ma m mm J I B THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT From the Library of Henry Goldman, Ph.D. 1886-1972 BOHN'S PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. KANT'S PEOLEGOMENA, &c. KANT'S PBOLEGOMENA METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL, WITH A BIOGRAPHY AND INTRODUCTION, BY ERNEST BELFORT BAX, ADTHOE OF "JEAN PAUL MARAT: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH," &C. WITH A PORTRAIT OF KANT LONDON: GEOEGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1883. LONDON : FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMiTKD, BTAXFOBD STREET AMD CHAKING CROSS PREFACE. THE growing interest taken in philosophy in this country has led to the issue of the present volume of " Bonn's Philosophical Library," containing the presenta- tion for the first time to the British public of one work, important alike to the votary of physical science and of philosophy, and an entirely fresh translation of another which is absolutely indispensable at least to the philo- sophical student of Kant. Only two English translations of the " Prolegomena " have hitherto been published. The first (a very bad one), by John Eichardson, appeared in 1818, and has been out of print for many years past. The second (based on the last-mentioned) forms ope of the volumes in Professor Mahaify's series entitled, " Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Eeaders," and while avowedly a somewhat free rendering, conveys the sense of the original fairly well, but its relatively high price places it beyond the reach of many persons. The present translation aims at giving, as far as possible, the ipsissima verba of Kant. No attempt has been made to convert the cumbrous German of the original into elegant English. Even the form and length of the sentences have been retained wherever possible, as it has been thought preferable to place before the reader Kant himself, with all his lack of literary polish, rather than any mere paraphrase of Kant. Words not contained in the original are indicated by ii PREFACE. square brackets, as a distinction from Kant's own, only too numerous, bracketed clauses. The practice of in- variably retaining one particular English equivalent for a German word irrespective of usage has not been adhered to, the same word being variously translated according to circumstances. Vorstellung (in a philosophical sense) has been rendered by " presentation," and the pedantic and un-English " cogitate " for denken, generally speaking discarded, where the Anglo-Saxon " think " was not available, or would have had a forced look, " conceive " being used instead. Other slight deviations from tradi- tional precedent will be observed by the careful reader. It may be worth while to mention that Dr. Vaihinger, of Strasburg, has indicated ("Philosophische Monatshefte," XV., pp. 321-332 and 513-532) a remarkable confusion in the paragraphing near the commencement of the Prolegomena. For the conclusive arguments which he adduces in support of his alteration, the reader must be referred to the articles themselves, space only admitting of the result of his investigations being given. This (we quote his own words) is as follows : " The printer has erroneously introduced the paragraph [p. 18 of present volume] 'The essential feature distinguishing pure mathematical knowledge,' &c., down to the sentence on p. 20, concluding with the words ' make up the essential content of metaphysics,' into 4, whereas it directly and with strict logic follows the conclusion of 2, p. 16, 'but by means of an added intuition upon its subject.' " Dr. Vaihinger instances sundry misconceptions that have arisen from what was probably an accidental misplacement in the leaves of the manuscript.* * The subject of the Prolegomena is also dealt with by Dr. Vaihinger in his invaluable and exhaustive Commentary to the Critique, at pp. 3S, HI, 145, 163, 280, 298, 303-4, 318, 335, 340-350, 380, 412, 442, &c., PREFACE. Ill The Prolegomena were designed by Kant as an abstract of the Critique, the idea being the presentation in a succinct form of the leading positions of the larger work. In this we venture to think Kant was hardly successful. He labours here, as in the Critique, under the disadvan- tage of the pioneer, that of not fully grasping the import of his own discovery. While in the Critique the really salient points of the system those which alone furnish a key to the whole are overlaid by a mass of comparatively unessential superstructure, and instead of being em- phasised and expounded in their entirety at the commence- ment, in most cases have to be discovered and inferred from detached passages and sections scattered throughout the book ; in the Prolegomena they seem purposely left in the background. The real cornerstone of the Critique (although Kant did Dot see it), the deduction of the categories, is omitted altogether. Kant, in writing the Prolegomena, seems indeed to have had in his mind the same essentially negative view of the scope of his system we find expressed in the note in the Anfangsgrunde on pp. 144 et seq. of present volume. If his object was simply to demolish dogmatic metaphysics, by a limitation of speculation to experience, as its subject- matter, the Prolegomena are admirable, since they are in many respects clearer than the Critique. But if, on the other hand, this negative side of Kant's labours was only a clearing of the ground for the original and constructive portion of his work, the formulation, and attempted solu- tion of the problem, "How is experience itself possible?" then we find in the Prolegomena the shortcomings of the Critique in an exaggerated form. The basis of this latter side of Kant's system, it cannot be too much insisted upon, is the conception of (I.) consciousness-in-general or pure consciousness, as op- posed to the consciousness or experience given directly IV PREFACE. through the individual mind, the object of empirical psychology ; (II.) the unity of apperception, which indicates the first moment of the differentiation of form from matter (an important antithesis that Kant rehabilitated), that is, the first moment of the possibility of consciousness ; and (III.) finally the immanent noumenon or fundamental agency of which consciousness itself with all its momenta, is the determination. This last, although tacitly assumed throughout, and frequently referred to in terms of psychology as the " mind," (das Gemutfy, it was reserved for Kant's successors to definitively fix. Perhaps the greatest service of Kant is the differentia- tion of the consciousness-in-general, which is constitutive of reality, or in other words, is productive of the synthesis of experience, from the psychological consciousness or mind of the individual qua individual, which is merely reproductive of this synthesis. This is Kant's great advance upon Berkeley and Hume, who, trained in the psychological school of Locke, failed to distinguish between metaphysics, or theory of knowledge i.e., the science of the possibility of synthetic or productive experience, in other words, of consciousness-in-general and psychology, the science of the reproduction of this synthesis in the experience of the individual. "Berkeley demolished the scholastic substance or material substratum apart from consciousness, but having done so was confronted with the paradox that he had resolved objective reality into subjective ideality. That this absurdity was only ap- parent he felt, but was unable to point out where lay the source of the appearance for the reason above stated, namely, his inability to distinguish between consciousness qua consciousness, and its reflection in mind. The Hetaphysische Anfangsyrunde der Naturwissenschaft has never before appeared in an English form. The same remarks, as regards the aim and character of the PEEFACE. V translation, will apply to this work as to the Prolegomena. I must ask, however, for some indulgence in this case for an occasional barbarism (e.g., " a plurality of the real, outside one another,") owing to the difficulty of rendering Kant's meaning adequately in all cases by good English. In the Anfangsgrunde Kant seems to have surpassed himself in clumsiness and obscurity of style. In several sentences the verb is wanting, and others by the omission of a negative particle or a similar carelessness, make precisely the reverse sense to that, judging by the context, obviously intended. The treatise in question is of especial interest in relation to modern speculation on the data of physical science, and particularly as to the ultimate constitution of matter, and may be profitably studied in conjunction with such works as Professor Wurtz's, " Atomic Theory," Mr. Stallo's " Concepts of Modern Physics," and Mr. Herbert Spencer's " First Principles." Written in 1786, just one year before the publication of the second edition of the " Critique," it belongs to the maturest period of Kant's philosophical activity. It may be of interest to allude to the fact that since the introductory portion of the present volume was in the press the manuscript treatise of Kant entitled, Uebergang von den Metaphysischen An- fangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft zur Physik, "Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics," has been disinterred and published in the Altprenssische MonatsJiefte for the year 1882. It should be added that the edition used, both in the case of the Pro- legomena and the Anfangsgrunde, is that of the collected works by Kirchmann, which, although not without flaw, is probably on the whole the most accurate we possess. A short biographical sketch of Kant has been supplied by way of introduction to the volume. This is founded chiefly on the old sources, Wasianski, Borowski, Jach- yi PREFACE. inarm, Reicke. Schubert, &c. The biography is supple- mented by a chapter dealing with Kant's position in the evolution of thought, which, although necessarily to a large extent a mere bald outline, it has been thought might possibly prove suggestive to students, and stimulative to independent research in some of the directions indicated. LIST OF CONTENTS. PAGE A BIOGRAPHY OF KANT xi KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY Ixxii THE PROLEGOMENA 1 THE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATION OF SCIENCE 135 EEBATA. Page 164, far " Pronuce " read " Produce " ., 171, 173, 175, (heading) for " Dynanics" read "Dynamics ' 179, fcr " Cases " read " Distance " for " Deduciable " read " Deducibly " rt 10, sixth Uiie from top, delete * a " A BIOGKAPHY OF KANT WITH SOME EEMAEKS ON HIS POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. * A BIOGRAPHY OF KANT WITH SOME EEMARKS ON HIS POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. BEFORE entering upon our biography of Kant, it may be instructive to take a rapid survey of the condition of Konigsberg and German society in the early part of the 18th century. Prussia was at this time under the iron rule of Frederick William I. of tall-hussar notoriety. Since the independence of the country had been estab- lished, the trade and importance of Konigsberg had advanced with rapid strides. . Every spring brought a stream of vessels from England, Holland, Kussia, Poland, and other countries. The Baltic town was also the centre of such intellectual life and activity as then existed in Prussia. On more than one occasion it had even offered strenuous resistance to the ordinances of the auto- cratic monarch himself. In this way a strongly-cemented municipal feeling had been formed which affected all classes of citizens. Various causes had contributed to swell the number of the inhabitants of Konigsberg. The fact that the elevation of Prussia to a kingdom had been formally proclaimed from there had given it a certain patriotic importance of its own. But what probably more than anything else helped the rapid increase of the city's population, was its having been neutral territory during a long war. The university (founded in 1553) especially benefited by this circumstance. Students iii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. flocked in from various sides, from Poland and the Baltic districts on the one hand, and from Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia generally, on the other. Several impor- tant municipal schools were, moreover, opened about this time. The state of general culture in Germany during the first half of the century was very much what the close of the preceding century had left it. The era of modern German literature had not commenced. The seventh- magnitude poets and dramatists whose names are pre- served in the pages of Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit were the oracles of public taste; an array of equally obscure philosophasters dominated the universities, while philosophy, together with all the more solid branches of literature, was conducted in Latin, according to true mediaeval fashion. Some few jurists and philologists alone, belonging to this period, attained to a more than ephemeral reputation. Germany had not as yet recovered from the blighting results of the Thirty Years' War, which effectually destroyed the germs of the awakening culture of the Reformation period. But in spite of this unpro- mising state of affairs, signs of an imminent revival were not wanting. The brilliant and cosmopolitan genius of Leibnitz had prepared the way for the first essentially German philosopher, Christian Wolff. Wolff, besides being the first thinker to write in German, has the credit of having staunchly, and at times to his own cost, adhered to his master's resistance to the claims of au- thority, as such, and this fact may be set against the intrinsic worthlessness of his philosophy. The most interesting point in connection with Wolff, is, however, his having been the forerunner of Kant. In general literature, towards the middle of the century, a similar revival is noticeable, the glow of dawn before the rising of the sun of Goethe and his congeners. The time BIOGEAPHY OF KANf. Xlll will perhaps be best appreciated in its intellectual as- pect when we recall the fact that the popular essayist Thomasius, the precursor of the later Aufkldrung writers, died as late as 1728, and that he was a main instrument in exploding the belief in witchcraft among the educated classes, and in abolishing the laws directed against it, as well as a determined, and, to a large extent, successful opponent of the practice of judicial torture. But the most important influence at this period dominant in North Germany, was not so much embodied in literature .as in the social life of the people. We refer to the " Pietism " which then reigned, to a greater or less extent, in well-nigh every German home, and which formed such a marked feature in the early life of the subject of the present biographical sketch. Such were the social conditions of Germany when the worthy saddler, Johann Georg Cant, was carrying on his handicraft in the Sadlergasse of Kb'nigsberg, learning to labour and to wait for those better days which, alas! he was never destined to see reward his labour. Johann Georg, in fact, though an upright and excellent man, ap- pears to have been more esteemed by his fellow townsmen for his personal character than his saddle-making abilities. In spite of rigid economy, he never compassed more than very "moderate" circumstances, even according to the standard of the German Kleinbiirger and he not the Kleinburger of to-day, but of the 18th century while at times, it soems, he had a difficulty in making the pro- verbial twj ends meet. Though originally of Scotch extraction, the Cant family had been settled for some generations in the Baltic province, at the time of which we speak. It was on November 13th, 1715, that Johann Georg Cant was united, in the cathedral church of the city, to Anna Eegina Eeuter, if we may judge by tho name, a genuine daughter of the Baltic shores. As ia not 6 XIV BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. unusual with persons in the position of the elder Cant, a large family was the issue of this marriage, eleven children in all, four sons and seven daughters. Of these six died in infancy. Immanuel, the fourth child and third but only surviving son, was born on April 22nd, 1724. His only brother, Johann Heinrich Cant, the youngest child, and eleven years his junior, after passing many years as private tutor in various aristocratic families, ultimately obtained the rectorate of Mitau and afterwards of Eahden, two country districts, the latter of which he held till his death a few years before that of his elder brother. Of the three sisters, Eegina Dorothea, Maria Elisabeth, and Catherina Bar- bara, the eldest died unmarried, while the two younger developed into excellent housewives and mothers of families of the true German Biirgerin type, the youngest of all outliving Immanuel. Kant, throughout his life, acted as the benefactor of his relations and their children, who inherited the bulk of his property. Frau Cant died whea her son* Immanuel was thirteen years old. It is related that her death "was caused by a circumstance aptly illustrating her goodness of heart. A female friend to whom she was much attached, having been deserted by her betrothed, was attacked by a fever induced by mental excitement. Frau Cant, who zealously watched by her bedside, on one occasion endeavoured vainly to induce her to take her medicine, which she refused, even when the spoon containing it was pressed to her lips. As a last resource, her friend, thinking to overcome her repugnance by example, swallowed the mixture herself. No sooner had she done this than she was seized with a nervous horror, intensified by the fancy that she saw on the patient's body symptoms of spotted typhus. She at once gave herself up for lost, fell ill of a similar fever the same day, and in a few days after BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XV expired. Kant, who was devotedly attached to his mother, could never speak of her, even in his later years, without betraying the deepest emotion. Pietism reigned supreme in the house in the Sadlergasse, and Kant's mother was especially addicted to it. Kant spoke of her as possessed of an inward peace and cheerful- ness, capable of being disturbed by no outward circum- stances. He was fond of relating how, in a trade dispute, in which his father was engaged, and had suffered con- siderable loss, she would speak with the greatest considera- tion of the opponent party, and express the most implicit trust in Providence. In later life the impression of his mother seems to have been more vivid than of his father. He would tell how he used to accompany her in long country walks, of her zeal in directing his attention to the various phenomena of Nature, and in offering such explanations as lay within her reach, with their invariable epilogue on the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. It would appear as though Immanuel had been her favourite child. Besides receiving his general instruction in an institution famed for the pietism of its management, and diligently attending the church in connection with it, he had to be present at the prayer meetings of Professor Schultz, his mother's chief spiritual adviser, who pressed these devotional exercises with emphasis on the attention of the " spiritually minded" among his congregation. These meetings led to a more intimate connection with Schultz, which resulted in bringing about the first epoch in the young Immanuel's career. Schultz had been always well disposed towards the Kants, supporting them in various ways; such as sending them firewood in the winter carriage paid, etc. He was also a frequent guest at their house. In this way various occasions for observing the rising abilities of the elder son presented themselves, and in consequence he earnestly advised his being allowed to 6 2 xvi BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. devote himself to studious pursuits. This was readily agreed to, his mother joyfully anticipating the realisation of her long cherished wish that he should enter the church. She, however, died under the circumstances narrated, before he had completed his school edu- cation. The irony of fate is certainly in few cases more strikingly manifested than in Kant's. Nurtured in the straitest sect of the orthodox creed of his day, trained doubtless at great sacrifices on the part of his parents that he might become an adequate exponent of that creed, he was yet destined to prove the most tremendous disintegrating force of modern times, springing intellectual mines, causing old creeds and formulas to fall in (so to speak) of their own weight. In Kant, philosophy and science became definitely emancipated from theology. A parallel involuntarily suggests itself between the respective atti- tudes towards religious beliefs of Kant and his elder contemporary, Voltaire, the one the subject, and the other the friend, of Frederick the Great. In the first we have the type of 19th century, in the second of 18th century thought. Both were alike in the immense range of their culture and interests ; both were alike in the revolutionary character of their work. But, besides the difference which, of necessity, distinguishes the mere man of letters from the philosopher in his mode of thought and treatment, they dirt'er as representing two diverse phases of the great intellectual movement of modern times. The attitude of 18th century thought towards current beliefs, where it was not one of ironical servility, was one of direct and uncom- promising hostility ; in fact, paradoxical as it may sound, we not unfrequently see the two attitudes combined as in the famous loth and 16th chapters of Gibbon. What is Htm- known as the historical point of view is, of course, conspicuous by its absence. In no writer is this more BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XV11 noticeable than in the author of the Dictionnaire Philoso- phique. In Kant, on the contrary, may be discerned the germs of the historical method which explains rather than attacks dogmas, and of the extra-theological (in contradis- tinction to anti-theological) attitude of modern science, which, wherever possible, ignores points of direct conflict by disregarding dogma as altogether outside its sphere. This later mode of thought, there can be no doubt, had its origin in Kant's distinction of the speculative and practical reason, although adopted by many who would repudiate this distinction. The world of philosophy and science has more and more tended in the 19th century to exclude all direct theological considerations, whether apologetic or polemical, from its pale. There can, we think, be little doubt that the habit of thought inaugu- rated by the Konigsberg thinker, in spite of its reverent attitude towards, at least, the fundamental conceptions of theology, has been an incomparably more potent factor in current disintegration, at least outside the Latin countries, than the direct onslaughts of Voltaire and the French thinkers of the 18th century. The tendency at present is, indeed, to exaggerate the historical method, or at least to draw from it conclusions scarcely warranted. The sense of historic continuity, and of evolution, leads many thinkers to ignore the significance of epoch-making events and sudden changes, or of voluntarily-directed action in human affairs. But to return to our young schoolboy, as yet in ignorance of the destiny the fates had in store for him, and anticipating, in all probability, as the farthest goal of his studies no more than the Pfarrerthum of some country town or village. Kant was never largely com- municative on the subject of his boyhood, but the couple of stories preserved may as well be reproduced. On one occasion, wheii on his way to school, he was allured xviii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. by some young friends lie met, into taking part in a game. This necessitated his laying down his books on the road. The game ended, he rushed off to make up for lost time and arrived at school just in time to see the class commence, when, to his consternation, the fact of his being without books suddenly dawned upon him. With the greatest composure he nevertheless confessed to the delinquency, and submitted to the inevitable punishment. Another time he was crossing a brook on- the trunk of a tree which had been thrown or had fallen over it. He had only advanced a few steps when it showed alarming symptoms of rolling under his feet. Nothing daunted, our Immanuel fixed his eyes on a point on the opposite side, and, without moving them, dashed straight at it, by this means reaching terra firma in safety. At Michaelmas 1740, in his seventeenth year, Kant entered the university of his native town as a student in theology, a faculty which appears soon to have been relinquished. The immediate occasion of this, was that another student had been preferred to a scholar- ship in the Domschule for which Kant had been a can- didate. But we may suppose that, even at this early period of his career, the foregoing was not the only reason. It msiy be mentioned that Kant preached once or twice during his theological terms in a neighbouring country church in accordance with the custom at that time prevalent in Prussia for younger students to try their powers on country congregations. Philosophy and mathe- matics were now chosen as his subjects from among the university faculties. The chief and indeed only per- manent bias Kant received from his school period was a fondness for the Latin classics, which he studied so thoroughly that, years after, he could recite long passages from memory. It is possible that he might have selected philology as his faculty instead of those actually chosen, but BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XIX for the fact of its being badly represented in the univer- sity at the time. The choice made proved decisive for his whole life. Professor Martin Knutzen, who occupied the chairs of philosophy and mathematics, was a man to stimulate and encourage any latent abilities in the students who attended his lectures, and was, naturally, not long in discerning such in Kant. Kant accordingly obtained every possible assistance in his studies from this acade- mical worthy, who allowed him free access to his own well-stocked library, and introduced him to the works of Newton. Poor Knutzen only lived to see the first result of his praiseworthy endeavours to encourage rising genius, in the shape of Kant's maiden essay entitled, ' Reflections on the just Estimation of living Forces.' In addition to those of Knutzen, Kant attended the lectures of Professor Johann Gottfried Teske on natural science. These two men appear to have been the only teachers in the university whom Kant regarded as having had any material influence in moulding his intellectual character. He spoke of both of them with gratitude and reverence, throughout his whole subsequent life, but made little or no mention of any one else among the professors, although he heard, for some time, Schultz on theology, and Johann Behm on classical literature. Towards the close of his university period, Kant was necessarily confronted with the problem of selecting a carriere. After some hesitation, he decided for the academic profession. Even before the completion of his own studies, he found himself compelled to give lessons at a very inadequate remunera- tion in classics, mathematics, and physical science. Later, he applied for the humble post of under-tutor in one of the schools attached to the university, which, though a position of sheer drudgery, would have at least secured for him the use of the university library. Fortunately for his future, which must have been seriously compromised by a XX BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. step entailing the surrender of well-nigh all private study, the vacancy was filled up, probably through influence, by a candidate not likely to feel the loss of it. Just at this time Kant's father died (March 24th, 1746), a circumstance which threw him completely on his own resources. With a heavy heart he found himself compelled to leave Konigsberg, and seek a position as private tutor, finishing his preparation for the university post he hoped ultimately to fill, in his leisure time. The first family into which he entered in his new capacity was that of a country pastor named Andersch. Thence he removed to the family of a landed proprietor, Von Hulsen of Arensdorf, near Mohrungen, subsequently ennobled by Frederick William III., where he remained for some time, giving great satisfaction and permanently attaching himself to his pupils. One of them subsequently resided with him as boarder, after he had become finally settled in Konigsberg. Was it owing to Kant's influence and instruction in their early life, that the young Von Hulsens were the first among the Prussian feudal lords to voluntarily emancipate their peasants, ensuring them the right to the produce of the land on which they lived and worked? Kant's third and last place as tutor was in the family of Count Kayserling of Eautenburg, who however resided most of the year in Konigsberg. His wife, the countess, is described as a woman of high culture, and one of the leaders of aristocratic society in the city and its neigh- bourhood. Kant thus found himself suddenly thrown into the most Jiifluential circles of his native town, his genius rapidly placing him in the foremost rank. It was during this time that Kant acquired the high polish of manner and distinguished bearing, for which he was afterwards remarkable among Gelehrten. It is not unlikely, also, to have been about this period that he saw fit to change the BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XXI initial letter of his name from C to K, a step, it is said, he was led to adopt owing to the perversity of many persons in pronouncing it Tsant. Kant remained nine years in his tutorial capacity, before, owing to the support of a relative named Eichter, he was enabled to take his degree . in philosophy. One of his examination-essays, de Igne, was rewarded by the acknowledgment of his former teacher i Teske, that he himself had learnt much from it. Kant received his doctorate on April 17th, 1755, in the presence of a large number of distinguished persons connected with the town and university. During the same term he defended in public debate the principles of his test- essay Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicse, the necessary preliminary to the post of lecturer, or Privat-docent. With the winter term of 1755 he commenced lecturing on mathe- matics and physics, continuing to do so, for ten years, con- temporaneously with his philosophical lectures. The latter were based in principle on Wolff, Baumeister, and Baum- garten, though text-books were chiefly used to furnish an order for the exposition of his own thought. Criticism was, of course, at this stage undreamt of, but the originality of the great thinker moulded with its unmistakable impress even the dogmatic metaphysics of his pre-critical days. His fascinating delivery combined with his rich and varied erudition to procure him a large audience. In the dry and cumbrous language of the 'Critique' and many other of the later works, it is difficult to detect the humorous and versatile lecturer, full of illustrations drawn from every conceivable source, his own experience of life, no less than from history and science, who charmed the students of Konigsberg university, before his fame had reached the outside world. The success of the lectures was so great' that constant demands were made for additional courses not contained in the original syllabus. The first great work of Kant's appeared almost at the xxii BIOGRAPHY OP KANT. commencement of this period of his academical activity. Kant had just received his license as Privat-docent when he published his 'General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,' one of the most remarkable astronomical works of the century, and which even now may be read with profit. A few months afterwards, the memorable earthquake of Lisbon afforded him the opportunity of exhibiting his research in questions of physical geography. In April 1756, it became necessary for him to undertake another public disputation, as by an ordinance of Frederick the Great three disputations on a printed theme were requisite before a Privat-docent could enter a professorship. To this end he wrote his treatise De Monadologia physica. On the successful issue of the ordeal, Kant applied for the post of extraordinary professor of mathematics and metaphysics, for some little time vacant by the death of his old teacher Martin Knutzen. But the government, busy with war-prepara- tions, and anxious to reduce expenditure, decided to leave the post still unoccupied. Two years subsequently the ordinary professorship in the same departments became vacant, and Kant again applied for the position. The Prussian government had in the meantime (it was during the Seven Years' War) handed over the province to the Russians, and the Russian governor-general, Nikolaus von Korff, was chief of both the military and civil executive. Kant had as a competitor a Dr. Buck, who was influential in high places, and in spite of his own good recommendations failed to secure the appointment. Continuing his life as Privat-docent, he extended the range of his departments to " philosophy of religion," anthropo- logy, and physical geography, besides giving special lectures on other subjects. Among Kant's pupils at this time, was Herder who attended the whole of the courses delivered between the years 1762 and 1764. Kant allowed Herder BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XX111 to attend free of cost, a not insignificant act of generosity when one considers that Kant himself was in circum- stances far from " easy " at the time ; and we can scarcely absolve the author of the 'Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit " from the charge of ingratitude, for having allowed an adverse criticism of his book to be the cause of the bitterness he subsequently displayed. There can be no doubt, that, great as Herder's own genius may have been, he owed an immense debt to Kant. A friend of the former relates how careful he was, in noting down every sentence that fell from the philosopher's lips. Once when Kant had discoursed with a more than usual brilliancy a brilliancy amounting almost to poetic enthusiasm Herder was so deeply impressed, that on his return home he embodied the substance of the lecture in verse, and the next day handed the manuscript to Kant before the com- mencement of the class. The latter was so struck with the masterly poetic presentation of his ideas, that he read the poem through to his audience, before his lecture, with a power and emphasis that well rewarded the author for his pains. Herder, in spite of his subsequent quarrel, was constrained, years after, in his ' Letters on the Improve- ment of Humanity ' (No. 79) to admit the impres- siveness and charm of Kant's personality, and his rare combination of humour and eloquence with depth of thought. " The same vigorous intelligence," writes Herder, "with which he tested Leibnitz, Wolff, Baum- garten, Crusius, or Hume and followed out the natural laws established by Newton, Kepler, and other physi- cists, he brought to bear on Kousseau's 'Emile' and * Heloi'se ' &c." Another noteworthy acquaintance of Kant's at this time (though the relation between them was not that of master and pupil), was Johann Georg Hamann, the well-known classic and humourist. The characters and paths of the BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. two men were too divergent to admit of anything like a close and lasting friendship. The equable temperament and thoroughness in work of the one, consorted ill with the fitfulness and superficiality of the other. Whether owing to this circumstance or not, it is remarkable that Kant nowhere makes any reference to Hamann, so that, the rooted antipathy of our philosopher to letter-writing preventing any considerable correspondence between them, no evidence (excepting the few letters preserved) remains of their intimacy, if such it was, beyond the testimony of the not too reliable Hamann himself. But at once the most important and most interesting of all Kant's friendships remains to be told. I give the story of its origin and nature in the words of Jachmann (pp. 77-82). "The nearest and most intimate friend that Kant had in his life, was the English merchant Green, who died twenty years ago, a man whose peculiar value, and whose important influence on our sage, may be learnt from the description of their friendship. A singular accident, that seemed likely to create a deadly hatred between the two men on their first acquaintance, gave occasion to the closest ties." " At the time of the Anglo- North American war,* Kant was walking one afternoon in the Danish Garden. He stopped on finding some acquaintances, who were standing in a retired part, talking with some other persons unknown to him. The conversation, in which all present took part, soon turned upon current events. Kant was warmly advocating the American as being the righteous cause, and expressing himself with some bitterness against the English, when suddenly one of the company, springing forward, presented * This friendship, as remarked by Schubert, is proved by letters to have begun long previously to the American War of Independence probably during the eariy part of the decade 1760-70 ; so that the conversation quoted in the text must have reference to some earlier phase of the Anglo-American question. BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XXV himself before Kant, saying that he was an Englishman, declaring himself and his whole nation outraged by the expressions used, and demanding, at the same time, satis- faction in accordance with the code dhonneur. Kant would not allow his equanimity for a moment to be disturbed by the man's vehemence, but continued his remarks, ex- pounding the principles on which he based his political views, and the standpoint from which every man, as citizen of the world, irrespective of his patriotism, ought to judge similar events. This was done with such an irresistible eloquence, that Green for such was the name of the Englishman filled with astonishment, offered his hand in a friendly manner, acknowledged the nobleness of Kant's ideas, apologised for his warmth, and after accompanying him in the evening to his house, invited him to a friendly visit. The now deceased merchant Motherby, a partner of Green, was an eye-witness of the occurrence, and has often assured me that Kant seemed to himself and all present, as though inspired by a Divine power, which enchained their hearts for ever to him. Kant and Green thenceforth concluded an intimate friend- ship, based on knowledge and mutual esteem, a friendship that daily became firmer and closer, and the rupture of which, owing to the early death of Green, occasioned our sage a wound, mitigated indeed by his greatness of soul, but never wholly healed. Kant found in Green a man of wide knowledge, and of so large an understanding, that he himself assured me he never wrote a single sentence in his ' Critique of the Pure Reason,' which he had not previously read to Green, and allowed to be criticised by his unbiassed judgment, unpledged as it was to any system. Green was in character a rare man, distinguished by strict integrity and real generosity, but full of the most strange idiosyncrasies ; a truly whimsical man, whose days were passed according to a set of inflexible BIOGKAPHY OF KANT. and fanciful rules. I will only give one instance of this. Kant had promised Green one evening to accompany him on the following morning at eight o'clock in a drive. Green, who, as was usual on such occasions, was pacing the room with his watch in his hand a quarter of an hour before the time appointed, at ten minutes put on his hat, at five minutes took bis stick, and with the first stroke of the hour opened the carriage door and drove off. He encountered Kant, who was two minutes late, on his way, but did not stop, as this was contrary to the arrangement and his rule. In the society of this gifted, noble-minded, and singular man, Kant found so much nourishment for his intellect and his heart, that he became his constant com- panion, and for many years they daily spent several hours together. Kant went to him every afternoon, found Green sleeping in an armchair, sat down beside him, put aside his thoughts, and fell asleep also. Then bank director Kuss- niann generally arrived and did likewise, till finally Motherby entered the room at an appointed time, and aroused the company, who entertained each other till seven o'clock with conversation. The little coterie broke up so punctually at seven, that I have often heard the inhabitants of the street say ' It can't be seven yet, for professor Kant has not gone past.' On Saturday, the friends, to whom were added on this occasion the Scotch merchant Hay and some others, assembled to supper, consisting of a frugal cold collation. This friendly inter- course, which fell towards the middle of our sage's career, had incontestably a decided influence on his character. Green's death changed Kant's mode of life so much, that from this time forth, he never again entered an evening gathering, and wholly renounced supper himself. It seemed as though this time, once sacred to his most intimate friendship, he wished to pass in solitude, as a sacrifice to his deceased friend, to the close of his existence." BIOGEAPHY OF KANT. XXV11 I have given this interesting narrative of Jachmann at length, as it is characteristic in more ways than one of the philosopher's character and habits. In July 17(52 the professorship of poetry had become vacant, but was not filled up for some time, in spite ot numerous applications, owing to the pre-occupation of the ministry with other matters. Meanwhile Kant's works and news of his success as lecturer had reached head- quarters, and resulted in the following ministerial rescript dated, Berlin, the 5th of August, 1764, signed by the minister of justice, and addressed to the government of the province of Prussia, to be conveyed to the senate of the university of Konigsberg. " A certain magister, by name Immanuel Kant, having become known to us by writings displaying thorough scholarship, it is desired to know whether the said Immanuel Kant possesses the requisite acquirements in German and Latin poetry, together with the necessary gifts for teaching the same, and whether he 'would be inclined to accept this post. On this point you are to obtain information, and thereupon to report accurately ; in the event of the said Immanuel Kant either not possessing the necessary acquirements for the occupation of this post, or being indisposed to its acceptance, you are required to bestir yourselves, to propose, in due form, other sufficiently qualified persons." Kant believed himself to have no special bent for the professorate in question, which would have involved the criticism of all pieces d'occasion, as well as the composition of such on academic festivals, so he at once declined it, at the same time "recommending himself" for a more suit- able occasion. Another rescript was issued in reply, to the following effect : " We are none the less most graciously determined to promote the magister, Immanuel Kant, to the use and acceptance of the said academy on another opportunity; and graciously command you ac- XXviii BIOGRAPHY OF KAXT. cordingly, to notify us, in due obedience, on the manner in which this may be most suitably effected." The following year Kant accepted the librarianship of the public library at a salary of sixty-two thalers (9 6s.) a year, this meagre pittance being the first fixed stipend he obtained from any source. About the same time, his love for natural science led him to undertake the curator- ship of a valuable private museum of natural history, and ethnographical objects. This he found himself compelled very soon to relinquish, as the collection being one among the comparatively few " objects of interest " in the city, his presence in showing it became too much in request amongst sightseers. Kant was now living in the house of a bookseller named Kanter, to whose journals the Konigsbergischer wocJientliche Nachrichten and the Gelehrte Zeitung, he regularly contributed. In the summer of 1768 Kanter opened " new and extensive " premises, including a room apparently serving the purpose of a reading and writing room for his customers, round the walls of which were hung the portraits of prominent contemporary German scholars. Kant was induced to "sit" for his portrait by his host, who was anxious to add the Konigs- berg celebrity to his collection. The resulting picture, which must have portrayed Kant at the age of fourty-four, is now hanging on the walls of Messrs. Grafe and Munzer's establishment at Konigsberg. Kant's fame was now no longer confined to his native province or country, but was rapidly spreading into other parts of Germany. In 1769 he received the offer of the vacant chair of logic and metaphysics in the university of Erlangen, a post he seems at first to have been inclined to accept, much to the satisfaction of the students of the university. The position was not un- remunerative according to the ideas of the time, con- sisting of 500 florins salary yearly, in addition to a BIOGEAPHY OF KA.NT. XXIX liberal supply of fuel for the winter, with an immediate advance of 150 gulden for travelling expenses. The project seems to have been pending for some months, but was eventually abandoned. The same result attended an offer of the professorate at Jena, made in January 1770. Kant had finally determined not to leave his native town, let the allurements be what they might. The time was drawing near when the post which was the goal of his professional hopes was to become once more accessible. In the March of the same year (1770) the professorship of mathematics, becoming vacant, was offered to Kant. Singularly enough, Kant's former successful rival, Pro- fessor Buck, had, immediately on learning the death of its late occupant, himself taken steps toward getting nominated for it, in lieu of the post he then occupied. The matter was thus easily adjusted. Buck resigned the chair of logic and metaphysics, while Kant relinquished his claims to that of mathematics. The two men were thus mutually installed in the positions of their choice ; the ministerial rescript appointing Kant as ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics in the university of Konigsberg, bearing the date of March 31st. The salary was 400 thalers (60), besides lecture fees. Kant did not for- mally enter upon his duties till August 20th, 1770, when according to precedent he publicly defended his treatise De mundo sensibili, containing the fundamental theses of the ' Critique.' He chose as his respondent, his friend and pupil Dr. Marcus Herz, who a few days later returned to Berlin. With his assumption of the professorial robes commenced the middle period of Kant's academical and literary life, when his system was elaborated and matured, and his powers were at the height of their activity. Henceforth we have the critical Kant before us. Kant's entry upon his new functions was almost coincident with the assumption of the entire educational c XXX BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. departments of the ministry at Berlin by Baron von Zedlitz, a man of considerable culture and a zealous disciple of the Aufklarung, who at once recognised Kant's genius and importance for the university, and remained an influential friend to him until his resigna- tion eighteen years later. Zedlitz was no sooner in office than he issued a rescript proscribing the Crusian philo- sophy, making a clear sweep of the antiquated text-books previously in use, and generally calculated to put aca- demic bodies "on their mettle." No opportunity was lost of showing ministerial esteem for the occupant of the philosophical chair at Konigsberg. In 1778 Professor Meier of Halle dying, Zedlitz immediately offered the appointment (which was of considerably greater pecuniary value than the one at Konigsberg) to Kant, and was much surprised at its being declined by him. His anxiety for Kant's worldy prospects was sufficient to induce him to repeat this invitation. " I cannot," he writes, " give up my desire to see you remove to Halle. It is too bad that your way of thinking so exactly coincides with your post. Really, my dear Herr Kant, however praise- worthy this may be in itself, it does not seem to me well that you should so deliberately refuse a better position." This second letter contained every possible argument, even to considerations of climate, but all to no purpose. Kant was inflexible in his resolution to remain true to his native town, by letting it have all the honour and advantages accruing from his genius. That the incident contributed, if anything, to enhance the minister's esteem goes without saying. Departing from his usual practice of not dedicating his works, Kant inscribed the first edition of his ' Critique ' to his " protector " Freiherr von Zedlitz. The expression " protector," was in this case no mere form, as Kant found to his cost on the death of the free-thinking Frederick the BIOGEAPHY OF KANT. XXXI Great many years later, and consequent resignation of his minister, which not long after followed, for his successor was a man of very different mould ; it was under his administration that Kant, as we shall presently see, was first made to feel the existence of a press censorship. Throughout the tenure of his office of professor, every morning, summer and "winter, during the terms, saw Kant at his desk in the lecture-room at seven o'clock punctually, the lecture lasting two hours. His special lectures he was now obliged to give up, owing to the pressure of literary work. But besides those on logic and metaphysics, he had to deliver regular courses on ethics, natural theology, anthropology and physical geography, all of which were attended by literally " overflowing" audiences