledge of things possible, but simply have a consciousness of now one thing and then another. We suppose ourselves to be immediately apprehending things as independent of consciousness, and hence it never occurs to us that there must be a unity of thought in our knowledge of things. We have seen however that wo must seek for the unity of know- ledge in the nature of thought as combining the detached multiplicity of perception. Now it may easily be shown that such a unity is presupposed in ordinary consciousness. My knowledge must bo so connected in all lis parts as to form a rounded whole or it would not be knowledge at all. If it were not connected by a central unity, I should have no connected knowledge : an idea that I cannot bring into unity with other ideas is an absurdity ; or at least, granting its possibility, it is nothing at all for knowledge. I must therefore, consciously or unconsciously, connect all my ideas in a unity. On any other supposition, I should have " a self as many-coloured and various as the ideas I have." Each of my ideas must therefore be connected with every other. Hence there must be a single self as the I I i I i ^'^U IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) t ^ / O (/ /_ f/. &< ^ 1.0 1.25 2.2 I.I IV- 11^ 1.8 U ill 1.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. US80 (716)072-4503 & W .*^0 \ % 80 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. I I condition of there being for me a faculty of thinking, a faculty of reducing multiplicity to unity. We can see this by taking any idea we please. Suppose, e.g.^ I have the idea *'red." Now I can be conscious of " red" only in contrast to some other idea, and hence I must in being conscious of "red," relate it to other ideas previously experienced. Thus the fact that I have a connected consciousness of things necessarily presupposes that there is a supreme unity connecting them. This unity is manifestly the unity of the self as the principle of connection. The conception of the self as the condition of all synthesis is the supreme principle of all thinking ; it is in fact, as we may say, thought itself. It must be observed, however, that it is only as the condition of the connection of the manifold of perception that the "/" is synthetical: I = I is a merely analytical or identical proposition; " I " as the supreme unity making the unity of conscious experience possible is alone synthetical. This shows that our tliouglit can- not operate of itself, but only in relation to the manifold of sense : in other words, as supplying only an element of knowledge it of itself gives no knowledge. Thought cannot perceive any more than sense can think, and hence known objects would be nothing were the ele- ment contributed by either faculty absent.^ We have seen above that thinking is judging, and that, reasoning back from the various forms of judg- ment as classified by formal logic, we get the funda- mental forms or functions of unity, which we call the categories. And as the manifold of perception can only be reduced to unity by reference to the synthetical unity of self-consciousness as the supreme condition of thought, it of course follows that the manifold of per- 1 Kritih, % 16. III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 81 a ception which is to be reduced to unity or objectivity must stand under the categories. It must be observed, however, that the categories are in themselves only the formal conditions of the combination of the manifold of perception, and do not originate the manifold which they^are capable of combining. A perceptive under- standing may not be impossible, but such is not the nature of human intelligence. A manifold must therefore be supplied to the categories before they can possibly operate, and this manifold, as we have seen, belongs to us as receptive or sensuous beings. Now a manifold of perception may be either pure or mate- rial : i.e., it may be either a determination of space and time as in mathematics, or it may imply in addition those sensuous impressions which give to us the concrete element of real objects. The categories can certainly operate on pure perceptions, but in doing so they do not give us any knowledge of Nature as tlie sum of real objects. Mathematics deals only with the determinations of the forms of perception and therefore of perceivable objects, not with real objects themselves : its judgments are universally and necessarily true, supposing real objects to exist, but not otherwise. Besides the categories and the forms of perception, the possibility of objective judgments or judgments of experience therefore implies that a mani- fold of sensuous impressions is given to the categories to operate upon. And this shows not only how a science of nature is possible, but what are the limits to our possible knowledge. No doubt thought could combine any manifold supplied to it; but this mere possibility is useless for us, since the only manifold we can have is a manifold of sense. The limit of our knowledge is therefore fixed by the compulsion we are 1 ■'■; I II i'i 82 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. m m ■ It : 'I III, under of obtaininof a manifold of sense before ve can o give determination to our conceptions. A non-sensuous object is thinkable only as that which is not a real object of knowledge : it can be defined only by negative predicates, and therefore cannot be known to be real.* We have now so far determined the elements which real knowledge implies, and marked ov\t its boundaries. There must be a manifold of sense, referred to the "I" as the supreme principle, and standing under the forms of space and time, which again stand under the cate- gories as functions of unity. But while all these elements are necessarily implied in our knowledge of real objects, there is still a difficulty in seeing what hinds the different elements together. For it must be remembered that the manifold of sense when taken in its abstraction is merely a number of blind or isolated point?, having no principle of unity in them. It must further be remembered that the forms of space and time are in themselves mere potentialities having neither unity nor determinateness. In like manner the cate- gories are forms of unity, but they also are in themselves mere potentialities, which can be called unities only on supposition that they can be called into exercise. And lastly, the " I " is in itself a pure, dead identity ; it is the condition which must be presupposed before we can possibly explain how unity comes into knowledge, but it is powerless to account of itself for actual know- ledge. The manifold of sense, the forms of space and time, and the categories, are in short abstract elements of knowledge ; but in no one of them, nor in the whole of them taken together, do we find that which accounts for the actual movement of thought in the knowing of ' Kritik, §§ 1 8-2.3. A fuller discussion of the limitations of our knowledge will be found in Chapter x. III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 83 real objects. Wherein then shall we find this principle of movement ? Kant finds it in the pure Imagination, \ which is not to be confounded with Im^Lgination in tHe \ psychological sense, since it does not reproduce its objects, but produces or constructs them. Its function is to determine the forms of space and time in certain \ universal ways, under guidance of the categories and in relation to a given manifold of sense. It is thus the necessary medium between the purely intellectual forms of thought on the one hand, and the purely perceptive forms of space and time, together with the differences of sense, on the other hand.^ So far we have been directing our attention mainly to nature in its external aspect ; and we must now show how the deduction of the categories affects the knowledge of self as an object. It was mentioned before that self as known is not self as it exists apart from our human faculties of knowing, if for no other reason than that all determinate objects, and therefore the self as the subject of determinate states, are only knowable under the form of time. This is quite a different view from that held by the dogmatic philoso- phers, according to whom the self is an immediate object of consciousness, or, in other words, a thing in itself. Kant, on the other hand, holds that the self as the supreme condition of the unity of knowledge is not identical with the self given as an object of know- ledge. This follows from the account of the conditions of the knowledge of real objects. Thought is purely a faculty of combination, and requires to have the mani- fold of perception supplied to it before it can operate. Perception has two elements, the pure forms and the sensuous material, which are brought into relation with • Kritik, § 24, See below, p. Sfi flF. i'l ■■\. ^Vi I «\ t w I i, I ii; 84 JCANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. each other and with the categories through the figur- ative synthesis of pure imagination. Now imagina- tion as determining the manifold in relation to time, the pure form of inner sense, makes possible the con- sciousness of self as existing in determinate states. But imagination cannot operate except in accordance with the categories : the " figurative " implies the " intellectual " synthesis. Hence the self is only knowable as co-relative to the object : i.e., the same synthetical process which determines external (pheno- menal) objects also determines the self as an in- ternal (phenomenal) object. The ** I" as a concrete object of knowledge must therefore be carefully dis- tinguished from the synthetical "I," which as the source of the caregories is the supreme condition of the unity of knowledge, and therefore of the known world, in both its external and its internal phases.' The above is substantially the deduction of the categories ; but it may not be without advantage to run over, in a less methodical way, the path by which Kant has come, and to point out the transformation in the ordinary explanation of knowledge which is the result of his enquiry. The great difficulty which seems to bar the way to a solution of the problem of philoso- phy, as it first presents itself to Kant's mind, may be expressed in the alternative : either there is no abso- luteness in our knowledge, or we must be able to pass over from our conceptions to realities. The dogmatist while assuming that our knowledge is absolute or real, yet imagines that it can be obtained by means of mere conceptions ; the sceptic maintains that conceptions ' Kritik, p. 127 ff. It will be observed that I only pledge myself to tlie substantial validity of the Deduction of the Categories. What modifications Kant's theory of knowledge requires I try to show in Chap. xii. in.] A PRIORI CONDI no J^S OF KNOWLEDGE. 85 cannot possibly yield reality, and hence he denies that there is any absoluteness in knowledge. Kant agrees with the former in holding that we have a knowledge of actual existence, and with the latter tbat from con • ceptions as ordinarily understood no explanation of the possibility of such knowledge can be given. Evidently therefore the reality or absoluteness of knowledge must be preserved by showing somehow that there are con- ceptions which do not lie apart from real objects, but are essential constituents in them. But to do this we must change our view at once of the nature of real things, and of the nature of conception. The trans- formation is partly effected in the Esthetic, where it is shown that known objects are not things in themselves, but are relative to our consciousness. Existence and knowledge thus begin to come nearer to each other. If the existence that is real is existence in and for consci- ousness, things may be real and may yet be relative to our knowledge. To complete the transformation, how- ever, we must show how there can be conceptions which are constituents in real objects. Abstract conceptions can of course never be such constituents; for, as defined, they are merely ideas in our minds, separated absolutely from realities without our minds. But a conception which is a form of our intelligence intro- ducing unity into known objects and connecting them together, so far from being separated from reality, must evidently be essential to such reality as known by us, Kant therefore solves the difficulty raised by the scep- tic by denying that all conceptions are separated from realities. His first way of conceiving the problem of knowledge, viz., How do we go beyond conceptions to realities ? is shown to admit of no solution because it is essentially absurd ; for conceptions separated from ■1 n i \ i ••w\ 1 I :. ! •i ' if 8(3 ^^iV7' AJVD HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. ['J HA p. realities, can of course never tell us anything about realities. It is shown however that there are pure conceptions which, so far from being apart from reali- ties, are actual constituents in them. For external objects, not less than internal, are relative to know- ledge : and if so, conceptions or forms of thought may very well apply to objects. The only question now is as to the different elements within knowledge. And conception is evidently the element which gives unity to known objects, as sense is the element which gives diversity. Thus reality and knowledge, which were by the Esthetic brought into proximity to each other, are shown by the Analytic to come close together and coalesce in the unity of sense and thought, resulting in the formation of a concrete knowledge which is at the same time concrete objects as known. And in this fusion of sense and thought, reality and knowledge, we have a systematic unity of knowledge which is at the same time a system of nature. The unity of nature therefore is a unity due to intelligence. And as of in- telligence and therefore of nature the supreme condition is the unity of self-consciousness, in the reference of every known object to the single self we have the supreme condition at once of the unity of knowledge as a whole and of the unity of nature as a system of real objects. Kant's " secret " then, as Dr. Stirling might say, is the conversion of abstract conceptions into ulti- mate forms of thought, supreme conditions of know- ledge, or elementary constituents of objects. But besides the synthetical unity of self-consciousness, the categories, the forms of perception and the manifold of sense, another element is introduced to complete the transformation of known reality. This element is the schema, which, as we have seen, Kant finds it neces- M f III.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 87 sary to refer to in the deduction of the categories, but which he also treats of separately.* A few words will be enough to complete the explanation of this part of his system. As the schema is the product of the pure imagina- tion, Kant begins with the ordinary view of the nature of Imagination, and proceeds to work back to the critical conception of it. An empirical conception is capable of being verified in a perception because there is something common to both. Having in our minds, e. (/., the conception of a plate we may form the analy- tical judgment that a plate is round, but in order to determine whether the predicate is real or imaginary, we must go to perception, and ask whether "we can find in it a determinate object corresponding to that predicate. We of course find that we can, for round- ness is realised in the pure perception of a circle. Our analytical judgment thus becomes synthetical, a'' ^ we are justified in regarding the conception as having a reference to something real. But when we pass from those conceptions which are simply abstractions from ordinary perceptions, and are therefore easily verifiable in perception, and ask how 'pure conceptions are to be realised, the answer is by no means so simple. The difficulty arises from the fact that a comparison of pure conceptions and pure perceptions shows not likeness but absolute unlikeness. The attribute implied in an abstract conception and expressible in a judgment is found in concreto in the perception from which it was originally abstracted; but a pure conception or category is not obtained by abstraction, and hence it is difficult to understand how it can be realised in perception. And yet the categories must apply to perceptions if 1 Kritik, pp. 140-6. -* »: .1 ;*] 'I .:: (■•■ i ,1 I '.li 66 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. real knowledge is possible at all. The difficulty here is of the same nature as that which wo have all along had to contend with : it is in fact simply another form of the question, How are synthetical judgments a priori possible ? how from more conceptions can we obtain judgments which are binding on nature ? We cannot get rid of the difficulty by assuming the pure concep- tions to be applicable to things in themselves, as the Deduction of the Categories has sufficiently shown ; nor can we say that pure conceptions are abstracted from real perceptions, and hence the categories cannot be de- rived from a mere analysis of objects supposed to be passively apprehended. The true answer lies in a hitherto unsuspected characteristic of Imagination. This we may explain by a reference to what takes place in the every-day processes by which we assure ourselves that we are not dealing with mere abstractions but with concrete realities. There is an essential distinc- tion between an image and a schema. I have in my mind a conception of some object — say, that of a dog — which can be verified in perception since it has been obtained by abstracting from the differences of a number of individual objects. To assure myself that I am not dealing with a mere fiction, I bring before my mind the image of some particular dog which I have seen ; but this mere image will not enable nie to make a judgment about dogs in general, and hence I have to draw in imagination a sort o^ monogram or schema of a four-footed animal. The schema is therefore neither a conception nor an image, but partakes of the char- acter of both. It at once conforms to the generality of the conception, and is kept within limits by the con- crete image. We can see that the same process comes into play in our mathematical judgments. When e. g. iii.l A PRIORI CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. 89 the geometer forms judgments in regard to the triangle he has more before him than the individual perception or image of a special triangle. The image of a triangle is an isosceles, a right-angled, an equilateral, or a scalene triangle ; but the schema of a triangle is a sort of mono- gram or outline of a triangle in general. The image of a triangle can never be adequate to the concep- tion of a triangle, for it cannot enable us to make universal affirmations : to say e. g. that every triangle has its interior angles equal to two right angles. In fact it is not imaj;es but schemata that lie at the foun- dation of our mathematical judgments. Now these examples of the peculiar faculty possessed by the productive imagination of drawing monograms of objects of perception gives us the clue to the solution of the difficulty with which we are here concerned. If we can show that there is a transcendental product of the imagination enabling us to realize the categories, our difficulty will be resolved. Now it has to be borne in mind that transcendental philosophy does not treat of the special facts or laws of nature, but only of the a priori conditions which make known objects in gene- ral possible. To account for knowledge there must be, as has been shown, impressions of sense, that come into our consciousness because we can refer them to the "I" through the categories and the forms of perception. But these impressions, taken in abstraction from the a priori elements of knowledge, are mere detached differences or points of impression. So also the deter- minations of time and space as perceptions — which must be carefully distinguished from time and space as mere forms of perception — may be described as mere points or disunited parts of space and of time. Our special question at present is, how these points of im- m u i. fi '' ■ 00 KANT AND ///S ENGLISH CRITICS, [lhai'. preasion, and points of space and time, ontor into or constitute our knowledge of objects, whetlior these objects are the pure perceptions of mathematics or the mixed perceptions of ordinary consciousness and science. Now it is evident that there is a difference between imagination as it is exercised in our ordinary knowledge and imagination as transcendental, i.e.y us a necessary and universal condition of knowledge in general. In the latter case there can be no image ; for we are deal- ing with the universal and necessary elements of know- ledge, which enter into and constitute real objects. The imagination must therefore act on the 'puvc forms of perception, and be guided by the inire conceptions of the understanding. But there can be no transcenden- tal image giving concreteness to our pure conceptions. We can indeed have an image of a mathematical figure, but this image comes into play only in the special per- cepts of mathematics, with which we are not in tran- scendental philosophy concerned. While however there can be no pure image, enabling us to visualize, so to speak, our pure conceptions, there may be a pure schema. And as this schema is to be the condition in imagina- tion of all possible phenomena, in so far as these are regarded from the universal point of vit v it must be related to that form of perception which is common to all phenomena, whether internal or external : it must i.e. be related to the form of time. This schema is not to be confounded with the pure form of time any more than with the pure form of thought : it is, in fact, not a determination of time itself, but a universal deter- mination of the manifold in relation to time. Now, there are various universal ways in which the manifold is determined in time ; there is the synthesis of homo- geneous units in time, or number; the synthesis of iJi.] A PRIORI CONDITIONS 01' KNOWLEDGE. Dl 'ntensivo units in time, or degree ; the representing of the permanent in time ; the representing of orderly sequence in time ; and histly, the representing of real co-existence in time. These various universal modes of determining the manifold in time constitute the schemata of Imagination, and the process by which the categories are applied to the manifold of sense through time is the schematism of the Understanding. Thus the categories are actualized and the knowledge of objects is made possible. And as the manifold of sense is that element of knowledge without which the Understanding would have nothing to operate upon, the necessity we are under of schematizing the categories makes it impossi- ble that the categories should apply beyond the limits of the phenomenal world. The manifold of sense is knowable only as in time, and hence things in them- selves as falling outside of time cannot possibly bo known. The schemata therefore at once give individu- ality to the category and universality to the manifold of sense. In determining a house, e.g., as an extensive ipiantity, I must combine its special parts in succession, and this successive addition of homogeneous units is guided by the category or intellectual form of quantity. Thus the units are put together by a process of numbering (the schema) in which I at once individual- ize the pure conception (the category) and at the same time bring those units (the manifold of sense) under it.* >Dr. Stirling now thinks (Journ. Spec. Phil., xiv. pp. 257-285) that Kant, intending to make the schema a determination of time, changed his mind and made it a determination of the maniiuld in time ; and that, in so doing, he fell back on " empirical instruction"— in other words, on sensible perception. To this I should reply, that to say the schema is not derivable from pure time, is not the same as saying that it is given in mere sense. The schema is virtually the relation of sense and thought. See below, Chapters v. and vii. Cf. Chap. xii. ' ^, ■ ii .1' w ' m I • 1 1 1 i f- : ^ ' : V 1 >>. '.I d 92 CHAPTEK IV. i I RELATIONS OF METAPHYSIC AND PSYCHOLOGY. — EXAMINATION OF G. H. LEWES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. ^HE most important result of the critical account of knowledge, as we have seen, is to establish the correlativity of the inner world and the outer world, as both alike only existing in relation to our intelligence. Enough has probably been said to make clear the radical distinction between the critical and the dog- matic account of that relation. But as it has been confidently asserted by the late Mr. Lewes and others that recent advances in biology and psychology have superseded Kant's account of the relation of subject and object, it may be profitable to consider shortly the main positions of the new psychology, and to contrast it with Kant's conception of psychology, as subordinate to metaphysic. I think it will be found that recent empirical psychology, not less than that prior to Kant, nmst be regarded as coming under the ban of ** dogma- tism " To attempt anything like a discussion of the various forms assumed by thaf) psychology would lead us too far, and I shall therefore confine myself to the general theory of Mr. Lewes. In common with all empirical psychologists Mr. Lewes speaks of the external world as existing inde- IV.] LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 93 pendently of our consciousness, and as endowed with forces, by the action of which upon the organism, a certain molecular motion in the nervous system and a corresponding feeling in consciousness are set up in the living being. The external world he conceives of as " not the other side of the subject, but the larger circle which includes it ; "^ and feeling he calls " the reaction of the sentient organism under stimulus."^ So far there is nothing to distinguish recent psychology from the psychology of Locke. But Mr. Lewes, following Fechner, claims that the nervous excitation and the feeling are not two independent phenomena, due to two distinct agents, the organitm and the mind, but that they are different aspects under which the one agent, the organism, manifests itself. Sentience as well as the molecular movement of the nervous system is a reaction of the organism. Thus we have, on the one side, the Organism with its twofold aspect, and on the other side, the Cosmos, at once including the organism, and calling forth its reactions. The first remark to be made on this view is, that, in so far as it is an account of the relation of the external world to the individual man, Kant would not have made any radical objection to it. It is, on the face of it, an explanation of the connection between man as a living being and the other objects which make up the world of nature. And we have Kant's own authority for saying that men considered as individuals are simply parts of nature. Looking at existence from the point of view of the different species of objects composing it, we may broadly divide objects into corporeal and incorporeal, or living and non-living things. And it is the object of the physical sciences to investigate nature > Problems of Life and Mind, vol. i., p. 196. « fbid., p. 210. P ^!1 i- »'i I f- 1 i. II i !• i M ¥■ i • ■ H \ * if I! h 94 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. in the first aspect, and of psychology to investigate nature in the second aspect. Just as physics deals with the laws of matter and motion, so psychology attempts to classify the various phases of mental life, and the successive stages through which the individual and the race pass.^ The world as a whole therefore may be said, from this point of view, to comprehend both men and things, or, in Mr. Lewes' language, the Object is " not the other side of the Subject but the larger circle which includes it." There is nothing, again, in Kant inconsistent with the contention of Mr. Lewes, that to every mental state there is a correspon- dent nervous excitation. It is true that Kant speaks rather slightingly of the value of the physiology of the brain in the culture of the individual, on the ground that in it we are dealing with "what nature brings out of man, and not with what man, as a freely acting being, makes out of himself," and hence that, so far as physiological processes are concerned, man is " a mere spectator," since he " cannot be directly aware of what is going on in the nerves and fibres of his brain." ^ But the very form of his remark implies that there is an aspect in which man must be regicrded as passive, and there is no denial but rather a recognition of the asso- ciation of nervous and mental phenomena. How does it come then, that, agreeing so far v;ith empirical psy- chology, and therefore in some sense admitting the independence of nature on niu,n, Kant yet regards the separation of thought and things 03 the evidence and consequence of a false philosophy ? The answer is perfectly simple. Psychology, as Kant conceives of it, is simply a discipline, helping us to widen and syste- * Metaphyeische An/angsgriinde d. Nalurwiftsemeliaft, Vorrede, pp. .357-362. 2 Anthropologie, p. 4.31. IV.] LEWES S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 95 niatize onr knowledge of the world of men, as physics enables us to learn the special laws regulating the world of matter. Psychology, in other words, deals not with the relation of intelligence to nature, but only with one aspect of nature itself. The classification of the various faculties of knowledge, the systematic statement of the gradual way in which our knowledge grows up, and the consideration of individual and national character- istics, tell us nothing about the essential conditions of there being for us any knowledge whatever. For here we are dealing not with the knowing subject in relation to the object of thought, but simply with one aspect of the known object. That we have certain mental states, which we may analytically distinguish as sensation, imagination, thought, &c., does not entitle us to say anything about the primary conditions of our know- ledge of nature. When we have completed our account Oil mental states as objects which we know, we have left untouched the question as to the relation of those mental states, together with things in space, to our intelligence as capable of comprehending both in the unity of a single known world. In other words, psychology is an empirical science, treating of the nature of the individual man as a known object. It has no occasion to ask how knowledge is possible, i.e., what are the conditions without which we could have no knowledge either of ourselves or of external things, but leaves this problem to be dealt with by metaphysic. To suppose, as Mr. Lewes does, that Kant would have been compelled completely to alter his metaphysic, had he only seen that the " a pnooi elements " might be explained as " originally formed out of ancestral sensi- ble experiences " is a delusion arising from an incom- plete apprehension of what Kant's problem was. " Even !< > I i li ru i I r I i 96 JCAIVr AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. granting," Kant would have said, " that we as indivi- duals inherit certain tendencies, this in no way [affects the question as to the essential conditions of knowledge. No matter how we as individuals have come to obtain our knowledge, at least it is not denied that we do have knowledge ; I ask you, therefore, what theory you propose in explanation of this fact. That we have a knowledge of external objects and also of our own mental states is a fact ; but it is not an explanation of the fact. It is this explanation which I have tried to give. And I maintain that, on the supposition of the independence of nature, whether as external or internal, on our intelligence, no consistent explanation of the fact of knowledge is possible." And this leads me, in the second place, to say that Mr. Lewes's psychological theory is simply a new form of that dogmatism to which Kant so strongly objects. It assumes the essential independence of nature on intelligence, and in so doing confounds the logical distinction of external and internal phenomena, as existing only for intelligence, with the real separation of subject and object. No point is more emphatically dwelt upon by Mr. Lewes than the identity and yet distinction of neural changes and changes of feeling. The ordinary concep- tion of the relation of body and mind is that of two independent things, substances, or agents, externally acting and reacting upon each other. This conception must, he asserts, be rejected. We cannot accept the view of the Rational Psychologists, who "treat mental facts simply as the manifestation of a Physical Prin- ciple, at once unknowable and intimately known, a mysterious agent revealed to consciousness;"* we must, ' Lewes's Bind\i of Psychology, § 1 . IV.] LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 97 on the contrary, " frankly accept the biological point of view, which sets aside the traditional conception of the mind as an agent apart from the organism."' Having got rid of this fiction of abstraction, what shall we have to substitute ? Mr. Lewes is equally clear on this head. The only agent is the organism. " To many thinkers, the contrast" of objective and subjective "seems far more than that of aspects, it is that of agents." But " what we know is that the living organism has among its manifestations the class called sentient . . . and states of consciousness. . . . It is not known, nor is there any evidence to suggest that one of these classes is due to the activity of the organism, the other to the activity of another agent. The only agent is the organism." 2 When we "seek the agent of which all the phenomena are the actions, we get the organism."^ In place of the conception of two agents, the organism and the mind, we have to put the conception of a single agent, the organism. All the actions performed by a living being, including those that have usually been set apart as mental, and ascribed to an independent source, must now be ascribed to the organism alone. Evi- dently, then, the organism will have a double duty to perform : to it the operations formerly ascribed to the body, as well as those ascribed to the mind, must both alike be ascribed. We have thus a single agent, performing diverse operations. But these operations have at least this in common that they are alike pre- dicable of a single agent. The organism, e.g., is not only the bearer of neural tremors, but it feels, thinks, and wills. And it must be observed that, while all vital actions are now perceived to belong to the organ- ism, we are still compelled to draw a broad distinction » Lewes's StmUj of Pstjchology, § 4. « yt;,/., g g. 3 ibid., § 7. G Univers'tBS 5 Pauli Bibl'K^^heque - Library 233 Main, Ottawa, Canada \^ \\ II m 98 A'AATT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. between subjective phenomena — those formerly ascribed to mind — and objective phenomena — those formerly at- tributed to body. Thus the organism has two sets of functions, broadly contrasted as subjective and objective. Now it has always been held, even by those who main- tained the existence of a mind distinct from the body, that there is the closest correspondence between the two. This conception must be retained, but it must be transformed in such a way, that the correspond- ence shall be regarded as not exceptional, but perpetual. Every event, then, has at once an objective and a subjective aspect. What exactly does this mean ? It means that " states of consciousness are separable from states of the organism only in our mode of apprehending them."^ Now there is a certain imperfection of expres- sion in this way of stating the matter; for, if the organism is the sole agent, " states of consciousness " are " states of the organism," and therefore should not be contrasted with them. What Mr. Lewes means, however, is evident enough so far : he means, that the "sentient changes" of the organism are inseparable from its " neural changes." But even after this expla- nation there is an ambiguity in Mr. Lewes's words to which it is important to refer. States of consciousness, we are told, are separable from neural changes, " only in our mode of apprehending them." Now our "mode of apprehending" both kinds of change must be by " states of consciousness," and hence it would seem that states of consciousness arc separable from neural changes only in states of consciousness. How then can the broad contrast of subjective and objective be still pre- served ? Instead of a broad contrast, the relation ' Study of Psychology, § 4. IV.] LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 99 would seem to be one of subordination, the subordina- tion of the neural affections to the states of conscious- ness. There can be no doubt, however, that Mr. Lewes means to affirm, not a relation of subordination, but a relation oi' coordination : both sets of changes he regards as on the same level. By " states of consciousness " we must accordingly understand a series of feelings, taken in abstraction from a series of movements in the organism. Mr. Lewes may therefore mean, either (1) that, while in our mode of apprehending them, the two kinds of changes are "separable," in reality they are identical, or (2) that they are identical in being parallel phenomena of the same organism. Mr. Lewes, as it seems to me, does not distinguish between these two very different points of view : he virtually assumes the former, while ostensibly he is only asserting the latter, and it is by this confusion of thought that he is enabled seemingly to preserve at once the separation and the identity of the sentient and the neural changes. " The living organi&im," he says, " has among its manifesta- tions the class called sentient ; and these are known as sensible affections, i.e., the changes excited by the con- tact of external causes, and assignable to visible organs of sense; and states cf conscio^isness, i.e., the changes of feeling, excited by internal causes, and not assignable to visible organs."^ ''What on the objective side is material combination is on the subjective side spiritual combination ; mechanical and logical are only two contrasted aspects of one and the same fact."^ ''All psychological processes are objectively organic pro- cesses," and " the mechanism of these processes may be expressed in objective or subjective terms at will, sen- sorial changes being equivalent to sentient changes."^ study of Psychology, § 6. " Ibid., § 17. * ^JihLjJ ^^• i1 \\' ■ I'M ♦ 100 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. "A sensation or a thought is alternately viewed as a physical change or as a mental change."^ It will be admitted, I think, that there is an un- doubted want of precision in the use of terms in the above extracts. On the one hand, we are told that the same event has its "objective and subjective aspect," that "mechanical and logical are only two contrasted aspects of one and the same fact," and that " sensorial changes are equivalent to sentient changes." On the other hand, it is pointed out that sensible affections are "assignable to visible organs of sense," while states of consciousness are "not assignable to visible organs," and that " a sensation or a thought is alternately viewed as a physical change or as a mental change." Now if the " event " or " fact" is " one and the same," it cannot be assignable to different organs ; if there are two "events" or "facts," it is not correct to speak of them as "one and the same." As Mr. Lewes insists upon interpreting everything by what we know, and refuses to take refuge in the unknow- able,2 we must conclude that, as the two sets of events are distinct to us, they cannot be regarded as in themselves "identical" or "equivalent," and that in predicating identity and equivalence of them, Mr. Lewes only means to insist on their thorough-going parallelism ; i.e. that there never is a " molecular chang d " without a corresponding "sentient change," and ince versa, and further that molecular and sentient changes are " identical " only in the sense that they are both alike predicable of " one and the same " organism, of which they are " aspects." ' Study of Paycholofjn, § 38. 2 See especially Probltms of Life and Mind, vol. ii., prob. vi. 2. Cf., how- ever, Hodgson's Philosophy of Reflection, vol. i., p. 189 flF, where the con- tradictory utterances of Mr. Lewes are cited and discussed. >> IV.J LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 101 Now tliis is none the less a dualism that it masque- rades as a monism. A monism it cannot be, unless the mere assertion of the identity of the two aspects is allowed to pass muster as a proof of that identity. The series of feelings which constitutes the "subjective" aspect goes on independently of the series of move- ments in the organism, and of all relation to intelligence. As the subjective aspect cannot be at the same time the objective, the two cannot logically be brought into any relation with each other. As described by Mr. Lewes, feeling is no more comprehensive of the molecular movements than the molecular movements comprehend feeling ; we have simply a series of neural changes, and a series of feelings, without any explanation of how they come to be known as standing in necessary relation to each other. They are said to be related, but they are tacitly separated from each other, and assumed to be independent. No other explanation indeed is consistent with the premises of Mr. Lewes: for a series of feelings cannot be aware of itself as a series, and without such consciousness of itself, a consciousness of the neural changes is impossible. The root of the imperfection in this conception of subject and object consists in the abstract separation of intelligence as knowing, both from the series of feelings and from the molecular movements. Thought is conceived f^^ as a mere passive spectator of the subjective and cbjective aspects, and conscious- ness as a light that reveals but has nothing to do with the constitution of its objects. But when the object in its two aspects is allowed to fall apart from self- consciousness, the mental states necessarily become a mere series of feelings which, as Kant says, are "as good as nothing for us as thinking beings;" and the I " " t;f f 103 KANT AND JUS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. :i I 'I nervous changes, being separated at onco from the mental states and from the supreme unity of self- consciousness, necessarily sink into a mere succession of movements independent of all relation to conscious- ness. Only when wo see, that v'ithout the activity of intelligence in the constitution of both objects alike no real knowledge is possible, do the separate elements of knowledge come together in the unity of a world at once intelligible and real. The contrasted "aspects," in whort, are but logical abstractions, which are not in themselves objects of knowledge at all, but merely elements which, when regarded as in essential relation to each other and to self-conscious intelligence, combine in the concrete life of knowable existence. It may perhaps be replied that Mr. Lewes is right in regarding himself as a monist, because he denies the existence of two separate agents, the organism and the mind, and maintains that there is but one agent, the organism. This, however, is a way of securing monism that makes the opposition of the two "aspects" unmeaning : it is simply an assumption of the correla- tivity of intelligence and nature, expressed in terms that rob intelligence of its constitutive activity, and make the explanation of real knowledge impossible. The nature of any known reality, as Mr. Lewes is continually reminding us, consists in the sum of its properties. There is not, on the one hand, an indepen- dent thing or substratum beyond knowledge, and, on the other hand, the known properties by which this substratum reveals itself to us; but the only reality is the properties taken together as a whole. The organism, then, we must not for a moment conceive of as an unknown something, now manifesting mole- cular changes, now sentient; it is simply a term IV.] LEH'ES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 103 I i designating a certain complex of properties. We group the one set and call them body, and another set and call them mind, but body and mind are but names connoting respectively the molecular and the sentient changes, just as organism is a more general term comprehending both under itself. "We learn to distinguish the different parts of our organism and their different activities ; generalizing and abstracting, v.'*> get the conception of body representing one group, and of mind as representing another."^ Let us look first at the nr/^lecular changes — the " objective " aspect of the organism — which form one of the groups of properties comprehended under the general term organism. Here we have, Mr. Lewes tells us, simply the " mechanical sequence of objective motions, and could we see the molecular changes in the nerves, centres and muscles, we should still see nothing but sequent motions." ^ So far, therefore, the organism is a term for molecular movements. And movements, of course, pre-suppose material atoms that move, and the motion of material atoms must be comprehended under the higher conception of force. Now it seems evident enough that so far we are outside of the region of sentiency altogether. An organism conceived of simply as recipient of force, is not as yet conceived of ab sentient. Were there nothing but molecular movements, we should have no reason whatever for predicating sentiency of the organism. And it must be observed that excluding sentiency of every kind, and therefore consciousness, there is so far no reason for calling the group of movements named as body "objective" rather than "subjective;" for, as Mr. Lewes himself says, "only » study of Psychology, § 11. - /6m/., § 17. I \\ ■■ It ■••1 I •NH 6 I 104 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. when sentient activities have become so developed that a conscious ego or personality has emerged from them, which establishes distinctions between one class of feelings and another, can this famous contrast of object and subject arise. "^ The organism, therefore, conceived of as a group of neural units, is neither object nor subject, but lies out- side of the region in which this " famous contrast " has place. There is another group of properties, however, the " sentient changes," comprehended under the term organism. These are conscious states, or at least states that " may be " conscious. As these states are said to be purely "subjective," and to be contrasted with the neural changes which alone are objective, they must be defined as simply a series of feelings. And here again it must be observed that there is no distinc- tion of object and subject, for, if there were, it would not be correct to classify feelings as subjective and riiOvements as objective ; feelings would be a com- bination of subject and object. But these two groups of properties are classed to- gether as the objective and subjective aspects of one and the same organism. And as there is no " agent " but the organism, the distinction of objective and subjective must be made by the organism. Thus, while the two groups of properties are separate and distinct, they are yet brought together and recognized as objective and subjective by the organism, as con- scious both of itself and of its contrasted states. The facts then are, as we must now suppose, that two sets of functions are distinguished as respectively movements and feelings, and are yet brought together by the organism as conscious of both alike, and there- ' Stwbj of Psychology, § 11. •v.] lElV/iS'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 105 foro nfl conscious of each tw at once distinct and yet related to the othor. Now, an organism that separates between its own subjective and objective aspects, ap- prehending two distinct sets of functions as in essential relation to each other, must be self-conscious — conscious of self as a unity combining these opposite "states." The organism thus becomes a term for a self-conscious being, comprehending at once subject and object. Wo may, if wo please, still retain the term organism, but evidently what wo are speaking of is neither move- ments nor feelings, but that which comprehends both alike as in necessary relation to itself. Thus, by simply interpreting Mr. Lewes's terms, so as to bring out their implications, we find that in one of its senses the term organism is an outlandish name for self-conscious intelligence. But with this pleasant recognition of an old friend with a new face the opposition of movements as " ob- jective " and feelings as " subjective " loses its plausi- bility. We have seen that, taken by themselves, they cannot bo regarded as either objective or subjective, but are both equally indifferent to such a distinction. Ob- ject and subject exist only for that which is conscious of the distinction of object and subject. Evidently, therefore, movements must be regarded as objective only in the sense that they exist for a subject conscious of them — a conscious subject which Mr. Lewes, by an unpardonable abuse of language, calls the organ- ism. What movements, apart from our knowledge of them, may possibly be, it is impossible to say. They could at best only be an unknown and unknowable something lying beyond the realm of knowledge, and such an "unknowable" Mr. Lewes, above all others, is debarred from admitting by his frequently expressed I il F^i (. lOG KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. denial of any one's right to assert the reality of that which is unknown, not to say unknowable. The "objective" aspect is therefore also "subjective," in the sense that it exi.4s only in relation to a conscious subject of it. Similarly, the so-called "subjective" aspect is not purely subjective, since a feeling apart from its object is unthinkable. But if movements and feelings are alike subjective and objective, i.e., exist only as relations to a conscious intelligence, we must no longer oppose them as coordinate and independent phenomena, but must regard both as objects of an intelligence that has each before it and in essential relation to it as an object which it constitutes. Is there, then, no distinction between the so-called " objective " and " subjective " aspects ? Most assur- edly there is ; but it is nco the distinction of the " ob- jective " from the " subjective " — both alike implying the synthesis of object and subject — but simply the distinction of one class of objects, as a given sum of properties, from another class. A series of molecular movements cannot be identified with a series of feelings, but it is not less true that a series of feelings cannot be identified with self-conscious intelligence. Self-con- sciousness is the ultimate unity comprehending all relations as manifestations of itself And hence the difference between Metaphysic, the science of intelli- gence as such, and Psychology, the science of man, is, as Kant maintains, that between the general science of reality and the science of a special aspect of reality. The fundamental principle of philosophy is the unity of subject and object, and psychology, accepting this principle, must go on to enquire into the character- istics of that unity as specified in the sensitive and conscious nature of man. This will be more clearly IV.] LEWES' S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 107 the seen if we go on to ask what is Mr. Lewes'^ conception of the relations of physiology and psychology. Starting from the view that there is a strict parallel- ism between the objective and the subjective factors, Mr. Lewes goes on to say, that " psychology is some- what less, and somewhat more than the subjective theory of the organism. It is less, becaupo restricted to the sentient phenomena, whereas physiology embraces all vital phenomena. It is more, because it includes the relations of the organism to the social medium, whereas physiology is concerned only with the relations to the cosmos."^ The parallelism is thus restricted to the "molecular changes" of the nervous system, and the "sentient changes" corresponding to them. Physio- logy and psychology are two special branches v>f the general science of biology. The latter "includes plants, animals and man, with the respective subdivisions, phytology, zoology and anthropology. Each of these is again divided into morphology, the science of form, and physiology, the science of function." " I must reject the separation of psychology from biology so long as I am unable to separate mind from life."^ It is thus evident that Mr. Lewes conceives of psycho- logy as a special science on the same level as physiology. Both, moreover, deal, net with the structure or form of the organism, but wiUi its functions; hence the difference between them must be in the different func- tions of which they take note. They are both said to be biological sciences, because they deal with the functions of the " organism." With what " functions " then are they respectively concerned ? Physiology is limited to a consideration of the mechanical functions, which may be all reduced to " molecular changes.'* 'I Hrrl i'M m ' > ll L w\ t (i* ' Study oj Psychology, § 15. •J ;&«.,§ 5. 108 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRix ICS. [chap. :' I \. \ ! I \'t' ii> The physiologist " traces the sequence of stimulation through sensory nerve, centre, motor nerve and muscle."^ Physiology is the theory of "the sentient functions as the direct activity of the organs." ^ Psychology, on the other hand, deals with sentient functions, with "feelings as such, and their relations to other feelings," with "changes in feeling," with "processes which are conscious processes, or which have been and mai/ again be conscious." ^ It is the theory of the "soul, its functions and acquired faculties, considered less in reference to the organism than in reference to experience and conduct." * Physiology and psychology are thus concerned respectively with the " objective " and the " subjective " aspects of the same event. "Physiology deals directly and chiefly with the objective aspect of sentient facts, and their relation to the visible organism," ^ ix. to the organism as having "solidity, form, colour, weight and motion."** Psychology deals with " the same facts in their sub- jective aspect as states of feeling, not as organic changes " ; ^ with the " ideas and volitions that consti- tute the subjective, intelligible self"* But although each of these branches of biology is directly concerned with a different aspect of the organism, each is indirectly concerned with the other aspect also, for both deal with the sentient organism. Were the physiologist to limit himself entirely to molecular changes " the sequences would have no more significance for him than similar sequences in a machine ; " and, on the other hand, the psychologist, if he is to "know the subjective facts with accuracy and fulness . . must learn their objective conditions of production." Physiology and psychology ' A'tudy of Psychology, § 8. « Ibid., S 9. ■* Ibid g 8. •* Ibid., § 9. ° Ibid., § 8. « Ibid., § 6. ' Ibid., § 8. » IbUL, § 6. IV.] LEWES' S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 109 are further contrasted as the science of " the conditions of production and the science of the " products." The place of physiology is " that of the organic conditions of production ; the place of psychology being that of the products" The two sciences are thus complemen- tary of ePuch other. "Although the exclusive province of the psychologist is that of the sentient changes as products, the aid of physiology is needed to supply the conditions of production ; it alone can disclose the operation of changes which escape subjective appre- ciation."' Hence "all psychological processes are objectively organic processes."^ Physiology, then, in so far as it is limited to the mechanism of the nervous system, is, according to Mr. Lewes, concerned with molecular changes, which may further be regarded as related to the stimuli which produce them; in other words, its province is with changes that can be brought under the categories of motion and force. Psychology, on the other hand, treats of feelings, whether these are actually known as feelings by the agent or no. And this distinction of movements and feelings Mr. Lewes naturally, from his point of view, identifies with the distinction already considered of the "objective" and the "subjective" aspect of the organism. Now, it must be repeated that this distinction of objective and subjective has really no proper application, until the relation of the movements and the feelings to a conscious intelligence is recog- nized. And in the next place, it must be remarked that ivhen the relation of movements and feelings to a conscious Intelligence is recognized, there is no longer any propriety in calling the former "objective" and the latter " subjective ;" each is objective or subjective » Study of Psychology, § 8. ■ Ibid. , g 19. ! (■■ I I" 1 1 1 )> no KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ;( \\\ according to our point of view. The " molecular movements" may be regarded as "subjective," when they are contemplated as objects of a personal con- sciousness; the feelings may be regarded as "objective" when they are opposed to the self to which they are related. In other words, subject and object only exist in relation to each other. But Mr. Lewes further contrasts physiology as the science of the " conditions of production," with psychology, the science of the " products." Now it is of course a truism that apart from the molecular changes of the nervous system, there could not be in the individual man any succession of feelings, and therefore there could not be any consciousness of feelings. Nevertheless the molecular changes are not the cause of the feelings. For, for one thing, these movements are dependent upon stimu- lation by an extra-organic force, and this is as much a " condition" of production as the movements. But the great objection to this contrast of " conditions of pro- duction" and " products" is that it really abstracts not only from the new element introduced by conscious- ness, but even from the new element introduced bv the presence of life. Mr. Lewes says that, were the physiologist to limit himself to molecular changes, "the sequences would have no more significance for him than similar sequences in a machine." And the fact is that they have, "no more significance" to the physiologist as such than "tho sequences in a machine." Molecular movements are molecular movements, no matter whether they occur in a "machine" or in an animal organism. It no doubt is a very imperfect account of a living being simply to describe th'i mole- cular movements that occur in its nervous system ; but the " imperfection" lies solely with those who take this IV.] LEWES S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. Ill as a sufficient account of life, not with the physiologist as such, who has completed his task when he has done so, and who puts forward no theory as to the position of the facts of his science in a general scheme of know- ledge and existence. Mr. Lewes talks as if the physi- ologist could not advance a step without recognizing that he is dealing with the " objective" aspect of the organism, or the " conditions of production." In truth, the physiologist need not pronounce any opinion on the question at all, and as a physiologist it is not his business to pronounce any opinion. But while the physiologist must be freed from overlooking the nature of the sentient organism, Mr. Lewes cannot. For to speak of molecular movements as the conditions of production of feeling and consciousness, is simply to apply the category of cause and efifect where it becomes meani'v^- less. A movement in the sentient organism is not the cause of which a feeling is the effect. We can follow up the line of molecular movement from the vibration of a candle, through the vibration of the ether, to the vibration of the nervous system, and we end as we began with molecular movement. If we please, we may call the molecular movements last considered an " aspect" of the organism, but we have no right to call it the "objective" as opposed to the "subjective" aspect of the organism^ for it is no more "objective" than the vibration of the molecules constituting the candle. We have therefore no right to pass from this "molecular" aspect of the organism to its "sensitive" aspect, without allowing for the change in our point of view. Contemplated in its molecular aspect, the organism not only does not differ from a machine, but it does not differ from a stone. The highest category we can apply to it is that of reciprocal action^ m,. 11 f m m 1- 112 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 1 * A \ i ) I and that we can equally apply to the knocking of two stones against each other. When therefore we advance from this "molecular" aspect of the organism to its "sensitive" aspect, we are compelled to substitute a new and higher conception of the "organism." It is not right even to speak of the extra-organic thing as the cause or force, of which the molecular movement in the organism is the effect; we must at least recognize that the co-operation of the molecules of the orgtinism is required before there can be any " stimulation." Much less even can it be correct to speak of the mole- cular movements as the " conditions of production" of feelings. The most essential condition of production is the life manifested in the organism, and apart from that, the molecular movements are nothing. While therefore we must recognize that molecular movements are presupposed in the existence of sensations as animal feelings, there is in these sensations a new factor which is not implied in the molecular movements. We may if we please contrast this "sentient" aspect with the "molecular" aspect, but it is absurd to contrast them as "objective" and "subjective." It is perfectly true that there is no sensation without an appropriate mole- cular movement, but only in the sense in which there is no molecular movement in the organism without a cor- responding molecular movement in the extra organic world. The relation is therefore not a parallelism, but a subordination. The molecular movements take on a new hue by being viewed as pertaining to a living- being ; life in fact becomes their " condition of produc- tion." For while there are molecular movements which exist apart from life, these ^particular molecular move- ments can only take place in a living organism ; and if we in any way alter the nature of the living organism, we IV.] LEWES' S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 113 alter the molecular movements correspondently. Hence the movements in the higher animals are very different irom the movements in the lower ; the complexity and adaptation of the parts, which is one "aspect" of the intensity of the life, is the condition of the special molecular movements. It is necessary therefore to insist strenuously upon the suhordination of the mechanism to sentience (in the sense explained). We must refuse to recognize the adequacy of the phrase- ology which speaks of molecular movements as the cause of which sensations arc the effect. If we are to apply the category of cause and effect at all, we must rather call the "sentience" the cause of the molecular movements, since apart from the sentient being these particular movements could not take place. We have in fact to view sentience as the ideal aspect of that co-operation of organs which is the essential condition of life, and which alone entitles us to speak of an " organism." Thus we have the mechanism and the organism, manifesting themselves respectively in molecular move- ments and in feelings. Higher still we have conscious- ness. Just as in passing from molecular movements to feelings, we have a subordination of the former by the latter, so, in a still more striking way, we have now the subordination of movements and of feelings to con- sciousness. And this subordination of course varies in difiercnt individuals in accordance with their intelli- gence (which is just another name for the subordination). The essential difference between life and consciousness lies in that subordination of all feelinijs to a sinii^le self- consciousness, which is the condition of experience. Now for the first time the distinction of "object" and " subject " appears ; but it so presents itself as to show u ■Ml ift t t 'ii,i :r \r \l M 11 I i M !i 1 I : m , a ,^i I: 114 JCANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [cn>p. the absurdity of opposing feelings as " subjective" to " movements" as objective. Feelings comprehend and explain movements, consciousness comprehends and explains both. Thus both feelings and movements are alike objects of consciousness, and are at once objective and subjective, since they are possible only as relations to consciousness. Now if this is at all a correct view to take, it is evident that Mr. Lewes's conception of the relations of physiology and psycholoo'^'" cannot be ac- cepted. As a science of molecular aiovements, physi- ology does not fall within the range )f psychology, and, in fact, has no further bearing on psychology than to illustrate the relation of sentient and conscious life. But this just means that psychology is a philoso- phical science, and therefore has to consider intelli- gence as displayed in the manifestations of living and conscious beings. Psychology, in fact, is com- pelled, whether it will or no, to go upon certain metaphysical presuppositions, because metaphysic en- quires into the relation of subjects and object, and it is impossible to treat of consciousness without asserting or implying some theory of those relations. As there are two aspects in which the organism may be contemplated, so, it is held by Mr. Lewes, there are two ways in which we may endeavour to solve the problem of psychology — the way of "observation of external appearances," and the way of " introspection," the latter differing from the former " only in that the phenomena observed are subjective states or feelings, and not objective states or changes in the felt."