not alone consisting of students, but composed of men of mature years, from among all classes of the outside public. As time went on, the bulky manuscript originally employed grew smaller and smaller, till at last it dwindled to a piece of note paper, on which were jotted a few memoranda. His delivery is described as much more readily comprehensible, even on subjects in them- selves obscure, than the literary style of the later works. Kant, when reproached with the clumsiness and obscurity of the latter, used to excuse himself by the reply, that they were only written for professional thinkers ; that a special terminology had the advantage of brevity, and that, besides this, he liked to flatter the vanity of the reader now and again with obscurities and misunderstandings to give him the opportunity of exercising his wits upon them ; it was otherwise in oral discourse, the object of which was to introduce the hearer to the subject. Kant's logic lectures were less designed to expound a completed science than to teach his hearers how to think for them- selves. With him formal logic was a means rather than the end it is with many academical exponents of the subject. c 2 XXxii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. In his philosophical lectures Kant had the habit of follow- ing his main idea into side issues, often at such length and in such detail as to be in danger of losing sight of it altogether. On these occasions, he would suddenly break off from his digression with the words, " In short, gentlemen," and thus regain, as quickly as possible, the main thread of the argument. His naturally weak voice prevented his being heard at the farther end of the room with distinct- ness, while the slightest noise rendered him completely in- audible. But the respect, almost amounting to reverence, universally surrounding him, secured a breathless silence the moment he appeared at the lecture-desk, before which he was accustomed to sit while speaking. He had a habit, on commencing, of fixing his eye on some individual imme- diately in front of him, in order to read, by the expression of the face, whether he was being understood. This, some- times, had unfortunate consequences, as any marked pecu- liarity in person or in dress, was apt, by involuntarily engrossing his attention, to completely disturb the current of his ideas. Jachmann relates, that on one occasion he entirely lost himself, owing to a missing button on the coat of one of his audience. His eye and thoughts were alike irresistibly drawn to this defect. The same thing oc- curred if an imperfection in the teeth caught his atten- tion, an unusually open shirt front, or any exceptional " cut " of coat. As dean of the university, a post he several times occupied, Kant had the reputation of being a strict examiner, but he never demanded more of students than the state of education in the higher schools admitted of. Jachmann amused Kant in after years, by describing the anxiety of himself and his teachers lest he should fail in passing the ordeal, especially as he had been trained in the antiquated Crusian philosophy. But, *as Jachmann observes, Kant was too much a philosopher himself, to BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. make any given system of philosophy the basis of examin- ation. The functions involved in the rectorate of the university, which office he filled for the first time in 1786, the year of the death of Frederick II., he exercised " with dignity, without oppressive severity." His views of academic discipline were of the most liberal nature, and he was never harsh on the minor irregularities incidental to student life. He expressed a disbelief in hothouse train- ing, and his conviction of the desirability of considerable latitude being permitted for the individual character to expand itself. In short, he was, throughout his official career, beloved by the students, whom he treated with an almost paternal tenderness and interest. On an increased grant being made to the university, Kant, of course, received his share in common with the other professors in the shape of an improved stipend. But a special and almost unparalleled favour was shown in his case by an addition of 220 thalers from the central state funds. Kant's correspondence with Marcus Herz attests his prodigious literary fertility during this period. Dr. Herz was a favourite pupil of Kant's, and one of the first public exponents of his system, which he introduced to the Berliners before the ' Critique ' itself had appeared. The correspondence between the two men was kept up for many years, and only collapsed finally, owing to the extended medical practice of Herz, absorbing time and energies previously devoted to philosophical studies. The letters to Eeinhold also illustrate the nature and extent of Kant's work towards the close of this period. The old friendship or acquaintance with Hamann, for some time interrupted, was renewed in 1780, about which time Kant seems to have revised a translation of Hume's 'Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,' which Hamann had made, while Hamann undertook to negotiate for the publication of the ' Critique.' The latter writes to Herder BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. under date April 8th, 1781, " The day before yesterday I received the first thirty sheets of the ' Critique of Pure Reason,' but I had the strength of mind to resist looking at any of it till the following day. Yesterday I re- mained all day at home, and swallowed the whole thirty sheets at a gulp. ... It seems to me to be toler- ably free from printers' errors, though my eye caught sight of a dozen or so. According to all human proba- bilities it will create an excitement, give occasion to new investigations, revisions, &c. But in the end, very few readers will be equal to the scholastic nature of its contents. It increases in interest as you go on, and there are fresh and charming oases, after one has been wading in the sand for a long time. Altogether, the work is rich in prospects and leaven to new decoctions whether within or outside the faculty." And again, " On May 8th, on Sunday, I received eighteen sheets from Kant, but it is not yet finished, and will hardly be so in ten sheets more." Finally on August 5th, he writes, " A week ago to-day, I received a bound copy from Kant. On the 5th of July I sketched a criticism en gros, but have put it aside, because I do not care to offend the author, he being an old friend, and I might almost say benefactor, seeing that I owe my first post entirely to him ; but should my translation of Hume see the light ever, I shall hold no leaf before my mouth, but shall say what I think. Kant has the intention of bringing out a popular abstract of his work." The popular abstract referred to was the Prolegomena. Hart- knoch, the original publisher of the ' Critique,' expressed the wish to undertake the latter work, and received, through Hamann, a reply from Kant, accepting his offer, but intimating at the same time that, as far as his other writings were concerned, he could not pass over the local booksellers, of whose shops he made such extensive use. This resolution he adhered to, and, in spite of the pressing BIOGEA.PHY OF KANT. XXXV offers of other firms, gave almost all his subsequent works into the hands of Nicolovius, a young bookseller of Konigsberg. Hamann, who, during the publication of the Prolegomena, seems once more to have quarrelled with Kant, exhibited nevertheless considerable interest in its progress, making repeated inquiries of Hartknoch on the subject. The adverse criticism of Herder's ' Ideas to a Philosophy of History of Mankind ' excited considerable attention at the time it was written. There was published in the Deutsche Mercur, a bitter reply, curiously enough by Reinhold, subsequently Kant's most ardent disciple, which elicited a rejoinder from Kant even more severe than the original criticism. In 1785 appeared the ' Metaphysic of Ethics,' the first edition of which was sold out in a few months, and a second, almost unaltered, issued early in 1786. Towards the end of the same year, we find Kant studying Jacob i's recently published 'Letters to Moses Mendelssohn on the Doctrines of Spinoza.' Hamann says Kant coTild never make anything of Spinoza, though he had many long conversations on the subject with his intimate friend Kraus. In a letter of a few weeks later to Jacobi, he writes, "Kraus told me, that Kant had the intention to refute Mendelssohn, and make the first onslaught in a polemic against him. He confessed, notwithstanding, that with himself, as with Mendelssohn, your exposition was just as incomprehensible as the text of Spinoza." Hamann's letter to Jacobi of Nov. 20th con- tains the important statement (if it is to be relied on) that "Kant confessed to me, that he had never properly studied Spinoza, and that, being taken up with his own system, he had neither the desire nor the time to enter into others." Shortly after, we hear from the same source, that the notion of refuting Mendelssohn had been given up, but that Hamann was going to do all in his power to induce BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Kant to reconsider this decision, when the death of Mendelssohn, shortly after, terminated the matter. Kant's admiration for Mendelssohn's style was very great ; indeed his estimate of the Jewish writer's genius seems to have been somewhat exaggerated. It is probable that they never came personally into contact, but several letters passed between the two thinkers. Kant's academic fame was now (1786) at its height. Places had to be taken at least an hour before the com- mencement of the lecture, so great was the "rush." I must not omit to mention an important change in our philosopher's mode of life, which took place a little while before this time. In 1 783 he had purchased the house which he retained till death. It was situated in the centre ot the town, and may still be seen, bearing, on a marble tablet, the inscription, " Immanuel Kant lived and taught here from 1783 till the 12th of February 1804." A few- years later, he established a menage of his own. It is almost needless to say this was of the greatest simplicity, Kant's abhorrence to the least appearance of ostentation being proverbial. From this time he regularly invited a few friends to dine with him every day, with the exception of Sunday, when he dined at the house of the English merchant, Motherby. He could not entertain more than six persons at the table, as his dinner-service only accommodated that number Among the friends invited, one of the most constant was Professor Kraus. Kraus was also a frequent companion of Kant in his daily constitutional walks. Kant often intimated to various members of his acquaintance that he regarded Kraus as one of the greatest intellects the world had ever produced. "Of all the men.I have ever known in my life," he used to say, " I have found none with such a talent for com- prehending everything, and learning everything, and yet for excelling, and distinguishing himself in everything, as BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. XXXV11 our Professor Kraus. He is quite a unique man." Kraus, on his side, denied himself his single relaxation, a summer trip to the country residence of his friend Auei swald, in order to spend the vacations with his old teacher Kant. This friendship with Kraus lasted uninterruptedly till the death of Kant, although latterly, for various reasons, the two men saw each other less frequently than at the period of which we are speaking. Another of Kant's " table-companions " was Hippel, a man of tremendous conversational powers, and of varied culture. His intimacy with Hippel was not of the same nature as that with Kraus, being chiefly limited to mutual invitations to dinner, but the acquaintance thus far con- tinued without any noteworthy breach till Hippel's death in 1796. Two letters of Kant to Hippel are preserved, which are not uninteresting, one as exhibiting the humorous side to Kant's character, and the other his good nature. Hippel, it should be premised, at the time, held the office of Chief Burgomaster, police-director, and inspector of the city prison. The first letter, dated July 9th, 1784, runs as follows : "Your excellency was so good as to desire to remove the grievance of the inhabitants of the Schlossgarten, with regard to the stentorian tones of the hypocrites in gaol. I do not think they would have cause to complain that their souls' salvation was in danger, if their voices were moderated in singing, so far that they might be heard with closed windows, without having to exhaust themselves by shrieking. The testimony of the warder, with which it seems you are chiefly con- cerned, as to their being a God-fearing folk, you might have, notwithstanding, for he would still be able to hear them, and after all, their tones would only be lowered to the point which the pious burghers of our good town find adequate to their edification, in their own houses. One word to the warder, if you will send for him, and order XXXviii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. him to make the above a fixed rule, will suffice to put a stop to this nuisance for once and for all, and remove an annoyance from him, whose peace you have been good enough to promote on more occasions than one, and who will always remain, with the deepest respect, your most obedient servant, I. Kant." The second letter, dated the 29th of September, 1786, commences with a compliment on a title being conferred on its destined recipient, but the real object is to petition for the continuance of the stipend of a young student : " Your excellency, accept my sincere congratulations on the well-merited distinction appended to your name, which, although it can add nothing to your already well- established public recognition, is a pledge that you will meet with less opposition in your purpose of doing good, the only interest I know which you have at heart. Per- mit me, in accordance with your good nature, now to bring before you a little matter connected with the Uni- versity. Herr Jachmann, the elder, has informed me that the stipend he has hitherto enjoyed by your fore- thought, terminates this next Michaelmas. As he is now zealously devoting himself to his medical studies, and can thus afford no time for the private teaching necessary to his subsistence, he earnestly begs you to have the good- ness to allow him one of the stipends announced in the ' Intelligencer.' Should you permit him, either personally or by writing, to make this application to you, please to give me a hint of the same. This act of goodness will always profit a brave, thoughtful, and talented young man : so much I can vouch for. I remain, with respect and affection, yours ever, I. Kant." We have now reached the period when Kant had become the central figure in the intellectual world of Germany. The ' Critique of Practical Eeason ' appeared in 1788, and the 'Critique of Judgment' in 1790. The BIOGRAPHY OF KAXT. XXXIX critical philosophy, now complete, was being taught in every important university throughout every German- speaking country, irrespective of creed. Men of science, no less than philosophers, were attracted to it on all sides. Professors and savants made pilgrimages to Konigsberg from the most distant places Berlin, Jena, Heidelberg, Wurzburg, and even Vienna to visit the philosophic Jupiter of the Baltic town, and seek elucidation on obscure points in the ' Critique.' When it is remembered that at the period in question not merely were railroads undreamt of, but even good roads all but unknown in central Europe, the enthusiasm and determination which led to journeys being undertaken involving the expense and fatigue these must have done, will be fully realised. Sometimes, it is true, the cost was defrayed by the prince or grand-duke of the State in which some prominent university was situated, but such cases were exceptional. It would hardly be rash to say that no single book has ever achieved a success at once so rapid and lasting as the ' Critique of Pure Eeason.' Although just at first it failed to attract much notice, within ten years of its publication it occupied the position of a classic. For such an effect to be produced by a philosophic work, written without any regard to style whatever, is a unique fact in the history of culture. A new light had, as Schiller expressed it, been lighted for men. " Many regarded Kant as the prophet of a new religion, and Eeinhold declared that, 'in a hundred years Kant would have the reputation of Jesus Christ.' The Jena Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung proclaimed a novus ordo rerum. In the course of some ten years 300 attacks and defences of Kant's philosophy appeared. The enthusiasm aroused the hatred of opponents. Herder characterised the whole movement as a St. Vitus's dance, while fanatical priests xl BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. sought to degrade the name of the sage of Konigsberg to a dog's name. We must not alone be acquainted with the books written from a more or less impartial stand- point, but also with the subjectively coloured pamphlets and letters belonging to the period, to form an adequate idea of the, at present, almost inconceivable commotion. The powerful impression of the Kantian philosophy on all classes in the nation, implied a corresponding influence on every sphere of intellectual activity. Theology, juris- prudence, philology, even natural science and medicine were soon drawn into the movement, quite apart, of course, from the special philosophical disciplines which were subjected to its mighty influence.* " The critical movement, at first confined to Germany, was not long in spreading over Europe. Kitsch, a pupil of Kant, appeared in London in February, 1794, with a prospectus bearing the psychologically coloured heading, ' Proposals for a course of lectures on the perceptive and reasoning faculties of the mind, according to the principles of Professor Kant.' In this prospectus he oflered to deliver three lectures, admission gratis, and at the close of each to defend the principles enunciated against all comers. On the evening of the 3rd of March, the occa- sion of the first lecture, the street in which the lecture- room was situated was early lined with carriages, and Nitech, on his appearance on the platform, found himself confronted by a large audience, composed of members of the nobility, the clergy, and the " learned " professions generally, and including, as we are informed, many " richly attired " ladies. The lecture lasted an hour and a half, and was received with applause, but Nitsch had no sooner concluded than he was forced to commence a dis- putation, lasting two hours, in the course of which he was required to answer every conceivable objection that could * Vaihinger, Commentar, pp. 9, 10. BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. xli be raised in a running fire of questions. So successfully did he pass through this ordeal, and so much interest did the three introductory lectures evoke, that a sufficiently large number of subscribers was got together to make it worth while for him to undertake a course of thirty-six lectures, at a fee of three guineas each person, expound- ing in detail the principles of the critical philosophy. He concluded them in August. But, meanwhile, the desire for further information had become so great, that a repetition of the lectures was commenced the following October, and a subscription raised for their subsequent publication. The success of Nitsch in his introduction of " criticism " into England is certainly somewhat surprising, when we consider the newness of the doctrine, and the conserva- tive nature of English thought. It is difficult to con- ceive that his hearers, accustomed as they were to a treatment of philosophical questions so alien to that of Kant, really comprehended the full bearings of the new system. The next representative of Kant's principles in this country, was John Eichardson, who studied philosophy in Halle under Beck, and on his return to England pub- lished a translation of the ' Prolegomena,' and some other short pieces. Eichardson admits, in his preface, that he had found the transition from empiricism to critical idealism very difficult, notwithstanding his having had the advantage of a German university education. In France, where the Eevolution was at its height (the Eevolution which was the deathblow of the material structure of ages, as Kant's philosophy was of the in- tellectual structure of ages), and communication with central Europe was interrupted for some time, except the piece d'occasion entitled, 'Everlasting Peace,' trans- lated in 1795, little was known of Kant beyond the fact xlii BIOGKAPHY OF KANT. that he was the head of a great intellectual movement in Germany, till, in 1798, the recently established Institut Nationals ordered a report of the new doctrine to be laid before it. In the following year (1799), Kant's first French disciple, Charles FranQois Dominique de Villers, published at Metz an abstract of the ' Critique,' and, a year or two later, another treatise, entitled La philosophic de Kant, ou principes fondamentaux de la philosophic transcendentale. Among the other Latin nationalities, Kant remained little more than a name till some years after his death, and the same may be said of the Slav countries of Eastern Europe. In the Netherlands, on the contrary, in 1796, an elaborate work in four volumes, 'De Beginzels der Kantiaansche Wysgeerte,' was published, in which, not- withstanding its modest title, critical principles were exhaustively expounded, while in October 1798 a new magazine, the ' Kritische Magazin,' was founded for the express purpose of propagating and defending the prin- ciples of the new philosophy. Among the numerous pilgrims to Konigsberg, one of the most interesting, if not from any special eminence, from the probably unique enthusiasm Kant inspired in him, was the Berlin physician Erhard, who arrived in Konigsberg about the same time as Fichte. " All pleasure that I have ever had in my life," he writes in his auto- biography, " is as nothing against the thrill sent through- OTit my whole soul by several passages in the ' Critique of Practical Eeason.' Tears of the highest rapture, how often have I not shed over this book ? The very re- collection, even now, of those happy days brings tears to my eyes." And again, " Do I hold my own in the battle with the crushing thought with which the history of the time, like an evil demon, so often fills my soul that the belief in the development of humanity in the whirl of human action, is an old wives' fable, designed to restrain BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. xliii the child from wandering down the path of coarse pleasures, and an empty consolation for the jubilation of his comrades do I withstand this soul-oppressing thought, then it is thy work, my teacher, my spiritual father." The last letter (April 16, 1800) of Erhard to Kant closes with the words, " Think of me as of a son who intensely loves and reverences him who brought him up, for you are even to me as my father, though him I have to thank that he left me prepared for your instruction." Among the eminent men, not professional philosophers, who, at this time (1790-1800), were zealous votaries of Kant, foremost stand Schiller, TVilhelm von Humboldt, and Jean Paul Friedrich Eichter. The influence of Kant on Goethe was less marked, and probably in the main derived from Schiller. The ' Critique of Pure Eeason,' he said, lay outside his sphere, though the ' Critique of the Faculty of Judgment ' seemed to have interested him con- siderably. He admits that much in Kant's thought he was unable to assimilate. How thoroughly, on the other hand, Schiller was imbued with Kantianism his works and letters testify. Wilhelm von Humboldt remarks in the ' Introduction to his Correspondence with Schiller ' (published in 1830) : " Kant undertook and com- pleted the greatest work for which the philosophic reason has to thank any single man. He proved and sifted the whole of philosophic procedure, in a way that led him to encounter the philosophies of all times and all nations. . . He carried, in the true sense of the wurds, philosophy back into the human bosom. Every attribute of the great thinker he possessed in the fullest measure." The whole of this introduction is masterly in its estimate of Kant's work, but belonging as it does to a period long subsequent to the death of Kant, our only purpose in alluding to it here is, to show the impression left on the mind of Humboldt by the study of the ' Critiques ' undertaken by xliT BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. him between thirty and forty years previously, and which is abundantly reflected in the correspondence itself. The enthusiasm of Jean Paul is characteristically ex- pressed in a letter to his friend, the Pastor Vogel : " For Heaven's sake buy two books, Kant's ' Foundation to a Metaphysic of Ethics,' and Kant's 'Critique of the Practical Eeason.' Kant is no mere light of the world, but a whole dazzling solar system at once." The bulk of Kant's collected correspondence falls within these last twenty years of the century, the crowning period of his life. It comprises, amongst others, letters to and from Moses Mendelssohn, Marcus Herz, Eeinhold, Schiller, and Fichte. As instances of Kant's epistolary style, we quote letters to the two last-named, respectively. Schiller had written, asking Kant to contribute to his newly-founded periodical, Die Horen, at the same time taking the opportunity of thanking him for a favourable review of his (Schiller's) essay on ' Grace and Dignity,' and acknowledging his indebtedness to the critical philosophy. Kant replied nine months subsequently (Schiller's letter is dated June 13th, 1794, and Kant's, March 30th, 1795), as follows: "The acquaintance and literary intercourse of a learned and talented man like yourself cannot, my dear friend, be otherwise than desired by me to enter upon and cultivate. The plan for a new journal, communicated by you last summer, came duly to hand, also the two first numbers a short time ago. The letters on the ' ^Esthetic Education of Man,' I find ad- mirable, and shall study them in order to be able to communicate to you my ideas on the subject. The paper contained in the second number on the difference of sex in organic nature, I cannot decipher, although the writer seems a capable man. . . An idea of the kind flashes across one's mind occasionally, but one does not know how to make anything of it. For instance, the natural BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. xv arrangement that all impregnation in both of the organic kingdoms requires two sexes, in order to propagate its kind, is always astonishing, and opens up an abyss of thought for the human reason. If we are unwilling to assume providence to have chosen this arrangement, in a playful manner, as it were, to avoid monotony, but believe ourselves to have reason for regarding it as the only possible one, an infinite prospect lies before us, of which we can make simply nothing,* as little indeed as from what Milton's angel tells Adam of the Creation : ' Male light of distant suns mingles with female for ends un- known.' f I am concerned lest your journal should be pre- judiced by the fact that your writers do not sign their articles, and thus make themselves responsible for their opinions, a point which interests the public very much. " For this gift, then, I offer my best thanks, but as regards my small contribution, I must ask for a somewhat long postponement, since political and religious matters are now under a certain embargo [referring to the stringent press censorship, of which more later on], and beside these subjects, there are hardly any of interest for articles such as would commend themselves to the great reading world, at least at this moment ; so we must watch for a change in the weather, and accommodate ourselves to the time. 1 beg you to give Herr Professor Fichte greetings and thanks for the many works from his pen which he has sent me. I would have done this myself if the variety of my labours, and the discomforts of old age had not com- pelled me to postpone it constantly. Kindly give my remembrances also to Herren Schultz and Hufeland. " And now, dearest man, I wish your talents and gocx? intentions adequate strength, health, and longevity, the * Compare note to p. 97 (Prolegomena). t This apparently refers to a passage in the eighth book of ' Para- dise Lost.' xlvi BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. friendship included, with which you honour him who is, with the greatest esteem your devoted and true servant, Immanuel Kant." The letter to Fichte which we quote, is, as far as we are aware, the last written by Kant to this philosopher. Bather more than a year subsequently, Kant, possibly from fear of sharing the charge of atheism that had been brought against Fichte, made a formal declaration that he considered the Wissenschaftslehre " to contain an utterly untenable system." The curt, and certainly unjustifiable language of this manifesto naturally created an irreparable breach between the two thinkers. The letter itself, although, on the whole, friendly, is not without one or two sneers at the Fichtean system, betokening the coming rupture, as will be seen : " Highly valued friend," writes Kant, " should you take my three-quarters of a year's delay in answering you for a want of friendship or im- politeness, I could never forgive you. Did you know my state of health and the weakness of my age, which have compelled me for the past year and a half [the letter is not dated, but was probably written towards the end of the 'year 1797], certainly not out of laziness, to give up my lectures, you would find my behaviour excusable, notwith- standing my now and then giving notice of my continued existence by means of the Berliner Monatsclirift and more recently of the Berliner Blatter, a thing I accomplish slowly and with exertion, and even then feel myself driven into practical departments, the subtilties of theoretical speculation, especially when it refers to your finely pointed apices being willingly left to others. That I have chosen no other journal than the Berliner Blatter for my recent, productions, you and my other philosophic friends will lay to the score of invalidism. The reason is, that in this way I see my work published and criticised soonest, for, like a. political paper, it satisfies expectation almost BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. daily, and I do not know how long it will continue possible for me to work at all. Your books, sent in 1795 and 1796, have come to hand by Herr Hartung. It is a particular pleasure to me that my ideas on jurisprudence meet with your approval. Pray do not hesitate to further honour me with your letters, if your objection to my delay in answering be not too great, as well as to forward me literary reports. I shall man myself, in future, to be more industrious in this matter, especially as I see by your recent pieces that your excellent talent is developing a vigorous and popular style in exposition, that you have already passed through the thorny paths of Scholasticism, and will not find it necessary to return to them. With perfect esteem and friendship, I am always, &c., I. Kant." To this Fichte replies, that he does not for a moment contemplate bidding farewell to Scholasticism, but that on the contrary he carries it on with pleasure and facility as it strengthens and raises his powers. Kant's objection to Fichte's system as being purely formal and logical, and inadequate to explain the real, inas- much as it makes abstraction of the material element essential to reality, although by no means unfounded, especially as regards its later developments, will apply perhaps more to the systems of Fichte's successors, Schelling and Hegel. Before concluding the subject of Kant's correspondence, we append a specimen of a singular class of letters, of which he was a not infrequent recipient. The writer was an Austrian baroness, Maria von Herbert by name ; she and her brother were victims of the sultry moral atmosphere characterising the decadeu of the last century immediately preceding the French Eevolution : " Great Kant ! " runs this erratic epistle, " to thee I cry as a believer to his God for help, be it for consolation or for sentence of death. The grounds assigned in thy works for continued existence d 2 xlviii .BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. are sufficient for me. Hence my flight to thee. For this life I found nothing absolutely nothing to replace my lost treasure, for I loved one who in my eyes was every- thing, so that for him only I lived. He was to me a com- pensation for all that I lacked, for all else seemed a toy, and all other human beings vapid and empty. I have offended this object of my affection by a lie of long stand- ing, which I have only just confessed to him. And yet it contained naught affecting my character, for I have never had a vice to conceal. But the lie alone was enough for him, and his love vanished. He is an honourable man, and therefore he does not deny me friendship and fidelity, Imt that inmost feeling, which attracted us involuntarily to each other, is no more. Oh, my heart will break into a thousand pieces. Had I not read much of your * writings I had certainly, even now, ended my life by violence. [The writer committed suicide six months after Kant's death.] But the conclusion I am forced to draw from your theory, that I ought not to die because of my wretched life, but to live even in my present existence, held me back. Now put yourself in my place, and give me consolation or condemnation. I have read the ' Metaphysics of Ethics,' with its categorical imperative. It does not help me. My reason forsakes me when I need it most. An answer, I conjure you, or you do not act according to your own Imperative." f Unfortunately Kant's reply to this strange communica- tion is lost. Borowski states that Kant persistently post- poned producing it when asked for by him. But even apart from the comments of a great man, the letter has its " human " interest, as has every fugitive glimpse, of one of * The change to the ordinary pronoun of polite address is in the original. t The original completely ignores the canons of orthography and punctuation. Two subsequent letters of Maria von Herbert to Kant are extant. The letter is unsigned, but the name and address are given at the top. BIOGKAPHT OF KANT. xllX those tragedies of which the world knows nothing, and the very actors in \vhich pass for ever from mortal ken in a few years, one of those instances of individual suffering that the tide of time sweeps in such countless numbers into the ocean of oblivion. History, the mind's eye of the race, sees the individual only through the universal, only as the concrete mark of some universal schema ; the individual as such exists only for a few other individuals and perishes, even as a name and a memory with them ; thus affording us in a possibly unexpected manner an illustration of the critical doctrine that the universal alone gives reality and persistence to the particular. We know Maria von Herbert only as a background to Kant, the figurehead of a great intellectual movement. In the midst of all this fame and homage a fame and homage such as it has been the lot of few men to attain during their lives trouble was preparing for Kant. His staunch friend and " protector," the minister Von Zedlitz, resigned his office in the educational department of the ministry, on July 3rd, 1788, and was replaced by a ci-devant cleric, Johann Christoph Wollner, whose first act was the issue of a rescript to the ministers of the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches^ warning them against the rationalistic " errors" prevalent. This was followed a few months later by an edict limiting the freedom of the press. The evils of unrestrained liberty in the expression of opinion were dwelt upon with the emphasis usual to such productions, and all writings ordered to be submitted to special bodies, whose authorisation was to be necessary, prior to publication. A committee of obscurantist clergy was thereupon appointed in Berlin for adjudication on works affecting religion. Their atten- tion was soon turned to the founder of the critical philosophy, but the victim was so well intrenched in the favour of public opinion, that more than ordinary cireum- 1 BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. epection had to be employed in the attack. One of their number accordingly drew up a report to the King, in which the desirability of prohibiting the publication of any further works from Kant's pen was delicately sug- gested. This flank movement seems, for the time at least, to have come to nothing. But the course of events assisted the obscurantists. With the progress of the French revolution the portentous charge of Jacobinism came every day more conveniently to hand as a weapon for branding all aspirations after freedom, whether social, political, or religious, till, with the general armament of 1792, the full tide of the reaction destined, in its political aspect, to culminate in the infamous Holy Alliance, set in. All who refused to anathematise every person and thing having any connection near or remote with the great con- vulsion became an object of suspicion, and of governmental if not social ostracism. On September 14, 1794, an ordinance was promulgated, that all teachers, in the universities and higher seminaries, no less than the lower schools, should pledge themselves to adhere in their instruction to the letter of the orthodox creed. It happened that at this time Kant's more im- portant works, touching directly on religious and poli- tical subjects, were being published. The authorities at Berlin, with characteristic stupidity, instead of seeing in these the natural development of principles contained in the system from the beginning, thought they detected a deliberately planned attempt, on the part of a thinker of pre-eminent influence, to undermine the status quo. Kant's treatise on ' Radical Evil ' was allowed to pass, on the score that only deep-thinking scholars read Kant's works. But the publication of a second essay ' On the Con- flict of the Good Principle with the Evil for the mastery in Man ' was prohibited as " striking at the root of Biblical theology." A remonstrance on the part of the editor BIOGEAPHY OF KANT. II of the Berliner Monatsclirift, in which the essay was to appear, was repulsed with a curt refusal to enter further into explanations. The difficulty was obviated as concerns the ensuing treatise on ' Religion within the Boundaries of mere Keason,' by its publication at once as an independent work by Nicolovius of Konigsberg the Konigsberg theological faculty, consisting for the most part of zealous friends of Kant, as' may be supposed offering no objection. In the preface to this work Kant takes the opportunity of defining his views on the re- lations of the two faculties of philosophy and theology, and of protesting against the intrusion of a theological censorship in works written from a philosophic stand- point, and for philosophers. But the reactionaries at Berlin were inexorable. Nettled by the fact that the work last-mentioned reached a second edition by Easter, 1794, they at once set about the consideration of means for more effectually silencing the voice of the intellectual Titan. Their deliberations resulted in the issue of an Order in Council, dated the 1st of October, 1794, which, after charging Kant with undermining and defaming the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, forbade him, under pain of royal displeasure, from further expounding his views either by lecturing or writing. This order was com- municated directly to Kant in person. He refrained from mentioning the circumstance even to his intimate friends, but replied, pledging himself to abstain from publicly expressing his views on any question affecting religion 01 theology. Among his papers a note relating to this incident was found after his death in which he says : " Recantation and abnegation of one's inmost convictions is contemptible, but silence in a case like the present is the duty of a subject. Although all that one says must be true, one is not bound to express every truth publicly." The action with regard to Kant was followed by the Hi BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. expulsion of all theological candidates, who refused to belie their convictions, from the faculty, and the prohibition of all professors discoursing on the doctrines contained in Kant's " Eeligion within the Boundaries of mere Reason." The loss of the theological lectures was severely felt by Kant, as his bodily powers were now rapidly waning, and he was extremely anxious to establish a school of liberal theologians to carry out the work he had commenced. There can be little doubt that this, combined with the painful impression produced by what Kant felt as an insult offered him in his old age by a shameless ignorance and bigotry under the aegis of the very depaz-tment which, in the person of its late chief, had been the first to honour him, contributed to accelerate the progress of the symptoms of senility already appearing. From this time he went little into society, and the fol- lowing year (1795) gave up all his lectures with the exception of those on logic and metaphysics, which were reduced to one hour daily. He worked, notwithstanding, zealously at the completion of his ' Anthropology ' (destined to be his last publication), and at other literary projects, the principal being the second part of the ' Metaphysics of Ethics ' and the 'Theory of Jurisprudence,' which he was now annotating and revising. In 1797 the two latter works were published, and almost immediately after, for the first time, unmistakable and serious signs of decay manifested themselves in the form of an alarming illness, from which he but slowly recovered. The last term of Kant's lecturing was ushered in by a procession of all the students of the university, in holiday attire, before his house. Kant was much pleased by the present from Hufeland of his recently published ' Art of prolonging Human Life.' The book was a favourite companion ever after, and h frequently made extracts from it. The letter of Hufeland's which accompanied his gift affords one other instance BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. liii of the deep reverence in which the mighty thinker was held by contemporary men of science. Another writer (at the time of some eminence) with whom Kant had epistolary intercourse at this time was Garve, whose last work, a translation of Aristotle's ' Ethics,' was de- dicated to him. With Michaelmas, 1797, Kant's academical career and public life terminated. On the 16th of the following ^November the reactionary and orthodox King Friedrich Wilhelm II. died, and with his death the game of the obscurantists was played out. His ministry retiring immediately after, the oppressive press regulations were rescinded. These circumstances led to the issue by Kant of an essay on the ' Conflict of the Faculties,' in which the subject of freedom of the press generally was treated. The ' Anthropology ' appeared in 1798, with a remark appended to the preface, that the author had intended issuing a similar manual of Physical Geography, bnt would probably be prevented by the infirmities of old age, and intimating the fear that the notes prepared for this purpose would be too illegible to admit of the labour being undertaken by any one else. Several pupils at once expressed their willingness to do their best; but Kant, averse to delegate the work to others, waited in the hope that a little rest would enable him personally to complete the task to his satisfaction. Only on finding the utter hopelessness of this, did he entrust Professor Eink with the work of preparing and editing his lectures and scattered notes on ' Physical Geo- graphy," together with those on ' Pedagogic,' at the same time giving his pupil Jasche permission to publish in completed form the notes he had taken of Kant's lectures on Logic. It may be mentioned that the ' Anthropology,' the last work from Kant's own pen, in spite of its appear- liy BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. ing in an edition of 2000 copies (a larger issue than that of any previous work of Kant's), was exhausted in a few months, and another almost as large demanded. Mean- while, twilight, forerunner of the eternal darkness soon to come, was gathering apace around the mighty intellect. Yet, even now, in his growing weakness, schemes of a great philosophical undertaking floated before the mind of Kant. It was to be entitled 'The System of Pure Philosophy in its whole Content,' and was to exhibit, among other things, the transition from Physics to Meta- physics. It is probably identical in conception with the work indicated years before, in the first edition of the ' Critique of Pure Eeason,' as being in contempla- tion. He worked on it every day as long as his strength permitted till the year before his death. He said it was to be his opus maximum. It is described as intrinsically worthless, mostly consisting of repetitions of previous ideas, interspersed with passages of which it is impossible to make any sense. In the year 1802 his memory failed him with remark- able suddenness. He was unable to recall the most familiar names of persons and places. Before long he could not converse connectedly, owing to the same cause. But though the commonest words and idioms forsook him in speaking, it was with" a reluctance amounting fre- quently to irritability that he permitted assistance from any one. Kant never deceived himself as to his weakness and approaching death. Already, in 1 799, he used to say to his " table-companions," " I am old and weak, you must regard me as a child." In 1802, although he had no special attacks, his weak state compelled him to adopt a new regime. He gave up his old plan of rising at five in the morning and retiring at ten at night. At first he derived benefit from the prolonged rest, but this was but BIOGEAPHY OF KANT. Iv temporary. He soon found a difficulty in walking or standing, and had many falls, though none of a serious nature. On such occasions he used to joke, saying that the lightness of his body prevented disastrous results. His regular walks had now been given up for some time, and the only outdoor exercise he took was an occasional quiet promenade in the Konigsgarten near his house. In spite of the measured and careful way in which he was accustomed to plant his foot on the ground, he had one fall in the street, when two young ladies who were passing assisted him home and received as a souvenir the rose he was carrying in his hand. From this time forlh he never again ventured outside the house alone. Even reading, his chief occupation, was becoming irksome to him, and for the first time in his life he acquired the habit of falling asleep in his chair. His woollen cap, coming in contact with the light on the table at his elbow, caught fire on one of these occasions. Domestic arrangements were now given over mainly to the superintendence of friends, Kant's former pupil, Wa- sianski, his most intimate companion during the last three or four years of his life, being entrusted with pecuniary matters, and made his executor. In January 1802, Kant had felt himself obliged to make a change in the personnel of his household. He had to dismiss his old attendant Lampe. This worthy, owing to his connection with Kant, has obtained sufficient notoriety to warrant his detaining our attention for a moment. Formerly a soldier in the Prussian army, though a Bavarian by birth, Lampe had entered Kant's service immediately on leaving his regiment. His behaviour at the first was such as to lead Kant to entertain a high opinion of him, and show him considerable liberality in various ways. This conduct, however, soon changed. He was continually making demands on Kant's purse Ivi BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. by careless or unscrupulous expenditure, getting drunk, quarrelling with the cook, stopping out late at night and otherwise rendering himself obnoxious. This al- tered demeanour in the course of time decided Kant to get rid of the man. But the matter seems to have been pending some years. At his advanced age Kant was naturally averse to changes of a domestic nature, particularly as he conceived he might find a difficulty in getting well suited. The result was that the matter went on till January 1802, when Kant one morning con- fronted Wasianski with the announcement that Lampe had behaved to him in a way he was ashamed to re- peat, and that he must dismiss him without further delay. Wasianski, with little difficulty, procured another attendant, Johannes Kaufmann by name, who proved admirably adapted to the requirements of the situation, and Lampe received his conge, and, in consideration of his thirty years' service, an annual pension of forty thalers for the remainder of his life, to cease at once, should he at any time enter the house, or otherwise annoy Kant. Nearly a month afterwards, a DienstscJiein (the German form for servants' characters) was forwarded to Kant from Lampe to be filled up. After some hesita- tion Kant wrote : " He (Lampe) has proved himself faithful, but for me no longer suited." A " peace, retrenchment and reform " now reigned in the domestic affairs of the house on the Schlossgarten, which contrasted favourably with the continual quarrels with the cook, defective management and general unsatisfactoriness of the latter part of the Lampe period. Kant's excessive delicacy in social matters is evinced by his embarrass- ment at having to call his new servant Kaufmann (merchant) when Motherby and other of his "table- companions" were, or had been, engaged in commercial pursuits. So strong was his feeling on this point that he BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Ivii subsequently adopted the practice of calling him by his Christian name, Johannes. In the spring of the year Kant awaited with impa- tience the arrival of a linnet which was accustomed to ting on the windowsill of his study. He was a great lover of birds, and used regularly to feed the sparrows that built their nests under the eaves of the house. As the season advanced, Wasianski persuaded him to take some drives, to which he consented with some reluctance. The usual concomitant of greatness attended him on these occasions. Crowds assembled to see him come out, as soon as the carriage drove up to the door ; and as long as he remained within the precincts of the town it was difficult to evade the eager curiosity of sight- seers. As the winter drew near, he complained much of flatulence a malady nothing seemed effectually to relieve. His indisposition to food also increased. The winter proved a trying one for him. He expressed himself as tired of life. He could be of no use in the world any longer, he said, and was at a loss to know what to do with himself. Strange as it may seem, the desire for travel seized him now for the first time, and the notion of gratifying it the following summer was his only con- solation. Towards the end of the winter he began to be distressed by bad dreams, as well as by the painfully continuous iteration in his mind of snatches of popular melodies, and the school-boy rhymes of his childhood.* He started up continually in the night, rang the bell violently for his attendant, who, in spite of his haste, frequently found his master already out of the bedroom and wandering about the house. * I give the instance of the latter adduced by Wasianski in German as it is untranslatable : Vacca, eine Zanse, Forceps, eine Kuh, Jtusticus, ein Knebelbart, Ein Kebulo, bist du. Iviii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Not until June did Wasianski venture to take Kant into the country. No sooner had Kant entered the carriage than he expressed the "wish that the journey might be a long one, but they had scarcely reached the city gate before he was wearied and asked to return. The drive was persevered in, notwithstanding, and Kant felt the benefit in the form of increased sleep and a generally quieter night. About eight drives of a similar kind were taken during this summer of 1803. He would now frequently sit abstractedly during and after meals (the times he was formerly wont to devote to social intercourse) without saying a word. He only roused if the conversation turned on some philosophical or scientific question ; on any other subject he seemed unable to collect his thoughts. Wasianski used commonly to divert his attention from his ailments by propounding some problem in physics or chemistry. Callers were frequent, indeed, far too frequent, only a small proportion of them obtaining admission to Kant's presence. When greeted with the complimentary an- nouncement of pleasure at seeing him, Kant would reply : " In me you see a failing, worn-out and weak old man." His aversion to seeing strangers was caused by a feeling of shame at the wreck of his former self, he presented to those who came to see "the great philo- sopher." Wasianski tells an amusing story of a young Eussian physician who succeeded in obtaining an audience. Immediately Kant entered the room he seized both his hands and covered them with kisses. Kant, who was always averse to demonstrations of this sort, was even now in his old age embarrassed by his visitor's vigorous mani- festation of enthusiasm. The next day the young man again called and begged a memento. Kaufmann, the attendant, happened to light upon a corrected proof-sheet of the ' Anthropology,' lying on the ground, which he was authorised by Wasianski to give. The enthusiast, ou BIOGRAPHY OP KANT. lix receiving the souvenir and kissing it reverentially, took off his coat and waistcoat and handed them together with a thaler to the servant. With the 8th of October, 1803, a serious change for the worse took place in Kant's condition. The crisis was brought on by a severe attack of indigestion, consequent on too much indulgence in English cheese, a, diet of which Kant became inordinately fond during the last years of his life, to the exclusion of all taste for other food. From this time forward it was plain that the end was approaching. Though Wasianski with great difficulty persuaded him to give up the cheese, he became more and more averse to food of all kinds, while his mental and physical powers were palpably ebbing away fast. It is interesting to know that one of Kant's sisters attended him during this last illness and remained till his death. We must pass over the next few months of suffering, and hasten to the closing scene, which we give in the words of Wasianski : "Saturday, the llth (of February, 1804), he lay with closed eyes, but apparently free from pain. I asked him whether he knew me ? He could not answer, but raised his face to me for a kiss. I was deeply moved at this, and again he motioned me with his pale lips. I almost dared to think he meant it as a parting recognition of many years' friendship and assistance. I am not aware that he ever offered one of his friends a kiss, at least I have never seen him kiss any of them, and I never before received a kiss from him myself, until a few months before his death, when he kissed me and his sister. But he seemed then as not knowing what he did in his weakness. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I am tempted to consider this last offer as a real symbol of the friendship so soon to be ended in death. This kiss was also the last sign that he knew me. The medicine handed to him was swallowed now with difficulty, and with a Ix BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. noise, such as is frequent with the dying. All the symptoms of approaching death were present. It was a solemn scene the death-bed of the great man. . . . I remained the last night by his bed. He did not deep, his state was more one of stupor. The spcron that was reached to him he often thrust aw*>y ; Imt in the night, about one o'clock, he motioned xor it. I concluded he was thirsty, and passed him a sweetened mixture of wine and water. He moved his mouth to the glass, and as it could not retain the liquid through weakness, he held it with his hand till, with considerable difficulty, it was swallowed. He seemed to want more ; I repeated my offer until he was sufficiently invigorated to say (although not clearly), ' it is enough.' These were his last words. Several times he thrust aside the eider-down bed-covering. The whole body and the extremities were already cold ; the pulse intermitted. At a quarter to four on the morning of the 12th he laid him- self flat on his back, and gave his body a regular position (as it were in preparation of his approaching death), which he maintained till the end. The pulse was perceptible neither in the hands, the feet, or the throat. I tested every part where a pulse beats, and found that only in the left hip was there one remaining, which was beating heavily, but not continuously. At ten o'clock in the morning a great change was noticeable ; the eye was closed and rigid, the whiteness of death was on the lips and face, and yet not the least trace of a death-sweat was visible. Towards eleven o'clock the last moment of life seemed to be near. His sister stood at the foot of the bed, his sister's son at the head. In order to view him well, and to observe the pulse in the hip, I kneeled by his bed- side, for the bent position of his head (owing to old age), prevented my seeing his face in a standing position. I called his servant to be witness of the death of his good master. The moment had come in which the functions of BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Ixi life ceased. Just now his esteemed friend Herr E. R. V., whom I had had sent for, entered the room. The breath was weaker, its regularity failed, it stopped, the upper lip twitched almost imperceptibly, and a weak breath followed the last one. The pulse beat for a few seconds, it became slower and weaker, till it could be felt no more. The mechanism stopped, and the last movement of the machine ended. His death was a cessation of life, and not a violent act of nature. The clock now struck eleven. All attempts made to discover whether a trace of life re- mained, were unsuccessful ; everything indicated death. The feeling, which seized his friend and me, was unname- able and indescribable." Thus passed away one of the mightiest intellects the world has ever produced. The body of Kant was exposed to public view in the dining-room of the house. Crowds, comprising all classes of society, thronged to gaze on the dead face of the giant thinker. " All," adds Wasianski, " hurried to avail them- selves of the last opportunity of being able to say, ' I have seen Kant.' " This lasted for some days. Kant had, in former years, expressed his wishes as regards burial, in writing. He desired to be buried in all quietness, early in the morning, accompanied only by his " table-companions." He would not appear, however, in his later years, to have attached any importance to this document, but to have left everything to his executor Wasianski's discretion. In accordance with a general desire, it was decided that the funeral should be in every sense a public one. It took place on the 28th of February at two o'clock in the afternoon, when the "notabilities," not only of the town, but of the adjacent districts, as- sembled to do honour to the memory of their great countryman. The students, in suitable costume, met the procession at the university. As the coffin was borne out of the house, the bells throughout the whole city began to ]xii BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. toll. The procession, of enormous length, accompanied by a considerable portion of the city's population, pro- ceeded on foot to the cathedral. A funeral cantata was there sung, after which followed two orations; at the close of the ceremony Kant's body being interred in the Academical vault, beside those of his predecessors in the government of the university. The will was proved at 21,539 Prussian thalers, or about 3,230, not much, according to current notions; but a considerable sum for a German professor to leave at that time. Kant would doubtless have left more but for the liberal assistance he rendered his relations, and the amount he gave away in charity, several poor families almost entirely depending on him for support during the winter months. Every one connected with him was re- membered, down to the old cook, who received over 666 thalers, and the attendant Johannes Kaufmann, who, although he had scarcely been in Kant's service two years, obtained a legacy of 250 thalers, in consideration of his attentions during the last illness. An annuity of 100 thalers was left to his childless sister, Frau Theueriu, and one of 40 thalers to old Lampe. AVith the exception of one or two legacies to university colleagues, in which his library of 500 volumes was included, the remainder of Kant's fortune and effects accrued in an equal division to his nephews and nieces. It is said that Kant several times altered his will, no less than four different drafts having been found among his papers. Kant's life, as will have been seen, was a life of academical routine and study, with scarcely any incident in which one day was like another for years in succession and hence which, in- asmuch as the variety came from within rather than from outward circumstance, fails to furnish interesting material, in the ordinary sense of the words, for the biographer. Kant's person is described as formed by nature with tho BIOGKAPHY OF KANT. Ixiii impress of weakness upon it. Scarcely five feet high, with a suuken-in chest, and generally delicate frame, he had every appearance, when a young man, of being destined for a premature grave. In the opinion of many, it was only his punctilious attention to the laws of health and the regularity of his habits that preserved his life. His flaxen hair and mild blue eyes, combined with the fresh colour 011 his cheeks, which never forsook him to old age, to render an otherwise plain face agreeable to look upon, even in repose, while the fire and expression which lighted it up in speaking, transformed it at once into an object of absorbing interest. A remarkable feature in Kant's character is his modesty and dislike of everything ap- proaching adulation, in which respect he offers a pleasing contrast to the obtrusive vanity and self-assertion of a Comteor a Schopenhauer. This modesty is observable in all his relations with other men, whether in personal intercourse or literature. At the same time he never failed to express his opinions with decision, however " high," in a worldly sense, were the personages in whose society he was. In the mansions of noblemen he was as outspoken as among his intimate friends. A love of animals and children was also a noteworthy characteristic of the founder of Criticism. His fondness for social inter- course has been more than once alluded to in the course of our narrative. It is said that at his table-talks he lavishly expended a wealth of ideas, which he seldom remembered afterwards, and was always too censorious to think worthy of reproduction or development. Moderation was Kant's great practical principle in life. His excessive regularity admitted of scarcely any interruptions. He rose punctually at five o'clock, drank two cups of tea or coffee, and smoked a pipe. He then worked till the hour for lecture, generally seven or eight o'clock. After the lecture he retired again to his study till nearly one, e 2 Ix'lV BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. he dressed himself for dinner, which usually occupied two or three hours. On Sundays and holidays the whole fore- noon, from five till one, was spent at his desk. The dinner- hour was as welcome to Kant as to many inferior mortals, though not so much for the sake of the meal as the rest and social intercourse it Drought with it. After dining he took his constitutional walk, and on returning home, read journals and other lighter matter. The lecture for the following morning was then prepared, after which, at ten o'clock, he retired to rest. Kant's relations to the female sex were few and not intimate. Twice in his life the question of matrimony presented itself to him in a practical light. The first time we are told it was a " young, beautiful and gentle " widow who won his affections. His scrupulous integrity and forethought led him, before proposing, to institute a rigorous investigation into his means for maintaining a wife and family in tolerable circumstances. Before he had concluded this to his satisfaction, the widow married another man. The second captivation occurred some years later. This time a young Westphalian girl, residing ip Konigsberg in the capacity of companion to the wife of a nobleman, took his fancy. A delay in the expression of his feelings again occurring from the same cause as before, Kant had the mortification of finding his beloved returned to her home, without having received his offer. We have reason to think that he never again contemplated marriage as a personal contingency. In any case, it is certain Kant remained to the end with philosophy only for a bride, and " theory of knowledge " for a child. .A somewhat bitter feeling was entertained at one time by certain members of the family at Kant's behaviour to them. It seems strange that, although resident in thp same town, Kant never spoke to his sisters once in twenty-five years, especially as there does not appear to BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Ixv have been any specific cause of breach between them. "Without attempting to justify what probably does not admit any justification, the fact may be explained perhaps by an unwillingness to encounter the embarrassment which many of us feel in the society of those we have been intimately connected with in early years, after having lived through an intellectual experience which constitutes, so to speak, a great gulf between them and us. It is un- questionably painful to sensitive natures, to be continu- ally reminded of the existence of this gulf, of the rapports which one could wish did exist, but which do not exist, and, in all probability, never will exist again. And the feeling is naturally stronger in the case of blood-relations than in any other. I make this suggestion to ward off the imputation of pride which has been cast at Kant. To be ashamed of his relations because they were poor work- ing people would have implied a vulgarity totally alien to the nature of a man who freely mixed with all classes. To those who can understand the feeling referred to, which does not depend on difference of social position or even on intrinsic intellectual superiority, the imputation of pride in any form will seem altogether gratuitous. Still, whatever the cause, it is to be regretted that Kant laid himself open to these imputations by his conduct, though he made amends for any personal neglect by the material support he afforded his relations. It should not be forgotten that later, and especially during the last few years of his life, as we have seen, even the personal inter- course was renewed. Kant's tastes were least developed on the side of art. We hear little of any interest in painting, while music he regarded as quite dispensable, seldom attending concerts, and, as far as we know, never the theatre. Among the German poets, Haller, Wieland, Lessing and Burger were his favourite. He knew little or nothing of Goethe, and Ixvi BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. of Schiller only the prose writings more or less imme- diately bearing on his philosophy. The above surprising circumstance is accounted for partly by the fact that the masterpieces of both poets appeared at the time he was busiest in the elaboration of his system, but this will not apply in the case of ' Faust,' which was first published in 171>9, and for his supineness in neglecting to read one of the greatest poetic masterpieces, not only of Goethe or of Germany, but of any time or country, old age must be held responsible. Outside German literature his favourite authors, besides the Latin classics, were Locke, Pope, Hume, Hutcheson, Butler, among English, and Montaigne and Rousseau among French writers. Don Quixote was also a favourite book. Of Italian literature he knew little or nothing. In early and middle life Kant was a great billiard and 1'hombre player ; but in his later years games failed to att'ord him any amusement. He had always a great partiality for satire, a direction in which he was himself not ungifted. He said that Erasmus of Rotterdam had worked more good with his satires than all the meta- physicians that had ever lived. His contempt for the English as a nation, always great, was enhanced as he grew older by the French war and the reactionary policy of the Pitt administration generally, which he regarded as tending directly to barbarism and slavery. When re- proached with hating the English, he replied that he could not give himself so much trouble with regard to them. This strong antipathy is curious, as Kant counted more than one Englishman among his intimate friends. The somewhat wide problem of Kant's attitude in political and religious questions is simplified by bearing in mind the fact that two souls dwelt in Kaut's breast, and through- out his life were struggling for supremacy. The one was a soul of reverence for authority and tradition, the other BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. Ixvii of devotion to justice and truth. In politics, while in theory fully recognising the great principle to which his century gave birth, i.e., the equal rights of man, in practice, he bowed before the status quo and deprecated revolutionary changes. Kant's interest in the course of the French Revolution was intense, though it is probable that even he scarcely realised the full importance of that great world-historic event. He was extremely averse to any foreign intervention in the affairs of France, and wished free play to be allowed in the working out of the great social and political problem on which the French were engaged. The basis of Kant's political theory was the separation of the legislative and executive powers in the state, and their rigid equilibration. The popular will being once embodied in the laws, the ques- tion of Monarchy or Republicanism he regarded as immaterial. This somewhat barren and unpromising conception is neither better nor worse than the rest of those current at a time when the social question was still subordinated to the political. It bears, indeed, a close resemblance to that formulated by Jean Paul Marat in his Plan de Constitution.* The fact is, in political theory Kant's originality of genius forsook him. Like all other political theorists of the time, he was under the influence of Rousseau. Had Kant not allowed prudential motives to deter him from accepting the offer, indirectly made, of entering upon a correspondence with the Abbe Sieyes, much, light would have been thrown upon his political opinions generally and especially in relation to contem- porary events. Kant was an inveterate enemy of all feudalism, and a friend of all that he regarded as con- * The stress is characteristically laid by Marat on the initiative ami legislative authority of the popular voice and on the ultimate dependence of the executive on the popular will by Kant, on the independence of the executive in applying laws once given. BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. ducing to freedom of the individual. Unfortunately, he never seems to have clearly formulated to himself the conditions of individual freedom. In economical questions his views were crude in the extreme. Schopenhauer is probably right in attributing to the weakness of old ao~e what he justly terms " a strange interweaving of mutually-implicative fallacies," namely, the Bechtslehre. But Kant's immoral " non-resistance " doctrine is worse and far less excusable than his economic fallacies, and must continue an everlasting stain on the memory of the great thinker. Indeed, unwilling as we may be to admit it, we can hardly absolve Kant altogether from the charge of intellectual cowardice. It is not our purpose here to add another contribution to the interminable controversy respecting the changes made in the second edition of the ' Critique ; ' but it may be observed that Kant's most ardent defenders in this matter, however indignantly they may repudiate the language of Schopenhauer's strictures, are bound to admit the existence of an "apologetic tone" in the amended work, thereby con- ceding their substantial justice. Our allusion to this topic leads us to Kant's relation to the religious question generally. Here again we find him countenancing only too often that wretched sophistry of the 18th century, according to which the truth is only for the elect few ; which could accept with complacent cyni- cism an arrangement whereby all religions are equally true to the devotee, equally false to the philosopher, and equally useful to the statesman. It is true we have not a few glimpses of a nobler and more truly philosophic view of the goal of human culture; but, practically, Kant advanced but little beyond the standpoint of Voltaire and other 18th- century thinkers in this particular. Against this may be set off the fact that he never in his own person belied his convictions. He never, with all his obsequiousness BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. xx to authority, for form's sake practised the rites of any cultus, public or private. He never attended church, or otherwise, by word or act, implied an acquiescence in the current theology.* It must always remain a delicate question in how far Kant really believed in the neces- sity, nay, even the possibility, of a theology based solely on practical considerations, or in how far his doctrine on this point was dictated by subservience and a constitutional dread of the " subversiveness " of atheism, or any distinctively non-theological attitude. Is it credible that an acute thinker like Kant could regard, as a real foundation for the belief in any doc- trine, a mere sense of its desirability, however strong, for so much and no more is contained in Kant's so-called practical necessity ? For the present writer, it must be confessed, it is impossible to read the passages in which this principle is inculcated without the consciousness of a Mephistophelic smile lurking somewhere between the lines. Of course it is open to any one to call this an illusion, and yet the fact of such an effect being produced (the case in point not being singular), would seem to indicate a lack of sincerity, though possibly an unconscious one. The best, as it is certainly the most charitable explanation of Kant's attitude towards the " art of wholesome persuasion " (the phrase he uses to designate theology), is surely tbat above suggested, namely, that it only represents the most im- portant phase of Kant's compromise between the con- servative and revolutionary sides of his character (to wit, between the devot and the honnete homme). What is here said does not of course refer to the basis of Kant's practical philosophy, namely, noumenal freedom and the * Even when compelled, as rector of the university, to lead a pro- cession of the senate to the cathedral, he would not enter, himself, but turned aside at the door. 1XX BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. categorical imperative, which there is no doubt that, rightly or wrongly, he regarded as integral elements in his system. The only point in doubt relates to the prac- tical sanctions. Granted that Kant conceived morality to be impossible apart from the doctrines of theism and im- mortality, did he believe, himself, or expect others to be- lieve, in the objective validity of a proposition, merely be- cause the interest of morality rendered its truth desirable ? This is a question which has, as far as I am aware, never yet been boldly faced by Kantian scholars. The doctrine itself has been criticised often enough, but the critics have mostly shirked the question as to whether Kant himself was, in the full sense of the word, sincere in his enunciation of it. As regards Kant's personal feelings on immortality, Jachmann relates that he once expressed an opinion to the effect that an eternal duration of consciousness would under any circumstances be a questionable boon. It is needless to say we have only indicated in a few lines points in Kant's character and opinions that might readily have been expanded into chapters. In a general estimate of the intellectual and moral character of a thinker, it is of the first importance to bear in mind the conditions of thought in his time, and the particular aspect of the problems which confronted him. The greatest in- tellect is incapable of transcending the thought of its epoch ; the most it can do is to develop and bring to light principles immanent therein, and this Kant did to an ex- tent unsui-passed by any other man. In philosophy ho found a narrow psychological point of view and a barren scholastic metaphysics prevalent, and from these unpro- mising materials educed an entirely new way of approach to the great problems of philosophy. In science he enun- ciated, if he did not formulate, the doctrine of evolution merely from the scientific data at his disposal, and without a hint from extraneous sources. In practical questions Kant's BIOGRAPHY OF KANT. circumstances, and the habits of life and thought thence acquired, accustomed him to look at things from a too ex- clusively academical standpoint. He lacked, moreover, the breadth of view acquired by travel. In his views of subor- dination to constituted authority we see reflected the rector of the university maintaining order among a host of stu- dents and subordinate dignitaries. It is, in fact, pedagogy carried into the sphere of politics. We must remember, however, in considering Kant's theories of government, that the great social problem was only just beginning to loom above the political horizon even in Kant's old age, and hence that it is not surprising if his views on economical and social questions generally should be comparatively worthless at tLe present day, when such questions have for more than half-a-century occupied a place of growing importance. Kant's attitude toward all great practical questions is also in large measure accounted for by the fact that the formulation of the conception of evolution as applied to human progress, the crowning achievement of 19th-century thought, dates from a period long subsequent to the great thinker's death. No hint of a science of sociology existed, and it w r as not given to Kant to found one, great and essential as were his contributions to its origination. Art, again, had not in the 18th century acquired the importance of a primary element in culture which it possesses to-day. Music, the art in which the aesthetic sense of the modern age is pre-eminently embodied, was little better than the afterdiimer amusement of princes and nobles a mere sensuous entertainment and nothing more. It was in the latter light that Kant viewed it, and more or less all forms of art, and hence it is not a matter for wonderment, if Art was not a thing of serious human interest to him. We now pass on to a closer consideration of Kant's position as a philosophic thinker. Ixxii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. KANTS POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. The three great epochs in modern philosophy are characterised respectively by the names of Descartes, Locke and Kant. Of these epochs, that inaugurated by Kant is the one to which the thought of our own day may be said to belong, and this in more than a special sense, for the influence of Kant is almost as deeply visible in the general current of speculation as in philosophy proper. There is, indeed, scarcely a doctrine or portion of modem science or controversy, the germ of which is not to be found in Kant, hazarded, it may be, in the form of a mere idle fancy, but unmistakably there. Kant was a Titan alike in the range and depth of his knowledge, as in his almost unequalled and certainly unsurpassed intellec- tual grasp. The only other thinker in the world's history who can be deemed worthy of a place beside him for this ail-but unique -combination of qualities is perhaps Aris- totle. But the results of the Konigsberg philosopher's labour have been incomparably richer than even those of the Stagirite. The works of the latter thinker may constitute an encyclopaedia of ancient thought, but neithei his own successors nor the ancient world generally showed any capacity for developing the hints and specu- lations thrown out by him. They became an oracle of appeal for his followers, of which the meaning was to be elucidated, but so far as any capacity for organic assimi- lation is concerned they fell upon barren ground. Ancient philosophy practically reached high-water mark in Plato and Aristotle. No real advance was made upon these thinkers. With Kant the case is different. He stands at KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxiii the commencement instead of the culmination of an epoch. Though he also brought to a focus the speculation and research of his predecessors ; the intellectual ferment of the 19th century lay before him, and it was in this fruit- ful soil that his doctrines were destined to germinate. "With none but 18th-century materials he founded 19th- century thought. The Kantian system, as propounded by Kant, is too full of contradictions ever to become petrified into a code of phosophical dogma. It steadily refuses to crystallise. Many positions equally insisted upon fail to blend with one another, notwithstanding the profusion of ingenuity that has been lavished in the attempt to make them do so. This applies almost as much to the general bearings of the system as to its special points and technical details. Idealist and realist, theist and agnostic, severally draw from Kant's writings arguments and expressions of approval for their respective standpoints ; but no one has yet succeeded in placing the Kantian system as a whole beyond the reach of criticism. Hence, no two Kantians can be found to agree in its interpretation, one accentuating one line of thought and one another. The reason of this lies in the untrodden nature of the ground he was exploring. There is no trace of Kant's ever having studied Spinoza at first hand, though he unquestionably took up the mantle of the author of the Tractatus theologico- politicus, in matters concerning Biblical criticism and the free expression of opinion in theology and politics. The thinker with whom Kant was most in contact &t the outset of his philosophical career was Leib- nitz, especially through the medium of the Leibnitz- ians Wolff and Baumgarten. He subsequently entered on a thorough study of the English philosophic dyn- asty Locke, Berkeley and Hume. He appears also to have had some acquaintance with the Scotch psycholo-> Ixxiv KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. gists, Eead, Beattie, etc. Thus he became versed no less in the English empiricist, than in the dogmatic- metaphysical school then uppermost on the continent. It was Hume, he says, who first broke his dogmatic slumber with his statement of the causation problem. "With no one is it more important than with Kant to bear in mind the sources whence the start was made on the philosophical voyage of discovery, a neglect of this rendering many elements of Kant's thought well nigh incomprehensible. It cannot be too much insisted upon that in the ' Critique ' two distinct lines of philoso- phic thought meet, but fail to coalesce satisfactorily. The phenomenalism and scepticism of the British school appear uppermost at one time, while at another, repudia- tion of Berkeleyan idealism, and protestations as to the necessary existence of a world of tliings-in-tliemsehes reveal the former disciple of Leibnitz and Wolff. A few words on the philosophy then dominant in Germany may be desirable to facilitate an appreciation of the influences under which Kant started. Leibnitz had sought to bridge over the Cartesian dualism between matter and spirit by his hypothesis of an in- telligible world as expounded in the ' Monadology,' and by the celebrated doctrine of a "Pre-established harmony." The monads of Leibnitz may be described as spiritual atoms in contradistinction to the material atoms of the ordinary atomistic doctrine. They were infinite in num- ber, unextended and possessed of various degrees of consciousness. These immaterial essences were thus subjects capable of receiving impressions, the differences between them consisting in the relative clearness or con- fusion of these impressions. A material body is an aggregate of monads, which, owing to our confused con- sciousness, is presented as a continuous whole. Minerals and plants consist, so to speak, of sleeping monads, whose KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxv impressions do not reach the niveau of consciousness. The order of impressions or presentations, i.e., the subjec- tive order, in each monad is determined by an immanent causality ; but the objective relations of the monads among each other by a purely mechanical causality, the system of pre-established harmony, effecting and regulating the correspondence of these two orders with one another. Christian Wolff, while adopting the Leibnitzian positions in the main, endeavoured to reconcile them with the older Aristotelian system of the schools, and to reduce their somewhat confused statement to scholastic form and precision. This endeavour, if successful in its immediate object, was so at the sacrifice of all that gave to the system its plausibility and attractiveness in the hands of its author. Wolff is nevertheless saved from oblivion by Kant's employment of his terminology and classification. Wolff divided philosophy into Ontology, or the science of being in general ; Psychology, or the science of the soul as a simple substance ; Cosmology, or the science of the material universe ; and Theology, or the science of the existence and attributes of the Deity. The traces of this division in the Transcendental Dialectic are apparent on its very surface. While Wolff, Baumgartcn and their disciples in Germany were thus engaged in developing the principles and follow- ing the abstract and dogmatic method propounded by Descartes, on the lines of Leibnitz (Spinoza's monism remaining a dead letter to his immediate successors no less than his contemporaries, except for an occasional polemic) another and very different view was being worked out in this country. Hobbes and Locke had successfully applied the inductive method laid down by Bacon to the problems of empirical psychology, and more than hinted at the nescience of human knowledge of all save the pheno- mena immediately present in consciousness. Berkeley Ixxvi KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. had carried these principles to their logical issue on the one side, in denying a matter other than the qualities known to us, and the existence of which is equiva- lent to their perception by a inind ; while Hume had developed the equally logical thesis on the other side that the word " mind " itself merely denoted a succession of impressions and ideas, and had thence argued that our notion of causality is solely the result of habit, and there- fore limited in its application to experience. In France the great materialist and sensationalist school held sway, and its echoes probably reached the shores of the Baltic. The reason Kant makes little direct al- lusion to it, is not unlikely to be that he regarded it as an extreme one-sided off-shoot of Lockeian empiricism. The German Aufklarung of Basedow, Reimarus, etc., af- fected the current of philosophy proper but slightly. Two fundamental lines of thought were thus at this time visible the German dogmatic-metaphysical, and the English empirist-sceptical, with its dogmatic pendant, the French materialist.* These two principal lines met in Kant, and their respective doctrines were destined to be resolved in his critical crucible. Idealism and Mate- rialism, supposed to be irreconcilable, were to be exhibited as merely diverse aspects of one problem, the solution of which, if to be found at all, must be sought for in a higher synthesis. Their respective pretensions to "pluck out the heart" of the mystery of existence were to be disposed of; dogmatism of every kind was to receive its death-blow, and the first real attempt (because the first which adequately recognised the strength of its position) be made to grapple with philosophio scepticism. Kant's system is comprised in three treatises, the 'Critique of the Pure Reason,' the Critique of the Practical Reason,' * Berkeleyan idealism and French materialism may be regarded equally as antithetical dogmatic offshoots of English Empiricism. KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxvii and the ' Critique of the Faculty of Judgment ' the first of these dealing with the origin of Knowledge, the second with the criterion of Ethics, and the third with the data of ^Esthetics. The fundamental task of the ' Critique of the Pure Reason,' immeasurably the most important of the three, is to reduce conscious experience to its elements. It is in no sense intended as a treatise on psychology. Psy- chology deals with the objects or phenomena given in in- ternal experience and their relations, just as the natural sciences deal with the objects or phenomena given in external experience and their relations. The purpose of the branch of philosophy founded by Kant, and of which the ' Critique ' is the organon, is to inquire into the condi- tions of consciousness, and not to analyse its content, whether external or internal. He termed it ErJcenntniss- theorie, or "Theory of knowledge," its problem being to discover how knowledge is possible ? Psychology started from consciousness as a given fact, without inquiring as to its genesis. The old dogmatic, metaphysicians applied its conceptions as they listed without, no less than within, the region of possible experience. Kant cried, " hold ! " the first duty of philosophy is to inquire at once into the credentials of experience, and of the conceptions that profess to transcend it. The question, as propounded by him, was accordingly, " How are synthetic propositions a priori possible ? " His own solution of this momentous question, which has revolu- tionised the whole of philosophy, is contained in the * Critique.' * We have more than once spoken of Kant's "system," though it must be remembered that Kant formulated no system in the old sense of the word, namely, as * When the word ' Critique ' 13 used alone throughout the presont introduction, the ' Critique of the Pure Reason ' is to be understood. Ixxviii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. implying a body of doctrines concerning speculative questions in general. This is acknowledged under the title of the Prolegomena. Kant claimed to have founded and elaborated the science of Criticism, as a special philosophic discipline (to use the old expression), which was to constitute the propaedeutic to every other philoso- phic discipline, but not to have attempted a definite solution of the problems of philosophy. The Kantian system, then, is one of criticism. It is concerned with the elements and modes of cognition, the synthesis of which we term experience, or in other words it is a critical in- vestigation into the primary conditions of our knowledge. We may remark that there is also another and a secondary sense in which Kant's system is critical. As Dr. Vaihinger observes, " Kant's ' Critique,' more than any other work arose out of polemic, and hence consists in such." As a natural consequence, any explanation of the ' Critique ' must largely occupy itself in tracing each doctrine and discussion to its historical source. But to a right understanding of Kant, it is not only necessary to trace the pedigree of every principle ; it is also necessary to follow its subsequent development in the post-Kantian philosophy. The elementary constituent of every post- Kantian system is to be found in the ' Critique,' in the form of some principle implicitly or explicitly given, and this is in many cases first seen in its full bearings in the system into which it developed. It does not lie within the scope of the present introduc- tion to add one more to the many condensed expositions of the ' Critique ' already before the world. At the same time, a brief notice of one or two of the leading points in dispute, together with a rather more ex- tended examination of one of its fundamental principles, may not be out of place, or without an interest for the student of Kant. It is of the utmost importance to KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxix remember that " knowledge " or " experience," in a critical sense, does not mean knowledge or experience in the individual qua individual, which is a matter concerning empirical psychology; and that Kant's object is not to trace the origin and progress of knowledge or experience in the individual mind, but to discover the elements which go to make an experience in general, or in other words, objectivity itself possible, without which no such thing as individual experience could exist at all, but yet which lie concealed in individual experience. Kant's main qitestion may be split up into two : I. How is pure Reason possible ? II. How is experience possible ? These questions severally recall the dogmatic and em- pirical sides of Kant's philosophic training. Kant had to show the dogmatists that the possibility of a priori cog- nition presupposed experience. He had to show the empiricists that an a priori element lay concealed in experience itself. Experience and Reason, according to Kant, mutually condition one another. The inchoate matter of feeling receives its form from the a priori Reason and the world of conscious experience arises. True cognition a priori implies experience, while ex- perience, in so far as it is necessary and universal (in other words, objectively valid), implies cognition a priori. Hence Kant's answer to the above question was, pure Reason is possible in and through experience, and ex- perience is possible by means of a system of pure concep- tions, conditioned by an a priori unity, or, in other words, through pure Reason. The respective positions of Dogmatism, Empiricism and Criticism, with regard to the problem of the origin of knowledge, may be expressed in terms of the old scholastic controversy. Dogmatism assumed the forms of a conscious- ness in general as obtaining apart from and independently of the particular consciousness of the individual (the /a Ixxx KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. extreme realist position, universalia ante res). Psycho- logical Empiricism denied these forms any standing, otherwise than as abstract notions derived from individual experience of particulars (the extreme nominalist position, tmiversalia post res). Criticism re-affirmed the universal forms of conscious experience in general, apart from the particular consciousness of the individual, but only, in and with reference to, some such individual conscious- ness (universalia in rebus). The above affords us an illus- tration of how old and apparently barren controversies reappear in the evolution of thought, so metamorphosed, and with such an infinitely richer content, as to be hardly recognisable. Kant's statement of the theory of knowledge, it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, falls into three divisions. The first, the transcendental /Esthetic, deals with the Sensibility, the receptive element, which intuites the as yet blind matter of feeling under the forms of space and time ; the second, the transcendental Analytic, treats of the Understanding, the active element, which contri- butes to the material furnished by sense its own cate- gories or conceptions ; the third, the transcendental Dialectic, is concerned with Pure Reason, which through its ideas extends the conditioned, actual experience at- tained by means of the former, unconditionally. A good instance of a typical English misconception of Kant is to be found in Mr. Herbert Spencer's ' First Principles' (p. 50), where an attempt is made to crush Kant by attributing to him an inconsequence hardly possible with the merest tyro in philosophic thought. " If," says Mr. Spencer, " space and time are the conditions under which we think, then when we think of space and time themselves, our thoughts must be unconditioned ; and if there can be unconditioned thoughts, what becomes of the theory?" Now, it so KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxxi happens that Kant did not claim space and time as conditions of thought, but of sensuous intuition. Thought, moreover, in the sense of the passage quoted, namely, em- pirical reproductive thought, lies altogether outside the range of Kant's inquiry, which is concerned with the genetic origin of cognition, and not with its empirical cha- racter. Space and time, he might have answered, we can, indeed, only think of reproductively as abstractions ; it is only thus that they can become objects of empirical thought. But this does not touch the critical position. The possibility of their reproduction in experience in the form of abstract notions does not invalidate the claim for them to be a priori conditions of the possibility of the original productive synthesis of experience. "We have here an instance of how the most eminent repre- sentatives of the typical English school beat the air in attempting to combat Kant. Much has been written on the relation of the " Under- standing " to the " Reason," in the critical philosophy. There is no doubt that the difference as conceived by Kant was more one of function than of structure, although his utterances on this point are by no means always clear or even consistent. As Schopenhauer points out, there are passages intended to be elucidatory in which the dis- tinction sought to be established is so wiredrawn as to be hardly intelligible. The function of the understanding is out of perceptions to construct cognitions or experience. This it effects by imposing upon them its pure conceptions or categories, or, in Kant's language, " subsuming *' the forms containing the perceptions (viz., space and time) under these. Kant thus appears to overlook the fact that mere perception itself involves the category. Per- ception, he says, which is purely subjective, merely pre- supposes the primitive unity of the consciousness, together with the laws of the connection of perceptions therein. Ixxxii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Knowledge, cognition or experience, on the contrary, which passes beyond the mere subjective connection of the percep- tions, ascribing objective reality and a definite objective order to the presentations contained in them, presupposes the categories. The essence of objectivity is, in fact, space, and the dynamic categories. The function of the " Ideas of the Eeason " is, according to Kant, " to posit the uncon- ditioned possible to the conditioned actual." But the realm of the Pure Eeason, in Kant's sense, is purely " regulative." It is a determination of the pure conceptions of the under- standing in a particular manner, the objective validity of which, and of the propositions based upon it, is assumed on " practical " grounds. The " Ideas," in short, are not constitutive of experience. Their reality is not implied in the nature of cognition in general, like the categories or the pure forms of space and time. They are outworks, as it were, of the main edifice of the theory of knowledge, giving symmetry, perhaps, to the form the structure assumed in Kant's hands, but hardly indispensable to it even in his case. The great battleground in the critical philosophy is unquestionably the problem of the relation between the Thing-in-itself and the phenomenon present in conscious- ness. That Kant himself is by no means clear as to his own position in the matter is evident. On this ground the principles of dogmatism and scepticism have, in fact, contended for possession of the critical philosophy, both in the person of the Konigsberg sage himself and his successors. A clear and correct view of the significance of the Ding-an-sich in Kant's system would go a long way toward settling all other questions with regard to it. The noumenon, or thing-in-itself, is the point of contact between " theory of knowledge " and ontology. In the critical philosophy it appears in three forms; I. as the unconditioned object of the internal sense; II. as the un- KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxxiii conditioned object of the external sense ; and III. as the unconditioned object in general, the ens realissimum or Absolute. In briefly considering these several aspects of the Kantian Ding-an-sich, we will take the second and third in order first, a procedure the desirability of which will become apparent in the course of our investiga- tion. In the transcendental ^Esthetic, by reducing space and time to the subjective forms of the Sensibility, Kant logi- cally carried out the position taken up, but imperfectly developed, by Berkeley, that all perception is just as much aifection of a conscious subject as the sensations of pleasure and pain, and just as little entitled to be regarded as obtaining outside consciousness. But at this point Kant diverged from Berkeley. Besides contending that the forms of experience in general (as opposed to that merely referable to the individual mind) namely, space and time, together with the categories, give external reality to the presentation in the only sense in which we understand the expression, he assumed, somewhat inconsequently, the existence of a world of unknown and unknowable things-in-themselves, as giving rise to the material element in the aifections of sense. The concep- tion of objects as phenomena supposes the existence of things-in-themselves, or noumena. Without the reference of the empirical object to a non-empirical object of the appearance to a thing of which it is the appearance the word phenomenon itself would lose all meaning, there would be nothing, philosophically speaking, to distinguish it from sheer illusion.