^ Now the supposition that such a method of introspec- tion is possible, rests upon an untenable separation of feeling and its objects. It is, of course, perfectly true > Stmlfof Paycholofjy, § G2. IV.] LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 115 I that a man experiences feelings that are experienced by no one else, but it is not true that he can experience a mere succession of foolings, i.e., a succession of feelings occurring in his own mind apart from all relation to thought and its objects. A being conceived of as but the medium of a succession of feelings is a being that is not conscious. Apart from reference to a thinking self — a self which is not a mere colourless and passive medium, but is active in the constitution of the feelings that pass — there is no knowledge of feelings, and there- fore no experience. If we imagine a being to whom each fooling in turn arises and passes away v/ithout being fixed in relation to a central self, we get the nearest conceivable approach to introspection. But such a being could never form a theory of itself, be- cause, not only would it have no power of connecting the data of its experience in a system of 'hought, not only would it be unable to draw inferences, but it could have no data from which, by inference, to construct a system. We may suppose the lower animals to be in this condition ; but then the lower animals do not form a system of psychology, or connect their feelings in a coherent whole of experience. Thus the observa- tion of merely "subjective states" is an impossibility, because there are no merely " subjective states " to observe. Every feeling that is known, and enters into the context of experience, is by that fact a re- lation between subject and object, or depends for its constitution upon the intelligence to which it is related. We cannot observe bare feelings, because the fact that they are observed, i.e., are referred to the unity of self-consciousness, makes them not mere passive feelings, but thoughts or relations. Introspection, therefore, in so far as it is said to be M T, \k if l! '41 116 A'ANT AND IIIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 'V. : i J' \ 1 \ tho "observation of sulvjoctivo states or feelings," is an absurdity. Not less certain is it that " observation of external appearances " is an impossibility. We can certainly have a knowledge of a world in space, and in that sense we can observe " external appearances " ; but it is not possible to observe that which is purely " ob- jective," in contrast to "subjective states or feelings." For that which is known as an object, becomes by that very fact a relation to consciousness ; and only so does it enter into and become part of the world of ex perience. Why then is a distinction usually made between introspection and observation ? Tho answer is simple enough. In the first place, there arc feelings which we do not think of ascribing to the extra-organic world, but Avhich we refer to the organism itself, and in this sense we may, if wo please, speak of these as " sub- jective states or feelings." In truth, however, they are no more mere feelings, than extra-organic objects are feelings, for they exist in experience only as rela- tions to a conscious intelligence, and therefore are at once objective and subjective. In the second place, introspection and observation may bo contrasted as the less to the more complex. Thus we may say iliat in our ordinary consciousness we have a sensation of light, and that this is known by simple introspection ; whereas, if wo wish to get a knowledge of the process by which we come to have that sensation, we must appeal to "observation." But the contrast of feeling and object, introspection and observation, is a false one.^ We are not entitled to say that the sensation of light is purely subjective, on the ground that wo do not * This false contrast runs through the whole of Fechnor's " PKtjchoi'hii.4lc" and Wundt's " Phyniohyfischc Psycholojip," ' I iv.J LEWES' S THEORY Ob KNOWLEDiJE, 117 know its conditions of production in tho organism ; it is just as much an object, determined by relation of the permanent self to it, as is tho knowledge of tho retina and the nervous system. The contrast here is not be- tween subjective and objective at all, but between less and more concrete knowledge, between simple relations and complex relations. In considering tho nature of knowledge, as we are compelled to do when we speak of methods of psychology, we have no right to speak of the organism as if it could be known to exist apart from relation to an intelligent apprehension of it ; and in formulating our knowledge, we must insist upon the strict continuity in the development of knowledge, and therefore in the precedence of the less to the more complex. It will still further illustrate the critical theory of knowledge if we contrast it with Mr. Lewes's " psycho- geny," according to which knowledge is held to be ** partly connate, partly acquired, partly the evolved product of the accumulated experience of ancestors, and partly of the accumulatea experiences of the indi- vidual.'" Kant's view of the origin of knowledge, it is held by Mr. Lewes, is fundamentally erroneous, because it supposes the individual to bring with him a friori conditions of knowledge, and even a priori experiences. And the reason of the imperfection is that biology and psychology were not at the time it was formed suffici- ently advanced to suggest the true interpretation. Mr. Lewes, therefore, claims that he has given the only theory of knowledge which reconciles the conflict- ing claims of the a priori and a p)Osteriori schools of philosophy. This theory maintains that the individual inherits what may be called " a priori conditions of ' ProbU'inn of Li/c and Miiul, vol. i., p. 120. iif'^ I • 1 (i 118 KANT AND JfJH ENGLISH CRITICS. [ciui-. I Is i ( I s 1 i " knowledge, and even a prion experiences . . . which must doterniino the result of our individual a postenon experiences." Such a jmori conditions of knowledge and experiences are for the individual a priori; that is, they are not acquired by his own individual experience, but were acijuircd by his ancestors and have been trans- mitted by them to him. Still they were obtained by ex- perience, and hence are true only within experience. Kant is therefore mistaken in supposing that "the mind brings with it a fund of a priori knowledge in which no em- pirical influence, personal or ancestral, is traceable.'" Had he only seen that a priori knowledge is simply " the organized experiences usually termed instinct, which we inherit from our ancestors, and which form, so to speak, part of our mental structure," he would have also seen that his view of a pnoti knowledge is altogether a mistake. We may be said to be born with "a knowledge of space, with a knowledge of causality, &c., because although these registered tend- encies were originally framed out of sensible experi- ences, we who inherit the structure so modified only need the external stimulus, and forthwith the action of that structure produces the pre-determined result." ^ I have already exai. Lied Mr. Lewes's view of neural process and sentience as the subjective and objective aspects of the one organism. What I propose at present to consider is whether the knowledge of Nature as a coherent system of objects is really explained on the " psychogenetic " theory expressed in the remarks just quoted. I shall say nothing as to Mr. Lewes's misunderstanding of Kant's theory, which will be at once apparent to any one who has followed the account of it given above. I shall rather ask whether Nature, ' Prohleim of Life and Mind, vol. i., p. 440. ' Ihid., p. 446. ' I' V.J LE IVES'S THEORY 01 KNOWLEDCE. ll'J It as a world of knowablo objocta revealed to conscious- ness, can be accounted for on Mr. Levves's premises. Does tlio doctrine of evolution, when extended by Mr. Lewes so as to include the evolution of a known world in consciousness, do what it pretends to do '\ Does it really supersede Kant? Does it not rather fail altogether to grapple with Kant's problem ? ' In his " psychogenetic " theory of knowledge Mr, Lewes makes certain assumptions which he may, perhaps, bo quite entitled to make, but which, at any rate, it is important to see that he does make. In the tirst place, he assumes that nature or " the cosmos " exists independently of its relation to consciousness, and tliat consciousness is gradually evolved. The object is " not the other side of the subject, but the larger circle which includes it." True, "the cosmos arises in consciousness : " " the objective world, with its manifold variations, is the differentiation of exist- ence, due to feeling and thought ; " but this differen- tiation is the result of the forces manifested by the cosmos, as acting on the living organism. Hence, in the second place, it is assumed that organisms exist to be acted upon by the forces of the cosmos. As an evolutionist Mr. Lewes would no doubt say that originally animal organisms were " evolved " from cos- mical forces ; but this has no immediate bearing on the psychogeuetic theory of knowledge. Let us sup- l)oso, then, that the cosmos as possessed of various forces exists, and that animal organisms have been evolved from them. The question will then be : Granting animal organisms to have come into exist- ence, and to be gradually developed by their reaction 'With what follows compare Mr. Greeu's criticism of Lcwcs'a " psycho- geny," to which I am much indchted. Conleinporary Review, xxxii. pp. 762-72. , I ,1 I! n 120 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. against material forces, can it be shown how the knowledge of the world of nature grows up, as the result of such continuous action and re-action 1 Mr. Lewes holds that it can, and it is in the account which he gives of the evolution of consciousness from the unconscious that we are at present interested. An organism exists only in relation to the cosmical medium or to its environment. And, although we distinguish each organ or function logically, we must be careful to observe that no organ or function really exists or operates independently, but only in relation to the complex of organs and functions and to the medium in which it is placed. Each function of an organ is the product of the interaction of structure and stimulus. The structure of the organism, e.g., " is built up from materials originally drawn from the external medium, but proximately drawn from its internal medium, or plasma." Nutrition is a process which involves the co-operation of the organism and the inorganic material, and both are required for the final product. Now, " there is a marked tendency in organic substance to vary under varying excitation, which results in the individualization of the parts, so that growth is accompanied by a greater or less dilieren- tiation of structure." But the parts "are not only individualized into tissues and organs, but are all connected." Again, while the reaction of an organ is determined by its structure at the time it reacts, ** yet the very reaction itself tends to establish a modification which will alter subsequent reactions ; " "by the exer- cise of an organ its structure becomes differentiated, and each modification renders it fitted for more energetic reaction and for new modes of reaction." Function and structure are thus mutually dependent. Finally, IV.] LEWES' S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 121 as the structure is modified by its reactions on stimula- tion these modifications "tend to become transmitted to offspring." Thus, gradually, a great change in the structure, and therefore in the functions, of organs is produced. Thus the vital organism is evolved from the bioplasm ; in simpler language, the living organism assimilates inorganic substance, and so grows, differen- tiates, changes, and transmits its modified structure to offspring.^ Let us now see "how the psychical organism is evolved from what may be analogically called the psychoplasm." Here we do not consider the whole vital organism, but only its " sensitive aspects ; " we " confine ourselves to the nervous system." The move- ments of the bioplasm consist of molecular compositions and decompositions, out of which arises the whole mechanism or structure of the organism. The bioplasm may be viewed in two aspects, the process of assimila- tion and the material assimilated. Similarly, the psy- choplasm may be viewed as, on the one hand, the nervous structure or medium, and, on the other hand, the function of the nervous structure. As the bioplasm has molecular movements, so the psychoplasm has " neural tremors." " The forces of the cosmical medium, which are transformed in the physiological medium [the whole vital organism] build up the organic struc- ture, which in the various stages of its evolution reacts according to its statical conditions, themselves the result of preceding reactions." The forces of the cosmical medium thus act in conjunction with the organism itself, and the product is the special structure of the organism. This organic structure, again, is gradually modified by the exercise of the vital functions ^ ProbleniH oj L\fc and Mind, vol. i., pp. 115-118. ■) \i \ n 122 it I KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. of the organism, and hence the reactions under the same external stimuli are altered. And "it is the same with what may be called the mental organism. Here, also, every phenomenon is the product of two factors, external and internal, impersonal and personal, objective and subjective. Viewing the internal factor solely in the light of feeling, we may say that the sentient material, out of which all the forms of consci- ousness are evolved, is the psychoplasm incessantly fluctuating, incessantly renewed. Viewing this on the physiological side, it is the succession of neural tremors, variously combining into neural groups." This evolu- tion of all the forms of consciousness is experience, i.e., " organic registration of assimilated material The psychoplasm then is "the mass of potential feehng derived from all the sensitive affections of the ororan- ism, not only of the individual but through heredity of the ancestral organisms. All sensations, perceptions, emotions, volitions are partly connate, partly acquired, partly the evolved products of the accumulated experi- ences of ancestors, and partly of the accumulated experiences of the individual, when each of these have left residua in the modifications of the structure."^ This view of the origin of knowledge may perhaps be expressed somewhat more simply. The organism, it is held, is a combination of independent organs. But these organs act only in relation to the forces of the external world. Now we can distinguish, although we cannot separate, the structure of the organism from the function it discharges. Thus the organism, if we look only at its vital aspect, without directing our attention to its sensitive aspect, assimilates inorganic substances, or works them up into its own structure. But this ' Frohkma of Life ami Mind, vol. i., pp. 118-123. IV.] LEWES' S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 123 process of assimilation has an influence on the structure itself, and hence an influence on the process of assimi- lation. The structure gradually changes, and so does the process ; and so, as one living being gives rise to another, the changes in the structure of the organism of the parent give rise to a structure in the offspring different from that with which the parent began life. This gradual change in structure, and consequently in the function relative to structure, results in the course of innumerable generations in an organic structure and function very unlike the structure and function of the first animal of the series. Now from this we can see how experience is gradually evolved : how "the cosmos arises in consciousness." The nervous system is the special structure of which sentience is the function. Given a certain nervous structure, and a certain stimulus, and the product will be a certain impression or feeling. But the nervous structure is not always the same, but varies from generation to generation. The vital organ- ism changes under the influence of its own reaction against the forces of the cosmical medium, and in course of time the organism is very much altered. And the nervous system, as part of the organism, of course changes along with the other organs. As therefore the general structure of the organism alters, so also does the special structure of the nervous system. That structure is adapted to receive external stimuli. But according to the state of the nervous structure at a ffiven time will be the character of the reaction it manifests. And as the reaction of the nervous struc- ture has an effect upon the nervous structur*^} itself, the consequence is that it changes, and correspondently with it the feelings which are the product of the mutual action of the external stimuli and the nervous structure it I i V^m i i it ^1 i [ 124 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chai-. undergo modification. Now wo can look at the nervous system either from the external or from the internal point of view. From the external point of view, we have neural tremors which combine to form neural groups; from the internal point of view we have feelings. But feelings are the " sentient material, out of which the forms of consciousness are evolved." And experience is a "registration of feeling;" hence the " cosmos which arises in consciousness " is a product of the organism in relation to the forces of the cosmical medium. As the structure of the nervous system changes, so do the feelings which are the product of its reaction. Hence each organism, inheriting the ner- vous structure of its ancestors, has an a pnori part of knowledge transmitted to it, as well as an a posteriori part which it acquires for itself. For as the struc- ture is relative to the function, change in the structure implies change in the experience. Coming therefore into the world with a special structure handed down as a legacy from the ceaseless action and reaction of medium and function, each organism inherits part of the garnered wealth of experience acquired by all preceding organisms. This explains why part of our knowledge seems, and in a sense, is, a priori or connate. One ought to be grateful to Mr. Lewes for expressing the doctrine of the evolution of experience in so definite a form. So long as it is simply asserted vaguely that the revolution in our biological conceptions caused by the acceptance of the Darwinian theory of development must compel us to give a new account of the nature of knowledge, it is difficult to resist the claim. But when we see the specific application of the biological notion of development to the explanation of knowledge, I think it becomes very manifest that thero is nothing in IV.] LEWES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 125 the " new psychology " which really helps to settle the problem of knowledge as it was stated and partially solved by Kant. On careful consideration it becomes plain that Mr. Lewes does not avoid that separation of intelligence and nature which he rightly regards as the essential weak- ness of the old empirical psychology, but simply brings it back in a new form. In fact, it is difficult to see how the continuous development of the whole animal world, should prove the evolution of the conscious from the mconscious, any more than the evolution of indi- vidual living men from human ancestors should prove it. Nor is there any reason why Kant, who saw nothing in the latter fact to throw doubt on his conclu- sions, should be overwhelmed by the former, supposing him to be alive now, and familiar with the recent developments of biology and psycliology. For, whether the individual man is developed from human ancestors only, or finds his pedigree go back also to non-human ancestors, the conditions under which he comes to know a world of connected objects would seem to be very much the same. In the order of time, it is plain enough that unconscious processes precede conscious processes : that each man is at first a mere animal, with only potentialities of knowledge ; but the clearest re- cognition of this fact is not inconsistent with the denial of the independence of the "cosmos" in intelligence. As, however, Mr. Lewes, and evolutionists generally, are of a different opinion, let us look at the matter more closely. As we have seen, Mr. Lowes does not attempt in his " psycliogenetic " theory to explain what is implied in the existence of living organisms, but assuming these to exist, he goes on to enquire into the way in which 'i l\ ^:l 126 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ; nature, or the cosmos, " arises in consciousness." The explanations he gives therefore concern, not the exist- ence of living beings, but the process by which they are gradually changed or evolved. Each organism as living must be nourished by the assimilation of inor- ganic substances, and this assimilation is not a mere transference of those substances into the organism, but the working up of tliem into living substance. The organism is therefore an essential factor in the con- version of the inorganic into the organic ; the internal medium is as essential to the final result as the external medium. Organic structure is built up by the forces of the cosmic medium co-operating with the organism as vital. And the differentiation of structure, resulting in the course of ages in the evolution of new types of organism is the result of the continuous interaction of the organism and the external medium. The organic structure in relation to external forces is gradually modil).ed by the function which that structure condi- tions. For the reaction of the organism on the forces of the cosmic medium leaves residua in the structure which alter it, and hence in each new phase of evolu- tion there is a modification of structure, and therefore a modification of function. And this explains the way in which existing organisms arc connected with the remotest organisms. The continuous accumulation of slight differences in the structure goes on 'pari passu with a continual change in the character of the func- tions which that structure conditions. Now so far there is nothing to which Kant or his followers need object. It may be all very true, and very important in its place ; but it does not seem to explain in any way how " the cosmos arises in consciousness." Aristotle has said what is virtually the same thing, IV.] LE IVES'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE. 127 although of course he did not suppose the ancestors of wan to run further back than man. It is the next step that contains the pecuhar doctrine of the psychology of evolution. There is one part of the organism, it is said, to which the mental life is related in a closer and more intimate way than to the organism as we have yet con- sidered it — viz., the nervous system and the special organs connected with it ; and the nervous system is only one of the differentiations of the organism. Now this of course is perfectly true ; but at the same time it must be borne in mind that in framing r» theory of the organism, we must take due note not only of the differentiations which occur, but of the unity which is diflercntiated. Now the organism regarded merely as vital, i.e., as organic structure capr.ble of assimilating inorganic substances, is a less concrete unity than the organism regarded as differentiated in a special nervous structure, with a correspondent function of sensation. Here too there is a relation between structure and the forces of the cosmic medium, but it is a relation of a different kind from that involved in nutrition. The organism has a structure fitting it for discharging the function of nutrition, but it has also a structure so differentiated as to fit it for responding to stimuli and discharging the function of sensibility. Thus in passing from the general structure which is the condition of nutrition, to the specific structure which is the con- dition of sensation, we must not only attend to the dif- ferentiation of the organism, but we must also realise Clearly that the organism now connotes a new sum of relations. I refer to this, not for its own sake, but for its bearing on the general method by which Mr. Lewes endeavours to explain how " the cosmos arises in con- sciousness." h m . •ii'ii I '.\^\ i 128 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap, I IH orld as perceived into concrete objects and the spatial and temporal determinations of such objects. We may, in other words, ask what is implied in the ordinary experience of individual things, and in the fact that we can count or measure them ; as well as what is implied in the scientific application of quantity to such objects, and in the rules of quantity considered by themselves. As a complete theory uf knowledge must explain the possibility of the various kinds of knowledge which we undoubtedly possess, it must be shown how we come to know individual objects, and to apply quantitative relations to them. Philosophy has therp!v>re at once to justify the rmiversality and necessity of mathematical proposition?, and to explain by what right mathematics is applied to individual things. The pos- sibility of mathematics, regarded simply as a science determining the relations of space and time, has been explained in the j^sthetic, where it was pointed out that space and time are a priori forms of perception. The general result of the Esthetic was to show (1) that the demonstrative character of mathematical judgments arises from the fact that these rest upon specifications of the forms of space and time, whidi belong to the constitution of our perceptive faculty, and (2) that mathematical judgments are not mere analyses of pre- existing conceptions of numbers, figures, etc., but are synthetical judgments resting upon tlie active construc- tion of numbers and figures themselves. But the elements of knowledge implied in mathematical propo- sitions, and in their application to individual objects. ■.ii I 1 'f:i I -■K 1 1 'I III ^ i; 142 A-z/AT .lyo mS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. can only now be completely set forth. For in these there are implied, not only the forms of space and time, but certain pure conceptions or categories. It should be observed that the question as to the application of mathematics has nothing to do with our reasons for determining special objects by mathematical formulas ; we are not asking, for example, how we can determine the distance of the sun from the earth, but simply how we are entitled to apply the category of quantity to any object whatever in space. In answering this question, philosophy abstracts in the meantime from the actual relations of things to each other, as well as from the concrete properties of things, and from the specific de- terminations of space and time. It has to point out what is implied in the knowledge of any individual object of perception ; but it does not seek to determine what are the specific differences of objects. These differences may be summarily expressed by the term " manifold," and as this manifold involves a relation to our perceptive faculty, it may be called the " manifold of sense." The meaning of the term " manifold" there- fore varies, according as we are referring to the proper- ties of individual things, to their spatial and temporal relations, or to the determinations of space and time themselves. In considering the principles which justify the application of mathematics to phenomena, Kant uses the term in all these senses, but in no case does he mean by it more than what may be called isolated points of perception, that is, mere differences taken in abstraction from their unity. From the point of view, then, of the Critical philosophy, the objects of percep- tion are no\; real external objects, but merely the sensible, spatial or temporal parts out of which objects are put together. The manifold, e.g., of a house is U- v.] THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT. 143 the spatial parts or the sensible units which together make it an object, and mark it out in space ; the mani- fold of a line is the parts or points, by the successive construction of which the lire is determined. This mere manifold, which is really only an abstract element in known objects, is all that is due to perception ; the unity of the manifold is contributed entirely by the understanding. Turning now to the relations of objects, as distin- guished from objects themselves, we can see that our problem is somewhat changed. So far we have sup- posed real things to be known ; now we must inquire what justification there is for that assumption. Grant- ing that we can prove all objects in space and time to have extensive and intensive quantity, we m. ^t still ask on what ground we affiriu that there are real sub- stances, real sequences, and real coexistences. There can be no doubt that, in our ordinary consciousness, we have the conceptions of substance, cause, and reci- procity ; but philosophy nmst be able to show that these conceptions have an application to real objects. Our question, then, is as to the possibility of ultimate rules or principles of judgment, which are at the same time fundamental laws of nature. In those universal principles, which the scientific man assumes in all his investigations, and which form the prolegomena to scientific treatises, we have indeed a body of universal truths; but they are limited in their application to external nature. Our aim is, on the other hand, to discover and prove the objective validity of the prin- ciples which underlie nature in general, as including both external and internal objects; or, what is the same thing, to show that there are synthetical judgments belonging to the constitution of our intelligence, which 'Si I i^.i I 144 KANT AND HIS ENGL 'Sff CRITICS. [chap. !■■ account, and alono account, for the existenca and con- nection of real objects. In accordance with the distinction of individual objects and the relations of individual objects, the principles of judgment naturally separate into two groups, which we may distinguish respectively as the mathjmaticcd and the dynamical principles. Following the clue of the categories, we find that these groups again subdivide into two sets of prepositions. Mathe- matical principles prove (1) that individual perceptions, whether these are simple determinations of space and time, or concrete objects, are extensive quanta, and (2) that in their content individual objects have intensive quantity or degree. In the dynamical principles it is shown (1) that there are real substances, real Bcquences, and al coexistences, and (2) that the subjective criteria of knowledge are the possibility, the actuality, or the necessity of the objects existing in our consciousness. From what has been said, it will be easily understood why Kant divides the principles of judgment into two classes, the mathematical and the dynamical. The former are not mathematical propositions, but philoso- phical propositions, formulating the process by which the axioms and definitions of mathematics are known and applied to concrete objects. For the method of pi ilosophy is quite distinct from the method of niathe- matics. The niatliematician immediately constructs the lines, points, and figures with which his science deals, and only in that construction does he obtain a conception of them. The proposition that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, is not obtained by the analysis of the conception of a straight line, but from the actual construction of it as an individual perception. The axioms and definitions of ' v.] THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT, U6 mathematics are, therefore, immediately verified in the perception or contemplati( n of the objects to which they refer. Philosophy, on the other hand, must show how there can be conceptions which yet apply to per- ceptions ; how, for example, we are justified in saying that there is a real connection between events. Any direct reference to immediate perception is here inad- missible, for from such perception no universal proposi- tion can be derived. The two principles that "all perceptions are extensive quanta,'' nnd that " the real in all phenomena has intensive (quantity or degree," are called mathematical, because they justify the assump- tion that the axioms and definitions of mathematics are necessary, and at the same time, because they account for the application of mathematics to individual things. As to the first point, the axioms in mathematics rest upon the immediate perception of the object constructed by the determination of space and time. And while the necessary truth of such axioms admits of no doubt, philosophy, having undertaken the task of showing the relation of intelligence to all its objects, must be able to point out what in the constitution of intelligence gives them their binding force. The axioms of percep- tion therefore, express in the form of a proposition the supreme condition under which mathematical axioms stand ; showing that unless the mind, in constructing the pure perceptions on which those axioms rest, possessed the function or category of quantity, there could be no necessity in a mathematical proposition. " Even the judgments of pure mathematics in their simplest axioms are not exempt from this condition [the condition that synthetical judgments stand under a pure conception of the understanding]. The principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between i *i ']' r7^ 140 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. uxii ii\> i :)■ i ;'i [chap. two points, presupposes that the line is subsumed under the conception of quantity, which certainly is no mere perception, but has its seat in the understanding alone."* Besides showing the possibility of mathematical j)ropo- sitions, the axioms of perception and anticipations of observation justify the application of mathematics to known objects. A complete theory of knowledge must evidently explain why the ideal constructions of the mathematician hold good of actual objects in the real world, for the propositions of mathematics might bo true in themselves, and yet might have only the co- herence of a well-arranged system of fictions. In showing how there can be a knowledge of the laws of nature, we must, therefore, explain what justifies the scientific man in making free use of the conclusions of mathematics. Now there is a distinction between the way in which we establish the mathematical and that in which we establish the dynamical principles. In both cases we have to show tliat the pure conceptions of the understanding apply to real objects. But, in the case of the mathematical principles, we deal directly with individual objects as immediately presented to us, without making any inquiry into the connection of these objects with each other, or into their relations to a knowing subject. This is the reason why the cate- gories of quantity and quality, unlike those of relation and modality, have no correlates. Taking individual perceptions just as they stand, without seeking for any law bindirg them together, we necessarily exclude all relation. To prove the mathematical principles, we must show that they rest upon, and presuppose, the categories of quantity and quality ; but this we can do simply from the contemplation of the immediate deter- ' Vrolegomnxa, tr. , g 20, p. 75. ss9a v-J THE PRrNCIPLF.S OF JUDGMENT. 147 mination» of spaco and time ; and hence the evidence for them may be said to bo direct or intuitive. And as these principles, in referring to immediate unrelated objects of perception, show how the parts of the object are put together, they may be called constitntive, in distinction from the dynamical principles, which, as binding together concrete objects already constituted as concrete, may properly be called regulative. Every object of perception must conform to the mathematical principles, since these show what are the essential con- ditions without which there could be no individual objects for us. The dynamical principles, again, are not principles of dynamics, such as Newton's three laws of motion ; for these, while they are necessarily true, do not reach the universality of principles of judgment, but apply only to corporeal existences. The dynamical principles are so called because they express the ulti- mate conditions, without which there could be no science of nature at all. The analogies and postulates are dynamical, because they show how we can account for the relations of objects to each other, or to the sub- ject knowing them. Thus, when it is said that matter has repulsive and attractive forces, it is evidc .^^ly pre- supposed that one material object acts upon another, and hence that there is a causal connection between tliem. The justification of this assumption of real connection is the task of philosophy. Now, this cannot be done by directly bringing the immediate objects of perception under the categories of relation and modality. For the dynamical principles do not hold good of per- ceptions simply as such, but involve the connection or relation of such perceptions. Hence they cannot, like matliematical principles be, directly proved. The mere fact that individual objects, to be known at all, must f '^ ■ ; i n U8 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. be known as in space and time, shows that they must conform to the nature of space and time, and must therefore admit of the application of mathematical formulae to them ; but it does not show that they must be connected with each other. Hence, in the proof of the dynamical principles, it is necessary to show that real objects are something more than immediate per- ceptions, that real events canDot be immediately appre- hended, and that the coexistence of real objects is not accounted for, if we suppose them to be directly per- ceived or contemplated. The real existence therefore of known objects, which it was not necessary to inquire into in the proof of the mathematical principles, comes directly to the front in the investigation of the reality and connection of objects.' The first step toward a full comprehension of the Principles of Judgment is to realize with perfect clear- ness that Kant does not, in the fashion of a dogmatic philosopher, separate absolutely between nature and intelligence, things and thoughts, sense and under- standing. Unless we put ourselves at the right point of view, and make perfectly clear to ourselves the necessary relativity of the known world and the world of knowledge, the reasoning of Kant must seem weak, irrelevant, and inconclusive. That Dr. Stirling has not done so seems to me plain from the fact that he supposes those principles to be abstract rules, which are externally applied to knowledge independently supplied by the senses. The net result of the Esthetic, as I understand Dr. Stirling tc isay, is, that space and time, together with the objects contained in them, are not realities without, but ideas within. And from the Analytic, taken in conjunction with the Esthetic, we ' Kritik, pp, 154-6, 477 fl"., 103, 166-8, 191, 369. Prolegomena, S§ 25-26. 'I ■■^scaj v.] THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT, 149 further learn that sense gives iis a knowledge of indi- vidual facts or objects, but only in the arbitrary order of a mere succession in time ; v;hile the understanding brings those facts or objects under the categories, and so makes necessary or objective what before was merely arbitrary or subjective. On the one side, therefore, we have the " manifold of sense," a term which is applied not to " a simple presentation alone, but even to such compound presentations as the phenomena in any case of causalty ;"* on the other side we have the rule of judgment, under which the manifold is fiub- sumed. And Dr. Stirling objects, with manifest force and conclusiveness, that this account of the relations of sense and understanding is untrue, and the proofs of the various principles utterly inconclusive, since no rule of judgment could possibly make any succession of perceptions necessary, unless there were already necessity in the perceptions themselves. I accept unreservedly this criticism of Kant's theory, as interpreted by Dr. Stirling. If sense gives us a knowledge of real objects, facts, or events, it is per- fectly superfluous, and worse than superfluous, to bring in the faculty of thought to do that which has been done already. First to attribute knowledge to one faculty, and then to introduce a new faculty to explain it over again, is sure evidence of the failure of a philo- sophical theory to accomplish the end for which it was designed. But I cannot believe Kant to have blun- dered in this fashion. The vigorous blows which Dr. Stirling believes himself to be showering upon Kant, really fall only upon a simulacrum which he has fashioned for himself out of Kant's words read in a v/rong sense. It is as well at least that it should be ' Journal 0/ Speculative Philosophy, xiv. 76. I 150 KANT AND BIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. distinctly understood that, in accepting Dr. Stirling's interpretation of Kant's theory of knowledge, we at the same time commit ourselves to his radical con- demnation of it. For my own part, I must decline to follow Dr. Stirling either in his interpretation or in his condemnation. It is not, as I venture to think, a fair representation of the Esthetic to say that it merely makes space and time, and the objects in them, ideas within the mind, instead of actual realities without the mind. I find it difficult to attach a precise meaning to such language as, that " we know an actual outer space, an actual outer time, and actual outer objects, all of which are . . . things in themselves, and very fairly perceived by us in their own qualities."^ This may mean that space and time, together with individual objects and events, are completely independent in their own nature of all relation to intelligence. It may be, in short, an ac- ceptance of the common-sense realism which one is accustomed to associate with the name of Dr. Reid. In that case, I prefer Kant to Dr. Stirling. But if the meaning is, as I am fain to think, that space, time, and concrete things are not dependent for their reality upon us, although they are relative to intelligence, I do not understand why Kant should be so strongly rebuked for making space and time forms of perception instead of sensible things. One may surely reject the subjectivity of space and time, and yet see in the ^Esthetic a great advance on previous systems. A theory may have in it an alloy that lessens its absolute value, and may yet contain a good deal of genuine gold. Kant's view of space and time, were it only for the necessity it lays upon us of conceiving the pioblem ' Jonrn. Si'ec. r/til., xiii. 11. mmm v.] THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT. 151 of knowledge from an entirely new point of view, and of seeking for a theory truer than itself, possesses an importance difficult to over-estimate. I do not see how any one who has undergone the revolution in his ordinary way of thinking, which the critical philosophy, when thoroughly assimilated^ inevitably effects, can any longer be contented simply to announce that space and time are realities, without feeling himself called upon to explain at the same time what relation they bear to intelligence. Ordinary Realism, and its off- spring, psychological Idealism, have received their death-blow at Kant's hands, and no attempt to resus- citate them can be of any avail. Kant himself, at least, was firmly convinced that, in maintaining space and time to be forms of our intelligence on its per- ceptive side, he was initiating a reform of supreme importance in philosophy. Dr. Stirling speaks of Kant's doctrine of the external world exactly as if it were identical with the sensationalism of such thinkers as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer. But it is surely one thing to say that space and time are given to us in feelings set up in us by an object lying beyond con- sciousness, and another thing to say that they belong to the very constitution of our intelligence in so far as it is perceptive. If space and time are forms of per- ception, we can no longer go on asking how a world of objects lying beyond the mind gets, in some mysterious way, into the mind. Kant never, in his philosophical theory, makes any attempt to prove the special facts of our ordinary knowledge, or the special laws of the natural sciences ; these he simply assumes as data which it is no business of his to establish. But, al- though he leaves the concrete world just as it was before, he does not leave the philosophical theory ,11 % i \ 102 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. commonly put forward to explain it just as it was. From the critical point of view, things can no longer be regarded as unintelligible abstractions, as they must be in any theory which, by extruding them from the inner circle of knowledge, virtually makes them un- knowable ; being I :>ught into relation with our intel- ligence, there is no barrier to their being known and comprehended. I cannot see that it is doing Kant justice simply to say that space and time, and the objects filling them, which before were without the mind, are by him brought within the mind. He cer- tainly holds them to be " within," but they are within, not as transient feelings, but as permanent and un- changeable constituents of knowledge, belonging to the very nature of hitman intelligence. Omit the " human," and we have a view of the external world, which is consistent with its reality, in the only intel- ligible meaning of the term, and which yet denies space and time to be subjective any more than objec- tive. Kant here, as always, is greater than he was himself aware of, and that seems to me criticism of a very unsympathetic and uninstructive sort which closely scans the mere outward form of his theory, and fails to see behind the form an idea rich in suggestive- ness and far-reaching in its issues. Dr. Stirling's appreciation of the ^Esthetic seems to me to be inadequate ; his view of the relations of sense and understanding, as expounded in the Analytic, I regard as a complete inversion of the truth. The objects of sense fall completely apart from the forms of thought. A broad distinction is drawn between per- ceptions and judgments about perceptions, and sense is supposed to have completed its work before thought begins to operate. The Critique we must, therefore, v.] THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDGMENT. 158 I regard as a phenomenology, tracing the successive phases through which our knowledge passes on its way to necessary truth. All our knowledge is at first simply an immediate apprehension of special facts, coming to us without order or connection; and only afterwards, whei thought brings into play its schema- tized categories, is necessity imposed upon our percep- tions. I maintain, on the contrary, that sense does not give a knowledge of individual objects, facts, or events ; that of itself it gives us no knowledge what- ever; and that understanding does not externally impose necessity upon perceptions, but is essential to the actual constitution of known objects, facts, or events. The Critique I therefore regard, not as a phenomenology, but as a metaphysic, i.e., as a syste- matic account of the logically distinguishable, but not the less real, elements that together make up our knowledge in its completeness. The importance of the issue at stake may perhaps excuse the repetition of some points I have already tried to explain. The Critique may almost be said to part into two independent halves, in the first of which Kant speaks from the ordinary or vnciitical point of view, and in the second of which he advances to the critical, or purely philosophical point of view. This implicit division arises partly from the fact that, as Kant never attempts to prove a single qualitative fact or special law of nature, in referririf to the data which he has to explain he naturally speaks in the language of every- day life, and, therefore, seems to be accepting the common-sense view of things ; but it partly arises also from his accepting the account of the process of know- ledge given in formal logic as true outside of the sphere of philosophy proper. According to the ordi- . Photographic Sciences Corporation \ A '\ \\ V <«^>. 0^ *^^ <* 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4903 " ^/r" 174 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ties, they must he extensive quanta. So far nothing has been determined as to the special nature of the manifold of sense, considered in itself. Abstracting from everything in objects except their existence in space and time, it has been shown that to be known as in space and time, they must be brought under the category of quantity, schematized as number. The next step is to show that the manifold of sense, con- sidered in its separate units, must be brought under the category of quality, schematized as degree. The proof of this proposition is given in the Anticipations of Observation. ^ In all observations of real things there is implied, besides the pure perceptions of space and time, a par- ticular element contributed by sense which constitutes the real in our knowledge of objects. Now this real, inasmuch as it is not obtained by the successive addition of like units, but is given in a single moment of time, cannot have extensive quantity. At the same time, each sensation or part of the manifold has a certain intensity, since it may be represented as capable of a gradual decrease to zero, and of a gradual increase from zero upwards. And this is intensive quantity or degree, which may be defined as a unity in which multiplicity is apprehended, not by the aggregation of parts, but by approximation to zero. Any given mani- fold of sense has, therefore, a degree, intermediate between which and zero there is always a series of possible realities. Every colour and every temperature has a degree, which as real is never the least possible ; in other words, the real in every phenomenon has in- tensive quantity or degree. After showing that the real in known objects neces- ' Kritik, pp. 158-165. VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 175 sarily has degree, Kant adds one or two general remarks. (1) The title Aiiticipations of Observation is employed to suggest, that we can tell beforehand that any specific impression whatever must have an intensive quantity, which, however small it may be, is always greater than zero. This is a very remarkable fact, inasmuch as sensation is exactly that element in knowledge in relation to which we are purely receptive. The explanation is, that we are here dealing, not with a particular quality, which is always empirical, but with the quantity of that quality : hence we are con- cerned with one of the essential conditions of knowable existence. (2) It is further to be observed that all quantities, whether extensive or intensive, are con- tinuous. ^ Space and time are not composed of separate parts which are put together to make up space or time as a unity, for space and time are only limited by themselves ; in other words, the so-called limitations of space and time really continue them. Such quan- tities may also be called flowing, because the synthesis of the productive imagination in generating them is a continuous progress in time. When this synthesis is interrupted, or alternately stopped and renewed, we have indeed an aggregate of several objects. Thus thirteen shillings, as so many coins, is not a quantum, but an aggregate or sum ; but each unit in this sum, as divisible to infinity, is a quantum. (3) That this prin- ciple is of great importance in its applications may easily be shown, even without anticipating what belongs to pure physics. If the real in a knowable object must always have a degree, it is evident that we can I if 1 9 ■m ii It "''IP ■ti i 'This, of course, although it is set down under the head of the Anticipa- tions, is a general remark on the relation of the two mathematical principles, as is also the remark immediately following. 176 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ; I ! I % % never have experience of a space or time which is abso- lutely empty. For as every affection of sense has a degree, and every knowable object contains an element contributed by sense, apart from the determination of the manifold of sense by the schema of degree, no object can be known to us at all. Moreover, as the real may pass through an infinite namber of degrees, but can never reach absolute zero, the degree of a phe- nomenon may be indefinitely decreased, while the space which it occupies remains exactly the same. The heat in a room, e.^., may pass through an infinite number of degrees without leaving any part of the room un- occupied. This is indeed denied by almost all natural philosophers. Any diminution of degree in the same volume or extension of matter, implies, according to them, a decrease of extensive quantity. It is argued that as the quantity of matter in different bodies of equal volume is unequal, there must be empty spaces between the particles of every body. But this reason- ing rests upon the metaphysical assumption, that the real in space is determined purely by the number of parts existing side by side, and that each part has exactly the same degree of intensity. It is overlooked that equal spaces may be completely filled by infinitely various degrees of reality. Decrease in intensive quan- tity does not necessarily imply decrease in extensive quantity. There is nothing to prevent us from sup- posing that the former changes, while the latter re- mains the same. We cannot, of course, say a 'priori what the degree of reality in any given case will be ; but we can say that every phenomenon must have some degree of reality, and that no part of knowable space can be perfectly empty. ^ ' It will be observed that Kant virtually asserts the logical priority of the "», V..] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 177 III. Having yhowu what is implied in the knowledge that individual objects are extensive and intensive quanta, Kant passes in the Analogies of Experiencey to a consideration of the various ways in which those objects are connected together.^ As this part of the Critical philosophy has provoked a good deal of adverse criticism, it will be advisable to give a somewhat detailed statement of it. 1. The First Analogy'^ is that of the permanence of substance, and is thus formulated : " In all alternation of phenomena substance is permanent, and its quantum in nature neither increases nor diminishes." The proof is as follows :— It is evident that in our ordinary and scientific consciousness we distinguish between real objects and the transient states which occur in the individual mind. A real object is one that we regard as permanent. Can we then explain from the nature of our knowledge how, from the conception of the permanent, we are entitled to ascribe permanence to objects ? With the real sequences of events and the real co-existences of objects we are not here concerned, but only with the permanence which we attribute to substances. Granting, then, that there are objects in space and time, can we justify the assump- tion that these objects are permanent ? Now we are dealing here purely with phenomena, i. e., with objects in space and time, not with things in themselves exist- ing independently of our knowledge. How then can it be shown that these objects do not pass away with the moment but persist through time ? category of quality to that of quantity : in the determination of real objects as extensive quanta their determination as intensive quanta is implicit. This agrees with what was said above in Chap. v. us to the relation of the various principles of judgment. » Krifd; pp. 165-192. ^ Jbid, pp. 169-173. M is' ' . 1 I m I'M 4 i:S ii » 178 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. % If we look merely at the succession of our own mental states, i. e., our feelings as they occur in time, we are unable to show that there are real objects distinct from them, which do not perpetually change upon us from moment to moment. If our knowledge were reducible to a mere series of feelings, instead of saying that objects are permanent we should rather say, granting that we could make any judgments at all, that all known objects are in perpetual flux. " In mere sequences," as Kant says,^ " existences always vanish and reappear, and have never the least quan- tity." Abstract from everything in knowledge but a succession of mental states, and we have simply a series of feelings having no temporal duration or quantity; and from such a mere series any knowledge of real objects having a temporal duration or quantity cannot possibly be extracted. There must, then, be some mental element distinct from a mere series of feelings, which enables us to affirm, that there are real objects which are permanent. Can we point out what that element is ? Now all objects of perception are of course in time; for time, as the ^Esthetic has proved, is the necessary condition without which we could have no perception of objects at all. Time we must regard either as a mere potential form, belonging to our perceptive faculty but not entering into our actual perceptions except in relation to known objects^ or as determined to individual mom- ents, each of which follows upon the preceding and is over before the succeeding moment begins. It is im- possible therefore to account for the permanence of real obj ects simply from time. In itself time is simply a form of perception, and therefore nothing for knowledge. ' Krillk, p. 170. 1 I i V,.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 179 Time, again, in its several moments cannot be identified with the duration of objects, because duration is not a succession of moments, but a succession which, so to speak, stands still. When we say that an object is permanent, we mean that it endures while the moments of time pass away, and as the moments of time do not themselves endure, but are perpetu- ally arising and disappearing, the knowledge of things as permanent cannot be obtained either from time in itself, or from time in its separate moments. Still, the permanence of things must imply some relation between the manifold of sense and time. The three possible relations of objects in time are perman- ence, sequence, and co-existence. Time itself neither endures nor passes away; nor again does it co-exist ; but objects or events may endure, succeed, or co-exist. Hence the permanence of objects can be accounted for only by bringing them into relation with time. It is therefore in the relation of the manifold to time, that we must seek for the explanation of substance as per- manent. That there is a permanent in our knowledge we are compelled to suppose, unless we are prepared to deny all perception of change. And ev«en if we deny all change in the properties of objects, we must at least admit that we have a consciousness of our own feelings as successive. But such o. consciousness evidently implies, that there is in knowledge an element which cannot be identified with the mere sequence of our feelings. Apart from the conception of the permanent as contributed by the understanding, there could be no consciousness of objects as per- manent. Without the permanent, in short, we could have no time -relations. " To use an expression which seems rather paradoxical, only the permanent n U I 1 11! ■ \ i 180 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. :M changes, and the transitory can undergo no change." The permanent, then, which is the schematized cate- gory of substance, must be presupposed in order to account for our knowledge of any real object as dis- tinguished from the mere series of our feelings. The principle of substance thus shows us how we are entitled to make the synthetical a pnori judgment, that in all alteration of phenomena substance is per- manent. Apart from the category of substance, schematized as the permanent, we could have no know- ledge of any changes whatever, and therefore no knowledge even of our feelings as changing. Every object that is determined as real is necessarily brought under the schema of the permanent ; in fact, real existence and permanence are identical conceptions. And as all real objects are necessarily permanent, the changes which they undergo cannot effect their reality; and hence the quantum of substance can neither be increased nor diminished. Our knowledge, then, of real objects presupposes the schema of the permanent. Unless all changes of phenomena were connected together, there could be no unity in*our experience, and unity in experience implies unity of events in time. This may be shown indirectly. Suppose, says Kant, that an absolutely new object should come within our knowledge, i.e., an object not known to us by the changes observed to take place in it. Such an object must either (1) be known as a change relatively to the permanent, in which case it is not a newly originated object, but only a change in that which already exists; or (2) we must suppose that our experience is split in two. (1) An absolutely new substance is one that previously did not exist in time, and, therefore, is not capable of being known as existing VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 181 )i in time. Now we can have no experience of pure time, but only of events in time. Hence, if we are to know this new object as coming into existence at a certain moment of time, we must be able to fix the moment of its origination by a reference to that which is already known as existing in time. But to perceive that a new object has emerged in time is to recognise that a change has taken place in our knowledge of objects, and such recognition is possible only if the new object is brought into the same time with that previ- ously existing; in other words, the new object is known as a change, and change is nothing apart from the permanent, in contrast to which it becomes known. The object supposed newly to originate cannot^ there- fore, be known as originating. (2) If, on the other hand, the new object is not brought into relation with the old, then our experience must be divided into two halves, having no connection with each other. .i.nd, as all experience implies time, the new object must be in one time and the old object in another time. But it is absurd to say that there are two times, existing side by side ; and hence there cannot possibly be any experience of an absolutely new object. All experi- ence of real objects is, therefore, simply an experience of change in that which is permanent. Kant's proof of the principle of substance may be shortly summarised as follows. There can be no know- ledge of objects as real, if we suppose known objects to be things in themselves lying beyond consciousness ; for, on this supposition, our knowledge must be ob- tained from a mere series of feelings, or must rest on the mere coroeption of substance. But a mere series of feelings is but an alternation of feelings, revealing no object that persists beyond the moment; and a I- 1. \w m ;■:> 182 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. i I' mere conception does not entitle us to make any affirmation about real existences. Nor, again, can it be said that the permanence of existences, which is essential to their reality, may bo explained by saying that time is permanent, and, therefore, feelings in time may be known as permanent by relation to time. For time, as a mere form, is no object of knowledge, and time, as individual moments, has no unity in it. The reality of things is, therefore, made possible only by the relation of the manifold of sense to the schema of the permanent, as guided by the category of substance, which again stands under the supreme unity of self- consciousness.' To this proof of the principle of substance Kant adds some remarks, which are intended to show that it has been tacitly assumed, even by those who were unaware of the method by which it may be proved. The principle of the permanence of substance has been taken for granted by the unphilosophical mind, al- though, of course, it has not been brought into explicit consciousness. It has also been assumed by the philo- sopher, in the form that " in all changes in the world substance remains, and only its accidents vary." But while it has been assumed, no one has attempted to prove it. It has, in fact, been accepted as a self-evi- dent proposition, and has, therefore, virtually been supposed to be a merely anplytical judgment, resting upon the bare conception of substance. To say that " substance is permanent," is simply to express in the predicate what is already implied in the subject. By * Here again it should be noted, that just as quantify logically presupposes quality, so both presuppose substance, since no actual object, and therefore no determination of an actual object, is knowable apart from the schema of the permanent. VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES, 183 an analysis of the conception of substance, we can, of course, obtain the judgment, "substance is permanent," for in the conception of substance \.e already have im- plicitly the attribute of permanence. ^ But it is one thing to show that we have the conception of sub- stance, and another thing to demonstrate that this con- ception is applicable to real objects. Now this is just what no dogmatic philosophy can possibly establish. The only proof admissible is a transcendental one, and that proof wo have supplied by showing that, apart from the cone eption of permanence, there can be no knowledge of an object as real. The analytical judg- ment, "substance is permanent," therefore pre-supposes the synthetical judgment that in all phenomena there is something permanent, of which all changes are but modes. Now we can see why the permanence of sub- stance has been so commonly assumed. The conditions of knowledge are such that no object can be known at all without being determined as permanent, and hence it is easy, by mere analysis of our knowledge, to obtain the analytical proposition, that substance is permanent. As we have ourselves contributed the element of permanence to objects, an analysis of our knowledge must, of course, bring it to light. Other cases in which the principle of substance is virtually assumed may be given. The natural philo- sopher lays down the principle, that " matter is inde- structible," and this is evidently only another form of the principle that substance does not change, but only its accidents. So the ancient sayings, Gigni de nikilo nihil and In nihilum nil posse reverti, presuppose the same principle. These propositions, however, are not true of things in themselves, but only of things in > Cf. Prolerjomena, §§ 3, 47, aiul 48. ml I.'. I i i! 184 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. space and time or phenomena. That they rest on the synthetical a priori principle of substance, is evident from the fact that they apply to the past and the future as well as to the prosent, and, therefore, affirm absolutely and without any limitation, that all changes arc modes of the permanent. 2. Kant has now shown that to have an experience of objects in space and time, we must be capable of determining objects as extensive quanta, and as inten- sive quanta ; and that to know them as real, we must determine objects as permanent, notwithstanding the changes they undergo. Thus, experience of real objects is shown to depend upon the constitution of our intel- lect, in so far as we determine objects as extensive quantity, as having a degree in regard to their proper- ties, and as being individually considered permanent or persisting through successive moments of time. He now goes on to consider what is implied in the changes which objects undergo : in other words, to show that a real sequence of events implies the intellectual schema of necessary sequence or irreversible order in time. The Second Analogy of Experience, in which the proof of the causal connection of events is set forth,^ is, as Dr. Stirling remarks, one of the most cc \.sed passages in the whole of Kant's writings. It may, however, be reduced to a moderate compass by the rejection of the first two paragraphs, which were added in the second edition, and which simply give an outline of the general argument as contained in the first edition ; and by the elimination of the reply to the objection that there are causal connections which are not successive, but simul- taneous, and of the remarks on the conception of force, which properly belong to the metaphysic of nature, ' Kritik, pp. 173 187. n] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 186 as r and will bo considorod in thoir proper place. TliC discussion, thus brought within moderate limits, may be divided into throe sections (not explicitly dis^m- guished by Kant), containing respectively a statement of the facts admitted by every one, a criticism of the ordinary explanation of causality, and a proof of Kant's own theory. (1.) The special topic under consideration is whether we can account, from the nature of our knowledge, for the real soquonoo of events, and whether we are entitled to assert, universally and necessarily, that events are connected together in causal relations to each other. Kant, as usual, starts from the facts of experience, as they are held by us all. Those facts, as far as we are concerned with them in dealing with the question of causality, are these, (a) Wo do, as a matter of fact, distinguish between the arbitrary sequence of our own mental states and the orderly sequence of events, just as we distinguish between the arbitrary sequence of our feelings and the co-existence of the quantitative parts of individual objects. Thus, to take an illustra- tion of the second case, we observe the parts of a house in succession, but every one knows that those parts are really co-existent, and not successive. (/>) What we ordinarily mean by a real sequence is equally obvious. We do not suppose that the parts of a house are suc- cessive, although we observe them in succession, but we do suppose that a boat drifting down a stream is an in- stance of a real sequence. It is quite obvious that the parts of the stream successively occupied by the boat must be passed through in order, and the sequence we, therefore, regard as real. (2.) These, then, are the facts to be explained : the distinction between an arbitrary sequence in the order m I £ ■!• '1 Ml 186 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. I; i !l I of our perceptions, and an orderly sequence in real events. What, then, is a real sequence ? and what is the explanation usually offered in proof of the assump- tion that every real event is connected with events going before it ? Now (a) a real sequence, if there be such, cannot, as is ordinarily supposed, be contrasted with the arbit- rary sequence of our individual mental states, as changes taking place in things in themselves with the mere succession of those states. Kant does not here enter into any proof that we cannot know things in them- selves, but contents himself with remarking that, as in this view, changes are supposed to occur in objects lying beyond the sphere of our knowledge, we are un- able to say anything whatever as to real sequences ; the only sequences we can possibly know are sequences within consciousness, and real sequences are ex hypo- thesi beyond consciousness, and, therefore, unknowable. We are, in fact, as Hume pointed out compelled to reduce real sequences to certain individual sequences of our mental states, only arbitrarily associated toge- ther, and not known as really connected. Instead of a knowledge of real sequences, we are reduced to a mere play of ideas. (b) In accordance with the false supposition that known objects exist independently of consciousness, the dogmatist supposes causality to be known by mere observation. We observe or perceive, it is said, that t^ o events — say fire and heat — are conjoined in this way, that the fire as cause first exists, and then is fol- lowed by the heat as eflfect; and we find, by com- parison of the perceptions which we make at different times, that fire always goes first, and heat comes second. Similarly, we discover, by a comparison of is VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 187 perceptions made at various times, that there are many events connected in a definite order, as, e.g.y snow and cold, sun and heat, etc. From the compari- son of these various instances cf the orderly sequence of events on each other, we abstract the universal rule, that all events have a cause. Now, there aio two objections to this view. It is supposed by it that we not only observe real events, but that we observe real sequences in events. But (a) this explanation of orderly sequence makes the principle of causality a merely analytical or tautological proposition. Of course, granting that we have somehow obtained the conception of causality, i.e., of the orderly sequence of events on each other, we cf<,n, by a mere analysis of our conception, obtain the proposition: " Every event has a cause." But we only obtain it because we have assumed it beforehand. We are supposed to observe real sequences in particular cases, and to combine these in a general proposition by an act of reflection. But this overlooks the all-important point, that an analytical judgment cannot add anything to our knowledge, but can only express what is already implicit in it. In other words, the ordinary view does not explain the origin of the principle of causality, but merely assumes it, and assumes it in defiance of the fact that from a mere conception we cannot pass over to reality. Hence the fact that by analysis we can bring the principle of causal relation into logical clearness, presupposes, as in all other cases, that that principle is based upon a prior synthesis. We are able to prove the analytical pro- position, ** Every event has a cause," only because we have previously by a synthetical process made the sequence of real events possible. Thus, we do not obtain the conception of cause by reflecting on real pa '1 if V It 188 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. '}% I r sequences, but, on the contrary, the conception or cate- gory of cause is the condition of the re being for us any real sequences, (6) Even granting that from observa- tion we obtain a knowledge ot' certain real sequences, we are not entitled to affirm that all events must have a cause. Induction or generalization cannot take us beyond the facts on which the induction or generaliza- tion is founded. Now, all that we can have observed is that, within our limited observation, certain events always follow certain other events. The proper form, therefore, of the principle of causality should be : So far as I have observed, every event has a cause. But this is only a general, not a universal proposition, and hence it falls short of the true principle of causality. (3.) We are now in a position to appreciate Kant's own proof of the principle of the causal relation of events. It contains three steps : (a) a mere sequence of feelings or ideas, gives no criterion for distinguishing an orderly sequence of events from an arbitrary sequence of individual feelings or iders; (6) real sequence cannot be obtained by an observatic n of separate events as in time ; (c) real sequences can, therefore, only be ex- plained on the supposition that the understanding, acting through the schema of order in time, makes the knowledge of real sequences possible. (a) We saw above that the mere sequence of mental states cannot be contrasted with the real sequence of events, as mere ideas in tne mind with real changes going on beyond the mind. For this supposes real events to lie beyond the sphere of our knowledge, and hence to be ex hypothesi unknown. The real sequences we have to explain, if there are such, must be sequences not without, but within consciousness : in other words, they are changes taking place in real objects existing VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 189 in space and time, as distinguished from our feelings or ideas, which exist only in time. Thus both our feelings and real events are alike in consciousness, or can exist only as they are known to exist. Both are alike objects of consciousness — using the term "objects" in the most general sense, as anything present to our consciousness. Now, the difficulty we have to resolve is this : if all objects alike are in consciousness, how does it come that we distinguish the sequence of our feelings from the sequence of real events? Manifestly, it cannot be because our feelings are successive, while events are not, f jr both are alike successive. As real events are in consciousness, they can only be present to our consciousness in succession. How, then, do we come to distinguish subjective sequences from objective sequences'? The old distinction, that subjective se- quences are in the mind and objective sequences with- out the mind, is not tenable ; and we must, therefore, find in the nature of our knowledge the explanation of the undoubted contrast we draw between these two kinds of sequence. Objectivity of sequence must have a different meaning from the ordinary one : every sequence of real events must be a combination of determinations existing only for consciousness. Now, it is at once evident that we need not seek for the distinction in the content of the real object or real event, for this content can be nothing more than ideas of some kind, which by a process of thought have become contrasted with mere ideas, existing only as subjective states. In other words, the distinction must lie in some mental form being applied in the case of the objective sequence, which is not brought into play in the case of the subjective sequence. There must be a rule or law of thought, accounting for the difterence between the 1 1 ''I m If f fa •yil '0 \ .1>-. m \\ i ('I it \ 190 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. d-i two kinds of sequence ; and it is the presence of this rule or law of thought which makes the sequence of what we call real events objective. An objective sequence, in other words, is simply a sequence, which, as irreversible, is necessary and universal. We have, then, to explain how we come to distinguish the ob- jective sequences of events from the subjective sequences of our feelings, and to do so while recognising that both sequences are alike in consciousness. Now, it is manifest that knowledge of any real event can be ob- tained only if we distinguish it from an event, different in content, going before it ; for (as we saw before in the proof of substance) a single event, or rather deter- mination, is not capable of being known, any more than empty time itself. In order, therefore, to have a knowledge of a real sequence, a transition from one object of consciousness to another must take place. But evidently this alone is not sufficient to account for a knowledge of real sequences. For all objects of con- sciousness occur to us in succession, and hence in all there is a transition from one state to another different from it. The parts of a house, e.g., I observe succes- sively, and hence in my consciousness there is a transi- tion from one state to another, and a transition which implies sequence in ^ime. No one, however, supposes that the parts of the house are successive, although they present themselves successively to my conscious- ness. On the other hand, the presentation in my con- sciousness of the successive occupancy of the parts of a stream by a drifting boat, is also successive ; but here we do not, as in the case of the house, suppose that the boat occupies the parts of the stream co-exist- ently, but, on the contrary, we regard it as occupying them only in succession. How, then, are we to account VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 191 IS for the fact that, while all consciousness implies a tran- sition from one state to another, we nevertheless dis- tinguish between a real succession of events and a mere succession of individual feelings. Now, if we look at the instances already given, we see that, while the ob- jects are in both presented successively, we do, as a matter of fact, regard the two successions as essentially different. And the difference lies, not in the fact that the manifold is in the one case presented to our conscious- ness in succession and not in the other, but that the manifold of the house is presented to our consciousness in any order, while the manifold of the boat is only presented in one invariable order. The explanation of the difference must, therefore, be sought, not in any difference in objects of consciousness as such — as if some were co-existent and others sequent — nor in any contrast of ideas within the mind and objects without the mind, but in a difference in the nature, of the sequence. That there are real sequences of events, just as there are co-existing parts of individual objects as extensive quanta, no one doubts; the point is to explain how, consistently with the fact that all objects are alike objects of consciousness, we come to mark off subjective from objective successions. The explanation must be sought in the nature of thought itself; for, as has been said, all objects are objects of consciousness, and so far on the same level. There must be a rule or law of thought, which accounts for the fact that we determine a certain manifold of sense to an invariable order in time. Apart from such a rule, we should never distinguish objective from subjective sequences at all ; at the most we should have but a " play of representations," coming and going, but givinp* us no knowledge of objects as connected in time. We could f ] i; '!! Mil .« : H ■ 192 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. not say : This event follows another, but only : This state of consciousness follows another. {b) It may, perhaps, be said that the sequence of real events as objects of consciousness can be proved from the fact that objects of consciousness are always successive. But such an explanation is at once precluded by the consideration that objects of consciousness are not cap- able of being fixed in an invariable order by a simple reference to time. For time 'per se is not capable of being known; it is not something that can be observed, as outside of us, but a mere potential form, that comes into knowledge only in relation to known objects. But, if all objects, internal as well as external, are relative to consciousness, we come back to the difficulty of explaining why we distinguish objective from sub- jective sequences ; and this shows that, to explain how a knowledge of real events is possible, we must pre- suppose the schema of orderly succession as a rule of thought. That there is an order in known events every one admits. This order in time is not, however, capable of being accounted for by saying that we observe certain states of objects, and determine them to an order by reference to time. For such states, if we abstract from the order in which they occur, are separate from each other, and a separate state is not capable of being as- signed any order, even by reference to time. For time is not itself observable ; it is not a real object in which the states of the phenomena can be observed ; taken by itself it is a mere form of perception. A smgle event, in short, has no determinate place in time, and there- fore no order in time. Order in time can therefore only be known by the relation of states to each other as actually sequent. (c) As then, all objects are relative to consciousness. k-i VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 193 by A and are successively presented in consciousness, and as no distinction of sequences from co -existences can be found in time itself, the rule by which an ob- jective sequence is distinguished from a subjective se- quence must be found in the Understanding. It is a common fallacy to suppose that the Understanding has no function but that of analysing or bringing into clearness what is already given in our knowledge of real objects. The real fact is that Understanding, so far from simply analysing our knowledge of real ob- jects, or, in other words, our perceptions, first makes such knowledge possible. There could be no percep- tion or experience of a real sequence were it not that Understanding reduces a certain manifold of sense to order, and so makes an experience of real sequences possible. In the present case, Understanding, having Causality as its category or function of unity, pre- scribes a law or rule to the manifold, by means of the schema of order in time, and so makes an invariable sequence :u time possible. The orderly sequence of objects of consciousness is therefore due to Understand- ing. And, of course, like every law of thought, the sequence is necessary and universal : as there can be no knowledge of a rea. sequence apart from the activity of the Understanding acting through the schema of order in time, we can affirm universally and necessarily, that all changes must conform to the law of causal con- nection. We can therefore say that all the changes in nature are subject to this law. In other words, all real sequences stand under the synthetical unity of self- consciousness, without which there would be for us no unity in nature, and therefore no nature at all.^ » Kant adds to this proof the remark that Causality presupposes Substan- tiality, since every effect as a real change is relative to a permanent subject, N I '5. If ill If lli V 194 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. h ii f 3. The Tliird Analog}/ of Experience,^ which need not detain us long, is intended to show that " all sub- stances, in so far as they can be observed as co-existing in space, are in complete reciprocity. In the First Analogy Kant showed that, while our perceptions always come to us in succession, they can be known as successive only in contrast to that which is not successive but permanent. In the Second Analogy it has been shown that there are irreversible sequences in knowledge which cannot be accounted for from a mere sequence of perceptions, since perceptions are not irreversible in the order of their occurrence. Now he goes on to show that, while our perceptions are always successive, we nevertheless have a knowledge of real co-existences, which are distinguishable at once from the arbitrary sequence of our perceptions, and from the necessary sequences of real events. In proving that sub- stances mutually influence each other, Kant therefore presupposes both the conception of substance and the conception of causality. Substances we ordinarily regard as co-existing when they are in one and the same time. Real events, on the other hand, we regard as coming after one another, or existing only in successive times. Now, that which is actually successive cannot be apprehended in any order but one, and hence, when we find that our a;ipre- hension may proceed either from A through B, C, and D to E, or inversely from E, through D, C, and B to A, we regard that which is apprehended as not sequent but co-existent. Tliis, then, is the fact to be explained. Now, granting that substances are in the same space. The converse truth, that Substantiality presupposes Causality, is indicated in the "Metaphysio of Nature," where Matter and Force are shown mutually to imply each other. See below. Chap. viii. ' Kritik, pp. 187-190. VI.] PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 195 \ we must either say that they mutually influence each other, or that they are completely isolated from each other in space. If we adopt the latter supposition, we must suppose them to exist in absolutely empty space. But if they are so completely separated from each other, it would be impossible to determine that they coexist in one time. For, granting that we may ap- prehend first one and then another in succession, still we could not in any way connect tlie objects thus separately apprehended ; and being unable to bring them into relation with each other, we should not be able to say whether they were coexistent or successive. Our perceptions would no doubt be successive, but as all perceptions are successive, we could not say whether the objects perceived were successive or co-existent. We must therefore suppose substances not to be iso- lated from each other, but to be mutually connected. And as a substance can only be related to another substance through its states, the states of all co-existing substances must be the product of their mutual influ- ence on each other. But that without which there can be no real knowledge is necessary, being implied in the constitution of our intelligence ; and hence all know- able objects are constituted as co-existent by the activity of thought which determines them in relation to time by the schema of coexistence. IV. The Postulat-^s of Empirical Thought,^ which complete the consid -^ration of the Principles of Judg- ment, simply state explicitly what are the conditions under which real knowledge is possible, and contain nothing that is not implied in the explanation of what those conditions are. (1) The First Postulate is, that " that which harmonises with the formal conditions of " Kritilc, pp. 192-197. 7* I f li. i ^ .i I > 196 JJTAJVT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. experience is possible." The formal conditions of ex- perience are, as we know, space and time, and the categories as mediated by the schemata. Now, if we take any determination of space, such as a triangle, it seems at first sight as if the more fact, that the concep- tion is given in the act by which the triangle is constructed, were enough to show that an object cor- responding to it may be found ; in other words, it seems to be possible to show by the dogmatic method that mathematics is applicable to real things. But this, as a critical examination of real knowledge has made abundantly clear, is a mistake. Could it not be shown that the conditions which make the determina- tion of the pure form of space possible are also the conditions without which no real objects could be known by us, we should not be able to show that the a priori constructions of geometry are more than pro- ducts of the imagination. This, however, is what has been established ; and hence we are entitled to affirm that the mathematical determinations of space and time are at the same time possible determinations of real objects. All quantitative deteryiinations, in fact, as conditioned by the categories in relation to space and time, are determinations of things as to their pos- sibility. Harmony with the a pnori conditions of knowledge may therefore be employed as a test of the possibility of real things. (2) In order, however, to know that an object is not only possible but actual, something more is required than non-violation of the formal conditions of knowledge. An actual object can be known only when sense supplies a manifold which can be related to the category through the schema. The mere conception of a thing, however complete it may be, cannot be identified with actual knowledge of VI.1 PROOF OF THE PRINCIPLES. 197 a thing; for the latter, sense must co-operate with thought. Still, even before actual experience takes place, we are able to tell what is capable of being ex- perienced, in those cases in which we can bring into play the Analogies of Experience, which are conditions of the connection of things. We cannot have a direct perception of magnetic particles, but we are entitled to infer their existence in all bodies from their effects ; and, guided by the analogies of experience, we know ^hat, were our senses finer, we should have a direct perception of them. The T cond Postulate of Empiri- cal Thought, therefore, is, that "that which coheres with the material conditions of experience is actual." (3) Lastly, "that the connection of which with the actual is determined according to universal conditions of ex- perience, is necessary." The necessity in question is not the merely logical necessity which depends upon the law of contradiction, but the necessity of actual exist- ences. Now, the connection of one knowable object with another cannot be shown from mere perceptions, but only from the relation of perceptions. Nor, again, can it be based upon the pure conception of substance, because substances are connected together only by their states. Hence the criterion of necessity rests upon the principle of causality. When certain causes in nature are given, we are enabled to know what their effects must be ; but apart from the principle of caus- ality there could be no nature, and therefore no science of nature. It hi'-: *<> \u m CHAPTER VII. OBJECTIONS TO KANt's PROOFS OP SUBSTANTIALITY AND CAUSALITY EXAMINED. I A N exaniination of tho objections of Mr. Balfour and Dr. Stirling to what they regard as the critical method of proving the Principles of Judgment, will perhaps help to bring Kant's doctrine into bolder relief, and to make tho force of the reasoning by which it is established better felt. I shall first consider Mr. Balfour's criticism of the First Analogy. " The first difficulty," he says, " which occurs to me, and which perhaps others may feel, refers to that * transcendental necessity ' which is the very pith and marrow of the whole demonstration, both in the Refut- ation and in the First Analogy. Is it really true that change is nothing to us as thinking beings except we conceive it as in relation to a permanent and unchanging substance 1 For my part, however much I try to bring the matter into clear consciousness, I feel myself bound by no such necessity. For though change is, doubtless, unthinkable, except for what Mr. Green calls a combining and therefore, to a certain extent, a persistent consciousness, and though it may have no meaning out of relation to that which is not change, vri.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 199 thia not-chango by no means implies permanent sub- stance. On the contrary, the smallest recognizable persistence through time would seem enough to make change in time intelligible by contrast ; and I cannot help thinking tliat the opposite opinion derives its chief plausibility from the fact that in ordinary language permanence is the antithesis to change ; whence it is rashly assumed that they are correlatives which imply each other in the system of nature. It has to be noted also, that Kant, in his proof of the ' First Analogy,' makes a remark (quoted and approved by Mr. Caird) which almost seems to concede this very point, for he says (C/'tV., p. 140) : ' Only the perma^icnt is subject to change : the mutable sufters no change, but rather alternation; that is, when certain determinations cease, others begin.' Now, there can be no objection, of course, from a philosophical point of view, to an author defining a word in any sense he pleases ; what is not permissible is to make such a definition the basis of an argument as to matters of fact ; yet the above passage suggests the idea that Kant's proof of the permanence of substance is not altogether free from this vice. If (by definition) change can only occur in the permanent, the fact that there is change is no doubt a conclusive proof that there is a 'permanent.' But the question then arises. Is there change in this sense ? How do we know that there is anything more than alternation which (by definition) can take place in the rautoblo ? All Transcendentalists convince by threats. * Allow my conclusion/ they say, ' or I will prove to you that you must surrender one of your own cherished beliefs.' But in this case the threat is hardly calculated to frighten the most timid philosopher. There nmst be a permanent, say the Transcendentalists, l,' i'l tl ji t '! (i 200 JCANT AND HJS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. or there can be no change ; but this surely is no very serious calamity if we are allowed to keep alternation, which seems to me, I confess, a very good substitute, and one with wliich the ordinary man may very well content himself." ^ It is objected by Mr. Balfour, to take the last point first, that Kant himself grants that we can have a knowledge of alternation, as distinguished from change, and that, as alternation will not prove absolute per- manence but only persistence through a limited time, the proof of substance is defective on the very face of it. The concession, however, which Kant is supposed to make is not really made by him. Mr. Balfour has simply misunderstood what " alternation," in the words quoted, is intended to signify. When Kant says that the " mutable undergo <3S no change but only alterna- tion," so far from granting that the mutable can be known, his argument is, on the contrary, that it cannot be known, and therefore is useless to account for the permanence of real objects. Knowledge of a real ob- ject, as distinguished from a series of transient feelings, is a knowledge of that which does not pass away with the moment, but persists through successive moments of time. But if we eliminate from our explanation of knowable reality this conception of persistence through time, we are left with a number of isolated differences, that are not changes, but simply an alternation of the mutable, i.e., a succession of differences perfectly desti- tute of unity. The " mutable," in other words, is a term signifying what I have elsewhere called detached points of impression, as " alternation " is the mere suc- cession of such impressions, not even knowable as a succession. Kant could not admit that the mutable is ' Mind, xii., p. 493, VII.] OBJdCTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 201 knowable without committing himself to the absurdity of granting that a mere element of knowledge is know- able in itself. As a matter of fact, he holds nothing so absurd. All consciousness of change, he argues, is the consciousness of a transition from one determination of an object to another, and such consciousness is incon- ceivable if each determination is separated from every other. But unless thought has a function by which it brings the several determinations of things into rela- tion with each other, there can be no consciousness of change. Mere alternation, or the successive rise and disappearance of such determinations, is nothing for consciousness, and hence all change presupposes per- manence. Mr. Balfour has so completely missed the point of the argument, that he converts Kent's proof of the impossibility of a knowledge of mere alternation or mutation into an admission of its reality. When we clearly see Kant's reason for distinguishing between change and alternation, the positive objection brought by Mr. Balfour against the proof of the per- manence of substances loses much of its plausibility. The objection is, that in order to have a knowledge of change it is not necessary " to conceive it in relation to a permanent and unchanging substance ; " it is enough to have a knowledgfe of something which persists through even the smallest amount of time. Now, I think it is quite evident, from the form of this objec- tion, that Mr. Balfour here borrows the weapons of the dogmatist, as the philosophical sceptic is very prone to do. The objection at once strikes one as an echo of Hume's account of identity as "a succession of inter- rupted perceptions." * I perceive an object as now and here, and so long as I keep my eyes upon it I know it ^ Cf. Green's Hume, vol. i. , p. 256. if iil ''■■Mm I I'll 'it*, \m ■ , dialecti- cal process, probably familiar to the reade., we may with much plausibility reduce what we perceive in an object to a collection of related attributes, not one of which is the object itself, but all of which are the changing attributes or accidents of the object. But if this process be legitimate, the 'substratum' of these accidents is either never perceived at all, or at all events is only known as a relation. In neither case can it be the permanent of which Kant speaks, since in the first case it is not an object of immediate perception ; in the second it can hardly be regarded as an object at all."^ Mr. Balfour first asks why the " pure ego of apper- ception," which " supplies unity to multiplicity, may not also supply permanence to succession." Now, as we saw in our examination of the Refutation of Idealism, and again in considering the Deduction of the Cate- gories, the pure " I," taken in abstraction from the other elements of knowledge, is regarded as a mere abstraction, and hence as devoid of all determination. It is only when it is brought into relation with the multiplicity of sense that it is seen to be the supreme condition of synthesis. From Kant's point of view, the "I" and the manifold of sense are but the extreme poles of knowledge, between which other elements of » Mh\d, xii., 494. Vlt.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PJiOOFS. 207 knowledge lie, which are not leas essential to the con- stitution of known reality. The pure " I," taken by itself, is simply the abstraction of relation to conscious- ness, and hence it is incapable of being brought into relation with the mere difference of sense, without the intermediation of more concrete forms of intelligence. Relation to consciousness is simply the most general ex- pression of what is implied in any knowledge whatever. But actual knowledge is not knowledge in general, but concrete or specific knowledge. Hence it must be shown what are the specific ways in which the manifold is related to the "I," before an explanation can be given of knowledge as we actually have it. These specific ways of relating tne manifold to the " I " are the categories, which as functions producing unity in certain definite ways at once specify the "I," and uni- versalize the manifold by combining it under the deter- minate universals, which we call the categories. The manifold, again, cannot be directly referred to the ** I," even by the aid of the categories, because the latter do not contain any time-element, or any space-element, and knowable objects must be determined as in time or in both space and time. In other words, the "1" is the most abstract element of knowledge at the one extreme, as the manifold is the most abstract element at the other; and the two extremes must be mediated by elements more concrete than either. When, therefore, Mr. Balfour asks why the " I," which " supplies unity to multiplicity, may not also supply permanence to suc- cession," the answer is (1) that the " I" does not " sup- ply unity to multiplicity," and (2) that that which is conceived as out of time, cannoii relate anything to itself in time. (1) It is no doubt true that the " I " is said by Kant to be the supremo condition of the unity t'sl t" ' I 208 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. of the differences of sense, but it is not of i^seZ/* capable of introducing unity. In explaining the possibility of knowledge our success depends upon the thoroughness with which we detect and relate to each other all the elements of knowledge. But to say that the " I " of itself " supplies unity to multiplicity," is to suppose that two elements of knowledge which even in combin- ation are nothing apart from other elements equally essential, may of themselves constitute knowledge. It is the " I " as thinking in relati ax to the manifold of sense as brought under the general determination of time, which " supplies unity to multiplicity," not the " I " in itself. No doubt Kant expres&cs himself some- times in a way which suggests that the " I " is a real thing existing apart from its determinations ; but such passages as that quoted by Mr. Balfour, in which it is pointed out that the " I think" is merely the abstrac- tion of relation to consciousness, serve to correct those in which the "I" seems to be regarded as an indepen- dent substance. (2) It should now be manifest why it is not possible for Kant to derive permanence from the " pure ego of apperception." Permanence can only be explained as the relation of the manifold to the " I," by intermediation of the categories and the schemata. The " permanent " signifies neither time alone, nor the manifold alone, but the relation of the manifold to time, as conditioned by the functions of unity belonging to the understanding. From the bare ** I," as the mere abstraction of thinking in general, no ingenuity can extract the idea of an object as relative to a determin- ate time. Nor again can the "I," viewed as the subject of transient states of consciousness, be regarded as the source of the permanent, because, from Kant's point of view, mental states are in themselves a mere manifold. :!'l vii.l OBJECTIONS To KANT'S PROOFS. 309 incessantly coming and going, and therefore having no permanent correlate. Accordingly, he holds that it is only in relation to an external object, as constituted by that function of synthesis which we call substance, that wo can have any knowledge of the permanent. An external object, it nmst be remembered, is not a thing in itself, but a thing in space ; and hence it is the pro- duct of thought as relating the spatial manifold to time as a whole. Kant, therefore, in deriving the permanent from the outer object and not from inner feelings, is .simply maintaining in another way that knowledge must be explained by reference to all its elements. Separate perceptions from all relation to objects in space, and there remains but an alternation or mutation of feelings, of which we cannot become conscious, be- cause we can neither know them as in time, nor in their distinction from each other. The " pure ego of apperception " is therefore powerless to recognise merely transient states of feeling, because the element of time, and the element of permanent relation, are by hypo- thesis absent. Mr. Balfour, however, seems to be so uncertain as to what Kant's view of the " pure ego of apperception " is, that he does not very strongly insist upon the objection that the pure " I " ought to be sufficient to " supply i)ermanence to succession," but immediately goes on to raise what he evidently regards as a more formidable objection. To be known at all, the "per- manent" of Kant, he argues, must be an object of perception, or phenomenal thing. Now, such an object cannot, it would seem, be perceived in itself, but only in its changing attributes or accidents. The permanent must therefore be a substratum underlying the acci- dents. Hence either (I) it is not an object of percep- o te m p -I 210 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. tion, or (2) it is a more relation, and therefore not an object at all. This objection rests upon a false separation of an object from its relations. " Either a perceived object is a mere substratum, or it is a mere relation." But what if it is neither the one nor the other, but both in one ? This at least is Kant's view, and hence Mr. Balfour's dilemma shares the common fate of dilemmas in being by no means exhaustive. (1) The permanent, it is said, may be held by Kant to be a " substratum " of changing attributes or accidents. Here, again, Mr. Balfour cannot get rid of the parallax of dogmatism. First setting up the fiction of a material thing lying beyond consciousness, and yet inconsistently supposed to be capable of being apprehended, we go on to ask what a thing is for a mind standing apart from it. One by one the attributes of this supposed object are transferred to consciousness, and there is left at last simply an abstract "substratum" supposed to underlie the attributes apprehended. What we perceive in an object is thus reduced, in Mr. Balfour's words, to "a collection of related attributes, not one of which is the object itself." Now, it seems almost superfluous to say that, although Kant speaks of substance as a substra- tum of accidents, he nas no thought of asserting the existence of a substratum such as Mr. Balfour speaks of. As we have repeatedly seen, Kant is quite famil- iar with the " dialectical process " here referred to, but he employs it for the purpose of showing that the dogmatic explanation of knowledge is essentially vicious, resting as it does upon the assumption that known objects are things in themselves. What Mr. Balfour calls "a collection of related attributes," Kant terms the " manifold of sense " ; aiid just because such VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 211 a " manifold " is nothing for knowledge, he holds that we are compelled to introduce other elements which are essential to the constitution of reality. Accord- ingly, Kant would at once demur to the phrase " col- lection of related attributes," on the ground that relation does not belong to sense, but to thought — or rather to thought, as determined by schemata of the productive imagination. Instead of saying that be- neath or behind the known attributes of things there is an unperceived " substratum," Kant maintains that there is a "permanent" supplied by the pure imagina- tion under control of the category. The fiction of a thing in itself is therefore nothing whatever for know- ledge, and hence Kant is not called upon to show how a " substratum" may be perceived. His "substratum" is a general form of intelligence required to account for the perception of objects, not something underlying an object independent of consciousness. Persistence througli time, or the relation of the manifold to time as a whole, is the only substratum he can allow, and not any ghost of abstraction remaining after elimina- tion of all the definite properties of independent realities. The permanent is thus simply another name for the capacity of relating all modes of perception to a single time. When Kant calls this permanent a "substratum," he is probably looking at the matter from the point of view of the data from which philoso- phy starts in its explanation of knowledge. From this point of view it is natural to say that under all the changing attributes of real objects there is something which does not change. But when we pass to the critical point of view, it is more correct to say that the substratum overlies those attributes, than that it under- lies them, although it may be said to underlie the V M 0]0 A'AXr AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [iM.M' caterfoi'ies and the "pure ego of apperception." (2) As the pernmnent of Kant is not a " substratum," in Mr. Balfour's sense of tlio term, so neitlier is it a mere relation. Here, again, it must be observed that Mr. Balfour is under the influence of that dualism of sub- ject and object which is the characteristic mark of dogmatism. An object lying beyond consciousness is presupposed, and it is then supposed to be reduced to "a collection of related attributes." If now we abstract from the attributes, and concentrate our attention upon their relation to each other, we get the conception of a mere relation ; and this we may call the permanent, because it is implied in the consciousness by which each attribute is related in turn to another. But such an abstract relation cannot be identified with a per- manent object. Now, it is evident that just as Mr. Balfour in reducing substance to a mere substratum abstracts from all the relations of intelligence to an object, so here he abstracts from all the diflerences which are essential to the constitution of the individu- ality of an object. But this is exactly what Kant refuses to do. The mere abstraction of relation to con- sciousness is just the pure " I think," which, as Kant points out, canii •+ of itself explain how a knowledge of objects is possi1)le. No doubt the manifold of sense, or the particular element in knowledge, must be related to the one single and identical self, but this relation is not of itself the same as a known object. The particu- lar is as necessary to the constitution of a substance as the universal. Moreover, the universal form of thought, as standing under the " I," must be brought into relation with time as a unity before the knowledge of an object as permanent can be accounted for. Nor am I aware that any follower of Kant, any more than V.I.] OliJECllONS '1 O KANT'S PROOFS. 213 (2) Kant hiniHelf, roducoH an object to more rolationH. Tliere is no niyatciious piocesH by which the concrete element in knowledge may be reduced to abstract relatioiiH. It \h one thhig to Hay that all the real ditterenccH of things are relative to intelligence, and ({uite a different thing to say that all reality is reduc- ible to abstract relations. The special properties of things are not to be conjured out of existence, charm wo with ever so wonderful subtlety : but this is not inconsistent with the philosophical principle, that those properties do not belong to things in themselves. To deny the knowability of that which is virtually de- fined as the unknowable is at once good sense and good philosophy ; to deny the reality of the specific differences of objects is mere nonsense. While he could not without palpable absurdity make substance an object independent of intelligence, or an abstract relation to consciousness, Kant is surely right in saying that every real object exists for us only because we have by the constitution of our intelligence the ca- pacity of relating the specific differences of things to a single universal self, and determining them in relation to time as a unity. It should not be difficult, after these considerations, to show that substance is not a perception, or phe- nomenal thing, as Mr. Balfour strangely supposes Kant to be compelled to affirm. A substance is neither a mere substratum, nor a mere relation, but the unity of the manifold of sense as related to the schema of the permanent, which again is relative to the cate- gory of substance, one of the functions of thought. Perception, in the critical sense of the term, is not the apprehension of an independent object, but the consti- tution of that object as a known reality. A schema- •^i . Hi rf [■ml ^ ill '' ; ■'-■ I *■ : f I! 214 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. tized category cannot be identified with a mere feeling or perception, but is the condition without which there could be no perception whatever. In perception as the knowledge of a real object, there is implied the co-operation of sense, imagination, and thought. The whole Critical philosophy in its positive aspect leads up to the conclusion, that an object existing independently of our intelligence cannot possibly be known. Sub- stance is therefore not a perception, in the sense of a simple apprehension, but a condition or law of percep- tion, The manifold of sense must be combined in one time, and as it is in itself a mere sequence it must be related to that which is not merely sequent but per- manent. Thus the " permanent " is implied in the fact that we have perception, but it is not itself a percep- tion. A perception is for Kant always a particular, and the particular, as supplied by the special senses, is detached in its parts, and therefore requires to be united in specific ways. In the present instance the unity of the manifold consists in the relation of it to that which is not evanescent but permanent. Substance can only be said to be an object because it is the universal con- dition of there being an object for us ; it is a relation, because it implies the reference of the changing to that which does not change. To call substance an object or a relation is to take one element of knowledge in abstraction from another, without which it is merely a logical abstraction ; only in the relation of the par- ticulars of sense to the universal of thought, and of both to time as a unity, can we obtain an explanation of what we mean by the permanence or reality of a known object. Let us now look at Mr. Balfour's criticism of Kant's proof of the principle of Causality. To this proof two per- fact VII.] OBJECTIONS TO RANTS PROOFS. 216 objections are made. (1) If it can be said to prove that sequence in the object is " according to a rule," it is only by showing in the first instance that sequence in the subject is arbitrary ; so that the causation proved is at all events not universal. (2) It does not prove, or attempt to prove, that there is actually an objective sequence according to a necessary rule, but only that if there is an objective sequence it must be according to a necessary rule, because otherwise it could not be distinguished from the subjective sequence. Now, these are very difterent propositions ; and the second or conditional one might be admitted to its full extent without admitting the truth of the first or un- conditional one, which is for purposes of science the supposition of which proof is required.^ (1) Mr. Balfour's first objection is that Kant, while pretending to prove that all sequences are causal, only l)roves at the most that some sequences are causal ; and hence the conclusion is inconsistent with one of the i^remises. Now, without at present enquiring whether Kant is justified in opposing the arbitrary sequence of our perceptions to the necessary sequence of events, it has to be said that he does not, in the proof of causality, make any attempt to show that all sequences are causal. The sequences of which he is speaking are sequences of real events as occurring in the external world. His argument is that, unless in- telligence supplied the schema of order in time, under guidance of the category of causality, we could never have experience of an invariable sequence of events in the world of nature. The principle of causality is not ** universal," in the sense of being presupposed in any sequence whatever, but only in the sense that it is the 1 iVim/, xii, i«. 500 I j ['1 r f hi Hi [ ; V 216 UrAJVT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [CHAI'. universal condition of all those sequences which we regard as objective, and distinguish from the subjective sequence of our feelings. As I have already said, Kant begins his proof by pointing out that, as a mat- ter of fact, we do draw a strong contrast in our ordinary consciousness between a mere sequence of feelings and a real sequence of events. The former we regard as arbitrary, the latter as invariable. Adopting this dis- tinction, Kant goes on to show that the dogmatist, by virtually reducing both kinds of successions to mere series of feelings, abolishes the distinction between them, and therefore is unable to account for objective successions at all. And observe that the procedure of the dogmatist is not to convert subjective sequences into objective, but, on the contrary, to reduce objective sequences to subjective. But, objects Kant, if we eliminate all objective successions we cannot be con- scious even of our perceptions as a series, since there is no longer any reason for contrasting the one with the other. From the dogmatic point of view, therefore, we have as material for the explanation of real events nothing but a "mere play of representations." This argument depends for its force upon the contrast be- tween the dualistic and the critical method of conceiv- ing of the relation between knowledge and reality. Just as Kant argues, in the Refutation of Idealism, that when we start from the assumption that real objects are things in themselves, existing apart from our consciousness of them, we cannot even explain how we come to have a consciousness of our own feel- ings as in time, since a mere series of feelings has no permanent correlate, making it knowable by con- trast ; so, in the proof of causality, his reasoning is, that the dogmatic assumption of the independence of VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. \\1 real objects leaves us with nothing but an arbitrary sequence of feelings, having in them no order or con- nection, a sequence which cannot even be known to be arbitrary, since there is nothing invariable with which it can be contrasted. While, therefore, Kant does not deny that a 'series of feelings, taken by itself, is arbitrary, he yet maintains that if we suppose all our knowledge to be reduced to such a series, it is impos- sible that we could ever have had a knowledge of se- quences that are not arbitrary but invariable. It will be observed that Kant does not make any attempt to show that v/e do have a consciousness of invariable, as distinguished from variable sequences. Any such attempt would in fact be utterly inconsistent with his method of proof, which in all cases consists in reason- ing back from the facts of experience to the conditions of knowledge. And surely it would be a very super- fluous and absurd proceeding to attempt a proof of the fact that a boat in drifting down a stream occupies each part of the stream in succession. Assuming it to be a fact that we distinguish between such invariable sequences and those which are variable, he asks how this fact is to be accounted for, consistently with the nature of knowledge. It cannot be explained, he maintains, on the supposition that real successions are changes of things in themselves ; for the dualism of subject and object leads to the reduction of our knowledge of events to a mere series of feel- ings, which cannot possibly be identified with an orderly succession of real events. Even granting, therefore, that we could have a consciousness of succes- sive feelings, without bringing them into relation Avith changes that are not merely successive but invariable, we should still not be able to explain how we r m n , liil ' i c \ I 218 KJNT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. come to have ati experience of objective sequences. But such a consciousness is impossible, for only in contrast to that which is not arbitrary but in- variable can we have the consciousness of our feelings as variable. The gist of the argument against the dogmatic explanation of causality lies in pointing out that the latter overlooks the correlativity of invariable and variable successions. Just as a feeling is knowable only in contrast to the permanent, so an arbitiary Sequence of feelings is knowable only in contrast to order in time. Having thus disposed of the ordinary explanation of causality, by taking advantage, as it will be observed, of Hume's redn(?tion of knowledge to a mere association or arbitrary succession of feelings, Kant goes on to show how, from the critical point of view, the experience of an invariable or objective sequence of events may be accounted for. The con- trast is no longer, as with the dogmatist, between a succession of feelings in the individual mind, and a series of events without the mind, but between two distinct kinds of sequence both cf whichToccur within consciousness. It is not correct to contrast, without explanation, "sequence in the object," with "sequence in the subject." In one sense all sequences as in the subject may be called "subjective." But in the sense in which Kant here uses the term a "subjective sequence" means one that belongs to the individual as such, and therefore one that is not true universally or for all men. And Kant's criterion for distinguishing a "subjective" from an " oljjective " sequence is that the former is variable and arbitiary, while the latter is invariable and there- foi'e necessary. Mr. Balfour seems to identify "sub- jective" with "in the mind of the individual," and 4' in- VII.] OBJECTIONS TO RANTS PROOFS. 