* That which gives material as opposed to formal reality to the empirical object is its necessary reference to a thing or object in itself. We * A view diametrically opposed to the one before mentioned, which makes space and the categories the conditions of external reality in the only intelligible sense of the word. Ixxxiv KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. may term this non-empirical object of the outer sense the cosmological thing-in-itself, to distinguish it from the two other forms in which the thing-in-itself appears in Kant, and which may be characterised respectively as the psychological and the theological thing-in-itself. It is worthy of note that the cosmological thing-in-itself is frequently spoken of as plural by Kant. Phenomena are said to imply things-in-themselves, the obvious inference being that to each empirical object there corresponds a non-empirical. Now as will be seen this reference to individuation and number, which, as implying space, time and the category of quantity, should, on Kant's principles, apply exclusively to phenomena, to the un- known ground outside phenomena, is an obvious in- consequence. Individuation and plurality imply limita- tion in time, or space, or both. Can we ascribe such a glaring inconsistency to a mere carelessness of language ? The more probable explanation seems to the present writer to be that we have here an indication of the fact that Kant was still haunted, even in his critical days, by the Leibnitz- Wolffian monads, and that in the cosmo- logical things-in-themselves, the noumena which affect the external sense, we may see a survival of the Monadology. Kant doubtless disengaged himself with difficulty from his old philosophical associations, a circumstance which here, as elsewhere, prevented him from clearly grasping the import of his own doctrines. But, whatever the expla- nation, the fact remains that Kant never fully realised that the exclusive subjectivity of space and time, the sources of individuation, must necessarily preclude the assumption of individuation in the noumenon. A further inconsistency is traceable in Kant's doctrine of an objective world of noumena. The noumenal object is continually referred to as the cause of our sense-presenta- tions, a transcendent application of the category of cause KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxxv and effect, hardly less reprehensible on critical principles than the one above mentioned. Kant's subjectivism is at times too strong to admit of any via media between the dualism implied in this conception and a thoroughgoing illusionism ; for the via media of Monism was not for him, but his successors. As a consequence, whenever he thinks it is landing him in the quicksands of absolute illusion, he clutches desperately at this problematical straw of an objective world of things-in-themselves. Throughout the whole system the struggle between the two points of view phenomenalism and dogmatism is maintained.* The thing-in-itself, as the ideal of the Eeason, stands at the opposite pole of the ' Critique ' to the thing-in-itself as transcendental object. It is admittedly not an assumption necessitated by the nature of cognition in general, but a "mere idea." Though the culminating "idea" of the Pure Reason, it is no more than an " idea." The cosmological things-in-themselves, on the other hand, only appear in the domain of the Reason, indirectly, viz., as affording a basis for the idea of freedom, the antinomies furnishing a kind of reductio ad dbsurdum of the claims of nature to be more than empirically valid. In its objective or cosmo- logical aspect, the noumenon appears as an infinite plurality ; in its Ideal aspect as an infinite unity. If in the one we have an echo of the Leibnitz- Wolffian monads, in the other we are recalled to the One Substance of Spinoza. It is undeniable that both points of view are alike remnants of the old transcendent or dogmatic metaphysics. Notwith- standing that Kant's acquaintance with the system of Spinoza was merely secondhand and superficial, the first two of the following passages are scarcely distinguishable from Spinozism. Kant defines the Ideal object as a " tran- * The most emphatic utterances on the realistic side, in a cosmo- logical sense, are contained in the remarks appended to the first division of the Prolegomena. Ixxxvi KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Bcendental substratum " lying " at the foundation of the complete determination of things a substratum which is to form the fund from which all possible predicates of things are to be supplied," in short, as an " ideal of a sum total of all reality." "In this view," continues Kant, " negations are nothing but limitations a term which could not with propriety be applied to them if the un- limited (the all) did not form the true basis of our con- ception " (' Critique,' p. 355). " The conception of an ens realissimum" says Kant, " is the conception of an indivi- dual being, inasmuch as it is determined by that predicate of all possible predicates which indicates and belongs to being" The course of the exposition shows a pro- gressive development on the theological side, till we arrive at the theistic idea in its complete form. " We proceed to hypostasise this idea of the sum total of all reality, by changing the distributive unity of the empirical exercise of the understanding into the collective unity of an empirical whole, a dialectical illusion, and by cogitating the whole or sum of experience as an individual thing, which stands at the head of the possibility of all things, the real conditions of whose determination it presents " (' Critique,' p. 339). In Kant's exposition, the conception of a sum total of reality mingles itself in a rather vague manner with that of a first cause. In a note to the passage last quoted, Kant adds : " This ideal of the ens realissimum, although merely a mental representation, is first objectivised, that is, has an objective existence attributed to it, then hypostasised, and finally, by the natural progress of the Season, personified, as we shall show presently. For the regulative* unity of experience is not based upon phenomena themselves, but upon the connection of the variety of phenomena by the understanding, and a consciousness, and thus the unity of the supreme reality seems to reside in a Supreme Under- KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxxvii standing, in a conscious intelligence (' Critique,' ibid.}. Kant then proceeds to demolish the traditional arguments for the existence of a Supreme Being, which start from the assumed validity of these conditions of experience outside the range of experience, in other words, from their tran- scendent application. The theistic idea, being thus deprived of all dogmatic character and objective reality, is reduced to the mere conception or ideal for the regu- lation of the theoretical Eeason in its investigations into Nature, which is to be regarded as though it were the work of a Supreme Understanding and Will ; and of the Practical Reason in life, which is to be conceived as though it were under the superintendence of an all-wise and all-just Euler. As to the nature and extent of the debt Kant claims theology to be under for this attenua- tion of its fundamental doctrine, theologians may be left to decide. The noumenon, under all the forms in which it appears in Kant, is characterised by certain unmistakable features. It is throughout denned as an intelligible object, that is, one which, if it is to be cognised at all, must be so, in and through the understanding without any sensuous medium. It is further described as a boundary conception, the analogy being drawn from geometry. Just as the point, line and superficies cannot be constructed in actual space, because they severally exclude in definition one or more of the dimensions of space, but at the same time serve as boundaries of actual space ; so the thing-in-itself, although it can never be given in any experience, external or internal, inasmuch as it excludes by its definition all the predicates drawn from experience, serves, nevertheless, to mark the boundaries of experience, to indicate the unknown quantity, the X., which experience presupposes. An objection has been raised and is much insisted upon by Ueberweg (GescMclite der Philosophic, Band hi., p. 185, Ixxxviii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. note) and Volkelt (Kant's Erkenntnisstheorie, pp. 44-50), that Kant in excluding the formal conditions of experience from the thing-in-itself, trenches in a negative sense on the incog- nisability of the latter. In asserting, it is said, that space and time, inasmuch as they are the forms of our sensibility, cannot obtain in objects as things-in-themselves, he is assuming a dogmatic attitude with regard to it. To this we would observe that, admitting the apodictic phraseology used, negative though it be, to be technically inconsequent, the inconsequence is not more than technical. Kant's aim is to show that we have no grounds for ascribing any of the qualities of the sense or phenomenal world to the in- telligible or noumenal world. Granting him to have been successful in this, all that the objection amounts to is that he failed to use language sufficiently guarded to admit the technical contingency that among all possible contra- dictory modes of existence this one is included. But inasmuch as this possibility is only as one against in- finity, the error can have no material significance what- ever. It is nevertheless curious that Kant should not have recognised it, as he is sponsor for " possibilities " of this nature when hard-pressed on the practical side of his philosophy.* It must be apparent to every student of the ' Critique ' that the three aspects of the noumenon, the three sets of noumena, as they have been called, altogether fail to harmonise with one another. Their mutual relations are throughout completely undetermined. The connec- tion of the cosmological with the psychological thing-in- itself, and of either with the ideal thing-in-itself, the Ens realissimum, or Absolute, is nowhere indicated. Are we to understand Kant as really implying a quantitative or * It is in virtue of these possibilities introduced by Kant that respectable persons in the present day can ward off the charge of Atheism, by sheltering themselves under the xgis of Agnosticism. KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Ixxxix qualitative distinction, or both, or are the differences merely due to the diverse points of view from which he is regarding one conception ? These are questions which may occupy 1;he student of Kant for some time to cotne. That Kant was, in the modern sense of the word, a Monist, is however, extremely improbable, the passages sometimes supposed to show a monistic tendency being more naturally iiiterpretable otherwise. It is worthy of note that, while transcendental reality is asserted of the constitutive aspects of the thing-in-itself, i.e. the psychological and cosmological ftoumena although all knowledge of this reality is denied ; with the purely regulative aspect (i.e. ideal of the Eeason) conversely, the reality is denied, although its nature as a mere idea is asserted to be fully determinable. In the one case the stress is laid on the reality, in the other on the determinability, in accordance with the supposed re- quirements of the Eeason. The " ideas " all have a practical reference, are maxims rather than principles, and as such do not touch the real import of the thing-in-itself as a theoretic datum in the critical philosophy. While the cosmological and psychological noumena form an integral element in the structure of the ' Critique,' the theological Absolute is merely the crowning of the edifice. Immortality, Freedom, God take their rise in the fact that the practical Eeason may assume what it likes respecting that of which the Pure Eeason asserts the bare predicate of existence and nothing more. A consistent carrying out of the idealistic and sceptical element contained in Kant's thought would have led to a declaration of our complete nescience, even of the bare existence of anything beyond our own presentations and thoughts, and the laws of their unity in consciousness. But Kant's purpose was other than that of restating empiricism ; only the enormous mass of raw material he had to deal with rendered consistency impracticable. He discovered the XC KANTS POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. ore, forged the tools, and indicated the process by which it was to be worked, but the complete " opening up " of the mine exceeded the powers of its discoverer, even though he was a Kant. The furthest point we reach on critical principles in our investigation into the sources of knowledge is the transcendental subject at its basis. The original synthetic unity of consciousness is to be distinguished from the quan- titative categorical unity (which is opposed to plurality and totality), inasmuch as it is from the former that the categories themselves are deduced. The assumption of a soul or thinking principle in the individual is only due to the dialectical illusion by which the original synthetic unity is hypostasised. The " internal sense " only shows us ourselves as we appear, not as we are. The ego in itself can never be known, but only its states. Hence both the idealist and materialist hypotheses are alike inadmissible. The reduction of the extended or material world to a mere mode of the unextended or ideal world is as fallacious as the converse procedure. Both orders of phe- nomena, the inner and the outer, are equally fundamental data of experience, incapable of any legitimate reduction into terms of one another. Feelings, thoughts and voli- tions are as much phenomena of experience as the pre- sentations called external. But the thought or feeling is no more identical with that which has the thought or feeling than is the outward presentation. What it is which thinks, feels, perceives, etc., we can never cognise. The material or objective order, and the immaterial or subjective order remain irreducible factors of conscious experience or cognition in all respects but one they equally presuppose a self-centred fact to which they are, in the last resort, referable. This fact of I-ness or Egoition is thus the primary condition of all possible experience. It must be distinguished from the synthetic unity which is KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. XC1 merely formal, as well as from the internal sense. " The subject of the categories cannot therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories ; for to cogitate these it must lie at the foundation of its own pure self-conscious- ness the very thing that it wishes to explain and describe. In like manner, the subject in which the representation of time has its basis cannot determine, for this very reason, its own existence in time " (' Critique,' p. 249). Notwithstanding this, the postulate at the foundation of the forms of sensibility and the categories is given immediately in consciousness as, to use Kant's expression, " a feeling of an existence without the least conception." I am conscious not of what I am, but that I am, as the seat of phenomenalisation, or, more clearly, that something fundamentally the same as this " I " is that in and for which alone phenomenalisation can take place. In the indication of this fact we see the germs of the Monism of modern thought ; but it remains a germ. The most (apparently) monistic passage in Kant occurs in the section in the paralogisms (' Critique,' p. 252) where Kant is discussing the community between the subjective and the objective orders, or, in terms of the old psychological formula of the " soul with the body." The difficulty, he observes, consists in the supposed heterogeneity of the two orders; "inasmuch as the formal intuition of the one is time, and that of the other, space also. But if we con- sider," he adds, " that both kinds of objects do not differ internally, but only in so far as the one appears externally to the other, consequently that what lies at the basis of phenomena, as a thing-in-itself, may not be heterogeneous, this difficulty disappears." Here we certainly seem to have indications of a monistic point of view, but from the context, and especially what follows relative to a " com- munity of substances," it is evident that qualitative, not xcii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. quantitative homogeneity is meant ; in other words, it is evident at once that the psychological formulae still retain their hold on Kant, and that the spell of the Leibnitziaii monads has not been dissolved. The only point of community, then, between the internal and external orders of phenomena lies, if the foregoing be Admitted, in their both being conditioned by an ego under the form of time. This is the central condition of phenomenalisation. It is plain that this foundation of all consciousness, whether of subject or object, cannot be identified with either " mind " or " matter," both of which are terms designating sets of phenomena in con- sciousness. The old mode of stating the problem as to the possibility of two dissimilar substances, soul and body, thought and extension, furnishing the unity of man and of consciousness, ceases to have any meaning when we recognise them to be not substances, but mere phenomena of that which becomes conscious, i.e. the primal condition of the synthesis of experience. To the question, whether there is such a thing as matter without mind, or mind without matter, the answer is, matter is a name for a class of feelings connected by certain categories under the form of space as well as time ; mind is a name for another class of feelings connected by those categories under the form of time alone ; that each class constitutes an integral element in the whole Conscious Experience, and hence that mind or soul (a thinking subject) apart from material conditions, is philosophically as absurd a notion as matter (an extended object) apart from its perception in a consciousness, either hypothesis involving self-contradictory assumptions. That ichich becomes conscious, in other words, the possibility of a consciousness in general, regarded materialiter, must be genetically prior to the individual consciousness and the formal conditions at its foundation. The principle in question, considered in itself, in short, must be independent KANT S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. XC1I1 of space, time and the categories, with the formal unity at their basis ; in other words, independent of individuation whether of subject or object.* Objection may thus be taken with reason to the term transcendental subject, as used in this connection, inasmuch as the fact in question stands outside^ the differentiation of subject and object which implies the foregoing conditions. It will be seen, therefore, that on this view, Kant's transcendental object disappears, as based at bottom on the old dualist fallacy so severely criticised by him on other occasions ; the abstract ens realissimum ceases to have any significance in a philosophical connection, while the transcendental subject itself loses the specially subjective character assigned to it by Kant, owing to his inability to free himself from the psychological method. We thus arrive at a pure Monism distinct alike from Spiritualism, Materialism and Dualism. It is becoming more and more recognised by philo- sophers and philosophic savants, that no justifiable break can be made in our interpretation of objective pheno- mena ; that just as we infer a mind in the case of other men and the higher animals (interpreting the pheno- mena in terms of our own consciousness), so we must infer all matter whatever to involve a mental side analo- gous in kind to, however differing in degree from, our own consciousness. The late Professor Clifford, the best- known exponent of the view in question in this country (a view more or less implied in all the post-Kantian * To put this somewhat differently : the conscious ego is only the formal determination of f/t-ness in time. The fact of in-ness, or existence in and for itself, is implied in this very fact of conscious egoition or, as Kant has it, the transcendental unity of apperception from which the notion of objective reality itself is ultimately deducible. (See section on '' Deduction of Categories," ' Critique,' first ed.) t I prefer this expression to above, which seems to indicate a superiority of the thing or fact in itself to the thing or fact as phenomenon. xcvi KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. him as the essential problems of speculative inquiry. In the critical philosophy can be traced the somewhat narrow psychological method characteristic of modern thought to the larger view of speculative problems which recalls the work of the Greek thinkers. The analysis of human knowledge, which had been for Locke and his successors the sole function of philosophy, appears in the critical system as part, though an essential part, of the more comprehensive inquiry dealing with the whole ground of human interests, to which only the title of philosophy by right belongs" (Fichte, pp. 214-15). To Fichte, as we have said, undoubtedly attaches the credit of the first attempt to construct, on the basis of criticism, a philosophy proper in fact to reduce criticism to coherence and system. Neither his idealistic ter- minology and mode of exposition, nor the mystical and extravagant tendencies of the later developments of his system should blind us to this fact or to the general soundness of his starting-point. Schelling's subject- object or Absolute is, at bottom, and apart from mystical terminology, nothing but the same principle otherwise stated, the stress being laid on the indifference between subject and object of the prius of reality of that which constitutes the possibility of consciousness. The method and terminology originated by Fichte, and carried out in a modified form by Schelling, reached its culmination in Hegel, who may be said to have anticipated in meta- physical guise the doctrine of evolution. The dialectical method which, though discovered by Fichte, was perfected as regards expression by Hegel is contained in principle in the table of the categories. The noumenal fact constituting the essence of conscious experience consists with Hegel in the process of the categories themselves. "The idee is essentially process, because its identity is only the absolute- ness and freedom of the conception, in so far as it is KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. XCvii absolute negativity and therefore dialectic " (Encyclopsedie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften, p. 186). Hegel, in seizing the formal element at the root of experience, lets fall the material, and hence some have failed to distinguish his philosophy from an Absolute Illusionisru. The systems of which Hegel's is the culmination are founded essentially on the transcendental analytic and dialectic. Side by side with the dialectical, two other schools have coexisted in Germany equally claiming the parentage of Kant, but founding more especially upon the transcendental sesthetic. Rejecting the dialectical method, they endeavour to obtain speculative results by induction. Their most prominent representatives are Schopenhauer, Hartmann and Bahnsen on the one side, and Herbart, Beneke and Lotze on the other. Schopenhauer, in identifying the metaphysical principle at the basis of the Conscious, with Will, holds fast the Kantian antithesis of noumenon and phenomenon. The pure self-existence posited in every conscious act is opposed to its realisation as phenomenon of consciousness, but this opposition cannot be said to involve dualism as the Hegelians contend. The world as will and the world as presentation, in other words, the world as thing-in-itself, and the woi'ld as appearance are only diverse aspects of the same fundamental fact. The identification of the thing-in-itself with the function termed Will may be open to criticism, but Schopenhauer's Monism can hardly be called in question. An attempt to obliterate the distinction between the content of consciousness and the principle it presupposes can only be completely successful at the cost of the whole critical position, and by a relapse into the crude Materialism or Idealism of the last century, which would make either "matter" or "mind" itself absolute. The most distinguished modern representative 'of the xcviii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. Pessimist doctrine, Eduard von Hartmann, defines the fact at the foundation of the reality given in conscious- ness as " the Unconscious." This negative designation he employs to discountenance the vulgar anthropomorphic confusion by which consciousness is attributed to the Absolute it implies (PMlosopMe des Unbewusaten, 3rd ed. p. 543). Consciousness is a contradiction in any other than a phenomenal sense. A peculiarity of Hartmann's metaphysics is his rehabilitation of- the Kantian things- in-themselves, which he conceives not to be inconsistent with a monistic postulate. In opposition to Schopenhauer he maintains will to be impossible apart from presenta- tion, hence a noumenal will implies a noumenal presentation as its correlate. Space, time and the individuation deducible from them are generated unconsciously, or extra- consciously, and in this way a world of things-in-them- selves arises, which becomes transformed in consciousness into the world of phenomena with its determinate forms. Only thus, according to Hartmann, can individuation of consciousness be explained. The objective thing-in-itself is thus, on Hartmann's principles, not an ultimate but a derivative fact. The objective thing exists in itself in so far as it is independent of consciousness, but not absolutely. Herbart (1776-1840), the founder of the second line of thought mentioned, represents a partial reaction to a dogmatic standpoint. Being is assumed as coincident with appearance, in so far that every quality in the phenomenon indicates a corresponding thing-in-itself. This, as will "be seen, is simply the re-introduction of the Kantian cosmological noumena and a fortiori of the Leibnitzian monadology in a slightly altered form. Not only every thing but every quality of the sense- world has a noumenal correlate according to Herbart. The monistic indications in Kant are lost in a maze of Leibnitzian pluralism based upon mathematical formulee. Herbait's KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. xcix philosophy is not unjustly defined by Diihring (Geschichte der Philosophic, p. 455), as based on the principle of " making a mistake in order to excuse it by another mis- take." Most of Herbart's followers (e.g. Beneke) have confined themselves to psychology, and it is noteworthy that, whereas in the case of Hermann Lotze a wider range is attempted, the pluralist basis has been abandoned as untenable. The extent to which the modern scientific materialist school is indebted to Kant may be seen from Lange's great work. Professor Wundt remarks ('Mind,' vol. ii. p. 502) of its doctrines : " In them a strictly mechanical and atomistic theory of the universe is connected with the idea that the atoms possess internal states, and that these internal states in combination constitute what we call physical phenomena. Such a theory is evidently not materialism, but maybe more fitly designated "Monism," as by Haeckel, to distinguish it from the Dualism in vogue." This is of course closely analogous to the mind-stuff theory of Clifford, and the same criticism will apply to it, namely, that it leaves the fundamental difficulty untouched, while professing to solve it. It assumes a phenomenal world as given, without attempting to deduce it from any principle, such as " theory of knowledge " demands. The designation " Monism " is therefore hardly applicable. The tendency of all systematic thought in the present day is nevertheless toward a Monism, and this explains the favour beginning to be shown by scientists for Spinoza. Most savants of any eminence instinctively recognise the impossibility of a mere mechanical aggregate of phenomena being the " last word " of systematized human knowledge. Scientific Monism, as is perhaps only natural, seeks to attain satisfaction by mere phrases such as " unknowable," " one reality," &c. (frequently so ex- pressed as to imply a dualism), rather than by a diligent o KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. investigation into the conditions of knowledge itself, the method inaugurated by Kant, and the only one which can lead to a permanently satisfactory synthesis. That which is posited in the very fact of consciousness, but which can only find a place in discursive thought as the notion of an existence realising itself in the world- process this fact, the fundamental postulate of all con- scious experience, and therefore of all reality can alone be the starting-point for any synthetic system. The notion of plurality a mechanical aggregate in space and time will not explain the relation of myself to other phenomena like myself, still less to the world-evolution as a whole. The erection of the individual consciousness (the empirical ego) or of ideas or presentations into things-in-themselves will further this quite as little as the erection of material qualities into things-in-themselves, standpoints we see appearing in protean guises in the present day both in this country and on the continent. It is generally recognised that no existing system can lay any claim to finality. There can hardly be said now to be a philosophical school in the old sense of the word, namely, a body of thinkers slavishly adhering to every detail of a master, if we except the Comtists. The tendency of the modern mind is rather (so to speak) to revel in disintegration. It is the mode, to exaggerate differences, to repudiate all connection, save, perhaps, that of suggestion, with older systems, even when, not- withstanding the parade of originality, the assumed new departure leads us back to old positions essentially unchanged, but for being presented in a modern guise and with a precision of language more in accordance with the present state of philosophic terminology. This is to be regretted, as the bane of philosophy in the past, even in its most eminent representatives, has lain in overstraining after originality. The divergency with KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. ci which metaphysicians are commonly taunted lies more in terminology than is often thought. This fact is strikingly illustrated by the case of Fichte and Schopenhauer. The leading principles and much of the development 'of Schopenhauer's system is contained in Fichte's Wissen- schaftslehre, yet this did not prevent Schopenhauer from stigmatising the last-named work as a farrago of absurdi- ties. Had Schopenhauer been less solicitous to maintain his character as an " original thinker," he would possibly have admitted his debt to the elder philosopher. The tendency of the various eddies and streamlets of current philosophic thought, to converge into two main channels is unmistakable. These main channels are the philosophy of modern scientific realism, with its leading doctrines of the Persistence of Force and of Evolution, based on induction from the data of completed experience ; and the philosophy of transcendental Monism, based on an analysis of those processes of consciousness in general, whicli make experience possible. The seeming hostility of these two lines of thought is owing to the fact that one is based on experience made, the other on experi- ence in the making.* The immediate task of philosophy is their reconciliation in a synthesis. " Our knowledge," says the scientist, " is strictly con- fined to what is contained in the teaching of experience." " With all my heart," replies the transcendentalist (with reminiscences of Carlyle), " only, what is contained in the teaching of experience ? " In philosophy we have to re- construct the world in reproductive consciousness, i.e. in abstract thought ; the only way we can do this effectually * Even empirical psychology, which traces the unfolding of ex- perience in the individual, presupposes experience in general as already given. Psychology is the anatomisation the mechanical dissection of experience ; " Theory of Knowledge," or Transcendental Philosophy, its chemical analysis. cii KANT'S POSITION IN PHILOSOPHY. is by educing it from the most elementary datum of that productive experience, in and for which the world alone exists. To the oft-repeated sneers as to Metaphysics being a 'thing of the past, and having to give way before positive science, the object-matter of which alone deals with realities, the reply is easy so far as concerns Metaphysics in the modern sense of the word, the only sense in which a thinker of the present day would care to defend it. Metaphysics deals as much with reality as any abstract science. But the propositions of every abstract science represent a transfigured reality, and this the more so, the more abstract it is; in other words, the more its subject-matter is removed from the given concrete reality of sensuous intuition. The atom, the ultimate postulate of physical science, is in itself a striking in- stance of this. The same may be said of the postulates of the higher mathematics, ut only How it is possible, in order to be able to deduce from the principle, rendering possible what is already given, the possibility of all the rest. 22 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 5. GENERAL QUESTION. How is KNOWLEDGE POSSIBLE FROM PURE REASON ? 5. We have already seen the important distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. The possibility of analytic propositions can be very easily conceived, for they are based simply on the principle of contradiction. The possibility of synthetic propositions a posteriori, i.e., of such as are derived from experience, requires no particular explanation, for experience is nothing more than a con- tinual adding together (synthesis) of perceptions. There remains, then, only synthetic propositions a priori, the possibility of which has yet to be sought for, or examined, because it must rest on other principles than that of contradiction. But we do not require to search out the possibility pf such propositions, that is, to ask whether they are possible, for there are enough of them, actually given, and with unquestionable certainty ; and as the method we are here following is analytic, we shall assume at the outset that such synthetic but pure knowledge from the Reason, is real ; but thereupon we must investigate the ground of this possibility and proceed to ask How is this knowledge possible ? in order that, from the principles of its possibility, we may be in a position to determine the conditions, the scope, and limits of its use. The proper problem, on which everything turns, when expressed with scholastic precision, will accordingly stand thus HOW ARE SYNTHETIC PROPOSITIONS A PRIORI POSSIBLE? In the above, for the sake of popularity, I have ex- pressed the question somewhat differently, namely, as an inquiry after knowledge from pure Reason, which I could do on this occasion without detriment to the desired insight. For as we are here simply concerned with metaphysics and its sources, I hope, after the above remarks, readers will constantly bear in mind that, when we here speak of knowledge from pure Reason, we invariably refer to synthetic and never to analytic know- SECT. 5.] GENERAL QUESTIONS. 23 ledge. 1 Upon the solution of this problem, the standing or falling of metaphysics, in other words, its very existence, entirely depends. Let any one lay down assertions, how- ever plausible, with regard to it, pile up conclusions upon conclusions to the point of overwhelming, if he has not been able first to answer satisfactorily the above question, I have a right to say : It is all vain, baseless philosophy, and false wisdom. You speak through pure Eeason, and claim to create a priori cognitions, inasmuch as you pretend not merely to dissect given conceptions but new connections which do not rest on the principle of contradiction, and which you think you conceive quite independently of all experience. How do you arrive at them, and how will you justify yourself in such pretensions V To appeal to the concurrence of the general common sense of mankind you cannot be allowed, for that is a witness whose repu- tation rests only on vulgar report. Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. (All that thou thus showest me, I disbelieve and hate.) HORAT. But indispensable as is the answer to this question, it is at the same time no less difficult, and although the chief cause why men have not long ago endeavoured to answer it, lies in the fact of its never having occurred to them that anything of the kind could be asked ; there is a second cause, in that the satisfactory answer to this one question demands a more persistent, a deeper 1 It is impossible to avoid certain expressions become classical, and which have originated in the infancy of science, being found in- adequate and unsuitable as knowledge gradually progresses, and a newer and more appropriate terminology from standing in some clanger of confusion with the older. Analytic method, in so far as it is opposed to synthetic, is something quite distinct from a complex of analytic propositions. The former merely means that we start from what is sought as if it were given, and ascend to the conditions under which it is alone possible. Upon this method we often use none but synthetic propositions, of which mathematical analysis affords an in- stance, and it might perhaps witu more propriety be termed the regressive method, in contradistinction to the synthetic or progressive. A main department of logic is known as analytic, moreover, which means the lo^ic of truth in contrast to dialectic, without any special reference to the analytic or synthetic character of the cognitions be- longing to it. 24 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 5. and more laborious reflection th be rejected, without SECT. 5.] GENERAL QUESTIONS. 25 any further inquiry as to their productions, by sensible people who have been so often deceived. If, on the other hand, they carry on their business not as a science, but as an art of wholesome persuasion, suitable to the general common sense of mankind, this calling cannot in fairness be denied them. In that case they will only use the modest language of a rational belief; they will admit that it is not allowed them even to con- jecture, much less to know, anything, respecting that which lies beyond the boundaries of all possible experience, but merely to assume (not indeed for speculative use, for this they must renounce, but for purely practical purposes) what is possible and even indispensable for the direction of the understanding and will, in life. 1 n this way alone can they possibly carry the reputation of wise and useful men, and they will do so the more in proportion as they renounce that of metaphysicians. For the object of the latter is to be speculative philosophers, and inasmuch as when we are concerned with judgments a priori, bare probabilities are not to be relied on (for what on its assumption is known a priori, is thereby announced as necessary), it cannot be allowed them to play with conjectures, but their assertions must be either science, or they are nothing at all. It may be said that the whole transcendental philosophy which necessarily precedes all metaphysics is itself nothing more than the full solution in systematic order and complete- ness of the question here propounded, and that therefore as yet we have no transcendental philosophy. For what bears its name is properly a part of metaphysics, but the former science must first constitute the possibility of the latter, and must therefore precede all metaphysics. Considering, then, that a complete .and in itself entirely nnw science, and one respecting which no aid is to be derived from other sciences, is necessary before a single question can be adequately answered, it is not to be wondered at if the solution of the same is attended with trouble and difficulty, an 1 even perhaps with some degree of ohscurity. As we now proceed to this solution according to analytic method, in which we presuppose that such cognitions from pure Reason are real, we can only call to our aid two sciences of theoretic knowledge (with which alone we are 26 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 5. here concerned), namely, pure mathematics and pure natural science, for only these can present to us objects in intuition, and therefore (if a cognition a priori should occur in them) show their truth or agreement with the ob- ject in concrete, i.e., their reality ; from which to the ground of their possibility we can proceed on the analytic road. This facilitates the matter very much, as the universal considerations are not merely applied to facts but even start from them, rather than as in synthetic procedure, being obliged to be derived, wholly in abstracto, from conceptions. But from these real and at the same time well-grounded pure cognitions a priori, to rise to a possible one such as we are seeking, namely, to metaphysics as a science, we must needs embrace under our main question that which occasions it, to wit, the naturally given, though as regards its truth not unsuspicious, knowledge a priori lying at its foundation, and the working out of which, without any critical examination of its possibility, is now usually called metaphysics in a word, the natural tendency to such a science ; and thus the transcendental main question, divided into four other questions, will be answered step by step : 1. How is pure mathematics possible ? 2. How is pure natural science possible ? 3. How is metaphysics in general possible ? 4. How is metaphysics as a science possible f It will be seen, that although the solution of these problems is chiefly meant to illustrate the essential contents of the Critique, it has nevertheless something special, which is of itself worthy of attention, namely, to seek the sources of given sciences in the Eeason, in order to investigate and measure this, their faculty of knowing something a priori, by means of the act itself. In this way the particular science itself must gain, if not in respect of its content, at least as regards its right employment, and while it throws light on the higher question of its com- mon origin, at the same time give occasion to better eluci- dating its own nature. SECT. 7.] 27 THE TRANSCENDENTAL MAIN QUESTION- FIRST PAKT. How is PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE? 6. Here is a great and established branch of knowledge, already of remarkable compass, and promising unbounded extension in the future, carrying with it a thorough apodictic certainty, i.e., absolute necessity, and thus resting on no empirical grounds, but being a pure product of the Reason, besides thoroughly synthetic. " How is it possible for the human Reason to bring about such a branch of knowledge entirely a priori ? " Does not this capacity, as it does not and cannot stand on experience, presuppose Borne ground of knowledge a priori, lying deep-hidden, but which might reveal itself through these its effects, if their first beginnings were only diligently searched for ? 7. But we find that all mathematical knowledge has this speciality, that it must present its conception previously in intuition, and indeed a priori, that is, in an intuition that is not empirical but pure, without which means it cannot make a single step ; its judgments therefore are always intuitive, whereas philosophy must be satisfied with discursive judgments out of mere conceptions ; for though it can explain its apodictic doctrines by intuition, these can never be derived from such a source. This observation respecting the nature of mathematics, itself furnishes us with a guide as to the first and foremost condition of its possibility, namely, that some pure intui- tion must be at its foundation, wherein it can present all its conceptions in concreto and a priori at the same time, or as it is termed, construct them. If we can find out this pure intuition together with its possibility, it will be readily explicable how synthetic propositions a priori are possible in pure mathematics, and therefore, also, how 28 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 9. this science is itself possible. For just as empirical intuition enables us, without difficulty, to extend syn- thetically in experience the conception we form of an object of intuition, by new predicates, themselves afforded us by intuition, so will the pure intuition, only with this difference: that in the last case the synthetic judgment a priori is certain and apodictic, while in the first case it is no more than a posteriori and empirically certain, be- cause the latter only contains what is met with in chance empirical intuition, but the former what is necessarily met with in the pure intuition, inasmuch as being intuition a priori, it is indissolubly bound up with the conception before all experience or perception of individual things. But the difficulty seems rather to increase than to diminish by this step. For the question is now : How is it possible to intuite anything a priori ? Intuition is a presentation, as it would immediately depend on the presence of the object. It seems therefore impossible to intuite originally a priori, because the intuition must then take place without either a previous or present object to which it could refer, and hence could not be intuition. Conceptions are indeed of a nature that some of them, namely, those containing only the thought of an object in general, may be very well formed a priori, without our being in immediate relation to the object (e.g., the con- ceptions of quantity, of cause, &c.), but even these require a certain use in concrete, i.e., an application to some intuition, if they are to acquire sense and meaning, whereby an object of them is to be given us. But how can intuition of an object precede the object itself? 9. Were our intuition of such a nature as to present things as they are in themselves, no intuition a priori would take place at all, but it would always be empirical. For what is contained in the object in itself, I can only know when it is given and present to me. It is surely then inconceivable how the intuition of a present thing should SECT. 10.] HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 29 enable me to know it as it is in itself, seeing that its properties cannot pass over into my presentative faculty. But granting the possibility of this, the said intuition would not take place a priori, that is, before the object was presented to me, for without it no ground of connec- tion between my presentation and the object could be imagined; in which eise it must rest on inspiration (Eingebung). Hence there is only one way possible, by which my intuition can precede the reality of the object and take place as knowledge a priori, and that is, if it contain nothing else but that form of sensibility which precedes in my subject all real impressions, by whic-h I am affected by objects. For, that objects of sense can only be intuited in accordance with this form of sensi- bility, is a fact I can know a priori. From this it follows, that propositions merely concerning the form of sensible intuition, will be valid and possible for all objects of sense ; and conversely, that intuitions possible a priori, can never concern other things than objects of our sense. 