219 "objective" with "in the object external to the mind of the individual." But Kant, as I have shown above, expressly cautions us against this mistake. We are not to suppose, he says, that the question is as to things in themselves, i.e. objects without the mind ; we are to observe that the question is purely in regard to events capable of coming into relation with our con- sciousness. Now it is difficult to see how the fact that there are subjective, i.e. arbitrary, sequences can in any way invalidate the proof that there are objective or invariable sequences, made necessary and universal by relation to the understanding. Mr. Balfour seems to think that because causality is said to be universal it must be applicable to a^l possible successions. This however is not what Kant attempts to show. His object is to prove that all real sequences — all those which we distinguish as changes in the object or in nature-— are necessary, and hence that we can say of the principle of causality, that it is applicable to every possible change in real objects. That there are sequences which are not changes in real objects, Kant would say, no more invalidates the proof of causality, than the fact that there are permanent or co-existent objects. The principle is necessary and universal in so far as it is applicable. This Kant shows by starting from the admitted fact that we do distinguish be- tween real events and the sequence of our individual feelings. And his contention is, that unless we pre- suppose a rule of thought making the former possible, we should be compelled to reduce both to a mere series of feelings — in other words, we should never distinguish invariable from arbitrary sequence at all. Kant there- fore asks (1) what meaning this invariable sequence has for us on the supposition that all objects have an exis- i ;r.:^ ¥ . m I i i ^Hh ri 220 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. tv^nce only in relation to consciousness, and (2) what is the justification, if it can be justified, of the affirmation of necessity according to causality of every possible succession of real events. That objects exist only for consciousness he regards as proved in the Esthetic, but he adds here that, on any other supposition, we can have no knowledge of anything real whatever. The affirmation of necessity in the way of caus- ality he justifies by showing that there can be no knowledge of any real sequence, unless we suppose that Understanding, as distinguished from Perception, constitutes order in Hme. For as there could be no order in time, and therefore no real changes apart from Intelligence as synthetic, it follows that, abstracting from the content of any particular succes- sion, we can say: Every possible real sequence is nec- essary and universal. In other words, in each cognition of a real change there are involved two elements (I) the special content of the sequence, and (2) the uni- versal form, i.e. order in time, the schematized category of causality. As therefore the particular is not know- able as an event or real sequence except by the aid of the form of thought, it follows that order in time is the condition of any knowledge of a real or invariable sequence. For a form of thought cannot be put off or on at will : it belongs to the essential constitution of intelligence, and hence intelligence can only come into operation in the specific way of determining order in time, in relation to a manifold of perception. There is therefore no inconsistency between Kant's premises and the conclusion he reaches. What he seeks to establish is that our knowledge of real or invariable sequences can be explained only on the supposition that intellijjence brings the mere manifold of sense under [chap. VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 221 the schema of order in time, and not otlierwise we should have at the most a mere association of feelings, desti- tute of all order and connection. The contrast of feel- ' ings and events is but one phase of the general contrast between objects in space and time, and feelings as passing in time alone. (2) The second objection advanced by Mr. Balfour is that Kant does not prove, but simply assumes, that there are objective sequences, since he only shows that " //"there is an objective sequence it must be according to a rule." The answer I should be disposed to make to this criticism has been anticipated in what has just been said. I do not think that Mr. Balfour has pro- perly realized what Kant here means by " objective." Judging from the general tenor of Mr. Balfour's remarks, I should think that by an objective sequence he figures to himself an actual change in a world, the consti- tution of which is independent of all relation to intelligence. From this point of view, a *' subjective " succession is one which occurs within the mind of an individual subject, who is the recipient of feelings pro- duced by the action of a world supposed to exist in independence of all consciousness of it ; and an ** ob- jective " succession will be one that takes place in the world thus imagined to lie beyond the confines of knowledge. As the series of feelings is assumed to be completely independent of the series of events in the real world, the objection naturally arises, that from the former we cannot obtain any knovledge of the latter. How then, it may be asked, is the sequence of events in an objective world, a world that, as defined, is beyond knowledge, to become known at all ? Only, it would seem, if we ai^sumt it to be "objective." In other w^ords, it is not possible to show that there is V t^ fH 222 ZiTANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. i . ■ 5 ' any objective sequence except that which we ourselves imagine. I am compelled to suppose that it is in some such way as this that Mr. Balfour regards Kant's view of causality, because I cannot otherwise understand how he should raise the objection, that Kant does not prove but simply assumes the objectivity of real suc- cessions. Mr. Balfour can hardly mean to say, that Kant should have proved that as a matter of fact we distinguish sequences that are invariable from those that are arbitrary. Kant, like everybody else, takes this for granted. The point in dispute is n' u as to the fact of such a distinction being made, but as to the philosophical explanation of that fact. Let us suppose it, then, to be granted, that in our ordinary conscious- ness we distinguish between the succession of real events and the succession of our feelings, and that we regard the former as invariable and the latter as vari- able. Now we may oppose the one to the other as a change in objects without the mind as com- pared with a change of feelings within the mind, and the one change we may call " objective," while the other we may call " subjective." This is the dogmatic or psychological view, and, unless I entirely misunderstand him, it is the view which Mr. Balfour attributes to Kant. Accordingly it is objected that to contrast an " objective " with a ** subjective " sequence as the invariable or necessary to the variable or con- tingent, is only to make the tautological judgment : " An objective sequence must be according to a nee s- sary rule." The objection is undoubtedly pertinent, if Kant opposes objective and subjective, not only as invariable and variable, but as a sequence mthoiit the mind to one within the mind. For as a philo- VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 223 sophical theory is by its very nature an explanation of the possibility of knowledge, we ' not entitled to assume that which, explicitly or implicitly, denies the possibility of knowledge. But, if we are con- fined in our knowledge to our own mental states, it is vain to attempt any explanation of the way in which we come to have a knowledge of an ** objective " sequence. By definition all objects and all changes of objects are beyond knowledge, and that which is beyond knowledge cannot, of course, be known. The distinction, therefore, between the two kinds of succession must ^ " purely imaginary ; or a,t any ^ate wo can never sh it not to be imaginary : it is really a distinction between different states of our own mind, not one between states of our own mind and events lying beyond them. Of what use is it, we may there- fore ask, to show that " objective " sequences are invariable in their succession while our feelings are variable so long as the former are only supposed to be " objective 1 " We can, of course, suppose anything we please, but " for purposes of science " we have proved nothing. The sequences with which science deals are not an invariable succession of feelings, but changes in real objects, and prove what we may of the former, we determine nothing whatever in regard to the latter. Now, the criticism which I have here supposed Mr. Balfour to direct against Kant is thoroughly endorsed by Kant himself Any one who has followed me so far will at once see that it is just ono way of stat- ing the ever- recurring charge that dogmatism, as limited to a mere series of feelings, cannot account for reality at all. The objection of Mr. Balfour is ■ therefore no objection to Kant, but an endorsement so \ f<''M ►.t ■y. ->•) 24 /C.LV7' AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [hiai\ far of the critical poHition. I say ** so far," because the positive aspect of Kant's system is persistently ne- <,'lected in all Mr. Balfour's criticisms. So far as Kant accepts Hume's demonstration of the impossibility of a knowledge of real objects or real changes, on the dogmatic assumption that thought and reality are abstract opposites, Mr. Balfour is able to follow him ; but he loses the thread so soon as Kant goes on to substi- tute criticism for dogmatism. It is easy to show that it is so in the present instance. To begin with, an ** objective " sequence is not distinguished by Kant from a " subjective " sequence as a series of feelings in the individual mind from a series of events in a world lying beyond the mind. This opposition of intelligence and nature Kant summarily rejects, as meaningless and self-contradictory ; and not only does he do so in gene- ral, but he distinctly does so in the very proof of causality which Mr. Balfour is considering. We are not, he says, to look upon the sequence of real events as a change going on in things in themselves, but as a change in phenomena.' Could the ordinary opposition of "subjective " aiid "objective" be more explicitly denied % Now this denial carries very important con- sequences with it. Although the ordinary contrast of "objective" and "subjective" must be rejected, there is no reason for rejecting the ordinary distinction of invariable from variable successions ; in fact, this is tiie distinction upon which we must now fix our atten- tion. For as all sequences are alike in consciousness, it is absurd to contrast a series of feelings with real events as the mental with the extra-mental. The ' ' * \Vere phenomena things in themselves, no man couhl possibly guess, from the sequence of his ideas, how the manifold may be connected in the object, &c." Kritih, p. 175, C"f. Prohijomena, § 27, p. 87. [chap. [se the y "e- , Kant litv of jn the by are V him ; substi- »w that ith, an Kant iingH in \ world llicronce ess and n gene- >roof of We are I events tut as a position plicitly Eint con- itrast of d, there ction of this is ir atten- lousnoss, /itli real ,1. The yr guess, ffom the object, VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANTS PROOFS. 225 question therefore is how the contrast of arbitrary and invariable sequences is to be accounted for. Now it is useless to attempt any identification of a variable series of feelings with an invariable succession of events, for feeling of itself is a mere "manifold," having no unity in itself, and therefore incapable of knowing itself as a series. It is only, in fact, in the contrast of feelings as variable in their succession with events as invariable, that we can have a consciousness of a series of feelings at all. Order in time must therefore be due to our intelligence on its intellectual side. A function of the understanding combining the mere difference of sense in a unity must be supposed. And this function can act only in relation to time, for all sequences are in time. It is therefore only in relation to intelligence as bringing +.he manifold of sense under the schematized category of order in time, that the knowledge of an invariable succession is possible for us. Every real sequence is therefore ipso facto a universal and neces- sary one. For if it is true that before we could have a knowledge of any real change intelligence must have been silently operating, we are entitled to say, that no sequence has been or can be known to be in- variable which is not brought under the category of causality. The ordinary objection to the universality and necessity of the principle of causality falls to the ground, when it is shown that even a single invariable succession of one event on another tacitly involves the connection with each other of all events that can ever possibly be experienced. It can no longer be said, as the empiricist does say, that we cannot go beoynd the general proposition, that all the events we have known were uniformly sequent ; for as no sequence could have been known as uniform apart from the activity of intel- 22G KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. Hgenco, so none over can he known as uniform except in relation to the same activity. A uniform sequence, in short, is one wliich is necessary and universal. Hence, even prior to the definite experience of par- ticular events, we are entitled to say, that when we do have such experience, it must be of events connected according to the principle of causality. Wo cannot oC course anticipate what those events may be, but we can affirm, universally and necessarily, that no change in knowable objects can take place which is not condi- tioned by a prior change. The rest of Mr. Balfour's criticism is directed against what he calls Kant's second proof, which goes on the supposition that all sequences are causal, and attempts to show that, in Mr. Caird's words, " the judgment of sequence cannot be made without presupposition of the judgment of causality." ^ I shall not examine Mr. Balfour's objections to this argument, for, after the most careful examination of Kant's wordd, I am unable to see that it is really contained in the proof of the Second Analogy. For the supposition that it is, Mr. Balfour, of course, is not responsible, and he even hints that " some doubt might perhaps be thrown on whether Kant intended formally to put it forward as a proof at all." In this particular case, I think that Mr. Caird's desire to make Kant consistent with himself has led him to find what does not really exist. Inconsistent as it is with his general theory of knowledge, there is little doubt that Kant does hold that we can have a consciousness of a mere series of feelings, although only in contrast to the objective sequence of events. This, as Mr. Caird himself points out, is one of the instances in which Kant has insufficiently liberated himself from ^ Minil, xii., p. 501. Cf. Caird's PfiHosopfii/ of Kant, pp. 454 ff. [chap. 1 except jqueiice, livcrsal. of par- ti we do mnectcd mnot o'! but we » change >t condi- } against 3 on the attempts anient of on of the line Mr. ifter the m unable of of the t is, Mr. ven hints I whether proof at r. Caird's f has led jonsistent , there is m have a Dugh only ,s. This, instances iself from 154 ff. VII.] OnjFXTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS, 007 the psychological point of view. For, however true it may be that, looking at the temporal phases of our knowledge, we seem to have a mere series of feelings, detached from all relation to real objects and events, it is not true that any mere scries of feelings can be known apart from the relations by which the world is constituted for us as real. Kant, however, undoubtedly distinguishes between our perceptions as occarring in an arbitrary order, and real sequences as occurring in a fixed or unchanging order, and this distinction he makes the starting-point of his proof of the principle of caus- ality. He does not, therefore, attempt to show that all sequences are causal, but only that those are causal which we ordinarily regard as occurring in an invariable order. Mr. Caird does not, perhaps, sufficiently dis- tinguish between Kant's facts and his philosophical proof. Thus, it is plain that in contrasting the case of a boat drifting down stream with the perception of a house, Kant is simply referring to the way in which we ordinarily distinguish an invariable or causal se- quence from a variable or arbitrary one. Both are perceptions or apprehensions, in the ordinary sense of the term, and both, when viewed from the critical point of view, involve categories : the one the category of causality, and the other the category of quantity. So far as perception goes, botii are merely arbitrary, and therefore subjective, but the former involves the cate- gory of causality, while the latter does not. Limiting his attention entirely to the question of real sequences, Kant asks how these are to be accounted for, consistently with the nature of our intelligence ; and he answers that we should never in our ordinary consciousness distinguish between objective and sub- jective sequences, were it not that we apply in the n (..; (I \ ' X (• 1=^^ 228 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. former case the category of causality while in the latter we do not. He does not, therefore, say that we can have no knowledge of any sequences except those that are causal, but merely that we should never distin- guish fixed from variable sequences, but for the reference of that manifold of sense, which we find by an analyses of the knowledge of real changes, to the one supreme self as applying the function of causality by the aid of the schema of order in time. This he regards as a sufficient answer to Hume, because Hume's denial of real sequences rests upon the suppo- sition that all changes in the world occur in things in themselves lying beyond consciousness. No doubt it is only in keeping with Kant's general system to say that in the observation of a hcise there is a causal sequence implied in the movement of the eye. But such a sequence, it must be observed, is just as much in the object known as the drifting of a boat down stream, since the eye as moving is a material thing in space, and therefore distinct from the series of feelings of which it is the organic condition. The real difficulty in Kant's discussion of causality lies in the assumption that there can be in consciousness a mere series of Feelings, and, as Mr. Caird points out, in the separation of causality from substantiality. The former imperfecti?^n arises from the intrusion of a psychological consideration into a purely critical or metaphysical investigation ; the latter, from Kant's method of taking up one phase of knowledge after another, and consider- ing it by itself ; but both are instances of the imperfect development of Kant's thought, and cannot be got rid of except by a remodelling of his system. Although I cannot accept, without modification, Mr. Caird's view of the proof of causality, I entirely agree L 1 [chap. e latter we can ise that distin- for the find by , to the lusality This he because suppo- lings in loubt it I to say I causal e. But just as ' a boat material series of [he real 3 in the a mere in the e former lologic^l physical f taking jonsider- nperfect 3 got rid ion, Mr. ly agree VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 229 with him in holding that that proof goes on the principle that no real sequence can be known at all unless we suppose thought, in conjunction with the schema, to co- operate with sense. And hence I am compelled to reject unreservedly Dr. Stirling's explanation and criticism of the proof of causality. That criticism is very much the same as Mr. Balfour's, and rests, as it seems to me, on a like misapprehension of what Kant's theory really is. According to Dr. Stirling, Kant has two ways of satisfying himself that the principle of caus- ality is a necessary and universal truth ; or rather, he has a less and a more explicit statement of his proof, the former being contained in the Critique, the latter in the Prolegomena. Both in the Second Analogy and in the Prolegomena, he argues that the connection of antecedent and consequent is a rule of judgment which the understanding applies to certain objects given inde- pendently by perception. In other words, Kant holds that we first have by perception the knowledge of events simply as events, and only afterwards proceed to apply to these the category of causality schematized as order in time. Thus, we have by perception a knowledge of the fact that a stone grows hot, and we have also a knowledge of the fact that the sun shines on it. This knowledge perception gives us before understanding, in this special case, has come into operation at all. But having a perception of these two facts, and having in our minds the category of causality, we recognise that here is a case in which that category is applicable, and so we judge, universally and necessarily, that the sun warms the stone. The first judgment, which precedes in tinie (and not merely logically) the second, is a judgment of perception ; the other is a judgment of experience or understanding. ^m i>! ' WBP W' I I « ! • tl I 1 # « 230 ICANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. Kant in the Second Analogy does not distinctly say this, because he had not got his theory into a perfectly clear form before his own mind ; in fact, he was evi- dently, as the prolix and confused proof of the Second Analogy shows, not satisfied himself with his proof; but at last in the Prolegomena he had, after long medi- tation and perplexity, got the thing into a clear form, and settled down in contentment with his distinction of the judgment of perception and the judgment of experience. Now to this proof of causality. Dr. Stirling objects that it is no proof at all, but a pure assumption. For how are we to know when to apply the principle of causality ? If there is no necessary sequence in the perception of the facts or events connected, what right have we to say iliat they are connected ? The sun warms the stone, but for aught we can show to the contrary, the stone might warm the sun. Unless, in short, we had in perception the knowledge of real sequences, we should not be entitled to say that there is any causa nexus. " Did not sense itself, namely, offer material irreversible sequences, the category of cause and effect would be null and void ; it would never be called into play at all ; for it is only on reception of an irreversible first and second that the logical function of antecedent and consequent will consent to act — will, on plea of analogy, consent to receive such first and second into its own necessary nexus."' I should like preliminarily to remark here, that Dr. Stirling's reconstruction of Kant's psychological state in writing the Second Analogy and the Prolegomena, I regard rather as complimentary to Dr. Stirling's power of imagination, than as based upon any real ' Journal of Speculadrt Philoisoiihii, xiv. 78. [chap. tly say jrfectly as evi- Second proof ; r niedi- r form, binction aent of objects 1. For ciple of in the at right 'he sun to the iless, in of real it there namely, igory of Id never ption of function t — will, irst and ;hat Dr. al state ^omena, tirling's iny real VII.] OBJECTIONS TO KANT'S PROOFS. 231 evidence. As a matter of fact Kant is so far from having any doubt of the validity of his proof of causality as given in the Critique, that he expressly draws attention to the proof of the analogies of experi- ence as an evidence of the triumph of the transcendental method.^ Dr. Stirling here attributes to Kant a feeling of dissatisfaction felt only by himself. As to the main issue, I should feel compelled to endorse Dr. Stirling's criticism of the proof of causality, were it not that I believe it to rest upon a misconception. I do not believe that Kant regards perception, when understood in the critical sense, as giving a knowledge of separate events, which are aftenvards externally brought under the rule of causality. So far from this being Kant's view, it seems to me to be exactly the view which he wrote the Cntique to expose. For, the category, when separated absolutely from the perception or experience of events, becomes merely a conception in the mind. On the one side we have a perception of real objects, on the other side a category, but there is no reason whatever why the one should ever come into connec- tion with the other. Now Kant argues, over and over again, that out of a mere conception we can get nothing but an analytical proposition, a proposition that cannot be shown to have any application to real objects or events at all. His view, as I have tried to state it above, is not that perception gives a knowledge of real events as separated from each other and not perceived to be in any order, but that, if we say perception is the sole source of knowledge we cannot account for our experience of real sequences at all. Dr. Stirling, although he elsewhere almost fiercely insists upon it, does not here take into account the fact that Kant ' Pi-olcijomciw, § 27, p. S(). (,"f. g '28, p. 88. y ,. i'l:; mi . r IS.' "I I m 1 \ :{| 1 ri 1 % 1 n ii 1 ll ii 1 In . -' jt-.k]iim § m mi (' I 1 i ii ^1 V, 238 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 1 ' . * classes of categories, be considered in respect, of (I) quantity, (2) quality, (3) relation, and (4) modality. Now matter, looked at in its simplest aspect, is defin- able as that which is capable of motion in space ; de- fined more specifically, it is that which occupies space ; still more determinately, it is that which in moving pos- sesses moving force ; and, lastl} , in relation to the know- ing subject, it is that which, a^ capable of motion, may be an object of experience. The Metaphysic of Nature thus divides up into four parts: — (1) Fhoronomij, the metaphysic of motion ; (2) Dynamics, the metaphysic of matter ; (3) Mechanics, the metaphysic of force ; and (4) Phenomenology, the metaphysic of external experience. I propose to give the substance of this Metaphysic of Nature, both because it is practically the concrete for the abstract of the Cntique, and be- cause I desire to compare it with the views of matter, motion, and force held by Mr. Spencer, whose theory may be takeii as representative of all that is most val- uable in the empirical philosophy of nature of the day. The progress of physical science, and especially of biol- ogy, has brought us to that point at which the relations of the various branches of knowledge to each other de- mand to be settled, and has re-opened tbe problem as to the ultimate principles on which the special sciences rest. A comparison of the conclusions rcifM hed by such a writer as Kant, at once a specialist in natural philo- sophy and one of the greatest philosophers of any age, with those of a writer like Mr. Spencer, who has a firm grasp of the special principles of science as well as of the philosophy which he represents, ought to be instruc- tive, and will at least bring out into greater clearness diff*erence between criticism and the pomts ipn'] cism. VIII.] THE METAPIIYSIC OF NATURE. 239 1. Matter determiiK d in its simplest aspect as " that which is capable of notion in npace," is the object of Phoronomif. It need hardly be said that the specific properties or relations of the various kinds of material bodies — solid, liquid, and gaseous — do not fall under consideration of any branch of nietaphysic, but are dealt with by the special sciences. En Phoronomy, however, we abstract not only from these properties, but from the causal connection of bodies in relation to each other, and even from the quantity of matter as such, i.e., from mass, and concentrate our attention on the motion of a body, as a property belonging to it in virtue of its mere existence in space. Matter may therefore so far be treat od as if it were simply a point, endowed with th"' capacity of marking out a given space in a given time. And the sole determinations of a moveable point, as abstracted from the mutual action of forces on each other and from mass, are velocity and direction. The task of Phoronomy, therefore, is to determine the universal relations of motion as specified in velocity and direction — in other words, to construct the quantitative relations of motion as such. Now, the category of quantity is schematized as number, or the successive addition of homogeneous units ; and as nothing is homogeneous with motion but motion, the purely quantitative consideration of matter yields simply the composition of motions in respect of velocity and direction. Matter, then, in its simplest aspect, is defined as that which is capable of motion in space. Space, however, must be distinguished on the one hand as relative or material, and, on the other hand, as absolute or pure. There is no question here as to the relation of space to our faculty of knowledge. It may, how- ! ii V '■ffi m m u if I r?^ r I I i: I 240 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ever, bo repeated that space is not a thing in itself, or any relation of things in themselves, but is a form be- longing to our faculty of perception. Here, however, we look at space, not in relation to our intelligence, but as an object of knowledge, and hence as a form of the external or material world. When, therefore, we speak of absolute space, it must not be supposed that we refer to a space in itself, a space independent of our knowledge, and therefore not capable of being experi- enced. Absolute space is simply pure or indetenuinato space, conceived of as that in which relative or deter- minate spaces are contained. Any determinate space marked out by the presence of material bodies, is a space, which is conceived of relatively to a wider space embracing and containing it. This second space may again be conceived of as embraced by a still wider space, and so on to infinity. These considerations have an important bearing on the conception of motion. A space taken in abstrac- tion from a wider space embracing it is not knowable at all ; and hence it can neither be said to be at rest nor to be in motion. But the motion of matter is a motion which is capable of being known; and hence motion can take place only in empirical or relative space. Now, if we take any given space, and bring it into relation with a wider space embrac- ing it, we can see that motion is purely relative. Thus, a body which moves relatively to the space in which it is perceived must be regarded as at rest, if we suppose this space to move in a wider space, with the same velocity as the body, but in a contrary direction. Space in itself, or motion in itself, is therefore an absurdity. Absolute space is just the negation of a determinate space. We can always con- [chap. 3lf, or m be- vever, Tcncc, rm of re, wo 1 that of our ixperi- uinato deter- spaco J, is a ' space e may wider Ing on )strac- awable be at matter and ical or space, mbrac- elative. space as at wider it in a itself, ist the VIII.] THE METAPHYSrC OF JSATURE, 241 1 ■ys con- ceive a space beyond a given space without end, but to suppose that pure or indeterminate space is an actual thing is to confuse logical universality with physical universality. So motion in itself is a contradiction in terms, since motion is always relative to the space in which it occurs. Motion must, therefore, be defined as "the change of the external relations of a thing to a given space." The common definition of motion as " change of place " is too narrow, and holds good only of the motion of a physical point. The "place" of a body is in tho jjoint constituting its centre, and this may remain at rest while the body itself moves, as when the earth turns on its axis. The definition of motion, however, as the change of rela- tions to external space, is consistent with all the motions of bodies, and emphasizes the fact that all motion is relative. Jlcsi^ again, must be defined as "permanent presence in the same place." It is not correct to say that rest is simply absence of motion ; for the negation of motion as = does not admit of mathematical construction, whereas rest, when regarded as permanent presence in the same place, may be taken as a motion with infinitely small velocity, ai.u therefore as a quantity. As motion is relative to the space in which it is observed, it is a matter of inditterence whether we regard a body as moving in a space which is at rest, or the space as moving while the body remains at rest. When we limit our attention to the space in relation to which a body is regarded as in motion, without view- ing it as encircled by a wider space, we naturally look upon the body as moving and the space as at rest ; when, on the other hand, we bring the space in which the body is observed into relation with a wider space, ^ ^1 :ii .r U w \\ : 1 !l! l-i!!* m\^ t Jl'ff 242 AAJV2' AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. we may look upon the space as moving and the body as at rest. And as each space is either in motion or at rest, according to our point of view, we may iii ail cases of motion, or rather of motion in a straight line, regard the body as moving in a space which is at rest, or the space as moving in an opposite direction from the body, and with equal velocity. Moreover, it is quite legitimate to divide the total motion into two parts, and to suppose the body to have one part and the space to have the other part — although, of course, in a contrary direction. The quanMty rf motions viewed in regard to their velocity and direction, is constructed under the guid- ance of the category of quantity, and the combination of any number of motions may be reduced to the com- bination of two motions, since every synthesis of homo- geneous units is a successive addition of part to part. The three modes of quantity are unity, plurality, and totality ; and these as pure forms of the understanding must be brought into play in determining the quantity of motion. Hence there are three possible cases. (1) Two motions either of equal or of unequal velocity may take place at the same time in the same direction, the product being a motion compounded of both ; (2) two motions, whose velocity is either equal or unequal may take place in contrary directions, while their coribination gives rise to a third motion in the same line; (3) two motions, whose velocities are either equal or unequal, may take place in different lines, forming an angle, and their composition will result in a third motion in a line different from either. Thus we have (1) unity of line and direc- tion, (2) plurality of direction in the same line, and (3) totality both of directions and lines — the [chap. e body tion or J ill all it line, at rest, m from r, it is to two irt and course, ,0 their e guid- )ination 10 cora- f homo- to part, ity, and tanding quantity es. (1) ity may ion, the (2) two unequal le their in the ties are different ion will tit from d direc- iie line, les — the VIII.] THE METAPHYSIC OF NATURE. .243 three possible ways in which motion is determined as a quantum. 2. Assuming matter to be determined in regard to its motion by the category of quantity, we have now to consider how it is still further determined in Dynamics, by being brought under the category of quality, as that which occupies space. In so far as it occupies space, matter may be shown to imply two opposite forces of attraction and repulsion, as essential to iis very constitution. But while we have here to consider matter as constituted out of those two forces, we yet regard it only as imparting motion in virtue of its inherent forces, not as itself moving and communicating motion. In the language of Mr. Lewes, Dynamics, in the Kantian sense of the term, is the science of matter "in its statical aspect," as distin- guished from Mechanics, which treats of matter " in its dynamical aspect." The mere conception of the existence of matter in space does not account for the occupancy of space by matter. A material body can be conceived of as occupying space only when it is regarded as resisting the entrance of any other body, and therefore as endowed with a mov- ing force of its own. A body can enter, or strive to en- ter, a given part of space, only in so far as it moves. Now nothing can diminish or destroy motion, but motion in a contrary direction ; and hence the entrance of one body into the space occupied by anotlier can- not be prevented unless the latter has a moving force, which acts in a direction contrary to the motion of the former. It is only therefore by the possession of a moving force, that a body can occupy space at all. This moving force is a force of repulsion, which may bo regarded indifferently as that by which a material m h'\ 1 'I . 1^ III H:,! 244 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap.. body separates another body from itself, or as that by which it resists the approach of another body to itself. And each part of matter must possess a repulsive force, because otherwise matter would not occupy the whole of the space in which it exists, but would only enclose it. As belonging to an extended body in all its parts, repulsion is a force of extension, expansion, or elasti- city. And this expansive force necessarily has a finite degree or intensive quality ; for a force incapable of increase in intensity, would be one in which an infinite space might be traversed in a finite time, while a force incapable of decrease would be one from which no motion in a finite time could arise, even if it were multiplied by itself to infinity. The expansive force of any material body can therefore be conceived of as increasing or decreasing in intensity to infinity. An inference from this is, that the space occupied by any material body may always be diminished, since a contrary force can always be conceived, capable of pre- venting it from expanding itself as much as it would otherwise do. This contrary force may be called a force of compression. Now as a force of compression greater than the force of expansion possessed by a given material body can always be conceived, matter is com- pressible to infinity. On the other hand, however great it may be, the force of compression must have a finite degree of intensity, and hence matter although injinitely compressible, is yet impenetrahle — i.e., its occupancy of space cannot be absolutely destroyed. Moreover, as the essence of matter consists in the possession of an expansive force proceeding from each point in all direc- tions, the smaller the space into which a body is com- pressed, the greater must be the force by which it strives to expand itself. The impenetrability here VIII.] THE METAPHYSIC OF NATURE. 245 great com- spoken of, which always increases in proportion to the degree of compression, may be called relative impene- trability, and the occupancy of space which it presup- poses may be called the dynamical occupancy of space. Absolute impenetrability rests upon the presupposition that matter is absolutely incompressible, and the occu- pancy of space corresponding to it may be called the mathematical occupancy of space. The mathematical conception of impenetrability goes on the supposition that matter is in its ultimate nature not only impene- trable, but incompressible. It is argued that only in so far as there are empty spaces between its parts is a material body compressible at all ; and hence impene- trability is explained by supposing each atom of matter to be absolutely impenetrable, i.e., incompressible. ' Such absolute impenetrability Kant regards as a qualitas occulta. No cause is assigned of impenetra- bility, but it is virtually asserted that matter is impene- trable just because it is so ; in other words, the absolute impenetrability of matter is a pure assumption, resting upon an abstraction from that moving force without which matter cannot be conceived as occupying space at all. The conception of matter as possessing by its own nature a repulsive force, is free from this objection ; for although we can give no reason why such a force should exist, we can yet explain by it why a material body offers a certain degree of resistance to any other material body which tries to displace it. When we see that matter is compressible to infinity, inasmuch as we can always conceive of a greater contrary force as brought to bear upon it, we also see that by the occupancy !■•-:« •rMi ' Matter, in other words, is composed of ultimate atoms— the "hard" atoms of the physicist. 246 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. \ K\\. ' I ! of space we must understand a relative, and not an ab- solute, impenetrability. We have seen that impenetrability arises from the fe,ct that each part of a material body is endowed with an expansive force, by which it is able to repel or remove to a ditstance the parts of any other material body. Now, the space occupied by matter is mathe- matically divisible to infinity, although its parts are not really separable. Each part of matter occupying space, on the other hand, is moveable or separable in virtue of the repulsive force with which it repels all other material parts, and is in turn repelled by them. As each part of space is divisible to infinity, so also is each part of matter which occupies space. And the divisibility of matter means the physical divisibility of its parts. Each part of matter may therefore be regarded, like each material body, as a material substance divisible to infinitv; for a mate- rial substance is definable as that which is moveable in itself. This proof of the infinite divisibility of matter over- throws the theory of the monadists, who suppose mat- ter to be composed of indivisible points, and to occupy space purely in virtue of its repulsive force. On this view, while space and the sphere of activity of a sub- stance is divisible, the substance itself, which occupies space and manifests force, is not divisible. But, as has been shown, there is no point in an occupied space which is not capable of being regarded as a material substance endowed with repulsive force, and as itself moveable, because capable of being acted upon by other repulsive forces. This may be still further shown in the following way. If we suppose any monad, with a given sphere of activity, to be placed at a certain VHI.] THE METAPHYSIC OF NATURE. 247 point; then, as space is divisible to infinity, we can suppose an infinity of monads to occupy a position between the first monad and the point to which its resistance extends. Each of these, as possessed of a force of repulsion of its own, and as repelled by the other, must be moveable ; and hence there is no part of space occupied by matter which is not moveable — in other words, each part of matter is a substance en- dowed with a moving force. Matter, therefore, is not indivisible, as the monadist supposes, but infinitely divisible. Observe, however, that when matter is said to be divisible to infinity, it is not meant that it is made up of an infinite number of parts, as the dogmatic philoso- pher maintains. Divisibility is not identical with dividedness. If space and matter were things in them- selves, we should indeed have to admit either that matter is composed of a finite number of parts, or that we have no knowledge of it. But when we see that matter in space is not a thing in itself but a phenomenon, we can also understand how it may be divisible to infinit ' and yet may not be composed of an infinite number oi -jarts. A phenomenon exists only in relation to our thought of it, and hence matter is divided just in so far as we have carried the division. The mere fact, therefore, that we can carry on the division to infinity, does not show that there is in a material body actuj ly an infinite number of parts. Nor can we aflirm that the parts of matter are simple, because these parts, as existing only in relation to our consciousness of them, are given only in the process by which they are divided or mentally distinguished. Matter, therefore, is not composed of parts which exist as simple in a thing external to knowledge, but U KMH 248 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. of parts determined as such in the process by which matter is known as divisible. It has been shown that without impenetrability there could be no occupation of space at all, and that impenetra- bility is just the capa(nty by which matter, in virtue of a moving force, extends itself in all directions. A force of extension, however, cannot of itself account for the ex- istence of matter as having a definite quantity. In the first place, there is no absolute limit to extension in such a force itself; and, in the second place, there is nothing in the nature of space to prevent the infinite expansion of matter ; for the intensity of the force of extension, while it will no doubt decrease as the volume of matter expands, can never sink down to zero. Apart, there- fore, from a force of compression acting contrary to the force of repulsion, matter could have no finite quantity in a given space, but would disperse itself to infinity. Nor can the limiting force of one material body be found in the repulsive force of another material body, since the latter also requires a force of compres- sion to determine it to a finite quantity. Besides the repulsive force with which a body is endowed, we must therefore suppose it to have a force acting in the op- posite direction- -i.e., a force of attraction. And this force, as essential to the very possibility of matter, can not be peculiar to a certain kind of material body, but must be universal. Both the force of repulsion and the force of attraction arc therefore essential ; for while by the former matter would disperse itself to infinity, by the latter it would vanish in a mathematical point. If merely a force of attraction were to act, the distance between each part of matter would be gradually lessened until it disappeared altogether, since one moving force can only be limited by a moving force \ VIII.] THE METAPIIYSIC OF NATURE. 249 contrary to it. These, it may be added, are the only ultimate forces; for as matter, apart ^rom its mass, may be considered as a point, any two i .aterial bodies must either separate from, or approach to, one another in the straight line lying between them ; and the motion of separation is due to repulsion, the motion of approxi- mation to attraction. Matter, then, is constituted by the two opposite forces of repulsion and attraction. There is, however, an important distinction between the mode of operation of these forces. Repulsion acts only by physical con- tact, attraction only at a distance. (1) Physical con- tact must be carefully distinguished from mathematical contact. The latter is presupposed in the former, but the one cannot be identified with the other. Contact, in the mathematical sense, is simply the limit between any two parts of space, a limit which is not contained in either of the parts. Two straight lines cannot in themselves be in contact with each other ; but if they cut each other they meet in a point which constitutes the common limit between them. So a line is the limit between two surfaces, and a surface the limit between two solids. Physical contact, on the other hand, is the mutual action of two repulsive ft)rces in the common limit of two material bodies, or the reciprocal action constituting impenetrability. (2) Attraction never acts by physical contact, but is always actio in distans, or action througli empty «i)ace. For, as has been shown, a force of attraction is essential to the determination of any given material body as to intensive quantity, and this force must act independ- ently of the physical contact of bodies — i.e., through empty space. To the conception of attraction as action at a distance, it is commonly objected that matter can- I 200 t :' KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. not act whi've it \s not. How, it may be asked, can the earth immediately attract the moon, which is thousands of miles distant from it ? To this Kant replies that matter cannot act where it is, on any hypothesis we may adopt, since each part of it is necessarily oiitsiiJe of every other. Even if the earth and the moon were in physical contact, their point of contact would lie in the limit between the two parts touching each other, and therefore each part, to act on the other, must act where it is not. The objection, there- fore, comes to this — that one body can only act on ttv ">ther when each repels the other. But this makes attraction absolutely dependent on repulsion, if it does not abolish attraction altogether — a supposition for which there is no ground whatever. Attraction and repulsion are completely independent of one another, and are alike necessary to the constitution of a material body. As the forces of repulsion and attraction act respec- tively by physical contact and through empty space, they may be further distinguished as supcrjicial and penetrative. (1) Each part of a body, as occupying space, is endowed with a force of repulsion, by which it repels and is itself repelled. The parts are in physi- cal contact, and each sets a limit to the expansion of the other in space, and is itself in turn limited by the other. It is therefore impossible for one part of mat- ter to repel another, unless the two are in immediate physical contact. Hence repulsion acts only at the surface of matter. (2) The force of attraction, again, does not act by physical contact, but at a distance. By the possession of attraction a body does not occupy space, but simply exists in space, without limiting any other body to a definite part of space. Accordingly, VIII.] THE METAPHVSIC OF NATURE. 251 attraction is not affected by the interposition of any num- ber of bodies ; in other words, it is a penetrative force, which is always proportional to the quantity of matter. It follows from this that the force of attraction v xtends through the spaces of the world to infinity i^'or as attraction is essential to the constitution of ma. ^r, each part of matter acts invariably at a distance. If we suppose that there is a definite limit beyond which attraction ceases to act, we must account for this limitation either from the nature of the matter lying within this sphere of activity, or from the nature of space. The former supposition is inadmissible, for attraction is not affected o^ the interposition of any number of material bo'^l-es. The latter supposition is equally inadmissible ; 'ci distance in space, while it decreases the intensity "'. attraction in inverse ratio, cannot reduce it to ^ro. There is therefore nothing to hinder attraction ncm extending through space to infinity. In conclusion, the relation of the dynamical concep- tion of matter to the categories of quality, under which it stands, may be pointed out. The various modes of quality are reality, negation, and limitation. (1) The real in space is matter, as occupying space through its impenetrability or repulsive force. (2) The force of attraction, which, if acting by itself, would reduce matter to a mathematical point, or, in other words, absolutely destroy it, comes under the category of negation. (3) The reflection of attraction on repulsion, by which the quantity of matter is determined to a finite degree, is the subsumption of matter as occupying space under the category of limitation. 3. The final determination of matter is made in Mechanics, in which matter is defined as " that which km If--: ■ 'I 252 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. has moving force, in so far as it is itself moveable." In Dynamics abstraction is made from the actual motion of a material body, and no properties of matter are brought under consideration except those which arc implied in the occupation of space by moving forces. This conception of matter, as originally endowed with the forces of attraction and repulsion, is necessarily presupposed in the more concrete conception of matter as actually in motion. For, manifestly, a material body could have no power of communicating motion to another body, were it not itself possessed of original forces : a body could not impress another body, lying in the line of its motion, with a motion equal to its own, did not both possess originally a force of repulsion; nor could one body cause another to move towards it were not both originally endowed with a force of at- traction. In Mechanics (in the metaphysical sense) the determination of matter as that which is moveable, in virtue of its original forces of attraction and repulsion, is presupposed, and the further determination of mat- ter as itself moving and communicating motion is made. And as in this final determination of matter the relation of one material body to another in so far as they are contemplated as actually moving is set forth, matter, ujechanically considered, is brought under the category of relation, in its three phases of suhstantialitij, caus- alitij, and reci^jrocity. Now, when matter is regarded as itself moving and communicating motion, we can no longer, as in Phor- onomy, regard it merely as that which has velocity and direction ; nor can we confine our attention to the original forces which determine it to the occupa- tion of space ; but wo must ask what is the relation between the quantity of matter and the quantity of [chap. vii;.] THE MllTAPHYSIC OF NATURE. 253 ^^ motion. By the quantity of matter is meant the sum of the parts of a body as moveable in a given space. According to the monadists, matter is not composed of moveable parts, but k resolvable intomathematical points, having in their relation to each other a certain degree of moving force, in no way dependent upon the number of parts lying side by side, or out of each other. This separation of the degree of moving force from the quantity of matter as a sum of moveable parts is quite inadmissible ; for matter has no quantity except in so far as it consists of an aggregate of parts, each outside of the others. These parts, regarded as all moving or acting together, arc the mass of a body, and a body is said to act in mass when its parts move together in one direction and at the same time put forth their moving forces. Tho quantity of matter must bo distinguished from mass. The former is simply any combination of moveable parts ; the latter is a combination of move- able parts regarded as acting together in a body. A fluid, e.g., may either act by the motion of all its parts at once, or by the motion of its several parts in succes- sion. In a water-hammer, or in water enclosed in a vessel, and pressing by its weight on a balance, water acts in mass ; whereas the water of a mill-stream does not act on the float-board of an undershot wheel with all its parts tit once, but with one part after another. To determine the quantity of matter in the latter case, we must therefore find out the quantity of the whole body of water — i.e., that quantity of matter which, in acting with a certain velocity, would produce the same effect. Lastly, the quantity of motion is in Mechanics the quantity of matter, or the mass, multiplied by the velocity ; not, as in Phoronomy, merely the degree of velocity. Now, it is easy to show that the only ril I Ifij, H If ' i* i ,ii r [I I 2ft4 KANT AND H/S ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ;' nieaBure of the quantity of matter in one body as com- pared with any other, ia the quantity of motion with given velocity. Ao matter is divisible to infinity, and tlicrefore is not made up of a number of simple parts, we cannot determine the quantity of a body by the direct summation of its parts. It is true that in two homOj<>eneou8 bodies the quantity of matter is pro- portional to the quantity of volume ; but the former can only be measured by a comparison of either body with others specifically difiercnt, and this, again, can only be done by taking the velocity of the bodies compared as equal, and so determining the quantity of motion in each. When it is said, on the one hand, that the quaucity of matter can only be measured by the quantity of motion with given velocity, and, on the other hand, tiiat the quantity of motion with given velocity, is measured by the quantity of matter moved, we seem to fall into a vicious circle, and to leave both concep- tions quite indefinite. The reasoning is not, however, really circular, because the conception of the quantity of matter is not identical with the conception of the quantity of motion. In the one case, we regard matter simply as a sum of moveable parts ; in the other, we consider this totality of parts as manifesting itself in motion. The quantity of matter is not the quantity of repulsion or attraction, but the quantity of substance, definable as the moveable. Alter this quantity, with- out altering the velocity, and we must also alter the quantity of motion ; hence the quantity of motion de- pends upon the quantity of matter. A substance is that which cannot exist as a predicate, but is conceiv- able only as a subject ; and matter, as occupying space, is a subject which cannot be determined as the predi- [chap. VIM.] THE MET A PHYSIC OF NATURE. 255 cato of anythinpf else. A material body is defined by its actual motion, not by the quantity of its original forces. Even in the attraction of matter, as the cause of universal gravitation, the attracting body imparts to itself a velocity of its own, which in like external con- ditions is exactly proportional to the number of its parts, and hence the quantity of matter, although directly measured by the force of attraction, is indirectly determined by the quantity of motion of the attracting body. We are now in a position to lay down the laws which applv to matter as considered in Mechanics. These laws are three in number, corresponding to the three categories of relation, viz., subsia,rce, causality, and reciprocity. (1) " In a.'l changes of corporeal nature, the quantity of matter remains the same on the whole, being neither increased nor diminished." In the First Analogy of Experience, it was proved that no new substance can possibly come into existence or go out of existence ; wliat has hero to be shown is merely what constitutes the substance of matter. Now every material body, and every part of a material body, that can exist in space, is the last subject of all the properties pertain- ing to matter. And the quantity of material substance is the sum of its moveable parts, as existing in space, or lying outside of one another. Unless, therefore, a new substance could originate, or be destroyed, the sum of the parts of matter constituting its quantity can neither be increased nor diminished. But in all the changes of nature substance neither originates nor is destroyed, and hence the quantity of matter is fixed and unchangeable. This or that material body may changj in quantity by an addition or :^-po ration of P •M \v.^ I ,; V. 2f)6 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. •'I: . II parts ; but the sum of those parts car.not be altered, and hence the quantity on the whole is always the same. (2) The second law of Mechanics is that " all changes in material bodies are due to an external cause, or, that every body persists in its state of rest or motion in the same direction and with the same velocity, unless it is compelled to alter its state by an external cause." To the Second Analogy of Experience it was proved that every change must have a cause ; here it has to be shown that every change of matter must have an external cause. Now the only determinations of matter are those which imply relations to space, and hence all changes of matter are changes of motion. Either one motion alternates with another, or motion with rest, or rest with motion ; and of each of these changes there must be a cause. But matter has no internal deter- minations, and henje every change of matter is due to an external cause. This mechanical law should alone be called the law of inertia (lex inertiae). The law that action and reaction are equal and opposite expresses a positive attribute of matter, and is therefore improperly called a law of inertia. "When matter is said to be inert, all that is implied is that it has in itself no life, and therefore no capacity of self-determination. Hence inertia is not a positive effort of matter to maintain its state, but simply the impossibility of change except on condition of the action of an external cause. (3) The third law of Mechanics is that " action and reaction are always equal to each other." In the Third Analogy of Experience it was proved that all external action in the world is mutual. Hero our object is to show that this mutual action (actio mutua) is at the same time reaction (veactio). In estab- in VIII.] THE METAPHYSIC OF NATURE. 257 lishing this proposition, Kaut makes use of the con- ception that the motion of a body in relative space is the same thing as the motion of another body, together with the space in which it exists, in a contrary direc- tion. As all motion is relative, to say that a body A moves towards a body B is the same thing as saying that B together with its space moves towards A. If, therefore, A strikes B, we must, to determine the quantity of motion of each after impact, divide the velocity between }^. and B in the inverse ratio of their mass. In this way Kant seeks to prove the mechanical law that reaction is always equal to action,^ but his proof need not be given here. These Ihree laws of general Mechanics might be called respectively the law of subsistence {^ex suhsisten- tiiv), the law of inertia {lex inertice), and the law of reaction {lex antagonismi). That they exactly corres- pond to the categories of substance, cause, and recipro- city is self-evident. 4. In Phenomcnologii matter is considered simply in its relation to the knowing subject, and hence it is now defined as that which can be an object of experi- ence. What has here to be shown are the conditions under which it may be determined as a knowable object by the predicate of motion. Following the ckie of *he categories, we must therefore bring matter as \\\o\ cable under the categories of modality. (1) * The motion in a straight line of a material bod^ relatively to empirical space, as distinguished from the contrary motion of the space, is possible. Absolute motion, on the other hand, is impossible." Whether we say that a body moves in a space which is at rest, or that tlie space moves in a contrary direc- ' Mctnphii^. Aiiffi»:i. tf. Xnhir., pp. 441-2. K |:':i \' i. .fr mil. , IJS^nl iH i' i! 258 A'AJVT AND BIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. tion and with equal velocity, in no way alters the character of the object, but is merely a question as to the point of view of the knowing subject. Now, when only an alternative, as distinguished from a disjunc- tive judgment, can be made in regard to an object, it is left undetermined which of two contrary predicates really applies to it. Hence the motion of matter in a straight line in empirical space, as distinguished from the contrary and equal motion of the space, is merely a possible predicate. Again, as motion is a relation, both of its correlates must be known before there can be any real knowledge ; and hence motion in a straight line, apart from all relation to an object which moves, and which may be known as moving, is absolutely impotjihle. Absolute motion, in other words, cannot possibly be known. (2) " The circular motion of a material body, in distinction from the contrary motion of space, is actual ; whereas the contrary motion of a relative space is not an actual motion of a body, but a mere illusion." In circular motion there is a continual change of motion from the straight line, and therefore a continual origination of new motion. Now, by the law of inertia no motion can originate without an external cause ; and by the same law a body continu- ally strives to go on in the straight line touching the circle, and is only hindered from doing so by the con- trary action of an external cause. A body whicli moves in a circle therefore shows itself to be possessed of a moving force. The motion of space, on the other hand, cannot be due to any moving force. Now, the judgment that either a body moves or that its sparo moves in a contrary direction, is a disjunctive judgment, in which either alternative excludes the other. The \ [chap. s the as to when isjunc- ject, it licates iter in uished space, motion known hence . to an )wn as tion, in ody, in »aeo, is relative a mere >ntinual lerefore by the lout an ontinu- ling the he con- whicli assessed on the Now. its spacii dgnient, r. The VIII.] THE METAPHYSIC OF NATURE. 259 circular motion of the body is therefore actual, and the contrary motion of relative space, as it is incon- sistent with the connection of knowable objects, is a mere illusion. (3) " When one body sets another in motion, an equal and opposite motion of the latter is necessary" This proposition follows directly from the third law of Mechanics. In all communication of motion reaction is equal to action. The motion of the body which is said to be acted upon is as actual as the motion of the body which is said to act. And as the actuality of this motion does not merely rest upon an external force, but follows immediately and necessarily from the relation of moveable bodies in space to each other, the motion of the body moved is necessary. These three propositions, it will be observed, corres- pond respectively to matter as the moveable, as the moveable which occupies space, and as the moveable which in virtue of its motion has moving force ; in other words, to matter as determined by Phoronomy, by Dynamics, and by Mechanics respectively. It is also self-evident that they bring matter under the cate- gories of possibility, actuality, and necessity — the three categories of Modality. |- - $i m u m . I 5 2Q0 CHAPTER IX. COMPARISON OF THE CRITICAL AND EMPIRICAL CONCEPTIONS OF NATURE. rPHE statement of the mum positions in Kant's Metaphysic of Nature, given in last chapter, will enable us to see how the critical conception of the material world differs from the empirical, or, as Kant would call it, the dogmatic )nception of it. The world of external nature, like, nature in general, is regarded, not as existing independently of intelligence, but as constituted for us by tlie activity of intelligence as acting upon the external !»^,anifold of sense. With this critical explanat" i; oi ;jaturc, I now propose to contrast the empirical explanation of it as given by Mr. Sr^ac^r. 1. It is > 'ident, in the first place, that in determin- ing the various elements which make up our knowledge of tlie material world, Kant is guided, more or less consciously, by the principle that the true method of knowledge consists in a progress from the less to the more concrete, not in a progress from the more to the less concrete. AI)Solute space he regards not as more real than empirical or relative space, but simply as a mere " logical universality," an abstraction from any given determinate space. Absolute motion, again, as IX.] MR. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 261 :ptions Kant's 3r, will of the 3 Kant The pral, is igenco, ligence With Dose to ven by ;ermin- fwledgc or less hod of to the ) to the IS more ly as a jm any irain, as he shows, cannot be an object of knowledge ; the only motion we can possibly know is that which is relative or determinate. Accordingly, matter is suc- cessively determined as that which is capable of motion — as that which occupies space by the forces of repul- sion and attraction — as that which in moving com- municates motion — and lastly, as that which exists only in relation to our intelligence. That Kant does not always clearly separate between the method of abstraction and the method of determination by more and more concrete elements is no doubt true, as I shall afterwards try to show ; but it is equally evident that he emphatically rejects the reduction of concrete know- ledge to such thin and impalpable abstractions as space in itself, motion in itself, matter in itself, or force in itself. The world of nature he accordingly conceives as a system of determinate relations, or a " closed sphere," in which each element of reality exists only in relation to the other elements. Space, motion, matter, and force preserve their disf iuctnPiS8, and yet they are not separated from each other by a pr- cess of unreal abstraction, but are so connected tofjether as to combine in a concrete universe, in which eacii oiement is not only relative to every other, 1 ui is likewise relative to intelligence. Now, the method of Mr. Spencer, unlike that of Kant, is a method of straction, althougii at times the opposite method of termination is followed. The contrast between Kant and Mr. Spencer in this re- spect is, that while tuo former only drops into the method of abstract )ii from want of a sufficiently firm grasp of his own principles, the latter deliberately adopts the method of abstraction, and is only inadvert- ently betrayed into making use of the method of deter- m 1 *■ '1, M V;): I'i i ti 202 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. 'M' M in l4 mination. In attempting to justify this charge I shall confine myself mainly to the third chapter of the second part of Mr. Spencer's First Principles, which, speaking generally, corresponds to Kant's Phoronomy. It does not require very much reflection upon the statements in that chapter to make it apparent that, all through, Mr. Spencer assumes that there is a real universe existing in its completeness in absolute independence of all relation to intelligence. Now, there is no rea- son to deny that common sense and natural science, in one aspect of them, seem to give the strongest support for this supposition. The ordinary atti- tude of the plain man if that of a spectator who observes directly before him certain real things and persons that he seems to apprehend as they exist full- formed and complete in themselves. His doubts as to reality, if he have any, do not concern the possible illusiveness of existing things, but only the possibility of misapprehension on his own part. In like manner it is a piosupposition of the observations and experi- ments of the scientific man that the world exists com- plete in itself, and lies there ready for apprehension. He knows that eftbrt on his own part is the condition of the knowledge of things, but he never supposes that the presence or absence of such knowledge has any- thing to do with the reality of existence. A philoso- pher, therefore, who appeals to common sense and to science in support of his assumption that the world is independent of conscious intelligence, has the apparent support of both. But the support is only apparent. Ask the man of common sense, or the scientific man who is innocent of philosophical theory, whether tlie world he regards as real is not, after all, a world f>f mere appearances — a world which seems, but is not — • IX.J MR. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 263 and he can only be made to understand the question by a series of explanations that take him beyond his ordinary point of view, and awaken him, as by a shock, to an elementary conception of the problem of philosophy. Prior to this, he had taken for granted that knowledge and reality are one, and hence it is just as easy to show, by an appeal to common sense and science, that reality is bound up with intelligence, as to show that it is independent of intelligence. The separation of thought and nature — knowledge and reality — does not present itself to ordinary conscious- ness at all ; and hence the empiricist and the idealist may with equal confidence appeal to it, secure of an apparent support. But this simply shows the absurd- ity of the appeal. Philosophy begins by discerning the possibility of a breach between knowledge and reality, and its task is to show either that they coincide or that they iXo not. It is therefore utterly unpardon- able in a philosopher to begin with the assumption of the independence of reality on intelligence, for such an assumption just means that so far he has not got to the philosophical point of view. Nor is this all, for such a supposition is not only unjustifiable, but it leads to a perverted view of the relation between knowledge and reality, as will appear from an examination of Mr. Spencer's procedure. Between the first view of the world as a congeries of individual objects connected together by the superficial unity of space and time, and the scientific view of that world as a system of forces, there lies a wide interval durinix which intelli V *> <« 6^ ^y" ^1^' ■^^ 5 2G8 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. U i*'l n i:\ accept both the realism — i.e., the tacit idealism of common sense — and its contradictory sensationalism. Accordingly, he does not scruple to speak of relations of sequence and relations of co-existence as if they were given in complete independence of intelligence ; and hence the only (question, as he puts it, is how the indi- vidual comes gradually to appropriate objects through his own particular and perpetually-changing feelings. From this way of stating the question the absurdity of trying to build up a stable universe out of evanescent sensations is concealed both from Mr. Spencer himself and from the unwary reader ; because, having an intel- ligible universe always before their consciousness, they overlook the fact that individual feelings, as unrelated, are in the most absolute sense unintelligible. It is not seen to be a contradiction to identify successive feelinafs of touch and oi' muscular sensation with " relations of sequence," and even with ** relations of co-existence," although it seems plain enough the moment it is stated that feelings, as such, cannot be " relations " of any kind whatever. Proof of this charge of self-contradic- tion is so important in itself, and has so decisive a bearing upon the doctrine of force as conceived by empirical psychologists, that a detailed examination of Mr. Spencer's derivation of the conceptions of space and time may be excused. The "relation of sequence" is primary, because " given in every change of consciousness ; " the " re- lation of co-existence" is secondary, because it "cannot be originally given in a consciousness of which the states are serial." How, then, does the consciousness of co-existence arise % From the fact that ** certain relations of sequence have their terms presented in consciousness, in either order, with equal facility. [chap, lHsiu of 3nalism. •elations ley were ue ; and }he indi- through feelings, ardity of anescent r himself an intel- ess, they nrelated, It is not 3 feeUngs [ations cf :istence," is stated ' of any ontradic- cisive a ived by lation of of space because IX.] MR. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 269 (( re- the "cannot lich the iousness certain ented in faciUty, while the others are presented only in one order." Here it is quite evident that Mr. Spencer is trying to explain how we come to experience a world of co-existent and successive objects, conceived in the first place as independent of consciousness. Now, a world in which events are " presented only in one order" is, in other words, a world in which the events are connected in an irreversible or uniform order, i.e., in which they are connected together as cause and effect. Such a world, therefore, is already constituted by universal forms of thought, involving, not only intelligence, but intelligence that has devel- oped itself by very complex relations. And a neces- sary and uniform sequence of events is very different from the supposed sequence of feelings, as they occur in "a consciousness of which the states are serial." No doubt there is a point of view from which it can be shown that the serial states of consciousness iniply a uniform sequence in the way of causality, but such a point of view can be attained only by a philosophy which sets forth, in systematic order, the different ele- ments that conspire to produce a rational universe — a universe that, apart from reason, is nothing ; not by a philosophy which assumes the existence of a ready- made universe independent of reason. That Mr. Spencer is committed to the latter standpoint is evident from his attempt to account for relations of co-existence by relations of sequence ; and it is still more apparent from the fact that he afterwards explains co-existence as a compound of feelings of touch and muscular sen- sation. His method, then, is to identify '* relations of sequence" with the mere sequence of feelings, in a "consciousness of which the states can only be serial;" and, having thus assumed uniform relations of sequence, ibi i •.i■:■ M\ i t ■ j i ill) t I 1) I'i' 's 270 X^iVr ^iVZ> HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. the only thing requiring explanation seems to be, how these give rise to relations of co-existence. But a sequence of feelings conceived to occur in a purely individual consciousness is as far as possible from being identical with the objective sequence of real events in an intelligible world. The former is, ex hypothesi, not irreversible, but arbitrary; not objective, but subjec- tive. The latter is uniform, necessary, and unchang- ing, and involves the actual relation of objects as identical in the midst of change, and a? necessarily connected with each other. The one excludes all rela- tions, the other involves a complexity of relations. It is, therefore, utterly impossible to extract from the sequence of states, in a purely individual consciousness, any objective order of events ; and there is no reason whatever for deriving co-existence from sequence, ex- cept the unwarrantable confusion between the causal sequence of events and the arbitrary sequence of indi- vidual feelings. And this brings us to remark, sec- ondly, that "relations of co-existence" are not separable from " relations of sequence " in the way assumed by Mr. Spencer. We may distinguish the causal connec- tion of events from the reciprocal influence of co-exist- ing substances, but the intelligent experience of reality involves both. It is not possible to be con- scious of events as uniformly sequent, without being conscious of substances as dependent upon and in- fluencing each other; or, to take experience at an earlier stage, it is not possible to think of events as following upon each other in time, apart from the thought of things as co-existing in space. The experi- ence of the one implies the experience of the other ; and hence any attempt to get the one without the other is an attempt to apprehend one element of the ! M=''. [chap. 3e, how But u purely n being ents in lesi, not subjec- nchang- jects as essarily ill rela- >ns. It cm the ousness, ) reason nee, ex- 3 causal of indi- irk, sec- 3parable med by connec- o-exist- jnce of 3e con- it being and in- at an events •oni the experi- 1 other ; out the ; of the IX.] MJi. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 271 real world apart from another element that is necessary to make it real. We may certainly ideally distinguish the elements, but in our analysis we must be careful to leave room for such a synthesis as shall exclude all actual separation. Having plausibly derived relations of co-existence from relations of sequence, Mr. Spencer tries to show that space and time are " generated as other abstracts are generated." The same paralogism of individual feelings and relations of thought again presents itself. We start from the world as given in ordinary con- sciousness — the world as implicitly rational — and ask how, supposiiig we have a knowledge of co-existent and successive objects, abstract space and time are produced? There can be no difficulty in giving an apparently satisfactory explanation, because in our datum we already have implicitly that which is to be established. Things as co-existent and successive are spatial and temporal, and by simply analysing what is contained in our ordinary knowledge, and abstracting from all the differences of objects, we easily get space and time as residue. Mr. Spencer, in other words, when he speaks here of space, has before his mind space as the object of the mathematical sciences. Now, mathematics does not find it necessary to inquire into the relation of space to intelligence ; as a special science it is sufficient for it to assume its object as ready-made, and to examine the various ideal limitations of it from the phenomenal point of view. Mr. Spencer, therefore, has, in his conception of space as the " ab- stract of all co-existences" — an abstract that is sup- posed to be obtained by mere analysis of a pre-existent material — a ready means of emptying intelligence of its universal relations. Just as, when he has to account for \ '■• '■ '. \ '■:■ 1 y.it *l 1-^ W i ml KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. i! If* co-eyistent objects, he first identifies the m-^re sequence of feelings with the necessary or objective sequence of events, and is thus able apparently to extract from feel- ing the conception of permanent substances ; so here he assumes that objects as offering resistance are given in feelings of touch, and hence he easily derives empty space from muscular tensions unassociated with feelings of resistance. It is hardly necessary to repeat that indi- vidual feelings, however numerous, cannot possibly account for the knowledofe of extended thiniifs or of extension, since such feelings are assumed to be desti- tute of that universality which is the condition of any knowledge whatever. Mr. Spencer seems to suppose that, by throwing the supposed experience back into the haze of the past, and imagining a vast period of time to have elapsed, during which the race has been accumulating knowledge, the intellectual elements of experience may be resolved into felt elements. But this is an utterly untenable position. The very be- ginning of intelligent experience, whether in the indi- vidual or in the race, must contain the elements necessary to such experience, and these elements can- not be reduced to lower terms than a synthesis of subject and object, of the universal and the particular. A purely feeling consciousness, assumed to exist for an infinite period of time, is still a feeling consciousness : unless a transition can be made from this unintelliirent state, by means of a primary act of abstraction at once separating and uniting the object and the subject, there can be no experience of the world at all, and therefore no experience of the world as spatial. Mr. Spencer really confuses the unreflective consciousness, which does not sharply separate subject and object, or things and space, with a merely feeling consciousness which, as [chap. IX.] MR. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 273 jequence uence of I'oin feel- \ here he given in )ty space eUiigs of lat indi- possibly Cfs or of be desti- n of any suppose »ack into Deriod of lias been nients of ts. But very be- the indi- elements 3nts can- thesis of articular, ist for an ousness : itellicfent 1 at once 3ct, there refore no !er really does not incfs and vhich, as such, is the negation of that separation. But in the former the two terms are really present, and although their contrast is seldom explicitly perceived, it is still there, ready to be brought out by reflective analysis ; in fact, were it not implicitly there, no amount of reflection could extract it. It is, therefore, a manifest hysteron proteron to account for space as due to mere feelings of muscular tension. In intelligent experience space and time are not posterior, but prior, to co-exist- ing and successive objects, as undifferentiated space is prior to positions — i.e., limitations of space. Mr. Spencer first identifies feelings of muscular tension with co-existing positions — which, as involving rela- tions to each other, are more than feelings — and next assumes that a synthesis of these positions generates space. But position already involves the relation of the parts of space to each other, and hence cannot account for space. In short, just as the co-existence of objects presupposes their relation to each other in space, and therefore different positions, so position pre- supposes a universal space, which is ideally limited. Space, as Kant says, is not a collection of particular spaces, but a universal space differentiating itself in the particular. Having found that Mr. Spencer ostensibly derives space and time from mere feelings of resistance, which he unwarrantably identifies with the conception of force, we may expect that in accounting for matter and motion the same fallacious method will be adopted. His account of matter is, briefly, as follows : — " Our conception of matter, reduced to its simplest shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer resistance. We think of body as bounded by surfaces that resist, and as made up throughout of parts that resist. . . . And m is; ■'V I ' 'i i'-Ui '§1 {■'J.;, J m IP' m. i ' ui 1 H m iri 274 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ■ ' \y \ since the group of co-existing positions constituting a portion of matter is uniformly capable of giving us impressions of resistance in combination with various muscular adjustments, according as we touch its near, its remote, its right or left side, it results that, as dif- ferent muscular adjustments habitually indicate differ- ent co-existences, we are obliged to conceive every portion of matter as containing more than one resistant position. . . . The resistance-attribute of matter must be regarded as primordial, and the space-attribute as derivative. ... It thus becomes manifest that our experience oi force is that out of which the idea of matter is built." ' Here again we have an illustration of that method of accounting for the intelligible world by ignoring intelligence which Mr. Spencer carries on with great self-complacency, and apparently without the least perception of the real nature of his procedure. " Our conception of matter, reduced to its simplest shape," simply means the real world after we have eliminated by abstraction those prominent elements in it which i \*esuppose an elaborate process of construction by thought. The world as it exists for the scientific man, the world as composed of objects bound together by the law of gravitation, and manifesting physical, chemi- cal, and vital forces, is stripped of all its differentiating relations, and reduced to a congeries of extended and solid atoms, preparatory to the reverse process by which the relations abstracted from shall be surreptitiously brought back and attributed to independent feelings. But, even when nature has been thus attenuated to a ghost of its former self, the attempted derivation of it from feeling is easily seen to be inadmissible. The ^ First Principles, pp. 166, 167, § 48. I I [chap. IX.] iVK. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 275 uting a ring us various bs near, , as dif- ) differ- 3 every esistant ,er must bute as that our idea of method ignoring th great he least Our (( shape," iminated it which !tion by ific man, 3ther by 1, chenii- jntiating ded and )y which titiously feelings, ited to a ion of it e. The \. passage from individual feelings to " co-existent posi- tions that offer resistance," however apparently easy, cannot really be made. We are told of " impres- sions of resistance," and of "muscular adjustments." Now, an impression of resistance is not a mere feeling, but the conception of an object as resisting, and ' such a conception involves a construction of reality by relations of thought. Similarly, "muscu- lar adjustments" presuppose a knowledge of the mus- cular system, or, at least, of the body as it exists for common consciousness, and, here again, relations of thought are inconsistently attributed to mere feeling. If we exclude ail that is involved in the relations of a resisting object to the organism as the medium of muscular sensibility, we are reduced to mere feelings which can by no possibility give a knowledge of anything real and external to themselves. Hence the absurdity of assuming that a mere feeling is in itself a theory of matter as the manifestation of force ; hence, also, the absurdity of regarding force as the simplest, instead of the most complex, element of the real world as it exists for the scientific man. From what has been said it is easy to see why Mr. Speuuor regards the " resistance-attribute of matter as primordial, the space-attribute as derivative." It must, at first sight, seem strange that " co-existing positions that ofier resistance" should be held to be prior to " co- existing positions " themselves. \\\ the apprehension of resisting positions there is, surely, already implied space. Mr. Spencer, however, identifies his own theory, that resistant positions are revealed by muscular sensa- tions, with the common-sense apprehension of objects, which, like all knowledge, really involves the reduc- tion of particulars to the unity of thought. Hence I If 1 111 N^i ,k ■ ) 1 I ; \.i \:<.-\ 'if i 376 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [ihap. ■i.otion, as we know it, is thus traceable to experiences offeree."^ In treating of matter, Mr. Spencer betook himself to the conception of the world as it exists for the scientific man, and, neglecting the manifold relations which form the real wealth of the sciences, he fixed his attention exclusively upon body, conceived as extended and resistant. Now he refers again to his scientific conception of the world, and, fetching therefrom the conception of motion, adds it to the elements he has thus far sought to explain. In this way he gets the credit of explaining the origin of motion without any synthetic activity of thought, while in reality that conception is assumed, and only seems to the uncritical reader to be derived, because immediate feelings and intelligible objects arc blended together in the confused medium of popular language. ^F'mt Pnuciplcf, pp. 1G7, 168, § 49. Vi ■^•;n n k mm firl r 1 278 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. L I \\\ \i ! 1 m Motion in to bo explained by feeling, and, for the purpose in hand, muscular tensions are most easily manipulated. "Movements of different parts of the organism," we are told, "are first presented in con- sciousness." This is an exceedingly facile way of accounting for our knowledge of motion. The " organ- ism " is assumed, and that means that we are already, at the beginning of knowledge, supposed to have such a knowledge of it as is possessed by the scientific physio- logist. Hence the manifold relations of real objects t(j each other, and the differentiation of the Imman organ- ism from other organisms, and from inorganic bodies, are taken for granted at the very start. That being so, there can bo no great difficulty in accounting for the movements of the organism, seeing that these are already implied in our knowledge of the organism itself. These movements, we are next informed, " necessitate reactions upon consciousness." No doubt they do ; but the question is whether such " reactions " can possibly be known by consciousness as reactions, supposing consciousness to be identical with feeling. The assumption that this is really the case derives its apparent force from confusing the mere feeling of muscular tension, which is incapable of giving the knowledge of any reality whatever, with the conception of muscular tension as related to a real intelligible world. Hence it seems as if feelings of muscular tension, " known as a series," account for motion in the form of " movements of different parts of the organism." But " muscular tensions," as feelings, can only be sup- posed to give a knowledge of the movements of the organism, because the conception of such movements, and of motion in general, is taken up without criticism from the special sciences. When we make a real effort [CMAP. IX.] MR, SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. •J79 for tho t easily I of thu in con- way of " orgaii- already, 3 such a physio- yects t(j I organ - bodies, eing so, for tho ese arc rganisni formed, doubt ction.s " action.s, feeling. Ives its ling of ng thu ceptioM Eligible uscular 1 in the mism." 36 sup- of the ments, itieism 1 effort to explain motion, we find that it is utterly unin- telligible, t from the other elements to which in an intellectui I bynthesis it is related. After what has already been said, it cannot be necessary to show at length that " experiences of force " do not, as Mr. Spencer would have us believe, precede experiences of motion, but, on the contrary, presuppose those experiences. It is only by unwarrantably con- fusing mere feelings of muscular tension with the muscular tensions themselves, as they exist in a real world, which is, at the same time, an intelligible world, that any one could fall into the mistake of setting down as primary and simple that which involves a long and very complex process of differentiation. Force is, no doubt, presupposed in motion, as motion is presupposed in matter, and matter in time, and time in space; but the implications of the first and simplest form of knowledge are not at first discerned, and, hence, force is the last element in tho scientific conception of the world which emerges into explicit consciousness.' 2. It will help to emphasize tho contrast between Criticism and Emjiiricism, to compare Kant's proofs of the three laws of Mechanics with Mr. Spencer's way of establishing the indestructibility of matter, the persist- ence of force, and the continuity of motion. In the first law of Mechanics, viz., that " the quantity of matter cannot be either increased or diminished," Kant refers back to the proof of the First Analogy of Experience, as given in the Ciitique, where it is proved that in all changes of phenoi.iena substance is per- manent, and its quantum neither increases, nor dimin- 1 The al)ovo remarks on the third chapter of Fir/it Principles originally appeared, with a few verbal diflferenccs, in tho Journal of Speculative Ph'Uoa- ophif, xii., 125-130. The rest of tlie chapter is almost entirely new. :''1 i 'k ^*>t: 280 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. II PI 11 w I, ^ ,1 ■ ishes ; and he only seeks to apply the conclusion there reached to substance specialized as matter. Now, as we have seen, the proof of the First Analogy of Experi- ence is purely transcendental, i.e., it shows that apart from the reflection of a manifold of sense on the '* I " as the supreme condition of synthesis, there could be no knov/ledge of objects as permanent. According to Kant, therefore, the indestructibility of matter can be proved only by showing that it is implied in the very possibility of knowledge. The manifold of external sense is no doubt given to intelligence, but the fixing of this manifold as permanent is due to the very con- stitution of the human intelligence. Any attempt to jiccount for the indestructibility of matter by a reference to observation, is, for Kant, an attempt to explain how matter as a thing in itself may be apprehended as per- manent, the logical issue of which can only be a denial of all knowledge of matter. From a mere observation of external objects existing apart from all relation to intelligence, the most that can be said is, that so far as we have observed, matter is indestructible. But this is very different from the unqualified affirmation that matter is indestructible. Mr. Spencer endeavours to sliow that matter is in- destructible in two ways; first, by "induction," and secondly, by " deduction." Both of these proofs involve the contradictory assertions, that matter is imme- diately known, and that it is known to be permanent or indestructible. (1) The inductive proof is briefly this : Take any substance and find out by weighing it, the number of its constituent atoms ; then let it undergo a chemical or physical process of change, and it will be found that the number of constituent atoms is still exactly the same as before. Here we start from the ii ' I i. . "X' [chap. on there Now, as Experi- at apart bhe '* I " 3ould be rding to r can be the very external le fixing ery con- ;empt to eference ain how I as per- a denial Brvation ation to so far But this ion that ir is in- n," and involve inime- manent briefly hing it, mderofo will be is still om the IX.] MH. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 281 ordinary empirical assumption that a thing, as variously (lualified, is given in purely passive observation. The induction itself is further supposed to be a process of passive observation. But, if that be the case, how can we legitimately pass from our particular observations of individual substances to the universal affirmation thai matter as a whole is indestructible 1 As Hume has shown, the mere observation of facts does not entitle us to make any universal judgment; we are confined to the judgment, '' This substance, so long as I observe it, remains the same in quantity." But this is not all. For, if the substances supposed to be directly observed, are regarded as existing indepen- dently of the relations by which intelligence constiv.utes them as knowable objects, they cannot even be known to persist through a limited number of moments of time, unless thought combines the scattered impres- sions they are supposed to excite in us. Apart from such relations of thought, there could be no object at all for us. Now, an object which is known not only as something in general, but as a determinate object, having the attribute of weight, must not only be known as enduring through successive moments of time, but nmst be determined by the complex relations involved in the conception of it as a gravitating body, whose weight is proportional to its mass. And this takes us far beyond the perception of the moment, to the complex relations involved in the connexion of material bodies with each other. It is only by assuming to start with the permanence of matter as known, and the permanence of its quantitative relations, that Mr. Spencer apparently acccants for the indestructibility of matter from induction or pure observation. (2) The " deductive " proof simply repeats the fallacy of the .1 »i A , m ■■i'K I M P •I ■n i '. ' i m m 1-, 1 282 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. IW 'A inductive proof. We may conceive matter to be com- pressed, it is said, to any finite extent, but we can never conceive it to be compressed into nothing. Now, as Kant points out, there is no difficulty in conceiving — %,e.y imagining — any given unit of mass to be reduced in size, so long as we contemplate the mass per se, without introducing the conception of weight or force impressed. In like manner, it is perfectly easy to imagine the decrease of the given weight of any mass, so long as we abstract from the mass and look only at the weight. What, then, is inconceivable ? Mani- festly, the conception of a mass that is not proportional to weight, or of weight that is not proportional to mass. We cannot conceive matter compressed into nothing, because we cannot conceive the compression of nothing. The deductive proof, therefore, asserts universally that mass and weight are correlative and proportional. But, while there is no difficulty in understanding how this proportionality of weight and mass may be known, when we regard these as deter- minations of objects existing only in relation to intelli- gence, it is utterly inconceivable how objects which are defined as beyond intelligence, should be known to have these or an}"" other properties. Mr. Spencer therefore, can only assume that these relations are somehow known, and then proceed to " deduce " them. The deduction cannot present any great difficulty, since it is merely a restatement of that which is taken for granted, and taken for granted in defia'.ce of a theory of knowledge that is really a theory of igno rance. Kant's second law of Mechanics is tliat all changes in 'v-atter are due to an external cause ; and in proving this proposition he refers back to the proof of Causality, ' ,n / [chap. be com- we can f. Now, •nceiving reduced per se, or force easy to ly mass, : only at Mani- )ortional ional to sed into pression asserts ;ive and iulty in ^ht and 8 deter- > intelli- 3 which lown to Spencer ons arc " them, fficuity, s taken 3e of a f ignc- ^hanges Drovinjif usailty, IX.] MJi. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 283 as given in the Second Analogy of Experience. Kant, therefore, recognizes that the conception of force is simply a special application of the conception of causal- ity, and hence that the persistence of force can only be proved by showing that it presupposes the relation of a special manifold of sense to intelligence. He also shows that force and matter are related as cause and substance, and that the conception which con- nects the one with the other is motion, which at once determines the changes of matter, and manifests the forces without which no changes in the material world could take place. Thus the indestructibility of matter and the persistence of force are correlative con- ceptions, neither of which is conceivable apart from the other. Mr. Spencer, after his usual method, endeavours to reduce the conception of force to the feeling of muscu- lar resistance, and, naturally failing to account for the persistence of forco from that which is not persistent, but momentary, he strangely concludes, net that his explanation is imperfect, but that there is an inherent weakness in the human mind, which precludes it from grasping the nature of force as it is ** behind the veil." It is especially unfortunate that Mr. Spencer should be driven to this conclusion, because, as he clearly sees, the indestructibility of matter and the continuity of motion cannot be proved unless it can be shown that force is persistent. " The validity of the proofs given," he says, " that matter is indestructible and motion con- tinuous, really depends upon the validity of the proof that force is persistent." ' And yet Mr. Spencer holds that " the persistence of force is an ultimate truth, of which no inductive proof is possible."- "Inductively, > First Principles, § 58, p. 185. » J bid., § 59, p. 188. H\^ n m Id 284 KAN2' AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. i'i-3 vfi we can allege no evidence except such as is presented to us throughout the world of sensible phenomena. No force, however, save that of which we are conscious during our own muscular efforts, is immediately known to us. All other force is mediately known through the changes we attribute to it. Since, then, we cannot in- fer the persistence of force from our own sensation of it, which does not persist; we must infer it, if it is inferred at all, from the continuity of motion, and the undimin- ished ability of matter to produce certain effects. But to reason thus is manifestly to reason in a circle. It is absurd to allege the indestructibility of matter, because we find experimentally that under whatever changes of form a given mass of matter exhibits the same gravita- tion, and then afterwards to argue that gravitation is constant because a given mass of matter exhibits always the same quantity of it. We cannot prove the contin- uity of motion by assuming that force is persistent, and then prove the persistence of force by assuming that motion is contumous." ^ Now if "the validity of the jiroofs that matter is indestructible and motion con- tinuous really depends upon the validity of the proof that force is persistent," while of the j^ersist- ence of force no proof is possible, one would naturally conclude that all three are pure assumptions. Mr. Spencer would, of course, reply that here we reach a "principle, which, as being the basis of science, cannot be established by science." It is always easy to maintain that we have come down to an ultimate principle; there is nothing to prevent us, when we find a problem impervious to our method of ex- ^ilanation, from saying that we cannot explain it because it is inexplicable. In a similar way Mr. MilP ' First Principles, p. 180. 2 Examination vj Hamilton, p. 213. t < 1 ( [chap. >resented jiia. No 3onscious y known ough the nnot in- ;ion of it, inferred mdimia- bs. But e. It is because anges of gravita- ;ation is 3 always ) contin- ent, and ing that r of the on con- of the jiersist- aturally s. Mr. e reach science, ys easy iltimate lien we of ex- plain it >. MilP . 213. IX.J M/i. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 285 makes the consciousness of the identity of self a " final inexplicability," when he finds it impossible to explain how a self, defined as an evanescent series of feelings, should yet know itself to be evanescent. It may safely be said that, to a philosophy which has discovered the secret of the explanation of knowledge, there are no " ultimate principles," in the sense of principles which are absolutely inexplicable. The workmanship of the mind in the constitution of knowledge cannot be beyond the ken of knowledge, if only we do not seek for intelligibility in that which by definition is unintel- ligible. It may very well be conceded that force, con- ceived of as " some power which transcends our know- ledge and conception," ' cannot be understood, and it may yet be held that the persistence of force is capable of being proved. Mr. Spencer's difficulty in regard to the proof of the persistence of force is really an uncon- scious admission of the inherent viciousness of his philosophical method. Separate the conception of force from intelligence on the one hand, and from the correlative conception of matter on the other hand, and there is little wonder that its "persistence" should seem incapable of proof Force, abstracted from its relations to intelligence, is nothing at all ; it is simply the neofation of everv determinate or knowable attribute of matter. On the other hand force, as it is actually manifested in the known world, may be shown to be per- sistent from the very nature of that world. It is of course impossible to prove, simply from an examination of the nature of knowledge, anything in regard to the specific objects of knowledge, and therefore anything in regard to the specific forces which constitute the changes in the world. But, starting from the special forces of ' Pint P)-!iir!i>le.i, S 60, p. 189. hii VI > I; % it m ,i ;- III I I : [ h- r ' ; 1^ 'i n : ;;■ , I t: 1\: |i! t lit* ) 286 A'AJVr AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. nature, it may be shown that the knowledge of change is impossible except to an intelligence that connects the particular element in known objects as sequences in time. And this is the nature of the proof which Kant gives of the persistence of force. The changes of matter are changes of that which is distinguishable as having parts that are all outside of each other, and the changes of such parts are of course motions. But a motion, taken by itself, is only conceivable as mere velocity, or the relation of space traversed to time elapsed ; and hence from mere motion no explanation can be given of any change in motion. The actual fact that there are changes of matter cannot of course be proved, but what is involved in the knowledge of such changes may be set forth. Mere motion, then, does not imply change. But neither does matter, which may be defined simply that which occupies space, without changing its as relations to space. To explain the changes of matter — in other words, the change from one rate of motion to another, or from motion to rest — we require to intro- duce the conception of something causing the change. Now the conception of cause is implied in every real sequence ; and the latter can be shown to be knowable only on presupposition that intelligence combines the separate determinations of change in relation to time. Ill the conception of force, therefore, there is implied the relation of all possible changes of motion to a combin- ing intelligence ; and as such changes actually are known, force, as presupposing cause, is bound up with the very nature of intelligence as knowing, and hence the knowledge of a single change is virtually a demon- stration that no change can possibly occur in nature which is not a manifestation of force. The persistence of force is therefore simply a special case of the univer- [chap. jf change connects uences in ich Kant of matter s havinor ) chanofes motion, iocity, or led ; and given of :here are )ut what may be chanofe '■ simply ?ing its latter — otion to o intro- change. ery real lowable nes the o time, lied the Jombin- lly are p with hence iemon- nature isteuce 4niver- IX.] MJ?. SPENCER'S VIEW OF NATURE. 287 sality of the law of causation ; or, what is the same thing, of the uniformity of nature as manifested in special laws. Mr. Spencer's assertion that the persist- ence of force is unprovable is only true of a theory which assumes nature, and therefore the changes of nature, to be independent of all intellectual relations. Certainly the persistence of force cannot be proved '* inductively ;" for no number of successive feelings of " muscular effort," apart from the synthetic activity of thought, could jver give us a knowledge even of these feelings as changes, much less of the necessity of all changes in the world of nature. Again, force taken in abstraction from matter and motion is of course un- knowable, because it is only in motion that force mani- fests itself at all, and motion necessarily implies the moveable, i.e., matter. It is perfectly true that, to ])rove the indestructibility of matter and the continuity of motion, we must introduce the conception of force ; but this does not show either that force is identical with matter or motion, or that it is the mere negation of matter and motion. It is nt t identical, because, as Kant points out, that which occupies space is dis- tinguishable, although not separable, from the relations of that which occupies space, and mere motion is dis- tinguishable from change of motion. It "s not the mere negation of matter and motion, because substance is essentially relative to its determinations, and these determinations as changes are relative to the force pro- ducing them. We have therefore only to recognise the correlativity of the conceptions of matter and force, in order to understand why the indestructibility of matter is bound up with the persistence of force. The prin- ciple of both is that no change in nature can possibly be known as a destruction or creation of that which is tf' "Hii; I ({ m In. I .; 288- KANT AND IJIS ENGLISH CRITICS. actual, since every change presupposes permanence. To say that matter may be destroyed, is to say that that which is only knowable as permanent may yet be known as changing ; to say that force is not persistent, is to say that that which is only knowable as change may yet be known as the negation of change. Matter and force are, in short, correlative conceptions, and neither is thinkable apart from the other. Mr. Spencer's proof of the continuity of motion, as corresponding to Kant's third law of Mechanics, it will not be necessary to consider, as it consists in reducing motion to force, and declaring the latter to be an ulti- mate conception — a point that has already been dealt with. 289 [lanence. say that |r yet be jrsistent, change Matter )ns, and ition, as 4, it will •educing an ulti- 3n dealt CHAPTER X. TIIK DISTINCTION OF XOUMEXA AND PHENOMENA IN KANT AND SrENCER. TT is popularly supposed ^hat the Critical distinction of phenomena and noumena is in all essential respects identical with the distinction of the relative and absolute, the knowable and unknowable, based upon the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, — i. e., which is maintained by Mr. Spencer and which was first made known to the English public by Sir William Hamilton. The use of the terms phenomena and noumena by Mr. Spencer, and the superficial re- semblance of the two views, are no doubt responsible for the identification of doctrines that, taken in con- nexion with the system to which each belongs, are not only different, but diametrically opposite. To complete that differentiation of Criticism and Empiricism, which it has been my aim to effect in what has already been said, it will be necessary now to consider Kant's theory of knowledge, in so far as it is a theory of the limita- tions of knowledge, and an exposure of the illusions into which we inevitably fall in attempting to go beyond the boundaries of the world of experience. This negative side of the Critical philosophy I do not propose to enter into at all minutely. It will be enough to consider how Kant is led to distinguish T ' i ':■»' * n I i| H ft i ■m 290 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ' ) between phenomena and noumena, and to show wherein his view differs from that of Mr. Spencer. In the development of his own theory, as wo have already seen, Kant draws a strong contrast between the dogmatic and the critical point of view. The great vice of previous philosophy lies in the assumption that determinate objects in their manifold relations exist altogether apart from the forms of perce])tion and of thought. Kant, therefore, holds that things in them- selves, as ordinarily understood, are not knowable at all. The objects we actually know are constituted for us in the reflection of the manifold of sense upon the forms of the mind. And the legitimate inference from this would seem to be that, as all knowable objects exist only in relation to our intelligence, the existence of things in themselves apart from such relations is a contradiction in terms. Kant, however, does not draw this inference. Denying in the most absolute way that concrete objects are anything at all except as informed by the pure perceptions of space and time, and by the categories, he is not prepared to say that there are not things in themselves, as distinguished from the things which constitute the actual world for us. In the yEathetic the distinction between phenomena and things in themselves is made to rest upon the subjective character of space and time, which as forms of percep- tion belong to us merely as sensuous beings. If space and time are peculiar to us as men, or at least belong only to beings who like us obtain knowledge by the reflection of sense on thought, we are shut out, as it would seem, from the apprehension of things as they are in themselves. As the objects which we know are always relative to the constitution of our perceptive faculty, the knowledge of things in themselves, suppos- I' f.ii [chap. wherein we have between he great :ion that ns exist a and of in thcni- )le at all. d for us ipon the nee from 3 objects existence bions is a not draw way that nforined d by the are not le tilings In the d things ibjcctive percep- If space belong by the ut, as it as they Know arc rceptive suppos- X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 291 ing such things to exist at all, must always be im- possible for us. It must be observed, however, that Kant does not affirm dogmatically that there are things in themselves ; all that ho says is that, if there are things in themselves, the conditions of our perceptive intelligence are such that wo can never know them as tliey are. Whether other thinking beings are bound down by the same limitations as we are in their know- ledge of individual things, we liave no means of know- ing.' While space ni.d time are the conditions without which WG can have no knowledge of objects, there may bo intelligences to whom such restrictions are urdcno.vn. And Kant, in evident adaptation to the ordinary point of view, even suggests that to God real things must be known as freed from the limitations of space and time.2 Taken literally, this is a manifest affirmation, not only that we cannot assert without qualification that the objects we know are identical with objects as they really exist, but even that there are things in them- selves, capable of being known by an Intelligence higher than ours, and untrammelled by the sensuous limitations from which we cannot possibly free ourselves without ceasing to be men. But as Kant has yet to determine whether such a Being as the God of Natural Theology can be shown to exist at all, we cannot take his remark as to the freedom of such a Being from the forms of space and time as more than an arg amentum nd hominem. If God can be shown to exist, and He is such a being as the dogmatist describes. He cannot have a sensuous nature, and hence He cannot bo limited by the sensuous forms of space and time : things as known by Him must therefore be things as they are behind the veil of sense. We cannot of , if ■ V f m M > Kritlk, § 3, p. 62. » Ih'ul, § 8, p. 79. I if !if * I* II, ' 292 A'/tNT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. courHe say what such cxtra-sensiblo things may be in their real nature, but we can at least say that thoy are not identical with things as wo know tlieni. Kant, however, is perfectly well aware that here ho is assum- ing an idea that strictly speaking he has no right to assume ; and he must bo held in the ^Jsthetic, to say no more than this, that things in themselves, as distin- guished from things as wo know them, nuist, if they exist at all, be altogether difterent from the phenomenal objects we actually know. Kant, in other words, docs not, like Mr. Spencer, affirm dogmatically, that there are things in themselves, but only that, granting the existence of such things in themselves, we cannot possibly know them as thoy are, but only as thoy aio in relation to our perceptive faculty. It is only, however, after the complete development of his positive theory of knowledge that Kant is able to enter in a satisfactory way upon the problem as to the limitations of knowledge. Accordingly, at tlui close of the AnaJ>itic, the distinction of phenomena and noumena, which had been so far kept in the back- ground, is expressly considered under the title — "On the ground of the distinction of phenomena and nou- mena." ^ The substance of the discussion is as follows. It has been shown in the Analytic that the pure con- ceptions or categories are simply special functions of synthesis, belonging to the constitution of the under- standing, but incapable of being brought into play except in relation to the manifold of sense. It has also been shown that the process by which the mani- fold of sense is reflected on the categories may be formulated in certain ultimate principles, which com- bine the particulars of sense under the categories ' Krlfil; pp. 209-224. [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 203 nay be in L thoy are Kant, is assuni- ) right to /c, to say AS diHtin- t, if they cnomennl irds, docs hat there iiting the e cannot ; they are elopnient it is able em as to \ at tlui lenoniena the back- tie—" ( )n and nou- s follows, pure con- ictions of le uuder- nto play It has he niani- may be ich com- ateufories by the intermediation of the schemata of the pure imagination, and in relation to the supreme unity of self- consciousness. But what is thus explained is the conditions under which concrete objects, or objects capable of being experienced, are known. Whether the categories and principles of the pure understanding have any application apart from the manifold of sense, schematized by the pure imagination as in time — whether, in other words, they are applicable not only to i)henomena, but to things in themselves — is a totally dilferent question. Now, it is easy to see that even if there are things in themselves, at least the categories cannot be legiti- mately employed to determine them. For, apart from the manifold of sense, which gives to us the concrete element of our knowledge, there is nothing for the categories to operate upon. No doubt any perceptive or concrete element would be sufticient to give filling to a pure conception ; but, as for us there is no per- ception that is not sensuous, this mere possibility in no way enables us to know any objects except those which are revealed to us in actual experience. We cannot even say that the categories, in conjunction with the pure forms of perception, make the knowledge of real objects possible ; for the latter are in themselves merely the potentiality of spatial and temporal rela- tions, as the forms are merely the potentiality of deter- minate objects. It may easily be shown that not one of the categories or principles can be made intelligible, apart from the sensuous conditions in relation to which known objects are constituted and connected. Isolate a category, and it is a mere form of thought, requiring to be determined to a knowable object by being brought in relation to a special manifold of sense by I IV, n i!'' f*ll W 294 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. the intermediation of the schema proper to it. The category of quantity has meaning and significance only when we take a unit a certain number of times, or suc- cessively add it to itself. The category of reality im- plies the determination of time as filled by sensation ; the category of negation the determination of time as empty of sensation. Eliminate the idea of permanence or relation to time as a whole, and the category of sub- stance is merely the logical notion of a subject that is never a predicate. So the logical possibility of con- ceptions determines nothing as to the possibility of real things. In short, if we abstract from the special sen- suous conditions under which objects are knowable by us, we have merely the empty conception or thought of a thing, telling us nothing as to the actual nature of the thing in itself. On a mere conception, as has so often been said, only a.i analytic, and not a synthetic judgment, can be based. There is, however, a natural illusion which arises here, from the peculiar character of the categories. Space and time are manifestly limited in their applica- tion to sensible objects, and hence Ave at once recognize that they are not applicable beyond the boundaries of the world of objects which we actually know as deter- minate. It is otherwise with the categories, which belong not to sense but to thought, and therefore naturally seem to have an application to objects con- structed purely by thought. This supposed extension of the categories beyond experience is, however, as it need hardly be said, an illusion, for, apart from the concrete filling which they obtain from the imagin- ation as determining the manifold of sense in time, the categories have nothing to operate upon. At the same time, the very fact that we limit their t i< [chap. it. The mce only s, or suc- jality im- cnsation ; F time as 'nianenco y of sub- t that is J of con- by of real icial sen- wable by thought Qature of LS has so synthetic ;h arises tegories. applica- ecoofnize daries of IS detor- which ilierefore Dcts con- xtension rer, as it rom the iinagin- in time, pu. At it their X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 295 application to sensuous existences or phenomena, inevitably suggests that there are non-sensuous or intelligible existences, which, as the product of intel- ligence unaided by sense, may properly be called noii- ')ne7ia. If objects as known are relative to our faculty of perception, it is impossible to avoid imagining the existence of an object not relative to that faculty, and equally impossible to avoid the supposition that it is determinable by the categories. Thus, the self as known is always in some determinate state, and there- fore is perceived as in time ; but with this self as in time we naturally contrast the self as existing in its own nature apart from its determinate relations. It is easy to see, however, that the noumenal object is simply the conception of an object in general — i.e., of an object which cannot be known to exist in any deter- minate relation ; and that it cannot be really consti- tuted as an actual object by the application of the categories to it, since these can only act in relation to an object which is capable of being known as in time. We must therefore clearly distinguish between a noumenon in the negative sense and a noumenon in the 2)os it ive senae. (I) In the negative sense a noumenon is that which is not an object of perception. Tlie con- ce[)tion of such an object is implied in tlie limitation of real knowledge by the forms of perception. As we only know that which is relative to our faculty of per- ception, whatever is out of relation to that faculty is unknown. The contrast of a noumenon, defined simply as that which is not within the limits of our actual knowledge, and a phenomenon as that which is within those limits, is one that arises from the very nature of our intelligence. That there may he such a transcend- ■1 ■ \^ vil ill ' lai \m m J f IP' '■ U ri ■ ' f r 296 A-^iVr ^iVZ) ^/^ ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ental object is not a self-contradictory proposition. We are not entitled to affirm that the concrete element required to give determination to a conception can only be supplied by sensibility of some kind : it may be thiit there are intelligences which originate the partic- ular and the universal element of knowledge by the understanding alone. As, however, our understanding has no concreteness in it, the conception of a noumenon is merely a problematic conception, marking ott' the limits of our actual knowledge, but in no way enabling us to go beyond objects capable of being experienced. Accordingly, the categories cannot be employed to determine such a noumenon. As our understanding is dependent upon perception for the particular element implied in any possible knowledge of a positive object, the conception of a thing in itself merely serves to mark the limit of our knowledge in perceptible ob- jects, without enabling us to know a noumenon actu- ally existing beyond that limit. (2) The conception of a noumenon, in the positive sense, as an object of a non-sensuous perception, is a mere thing of the mind, arising from the confusion of a bare conception — with an actual object. From the conception of a thing in itself, an unwarrantable transition is made to the affirmation of the reality for knowledge of that which is conceived. But this is the old fallacy of basing real knowledge upon a purely analytical judg- ment. There is no logical contradiction in the concep- tion of a thing in itself, distinct from the things we knov\'', for the law of contradiction is satisfied when the predicate is not inconsistent with the subject. But the absence of logical contradiction in a judgment does not establish the existence for knowledge of that which is judged about; and hence we have no right [chap. ion. We element I can only . may be le partic- d by the rstanding oumenon r off the enabling >erienced. loyed to anding is element re object, serves to tible ob- lon actu- )nception ,n object g of the )iiception ion of a made to of that allacy of 3a 1 judg- i concop- lings we 3d Avhen subject. Lidguient I of that no right X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 297 to say that there is a thing in itself corresponding to our conception. And as a noumenon is for us simply the idea of a limit to our actual knowledge, we cannot determine it by the categories. Only if we had a non-sensuous or intellectual perception, suould we be entitled to affirm positively that there is a noumenal object ; and a? we have no such perception, the categories are not applicable in the determination of noumena at all. So far is it from being true that our understanding is perceptive, that we cannot in the least understand how there can be an understanding not dependent for the concrete element of knowledge on sensible perception. The proper conception of a noumenon is therefore merely that of a noumenon, in the negative sense, as that which is not for us an object of possible perception. It will help to illustrate what has just been said if we consider shortly Kant's criticism of the dogmatic view, which he contrasts with his own, the view that noumena are positively known. The fallacy here arises from overlooking the limits of our knowledge, and applying the categories to the detoriiiination of mere limitative conceptions, or from failing to recog- nize that the objects we know are not things in them- selves, but phenomena. Let us first look at the fal- lacy which underlies rational psychology, the doctrine of the soul conceived of as actually existing beyond the limits of experience.^ (1) The soul, it is said, is a siih- stcmce, because there must be a substratum underlying all the particular modes in which we are conscious oC it. (2) As the condition of any unity in knowledge, it must also be simjdc, and therefore in itself devoid of all difference. (3) That it is identical, or the same ' Krltik, j.p. 27:l-2S(1. v-^! .ill H ■'i t ' % '•^i 298 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. with itself in different times, is implied in the fac^ tiiat our various experiences are all connected together. (4) Lastly, it stands in relation to all possible objects in space, because otherwise it could not be thought of as distinct from objects in space. Now (1) the self is here supposed to be known as a thing in itself, capable of being determined by the application l,o it of the categories of substance, unitij, kc. ; in other words, it is supposed to be a noumenon, in the positive sense, as an object of a non-sensuous, or intellectual perception. But this confuses a logical element in knowledge with an actual object existing beyond knowledge. It is perfectly true that the self is the subject of all mental states, but so conceived it is simply the abstraction of relation to conscious- ness, the "I think " implied in every determinate act of knowledge. First to hypostatize this abstraction, and then to determine it by the category of sub- stance, is a perfectly unwarrantable proceeding. The j)ure " I " does not admit of determination by the category of substance, because, as abstracted from all itd relations, it has no concioteness in it. Nay, even the *' T " as known cannot be determined as a sub- stance, because the schema of " permanence " applies only to objects in space. (2) The same paralogism is implied in saying that the self is simple. No doubt we can only be conscious of self as a unity, but this consciousness is necessarily relative to the conscious- ness of know-^.ble objects as involving multiplicity. To affirm that the self is one in itself is going beyond the limits of knowledge. (3) Nor again can we argue from the identity of the self for consciousness to th') identity of the self as existing out of conscious- ness. (4) And lastly, the fact that the self as known • i< [chap. fac^ that together. 'e objects lought of )vvn as a I by the ce, unitij, )umenon, suous, or a. logical existinur the self ionceived onscious- inate act itractioii, of sub- Tho by the from all ay, even 5 a sub- applies 3gisiu is o doubt but this •nscious- Liplicity, beyond can we iousness nscious- knovvn X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 299 stands in relation to all objects that are capable of being known as external, does not entitle us to say that there is a noumenal self, existing apart from conscious- ness, and determinable as an actual object. The self as known by us is the subject of feelings which exist only in time, as distinguished from objects in space and time ; but although the former is distinguishable from the latter, both exist only in consciousness, and therefore only in relation to each other. To determine self as a noumenal object is to confuse the logical dis- tinction of self and not-self with their real separation. The second noumenal object is the world regarded as a whole.