10. Hence, it is only by means of the form of sensuous intuition that we can intuite things a priori, but in this way we intuite the objects only as they appear to our senses, not as they may be in themselves ; an assumption absolutely necessary if synthetic propositions a priori are to be admitted as possible, or in the event of their being actually met with, if their possibility is to be conceived and defined beforehand. Now, such intuitions are space and time, and these lie at the basis of all the cognitions and judgments of pure mathematics, exhibiting themselves at once as apodictic and necessary. For mathematics must present all its conceptions primarily in intuition, and pure mathematics in pure intuition, i.e., it must construct them. For without this it is impossible to make a single step, so long, that is to say, as a pure intuition is wanting, in which alone the matter of synthetic judgments a priori can be given ; because it cannot proceed analytically, that is, by the dissec- tion of conceptions, but is obliged to proceed synthetically. 30 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 11. The pure intuition of space constitutes the basis of geometry eyen arithmetic brings about its numerical conceptions by the successive addition of units in time ; but above all, pure mechanics can evolve its conception of motion solely with the aid of the presentation of time. Both presentations, however, are mere intuitions ; for when all that is empirical, namely, that belongs to feeling, is left out of the empirical intuitions of bodies and their changes (motion), space and time still remain over, and are therefore pure intuitions, lying a priori at the foundation of the former. For this reason, they can never be left out, but being pure intuitions a priori, prove that they are the bare forms of our sensibility, which must precede all empirical intuition, i.e., the perception of real objects, and in accordance with which objects can be known a priori, though only as they appear to us. 11. The problem of the present section is therefore solved. Pure mathematics is only possible as synthetic knowledge a priori, in so far as it refers simply to objects of sense, whose empirical intuition has for its foundation a pure intuition a priori (that of time and space), which intuition is able to serve as a foundation, because it is nothing more than the pure form of sensibility itself, that precedes the real appearance of objects, in that it makes them in the first place possible. Yet this faculty of intuiting a priori does not concern the matter of the phenomenon, i.e., that which is feeling (Empfindung) in the latter, for this constitutes the empirical element therein ; but only its form, space and time. Should anybody cast the least doubt on the fact that neither of them are conditions of things in themselves, but only dependent on their relation to sensi- bility, I should be glad to be informed how he deems it possible to know a priori, and therefore before all ac- quaintance with the things, that is, before they are given us, how their intuition must be constructed, as is here the case with space and time. Yet this is quite conceivable, as soon as they both count for nothing more than formal determinations of our sensibility, and the objects merely as phenomena, for in that case the form of the phenomenon, SECT. 12.] HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 31 that is, the pure intuition, can be conceived as coming from ourselves, in other words, as a priori. t 12. To contribute something to the explanation and con- firmation of the above, we have only to consider the ordinary and necessary procedure of geometricians. All the proofs of complete likeness between two given figures, turn at last upon the fact of their covering each other ; in other words, of the possibility of substituting one, in every point, for the other, which is obviously nothing else but a synthetic proposition resting on immediate intuition. Now this intuition must be given pure and a priori, for otherwise the proposition in question could not count as apodictically certain, but would possess only empirical certainty. We could only say in that case, it has been always so observed, or it is valid so far as our perception has hitherto extended. That complete space, itself no boundary of a further space, has three dimensions, and that no space can have more than this number, is founded on the proposition that not more than three lines can bisect each other at right angles in a single point. But this proposition cannot be presented from conceptions, but rests immediately on intuition, and indeed on pure a priori intuition, because it is apodictically certain that we can require a line to be drawn out to infinity (in indefinitum), or that a series of changes (e.g., spaces passed through by motion) shall be continued to infinity, and this presupposes a presentation of space and time, merely de- pendent on intuition, namely, so far as in itself, it is bounded by nothing, for from conceptions it could never be concluded. Pure intuitions a priori, then, really lie at the foundation of mathematics, and these make its synthetic and apodictically valid propositions possible, and hence our transcendental deduction of conceptions in space and time explains at the same time the possibility of pure mathematics, which without such a deduction, and without our assuming that " all which can be given to oursenses (the outer in space, the inner in time) is only intuited by us, as it appears to us, and not as it is in itself," might indeed be conceded, but could in nowise be understood. 32 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 13. 13. Those who are unable to free themselves from the notion, that space and time are real qualities (Beschaf- fenheiten) appertaining to the things in themselves, may exercise their wits on the following paradoxes, and when they have in vain attempted their solution, may suppose, being freed from their prejudices at least for a few moments, that perhaps the degradation of space and time to the position of mere forma of our sensible intuition, may have some foundation. When two things are exactly alike [equal] in all points that can be cognised in each by itself (i.e., in all respect- ing quantity or quality), it must follow, that one can in all cases and relations be put in the place of the other, without this substitution occasioning the least cognisable difference. This indeed applies to plane figures in geo- metry ; but there are many spherical figures, which in spite of this complete internal agreement exhibit in their exter- nal relations an agreement falling short of admitting one to be put in the place of the other. For instance, two spherical triangles on opposite hemispheres, having an arc of the equator as a common base, are perfectly equal both in respect of their sides and their angles, so that in neither of them, if separately and at the same time completely described, would any- thing be found which was not equally present in the other ; and yei notwithstanding this, one cannot be put in the place of the other, i.e., on the opposite hemisphere, and herein consists the internal difference of both triangles, that no understanding can indicate as internal, but which reveals itself only by means of the external relation in space. I will now adduce some more ordinary cases taken from common life. What can more resemble my hand or my ear, and be in all points more like, than its image in the looking-glass? And yet I cannot put such a hand as I see in the glass in the place of its original ; for when the latter is a right hand, the one in the glass is a left hand, and the image of the right ear is a left one, which can never take the place of the former. Now, here there are no internal differences SECT. 13.] HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 33 that could be imagined by any understanding. And yet the differences are internal, so far as the senses teach us, for the left hand cannot, despite all equality and similarity, be enclosed within the same bounds as the right (they are not congruent) ; the glove of one hand cannot be used for the other. What then is the solution ? These objects are not presentations of things as they are in themselves, and as the pure understanding would cognise them, but they are sensuous intuitions, i.e., phenomena, the possibility of which rests on the relations of certain unknown things in themselves to something else, namely, to our sensibility. Now, space is the form of the outward intuition of these, and the inward determination of every space is only possible through the determination of out- ward relations to the whole space, of which each [separate] space is a part (i.e., by its relation to the outward sense) ; in other words, the part is only possible through the whole, which though it .could never be the case with things in themselves, namely, with objects of the mere understanding, can very well be so with mere phenomena. Hence we can render the difference of similar and equal, though incongruent things (e.g., spirals winding opposite ways x ) intelligible by no single conception, but only by the relation of the right and left hands, which refers immediately to intuition. E EM ARK I. Pure mathematics, and especially pure geometry, can only possess objective reality under the condition that they merely refer to objects of sense, in view of which, however, the axiom holds good that our sensuous presenta- tion is in nowise a presentation of things in themselves, but only of the manner wherein they appear to us. Hence it follows that the propositions of geometry are not the mere determinations of a creation of our poetic fancy, which therefore cannot be referred with confidence to real objects, but that they are necessarily valid of space, and 1 Among the curiosities of literature may be counted Richardson's translation of the above passage, as " snails wound round contrary to all sense." Tr. 34 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. is. consequently of everything that may be found in space ; because space is nothing more than the form of all ex- ternal phenomena, under which alone objects of sense can be given us. Sensibility, the form of which lies at the foundation of geometry, is that whereon the possibility of external phenomena rests ; BO these can never contain any- thing but what geometry prescribes for them. It would be quite different if the senses had to present the objects as they are in themselves. For in that case it would by no means follow from the presentation of space (which the geometrician posits with all its properties as an a priori basis), that all this, together with what is deduced there- from, is exactly so constituted in Nature. The space of the geometrician would be regarded as a mere fiction, and no objective validity ascribed to it, because we do not see why things must necessarily conform to the image that we make of them spontaneously and beforehand. But when this image, or rather this formal intuition, is the essential property of our sensibility by means of which alone objects are presented to us ; and yet this sensibility presents not things in themselves, but only their appear- ances, it is quite easy to conceive, and at the same time incontrovertibly proved, that all the external objects of our sense-world must necessarily conform with the most complete accuracy to the propositions of geometry. For sensibility, by its form of external intuition (space) with which the geometrician is occupied, makes those objects themselves (though as mere appearances) primarily possible. It will always remain a remarkable pheno- menon in the history of philosophy that there has been a time when even mathematicians who were also philosophers began to doubt, not indeed of the correctness of their propositions in so far as they concerned space, but of the objective validity and application of this conception, with all its geometrical determinations, to Nature. They were concerned lest a line in Nature might consist of physical points, and the true space in the object, accord- ingly of simple parts, whereas the space the geometrician has in his mind can never consist of such. They did not recognise that this space in thought makes the physical space, i.e., the extension of matter, itself possible ; that SECT. 13.] HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 35 the latter is no quality of things in themselves, but only a form of our sensible faculty of presentation ; that all objects in space are mere phenomena, i.e., are not things in themselves, but presentations of our sensuous intuition ; and hence that space, as the geometrician thinks it, is exactly the form of sensuous intuition we find a priori in ourselves, containing the ground of possibility of all ex- ternal phenomena (as regards their form) ; and that these must necessarily and in the most exact manner agree with the propositions of the geometrician, which he draws from no fictitious conception, but from the subjective foundation of all external phenomena, namely, the sensibility itself. In such and no other manner can the geometrician be ensured as to the indubitable objective reality of his pro- positions against all the cavils of an arid metaphysics, however strange it may seem to him, owing to his not having reverted to the sources of his conceptions. E EM ARK II. All that is given us as object, must be given us in intuition. But all our intuition takes place by means of the senses alone ; the understanding intuites nothing, but only reflects. Inasmuch then as the senses, according to what is above observed, never enable us to cognise, not even in one single point, the things in themselves, but only their phenomena, while these are mere presentations of sensibility, " all bodies, together with the space in which they are found, must be held to be nothing but mere presentations, existing nowhere but in our thoughts." Now is this not the plainest idealism ? Idealism consists in the assertion that there exist none but thinking entities; the other things we think we perceive in intuition, being only presentations of the thinking entity, to which no object outside the latter can be found to correspond. I say, on the contrary, things are given as objects discoverable by our senses, external to us, but of what they may be in themselves we know nothing ; we know only their phenomena, i.e., the pre- sentations they produce in us as they affect our senses. I therefore certainly admit that there are bodies outside D 2 36 ' KANT S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 13. us, that is, things, which although they are wholly unknown to us, as to what they may be in themselves, we cognise through presentations, obtained by means of their influence on our sensibility. To these we give the designation of body, a word signifying merely the phe- nomenon of that to us unknown, but not the less real, object. Can this be termed idealism? It is indeed rather the contrary thereof. That without calling in question the existence of ex- ternal things, it may be said of a number of their predi- cates that they do not belong to the things in themselves, but only to their phenomena, and have no self-existence outside our presentation, is what had been generally accepted and admitted long before Locke's time, but more than ever since then. To these belong heat, colour, taste, &c. No one can adduce the least ground for saying that it is inadmissible on my part, when for important reasons I count in addition the remaining qualities of bodies called primarias, such as extension, place, and more especially space, together with what is dependent thereon (impenetrability or materiality, figure, &c.) amongst the number of these phenomena. And just as little as the man who will not admit colours to be properties of the object in itself, but only to pertain as modifications to the sense of sight, is on that account called an idealist, so little can my conception be termed idealistic because I find in addition that all properties which make up the intuition of a body belong merely to its appearance. For the existence of a thing, which appears, is not thereby abolished as with real idealism, but it is only shown that we cannot cognise it, as it is in itself, through the senses. I should like to know how my assertions must be fashioned, if they are not to contain an idealism. I should doubtless have to say, that the presentation of space is not alone completely in accordance with the relation of our sensibility to objects, for that I have already said, but that it is exactly similar to the object itself; an assertion to which no sense can be attached, just as little as that the feeling of red has a similarity with the cinnabar producing this feeling in me. SECT. 13.] HOW IS PUKE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 37 EEMARK III. Hence we may readily set aside an easily foreseen but pointless objection : namely, that through the ideality of space and time, the whole sense- world would be changed to sheer illusion. All philosophical insight into the nature of sensuous cognition was ruined from the first by making sensibility to consist simply in a confused mode of pre- sentation, by which we cognise the things as they are, without having the capacity to bring everything in this, our cognition, to clear consciousness. On the other hand, it has been proved by us that sensibility does not consist in this logical distinction of clearness and obscurity, but in the genetic distinction of the origin of knowledge itself, since sensuous cognition does not present the things as they are, but only the manner in which they affect our senses ; and that therefore through them mere phenomena, and not the things themselves, are given to the under- standing for reflection. After this necessary correction, a consideration presents itself, arising from an inexcusable and almost purposeless misapplication, as though my doctrine changed all the objects of sense into mere illusion. When an appearance is given us we are quite free as to what we thence infer with regard to the matter. The former, namely, the appearance, rests on the senses, but the judgment on the understanding ; and the only question is, whether or not there is truth in the determination of the object. But the distinction between truth and dream is not decided by the construction of the presentations, which are referred to objects, for they are alike in both, but by the connection of the same according to the rules determining the coherence of presentations in the con- ception of an object, and by whether they can stand together in an experience or not. Hence the fault does not lie with the phenomena, if our cognition takes the illusion for truth, i.e., if an intuition, whereby an object is given, is held to be the conception of the object or its existence, which the understanding alone can cogitate. The senses present to us the course of the planets as first forwards and then backwards, and in this there is neither falsehood nor truth, because so long as it is considered as 38 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. is. an appearance only, no judgment is yet formed as to the objective character of their motion. But inasmuch as when the understanding does not take great care lest this subjective mode of presentation be held for objective, a false judgment may easily arise ; it is said, they seem to go back ; the illusion, however, is not to be laid to the account of the senses, but of the understanding, whose province alone it is to form an objective judgment on the phenomenon. In this manner, even if we did not reflect on the origin of our presentations, and let our intuitions of sense contain what they may, if it be but connected according to the coherence of all knowledge in an experience, [we shall find that] deceptive illusion or truth will arise according as we are negligent or careful ; for it concerns solely the use of sensuous presentations in the understanding, and not their origin. In the same way, if I hold all presentations of sense together with their form, namely, space and time, to be nothing but phenomena, and the latter to be a mere form of sensibility not present in the objects external to it, and I make use of these presentations only in reference to a possible experience, there is not therein the least temp- tation to error, neither is there an illusion implied in my regarding them as mere appearances ; for in spite of this they can rightly cohere according to the rules of truth in an experience. In such wise all the propositions of geometry respecting space are valid just as much of all the objects of sense, and therefore in respect of all possible ex- perience, whether I regard space as a mere form of sensi- bility or as something inhering in the things themselves. But in the first case alone can I conceive how it is possible to know a priori the above propositions concerning objects of external intuition. Otherwise everything remains in re- spect to all merely possible experience just as though I had never undertaken this departure from the popular judgment. But, let me only venture with my conceptions of space and time beyond all possible experience, which is unavoid- able if I give them out as qualities appertaining to the things in themselves (for what should prevent me from assuming them as valid of these same things, even though my senses were diiferently constructed, and whether they were suited to them or not?) then a serious error may SECT. 13.] HOW IS PURE MATHEMATICS POSSIBLE ? 39 arise, resting on an illusion giving out as universally valid what is a mere condition of the intuition of things pertain- ing to my subject (certain for all the objects of sense, and thereby for all possible experience), because I refer them to things in themselves and fail to limit them to the conditions of experience. So far, then, from my doctrine of the ideality of space and time reducing the whole sense-world to mere illusion, it is rather the only means of ensuring the application of some of the most important cognitions, namely, those propounded a priori by mathematics, to real objects, and of guarding them from being held as illusion. For without this observation it would be quite impossible to ascertain whether the intuitions of space and time we borrow from no experience, but which nevertheless lie a priori in our faculty of presentation, were not mere self-made cobwebs of the brain, to which no object, or at least no adequate object, corresponded, and geometry itself therefore a mere illusion ; instead of which, its incontestable validity in re- spect of all objects of the sense-world, owing to these being simply phenomena, has been able to be demonstrated by us. Secondly, so far from my principles, because they reduce the presentations of the senses to phenomena, turning the truth of experience into illusion, they are rather the only means of guarding against the transcendental illusion, whereby metaphysics has always been deceived and misled into -childish endeavours to grasp at soap-bubbles, by taking phenomena, which are mere presentations, for things in themselves ; whence have resulted the remarkable assumptions of the antinomy of the Reason, of which I shall make mention farther on, and which are abolished by the single observation that appearance, as long as it is used simply in experience, produces truth, but as soon as it passes beyond the bounds of the latter and becomes transcendent, nothing but pure illusion. Inasmuch, then, as I leave their reality to the things we intuite to ourselves through the senses, and only limit our sensuous intuition of those things in that they in no particular, not even in the pure intuitions of space and time, represent more than the appearance of the above things, and never their constitution as they are in them- 40 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. is. selves; this is no thorough-going illusion of my own invention [applied to] Nature. My protestation against all supposition of an idealism is so decisive and clear, that it might seem superfluous were it not for incompetent judges, who like to have an old name for every departure from their distorted although common opinion, and who never judge of the spirit of philosophical terminology, but cling simply to the letter, being ready to put their own delusion in the place of well-defined perceptions, and so to distort and deform them. For the fact of my having myself given my theory the name of transcendental idealism, t)an justify no one in confounding it with the idealism of Descartes (though this was only a problem, on account of whose insolubility every one was free, in the opinion of Descartes, to deny the existence of the bodily world, because it could never be satisfactorily solved), or with the mystical and visionary idealism of Berkeley, against which and other similar cobwebs of the brain our Critique rather contains the best specific. For what is by me termed idealism, does not touch the existence of things (the doubt of the same being what properly constitutes idealism in the opposite sense), for to doubt them has never entered my head, but simply concerns the sensuous presentation of things, to which space and time chiefly belong; and of these and of all phenomena I have only shown that they are neither things (but only modes of presentation), nor determinations belonging to things in themselves. But the word transcendental, which with me never implies a reference to our knowledge of things, but only to our faculty of knowledge (Erkenntnissvermogen) should guard against this misconception. Rather, however, than occasion its further continuance, I prefer to withdraw the expression, and let it be known as critical (idealism). If it be indeed an objectionable idealism, to change into mere presentations real things (not phenomena), what name shall be applied to that which conversely turns mere presentations into things ? I think we may term it the dreaming idealism, in contradistinction to the foregoing, that may be termed the visionary, but both of which ought to have been ob- viated by my elsewhere so-called transcendental, but better, critical, idealism. SECT. 15.] 41 THE SECOND PAET OF THE MAIN TRAN- SCENDENTAL PEOBLEM. How is PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE? 14. Nature is the existence of things, in so far as it is determined according to universal laws. If Nature signified the existence of things in themselves, we could never know it either a priori or a posteriori. Not a priori, for how shall we know what applies to things in them- selves ? since this can never be done by the dissection of our conceptions (analytic propositions). For what I want to know, is not what is contained in my conception of a thing (for that concerns its logical nature), but what in the reality of the thing is superadded to this conception, by which the thing itself is determined outside my concep- tion. My understanding and the conditions under which alone it can connect the determination of things in their existence, prescribes no rules for the things in themselves ; these do not conform themselves to my understanding, but my understanding conforms itself to them. They must therefore be previously given me, in order for these deter- minations to be discovered in them ; and in this case they would not be known a priori. But a posteriori such a knowledge of the nature of things in themselves would be equally impossible. For if ex- perience is to teach me laws to which the existence of things is subordinated, these must, in so far as they concern things in themselves, of necessity also apply to them outside my experience. Now experience teaches me, indeed, what exists and how it exists, but never that it exists necessarily in such a manner and no other. It can never, therefore, teach the nature of things in themselves. 15. We are nevertheless really in possession of a pure natural science, which a priori and with all the necessity requisite to apodictic propositions, puts forward laws to which Nature is subordinated. I only require here to 42 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 16. call to witness that propaedeutic, vrhich, under the title of universal natural science, precedes all physical science based on empirical principles. Therein we find mathe- matics applied to phenomena, also those discursive prin- ciples (from conceptions) constituting the philosophical part of pure natural knowledge. But the latter also contains much that is not pure, and independent of the sources of experience, as the conception of motion, of impenetrability (on which the empirical conception of matter rests), of inertia and others, which prevent its being called a perfectly pure natural science. Besides, it is only concerned with the objects of the external sense, and thus furnishes no example of apure natural science in its strictest meaning ; for this would have to bring Nature generally under universal laws, irrespective of whether it concerned the object of the outer or of the inner sense of physical science, or of psychology. But among the principles of the above universal physical science are to be found some that really possess the universality we require, as the pro- position that substance continues and is permanent, and that all which happens is at all times previously determined by a cause, according to fixed laws. These are really uni- versal natural laws, existing completely a priori. There is then in fact a pure natural science, and now the question arises how is it possible ? 16. The word Nature further assumes another meaning, which defines the object, whereas in the above meaning the mere regularity of the existence of the determinations of things generally, is denoted. Nature considered materialiter is the sum-total of all the objects of experience. With this we are alone concerned at present, for things which could never be objects of an experience were they to be known according to their nature, would necessitate us to form conceptions, to which meaning could never be given in concreto (in any example from a possible expe- rience), and of the nature of which we should be obliged to make conceptions alone, whose reality, that is, whether they really referred to objects or were mere figments of thought, could never be decided. With that which can- SECT. 17.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 43 not be an object of experience, the knowledge of which would be hyperphysical, or anything like it, we have here nothing at all to do, but only with the natural knowledge whose reality can be confirmed by experience, notwithstand- ing its being a priori possible, and preceding all experience. 17. The formal in Nature, in this narrower signification, is then the regularity of all the objects of experience, and in so far as they are known a priori, their necessary regularity. But it has been just demonstrated that the laws of Nature can never be known a priori in objects, in so far as they are considered not as the objects of a possible expe- rience but as things in themselves. We are not here con- cerned with things in themselves (the qualities of which we put on one side), but merely with things as the objects of a possible experience, and the sum-total of which is properly what we call Nature. And I now ask, whether, if the question be as to the possibility of a cognition of Nature a priori, it would be better to formulate the problem, as follows : How is it possible to cognise a priori the necessary regularity of things as objects of experience ? or, How is the necessary regularity of experience itself in respect of all its objects, generally [possible to be cognised a priori] ? Seen in its true light, the solution of the problem, whether presented in the one or in the other form, in respect of the pure cognition of Nature (which constitutes the real point of the question) is in the end altogether the same. For the subjective laws under which alone an experiential cognition of things is possible, are valid also of those things as objects of a possible experience, (though not indeed as things in themselves ; but the latter we are not here considering). It is quite the same, then, whether I say : Without the law that on an event being perceived, it must invariably be referred to something preceding it, upon which it follows according to a universal rule a judgment of perception can never avail as experience ; or whether I express myself thus : Everything that expe- rience teaches us, happens, must have a cause. It is, however, advisable to choose the first formula. For as we can have a knowledge a priori and before all 44 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. is. given objects, of those conditions under which alone an experience in respect of them is possible, but never of what laws, they, without reference to a possible experience, are subordinated to, in themselves ; we shall not be able to study the nature of things a priori, otherwise than by investigating the conditions and universal (although subjective) laws, under which such a knowledge is alone possible (in respect of mere form), as experience, and in accordance therewith determine the possibility of things as objects of experience. Were I to choose the second mode of expression and seek the conditions a priori under which Nature is possible as an object of experience, I should easily be led into misunderstanding, and fancy I had to explain Nature as a thing in itself, and I should then be fruitlessly involved in endless endeavours to seek laws for things of which nothi ng is given me. We shall here, therefore, be simply concerned with experience, and the universal and a priori given con- ditions of its possibility, and thence determine Nature as the complete object of all possible experience. I think it will be understood, that I do not refer to the rules for the observation of a nature already given, which presuppose experience, or how through experience we can arrive at the laws of Nature, for these would not then be laws a priori, and would give no pure science of Nature ; but how the conditions a priori of the possibility of experience are at the same time the sources from which all the universal laws of Nature must be derived. 18. We must first of all observe then, that, although all the judgments of experience are empirical, i.e., have their ground in the immediate perception of sense, yet on the other hand all empirical judgments are not judgments of experience, but that beyond the empirical, and beyond the given sensuous intuition generally, special conceptions must be superadded, having their origin entirely a priori in the pure understanding, under which every perception is primarily subsumed, and by means of which only it can be transformed into experience. SECT. 19.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 45 Empirical judgments, in so far as they have objective validity, are JUDGMENTS OF EXPERIENCE ; but those which are merely subjectively valid I call judgments of perception. The last require no pure conception of the understanding ; but only the logical connection of perception in a thinking subject. But the first demand, above the presentations of sensuous intuition, special conceptions originally generated in the understanding^ which make the judgment of experience objectively valid. All our judgments are at first mere judgments of per- ception ; they are valid simply for us, namely, for our subject. It is only subsequently that we give them a new reference, namely, to an object, and insist that they shall be valid for us always, as well as for every one else. For when a judgment coincides with an object, all judgments must both coincide with the same object and with one another, and thus the objective validity of the judgment of experience implies nothing more than the necessary universal validity of the same. But, on the other hand, when we see reason to hold a judgment of necessity universally valid (which never hinges on the perception itself, but on the pure conception of the under- standing under which the perception is subsumed), we are obliged to regard it as objective, i.e., as expressing not merely the reference of the perception to a subject but a quality of the object ; for there would be no reason why the judgments of other persons must necessarily coincide with mine, if it were not that the unity of the object to which they all refer, and with which they coincide, necessi- tates them all agreeing with one another. 19. Objective validity and necessary universality (for every one) are therefore exchangeable notions, and although we do not know the object in itself, yet when we regard a judgment as at once universal and necessary, objective validity is therewith understood. We cognise in this judgment the object (though it remain unknown what it is in itself) by the universal and necessary connection of 46 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 19. given perceptions, and as this is the case with all objects of sense, judgments of experience owe their objective validity not to the immediate cognition of the object (for this is impossible), but merely to the condition of univer- sality in the empirical judgment, which, as has been said, never rests on empirical, or on any sensuous conditions, but on a pure conception of the understanding. The object in itself always remains unknown ; but when through the conception of the understanding, the connec- tion of the presentations given to our sensibility by the latter is determined as universally valid, the object is deter- mined by this relation, and the judgment is objective. We will explain this ; that the room is warm, 1 the sugar sweet, the wormwood bitter, are merely subjectively valid judgments. I do not expect that I shall always, or that every other person, will find them as I do now. They only express a reference of two sensations to the same subject, namely, myself, and that only in my present state of perception, and are not therefore valid of objects. I call these judgments of perception. With judgments of experience the case is altogether different. What ex- perience teaches me under certain circumstances, it must teach me at all times, and every other person as well; its validity is not limited to the subject or to the state of the latter at a particular time. I pronounce, therefore, all such judgments to be objectively valid. For instance when I say the air is elastic, this judgment is immediately a judgment of perception, since I only refer the feelings in my senses to one another. If I insist it shall be called a judgment of experience, I expect this connection to stand under a condition making it universally valid. I insist, 1 I readily admit that these instances do not present judgments of perception that ever could become judgments of experience, even if a conception of the understanding \\ere added to them, because they refer to mere feeling, which every one recognises to be merely sub- jective, and as such never predicable of the object, and thus' never capable of becoming objective. I only desire at present to give an instance of a judgment subjectively valid, but containing in itself no ground of necessity, and thereby no reference to an object. An example of judgments of perception becoming judgments of experience by the addition of a conception of the understanding follows in the next remark. SECT. 20.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 47 that is, that I at all times and every other person, shall necessarily so combine the same perceptions, under the same circumstances. 20. "We must therefore dissect experience, in order to see what is contained in this product of sense and under- standing, and how the judgment of experience itself is possible. The intuition of which I am conscious, namely, perception (perceptio), which merely belongs to the senses, lies at its foundation. But secondly, judgment (which pertains solely to the understanding) also belongs to it. This [act of] judgment may be twofold ; firstly, I may simply compare the perceptions in a particular state of my own consciousness ; or secondly, I may combine them in a consciousness in general. The first judgment is a simple judgment of perception, and has therefore only subjective validity, being the mere connection of perceptions in my mental state, without reference to the object. Hence it is not sufficient for experience, as is commonly imagined, to compare perceptions and to con- nect them in a consciousness by means of the judgment. No universality and necessity in the judgment can arise therefrom, by means of which alone it can be objectively valid, and experience. There is another and quite a different judgment pre- supposed, before perception can become experience. The given intuition must be subsumed under a conception determining the form of the judgment generally in respect of the intuition, connecting the empirical con- sciousness of the last in a consciousness in general, and thereby obtaining universality for the empirical judgment; such a conception is a pure a priori con- ception of the understanding, that does nothing but determine for an intuition the general manner in which it can serve for judgment. Should the conception be that of cause, it determines the intuition subsumed under it in respect of judgment generally ; for instance, in the case of air, that in respect of expansion, it stands in the relation of antecedent to consequent, in a hypothetical judgment. The conception of cause is then a pure con- 48 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 20. ception of the understanding, entirely distinct from all possible perception, and only serves to determine that presentation contained under it, in respect of judgment generally, in short, to make a universally valid judgment possible. Now, before a judgment of perception can become a judgment of experience, it is first of all necessary that the perception be subsumed under these conceptions of the ng extension is represented not merely as belonging to my perception of air in my particular state, or in many of my states, or in a particular state of the perception of others, but as necessarily belonging thereto ; and the judg- ment, the air is elastic, becomes universally valid, and therefore a judgment of experience, preceded by certain judgments, which subsume the intuition of air under the conception of cause and effect, and thereby the perceptions, not merely with respect to one another in my subject, but relatively to the form of judgment generally (here the hypothetical), and thus make the empirical judgment universally valid. If we dissect all our synthetic judgments, in so far as they are valid objectively, we shall find that they never consist of mere intuitions, connected (as is commonly believed) through comparison in a judgment, but that they would be impossible were there not beyond the conceptions drawn from experience, a pure conception of the understanding, under which the former conceptions are subsumed, and in this way only, connected in an objectively valid judgment. Even the judgments of pure 1 As a more readily comprehensible example, the following may be taken. "When the sun shines on the stone it grows warm this judgment is a mere judgment of perception and contains no necessity, no matter how often I or others have perceived it The perceptions only find themselves usually so combined. If I say the sun warms the stone the conception of the understanding, cause, is superadded to the perception, which with the conception of sunshine necessarily connects that of warmth, when the synthetic judgment becomes of necessity universally valid, consequently objective, and thus a perception is transformed into experience. SECT. 21.] HOW IS PUEE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 49 mathematics in their simplest axioms, are not excepted from this condition. The axiom, the straight line is the shortest way between two points, presupposes that the line be subsumed under the conception of quantity, which is assuredly no intuition, but has its seat in the under- standing, and serves to determine the intuition (the line) in the reference of the judgment that may be made re- garding it, in respect of its quantity, namely, of plurality (as judicia plurativa), l inasmuch as it is thereby under- stood that in a given intuition, many homogeneous parts are contained. 21. In order to demonstrate the possibility of experience, in so far as it rests on pure a priori conceptions of the understanding, we must first present what belongs to judgment generally, and the various momenta of the understanding in the same, in a complete table, for the pure conceptions of the understanding, which are nothing more than conceptions of intuitions in general, in so far as these are determined in themselves by one or other of these momenta of judgment, that is, are necessarily and universally valid, must run exactly parallel to them [viz., these momenta]. In this way, the axioms a priori of the possibility of all experience as an objectively valid empirical cognition, are precisely determined. For they are nothing but propositions, subsuming all perception (in accordance with certain universal conditions of per- ception), under the above pure conceptions of the under- standing. 1 I prefer to call the judgments by this name, which are known iu logic as particularia, for this expression implies the notion that they are not universal. When I commence at unity in singular judgments and proceed to universality, I must not introduce any reference lo universality ; I think merely of plurality without totality, not of its exception. This is necessary if the logical momenta are to be the basis of the pure conceptions of the understanding ; in logical use the matter may he left as heretofore. 50 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 21 LOGICAL TABLE OF THE JUDGMENTS. 1. 2. According to Quantity. According to Quality Universal. Particular. Singular. Affirmative. Negative. Infinite. 3. 4. According to Relation. According to Modality. Categorical. Hypothetical. Disjunctive. Problematical. Assertorical. Apodictic. TRANSCENDENTAL TABLE OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF THE UNDEBSTANDING. 1. 2. According to Quantity. According to Quality. Unity (the measure). Reality. Plurality (the amount). Negation. Totality (the whole). Limitation. 3. 4. According to Relation. According to Modality. Substance. Possibility. Actuality. Community. Necessity. PURE PHYSIOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 1. Axioms of Intuition. 2. 3. Anlicipations of Perception. Analogies of Experience. 4. Postulates of Empirical Thought in general. SECT. 22.] HOW IS PUEE NATUEAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 51 21a. In order to grasp the preceding in a single notion, it is necessary to remind the reader that we are not here speak- ing of the origin of experience, but of that which lies within it. The first belongs to empirical psychology, and would exist without the second, which belongs to the critique of cognition, and especially to that of the understanding, and can never be sufficiently developed. Experience consists of intuitions, belonging to sensi- bility, and of judgments which are entirely the work of the understanding. But the judgments the understand- ing constructs merely out of sensuous intuitions, are not, by far, judgments of experience. For in the one case the judgment simply connects the perceptions, as they are given in sensuous intuition ; but in the other, the judg- ments must say what experience generally contains, and not what the mere perception, the validity of which is purely subjective, contains. The judgment of experience must add something to a judgment, over and above the sensuous intuition, and the logical connection of the same (after it has been made universal by comparison), something that determines the synthetic judgment, as at once necessary and thereby universally valid ; and this can be nothing else but that conception which presents the intuition as determined in itself, in respect to one form of judgment rather than another, i.e., a conception of that synthetic unity of intuitions, which can only be presented through a given logical function of the judgment. 22. The sum of the above is this : the business of the senses is to intuite, that of the understanding to think. But to think is to unite presentations in a consciousness. This union is either merely relative to the subject, and is contingent and subjective, or is given unconditionally, and is necessary or objective. The union of presentations in a consciousness is judgment. Thinking, then, is the same as judging, or referring presentations to judgments in general. Hence judgments are either entirely sub- 2 52 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 23. jective when presentations are solely referred to 1 a con- sciousness in one subject, and are therein united, or they are objective when they are united in a consciousness in general, that is, are necessarily united therein. The logical momenta of all judgments are so many possible modes of uniting presentations in a consciousness. But if they serve as conceptions, they are conceptions of th<~i necessary union of the same in a consciousness, and therefore principles of objectively valid judgments. This union in a consciousness is either analytic by identity, or synthetic by the combination and addition of different presentations to one another. Experience consists in the synthetic connection of phenomena (perceptions) in a consciousness, in so far as this is necessary. Hence pure conceptions of the understanding are those under which all perceptions must be previously subsumed, before they can serve as judgments of experience, in which the synthetic unity of perceptions is presented as necessary and universal. 1 23. Judgments, considered merely as the union of given presentations in a consciousness, are rules. These rules, in so far as they present the union as necessary, are rules a priori, and in so far as there are none beyond them from vhich they can be derived, they are axioms. Since, then, in respect of the possibility of all experience, when viewed as the mere form of thought, there are no con- ditions of the judgments of experience beyond those 1 But how does this proposition, that judgments of experience mast contain necessity in the synthesis of perception, agree with the proposition above to much insisted upon, that experience as knowledge a posteriori can simply give contingent judgments? When I say experience teaches me something, I always mean the perception that lies in it, e.g., that heat invariably follows on the illumination of the stone by the sun, and the proposition of experience is so far always con- tingent. That this heating necessarily results from the illumination by the sun is indeed contained in the judgment of experience (by means of the conception of cause) ; yet I do not learn this from ex- perience, but the reverse, experience being in the first instance generated by this addition of the conception of the understanding (that of cause) to the perception. As to how the perception came by this addition, the Critique may be consulted in the division respecting the transcendental faculty of judgment. SECT. 24.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 53 which bring the phenomena in the various forms of their intuition under the pure conceptions of the understanding which make the empirical judgment objectively valid, these must be the a priori axioms of all possible experience. The axioms of possible experience are at the same time the universal laws of Nature as known a priori. And thus the problem contained in our present second question How is pure natural science possible? is solved. For the systematic character required by the form of a science is met with here in completeness, since beyond the above-named formal conditions of all judgments in general, that is, of all the general rules to be found in logic, there are none possible, and these constitute a logical system ; while the conceptions founded upon them, containing the conditions a priori of all synthetic and necessary judgments, [constitute] in the same way a transcendental system, and finally the axioms, by means of which all phenomena are subsumed under these con- ceptions, [constitute] a physiological l system, i.e., a system of nature, preceding all empirical knowledge of nature, rendering this in the first place possible, and therefore to be properly termed the universal and pure natural science. The first 2 of the above physiological axioms subsumes all phenomena, as intuitions in space and time, under the conception of quantity, and is BO far a principle of the application of mathematics to experience. The second Kubsnmes the properly empirical, namely, the feeling, which denotes the reality of intuitions, not precisely under the conception of quantity, because feeling is no intuition, contained in space and time, although it places its corresponding object in both. But between reality (presentation of feeling) and zero, i.e., the complete emptiness of intuition in time, there is a difference which has a quantity. For between each given degree of light 1 Or, as we should now terra it. physical. Tr. 2 The three following paragraphs will hardly be able to be under- stood without referring to what the Critique says on the axioms, but it may be useful to have a general view of them, and to fix the attention upon the main points. 54 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 25. and darkness, between each degree of heat, and complete coldness, each degree of weight and of absolute lightness, each degree of the containing of space and of totally empty space, progressively smaller degrees can be thought of, and similarly between consciousness and complete uncon- sciousness (psychological darkness) continually smaller [degrees] exist. Hence no perception is possible that would prove an absolute void ; for instance, no psycho- logical darkness that could be viewed otherwise than as a consciousness, which is but surpassed by another stronger consciousness, and the same in all cases of feeling. In this way the understanding can even anticipate feelings which constitute the proper quality of empirical presenta- tions (phenomena), by means of the axiom that they all (that is, the real of every phenomenon) have a degree, and this is the second application of mathematics (mathesis intensorum) to natural science. 25. As regards the relation of phenomena, and indeed simply as to their existence, the determination of this relation is not mathematic but dynamic, and can never be valid objectively, and therefore adequate to an experience, if it be not subordinated to principles a priori rendering the cognition of experience regarding them in the first place possible. Hence phenomena must be subsumed under the conception of substance, which lies at the foundation of all determination of existence as a con- ception of the thing itself; or secondly, in so far as a succession, that is, an event, is met with among the pheno- mena, under the conception of an effect in reference to cause; or in so far as co-existence is to be cognised objectively, that is, through a judgment of experience, under the conception of community (reciprocal action); and these principles a priori lie at the foundation of objectively valid although empirical judgments, that is, the possibility of experience in so far as it is to connect the existence of objects in Nature. These principles are the particular laws of Nature, which may be termed dynamic. There belongs, finally, to the judgments of experience SECT. 26.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 55 the cognition of the agreement and connection, not so much of phenomena among one another in experience, as of their relation to experience generally, which unites either their agreement with the formal conditions cog- nised by the understanding or their coherence with the material of sense and of perception, or both, in one con- ception, and consequently contains possibility, reality and necessity, according to universal natural laws, thereby constituting the physiological doctrine of method, the distinction between truth and hypotheses, and the limits of the reliability of the latter. 26. Although the third table of the principles drawn from the nature of the understanding on the critical method, shows a completeness in itself, which raises it far above every other that has been vainly attempted or may be attempted in the future [to be drawn] from the nature of the thing itself, in a dogmatic way, inasmuch as therein all synthetic axioms a priori have been produced in accordance with a principle, that is, the possibility of judgment in general, which constitutes the essence of experience, in reference to the understanding, in such a manner that one may be certain there are no more such axioms (a satisfaction never to be obtained from the dogmatic method), yet this is by far not its greatest service. Attention must be paid to the ground of proof, which discovers the possibility of this knowledge a priori, and limits at the same time all such axioms by a condition, that must never be overlooked, if they are not to be mis- understood, and extended farther in use than the original sense attached to them by the understanding will admit of : namely . that they only contain the conditions of possible experience in general, in BO far as it is subordinated to laws a priori. Thus I do not say that things in themselves contain a quantity, their reality, a degree, their existence, connection of accidents in a substance, &c. ; for this no one can prove, because such a synthetic connection is simply impossible out of mere conceptions, where all 56 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 26. reference to sensuous intuition on the one hand, and all con- nection of the same in a possible experience on the other, is wanting. The essential limitation of conceptions in these axioms is, therefore, that all things only stand under the above-mentioned conditions a priori as objects of experience. From this there follows, in the second place, a special and peculiar mode of proof of the foregoing : that the axioms in question do not refer directly to phenomena and their relation, but to the possibility of experience of which phenomena constitute the matter but not the form, i.e., to objective and universally valid synthetic proposi- tions, wherein judgments of experience are distinguished from mere judgments of perception. This happens in that the phenomena as mere intuitions, taking in a portion of space and, time, are subordinated to the conception of quantity, which unites the manifold in the same syntheti- cally in accordance with a priori rules ; and that iu so far as the perception contains feeling as well as intuition, between which and zero, namely, its total disappear- ance, a progression by diminution always takes place, the real of the phenomena must have a basis, seeing that in itself it takes in no portion of space or time. 1 But this progression towards it [viz., reality] from empty time or space, is only possible in time. Consequently, although feeling as the quality of empirical intuition can never be known a priori in respect of that wherein it is specifically distinguished from other feelings, it can nevertheless be distinguished in a possible experience generally, as quantity of perception intensively [distinct] from every 1 Heat, light, &c., are in a small space (so far as degree is con- cerned) as great as in a large one. In the same way inward presenta- tions (Vorstettungeri), as pain or consciousness in general, are not smaller in degree, whether they last a long or a short time ; hence quantity is as great here in one point and in one moment as in any time or space, however large. Degrees then are quantities, not as to intuition but as to mere feeling, or [in other words] the quantity of the basis of an intuition can only be estimated as quantity through the relation of 1 to 0, that is, by each one passing by endless mediate degrees to disappearance, or by each one growing from zero through endless momenta of increase to a definite feeling in a given time. Quantitas qualitatis est gradus. (The quantity of quality is degree.) Sacr. 27.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 57 other of the same kind ; which means the application of mathematics to Nature in respect of the sensuous intuition, by which the former is given us, and by which it becomes in the first place possible and definite. But the reader must give the greatest attention to the mode of proof of the principles coming under the name of analogies of experience. For inasmuch as these do not, like the principles of the application of mathematics to natural science generally, concern the generation of in- tuitions, but the connection of their existence in an experience, this can be nothing but the determination of existence in time according to necessary laws, under which alone they are objectively valid, and therefore experience. Thus the proof of synthetic unity does not turn on the connection of things in themselves, but of per- ceptions, and even of these, not in respect of their content but of their determination in time, and of the relation of existence thereto, according to universal laws. These universal laws contain, therefore, the necessity of the de- termination of existence in time generally (consequently, according to a rule of the understanding, a priori^) when the empirical determination in the relative time is to be objectively valid, that is, experience. I cannot enter further into the matter here, in Prolegomena, than to recommend the reader who has been long accustomed to regard experience as a mere empirical aggregation of per- ceptions, and hence does not reflect that it greatly exceeds the sphere of these, that it gives, namely, to empirical judgments, universal validity, and that for this a pure unity of the understanding is necessary to precede a priori, [to recommend him] to give attention to this dis- tinction of experience from a mere aggregrate of percep- tions, and to judge the manner of proof from this point of view. 27. It is here the place to raze Hume's doubt from its foundation. He maintained justly that we can in nowise discern through the Reason the possibility of causation, namely, the reference of the existence of one thing to the existence of some other thing posited' by the former. I 58 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 28 may add to this, that we can just as little discern the conception of subsistence, i.e., the necessity contained therein, that a subject must lie at the basis of the existence of a thing, and itself be no predicate of any other thing. [I would say even] that we can form no conception of the possibility of such a thing (though we can point out examples of its use in experience). In the same way this inconceivability attaches even to the community of things, since it is not discernible how, from the state of one thing, a consequence can be drawn as to the state of some totally different thing, external to it, and vice versa; and how substances of which each has its own separate existence, are necessarily dependent on one another. At the same time, I am far from regarding these conceptions as merely borrowed from experience, and the necessity, that is presented in them, as fictitious and mere illusion, induced in us by long custom. I have, rather, sufficiently shown that both they and the axioms deduced from them, subsist a priori before all experience, and possess indubi- table objective correctness, though unquestionably only in respect of experiences. 28. Although I cannot have the slightest notion of such a connection of things in themselves as of their existing as substances, working as causes, or being able to stand in community with other [substances] as parts of a real whole, I can still less conceive such properties in pheno- mena as phenomena, because these conceptions contain nothing that lies in the phenomena, but something the understanding alone can conceive. We have, then, from such a connection of presentations in our understanding, and, indeed, in judgments generally, a similar conception, namely, that presentations cohere in one kind of judgments, as subject with reference to predicate, in another as cause with reference to effect, in a third as parts together making up a complete possible cognition. Further, we cognise a priori, that without the presentation of an object, in respect of one or the other of these momenta, to he con- sidered as something definite, we could have no cognition that could be valid of objects, and if we occupied ourselves SECT. 29.] HOW IS PUEE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 59 with the object in itself, there would be no single mark possible, by which I could cognise whether it was determined in respect of one or of another cogitated moment, i.e., whether it cohered under the conception of substance, or of cause, or (in relation to other sub- stances) of community, for of the possibility of such a connection of existence I should have no conception. But it is not the question, how things in themselves, but how cognition of experience of things in respect of cogitated momenta of judgments generally, is defined, that is, how things as objects of experience can and should be subsumed under the above conceptions of the understanding. And hence it is clear, that I fully recognise not only the possi- bility, but also the necessity, of subsuming all phenomena under these conceptions, namely, of using them as axioms of the possibility of experience. 29. Let us now attempt a solution of Hume's problematical conception (his crux metaphysicorum), namely, the con- ception of Cause. Firstly, there is given me, a priori, by means of Logic, the form of a conditioned judgment generally, one cognition as antecedent and another as consequent. But it is possible that in the perception, a rule of the relation may be met with, which will say, that on [the occurrence of a] given phenomenon another always follows ( though not conversely), and this would be a case in which to make use of the hypothetical judgment, and to say, for instance, if a body be illumined long enough by the sun, it will become warm. There is certainly no necessity of connection here, in other words, no conception of cause. But I continue : if the above propo- sition, which is a mere subjective connection of perception, is to be a proposition of experience, it must be regarded as necessary and universally valid ; but such a proposition would run : Sun is through its light the cause of heat. The above empirical rule is now looked upon as law, and indeed, not alone as valid of phenomena, but valid of them in relation to a possible experience, which requires thoroughly, and therefore necessarily, valid rules. I perfectly understand, then, the conception of Cause, as a 60 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. so. conception necessarily belonging to the mere form of experience, and its possibility as a synthetic union of perceptions, in a consciousness in general ; but the possi- bility of a thing in general as a cause I do not understand, because the conception of cause does not refer at all to things, but only indicates the condition attaching to ex- perience, namely, that this can be only an objectively valid knowledge of phenomena, and their sequence in time, in so far as the antecedent can be united to the consequent according to the rule of hypothetical judgments. 30. Hence the pure conceptions of the understanding have no meaning whatever, when they quit the objects of experience and refer to things in themselves (noumena). They serve, as it were, to spell out phenomena, that these may be able to be read as experience. The axioms arising from their relation to the world of sense, only serve our understanding for use in experience. Beyond this, are only arbitrary combinations, destitute of objective reality^, and the possibility of which can neither be known a priori, nor their reference to objects be confirmed, or even made intelligible by an example, because all examples are borrowed from some possible experience, and consequently the objects of those conceptions are nothing but what may be met with in a possible experience. This complete solution of Hume's problem, although it turns out to be contrary to the opinion of its originator, preserves for the pure conceptions of the understanding their origin a priori, and for the universal laws of Nature their validity as laws of the understanding, but in such a manner that their use is limited to experience, because their possibility has its basis, solely, in the reference of the understanding to experience ; not because they are derived from experience, but because experience is derived from them, which completely reversed mode of connec- tion never occurred to Hume. The following result of all previous researches follows from the above investigations: "All synthetic axioms a priori are nothing more than principles of possible ex- SECT. 31.] HOW IS PUKE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 61 perience," and can never be referred to things in them- selves, but only to phenomena as objects of experience. Hence pure mathematics no less than pure natural science can never refer to anything more than mere phenomena, and only present that which either makes experience in general possible, or "which, inasmuch as it is derived from these principles, must always be able to be presented in some possible experience. 31. And thus we have at last something definite to hold by in all metaphysical undertakings, which hitherto, bold enough, but always blind, have pursued all things without distinction. Dogmatic thinkers have never let it occur to them, that the goal of their endeavours should be extended such a short way from them, and even those most confident in their imagined common sense have started with conceptions and principles of the mere Eeason, legitimate and natural, it is true, but intended merely for use in experience, [in search of] spheres of knowledge, for which they neither knew nor could know of any definite boundaries, because they had neither reflected nor could reflect on the nature or even the possibility of any such pure understanding. Many a naturalist of the pure Eeason (by which I understand he who ventures to decide in questions of metaphysics, without any science) might well profess that what has been here put forward with so much pre- paration, or if he will have it so, with tediously pedantic pomp, he has long ago not merely conjectured but known and penetrated, by the prophetic spirit of his common sense, namely, "that with all our Eeason, we can never pass beyond the field of experiences." But he must confess, notwithstanding, when questioned seriatim as to his prin- ciples of Eeason, that amongst these there are many to be found not drawn from experience, and therefore valid, in- dependently thereof, and a priori. How then, and on what grounds, will he hold the dogmatist and himself in limits, who use these conceptions and principles outside all pos- sible experience, simply because they are recognised as independent of it ? And even this adept of common sense, 62 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 32. in spite of all his pretended, cheaply acquired, wisdom, is not proof against wandering, unobserved, beyond the objects of experience into the field of chimeras. He is, indeed, in the ordinary way, deeply enough involved therein, although by the use of popular language, by putting everything forward as probability, reasonable supposition or analogy, he gives some colour to his ground- less assumptions. 32. From the earliest -ages of philosophy, investigators of the pure Reason have postulated, beyond the sensible essences (phenomena) which constitute the world of sense, special essences of the understanding (noumena) which are supposed to constitute a world of understanding ; and since they held appearance and illusion [Erscheinung und Schein\ for the same thing, which in an undeveloped epoch is to be excused, ascribed reality to the intelligible essence alone. In fact, when we regard the objects of sense, as is correct, as mere appearances, we thereby at the same time confess that a thing in itself lies at their foundation, although we do not know it, as it is constituted in itself, but only its appearance, that is, the manner in which our senses are affected by this unknown something. The understanding then, by accepting appearances, admits also the existence of things in themselves, and we may even say that the presentation of such essences as lie at the basis of appearances, in short, mere essences of the understanding, is not only admissible, but unavoidable. Our critical deduction does not by any means exclude such things (noumena), but rather limits the principles of aesthetic, in so far that these should not be extended to all things, whereby everything would be changed into mere appearance, but that they should only be valid of objects of a possible experience. Essences of the under- standing are hereby admitted only by the emphasising of this rule, which admits of no exception, that we know nothing definite whatever of these pure essences of the understanding, neither can we know anything of them, because our pure conceptions of the understanding no less SECT. 34.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 63 than our pure intuitions, concern nothing but objects of a possible experience, in short, mere essences of sense, and as soon as we leave these, the above conceptions have not the least significance remaining. 33. There is indeed something seductive about our pure conceptions of the understanding, as regards temptation to a transcendent use ; for so I name that which tran- scends all possible experience. Not only do our conceptions of substance, force, action, reality, &c., which are entirely independent of experience containing no phenomenon of sense, really seem to concern things in themselves (noumena) ; but what strengthens this supposition is, that they contain a necessity of determination in themselves, to which experience can never approach. The conception of cause contains a rule, according to which from one state another follows in a necessary manner; but ex- perience only teaches us that often, or at most usually, one state of a thing follows upon another, and can there- fore acquire neither strict universality nor necessity. Hence these conceptions of the understanding seem to have far too much significance and content for mere use in experience to exhaust their entire determination, and the understanding builds in consequence, unobserved, by the side of the house of experience, a much more im- posing wing, which it fills with sheer essences of thought, without even noticing that it has overstepped the legiti- mate bounds of its otherwise correct conceptions. 34. There were two important, and indeed altogether in- dispensable, although exceedingly dry investigations necessary, that have been undertaken in the Critique (p. 107), in the first of which it was shown that the senses do not furnish the pure conceptions of the under- standing in concrete, but only the schema for their use, and that the object which conforms to it is only to be met with in experience as the [common] product of the under- 64 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 35. standing, and the materials of sense. In the second in- vestigation (Critique, p. 178) it is shown, that notwith- standing the independence of our pure conceptions of the understanding and principles of experience, even to the apparently greater range of their use nothing whatever could be conceived through them outside the field of experience, because they can do nothing but determine the merely logical form of judgment in respect of given intuitions. But since, beyond the field of sen- sibility, no intuition is given, these pure conceptions become totally void of meaning, inasmuch as they can in no way be presented in concrete. Consequently, all these noumena together with their sum-total, an intelli- gible world, 1 are nothing but presentations of a problem, the subject of which in itself is indeed possible, but the solution of which is, by the nature of our understanding, utterly impossible, since our understanding is no faculty of intuition, but is merely the connection of given intui- tions in an experience, and must comprise therefore all objects for our conceptions ; but apart from these, all con- ceptions which cannot be supported by an intuition, must be without meaning. 35. The imagination may perhaps be forgiven, if it some- times dreams, and fails to keep itself carefully within the limits of experience ; for certainly it is invigorated and strengthened by a free flight like this, and it is always easier to moderate its boldness than to stimulate its languor. But for the understanding, which ought to think, to dream instead, can never be forgiven, as it is our only support in setting bounds to the fantasies of the imagination, where this is necessary. 1 Not, as it is commonly expressed, Intellectual world; for cog- nitions, through the understanding, are intellectual, and these refer only to our world of sense; but objects are called intelligible, so far as they can be presented through the understanding, and to which none of our sensuous intuitions can have reference. But as every object must require some possible intuition, one would have to con- ceive an understanding that contemplated things immediately, but of such we have not the least conception, and just as little therefore of the essence of the understanding, to which it should have reference. SECT. 36. J HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 65 It begins, however, very innocently and modestly. First of all, it reduces the elementary cognitions inhering in it before all experience, but having their application, notwithstanding, in experience, to their pure state. Gradually it lets fall these limits ; and what is there then to hinder it, seeing th^t the understanding has taken its principles quite freely from itself? First of all, it is led to newly invented powers in Nature, soon after to essences outside Nature, in a word, to a world for whose fitting-up we can never fail in material, because by a fruitful imagi- nation this will always be richly procured, and although not substantiated by experience, will yet never be confuted by it. This is the reason why young thinkers are so fond of metaphysics, treated in a genuinely dogmatic manner, and sacrifice to it their time and talents which might be otherwise useful. But it is of no avail attempting to moderate these fruitless attempts of the pure Eeason, by all manner of cautions as to the difficulty of the solution of such deeply- hidden questions, lamentations over the limits of our Eeason, and by lowering assertions to mere conjectures. For if their impossibility be not clearly shown, and the self-knowledge of the Eeason be not [raised to] a true science, in which the field of its right use is separated from that of its nugatory and fruitless use, so to speak, with geometrical certainty, these vain endeavours will never be completely laid aside. 36. How is NATURE ITSELF POSSIBLE? This question, which is the highest point the transcen- dental philosophy can ever touch, and to which it must also, as its boundary and completion, be directed, properly comprises two questions. Firstly : How is Nature, in its material signification, namely, as intuition, as the sum-total of phenomena how is space, time, and that which fills them both, namely, the object of feeling in general possible ? The answer is, by means of the construction of our sensibility, in ac- F 66 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 36. cordance with which, it is affected in a special manner by objects, in themselves unknown and entirely distinct from these appearances. This answer has been given in the book itself in the Transcendental Esthetic, but in these Prolegomena in the solution of the first general question. Secondly : How is Nature in its formal signification as the sum-total of the rules to which all phenomena must be subordinated, if they are to be thought of as connected in an experience possible ? The answer cannot but be : It is only possible by means of the construction of our understanding, in accordance with which all the above presentations of sensibility are necessarily referred to a consciousness, and whereby the special manner of our thought (namely, by rules), and by means of these, ex- perience (which is to be wholly distinguished from a knowledge of things in themselves) is possible. This answer has been given in the book itself in the Transcen- dental Logic, but in these Prolegomena in the course of the solution of the second general question. But how this special property of our sensibility itself, or of our understanding together with the necessary apperception lying at its basis, and at that of all thought, is possible, will not admit of any further solution or answer, because we invariably require it for all answers and for all thought of objects. There are many laws of Nature that we can only know by means of experience, but regularity in the connection of phenomena, i.e., Nature in general, we can never learn through experience, because experience itself requires such laws, and these lie at the foundation of its possibility a priori. The possibility of experience in general is at once the universal law of Nature, and the axioms of the one are at the same time the laws of the other. For we know nothing of Nature otherwise than as the sum-total of pheno- mena, namely, of presentations in us, and hence can derive the law of their connection in no other way than from the principles of the same connection in ourselves ; in other words, from the conditions of necessary union in a con- sciousness, which constitutes the possibility of experience. Even the main proposition, worked out through the whole of this section, that universal natural laws are to SECT. 36.] HOW IS PUEE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 67 be known a priori, of itself leads to the further proposition, that the highest legislation of Nature must lie in ourselves, namely, in our understanding, and that we must seek its universal laws, not in Nature, by means of experience ; but conversely, must seek Nature, as to its universal regu- larity, solely in the conditions of the possibility of ex- Eerience lying in our sensibility and understanding. For ow would it otherwise be possible to know these laws a priori if they be not rules of analytic knowledge, but actu- ally synthetic extensions of the same ? Such a necessary agreement of the principles of possible experience with the laws of the possibility of Nature can only occur from one of two causes ; either the laws are borrowed from Nature by means of experience, or conversely, Nature is derived from the laws of the possibility of experience generally, and is entirely the same thing as the purely formal regularity of the latter. The first supposition contradicts itself, for the universal laws of Nature can and must be known a priori (i.e., independently of all experi- ence), and be posited as the basis of the empirical use of the understanding; so that only the second [hypothesis] remains to us. 1 But we must distinguish the empirical laws of Nature, which always presuppose particular perceptions, from the pure or universal natural laws, which without any particular perceptions at their foundation, merely contain the conditions of their necessary union in an experience ; and in respect of the last, Nature and possible experience are the same thing. Hence, as in this, the legitimacy rests on the necessary connection of phenomena in an experience, in other words, on the original laws of the understanding (without which we could cognise no object of the sensuous world whatever), it sounds at first singular, but is none the less certain, when I say in respect of the latter : The 1 Crasius alone thought of a compromise, namely, that a spirit who cannot err nor deceive may have implanted those natural laws in us originally ; but, since deceptive principles often intrude themselves, of which the system of this man itself shows not a few examples, it looks dubious as to the use of such principles, owing to the want of certain criteria to distinguish those of genuine from those of ungenuine origin, for we can never know for certain what the Spirit of truth or the Father of lies may have instilled into us. F 2 68 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 38. understanding draws its laws (a priori) not from Nature, lut prescribes them to it. 37. We will illustrate this apparently daring proposition by an instance, showing that laws, which we discover in objects of sensuous intuition, especially when they are cognised as necessary, are held by ourselves to be such as the understanding has placed them, although in all other respects they may resemble the natural laws we attribute to experience. 38. If we consider the properties of the circle, by which the figure unites in itself so many arbitrary determina- tions of space, in a universal rule, one cannot do other- wise than attribute a nature to this geometrical thing. Two lines, for instance, which intersect one another and the circle, it matters not how they may be drawn, are yet always so regular that the rectangle under the segments of the one line is equal to that under the segments of the other. Now I ask, " Does this law lie in the circle or in the understanding ? " in other words, does this figure contain independently of the understanding the ground of this law in itself, or does the understanding impose the law that chords cut one another in geometrical proportion, upon it, inasmuch as it has itself constructed the figure according to its own conceptions, namely, the equality of radii? We soon perceive when we follow the proofs of this law, that it can only be derived from the condition the understanding places at the foundation of the con- struction of this figure, namely, the equality of radii. If tve extend the conception, in order to pursue still farther the unity of the manifold properties of geometrical figure under common laws, and consider the circle as a conic section, subordinated to the same fundamental conditions of construction as other conic sections, we find that all chords that intersect within the ellipse (parabola and hyperbola) always intersect, so that the rectangles under their segments, though not indeed equal, yet stand in the same ratio to one another. If we proceed still farther, SECT. 38.] HOW IS PUKE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 69 namely, to the fundamental doctrines of physical astro- nomy, a physical law of mutual attraction is seen ex- tended over the whole of material nature, whose rule is, that it decreases inversely as the square of the distance from each attracting point, that is, as the spherical sur- faces, in which this power diffuses itself, increase ; and this seems to lie necessarily in the nature of things them- selves, and therefore is usually enunciated as cognisable a priori. However simple the sources of this law may be, as they rest merely on the relations of spherical surfaces of different radii, the consequences are so valuable, as regards the manifold nature of its agreement and regularity, that not only all possible orbits of the heavenly bodies [are described] in conic sections, but such a relation of them among one another follows, that no law of attraction could be conceived as suitable for a world-system, other than that of the inverse square of the distance. Here then is Nature resting on laws which the under- standing cognises a priori, and indeed mainly on uni- versal principles of the determination of space. Now I ask: Do these natural laws lie in space, and does the understanding learn them by merely seeking to in- vestigate the abundant meaning contained therein, or do they lie in the understanding and in the manner in which this determines space according to the conditions of synthetic unity, on which all these conceptions hinge? Space is something so uniform, and as regards all particular properties so indefinite, that certainly no one will seek for any wealth of natural laws in it. On the other hand that which determines space to the circular form, to the figure of the cone or of the sphere, is the understanding in so far as it contains the ground of the unity of its con- struction. The mere universal form of intuition called space, is the substratum of all particular objects of defin- able intuitions, and in this certainly lies the condition of its possibility and variety. But the unity of objects is determined simply by the understanding, according to conditions that lie in its own nature, and the understand- ing is thus the source of the universal order of Nature, since it comprehends all phenomena under its own laws ; and thereby it first constructs experience (according to its 70 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 39. form) a priori, by means of which all that is to be known through experience becomes necessarily subordinated to its laws. For we have nothing to do with the nature of things in themselves, which is as independent of the con- ditions of our sensibility as of those of the understanding, but with Nature as the object of a possible experience; and the understanding, while making this possible, [insists] that the world of sense be either no object of experieiice at all, or else, a Nature. 39. APPENDIX TO PUKE NATUEAL SCIENCE. OF THE SYSTEM OF THE CATEGORIES. There can be nothing more desired by a philosopher than that the variety of conceptions or principles he had previously had presented to him in a scattered manner through the use he had made of them in concrete, should be deduced from one principle a priori, and should be all united in this manner in one cognition. Formerly he only believed that those things which remained over, after a certain abstraction, and which by comparison "with one another seemed to constitute a particular kind of cog- nitions, were completely collected ; but this was only an aggregate. Now he knows that exactly so many, neither more nor less, can constitute the mode of cognition, and sees the necessity of their division, which is a comprehen- sion ; and thus, for the first time, he has a system. To search out conceptions from common cognitions, having no particular experience at their bases, and at the same time occurring in all cognition of experience, of which they constitute, as it were, the mere form of con- nection, presupposes no greater reflection or more insight than to search out in a language rules for the real use of words in general, and thus to get together the elements of a grammar. Indeed, both investigations are very nearly related, even if we are unable to give a reason why each language has precisely this and no other formal construction, and still less why exactly so many, neither SECT. 39.] HOW IS PURE NATURAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE? 71 more nor less, of such formal determinations of the same, generally, are to be found. Aristotle collected ten such pure elementary cognitions under the name of categories. 1 To these, which were also called predicaments, he saw himself, subsequently, obliged to add five post-predicaments, 2 which yet lay partly in the former (as prius, simul, motus) ; but this rhapsody could but serve, and be admired, as a hint for future investi- gators, rather than be valid as a regularly developed idea ; hence in more advanced [stages] of philosophy it has been rejected as altogether useless. On investigation of the pure elements (containing nothing empirical) of the human cognition, I first succeeded, after long reflection, in distin- guishing and separating with confidence the elementary conceptions of sensibility (space and time) from those of the understanding, Under these circumstances, the 7th, 8th, and 9th categories were excluded from the list. The remainder could be of no use to me, because there was no principle at hand by which the understanding could be fully gauged, and all its functions, from which its pure conceptions arise, be defined completely and, with precision. In order to find out such a principle, I looked about me for an act of the understanding containing all the rest, and distinguishing itself, only through diiferent modifica- tions or momenta, in bringing the manifold of presentation under the unity of thought generally, and I then found this act of the understanding to consist in judgment. There lay already before me the entire, although not altogether faultless, work of the logicians, whereby I was placed in a position to present a complete table of the pure functions of the understanding that were indefinite as regards the whole object-world. I finally referred these functions of judgment to objects generally, or rather to the conditions determining judgments as objectively valid, and there 1 1, Substantia; 2, Qualitas ; 3, Quantitas ; 4, Relatio; 5, Actio ; 6,Passio; 7, Quando; 8, Ubi ; 9, Situs; 10, Habitus. (Substance; Property ; Quantity ; Kelation ; Action ; Passion ; When ; Where ; Position; State.) 2 Oppositum ; Prius ; Simul ; Motus ; Hdbere. (Opposition ; Priority ; Simultaneity ; Motion ; Possession. 72 KANT'S PEOLEGOMEXA. [SECT. 39. arose pure conceptions of the understanding, respecting which I could be without doubt that they alone, and only so many of them, neither more nor less, could constitute our whole cognition of things from mere understanding. I called them, as was suitable, by their old name of categories ; in doing which, however, I reserved to myself the right to add in their entirety, under the name of predicables, all conceptions to be derived from these whether by connec- tion with one another, or with the pure form of the phenomenon (space and time), or with their matter so far as it is not empirically determined (object of feeling, gene- rally), as soon as a system of transcendental philosophy, in furtherance of which I was now occupied with a Critique of the Reason itself, should be constructed. But that which is essential in this system of categories, and distinguishes it from the old rhapsody which proceeded without any principle, and that which alone entitles it to be counted as philosophy, consists in that by its means the true significance of the pure conceptions of the under- standing and the conditions of their use can be clearly defined. For it is evident that they are only logical functions in themselves, but as such do not constitute the least conception of an object in itself, but require sensuous intuition at their foundation. And hence they serve only to determine in respect of the same empirical judgments that are otherwise undetermined and indifferent as regards all functions of judgment ; to procure for them thereby universality, and by means of them to make judgments of experience generally, possible. Such an insight into the nature of the categories, at the same time limiting them to use in experience, never occurred either to their first originator or to any one after him. But without this insight (which exactly depends on their derivation or deduction) they are quite purposeless, and a miserable list of names without explanation or rule of use. Had anything of the kind ever entered into the minds of the ancients, without doubt the whole study of the cognition of the pure Reason, which under the name of metaphysics has through long centuries ruined many a good head, would have come down to us in quite a different form, and would have enlightened the human understanding SECT. 39.] HOW IS PURE NATUEAL SCIENCE POSSIBLE ? 73 instead of, as has actually happened, [causing it] to exhaust itself in obscure and vain subtleties, and making it unfruitful for true science. This system of categories makes all treatment of any object of the pure Reason itself systematic, and affords an indubitable direction or clue how and to what point in the investigation every metaphysical consideration, if it is to be complete, must be reduced ; for it exhausts all the momenta of the understanding, under which every other principle must be brought. It is thus that the table of conception has arisen, of whose completeness we can only be assured by means of the system of categories. 1 And even in the division of these conceptions destined to tran- scend the physiological use of the understanding (Critique, pp. 207 and 257), it is always the same clue, which, be- cause it must be always carried through the same fixed points, determined a priori in the human understanding, in- variably forms a closed circle, leaving no doubt remaining that the object of a pure conception of the understanding or of the Reason, in so far as it is to be weighed philo- sophically and according to principles a priori, can be completely known in such a manner. I have not been able even to omit from this derivation, to make use of the 1 On the table of the categories many ingenious observations may be made; as (,1) that the third arises from the combination in one conception of the first and second ; (2) that those of quantity and quality are merely a progression from unity to totality, or from something to nothing (for which purpose the categories of quality must stand thus : reality, limitation, complete negation) without correlate, or opposite; while, on the other hand, those of relation and modality carry the latter with them ; (3) that, as in logic, categorical judgments lie at the foundation of all others, so the category of substance does to all conceptions of real things ; (4) that, as modality is no particular predicate in judgments, so also modal conceptions add no determination to tilings, &c. Such considerations are very useful. If, in addition, all the predicables are counted up, that can be drawn pretty completely from any good Ontology (e.g., Baumgarten'8\ and are arranged in classes under the categories whereby we must not omit, however, to add as complete a dissection of all these conceptions as possible a purely analytic part of metaphysics will arise, con- taining, not a single synthetic proposition, which might precede the second (the synthetic), and by its definiteness and completeness be not only useful, but by virtue of its symmetrical character contain a certain beauty. 74 KANT'S PKOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 39. most abstract of ontological divisions, namely, the mani- fold distinction of conceptions of something and nothing, and accordingly to construct a regular and necessary table (Critique, p. 207). This system, like every true system based on a universal principle, shows its inestimable utility, in that all foreign conceptions, which might otherwise creep in between the above pure conceptions of the understanding, are ex- cluded, and its place given to every cognition. Those con- ceptions which under the name of conceptions of reflection, I had reduced to a table, on the clue of the categories, mingle themselves, in an ontology without favour or just claim, under the pure conceptions of the understanding, although the latter are conceptions of the connection [of the object] and thereby of the object itself ; but the former are the mere comparison of previously given conceptions, and have therefore an altogether different nature and use : by my legitimate division 1 they are saved from this con- fusion. But the utility of the above separate table of the categories will be seen much more clearly, when, as we are now about to do, we separate the table of the transcendental conceptions of the Eeason which are of quite a different nature and origin from the former conceptions of the un- derstanding, and must consequently have a form other than the latter. This necessary separation has never yet taken place in any system of metaphysics, where ideas of the Reason and conceptions of the understanding inter- mingle, without distinction, as though they were members of one family a state of confusion which in the absence of a special system of categories could never be avoided. 1 Critique, p. 190 et seq. SECT. 40.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AT ALL ? 