^ The illusion of rational cosmology does not arise, as in the case of rational psychology, from the confusion of an abstract element of knowledge with a thing in itself regarded as an actual existence, but from the assumption that the world as known to us is a thing in itself, independent of all relation to our facul- ties of knowledge. For when we ask whether the world is a complete unity, we may give one of two con- tradictory answers, according as our general mode of thought leads us to emphasize the infinite or the finite side of things. Hence we find that reason here gives rise to antinomies or conceptions mutually exclusive of each other. There are, as we see from following the guiding-thread of the categories, four and only four of these antinomies, which we may group into two classes, the mathematical and the dynamical. (1) The mathematical antinomies are concerned respectively with the infinite extensibility of the world in space and time, and with the infinite divisibility of matter. Supposing known objects to be things in themselves, it can be proved with equal cogency, on the ^Kritik; pp. 301-356. I- !ll m m ■ill 300 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITiCS. [chap. Y\ ■» ' one hand that the world is limited in time and space, and that matter is finitely divisible ; and on the other hand, that the world is unlimited in time and space, and tliat matter is injinitehj divisible. (2) In the dynamical antinomies it is shown that a free causality and a necessary causality may be alike proved ; and that a necessary being belonging to the world, either as its part or its cause, is no more capable of being established than the contradictory proposition, that there is no necessary being either in the world or oiit of it. Now here we seem to be brought to the conclusion that two contradictory conceptions are equally capable of being proved to be true. But if this were really the case, reason would be in contradiction with itself, and we should be incapable of justifying even the possibil- ity of real knowledge. There must therefore be some radical Haw underlying these antinomies. That flaw certainly does not exist in the mere form of the proof, which is in each case perfectly co'^rect. Wherein, then, does it consist ? It consists, Kant answers, in the con- fusion of knowable objects with things in themselves. We have seen that all concrete objects are relative to the forms of space and time, and therefore that of things in themselves we can have no possible knowledge. But if this is so, it is absurd to say either tliat the world is finite in extent or infinite in extent; that matter is finitely divisible or infinitely divisible. The world, as a thing in itself, is not in space and time at all, and therefore does not admit of being determined by spatial or temporal relations. The world, as in space and time, again, exists only in relation to our per- ceptive faculty ; and hence it is neither finitely nor infinitely extended, but infinitely extensible. So matter is neither finitely nor infinitely divided, but infinitely [chap. id space, he other ')ace, and ynamical y and a d that a er as its tablished 3re is no I. inclusion f capable eally the self, and possibil- be some 'hat flaw ,he proof, ein, then, I the con- emselves. jlative to of thint^s Ige. But J world is matter is world, as all, and lined by in space our per- litely nor ^o matter infinitely X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 301 divisible. There is no limit to the determination of space and time, either as extensive or as intensive quantities, because these are forms belonging to our perceptive faculty, and hence admit of indefinite de- termination. As to the dynamical antinomies, both alternatives are fiilse when they are supposed to refer to the world of experience ; but both may be true when the theses are taken as referring to the nou- menal world, and the antitheses as referring to the phenomenal world. There is no contradiction in say- ing that there is a free cause and a necessary being independent of the phenomenal world, while yet, in the phenomenal world, there is no free cause and no neces- sary being. This, of course, does not prove the truth of the theses, as interpreted in this way, but it leaves the way open for a proof based on the nature of man as a moral being. The mere statement of Kant's distinction of noumena and phenomena is almost enough to show that, so far from being identical, his theory is strongly contrasted with that of Mr. Spencer. And the contrast extends to the aim of the theory, the general doctrine of which it forms a part, and the method by which it is established. Kant's object in drawing a distinction between phenomena and noumena is not to degrade the former at the expense of the latter, but, on tlie contrary, to show that the latter are mere ideas to which no real object can be known to correspond. Mr. Sp;.ncer, on the other hand, maintains that noumena are the true realities, and phenomena merely the appearances they present to us. Kant's theory of knowledge, again, goes on the principle that no concrete object can be known to exist independently of intelli- gence ; and hence that the objects we know are necess- il I! ■i ' h \\ I r *»< hi 302 A/ZA^r ^A^Z? ^/^ ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. arily constituted by relations of thought. On the other hand, it belongs to the very essence of Mr. Spencer's system to assume the existence of objects constituted independently of intelligence ; and the doctrine of the " unknowable " is therefore in his hands the inevitable result of the dualistic conception of intelligence and nature from which he starts. Lastly, Kant maintains that to noumena the conceptions of substance, unity, &c., and the determinations of space and time, are not applicable, and hence he gets rid of the false abstraction of a self that is beyond consciousness and of a wor'i i that exists apart from the real relations by which it h constituted, by insisting upon the relation of all know- able objects to the subject knowing them. Mr. SpenccM', on the contrary, can see in the antinomies of reason only a proof of the imbecility of the human mind, and hence he has no solution to give of the apparent contradictions involved in our fundamental conceptions of the universe. The opposition of the critical view of the relativity of knowledge to the dogmatic view of Mr. Spencer is therefore radical. It is true that the two views approximate in the denial of all definite knowledge of supersensible realities ; but this is after all only an external resemblance ; for Kant never for a moment supposes, as Mr. Spencer does, that a demon- stration of the absolute unknowability of things in themselves is tantamount to an assertion that thev are the only realities. Had Kant not believed that by the pr.actical reason he could prove the actual existence of the soul, the world, and God, as supersensible realities, he would have denied that we are entitled to affirm that there are such realities ; at least one may safely say that he would not have consented to degrade the realities we know in favour of realities that are affirmed [chap. he other spencer's istituted le of the lovi table ince and laintains e, unity, are not ^traction a woi i . ich it M 11 know- ■SponccM', f reason n mind, ipparciit ceptions view of view of hat the definite is after ;ver for demon- ings in hev are b hy the enee of ealities, D affirm ^ safely ide the ffirmed X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 303 not to be knowable at all. It may also be added that a consistent development of the principles established by Kant in the positive part of his system leads to the conclusion that there are supersensible realities, capable of being known by us, whereas a development of the principles upon which Mr. Spencer's doctrine rests must lead to the denial of any knowledge whatever. Leaving the development of the Critical philosophy to another chapter, I shall now endeavour to show more particularly how marked is the contrast between the pliilosophy of Kant and the philosophy of Mr. Spencer, as to aim, principle, and method. 1. Knnt docs not say that there are noumenal reali- ties, but that the question of such existence cannot be established by theoretical reason, in consistency witli the conditions of knowledge. All knowledge implies a relation of subject and object ; or, more particularly, objects are constituted only by the reflection of percep- tion on thought. Kant, therefore, denies the knowledge of nouniena because our knowledge is relative, or rather is a knowledge of relations. Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, maintains that there are noumenal realities, or a noumenal reality, existing out of all relation to our knowledge ; and yet he strangely asserts that this noumenal reality can be known. Like Kant, he holds tliat known realities are relative to knowledge ; but, uidike Kant, he supposes this to be a proof of the existence of the absolute. Kant's reason against the existence for knowledge of noumena is Mr. Spencer's reason ybr that existence. There are two distinct senses anions^ others in which we may speak of the " relative." Mr. Spencer uses tlie term in both senses, without carefully distinguish- ing between them, and by this confusion of thought m *-v ! I II 304 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. f \ 1 1 '•■( and expression the inconelusivenoss of his reasoning is partially concealed. In the first place, by the relative may bo understood that which as an object of thought involves a relation or series of relations to thought. The condition of any consciousness whatever being the opposition of subject and object, and the condition of definite thinking being the apprehension, identification and classification of differences in the object, knowledge is always a knowledge of relations. The relative as thus understood does not necessitate the assumption of an absolute or non-relative beyond consciousness : all that is required to constitute tho relation is nn object having more or fewer differences, and a sub- ject which is more or less determinate ; and when these two correlatives are taken together the law that contraries imply each other is satisfied. Secondly, the relative may mean that which is known, as distin- guished from the absolute which exists beyond know- ledge. The relative in this sense of the term evi- dently presupposes the independent existence of the absolute ; for if tliere is no absolute bej'ond the bound." of knowledge, there will be no relative within the bounds of knowledge. The relative is in f;ict simply the non-absolute, the absolute the non-relative. Take awav the absolute, and the relative as relative disappears; take away the relative and t^.ere is no lonsrer an absolute. Examining Mr. Spencer's arguments in the light of the distinction here pointed out, it will be found that all of them receive their apparent force from a con- fusion between the relative as implied in the very nature of consciousness, and the fictitious relative that results from the assumption of the independent existence of a non-relative beyond consciousness. But so far 1 1 i i [chap. Lsoning is } relative ' thought thought, being the idition of itification nowlcdgo jlativo JiH sumption iousness : on is an id a sul)- nd when law that Second! V, as distiii- id know- ;erni evi- ;e of the ond the JQ within I in fjict -relative. relative re is no J light of und that II a con- the verv tive that existence it so far *] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 306 from the one relative implying the other, it is evident that just in proportion as the one is established the reality of the other becomes precarious. The more stringently it is proved that knowledge is in all cases a knowledge of relations — in other words, that only that which is an object of thought can be known at all — the more apparent it becomes that a relative which has no meaning except in contrast with an unknowable non- relative or absolute, is itself unknowable and in- credible. It is apparently from a confused apprehen- sion that he is guilty of this ignoratio elenchi, that Mr. Spencer, after laboriously removing the ground from under his own feet by enforcing in a variety of ways the proposition that the non-relative cannot be known, attempts to regain some sort of footing by distinguishing between a knowledge of the absolute and a ** conscious- ness " of it — as if there were a kind of consciousness that excluded knowledge. " Human intelligence is incapable of absolute know- ledge. The relativity of our knowledge is demonstrable analytically. The induction drawn from general and special experiences, may be confirmed by a deduction from the nature of our intelligence. Two vvays of reaching such a deduction exist. Proof that our cogni- tions are not, and never can be, absolute, is obtainable by analyzing either the product of thought, or the process of thought."^ This statement of the general doctrine, clear as it seems, really confounds together the two meanings of the relative, discriminated above. When it is said that the human mind is not capable of " absolute know- ledge," but only of relative knowledge, it is implied that that which is known is connected with an abso- ^ First Principlen, §22, pp. 68-69. IT JMl ill i »«;• 'ii 1 I: Hi f r V'. i I.:; I 'f I !■ ^i f 1 306 /C/INT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. lute lying beyond knowledge, and related to it as reality to appearance. But this evidently is true only if there exist sucli a reality : for if there is no reality outside of consciousness, knowledge will not be of appearances, but of reality. If Mr. Spencer had said, as he ought to have done to be strictly accurate, not that there can be no " absolute knowledge," but that there can be ?io knowledge of the Absolute (a very different thing) it would have been at once apparent that to prove the "relativity of knowledge," in the sense that knowledge always implies relations of an object to a subject, does not carry with it the implica- tion of the existence of an absolute beyond conscious- ness, but on the contrary is the negation of that existence. If there is no knowledge of the absolute, we have no right to predicate its existence ; and if all knowledge involves relations, the absolute, as de- void of all relations — as, in other words, not an object of thought — cannot be known to exist. A confusion between the knowledge of relations and tlie relativity of knowledge being thus made at the very threshold, it is only to be expected that the same confusion will vitiate the reasonings that follow it. And this is actually the case. " Keason," we are told, " leadj to the conclusion that the sphere of reason is limiteu. This conclusion expresses the result of mental analysis, which shows us that the product of thought is in all cases a relation, identified as such and such ; that therefore being in itself, out of relation, is unthinkable, as not admitting of being brought within the form of thought."^ A little reHection will suffice to bring out into clear- ness the paralogism implicit in this reasoning. On the ^Eanays: Scientijk, Political, and Speculative, vol. iii., new ed., p. 258. [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 307 to it as r is true ore is no ill not be mcer had accurate, dge." but te (a very apparent B," in the ons of an le implica- conscious- fi of that ! absolute, ce ; and if Lite, as de- b an object . confusion Blativity of ireshold, it 'usion will id this is conclusion conclusion 1 shows us a relation, e being in i admitting "1 into clear- <*•. On the ed., p. 258. surface, all that seems to be maintained is that, as the product of thought is always a relation, the absolute being out of relation is not thought at all. Thus far nothing is asserted but the identical proposition : That which is out of relation to thought is not in relation to thought. But the natural inference from this proposi- tion surely is that no such absolute exists, or, if it does, that at least it ctmnot be known to exist. If every at- tempt to think " being out of relation " results in failure, why not give up the attempt, and conclude that there is no " being out of relation " to think \ Any effort to make that an object of thought which is assumed not to be an object of thought must result in failure, since intelligence will not surrender the very law of its existence at our bidding. This conclusion, how- ever, is not the one to which Mr. Spencer comes ; on the contrary, he infers that "being in itself, out of relation " exists because it cannot be known. To say that "the sphere of reason is limited" is, he maintains, to say, in other words, that beyond that sphere there exists " being in itself, out of relation." As the only reason given for this assumption is that " being in itself, oat of relation " is not, and cannot, be known, it follows that " being in itself, out of relation " is proved to exist for the sole reason that it cannot be known. I see no way of escape from the dilemma : if " being in itself" is beyond thought, it cannot be known to exist ; if it is within thought, and so known to exist, it is no longer " being in itself." The contradiction here evolved is manifestly but a special instance of the general contradiction arising from an interchange of the two antithetical meanings of the relative already distinguished. The product of thought is in all cases a relation, and hence knowledge l! II I \iS' u> 308 XANl AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ' f t :!*i P'^ i ' may correctly enough be said to be knowledge of the relative. But with the relative as thus understood is identified the relative in the sense of that which is the negation of the absolute, and which as such implies a relation to the absolute — the relation of dependence or phenomenal manifestation. For knowledge of the relative is substituted relative knowledge, and thus it is secretly assumed that there is no absolute knowledge because there is no knowledge of the absolute. But as knowledge is in all cases a relation, the true inference is that that which is out of all relation is unknowable, for the very sufficient reason that to define it as that which is out of relation is tacitly to assert its unknowableness. Knowledge is relative or phenomenal, in the sense re- quired for Mr. Spencer's argument only, upon the sup- position that the absolute exists beyond knowledge ; and to assert that the absolute is beyond knowledge is to take away the only ground upon which knowledge can be shown to be phenomenal, and therefore to establish its absoluteness. If there is no absolute beyond the sphere of consciousness, knowledge is not phenomenal but real ; if there is an absolute beyond the sphere of consciousness, knowledge can never be known not to be real; so that in either case the phenomenal character of knowledge can never be proved. The negation of the absolute, defined ura Mr. Spencer defines it, is the only legitimate conclusion to be drawn from the fact that thinking is in all cases relating. An attempt is however made to avoid this conclusion by distinguishing between the ''definite consciousness of which logic formulates the laws," and an " indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated." Although it cannot be apprehended by definite thinking, the ab- I :. [chap. ge of the ierstood is lich is the implies a indence or e of the id thus it knowledge >. But as I inference )wable, for :hat which wableness. ) sense re- n the sup- nowledge ; owledge is knowledge erefore to absolute dire is not te beyond never be ' case the never be r. Spencer I be drawn ting. An iclusion by ousness of ' indefinite Although iig, the ab- X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 309 solute, it is held, is yet given in a consciousness which though undefined is not negative but positive. " Observe, that every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated, distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative. To say that we cannot know the absolute is, by impli- cation, to affirm that there is an absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn xvhat the absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it. is ; and the making of this assumption proves that the absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a something. Clearly, then, the very demonstration that a definite consciousness of the absolute is im- possible to us, unavoidably presupposes: an indefinite consciousness of it." We have here evidently our old enemy under a new disguise. The proof of the " relativity of knov/- ledge," it is said, implies that the absolute exists. But that manifestly depends upon what is meant by the phrase " the relativity of our knowledge." If it means, as alone has been proved, that thinking involves relations, the existence of an absolute beyond the limits of thought, so far from being established, is incapable of being established, unless thought can belie its very nature, and have an object at once in relation to it and out of relation to it. If, on the other hand, by the expression "relativity of our knowledge," we are to understand that knowledge is not of the real but of the phenomenal, the absolute is no doubt "postulated," but it is postulated in defiance of "every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated." If the " absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a something " — as a » First Principles, § 26, p. 88. 1) '^ ■^ I 310 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. A t', real existence, that is, and not as an abstraction — it follows either that thought has violated its own laws, according to which it can only think under relations, or that the absolute is not devoid of all relations. In the former case, the products of thought are necessarily worthless ; in the latter, the absolute must be sought within, and not without consciousness ; and thus the Spencerian doctrine of the relativity of knowledge breaks down, either because it is founded upon false- hood or because of its inadequacy. Thus far there seems to be no ground for the assertion of a conscious- ness of the Absolute, but very strong grounds for its denial. We must, however, consider the nature of that "indefinite" consciousness which is somehow to preserve the existence of an Absolute lying beyond the confines of thought. "Thinking being relationing, no thought can ever express more than relations. What now must happen if thought, having this law, occupies itself with the final mystery ? Always implying terms in relation, thought implies that both terms shall be more or less defined ; and as fast as one of them becomes indefinite, the relation also becomes indefinite, and thought becomes indistinct. What must happen if one term of the relation is not only quantitatively but also quali- tatively unrepresentable? Clearly in this case the relation does not cease to be thinkable except as a relation of a certain class, but it lapses completely. That is to say, the law of thought that contradictories can be known only in relation to each other, no longer holds when thought attempts to transcend the relative; and yet, when it attempts to transcend the relative, it must make the attempt in conformity with its law — must in some dim mode of consciousness posit a non- ; . • s. [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA, 311 •action — it own laws, relations, ,tions. In lecessarily be sought I thus the mowledge Lpon false- far there conscious- fids for its nature of mehow to )eyond the can ever ist happen ■ with the n relation, lore or less indefinite, 1 thought ne term of also quali- } case the ccept as a ompletely. radictories no longer e relative; relative, it its law — 3sit a non- relative, and, in some similarly dim mode of conscious- ness, a relation between it and the relative." ^ The first part of this argument is : Given two concrete objects of thought with definite relations of quantity and quality to each other: take away the quantity of one, and the quantitative relations of the two disappear ; take away the qualities left, and there is no relation whatever between them. The conclusion here reached is undoubtedly correct : between two objects from which all inter-relations have been removed, there is no relation whatever, for if there were, all the inter- relations would not have been removed : correlative terms are no longer correlative, when the relation between them is eUminated. True : but when the relation between them is destroyed, although they are no longer thought of as correlatives, each may still be an object of thought. The term which has been purified of all relations to its correlative term, is no longer thought of as a correlative of that term, but it may still be in consciousness as an object — indefinite of course, but still an object. This is clearly implied in the application made of the argument. What Mr. Spencer has to show is that the absolute, while de- void of all relations, is yet known in a " dim mode of consciousness " ; and however dim the consciousness may be, there must be an object of it, or there will be no consciousness. "There is," says Mr. Spencer, "some- thing which alike forms the raw material of definite thought and remains after the definiteness which think- ing gave to it has been destroyed." ^ That is to say, the elimination of all relations of one object to another still leaves each object as an object of consciousness ; the thing that has been deprived of all its definiteness, m 1 ^ Spencer's Essays, vol. iii., p. 293 (f. ' First Principles, § 26, p. 90. 312 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. and so taken out of relation to the thing with which it was at first correlated, does not vanish altogether, hut remains as an indefinite " something," we know not what. Now when it is remembered that the Absolute, the existence of which Mr. Spencer is trying to prove, is Being in itself, out of all relation, and therefore out of relation to consciousness, the essential weakness of the argument is at once apparent. AVhat has been shown is that a thing from which all the properties are removed is not thought of as in relation to any other thing ; but from the very nature of the argument it is implied that this indefinite " something " is an object of consciousness. But as an object of consciousness, it is in relation to the subject conscious of it. Its rela- tions to the object with which it was at first connected have been taken away, but not its relation to the self by which it is known. If then the absolute is in relation to a conscious self, it cannot be identified with ** Being in itself out of relation," and therefore is no longer an absolute but a relative. The same con- clusion of course follows if, without taking advantage of the admission that the elimination of all definiteness may still leave, as an object of consciousness, an in- definite something that is not anything in particular, we suppose that upon the removal of all relations to another object, there remains no object of consciousness whatever, but a pure blank, the negation of all con- sciousness. For upon this supposition, the absolute is not brought within consciousness at all, but is to consciousness pure nothing, and therefore cannot be shown to exist. Thus again we come round to the dilemma : if the Absolute is an object of consciousness, it does not exist ; if it does exist, it is not an object of consciousness. [chap. ti which it ;ether, but know not Absolute, to prove, refore out eakness of has been )erties are any other ment it is an object msness, it Its rela- conuected o the self ute is in ified with fore is no ame con- idvantage 3finiteness ss, an in- )articular, lations to sciousness f all con- ! absolute but is to ;annot be id to the ciousness, object of X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 313 It may perhaps be thought that the second part of the argument cited above affords a way of escape from this dilemma. The reasoning seems to be that it is not necessary to suppose that the absolute itself is actually an object of consciousness ; all that is required is a "dim mode of consciousness," which represents or is symbolical of the absolute, and which thus gives assur- ance of the existence of the absolute, while keeping it outside of consciousness. That this is the correct inter- pretation of the reasoning is confirmed by the remark immediately following the passage quoted : " Just as when we try to pass beyond phenomenal manifestations to the ultimate real: 'v manifested, we have to symbolize it out of such materials as the phenomenal manifesta- tions give us ; so we have simultaneously to symbolize the connection between this ultimate reality and its manifestations, as somehow allied to the connections among the phenomenal manifestations themselves.''^ Assuming, then, that the "dim mode of consciousness " has as its object an indefinite " something," which is not the " ultimate reality," but is merely representative of it ; it is evident that this supposition creates more difficulties than it resolves. If the "something" in consciousness is representative of the unknown reality, we must suppose that there is some kind of pre- established harmony between the something in con- sciousness and the something beyond consciousness. But there must be a consciousness of the representative or symbolical character of the one, or there can be no consciousness of the other. This, however, is but ano- ther way of saying that there is a relation between that which is and that which is not known, and hence the unknown something is not out of relation to conscious- ^ Essays, vol. iii., p. 295. ■ ti II i 314 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. (>ii- ■ f :» \ ness, but is brought into relation with it, and is no longer an absolute but a relative. Otherwise stated, a mode of consciousness cannot be iinown to be represent- ative of something else unless a comparison is made between that which is represented and that which is representative ; but comparison implies relation ; and therefore both terms of the relation must be in con- sciousness. The absolute, then, to be given in a mode of consciousness representative of it, must itself be in consciousness ; in which case it ceases to be absolute. Or again, taking the other side of the dilemma, a mode of consciousness is representative of a reality beyond consciousness, only if such a reality exists. But the existence of it is the very point in dispute, and must not be assumed. It is a manifest see-saw to argue that the unknown reality exists because a certain mode of consciousness is known to be representative of it, when this mode can be known to be representative only if the unknown reality exists. 2. The principle underlying Kant's conception of iioumena is diametrically opposite to that which under- lies the philosophy of Mr. Spencer. Kant shows that concrete objects exist only in relation to intelligence, and hence for the ordinary dualism of ideas in the mind and objects without the mind he substitutes the logical distinction of feelings in time and known objects in space. Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, starting from the absolute opposition of object and subject, supposes the former to come into relation with the latter by means of immediate feelings. As, therefore, we only know the objective world by the intermediation of these feelings, the world is gradually stripped of its determinate properties, and survives only as a thing in itself Enough has already been said in regard to the I S'. [chap. and IS no le stated, a represent- n is made Lt which is ition ; and 36 in con- in a mode tself be in 3 absolute, la, a mode ty beyond But the and must argue that 1 mode of >f it, when only if the 3eption of ich under- hows that telligence, L the mind ;he logical objects in 'ting from , supposes latter by , we only liation of )ed of its I thing in ird to the X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 315 Critical conception of the relation of subject and object, but it may not be unprofitable to follow with some care the logical process by which Mr. Spencer reaches the conception of an unknowable reality. In his First Principles, Mr. Spencer tells us that before stirring a step towards its goal, philosophy has to assume the validity of certain primary data of con- ciousness, and that of these data the most fundamental is the conception of subject and object as " antithetically opposed divisions of the entire assemblage " of things. And in his Psychology an attempt is made to establish the proposition, that ''when the two modes of being which we distinguish as subject and object have been severally reduced to their lowest terms, any further comprehension .... is negatived by the very distinction of subject and object, which is itself the consciousness of a difference transcending all other differences." ' This dualistic conception of things Mr. Spencer supports by a " negative " and a " positive " justification. By the former is meant a proof that Realism " rests on evidence having a greater validity than the evidence on which any counter-hypothesis rests." 2 Tested by the criteria of priority, simplicity, and distinctness. Realism is found to be superior to Idealism, the latter being based upon the assumption that "we are primarily conscious only of our sensations." People are conscious of external existence long before they frame the hypothesis that the knowledge of external existence is obtained mediately through sensa- tion. "Neither the subject nor the predicate of the proposition — ' I have a sensation,' can be separately' framed by a child, much less put together." The realistic belief is therefore not only prior in time, but ^ Spencer's Principles of Psycholoijy, vol. I . , § 62. ^ Ibid. , vol. ii. , § 402. m i 11 m ■I ■I i ■i 1; 1 *'H m I i' I. 1» 316 JiTANr AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. it is the condition of the construction of the idealistic hypothesis. Realism is also superior to Idealism in simplicity. For, in the first place, Idealism always begins by showing thot Realism is inferential, and to make good this assertion it has to employ many infer- ences in place of one; and, in the second place, the supposed proof of Idealism involves in addition a number of new inferences. " Hence, if the one mediate act of Realism is to be invalidated by the multitudinous acts of Idealism, it must be on the sup- position . . . that if there is doubtfulness in a single stop of a given kind, there is less doubtfulness in many steps of the same kind." And not only is Idealism subsequent in time to Realism, and supported by elaborate inferential reasoning, but it is expressed in " terms of the extremest indistinctness," while Real- ism is expressed in " terms of the highest possible distinctness." ' These arguments Mr. Spencer enforces with the greatest earnestness, and with every appearance of conviction ; nor do I for a moment suppose that he is guilty of any conscious disingenuousness, though the tedious length at which he sets them forth suggests that he has himself some suspicion of their cogency. To me they seem mainly significant of their framer's method of seeking for real knowledge by the elimination of all definite relations to thought. This is what the setting up of priority, simplicity, and distinctness really amounts to. Moreover, as the tests by which Idealism is shown to be inferior in evidence to Realism, would, if valid, establish the superiority of the primary, simple and distinct preconceptions of the unscientific mind over the infinitely more complex and more indistinct conceptions ^Psychology, vol. ii., §§404, 412. S. [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 317 3 idealistic dealism in im always ;ial, and to lany infer- place, the iddition a the one sd by the a the sup- ness in a ubtfulness ot only is supported expressed hile Keal- t possible with the larance of that he is lough the L suggests ' cogency. [• framer's limination what the less really Idealism , would, if imple and 1 over the inceptions of physical science, we may safely leave Mr. Spencer to fight out his battle with other antagonists and upon another arena. The only other remark that seems called for here is that, even granting the validity of the criteria, the question is not fairly argued : for on the one hand the philosophical theory of Realism is identi- fied with the common-sense belief in an external world, and is thus assumed to possess a priority, simplicity, and distinctness not justly its due ; and on the other hand Idealism is confused with Sensationalism, in which alone the knowledge of the external world is sought in " sensations " or " subjeccive states." For these if for no other reasons, the " multitudinous mediate acts " by which Mr. Spencer tries to show thn^ ill mediate acts destroy knowledge, are mere shoot j^ in the air. Idealism has been weighed successivelv in the balances of priority, simplicity and distinctness, and has been found wanting. But we must make sure that we have cut oflf every possible way of escape. " It is not enough to be clear that a doctrine is erroneous : it is not enough even to disentangle the error from its disguises : it is further requisite thpt we should trace down the error to its simplest form and find its root." What we want evidently is some universal critericn of truth, to which even the Idealist must assent, and by which he may be convicted out of his own mouth. This absolute criterion or " universal postulate " Mr. Spencer believes he has found in the formula, that "the inconceivableness of its negation is that which shows a cognition to possess the highest rank." An " inconceiv- able " proposition, it must be noted, is not simply a proposition that is "unbelievable," but on<^ "of which the terms cannot by any effort be brought before con- sciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts ^'\ f.l b' i 318 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. between them." Thus the negation of the proposition, " whatever resists has extension," is not only unbeliev- able but unthinkable, for the subject and the predicate cannot be thought of together. ' The " universal postulate " of Mr. Spencer is simply the well-known logical law of identity. An examina- tion of the instance cited by Mr. Spencer in illustration of it places this supposition beyond dispute. The pro- position, "whatever resists has extension," when fully ex- pressed becomes, I presume, "the material thing which resists has extension." Now that a " material thing,'' i.e., an extended thing, " has extension " is certainly a proposition of which the terms cannot by any possi- bility be separated in thought, for the simple reason that they are identical. We may frame as many pro- positions of this type as we please, and all of them will conform to the " universal postulate." The proposition, " a hippogriff is an imagined object," is one which bears the test of the postulate without flinching, since it is a proposition the negation of which is not only " unbeliev- able" but "unthinkable." It is therefore difficult to see how the " Idealist " is to be brought to his senses by so innocent a device as that of asking him to admit that what is in consciousness is in consciousness. The mere analysis of a conception, as Kant has once for all poi.iced out, only results in an explicit statement of what the conception means ; it does not carry us beyond itself to objective truth. It is quite possible that Mr. Spencer would reply that the proposition, " whatever resists has extension," asserts not only that " an extended thing is extended," but that " resistance " and " extension " cannot be separated in thought and therefore exist together in reality. And ^ Psycholoijy, vol. ii., §§414, 426, 427. f 'S. [chap. ^] NOUMF.NA AND PHENOMENA. 31 D roposition, r unbeliev- e predicate r is simply examina- illustration The pro- n fully ex- hing which rial thing," 3 certainly any possi- ple reason many pro- ' them will Toposition, i^hich bears ince it is a " unbeliev- difficult to his senses n to admit less. The )nce for all itement of us beyond reply that )n," asserts ," but that parated in lity. And no doubt this is so : but it is because " resistance " and " extension " are correlative conceptions that involve manifold relations to thought, whereas the " universal postulate " is expressly brought forward to prove tho truth of a proposition immediately. The conjunction of these conceptions in our knowledge is the result of a long process of mediation, and the justification of their connection can only be found in the truth of each step in that process. In the language of Kant, the proposition "whatever resists has extension," is a " synthetical " judgment, obtained by a reference to experience. The question therefore comes to this : either the " universal postulate " only calls upon us to state explicitly what is in our consciousness, and thus affords no criterion of objective truth, or it admits that immediate knowledge has no objective validity. As the latter alternative is exactly what Mr. Spencer is trying to disprove, we are compelled to adopt the former. That the " universal postulate " is merely a law of formal thought is further implied in the setting up of a new criterion to help out the imperfection of the old. It is not to every proposition, Mr. Spencer admits, that the postulate is applicable, but only to those that are '* simple " or " undecomposable." i Now, in the first place, it is evident that if we go on analyzing or *' de- composing" a proposition into its elements, we shall only have completed the process when we have got back to the very beginning of knowledge. The absolutely primary judgment can alone be called " undecomposable " in any strict use of terms : and when we have got this proposition, the virtue of the postulate has evaporated. Ini d the proposition, "some- thing is in my consciousness," as the simplest, and ^Psychology, vol. ii., §428. 1 Ii ::•/ v •I |i>»il1 if: 1 \i V 322 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. - (. .1 his divergence from common sense by deleting all the reasoning which presupposes agreement with it. We are now told that the Realism which can be established is not the " crude Realism " of common sense, but a more refined theory to which the name of " trans- figured Realism " is given. The object is known to us through subjective affections or relations, and no rela- tion to consciousness can " resemble, or be in any way akin to," its source beyond consciousness. Nevertheless, there exist " beyond consciousness conditions of ob- jective manifestation which are symbolized by relations as we conceive them." Our knowledge of the object as it really exists is thus limited to a direct apprehension of its bare existence.^ Here we see, going on. before our eyes, the dialectic by which the common sense assumption of the inde- pendence of the object converts itself into a denial of all definite knowledge. When Mr. Spencer speaks of the distinction of subject and object as the " conscious- ness of a difference transcending all other differences," he does not see that he is really affirming the non- independence of the object ; but he does see that as all definite knowledge ia constituted by relation to con- sciousness, the unqualified object is not known at all. Hence he tries to combine Idealism and Realism by maintaining at once that the object is independent of consciousness, and that it is in relation to consciousness; the result being the compromise called " transfigured Realism," which carries over the concreteness of the object into thought, and yet maintains the independ- ence of the purely abstract substratum that alone remains. Two absolutely incongruous theories of knowledge are thus combined, or rather set side by ' Psijcholoijy, vol. ii. , §§ 473-4. [chap. Lg all the I it. We stablished nse, but a )f "tratis- [lown to us nd no rela- in any way Bvertheless, ons of ob- by relations [ the object pprehension the dialectic of the inde- o a denial of cer speaks of i "c>)nscious- : differences," ing the non- iee that as all ation to con- known at all. d Realism by iidependent of consciousness; " transfigured •eteness of the the independ- im that alone ,s theories of ler set side by X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 323 side : the one that knowledge is mediate or made up of relations to consciousness, and the other that it is absolutely immediate or free from relation. Here then we have the doctrine of relativity as applied to the nature of the object. Its vaUdity evidently de- pends upon the possibility of an independent object being known in a purely immediate consciousness. Now the object, as assumed to be independent, is altogether beyond the sphere of consciousness, and therefore cannot be known to exist. To say that it is independent of consciousness and to say that it is unre- lated to consciousness is for knowledge exactly the same thing. And, on the other hand, to speak of a consciousness that is absolutely immediate, is equivalent to a denial that consciousness has any object before it; for an object, as Mr. Spencer admits, is only given in distinction from a subject. In the attempt to preserve its independence, the object has been reduced to the maximum of indefiniteness and the subject to the minimum of relation, and after all, the definiteness im- plied in the bare relation of an unqualified thing to a pure subject has to be assumed under the disguise of immediate knowledge, or subject and object alike disappear. The unknowable of Mr. Spencer, in other words, is simply the knowable, deprived of its concrete relations and suspended in vacuo by the imagination. The dualistic opposition of intelligence and nature has accomplished its destiny in the negation of all real knowledge.^ 3. How strongly Kant's conception of noumena is contrasted with that of Mr. Spencer becomes evident when we look at the view taken in each of the ultimate * The critioism of Mr. Spencer contained in sections 1 and 2 tirst appeared iu the Jour. Spec. Phil, for January, 1877. ij ■1 .ti u !'*»l IC" I ♦■ i; ", 324 ITANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. nature of the mind and the world. The essence of Kant's criticism of rational psychology is, that a noumenal self, existing beyond knowledge as a sub- stance, is the product of a confusion between the mere abstraction of relation to consciousness and a thing beyond consciousness. Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, adopts, without suspicion of the paralogism implied in it, the dogmatic view that there must be an unknown substance, of which all mental states are passing mani- festations. Kant, again, deals with the apparent con- tradiction involved in the idea of the world as a whole and of matter as divisible, as well as in the ideas of causality and of a necessary being ; but he refuses to believe that reason can be in absolute antagonism with itself, and hence after stating the antinomies he goes on to solve them. Mr. Spencer dwells at great length upon " alternative impossibilities of thought "; but believing the logical puzzles he has brought to- gether to be absolutely insoluble, he concludes to the thorough-going imbecility of the human mind. Let us look at the contrast indicated more in detail. (1) "If by the phrase 'substance of mind,'" says Mr. Spencer, "is to be understood mind as qualitatively differentiated in each portion that is separable by in- trospection, but seems homogeneous and undecompos- able, then we do know something about the substance of mind, and may eventually know more. . . . But if the phrase is taken to mean the underlying something of which these are modifications, then we know nothing about it, and never can know anything about it. . . . Let us yield to the necessity of regarding impressions and ideas as forms or modes of a continually existing something. . . . Existence means nothing more than persistence ; and hence in mind that which ii n [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 325 sssence of 8, that a as a sub- 1 the mere i a thing )ther hand, iiupUed in [1 unknown jsing mani- )arent con- as a whole he ideas of I refuses to antagonism tinomies he 3lls at great f thought"; brought to- ludes to the ind. Let us il. > » mind/' says quahtatively arable by in- undecompos- he substance ... But ng something know nothing Dout it. . . • g impressions ually existing nothing more i that which persists in spite of all changes, and maintains tiie unity of the aggregate in defiance of all attempts to divide it, is that of which existence in the full sense of the word must be predicated — that which we must postulate as the substance of mind in contradistinction to the vary- ing form which it assumes. But if so, the impossibility of knowing the substance of mind is manifest. . . . If every state of mind is some modification of this substance of mind, there can be no state of mind in which the unmodified substance of mind is present." * Mind, as is evident from these extracts, is conceived of as a " substratum " or " underlying something," which, as existing apart from its modifications, is un- knowable. At the same time we are compelled to " postulate " it ; in other words, although unknowable, it nevertheless exists. Now, in the first place, it is evident that Mr. Spencer is here guilty of that con- fusion between a noumenon in the positive sense, and a noumenon in the negative sense, which Kant has so clearly pointed out. Apart from its "multitudinous modifications," mind is not a real object capable of being known to exist, but merely the negation of actual knowledge. The only legitimate inference, therefore, from Mr. Spencer's proof of the unknowability of mind as a tiling in itself, is that mind as so conceived is a mere fiction of abstraction. The determination of this pure negation by the conception of " substance " is, as Kant would say, an illegitimate application of a category to a mere idea. Mind in itself is neither a " substance "' nor the mode of a substance : it is simply nothimr at all. That " there can be no state of mind in which the unmodified substance of mind is present," is the best proof that this " unmodified substance " is 1 P«ijchology, vol. i., §§ 58, 59. a I \:. If 82^ KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ill H' I '^^ but an element of reality, abstracted from the relaiions which give it meaning. In the second place, Mr. Spencer is guilty of the paralogism which Kant shows to be implied in the dogmatic conception of mind as a substance. Although the " substance " of mind is affirmed to be unknowable, it yet *' persists in spite of all changes, and maintains the unity of the aggregate in defiance of all attempts to divide it." In other words, mind implies the consciousness of self as a lonitjj, and as identical with itself in all its changes. Here the transition is made from mind as a " substratum " to mind as the self to which all mental changes are relative. At the same time, mind is still regarded as unknowable in itself, inasmuch as it cannot be pre- sented in consciousness. That is to say, the self as existing for consciousness is confused with the unknown " substance " of mind, and the unity and identity pre- dicable of the former alone is unwarrantably transferred to the latter. In this way the self as a mere negation, by borrowing the positive determinations of the self as it exists for knowledge, seems to be known as perman- ent and identical with itself The paralogism is almost too evident to need pointing out. (2) Mr. Spencer allows himself to be entangled not only in the paralogisms of rational psychology, but in the antinomies of rational cosmology. He gathers together with infinite pains all the logical puzzles in regard to the divisibility of matter, the change of velocity, &c,, which he can discover or invent, and affirming them to be incapable of solution, he concludes that our " ultimate scientific ideas " are all self-contra- dictory. Were it so, reason, as Kant remarks, must be in irremediable conflict with itself, the only legiti- mate conclusion from which would be absolute scepti- [chap. X.] NOUMENA AND PHENOMENA. 327 relations ace, Mr. tnt shows noind as a mind is n spite of aggregate In other as a uniUj, es. Here bstratum " langes are eaarded as ot be pre- bhe self as le unknown lentity pre- transferred •e negation, ' the self as as perman- 5in is almost itangled not logy, but in He gathers ,1 puzzles in e change of invent, and he concludes il self-contra- marks, must e only legiti- solute scepti- cism. I shall not enter into any detailed consideration of Mr. Spencer's antinomies. All of them, as it seems to me, yield to Kant's mode of solution. Space, for example, is neither finitely divided nor infinitely divided, but is infinitely divisible. The infinite divisi- bility of space, in fact, arises from its very nature. For any part of space is necessarily continuous, and therefore admits of divisibility to infinity. Only by negating the very idea of space, and reducing it to a mere point, which, as Kant remarks, is not a part of space at all, but simply the limit between two spaces, can we get rid of its divisibility. The question of the finite divisibility or infinite divisibility of matter, as well as the puzzle in regard to its solidity or non- solidity, is also, as it seems to me, virtually solved by the method of Kant. As shown in the Metaphysic of Nature, an account of which has been given above, matter is necessarily divisible to infinity, because any distinguishable part of it, as occupying space, is divi- sible to infinity. So also the infinite compressibility of matter is implied in the intensive quantity of any given force. The conception therefore of an ultimate atom, i.e. a part of matter which is absolutely incompressible, is a contradiction. This, however, is in no way inconsistent with the solidity or impenetrability of any given material substance, since solidity exists in virtue of the relation between two finite forces. While therefore an indivisible and incompressible atom is a contradiction in terms, an undivided and impenetrable atom is not. To assert the one is to contradict the conception of matter as occupying space ; to assert the other is to contradict the conception of force as intensive quuutity. But there is no real incompati- bility between the conception of matter as infinitely :r 11 ■!? ^1 1 l -f 328 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. divisible and compressible, and the admission that as a matter of fact there is a definite limit to the separation of the parts of any given material body, a limit which is determined by the equilibrium of two contrary finite forces. It need hardly be added that a confusion be- tween the infinite divisibility of motion conceived of as a pure or abstract quantity, and the finite quantity of any given motion, underlies the puzzle in regard to the possibility of increase or decrease of velocity. The contradictions which Mr. Spencer finds in our ultimate ideas are the product of an illegitimate abstraction from the actual relations of the knowable world. When it is recognised that to a finite body the conception of infinity is necessarily inapplicable, the apparent contradictions in our knowledge of the real world disappear. 329 that as a separation niit which rary finite fusion be- sived of as quantity of ;ard to the ;ity. The ir ultimate iction from When it is 1 of infinity itradictions ,r. CHAPTER XI. IMPERFECT DEVELOPMENT OF KANt's THEORY OP KNOWLEDGE. TN what has gone before an attempt has been made to exhibit, with as much freedom as is com- patible with accuracy of statement, the nature of the problem which the Critique of Pure Reason was intended to solve, and to show how the various parts of the theory of knowledge contained in it are joined together in the unity of a single system. In what remains to be said I shall endeavour tc point out generally wherein that theory seems to require further development, in order to make it complete and self- consistent. 1. In defending the method of Kant against the animadversions of Mr. Balfour, I had occasion to contend that philosophy cannot be asked to prove the reliability of special facts or laws, and must fall into mere logomachy if it attempts to do so. The universal conditions presupposed in the knowledge of those facts and laws may be arrived at by reflection upon know- ledge as it exists for common consciousness and the special sciences, but no amount of reflection upon the contents of our knowledge can enable us to discover a single new fact or law. Not only is this recognized by I >i k m 1 M r, III ! jj ' i ' lyi ,1 330 Av^TVr AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. Kant, but as I believe even \ysj Hogel, who is popularly supposed to be the very high-priest of the a 'priori method. Now, if philosophy has nothing to say to the truth of our ordinary knowledge, it is evident that any true theory of knowledge must in some sense start from the world as already constituted for us, or, as Kant would say, " given to us." Unless, however, we carefully observe what is " given," and what has to be discovered, we shall fall into a mistake that must be fatal to the philosophical theory which we are interested in establishing. As philosophy starts from ordinary and scientific knowledge, it is compelled so far to proceed by a method of abstraction, or rather it is compelled to represent the concrete wealth of the universe in an abstract symbol. Such a symbol is the Kantian " manifold," which, as I have attempted to show, is a term of great comnrehensiveness, and, there- fore, one which fluctuates in its meaninij accordins^f to our point of view at the time. And if this term is taken, as Kant undoubtedly does take it at times, as standing for the special facts or objects contained in our ordinary and scientific knowledge, the "manifold" will naturally be spoken of as " given," meaning by this that it is not created by philosophy, but taken for granted as a datum. To such a contrast of the " mani- fbld " as "given" in our ordinary knowledge, with the propositions of philosophy which are only discovered by special reflection there can be no possible objection. But a misunderstanding is apt to grow up from con- fusing the " manifold " as thus understood with the " manifold " as the supposed object of sense. From the fact that philosophy is an account of the conditions of knowledge in ge 3ral, it is difficult to avoid this identification. Ordinary knowledge is contrasted with :s. [chap. xi.l IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEORY. 331 s popularly le a 'priori 3 say to the nt that any sense start • us, or, as icwever, we it has to be lat must be re interested )m ordinary rl so far to rather it is salth of the ymbol is the tttcmpted to s, and, there- according to this term is ; at times, as contained in 3 "manifold" meaning by but taken for jf the "■ mani- dge, with the ily discovered ible objection, up from con- :ood with the sense. From the conditions to avoid this ontrasted with philosophical knowledge, as that which seems to be " given " with that which is the product of reflection ; and hence the two propositions, that the " manifold " is "given" to philosophy as a datura, and that the "manifold" is "given" immediately in perception, have the look of being merely various statements of the same thing. And when we have identified the two senses of the manifold, it is only a step to the contrast of sense as a faculty receptive of the " manifold," with thought or reflection as a faculty which acts spontane- ously or by origination ; and it is but another step to the contrast of the "manifold" as the given "matter" of knowledge belonging to the object, with thought as the principle originative of the "form" by which that matter is universalized. It is in this way, as I think, that Kant is led to draw a distinction between the "manifold of sense" as "given," and the "forms" of the mind as spontaneously originated in knowledge. Now, this contrast of the "manifold" as given and the " forms " as originated — or, what is the same thing when we look at knowledge from the side of the subject, of sense as receptive, and thought as spon- taneous — has not only no proper justification, but it is inconsistent with the spirit of the Critical philosophy itself. We may, as I have said, speak of the mani- fold as " given " to philosophy to be explained, but this is quite a different thing fron saying that the manifold is "given" to sense. In the one case, we are looking at tvv^o stages in the temporal development of our knowledge, the scientific and the philosophical ; in the other, as we are speaking of two logical elements in knowledge, we have nothing to do with the ques- tion as to which is first recognized by us and which second. It is perfectly true that objects must be ..i I •'i s. 332 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. % known as objects, before our knowledge of them can be philoaophicnlly accounted for ; but this doeb not justify us in speaking of one element in knowledge as given, and the other as originated. That such a contrast is inconsistent with the linal result of Kant's own theory may be easily shown. The central idea of the Critique is that knowable objects exist only in relation to intelligence. P lilosophical reflection, operating upon the data " given " to it by ordinary and scientilic know- ledge, brings this truth to light, and in so rloing, it compels us to go back over the data as given, and to interpret them in the light of our theory. Accordingly the concrete objects which are correctly enough said to be given to us as we reflect upon the conditions of knowledge, break up into two distinguishable elements, the element of the particular or manifold, and the element of th^ :niversal or form. But as every act of real knowledge is now Reen to imply the reflection of each element on the other, wo cannot contrast the one as given with the other as originated. That which is properly said to be given in ordinary knowledge is not a mere elemoit of knowledge, but a concrete object, comprehending both elements now distinguished by philosophy. While, therefore, concrete objects may be said to be given to the individual thinker, we cannot say that the particular element is given, and the universal ^lament produced by reflection. From the phenomenal point of view both elements are given ; from the philosophical both may be said to be produced. If, as Kant maintains, the objects which we know are relative to our consciousness of them, the knowledsre of objects and the objects known are but diflerent asj)ects of the same concrete reality, and there is no longer any valid reason for opposing one element of I' ,' :S. [chap. hem can be I not justify ;e as given, contrast ia own theory the Critique relation to rating upon mtillc know- so tloing, it iven, and to Accordingly ough said to conditions of bio elements, M, and the \ every act of reflection of contrast the That which knowledge is mcretc object, inguished by 3Jects may be er, we cannot /en, and the ). From the ts are given ; be produced. L we know are le knowledge but different id there is no ne element of XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEORY. 333 knowledge to another. The world as known is the world as it exists, and the supposition that there may possibly be a world in itself, distinct from that whicii is knowuble, is a mere product of abstractica. 2. It is but another phase of the same imperfection that Kant opposes the a posteriori element of know- ledge to the a 'prion element. As the " manifcld " has two quite distinct senses, so a double contrast is drawn between the formal or a pnori element of know- ledge, and the material or a posteriori element. (1) Examining ordinary or scientific knowledge, without inquiring into its relations to intelligence, we mr»y distinguish between particular facts, and the general laws or principles which govern them. The principles of mathematics enable us to anticipate the spatial and temporal relations of objects; and the principles of pure physics enable us to tell beforehand the condi- tions to which all possible objects must conform. Special facts or objects we may therefore distinguish from the laws underlying them as the a posteriori from the a priori. (2) When we ask how it is that we can anticipate the universal conditions of objects, while we cannot anticipate objects themselves, we find the answer to be, that the former depend upon the essential constitution of our intelligence, while the latter do not. By the a priori is therefore here meant that which belongs to the mind as distinguished from that which belongs to the object. The distinction of a priori from a postenori know- ledge, as stated by Kant, is one that can at best be regarded as only provisional. A priori knowledge is that knowledge which, as universal and necessary, is presupposed in all specific knowledge, and may there- fore be anticipated. It is universal and necessary :i r; f- i i '•i« 8S4 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS, [chap. because it belongs to the constitution of our intelligence, and therefore is implied in the activity of our intelli- gence, when it comes to operate in specific ways, i.e., to be actually employed in the definite knowing of concrete objects. A posteviori knowledge, on the other hand, does not belong to the constitution of our intelligence, but is obtained by the specific apprehension or recognition of the concrete element in knowledge. This a posteriori element in know- lodge, Kant therefore regards as in a sense con- tingent. Why so? Because our intelligence is in reference to it passive, and has to wait for the presen- tation of the concrete element to get something to operate upon. Now, while this account of the relation of our intolliirence to nature has tlie great merit of recofjniz- ing that nature is not completely independent of intelligence, and hence of pointing out that there is both a particular and a universal element in know- ledge, and therefore in known objects, the separation of the universal from the particular cannot bo regarded as justifiable. The concrete element in knowledge is no more contingent than the universal element. If it is true, ej/., that the category of cause is essential to the explanation of the loal con- nexion of events, it is not the less true that the events connected are ran], and therefore necessary. All knowledge, as distinguished from mere oj)inion, is necessary. Kant does indeed recognize this in his own way, but he regards the necessity as communicated to the a j^oftteriori element by the (/ priori. But as the knowable world is, on his own showing, nothing apart t'rom its relations to inteJigence, it seems manifest that we cannot attribute the particular element of ZS. [chap. intelUgenco, ' our intelli- ic ways, i.e., knowing of Ige, on the constitution the specific rete element nt in know- a, sense con- Ihirence is in 3r the presen- soniething to lation of our it of recogniz- ulependent of that there is lent in know- the separation \x cannot be ,e element in the universal le category of f the real con- that the events ecesaary. All ere oi)inion, is I this in his own ommunicated to ,7*. But as the g, nothing apart seems manifest alar element of XI.] TMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEOR K 335 knowledge to the object any more than to the subject, or the universal element to intelligence any more than to nature. Only if we suppose nature to be in some way constituted independently of thought, can we say that the mind is receptive in respect of the particulars of its knowledge. Kant, however, while insisting in the strongest way on the correlativity of object and subject, particular and universal, yet conceives of the subject with its universal forms as in a sense isolated from the object. Somewhat after the man- ner of Butler, he supposes the mind to have an independent constitution or structure of its own. Here there clearly is some confusion between the metaphysical and the phenomenal points of view. As we have already seen, it is not incorrect to say that the concrete world is "given" to the individual thinker to be philosophically explained. But the result of Kant's own explanation is to show that m that which is given there already is implied the reflection of the particular on the universal — or of the a posteriori on the a ■priori, if we still are to use these terms. And as the distinction of the two elements of knowledge is the product of philosophical reflection, although it correctly represents what is implied in every act of real knowledge, it must follow that neither element can be said to be " given " in contrast to the other. Both are given to the individual who rcffects upon knowledge, but all knowledge, as the comprehension of particulars under the unity of self-consciousness, is a recognition of that Avhich belongs to the essential nature of intelli- gence. Accordingl}'^, it must be denied that there is even a possibility of the existence of a thing in itself incapable of ever being known by us on account of the limitation of our faculties. We cannot rid ourselves, 1 ) I 336 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. JH' .