75 THE THIRD PAET OF THE MAIN TEAN- SCENDENTAL PROBLEM. How is METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AT ALL ? 40. Pure mathematics and pure natural science would not require for their own security and certainty a deduction such as we have just concluded with respect to them both ; for the former rests upon its own evidence, while the latter, although arising from the pure sources of the understanding, is dependent upon the complete substan- tiation of experience, a witness it is unable altogether to repudiate and do without, seeing that with all its cer- tainty, as philosophy, it can never compete with mathe- matics. Both these sciences required the foregoing in- vestigation, not for their own sake, but for the sake of another science, namely, metaphysics. Metaphysics is concerned not merely with natural con- ceptions, having invariably an application in experience, but, in addition to these, with pure conceptions of the Eeason, which can never be given in any possible ex- perience; that is, with conceptions whose objective reality (as distinguished from simple cobwebs of the brain), and with assumptions whose truth or falsity can be confirmed or discovered by no experience. This part of metaphysics is precisely that which constitutes its essential purpose, all else being merely a means thereto, and hence this science requires such a deduction for its own sake. The third problem, now before us, concerns, as it were, the essence and speciality of metaphysics, namely, the occupa- tion of the Keason with itself alone, inasmuch as it broods over its own conceptions and the knowledge of objects supposed to arise immediately from them, without having need of the mediation of experience, or indeed without the possibility of being able to attain thereto by its means. 1 1 If it be said that a science is at least real in the idea of all men when it is constituted; that the problems leading to it arc put forward by the nature of the human reason in all men, and con- 76 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 41. Without a satisfactory solution of this problem, Eeason can never be just to itself. The empirical use to which the Reason limits the understanding, does not exhaust its own function. Each special experience is but a portion of tife whole sphere of its domain. But the absolute totality of all possible experience, though in itself no experience, con- stitutes nevertheless for the Eeason a necessary problem, to the mere presentation of which it demands quite dif- ferent conceptions from the pure conceptions of the under- standing, the use of which is only immanent, i.e., referable to experience, so far as it can be given ; whereas the con- ceptions of the Eeason extend to the completeness, i.e., the collective unity of all possible experience, thereby passing beyond any given experience and becoming transcendent. As, then, the understanding required the Categories for experience, so the Eeason contains in itself the ground of Ideas, by which I understand necessary conceptions the subject of which cannot be given in any experience. The latter are as inherent in the nature of the Eeason as the former in the nature of the Understanding, and if they carry with them an illusion that may easily mislead, this illusion is unavoidable, although we may very well guard ourselves from being misled by it. As all illusion consists in the subjective ground of judg- ment being taken for objective, the self-knowledge of the pure Eeason, in its transcendent (exaggerated) use, is the only preservative against the aberrations into which the Eeason falls when it misapplies its function, and refers its transcendent character, concerning only its own subject and its direction in all immanent uses, to the object itself. 41. The distinction between the ideas, or pure conceptions of the Eeason, and the categories or pure conceptions of the understanding as being cognitions of quite another order, origin, and use, is so important a point in the eequently that many, if faulty, attempts at its solution are at all times unavoidable, we must then say, metaphysics is subjectively (aud necessarily) real, and hence we ask with justice, How is it (objectively) possible ? SECT. 43.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AT ALL ? 77 foundation of a science, destined to contain the system of all these cognitions a priori, that without a division of this kind metaphysics would be simply impossible, or at best an incoherent, clumsy attempt at building a house of cards, without a knowledge of the materials handled, and of their capacity for this or that purpose. If the Critique of the Pure Eeason had only accomplished the direction of attention to the distinction for the first time, it would have thereby contributed more to the explanation of our conceptions and to the guidance of investigation in the field of metaphysics, than all the fruitless endeavours at solving the transcendental problems of the pure Eeason that have ever been undertaken, in which the suspicion has never occurred that the field was quite other than that of the pure understanding, and where consequently the conceptions of the understanding and the Eeason have been classed together as though they were of the same kind. 42. All pure cognitions of the understanding have the peculiarity that their conceptions are given in experience, and their axioms can be confirmed by experience; whereas the transcendent cognitions of the Eeason are neither given as concerns their ideas in experience, nor can their axioms be confirmed or refuted by experience. Hence the error possibly arising can be detected by nothing else but pure Eeason itself, and this is very difficult, because the Eeason by means of its ideas is naturally dialectic, and this unavoidable illusion can be held in check by no objective and dogmatic investigations of the matter, but solely by the subjectivity of the Eeason itself as a source of ideas. 43. It has always been my greatest aim in the Critique, not alone to distinguish carefully the modes of cognition, but also to derive from their common source all the conceptions pertaining to them severally, so that I should not only be informed whence they come and hence be able to deter- mine their use with certainty, but also that I should have 78 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 43. the altogether unexpected, but priceless, advantage of knowing the numeration, classification, and specification of the conceptions a priori, and, therefore, according to principles. Without this, everything in metaphysics is mere rhapsody, in which one never knows whether what one possesses is sufficient, or whether there may not be something wanting in it ; and if so, where. We can certainly only have this advantage in pure philosophy, but of this latter it constitutes the essence. As I had found the origin of the categories in the four logical functions of all judgments of the understanding, it was only natural to seek the origin of the ideas in the three functions of the conclusions of the Reason. For if such pure conceptions of the Reason (transcendental ideas) be once given, they could not, unless they were regarded as innate, be found elsewhere than in the same act of Reason, which, as far as form is concerned, constitutes the logical element of the conclusions of the Reason, but so far as it presents the judgments of the understanding as determined with respect, either to one or the other form a priori, [constitutes] the transcendental conceptions of the pure Reason. The formal distinction of the conclusions of the Reason, renders their division into categorical, hypothetical and disjunctive, necessary; The conceptions of the Reason based thereon, contain, firstly, the idea of the complete subject (substantial) ; secondly, the idea of the complete series of conditions ; thirdly, the determination of all con- ceptions in the idea of a complete content (Inbegriff) of the possible. 1 The first idea is psychological, the second cosrnological, and the third theological; and as all three 1 In disjunctive judgments we consider all possibility as divided in relation to a particular conception. The ontological principle of the thorough determination of a thing generally (that of all possible opposite predicates one must attach to each thing), which is at the same time the principle of all disjunctive judgments, is based on the content (Inbegri/) of all possibility, in which the possibility of a thing in general is regarded as determined. Tins serves as a slight ex- plauation of the above proposition, that the act of Eeason, in disjunctive conclusions of the Eeason, is the same, as regards form, as that whereby it attains to the idea of a content of all reality, embracing in itself the positive of all mutually opposing predicates. SECT. 44.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AT ALL ? 79 give occasion to a dialectic, each of its own kind, the division of the whole dialectic of the pure Eeason founded thereupon, is into the Paralogism, the Antinomy, and finally the Ideal of the same. By this division we are fully assured that all demands of the pure Reason are here presented, in their completeness ; that no single one can fail, because the capacity of the Reason itself, as that from which they all take their origin, is thereby com- pletely surveyed. 44. In this general consideration it is noteworthy, that the ideas of the Reason, unlike the categories, are not of any service whatever in the use of the understanding in ex- perience, but can be wholly dispensed with in this con- nection ; indeed, they are impediments to the maxims of the understanding's knowledge of nature, notwithstand- ing their necessity for another purpose, yet to be de- termined. Whether the soul be, or be not, a simple substance, can be quite indifferent to us, so far as the explanation of its phenomena is concerned, for we cannot render the conception of a simple essence comprehensible, sensuously or in concrete, by any possible experience; and hence it is quite barren as to the hoped-for insight into the cause of the phenomena ; and cannot serve as any principle of explanation for what is afforded, either by internal or external experience. Just as little can the cosmological ideas of the beginning of the world or of the eternity of the world (a parte ante) avail us to explain an occurrence in the world itself. Finally, we must, in accordance with a just maxim of the philosophy of Nature, refrain from all explanation of the order of Nature, which is derived from the will of a Supreme Being, because this is no longer a philosophy of Nature, but a confession that we have finished with the latter. Hence these ideas have quite a different determination of their use from the categories, by means of which, and of the principles based upon them, experience itself is first possible. But our laborious analytic of the understanding would be quite superfluous, if our aim were nothing else but mere knowledge of Nature, such as can be given in 80 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 45. experience ; for Reason accomplishes its "work both in mathematics and natural science, certainly and well, without any of this subtle deduction. Thus our Critique of the understanding combines with the ideas of the pure Reason, in an aim placed beyond the empirical use of the understanding, of which we have above said that, in this respect, it is quite impossible, and destitute alike of object and meaning. But there must, nevertheless, be an agree- ment between that which belongs to the nature of the Reason and of the understanding, and the former must contribute to the completion of the latter, and cannot possibly confuse it. The solution of this problem is as follows : the pure Reason has no particular objects denoted by its ideas which lie outside the field of experience in view, but merely requires completeness of the use of the understand- ing within the system of experience. This completeness, however, can only be a completeness of principles, but not of intuitions and objects. But in order to represent the former definitely, it regards them as the cognition of an object, a cognition completely determined as regards these rules, but the object of which is only an idea, designed to bring the cognition of the understanding as near as possible to the completeness indicated by that idea. 45. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION ON THE DIALECTIC OF THE PURE REASON. We have above ( 33, 34) shown, that the purity of the categories, from all admixture of sensuous determina- tions, may mislead the Reason into extending its use entirely beyond the range of all experience, to things in themselves ; for although they can find no intuition that could lend them meaning and sense in concrete, yet as mere logical functions they may represent a thing in general, notwithstanding that, independently, they are unable to give a definite conception of anything whatever. Such hyperbolical objects are what are termed noumena, or pure essences of the Understanding (better essences of SECT. 46.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 81 thought), as, for instance, substance, when considered as without permanence in time, or a cause, which does not operate in time, &c., inasmuch as predicates are then attached to them, which serve merely to make the conformability of experience to law possible, and at the same time all the conditions of intuition under which experience is alone possible are taken away from them, whereby these conceptions lose all significance. There is, however, no danger of the understanding of itself, unimpressed by laws foreign to it, branching out so rashly into the field of mere essences of thought. But when the Eeason, which cannot be completely satisfied with an empirical use of the rules of the undei'standing, requires the comple- tion of this chain of conditions, the understanding is driven out of its own sphere, partly to present objects of experience in a series extended so far that no experience can grasp it, and partly (in order to complete this series) to search for noumena, wholly outside the same, to which it may attach the above chain, and thereby, being at last independent of experience, render its attitude once for all complete. These are the transcendental ideas, which, in accordance with the true but hidden ends of the natural determination of our Reason, are designed not for extrava- gant conceptions, but merely for the unlimited extension of empirical use ; but which, however, by an unavoidable illusion seduce the understanding into a transcendent use, that although deceitful, cannot be kept within the bounds of experience by any resolution, but can only be re- strained within [due] limits with pains, and by means of scientific instruction. 46. I. PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEA (Critique, p. 237). It has long been observed that the subject proper, in all substances, namely, that which remains over after all accidents (as predicates) have been abstracted, that is, the substantial itself, is unknown, and oft-repeated complaints have been made of these limitations of our insight. But it is to be observed as regards this, that the human understanding is not to be taken to task for 82 KANT'S PEOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 46. not knowing the substantial of things, that is, for not being able to determine it by itself, but rather for ex- pecting to know it definitely, like a given object, when it is a mere idea. The pure Reason requires of every predicate of a thing the subject belonging to it, but to this, which is again necessarily only predicate, it requires a further subject, and so 011 ad infinitum (or as far as we can reach). But it follows from the above, that nothing to which we' can attain is to be taken for an ultimate subject, and that the substantial itself can never be thought by our understanding, however deeply pene- trating it may be, not even if the whole of Nature were unveiled before it ; because the specific nature of our understanding consists in that it thinks all things dis- cursively, i.e., through conceptions, and hence solely by means of predicates, to which the absolute subject must always be wanting. For this reason all real qualities whereby we cognise bodies, even to impenetrability, which must always present itself as the effect of a force, are simply accidents, the subject of which eludes us. Now it seems as though in our own consciousness (the thinking subject) we have this substantial, and indeed in an immediate intuition; for all predicates of the internal sense refer to the ego, the subject, and this cannot be thought of as predicate of any other subject whatever. Here, then, the completeness in the connection of the given conceptions as predicates of a subject, not merely an idea, but an existence, namely, the absolute subject itself, seem to be given in experience. But this experience is vain, for the ego is no conception at all, 1 but merely a designation of the object of the internal sense, so far as we can cognise it by no further predicate, and hence in itself it can indeed be no predicate of another thing, and just as little a definite conception of an absolute sub- ject, but only, as in all other cases, the reference of the 1 Were the presentation of the apperception, the ego, a conception whereby anything whatever was thought, it could also be used as pifnlicate of other things, or it would contain such predicates. It is, really, nothing more than the feeling of a reality without the least conception, but only presentation of that to which all thought stands in relation (rdatione acddentigj. SECT. 48.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENEKAL POSSIBLE ? 83 internal phenomena to their unknown subject. At the same time, this idea (which serves well enoijgh, as regula- tive principle, completely to annihilate all materialistic explanations of the internal phenomena of our soul) occasions, owing to a perfectly natural misunderstanding, a very plausible argument, by inferring from this supposed cognition of the substantial in our thinking entity, its nature, in so far as the knowledge of the same falls entirely outside the content of experience. 47. This thinking self (the soul) may however, as the ultimate subject of thought, which cannot be conceived as the predicate of another thing, be called substance ; but this conception remains wholly barren, and void of all results, if permanence, which makes the conception of substances in experience fruitful, cannot be proved of it. But permanence can never be proved from the concep- tion of a substance, as a thing in itself, but only for the purposes of experience. The above has been fully explained in the first analogy of experience (Critique, p. 136), and, if this demonstration be not accepted, the attempt need only be made as to whether it is possible to prove, from the conception of a subject, not existing as the predicate of some other thing, that its existence is thoroughly per- manent, and that neither in itself, nor through any natural cause, can it arise or pass away. Such synthetic proposi- tions a priori can never be proved in themselves, but only with reference to things as objects of possible experience. 48. When from the conception of the soul as substance we infer its permanence, this can be only valid of it as an object of possible experience, and not as a thing in itself, outside all possible experience. Now the subjective con- dition of all our possible experience is life ; consequently, the permanence of the soul can only be inferred in life, for the death of man is the end of all experience, of G 2 84 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 49. which the soul is an object, unless the contrary be proved, and this is precisely the question. Hence, the permanence of the soul can only be proved in the life of man (the proof of which will not be required of us), but not after death, which is the real point at issue, for the general reason that the conception of substance, viewed as neces- sarily conjoined with the conception of permanence, is only [based on] an axiom of possible experience, and therefore only serviceable for the purposes of the latter. 1 49. That something real not merely corresponds but must correspond to our external perceptions, can be proved as concerns experience, but not as a connection of things in themselves. This is as much as to say, that something of an empirical kind, as phenomenon in space, exists outside us, can be proved; for with objects, other than those belonging to a possible experience, we have nothing to do, because, inasmuch as they can be given in no experience, 1 It is indeed very remarkable that the metaphysicians of all times should have so carelessly passed over the permanence of substances without ever attempting a demonstration of it, doubtless because they saw themselves forsaken by all proofs as soon as they began [to deal] with the conception of substance. Common sense, well aware that without this assumption no union of perceptions in an experience is possible, supplied this deficiency by a postulate ; for from experience itself it could never have drawn this axi m ; partly because it could not pursue the matters (substances; in all their changes and dissolutions far enough to find the matter for ever und:mini.->hL'd ; partly because it contained the axiom of necessity, which is always the sign of an a priori principle. Now they composedly applied this axiom to the con- ception of the soul as a substance, and inferred its necessary con- tinuance after the death of man, especially as the simplicity of this substance, deduced from the indivisibility of consciousness, assured it against destruction by dissolution. Had they found the real source of this axiom, which, however, demanded much deeper investigations than they were ditpo ? ed to give to it, they would have seen that the above law, of the permanence of substances, only obtains for the sake of experience, and for things in so far us they are to be cognised and connected with others in experience, and that it can never be valid of things, irrespective of all possible experience, such as the soul after dc.'th. SECT. 49.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 85 they are to us nothing. That is empirically outside me which can be intuited in space, and as the latter, together with all the phenomena it contains, belongs to the pre- sentations, whose connection according to the laws of ex- perience proves their objective reality, just as much as the connection of the phenomena of the internal sense proves the reality of my soul, as an object of the internal sense ; so, by means of external experience, I am just as conscious of the reality of bodies as external phenomena in space, as I am of the existence of my soul in time by means of the internal experience, which I also cognise only through phenomena, as an object of the internal sense, [that is, as] constituting an internal condition, of which the essence in itself, lying at the foundation of these phenomena, is unknown to me. The Cartesian idealism only distinguishes external experience from dream ; its regularity being the criterion of the truth of the one as against the irregularity and false illusion of the other. It presupposes, in both of them, space and time as conditions of the reality of the objects, and only asks whether the objects of our external sense, which when awake we meet with in space, are really to be found therein, and in the same way whether the object of the internal sense, the soul, really exists in time; in other words, whether experience can afford certain criteria for the distinction between truth and imagination. Now this doubt may be easily decided, and we always do decide it in common life, in that we investigate the connection of the phenomena in both according to universal laws of experience, and we cannot doubt, when the presentation of external things thoroughly agrees with these, that they con- stitute reliable experience. Material idealism may accord- ingly be refuted very easily, inasmuch as phenomena qua phenomena are only considered as to their connection in ex- perience ; and it is just as certain an experience that bodies exist outside ourselves (in space), as that I myself according to the presentation of the internal sense exist (in time) ; for the conception of outside ourselves, denotes simply existence in space. But as the Jin the proposition Jam, signifies not merely the object of internal intuition (in time) but the subject of consciousness, so in the same way body signifies 86 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 50. not merely the external intuition (in space), but also the thing in itself at the basis of this phenomenon, and hence the question as to whether bodies (as phenomena of the external sense) exist apart from my thoughts as bodies, may, in the nature of things, be denied without hesitation. But there is no difference as to the question, whether I myself as phenomenon of the internal sense (soul, according to the empirical psychology) exist in time, apart from my power of presentation, for this must be just as much denied. In the same way, everything when reduced to its true meaning is decided and certain. Formal idealism (otherwise called transcendental by me) really refutes the material or Cartesian [idealism]. For if space be nothing but a form of my sensibility, it is just as real as a presen- tation in me as I am myself, and the question only turns on the empirical truth of phenomena in the same. If this, however, be not the case, but space and the phenomena [contained] therein are something existing outside our- selves, all criteria 'of experience, apart from our percep- tion, can never prove the reality of the objects external to us. 50. COSMOLOGICAL IDEA (Critique, p. 256). This product of the pure Eeason in its transcendent use is its most remarkable phenomenon, and is moreover the one most powerful in awakening philosophy out of its dogmatic slumber, and in urging it on, to the heavy tasks of the Critique of the Eeason. I term this idea cosmological, because it always takes its object from the world of sense, and only requires those [conceptions] whose object is an object of sense, being therefore native [immanent] and not transcendent, and consequently, thus far, no idea ; while, on the other hand, to conceive the soul as a simple substance, is equiva- lent to conceiving an object (the simple) which cannot be presented to the senses. But notwithstanding this, the cosmological idea extends the connection of the condi- tioned with, its condition (whether mathematical or SECT. 51.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 87 dynamical) so far, that experience can never reach it, and hence remains, as regards this point, always an idea, the object of which can never be adequately given in any experience whatever. It is here that the usefulness of a system of categories shows itself so plainly and unmistakably, that, even were there not several other proofs of it, this alone would quite sufficiently demonstrate its indispensableness in the system of the pure Eeason. There are not more than four of these transcendent ideas, as many as there are classes of categories ; but each of them is only concerned with the absolute completion of a series of conditions to a given conditioned. In accordance with these cosnio- logical ideas there are four dialectical assertions of the pure Eeason, which, inasmuch as they are dialectical, show that to each one is opposed a contradictory assumption, on equally plausible principles of the pure Reason ; and this is a conflict no metaphysical art of the subtlest dis- tinction can avoid, but which compels philosophers to go back to the primary sources of the pure Reason. The above antinomy, which is not arbitrarily invented, but has its basis in the nature of the human Reason, and is hence unavoidable and never-ending, contains the follow- ing four theses together with their antitheses : 1. Thesis. The world has a beginning (boundary; in time and space. Antithesis. The world is infinite in time and space. 2. TJiesia. Everything in the world con- sists of simple [parts]. Antithesis. There is nothing simple, but everything is composite. 3. Thesis. There are in the world causes through freedom. Nature. Antithesis. There is no Iree-lom, but all is 88 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 526. Thesis. In the series of world-causes there exists a necessary being. Antithesis. There is nothing necessary, but in this series all is contingent. 52. The above is the most remarkable phenomenon of the human Reason, of which no instance can be shown in any other sphere. If, as generally happens, we regard the phenomena of the world of sense as things in themselves ; if we assume the principles of their connection as universal of things in themselves and not merely as principles valid of experience, as is usual and indeed unavoidable without our Critique ; then an unexpected conflict arises, never to be quelled in the ordinary dogmatic way, because both theses and antitheses can be demonstrated by equally evident, clear and irresistible proofs tor I pledge myself as to the correctness of all these proofs and the Reason thus sees itself at issue with itself, a state over which the sceptic rejoices, but which must plunge the critical philosopher into reflection and disquiet. 52b. One may bungle in metaphysics in many ways, with- out any danger of being detected in fallacy. For if we only do not contradict ourselves, which is quite possible in synthetic propositions, even though they may be purely invented, we can never in such cases (the con- ceptions we connect, being mere ideas, which as to their whole content can never be given in experience) be refuted by experience. For how should we decide by experience whether the world exists from eternity, or has a beginning ? or whether matter is infinitely divisible, or consists of simple parts ? Such conceptions cannot be given in any, even the largest possible experience, and therefore the fallacy of the propositions maintained or denied cannot be discovered by that test. The only possible case in which the Reason could reveal SECT. 52C.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 89 against its will its secret dialectic, fallaciously given out by it as dogmatic, would be, if it grounded an assertion on a universally admitted axiom, and from another, equally conceded, drew a precisely opposite conclusion, with the greatest logical accuracy. This case is here realised, and indeed nn respect of four natural ideas of the Reason whence four assertions on the one hand, and just as many counter-assertions on the other, arise, each as a correct consequence from universally admitted premises, and thereby reveal the dialectical illusion of the pure Eeason in the use of these principles, which must otherwise have been for ever hidden. Here then is a decisive attempt, which must neces- sarily disclose to us the fallacy lying hidden in the assumptions of the Eeason. 1 Of two mutually contra- dictory propositions, both cannot be false, unless the con- ception at their basis be itself contradictory. For instance, two propositions, a square circle is round and a square circle is not round, are both false. For as regards the first, it is false that the [figure] mentioned is round, because it is square, but it is also false that it is not round, or that it is square, because it is a circle. For in this consists the logical mark of the impossibility of a conception, that under the same assumption two contra- dictory propositions would be equally false; in other words, because no middle can be conceived between them, nothing at all is cogitated by that conception. 52% Now, a contradictory conception like the foregoing lies at the basis of the two first antinomies, which I call 1 Hence I am anxious that the critical reader should especially occupy himself with this antinomy, because Nature herself seems to have set it up, in order to make the Reason st.igger in its pretensions, and ta force it into self-exumination. Each proof that I have given, as well for the thesis as the antithesis, I undertake to guarantee, and thereby to exhibit the certainty of this unavoidable antinomy of the Reason. If the reader is only brought by this singular phenomenon to go back to the examination of tue as.-umption at its foundation, he will feel himself compelled to investigate m >re deeply with me the primary foundation of all coguit.on of the pure Reason. 90 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 52c. mathematical, because they are concerned with the addition or division of things similar in Nature ; and thence I explain how it happens that thesis and antithesis are alike false. When I speak of objects in time and space, I do not speak of things in themselves, because of these I know nothing, but only of things in the phenomenon, in other words, of experience, as the special mode of the cognition of objects, which is alone vouchsafed to man. I must not say that what I think in space or in time exists in itself in space and time apart from this my thought ; for 1 should then contradict myself, because space and time, together with the phenomena in them, are nothing existing in themselves and apart from my presentations, but are themselves only modes of presentations, and it is obviously contradictory to say that a mere mode of our presentation exists outside our presentation. The objects of sense exist then only in experience ; and to give them a special substantive existence for themselves, apart from or before the latter, is equivalent to imagining that ex- perience can be present without or before experience. Now, when I inquire as to the size of the world in space and time, it is for all my conceptions just as im- possible to say, it is infinite, as it is finite. For neither of them can be contained in experience, because experience is neither possible respecting an infinite space, or an infinite time, or the boundary of the world by an empty space or a previous empty time ; these [things] are only ideas. Hence as regards either one or the other kind of determinate quantity, it must lie in the world itself, separate from all experience. But this contradicts the conception of a world of sense, which is only a content of experience, whose reality and connection takes place in presentation, namely, in experience, because it is not a thing in itself, but is itself nothing but a mode of pre- sentation. It follows from the above, that, as the con- ception of a self-existent world is in itself contradictory, the solution of the problem as to its size will be always fallacious, no matter whether it be affirmatively or nega- tively attempted. The same applies to the second antinomy, which con- SECT. 53.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 91 cerns the division of phenomena. For these are mere presentations, and the parts exist merely in their pre- sentation, and therefore in their division ; in other words, in a 'possible experience in which they are given, and they only extend as far as the latter reaches. To assume that a phenomenon, for instance, that of body, contains all parts in itself, before all experience, to "which nought but possible experience can ever attain, is equal to giving to a mere appearance, which can exist only in experience, a special existence preceding experience, or to say that mere presentations are there before they are met with in the faculty of presentation, which contradicts itself; and so, consequently, does every solution of this misunderstood problem, whether it be maintained that bodies consist of infinitely many parts, or of a finite number of simple parts. 53. In the first class of antinomy (the mathematical), the fallacy of the assumption consisted in that what is self- contradictory (namely, phenomenon and thing in itself) was represented as capable of union in one idea. But as regards the second, or dynamical class of antinomy, the fallacy of the assumption consists in that what is capable of union is represented as contradictory, and consequently, as in the first case, both contradictory assertions were false; so here, where they are opposed to one another merely through misunderstanding, both may be true. The mathematical connection necessarily presupposes homogeneity in the connected (in the conception of quantity), while the dynamical by no means requires this. Where the quantity of the extended is concerned, all the parts must be homogeneous, both with each other and with the whole ; whereas in the connection of cause and effect, although homogeneity may also be met with, it is not necessary. For the conception of causality, by means of which a thing is posited by something quite distinct therefrom, at least does not require it. If the objects of the sense-world were taken for things in themselves, and the above-cited laws of Nature for laws 92 KANT'S PEOLEGOMENA. [SECT. 53 of things in themselves, the contradiction would be un avoidable. In the same way, if the subject of freedom were presented like other objects as mere appearance, the contradiction would be equally unavoidable ; for the same thing would be at once affirmed and denied of the same kind of object in the same sense. But if natural ne- cessity be referred merely to phenomena, and freedom merely to things in themselves, no contradiction arises, in assuming or admitting both kinds of causality, however difficult or impossible it may be to render the latter kind comprehen sible. In the phenomenon, every effect is an event, or some- thing that happens in time ; a determination of the causality of its cause (a state of the same), must precede it, upon which it follows according to a uniform law. But this determination of the cause to causality must also be something that takes place, or happens. The cause must have begun to act, otherwise between it and the effect, no succession in time could be conceived. The effect would always have existed, as well as the causality of the cause. Thus, among phenomena, the determina- tion of the cause to the effect must also have arisen, and therefore be just as much as its effect, an event which, in its turn, must have a cause, and so on ; and con- sequently, necessity must be the condition according to Avhich the efficient causes are determined. If, on the other hand, freedom be a characteristic of certain causes of phenomena, it must, as regards the latter as events, be a faculty of beginning them from itself (sponte), i.e., without the causality of the causes themselves having begun, and hence another ground would be necessary to determine its beginning. In that case, however, the cause, as to its causality, must not be subject to time determinations of its state ; that is, it must not be pheno- menon, but it must be regarded as a thing in itself, and its effects only, as phenomena. 1 If one can conceive such 1 The idea of freedom finds a place solely in the relations of the intellectual as cause to the phenomenon as effect. Hence we cannot attribute freedom to matter with regard to the ceaseless action with which it fills its space, although this action results from an internal principle. Just as littlo can we find any conception of freedom suited SECT. 53.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 93 an influence of the essences of the understanding on phe- nomena without contradiction, though necessity would attach to all connection of cause and effect in the sense- world, yet of the cause which is itself no phenomenon, although it lies at the foundation of the latter, freedom would be admitted. Thus Nature and Freedom can be attributed without contradiction to the same thing, at one time as phenomenon, at another, as thing in itself. "\Ve have a faculty within us, not only standing in con- nection with its subjective determining grounds, which are the natural causes of its actions, and in so far the faculty of a being, belonging to phenomena, but also referable to objective grounds, though these are merely ideas, in so far as they can determine this faculty ; and this connection is expressed by ought. The above faculty is termed Reason, and when we contemplate a being (man) simply according to this subjectively determining Reason, it cannot be regarded as an essence of s-ense, but the quality thought of is the quality of a thing in itself, of the possibility of which, namely, the ought of that which has never happened, and yet the activity of which can be the determination and cause of actions, whose effect is phenomenal in the sense-world, of this we can form no conception whatever. At the same time, the causality of the Reason as concerns its effects in the sense-world would be freedom, so far as objective grounds, which are themselves ideas, are regarded as determining these effects. For its action would then depend not on subjective, and there- to pure essences of the understanding ; as, for instance, God, in so far as His action, is immanent; for His action, although independent of external determining causes, is nevertheless determined in tiis eternal Reason, that is, in the divine nature. Only if an action is to com- mence something, in other words, if the effect is to be met with in the time-series, and consequently in the sense-world (e.g., the beginning of the world , only then does the question arit-e whether the causality of the cause itself must commence, or whether the c.iuse can give rise to an effect \\ ithout its causality itself commencing. lu the fir^t case the con- ception of this causality is a conception of necessity, in the second, of freedom. The reader will see from the above that in explaining freedom to be the faculty of beginning an event spontaneously, I exactly hit the conception constituting the problem of metaphysics. 94 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 53. fore on time-conditions, nor on natural laws, serving to determine these, since grounds of the Reason in general would furnish the rule for actions according to principles, without the influence of circumstances, time, or place. What I adduce here, is merely meant as an instance for the sake of intelligibility, and does not necessarily belong to our question, which must be decided from mere conceptions, independently of the qualities we meet with in the real world. I can say now without contradiction, that all actions of rational beings, inasmuch as they are phenomena, met with in any experience, are subject to necessity ; but precisely the same actions, with reference to the rational subject, and its capacity of acting according to mere Eeason, are free. For what is demanded by necessity ? Nothing more than the determinability of every event in the sense-world according to uniform laws ; in other words, a reference to Cause in the phenomenon, whereby the thing in itself, lying at its foundation, and its causality, remains unknown. But 1 say: the natural law subsists alike, whether the rational being [acting] from Eeason, and hence through freedom, be the cause of the effects in the sense- world, or whether these are determined by other grounds than those of Eeason. For in the first case, the action happens according to maxims, whose effect in the phenomenon will be always in accordance with uniform laws ; in the second case, if the action does not happen according to principles of the Eeason, it is subordinated to the empirical laws of the sensibility, and in both cases the effects are connected according to uniform laws ; more than this we do not require to [constitute] natural neces- sity, nay, more we do not know respecting it. But in the first case, Eeason is the cause of these natural laws, and is hence free ; in the second case, the effects follow the mere natural laws of the sensibility, because the Eeason exercises no influence upon them ; the Eeason, however, is not on this account itself determined by the sensibility (which is impossible), and is consequently in this case also free. The freedom does not hinder the natural law of the phenomena, any more than the latter interferes with the freedom of the practical use of the Eeason, which SECT. 53.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 95 stands in connection with things in themselves as de- termining grounds. In this way, the practical freedom, namely, that by which the Reason has causality, according to objective determining grounds, is saved, without natural necessity being curtailed in the least, in respect of the same effects as phenomena. The above may also be serviceable as an explanation of what we had to say regarding tran- scendental freedom, and its union with natural necessity (in the same subject, but not taken in the same connec- tion). For as to this, every beginning of the action of a being, from objective causes, so far as its determining grounds are concerned, is always & first beginning, , although the same action in the series of phenomena is only a subaltern beginning, necessarily preceded by a state of the cause determining it, and itself determined by a [state] immediately preceding ; so that without falling into con- tradiction with the laws of Nature, we may conceive of a faculty in rational beings, or in beings generally, in so far as their causality is determined in them, as things in themselves, by which a series of states is begun of themselves. For the relation of the action to objective grounds of the Reason is no relation in time ; here, what determines the causality does not precede the action according to time, because such determining grounds [as these] do not present a reference of the objects to sense, or, in other words, to causes in the phenomenon, but to determining causes, as things in themselves, which are not subordinated to time-conditions. Hence, the action may be viewed with regard to the causality of the Reason as a first beginning, but at the same time, as regards the series of the phenomena, as a merely subordinate beginning, and without contradiction, in the former aspect as free, and in the latter, inasmuch as it is merely phenomenon, as subordinate to natural necessity. As concerns the fourth antinomy, it is solved in the parne manner as is the conflict of the Reason with itself, in the third. For if the cause in the phenomenon be only dis- tinguished from the cause of the phenomena, so far as they can be considered as things in themselves, both propositions can subsist beside one another, namely, that no cause takes 96 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 53. place anywhere in the sense-world (according to similar laws of causality) whose existence is absolutely necessary ; while, on the other hand, this world may be connected with a necessary being as its cause, though of another kind, and according to other laws ; the incompatibility of the above two propositions simply resting on the misunderstanding by which "what is merely valid of phenomena is extended to things in themselves, both being mixed up in one con- ception. 54 This is the arrangement and solution of the whole antinomy, in "which the Reason finds itself involved, in the application of its principles to the sense-world, and of which even this (the mere arrangement) would be itself a considerable service to the knowledge of the human Eeason, even though the solution of the conflict should not fully satisfy the reader, who has here a natural illusion to combat, which has only recently been presented to him as such, and which he has previously regarded as true. For one consequence of this is inevitable, namely, that seeing it is quite impossible to get free of this conflict of the Eeason with itself, so long as the objects of the sense- world are taken for things in themselves, and not for what they are in reality, namely, mere phenomena, the reader is necessitated thereby again to undertake the deduction of all our knowledge a priori, and its examination as given by me, in order to come to a decision in the matter. I do not require more [than this] at present ; for if he has but first penetrated deeply enough into the nature of the pure Eeason, the conceptions by which the solution of this conflict of the Eeason is alone possible, will be already familiar to him, without which circum- stance I cannot expect full credit even from the most attentive reader. 55. III. THEOLOGICAL IDEA (Critique, p. 350). The third transcendental idea, w-hich furnishes material to the most important, but, when merely conducted SECT. 56.] HOW IS METAPHYSICS IN GENERAL POSSIBLE ? 97 speculatively, to the exaggerated (transcendent) and thereby dialectical use of the Eeason, is the ideal of the pure Eeason. The Eeason does not here, as with the psychological and cosmological ideas, start from ex- perience, and is not, by a [progressive] raising (Steigerung) of the grounds, misled into an endeavour to contemplate the series in absolute completeness, but wholly breaks therewith, and from mere conceptions of what would constitute the absolute completeness of a thing in general, and consequently by means of the idea of a most perfect original being, descends to the determination of the pos- sibility, and thereby also to the reality, of all other things. For this reason, the mere assumption of a being, which although not given in the series of experience, is never- theless conceived for the sake of experience, to rendei comprehensible the connection, order, and unity of the latter, that is, the Idea is more easily distinguishable from the conceptions of experience [in the present] than in the foregoing cases. The dialectical illusion therefore arising from our holding the subjective conditions of our thought for the objective conditions of things themselves, and a necessary hypothesis for the satisfaction of our Eeason for a dogma, may be easily exposed to view ; and hence I have nothing further to recall on the assumptions of the transcendental theology, for what the Critique has said on this point is comprehensible, clear, and decisive. GENERAL EEMARK ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAS. 56. The objects given us through experience are in many respects incomprehensible, and there are many problems to which the natural law leads us, when it is carried to a certain height, (though always in accordance with these laws,) which can never be solved ; as for instance, how it is that substances attract one another. But, if we en- tirely leave Nature, or in the progress of its connection overstep all possible experience, and thereby immerse ourselves in mere ideas, we cannot then say that the object is incomprehensible, and that the nature of things 98 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 56. places insoluble problems before us; for we have in that case, nothing whatever to do with Nature or with given objects, but merely with conceptions, having their origin simply in our Reason, and with mere essences of thought, in respect of which all problems arising from the concep- tion of the same, can be solved, because the Eeason can and must certainly give a complete account of its own pro- cedure. 1 As the psychological, cosmological, and theologi- cal ideas, are simply conceptions of the Eeason, not capable of being given in any experience, so the problems which the Eeason in respect thereof places before us, are not pro- pounded by the objects, but by mere maxims of the Eeason for its own satisfaction, and must be capable of being adequately answered in their totality, which is effected by showing them to be principles [designed] to bring the use of our understanding to thorough agreement, com- pleteness and synthetic unity, and which are in so far valid merely of experience, but of the whole of the latter. Now, although an absolute whole of experience is impossible, the idea of a whole of knowledge according to principles in general, is what alone can procure a parti- cular kind of unity, namely, that of a system, without which our knowledge is nothing but a patchwork, and cannot be used for the highest f end (which is always the system of all ends) ; bj r this I understand not merely the practical, but also the highest end of the speculative use of the Eeason. The transcendental ideas express, then, the specific destiny of the Eeason, namely, as being a principle of the systematic unity of the use of the understanding. 1 Herr Plattner in his Aphorisms says with acuteness, 728, 729 : '' If the Reason be a criterion no conception can be possible which is incomprehensible to the human Reason. In the real alone is incomprehensibility to be found. Here the incomprehensibility arises from the insufficiency of the ideas acquired." It, therefore, only sounds paradoxical and is really not strange to say that in Nature there is much that is incomprehensible (for instance, the faculty of procreation), but that when we rise higher and pass beyond Nature all is again comprehensible ; for we then quit the objects that oan be given us, and occupy ourselves merely with ideas, by which we may well comprehend the law wherewith the Reason prescribes to the Understanding its use in experience, because it is its own product. SECT. 57.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. 99 But when this unity of the mode of cognition be viewed as though it depended upon the object of cognition ; when we hold that which is merely regulative for constitutive, and persuade ourselves that we can extend our cognition by means of these ideas, far beyond all possible experience in a transcendent manner, notwithstanding that they merely serve to bring experience as nearly as possible to completeness, i.e., to limit its progress by nothing which cannot belong to experience then this is a simple mis- understanding in judging the special destiny of our Reason and its principles, and a dialectic, partly con- fusing the use of the Reason in experience, and partly making the Reason to be at issue with itself. CONCLUSION. ON THE DETERMINATION OF THE BOUNDARY OF THE PURE REASON. 57. After all the very clear proofs we have above given, it would be absurd for us to expect to cognise more on any object than what belongs to its possible experience, or to lay claim to the least knowledge of anything what- ever which would determine its constitution in itself, unless we assume it to be an object of possible experience. For wherewith shall we effect this determination, inas- much as time, space, and all the conceptions of the understanding, and still more the conceptions derived from empirical intuition or perception in the sense-world would neither hav 4 e nor could have any other use than merely to make experience possible, and when if we leave out this condition from the pure conceptions of the understanding, they determine no object whatever, and have no significance anywhere [?]. But it would be a still greater absurdity for us not to admit things in themselves at all, or to wish to give out our experience for the only possible mode of the cog- nition of objects, in other words, our intuition in space and time for the only possible intuition, and our dis- 2 100 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 57. cursive understanding for the model of every possible understanding, thereby wishing principles of the possi- bility of experience to be held for the universal conditions of things in themselves. Our principles, which limit the use of the Reason to possible experience, might accordingly become transcendent, and the limits of our Reason be given out for the limits of things themselves, of which Hume's Dialogues may serve as an example, if a careful Critique of the boundaries of our Reason did not keep watch on its empirical use, and set a limit to its pretensions. Scepticism originally arose from metaphysics and its anarchical (Polizeilosen) dialectic. At first, to favour the empirical use of the understanding, it might well give out for nugatory and deceptive all that exceeded this ; but gradually, as it became evident that the very same principles which we make use of in experience are a priori, and that they led unobserved, and as it seemed with the same right, still farther than ex- perience reaches, a doubt began to be thrown on the prin- ciples of experience themselves. Now as to these there is no danger, for herein a healthy understanding will always assert its rights ; but there arose a special con- fusion in the science, which could not determine how far, and why only thus far and no farther, the Reason is to be trusted ; but this confusion can only be got rid of, and any future relapse prevented, by a formal limitation of the use of our Reason, derived from principles. It is true we cannot form any definite conception of what things in themselves, beyond all possible experience, may be. But we are nevertheless not free to withdraw our- selves wholly from the inquiry as to these ; for experience never fully suffices for the Reason ; it thrusts us ever far- ther and farther back for the answer to this question, and leaves us as regards its complete solution dissatisfied ; as any one can see from the dialectic of the pure Reason, which on this account has its valid subjective ground. Who can tolerate [the circumstance] that by the nature of our soul we can attain to the clear consciousness of the subject, and to the conviction that its phenomena cannot be explained materialistically without asking what the soul really is, and if no empirical conception suffices [to explain] SECT. 57.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. 101 this, at least assuming a conception of theKeason(of a simple immaterial essence) merely for the above purpose, although we cannot demonstrate its objective reality in any way ? Who can satisfy himself in all cosmological questions, as to the size and duration of the world, of freedom or natural necessity, with mere empirical knowledge, since, begin it as we will, every answer given according to the fundamental laws of experience, gives birth to a new question, just as much requiring an answer, and thereby clearly exposing the inadequacy of all physical modes of explanation for the satisfaction of the Reason ? Finally, who in the face of the thoroughgoing contingency and dependence of all that he can assume and think according to empirical principles, does not see the impossibility of taking his stand on these, and does not feel himself necessarily impelled, in spite of all prohibition against losing himself in transcendent ideas, to seek rest and satisfaction beyond all conceptions he can verify by experience, in that of a Being, of whom the possibility of the idea in itself cannot indeed be apprehended, but which cannot be refuted, because it is a mere being [essence] of the understanding, and without which the Reason must remain for ever unsatisfied. Boundaries (with extended beings) always presuppose a space, met with, outside a certain definite place, and en- closing it. Limits do not require this, being mere nega- tions affecting a quantity, so far as it has no absolute completeness. Our Reason, however, sees around it as it were a space for the cognition of things in themselves, although it can never have definite conceptions of them, being limited to phenomena. As long as the cognition of the Reason is homogeneous, no definite boundaries can be conceived therein. In mathe- matics and natural science the human Reason recognises indeed limits but no boundaries, i.e., [it recognises] that something exists outside itself, to which it can never attain, but not that it can itself be anywhere terminated in its inner progress. The extension of our views in mathematics and the possibility of new inventions reaches to infinity ; and the same can be said of the discovery of new qualities in Nature, and of new forces and laws, through con- 102 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 57. tinned experience and the union of the same by the Eeason. But, at the same time, it cannot be mistaken that there are limits here, for mathematics refers only to phenomena, and what cannot be an object of sensuous intuition, such as the conceptions of metaphysics and morals, lies wholly outside its sphere, [in a region] to which it can never lead, and which does not at all require it. There is, then, a continuous progress and approach to these sciences, and as it were a point or line of contact. Natural science will never discover for us the inner [nature] of things, namely, that which is not phenomenon, but which can still serve as the highest ground of the explanation of phenomena. But it does not require this for its physical explanations ; nay, if such were offered it from another source (e.g., the influence of immaterial beings), it ought to reject it, and on no account to bring it into the course of its explanations, but invariably to base these on that which pertains to ex- perience as object of sense, and which can be brought into connection with our real perceptions, and empirical laws. But metaphysics leads us to boundaiies in the dialectical attempts of the pure Eeason (which are not commenced arbitrarily or rashly, but to which the nature of the Eeason itself urges us), and the transcendental ideas, as we cannot have intercourse with them, and as they will never allow themselves to be realised, serve, not only to show us the actual boundaries of the use of the pure Eeason, but also the way to determine them. And this is also the end and use of this natural disposition of our Eeason, which has given birth to metaphysics as its pet child, whose genera- tion, like that of everything else in the world, is not to be ascribed to chance, but to an original germ, wisely organised for great ends. For metaphysics is, perhaps more than any other science, rooted in us in its fundamental features by Nature herself, and can by no means be regarded as the product of a voluntary choice or as chance extension in the progress of experiences (from which it is wholly divided). The Eeason, though all its conceptions and laws of the understanding are adequate in the sense-world, does not find any satisfaction for itself in them, for it is deprived of all hope of a complete solution by questions recurring ad infiuitum. The transcendental ideas which have this SECT. 57.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. 103 completion for an object are such problems of the Reason. It sees clearly that the sense-world cannot contain the completeness [required], and therefore just as little can those conceptions which serve simply to the understand- ing of the same, namely, space and time, and all that we have adduced under the name of pure conceptions of the understanding. The sense-world is nothing but a chain of phenomena, connected according to universal laws, and has therefore no subsistence for itself, being not properly the thing in itself, and only being necessarily referable to that which contains the ground of this phe- nomenon, to essences that cannot be cognised merely as phenomena but as things in themselves. Only in the cognition of these can Reason hope to see its desire for completeness in the progress from the conditioned to its conditions, once for all satisfied. We have above ( 33, 34) assigned the limits of the Reason in respect of all cognition of mere essences oi thought. Now, as the transcendental ideas make the progress up to these necessary, and have thus led us, as i1 were, to the contact of the full space (of experience) with the void of which we know nothing (to the noumena), we can determine the boundaries of the pure Keason. For in all boundaries there is something positive (for instance surface is the boundary of corporeal space and yet if itself a space ; line, a space which is the boundary of the surface ; point, the boundary of the line, but Btill [occupying] a position in space), while, on the other hand, .limits contain mere negations. The limits assigned in the paragraph cited, are not sufficient, after we have found that something lies beyond them (although we can never know what this may be in itself). For the question is now, what is the attitude of our Reason in this connection of that which we know, with that which we do not know, and never can know ? Here is a real connection of the known with a wholly unknown (and something that will always remain unknown), and even if in this the un- known should not become in the least [degree] more known which is indeed not to be expected the conception of this connection must be able, notwithstanding, to be deter- mined and reduced to distinctness. 104 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 57. We are obliged, then, to think of an immaterial essence, an intelligible world, and a highest of all beings (mere noumena), because only in these, as things in themselves, does the Reason meet with the completeness and satisfac- tion it can never hope for from the derivation of pheno- mena from their homogeneous ground, because they really refer to something distinct from the latter (and therefore wholly heterogeneous), inasmuch as phenomena always presuppose a thing in itself, and indicate this, [it matters not] whether we may know it more closely or not. But as we can never know these essences of the under- standing as to what they may be in themselves, that is, determinately, but are obliged nevertheless to assume such in relation to the sense-world, and to connect them with it through the Reason, we shall be at least able to cogitate this connection by means of such conceptions as express its relation to the sense-world. For if we cogi- tate the essence of the understanding, through nothing but pure conceptions of the understanding, we really cogitate thereby nothing definite, and our conception is consequently without meaning ; if we cogitate it through qualities borrowed from the sense-world, then it is no longer an essence of the understanding, but is conceived as one of the phenomena, and belongs to the sense-world. We will take an instance from the conception of the Supreme Being. The deistic conception is an entirely pure conception of the Reason, which, however, only represents a thing con- taining all reality, without our being able to determine a single one of its [qualities], because for this an instance would have to4>e borrowed from the sense- world, in which case I should always have to do with an object of sense, and not with something completely heterogeneous, and which cannot be an object of sense. For instance, I attribute understanding to It ; but I have no conception whatever of any understanding but of one like my own, namely, of one to which intuitions must be given through the senses, and which occupies itself with reducing these under rules of the unity of the consciousness. But then the elements of my conception would always lie in the phenomenon ; yet I was necessitated by the inadequacy of SECT. 57.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PUKE EEASON. 105 the phenomena to pass beyond this, to the conception of a being in no way dependent on phenomena, or bound up with them, as conditions of its determination. If, how- ever, I sever the understanding from the sensibility in order to have a pure understanding, nothing remains over but the mere form of thought without intuition, by means of which I can cognise nothing determinate as object. For this purpose I should have to conceive another under- standing which intuited objects, but of which I have not the least conception, because the human understanding is discursive and can only cognise through universal con- ceptions. But I am also involved in conti adiction if I attribute will to the Supreme Being. For I have this conception only in so far as I derive it from my inner ex- perience, and thereby from the dependence of my satisfac- tion from objects whose existence we require ; but at the foundation of this lies sensibility, which wholly contradicts the pure conception of the Supreme Being. The objections of Hume to Deism are weak, touching no more than the proofs, and never the proposition of the deistic assertion itself. But as regards Theism, which must be arrived at by a closer determination of our, there [viz., in Deism], merely transcendent conception of the Supreme Being, they are very strong, and, according as the conception is constructed, in certain (indeed in all ordinary) cases are irrefragable. Hume always insists, that through the mere conception of an original being, to whom we can attribute none but ontological predicates (eternity, omni- presence, omnipotence) we really think nothing definite, but that qualities expressing an object in concrete must be superadded. It is not enough to say it is Cause, but [wo must also say] what is the nature of its caus- ality, as, whether [it operates] through understanding and will ; and at this point his attacks on the thing itself, namely, on Theism, commence, whereas before he had only stormed the grounds of proof of Deism, which does not carry any especial danger with it. His dangerous argu- ments refer entirely to anthropomorphism, which he holds to be inseparable from Theism, and to make it contradictory in itself; while if this be left out, [Theism itself] would also fall, and nothing would remain but a Deism wherewith 106 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 57. nothing could be done, which could not avail us for anything, and could not serve as a foundation for re- ligion and morals. If this inevitability of anthropo- morphism were certain, the proofs of the existence of a Supreme Being might be what one liked, and all conceded, yet the conception of this Being would never be able to be determined by us, without involving our- selves in contradictions. But if with the injunction to avoid all transcendent judgments of the pure Eeason, we connect the apparently contradictory injunction to proceed to conceptions lying outside the field of its immanent (empirical) use, we shall be aware that both may subsist together, but only on the exact boundary of all admissible use of the Eeason ; for this belongs as much to the field of experience as to that of essences of thought, and we shall be taught thereby, at the same time, how the above remarkable ideas serve simply, for the determination of the boundaries of the human Eeason ; namely, on the one hand not to extend cognition of experience in an unbounded manner, so that nothing but mere world remains for us to cognise, and on the other hand not to pass beyond the boundaries of ex- perience, or to seek to judge of things outside the latter as things in themselves. But we keep to this boundary when we limit our judg- ment to the relation the world may have to a Being, whose conception itself lies outside all the cognition of which we are capable within the world. For in this case, we do not attribute to the Supreme Being any of the qualities in themselves by which we cogitate objects of expe- rience, and thereby avoid the dogmatic anthropomorphism ; but we apply the relations of the same to the world, and thereby allow ourselves a symbolical anthropomorphism, which as a matter of fact only concerns the language and not the object. When 1 say we are obliged to regard the world as though it were the work of a supreme understanding and will, I do not really say more than as a watch, a ship, a regi- ment is related to the artisan, shipbuilder or general, so is the sense-world (or all that which constitutes the foundation of this sum-total of phenomena) [related] to SECT. 58.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. 107 the unknown, that I cognise, not indeed according to what it is in itself, but according to what it is for me, namely, in respect of the world, of which I am a part. 58. Such a cognition as this is one according to analogy, which does not signify an imperfect resemblance of two things, as the word is commonly taken [to mean], but a perfect resemblance of two relations between totally dis- similar things. 1 By means of this analogy a, for us, adequately denned conception of the Supreme Being remains, although we have left out everything that could determine it simply, and in itself ; for we define it as regards the world, and therefore as regards our- selves, and more is not necessary for us. The attacks Hume makes on those who would define this conception absolutely, in that they borrow the materials from them- selves and from the world, do not affect us ; and moreover he cannot reproach us that there remains nothing over, after the objective anthropomorphism of the conception of the Supreme Being is taken a.way. For at the outset, let the deistic conception of an original Being be conceded us as a necessary hypothesis (as Hume does in his. Dialogues, in the person of rhilo against Clean thes), in which the original Being is 1 Of this nature is an analogy between the juridical relations of human actions and the mechanical relations of moving forces : I can do nothing to another without giving that other the right, under the same conditions, to do the same to me ; just as no body can act upon another body with its moviug force without causing thereby that other body to react upon itself to the same extent Here right and moving force are quite dissimilar things, but in their relation there is complete resemblance. Hence, by means of such an analogy as this, I can give a relational conception of things absolutely unknown to me. For instance, how the promotion of the happiness of children is related (= o), to the love of parents (=6), to the welfare of the human race (= c), to the unknown [quality] in God (= x), which we term love, not as though it had the least resemblai-ca to any human affection, but because we can conceive its relation to the world as similar to that which things of the world have among one another. But the relational conception is here a mere category, namely, the conception of cause, which has nothing to do with seusibility. 108 KANT'S PEOLEGOMENA, [SECT 58 conceived through purely ontological predicates, of substance, cause, &c. Tld must be done, because the Reason is impelled in the sense-world by mere con- ditions, which are themselves again conditioned, without the possibility of any satisfaction ; < cara a&o be reny iceW done, without lapsing into anthropomorphism, which trans- fers predicates from the sense-world to a Being quite distinct from the world, inasmuch as these predicates [in our case] are mere categories, affording no definite [conception at all], and hence no conception of it limited to conditions of the sensibility. Nothing can hinder UK, therefore, from predicating of this Being a ANMoZfty Anwyi Reason in respect of the world, and so from passing over to Theism without being obliged to attribute to it this Reason, as a quality attaching to it in itself. For as re- gards the ^r point, the only possible way of pursuing the use of the Reason in respect of all possible experience in the sense-world, to its highest extent and in thorough agreement with itself, is when a supreme Reason is as- sumed as a cause of all connections in the world. Such a principle must be throughout advantageous to it, and can never injure it in its natural use. But gevowlly, the Reason is not transferred as a quality to the original Being in itself, but only in it* relation to the sense- world, and thus anthropomorphism is altogether avoided. For here, only the cause of the form of Reason everywhere met with in the world is considered, and to the Supreme Being, so far as it is the ground of this form of Jteason in the world, Reason, is attributed, but only on the prin- ciple of analogy, Le., in so far as this expression viz., Reason] indicates what the, to us, unknown ultimate cause of the world has wherewith to determine all tilings therein, in the highest degree, in accordance with Reason. In this we take care to make use of the quality of Reason, not by its means to conceive God, but [rather] the world, as it is necessary to have the greatest possible use of the Reason in respect of the latter [determined] according to a principle. We confess thereby that the Supreme Being, as to what it may be in itelf, is en- tirely impenetrable to us, and is even unthinkable in a definite manner, and hence we are prevented from makiny SECT. 58.] ON THE BOUNDARY OP PURE REASON. 109 any transcendent use of our conceptions, derived from the Reason as an efficient cause (by means of the will), for determining the divine nature, by qualities that are only borrowed from human nature, and thus from losing ourselves in gross or chimerical conceptions ; but, ou the other hand, [we are prevented] from inundating the view of the world, [attained] by our conceptions of the human Reason as transferred to God, with hyperphysical modes of explanation, and thus from degrading it, from its proper destination according to which it ought to be a study of mere Nature through the Reason, and not a presump- tuous derivation of its phenomena from a supreme Reason. The expression suited to our feeble conceptions will be that we conceive the world a* though it orginated from a supremo Reason, as to its reality and as to its inward determination, by which we partly recognise the con- stitution belonging to it, the world itself, though without presuming to wish to define its cause in itself; and partly, on the other hand, place the ground of this constitution in the relation of the supreme Cause to the world ([viz.] to the form of Reason in the world), without finding the world adequate for this purpose by itself. 1 In this way the difficulties seeming to oppose Theism vanish, in that to the principle of Hume, not to push the use of the Reason dogmatically beyond all possible ex- perience, another principle is united, completely over- looked by Hume, namely, not to mistake the field of possible experience for that which bounds itself in the eye of our Reason. Critique of Reason here signifies the true middle path between the dogmatism Hume combated, and the scepticism he would have introduced in its place, a middle path which is unlike other middle paths that attempt to determine themselves as it were mechanically (l>y taking something from one and some- 1 I should say, tin- causality of the supreme Cause is, in respect of the worlil, what human Reason is in respect of art-works. The nature of the, supreme Cause itself remains unknown throughout. 1 only compare its t fleet known to me (the order of the world) and its accordance with Reason, with the known workings of human HciMMi, ami htiii-e rail the former a Reason, without thereby at- tributing to it as its chnracteristies, wlmt I understand by thu e-ipr. ^ioa in men or anything else known to me. 110 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT. 59. thing from another), and by which no one is taught a better way, but one, such as can be determined accurately, according to principles. 59. I have made use of the metaphor of a boundary at the commencement of this observation, in order to fix the limits of the Eeason in respect of its appropriate use. The sense-world contains merely phenomena, which are not things in themselves, yet the understanding must assume the latter (noumena), for the very reason that it recognises the objects of experience for mere pheno- mena. In our Eeason both are alike included, and the question is : How does the Eeason proceed in determin- ing both fields? Experience, which contains all that belongs to the sense- world, is not bounded by itself; it only attains from one conditioned to another con- ditioned. That which shall bound it must lie wholly outside it, and this is the field of pure essences of the understanding. But this is fur us a blank space, in so far as the determination of the nature of these essences of the understanding is concerned, and thus, when we have to do with dogmatically defined conceptions, we cannot pass beyond the field of possible experience. But as a boundary is itself something positive, belonging as much to what is within as to the space without a given content, so it is a really positive cognition, in which the Benson merely participates, by extending itself to this boundary, in such wise, that it does not attempt to go beyond the boundary, because it finds a blank space before it, wherein it can indeed cogitate forms to things, but cannot cogitate things themselves. But the bounding of the field of ex- perience by something otherwise unknown to it, is a cognition remaining to the Eeason in this standpoint, whereby it is not enclosed within the sense-world, neither is it left dreaming [schwarmend] outside it, but limits itself, "as befits the knowledge of a boundary, to the relation of that which lies outside the same, to that which is within it. Natural theology is a conception of this nature, at the SECT. 60.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. Ill boundary of the human Reason, inasmuch as it sees itself necessitated to look beyond to the idea of the Supreme Being (and in a practical connection, also, to that of an intelligible world), not in order to determine anything in respect of this mere essence of the understanding, in other words, anything outside the world of sense, but to guide itself for its own use within the latter, according to prin- ciples of the greatest possible unity (theoretically as well as practically). And for this purpose it makes use of the reference of the same to an independent Reason as the cause of all these connections, thereby not merely inventing a being, but inasmuch as outside the world something must necessarily exist (anzutreffen seiri) which only the under- standing cogitates, determining it [viz., this being] in the above manner, although only on the principle of analogy. In this way our original proposition remains, which is the result of the whole Critique : " that our Reason can never teach more by its principles d priori than simply objects of possible experience, and even of these no more than what can be cognised in experience." But this limitation does not prevent it from leading us to the objective boundary of experience, namely, the reference to something which is not itself object of experience, but is nevertheless the highest ground of all experience, without however teaching us anything respecting this in itself, but only with reference to its [viz., the Reason's] own complete use as directed to its highest end, within the field of possible experience. But this is also all the use that can be reasonably expected or even wished, as con- cerns it, and with this we have cause to be content. Thus we have fully exbhiited metaphysics according to its subjective necessity, as it is really given in the natural disposition of the human Reason, and indeed in what con- stitutes its essential purpose. We have found in the course of this investigation, that such a merely natural use of such a disposition of our Reason involves us in extravagant dialectical conclusions, partly apparently, and partly really, conflicting [with one another], if no 112 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. [SECT, eo discipline bridles it and keeps it within limits, which is only possible by means of scientific criticism. And, in addition, [we have found] this fallacious metaphysics to be dispensable to the promotion of the knowledge of Nature, and even prejudicial to it. It always remains, notwithstanding, a task worthy of research, to find out the natural ends aimed at by this disposition in our Eeason to transcendent conceptions, since everything in Nature must have been originally designed for some useful purpose. Such an investigation is here out of place ; I confess, more- over, that all I here say respecting the primary ends of Nature is only conjecture, but which may be permitted me in this case, as the question does not concern the objective validity of metaphysical judgments, but refers merely to the natural disposition to the latter, and thus lies outside the system of metaphysics, in that of anthropology. When I compare all transcendental ideas whose content constitutes the special problem of the natural, pure Reason, compelling it to leave the mere contemplation of Nature and to pass beyond all possible experience, and in this endeavour to produce the thing (be it know- ledge or nonsense) called metaphysics, I believe myself to have discovered that this natural disposition is in- tended to free our conceptions from the chains of ex- perience and the limits of the mere contemplation of Nature, in so far that it may at least see a field opened before it, containing mere objects for the pure Eeason, which cannot be arrived at by any sensibility. The purpose is not, indeed, to occupy ourselves speculatively with these objects, (because we can find no firm ground for our feetj, but because practical principles, without finding such a space before them for their necessary ex- pectation and hope, could not expand themselves to the universality, the Reason indispensably requires, from a moral point of view. Now, I find that the psychological idea, however little may be the insight I obtain by its means into the pure nature of the human soul, which is raised above all con- ceptions of experience, at least sufficiently shows me the inadequacy of the latter, and thereby preserves me from. SECT. CO.] ON THE BOUNDARY OF PURE REASON. 113 materialism as being a psychological conception of no avail for the explanation of Nature, and besides, as narrowing the Eeason in its practical aspect. In the same way the cosmological ideas, by the obvious inade- quacy of all possible knowledge of Nature to satisfy the Reason in its justifiable inquiries, serve to keep us from the Naturalism which proclaims Nature for self-sufficing. Finally, as all natural necessity in the sense-world is in- variably conditioned, inasmuch as it always presupposes dependence of things on one another, and, as uncondi- tioned necessity must be sought for in the unity of a Cause separate from the sense-world, (but the causality of which, if it were mere N ature, could yet never rendei ; comprehensible the existence of the contingent as its consequence ;) [this being so,] the Eeason frees itself bv means of the theological idea from fatalism, as well from that of a blind natural necessity in the coherence of Nature, without a first principle, as in the causality of this principle itself, and leads to the conception of a cause through freedom, in other words, a supreme intelligence. Thus the transcendental ideas serve, if not to instruct us positively, at least to do away with the audacious asser- tions of materialism, naturalism, and fatalism, which narrow the field of the Eeason, and thereby to procure a place for moral ideas outside the region of speculation ; and this, as it seems to me, will in some measure explain the above natural disposition. The practical utility a merely speculative science may have, lies outside the boundaries of this science, and hence can be merely viewed as a scholium, and, like all scholia, not as forming a part of the science itself. At the same time, this reference lies at least within the boundaries of philosophy, especially of that which draws from the sources of pure Reason, where the speculative use of the Reason in metaphysics must have a necessary unity with its practical use in morals. Hence the un- avoidable dialectic of the pure Reason in metaphysics must be considered as natural disposition not merely as an illusion requiring to be resolved, but as a natural institu- tion, as concerns its end deserving, if possible, to be ex- I 114 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. plained, although this task, being supererogatory, cannot in justice be claimed of metaphysics proper. As a second scholium, more related to the content of metaphysics, the solution of the problems must be re- garded which are discussed in the Critique from pp. 410 to 432. For certain principles of Eeason are there expounded, determining the order of Nature, or rather the understanding, which is to seek out her laws through experience, a priori. They seem to be constitutive and legislative in respect of experience, whereas they arise from mere Eeason, which cannot be regarded like the understanding as a principle of possible experience. Now whether this agreement rests upon the fact that just as Nature is not itself dependent on the phenomena or their source, the sensibility, but only on the relation of the latter to the understanding ; so the thorough-going unity of its use, for the sake of a complete possible experience (in a system), can only pertain to this understanding in its relation to the Reason whether experience, in other words, stand mediately under the legislation of the Eeason [is a question which] may be further considered by those who desire to investigate the nature of the Reason, apart from its use in metaphysics, and to construct a systematic history of Nature upon general principles. This question I have indeed noticed as important in the book itself, although I have not attempted its solution. 1 And thus I conclude the analytical solution of the problem I had myself proposed How is metaphysics at all possible? having proceeded from that in which its use i-< really given, at least in its consequences, to the grounds of its possibility. 1 It has been my constant design throughout the Critique to omit nothing that could render the investigation into the naiure of the pure Kea-on complete, however deeply hidden it might be. Every one is at liberty afterwards to carry his researches as far as he likes, if it has Teen only indicated to him what yet remains to be done ; for this muy be reasonably expected of any one who lias made it his business to survey this whole field, in order afterwards to consign it to others for future cultivation and allotment. To this department b< long also both the scholia, which by Iheir dry ness will scarcely recommend Ihemsi-lves to amateurs, and hence have only been added for specialists. HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE? 115 SOLUTION OF THE GEXEEAL PEOBLEM OF THE PEOLEGOMENA. How is METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE? Metaphysics, as a natural disposition of the Keason, is real, but it is also, in itself, dialectical and decep- tive (as was proved in the analytical solution of the third main problem). Hence to attempt to draw our principles from it, and in their employment to follow this natural but none the less fallacious illusion, can never produce science, but only an empty dialectical art, in which one school may indeed outdo the other, but none can ever attain a justifiable and lasting success. In order that, as science, it may lay claim not merely to deceptive persuasion, but to insight and conviction, a Critique of the Eeason must exhibit in a complete system the whole stock of conceptions a priori, arranged according to their different sources the Sensibility, the Understanding, and the Eeason ; it must present a complete table of these conceptions, together with their analysis and all that can be deduced from them, but more especially the possibility of synthetic knowledge a priori by means of their deduc- tion, the principles of its use, and finally, its boundaries. Thus criticism contains, and it alone contains, the whole plan well tested and approved, indeed all the means whereby metaphysics may be perfected as a science ; by other ways and means this is impossible. The question now is not, however, how this business is possible, but only how we are to set about it; how good heads are to be turned from their previous mistaken and fruitless path to a non-doeeptive treatment, and how such a combination may be best directed towards the common end. This much is certain : he who has once tried criticism will be sickened for ever of all the dogmatic trash he was compelled to content himself with before, because his Eeason, requiring something, could find nothing better for its occupation. Criticism stands to the ordinary school-metaphysics exactly in the same relation as chemistry to alchemy, or as astronomy to fortune-telling astrology. I guarantee that no one who has comprehended and thought i 2 116 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. out the conclusions of criticism, even in these Prolegomena, will ever return to the old sophistical pseudo-science. lie will rather look forward with a kind of pleasure to a metaphysics, certainly now within his power, which re- quires no more preparatory discoveries, and which alone can procure for the Eeason permanent satisfaction. For this is an advantage upon which metaphysics alone can reckon with confidence, among all possible sciences; namely, that it can be brought to completion and to a durable position, as it cannot change any further, nor is it susceptible of any increase through new discoveries. Since the Eeason does not here find the sources of its knowledge in objects and in their intuition (which cannot teach it anything), but in itself; so that when the principles of its possibility are presented completely, and without any mis- understanding, nothing remains for pure Eeason to know a priori, or even with justice to ask. The certain pro- spect of so definite and perfect a knowledge has a special attraction about it, even if all its uses (of which I shall hereafter speak) be set aside. All false art, all empty wisdom, lasts its time ; but it destroys itself in the end, and its highest cultivation is at the same time the moment of its decline. That as regards metaphysics this time has now come, is proved by the state to "which it has declined among all cultivated nations, notwithstanding the zeal with "which every other kind of science is being worked out. The old arrangement of the university studies preserves its outlines still, a single academy of sciences bestirs itself now and then, by hold- ing out prizes to induce another attempt to be made therein ; but it is no longer counted among fundamental sciences, and any one may judge for himself how an in- tellectually-gifted man, to whom the term great meta- physician were applied, would take this well-meant, but scarcely by any one, coveted, compliment. But although the period of the decline of all dogmatic metaphysics is undoubtedly come, there are many things wanting to enable us to say that the time of its re-birth by means of a thorough and complete Critique of the Keason, has already appeared. All transitional phases from one tendency to its opposite pass through the state of inclif- HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE? 117 ference, and this moment is the most dangerous for an author, but, a^it seems to me, the most favourable for the science. For when, through the complete dissolution of previous combinations, party spirit is extinguished, men's minds are in the best mood for listening gradually to proposals for a combination on another plan. If I say that I hope that these Prolegomena will perhaps make research in the field of criticism more active, and will offer to the general spirit of philosophy, which seems to be wanting in nourishment on its speculative side, a new and very promising field for its occupation, I can already foresee that every one who has trodden unwillingly and with vexation the thorny way I have led him in che Critique, will ask me on what I ground this hope. I answer on the irresistible law of necessity. That the spirit of man will ever wholly give up meta- physical investigations is just as little to be expected, as that in order not always to be breathing bad air we should stop breathing altogether. Metaphysics will always exist in the world then, and what is more, [exist] with every one, but more especially with reflecting men, who in default of a public standard will each fashion it in his own way. Now, what has hitherto been termed meta- physics, can satisfy no acute mind ; but to renounce it entirely is impossible; hence a Critique of the pure Eeason itself must be at last attempted, and when obtained must be investigated . and subjected to a universal test, because otherwise there are no means of relieving this pressing requirement, which means something more than mere thirst for knowledge. Since I have known criticism, on closing the perusal of a work on metaphysics, which had entertained as well as instructed me, by tliQ definition of its conceptions, its variety and its orderly arrangement, in conjunction with its easy style, I could not forbear asking Has this author brought metaphysics one step farther ? I beg the learned men for forgiveness, whose works have in other respects been iiseful to me, and contributed to the cultivation of the intellectual powers, if I confess that neither in their own nor in my small attempts (to which self-love gives the advantage) have I been able to find that thereby the 118 KANT'S PROLEGOMENA. s< ience has been in the least advanced, and this indeed for the very natural reason that the sience did not then exist, and could not be brought together piecemeal, but its germ had to be first fully formed in the Critique. In order, however, to avoid all misconception, it must be remembered from what has gone before, that by analy- tical treatment our conceptions have indeed been very useful to the understanding, but the science (viz., meta- physics) has not been in the least advanced, because these analvses of conceptions are only materials out of which the science has first to be constructed. We may dissect and define the conception of substance and accident as well as possible ; this is useful enough as preparation for its future use. But if I cannot know that in everything that exists, substance continues and only the accidents change, the science would not be furthered in the least by all this dissection. Now, metaphysics has not been able to prove either this proposition, a priori and validly, nor that of adequate cause, much lets any more complex, as for instance, one belonging to the theory of the soul or to cosmology, and never any synthetic proposition. Thus nothing has been accomplished by all this analysis, nothing created and nothing promoted, and the science, after so much turmoil and noise, remains where it was in Aristotle's time, although the arrangements to this end, if the clue to synthetic knowledge a priori had been first found, would indisputably have been much more easily discovered than formerly. Should any one feel himself offended by what is here said, he can very easily refute the accusation if he will only adduce a single synthetic proposition belonging to meta- physics which admits of being demonstrated in a dogmatic manner a priori ; for only when he has achieved this shall I allow that he has really advanced the science, even though the proposition in question may be sufficiently confirmed by common experience. No demand can be more moderate, and more fair, and in the event (un- questionably certain) of non-accomplishment, no state- ment can be juster than that metaphysics as science has not hitherto existed at all. I must only forbid two things, in case the challenge be HOW IS METAPHYSICS POSSIBLE AS SCIENCE ? 110 accepted : first, the apparatus of probability and conjecture, which just as ill becomes metaphysics as geometry ; and secondly, adecisioiiby means of the magic wand of so-called sound common sense, which every one does not wave, but which regulates itself according to personal characteristics. For as regards the first, nothing can be more absurd than in a system of metaphysics, a philosophy of pure Eeason, to attempt to base judgments on probability and conjecture. All that can be known a priori is thereby given out as apodictically certain, and must be proved as such. A geometry or arithmetic might just as well be attempted to be founded on conjectures ; (for as concerns the calculus probabihum of the latter, it does not contain probable but perfectly certain judgments, on the degree of possibility in certain cases, under given similar conditions, which in the sum of all possible cases must infallibly follow in accordance with the rule although in respect of any single instance this is not sufficiently determined). Even in empirical natural science conjectures (by means of induction and analogy) can only be permitted, in such a manner that at least the possibility of what I assume must be quite certain. With the appeal to sound common sense we are still worse off, if possible, when we have to do with conceptions and principles, not so far as they are valid in respect of experience, but when they would be given out as valid outside the conditions of experience. For what is s