\ \ I nccordintf to Kant, of the peculiar conditions under which knowledge is possible for us, and hence we can say nothing about things in themselves. How the world would appear to a being of a different mental constitution, we are unablt to say. A being, for example, who was not dependent for the particular element of his knowledge upon the special experiences coming to him from time to time, might perceive all things at a glance ; but he would have before him a totally different world from ours, and what that world would be, we cannot possibly tell. We can say that he would not perceive things as under the forms of space and time, that his knowledge would not come to him piecemeal, that he would not get a knowledge of things by means of conceptions and inferences ; but wo can form no apprehension of what the world before him would be, or what would be the nature of liis intelligence. Of such a being, of course, we could not say, that part of his knowledge belonged to the consti- tution of his intelligence, and part was due to his capacity for being passively affected from without ; for all things as revealing themselves to him by immediate contemplation or intuition, would be alike necessary and universal. Man, however, is not a being of that kind, and must be contented with a world of objects such as his nature permits him to know. Now, it is un- doubtedly important to emphasise the fact, that know- ledge comes to us by instalments, and hence that wc are limited by this condition of our knowledge. But this is quite a different thing from saying that the particular element of knowledge is "given" to rs, while the universal element belongs to our mental constitu- tion. For, while objects present themselves to us in part, each 'part is itself concrete, involving as it does 5. [chap. ions under nice we can How the •ent mental being, for e particular experiences perceive all :)efore bim a tt that world 1 say that he irms of space come to him knowledge of nces; but we world before nature of his I we could not to the consti- is due to his 1 without ; for by immediate necessary and T of that kind, jf objects such Now, it is un- let, that know- hence that wc owledge. But tying that the en" to v:s, while lental constitu- selves to us in ing as it does X..] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEORY. XM I the reflection of the particular on the universal. We do not, e.g., first know the particular properties of an object, and then bring them under the unity of self- consciousness, but the properties are known only in beiiig referred to a universal self. This is but one of the instances in which Kant has not perfectly freed himself from the dogmatic or psychological point of view, against which he so valiantly, and on the whole, successfully contends. For, if the world we actually know exists only in relation to our human intelligence, we cannot be said to have real knowledge, but only knowledge true for us as men. But relative knowledge is not knowledge at all, in any proper sense, though it may be all the knowledge we are capable of having. If the observations peculiar to men as individuals, are un- worthy of the name of knowledge, the observations common to all men, which they vainly suppose to be knowledge, must likewise be counted unworthy of it. If all men were madmen, it would matter little to them that there was a method in their madness. If the best of our knowledge is only that which we cannot help having, but which with different faculties we should not have, why should we pin our faith to it ? But while the opposition of a pnovi and a posteriori knowledge, when pressed home, undoubtedly leads, as has often been pointed out, to this sceptical conclusion, the substantial merit of what Kant has done towards the construction of a true theory of knowledge cannot be denied without blindness or perversity. He was the first in modern times to insist upon the correlativity of intelligence and nature ; and while the letter of his theory makes knowledge after all only a coherent system of semblances, the spirit of it leads to a much more hopeful result. Kant, however, never quite I vi ^ i -'.^AT^ 338 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. m X: 1 liberated himself from the dogmatic sej.-. ration of in- telligence and nature. Even to the end the world loomed up before him as a thing apart, which by some means got transferred to human intelligence. Insist as he will on the correlation of the outer and the inner world, he still thinks of the self and the object as somehow separate, and as requiring to be brought ex- ternally into connection. And the secret of this is, that he never clearly separates the proposition, that in the knowledge of each of us one part of nature after another comes before our consciousness, from the pro- position that nature is for us nothing at all apaii: from its relations to our intelligence. In other words, the limits which hem us in as individual men are supposed to be in some way limits to our intelligence itself. But it may be easily shown that, while the first proposition is undeniable, the second has no proper foundation. Unless there were in us a capacity for apprehending that which truly is, we could not know that what we do apprehend is only relative to our intelligence as men. Granting, as we must do, that the world of nature, as the men of this generation know it, is in some respects different from the world that will present itself before the men of the next, we still cannot, without committing logical suicide, distinguish the world as revealed to human intelligence from the world as revealed to any other intelligence. For this other world, as Kant himself was half aware, would be for us nothing but a creation of the mind, formed by the facile process of abstracting from the fullness and concreteness of the world we know, and very absurdly calling the atten- uated remainder a higher world. When Kant speaks of the world as it may appear to a higher intelligence. [CH AP. XI. J IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEOR Y. 339 bion of in- the world ih bv some ce. Insist d the inner 3 object as brought ex- ' this is, that that in the nature after oui the pro- it all apai'. In other ts individual limits to our gasily shown deniable, the )S8 there were which truly apprehend is Granting, as as the men of pects different Defore the men it committing Eis revealed to 3vealed to any orld, as Kant nothing but a icile process of ireteness of the [ling the atten- ;n Kant speaks ter intelligence, he forgets that the conception of such an intelligence is for us only what we make it to be, and that if we were really capable of conceiving a kind of intelligence quite unlike our own, we should by that very fact be already beyond the limits of our human intelligence. The kind of intelligence which Kant vaguely sup- poses to be higher than human, is really below it. Seeing all things as out of space and time, it makes no logical distinctions between things, but only looks into them. But why should space and time be simply means of hiding realities from us? They are so, only if we suppose that realities are not in space and time ; in other words, if behind the veil of the phenomenal world there is a noumenal world, know- able only as that which is for us unknowable. The genesis of this fiction is very easily traceable. Ab- stract from the world we know all its known re- lations, and call the remainder the thing in itself, and the thingf is done. We must then discard the assumption that the nature of our intelligence unfits us for knowing reality, as a mere unresolved remain- der left behind in Kant's mind by that dogmat- ism from which, as we see, he was not thoroughly aroused. As, then, there is no valid reason for separating the real world from the world as known to us as men, the opposition of a prion and a posterion must take another meaning. If the concrete element is as essential to the known world as the abstract — if each is in fact but a logical distinction made by our reflection, although a distinction necessary to explain what the nature of the world is — the one element is necessary not less than the other. Moreover there is no longer any proper reason for opposing the a priori to the a postenon as i •'i I Mill l il» n ^n*d ,«■ K^a .. 340 /CAJVT AJVD HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. U' \\} that which belongs to the constitution of intelligence, and in which the mind iff active, to that which belongs to the thing in itself and is passively received. In so far as our intelligence reveals reality, that which is revealed is that which is, and the particular element is equally real and necessary with the universal element. It is in fact only because Kant thinks of the mind as a kind of mental structure possessed by all men in common, that he opposes a priori and a posteriori, universal and particular. I as an individual man, he thinks, am dependent on sense for the concrete element of my knowledge; while the universal ele- ment is added by my mind. From this point of view, the forms of sense and thought are still regarded as belonging to me as an individual, although they are the same in me as in other men. Hence each individual is apart from every other, and we have all the same world before us in its essential outlines only because we have all the same mental forms. Thus the dualism which Kant got rid of so far as the opposition of things in space to ideas in the mind is concerned, returns in another form. Each human intelligence, having like mental forms, has in- deed a similar world before it, but still for each the world is different, because while the particulars and the forms are similar, the world as known is yet not the world as it is, but only as it appears to be. Hence the real world is again thrust beyond knowledge, and is distinguished from that which we know as noumenon from phenomenon. The only way out of this difficulty is to deny the subjectivity of human intelligence. The noumenal world of Kant must be regarded as the product of a mere abstraction from relation to intelligence. Distinguish between >. [chap. itelligence, ch belongs ed. In so Lt which is ■ element is al element, e mind as a all men in I posteriori, aal man, he tie concrete niversal ele- tiis point of ht are still I individual, a other men. ry other, and its essential same mental >t rid of so far ideas in the form. Each forms, has in- each the world iilars and the [S yet not the bo be. Hence id knowledge, 1 we know as ily way out ot vity of human of Kant must ,ere abstraction nauish between XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEOR K 341 1 the view of man as a part of the world he knows, and man as an intelligence comprehending the world, and we cannot any longer speak of any element of knowledge as passively communicated. Speaking from the point of view of individuality, the mental forms must be regarded as received, not less than the particulars to which the forms are applied ; speaking from the point of view of man as an intelligence, the particular is not less dependent on intelligence than the universal. Intelligence raises man above his mere individuality : the world consists of relations to intelligence, and intelligence itself is simply the world contemplated in its ideal aspect as spintual. 3. In developing his own theory, as we have seen, Kant is continually coming bacK to the point that the dualism of knowledge and reality is the root of all evil in philosophy ; and hence he is mainly interested in showing that the knowable world could not exist for us were it not that our intelligence supplies the universal element by which objects are constituted and connected. Bat, bravely as Kant sets his face against the separa- tion of subject and object, the intluence of the old dogmatic or dualistic point of view makes itself felt in the exposition of his theory. That th^ was inevitable may easily be understood from what ha& just been said in regard to the distinction of the a priori and the a postenon elements of knowledge. Accordingly, we find that the different parts of Kant's system are not connected so intimately as they ought 'o be. The great imperfection in his theory, or rather in his way of presenting it, is his want of the idea of development ; by which I do not mean, that he overlooks the evolu- tion of one living being from another, but that he isolates the various elements of knowledge from each r ^'■1 m m rr^ Itllll itlWl t :: ** - ' ^'j * . ' .^ *fr' • jjixif. i n.^M r- 342 A:/^A^r ^iVZ> i^/^: ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ii^ III; ^^'\ \i other and is oblityed to connect theui in an external way. For when the whole task of pliilosophy is summed up in a denionstraticn of the dependence of the objective world upon the forms of intelligence, thb' connection of the various elements which go to form knowable objects cannot be represented otherwise than as external or superficial. Kant accordingly neglects what may, after Comte, be called the dynamical aspect of the world. Starting from knowledge as already given in its completeness, he is contented to point out the various distinguishable elements which it implies. And not only does he not attempt to connect tliose elements by any inner law, but he denies that any such law can be found. Thus he represents space and time as two separate forms which as a matter of fact belong to the constitution of our intelligence on its perceptive side, but of which we can give no further account. So the various categories are functions of unity, armed with which thought is able to connect the manifold of sense supplied to it; but each category is regarded as complete and sejjarate in itself. And even the "I," as the supreme unity implied in all knowledge, is spoken of as if it were independent of the other elements which it combines together. It must be observed, however, that even in spite of himself, Kant recognizes a sort of logical development of knowledge. In setting forth one after another the principles which formulate the various concrete acts of knowledge by which the world is made intelligible for us, he follows, half-unconsciously, the natural evolution of intelligence, beginning with the mathematical or quantitative principles, and going on to the dynamical or regulative principles. But the want of development in his theory of knowledge can- not help imparting to it an imperfection in form and [chap. 1 external 3sophy i« mdeuce of ^eiice, th^j o to form iwise than y neglects ical aspect as already point out it implies, meet those at any such iQ and time fact belong 3 perceptive icount. So nity, armed manifold of regarded as en the "I," |e, is spoken nents which gd, however, zes a sort of letting forth irmulate the 3h the world aconsciously, finning "with IS, and going 3s. But the owledge can- in form and XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEORY. 313 even in substance that detracts from its conclusive- ness. For the ultimate proof of the ideahstic view of the world lies in the impossibility of separating any single element of knowledge from the rest with- out destroying the unity of the whole. When, however, there are numerous lacunae in a system, its constituent elements seem to be detached and arbi- trary. This is the reason, for example, why Kant's proofs of the principles of substance, causality and reciprocity have an air of incompleteness about them. Contenting himself with showing that each involves relations to self-consciousness, he seems to make up knowledge out of detached fragments. Only when substance is seen to involve causality, and both in unity to yield reciprocity, do we feel that we cannot deny one principle without denying the others. And the same remark applies to the interconnection of the categories of quantity, quality and modality, and to the continuous development of each of the more concrete categories from that wliich is next to it in concreteness. In making these remarks I have no intention of sug- gesting that the mere contemplation of a category com- pels us to see in it one more concrete than itself. From any given category nothing can be evolved but itself. The interconnection of which I speak is obtainable by viewing a category in its connection with the concrete objects to which it is applicable. The process by which the categories are isolated from the particular element of knowledge which gives them, in Kant's language, meaning and significance, is a process of abstraction, which needs to be corrected by a process of synthesis. Viewing the categories in their relation to objects, it may be showa that until we bring the world under the highest category of all, the category of self-con- If '.'J ■tnMVM - K t, I Al 344 K.-lNl' AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. m' \ v^\ k' f scious.iess, Nve have not adequately characterized it. In this sense alone, as I should say, is thought "dialecti- cal." The charactei-ization, for example, of existence by the mere category of ** being " is so utterly inade- quate as to compel us, when we reflect upon its inade- quacy, to see that for it must be substituted ever more concrete categories, until at last we have reached the highest category of all in "self-consciousness." Ab- stract and scholastic as such a logical evolution of categoric, ma' em to be, its importance cannot be overrated. Ilul Mr. Spencer, for example, seen that his " Unkh ^^ilij" is simply existence characterized as "being," the ej:^tiest of all the determinations recognized by intelligence to be imj)lied in knowable objects, he would have hesitated to elevate the Unknowable above the Knowable. Nay, had Kant himself seen that his thing-in-itself is only determin- able by this simplest of all categories, he might have escaped the danger of setting up the reality of such an empty abstraction as even possible. The systematic connexion, therefore, of the various categories or rela- tions to thought can alone assure us that we are, in any given case, characterizing a special aspect of the uni- verse adequately, and it is the absence of such con- nexion which gives the appearance of inconclusiveness to Kant's reasoning. It may be added that the rigid front which in the Critique the different categories present to each other, inevitably suggests that they are mere things of the mind, or abstractions. For, unless we see that each lower category is but a more or less inadequate form of rettection, by which we try to raise our knowledge to the height of real existence, the continuity of intellectual development must seem to be arrested in exclusive points. When, on the other s. [chap. XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEORY. 345 cterized it. t "dialecti- >f existence terly inade- m its inade- i\ ever more reached the iiess." Ab- evolutiou of e cannot be le, seen that characterized jterminations in knowable elevate the ty, had Kant Illy determin- Le might have ity of such an [le systematic ffories or rela- we are, in any ct of the uni- of such con- conclusiveness that the rigid •ent categories ests that they Tactions. For, ] is but a more y which we try real existence, ent must seem in, on the other hand, it is recognized that it is only in the comprehen- sion of all the ideal elements conspiring to constitute the universe as a whole, that we can attain to complete- ness of philosophical knowledge, it becomes appar- ent that the categories, although real determinations of existence so far as they go, are separated from each other only in so far as by reflection we separate them : in other words, that the advance of knowledge is con- tinually showing the inadequacy of each given way of looking at things. Knowledge is thus viewed as a process by which the human mind recognizes the im- perfection of a conception, and feels compelled to seek for one more perfect. The history of human thought, as embodied more or less adequately .t the succession of philosophical systems, is thus a vulr *le aid in the discovery of the order of logi a-, evolu- tion of the categories by which the vanout ' ealth of knowledge is systematized and developed. But in truth there is no single aspect of human ^i owledge from which the determinations of reality may be dis- covered ; nor is there any royal road to that discovery ; only by the insight of philosophical genius operating upon actual knowledge in all its aspects can anything like a complete system of philosophy be constructed. 4. I shall not attempt to show how all the categories of Kant's table may be connected with each other : but, in illustration of what has just been said, a few words on the interconnection of the categories of substance, cause and reciprocity, may not be out of place. In the determination of the real world by the con- ception of substance, the more simple determination of it as " something real " is presupposed ; for when we speak of a substance we are thinking of something as a complex of various properties or relations without i ♦>J S% If" ..(::! % i •MXlMf** 346 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. }\\\ l\\ which it would lose its reality. The accidental or superticial attributes of a thing may bo absent without detriment to its reality, but not the essential attributes which constitute its nature. Thus in the notion of substance there is implied the permanence of certain essjntial properties, notwithstanding the fugitiveness of accidental properties. But in thinking of an object as a substance, we accentuate the permanence rather than the capability of change, although both elements are involved in the conception. This is the point of view from wliich Kant, in the first analogy of experi- ence, treats of substance, and hence he remarks thr«t substance is one of the categories of relation rather because it is the condition of relation than because it of itself implies relation. Hence he speaks of the re- lations of an object as if they were superficial accidents of it, belonging rather to our apprehension than to the object. This separation of a thing from its relations, or of the permanent from change, arises from the sup position that the particular element of knowledge is somehow "given" in sense, while the universal element belongs to thought ; or, as we may also say, from the assumption that time belongs purely to our perceptive faculty. Ridding ourselves of this false contrast, we can see that the relations of an object are as essential as that to which they are related, and the conception of change as the conception of permanence. In fact, if we abstract from all the relations by which an object is constituted as real, we drop back into the mere con- ception of " something we know not what," which is the mere potentiality of an object. Substance, there- fore, implies the correlation of identity and difference, permanencv. and change. In the conception of cause, again, ve emphasize the :s. [chap. . ?,idental or mt without A attributes 3 notion of 5 of certain fugitiveness )f an object lence rather ith elements ihe point of y of experi- eniarks thr-t ation ratVier m because it :s of the re- -ial accidents 11 than to the its rehvtions, Tom the sup knowledge is orsal element jay, from the ur perceptive s contrast, we e as essential le conception nee. In fact, hich an object the mere con- hat," which is 3stance, there- and difference, emphasize the XI.] IMPERFECTION OE KANT'S THEOR Y. 347 relations or changes of things, rathei tliaii the identity or permanence of things. As Ktiut himself points out, every real change is an instance of causal r..;lation, and all change implies permanence. The relations by which u thing is constituted as substance, or the changes wliich a substance undergoes, therefore imply the conception of causality. To see this, we must be careful to note that in saying that substance is permanent, it is not meant tliat every individual object is permanent. An individual or sensible object is simply a certain sum of properties connoted by a name, and no object so con- ceived is permanent, as we all know. In other words, substance is ultimately a term for nature itself as a unity constituted by intelligence. Hence there is a distinction between the conception of an individual thing — a " substance " as we usually call it — and the conception of substance in the strict sense of the term. This distinction is responsible in large measure for the isolation of substance from causality. Kant, for example, gives as an instance of causality the judg- ment : " The sun warms the stone," while he regards the judgment : ** When the sun shines the stone grows warm," as not including the conception of causality. On the one side we have the sun, on the other side the stone, and each is independent of the other. And, of course, this is true enough in a sense ; but it nmst be observed that the sun and the stone, when isolated in this way, are not only not instances of causality, but they are not even instances of substantiality. Each is assumed as immediately given, and hence the relations implied in each are overlooked. The moment, however, we ask ivliat is meant by the terms ** sun " and " stone" the relations to other objects implied in each as real come to light. One of these relations is expressed ' kUI : 1 •P % '>»i 'A m I MMta iix ^ i V h -kMNt. S4H KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. n>\ in tlie jutljifinont : "Tiiu aun waiJMs the btono;" for part of the connotatiou of "sun " is its lieat-producint»' power, and part of the coiniotation of " stone " is its heat-rejeiving power. But only part of the connota- tit)n o** each is expressed in that judgment, i.e., only one ox the relations into which these two objects may enter. And this is what gives rise to the separation of the two conceptions of substance and causality. Every individual object is a sum of relations, and hence the complete nature of any given object is never ex- hausted in a particular relation. And the matter is made still more complicated by the fact that some objects are capable of entering into an intinity of par- ticular relations, while others are only capable of en- tering into a small number of relations. The sun, €.()., warms not only this object, the stone, but an infinity of other objects; whereas the stone is only capable of being warmed in a limited number of ways. Besides this particular relation of heat, the term '* sun " connotes many other relations of a different kind. At the same time, the sun has no properties except those involved in its relations to other objects ; and hence, not only does the property of producing heat imply causality, but all the other properties belonging to it. Only, then, in relation to the stone or some other object is the sun heat-producing at all. If, therefore, we suppose the sun, for the sake of simplicity, to have only the property of producing heat in this particular stone, we must say that it is a substance in virtue of its causality. Apart from this property it is only conceivable as "something, we know not what." Similarly, except as capable of being heated by the sun, the stone is likewise •' something, we know not what." Thus we have two CS. [chap. Htono ; " for [it-produeiuo- itone" is its the coimoia- 3nt, i.e., only objects uuiy le separation [id causality, ns, and hence is never e\- the matter is ct that some \tinity of par- apable of en- is. The sun, itone, but an stone is only mber of ways, eat, the term of a different no properties other objects ; of producing her properties n to the stone t-producing at for the sake y of producii^o' say that it is Apart from is "something, ept as capable one is likewise IS we have two XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KAIVrS THEOR Y. 349 "somethings" which in themselves arc irdistinguish- able ; the distinction falling between them Jis a certain relation or change. And there is but one relation or change : the heat of the sun is the same as the heat of the stone. Each instance of causality is thus simply one of the relations or changes of a substance considered apart from the other relations or changes which deter- mine it. Thus causality is reality contemplated aE changing in its relations, as substance is reality con- templated as permanent; and as permanence and change are correlatives implying each other, substance and causality are correlative conceptions, logically distin- guishable but really inseparable. Finally, the category of reciprocity is just the synthe- sis of the correlative conceptions of substance and caus- ality. The sun warms the stone, but the stone must have the capacity of being warmed or the sun could not act. Each object is considered in the first place as indepen- dent, and then as brought into relation with the other. As we have seen, however, the objects are not independ- ent in so far they are considered as causally connected : change is relative to substance, and there are not two changes, but only one. Substance is real because of its relations ; each of these relations implies a causal con- nection or change ; and each change is the product of a relation between two objects which only exist as causal in that relation. Thus substance implies cause, and reciprocity comprehends both. 5. When we discard the opposition of a priori and a posteriori, form and matter, intelligence and nature, the sepavh ion of pure from mixed categories is at once seen to be untenable. Assuming that there is a fixed number of categories belonging to the constitution of the understanding, Kant is led to speak of the primary {\ 'i. i ' k 350 XANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. I' \i\ ■ conceptions involved in the system of external nature as derivative, and in a sense empirical. The conceptions of matter, motion, force, and reciprocal action, presuppose the categories of quantity, quality, relation, and modal- ity, but they merely borrow from the latter their a jornn cliaracter, while in themselves they are empirical. When, however, it is seen that there is nc ground for such a contrast of a priori and empirical, the concep- tions presupposed in external nature can no longer be placed on a different level from those presupposed in nature in general. Both classes of conceptions are abstract or a priori, when viewed apart from the con- crete element of knowledge ; both, are conditions of real knowledge, and therefore equally constitutive of reality. Nay, it may even be said that the conceptions of matter, motion, and the other categories employed in Physics are more real, because more concrete, than the correspondent categoric? supposed to be in a peculiar sense constitutive of real knowledge. The former can be said to be "derived" from the latter, only in so far as the more concrete conception logic- ally presupposes the less concrete. In a systematic presentation of the pu re conceptions involved in know- ledge, speaking generally, we must put the categories of Kant's table, as less perfect definitions of real exis- tence, earlier than those signalized in the Metaphysic of Nature. Thus the conception of substance will precede that of matter, causality that of force, recip- rocity that of reciprocal action. In this way we get rid of the illusion, suggested by the language of the Critique, and partly shared in by Kant himself, that the pure categories are somehow origi- nated by the understanding itself, while the cate- gories of nature are obtained by going beyond the 75. [chap. al nature as nceptions of , presuppose , and raodal- tter tlieir a ,re empirical. ground for , the concep- lo longer be esupposed in iceptions are rom the con- conditions of onstitutive of le conceptions ries employed lore concrete, osed to be in ►wledge. The )m the latter, iception logic- a systematic lived in know- the categories Ls of real exis- he Metaphysic substance will of force, recip- this way we the language in by Kant iomehow origi- hile the cate- Big beyond the XI.] IMPERFECTION OF KANT'S THEOR Y. .^51 understanding to the perceptions of sense. All categories, as Kant himself virtually admits, are dis- covered only by reflection upon actual or concrete knowledge, and hence there is no proper reason for distinguishing one class as pure and original from another class supposed to be mixed and derivative. And this simplification allows us to bring philosoph}' and the special sciences into closer connection with each other ; for while no advance of science can pos- sibly bring to light knowledge which is free of relation to intelligence, that is no reason why the development of scientific knowledge should not teach us to systema- tize our knowledge by more and more perfect concep- tions. As a matter of fact, philosophy always has been, and always must be, moro or less dependent upon the progress of the physical sciences, as the latter have been dependent upon philosophy. The earlier philoso- phers endeavoured to systematize knowledge by cate- gories which were necessarily meagre and inadequate, just because the special branches of knowledge were in their infancy. On Kant's view we cannot explain why they should have been entirely destitute, as they show themselves to have been, of such conceptions as cause and force ; whereas, in recognizing that philosophy formulates the relations to intelligence manifested in knowledge as it has so far been developed at the time, we at once retain the spirituaHty of the universe and allow for the process by whi ^h new ways of determin- ing it are gradually discovered. \ \ 'I ■'V, ■11 W^ h'l n 352 CHAPTER XII. EXAMINATION OF KANt's DISTINCTION OP SENSE, IMAGINATION, AND UNDERSTANDING. n[''HE general remarks in last chapter on the incom- plete development of Kant's theory of knowledge will perhaps become more intelligible by a considera- tion of each of the elements of knowledge distinguished in the Ciitique. These elements may be roughly characterized as those due to sense, to imagination, and to understanding; or, looking at the elements themselves instead of their source, the manifold of sense, the forms of perception, the schemata of im- agination, the categories of the understanding, and pure self-consciousness. These I shall take up in their order, endeavouring to point out wherein Kant, in departing from the critical point of view, mars the unity and completeness of his sy.stem. 1. The manifold of sense is attributed by Kant to the sensibility, as a purely receptive faculty. This naturally suggests that sense is an independent faculty, giving to us one special kind of knowledge, as imagina- tion and understanding give other special kinds of knowledge. The product of sense, however, is held by Kant, notwithstanding the apparently psychological distinction of different faculties, to be merely an ele- , IMAGINATION, n the incom- of knowledge \T a considera- distinguished y be roughly ) hnagination, the elements e manifold of lemata of im- tanding, and ake up in their rein Kant, in iew, mars the :ed by Kant to faculty. This )endent faculty, Ige, as imagina- )ecial kinds of rever, is held by y psychological merely an ele- xn.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 353 ment in knowledge, not a particular kind of knowledge. At the same time one cannot employ imperfect forms of thought without being more or less the victim of them ; and hence, Kant is led to admit that a series of subjective sensations constitutes the real element in our inner life. Had he clearly distinguished the different senses in which we may speak of sensation, this incon- sistent admission might have been avoided. By sensa- tion may be meant (1) a series of animal affections, (2) the immediate apprehension of a real object, (3) a series of individual feelings in consciousness, (4) the particular element in real knowledge. A few words on each of these meanings may help to make clear the confusion in Kant's theory to which I have referred. (1.) From the point of view of purely animal life, sensation is simply a number of affections of the indi- vidual animal, or changes in the animal organism pro- duced by its reaction on external stimuli. This is the point of view from which Fechner and his followers distinguish the two "aspects" of the organism as ner- vous excitation and sensation. And of course the main question which has here to be discussed is the physical conditions under which different sensations arise, and especially the relations of the nervous struc- ture to external stimuli, on the one hand, and to the function of sensation on the other ; to which may be added an enquiry into the way in which a given type of organism has in course of time been gradually developed, and has become better adapted to be the instrument of such sensations. (2.) From the phenomenal point of view sensation is the apprehension of a reality regarded as immedi- ately presenting itself to us. It is in fact but another name for ordinary observation, as distinguished from I i*'^ U\ 11 t'il i ^h\ ■MMmMm ''"'^iBiiiV'iniiiiii 354 KANT AND fflS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. I \j> scientific generalization. In this sense of the term sensation is regarded as deahng with external things assumed to be directly revealed to us without inference or mediation of any kind. The distinction of external objects from the individual who apprehends thera by his senses is here taken for granted. Objects are therefore supposed to exist as determined in them- selves, and sensation to consist in the direct apprehen- sion of them as individual. (3.) Sensation is regarded by ordinary psychology as the medium by which we come in contact with real things existing independently of our sensations. Each individual thing or event is supi^osed to be revealed through an immediate feeling in consciousness. Thus sensation is endowed with two opposite and mutually exclusive characteristics. On the one hand it is an immediate apprehension of real individual objects and events, and on the other hand, it is a number of li j'ings coming and going perpetually in consciousness. (4.) Sensation in the strict critical meaning is, from the side of the object, the particular element known, and from the side of the subject, the par^icukr element in knowledge. The 29rt?*^«'c?/7ar must b^ carefiUy dis- tinguished from the indi'd-al. The former is merely an element in li:nowle(i::^e, t'; flatter a concrete act or product of knowledge. The separate properties of a thing, e.g., are particular ; the thing as a union of these properties is individual. Of the various meanings of sensation just dis- tinguished it is evident that only the last can have any proper place in a theory of knowledge, the object of which is to formulate the elements that combine -to produce actual knowledge. (1) A series of organic affec- tions may indeed be considered as taken into considera- [chap. XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 356 ' the term rnal things At inference of external is them by Objects are ;d in them- 3t apprehen- sychology as tct with real tions. Each be revealed sness. Thus Bind mutually land it is '^^ a objects and ber of t\ ^VWigs isness. saning is, from ement known, icuUr iement , caref iliy dis- rmer is merely ;oncrete act or 3roperties of a I union of these ition just dis- ^t can have any ^, the object of hat combine -to of organic affec- into considera- tion in a mefcaphysic, but only in so far as metaphysic deals with the conception of the organic as distinguished from the conception of the inorganic world, or as it deals with the organic beings comprehended in the universe of objects which exist in relation to intelli- gence. But, in so far as animal sensation is viewed relatively to the possibility of knowledge, an investiga- tion into its nature belongs to empirical psychology, not to metaphysic : being taken as a datum given in observation, no enquiry is made as to its relation to con- sciousness. Sensation is therefore so far regarded as a series of feelings running parallel with a series of nervous excitations, which again are dependent upon external stimuli. There is simply a given series of changes that are independent of consciousness in the same sense in which the motions of matter, or the vibrations of the nervous system are independent of it. The distinction of subject and object is here quite out of place, since that distinction involves the relation of a knowing subject to a known object. (2) Sensation, as the observation or apprehension of concrete objects, is spoken of by Kant in various passages ; but in these, as I understand him, he is referring to the data on which a philosophical explanation of knowledge must be based. In the Prolegomena, for example, he speaks of the sun and of a stone as objects of sense, here employ- ing the term sensation in its ordinary, every-day o epta- tion. (3) When we pass to the third meaning of st . .-ation we enter the region of the Critique. Kant iDf consciousness, )pposing percep- on and a percept the same thing of the subject, e of the object, wing self to the ion nor percept ; ,, perception and iicrete unity. It XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 357 is only from the dualistic point of view that we can oppose the one to the other : from the critical point of view, there is merely a logical distinction between them. Even if Kant in the Critique were explaining the conditions of knowledge in the individual man, it would still be true that a mere series of sensations is nothing for us as intelligent beings. Subject and object being correlative, perception and percept are mere abstractions when taken in isolation from each other. The source of Kant's mistake has been already indicated in the remarks on the two-fold meaning of the "manifold of sense." Distinguishing between observation as the initial stage in knowledge, and sensation as an element in the known world, Kant yet allows himself to apply to sensation, in the latter sense, attributes that are true of it only in the former sense. As observation, sensation is taken to be an appre- hension of real external objects. Hence the individual man is regarded as passively apprehending individual things as they lie before him. Even when he has shown that the known world is not independent of con- sciousness, Kant is still inliuenced by the idea that sensation is purely receptive. On sensation, as he thinks, we are dependent for the concrete filling or "matter" of the categories, and accordingly, while thought is active or spontaneous, sense is passive or receptive. But if the Critique, as I have tried to show, is, in spite of its imperfections, a systematic treatment of the elements in real knowledge, or, what is the same thing, in the real world as known, there is no propriety in speaking of seiise as receptive. Receptive it can be only if there is a world lying beyond intelligence, which acts upon a separate mind, and so calls up one feeling after another. But such an unknowable world has no M 4\ mmtc 398 XANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. ^r ( I reason for existence, if the world is really relative to intelligence. It is true, of course, that each of us as an individual man, obtains his knowledge in successive parts, and from this point of view we may be said to be receptive ; but from no point of view can we be said to be receptive of mere feelings. The knowledge which comes to me in fragments is not the less con- crete : it is, in Kant's language, not a mere " manifold" but a manifold reflected on a unity ; it is not pure sen- sation but sensation informed by thought. Sensation as a logical element in knowledge is implied in ordinary observation, but it cannot be identified with it. When we come to explain what the first stage of knowledge moans for us as conscious beings, we are compelled to see that, in real knowledge, there is not a passive apprehen- sion of a detached manifold, but a real comprehension of a manifold in unity. If I observe an object as a concrete thing, I at once know it as one and as many. If I perceive a congeries of objects in space, I comprehend them all in the unity of a single consciousness. I can- not apprehend a mere manifold of sense,' because real apprehension is not possible except as the combined action of intelligence by which the universal " I " itlates to itself a real concrete. Thus ordinary know- ledge, and much more scientific knowledge, manifests the action of intelligence in the formation for me of a real universe. While seeking to rid himself entirely of dualism by carrying over nature into intelligence, Kant yet confuses the abstract element of the manifold or particular, with the concrete object revealed in percep- tion. He does not mean to do so, and he shows us how we are to escape from doing so, but in hi.s view of sense as receptive, he shows that he has not entirely freed himself from the trammels of the false philosophy ;V. [chap. \f relative to Lch of us as in successive ty be said to w can we be B knowledge the less con- e " manifold" not pure sen- Sensation as d in ordinary th it. When of knowledge mpelled to see 3ive apprehen- iprehension of it as a concrete 8 many. If I I comprehend isness. I can- I,' because real the combined universal " 1 " )rdinary know- dge, manifests on for me of a iself entirely of elligence, Kant he manifold or aled in percep- 1(1 he shows us b in his view of las not entirely false philosophy XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 369 against which he turns all his strength. It is only in consequence of the mistaken attribution of passivity to sense, that Kant contrasts the series of internal feelings with external things, even while he is at great pains to show that known objects are not external to con- sciousness. The fact that our knowledge of objects comes to us in succession does not imply that we have a knowledge of mere feelings as contrasted with a knowledge of objects. It is only from a confusion between sensation as an element in known objects, and sensation as vaguely identified with ordinary observa- tion, that we seem entitled to oppose the inner series of feelings to outer things in space. When, in our ordinary knowledge, we regard things outside of us as immediately apprehended, it is of course natural to say, that turning our thoughts inward on our apprehen- sions we find that there is a series of ideas distinct from the objects apprehended. But Kant himself points out that this series of states is only known in relation to external things. His mistake is to allow that, notwithstanding the relation of the sensa- tions to the objects, we must still regard the two as separate and distinct objects of consciousness. In what are they separated ? I have an apprehension of a bril- liant object, but the apprehension is not separate from the object ; it is in fact simply the object viewed from the side of the subject. Hence apprehensions are not a distinct series of feelings in time, as distinguished from the objects apprehended which are at once in space and in time. On the contrary, tlie apprehension is only a logically distinguishable element in the object, as the object is a logically distinguishable element in the apprehension. Perception is thus, taken as a whole, not an element in knowledge, but the know- \ '.1 t v ii ■B ?^?e*1^— .' 360 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [CHAJ*. \> ledge of a concrete object. Kant recognizes this relativity of internal and external so far; but he is unable to liberate himself from the notion that objects are somehow, in his own language, "given" to us. They may indeed be said to be " given" to us as indi- viduals, since knowledge is real only when it is not a mere arbitrary creation, but a comprehension of a concrete object in its real relations. But they are not so " given " that there is, on the one side, a series of feelings in time, and on the other side, a number of objects in space. Kant, therefore, makes the mistake of allowing the mere series of feelings to survive, even after he has shown that all real objects are relative to our knowledge of them. And this ho does, because he confuses sensation as a term for the particular element in known objects and in knowledge with ..v.iisation as a series of particular feelings coming and going in the in- dividual mind. He denies, indeed, that individual objects are given, but he fails to recognize that, with the transference of objects as determinate to conscious- ness, there is no longer any propriety in saying that anything is " given." Or, at least, if we are to speak of anything as given, it must be, not from the critical point of view, in which the elements of real knowledge are contemplated, but from the psychological point of view, in which we look at the process by which know- ledge grows up for us as individual men, limited by a particular animal nature. (4) Ridding ourselves, then, of this remnant of dogmatism, by which Kant has allowed himself to be confused, we may accept the view that sensa- tion, in the strict critical sense, supplies the particular element in knowledge. It would perhaps be better in this connection, although, to discard the mis- f'l XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTAND J NG. 3(51 Nothing is more leading term aunsation altogother. important tl.an to recognize the concrete unity im- plicu' in every act of knowledge, and in every known object, and this is all the more important, that it brings out the essential relativity of the elements of real knowledge. For, when we clearly realise that every real object is concrete, distinguishable in one aspect as a nmltitude of particulars or abstract deter- minations, the way is prepared for the comprehension of the particular and the universal elements as together combining in the individual. Thus we get rid of the fiction of a universe existing apart from intelligence, while a w iame time we take due note of the fact that the mdividual man no more constructs the world than he constructs himself. 2. I have already hinted that Kant's conception of space and time, as forms of perception, supremely important as it is in its ultimate issues, cannot be accepted vvithout modification. To limit space and time to human intelligence as perceptive, or at least to all possible intelligences which are dependent for the particular element of knowledge on the constitu- tion of their perceptive faculty, is to make a restriction which is at once untenable and inconsistent with the spirit of Kant's own theory of knowledge. Space and time are held to belong to our intelligence, because they are a priori, or independent of observation, and they are held to be perceptions because they are not abstract universals but individuals. Now (1) the fact that space and time are independent of special observations, only shows that they are very abstract elements of the real world. As space is, in the language of Mr. Spencer, the " abstract of all relations of co-existence," and time "the abstract of \ ' V , ! 'm 'i IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) V /> V. f/. 1.0 Ifi I.I 1.25 2.8 " lis lllllio 2.5 IIIIIM 11= 1.4 IIIIII.6 V <^ /^ "'^ ■ >* * Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 873-4503 ^ ^ Jm. .1^ -J«.3a^B S '^ ' '^I ' .-ii^tfuL * 362 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. all relations of succession," both are necessarily pre- supposed in any knowledge of concrete things. All parts of space being homogeneous, a determination of one part is virtually a determination of every other. But what this shows is not that space and time belong to intelligence, while individual objects do not, but merely that their parts as absolutely simple admit of no variation or differonce. When we contemplate knowledge as in process of formation, it is no doubt true that spatial and temporal relations may be an- ticipated, while more specific relations do not admit of anticipation. But the reason of this is not that the former belong to the constitution of our percep- tive faculty, while concrete things belong to nature. No doubt it is in virtue of our intelligence that we can determine the relations of space and time, and so form a science of mathematics, but it is equally in virtue of intelligence that we are capable of knowing the objects which fill them. The contrast of forms of perception and objects perceived rests upon the supposition that while intelligence is in a sense mani- fested in nature as a whole, its special work is shown only in the a jyrion or universal side of knowledge, as distinguished from the a posteriori or particular side of knowledge, which belongs to nature itself. But in this view two conceptions are set side by side which cannot be made to harmonise with each other. Seeing that a knowable world, virtually assumed to be un- knowable, is a contradiction in terms, Kant rightly holds that all real objects are relative to our conscious- ness of them. As however the particular element in knowledge is still said to be "given," intelligence in perception is supposed to be receptive. But it soon appears that this explanation is not quite satisfactory -<'l 1- ICS. [chap. cessarily pre- things. All ietermination f every other, d time belong J do not, but [nple admit of s contemplate it is no doubt IS may be an- do not admit is is not that of our percep- )ng to nature, gence that we and time, and it is equally in ble of knowing itrast of forms rests upon the a sense mani- work is shown I knowledge, as articular side of itself. But in e by side which other. Seeing imed to be un- 3, Kant rightly ,0 our conscious- cular element in " intelligence in e. But it soon uite satisfactory xn.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 363 when applied to space and time, since their deter- minations, as independent of special apprehension, cannot properly be said to be " given.' Kant, however, misled by the confusion of the receptiv- ity for knowledge of the individual man with the receptivity of intelligence in relation to a particular manifold of sense, separates between space and time as forms and particular spaces and times, supposing the former to belong to intelligence and the latter to be in some sense given to intelligence. But as even the determinations of space and time are prior to determinate objects, both the forms of perception and the determination of those forms are held to belong to intelligence, but only to intelligence in so far as it is receptive. Such a conception conjoins incompatible at- tributes. The assumption that space and time are mere forms of perception evidently rests on the preconception that to intelligence in itself there can belong only an abstract universal. But there is no proper reason for such a restriction. Space and time conceived of as unities are mere abstract elements in knowledge, and therefore mere potentialities of determinate spaces and times. The distinction of potential and actual, universal and particular, necessary as it is to the dis- crimination of the elements of knowledge, must not be taken to carry with it any opposition of intelligence in itself and nature in itself. Hence, space and time, as forms, must be brought into the closest relation with space and time as determinate. A pure universal is no real object of knowledge : neither is a mere deter- minateness. This Kant clearly sees, but as he is still under the fascination of the idea that only the abstract universal belongs to intelligence, he separates space and time as forms from their determinations. But if the ■ I ■I I') , »■ 4 ■ > j i^wMa ■» iiilWii J Is M. I*.' 3G4 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. task of philosophy is to point out the elements implied in any real act of knowledge, it seems evident that we must not suppose one element in knowledge to belong exclusively to intelligence, and another element to be externally revealed to intelligence. Each space is a unity in difference, a universal reflected in a particular. A point, as Kant himself remarks, is simply the ter- mination of a line, and hence any number of points is a number of nothings ; a line is th etermination of a surface, but no number of lines will make a surface ; a surface is the boundary of a solid, but a solid cannot be formed out of surfaces. Each part of space im- plies a limit that is nothing apart from that which is limited. The particular units of space are units, in fact, only when they are related to the unity in which they coalesce. Space and time are only forms when they are regarded as pure unities ; and pure unities are not real objects of knowledge, but merely the universal aspect of a real object, taken by itself. It is evident, then, that space and time are not to be regarded as mere forms, but as relatively abstract relations of the real world. They are just the simplest point of view from which the real world or real know- ledge can be contemplated, when we are determining the elements implied in actual knowledge. But when we have got rid of the arbitrary opposition of that which belongs to intelligence, and that which is exter- nally added to intelligence ; and when we see that the question is not as to the conditions of knowledge in the individual man, but as to the conditions of knowledge in general ; we also see that Kant's view of space and time as forms of human intelligence is inconsistent with his own theory when developed to its true issue. This cs. [chap. XII.] S^NSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 365 aents implied dent that we Ige to belong element to be ih space is a L a particular, aply the ter- ber of points f3rmination of ike a surface ; a, solid cannot of space im- n that which ace are units, to the unity ime are only unities ; and lowledge, but )ject, taken by 3 are not to be ively abstract st the simplest or real know- re determining re. But when )sition of that which is exter- ve see that the lowledge in the 3 of knowledge w of space and iconsistent with [•uc issue. This becomes still more manifest when we consider space and time as perceptions. (2) Space and time are held to be perceptions, because they are not abstract conceptions, but individual concretes. Attention has already been called to the fact that they are individual only when we regard them as determined to particular spaces and times. As forms, they are not perceptions, but only the potentiality of perceptions. An individual is a unity of the universal and the particular, and hence space and time can only be said to be individual when as unities they are so reflected in particular parts as to form individuals. Kant, however, still holds that as perceptions they are somehow " given." Although he maintains that they are constructions based upon pure or a prion percep- tions, he yet supposes them to be receptively appre- hended when they are viewed in relation to the concrete things to which they apply. As informing the manifold of sense, itself supposed to be "given" to us, they belong to theconcrete side of knowledge, if not in them- selves, at least in their application to real concretes. The forms of space and time are called out and deter- mined only on occasion of the presentation of a given manifold, and therefore they belong to the receptive side of intelligence. If they were not so called out, they would slumber for ever in the inind as mere potentialities. Now this is manifestly only true if we look at them as forms belonging to each individual's intelligence. The world of objects as informed by space and time has then to be separated from the real world not so informed, and the latter be- comes unknowable. The assumption underlying this view of space and time as perceptions somehow given to us virtually prevents us from explaining how we can .H m IM. LJ.. .'X ' lB 'i iJ " i¥mt ^^ ro- ductive, but as productive. It acts on tho form of time, and by so doing determines it in general ways. Thus it does not come after the presentation of indi- vidual things to sense, coj)ying their general features, but is lofiiealli/ prior to our knowledge of tlit) things of sense. But, just as ho accepts the ordinary view that the " matter " of sense is given, even when so altering the account of the relation of intelligence and nature as to make the supposition meaningless, so he figures imagin- ation to himself not as simply the logical determination of intelligence in relation to nature, but as a process taking place in time. Now it seems plain enough that imagination cannot properly be at once that which de- termines time, and that which is itself limited by the very determinations which it is itself conceived of as originating. If the actual knowledge of real things can only be explained by supposing a process by which the manifold of sense is determined in time in certain general ways, it is absurd to say that imagination is itself under limits of time, and irrelevant to say that all our know- ledge comes to us in succession. We cannot know our- selves as individuals to be under limitati- of time in knowing, except in so far as the imagination determines us to those limits. To point out that our mental life is conditioned by the form of time as determinate, is true enough, but it is a remark from the point of view of the individual, not a remark in place in a theory of the conditions of intelligence as such. Here again Kant is misled by the influence of that psychological Idealism from which he struggles so hard to be free. Havinsr first conceived of time as a more form of our V. IcHAI'. in object of knowledge, n as ropvo- ■ho form of meral ways, tion of indi- ral features*, •lu) things of ry view that I 80 altering d nature as to Tures imagin- letermination as a process a enough that hat which de- limited by the (nceived of as eal things can by which the jertain general is itself under all our know- not know our- of time in ion determines [r mental life is •minate, is true ,int of view of n a theory of Here again psychological lard to be free, i-re form of our XII.] SH/VS/i AXD UNDEKSTAND/.Va. 37.1 Honsibility, and the "manifold" as somohow "given" ns, or passively received, ho is compollod to brin|L,' ttic nianifold and the form into connection by a device that savours too much of an afterthought. The form lies ready in tlio mind, or rather the mind exists apart from nature with its form of time, and the manifold of sense is then given from without. The internal form and the external manifold nmst, however, be brought into relation in some way. But a mere universal form, and a mere manifold of sense, cannot come together except through a process of synthesis in time. Tho form of time nmst bo determined, and the manifold of sense is no determination of it, but only of tho external reality. It is to ex[)lain this determination that the imagination is introduced. Having the form of time as potential, and receiving the manifold of sense, we go through the parts of the manifold one after the other, and so determine them. Without this successive synthesis, therefore, the form cannot be brought into relation with the manifold. There is here manifestly an intermixture of tho critical and the psychological points of view. And it is not difficult to see that two heterogeneous elements are mechanically conjoined without being really fused into one. Looking at imagination as a phase in the phenomenal evolution of knowledge, it is of course correct to say that it implies a synthesis of individual images, just as perception implies a synthesis of indi- vidual objects. But when we attempt, philosophically to explain wliat is implLd in this phase of our knowledge, we must recognize that it involves the concrete unity of the universal and the particular, whether we look at the object imagined or at the imagination of the object. There are of course imasfinations that are merelv arbi- [\ ■I A ; > 'i ; ■II I ■" i- ) :vsssiMM««riiN i;;^] 374 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. CHAP. traiy coinlnnations of incongruous elements of per- ception ; but an examination of the distinction of real from fictitious imagination belongs to psychology, not to metaphysic. Imagination, as an actual phase of knowledge, therefore implies the essential correlativity of ititelligence and its object. On the other hand, imagination, in the critical sense, does not deal with concrete objects, but merely with an element in con- crete objects. Finding that every individual object exists only in relation to intelligence, we are compelled to recognize that there is in every real act of knowledge a particular element and a universal element. The l)articular element, as we have seen, Kant attributes to sense, the universal element to thought. The mere name is of no consequence, but it is of great importance to recognize that the particular element is not less necessary to knowledge and to known objects than the universal element. But if this is so, we must not only take note of the particular and of the universal, but of the relation between them. Now, all this is implied in imagination as a phase of knowledge, as it is implied in every act of intelligence whatever. Hence Kant is not entitled to say that the pure imagination is conditioned by time. Separating in thought the particular element from the universal element, we must yet take note of their relation. Imagination is simply in effect this relation of the two elements of knowledge. Kant, however, conceives of it as a faculty or process distinct from thought. But if all real knowledge implies a union of partic dar and universal to form the individual, there is no propriety in bringing in a special faculty to ex- plain what is already explained. Whether, therefore, we are determining relations of space or time ; whether we are connecting concrete properties in the unity of ICS. LcHAr. X.I.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. .{7r» eiits of per- actiou of real jrchology, not ual phase of , correlativity other hand, not deal with emeiit in con- ividual object are compelled b of knowledge element. The it attributes to lit. The mere •eat importance 3iit is not less )bjects than the 3 must not only Luiversal, but of lis is implied in it is implied in lice Kant is not n is conditioned rticular element ake note of their ect this relation Kant, however, ;s distinct from iplies a union of individual, there al f\iculty to ex- ether, therefore, time; whether in the unity of individual things ; or whether we are considering material bodies as moving, as manifesting force, and as acting and re-acting; in all these cases we must recognize the necessary relativity of the particular and the universal in the individual. Lastly, Kant, so far mixing up the phenomenal with the metaphysical point of view, is naturally under the influence of the psychological conception of imagination as a separate faculty of knowledge. Imagination, Hf- Kant with great shrewdness points out, is at once a universalizing and an individualizing faculty. It uni- versalizes by drawing a sort of monogram of an indi- vidual thing, which as an outline or sketch applies to all objects of the same species; it individualizes because it enables us to realize our conceptions sufficiently to «ee that they are applicable to real things. Thus it is a sort of mediator between conception and perception. Invagination, then, is not merely the faculty by which images of individual things are presented to us, but the faculty by which images are stripped of their ]3eculiar features, and reduced to schemata. These schemata of individual things are however different from the transcendental schemata. The points of ngrcement are mainly these. In the first place, the empirical schema reduces individual perceptions to general outlines or pictures; the transcendental schema determines the manifold of sense to universal modes of time. In the second place, the empirical schema as a general outline of an individual thing, giv'es definiteness to an abstract conception ; the transcendental schema determines the category or form of thought to uni- versal modes of time, which combine with the manifold of sense to constitute known objects. The differences between them are however not less marked. In the v 1 i y 5 v ICJlluifc'V^ SS ; WBL ^B< i <' mM I^BI' * H^^Mit> IRi ) Cw* (1 i |m|9|1 t II ^ 1 1,'' 376 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. first ])lace, the empirical schema is an outline of an individual thing regarded as givon in apprehension ; the transcendental schema is a universal determination of the form of time, and therefore known individual things presuppose it. In the second place, the cm- l)irical schema is a realizing in a general outline of an abstract conception lying ready made in the mind ; the transcendental schema is a determining of a primary conception or category which belongs to the constitution of thought, but is in itself merely an element in know- ledge or in known objects. Lastly, the empirical schema comes after perception of individual things; the transcendental schema logically precedes the per- ception of individual things. To sum up these differ- ences in a word, the empirical schema has reference to individual concretes, which it presupposes ; the trans- cendental schema has reference to individual concretes presupposing it. Thus while the empirical schema really supposes knowledge of individuals to be already possessed, the transcendental schema explains how such knowledge is possible. Now as the transcendental schema ought to be simply one of the elements in knowledge or known objects, we must discard the resemblances of the tw kinds of schema as superficial. Kant, however, attempts to assimilate them. And the point of abso- lute agreement to his mind is, that in both we give determination of a general kind to conceptions, and to both the sensible element is "given." But the determinateness in each is of quite a different kind, and the sensible element is also different. In the one case, it is a determinate element, in the othei*, u determinate representation ; in the one, the sensibK; is the particular element in knowledge, in the other, it o CS. [chap. itline of an prehension ; ^termination 1 individual tce, the em- jutline of an e mind ; the »f a primary I constitution ent in know- he empirical [dual things; 3des the per- . these ditfer- s reference to js ; the trans- tual concretes irical schenuv to be already ains how such ought to he ore or known es of the two mt, however, ^oint of abso- both we give iceptions, and R," But the rent kind, and In the one the other, a the sensible n the other, it XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. .'577 is sensible or concrete individuals. Now an element in knowledge has no reality apart from the other elements which go to constitute knowledge, whereas a determinate representation is already the repn ^entji- tion of reality. Moreover, the particular element in knowledge is nothing apart from the other elements of knowledge, while a concrete individual already implies the combination of the different elements of knowledge. Ih determining the elements of knowledge we must therefore start from ordinary knowledge as completed, and hence we have nothing to do with the conditions under which knowledge is possible for the individual man. Accordingly, imagination can only be taken as a term for the process of relating the elements of knowledge to each other. Whether that knowledge comes to the individual in instalments or all at once, does not alter the character of the kuowledoe itself ; and hence we must discard considerations connected with tbe way in which knowledge is obtained by us as individuals, and confine our attention to the nature of the knowledge so obtained. In short, imagination, in the true critical sense, is simply a term for the relation between subject and object, the universal and the particular. The determination of time is therefore but one instance of the activity by which intelligence suirounds itself with a world of its own construction. The same elements are implied in the determination of space, in the determination of matter, of motion, of force, nay, in the simplest determination of an external object as a congeries of properties. Everywhere, and in all known objects, the same process of referring the particular to the universal is implied. Kant is pre- vtmted from taking this view, because lie cannot get rid qf the idea that time is a mere form of the human f -A ; \(> 378 KAiVT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS CHAP. \\n ■ X intelligence, and that the manifold of sense (tlie particular) is somehow " given " or comes to intelli- gence from without. But time, like space, is, as 1 have tried to show, one of the simplest determinations of the real world ; and hence the supposition that space and time have any more claim to be referred to intelligence than other objects of perception is untenable. 4. We have seen that, when interpreted from the point of view which the Critique tirst made possible, the manifold of sense is properly a term for the particular element in knowledge, that the distinc- tion of space and time as forms from individual spaces and times implies the reflection of the universal on the particular, and that imagination is virtually the process by which the particular in its various modes is related to the universal. We have now to consider Kant's account of the understanding as a faculty of combining conceptions into judgments. It will be advisable to look first at conceptions. The following are the senses in which the term " conception " may be employed. (L) In the development of knowledge in time the conceptual view of the world succeeds the imagina- tive, as the latter is preceded by the perceptive or observational. Conception in this sense is distin- guished from imagination, as abstract from figurate representation. At the stage of conception individual facts are run uj) under universal laws. The changes in the material universe, for example, are brought under the conception of gravitation, by means of which they are all combined in the unity of a single law. This law may be called abstract, not because it is a mere general or abstract conception, obtained by elimination of all the differences of material bodies, '.V. [chap. XII.] SE.VSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 379 sense (tbe to intelli- e, is, as I erminations )sition that be referred rceptiou is reted tVom tirst made a term for the distinc- idual spaces 'ersal on the y the process ,es is related sider Kant's )f combining advisable to re the senses mployed. in time the lie imagina- lerceptive or 36 is distin- L'om figurate )n individual The changes are brought )y means of a single law. cause it is a obtained by terial bodies, but because it formulates only certain select aspects of nature, to the exclusion of other aspects equally real. The law of gravitation tells us nothing in regard to the chemical, physiological or psychological relations of existences, but picking out the motions of bodies relatively to each other, it combines them all under a single conception. Hence there is a multiplicity of conceptions or laws, corresponding to the varied aspects of the real universe. (2) By conception, again, cini)irical psychology means a general idea, the pro- duct of a process of abstraction by which the points of diiference in a given number of individual objects are gradually eliminated, and their points of agree- ment gathered together into a unity. It is in this sense that formal logic speaks of conception. By immediate perception, as it is supposed, concrete objects existing independently of consciousness are given to thought, and are then worked up into con- ceptions, which include under them all the individual things having common attributes. (3) Pure concep- tions or categories are universal forms belonging to the constitution of the understanding, by means of which the manifold of sense is individualized and reduced to the unity of known objects and connexions of objects. These pure conceptions agree with abstract conceptions in the following points. In the first place, an abstract conception combines individual objects or concei)tions less abstract than itself; a pure conception combines a manifold of sense. In the second place, an abstract conception 'reduces individuals or species to the unity of a general idea ; a pure conception reduces a mani- fold of sense to the unity of a concrete object. The points of difference, again, are these. In the first place, an abstract conception comprehends the attri- U ■1 1^ .1 n 1 1 n! 380 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. II , i H biites common to r« number of individuals or species ; a pure conception constitutes an individual object as such. In the second place, an abstract conception is formed from individual objects yivon to tliought ; a pure conception belongs to the very constitution of thouglit. Tliirdly, an abstract conception follows tlic perception of individual things; a pure conception logically precedes and conditions the perception of individual things. It does not require much reflection to see that only the last of these meanings is consistent with the critical explanation of knowledge. (1) Conception, in the first of the senses just distinguished, is spoken of in many parts of Kant's writings, and especially in the more popular statements of his theory ; in the Proleijomoia, for example, where a distinction is drawn between judgments of perception and judgments of experience. But as the special facts and laws of ordinary knowledge, as I have so often insisted, are not by Kant sought to be proved, but are assumed as data requiring only to be brought into relation with intelligence, an investiga- tion into the special conditions under which such con- ceptions or laws are formed belongs to the organon of the special sciences, not to the critical investigation of the primary conditions of knowledge. A few remarks however, on the nature of scientific conceptions may not be out of place. The advance from simple apprehension to scientific conception, or from fjxcts to laws, is in one sense an advance to the more concrete, and in another sense an advance to the more abstract. Every science has its first beginnings in what may be called, from the pheno- menal point of view, the immediate perception of facts. And this holds true of the mathematical, not less than ^ICS. [chap. XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. .'^Sl Is or species ; iual object as conception is D thought; a onstitution of »n follows the re conception perception of ) see that only ith the critical on, in the first en of in many y in the more ) Prole(jomena, rawn between of experience. by knowledge, Kant sought to [quiring only to e, an investiga- lich such con- the organon of investigation of A few remarks nceptions may on to scientific one sense an lother sense an science has its L-om the pheno- eption of facts. I, not le.ss tliaii of the physical sciences. Numbers seemed at first sensible existences ; geometry arose from the rough measurement of the length and breadth of sensible things. Hence, the first step towards the constitution of a science consists in abstraction from the immediate or superficial properties of objects, and concentration on a single aspect of reality. A certain relation has to be endowed with a sort of fictitious independence, and con- templated as if it existed independently and purely for itself. A clear conception of the spatial and tem- poral relations of things is essential to the progress of the physical sciences, and upon the relations thus artificially isolated rests the science of mathematics. Physics, again, must be blind to all aspects of the real world except those connoted by the term " matter," if the changes which take place in external things are to be formulated clearly in a system. Each science, there- fore, ignores the sensible properties of things given in ordinary apprehension, as well as the relations fixed upon by the other sciences. It is of course impossible absolutely to separate the sphere of one science from the spheres of the others, for, as all deal with the relations of objects as such, they may be said together to form a single complex science of nature ; but at least the aim of each science — and this becomes more and more true as time goes on — is to deal exclusively with a single aspect of existence. Specialization of function here, as in economical and social life, is the prevailing tendency. Nor is this analytical tendency merely accidental and superficial ; it is the necessary condition of progress. The vague and confused perceptions of common observation cannot be developed into the definite and exact laws of science, until each .aspect of the world has ii^ceived tliat prruliar illumination I' y I VJ 3 ii 'J" t n ' 882 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. \M \ ! I ■;! which arises from isolation amidst surrounding darkness. To know an object in the complexity of its relations, it is first necessary to concentrate attention upon each of those relations, and this may be called a process of abstraction. The first immediate unity of things has to be broken up by reflective analysis, before a concrete object can properly be said to exist for knowledge. The various sciences are therefore in a sense based upon abstraction or analysis. On the other hand, abstraction is at the same time concretion, for it is impossible to separate one aspect of reality from others without by that very fact advancing to a more definite knowledge of reality in general. And if we arrange the sciences in the order of their complexity, we may say that all the sciences taken together imply a gradual advance from the relative abstractness of common knowledge \>o the relative concreteness of scientific knowledge. Each science, dealing with a given set of relations, leaves a residuum to be resolved by the science next to it in complexity. When we have set forth as fully as possible the quantitative relations of things and systematized our knowledge of them in the science of mathematics, we have next to deal with the motions of things and with their changes, as considered by dynamics and physics. A new effort to comprehend things in their completeness gives rise to chemistry, as dealing with the composition and decomposition of material elements. Next we pass to biology and lastly to psychology. The whole of the special sciences taken together may therefore bo said to constitute a syste- matic knowledge of the various aspects of the universe. In formulating the process by which scientific con- ceptions are obtained, it is of the utmost importance to overlook neither the analytic nor the synthetic side of cs. [CIIAP. XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 38.1 Df darkness, ts relations, II upon each a process of I things has re a concrete knowledge, sense based other hand, ion, for it is J from others more definite f we arrange (tity, we may iply a gradual of common of scientific priven set of •y the science |e set forth as of tilings and Ithe science of |he motions of by dynamics ;nd things in y, as dealing of material .nd lastly to iences taken tute a syste- the universe. ,cientitic con- mportance to thetic side of knowledge. There is a sense in which it may bo said that all knowledge is based upon abstraction or analysis. The comprehension of one property in pure isolation is a feat that can be performed by no conceivable in- telligence, since every property exists only in relation to another property ; but in the advance of knowledge, by successive differentiation, it naturally comes about that a greater degree of interest attaches to one term of a relation than to another. Hence one property, or one set of properties, is looked upon as positive, in contrast to the other or others, which are regarded as negative. The distinction is itself a purely arbitrary one, for the term from one point of view called positive may from another point of view be termed negative. But this predominant interest in one term of a relation, while it does not convert the isolated term into an in. dependent reality, yet prepares the way for the illusion that it does so. And hence, at a later stage of thought, the positive properties — the properties in which an excess of interest is felt — are classed together as the essence, or definition of a thing, while the negative properties are vaguely passed over as unessential. But essential and unessential, like positive and negative, are purely relative distinctions ; what from a special interest is con ■ ceived as essential, is again rejected as unessential. It must, therefore, never be forgotten that when we speak of the essence of a thing, w^e do not thereby limit reality for all time to the special group of properties we have in view for the time being. When matter is said to be defined by the property of solidity, as its essence, it is a tremendous perversion of the truth to suppose that by such a limitation we have, as by a masjical incantation, caused all the other relation?- of tlie universe to disappear. Those properties classed as ( li II JU> 384 A. /.V7' AiVn HIS EyCLISH CRITICS. [chap. i ^i essential, fixed in a definition, and marked by a common name, are real ; but they are not all that is real. The conception of matter as a congeries of indivisible units of mass is not intrinsically truer or more valuable than the conception of matter as defined in the totality of chemical relations. Intrinsically, the one is as im- portant as the other ; relatively, the one or the other is more important, according to the special point of view ; absolutely, /.r., as a formulation of existence in its completeness, the more complex conception is the more important of the two. The term matter, like all other common names, is simply a short-hand method of designating one aspect of real existence ; it is no mystic spell to conjure all other relations into nonen- tity. To say that knowledge is gained by an analy- tical process is only a way of drawing attention to the fact that the mind's interest in a special set of properties overrides its interest in another set, so that the negative term of a relation is passed over as unessential, and only the positive term is regarded. In reality, as has been shown, analysis is not a single process, but only one aspect of a single process ; just because one property is only an element in reality, and, therefore, in itself an abstraction, every act of know- ledge is synthetic not less than analytic. We may, therefore, say that knowledge proceeds from the less to the more concrete, from the more to the less abstract, from the less to the more known. Hence common knowledge is more abstract, or less concrete, than scientific knowledge. Here, again, it is important to notice that, from the mind's predominant interest in some terms over others, certain properties are classed as essential, others as unessential. Thus, existence gets separated into groups of positive attributes, while :s. [t-HAP. y a common noal. The ^risible units iluablo than e totality of e is as in\- )r the other nal point ot* existence in )ption is the itter, like all land method ice ; it is no s into nonen- by an analy- attention to special set ot 3r 3et, so that ssed over as is regarded. s not a single process ; just n reality, and, act of know- proceeds from more to the ,own. Hence less concrete, t is important mt interest in 3S are classed lus, existence ibutes, while XII.] S/^NSE AND UNDfiJf STAND INC. 3fl5 the other attributes are vaguely merged in the general conception of negation. From this point of view common knowledge may be said to be analytic, not because analysis ie possible apart from synthesis, but because the mind's interest in the positive attributes gives them a fictitious excess of reality for the time. Thus the way is made easy for that formulation of common sense which, overlooking the negative move- ment involved in the process of knowledge, conceives of existence us made up of a number of individual things or substancefc: having purely positive attributes. Hence a double illusion : the illusion that a substance has reality, apart from its relations to other substances, and that it has reality out of relation to intelligence. Just as the negative factor implied in every form of reality is passed over as if it were not, because of the almost exclusive interest taken for the time being in the affirmative factor, so the still less manifest relation of the properties to intelligence is overlooked or misin- terpreted. Accordingly, we find the empiricist, who formulates the common-sense conception of reality, speaking in language which implies the threefold fiction of "something" apart from its properties, of positive attributes in isolation from negative, and of a concrete reality independent of intelligence. Recog- nizing the analytic or affirmative side of knowledge, and passing over the synthetic or negative side, he is led to separate real existence from that which is the necessary condition of its reality. The same imperfect comprehension of the elements of knowledge and of reality which leads him to raise the positive or relatively essential properties to the " bad eminence " of independent sovereignty also suggests to him to separate matter, as defined by one set of properties, 2 B 3«G KANT AND HTS ENGLISH CRfTICS. [chap, from intellij^ence, as defined by another aet, and to claim for each a reality of its own. He passes from the one to the other in turn, and fails to see that, as the negative aspect of reality has also a positive; side, a real world apart from a universalizing intel- ligence to make it real, is as much a fiction as a circumference without a centre. The development of common into scientific know- ledge involves a great increase in that double process of differentiation and integration which is implied in the simplest conception of reality. The universe in- creases inmiensely in complexity, but at the same time it coalesces into a more perfect unity. Here, also, countenance is given to the false conception of real knowledge as a process of analysis or abstraction. The empiricist is not content merely to separate thought and matter as abstract opposites of eacn other. He applies the same process of abstraction to the various aspects in which nature itself is contemplated by the scieuvfic mind in its different moods. Common know- ledge really grows up by means of a dialectical process, in which there is a perpetual equilibrium of the positive and the negative aspects of reality. But as the indi- vidual mind interests itself temporarily only in the attributes it conceives as positive or essential, the negative or unessential attributes are passed over with a hasty glance and forgotten. Thus tlie equilibrium is destroyed. The same dialectical process, and the same predominance of interest in certain select relations of existence, is manifested in the procedure of the special sciences, but with this difference — that each tendency is carried out to its extreme. The scientific man breaks up the first immediate unity of things, which is sufficient to satisfy the languid interest of common \,\ id 11 [>^ [CHAV. et, and to nsHes from eo that, aH a positive iziug intel- iction as a itific knoNV- \i)le procesH i implied in universe in- le same time Here, also, •tion of real action. The rate thought 1 other. He ) the various plated by the mmon know- 3tical process, if the positive as the indi- only in the essential, the Ised over with jquilibrium is and the same :t relations of I of the special ch tendency is |c man breaks igs, which is ,t of common xir.] S/iNSf: AND UNDERI^TANDINC. S87 sense, and in this analysis he vastly extends the synthesis essentia) to all experience, increasiujjf a thousandfold the complexity of the known universe. But as his interest centres, not in the easily accessible relations alone regarded by common sense, but in those hidden away from its superficial gaze, he naturally treats the sensible properties of things as unimportant and unessential. "It is important," says Mr. Lewes, '' to bear in mind tliat all our scientific conceptions are analytical, and, at the best, only approximative. They are analytical, because science is * seeing with other eyes,' and looks away from the synthetic fact of experience to see wliat is not visible there. They are approximations, because they are generalities."* The contrast here drawn between common knowledge as synthetic and scientific knowledge as analytic is utterly fallacious. There are not two discrepant processes of knowledge, but all knowledge is developed in the same way, by a differen- tiation that is at the same time integration — an analysis that includes synthesis. The unity of the process of knowledge is just as perfect as the unity of existence and the unity of intelligent experience. Common knowledge is more remote from reality than science, and hence it is more " general," or abstract. When science, to use one of Mr. Lewes's illustrations, resolves light into undulations of ether acting upon the retina, it does not pass from fact to abstraction, from synthesis to analysis. The point of view is changed ; but in the change there is an actual increase in differentiation and inteorration, an advance from the more to the less general, the less to the more concrete. By breaking up the phenomenon of light into its factors, the imdula- i Pi'ohlnn* of Li/i' ami Miu I, vol. ii.. p. 2.^. 388 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. tions of an elastic medium and the sensibility of the retina, the phenomenon is more exactly defined; the analysis is, at the same time, a new synthesis. And this is but a single instance of the general procedure of scierce. It is true tha^-, if we attend solely to its analytic aspect, as Mr. Lewes does, and attempt to build an exhaustive theory of the process of knowledge upon that alone, we may contrast the fulness of reality, characteristic of common knowledge, with the extreme tenuity of scientific knowledge ; but to do so is simply to misinterpret the one kind of knowledge as well as the other. Both alike proceed, and must proceed, by a dialectic process that is neither analytic nor synthetic, but both in one ; and both alike distinguish the essen- tial from the unessential, the positive from the negative. Common sense attends only to those relations that rouse its interest, and all others it dismisses as unim- portant. And as the attributes so selected are simply the most superficial, the knowledge of common sense is necessarily more " general " than the knowledge of science. What by the plain man is regarded as essen- tial, is passed over as unessential by the scientific man ; the interest of the latter lies in the more recondite properties of things, and hence those commonly known are taken for granted and lightly passed over. Science, as such, however, does not deny the reality of the ordinary relations ; that is left for the empirical philo- sopher, who plumes himself upon the exclusive accuracy with which he formulates scientific procedure. When you know that 7-f-5 = i2, you cannot be forever re- peating the slow process of adding unit to unit. So, when the common properties of things are once known, they are as a matter of course taken for granted, and henceforth treated as = x. Hence the seeming abstract- s. [chap. Xil.] S£NiiE AND UNDERSTANDING. 389 iity of the jfiiied; the esis. And rocedure of ilely to its attempt to knowledge s of reality, he extreme so is simply ! as well as roceed, by a »r synthetic, 1 the essen- ,he negative, lations that es as unim- l are simply lion sense is lowledge of ed as essen- entific man ; re recondite lonly known er. Science, ality of the irical philo- iive accuracy ure. When forever re- o unit. So, once known, granted, and ing abstraet- p ness of scientific knowledge, as compared with ordinary knowledge. But the abstractness is only seeming ; we cannot be always going back to the very beginning of knowledge, but must take something for granted, and start afresh. Thus, science, without denying established relations, widens the area of existence, and increases the complexity of knowledge. It is by a reciprocal analysis and synthesis that science comes to classify one set of relations as essential and another set as unessential. But, as no real properties are un- essential in the last resort, the distinction is an artifice of science, not one determining the nature of real exist- ence itself. Mr. Lewes's mistake is that of all em- piricists ; he takes the real world, in the plenitude of its known relations, and this he supposes to be known by a "synthesis of sensibles." That is to say, the presentations of sense reveal existence as it truly is ; and hence science, as contemplating only special aspects of existence, stands in unfavourable contrast to the knowledge of common sense. But, in the first place, sense does not give real objects, for it gives of itself nothing at all ; and, secondly, supposing it did, it would be "synthetic" only by including scientific knowledge as a part of universal knowledge. On the first point, nothing more needs to be added. The second point brings out the fallacious procedure of empiricism into especial prominence. Mr. Lewes con- templates the real world after the completion of the long process by which it has been manifested to intelli- gence, or, more correctly, after intelligence has mani- fested itself in it ; and attending only to a part of that process at a time, he plausibly tells us that science deals only with " generalities." Most assuredly it does, if we contemplate the intelligible world as a \ \ ayo KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. whole ; most assuredly it does not, if we are speaking of it as compared with ordinary knowledge. As the part is always less than the whole, and therefore more abstiact, to say that the world as it interests science is partial or abstract, compared with the world in the plenitude of its relations, is no doubt a true, if not a very instructive remark ; but to maintain that scientific knowledge is more abstract than that f^on.inon -sense knowledge from which it starts, and which it is its one object to extend, is an utter perversion of the truth. The opposition of induction and deduction is but an- other aspect of the false separation of synthesis and analysis. There is a real justification, from the point of view of scientific knowledge, in separating the one aspect from the other, and there is no practical harm done in regarding each as a separate process. For science rests upon an unformulated absti action from intelligence, and rightly regards its task as complete when it has set forth those relations that in their totality express the realm of Nature. It is otherwise with philosophy, which proposes to itself the more ambitious task of formulating existence as a whole, and therefore essays to show the ultimate relations of nature and intelligence. Science, as has been reiter- ated, perhaps to weariness, is interested only in certain aspects of reality, and hence it takes for granted the relations of things familiar to common sense. Things, as partially qualified, are its points of departure, and its own peculiar procedure consists in extending and widening common knowledge. Thus it may rightly enough be said to proceed " from the known to the unknown," or, as I should prefer to say, from the less to the more known. This is what science knows as induction. ••3i:J*?-r-«"«!Bei*; ■±^rs>ef- [chap. e speaking 1. As the efore more jsts science 3rld in the le, if not a at scientific rmon-sense it is its one le truth. 11 is but an- tithesis and Lii the point ng the one ctical harm ocess. For action from IS complete at in their s otherwise the more whole, and elations of )een reiter- y in certain granted the e. Things, arture, and ending and lay rightly own to the ora the less knows as Xll.J SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 391 It is rightly held that no advance in knowledge is possible by what syllogistic logic calls deduction, since by a mere restatement of that which is already assumed to be known no advance to the " unknown " can possibly be made. We cannot, therefore, wonder at the contempt of science for " mere conceptions." The contempt is a healthy one. The man of science knows that to gain any real knowledge he must begin where common sense leaves off; that to know more about existence he must go out beyond ordinary con- ceptions of existence. Empirical logic, here following scientific thought, also asserts that knowledge is gained by a discovery of new relations of things ; and, so far, it is correct. But, as it falsely asserts that our common knowledge of things is acquired by passive observation, it takes for granted that individual things, or particular " facts," are discerned without any constructive activity of intelligence. Hence, the discovery of new relations is supposed still to leave individual things in their isolation. The only change in things is in their greater complexity. The real world is now supposed to have, independently of intelligence, all the properties revealed by science, as well as those known in ordinary know- ledge. Induction now assumes quite a different aspect. It consists in the separation, one by one, of properties already assumed to be known, and hence it is no longer a progress from " the known to the unknown," but a regress from the more to the less known. By abstraction, it is supposed, a general law is discovered ; and this law, once discovered, may be shown to apply to the particular facts from which it was abstracted. The process of reasoning down from the general law to the particular facts is deduction. Now here we have a confusion between a universal as a 392 KAI^T AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. law of nature and a universal as an a^ scract concei)tion. If nature is already known in the fulness of its rela- tions, what possible sense is there in seeking for laws of nature, which are but special groups of relations con- sidered apart ? If everything is known already, there is no need either of induction or deduction. By a bare intuition we may comprehend all things, and any pro- cess of knowledge is not only useless, but impossible. Thus, the measure of truth which empirical logic had attained to in the judgment that knowledge proceeds " from the known to the unknown" is again lost in a theory of deduction, that, assuming a perfectly known world to begin with, can only explain the process of knowledge as a retreat from the better known to the less known. If we take the first, and relatively correct notion of induction as a progress from the less to the more known, we may easily give it a form that will correctly embody the true process of knowledge. Every advance in knowledge is the discovery of a new rela- tion, and every new relation is, from its connection with intelligence, necessary and universal. Thus scien- tific knowledge does not first reveal a number of disconnected particulars, and then proceed to combine them into a general law. The law is discerned in the discernment of the particulars. A law is neither more nor less than a complex of relations, and all relations are ijyso facto universal and necessary. The distinction between " fact" and " law" is a purely relative one. A f£.3t is not by itself regarded as a law, but it contains the universal element which is characteristic of law. In speaking of facts, we are looking rather at the particular than the universal aspect of relations ; in speaking of a law, we contemplate the universal rather than the particular aspect. But there is no real Re})a- 'S. [chap. Xll.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 3y;{ conce})tion. \ of Hsrela- ig for laws jlations con- i-eady, there By a bare ad any pro- impossible, il logic had ge proceeds rain lost in a ectly known e process of nown to the ively correct le less to the Tin that will edge. Every a new rela- connection Thus scien- number of to combine erned in the neither more all relations e distinction iive one. A ■> it contains istic of law. ither at the lations ; in versal rather 10 real sepa- ration in reality or in knowledge. That which is real is necessarily universal, and there is no universality apart from reality. Induction emphasizes the particu- lar aspect of reality. Deduction emphasizes the universal. In the one, it is said, we go from the particular to the universal ; in the other, from the universal to the particular. Correctly stated, there is no " going" from the one to the other at all, for each exists only in and through the other. If the particular did not imply the universal, no combination of particu- lars would be possible, and hence there could be no universal law ; the universal separated from the par- ticular is no law, but a barren abstraction. The true process of knowledge is, therefore, one combining these two aspects of knowledge in one indivisible act. There is not pure induction or pure deduction, but both ; and the separation of the one aspect from the other, how- ever convenient it may be to the individual enquirer, is but a logical artifice, that in no way affects the real indivisibility of the one dialectic process. (2.) Conception, as it is understood by formal logic, is essentially distinct from conception in the sense of a law of nature. The latter is obtained, not by abstract- ing from the specific differences of things, but by recog- nizing in things the concrete relations to each other which they involve. What in the scientific compre- hension of the world seems to be a process of abstraction or analysis is really a process of concretion, or combined analysis and synthesis. The fallacy upon which the ordinary account of conception rests is, however, nt>t unnatural. *In the development of knowledge from simple apprehension to scientific conception, individual objects are apparently given to us in their completeness independently of any activity of thought. To the ■ t ' ; 3U4 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chap. (' scientific man, as we may say, the facts of observation are " given," to be subsumed under a law. And this law, from the point of view of the individual discoverer, naturally appears to be a mere conception in his own mind, under which he externally brings the facts pre- sented to him. But as a conception is a law of nature only when it correctly formulates the actual relations of things, no mere conception has any objective value. Taken by itself, a conception is therefore simpl)^ an abstraction from the concrete relations of which "« is a symbol. Formal logic, however, overlooking altogether the implicit relation of facts to intelligence, assumes that what may correctly enough be said to be " given " to science is " given" to thought ; and, as all the con- creteness of reality then falls into apprehension, the activity of thought can manifest itself only as a process of abstraction. The confusion of an abstract concep- tion with a concrete or scientific conception goes back in the history of thought to Socrates, if not further still ; but it was first developed in the Aristotelian doctrine of the syllogism from the Platonic method of division, a doctrine which is itself implicit in the Socratic conception of definition as an analysis of the meaning of a common name. The principle of the syllogism is that in reason- ing we bring an individual under an abstract conception. The most perfect form of reasoning will therefore be that in which an individual is subsumed under the most abstract conception of all. Syllogism thus pre- supposes that the highest conception is the most abstract. Thus we have at the top of the logical ladder the conception of being, and coming gradually downwards we at last reach the infinity of separate individual things given in simple apprehension, and included under that conception. Any given syllogism \k "»■-. ?>M.»v,. "ICS. [chap. XII.] SEI\/SE AND UNDERSTANDING. 3U5 f observation V. And this al discoverer, )n in his own the facts pre- law of nature tual relations ijective value. )re simpl:y an f which '.^> is a ing altogether jence, assumes to be " given" IS all the con- irehension, the ily as a process )stract concep- ,ion goes back 3t further still ; ian doctrine of of division, a ■atic conception of a common that in reason- act conception. In therefore be ed under the ism thus pre- is the most if the logical ing gradually |ty of separate •ehension, and liven syllogism expresses a particular stage in the descent from the abstract to the concrete. Thinking, therefore, consists in ai- cases in advancing from tlie concrete to the abstract, or in going back from the abstract to the concrete by the way we came. Suppose, for example, that we begin with the conception " gold." In accord- ance with the Socratic demand for definition, we ask, AVhat is "gold V Now of course we may easily give an answer that shall indicate the actual process of know, ledge. If we know nothing about " gold " but its superficial properties, by classifying it among the metals we distinguish it from things that are not metals. But the doctrine of syllogism does not contemplate this view of the case. Assuming that " gold " is already known by simple apprehension to be a " metal," it formulates that knowledge in the proposition, "gold is a metal. ' As the term " metal " is more abstract than the term "gold," we have here brought a relatively concrete conception under a conception relatively abstract. We may now suppose a second question to be asked, viz.. What is a "metal?" the answer to which may be that " a metal is a substance." Here again a conception is put under another more abstract than itself Thus we obtain the syllogism : A metal is a substance ; Gold is a metal ; Therefore, gold is a substance. The syllogism thus rests upon the purely (quantitative relation of whole and part. Now the imperfection of this doctrine is not far to seek. Put forward as an account of the process of thought, it completely fails to formuiaie that process as it really is. To bring an individual under an abstract notion adds nothing to I V 39G KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [chai-. I knowledge. To say that "gold" belongs to the class " metal " tells us nothing but what we are assumed already to know, and hence syllogistic logic is no ex- planation of thought at all. Hence the fallacy of the supposed process of abstraction by which class notions are formed ; hence the elaborate trilling of the whole doctrine of conversion, opposition, reduction, &c., with its bewildering maze of subtleties, interesting to no living creature but one who can be contented to dwell in the realm '• Where entity and quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodien fly." The fallacy underlying the Aristotelian doctrine of syllogism has its source in the same mistake as caused Plato, in one phase of his ideal theory, to identify the universal with an abstract idea. It is wrongly assumed that the *' sensible " is given in an immediate appre- hension which is absolutely exclusive of any relation of thought. Real objects, constituted of various properties, are first, it is supposed, revealed as wholes in an imme- diate presentation of sense ; and then thought, of its own arbitrary choice, selects a certain number of those properties and sets them apart for special contempla- tion. A general conception is thus formed, differing from the individual concretes simply in the absence of certain properties. By successive generalizations we go further and further away from the concrete objects with which we started, until at length we reach the abstraction of "being." In reasoning we reverse tho process and descend from the abstract to the concrete. What proceeding could be more superfluous than this monotonous ascent and descent of the same logical tree ! Syllogistic logic is necessarily barren of all results. We may go on in this way for ever, combin- vncs. [CIIAI'. xir.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 307 gs to the claas e are assumod logic is no ex- fallacy of the h class notions t of the whole ction, &c., with eresting to no ented to dwell ian doctrine of take as caused to identify the rongly assumed iinediate appre- ' any relation of ious properties, es in an iiume- thought, of its umber of those cial contempla- rmed, differing he absence of eralizations we oncrete objects we reach the we reverse the o the concrete, uous than this same logical barren of all ever, combin- ing, separating, and recombining, without over moving a step beyond the narrow circle of ideas within which we have shut ourselves. For, while sense is said to give us a definite object to reflect about, it can give us that object only as it first presents itself in simple apprehension. The attributes thus apprehended and fixed in a common name are few and superficial. The real wealth of knowledge, which is found in the concrete relations discovered by the special sciences, is not em- bodied in common names ; and even the meagre know- ledge we are supposed to have obtained in immediate perception, we are condemned by the doctrine of syllogism to attenuate still more. We may indeed, when we have attained to perfect purity for conception in mere ** being," return to the individuals from which we set out; but this affords us no new knowledge, and our toilsome ascent and descent has been to no purpose whatever. The principle which dominates Kant's theory of knowledge is in irreconcilable antagonism with that upon which syllogistic logic rests. It denies that indi- vidual objects can be known to exist apart from the relations of thought by which they are made knowable. But Kant, while removing the basis on which formal logic rests, is only half aware of the revolution he has himself accomplished. Side by side with the cate- gories, he allows the abstract conceptions to stand. All that he is prepared to say amounts in effect to this, that the latter belong to the sphere of ordinary know- ledge, while the former belong to the ultimate consti- tution of thought, and must therefore be presupposed as the condition of any real knowledge whatever. That the "manifold " is somehow "given" to thought, Kant is unable to get out of his head, and hence, 398 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. [cha". ;> \t\ insist as he may on the fact that concrete objects are not apprehended by sense alone, he yet grants that something is apprehended or received passively into the mind. An abstract and a pure conception, as ho thinks, agree in so far as both reduce knowledge to unity by the combination of differences. In reality, however, abstraction is not a process of combination, but a process of separation ; and individual concretes are not by such a process raised to a higher unity, but on the contrary divested of the unity which at first they possessed. On the other hand, the categories really combine the particulars of sense, or rather, as Kant would say, make that combination possible ; and the unity so produced is the real unity of concrete objects and specific connections of objects. (3.) The attempted assimilation of mere fictions of abstraction with real conceptions leads to an imperfec- tion in Kant's way of looking at the categories them- selves. A category is a universal or form of thought, which is potentially a synthesis of the manifold of sense. It is, in fact, as treated by Kant, virtually a function of synthesis. But as the forms of the mind stand in stiff and abrupt contrast to the manifold, the categories are held to beloni? to the constitution of the intellect, while the particulars of sense are supplied to the mind in an external way. Accordingly, as before the forms of perception were held to belong only to us as men, so now the forms of thougrht are resrarded as preventing us from getting beyond the limits of ex- perience. It is true that the categories might apply to a manifold different from that actually given to us ; but this possibility of extending our knowledge beyond experience is of no avail, since no other than a sensuous manifold can be apprehended by us. TICS. [CHA'». te objects are it grants that passively into coption, as he knowledge to I. In reahty, f combination, iual concretes her unity, but which at first the categories or rather, as possible ; and ty of concrete 3. lere fictions of o an imperfec- tegories theni- m of thought, le manifold of mt, virtually w IS of the mind manifold, the ritution of till! ire supplied to igly, as before ong only to us e reofarded as limits of ex- might apply y given to us ; wledge beyond han a sensuous XII.] SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING. 300 1 shall not here repeat what has been said above in regard to the absurdity of supposing the particular element to be given in any other sense than that in which we may say, with equal propriety, that the uni- versal element or category is given ; it will be enough to point out that, when we have got rid of this contrast of activity and receptivity, the abstract isolation of the categories from the other elements of knowledge is completely done away with. The category in itself is spoken of by Kant as if it had a sort of independent existence of its own. It is a potential form of thought belonging to the framework of the mind, and capable of coming into actual use only in relation to the manifold of sense as determined in time by the pure imagination. But, just as the manifold of sense is simply the par- ticular element in every real act or product of know- ledge, taken in abstraction from its relation to the universal element, and as the schema is simply the ab- straction of the relation of those elements to each other, so the category is but the universal element, with its relation to the particular eliminated. In other words, the apparent independence of the category "s due entirely to the reflection of the individual thinker. We dis- tinguish the universal from the particular, but every real act of knowledge is the mutual reflection of the one on the other. There is therefore no propriety in saying that the categories might be extended beyond experience, provided that a manifold different from that given to us were supplied to them. One element of knowledge can by no possibility exist except in its relation to the other ; if the particular is nothing apart from the universal, neither is the universal anything apart from the particular. Kant virtually admits that his distinction of the categories from the schemata is I : t i« 400 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS [cm AT, I !<1l merely a temporary stage of thought when he speaks of imagination as " the effect of the understanding on the sensibility " ; for here what he elsewhere regards as a product of pure imagination is affirmed to be a product of the relation between the categories and the manifold of sense. Of course the schemata imply the specific manifold of space and time, and therefore partly belong to the metaphysic of nature, as distinguished from the metaphysic of knowledge in general ; but in an investi- gation into the conditions of knowledge this specific element does not properly come under consideration. The categories are therefore simply the universal aspect of knowledge, as logically distinguished from the par- ticular aspect, and abstracted from the relations which give them meaning and significance. (5.) So much has just been said in regard to concep- tion, that a very few words in regard to judgment as treated by Kant will be sufficient. As the categories are potentialities of synthesis, so judgment is the act of synthesis itself The manifold of sense has to be reflected on the universal forms of thought and percep- tion before there can be any real knowledge, and this process of reflection is judgment. We must, therefore, free our minds from the misleading associations which arise from the attempted aimilation of the analytical and the synthetical judgment. " To think," Kant tells us, "is to judge," and judging consists "in referring conceptions to objects through perceptions." Now, in strict propriety, this formula is only applicable to the analytical judgment of formal logic, which rests upon the supposition that objects, with the full complement of their attributes, first exist full-formed in conscious- ness, and are afterwards referred to an abstract uni- versal. Accordingly, if we follow the letter of Kant's i [chat. XII.] 67i.\'i/i' AND UNDERSTANDING. 401 le speaks of ding on the regards as a )e a product ;he manifold the specific artly belong ed from the w an investi- this specific insideration. ^rersal aspect om the par- titions whicli :d to concep- judgment as le categories it is the act ;e has to be and percep- ge, and this it, therefore, ations which le analytical ." Kant tells in referring Now, in lable to the rests upon complement n conscious- ,bstract uni- r of Kant's account of judgment, we are naturally led to suppose that objects as such being given in perception, the understanding proceeds to apply to them its categories. It is under this misapprehension that Mr. Lewes' and others charge Kant with holding that sense and thought contribute different hinds of knowledge. His reil thought is, that by the application of the categories to the element of knowledge given in sense, objects are first constituted as objects. At the same time the admission of a purely formal judgment at all is inconsistent with the Critical account of knowledge, and Kant is himself partly to blame for the misappre- hension of what his real doctrine is. Rejecting the analytical judgment altogether, we must regard all judgments as synthetical, i.e., as constitutive of objects as such, and of their connexions. And this constitu- tion of reality is simply another name for the synthesis of pure imagination, which, when freed from its psychological taint, is seen to be simply the process of relating a universal or category to a particular or manifold. 6. The last element in real knowledge distinguished by Kant is the self, as the supreme condition of all unity in knowledge. In his usual fashion, Kant speaks of the self as if it had a sort of independent reality of its own, apart from all relation to the other elements of knowledge. 1 = 1 is, he says, a purely analytical proposition. Now, such a proposition is not only tautological but meaningless. Only by bringing the " I " into relation with knowable objects can we put any meaning into it at all. If we attempt to compre- hend the " I " purely in itself, we find that it is a mere abstraction. And if the " I," taken in its utmost • Probkms of' Life and Miwl, vol. i., p. 442. 2c • 1 402 KANT AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. y I ! \ purity is, as Kant himself asserts, but a logical ele- ment in real knowledge, tliere is no propriety in saying that the self may be independent of the limitations which apply to phenomena. No doubt intelligence, as the source of all knowledge, is in a sense independent of the objects which it constitutes, but it is not for that reason constituted of itself apart from its relations to objects. Moreover, while each individual as possessed of intelligence is capable of recognizing the real world, which itself exists only in its relations to universal intel- ligence, we are not entitled to say that the individual man, with his complex rational and animal nature, is free from the conditions without which he could not exist at all. I, as a particular person, with my own specific character and idiosyncrasy, am a real being, and in virtue of my rationality am recognized by myself to be real ; but this does not cut me off from the special conditions of knowledge or action without which I could not be, or be known to be, human. The development of this point, however, belongs to psychology. Here it is enough to remark that the " I " cannot be separated from its relations without becoming a barren abstraction. Intelligence exists only in and through its specific modes, and it is useless to attempt sublimating it by isolating it from those modes : instead of elevating we merely degrade it. The categories and the particulars of knowledge are therefore simply the various real relations in which intelligence manifests its activity, and builds up for each of us the fair fabric of nature. THE END. V- I ' vcs. \ logical ele- ety in saying e limitations itelligence, as independent is not for that s relations to 1 as possessed he real world, niversal intel- ;he individual nimal nature, 1 he could not with my own a real being, recognized by ,t me off from iction without 3 be, human. 3r, belongs to Liark that the itions without ligence exists id it is useless it from those y degrade it. knowledge are ons in which builds up for In One Volume, 8vo, Price 18s., A CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT; WITH AN HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. By EDWARD CAIRD, M.A., LL.D., Pro/eisor of Moral Philosophy In the. Unicersitij of Glamjow, and late Fellow and Tutur of Mertoii Colleye, Oxford. " This book contains the most exhaustive and most vahiable exposition of Kant's metaphysical system which has appeared in this country, The critical analysis is incisive and searching, and the exposition jilain and unambiguous. The running commentary is the work of a man who both knows what he has to say, and knows how to say it forcibly and well. The style is attractive as well as clear. AVithout l9eing ornate or rhetorical, it has about it a kind of quiet eloquence wliich comes of conscious strenjfth and of genuine conviction, "Whatever be the opinions with which a reader may return from the study of this book, he cannot fail to derive intellectual benefit from so luminous an exposition of, and so valuable a commentary upon tlie most powerful work of the greatest pliilosopher of his age."— 2%e Times. "Mr. Caird's statement of the Kantian doctrine is singuhirly felicitous. The simplitication is at once full, accurate, and unbiased."— Mu. T. H. Green, in The Academy. " No account of Kant's Philosophy has ever appeared in England so full, so intel- ligible, and so interesting to read, as this work by Professor Caird. It is the English Book on KfiXiV— Contemporary Review. In One Volume, Bvo, Price 10s. 6d., AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. By JOHN CAIRD, D.D., Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasijow, and one of Her Majesty's Chaplains for Scotland. " A book rich in the results of speculative study, broad in its intellectual grasp, and happy in its original suggestiveness. To Dr. Caird we are indebted for a subtle and masterly presentation of Hegel's pliilosophy in its solution of the problem of religion. In [addition to the literary skill whicli places his propositions in their brightest light, and an earnestness of purpose which at times rises into genuine elo- quence, he possesses two qualifications whicli specially fit him for his work— a spirit of reverence, which places him in sympathy with mystical and intuitional minds; and an intellectual vigour, which enables him to stand side by side with the ablest thinkers, to view the utmost border of their extended range of vision, and, while he treats tliem with chivalrous fairness, to grapple with their arguments."— JFrfi'/i. biirgh Review, January, 1881. "It is the business of tlie reviewer to give heme notion of the book which lie reviev.'s, either by a condensation of its contents, or by collecting the cream in the shape of short selected pr.isages ; but this cannot be done with a book like the one before us, of wliich the argument does not admit of condensation, and wliich is all cream Tlie most valuable book of its kind that has appeared." — Mr. T. H. GUEEN, in The Academy. " It is remarkable, also, for its marvellous power of exposition and gracious sub- tlety of thought. Hegelianism has never appeared so attractive as it appears in the clear and fluent pages of Principal Caird."— >pcctator. •'Tiiis is in many respecto >i remarkable book, and perhaps the most important contribution to the subject wH i which it deals that has been made in recent years." — Mind. JAMES MACLEHOSE, Pudlisher to the University of Glasgow.